Belletor turned back to face Scaurus with a triumphant grin, clearly savouring the look of disbelief on his colleague’s face.
‘What in the name of Our Lord are you playing at, Domitius Belletor?’
‘Simply taking a lesson from the histories and applying it, Rutilius Scaurus. Barbarian kings are easily swayed by Roman gold, and this way we can ensure they stay out of the fight whilst also increasing our own army’s mounted strength. I have no doubt that the Thirteenth Legion’s legatus will snap up a thousand horsemen happily enough.’
‘I see.’ Whilst Scaurus’s reply was pitched too low for the Sarmatae nobles to hear, his tone was acerbic. ‘You seek to gain favour with the authorities by bringing them a gift of cavalry, whilst returning the prisoners we took in battle to put my nose out of joint, and so you spend the emperor’s gold like water in order to buy peace with a defeated enemy. And what of the slaves? I thought we agreed that the freedom of any Roman citizens among them was an absolute requirement? We know that they hold Roman citizens captive.’
Belletor laughed softly, shaking his head at his colleague’s anger.
‘So reality bites, does it colleague? Yes, I’ll do whatever it takes to show the men in power I know how these things work. Unlike you, I have no intention of being a tribune for the rest of my service, and this will make it clear to the men that matter just what I’m capable of. Besides, the mine generates nearly two million aureii a year for the empire, against which a payment of ten thousand is relatively small change, wouldn’t you agree? And as I said to Maximus here when he was busy wringing his hands at the loss of so much gold, we have to consider the bigger picture. Surely that’s a price worth paying, if it means the empire doesn’t have to post half a legion here to keep the place safe? And as to the slaves, if those people were foolish enough to put themselves in such danger, it’s hardly an imperial priority to rescue them from their own idiocy, is it?’
Scaurus spoke slowly, as if he were explaining a complex problem to a child.
‘The problem with paying protection money, colleague, as any stallholder will tell you, is that the men providing the protection are seldom satisfied with the sum initially agreed when they get the scent of more money. And the whole point of native levies is that they are sent to serve at the other end of the empire, not to put them into battle against their brothers. And to leave Roman citizens in bondage and certain depravity? Words fail me.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘At least you’re right in one respect, colleague. This will indeed say more about your abilities to the men who control this province than I ever could.’
A soft cough from the Sarmatae indicated that their thinking had come to an end. The Romans turned back to face them to find Galatas and his uncle waiting.
‘I have discussed this matter with my nobles, and we are in agreement with your suggestion. In return for your gold we will provide you with one thousand horsemen who will give you faithful service in the defence of your province. Perhaps we might examine the quality of your gold?’
Balodi stepped forward and bowed to Belletor, taking the proffered key and opening the heavy chest. Digging his hand into the coinage stored within, he pulled an aurei out from near the box’s bottom and examined it closely, testing the metal with his teeth. He nodded to Galatas, who turned back to Belletor with open arms.
‘Tribune, your generous gift proves the sincerity of your desire for friendship between our peoples. I accept this gold, and vow to return to my lands in peace.’
The Roman bowed.
‘And I accept your gracious terms, and your most esteemed gift of men and horses. I would have one more thing of you though, something without which I may struggle to persuade my master the governor of this province as to the likely longevity of this agreement.’ Galatas raised his eyebrows in question, but Marcus saw a look of complicity steal across his uncle’s face. ‘Give me your would-be usurper Inarmaz, and I will subject him to Roman justice every bit as unforgiving as your own. After all, he assaulted the centurion here despite his peaceful intent in returning your father’s body to you, and he clearly harboured ambitions to your throne.’
Galatas looked to his uncle, who returned the unspoken question with a slow, thoughtful nod. He turned back to Scaurus with a look of uncertainty.
‘Our punishment for Inarmaz’s crime would be for his head to be severed from his body before the sacred sword, making his execution both quick and honourable. Can you assure me of a similarly swift end to his life, if I hand him over to your justice?’
Belletor nodded soberly.
‘At your request, King, and despite his crimes, I will ensure a clean death for this man.’
Galatas gestured to the men surrounding Inarmaz to bring him forward.
‘Very well. Once I have left this place you will send him to meet his ancestors with the appropriate dignity for a member of my family.’
Belletor smiled.
‘I will. And with our agreement concluded, I would deem it a great personal honour were you and your uncle to join myself and my colleagues in a celebration of this alliance between our tribes.’
Later, when the gathered nobles and centurions had drunk enough for the evening to have turned rowdy, the feast tent was filled with the shouts and cheers of good natured if lively games of axe throwing and arm wrestling. Balodi, who had narrowly bested Dubnus in an axe-throwing contest, much to the big Briton’s noisy disgust, strode across the tent to salute Scaurus.
‘I give you my respect, Tribune. It was your quick thinking in releasing me that saved us all from a long stalemate, and my nephew there from murder!’ Galatas was sitting in earnest conversation with Belletor, who was holding forth on a subject of great significance, to judge from his intent expression. ‘Although I suspect he now faces a new and terrible danger — death by boredom!’
Scaurus smiled at the joke, but his eyes were hard as he stared at the Sarmatae noble.
