Pavo’s blood chilled. The Speculatores had no place here, in the Eastern Empire. They were a grim and ancient institution of the West. Yet these shades had been ever-present yet unseen in all his time with the legions. Men who operated like wraiths in the shadows, stirring up dissent, murdering and stealing as they pursued dark agendas lost on most common men. They had ruptured Felicia’s life, recruiting her young brother and sending him into the ranks of the XI Claudia as an assassin. They had tried to poison the cohorts of the Claudia again, assigning Avitus to the ranks. Both agents were now long dead. The man they had been sent to slay was still very much alive and seemingly forgotten by these shadowy agents. But what was it about Gallus? What had gone on in his past life in the West that caused them to harry him so?
He thought of Gallus’ few words in these last days.
The Praesental Armies of East and West will unite in Thracia. When they do, it will be the first time they have come together in so very long. The Goths should be wary . . . as should we all.
Was the Speculatores’ presence a precursor of the Western Emperor Gratian and his armies coming to these lands? He thought of Gallus’ reaction to the news of Gratian’s army coming east. ‘Of course . . . ’ he muttered.
‘Eh?’ Felicia said.
He shook his head. ‘Why are they here?’
Felicia held her hands out in exasperation. ‘I know nothing other than that they are here and have been for some weeks.’
‘You’ve seen them?’
‘I could not mistake their kind, Pavo,’ she said gravely.
‘Aye,’ he nodded, placing a comforting hand on hers, thinking of her dead brother. ‘Where, when?’
She leaned closer to whisper once more. ‘Near the principia.’
Her words tickled his ear and sent a shiver racing down his back. He tried to bury the stirring this brought about in his groin and thought of the haphazard arrangement of tents at the heart of the camp. Was the detestable Tribunus Barzimeres in league with the Speculatores? Or were they here to kill him or another? Suddenly, he feared for Gallus: what if they had come, after years of silence, to finish the job?
‘By day they behave like every other wastrel in this camp – drinking, spitting and swearing,’ Felicia continued. ‘They can blend into any background. But at night, I saw one of them staggering, alone. He tripped and stumbled along until the moment came when not an eye was upon him – except mine – then he suddenly crouched, his clumsiness gone, his eyes keen. He saw that the principia area was empty, then stole past the sentries and into the tents. I watched, seeing him dart from one tent to the next, searching for . . . something.’
‘And the sentries?’ Pavo gasped, then slumped in realisation that they were doubtless inebriated and ignorant to the goings-on. He sighed, knowing that the seed had been sown in Felicia’s mind. With these agents present in the camp and with the dark furrow they had ploughed in past affairs, he knew she would not rest on the matter, and neither could he. ‘We must find out more. We must.’
Felicia’s face spread with a superior smile. ‘And that is why you heard me talking about a primus pilus.’
Pavo’s eyes darted, then he laughed wearily. ‘You’re leading on some poor officer with a tent in the principia so you can keep an eye on the Speculatores?’
She nodded haughtily.
‘Not leading him on too much?’ he cocked an eyebrow.
‘The more he wants it, the more I can get away with,’ she winked. ‘But he is gone for now – off to the Shipka Pass.’
Pavo felt the jealousy crumble away. But she was playing a dangerous game. ‘Felicia, you are putting yourself right on the end of their daggers. You know only too well what they are capable of.’
She seemed to sense a lecture was forthcoming and cupped his groin. ‘And you know only too well what I am capable of,’ she said in that throaty voice, casting her hair back from one shoulder to reveal the smooth skin of her neck, and letting the side of her robe fall to reveal a full, pert breast.
Pavo felt his worries scatter at the sight. At once, her robe was thrown to the floor and Pavo’s loincloth joined it. They fell back on the bed, entwined, tasting each other’s warm flesh. It had been so long for him with only dreams of her. Now he thought of nothing else other than making this moment last. As they thrust into one another voraciously, he forgot all that was going on around him. The Speculatores, the Gothic War, the precarious mountain passes that held Fritigern’s hordes back like a weak dam and the search for Dexion! Instead, he felt only pure, lustful intoxication.
