Legionary: The Scourge of Thracia (Legionary 4)

by Gordon Doherty

  Gallus heard a wet, sucking thud-thud of hooves approaching behind him, then felt the hot breath of a horse on his neck. He turned and looked up, slowly and with growing dread. Before him, saddled upon a black stallion mired fetlock-deep in mud, was a barrel-chested officer wearing a bronze scale vest and a white cloak. His face was round and ruddy with a thick brown tuft beard trimmed carefully to grow out to a point that disguised what Gallus suspected was a rather weak chin. His sunken eyes were further shadowed under a bronze helmet with a jutting brow band, a lengthy neck guard and two delicately crafted bronze wings, one welded onto each side just above the ears – clearly a recent addition and the work of the cloying blacksmith.

  Gallus hesitated before speaking. The man wore no clear indication of rank – no stripes on his tunic sleeve and no obvious clue as to his unit.

  A tense silence ensued. Those nearby gathered to watch.

  ‘Tribunus Barzimeres,’ the rider said at last, eyeing Gallus askance. ‘Leader of the Cornutii, heroes of the Milvian Bridge, and of the Scutarii, the finest chargers in Thracia.’ His tone was bumptious to say the least.

  As he said this, Gallus noticed that a thousand-strong unit of infantry had marched into the camp in the man’s wake from the west, four abreast. The Cornutii he recognised straight away, distinguished by the eagle feathers they wore either side of their helms and which their leader had sought to outdo with his bronze wings. Their shields and the amber banner hanging from their eagle standard depicted a twin-headed red serpent, both heads facing each other, as if ready to quarrel. He had seen these men once before, in Constantinople. They were an auxilium palatinum legion, a specialist infantry regiment of Emperor Valens’ inner guard – part of the Praesental Army left behind in Constantinople whilst the rest were garrisoned with Valens on the Persian frontier.

  Behind them came the Scutarii. These mounted men wore intercisa helms, scale vests and oiled black cloaks, with shields bearing patterns of concentric red, blue then yellow circles. These fine horsemen were a wing of the emperor’s horse guard – the scholae palatinae. These two crack corps were a precursor to what forces might be mustered here in months to come when the Praesental Armies of East and West came together.

  But these two pristine divisions did not excuse the pitiful state of the rest of the camp. Legions of border limitanei and the comitatenses field legions had once been the pride of Thracia. This rabble was a disgrace.

  Gallus sucked in a long, slow breath through his nostrils and held Barzimeres’ gaze. ‘I am Tribunus Gallus,’ he noticed Barzimeres eyes flare for an instant at the mention of his equal rank, a chink of fear in there, ‘of the XI Claudia Pia Fidelis. Emperor Valens despatched my men and I at haste to aid the effort in holding back the Goths, pending his arrival early next year. Magister Militum Traianus hastened us here from Constantinople, told us to seek out Magister Equitum Saturninus, the commander of this camp.’

  Barzimeres gazed at Gallus for a few moments, a hint of a smile playing on his lips. Finally, a complacent look crossed over his face and he gazed past Gallus’ shoulder. ‘Ah, so that’s what you are: another few limitanei?’

  Gallus felt his skin prickle as the man went on to bark out orders to unseen others, obviously more important to Barzimeres. He rummaged inside his cloak and produced the scroll Traianus had given him. ‘I have this message detailing our orders . . . ’ he paused in disbelief as Barzimeres heeled his mount round as if to walk it away while he was still talking ‘ . . . a message for Saturninus – your superior,’ at this, Barzimeres’ wandering gaze snapped back to attention.

  ‘Saturninus is absent, Tribunus,’ Barzimeres sighed hotly as if reiterating some tired point to a recalcitrant child. ‘I am commander of this camp.’

  ‘Then you’ll have three cohorts of legionaries ready to repopulate my ranks?’ he finished, holding up the scroll.

  Barzimeres’ sunken eyes shrunk further under an agitated scowl. He snatched the scroll and scanned it. ‘Yes, yes,’ he said, waving one hand around. ‘You’ll have your men, Tribunus,’ he said, that haughty look returning. ‘I’ll have them mustered soon enough. It’s difficult to replace a fallen man in the Cornutii ranks. And the Scutarii take years to train. But your limitanei? You can find recruits lurking in any city alley,’ he laughed as if he was sharing a joke. ‘I hear that these days they even recruit the curs who cut off their thumbs in an effort to avoid service!’

