Altar of Blood: Empire IX

by Anthony Riches

  Both men turned at the sound of a growing commotion, a dozen or so warriors surrounding a pair of men who were half leading and half dragging a semi-conscious figure between them and holding off their brother warriors with the points of their spears. Gernot put his hands on his hips and looked up at the sky as the two men waited for the brawling group to reach them.

  ‘Perhaps the gods heard your plea, my King?’

  Amalric strode forward, scattering the men who were attempting to get their hands on the prisoner with the flat of his sword, bellowing at them to get back until only the dazed Roman and his captors stood before him, tribesmen surrounding them in a tight circle with murder in their eyes. The older of the two tribesmen released his grip on the prisoner’s arm, leaving him to sag against his comrade, bowing deeply to Amalric and Gernot.

  ‘A captive, my King, a Roman officer! My son wanted to kill him, but I heard you offer a gold coin for each Roman we captured, and five for a centurion, so I made him be satisfied with knocking the man about for a while.’

  Gernot looked past him at the prisoner, who was swaying on his feet with the look of a boxer who had taken one punch too many, his face puffy with fresh bruising.

  ‘A centurion? This is no centurion. Look at him …’

  The speaker’s son shook his head.

  ‘He is, my Lord! He was the man shouting orders at their archers when first we attacked them!’

  One of the men circling with evident blood lust spoke out, his voice an angry growl.

  ‘I saw this fucker put an arrow in my cousin Hald’s throat while the rest of those dogs were retreating from us, and he was the man telling them when to shoot and when to run! I say we gut him open and leave him here to—’

  ‘No!’ Amalric’s eyes blazed. ‘If there’s any butchering to be done then it will be performed in the right way, by a priest and on an altar sworn to Wodanaz! I am your fucking king, and you will obey me in this! If any man wishes to disobey my command, he can draw his sword and challenge me, but if none of you have the nerve to fight me then back away!’

  He stared about them for a moment, the wild fury in his eyes making more than one man take a step back. With his men cowed he continued in a more rational tone.

  ‘This man may be the key to understanding what game these Romans are playing. They have taken Gerhild to the north, doubtless running to the safety of the Angrivarii. I will pursue them, and I will take him with me. Should … when we catch these animals, he will provide a sacrifice whose bloody horror will make their blood run cold. So you can be sure of one thing, my brothers – this man is going to pay for the number of our people he killed today with a slow and agonising death. Bring him!’

  Dubnus stood staring out over the bow as the warship Mars led the small squadron up the Rhenus past the walls of Claudius’s Colony, looking round as Varus joined him.

  ‘They’ll be safe enough. There’s no way that the Bructeri could know that Rutilius Scaurus has taken the witch to the north, and even if they did know they’re not going to catch a man like Gunda, who knows every blade of grass between the river and the northern edge of their kingdom. Our friends are long clear of any danger.’

  The Briton nodded, still staring out over the river’s green water.

  ‘I suppose you’re right. But I wasn’t thinking about them, I was trying to work out the last time I saw Qadir alive.’

  Varus thought for a moment, cursing his insensitivity.

  ‘I’m sorry, I should have realised that the loss of your comrades would be hurting. And when did I see him last …? I think it must have been just after your first counter-attack, when his archers were shooting to cover your retreat. I heard him order them to pull back, and I didn’t hear his voice again after that. What do you think happened to him?’

  Dubnus shook his head, turning to face the Roman.

  ‘Who knows? He’s face down in the forest with a gang of Bructeri pissing on his corpse, if he’s lucky. Or a prisoner if he’s not. And we’ve both heard what they do to prisoners.’

  ‘Centurions?’ Both men turned to find the most senior of Albinus’s lictors standing before them with a scroll in his hand. ‘Forgive me, gentlemen, I hardly like to intrude on your loss.’

  Varus raised a patrician eyebrow.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, forgive me for being the bearer of unwelcome news … the Governor has instructed me to summon the centurion here to an investigatory meeting once we’re safely ashore.’

