The young man nodded hesitantly.
Varro drained his now tepid lemon drink and cleared his throat.
“I’m dying, Salonius.”
He looked across at his young companion and studied his features.
“You don’t seem all that surprised?”
Salonius shook his head slightly.
“I’m sorry about that sir. I really am. But no, I’m not surprised. I knew something was going on and it makes sense, I think. But why and how?”
“Poison, my lad. On the blade that stuck me.”
Varro squared his shoulders.
“The larger picture, and the larger problem too, is that this isn’t some random viciousness on the part of a barbarian. The sword was an imperial blade and the poison is far too expensive and exotic to have fallen into the lap of a random tribesman. This was done by one of our own; a soldier. And that means I can’t trust anyone. Well, hardly anyone.”
He narrowed his eyes and focused on his young companion.
“But you’re new, you see. I can think of no reason why you can’t be trusted. In fact, it may be that your Stag God sent you to me as the only soldier I can trust. Apart from Corda, of course.”
Salonius frowned.
“What do you intend to do, sir?”
“What do you think?” the captain smiled coldly. “I’m going to track down the bastard responsible, and I’m going to make him pay. Very painfully. And very slowly.”
“Good, sir. And Corda has assigned me to you personally so I’m here to help in any way I can,” Salonius nodded in fierce agreement.
‘And now something the stag lord showed me falls into place’ he thought as he clenched his fists.
Varro nodded gratefully.
“Ok then, while we wait for the serg… the captain, I mean… tell me more about Cernus.”
The door opened to Corda’s knock and he was surprised to find Salonius admitting him rather than Martis. Of greater surprise was the faint smell of wine on the young soldier’s breath. He furrowed his brow in disapproval but issued no comment as he strode past and into the room. Catching sight of Varro on the couch, he saluted and then stood at ease.
“Alright. I’ve briefed the cohort on the temporary command change. Can’t say anyone likes it much though, including me.”
The door shut with a click and Salonius returned to the room, stopping momentarily to salute the sergeant before walking over to stand by the window, also at ease.
Varro grunted.
“Can’t say I’m too thrilled about it myself, but if these last few hours have taught me anything, it’s that time is too precious to spend it messing around feeling sorry for myself. Thank you for assigning Salonius. He’ll be of great use.”
Corda nodded.
“Until we have a little more information on how this all occurred, we have to be very careful in whom we place our trust. In fact, captain, I would not take it personally were you to dismiss me for now.”
Varro laughed.
“Corda, we’ve been friends for longer than some of our men have been alive. I know I can trust you. Unfortunately, with you taking on command of the cohort, you’ll be tied to that job, so I doubt we’ll be seeing a lot of you. And really I can’t think of anyone else I’d be willing to trust in the cohort at the moment.” He sighed and sat back. “Or out of the cohort either, for that matter.”
The sergeant took a seat and leaned on his knees.
“So there’s just the three of us. And with me busy and you incapacitated it’s going to be difficult following anything up.”
Varro shook his head.
“Whatever Scortius cooked up for me this time seems to be doing the trick. I’m thinking clearly and I seem to be functioning almost normally. Alright I’m achy and it hurts a bit from time to time, but not enough to stop me. Salonius and I can deal with all this.”
Corda nodded.
“Alright Varro. I went through the quartermaster’s list of all loot accounted for from the battlefield and there’s no sign of a sword anything like your description. Plenty of weapons, but nothing like that.” His eyes slipped sideways to Salonius. “Have you briefed this young man yet?”
Varro nodded.
“Well then” the sergeant continued, “I’ll have the list delivered to him to go through with you. I’m sure I’ve been thorough, but it never hurts to have a second set of eyes go over things. So what’s the next step?”
Varro shifted in his seat.
“That sword’s the key. It’s the only link I’ve got to whoever did this. And it’s a good sword. I only saw it briefly, but I’d bet it’d be worth a year’s pay for your average soldier. And nobody’s going to leave that lying in the mud. Someone brought it back, and that means someone in this fort has that sword.”
Salonius cleared his throat. “We could approach the fortress command captain. He could organise a complete search of the place with his provosts and be through the whole place in a matter of hours.” He frowned. “But that’s if you can trust them, sir?”
Varro shook his head.
“No, but I think there’s another way around this. We’re going to have to inform the prefect and the marshal about the change of command and my removal from duty and, while I don’t know about the prefect, Sabian’s more trustworthy than any other senior officer I’ve ever met. He’s the most senior officer in the Province, he’s trustworthy, and he’s here. If I speak to him, he can authorise the search without going through normal fort channels. And he can do it with his own guard, so no one needs to know what they’re searching for. It’s the only way we’re going to get the jump on whoever’s responsible.”