They erupted in a shared cry of delight and fell back, panting. A sweet heady spell of contentment swept over them both and he lay there with her, their hands clasped, his thoughts drifting, spinning. She rested her head on his chest and he heard her sigh weakly. He traced a finger across her skin, soothing her. Moments later, she was asleep. And the effect was catching, it seemed, as Pavo felt his thoughts slip away from him. They tumbled through a nonsensical jumble of the day’s marching chatter, and off into the blackness of the past.
And he was there again. The Augusteum’s foully hot summer air wafting around him. The bite of the shackle on his ankle. The stink of the rich heckling and bartering to own him. The hollow certainty that slavery was to be his lot. Then, behind the sea of sweating faces . . . the shadow in the colonnade, watching him, watching and waiting . . . but for what?
He woke with a start, the dream-world fading as it was replaced by the ceiling of Felicia’s tent and the damp, musty air of the Great Northern Camp. Felicia moaned and shuffled a little. Pavo tried not to disturb her any further, but his thoughts began to gather again like dark clouds. He swept the most troublesome thought of the shadow man away, knowing well that it would be back to plague him soon enough anyway. His next thought was rather pointedly of the shrew, Lucilla. Should she come back to the tent whilst he lay, genitals on show, she might finally get her wish to harvest his balls with the scalpel. Shaken by the thought, he sat up and tied the towel Felicia had given him around his waist, taking care to make sure his crotch was well and truly covered.
‘What’s wrong?’ she muttered sleepily by his side, stroking his back.
‘Nothing. But I’d best be getting back to the contubernium. Evening curfew can’t be far away and Gallus is not in a mood to be vexed.’ He stood up as he spoke, crouching only to fold the blanket over Felicia’s naked form, stroking her hair. ‘Tomorrow, we have three new cohorts of men to add to the legion. I’ll be a true optio once more.’
‘Still an utter fool, though,’ she muttered mischievously, turning her back on him.
‘Just promise me that you’ll not act on these suspicions of yours until we’ve spoken again and planned what to do?’
‘Yes, Pavo. Goodnight, Pavo.’
He grinned at her pluck, then stood to leave, reaching for the tent flap. But a question sprung to mind and he swung back to her. ‘This tribunus you’ve been flattering. What’s his name?’
She yawned, then sighed. ‘You’re still here?’
‘Felicia?’ Pavo insisted.
‘Dexion,’ she said. ‘His name’s Dexion.’
Pavo’s stomach fell away.
The buccinas sounded around the Great Northern Camp, signalling evening curfew. Gallus wondered if any within this shambles of a camp would heed it at all.
‘Wine, Tribunus?’ Barzimeres asked, patting the jug on the table between them.
Gallus shook his head wordlessly.
‘It’s not the foul stuff they press out there. This is a fine Gallic, tart and warming!’
Gallus glanced past the jug, past the white-robed Barzimeres and around the tall, spacious tent. ‘I have enough problems to make my head ache intolerably, Tribunus, without flooding it with that poison.’
Barzimeres curled his bottom lip, stroked his tuft beard and shrugged. ‘So be it.’ He sat back, groaning and cracking his knuckles, then clasping his hands across his ample gut – no longer well hidden behind a cui
rass. ‘So earlier in the day, you seemed to have some issues with the running of my camp?’
Gallus could not contain a snort. ‘You are a military man,’ he said. Of sorts, he added in his mind. ‘Don’t you take issue with what you see out there? Drunks staggering to and fro, women crawling from tent to tent like some open-air brothel, not a whiff of works going on,’ he hesitated, glowering at the new bronze breastplate, now hanging on the altogether more impressive torso of a timber figurine with his bronze-winged helm and the rest of his armour and weapons, ‘at least, not useful works.’
