your armour for searching by your officers, and if the men holding this precious object make me waste that much time, time we should be using to dig defences, I’ll make their deaths appropriately brutal. But, in the interests of getting this thing over with quickly, I’m offering a limited amnesty to these men, if they surrender themselves to justice promptly.’
Otho was moving now, walking swiftly along his century’s front rank and making the turn at the point they met with the 8th, coming back along the rear of the soldiers’ line. Manius could sense his approach, for all the fact that his gaze stayed locked on the tribune right up until the moment that the centurion pulled him backwards out of the line, ripping off his helmet with an impatience that tipped the soldier’s head back hard and left his chin pointing into thin air, just as the first punch landed. Scaurus fell silent at the sudden commotion, watching impassively as the enraged centurion battered the defenceless soldier, tearing off his weapons and armour in between blows. At some point in the one-sided struggle the object of his search must have revealed itself, for he seized the other man by the ear and dragged him out of the century’s ranks with his knees buckling from the savage beating, a shining piece of gold held aloft for the tribune to see. From behind him he heard First Spear Frontinius’s snort of barely restrained laughter.
‘It’s a good thing we don’t need the idiot to tell us the story, I expect he’ll be eating nothing but gruel for the next few weeks.’
Late afternoon was turning to early evening when the two tribunes rode into sight of the Venicone camp. Halting outside of what they judged was the most optimistic of bowshots, they waited while the word was carried back to the warband’s leader that there were three enemy horsemen waiting outside the camp in the sun’s fading warmth. Having estimated that Drust was bright enough to recognise an opportunity to talk, the Romans were nevertheless relieved when a party of three warriors strode out of the smoke drifting from the barbarian campfires. Drust walked out towards the waiting horsemen until he was close enough to shout a challenge, his hammer carried over one shoulder and a wry smile on his face.
‘Have you come to discuss the terms of your surrender, Roman?!’
Licinius leant forward, muttering quietly to his colleague.
‘Leave this to me. He already knows who I am, but you’re a different matter. Let’s allow him a little uncertainty, eh?’ He raised his voice to a parade-ground bellow. ‘Far from it, barbarian! My colleague and I have come to have a good look at your ragged warband. My colleague here is keen to get some measure of how many of them we’ll have to kill tomorrow before the rest of you turn tail and run for home!’ He lowered his voice a fraction, speaking to the Venicone king rather than simply shouting at him. ‘Perhaps you’d like to come a little closer, and avoid the need for all this shouting? I owe you one safe passage, if you recall?’
Drust nodded and led his companions closer, until the Romans could see the grey hairs in his red beard. Licinius dismounted with an easy grace that belied his years and beckoned for the other two to follow his example.
‘If he wants to try cracking my head with that hammer I’d rather be on my feet than stuck up there on a dithering horse.’ He waited until the two parties were lined up facing each other before speaking again. ‘You amaze me, Drust. To have marched your men all this way for the sake of a simple gold trinket? Surely you could have had another one crafted for far less trouble than the likely price of attempting to recover this?’
He pulled the torc from inside his cloak, holding it up to the evening sun’s golden light in a hoop of liquid gold. Drust started in surprise, and the warrior standing to his right put one hand to the hilt of his sword. Licinius smiled, his quiet chuckle of amusement creasing the Venicone king’s face into a frown.
‘I’d restrain your man there, if I were you. Do you imagine I would be waving the bloody thing around this close to you without some assurance of my safety?’ He gestured to Marcus, standing alongside him with both hands on the hilts of his weapons. ‘Your tribes have both suffered at the hands of this young officer before. You, Drust, failed to cross the Red River because of the large numbers of your men that his soldiers left face down in the water as the price of their attempts to cross, and as for you, Calgus…’ He smirked at the Selgovae leader’s surprised expression before continuing. ‘Yes, I know you. That purple cloak, that and your pig-ugly face, were both described to me in detail by the last Roman officer to speak with you at such close range. You had a little chat with him before the battle that we’ve taken to calling Lost Eagle, if you recall? And if he were here, I’m sure Legatus Equitius would want me to thank you for your quite spectacular stupidity in sending your men up that hill to die on his men’s spears in such an unimaginative fashion. He was given the command of a legion as a result of his victory over you, you know? You lost a battle you already had in your grasp that day, for all that you captured an eagle. But I digress, it’s a common fault of the elderly.’
