‘Prefect Equitius, this man is a trained praetorian centurion. He and I fought together on the road outside Yew Grove, when tribesmen surprised our party, and I saw no lack of courage in his eyes on that day. He also wounded an armed horseman in mounted combat during his escape from an ambush outside Yew Grove. He also marched from Yew Grove to this fort in nine days, thirty miles a day. Yes, he is tired, dirty and footsore, but he has courage and determination that you and I should be grateful to call our own. With the right guidance he…’
The prefect’s calm voice trampled over his sentence, used to being heard with deference under most circumstances.
‘Guidance? And that would be imparted by whom, in your opinion? I’ve got a civil war brewing to both north and south of my sector of the Wall and only four of my centurions with recent combat experience. I’ve got problems enough without having to nursemaid an untrained officer. Besides, my First Spear would laugh in my face — just as you would in his place.’
Rufius shifted his position slightly, weighing his last weapon of persuasion before throwing it.
‘Your chosen man Dubnus seems to think reasonably well of him…’
Equitius’s eyes narrowed at the name. He stood and walked around the desk, stopping in front of Rufius to speak softly into the retired officer’s right ear.
‘Dubnus? Now you do trouble me. What part does our very own Brigantian warrior prince play in this tale?’
Rufius thought quickly, praying that Marcus would remain silent.
‘Dubnus and his tent party intervened to save our lives when the barbarians attacked us on the road. Then he chanced upon me and the young man as we were being hunted through a murky dawn, by killers hired by the imperial appointee at Yew Grove. Only his impressive skills in combat saved us both from swift and ignominious death at the hands of those heartless mercenaries…’
‘I was coming to that. And you can keep the fancy language for the next time you want to overcharge Annius for a consignment of fish pickle. As I’ve received the news, a decurion of cavalry from the Second Asturian Horse at Cauldron Pool and two of his men, part of a detachment serving with the Sixth on attachment, were ambushed by this man and his cronies. Murdered before they had time to arm themselves. All three of them were left dead at the roadside, apparently, and to add insult to injury two of their horses were butchered for their meat. You’re telling me that Dubnus was a part of that?’
Rufius allowed himself to bridle slightly.
‘That he defended our lives at the risk of his own, taking us for innocent travellers beset by robbers, yes. That he attacked defenceless cavalrymen, no. These men were without uniform or insignia, and attacked us without hesitation. Your excellent chosen man saved both of our lives.’
Equitius stared hard at the retired officer, his face set hard.
‘The decurion, in the reports I received, showed signs of torture. A small blade had been used to inflict severe pain upon him as he lay trapped and dying underneath his dead horse. The Asturians have sworn bloody revenge on their altar to Mars. You wouldn’t know anything about that, I suppose?’
Rufius shrugged, his face remaining impassive.
‘More robbers would be my guess, Prefect. Desperate to have the decurion’s money perhaps? He made the mistake of abandoning his uniform and, since he looked like any other traveller, he paid a severe price.’
The other man turned away, his face shadowed by disbelief.
‘Hmmm. And Dubnus brought him here.’
‘Only as the result of a request from Legatus Sollemnis, passed on by me. I work for him in a minor capacity…’
The prefect spun back to face Rufius, speaking into his ear so quietly that Marcus could barely pick out the angry tone of his voice.
‘I know the capacity in which you work, Tiberius Rufius, assessing the Wall units’ readiness and reporting on the situation beyond the frontier to Northern Command. Don’t assume that everyone this side of the Wall is simple minded enough to mistake you for a trader. You should beware your secret reaching the wrong ears on the far side.’
He paced away to stare out of the room’s open window, his hair ruffled by the fresh breeze.
‘Very well, I’ll accept your version of these unfortunate events, despite the fact I don’t trust a single word. I’ll also try to accept Gaius Calidius Sollemnis’s request of me, since I do trust his judgement, and since I still owe him a very substantial debt of gratitude. As for the money he sent you to offer… I’ll use that to buy my men some decent equipment, if those incompetents over at Noisy Valley still have anything worth bribing out of their stores. Quite how I am to discharge this responsibility is at the moment, however, beyond me…’
He sat down behind his desk, surrendering to thought, idly pulling at his beard again. Rufius craned his head around, giving Marcus another warning stare of instruction to remain silent. At length the prefect spoke again, his sharp eyes boring into Marcus’s.
