Altar of Blood: Empire IX

by Anthony Riches

  Clodius Albinus watched with scarcely concealed delight as the first of the boats rowed back towards the Mars, its steersman under strict orders that the Tungrians were to be delivered to the flagship. It bumped against the warship’s flank, and a pair of crew members assisted its passengers up and over the vessel’s side, the first of them a pair of Hamians who stood blinking in the late morning sun after so long in the forest’s gloom.

  ‘Fuck me, look at the pair of ’em! All that’s missing is them holding hands! I reckon they’ll be toss—’

  The suggestive nudgings of Albinus’s bodyguard were silenced by the appearance of one of Dubnus’s men who heaved his massive frame onto the deck with a grunt of effort, closely followed by another, equally impressive in his muscularity. Both men’s armour and skin were blasted with blood, their axes brown with the drying remnants of other men’s lives, and even the less experienced men aboard the Mars could see that they were still twitchy with the aftermath of mortal combat, their bodies almost shaking with the need to do violence. Looking about them with the expression of men who had discovered excrement on their boots, they turned and assisted the primary subject of the governor’s interest aboard. Clad in an ankle-length cloak of bright blue, the seer’s face was hidden by the garment’s hood, but Clodius Albinus was undeterred by the apparent attempt at modesty. Advancing across the vessel’s deck, he essayed a bow, holding out a hand to the new arrival.

  ‘Good morning, my dear, and welcome to …’

  Looking up, he choked on the words as the subject of his address swept back the hood. After a moment’s horrified silence, as the governor stared in undisguised amazement, the man who had been wearing the cloak greeted him cheerily with a smart salute.

  ‘Good morning, Governor! Tribune Scaurus sends you his greetings, and his regrets that he won’t be able to join you today. He—’

  ‘What? You’re …’

  Albinus groped for the name for a moment before the fleet’s prefect put him out of his misery. The fleet prefect shook his head in apparent disgust.

  ‘Gods below, Gaius, I knew there was something wrong with you, but I never expected it to be the wearing of women’s clothing!’

  The governor stared, aghast, as the younger man took off the cloak to reveal his armour and weapons.

  ‘Forgive me, Governor, but I had strict orders from the Tribune to make sure the Bructeri saw a figure in a blue cloak make its way from the shore to this ship while he rode away to the north with her. Clever thinking too, I’d say.’

  Albinus stared at him with narrowed eyes for a moment before replying.

  ‘So the Bructeri king believes his seer has boarded a Roman ship, and therefore gives up on the idea of getting her back.’ He stared at Varus with thin lips. ‘Whereas in truth your tribune clearly thought he had good reasons for not doing so, despite the fact that by failing to deliver her to me he has risked the success of his mission just at the point when it was set to be successfully completed. Why do you think that might be, Centurion Varus?’

  The young aristocrat shook his head, his expression guileless.

  ‘I really don’t have a clue, Governor. It’s quite unusual for a centurion, and a junior centurion at that, to be invited to share the deliberations of his senior officer.’

  ‘I see …’ Albinus shook his head slowly at the frustration of having been outmanoeuvred once again. ‘So Scaurus gave you no clue as to where it was that he was taking the German woman?’

  ‘None at all, sir. The first thing I knew about the change in plans was when he rode away to the north, rather than falling back to the river with the rest of us.’

  ‘And who was with him?’

  Varus looked up at the sky in an apparent effort to recall the moment’s detail.

  ‘Our Bructeri scout, who by somewhat of a quirk of fate turns out to be the seer’s brother, centurion Corvus and the veteran Cotta, the tribune’s slave Arminius and a boy he’s training to manhood, a pair of Qadir’s archers, the seer, of course, and three cavalrymen whose names I’m not aware of, Governor. They joined us as the result of a scouting mission into the Bructeri capital. It seems they were there on some kind of imperial business.’

  The governor’s eyes narrowed again.

