The Legions of the Mist

by Damion Hunter

  By the next morning the sky had cleared and the temperature dropped, freezing the top layer of snow. In the early half-light of dawn Justin set out from the fort with his hunting spear at the head of one of several foraging parties sent to bring in extra meat for what looked like an unusually bad winter.

  He led them into the wood that he and Licinius had hunted before, the hounds – many of the soldiers kept hunting dogs – lolloping on ahead of them. Almost immediately they came onto the fresh trail of a big dog wolf but passed it by, whistling the hounds away. It was meat that they were after. You could eat a wolf, of course, but there was no point in it if you didn’t have to. They pushed further into the wood, the rising winter sun coming through the bare trees to splotch the snow with pink and saffron. The air smelled clean and clear after the stuffiness of the barracks and somewhere a sparrow was chattering to itself about the weather. Soon after, they ran onto deer tracks and turned to follow them, angling to the westward until early afternoon, when they brought him to bay, backed up against a fall of rock, and made their kill. When they had skinned the buck and wrapped the meat in the hide, Justin set up a small altar of packed snow and frozen turf dug out with his dagger blade, and, whipping the hounds off the rest of the carcase, they laid it across the altar for the gods of the place, and turned back east again. They killed a second time on the way back, a boar, and arrived at the fort, converging with several other hunting parties and feeling very pleased with themselves.

  But Licinius, when Justin came by the hospital on his way in, was in no mood to hear hunting stories. He was engaged in binding up the shoulder of Centurion Sylvanus, Favonius’s second in command, who had been foolish enough to disregard the orders about bringing in meat, and had gone off after the same dog wolf whose tracks Justin’s party had passed that morning, getting badly bitten for his pains. Favonius, leaning over Licinius’s shoulder and getting in his light, was chattily recounting his own day’s hunting.

  ‘… a thundering great boar, as big as I am, with tusks like sword blades, so we—’

  ‘Ow!’ Sylvanus winced as Licinius tightened the bandages around his shoulder and pinned them into place. ‘We nearly had him too, biggest wolf you ever saw,’ he continued with his own saga.

  Justin decided not to tell him about the buck.

  ‘So I said to him, “You work your way around the far side–” The salve jars rattled as Favonius leaned comfortably against the table, ‘“– and we’ll have him rolled up.”’

  ‘A thundering great bore indeed,’ Licinius said when they had departed. ‘This is a hospital, you know, and not the Forum at Rome.’

  ‘They do run on, don’t they?’ Justin said. ‘We killed a buck, but I shan’t mention it except in passing. Here, let the orderly clean up, and come away. You’ve had enough.’

  ‘No, I always clean my own instruments,’ Licinius said. ‘It’s something my uncle taught me.’

  ‘He was a surgeon too?’

  ‘Yes, and a very good one. He lived with us in Judaea. I grew up there – my father was stationed with the Fretensis. I never thought of being a surgeon myself, though, until I realized this knee wouldn’t hold up on the march. My father’s family have always been soldiers.’

  ‘And mine. Odd, isn’t it, how it always seems to be a matter of family. My father died when I was quite small, but I never really thought of doing anything else when I was grown.’

  ‘I suppose it comes of growing up with it,’ Licinius said, stacking the salve jars away. ‘When I joined, I hoped I’d be sent to the Fretensis too, and I did serve my training year there, but after that I was posted to Vindobona in Pannonia, and then here when I got senior rank.’

  Justin laughed. ‘And I grew up at Antium and went from there to Africa, by way of the Rhine. Gods, what a lot of ground the Empire covers. I can still remember when I was about eight, lying on my back beside the pool in the atrium, looking up at the sky, thinking what an awful lot of it there was, and wondering what particular bit of it I was going to wind up under. I don’t suppose I need add I did not have Britain in mind.’

  ‘I always wondered too, except that I didn’t much want to go anywhere except Judaea. I can’t think why, now.’

  ‘And now we’re both at the end of the world.’

  ‘That’s what I thought when I got my orders to Britain. Strange, though, how much I like it now. Because it’s so green, I think. Judaea’s sort of mud color.’

  ‘Will you go back there, when your service is over?’

