Without the restrictions of an audience of their subordinates, Belletor promptly went on the offensive, putting his finger in Scaurus’s face and spitting a stream of fury at him.
‘How fucking dare you speak to me that way in front of my officers?’
The older man smiled into his anger, shaking his head.
‘You brought it on yourself, colleague. A simple quiet question or two would have shown you the real position of status between us, rather than what you’d like it to be. But let’s ignore your inability to ask questions before throwing your weight around.’
‘My legatus will hear about this soon enough! I’ll have you-’
Scaurus stepped forward, his face white with anger, putting his face inches away from the other man’s and making him take an involuntary step backwards.
‘That was the wrong choice of words, Tribune! Any sorting out between us is going to be done here, between us. Put any idea of using your legatus to deal with me out of your mind, because I’m here and he isn’t! I’ve dealt with your type of officer before, and I’ve learned that allowing your type of officer to delude yourselves only brings more grief than shattering your illusions nice and early. The days when even the least capable man with senatorial rank could tell veteran field commanders with equestrian rank what to do are dying away, Domitius Belletor. And as far as I’m concerned, in this particular small corner of the empire they may as well never have existed.’
He picked up the scroll from the table in front of him.
‘First, Tribune, my orders, which were handed to me by my provincial governor, insist that I operate independently of any other command unless I choose to do otherwise. Secondly, Tribune, the facts are that you’ve less than half my strength in spears and you’ve been given the Seventh, one of the traditionally weaker cohorts in any legion. Your command is highly likely to be packed with raw recruits and boys barely out of the first year’s training. And thirdly, Tribune, my perceptions of your achievements, if I’m being blunt, are that you’ve done little more since you got here than line the walls of this city with your troops. My officers were assaulted by a score of bandits little more than ten miles from these walls, and none of them showed any of the fear for our uniforms that I would have expected if your men were patrolling with anything like the necessary vigour. My two cohorts are hardened from recent battle in the barbarian uprising across the water in Britannia, and I have no intention of wasting their abilities by allowing them to sit around and go soft under your command.’
Belletor shook his head decisively, still refusing to concede the point, his lip curling in amazed contempt.
‘I am a legion tribune! That automatically gives me the right to command you, a mere auxiliary! Anything else is simply-’
To his obvious fury, Scaurus had turned his back and walked away from him, his boots rattling against the floor’s flagstones as he examined the murals decorating the walls. He replied without turning to face the other man, his voice rich with irony.
‘A legion tribune? I’ve stood in your boots as a legion tribune, but that was years ago, in the wars against the Quadi. I know how much power a broad-stripe tribune has, Domitius Belletor, hemmed in between the legion’s legatus and the more experienced narrow-stripe tribunes and their senior centurions, all of whom expect the right to tell you what to do. I’ve been fighting for the empire for the last ten years in one province or another, and I’ve earned my second tribunate the hard way, with this.’ He tapped the hilt of his sword. ‘So, far from being your subordinate, Tribune, I consider myself at worst your equal, and, in terms of my command’s strength and abilities, my own training, and my combat experience, clearly your superior. You’re free to play the big man with the local officials to your heart’s content, and you’re probably wise to keep your men behind these nice thick walls and out of harm’s way, but if you lift one finger to impede me as I go about ridding this province of the men preying upon it you will find me a very dangerous enemy indeed. You choose.’
Sergius nodded to Julius’s request, and before resuming the conversation he sent one of his colleagues to deal with the matter of getting the Tungrian cohorts inside the city’s walls. The two civilians were keeping themselves to themselves in one corner of the entrance hall. The taller of the two, well built and with a haughty look about him, was talking intently with his colleague, a leaner man with a look of sharp intelligence.
‘Our boy’s got a bit of a temper, I’m afraid.’
Sergius’s knowing smile betrayed his feelings on the subject, and Julius found himself warming to the legion officer.
‘Ours too, but we hardly ever see it.’
Sergius chuckled quietly, his voice low to avoid it being carried in the lobby’s quiet to the men at the door.
‘Which makes you pay attention when he displays it, eh? Whereas we’re all worn down by Tribune Belletor’s incessant rages, to the point where he’s become something of an amusement to the cohort.’
Julius frowned.
‘So what’s he doing here?’
‘Can’t you guess? Tribune Belletor’s daddy is very well connected, and very rich. That’s how his lad got a legion tribunate, and that’s why our legatus has to tolerate him, if he knows what’s good for him. The orders to send a cohort down here provided the big man with the perfect excuse to get a bit of peace and quiet.’
Julius’s face took on a pained expression.
‘But the Seventh Cohort? Surely this isn’t a job for raw troops?’
‘I couldn’t agree more, but you wouldn’t find the legatus signing up to that point of view. First Minervia’s still under strength, what with all the men that died of the plague and the lack of young lads to replace them, given the number of civilians that died at the same time. We’ve already had to send three cohorts off to reinforce the army in Britannia after some idiot managed to lose the best part of a legion…’ The look on Julius’s face stopped him in mid- flow. ‘What?’
‘We were there, First Spear. And it wasn’t pretty.’
Sergius shrugged.
‘It never is. I was a green centurion when the last war with the Chauci started, and it took a lot less than a year for me to go from being desperate to get into the fight to being happy if I never saw another dead barbarian, as long as I didn’t have to watch any more of my men die. Anyway, three cohorts to Britannia, another two sent to the coast to help the “scribblers” keep our boot on the Chauci’s throat…’
‘Scribblers?’
‘The Thirtieth Legion, Ulpia Victorious. Our sister legion in this province. When the call goes out for men to help with manual work it usually gets directed our way, whereas they seem to get all the reading and writing work. If the governor’s office needs twenty clerks to sit around scratching their arses they get the job, and if there’s a forest that needs cutting down they call for us. They call us “grunts”, and we call them “scribblers”, and it’s been that way for as long as I’ve served. So, we’re five cohorts down before we consider upkeep on the fortress, men on leave and the usual long list of malingerers, which means that a cohort was all our legatus could spare. Even with that small a loss of manpower the legion will be deep in the shit if the hairy boys that live on the other side of the Rhenus decide to come across in any numbers. So he sent us, as fine a collection of half-trained soldiery as ever hid behind a shield, and he was probably happy to see the back of us. And Tribune Belletor.’
Julius conceded the point.
‘Understandable. But surely five hundred of you ought to be able to scare the bandits back into their holes?’
Sergius glanced at his brother officers, a wry smile lighting up his face.
‘And that’s exactly what we thought when we got here six weeks ago. Send a couple of centuries out to garrison the roads and they’ll soon enough wind their necks in, but…’
The doors to the chamber opened and Scaurus pushed his way through the curtain.
‘Right, gentlemen, let’s go and get our soldiers bedded down for the night.’ Pausing to fasten his cloak about him before stepping back into the cold air, he spoke to the civilians in passing. ‘My apologies, gentlemen, for rushing off so quickly, but it seems the available barracks are all full of the legion’s men, and so I must find a spot inside your walls to pitch my cohorts’ tents. I’ll be back here early tomorrow morning though, and then we can discuss how to start dealing with the thieves that have made life so awkward for you these past few months. That and what I’ll need from you to feed and shelter fourteen hundred fighting men.’
‘How long can we keep the men in these conditions? In this weather?’ First Spear Frontinius pulled a thoughtful face. ‘Days. A week at best. The tents have taken a bit of a beating already, and with this much moisture in the air they’ll start falling to pieces sooner rather than later. We need to get the men into proper barracks, stone