  ‘Dolfus? That insubordinate bastard has just signed his own death warrant.’ He looked up at Varus. ‘And Rutilius Scaurus has done the same for every man of his detachment. You, given your social rank, and the fact that Scaurus chose not to involve you in his crime, will come back to Claudius’s Colony with us. But every other man of his misbegotten command will be put back in the boats and rowed back to the …’

  He turned to Varus’s cousin, whose ostentatious throat-clearing was evidently intended to draw his attention to something. While the governor had been apprising himself of the facts around Scaurus’s apparent decision to ignore the pre-arranged method of escape from the Bructeri, the remainder of the Tungrian detachment had boarded the flagship. Dubnus stood before them, the gore-slathered head of a heavy axe resting on the warship’s otherwise pristine deck, and to either side of him stood three of his pioneers, each of them a head taller than every other man aboard, while behind them stood half a dozen archers with their bows held loosely, hands resting idly on the arrows that remained in their quivers. The prefect stepped forward until he was within two paces of the Tungrian centurion.

  ‘I’d be grateful if this could be resolved peacefully, Centurion?’

  Dubnus nodded, his expression an unchanging mask of contempt directed squarely at Albinus, and the prefect turned back to face his superior with raised eyebrows.

  ‘It is my estimation, Governor, that these men are somewhat dismayed to hear you suggest that you might consider putting them ashore. So before you consider turning that suggestion into an order, I’d be grateful if you were to consider the alternative.’ The Tungrians watched the men around them with hard, uncompromising eyes that played across Albinus’s bodyguard dismissively, looking around themselves for a genuine threat to face down while the naval prefect continued speaking. ‘An alternative which in simple terms is to pull up the anchor and sail back up river.’

  He swivelled back to face Dubnus.

  ‘Lost men, have you, Centurion?’

  The big man nodded slowly at the prefect’s question, which had been asked in a suitably respectful tone, then looked down meaningfully at the liberal quantity of blood and other unidentifiable substances that had been sprayed across his armour during the fight in the forest.

  ‘Five dead and one who may not walk again, since you ask, Prefect. And one of our officers is missing. Hopefully dead …’

  Varus looked at Albinus for a moment before speaking.

  ‘Soldiers recently out of combat aren’t often feeling reasonable, Governor. I’d say that any attempt to put these men ashore would be likely to result in unpleasantness. And quite possibly even more blood on my deck for some poor bastard to wash off. Perhaps even mine. Perhaps even yours …’

  The commander of Albinus’s bodyguard dropped a hand to the hilt of his sword, the dozen men behind him shuffling and setting themselves for combat at the minute but significant movement. Catching the shift in their stances from the corner of his eye, Varus stepped forward and raised a hand, his voice changing from reasonable persuasion to a harsh command in an instant.

  ‘Stand down, you fools! I don’t care how many of you die, but I do care how many of my men might get caught in the middle of the slaughter you’re intent on starting.’

  He turned back to the governor.

  ‘It’s your choice, Governor. Either we transport these men back to the city or your fool of a guard captain can take on half a dozen bloody-handed men in armour with shields and axes and see how far it gets him?’

  Albinus’s face twisted with frustrated anger.

  ‘I’ll have you both dismissed, you and your cousin, I’ll see you both …’

  He spluttered into outraged silence, and Varus filled the gap in a ton
e that oozed patrician confidence.

  ‘Broken? Disgraced?’ The prefect laughed at him softly. ‘Of course, that’s something that may be within your power, although without the German woman you’ll have less leverage with the imperial chamberlain than perhaps you’d hoped. But I promise you this, Decimus Clodius Albinus, raise a finger against either of us and you’ll rue the day you choose to make an enemy of a family as well connected and numerous as ours.’ He waved a dismissive hand and turned away, catching his navarchus’s eye. ‘I’ve got a squadron to get turned around and heading back up the river, now that the barbarians seem to have got bored of being used for target practice.’