  ‘How do I know what I’ll do in ten years? But I don’t think so. My parents are both dead, and my uncle as well. The only family I really have left is an aunt, and she’s one of those women who are always doing things to you for your own good. The farther away from Aunt Vipsania the better, I imagine. No, I’ll probably settle here.’

  ‘Licinius, the snow’s got into your brain.’

  ‘No, I’d like it. Get a grant of land somewhere in the south and raise horses. There’s always a demand for good cavalry mounts. What will you do?’

  ‘I don’t know. Stay with the Legions maybe.’

  ‘And rise to be Emperor?’

  ‘Oh, shut up.’

  ‘Licinius! Licinius!’ There was the sound of running feet in the corridor, and a breathless legionary burst through the door. ‘The Dexter Gate!’ he panted. ‘Quick!’

  ‘What happened?’ Licinius was already gathering up his instrument case and a roll of bandages. ‘Bring this, will you, Justin?’

  ‘Forage party – attacked. Brigantes, curse them. We’ve got two wounded. The rest are bringing them down, and I was sent to fetch you. I think Manlius is hurt bad. He’s got a spear in his back and we’re afraid to pull it!’

  Licinius caught up the rest of his gear and ran for the door, the others behind him.

  When they reached the gate, the sentries were already helping in seven bloodstained and weary men who, among them, carried two others. From the back of one of these protruded the broken-off haft of a spear. It was Manlius, whose ears Gwytha had boxed at the Head of Neptune.

  Licinius took a quick look and said, ‘Get him to hospital, quick! Put him on the big table and tell the orderly to get my kit ready. You!’ He grabbed one of the hunting party. ‘Go and find Flavius and send him to me. Justin, help me with this.’

  He slit open the other man’s tunic and wrapped a strip of linen tightly around the gaping wound in his chest to stop the bleeding which had been only partly arrested by a piece torn from someone’s cloak. It was Centurion Geta, the grizzled, middle-aged commander of the Seventh Cohort.

  ‘That should hold. Bring him along.’ He left the blood-soaked scrap of wool sinking crimson streaks into the snow and ran for the hospital.

  Justin slipped his shoulder under Geta’s arm, nodding to a man with a bad gash in his sword arm to follow, and they picked their way over the ground, which by now had been frozen into icy ruts wherever the cart wheels had passed. They reached the hospital as young Flavius, Licinius’s junior surgeon, came flying round the corner, his instrument case in his hand.

  Licinius was carefully cutting away Manlius’s tunic from around the spear shaft as they laid the centurion down on the other operating table.

  ‘Flavius, see to Centurion Geta,’ he said, looking up briefly. An orderly came in with a stack of lint and bandages, and a tray of instruments. ‘Put it down there and get me a packet of ephedron. Then stick around. I’m going to need you. Justin, tie something around that man’s arm to stop the bleeding. Everybody else clear out.’

  Flavius had unwrapped Licinius’s temporary bandaging and was cleaning Geta’s wound while the centurion gritted his teeth and gripped the edge of the table until his knuckles were white.

  Justin bound a strip of linen round the other soldier’s forearm and secured it in place. ‘That’ll do well enough until someone can see to you. I’m afraid I’d only make it worse.’

  ‘It’s all right.’ The man shook his head wearily. ‘I’m only
tired. We had a long way to come, carrying the two of them.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘We were miles to the north of here, on the track of a boar, when we heard the commotion. They had jumped Manlius’s patrol and pretty well torn them up by the time we got there. We beat them off, but we weren’t in any position to chase them, with Manlius and the centurion wounded, and who knew how many more waiting behind the next tree for us. We lost two of our men, and all but Manlius of his patrol. We’ll lose him too, by the look of it.’

  ‘How many of them?’

  ‘Ten or twelve, I think. I hadn’t time to count.’

  Flavius finished cleaning and stitching Geta’s wound and Justin helped the orderly carry him to one of the four-man wards lining the corridor, while Flavius attended to Antonius, the man with the gashed arm. Licinius had cleaned away the blood from around the spear shaft in Manlius’s back and was examining it gingerly. Mercifully, the man had fainted. Getting enough opium down him to do any good would not have been easy.