He smiled without humour at Calgus, but if he’d expected the Selgovae leader to be discomforted by the revelation he was disappointed. After a moment of stone-faced thought, Calgus’s face lit up with malicious glee.
‘So you’re the one! I read the legatus’s private papers that we captured during the battle, and I was intrigued to discover that he had a son whose identity was hidden from the world. I still have his head hidden away, you know, preserved in a jar of…’
Marcus tensed, but Licinius waved a hand dismissively.
‘Enough! I came to speak with Drust, not bandy gossip with yesterday’s man. Your tribe is scattered to the four winds and your time on earth is limited, so hold your tongue and leave those men at the table who still have stakes to play with to talk. You can take the matter up with the centurion in the morning, when he has you at the point of his sword.’ Licinius fixed Drust with a level stare, ignoring Calgus’s scowl. ‘King Drust, it’s still not too late for us both to avoid yet more bloodshed. I’ll happily return this bauble to you if you’ll turn your warband’s path to the north and return to your lands in peace.’
Drust shook his head slowly, holding Licinius’s stare and pursing his lips.
‘I think not, Roman. It would be a shame to have come all this way and left without a decent tithe of heads for being put to the trouble.’
The cavalryman shrugged expressively.
‘As you wish. You know how the battle will go tomorrow as well as I do. You’ll charge our line, and find yourselves on the wrong side of a turf wall that will expose your men to our spears as they try to get over it. It will all come down to a bloody slogging match, and that could last hours and leave thousands of men dead. And, I should warn you, we have more than enough strength to hold you off for as long as you choose to batter your heads against our defences.’
Drust shrugged.
‘I’ll take that “trinket” from your dead body, and your head besides. It will remind me of the victory. And when we’re done with you we’ll march on to the Dinpaladyr and see how pleased Calgus’s men are that we’ve lifted your siege.’
Tribune Licinius smirked, and tossed the torc on to the grass at his horse’s feet.
‘In that case you’d better have this. It will help my men to pick you out as you run before us, and since the reward I’ve put on you both is doubled if you’re taken alive I’d guess they’ll be grateful for that. And with that, colleagues, I think we’ve wasted enough time on these gentlemen.’
He turned away from the barbarians with one last calculating glance at Drust, whose attention was fixed on the torc lying before him in the grass’s tangle, and then turned back to face them again.
‘Although it would probably only be fair of me to temper your expectations as to the Votadini fortress. Should you by some strange chance manage to overcome our defence tomorrow, you might find the Dinpaladyr a little less receptive to your triumphant entry than you clearly expect would be the case…’
Calgus narrowed his eyes, and his head shook in disbelief.
‘Never try to deceive a master of deception, Tribune. My man Haervui will have had that fortress buttoned up tighter than a duck’s backside the second he saw you coming over the horizon. There are no secret approaches to the Dinpaladyr, and he’ll have had scouts…’
His voice trailed off as he saw the smile on Licinius’s face broaden to a grin.
‘Scouts, yes, we found them and took them prisoner. That there’s no secret approach to the fortress, well, again, yes, I can agree with that. But darkness, Calgus, covers up all kinds of sins, as I’m sure you’d be the first man to agree. So when two hundred beaten barbarian scum turned up at the fortress gates at dawn, led by a very persuasive Selgovae chieftain well known to all inside, who then proceeded to talk the defenders into opening the gates… well, we’ve all heard of stronger defences than the Dinpaladyr that have fallen to deception, haven’t we?’