  The return of Qadir’s consciousness was a slow, patchy thing, the dull ache in his head matched by an inability to move his limbs to any greater degree than a twitch. He lay in the shadow of an uprooted tree’s root crater staring up at the forest’s canopy, and the sunlight that was lancing down through the leaves, wincing with each fresh flash of light that found his eyes. As reason returned he realised that he was lying prone on a battlefield, probably in the midst of his enemies, and that, if the tribune’s plan had succeeded, he was very much alone. Lying back against the tangled roots beneath him, he closed his eyes, listening to the forest’s unnatural silence that told him the Bructeri were still in the vicinity even if their advance had probably passed the spot where he lay in pursuit of his fellows.

  Raising his head fractionally to look about him, his heart leapt as he realised that his body was cushioned from the root ball’s knobbly surface by a thick carpet of fallen leaves, enough having drifted into the depression left by the tree’s collapse to cover a man, he calculated. Squirming deeper into their soft camouflage, he forced his right arm to move, sweeping a handful of the forest’s detritus across his legs to obscure his knees, then repeated the movement with his left, pushing more handfuls across himself until his chest was invisible to all but the most careful of observers. Wriggling carefully, mindful of the need to minimise the amount of noise he was making, he eased his left arm and shoulder beneath the carpet of leaves, using his right to complete the concealment of his upper body before brushing more across his helmet’s polished iron bowl, leaving only the arm and his face exposed.

  A voice spoke, terrifyingly close to hand, and he pushed his right arm slowly beneath the surface of his camouflage and froze, trusting in the leaves’ concealment. If he could avoid capture then his ability to live off the forest’s flora and fauna would enable him to make his return to the safety of the other side of the Rhenus at leisure. A tribesman stepped into view, speaking to another man as he bent to pick something up from the ground at his feet. The Hamian groaned inwardly as he saw his bow in the German’s hands, not only for its loss but for the risk that its presence would betray him, willing himself to immobility as the tribesman looked around him for the body to which the discarded weapon must surely belong. His gaze swept across the centurion’s hiding place in a long, slow appraisal, but, just when Qadir was sure he was discovered, shook his head and turned away.

  Allowing the breath to seep slowly from his nostrils with relief, he started involuntarily as the Bructeri whipped back round, tossing the bow aside and levelling his spear as the realisation of what it was he’d been staring at registered in his mind. Raising the weapon above him in a two-handed grip, he stepped forward, his knuckles whitening as he readied himself to thrust the blade down into the helpless Hamian.

  8

  The remaining Bructeri gathered at the top of the slope that ran down to the river’s edge, protected from the warship’s archers and artillery by the cover of the trees’ foliage. Amalric stood in the middle of his warriors, looking about him to take stock of their mood with the keen eye of a man who knew that no king could consider his position safe after such an abject and abrupt defeat.

  ‘They’ll get over it.’

  He turned to find Gernot at his side, the older man’s gaze equally as calculating as his own.

  ‘They well might. But the doubt inspired by this … disaster … will remain in their minds, and every man who journeys to Thusila will hear that doubt in their voices. It will spread across my kingdom like the disease that killed so many of the tribe in my father’s last days.’

  ‘You chased the intruders to the very banks of the river. Were it not for their ships we would have gutted every last one of those pigs.’

  The king shook his head bitterly, his face reflecting the bad news the men sent to secure the sacred grove had given him only moments before, information not yet known to his warriors.

  ‘Which was all well and good, but they have taken my seer from under my nose! And they burned my chief priest on his own altar, burned him alive so that the woods echoed with his screams! And to deepen my shame they have the captured eagle that has been our prize for over a hundred years. Be clear, Gernot, this insult cannot go unanswered if I am to close my eyes for sleep without the fear of a blade in the night.’

  The noble nodded slowly.

  ‘I see your argument, my King, but …’

  Amalric rounded in him with sudden vehemence.

  ‘Do you not see? Only the gods can save me now! They must provide me with some means of rescuing my kingdom from the jaws of these Roman wolves. I do not know how, but without a miracle of some sort my days are numbered.’

  He frowned at the sight of a horseman leading his beast into the gathering with a body slung across his mount’s back.

  ‘As we need the sight of any more corpses.’

