‘Not broke, as such, sir. The door was unlocked.’
‘So they are secretly gathering weapons in a barn, but don’t bother to lock it? Sounds to me like there’s no secret to this. You’re jumping at shadows, Convocus.’
‘Sir, this is serious. There’s something going on here.’
‘There is,’ snapped the general, rounding on him. ‘The Ibelli and the other fen peoples are proud and touchy. It would not do to rile them. And they keep lesser local tribes in line by the threat of war. Of course they have weapons and a lot of them. They are a warlike people, tribune. The whole island are warriors, and too much trouble can easily get a man killed. Even my mother knew how to handle a sword. She almost decapitated my father at their first meeting. At the moment my cousin’s people are playing our game, supporting us – allied to us – but it might not take too much to turn them against us. And you, Convocus, are exactly the sort of man that’s going to push them away and make an enemy of the Ibelli. An enemy we really do not need, since most of the island will be arrayed against us.’
‘Sir –’
‘No,’ the general said flatly. ‘In fact, given your propensity for trouble, Convocus, I think it would be best to keep you occupied and away from the natives. I fear there are hiccups in our supplies, since the olive oil for my bread has not yet arrived. I would like the entire legion’s supply line checking and easing. Take two units of cavalry and ride back along our route. Check each stage of the supply depots as far as the river. If there seems to be no problem along there, you’ll have to keep going across the river and back to the landing site on the south coast.’
‘Sir, the supplies are fine. It’s only a few luxuries and the odd cart that have been delayed or waylaid. This is important.’
‘I will not have you causing a diplomatic incident. My cousin is being more accommodating than we could ever hope for and you are bent on ruining it all. Now gather your men and go check my supply lines. Find my oil and I might be moved to forgive the way you burst into my tent at the arse end of dawn with spurious tales of secret armouries.’
Convocus opened his mouth to argue, but realised from his expression that the general was actually holding himself back. Another word, and Crito might well have him chained or demoted. He bowed and retreated from the room, grinding his teeth. At least when whatever was going to happen happened, he would be away from the town.
Chapter 9
‘Captain?’
In response to the call, the officer allowed his horse to drop back, stepping her carefully sideways to the edge of the causeway, watching the slope lest they slip into the fen with disastrous consequences. The cavalrymen continued to walk their beasts past as the captain waited for the tribune to catch up.
‘Sir?’
‘I have reached a decision, Captain. I don’t think you’ll like it much, but you don’t have to, and it won’t trouble you directly.’
‘Sir?’ The captain looked worried. He probably had a right to, but Convocus had been thinking about the situation for the past five or six miles and had decided that checking on the general’s oil stock was a pathetic waste of his time. He and his friends had been assigned by Titus and the emperor to prevent potential disasters caused by the unpredictable nature of these generals, and a duty to the emperor outranked an order from the legion’s commander.
‘You are fully briefed on our task, yes, Captain?’
‘A rather feeble one, sir, if you don’t mind me saying. To check on the supply lines, secure and organise them and find the general’s missing carts. Not the job for a decorated captain and his veteran cavalry. Or a tribune like yourself, sir,’ he added, almost as an afterthought.
Convocus smiled.
‘My thoughts precisely. I’m afraid, though, that that is exactly what you are to do. You will take both squads of riders south along the lines as per our orders and solve these minor issues. I, however, will not be joining you.’
‘Sir?’
‘I am taking six of your men on a scouting trip.’
‘Sir, the general said –’
‘Are you aware of the chain of command, Captain?’
‘Of course I am, sir.’
‘Then you are aware that I take my orders from the general. You take your orders from me. Your men take theirs from you. My orders to you are for you to take all but six men and continue on our mission.’
‘Sir, if the general finds out –’
‘Then that will be my problem to solve, will it not? You will have obeyed the orders of your direct superior and cannot be held to account for my diversion from the plan. Now continue on your mission and good luck, Captain. With good fortune, perhaps you will achieve your goals in a matter of a few days and return to camp. Who knows, I may yet meet up with you. But I feel that the army has not made sufficient use of scouts to learn of our surroundings, and I intend to remedy that. Now be on your way, Captain.’
‘Sir, I don’t like this.’
‘Noted. Goodbye.’
Convocus watched with a straight, even dour, face as the worried captain detailed six men to remain, and then moved off with the pack horses, heading for the first supply depot which had been left with a complement of five men at the very edge of Ibelli lands. The tribune watched them go until the riders passed out of sight around one of the sporadic copses of trees, which occupied a low rise amid the fens.
‘Sir, we are not scouts,’ noted one of the six cavalrymen nervously. ‘Not wishing to cause trouble, Tribune, but we’re soldiers. We don’t know the tribes or the language and we don’t know any more about how to survive in these lands alone than any other soldier.’