  ‘And not myself?’

  ‘No, Centurion. You are deemed to be …’

  ‘Too well connected to act as a lightning rod for the governor’s ill will?’

  The lictor shuffled his feet.

  ‘I’m sure I couldn’t comment, Centurion.’

  Varus shook his head in disgust.

  ‘I’m sure you couldn’t. Not that it’s any fault of yours.’ He shot the man a conspiratorial glance. ‘So tell me, and bearing in mind I know enough about Clodius Albinus to have a fairly good idea in any case, perhaps you could give us some clue as to the likely outcome of this investigatory meeting.’

  The lictor stared at him for a moment before speaking, lowering his voice almost theatrically.

  ‘You know that I’ll deny having told you this, don’t you?’

  Varus nodded impassively.

  ‘Of course. But that’s immaterial, because you have my word as a gentleman not to repeat anything you tell us.’

  ‘In that case I can tell you that it’s already been decided. The governor will ask your colleague here a few questions of little import, and then no matter what answer he gets he will then decide to have your detachment ordered to a fort so remote that he’ll expect your tribune to utterly fail to find his men, if he ever returns, especially once all records of the matter have been destroyed.’

  The Roman clenched his fist in anger.

  ‘And he expects me to allow such an injustice to pass?’

  The lictor shook his head, passing him the message container.

  ‘He doesn’t expect you to have any view on the subject, Vibius Varus, because you won’t have any awareness of it. You’re ordered to ride to Rome with this despatch …’ He handed over the watertight message container. ‘And given that your senior officer has absented himself from his command, it is not an order you can legally disobey. You’re to ride immediately, the moment we reach the city, and not to deviate from roads that lead directly to Rome. You are to deliver the despatch directly to the imperial chamberlain.’

  The young aristocrat looked down at the sealed container in his hand in disgust.

  ‘Amazing. And there was I thinking the man was merely a small-minded careerist. This proves that he’s something far worse than that.’

  ‘We’ll get a fire set, and organise a watch. You look after the tribune.’

  Marcus nodded to Dolfus, who turned away to issue commands to his own men and the two Hamians who had been detailed to accompany the party by Qadir, then looked up at his superior who was still sitting in his saddle, his eyes closed and his face grey with exhaustion. For the last hour of their ride he had swayed in the saddle like a man who had ridden for two straight days, and while there had still been an hour of usable daylight, Dolfus had made the decision to find a sheltered spot in the hills through which they had been travelling, rather than push on to the river that flowed across their path only a few miles further on. He had gestured to Gunda, inviting the German to agree with his decision.

  ‘Another mile or so and it’s all downhill to the River Reed. And as I’m sure your guide will agree, the last thing we want is to spend a night in the open on the edge of that quagmire.’

  Marcus touched the swaying tribune’s foot lightly to get his attention.

  ‘Tribune? You’ll feel better once the fire’s lit and you have some food inside you.’

  Scaurus dismounted slowly, every movement evidently painful as he roused himself to a semblance of consciousness.

  ‘Mi
thras, but that hurts! I feel as if I’ve fought that German giant and lost. Twice.’

  Marcus helped the tribune to ease his body into a sitting position against the bole of a tree, seeing the pain of the day’s ride etched in the lines of his friend’s face. Their path had covered mile after mile of forest tracks, difficult going once they were away from the heavily used hunting ground around Thusila, and the bumpy ride had taken its toll on the wounded man. He looked across at Gerhild, who had climbed down from her horse’s saddle and was speaking quietly with Gunda.

  ‘Lady, your assistance in redressing the tribune’s wound would be greatly appreciated.’

  Touching her brother’s cheek she made her way to where Scaurus stood.

  ‘Help him to remove his armour.’

  Marcus lifted the mail’s dead weight from the exhausted tribune’s shoulders, smiling wanly as Scaurus sank back against a tree trunk with his eyes closed. Gerhild put a hand to the blood-soaked tunic, pursing her lips at what she felt.