  ‘How is Geta?’ Licinius asked, not looking up.

  ‘He’ll live,’ Flavius said. ‘It’s bad, but not as deep as it looked.’

  ‘When you have finished, come and help me here.’ There was a fine-drawn edge to Licinius’s voice that brought Justin, coming back into the operating room, up short in the doorway.

  Flavius salved Antonius’s cut and rebandaged it while Licinius worked steadily, trying to discover how deep the spear had gone, and whether it was barbed at the point or not. He thought so, but it was difficult to tell for certain.

  ‘What about it?’ Flavius asked, when he had finished and sent Antonius off to be taken care of by the orderly.

  ‘I don’t know. If I pull this, he may live, but most likely not. It’s deep, and I think it’s gone through the lung. If I leave it, he’ll die in a day or two, of course.’ Licinius’s face was taut and pallid under his tan.

  Flavius was silent. He was very young, and this was his first posting since his training year. He looked at Licinius.

  ‘Right. Let’s get on with it,’ Licinius said. ‘The ephedron may slow the bleeding enough. Justin, get me some more light. It’s getting dark in here.’

  Without stopping to wonder how he had ended up playing orderly, Justin fetched three lamps and set two of them in stands on either side of the table. The third he held in his hand, shifting it as Licinius and Flavius worked, so that the light fell always on the wound. Licinius moved slowly, working a long spoon-like instrument down past the spear shaft. He nodded in satisfaction as he felt the bowl of it slide under the point. The smooth sides of the spoon would keep the spearhead from tearing the flesh further as it came out. Manlius stirred and murmured something.

  ‘There now, be still. It will be all right,’ Licinius said gently. He glanced at Flavius and pulled the shaft.

  Manlius cried out as the blood rushed up out of the wound like a fountain. Justin fought down a sick feeling in his throat and held the lamp closer as the two men struggled to stop the crimson flow. They worked feverishly with the tiny, snub-nosed forceps to catch and tie off each vein while the orderly clamped lint against the unstaunched side of the wound, retracting it out of their way and trying to seal off the red and deadly river until they could stop it.

  Manlius whimpered, as if he had no strength to yell, and Licinius’s face went a shade whiter, but he kept on working, Justin holding a lamp in each hand now, for the sun had gone completely, and it was black night outside, broken only by scurrying shadows as someone carried a torch or lantern by.

  In the end, though, it was no use. Manlius quivered and his fingers, which had been gripping the sides of the table, slackened and fell limp. There was one soft, sad little whisper, ‘Mama…’ and he was still. Licinius worked on for a while, but then he straightened and laid the forceps down. He picked up Manlius’s body and turned it over gently. He brushed a soft hand over the soldier’s face, closing the staring eyes before he drew a sheet up over him. He looked at Flavius and said wearily, ‘You may as well go back. I’ll see to the rest,’ and turned and began to gather up his instruments.

  Flavius, ashen faced, looked as if he were about to say something, then changed his mind and slipped quickly from the operating room.

  Justin, realizing that he was still holding the lamps, set them down and silently began to help Licinius. He had seen men die before, in battle, but he also remembered a man of his own cohort who had died in his arms in the African sun because there was no surgeon to be found, and he remembered how sick and helpless he had felt.

  Afterward, Licinius sat at the desk in his office where the records were kept and requisitions made, and put his head in his hands.

  ‘Do you know,’ he said finally, ‘I was praying to every god I knew that that man would live. Dear gods, we know so little.’

  There was no reply to make, and Justin sat silent for several minutes. Then he said softly, ‘There was something wrong about that attack, Licinius. There were ten or twelve of them, Antonius said, to our patrol of ten. They shouldn’t have cut them up like that. Did you notice Manlius was out of armor?’

  Licinius looked up. ‘What?’

  ‘He wasn’t wearing his armor on patrol. They couldn’t possibly have got his breastplate off with that spear sticking out of his back.’

  ‘I don’t like that,’ Licinius said slowly.

  ‘No more do I. I’m willing to bet the rest of his patrol was unarmored as well. Poor Manlius – he hadn’t a chance.’

  ‘Who’s the fool who let them out like that?’

