thin-skinned idiots are up on your toes and ready to mix it with ten times your strength. And no, “they were taking the piss out of the cohort” does not get you off the hook, because it was you they were taking the piss out of — you, for deciding to serve with a bunch of uncivilised, shaggy-bearded barbarians in armour! You shat in your own beds and now you can bloody well lie in it, you collection of half-witted…’
He turned back to Marcus, shaking his head angrily. From somewhere within the century’s ranks a quiet voice muttered the word ‘Habitus’, and half a dozen other men repeated the battle cry under their collective breath. Dubnus spun round to stare at them in fury, but found his men standing with their backs straight, their battered faces staring defiantly at him from between the cheek pieces of their helmets. Waving a hand at them in disgust he returned his attention to Marcus, barking a command over his shoulder.
‘Shut the fuck up and wait, in silence, while I have a word with my colleague here. His men, you’ll note, haven’t said a bloody word since he dropped them into position. They’re yours, Titus, so keep them quiet unless you want my undivided and very personal attention once we’re off parade. And try not to start any more fights!’
His chosen man shot him a wounded glance from the century’s rear, but wisely kept his mouth shut. For all that he’d been trying to separate the two warring groups of soldiers when the cohort’s centurions had arrived on the scene, it was widely reported that he’d been one of the first men in the 8th Century to bridle when the legion troops had discovered their origins and started showering them with abuse for leaving legion service to fight with the Tungrians.
‘You’ve created a monster, Dubnus. They won’t back down from a fight for anyone, or so it seems, and you’ve only yourself to blame. It was you that took a half-century of men who’d run from their first fight and gave them their pride. You gave them a name to defend, and you told them to fight to the last man to preserve its honour. You can’t be too disappointed when they take what you’ve told them and apply it literally. And the rest of your century got stuck in beside them.’
His friend nodded almost imperceptibly, turning back to stare bleakly across the sea of battered faces facing him and shaking his head at the black eyes and split lips liberally scattered across the ranks.
‘I can’t let them see it, but I’m proud of them for it. Three full legion centuries facing up to forty-odd men and they didn’t back down. Mind you, I’ve got to respect the rest of the century, and the Badger’s boys from the Third; they piled in alongside the Habitus lads without a second’s hesitation. It was a good thing we got there in time, or there’d have been blood on the cobbles the way it was heating up. Anyway, what are you grinning for?’
Marcus started, suddenly aware of his lopsided smile.
‘I was just thinking back to the way that our quiet and shy Selgovae tribesman dived into the fight last night. He’s another one to watch out for.’
‘He’s a big arrogant bastard, that’s for sure, but I’ve no room for complaint on that front. And he did put that little squabble to sleep in no time flat.’
Half of the cohort’s centurions, led by Tribune Scaurus and accompanied by Arminius and the giant Lugos, who had appeared at their side unbidden, had been forced to wade into the unbalanced fight between auxiliaries and legionaries, which had quickly swelled to fill the narrow street outside one of the city’s seamier drinking establishments. Fighting to drive a wedge between the two sides, to force them apart and stop the fight, they had applied their vine sticks without restraint, literally beating apart the two halves of the brawl with brute force. As the two sides of the argument had seethed at each other across the thin line of authority represented by the centurions, Lugos had taken a legion soldier caught on the wrong side of the line of furious officers, held him by the scruff of his neck and literally hurled him bodily into the mass of his comrades. Shrugging off his cloak he’d turned to tower over the legionaries, his tattooed arms rippling as he’d clenched his massive fists and bellowed out a hoarse-voiced challenge that had silenced the bedlam of the encounter in an instant.
‘You want fight? You fight me! I fight you all! ’
His snort of disgust, and the disdainful way he’d turned his back to retrieve his cloak when not one of the legionaries had risen to the challenge, had signalled the brawl’s end and left the bemused centurions to pick up the pieces.
‘It’s a shame that Martos still isn’t accepting him on equal terms.’
Dubnus grimaced.
‘I honestly don’t think the big lad’s all that bothered, do you? Besides, if the brother of the man that killed your father turned up here would you be quick to make him welcome? Lugos’s people made a right mess of the Votadini, one way and another.’
They stood and watched as the remainder of the Tungrian centuries marched onto the parade ground, and after a few minutes Dubnus nudged Marcus, tipping his head at the senior officers standing to one side of the condemned men.
‘I’ll bet that’s an interesting conversation after last night’s excitement.’
Marcus laughed hollowly.
‘You wouldn’t even get Morban to take that bet.’
The senior officers stood in a small group watching the soldiers make their way onto the parade ground, the two tribunes side by side, while Procurator Albanus and Prefect Caninus stood a discreet distance from their colleagues in the well-founded expectation that the two military men had plenty to discuss after the events of the previous night. The two first spears and the civilian officer’s various deputies and aides gathered in a group behind them, Albanus’s deputy, Petrus, prominent amongst them, while both Frontinius and Sergius were treating the other members of the party with a hint of shared military disdain. Tribune Belletor watched the Tungrian centuries marching up with a mixture of envy and irritation, his face set hard as he turned to speak to Scaurus, who was watching his men’s crisp precision with a quiet smile.
‘It’s all very well for you to smile, colleague. I’ve got several men in the hospital this morning because your animals don’t understand the limits of off-duty behaviour. I’m told that your men were fighting with coins between their knuckles!’
To his indignation, Scaurus laughed tersely in the face of his colleague’s anger.
‘Then you can be thankful that my officers managed to calm it all down before it got to the point where knives were drawn, colleague. Your legionaries clearly need to learn not to take liberties with men who’ve seen the ugly face of battle all too recently.’
Belletor seethed with anger.
‘I beg to differ. If you can’t restrain your men then I suggest you keep them in their barracks. Or do you presume to tell me that my legionaries have to make allowances for your men’s inability to differentiate between savages and citizens?’
Scaurus spoke without taking his eyes off his men, his voice perfectly level despite his obvious irritation.
‘Oh they can tell the difference between blooded fighting men and tiros, of that you can be sure, because if they couldn’t we’d be burying men this morning. And, since you don’t seem to see the need to control the number of your legionaries that are allowed into the city each night, I’m going to have to keep everyone, your men and my own, in barracks after dark. We’ll have to come up with a rota to determine which centuries are allowed to spend their money getting drunk, and when.’
Belletor stared at him in dumbfounded silence, taking a long moment to find his voice again.
‘By what right…?’
Scaurus smiled at him thinly.
‘If you think I’m going to keep two cohorts of men who’ve all seen battle in the last few weeks, who’ve all killed, and seen their comrades die in agony, confined to barracks so that a collection of raw recruits and time- expired veterans who should know better can get pissed every night, you’ve even less intelligence than I’d supposed to be the case. Between us we have twenty-six centuries, your six and ten in each of my…’ He paused, shaking his head at his own error. ‘Twenty-five centuries, since I had one of mine destroyed to the last man in Britain. So we’ll allow one-fifth of our strength into the city every night, which will let them all have a beer every few days. We’ll segregate them by cohort, so your six centuries will get one night in five and half of each of my ten-century cohorts will get the same.’
Belletor shook his head.
‘And what if I refuse to accept this outlandish proposal?’
Scaurus shrugged.
‘I’d be more interested in the “why” than the “what”. Why would you even consider rejecting something so eminently sensible, and equitable for that matter? Are you frightened of losing face with your officers? Or is it just a