  Gallus’ stony expression did not falter.

  ‘You can set up your tent by the riverbank,’ Barzimeres said, his levity fading and his lips growing thin, ‘and you will report to me after evening curfew.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ Gallus replied hotly.

  At that, Barzimeres clicked his tongue to guide his stallion away, waving his cavalry and infantry units with him towards the eastern edge of the camp, urging them unnecessarily with hectoring cries.

  Night had fallen, blessedly darkening the horizon and veiling the menacing outline of the Haemus Mountains. The mizzle had stopped too, but the camp was still a morass. Worse, Barzimeres had assigned them – entirely deliberately – the boggiest patch of ground for their tent. Pavo finished tying the goatskin to the tent frame and hammering the guy-ropes into the soft earth. Next, he took the opportunity to wade into the shallows of the river, ducking under to soak his head. It was white-cold and perishing, but it washed every morsel of splashed mud and filth from the march from his person. A fair bit cleaner, he ducked inside the tent. Sura, Quadratus and Zosimus had laid out their bedding on a goatskin roll that would serve as some kind of floor over the mud and were now cleaning their armour.

  ‘Don’t know why I’m bothering,’ Quadratus moaned. ‘Every other bugger in this place looks like they’ve had a bath in pigshit.’

  ‘Apart from that winged bastard,’ Zosimus flicked his head in a random direction that was his best guess as to where Barzimeres’ tent stood. ‘I bet his lot bathe him by hand every bloody night.’

  Quadratus’ face split in a grin as he made an obscene hand gesture. ‘Aye, I bet they do . . . ’ he said, his shoulders jostling in a chuckle.

  ‘Oh for f-’ Sura started. A small channel of muddy water had found a way in over the goatskin floor mat and soaked his bedding. ‘Perfect,’ he cast both hands up, dropping his half-cleaned boots.

  Pavo rummaged in his pack to set up his own bedding in the empty space beside Gallus. The tribunus sat cross-legged, bed already laid out, armour already cleaned and polished, eyes staring into the distance. ‘Sir, before I sort out my gear, can I - ’

  Gallus looked up, startled, as if he had been in another place entirely. He shook his head as if to clear out whatever thoughts were in there. ‘Your woman?’ he guessed.

  Pavo nodded.

  ‘Go,’ Gallus said, flicking his head to the tent entrance, ‘but return by curfew.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ he nodded, throwing off his damp tunic, roughly towelling himself then pulling on a clean, dry white and purple-edged tunic from his pack. It felt like silk on his skin.

  In a flash, he was outside, hurrying through the sodden earth. He knew where Felicia would be. Just as when they were in Constantinople and she had helped out at the barrack valetudinarium, surely she would be in the medical area of this camp too. Though in this light and given the haphazard layout of the camp, it might be more difficult than he had anticipated to find the surgeon’s tent. But across the sea of wandering and seemingly constantly inebriated population of the camp, he spotted one larger tent further along the riverbank. Close to clean water and enjoying a spot on shingle as opposed to mud, this tent had a tall wooden staff erected beside it, bearing a winding, carved serpent – the staff of Asclepius, God of Healing – and a Christian Chi-Rho to boot. His heart thundered as he slowed, then it leapt as, through the sliver of tent-flap, he caught sight of her.

  In the orange bubble of lamplight within, she looked like every one of the dreams he had escaped to in those tortuous nights of incarceration deep within Persia
n lands. Her long amber hair tumbled all the way down to the small of her back, resting on her generous hips and the waistband of her pale green robe. Her milky skin seemed flawless, her lips ripe and glistening. He reached out to pull the tent flap back and enter when a rather grotesque squelching noise sounded – his boot had been pulled right off by the treacherous mud. He hopped to one side, balancing on one leg before tilting carefully to retrieve his boot. Felicia had a way with words; she could reduce a grizzled legionary to tears and pleas of mercy with her acerbic wit, so to hop into the tent wearing one boot or to stagger in splattered in mud would not do at all, he realised. As he wrenched his boot free, he heard her voice. Her throaty, sultry voice.

  ‘Even that foul wine they make here is tempting right now. It’ll warm my blood and make me numb to my filthy, damp tent,’ she said then craned her neck back and yawned, stroking her neck as she did so.