‘It seems that I have made a big mistake, Balodi Boraz. I have underestimated you, and as a result the terms of your defeat have swung somewhat further in your favour than I might have believed possible.’
Balodi raised his drinking horn in salute, his smile unflinching in the face of the Roman’s evident disapproval.
‘You did the right thing, Tribune, you freed me and in doing so you ended this war. Can you blame me for using every tool at my disposal to settle the terms as favourably as possible?’
Scaurus shook his head.
‘No, I cannot, although you seem to have found our Achilles heel rather more easily than I’d have hoped. You did negotiate this whole agreement with my colleague Belletor before we ever came to discuss peace, didn’t you?’
Balodi grinned, nodding happily.
‘Well spotted, my friend! As my father told me often enough for me to grow heartily bored with his urging, a man never stops learning! A man watches, and he listens, even in the depths of adversity, even in captivity, and eventually he will learn something that he can use to his benefit. And soldiers will talk, so once I knew of the enmity between you, and that he was likely to be the more suggestible half of your partnership, I knew what I needed to do.’
The Roman nodded his understanding.
‘In which case I can only salute you, Balodi Boraz, you played the game too well for me. You have a fortune in gold, you have a young king to mould as you wish, and your only potential rival’s death can be conveniently laid at our door, keeping your own hands clean and Inarmaz’s men from revolting. Belletor didn’t even manage to persuade you to free the Roman slaves that we know you brought with you.’
The nobleman shrugged.
‘I told him the truth, that many of my brothers would rather kill their slaves than hand them over to you under duress, and since you have no idea of how many of them we possess, many would most assuredly die if the king were to enforce their freedom. It will be much easier to have them freed quietly, and without fanfare once we have departed from this place. You have my word upon i
t.’ He eyed Scaurus speculatively. ‘And speaking of Inarmaz, what of this quick death your colleague has assured my nephew you’ll grant him?’
The Roman shrugged, hooking a thumb back over his shoulder at Marcus.
‘My centurion here has a sword sharp enough to slice fine cotton dropped onto the blade, and little enough love for Inarmaz. He’ll take the man’s head off with a single blow, when I tell him to do so.’
Balodi stared at him for a moment.
‘What other methods of punishment are usually employed to punish traitors to your empire?’
Scaurus raised an eyebrow.
‘We would usually give the convicted traitor thirty or forty lashes with a whip whose braids contained nails and fragments of glass. A skilled executioner can scourge a man to within an inch of his life without allowing him any easy exit. After that he’s nailed to a cross through his wrists and ankles with only three nails, by a man who knows how to drive in the iron without severing a blood vessel. After that it’s only a question of time before he dies of suffocation as his weight sagging from his arms stops his breathing. With his legs left unbroken a strong man can hoist his weight up on that single nail driven through his ankles for long enough to avert suffocation, although clearly at the cost of the most intense pain. Such a man might last for two or even three days, but the crows have usually taken his eyes before the end comes. It’s not a death you would wish upon anyone for whom you retained any family feeling.’
He looked steadily at Balodi, waiting for the noble to speak.
‘Tribune, my brother’s brother by marriage is responsible for the death of my brother, and for the slaughter of some of the bravest and best warriors in our tribe. I do not find the prospect of his swift and merciful death an attractive one, and if it were my choice he would endure the fate you have just described. I feel that the promise of such an end for Inarmaz would be the best possible way of ensuring a lasting peace between us. And besides, the men I will be gifting to you are Inarmaz’s followers, as I am sure you will have guessed. My people respond best to demonstrations of strength, and so I will counsel your colleague Belletor to begin their time in your army by showing them your iron fist, if you take my meaning?’
Scaurus nodded slowly, his voice flat.
‘I do indeed. I don’t expect you’ll find him any less malleable on this subject than you did before.’
Balodi clapped him on the shoulder and then stood up, a little unsteadily, bellowing a challenge into the tent’s noisy interior.
‘Excellent! Now, where’s that big ugly ox of a first spear of yours? He promised me a contest of arm strength and the time for that mighty battle’ — he drained his cup of wine and held it over his head with the last drips raining onto his hair — ‘has come!’
‘Not looking quite so full of himself now, is he Centurion?’ Marcus stared across the parade ground at the cross onto which Inarmaz had been nailed the previous day, noting dispassionately that the slumped body was now motionless, in stark contrast to the frenzied struggle for life the Sarmatae had put up the previous day. Morban leaned closer to his officer, muttering quietly from the side of his mouth. ‘I heard that someone came out here in the night and put a spear in his heart. When the guards came to give him a prod in the morning he was already stiff as a plank. Some soft-hearted idiot who ought to have known better. .’
Marcus looked down at him with pursed lips, ignoring the disapproving gaze that his standard bearer was directing at him.
‘Your point is taken, Standard Bearer. I will remember to apply it rigidly when your continual flow of insubordination and invention of schemes to defraud your fellow soldiers leads to your taking your turn to dance on the shaft of a nail. Or would that be different?’
