the unremitting daily exercise of carrying his armour and equipment.
‘Put this one on.’
He raised an eyebrow.
‘The white one?’
‘It looks good on you, and all the others are still damp. You can’t hide it away just because it’s your best.’
He smiled at her and stood, pulling on the garment and adjusting its belt to ensure that the hem was above his knees, then took her in his arms.
‘I hide it away because it’s the one I wore when we got married.’
She smiled back, poking at a faded stain in the pale wool.
‘As if we’ll ever forget, since we have the evening’s wine to remind us.’ He winced, remembering the raucous carousing he and his brother officers had enjoyed that night, after Felicia had gone to bed and sent him back to join them. She smiled again, tugging his ear affectionately. ‘You had a lot of bad memories to deal with, and if the price of doing so was a few stains on a tunic I’d say it was good value.’
‘I killed again today.’
Her smile softened.
‘I know, my love. I can always tell, whether there’s blood on your armour or not. You may be a natural with your swords, but you’re not hardened to the results of using them, are you?’
Marcus shook his head.
‘Not only did I kill today, but I watched while Silus murdered three men in cold blood to make the fourth tell us where the rest of their gang was camped out. Yes, I know — ’ he raised his hands to forestall her response — ‘they were bandits, and they’d murdered a farmer and his men not long before, so they deserved their fate. And yet…’
‘And yet it seems you’re gradually becoming hardened to this life? Even if you could not kill a man in cold blood yourself, you watched another man do so without intervening? You fear that in becoming strong enough to defeat your enemies, you will perhaps become so like them that you risk losing that part of yourself that your father sought to make strongest? After all, you’ve told me often enough how he always stressed decency to your fellow man when he spoke to you about how a man should live.’
Her husband nodded, looking to the tent’s roof as he sought the memory of his father’s words, spoken in the precious days before imperial scheming had seen the senator and his family murdered, and their estate confiscated by the jealous and grasping men arrayed behind the young emperor.
‘“Dignity, truthfulness, tenacity, but above all, whenever you are able to exercise it, mercy.” That’s what he used to tell me whenever our conversation turned to the ethics that a member of the senate should live by. Slowly but surely I feel my grasp on his teachings sliding away from me. With every enemy I put to the sword I am a little less of the man he raised, and a little more like the men who destroyed our family.’
Felicia hugged him again, whispering in his ear.
‘I’ll never allow you to become anything like the men that performed those dreadful acts, and nor will your friends. But you will only survive this nightmare if you can harden yourself to do whatever you must to stay alive, and to protect those close to you.’
The tent’s flap opened, and Arminius put his head through it. Seeing the couple in each other’s arms he raised a hand and started to back away, but Felicia beckoned him to come in.
‘Exactly what my husband needs: a friend to take him for a drink and listen to the story of his day.’
Arminius squeezed through the flap, pushing the boy Lupus in front of him then bowing to the doctor and grinning at his friend.
‘The drink we can probably manage, eventually. The tribune sent me to fetch you, Centurion. There’s a ritual being held in Prefect Caninus’s temple tonight, and we’re respectfully invited to attend. I’d suggest you wear your cloak though; there’s a bitter wind out here that will cut you to the bone without it. And you, boy…’ He tapped Lupus on the shoulder as the child stood staring in dismay at Marcus’s soiled equipment. ‘You can get stuck into this lot. I want to see it all gleaming when we come back, and make sure you get every speck of blood off those rings. Don’t forget that it’s your birthday in a few days, and if you keep the centurion’s gear in the right condition you’ll see the benefit soon enough. Do a good job of it and we’ll practise with sword and shield in the morning, make a proper fight of it.’
The boy nodded glumly and sat down among the pile of gear, pulling the rags and brushes he needed from his bag, resigned to the usual nightly routine of cleaning armour and polishing boots that was the price of his morning training sessions with the German. Marcus pulled his cloak around him, picking his vine stick up from the bed.
‘Very well, let’s go and see what sort of temple to Our Lord Tungrorum boasts. It’ll have to be something special to match the one at Badger Holes.’
Arminius laughed, shaking his head.
‘Just like a soldier. Everything you people have just has to be the best, doesn’t it? You get more like Julius every day.’
Marcus shrugged, pinning his cloak into place.
‘There are worse men to emulate.’
The German smiled wryly back at him.
‘Just as long as you don’t go off into town at night with a pocket full of gold on the hunt for paid company. He was heading out as we walked past the Fifth Century’s tents, looking cleaner than I think I’ve ever seen the man. He’s even trimmed his beard.’
Marcus frowned at the German.
‘How do you know about Annia’s profession?’
Arminius smiled in reply.
‘I didn’t, until you just told me. You must be tired to have let that slip. No…’ He shook his head to forestall his friend’s irritation. ‘It’ll stay between us. So the good centurion has a friend from his former life here, does he?’
Felicia raised an eyebrow at him.
‘And you’d deny him the opportunity for a little happiness?’
Arminius shook his head.
‘Never. But love and money don’t mix, in my experience. Your friend may be taking a path that ends in disappointment. And he’s not a man that responds well to not getting his own way.’
Julius found the brothel without much trouble, following the directions he’d been given by the men delivering the centurions’ mess wine ration. Their foreman had smiled knowingly at the big Tungrian when he’d asked the question, nodding and agreeing that he knew the establishment the gentleman had in mind, but adding that he’d best bring a heavy purse if he intended sampling the Blue Boar’s merchandise.
He paused down the street, watching quietly from the shadows as a pair of men knocked on the door beneath the brothel’s flickering lamps, spoke briefly to whoever was behind it and then stepped inside, the heavy wooden door closing swiftly behind them. The sound of bolts sliding home echoed harshly in the otherwise empty street. Tempted to walk away, and to pretend the chance meeting with his former love had never happened, the big man gritted his teeth and strode forward into the light, knocking firmly on the door’s stout timbers with his vine stick, the only thing approximating to a weapon he’d carried with him from his tent. A viewing slit protected by iron mesh, slid open, and appraising eyes appeared in its opening, a familiar grating voice speaking after a short pause.
‘Well, now, look who we have here. Brave of you to come to this door, soldier boy, given that one word from me would set a gang of the ugliest bastards you’ve ever seen loose on you. Still carrying your sword?’
Julius shook his head, keeping his face free of any hint of irritation at the bodyguard’s air of superiority.
‘I was a bit quick to react in the forum, so I’ve come to make my peace. With the lady, and with you and your mate. I just want to drink a cup of wine and have a talk with her, for old time’s sake, and I’d be pleased to extend the same courtesy to you. There was no need for me to treat you so harshly, when all you were doing was what you’re paid for. Officer or not, I’m not too proud to admit when I’m wrong.’
The bodyguard regarded him through the slit’s stout iron mesh for a moment, then stepped back and slid the door’s bolts from their recesses, whistling sharply as he did so. When the door opened there were three doormen waiting for him, all with the professionally expressionless faces of men disappointed with life’s inability to prevent the brave and the foolish from presenting them with challenges that were only to be met with swift and brutal