  The words were anything but sensual, but the way she said them sent the blood rushing to Pavo’s loins. Well, it has been a long time, he thought.

  ‘I hear your man is coming to the camp soon?’ the light voice of some unseen other woman said. ‘So perhaps you will have more than wine to keep you warm at night?’

  Pavo frowned. Had word somehow reached her that he was alive and well and coming for her?

  ‘I know that look,’ the other said. ‘You’re in love! It’s true, isn’t it?’

  ‘Am I in love?’ Felicia chuckled. ‘No . . . ’

  No? Pavo’s smile faded and a scowl began to form.

  ‘Well, maybe,’ she added. ‘Yes . . . yes I am,’ she admitted finally.

  Pavo’s smile returned and he steadied himself, trying to slide on his boot in the dark as he listened in. Just then, through the sliver of tent-flap, he caught sight of the other woman, older, with grey-flecked hair. ‘Wading in blood and amputated limbs is no place for you. As an officer’s woman, surely you could be anywhere but here?’ she said. Pavo felt his chest prickle with pride, and when one sour-faced off-duty legionary stalked by, scowling at him, Pavo shot him an imperious look, as if to say, I’m an officer, don’t you know?

  ‘Ah, perhaps, but I came here by choice. I came here to help. And in any case, the life of a primus pilus’ woman is not the life for me.’

  Pavo felt a cold pang of confusion. A primus pilus’ woman? This sent him wobbling on his one booted foot.

  ‘Wanting for nothing in some countryside villa? My mind would eat itself. A marble cage, as I see it. The primus pilus can have his pick of servile women, of that I have no doubt. But if he wants me, then he has to understand me.’

  There it was again. Primus Pilus? Who was this Primus Pilus? His chest prickling with jealousy, he made the snap decision to confront her there and then. He wrenched on his boot, stood tall, sucked in a breath, strode for the tent flap . . . then tripped over a mud-disguised and badly-placed guy rope, splashed face down in the mire and skidded inside the tent, face and body plastered with filth.

  The older woman inside screamed.

  ‘What the?’ Felicia yelped, leaping back, snatching up a scalpel.

  Pavo, clambering to all fours, waved his hands in supplication. ‘It’s me!’ he spluttered, spitting sod from his lips.

  But Felicia shielded the older woman and backed around the scarred and bloodied surgical table in the centre of the tent. ‘We’ve had drunks, lechers and thieves crawling in here at all hours. So I don’t care if you’re bloody Mithras himself,’ she hissed as she held the scalpel up like a dagger. ‘Come any closer and I’ll have your balls off!’

  Pavo hurriedly wiped at his face and swiped the worst of the mud from his hair. ‘Felicia. It’s me!’ Seeing her eyes dart over him uncertainly, he rummaged to pull a strip of filthy cloth from his belt, then shook the mud from this too, unmasking it as a rather sorry-looking strip of red silk.

  She gasped, dropped the scalpel and stumbled back against a wooden cabinet. ‘Pavo?’ she croaked.

  Pavo nodded, coming closer, swiping the remnant mud from his face. ‘I . . . I . . . ’

  Suddenly, the older woman, in a fit of boldness, swept up the dropped scalpel and rushed for him, her face pinched and her shrill cry filling the tent.

  Pavo leapt back from her wild swipe at his crotch.

  ‘Lucilla, No!’ Felicia cried. ‘He’s a friend!’

  Pavo grasped Lucilla’s wrist, squeezing it so she dropped the implement. The woman staggered back, grumbling, clutching her wrist. ‘I’m sorry,’ he pleaded with her. ‘I’m not one of them,’ he nodded outside to the flitting shadows of passing drunks and ill-disciplined soldiers. ‘I’m here with the XI Claudia.’

  ‘You’re . . . alive,’ Felicia stammered. ‘The Claudia live?’

  ‘I’m here. I’m alive.’ He grasped her by the shoulders, unmindful of his mucky hands.

  Felicia’s fair skin was now paler than moonlight. ‘Lucilla, would you leave us please?’

  The older woman sighed and nodded, then made for the tent flap. She did pause, however, just long enough to lift the dropped scalpel and replace it on the table, shooting a cautionary glower first at Pavo’s face and then at his crotch.

  When she had left, Felicia’s brow wrinkled and she panted in shock. ‘But I heard rumours in the height of summer. They said that the XI Claudia had been lost in the desert.’ She looked him in the eye, more tears welling as she pulled a small purse of coins from under her green robe. ‘They even gave me your funeral pay-out.’

