‘That’s your death sentence, Calgus. Use these to bind your wounds and you’re not likely to die from them, but you’ll never walk unaided again. You can stay out here and take as long to die as you like. Of course, the wolves will find you soon enough, once there’s nobody else here to frighten them away, and if they don’t I’m sure the Votadini will be happy enough to provide you with a protracted death if they get to you first. You could kill yourself, of course, if you have enough will power to open your wrists with your teeth, but I suspect you’ll hang on to the very last moment, hoping against hope for some improbable rescue. Not much of a choice, I suppose, but it’s a good deal more than you gave my birth father.’
He turned away and remounted the big grey without a backward glance, meeting Felix’s raised eyebrows with a steady, expressionless gaze.
‘That will be the last of them, I’d say. Anyone that reached the forest deserves to live. Shall we take the survivors back to join their fellow slaves?’
The small detachment rode back down the slope an hour later, the heads of the tribesmen they had overtaken dangling from their saddle horns and their prisoners staggering exhaustedly before them. Marcus trotted his mount over to the tribunes with Felix following him, and dismounted wearily, saluting the two senior officers before holding out what was left of Calgus’s cloak to Scaurus. The tribune took the garment and passed it in turn to Licinius. The senior officer nodded solemnly, tossing the prize to one of his bodyguard.
‘You took revenge for your father, then?’
‘I crippled him, and left him for the animals.’
Licinius grimaced, casting a wry smile to Scaurus.
‘Remind me never to get on the wrong side of this young man. Still, with both Calgus and Drust dead we’ll have no more problems from the tribes any time soon, at least not until the current crop of barbarian children reaches maturity and decides to come looking for revenge, by which time it’ll be somebody else’s problem to handle. Who knows, perhaps we’ll even be able to reman the northern wall with this many of the tattooed bastards either dead or on their way to new homes.’
Marcus looked out across the battlefield from the vantage point of his mount, surveying the aftermath of the Venicones’ disastrous attack. A mound of enemy dead was being stacked unceremoniously where the fighting had been the heaviest, at the point where the line had momentarily broken. Other soldiers were carefully collecting the detachment’s dead and stacking their corpses in neat lines, each body stripped of its armour and weapons in preparation for the funeral pyre for which the two Tungrian pioneer centuries were cutting wood at the forest’s edge. In another corner of the clearing a large group of tribesmen were huddling under the legion cohort’s spears, while soldiers pulled them one at a time from the mass of their comrades to be searched before they were roped into lines of downcast men ready for the long march south into slavery.
‘How many of them did we kill, sir?’
The Petriana’s commander followed his gaze.
‘About five thousand of them at a guess. It was a bit of a bloodbath, if the truth be told. The killing was almost impossible to stop once we had them pinned against the forest, especially given the casualties our men took holding their first charge.’ He caught Marcus’s frown and smiled grimly. ‘We’ve lost over four hundred men, mainly in the struggle to close the line after Drust had battered his way through it. Apart from Tribune Laenas and that worthless fool Canutius, we’ve lost First Spear Neuto and three other centurions holding them back while the Sixth Legion decided whether to join in or not. If Canutius hadn’t been speared by his own men I’d probably have done the job myself. I suppose a couple of thousand slaves will make a decent contribution to the burial fund, and see the widows and children right, even if the sheer number of them drives their price down. And now that you’ve restored some measure of the Sixth Legion’s honour by dealing with the maniac that started the whole bloody mess off, I’d suggest that you…’
He paused as a trumpet sounded. Marcus turned and looked over the heads of the labouring soldiers from his vantage point on the horse’s back.
‘There’s a rider coming in from the west. An officer from the look of it.’
Licinius frowned with bemusement for a few seconds, then nodded slowly.
‘Of course. They’ll have followed the Venicones’ tracks. I should have expected this. You’d better come with me, gentlemen, because if I’m guessing correctly this concerns all of us.’