  Opening his mouth to shout a challenge at the man, he closed it again as the rider called urgently for assistance, telling the men around him that his brother had seemed a dead man and yet still lived. Exchanging puzzled glances, monarch and noble strode across to the spot where the injured man had been laid out on the forest floor, his eyes wide open and staring at the trees above, his body so still that even the rise and fall of his chest was barely discernible.

  ‘He seemed dead, when you found him?’

  The rider turned and bowed to them in turn.

  ‘Yes, my King. I was about to throw his body onto the horse when he spoke. I almost soiled myself, I was so surprised. And then I realised that you had to hear his words.’

  Amalric and Gernot nodded, looking down at the comatose warrior.

  ‘He fell in battle?’

  ‘Yes my Lord. He was the bravest of us, and charged his horse straight at the enemy. One of their archers died under his spear but his horse was felled, throwing him into a tree. I saw him fall, but my horse had an arrow in its side and was close to dropping. I barely escaped with my own skin intact.’

  ‘And so you went back to find him when the battle moved on?’

  Mindful of the criticism in Gernot’s voice the horseman bowed his head in contrition.

  ‘It seemed that you had the fight won, my Lord, with the Romans backing down the slope into the river. And …’

  ‘And he was your brother.’

  ‘Yes, my Lord. I—’

  Amalric cut off the attempt to apologise with a curt gesture.

  ‘And these words I have to hear?’

  The man on the ground started speaking, his words almost inaudible as his lips barely moved, the effort evident in his eyes. The two men knelt beside him, each of them bending close to hear what it was he was trying to say.

  ‘The woman …’

  ‘Gerhild?’

  The eyes swivelled to stare up at Gernot.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What of her?’

  ‘Rode north.’

  Amalric shook his head, placing a hand lightly on the stricken warrior’s shoulder.

  ‘No, brother. She boarded a Roman warship, I saw it with my own …’

  He fell silent, looking up at his uncle with a sudden flash of insight.

  ‘What did we see?’

  ‘My king …’

  ‘What did we see, Gernot, when the Roman warships were killing anyone who showed himself, and the men we we
re chasing reached the water’s edge?’

  The noble stared back at him.

  ‘We saw Gerhild get in a boat that took her away to the biggest of the ships.’

  ‘And how did we know that was Gerhild?’

  ‘Because she was wearing her blue cloak.’

  The king smiled tightly at his uncle as the realisation started to dawn on the older man.

  ‘We saw someone in a blue cloak get into the boat. But we have no way to be sure it was Gerhild. And now this man is telling us, with what might be his last breath, that he saw her ride north at the fork in the path that leads to her tower. And beyond her tower is …?’

  Gernot nodded, his lips pursed.

  ‘Is open land and forest. No barrier to someone who knows the ground.’

  ‘Gunda.’

  ‘What?’

  Both men’s attention snapped back to the paralysed warrior.

  ‘Saw Gunda … and the Roman …’

  The king’s face hardened into cruel lines that Gernot knew only too well.

  ‘Which Roman?’

  ‘From feast …’

  ‘I should have known it.’

  Amalric nodded at his uncle’s flat-toned verdict.

  ‘How many were they, brother, apart from Gerhild?’

  ‘Ten … my King.’

  Putting a hand on the man’s shoulder, the young king looked down into his face.

  ‘You have earned the gratitude of both your king and the entire tribe. You will be cared for until your time comes, whether that be today or fifty years from now.’

  Gernot stepped close to the king, speaking quietly in his ear.

  ‘They have an hour’s start on us, my King, no more. You must gather the remaining men of your household who are fit to ride and have them mounted on the freshest horses. And fetch your huntsman, he knows the ground to the north of here, and the paths that are known to Gunda, along which he will lead these thieving animals to safety unless we catch them first. We must be after these Romans before the sun is overhead if we are to catch them. If our men need any encouragement you can tell them that when we catch the Romans every single man in their party will be sacrificed to Wodanaz by your new priest.’ He grimaced at the human wreckage strewn across the riverbank’s slope. ‘And slowly. Very slowly.’