Convocus nodded. ‘Worry not, man. We’ll not be far from the army at Venta. There are just a few things I want to check out. A few hundred paces back we passed a junction, where another large causeway branched off east. To my understanding there is not much north or east of Venta but native villages and marshes. So why such a major causeway? We’ll be taking that route and seeing where it leads us, since a road that size was clearly designed to lead somewhere. I know that the Ibelli are officially our allies but now that there are just seven of us, if you have any sense, you’re asking yourself just how much we can trust them. Well, as we pass through their lands, I suspect we’ll find that out. They seem to be perfectly content to have us camped precisely where they put us in plain sight, but what they will think to us wandering freely in their lands might be a different matter entirely. Now be wary and keep your senses sharp.’
Leaving the men looking a lot less certain than they had for days, he wheeled his horse and began to ride back towards the junction. A moment later the riders were behind him.
What he had not mentioned in his little chat with them was the fact that he judged that barn-armoury to be somewhere out to the east of the settlement. By the time they arrived in the vicinity of Venta it would be noon, and the mist would have burned off. With any luck he would be able to spot the barn and investigate further without having to disturb the general and the locals and go through the town.
The general would, of course, go mad at him when he found out what had happened, but Convocus was reasonably confident that a carefully worded reminder of who had assigned him to this legion in the first place would save him from being disciplined. Not a move he would care to pull too often, but if the worst came to the worst he felt it would save him at least once.
It was a slow and careful ride, and two hours passed as the seven horsemen made their way back along the eastern branch of the causeway. At one point, Convocus felt sure he could see a familiar lone tree landmark he recognised from the earlier journey off in the distance to the west. If he was right, that would put them about a mile and a half south of Venta and more than a mile to the east on a causeway that ran roughly parallel to the original one.
He watched carefully as they moved on north and a little east. A distant mass identified the location of Venta, though he couldn’t quite work out where the barn was from this a
ngle. Perhaps it was further north after all? There were seemingly endless little islands with ramshackle structures on them, as well as narrow pathways through the reeds. Here and there they spotted a fisherman in a coracle, who looked back suspiciously but did nothing else.
Sometime after what he thought was noon from the position of the sun, they passed from the causeway onto a low area of solid land, reminiscent of very gentle, low-lying sand dunes. Vegetation here increased from the occasional lost-looking stand of trees and the ever-present reeds. Here were proper thickets and bushes and hedges.
Convocus hadn’t realised how much he’d missed real land until they were on it again. As they moved onto the precious land and spread out a little, Convocus pondered the situation. The town of Venta lay a couple of miles west now, and probably half a mile back behind them too. They would have to find a more solid way across the fens to it than the small walkways if they wished to ride, else it would be a matter of leaving the horses here and going on foot. Having almost slipped off one such path that morning, he had no wish to try and lead a horse along one.
Clucking his tongue irritably, he continued on north, keeping an eye out to his left for another causeway.
He was so busy, in fact, watching out for another way west that they almost blundered into danger.
One of the cavalrymen hissed at him and jerked his mount to a halt. The tribune stopped sharp in response, frowned and followed the man’s gesture to see the edge of a settlement ahead, smoke rising from houses and a general ambient noise of urban life.
Around a stand of trees, they could just see the periphery of what had to be a coastal village, from the wide rippling estuary beyond. Convocus was off the side of the rough track they’d been following a moment later, disappearing into the lee of the trees along with his six men.
‘You four,’ he pointed at some of the men, ‘stay here and watch the horses. You two come with me.’
Sliding from his saddle, he dropped to the ground and then spent a few moments dancing about, pushing life back into numb legs and stretching muscles he hadn’t used much all morning. Once he felt a little more limber and the two riders had joined him, he beckoned and moved through the trees towards that settlement.
‘Why are we sneaking, sir?’ whispered one of the men. ‘Aren’t they our allies?’
‘Of that I’m still none too sure. I’ll let you know shortly.’
With the two riders following on, he dipped between trees and jumped a small stream, moving steadily northeast. They had only caught the edge of the village in sight before hiding themselves, and how much might be revealed when they could see the whole thing, he didn’t know. One thing he was certain of was that these locals had something to hide, and he was determined to find out what it was.
A short while later, the three men rounded a thicket of elder and ducked behind a low bush. The coastal settlement lay less than fifty paces away now, exposed in full.
Convocus almost bit through his tongue.
‘Will you look at that,’ hissed one of the cavalrymen.
‘The sneaky bastards,’ whispered the other in return.
All the tribune could do was nod. The settlement was more than any mere fishing village. The edge they had seen was just the mere periphery. From there, as the town marched east along a wide inlet that was part of some great estuary, what greeted them was nothing less than a full port – a dockside with a dozen jetties that more resembled an imperial military installation than a native fishing village. And the one thing that drove the nails into the coffin of the tribune’s suspicion was the ships.
More than twenty vessels sat at those jetties, and each and every one could be nothing else but a pirate. These were the very ships that had been raiding the imperial coastline, as well as the seaboard of southern Alba. The Ibelli were the damn pirates. The same menace that had started this entire problem and led to the invasion in the first place. And yet these were supposedly an ally who were playing host to an imperial legion.
Once more the idea occurred to Convocus that what could be a thoroughly defensive town would also make an incredibly effective prison.