Corda nodded thoughtfully, stroking his beard.
“Very well. I’ll have to get back to the cohort. I don’t know how you found time to perform actual command tasks with all the other random shit bureaucracy involved. I’ve not informed the men of the exact circumstances yet; just that you’re under medical care and unable temporarily to carry out your duty. I think it would be better, given the nature of the situation, to keep as many people out of this as possible, particularly the members of your own cohort.”
“Agreed.” Varro sighed. “Alright, I’m going to have a bite to eat and then Salonius and I will go to headquarters and get things underway.”
Corda nodded and, saluting hesitantly, turned on his heel and left the building, the door swinging quietly closed behind him.
Salonius straightened.
“Martis is out getting wine sir. Shall I see if I can get you something to eat?”
Varro smiled.
“Don’t worry about it lad. He’s already left cold meats, bread and cheese out in the other room. If you could just dash through and get it, there’s plenty for both of us.”
The two men were seated quietly around the small table munching on hard northern cheeses, lean cuts of pork and bread still warm and freshly baked when the door swung open with a crash.
Startled, Varro dropped a slice of cheese and Salonius leapt to his feet, his hand going immediately for the hilt of the sword at his side before he realised who the lone figure in the doorway was.
Catilina stormed into the room, the door swinging closed behind her. She had an air of haughty anger, somehow heightened by the aroma of eastern oils that followed her, adding to the heady scent already pervading the room. Varro stood, wiping his hands to remove the crumbs.
The marshal’s daughter, pale and elegant with fire in her eyes pointed an accusing finger at the captain.
“You!”
“What?” Varro spread his hands out in a supplicant gesture.
“How could you not tell me?” she shrieked at him.
“Catilina, calm down for Gods’ sake. You’ll burst a blood vessel.”
The lady’s arm fell back down beside her and she placed her hands on her hips, taking up a defiant stance.
“You get a life-threatening injury and I have to hear it through the bureaucracy?” her voice notched up an
other octave and her eyes smouldered as she glared at the captain.
“You’ve heard?” Varro frowned.
“Your doctor gave the prefect the post-battle casualty reports. My father and I were there at the time. What does he mean ‘fatality’? You’d better explain this, Varro!”
The captain sighed deeply and gestured to the empty seat to one side.
“I will Catilina, but sit down and calm down.”
He turned to Salonius. “I hadn’t thought about the casualty reports. Obviously he hasn’t released full details then.”
“No sir,” the young soldier agreed, “but surely he’s not reported you as a fatality.”
Varro grumbled.
“It’ll be ‘expected fatality’. Those of us who were wounded and aren’t expected to pull through.”
Catilina, still standing with her hands on her hips, growled at him.
“He’s not reckoned with your tenacity, Varro. You’re always getting wounded, but it doesn’t take you long to heal” she grumbled at him and then stopped and frowned.
“It’s not the wound, is it? I hadn’t thought of that. What’s happened, then?”
Varro gestured at the seat again.
“Catilina, it’s not good. And I can’t have the details going round the fort like a brush fire, so I need you to keep this very much to yourself at the moment.”
“What?” she barked impatiently.
Varro sighed again and sat back heavily.
“I was stuck with a poisoned blade during the battle.”
Finally, Catilina took the seat she had been proffered and stared at the captain.
“Tell me, Varro.”
The captain tapped his fingers idly on his knee as he weighed her mood. There was no denying Catilina was an intelligent and resourceful woman, yet her fiery temper sometimes overwhelmed her sense of priority. She would need to be very objective about all this unless the news was to be leaked around the army.
“Catilina, I’m dying. There’s no cure and we can’t even locate the sword that was used. Scortius is giving me medication to keep me up and about and largely out of pain, but there’s nothing he can do in the long run.”
The haughty young woman pinched the bridge of her nose and turned to face the window.
“Is the man who did this still among the prisoners?”
“No.”
Varro caught her eyes and noticed them beginning to well up. She became aware of his gaze and blinked back the emotion, her face hardening.
“You killed him then?”
Varro shot a quick glance at Salonius whose expression remained unreadable.
“Not exactly.” He sighed. “I killed the barbarian who wielded the sword…”
“Yes?”
“But it’s the man who gave him the poisoned blade and marked me out that I want to find.”
“You mean this was deliberately targeted at you?” She blinked again, this time in surprise.
“It has to have been. The man came looking for me on the battlefield and he had an imperial blade; a very expensive one. Someone from within this fort has had me poisoned. I’m going to die, but I’m going to find out who did this first and why. And I’m going to make them suffer. But you see that’s why I can’t let you go out and tell people about this. If word gets out that I’m looking into this the culprit will go to ground and I’ll never find him.”
