‘Spears …’
Taking one last swift look at the Fifteenth’s formation, reassuring himself that no fool was peering out of a surreptitiously opened gap between two shields that could just as easily admit a thrown spear as a view of the opposition, he took a swift breath and bellowed the fateful order.
‘Throw!’
With a collective grunt that proved that some of them at least had been listening to their trainers when they insisted that a swift exhale would give their throws an extra five paces of distance, his men hurled their spears at the testudoes, not in one movement and with none of the graceful collective arcs that were the hallmark of the best trained cohorts, but all more or less in the same direction and at the same time. With a rattle of wood on leather-covered wood, their thrown weapons hammered into the Fifteenth’s raised shields, which, for the most part, stopped them dead and dropped them to the ground. In a real battle the blades would have caught in the wood and dragged down an enemy’s defences, but for Marius it was enough that the majority of the training spears had flown cleanly to their targets and that from the look of it there had been no worse casualties than a few men hopping around with bruised feet from failing to guard the bottoms of their legs against errant spears. And then, just when he’d breathed a sigh of relief that nothing had gone any more awry, a final spear arced out of his legion’s line, thrown by a soldier who had stumbled at the crucial moment perhaps, regained his footing, gathered himself and thrown his weapon a good two heartbeats after his comrades and, critically, just as the Fifteenth’s defensive formations inevitably started to crack open, with men eager to take their own turn with the spear. Where so many other men had hurled their missiles over the top or to either side of the target, or hammered them ignominiously into the ground in front of the closest testudo, his throw was clean, arcing through the air and whipping through an inopportunely opened gap in the raised shields. For a moment nothing happened, but just as Marius was breathing a fresh sigh of relief, the defensive formation burst open, men scattering from something among them that was evidently the cause of sudden horror. At least one of them bent over and puked his breakfast onto the parade ground, and as their bodies scattered away from whatever it was that had provoked such a reaction, the senior centurion closed his eyes momentarily in recognition of the fact that his morning had just gone from inauspicious to cursed in the blink of an eye.
That evening he attended the legatus’s residence, freshly bathed and shaved, wearing his new best tunic and with his belt and boots waxed and polished to gleaming perfection, and feeling strangely naked without his vine stick and dagger. At the door the newly promoted soldiers from the First Germanica, dressed in gleaming white tunics, and ostentatiously armed with daggers and swords, and with their shields carefully stacked in a corner, searched him with a robust thoroughness verging on the unnecessary before waving him through into the house, where he was met by a steward bearing a tray of wine cups. Recalling Gaius’s suggestion that senior officers probably didn’t drink a cup of wine in one gulp, he sipped at the drink, finding its contents delicious compared to the usual fare on offer in the centurions’ mess. Looking up, he started at the sight of the legatus augusti of the German legions limping towards him, and looked around for someone else who could be the senior officer’s intended conversational victim. Finding himself the only possible objective for the older man’s advance, he braced himself to be thoroughly upbraided for his many and various failings.
‘First Spear Marius!’ The man stuck out a meaty hand and Marius took it, finding his own calloused fingers engulfed in soft flesh. ‘Greetings, Centurion, and well met.’
He took in Marius’s nonplussed expression and laughed.
‘I should formally introduce myself. I’m Legatus Augusti Marcus Hordeonius Flaccus, commander of—’
Marius had snapped to attention, and wine had splashed from the cup and soaked his hand, and quite possibly his new best tunic, but that was of small import when there were formalities to be observed. Flaccus shook his head good-naturedly.
‘No need for formalities, First Spear, save that for the parade ground. Relax.’ He waved to the man with the tray of wine. ‘Here, steward, another cup of wine for my brother in arms!’
Looking down, Marius was gratified to discover that the spilled wine had missed his tunic, but when he looked up at Flaccus again he found that the man’s face had adopted a disconcertingly conspiratorial expression.
‘I have to say I enjoyed the demonstration today. Nicely done, First Spear, nicely done indeed.’ Marius frowned, wondering for a moment whether the legatus was having fun with him. ‘But seriously, there were some truly masterful touches! The soldier who managed to get himself lost, and who ended up trying to join the praetorians. And that incident right at the end, when one of your recruits …’ he winked ostentatiously at Marius, ‘hurled a spear clean through the front of a testudo and killed a man. I presume the casualty has made a swift recovery, and is even now enjoying the fruits of his role as a hapless corpse in some tavern or other …’
‘Legatus Augusti Flaccus, I see you’ve already found my First Spear.’ Both men turned to find Lupercus standing with a cup in his hand. ‘And I see you’ve also both tasted the wine. It’s rather good, if I do say so myself.’
Flaccus beamed at him, raising his own glass in salute.
‘Quite excellent, Munius Lupercus, and from your family estate, I presume? And as I said to the centurion here not a moment ago, there need be no formalities between us soldiers. A straightforward “Hordeonius Flaccus” will suffice this evening. And while I’m on the subject of compliments, I was just extending my congratulations to Marius here…’ he winked at the centurion again, ‘on the conduct of his men this morning. Quite the most artful display of exaggerated incompetence I’ve ever seen, and trust me, I’ve watched some masters of the art display their wares.’