‘This is not good. Not good at all. If they’re been hiding something as important as this from us, as well as that weapon cache I found, then what the hell else are they hiding? I think the Raven Legion’s in real danger.’
This time – for the first time since they had crossed the great river, in fact – the men around Convocus seemed to agree with him, rather than regarding him as an alarmist malcontent.
‘What do we do, sir?’
What should they do? Seven men couldn’t make much difference to a fleet of pirates in a fight.
‘We get back to Venta and speak to the general. He might not have listened to me before, but he can’t ignore something this big. His cousin is the very damned enemy we came here because of. There’s no time to find a main causeway. We leave the horses here to graze and move along the small pathways to the town. It can’t be more than two miles. Come on.’
* * *
Half an hour later, having explained the situation to the disbelieving cavalrymen back at the woods, they had abandoned their steeds, armed themselves adequately, and forged on foot along one of the narrow pathways through the fens. In places, these paths were little more than a foot wide, and the dismounted horsemen were forced to keep a careful watch on the ground as they moved, lest they slip sideways.
The going was slow, in single file, and a dozen times in twice as many minutes they had found themselves turned around and heading in the wrong direction or at a dead end where there was just a timber seat left by some fisherman. Each time, they had to backtrack and find a different path. One of the cavalrymen had wondered whether they could just walk across parts of the fens. In answer, Convocus had pulled a long, narrow branch off one of the spindly trees they kept passing and pushed it down into the water and the unresisting silt until his knuckles touched the water, answering that question.
Another idea was to steal a local’s coracle. The tribune pointed out the threefold problem with that.
One: no coracles in evidence.
Two: No more than two men could fit in one, and really only one for safety.
Three: The waterways would be as labyrinthine as the paths anyway.
And so they forged on. Here and there they passed local shacks that seemed to be deserted. They’d not pried too closely, of course, preferring to move on unannounced if at all possible.
An hour or so after they’d entered the fens, they seemed to be closing on Venta. The looming shapes of the buildings were visible some distance across the water, but that was not the thing that stopped Convocus. He halted in his tracks suddenly, and the cavalryman behind him almost bumped into him, righting himself desperately with a foot sinking into the silty water.
‘What is it, sir?’
‘I know this place.’
He picked up the pace, jogging along the last stretch of the dangerous, narrow track and emerging onto the small island, running up to the barn. The dismounted cavalry were still with him, one of them with a soggy foot and a colourful vocabulary.
‘What’s this place, sir?’
‘Trouble,’ Convocus replied, hurrying over to the door. ‘Come on. Let’s take some evidence to help when I confront the general. His hand gripped the door, snicked the latch and swung the portal back open. His eyes adjusted once more to the gloom within.
‘What is it, sir?’ asked an eager voice behind.
‘More and more trouble. Shit, shit, shit.’
He stepped inside and the others followed him. ‘A boat, sir.’
‘That’s not the problem,’ Convocus replied. ‘About six or seven hours ago, this place held enough weapons to arm a legion. This is bad, lads. Very bad.’
A rustling noise caught his attention, and he gestured to the men, sending three off to each side, as they moved towards the boat.
‘Na harit,’ called a nervous voice from the boat. A figure slowly
rose from within, and Convocus studied him briefly. Too old to be an effective warrior, he was a fisherman, at a guess. Probably the owner of the boat… and therefore also of the barn.
‘Where are the weapons?’
‘Na impor,’ the man said, and shrugged.
‘He doesn’t speak our language,’ one of the men noted, rather unnecessarily.
‘Sounds like he knows a little. Let’s see how much.’
The seven men closed on the boat, and the native held up his hands in surrender.
‘Ha harit.’
‘Harit. Hurt. No hurt.’ Convocus nodded. ‘He knows enough to save his skin.’ And to the fisherman as two of the soldiers hauled him from the boat and pushed him to his knees between them: ‘weapons.’ He pointed to his sword and those of the men to either side. ‘Weapons. Here.’ He pointed at the walls and the boat.
‘Sard. Sard orro. Go.’
‘I know they’re gone,’ Convocus snapped impatiently. ‘What I want to know is where? Who took them?’
‘Go. Fart.’
One of the cavalrymen lowered his face as he sniggered rather incongruously.
‘Shut up, man,’ snapped the tribune. ‘He doesn’t mean fart. He means fight. They’ve gone to fight. Who are they, and who are they fighting?’
‘Ibelli.’
‘I’d guessed that much.’
‘Dobani. Senteri.’
‘I don’t know who they are.’
The cavalryman to his left cleared his throat. ‘The Dobani are the tribe to the south of here that we passed through on the way. I think the Senteri are a small coastal people near there too. Sounds like they’ve gone to put down troublesome neighbours, sir.’
Convocus shook his head. ‘No. I looked in the eyes of these Dobani as we passed. They hate us. They’re utterly cowed already by the Ibelli. If they weren’t, they’d have attacked us on the march. The Ibelli haven’t taken the swords to go and attack the Dobani and the Senteri. It’s far worse. The Ibelli and the Dobani and the Senteri were here, arming themselves.’
Invasion (Tales of the Empire Book 5) Page 12