  ‘The wound is hot, I can feel it through the bandage and his tunic. Fetch my pot.’

  Emptying her water skin into the iron bowl, she erected the tripod that suspended it over the makings of a small fire, which she built with the skill of a born woodsman while Marcus watched, intrigued.

  ‘You’ve never seen a fire being constructed, Centurion?’

  ‘Never with quite such skill.’

  She flicked a glance at him, her eyes hard.

  ‘And by a woman, as you tactfully did not say.’

  Her words opened the wound of his memories as deftly as her Bructeri guard’s blade had torn Scaurus’s body.

  ‘My wife was a better doctor and surgeon than any man I’ve met before or since. I’m the last man to seek to denigrate a woman’s skills.’

  Gerhild looked up at him as she tore up the herbs that would make a herbal tea with which to treat Scaurus’s wound.

  ‘Was?’

  ‘She was torn from this life by the depravity of a deranged emperor and the incompetence of an inept doctor.’

  The woman’s face softened.

  ‘I am sorry for your loss. You have children?’

  ‘A son.’

  An uneasy silence settled on them as Gerhild built the fire’s base with twigs and dry grass.

  ‘There is more to your story.’

  The words were a flat statement of fact, but in the seer’s mouth they were both soothing and an encouragement to talk.

  ‘There is. But this is not the time for me to tell it.’

  She nodded.

  ‘I understand. This loss has dealt a blow to your soul from which there is no easy recovery. But I know in my heart that when the time comes, you will speak of it, and unburden yourself of the weight that bears down on you.’

  He stared at her for a moment before nodding curtly and standing.

  ‘If you will excuse me?’

  The woman smiled again.

  ‘Of course. Your tribune will sleep for a while, and I will not need your help to administer the herbal tea until the pot has boiled and then cooled.’

  He walked away, shaking his head at the moment of compulsion he had felt to tell her his story, of his father’s murder and his own escape from the throne’s hunters, of the vengeance he had wreaked on the men responsible and the love that had been destroyed by the actions of powerful and perverted men.

  ‘My sister has that effect on most men.’ He looked up to find Gunda waiting for him by the horses, watching as Dolfus and his men started to build a camp fire. ‘She gets inside their heads just by speaking with them, without effort or artifice. That was what upset the man I was forced to kill in the act of protecting her. That and the fact she foretold he would die very soon, which was the reason for his attack on her.’

  His smile was ironic, and Marcus found himself warming to the man.

  ‘You led us well today. How much further do we have to ride?’

  ‘Tomorrow we cross the Reed River, if I can find a place to ford it after all these years. Then we will ride north, past the remains of your fort at Aliso until we reach the borders of the Bructeri and the Angrivarii. We can only hope that they will be as friendly as Dolfus seems to believe will be the case.’

  ‘Centurion?’

  Marcus turned, to find Munir, the Hamian watch officer, at his side.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘We have seen something of which we believe you will wish to be aware.’

  He followed the Hamian to the edge of the slope, looking out across the land to the south. Husam beckoned to him, gesturing for the Roman to keep low, and Marcus crawled the last twenty paces to the spot Husam had chosen from which to watch the ground across which they had travelled.

  ‘There.’

  Following the older man’s pointing arm he saw what it was that had excited their attention, a long column of horsemen winding their way down a hillside in the distance.

  ‘You are to be congratulated on your eyesight, Husam. Munir …’ He looked at the younger man. ‘… run and tell Decurion Dolfus not to light his fire, and say the same to Mistress Gerhild. Quickly.’

  The Hamian was away at the run, leaving Marcus and Husam staring across the valley at the German horsemen.

  ‘How many, would you say?’

  ‘Thirty men, Centurion. And, if my eyes do not deceive me, one prisoner.’

  ‘So tell me, Centurion, exactly what it is that your tribune thinks he’s playing at with this latest escapade?’

