‘Well that ought to be the end of their work for the rest of the night. An inspired tactic, Tribune, given that the enemy archers clearly had no means of retaliating in the darkness.’
Scaurus nodded, his face drawn at the brief action’s hidden horror.
‘Thank you, Leontius. And I have a further suggestion to make. My cohort will assume responsibility for the ditch for the rest of the night. Why not give your Britons a short period of rest? They will face a renewed onslaught in the morning, I expect.’
The tribune nodded gratefully, and Marcus realised that he was missing what was painfully obvious to the young Roman. Julius glanced at him, the look in his eyes making plain that Scaurus’s purpose in taking the night watch was equally clear to the first spear.
‘Thank you, Tribune. Perhaps our first spears might organise the handover?’
Scaurus nodded blankly, turning away and staring down into the darkness, his face set as hard as stone. Marcus stepped up behind him, speaking quietly into his plea.
‘Tribune, forgive me if I speak plainly with you, but you must not do this thing. I realise you feel a responsibility for the men lying wounded down there, but. .’
Scaurus’s voice was hollow and emotionless, his interjection less interruption than simply deaf to his centurion’s plea.
‘Until you have actually ordered such a thing, Centurion, you have no idea how it tears at a man’s soul to hear innocent men, women and children cry out in fear and pain as their lives are taken for a crime that was not of their doing. I heard a child cry out for her mother, Marcus. I heard a man call in despair to his wife. .’ He took a deep breath. ‘I heard a man call out to Our Lord Mithras in the depths of his despair, but there was no answer, only another volley of our bloody arrows. I might have saved some of those people had I been more insistent with Belletor during the negotiations, but I allowed the self-interested fool to choose political expediency over simple humanity. So now I cannot simply stand up here with clean hands while innocents I condemned to slavery though my inaction lie helpless in the mud, torn and bleeding so that we might live a little longer. Julius, get the cohorts ready to relieve the Britons at the ditch. And find some fucking rope, will you?’
8
The fortification along the ditch was different to the last time Marcus had seen it, studded with arrows sunk deep into the mud wall and the ground behind it where the Thracian’s shots had landed short and failed to find targets. Julius set a party of men to collecting the undamaged missiles.
‘We’ll be needing these before the siege ends, I’d guess,’ said Julius. ‘They’ll provide a useful back-up supply to Qadir’s boys.’ He suddenly found himself off balance, having stepped into a depression in the ground, and looked down to make the unwelcome discovery of a shallow latrine pit dug to provide the Britons with some relief during their long day guarding the ditch. Grimacing in disgust he lifted his boot, the sole dark with excrement. ‘Well, doesn’t that just sum up this whole bloody campaign? We just can’t stop treading in the fucking shit! Get those bloody ropes over here!’
Marcus looked over the wall at the enemy ramp, whose tongue was now less than ten paces from the ditch’s steep western face.
‘They’ll be back in strength at first light, once their archers can see to shoot back at anyone brave enough to take potshots at them from the walls.’ Martos had stepped up alongside him, his one good eye shining in the moonlight as he spoke softly in his friend’s ear. ‘The ramp’s close enough already, I’d say. If it were me I’d flog my slaves to one last effort and make the end twice as wide as it is now, with enough space for three or four heavy planks. That way they can come at us in numbers, with their wild men up front, burning mad and with the promise of enough gold to live on for the rest of their days if they breach the wall. Ninety-nine men out of the first hundred across will die, of course, but they’ll carve a foothold out on this side by sheer weight of numbers, and all the time their archers will be showering us with arrows from either side. .’ The Votadini nobleman stopped talking, looking at Marcus knowingly. ‘What is it? What’s crossed your mind now?’
‘Something you just said. Wait here, and gather a score of your men ready for a fight, if you’re ready for a little excitement.’
The Votadini prince tapped his eyepatch as he turned away to his men.
‘I was born ready, Centurion.’
Marcus walked across to Julius, pulling a face at the revolting smell emanating from his friend’s dirty boot. The first spear turned to meet him, his face hardening at the Roman’s expression.