  ‘Their centurion, most like, and he’s a dead fool now.’

  ‘Something’s got to be done, or we’ll all be dead fools if Cunory the Hunter was right.’

  ‘Is he of the Brigantes? That seems strange.’

  ‘No, he’s from the Coritani to the south, but mostly he hunts to the north. And news of any sort goes through the tribes in ways which I still haven’t figured out. I expect he takes them news of us too, but in any case the Brigantes could tell this Legion’s rotting just by looking at it. And with the Emperor fighting his damn war halfway across the world, they know we can’t get reinforcements.’

  ‘And when spring comes, we’ll have the Brigantes on our hands,’ Justin said. ‘I think this had better go to the Legate.’

  ‘Take it to the Legate by all means,’ Licinius said bitterly. ‘Someone’s got to persuade him to clamp down before it’s too late. But with the Emperor treating us like a recruiting station for his wars in Dacia, and then saying he thinks maybe he’ll keep our detachments a little longer for his Parthian campaign, I wonder how long from now “too late” is going to be.’

  They buried Manlius and the rest of his patrol the next day, in deep graves hacked out of the frozen ground in the cemetery outside the fortress. Later a row of stones were set above them:

  MANLIUS VERUS, OF THE V COHORT

  OF THE IX LEGION HISPANA,

  LIVED THIRTY-THREE YEARS.

  Justin, seeing Licinius stop before the row and murmur a few words over Manlius’s stone, thought that he was praying for the dead man’s soul. He was wrong. Licinius was praying to Aesculapius.

  Since Centurion Geta was badly hurt and still in hospital the next day, Justin went to see him, and then took the story of his suspicions to the Legate.

  ‘You are certain they were out of armor?’ Metius Lupus regarded him sceptically, his dark eyes very bored, in a face which maintained a perpetual shade of pink.

  ‘Yes, sir. I have checked it with the other men of Geta’s patrol to be sure that he and Antonius weren’t mistaken.’

  ‘I will see that their centurion is disciplined for this.’

  ‘Their centurion was disciplined by the Brigantes, sir. He’s dead.’

  ‘Well, I shouldn’t think that particular century will make that mistake again,’ the Legate said drily.

  ‘No, but others may if discipline isn’t improved. And the Brigantes will be waiting for it.�
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  ‘Centurion, the Roman Legion is the best fighting force in the world, and the Brigantes know it.’

  ‘And the Brigantes are the best warriors in Britain, or so I hear, saving the Picts maybe, and we’re sitting right in their laps. They’ll know an advantage when they see one.’

  ‘Centurion Corvus, what precisely are you driving at?’

  ‘That if we slip up, they’ll walk all over us. All they need is a chance. Sir, I think, and Licinius too, that there’s a tribal rising brewing – especially if they get any more examples of our weak spots.’

  ‘Licinius is upset because he didn’t save that man. And a surgeon is not a military expert.’

  ‘Not only that, sir…’ Justin was getting exasperated. ‘It was the way it happened, sir.’

  ‘Centurion Corvus, considering that you weren’t there yourself, I think that you are making a war out of a chance skirmish, and the stupidity of ten men who have already paid for it.’ The Legate flipped the bronze lid of his inkstand open and began making notes on a supply list.

  ‘I have spoken to Centurion Geta, sir,’ Justin said. ‘He agrees with me.’

  The Legate put his pen down. ‘I begin to understand why the commander at Hippo Regius thought he would be better off without you,’ he said.

  ‘No, sir. That was a silly prank. I had no business doing it, but it had nothing to do with my duties.’

  ‘Nor, I may say, does this. I suggest you worry about your own cohort. As far as I can tell, you’ve spent all your time since you got here trying to get transferred, which you aren’t going to be for a while, I can tell you. Now, it doesn’t pay to be overly dramatic,’ he went on in a more kindly tone. ‘The Brigantes were fighting themselves last fall.’

  ‘What if they all join together, sir?’

  ‘There is too much rivalry among the clans for that. Dubric tried it and found he couldn’t hold them together.’

  ‘Dubric died last fall, sir. And from what I have heard, the outcome of that fighting was a new High King.’