The two men stood in silence and watched as the Second Cohort marched onto the parade ground and took their place behind the First. The Tungrians were loaded for the march, their carrying poles topped with the bundles that contained their lives, and it wasn’t hard to detect a certain lack of enthusiasm for the day’s march in the soldiers’ bearing. Once the Tungrians were settled in place the legion cohort made their entrance, and the soldiers standing behind Marcus started their accustomed stream of insults and jibes, albeit muttered at a volume low enough to prevent them carrying beyond their own ranks. Swinging to face his men, Marcus lifted his vine stick to Quintus who was standing in his usual place behind the century’s ranks.
‘Chosen Man Quintus, you have my permission to put your pole through the head of the next man to speak! And on this occasion I won’t be finding fault with your selection of targets! Should you give a nasty headache to the most unpleasant man in the century in error I’m sure he’ll know who to blame once the initial shock has worn off.’
He turned back to watch the legion cohort’s arrival, smiling at the sudden complete silence behind him as the likely consequences of the next smart comment sank into his soldiers’ minds.
‘I see the German’s come to see us off.’
The Roman turned his head at Morban’s muttered comment, quickly finding Gerwulf standing alone at the side of the parade ground in full uniform.
‘Indeed so. I wonder. .’
A hurrying figure caught his eye, a woman dressed in a heavy cloak against the morning cold and escorted by a pair of solidly built men, one of whom was carrying a long bundle in his arms. She hurried across the parade ground looking from side to side, obviously seeking out somebody in particular.
‘It’s the floozy that owns the Ravenstone mine. Gods below, but she could make a man forget that he ever had any troubles. Good legs, fair-sized tits, a pretty face. . and all that gold.’
Marcus ignored the standard bearer’s musings and watched as Theodora made a beeline for Scaurus. With a sudden presentiment of what could have upset the woman quite so badly, he stepped out of his place in front of the century and strode down the cohort’s line to join the tribune and the first spear as they listened to her near hysterical recounting of the night’s events.
‘They broke into the villa at dawn and held my staff at sword-point. They killed the boy, Gaius!’
Scaurus leaned closer, staring into the woman’s eyes with a slitted gaze, his voice hard in the sudden silence as she fell quiet at the sight of his murderous expression.
‘Who were they?’
His answer was a wail of despair and fury, as she turned and pointed at the stationary figure of the German prefect still staring at them from the parade ground’s edge, a smile creasing his lips.
‘They didn’t say, but it must have been him! Look at him standing there with that smug expression on his face and tell me that they weren’t his men!’
Looking at the bodyguard’s burden, Marcus realised that it was Mus’s body, wrapped in a sheet. A small bloodstain had leaked through the material, and the realisation that the child must have been killed with a blade sent a wave of icy fury through him, but before he could move Scaurus barked out a command.
‘No!’
The tribune stared at his furious officers with a face set hard.
‘If we have no proof then we cannot act. Gentlemen, return to your duties.’ Neither Julius nor Marcus moved, both men staring across the parade ground at Gerwulf with murderous intent, but before either of them could translate intention into action the tribune spoke again, his tone suddenly matter of fact.
‘This one we lose, it’s as simple as that. I thought asking Theodora to hide the boy was enough to safeguard him, but I was wrong. He’s dead, which destroys the last chance of anyone bearing witness to Gerwulf turning his men loose on that village. And if any of us attempt to make him pay for Mus’s murder Belletor will be provided with exactly the evidence he needs of my insubordination. The bastard’s got away with it this time, and he knows it.’
The German stared at them for a moment longer and then raised his arm in an ironic salute. He turned and strode away down the hill without a backward glance, leaving the three men staring at his back until he
vanished from view among the tents of his cohort’s camp.
6
‘The legatus will see you now, Tribunes.’
Scaurus motioned to the door, gesturing for his colleague to enter the legatus’s office in front of him. Belletor accepted the invitation with alacrity, clearly keen to put himself in front of the man who would be the arbiter of their fate ahead of his rival. The legatus rose from the desk behind which he was sitting and walked round it to greet him, his face professionally bland as he accepted first Belletor’s salute and then Scaurus’s. Whilst his facial bone structure and hair colour were clearly North African in origin, from the coastal lands previously occupied by Rome’s ancient enemy Carthage, his skin was surprisingly pale by contrast with the darker hue that usually accompanied such an appearance.
‘Domitius Belletor, welcome to Porolissum. I am Decimus Clodius Albinus, legatus of the Thirteenth Legion and joint field commander of imperial forces in the province.’
Belletor saluted formally, a frown creasing his brow.
‘My thanks, Legatus, although I am at a loss as to how you were able to discern which of the two of us was which?’
Albinus smiled slightly, indicating Scaurus with a wave of his hand.
‘It was easy enough, Tribune, given that I’ve known Gaius here since he was a fifteen-year-old. I’m surprised that he’s never mentioned our long association to you.’
Belletor’s eyes narrowed as the implications of the legatus’s statement sank in. He dithered for a moment before speaking again.
‘In that case, Legatus, you will doubtless be aware that I am the commander of the auxiliary detachment that arrived here this morning. My command comprises a legion cohort, two auxiliary cohorts, a squadron of auxiliary cavalry and one thousand native horsemen.’
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