The Wolf's Gold: Empire V

by Anthony Riches

  Arminius grimaced.

  ‘In truth, it was the prince’s tame Selgovae monster who did most of the dispossessing . . .’

  Marcus raised an eyebrow at Martos, who nodded in agreement.

  ‘It was a sight you would have enjoyed, Centurion. Lugos just took the jar from Morban and then put a hand on his head to hold him off at arm’s length until he got bored of trying to get it back.’

  The Roman smiled quietly at the way in which the Selgovae giant had quietly and patiently become a regular companion to the Votadini prince during their long march to the east, despite the burning hatred his friend still felt for Lugos’s tribe after their betrayal by the Selgovae’s king Calgus. He nodded, looking hopefully at the jar.

  ‘If you have any wine left . . .’

  A cup was passed, and Marcus drank a mouthful of the rich wine.

  ‘You left the boy with your wife?’

  He nodded at Martos’s question.

  ‘He fell asleep next to Appius’s cot, and I didn’t have the heart to wake him. It must be hard on him to have travelled all this way from home without the company of anyone his own age.’

  The men around the fire nodded, and for a moment there was silence as each of them considered the boy’s isolation within the cohort’s hard world. After a moment Lugos stood up on the far side of the brazier, passing Marcus his swords with a bow and a rumble of explanation.

  ‘Have made sharp.’

  Arminius snorted out a bark of laughter, pointing at the weapon in disbelief.

  ‘You sharpened those?’

  The enormous Briton shrugged easily, as resolute as ever in failing to take offence at the rough humour of his fellows.

  ‘No blade ever too sharp.’ He looked at the weapon resting on the Roman’s knee with a reverential expression. ‘Is sword fit for mighty god Cocidius himself.’

  Marcus returned the bow with a gentle smile.

  ‘My thanks for your efforts, Lugos. As you say, a sword can never be too sharp.’

  Arminius snorted again.

  ‘Even a blade that was forged so keen that it will cut through a shield as if the board were made from parchment?’

  The massive Briton answered on Marcus’s behalf, his expression foreboding in the fire’s half-light.

  ‘Centurion need sharp iron soon. This place be watch from hills around. Lugos feels eyes.’

  The Roman looked at Martos and Arminius, and found both men nodding in agreement. The Votadini prince spoke first.

  ‘We all feel them, Centurion. Our enemy, whoever they may be, is close at hand. This place will know a bloody day soon enough.’

  2

  The detachment’s officers gathered in Tribune Belletor’s new headquarters soon after sunrise to meet with the mining complex’s procurator, the man charged with extracting the maximum possible output of gold from the mines whose entrances pocked the valley’s hillsides. The centurions had climbed up the road from their camp to the straggling town of Alburnus Major, casting disapproving glances at the seedy drinking establishments and whorehouses that seemed to be the town’s major form of commerce. Now they were crowded into the headquarters’ briefing room, listening intently as the mine’s administrator briefed them on the valley’s value to the empire.

  Procurator Maximus was a tall, painfully thin man with a half-starved look about him that Marcus found slightly disquieting in the company of so many heavily muscled soldiers as he watched the man from the back of the room. The detachment’s senior officers stood closest to him as he went through an obviously well-practised explanation of the mine’s operation. Scaurus carefully positioned himself a half-pace behind his colleague and superior Belletor, who was wearing the smug expression of a man who felt in complete control of his situation and was unable to keep that knowledge from his face. The youngest of the three senior officers stood at Belletor’s other shoulder, his tunic decorated with a thick purple senatorial stripe identical to that of his colleague’s, and in obvious contrast to Scaurus’s thinner equestrian line. Marcus was watching him with careful glances, being sure not to stare at the man for very long so as not to draw attention to himself. Scaurus had told his centurions to form an opinion of the youngest tribune before they had set off for the meeting.

