Ironroot (Tales of the Empire)

by S. J. A. Turney

  Scortius grasped his forehead with his hand as though his head pounded.

  “Easy?”

  Scortius stared at her.

  “I never expected it to be easy, Catilina. At best, I’ll find release when I go to the Gods, but some things must be done, no matter how much it hurts. If it gives you any satisfaction, what I have done causes me great personal pain. I loved Varro like a brother. We had been through more than most siblings ever do before you’d ever even met him. No, this was far from easy.”

  Catilina stopped for a moment. The deep emotion behind the man’s words spoke of a deep and painful story. She frowned and scrutinised the man before her for a moment before hardening herself again. She’d almost fallen into sympathy and she was damned if she was going to let that happen.

  “Then tell me why, doctor.”

  She growled. “You claim to have loved him so much, so tell me why you killed him!”

  She leaned back once more and folded her arms.

  Scortius sighed.

  “You should count your blessings, really, Catilina.”

  She laughed a hollow laugh.

  “Yes, I feel truly blessed!”

  “If I were a cruel man, it would be you lying in the priests’ tent now, waiting to be burned, and not Varro. He’d be here with me, bemoaning your fate and crying on my shoulder.”

  “What?” Catilina stared at him.

  “I am not as cruel as Varro, though.”

  As Catilina continued to blink at him in astonishment at the casual tone in which the doctor delivered such brutal words, he relaxed and leaned back in his chair again.

  “I dealt justice on Varro rather than revenge. The great playwrights tell tales of vengeance where deal and pain is traded, like for like. If I had revenged myself on Varro, I would have taken you from him, you see.”

  He sighed.

  “But no… I merely executed him for his actions. I could have been much more vicious.”

  Once more the doctor slumped, the strength leaving him to be replaced once again with grief and pain.

  ”Varro took from me the thing I loved more than anything else in the world; the thing I loved more than life itself. You see? If I were a vengeful man, I would have deprived him of you.”

  Catilina blinked.

  “Varro took my son.” Scortius mumbled, fresh tears streaking down his cheeks as he shuddered with sobs.

  “My son!” he wailed.

  Catilina shook her head, trying to make sense of all of this.

  “Varro killed your son?” she demanded incredulously. “Never! He was a good man; a good soldier. Honourable and loving.”

  Scortius nodded, wiping away his tears again.

  “ My son… Terentius. A detachment of the cohort were on campaign in the mountains during that year when there was drought and a food shortage. Things became desperate. Even at the fort where we had the granaries men’s bellies grumbled and moaned. But up there at Fallowford, there was no hope. Only the meagrest of iron rations.”

  He sighed. “Terentius and two of his companions snapped in desperation and stole food from the stores, but they were caught. Varro was their commander, you see. Terentius took all the responsibility for their actions. Brave and foolish.”

  He broke down again for a moment, sobbing and shaking.

  “Terentius…”

  Catilina cleared her throat.

  “I’ve heard the story. The theft; the punishment. It’s a story that’s still used to illustrate the need for discipline. And that was your son? The ringleader?”

  Scortius nodded again sadly.

  “The boy was executed for insurrection” she said plainly, standing and gesturing at him.

  “It’s harsh, Scortius, but that’s regulations. You know how a commander has to deal with insurrection and theft!”

  She waved her hand expansively. “Would you have expected Varro to go easy on him just because he was your son? What message would that send to other potential rebels? If he’d not carried out that punishment, his own superiors would have broken him in the ranks.”

  “But the other two lived!” Scortius bellowed.

  “Not Terentius though. Oh, no… he had to suffer. Not a quick, honourable death either, but beaten to death by his friends. Beaten to death!”

  Catilina sighed.

  “Varro did what he had to do. What he should have done. It’s Terentius that was at fault, you idiot. It is a sad story, Scortius, but not something that justifies premeditated murder!”

  Scortius growled.

  “How would you know?”

  She sighed and stood slowly.

  “Truly.”

  She backed away towards the door.

  “Truly, I may just be hypocritical…”

  “What?” Scortius frowned at her through his tears. “What are you talking about?”

  Catilina sighed.

  “I could say I’m sorry, Scortius, but the truth is I’m not. And I may be as bad as you or even worse. You say you dealt out justice, not revenge. I think you’re just deluding yourself, but I don’t even claim such high morals.”

  “What?”

  The doctor’s expression, through the blur of tears, was one of confusion.

  “The wine…” she said, pointing at the jug.

  Scortius’ tears stopped as incredulity swept them away.

  “The wine?” he repeated in confusion.

  Catilina nodded. “A friend of mine came in and added a little pep to it before you returned. I think you’ll find it has a bit of a kick now. I don’t have a medical background, you see. I don’t know what proportions of ironroot are required for any particular level of effect.”

  She laughed.