‘And you can fuck right off too. I’ve already had Dubnus enquiring whether I’m looking for a job as a legion bathhouse cleaner.’
Marcus shook his head with a smile, and quickly laid out his idea. He’d not finished explaining the potential to undo the Sarmatae plans when Julius nodded vigorously.
‘It works for me. You, Soldier Lumpyface, or whatever your name is, go and find the tribune and ask him to come and join us here. And we haven’t got all fucking night, so move!’
The man in question scurried away with a muttered comment to his mates that the first spear’s smell had finally caught up with his nickname, which Julius half heard and completely ignored mainly because he was sending other soldiers along the line to gather the cohorts’ officers. Scaurus appeared out of the darkness a moment later, his gloomy expression momentarily lightened when he caught wind of Julius’s distinctive new odour.
‘My word, First Spear, but that really is a most aromatic perfume you’re using these days. At least it’ll make finding you in the dark easy enough.’
His subordinate smiled thinly, and laid out Marcus’s proposal.
‘But we’ll need some gear out of the fort, and quickly too, before the chance is gone. If I send a man in to ask for what we’ll need he’ll just get told to piss off by the duty centurion on the grounds it all sounds like too much trouble, whereas you, Tribune. .’
‘Whereas I’m somewhat less likely to find myself holding the dirty end of the vine stick? Very well. .’ He turned away for the fort, shooting a parting comment over his shoulder. ‘And that said, perhaps you could use your vine stick to scrape off some of the offensive material that’s clinging to your boots?’
He was back within a few minutes, accompanied by two soldiers carrying the materials required. In his absence the centurions had watched as Martos and a dozen of his men roped down the ditch’s steep western slope to the bottom of the trench, still strewn with ash and the remains of the burned bodies left there from the previous night’s conflagration. They had climbed swiftly up the ramp’s steep sides until they stood atop the earthwork, squatting low to avoid revealing their presence to any enemy scouts left to watch the deserted battlefield. The Tungrians manhandled the first of the heavy wooden planks that Scaurus had fetched from the fort across the gap, watching anxiously as the Votadini pulled it into place against the ramp’s brow. Martos walked carefully down the bridge’s gentle slope until he was standing three feet from the turf wall, experimentally testing the plank with his weight as he came across. He called out to Julius in a soft voice, holding up a single finger.
‘One man at a time, I suggest, and definitely none of those monsters in your Tenth Century!’
Julius moved to step onto the bridge, but the tribune put a hand on his shoulder.
‘Not you. I need you here to take command if anything happens to me over there.’
The first spear frowned in disapproval, gesturing Marcus to join them.
‘I’m not allowed across, so you’re going to have to take responsibility for keeping the tribune here alive. Have Martos set up a perimeter. If any of those bodies are still breathing then I want them killed, quickly and quietly, be they Sarmatae, slave or even Roman.’ He turned a challenging look on his superior. ‘I assume you can live with that, Tribune?’
Scaurus nodded slowly, turning back to the plank bridge, and behind his back Julius shot a meaningful glance at
Marcus, muttering in his brother officer’s ear.
‘The first sign of any move by the enemy and I want him back across that plank and behind the wall, you hear me? I won’t go down in this cohort’s history as the man who allowed his tribune to get himself killed just because the man felt a bit guilty about some dead slaves.’
He signalled for the soldiers he had picked to carry out their orders, and the nimblest of them went across the bridge quickly and quietly, carrying the end of another plank to double the width of the crossing. Marcus stepped out onto the impromptu bridge, pacing tentatively forward as the plank beneath his feet sagged gently under his weight, but reached the far side of the gap safely enough. The ground before him was dark in the absence of any moonlight, and he was forced to call for the barbarian prince in a loud whisper.
‘Martos!’
A darkly amused voice in his ear made him jump.
‘There’s no need for you to shout, Centurion. It seems I see better with one eye than you do with two?’
Resisting the urge to make an acerbic reply, Marcus pointed out into the darkness.