  ‘Keep a good eye on young Sigilis, gentlemen, and take his measure now while you have the leisure to do so. You may find yourself under his command if I fail in this continual struggle not to break my esteemed colleague’s nose, so you might as well try to understand what sort of man he is now, rather than the first time you find yourselves taking orders from him.’

  Marcus observed the young tribune carefully, taking good care to keep a man between them and watch from the shadows so as not to attract his attention in return. His main impression of Lucius Carius Sigilis was that of his younger self, albeit seen from the far side of the chasm that had opened between himself and Roman society with his family’s mass execution on a false charge of treason raised by the shadowy men behind the emperor, in order to clear the way for the confiscation of their huge wealth. Watching the tribune through the throng of men between them, he realised that the confident set of the young man’s face was achingly familiar. Sigilis was clearly possessed of the same utter self-belief that had been his in the months before his uncomprehending flight to Britain. They were so alike, and yet . . . Marcus smiled darkly to himself, musing on the barbarian uprising that had swept northern Britannia soon after his arrival. The Tungrians’ first desperate battles to survive in the face of the revolt’s ferocity had been the fire in which he had been transformed from son of privilege to capable centurion, his former prejudices and expectations of life burned away in the white heat of a succession of pitched battles. He wrenched his attention back to the procurator’s words, shaking his head slightly to dispel the memories.

  ‘And so I welcome you all to the Ravenstone valley, gentlemen, and to our mining colony of Alburnus Major. I have roughly five thousand miners currently engaged in extraction and refining processes, working for three investors who fund the necessary resource and expertise, and who in turn take a share of the profits of our enterprise. Most of our mining operations are below ground these days, since the potential for surface mining is all but done, and that makes the process much more laborious and labour-intensive. What with digging into the mountains to find the gold-bearing rock, processing the ore to extract its gold, ventilation to keep the miners alive and hundreds of men working day and night to drain off the water from the mines . . . well, I can assure you that it’s all very costly.’

  He beamed at the gathered officers knowingly.

  ‘I can however, also assure you gentlemen that it’s very much worth the expense. My last posting as a Procurator of Mines was in Mount Marianus in Spain, and we were lucky if we dug out ten pounds of gold a day. Here in Alburnus Major we’re averaging ninety pounds of gold per day, which makes the mines hugely profitable by comparison. That’s over thirty thousand pounds a year without any sign of the seams thinning out. There is said to be enough gold in these mountains to pave a road from here to the Forum in Rome itself, and I can well believe it.’ He looked around the room with a portentous expression. ‘Which means that the loss of this facility would have the direst implications for the imperial treasury.’

  ‘Not to mention his career.’

  Ignoring Julius’s whispered comment, Marcus focussed his attention on the procurator, who was still speaking.

  ‘So you see, gentlemen, my original request to the governor for some soldiers to back up my own security force wasn’t made lightly. I have men from just about every province in the north-eastern portion of the empire working in this valley, and from pretty much every one of the tribes beyond our northern frontier for that matter, and there is no real way to be certain of their loyalty to the empire. I don’t doubt that among them will be a few spies sent in by the Sarmatae to wait until the time is right and then guide their warriors through the mountains to fall upon us without
warning or mercy. It was something of a surprise when Legatus Albinus chose to withdraw his men from the valley, even if we did have the report that you were only a few days away.’ He looked about him with an expression of relief that to Marcus’s eye appeared in no way feigned, and spread his hands to encompass the gathering. ‘But here you are. Alburnus Major is safe again, and just in time if your encounter with enemy scouts on the road yesterday is any guide. Might I ask how you plan to establish the appropriate degree of security for my mines?’

  The question was directed at Belletor, who started slightly, then scratched at his bearded chin in the manner of a man deep in thought.

  ‘Well, ah . . .’

  The silence stretched out just long enough to be vaguely embarrassing and then, just as every man present was weighing up how best to speak up without making the young tribune look foolish, Scaurus’s voice broke the silence.