‘Really?’
The older man nodded cheerfully.
‘Oh yes, back when Nero was recruiting for his proposed campaign to take the Caspian Gates two years ago. I could name you at least two legion legati who quietly ordered their first spears to conceal their men’s true abilities, in the hope that they would be deemed inappropriate for the task and allowed to stay where they were. The man in command of the Fourteenth Gemina made the mistake of taking pride in the skills they had built up in Britannia and got his command posted to the east, but then with Nero calling them his best legion after the way they dealt with Boudicca’s tribal mob so easily he probably wouldn’t have got away with it anyway. That’s the price of being good at what one does, I suppose, to find one’s betters will just expect you to keep doing it for them, eh? But yes, some men conspired to conceal their men’s abilities and even their numbers, just as I suspect you did this morning, and as a result Nero took some rather drastic action, if you remember, such as commissioning a legion out of the fleet.’
He grinned at them both.
‘And you’ll get no argument from me, even if you are a pair of rascals. After all, my interests as supreme commander of the army of Germania aren’t best served by having yet more troops stripped from my command. Just don’t give Vitellius the slightest hint that this morning’s little charade was anything but a demonstration of genuine incompetence by green troops, are we clear on that?’
He wafted away in search of a fresh cup of wine, and the two men exchanged glances.
‘He really thinks—?’
‘That all those errors today were stage managed? Yes. He told me as such earlier, on the podium. They weren’t, were they Marius?’
The centurion shook his head with a rueful smile.
‘No, sir. That was all their own work, and nothing to do with me. In fact, I did everything I could to disguise their inability.’
Lupercus nodded.
‘As I thought, First Spear, much as I thought. Very well, let us humour our legatus augusti, shall we? And let’s face it, being a little shamefaced if the emperor up
braids us for our men’s display this morning won’t be hard to simulate, will it?’
Northern Italy, March AD 69
‘So, does it feel good to be a killer?’
Egilhard turned to find Alcaeus standing behind him, helmetless and without his armour in the evening chill, his grubby subarmalis unbuttoned to allow the air to his body. He moved to one side to allow his superior to get closer to the campfire’s rekindled blaze that had been smouldering ever since their capture of the marine camp that morning.
‘That’s better.’ The centurion warmed his hands for the moment before speaking again. ‘It was a serious question. Do you feel like a better man now that you know what you can do in battle?’
With the men of the hapless marine cohorts disarmed, forced to swear an oath to their gods not to fight again and released to make their way back to their army’s camp, Scar had ordered his first cohort to consolidate around the farmhouse for the day while the remaining Batavi forces put out scouting probes deep into the countryside beyond. Grimmaz’s tent party, finding themselves cast as celebrities as part of the single century that had held off not one but two full cohorts of the enemy for the time needed for reinforcements to arrive from the river, had been unchallenged in their assertion that they were claiming one of the tents left standing in the marines’ forlornly deserted camp. They had cooked their dinner over a fire in which a dying man had burned alive that morning, the stink of singed hair still haunting Egilhard’s nostrils even if only as a horrific memory.
‘Not especially, Cent—’
Alcaeus raised a hand.
‘Forget the formalities, man, you’re not a recruit any more. Off duty you can call me by the name all my warriors use, since you’re one of them now, blooded and proven. So, tell me, why don’t you feel like a better man? After all, you fought like a hero today. Lanzo’s going to be singing your praises for a week of Saturnalias, once he gets over that knock on the head, and the whole century already knows what you did. Suddenly you’re accepted. One of us. So why don’t you feel better?’
The younger man stared into the fire for a moment, turning the question over in his mind.
‘I …’ His eyes narrowed as the reason for the centurion’s question occurred to him. ‘This is a priest thing, isn’t it?’
Alcaeus grinned wolfishly in the fire light.
‘I knew you were a smart one. Yes, this is a priest thing. Now answer the question before I have to remind you that I’m not only your priest but also still your superior, whether or not you’re Achilles come back to grace us mortals with your divine skills.’
‘Do I feel better?’ Egilhard thought for a moment. ‘No. Different, but not better.’
‘And how is it that you feel different?’
‘I feel … complete. I’ve seen battle and proved myself good enough to stand with my tent mates.’
Alcaeus snorted.
‘Good enough? You’re better than good enough. You wounded and then finished your first man just the way you’ve been taught, but even while you were giving him the death stroke, with your full attention focused on putting your spear through his neck, you were getting ready for your next move. You don’t realise it, because it was all done without any need for thought.’
He paused, looking into the young soldier’s uncomprehending face.
‘And that’s what makes you deadly. You turned on the man who was about to kill Lanzo without any pause to size up your target, or decide where to put the blade, because if you’d waited a heartbeat your tent mate would be dead now, rather than sleeping off a bang on his head. You just pulled your spear’s blade free from the first man, even while he was tottering and not sure what had happened to him, you pivoted and you put it through the second man’s throat so fast even Banon wasn’t sure what he’d seen.’
The centurion shook his head slowly.