  Dubnus considered the governor’s question with a neutral expression on his face, standing to attention with his helmet under one arm. The expected summons to an audience had been delivered to him by one of Albinus’s lictors soon after the Briton had settled his and Qadir’s men into their temporary quarters within the fortress, barely giving him time to get medical attention for his wounded man and find a new tunic in anticipation of the meeting. While the Briton was managing to keep his disgust at the senator’s obsession with Scaurus and his doings from betraying itself in his voice, the emotional hangover of the day’s events and the urge to do violence as a result was proving harder to control.

  ‘I can’t say, Governor. I wasn’t part of the discussion around the change of plan.’

  Albinus leaned back in his chair with a sour grimace.

  ‘No. I’m sure you weren’t. So tell me this, Centurion, who was part of the discussion? A certain decurion was certainly involved, that much I do know.’

  The big Briton stared impassively at the wall behind the governor’s head, ignoring the predatory stares being directed at him by the bodyguards arrayed behind their master.

  ‘I’m sorry, Governor, I was too busy killing tribesmen at the time to pay it much attention.’

  ‘You saw nothing?’

  ‘No, sir. Killing tribesmen does tend to be distracting.’

  Albinus stared hard at him for a moment, and the Briton cast his mind back to the moment when Scaurus had made the decision to drastically change his plan.

  ‘It seems that our party trick with Centurion Varus’s cousin isn’t going to work as well the second time around. Decurion Dolfus here was obliged to report it to the governor, and when his messenger passed on the news Clodius Albinus was highly vocal on the subject, to say the least. Apparently he won’t be allowed to make quite so free with the fleet which, the governor was at pains to point out, reports to him operationally.’

  The tribune had shifted his position fractionally, wincing at the pain as the blood drying around his wound was pulled by the movement.

  ‘You expect him to seek to prevent Prefect Varus from collecting us?’

  Dolfus had shaken his head at Qadir’s question.

  ‘Your orders come from Rome, and I doubt he’d go so far as to block the will of the man behind the throne. But I do think …’ he smiled wryly, ‘or rather I should say that the man I work for thinks, that he’ll seek to compensate for not having predicted such a move in the first place by ensuring that he’s on b
oard the flagship this time round. He’ll bring his lictors along to demonstrate the power of his office, and his bodyguard to provide enough men to take the woman off your hands, especially with the tribune wounded and therefore dismissible as unfit to command. Then he’ll send Gerhild south to Rome, and keep Tribune Scaurus hospitalised here for long enough that she’ll have been paraded in front of the emperor before he’s even allowed to get out of his hospital bed. With Clodius Albinus as the architect of the whole thing, I’d imagine. Putting it bluntly, if you board those ships your cause is as good as lost.’

  Albinus stared at the Briton standing before him in obvious disbelief.

  ‘Really? You expect me to believe that your superior officer took it into his head to abandon a means of escaping from Bructeri territory, and instead rode off into the wilderness with this Bructeri witch, and barely enough men to form a legion tent party, on a whim? And that he didn’t bother briefing you as to why he would make such a decision? Do you think I’m stupid, Centurion?’

  Given the opening, Dubnus was unable to resist the opportunity.

  ‘No sir, I don’t think you’re stupid …’

  He left the other half of the statement unspoken, but the scowl on the governor’s face deepened as he realised the implication of the Briton’s words.

  ‘You insolent dog! Get out of my sight! You and your barbarian soldiers are confined to barracks pending transfer to a more suitable duty than you’ve performed to date. I’ll bury you so deep that in the unlikely event of Rutilius Scaurus surviving his latest mad escapade, he won’t find you in a lifetime of searching!’

  ‘Feed him? Why would we feed him, Gernot? He’s going to be screaming his lungs out within a day or so, once we’ve caught up with his fellow murderers. Food would be wasted on him.’

  Qadir was careful to keep his head down, knowing that the slightest reaction to the Bructeri king’s dismissive answer might well give away his ability to understand their discussion. The older man shrugged, his response framed in a tone the Hamian suspected was deliberately light.