  ‘I would imagine that my colleague’s careful thought is attributable to his desire not to provide embarrassment to the previous defenders, even in their absence. The Thirteenth Gemina Legion was responsible for the defence of the valley until recently, I believe?’

  The procurator nodded knowingly, and Belletor’s face assumed the appropriately neutral cast of a man who had indeed been searching for a way to critique the mine’s defences without criticising his predecessors.

  ‘They were, Tribune Scaurus, and your superior is right to avoid offering offence to their deeds here, even in their absence. Although when they were recalled to Apulum to concentrate with the other cohorts of the legion I was forced to note that they left us without either manpower or physical defences to protect the emperor’s gold against the Sarmatae, other than the few men I employ to guard my strongroom.’

  Scaurus nodded his understanding.

  ‘Knowing that we were only days distant, I would imagine that the legatus commanding the Thirteenth considered this an acceptable gamble. You’ve seen no sign of any threat from the hills to the north and west, I presume?’ Maximus shook his head. ‘I thought not. Which means that the main body of the enemy must be sufficiently distant for them to have to be content with scouting around the valley. In that case, I believe that we should proceed with Tribune Belletor’s plan for the valley’s defence. The tribune and I discussed this matter at some length yesterday, and I find myself in full accordance with his plan. Perhaps I might outline your thoughts, Domitius Belletor?’

  Marcus sneaked a glance at Cattanius to find the soldier’s face a study in self-control. Arminius had confided in him that Scaurus had talked with the legion man until long after the lamps had been lit the previous evening, gleaning as much information as he could as to the dispositions and contingency plans of the previous garrison. The beneficiarius had clearly realised that the answers he had given would be at the root of the tribune’s thinking. Belletor nodded graciously, a hint of relief on his face.

  ‘By all means, colleague.’

  Scaurus’s face hardened in concentration, and the men standing around him gathered a little closer in subconscious recognition of the real military authority in the room.

  ‘In simple terms, this facility is basically a four-mile-long valley with one end open and the other closed by two successive mountains which rise to heights over a thousand feet above the plain. The valley walls rise to much the same height, and there appears to be only one route in that isn’t either straight up the road that runs along the valley floor from the west, or over steep and easily defended peaks on the valley walls with excellent fields of view. It’s worth noting that the mining activity is mainly concentrated in the area of the mountains at the closed eastern end.’

  Procurator Maximus nodded.

  ‘Indeed Tribune, that’s much as the Thirteenth Legion’s tribune described it.’

  ‘In which case, there are two main defensive measures necessary. Firstly, we must be ready to repel a strong attack up the valley floor. The Sarmatae might well muster a force of many thousands of men to attack a prize as rich as this, many of them mounted, and we’ll have to be ready to fight them off with only the four cohorts you saw come up the road this afternoon. Nobody else is coming to this particular party. And that means we’ll need to build a wall at the valley’s most advantageous point, Procurator. A wall high enough that it can’t be scaled without a ladder, and topped by a stepped fighting platform to allow a relatively small number of men to fight off several times their own strength. Given that the valley’s teeming with strong men I’m assuming that such a construction wouldn’t tax you too badly?’

  The procurator frowned at the suggestion.

  ‘I’m not sure that the various businessmen who work the mines on the empire’s behalf would take well to having their workforces turned away from the mines . . . not to mention the lost revenue to both them and the empire.’

  Scaurus smiled at him, showing his teeth in a fierce grin.

  ‘I have no doubt that you’re right. But as Tribune Belletor was saying to me only yesterday afternoon as we marched into your facility, it might well be better to lose a few days’ income than risk losing the entire mine, not to mention our own lives, wouldn’t you agree? He made the point to me that the man that loses this facility must either fall in its defence or face a rather more protracted death at the hands of a disappointed imperium, and I have to say I can’t fault his logic.’