Barzimeres’ eyebrows flicked up at this, as if he had just been insulted by some spiteful youth. He reached forward to tear a strip of meat from the roast hare on the table, tossing it into his mouth. ‘When Saturninus led the latest reinforcements to the Shipka pass, he left me in command. Me.’ His expression darkened, the guttering candlelight struggling to illuminate his sunken eyes as he leaned forward towards Gallus. ‘I find myself in charge of some seven thousand men. A patchwork of legionaries. The broken remains of Ad Salices. Comitatenses in groups of just a few hundred. Limitanei like yourselves in tiny bands of just ten or twenty. Their comrades had died on the field by the willows, and the imperial borders they had known for years lay broken. I formed them into seven groups of a thousand. Now they are legions in their own right, just like the five defending the mountain passes. But my seven legions found their confidence weakened, sitting here like goats in a pen, waiting for the call to march north into the mountains to reinforce whichever pass had suffered the most casualties in the latest Gothic push. They were silent, pensive . . . terrified.’ He sat back, his menacing expression fading and his tone lightening. ‘So I let them live here as they would in their homes. Now what you see out there is a group of men who know only pleasure and happiness. They do not dwell on the fate that awaits them at the passes unnecessarily. Leadership is not just about leading men,’ he waved a finger as if training a dog, ‘it is about managing the minds of those men. Their hopes, fears and expectations.’
Barzimeres fell silent. Gallus’ brow bent into a frown as the man tilted his head to one side, eyebrows raised. Then he realised that the bearded officer was waiting on Gallus to click – to understand his precious wisdom, and no doubt to congratulate him on it.
‘They are legionaries as relaxed as I have ever seen, Tribunus,’ he said at last. Barzimeres nodded and gazed into the distance at this, smiling haughtily. ‘Indeed,’ Gallus added swiftly, ‘I had trouble picking out the soldiers from the pig-handlers. Now, what of the palisades?’
Barzimeres’ grin faded and the sour look returned. ‘The rain has been incessant over the mountains for three weeks now. The palisade stakes sunk in the deluge and the ditches and ramparts crumbled. They were a hindrance to our foragers and to our supply carts so we used the palisades for cooking fires and filled in the ditches.’
‘Have you considered what might happen if there is a Gothic attack on this camp?’ Gallus continued.
It was Barzimeres’ turn to snort. ‘No. No more than I worry myself over the boil that grows on my arse. The five passes are secure, Tribunus. The mountains either side of them are far taller and more impassable than the walls of Constantinople. Any Goth who seeks to scale and pass over those jagged, rocky peaks will find himself lost in the bleak heights, or lying, legs shattered in some unseen gully.’ He tore a handful of grapes free and crammed them into his mouth. ‘The carrion crows would feast upon them while they still lived!’ he roared with laughter.
Gallus nodded. It was true that the Haemus Mountains were a perfect barrier to prevent Fritigern’s hordes from moving south. ‘Then what if the Goths were to journey east, around the mountains, or if – just if – one of the passes was to fall?’
Barzimeres’ laughter faded and he gazed at Gallus with glazed and mirthful eyes, then erupted once more in a fit of hilarity. ‘If the Goths tried to come round the mountains to the east,’ he chuckled, ‘then they would face the forces stationed there . . . and we would receive word of it weeks before they reached us here. Weeks!’
‘And if one of the passes were to fall?’ Gallus reiterated the rest of his question.
‘They will not, Tribunus,’ Barzimeres sighed, growing weary of Gallus’ questioning now. ‘We have held them since spring. Six months have come and gone and Fritigern’s dogs have failed to break through. They have succeeded only in breaking great packs of their finest warriors on the walls and palisades we have built there. Indeed, their last attack was nearly a month ago. They are giving up hope now, surely.’
‘But what if-’ Gallus persisted.
‘If the Goths did break through?’ Barzimeres cut him off, his heckles rising. ‘Then they would be rushing into the maw of a trap. They would flood south, aye – to the river!’ he shot out a finger towards the dull babble of the Tonsus outside. ‘Over on its northern banks what would they do then? Gaze desirously across its swollen waters at our camp as they realise they can barely get within bowshot of our tents here on these southern banks? Maybe they would drink their fill. They would be wise to, for it would be their last. The armies at the other four passes would fall back and onto their rear, pin them against the riverside . . . and crush them!’ he smacked a fist into his palm as he said this, then gulped more wine.
Gallus weighed the man’s logic. There was some logic in there, but the flaws leapt out at him like flashing blades. ‘If that was a viable tactic, then surely Saturninus would have arranged it already.’