Catilina was still staring at him, a horrified look on her face and her mouth hanging open.
“Varro, you can’t just die?”
“I’ve no choice, Catilina,” Varro smiled weakly. “There’s nothing I can do about it.”
“There has to be!” she yelled at him.
“There has to be something we can do. Scortius has missed something.”
Varro shook his head sadly. “Scortius is a very thorough man, Catilina. You know that. And he’s done everything that can be done. I wish you hadn’t come with your father. I’d have spared you this if I could.”
“I’ll just step out, sir” Salonius said quietly, turning and making for the door.
“Stay here, Salonius.” Varro shook his head again. “We’re about done. I want you to escort Catilina back to her quarters. I’m fairly sure the marshal will be here soon to see me. And I need to organise a few things with him.” He turned to the young woman, who was no longer holding her emotion in check, a single tear snaking down her cheek. “And Catilina: this is going to be hard enough for your father and I without you here.”
A hard look impressed itself on her face. Varro sat back slightly. He’d known Catilina long enough to know that look.
“Catilina…”
“No.”
She sat back in the seat and folded her arms defiantly.
“Catilina…”
“You can say what you like Varro, but I’m staying. You need people you can trust around you right now. That’s me and father and you know that. We need to work out what we’re doing next, and preferably before father gets here. He’s going to want to do everything by the book and that’s clearly not going to work in this case. You’re going to need me to persuade him to our way of thinking. No one else can do that. You know that.”
“Alright,” the captain replied with a resigned nod. “Salonius, sit down and let’s work out what we need to do.”
The young man stepped away from the window toward the chair and, as he did, there was a heavy knock at the door. He turned to the captain and raised his eyebrows questioningly. Varro nodded at him.
“Best get it. The marshal wasted no time, eh?”
Salonius walked across to the door and opened it, the morning breeze cutting its way into the heady, spiced atmosphere of the front room. He stepped back, startled momentarily. In the street outside the door stood three of the fort provosts, the army’s police unit, their black and white striped crests flicking around in the wind and their black cloaks snapping back and forth.
“Show me to captain Varro.”
The provost sergeant stepped to the threshold while his two companions took up positions on guard to either side of the door. Blinking in surprise, Salonius stepped back, allowing the soldier into the room.
Varro and Catilina looked up in surprise as the provost sergeant stepped into the room and came smartly to attention.
“Sir.”
Varro raised an eyebrow.
“Yes, sergeant?”
“I would be obliged if you would accompany me outside the fort, sir.”
Varro’s eyes narrowed.
“What?”
The provost reached into the recesses of his cloak and whipped out a parcel. A leather wallet bound with a thong, the corner of a piece of paper poking out at the edge. He reached out and proffered the object to the captain. Varro frowned.
“What is this?”
Slowly, the sergeant turned the parcel over. In a neat script, someone had simply inscribed the front ‘Varro IV-II’. Varro reached out to grasp it.
“Provosts delivering letters now?”
The sergeant’s face remained straight and unreadable as he withdrew his hand, the parcel remaining out of Varro’s reach.
“Hardly, captain. This was found on the body of a soldier about a mile from the fort. The man has been attacked, sir. Brutally.”
Chapter Five
Varro pulled his cloak tighter against the biting breeze that whistled across the common near the fortress as he kicked the lazy mare forward again. He’d only had time to throw on a cloak and some boots while the impatient provost sergeant had stood in his doorway, tapping irritably. He felt grateful for the presence of Salonius, fully armoured in his cohort guard uniform. While he had no reason to distrust the provost, these were highly unusual circumstances and he’d thought deeply about the wisdom of this course of action before grabbing his cloak in resignation and stepping forward.
He’d not even reached the door when he realised Catilina was by his side. He’d tried to deter her, unsuccessfully, as he’d expected, and the p
air of them had joined the three provosts as soon as Salonius returned with three horses from the stables of the second.
The journey through the town was uneventful. It was now mid to late morning and the locals were going about their own business while the majority of soldiers were on duty within the fort. The growing civilian settlement would liven up considerably as the bulk of the troops were dismissed at sundown.
And almost a mile beyond the township, over wind-blasted heaths on a surprisingly chilly and blustery morning for so late in the season, the small party approached a knot of people clustering beneath a tree in the shelter of a hedgerow.
A gulley ran from near the crest of the hill down alongside the hedgerow and to the stream in the shallow valley. A seasonal stream, the ditch was currently dry and rocky. Beneath the beech tree, two more of the fort provosts stood with three locals, a boy and a girl of perhaps seven years and a man; presumably their father.
Ironroot (Tales of the Empire) Page 9