‘We need to guard the soldiers while they do as much damage to the ramp as they can before the Sarmatae realise what we’re doing. Have your men spread out and form a perimeter thirty paces around us. Anyone they find still alive as they move forward is to be killed, without any noise. And Martos, if I fall out here, your only priority is to get the tribune back across the bridge, you understand?’
The prince nodded and gathered his men about him. With his whispered orders given, he gestured them forward with a finger ostentatiously held across his lips. Turning back to the plank bridge, Marcus saw Scaurus kneeling next to a prostrate body, and paced back to his side with his gladius drawn. Behind him the Tungrian working party were labouring frantically at the ramp sides with their borrowed spades, shovelling the soil and small rocks that had been deposited during the previous day down into the ditch to either side while leaving a slim finger of ground connected to their bridging point as they toiled to lower the earthwork round it as quickly as they could.
‘This poor man never had a chance.’
Marcus followed the tribune’s pointing hand to an arrow buried deeply in the slave’s chest, a wound from which the only possible outcome was a slow and painful death. The dying man gazed up at him in wonder, his lips moving as he muttered something in a language neither man spoke. Raising his dagger, Scaurus slid the weapon’s point into the man’s chest between his ribs, thrusting it cleanly through his heart and killing him instantly. He withdrew the blade, holding it up to look at the blood’s black stain on the blade.
‘I swear I’ll help as many of these poor souls to find peace as I can in whatever time we have. I suggest you do the same?’
Marcus turned away and stared out into the night again, still detecting no sign that their desperate venture had been discovered. He paced forward looking for Martos, crouching low to avoid silhouetting himself against any light from the fort, and was still searching the darkness before him for any sign of his friend when a hand gripped his ankle. Spinning round, he cocked his wrist to put the spatha’s pale blade through whoever it was that had touched him when a harsh whisper stayed his hand, the words haltingly slow as the man on the ground before him fought for every breath.
‘Help me. .’
The prostrate Roman’s eyes snapped wide with the pain as he rolled onto his back. The smell of his perforated intestines was strong in the night air, and Marcus looked down at him with pity, knowing that without the mercy of a sword stroke he could live for days in agony. The man croaked out a single word, his voice raw with pain.
‘We. . are all. . dead.’
The young centurion shook his head in despair.
‘We?’
‘Wife. . dead. Killed. . yesterday. Daughter. . raped.’ The veteran soldier sobbed, lost in his pain and sorrow, and a tear ran down his cheek. ‘Sons. . here. . somewhere.’ He fumbled at his neck, pulling hard on a thin cord to drag a pendant from his throat. ‘Take it. . return. . to Our Lord.’ Marcus nodded down at him, numb with dismay, and closed his hand over the metal disc. The doomed man gripped his fist tightly, his hold strong despite the pain tearing at him. ‘Centurion. . beseech you. . revenge. .’ He hunched over the arrow again as a fresh spasm of pain drove through him, pulling up his sleeve to display a legion tattoo. ‘For a soldier. .’
The Roman pulled his hand free as gently as he was able, then patted the convulsing man’s shoulder.
‘Go in peace, brother. I will send you across the river.’
He pushed the sword’s point up into the dying man’s chin, and deep into his head, watching as the veteran’s eyes rolled up and death claimed him. Pulling a copper coin from his belt purse he slipped it into the man’s mouth, pushing it in as far as he could against the probable theft were it discovered, then turned back to his search for Martos only to find the prince waiting patiently for him.
‘I fear you lack enough coins of any denomination to cope with this.’
He gestured with a hand at the ground around them, and as the moon slid out from behind the clouds that had masked it both the soldiers and Martos’s barbarians froze into immobility, knowing that any movement might betray their positions. While the scene revealed by the pale light was no worse than any battlefield the Roman had witnessed, his heart fell as he realised the sheer horrifying variety in the hundreds of dead and dying bodies strewn across the snow beyond the ramp’s earth surface, their blood tracing dark, evil patterns across the white expanse in extravagant gouts and delicate sprinkles depending on their wounds. The moonlight faded as another cloud scudded into place, and Martos’s men resumed the grisly task of executing Julius’s orders to leave no-one alive inside their perimeter.
