‘Thank you, Magnus,’ Vespasian said, taking his still warm bowl of stew and sitting back down.
‘What did the arsehole have to say? A lot of hot air, I suppose.’ Magnus laughed uproariously at his own joke.
‘Well, he actually admitted to not knowing how to get-’ Vespasian was cut off by the sound of weapons clashing and shouts and screams from the direction of main gate on other side of the camp. They grabbed their swords and rushed towards the commotion, weaving through the confusion of two cohorts of nervous raw recruits being formed up, in darkness, in front of their lines by the barking centurions and their optiones. Cooking pots were kicked over and men tripped on tent pegs and guy ropes as the centuries whose turn it had been to rest rushed to get their pila from the neat weapon stacks whilst simultaneously pulling on their helmets and buckling their swords and lorica segmentata – iron-plate armour constructed in strips – that had been discarded for the night.
Next to the gate, which was open and swinging in the wind, a wagonload of animal fodder was on fire. By its light Vespasian could make out half a dozen bodies strewn across on the ground. Corbulo was already there, screaming at a young legionary who was doing his best to stand to attention, despite the blood streaming down his face from a sword cut above his right eye.
‘What the fuck were you doing just letting them through? Why didn’t you block the gate, you useless sack of shit? I’ll have your head for this. What’s your name?’
The legionary opened his mouth and then fainted at his commanding officer’s feet. Corbulo aimed a kick at the unfortunate man’s stomach and instantly regretted it as his sandalled foot connected with iron-plate armour, half shearing off his big toenail.
‘Tribune Vespasian,’ he shouted, resisting with every fibre of his being the urge to grab his injured foot and hop around like some actor in a bad comedy. ‘Secure the gate. I want a century formed up in front of it.’
‘What happened, sir?’
‘Those fox-fucking sons of Gorgons managed to kill their guards, steal some horses and break through the gate, that’s what’s happened. It’s a fucking shambles and I’m going to have the balls off whoever was in charge. Now get that gate shut, and that fire put out.’
Thinking it best not to point out that it was Corbulo who was in charge, Vespasian ran off to do as he’d been ordered, with Magnus in tow, leaving his commanding officer bawling at Tribune Gallus to order the cavalry prefects have their men mount up.
The fire had been extinguished and calm had returned. Both cohorts were formed up in the sixty-foot gaps between the tent lines and the palisade on either side of the camp. Leaving the gate secured shut and a century, under Centurion Faustus, in front of it, Vespasian turned to examine the bodies on the ground. Pulling the corpse of a fresh-faced legionary off his assailant he heard a low intake of breath.
‘Sir, over here!’
‘Well, what is it?’ Corbulo growled. He had more or less recovered his composure.
‘This Thracian is still alive.’ Vespasian turned over the foulsmelling body of one of their erstwhile guides. Blood seeped from a deep wound on his left shoulder that had almost severed his arm but he was still breathing.
‘Now, that is the first bit of good news I’ve had today.’
Tribune Marcus Gallus came puffing back to report. ‘Sir, they’re saddling up as fast as they can.’
‘They’d better be. I want those cocksuckers caught.’
‘They’ll be well away by now,’ Vespasian said, ‘and they know the terrain, there’s not a hope in Hades of catching them.’
Corbulo looked at Vespasian as if he was about to explode at the impertinence of this stocky little upstart, then pulled himself together as the truth of the statement sank in.
‘I expect you’re right,’ he conceded bitterly. ‘I’ll just have them patrol around the camp, it would be pointless to put good men, or even Gauls, in harm’s way now, we may well be needing them soon. Now, have this prisoner seen to; I want him well enough for questioning within the hour, and get Optio Fabius to translate.’
Vespasian, Gallus, Optio Fabius and the two guards snapped to attention as Corbulo entered the praetorium. The wounded Thracian lay moaning on the ground, too weak with loss of blood to warrant tying up. His wound had been sealed with pitch and roughly bound so the bleeding had stopped; it would not save his life, but it would buy them enough time to interrogate him.
‘Fabius, ask him where they were running off to,’ Corbulo ordered, ‘and whether there are any more of them tracking us out in the hills.’
The optio knelt down next to the prisoner and said a few short sentences in the oddly singsong language of the Thracians.
The prisoner opened his eyes, seemingly in surprise, looked at Fabius for a moment as if registering who he was, and then spat directly into his face.
‘Urgh! You filthy bastard!’ Fabius punched the man on the mouth, splitting open both his lips.
‘That’s enough, optio, I’ll say when he’s to be hurt,’ Corbulo barked. ‘I want him alive for as long as possible. Now ask him again.’
This time Fabius spoke more forcefully, taking care to keep out of spitting range. The Thracian stayed quiet; a grim smile formed on this swollen, bloody mouth and he turned his head away.
Vespasian could see the futility of the exercise; the man knew he was going to die and therefore had nothing to gain by talking; in fact, the more he resisted the higher the likelihood was of his tormentors losing their patience and putting him out of his misery.
‘I’m getting fed up with this,’ Corbulo hissed, placing his left foot on the man’s wounded shoulder. ‘Now, then, you little cunt, talk to me.’ He pressed down hard on the freshly sealed wound. The prisoner let out a guttural scream and blood started to seep through the dressing. ‘Well, you filthy savage, where the fuck were you off to?’
The Thracian looked up at the young Roman officer standing over him, his eyes narrowed in hatred, and, lifting his head, shouted loudly and bitterly at him in his strange tongue. After a few sentences the effort proved too much for the man’s heart and, with a strangled gasp, his head fell back to stare with lifeless eyes at the seething Corbulo.
‘Shit! Well, Fabius, what did he say?’ Corbulo growled.
‘I don’t rightly know, sir,’ the confused-looking optio replied.
‘What do you mean you don’t rightly know? You speak that hideous language, do you not?’
‘I do, sir, but I speak the language of the Odrysae and the Bessi and the other tribes of the north and west.’
‘Well, this man is from the Caeletae. Isn’t that the same?’
‘That’s just it, sir, it is, with just a few differences, but this man was speaking in a dialect that I have never heard before.’
‘But it stated in my orders that our guides were from the Caeletae. If you’re sure he isn’t then where are our real guides and where does he come from?’
‘My guess is that he comes from the eastern part of the country, beyond the Hebrus River.’
‘Impossible, the tribes in the east are loyal to Rome,’ Corbulo spluttered.
‘They were when you left, sir,’ Vespasian said quietly, ‘but what if that is not still the case?’
Corbulo’s face sank as he digested the implications of this possibility. ‘That would mean that we could have one or more of the tribes across the river in rebellion, and if we move east to the Hebrus we risk marching right into them, and if we go northwest we’ll have them on our heels.’
‘Exactly,’ Vespasian said with a grim smile, ‘and to withdraw back to Macedonia would be to directly disobey our orders. I think that the decision has been made for you, sir.’
Corbulo looked at his new tribune and realised that he was right: they had no choice but to press on directly to Poppaeus’ camp in the northwest, without guides; and all the while they would be looking over their shoulders hoping not to see the dust of a Thracian war band approaching their unblooded new recruits from the rear.
‘Oh, shit,’ he whispered.
CHAPTER XX