‘You’re a hero in the making, Egilhard. I won’t treat you any differently, and neither will Banon, but your tent mates will. And the century will, as the story spreads. Men will nod to you when they pass you, little gestures of respect. They’ll want to pat you on the shoulders and the back before our next fight, hoping for a little bit of you to wear off on them. At first you’ll be confused, happy to have your skills recognised but wary of failing to live up to their expectations. But after a while you’ll look back on that initial confusion as the happiest time of your life.’
Egilhard shook his head in bafflement.
‘Why?’
Alcaeus smiled sadly.
‘Why? Because when the confusion passes, when you realise that you really are every bit as deadly as men say you are, a killer, you’ll also see the truth of it – which is that you have no choice in the matter. I’ve known several killers in the last twenty years, men who fought as if their daemons were wrought of the deadliest rage, capable of facing two or three men at one time and defeating all three within a dozen heartbeats. The one constant in their lives was this …’ He paused for a moment, looking at the young soldier with evident conviction. ‘They all died before their time. All of them, without exception. Because the most gifted among us always end up being revered by their comrades, having nicknames like Achilles or Hector hung around their necks and being expected to perform feats of impossible skill whenever we met the enemy. Every such man I knew was ultimately driven to some act of suicidal bravery or other, in pursuit of what they came to see as their destiny, once they had fallen for their brothers’ hero worship. And the problem with suicidal bravery is fairly obvious, when you think about it. It gets you killed, boy.’
He was silent for a moment, allowing the evident truth of his words to sink in.
‘There is another path, of course. There’s always an alternative, if you have the courage to choose the harder way and the grit to stick to it.’
He waited, and after a moment the younger man spoke.
‘I would like to know where this other path might lead.’
Alcaeus nodded.
‘The alternative path, if you have the strength to follow it, will lead you away from hubris and eventual self-destruction. What it will lead you towards is entirely your own choice. To follow this path, you must adopt a humble aspect with regard to your skills. Refuse to accept the role your brothers would have you adopt. Keep your head down, and accept the praise of the men around you when they tell you what a warrior you are humbly – no false modesty, mind you – but don’t parade your skills to impress any man. Keep your sword work functional when sparring. Always beat whoever comes to test your skills, if you can, but avoid unnecessary showmanship as you do so. Use your spare time for more than practising better ways to kill your opponents. Develop another skill, one that you can take pride in, something which will bring some measure of relief from the weight of all the deaths which will be on your conscience. Because you’re going to kill a lot of men in the next few months, I suspect. Right now there are only two of them on your conscience, but there are going to be more. A lot more. You’ll see them at night, in your dreams, silent and uncomplaining. They won’t torment you, because they have no interest in doing so, but they will come to you, to remind you of the cost they paid as the price for you to ply your skills. When that happens, if it troubles you, speak to me and nobody else. Now get to bed, we’ll be on the move in the morning and I want you ready for anything.’
Egilhard nodded and turned away, then turned back with the questioning expression Alcaeus had come to recognise.
‘You want to know why my tent name is “Seven”, right?’
‘How—?’
‘Did I know that was your question? It wasn’t that hard to guess. They all ask in the end, just like they all wonder why Banon’s called “Kneecaps”, except in his case it’s a bit more obvious. You worked that one for yourself soon enough, I’d imagine?’ The younger man nodded with a small smile at the memory. ‘And now you want to know the reason for my tent name.’ After a moment Egilhard nodded, and Alcaeus looked at him levelly for a moment b
efore continuing. ‘When a man is chosen to enter the priesthood of the wolf, because he displays the skills needed to help his brother warriors deal with their preparations to fight, and to live with the consequences of the fight when it’s done and the field is strewn with the corpses of friend and foe, he is expected to pass several tests to prove his worthiness. And one of those tests, the one that really matters, is that he must go out into the forest in winter and kill the wolf that will become his badge of the priesthood, to prove his bravery beyond any doubt, to entitle him to voice an opinion as to the nature of men’s courage. Some men do this by stealth and guile, setting traps to lure and ensnare an unwary beast which they must then kill with nothing more deadly than their pugio, and while no disapproval of such methods is ever voiced, these tend to be the younger and less impressive animals. Others seek to prove themselves by taking their prize with spear and sword, and that was the method I chose. I walked out into the forest one evening, a night with a full moon but still only fitfully lit as clouds hurried across the sky above me.’
He smiled at the memory.
‘It was a poor choice. Snow fell overnight, making for hard going, and by late morning the next day I had been found by a pack of the bastards. They found me, you’ll note, because I could have blundered around the woods for the next year and never known where they came from. They attacked as a pack, of course, two or three of them testing me face-to-face while the rest moved to take me from the flanks and rear just as we would, as all good hunters do, and I knew my only hope of survival was to take the fight to them with all my fury at my own stupidity, to strike and move, and not to allow them to overwhelm me. I didn’t best fancy the thought of dying alone, failing in the sight of our Lord Hercules, but mainly I was terrified of being torn apart by the bastards, my bones scattered across the forest floor and only leaving my bloodied weapons to prove I had fought my best and lost that fight. That I had ever even existed.’
Betrayal: The Centurions I Page 23