  Pavo blanched at this, recalling instantly the moment from his youth when a scowling legionary had sought him out and dropped Father’s funeral pay-out into his hand. It had almost crushed his spirit. Almost. ‘I’m sorry that happened. I should have got word to you, somehow. The first chance I had was the Cursus Publicus messenger I paid to take word to you from Antioch. But he was too late, it seems. I . . . I’m here now.’

  ‘Then you should have this.’ She tucked the purse into the belt of his damp, muddy tunic, then searched his eyes. ‘And the others?’

  Pavo shook his head. ‘Only four returned from Persia with me. Tribunus Gallus, Zosimus, Quadratus and Sura. The rest gave their lives bravely.’

  Felicia closed her eyes as if stifling a show of grief, then clasped his hands inside hers. ‘I need to know. Did you find him?’

  The question caught him off-guard. So much had changed in those months in the burning sands. ‘I found him,’ he replied, trying to keep the emotion from his voice. ‘He was alive, Felicia. My father was alive.’

  Her eyes widened. ‘Then where is . . . ’ she started in a whisper, then faded away as she saw Pavo look away. Instead, she simply embraced him again.

  Pavo felt her warmth against him, sensed his heart beating a little faster, felt his loins stirring once more. He pulled back, cupping her chin and moving to press his lips to hers. But he halted, inches away, recalling something from moments ago. ‘You said I was a friend.’

  She frowned. ‘What?’

  ‘To that harridan who was determined to hack my bollocks off. Just a friend, you said?’ he backed away, shaking his head, the lust of moments ago crumbling.

  ‘Pavo?’ Felicia replied, her face knitted in confusion.

  Pavo felt that creeping jealousy tingle inside his chest again as he pieced it all together. ‘You were talking to her about some primus pilus. About love?’

  ‘Pavo,’ she tried to interrupt.

  But he was having none of it. Already he understood what had happened. He and the XI Claudia had been missing for only days, probably, when she had given him up for dead and thrown herself at another man.

  ‘Pavo!’ she roared. It was a cry that nearly knocked the rest of the mud from his flesh and clothes. Even the dull babble outside seemed cowed momentarily. And her paleness of a moment ago was suddenly consumed by a flushing red band across her nose and cheeks. Her look was flinty, to say the least, and Pavo was frozen by her demeanour. She strode to him, reached up, scooped her hands around the back of his head and pull
ed him down, pressing her cherry lips to his.

  Pavo’s mind flashed with confused voices and thoughts. His loins were more single minded. He pressed his body against hers once more and they remained interlocked for what felt like an eternity. At last, they parted. She held his gaze with an earnest one of her own. ‘I am in love . . . with an utter fool of an optio,’ she said with a wistful smile.

  ‘Then what was all that about?’ he said.

  ‘We can’t talk here,’ she whispered, then took him by the wrist and led him out and into the night. With a series of determined squelches, she marched him to a small tent on the southern edge of the sprawling camp. There, without ceremony, she picked up a bucket of water resting outside and hurled it over Pavo.

  It was freezing cold – more so even than the currents of the River Tonsus. He gasped in fright, then stammered in confusion. ‘What the?’

  ‘You’re filthy,’ she said calmly. ‘Now come inside and take that sodden, grubby tunic off.’

  ‘It was clean a moment ago,’ he muttered, then obediently removed his tunic and hooked it on a pole outside before following her inside dressed in just his loincloth. Inside, she struck a flint hook to an oil lamp that poured an orange bubble of light around the space and revealed two beds – one for her and one for the harridan Lucilla, presumably. She handed him a towel and as he dried himself, she poured them each a cup of fresh water and broke a small loaf of bread. They sat cross-legged on her bed, facing one another, Pavo gladly helping himself to some bread.

  ‘This place is a wolves’ den,’ she whispered, glancing at their dancing shadows on the tent canvas, as if they might be listening in.

  Pavo’s chewing slowed. A forgotten but familiar, stony feeling settled in his gut. In his time away from imperial lands, he had forgotten – or had chosen to forget – the web of intrigue that laced every corridor, the rust of corruption that weakened every city gate and the stale breath of perfidy that lingered like mist in every province.

  ‘The Speculatores are at large,’ she said, mouthing this in an almost inaudible whisper.