‘There isn’t the time to give all of these people the mercy of our swords. I suggest you concentrate on destroying that earthwork?’
Realising the truth in the Votadini’s words Marcus paced back to the ramp, finding Scaurus on his knees beside another wounded slave. The soldiers labouring at the task of deconstructing the earthwork had carved great chunks out of its flanks but were clearly starting to tire, their movements becoming slow and arduous. Ignoring his grief-stricken superior for a moment he walked carefully over the planks, saluting Julius and pointing back out across the ditch.
‘The men we sent over are exhausted. We’ll need to change them for fresh workers.’
Julius nodded and gave the order for replacement soldiers to cross the gap, both men watching as the worn-out men made their weary way back across the bridge. As the new work party set about the ramp Marcus grimaced at his superior officer.
‘This quiet can’t hold much longer. Once the Sarmatae have done with licking their wounds they’ll be back, and it won’t take them long to realise what we’re up to. I’m going to send the tribune back now, whether he likes it or not.’
Julius tilted his head in question, his lips pursed.
‘And what if he won’t come with you? You can’t just carry him back over.’
Marcus nodded grimly.
‘I think he’ll see sense. I’m going to give him something to care about more than his despair at what he’s done here. But just in case more desperate measures are called for, where’s Arminius?’
He stepped across the bridge with the tribune’s bodyguard following behind him to find Martos waiting impatiently for him among the toiling soldiers.
‘The time has come for a little haste, Centurion. The enemy are coming to reclaim their battlefield from the sound of it.’
Marcus pointed to the perimeter.
‘Get all your men but one back across the bridge. Make sure the man you leave has a good pair of legs and balls the size of a horse’s between them. Tell him to run for the bridge and give us the warning when they come within fifty paces of him. No sooner!’ The barbarian turned away, and Marcus whispered encouragement to the digging soldiers before crouching down beside Scaurus who was sti
ll kneeling alongside the fallen slave.
‘He’s dead, Tribune.’
The senior officer gently placed the corpse’s hand back on its chest.
‘I need to seek their forgiveness, Centurion. Tell Julius he’s in comm-’
‘No.’
Scaurus turned his head to look at his subordinate blankly.
‘You might not understand your position in this matter, Centurion.’
Marcus shook his head bluntly, allowing the same note of patrician aloofness he’d heard his father use on occasion to enter his voice.
‘I said no, Tribune, and I meant it.’ Scaurus opened his mouth to object, but the young centurion overrode his protest before he had the chance to speak. ‘You have a greater responsibility than seeking atonement by sacrificing yourself here, however noble that death might be. You have this. .’ He pushed the veteran’s pendant into the tribune’s hand. Scaurus turned it over, recognising the Mithraic scene immediately. ‘The man around whose neck this hung was a retired soldier, captured with his family by the Sarmatae and forced to watch them being abused, murdered and worked to death. He gave me the pendant a moment ago, before I sent him to Our Lord, and begged me to see that it is returned to a temple, and to take some measure of revenge for him.’ He bent to hiss in the tribune’s ear, his voice loaded with urgency. ‘Tribune, you are innocent in this matter! It was Tribune Belletor who made the decision to leave Roman citizens enslaved, not you. His judgement was perverted by his need to gain a peace that would enhance his reputation and diminish yours, and it is clear to me that he has already paid the price for that self-interest.’
He waved a hand at the dead and dying slaves littering the ground around them.
‘Misery and death was always the fate of these people, and all you did by calling down the arrow storm on them was to bring forward the date of their deaths, and spare them any further degradation. The man who put these people under our arrows was not you, Tribune, but their captor. I have accepted the duty of bringing Balodi to justice in the eyes of our god. .’ He took the pendant from his superior’s palm and clenched his fist around it. ‘I invite you to join me in that duty, unless you would rather stay here and give your life away? After all, you ordered me to consider my men’s needs when the death of one of them unmanned me, and I only command a century.’
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