‘Hmm?’ Barzimeres grunted, clearly having consigned the argument to his ‘victory’ pile, a rivulet of wine running down his overly-groomed beard and staining his white robes.
‘If enticing the Goths south and onto the riverbanks, as you suggest, was workable, would your magister equitum not already have done this – feigned the fall of one of the passes? Perhaps he might lose a few hundred soldiers, but to corral and defeat Fritigern’s hordes as you suggest that would be a cheap price to pay.’
‘Ah,’ Barzimeres swiped a hand through the air. ‘Saturninus is a timid, diffident fellow. Some fool tied him to a sword and shoved him into command. He loves combat only when he has a sturdy wall between himself and the enemy. He knows nothing but that which I tell him.’ He jabbed a finger into his chest as if to reinforce the point. ‘Yet he is still too craven to act upon my advice.’
Gallus let this bone of contention lie. There would be no convincing him that his glorious plan was folly. He sought another tack. ‘And when the rains stop, are you so sure the Goths would be halted by the river?’
Barzimeres’ face was ruddy like the wine now. ‘Why wouldn’t they be?’
‘The swollen river is broad and fierce, but only as long as the rains fall. When this bout of rain slows and stops, the Tonsus returns to being little more than a glorified brook – was it not so in the summer?’
Barzimeres’ lips twitched, devoid of a riposte.
‘And if winter brings ice, then it presents a solid, unbroken walkway for an army to march across, does it not?’
Barzimeres’ eyes widened with Gallus’ every word. ‘Well, we will act accordingly if that happens. The palisades will be re-erected. I have a tower on the riverbank watching for any signs of danger – be it from enemy soldiers or from Terra Mater herself.’
‘And will your men remember how to dig a ditch, how to line up atop the ramparts, how to hurl a volley of darts at an onrushing enemy?’
Barzimeres bridled at this interrogation, and suddenly shot to standing. ‘You think I do not know how to instil discipline in my men? Have you seen my Cornutii, my Scutarii?’
‘I saw them. I also noticed how they choose to camp further along the riverbank in small palisade forts of their own. The rest of this rabble remain here in this disgrace of a camp and uphold your command only because they can do as they please. They do not respect you, sir.’
‘I think you need a lesson in respect, Tribunus,’ Barzimeres raged then grabbed and unfurled a scroll ly
ing on the map table. ‘Saturninus sent a messenger today, asking for reinforcements at the Shipka Pass. He specifically asks for men who know the region north of the passes well.’
Gallus felt the balance of the conversation turning.
‘Your lot know Moesia well, do you not?’ Barzimeres’ features wrinkled as he grinned in victory. ‘Tomorrow, you will march faster and harder than ever before to the Shipka Pass redoubt. My Cornutii and I will lead the way and show you just how much skill I expect from my soldiers.’
‘But my new cohorts,’ Gallus interjected.
‘While you are gone, I can have my best men muster your precious cohorts,’ Barzimeres purred, slumping back in his chair like a contented cat.
Gallus’ nose wrinkled at the reek of stale wine on Barzimeres’ breath. The only sound in the tent was of his teeth grinding like rocks.
Pavo stumbled back to the tent, his head spinning like a drunk’s. He barely noticed the squelching mud nor thought of the missed curfew. His eyes traced the etching on his leather bracelet again and again.
Hostus Vitellius Dexion.
He had made Felicia repeat his name, his full name, countless times.
‘You are sure?’ he had gasped even when she became angry at his questioning.
‘I told you,’ Felicia had insisted, ‘he’s at the Shipka Pass and has been for three weeks.’
She had only relented in her ire when he showed her the bracelet. Her eyes had widened as she read the etching upon it. In the silence that followed, he told her everything about those final moments when Father had tied the leather band onto his wrist. ‘Dexion is my brother,’ he had whispered to her.
‘Optio?’ a voice cut through his thoughts.
‘Sir!’ Pavo half-yelped, seeing that Gallus’ and his paths had crossed. His thoughts scrambled to conjure some excuse, but his mind was in pieces.
‘What’s wrong, Optio?’ Gallus asked, the expected rebuke not coming.
Legionary: The Scourge of Thracia (Legionary 4) Page 7
