counter.
‘Didn’t you lose a whistle on the way here, Julius?’
Dubnus kept his face admirably straight while Julius stared back at him, winking at Marcus and raising his eyebrows in unspoken warning once the older man’s back was turned.
‘Yes, I did, now you mention it. I’m surprised you remembered. How much for the whistle, smith?’
‘Over there, next to that shifty-looking type, there’s a space.’ Marcus turned to follow Julius’s hand and saw the open bench his friend was pointing out. ‘You go and take possession, and I’ll see what’s taking Dubnus so long. He’s probably threatening the bloody cloakroom attendants again.’
He stepped back into the bathhouse’s undressing room to find the muscular young centurion pressing one of the bathhouse slaves up against the room’s cold stone wall.
‘… and if any of our gear mysteriously goes missing while we’re bathing you’re going to wish your mother had never laid hands on your dad’s cucumber when I get hold of you, and the same goes for all your fucking-’
Julius tapped him on the shoulder, and nodded his head towards the warm room.
‘That’s enough of that. If the pricks are stupid enough to lay a finger on our gear then they’ll take what’s coming. Now come and join me and Two Knives in the warm room, before we lose our bloody seats.’
The two men walked back into the baths to find Marcus surrounded by a group of irritated locals. He was smiling serenely at the men standing around him while they gesticulated furiously at the empty spaces on the stone bench on either side of him. His hands were behind his back, as if he were stretching his spine, but Julius noticed with a practised eye that his right foot was resting against the bench’s stone pedestal, ready to thrust him up into their faces at any hint of the debate turning physical. He tapped the closest of them on the man’s bare shoulder and then folded his scarred, muscular arms, fixing the man with a hard-eyed stare before looking down ostentatiously at the eagle tattooed on his right shoulder, with the characters COH I TVNGR inked beneath it.
‘For those among you that haven’t learned to read yet, I’ll translate. This says “First Tungrian Cohort”. So I suggest you lot stop waving your dick beaters around like a bunch of Gaulish housewives and fuck off now, before you start to irritate me.’
For a moment it looked as if the local men might argue the point, but the sight of an even bigger specimen appearing at Julius’s shoulder, and showing every sign of being a man in search of a fight, was enough to turn them away, grumbling but clearly outmuscled. The two centurions took their places next to Marcus, Julius groaning in pleasure as he settled back onto the warm stone.
‘Oh yes, that’s much better. I’m going to sweat out a bucket of dirt today, and no two ways about it.’ He looked down at Marcus’s hands with a raised eyebrow, as his younger colleague brought his right hand out from behind his back, opened his fist and waggled the fingers, dropping a handful of coins into his left palm and passing them to his friend. ‘A well-brought-up boy like you knuckling up for a fight like a common soldier? You’d better not let the tribune catch you doing that.’
Marcus shrugged.
‘There were five of them, and they weren’t looking happy at being beaten to the last seats in the room.’
‘And you were just working out which one to put down first, weren’t you, you bloodthirsty young bugger?’ Julius shook his head with a wry grin. ‘And there’s the difference between the three of us, I’d say. Dubnus, when he’s not busy threatening the bath slaves with what he’ll do to them if his new cloak brooch goes missing, would just have grabbed the nearest man, banged his head on the wall, dropped him and scared the rest of them off with a smile. I, believe it or not, would rather just face that sort of idiot down, and let the scars and tattoos do their job. But you, the well-educated son of a senator and in theory the born peacemaker of the three of us, you’d have come off that bench like a whorehouse bouncer, wouldn’t you?’
Marcus shifted uncomfortably.
‘I can’t argue with you, Julius; you’ve seen me lose my temper too many times. I just can’t…’
He shrugged helplessly, shaking his head, and his friend ruffled his hair affectionately.