Marcus and Felix dismounted, leading their horses behind them, and followed Tribunes Licinius and Scaurus across the slope, none of them noticing that Martos had detached himself from the body of his warriors and was following them at a discreet distance. The small party waited at the battlefield’s edge until the lone rider reached them. Equipped as a centurion, he was tall and thin, with a sardonic twist to his mouth.
‘Greetings, Centurion…?’
The newcomer looked down at them curiously, making no attempt either to dismount or salute.
‘Greetings, gentlemen. You, sir, must be Tribune Licinius, if my estimate is correct. And as to these other three gentlemen, I’d guess that you’re Gaius Rutilius Scaurus, recently promoted from prefect to tribune. Your colleague Tribune Paulus at Noisy Valley gave me an excellent description of you, and I would have recognised the youngest of you without any such help, since he bears a distinct resemblance to the physical description I’ve been given for Marcus Valerius Aquila, son of an executed senator and therefore a fugitive from imperial justice.’ He stared at Felix for a moment before shaking his head with a wry smile. ‘And you, Decurion, are perhaps the most unexpected of all. You are Amulius Cornelius Felix, I presume? Tribune Paulus told me how you got that scar on your chin sparring with him as a boy. Your presence is a very welcome bonus, since your friend Paulus also told me, only after the application of quite significant personal duress, I should add, that you hold the key to a question that Praetorian Prefect Perennis is most keen to have answered.’
The corn officer looked down at the three men in silence for a moment before speaking again, his expression one of utter confidence. I don’t suppose for one moment that you’re actually wondering who I am, since I’m sure that bad news always travels faster than good, but just for the formality of the thing, my name is Tiberius Varius Excingus. I’ve come a very long way to meet the four of you, all the way from the Camp of the Strangers in Rome, in fact, but it seems that I’ve arrived at a most propitious time, doesn’t it? A battle won, barbarians routed, everything as it should be with the exceptions standing before me, eh, gentlemen? One murdering traitor, the two most senior officers guilty of harbouring him for these last six months, and the one man who will eventually provide me with the proof of your collusion to protect the fugitive and enable me to identify just who it is that’s been writing such unpleasant letters to the prefect on the subject of his son’s death. And all in one place, which makes matters so much simpler.’
He sat back on the horse with a smile, waiting for one of the men facing him to speak. Scaurus put a hand on the hilt of his sword, stepping forward and glaring up at the corn officer.
‘You do realise that you’re surrounded by soldiers who were fighting for their lives less than an hour ago? Men with their comrades’ blood still drying on their armour, and who have killed so many times today that one more death would make as little difference to them as swatting a fly? And you’re a long way from the Camp of the Strangers, Centurion. Doesn’t that make you feel a little vulnerable?’
Excingus snorted, shaking his head in amusement.
‘I was told that you would be the pugnacious one, Rutilius Scaurus. And to answer your question, I feel as safe here talking to you as if I were walking through the forum in Rome. For one thing, I’m sure that neither you nor your colleague Tribune Licinius will want to jeopardise the lives of those you hold dear in Rome by any intemperate action. You might have been away from home for too long to know just how far the praetorian prefect has risen in the estimation of the throne, but suffice it to say that he’s been permitted to grant certain members of the Guard quite extraordinary powers. More than that, he’s provided them with sufficient latitude with regard to their personal conduct that they’re more than adequately motivated to carry out whatever orders he passes down to them. Let me stress that, gentlemen, whatever he orders. No matter how bloody, or distasteful. Given that I knew exactly who you were, do you doubt that I have already provided my associates with sufficient information to point these men of dubious honour at the very people you hold most dear?’
A long silence hung in the air between the four men before Excingus spoke again.
‘In addition, should any further explanation of the threat my presence here poses both to you personally and to your loved ones at home be required, I should also point out that my approach to the scene of your triumph here is being witnessed with great care by the two horsemen that you’ll see waiting for me some distance away. Should any violence be done to my person here, they will ensure that the truth of it is known to both the governor and the Emperor…’