  Belletor shot him a surprised glance, but kept his mouth shut. The deception Scaurus was weaving around his superior’s supposed views on defending the mine had advanced too far to be gainsaid without more embarrassment than Belletor’s dignity could bear. For his part Scaurus was making the most of his chance to put the procurator straight as to who was in command of the mine’s resources.

  ‘Besides, I’m sure you’re not entirely without leverage over the men you’ve entrusted to extract the empire’s gold? Perhaps you might intimate to these businessmen that their accounts are overdue a particularly thorough audit, unless, of course, the urgency of defending their investments makes such an investigation superfluous?’ He raised an eyebrow at the procurator. ‘I presume there are a variety of stringent penalties open to your discretion, if any of these businessmen is found to have more than his fair share of the profits sticking to his fingers. I can assure you that you’ll find my colleague Domitius Belletor more than sympathetic with any request to assist you in delivering imperial justice under such circumstances.’

  Left with little alternative his fellow tribune nodded his firm agreement, and Scaurus held the procurator’s gaze for a long moment, waiting until the other man acknowledged his point with a slight bow of his head.

  ‘Excellent. So while your partners help the bulk of our men to build this wall to our specifications, the remainder will be conducting repairs on the temporary barracks accommodation to get my men out of their campaign tents and under some sturdier cover. We’ll be needing several dozen wood-burning stoves, which I assume your smiths can turn out easily enough, given they’ll have a temporary respite from making and mending mining tools. And the soldiers who aren’t busy repairing their own accommodation will be standing guard duty in the watchposts up on the peaks, looking out for any sign of a Sarmatae attack over the valley walls, unlikely though that may be. We’ll have your facility laced up as tight as a maiden’s bodice before you know it.’

  He turned to Belletor, whose expression of imperious neutrality had slowly slid into one of slight bemusement as his supposed junior had taken control of the situation.

  ‘That was what you had in mind, colleague?’

  Left without any choice, the younger man nodded graciously, although his face bore an edge of the suspicion that he had in some way been manoeuvred without having any clear understanding as to how or why. Scaurus bowed respectfully, turning to Cattanius with a slight smile.

  ‘I’m gratified to have reflected your thoughts so clearly. And perhaps, with your agreement, we might trouble the beneficiarius here for a better understanding of the enemy we’
re facing?’

  Belletor nodded again, his frown deepening as he realised that the conference had now utterly escaped his control. His colleague Sigilis was clearly working hard to keep his face immobile, but to Marcus’s eye a hint of contempt had entered his expression, although the young man was careful to keep his gaze away from either Belletor or Scaurus. Cattanius stepped forward, clearing his throat with no sign of any discomfort at the size or status of his audience.

  ‘Be under no illusion, gentlemen, our enemy is a proud and noble people. I warn you, if we allow them to use their mobility and fight in their preferred manner we will face almost certain defeat. Their horsemen ride with the skill of men raised in the saddle, and carry a long lance which they call the kontos. Our legionaries have a fighting chance against them in good order, but on the wrong ground, or if the formation has been weakened by their archers, this enemy can be truly murderous. Indeed their prowess was impressive enough to persuade the last emperor to take a legion’s strength of their lancers to serve in Britannia, as part of the peace agreement after we defeated them at the battle of the Frozen River. And now it seems that some part of their nation has decided to turn their backs on that treaty and make war on us again.’

  He related to the gathered officers the story he’d imparted to Scaurus the previous evening about the two Dacian kings, Purta and Boraz, although the tribune noted that he omitted to tell them about the method by which the intelligence had been gathered.

  ‘Our spies tell us that Purta is gathering a warband of thirty thousand men beyond the mountains to the north-west of the fortress at Porolissum. Our auxiliary forts along the border make an obvious initial target for them, after which we expect he’ll be aiming to march down the road to the south-east and knock over the legions one at a time. The governor has given orders that our two Dacian legions are under no circumstances to be separated for fear of losing them individually, and it seems he’s happy enough to give up ground in order to keep his force intact.’