‘I know. If there’s a confrontation to be had you can barely hold yourself back, and when that last tiny bit of self-control is flicked away by some idiot’s careless words, or even the wrong look on a man’s face, you can’t stop yourself from attacking with any weapon that’s to hand. I saw it the other night, when we were dragging Dubnus’s boys off those legionaries. When everyone else was staring at Lugos and his “I fight you all” act, you were busy putting your vine stick into the guts of anyone that got in your way. I counted four of them on their hands and knees in your wake, and I doubt that most of them even saw you coming.’ The older centurion shook his head with a good-natured laugh. ‘You’re a good man for war right enough, but what will you do when the fighting ends, I wonder? Men like us find peacetime hard enough when they’ve got used to a regular diet of blood, but men like you…’ He paused. ‘Marcus, you can work out what will cause the most damage to a man given the tools at hand faster than anyone I’ve ever met, but you don’t have the restraint that sometimes only comes to a man after years of bitter experience, or sometimes never comes at all. I was the same at your age, all knuckles and fight, and it wasn’t until I was ten years in that I started to calm down, and learned to send men away with a look rather than breaking their faces. I never had your speed, or your fearsome temper; I was just a fight looking for someone else to join in. But you’re something else, something much more dangerous, because there’s nothing restraining you…’ He looked the younger man up and down. ‘I’d say there’s not much call for men with your particular mindset — call it a blessing or call it a curse — once the fighting stops and the boredom of a peacetime routine settles on us all like a cloak made of woven lead.’
Marcus raised an eyebrow.
‘Peace? And you think we’ll see that any time soon?’
His friend stuck out his bottom lip and shrugged speculatively.
‘There are only so many tribes. By the time we’ve found this Obduro and sorted him out the Britannia legions should have the Brigantes whipped into place. It’ll be back to the days of drill and route marching for us, and what will you do for a fight then, eh? And you with a family to care for? My advice to you, brother, is to learn to wind your neck in for the sake of those who love you, and for fear that you might leave them alone in the world without your protection. Can you do that for them, if not for me?’
Marcus returned his gaze, his face expressionless.
‘I can, but not simply for them. I have a score to settle in Rome, a blood debt with a man so powerful that I’ll only get one chance at getting it repaid. And keeping that in mind will be enough to help me stay out of trouble in the meantime. It wouldn’t do to miss my moment with the Praetorian Prefect and a sharp blade, for the sake of a few witless fools like them.’
He smiled down the room at the glowering locals, opening his hands in a gesture of goodwill. Julius gestured to a wine vendor, raising three fingers in the universal signal.
‘I’ll drink to that. Let’s use those knuckledusters of yours for their intended purpose and buy ourselves a cup of wine and something to eat, and then get into the hot room for some oil and a scrape. The tribune’s expecting us to be nice and clean for tonight’s briefing, and I don’t intend to-’
He stopped talking, watching as a familiar figure stepped into the warm room and looked about him until he spotted the Tungrians, then walked across to join them.
‘Greetings, Marcus, and greetings to you all, gentlemen of the First Tungrian Mule Cohort.’
It was an old joke, but never seemed to wear thin as far as Silus was concerned. Julius nodded, a wry smile twisting his lips.
‘Greetings, Silus. I was just saying to Marcus that I could smell horseshit, and then in you came.’
Silus tipped his head to acknowledge the retort, then looked about him again.
‘This place is full enough. I suppose the good citizens are getting their bathing in early, before your horrible soldiers take the place over once they’re off duty. Not that I blame them. And now, I suppose, you’re wondering what I’m doing here, given the place is off limits to all soldiers until sunset?’
Julius shook his head.
‘Not at all. Our assumption was that you’ve been told to come and get clean as a mercy to all those men that don’t live for the smell of month-old sweat, stale horse piss and fresh manure.’
Silus smiled, briefly and patently insincerely.
‘No, I’m here for the same reason I reckon you are. There’s a briefing with the tribune tonight, and your first spear wants me there in my best tunic and with polished boots. A bath was suggested, and in a manner which didn’t make it sound optional, so here I am. Old Frontinius didn’t say as much, but since you three are also here and busily ignoring the locals’ indignant stares, I’m going to presume that you got the same marching orders. And, given