  “So we just used it all. I don’t think you’ll have as long as Varro, though. You see we used everything you had left over, and I think that’s rather a lot. And one of the interesting things I found out from Mercurias’ investigation is that those medicines of yours were infused with wine, because something in wine disguises both the scent and taste of ironroot.”

  “Catilina…”

  Scortius’ eyes were wide and staring now as his gaze flashed back and forth between the cold-faced lady before him and the empty jug nearby.

  “I don’t think you’ll have to keep dosing to make it lethal, Scortius, but perhaps you can tell me. The amount you had left? Would that be fatal, d’you think?”

  Scortius’ eyes bulged in panic and he forced his finger down his throat, leaning over the arm of the chair and retching.

  Catilina gave him an unpleasant smile.

  “I shall take that as a yes then. And you know that’s a waste of time. You started that jug an hour ago. I know, because I’ve been waiting outside to make sure you finished it. And that means that by now, with the tremendous quantity you’ve absorbed this afternoon, it’s already deep in your system.”

  She reached across the table and collected the jug, turning it upside down and smiling at the single drip that slowly collected on the inverted rim and then fell to the table. She replaced the jug and stretched.

  “Goodbye, doctor.”

  Turning her back on the stricken man, she strode from the tent, a strange mix of emotions coursing through her: pity, satisfaction and disgust. She sighed as she looked around herself in the bright morning sun.

  Not regret though. Never regret.

  Salonius leaned against the outside of the doctor’s tent, a long piece of grass hanging from the corner of his mouth where he chewed absently. He raised an eyebrow as the lady appeared outside.

  Catilina took a deep, cleansing breath and rolled her shoulders.

  “Now we’re done, Salonius.”

  The young man looked at her curiously.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What?” she enquired of him. “Why?”

  Salonius shrugged.

  “Because we are better than him; both of us. You know that.”

  Giving her a sad smile, he patted her on the sh
oulder gently and affectionately and slipped past her, through the tent flap.

  In the dim interior, Scortius was busy searching desperately through the various drawers and shelves of his cabinet, his face white.

  “Doctor?”

  The man ignored his new guest, his desperation increasing as he searched fruitlessly.

  “Doctor?” Salonius repeated as he walked calmly across the tent and took the seat that Catilina had previously occupied.

  Again he was ignored. Sighing sadly, he picked up the wine jug and brought it down on the table so hard that the handle sheared off in his grip.

  Scortius jumped and stopped his furious searching to turn and stare.

  “Good. Sit down doctor.”

  The stricken man turned once more to his cabinet, but Salonius called to him in a clear, calm voice.

  “It’s no good trying to find an antidote, doctor. You know there isn’t one.”

  Scortius began to rummage once more. He muttered something in a panicky voice. Salonius didn’t catch all the details, but he noticed the word ‘emetic’ in there.

  “Sit down!” This time he bellowed, and Scortius jumped again and stopped.

  “I will restrain you if I have to, but we are supposed to be civilised men, doctor, so come here and sit down.”

  Almost meekly, Scortius turned and wobbled across to his chair, slumping dejectedly into it. Salonius cleared his throat and fixed the doctor with a piercing gaze.

  “It seems curiously fitting that I get to give you the same diagnosis you gave captain Varro. Mine’s true though. You’re going to die, Scortius. There’s no cure and the lady Catilina was very thorough. The dosage you’ve had would have reached lethal more than half an hour ago and no amount of emetics and retching is going to save you now. Varro was enough of a man to face up to what you did to him quickly and nobly. Are you capable of that?”

  The doctor stared at him.

  “I hope so,” Salonius said gently. “Now, Catilina is a little blinded by emotion at the moment. Given free reign, she would stake you out for the carrion feeders and see which killed you first: the poison or the animals.”

  Scortius’ eyes widened at the young man’s matter-of-fact tone.

  “I, on the other hand, am less emotional. You took a good friend from me; a mentor, even. But from Catilina, you took the man she loved. Now I am here to explain your choices. I’m only going to do this once, and then I go find her and look after her.”

  Still, the doctor said nothing, but sat open mouthed and staring.

  “First choice: Given the quantity I put in your wine, you will be dead before sundown, so you can sit and await your fate. Because I am not a forgiving man, I laced the wine also with strychnine. I realise that ironroot is not a particularly painful way to go, but from what I’ve read, strychnine will probably kill you an hour or two earlier, but very, very painfully.”

  Scortius began to gag, making an ‘Ack! Ack!’ noise. Salonius smiled and went on.

  “Second choice: You could try and avenge yourself on me or Catilina. I suppose you could use the time you have left before you double up in pain to go and denounce us. But the problem is, Mercurias is very well aware of what you’ve done. In fact, he went to report it to the marshal, though Catilina persuaded him to delay a little, but he’s probably been by now. I don’t think you’ll find any support there. In fact it very well might be that the guard are on their way for you right now.”

  He pushed the chair back and walked past the panicked doctor, to the cot bed at the rear of the tent, where the doctor’s uniform lay folded, awaiting the funeral ceremony for Varro. Stooping, the young man collected the doctor’s sword in its fancy sheath, likely never used and rarely warn outside ceremonies.

  “And your third choice?” he commented lightly as he strode back to the table, unsheathing the sword with a metallic rasp that set the teeth on edge, “Take the noble and least painful way out. As soon as you can. And certainly before the guard get here; they certainly won’t give you an opportunity afterwards.”

  He dropped the sword on the table before the dying man and walked past him to the tent flap. Turning, he smiled.

  “Sad that it came to this. But at least you have a choice of how to end it. I would hurry though.”

  Turning his back, he pushed open the flap and walked out into the sunshine.

  Catilina stood a few yards away, her arms folded and a cross expression on her face.

  “Well?”

  Salonius smiled.

  “I just gave him something to think about.”

  She sighed.

  “Your heart is too soft for you to be in the revenge business, Salonius.”

  He laughed and put his arm around her shoulder, turning her away from the tent.

  “And you’re a very dangerous woman, my lady.”

  They made a point of taking the more circuitous route to the ceremony below. Exiting the camp’s stockade by the west gate, they strode down the hill in no great hurry, coming to a halt a little over half way along the slope, by a heap of fresh earth. They paused for a long moment, side by side and gazed at the shapeless mound that held the unmourned remains of the former prefect of the Fourth army.

  As they watched, a crow landed fearlessly in front of them on the summit of the heap and began to investigate the freshly-turned earth for worms. Something about that made Salonius smile.

  Walking on, they passed soldiers in full dress uniform, buffing every inch of steel to dazzling brightness. Most were too busy making sure they would meet the requirements of their officers to pay much attention to the two figures strolling amongst them, but those who did look up came to attention and saluted. Salonius returned their salutes as necessary, but still felt vaguely uncomfortable doing so. He was wearing his command guard uniform with the white horsehair crest which meant that he outranked most of the men of the second, but since his elevation to the position a mere two weeks ago, he’d spent little or no time among his peers, or indeed even wearing the uniform.

  They came to a halt at the bottom of the slope where, on a slight hummock, the pyre had been constructed. Captain Iasus stood nearby, directing the affair with his familiar, curt and efficient manner. According to tradition, Varro would be sent to his afterlife with full military honours. Once the pyre had burned out and gone cold, his ashes would be placed in the urn that had been paid for by his contributions to the second cohort’s funeral club. They would then be escorted back to Crow Hill, where they would be buried in the military graveyard outside the west gate of the fort, under a finely carved tombstone chiselled by one of the cohort’s best stonemasons.

  Salonius had only served a short time yet in the Imperial military, in a time of relative peace. Those deaths and funerals he had encountered in his time had been of non-ranking engineers. The engineering corps had turned out for them in their best uniforms and for the more notable occasions, a representative officer of the cohort from outside the engineers would attend. Nothing he had seen had come near this scale, though he realised these were somewhat exceptional circumstances. Normally a captain would be honoured only by his own.

  Salonius glanced about him. The flags of all four northern armies fluttered in the breeze, carefully sited on a slight rise in order to catch what wind there was, yet far enough to put them out of danger of the flames when they came. The standards of the cohorts of the Fourth stood in rows, jammed into the ground, gleaming and glittering.

  The pyre stood fully twice the height of an ordinary man, formed of logs cut from a thicket a quarter of a mile distant, and atop it lay the still figure of Varro, wrapped in Imperial green from head to toe. A sadness touched Salonius. Though Varro had been his captain and his superior, in many ways he had been closer to being a father than a commander. Briefly he wondered if anyone else in the Fourth felt that way or whether it was just the strange circumstances into which they’d been thrown together that had done this. He must remember to have a word with the stonemasons afterwards. Time t
o raise an altar to Cernus. Strange really. That would undoubtedly be the first altar set up in an Imperial shrine to a purely barbarian God.

  He sighed as his mind drifted off into shadowy forests stalked by the stag lord. For a long time they stood, staring at the pyre, lost in their thoughts. At some time during that interminable wait, Catilina had slid her hand into his, though neither of them remembered it happening.

  The bleating of the trumpets brought their attention back and they separated, standing proud and quiet. The last few men who were not in position pulled themselves into ranks. Many of the marshal’s guard were conspicuously absent as they stood guard over those men deemed to have some level of guilt in the uncovered conspiracy. Varro’s guard, resplendent in their white crests, stood positioned around the pyre, it being their task to set the flames. Salonius could have joined them; probably should have, but had elected to stay with Catilina instead.

  As the trumpets called out their last note and the echoes rang off the hillsides, marshal Sabian strode into view, accompanied by a number of his senior officers and staff. He came to a halt between his daughter and Iasus, remaining standing and at attention. Mercurias sauntered across to join them, the dress uniform looking strangely inappropriate on the creased old man. The surgeon came to a halt behind them.