‘I presume that you are an educated young man?’
‘Yes, Prefect.’
‘And I presume that you speak little or none of the local language?’
‘Very little, Prefect.’
‘What weapons training have you received?’
‘Ten years’ training with the sword and general skill at arms, six years’ horsemanship, and seven months’ as a praetorian centurion, Prefect.’
The officer got out of his chair again and walked round the desk to look yet more closely into Marcus’s eyes.
‘Young man, while I respect the Guard’s renowned abilities on the battlefield, I’m not stupid enough to suppose that you actually learnt any of the art of modern warfare during your time in their ranks. I hear that it is the practice these days for a certain number of the sons of the aristocracy to be bought positions as praetorian officers each year. I hear that they serve with the Guard for a period, usually in ceremonial roles, and are shepherded at all times by experienced subordinates. Shepherded, young man, to ensure that they do nothing to degrade their unit’s fighting capabilities.’
Marcus winced inwardly at the memory of his clashes with his former chosen man Apicius, who he had often accused of being too harsh a disciplinarian.
‘In return they earn the right to enter the army as senior centurions, usually over the heads of men with much greater experience and ability, and can then return to Rome after a short period of service. Lucrative positions are open to such men, in the urban vigiles or even as praetorian tribunes. Often, it is said, such young men do more harm than good in their first years of command, and keep more capable men out of the positions they have earned by their efforts and successes.
‘To be blunt, Marcus Tribulus Corvus — and trust me, I really don’t want to know your true name — you have been trained to perform the tasks of a ceremonial officer. You know how to ensure that your men look smart on parade; you know the etiquette to be observed on palace duty. Doubtless you know how to address the emperor’s favourite mistress should you chance upon her being serviced by a gladiator during your rounds of the palace. I doubt very much, however, that you have the first idea as to the requirements of an officer on active service. Hmm?’
To Rufius’s relief, Marcus kept his eyes firmly fixed on the wall in front of him, and said nothing.
‘Do you really want to make the attempt to gain a centurion’s rank in this unit? Do you want it badly enough to accept any terms I place upon allowing you to convince my First Spear to accept your candidature?’
Marcus hesitated for a moment, sought Rufius’s eye and, receiving a nod from his friend, took a breath before speaking.
‘Prefect, my family is destroyed, my honour stolen, and I am declared traitor. This is my last chance to save myself and be of service to Rome. If I fail to convince you to let me have this chance, I will have little option except that of suicide.’
Equitius laughed softly, but without malice.
‘Hmm. Stirring words. But I’m really not the person you need to
convince.’ The cohort’s First Spear was adamant in his refusal, turning to glare out of the office’s window at the rolling hills beyond the distant parade ground in the at-ease position, as if addressing a gathering of his centurions. The individual rings of his mail shone with a high polish across his broad chest, while his moustache curled in a magnificent glossy arc down his upper lip. He ran a hand across his head, reflexively seeking to smooth hair which had long since fallen out or been shaved close to his skull to leave him almost perfectly bald. A large man, but constant exertion ensured that his body was all muscle, given no chance to run to seed.
‘No, Prefect, no man in this cohort’s one-hundred-and-twenty-year history has ever attained the rank of centurion without first serving in the ranks as a soldier. Usually for at least ten years, often a good deal longer. I have no intention of changing a tradition that has served us well for that long.’
‘I…’
‘Sir, with respect, I’ve seen combat beyond the rampart. I know what it’s like when the blue-noses charge into the shield wall with their swords swinging. We never stop telling those boys about the superiority of our way of fighting, about the fact that they only need to jab the point of an infantry sword in four inches at the right point of the body to kill a man in seconds. We train them day after day to do just that, until they’ll kill and kill again on instinct alone in the horror of a battle. And it still scares the shit out them to have some hairy great bastard swinging a battleaxe and running at full speed into their line. The main thing that stops them from running when they’re blasted from head to foot with blood, when the man to each side has been either killed or is trying to hold his guts in, is me, and the other ten officers they know will fight alongside them to the death. Will stand and fight even if they do turn and run, even if only to cover their backs. They hate us and they fear us in equal portions, but mainly they respect us. Very few men of nineteen summers have that kind of leadership potential. Praetorian or not.’
He turned back to face his superior, determined to give no ground to the suggestion. Equitius stared back at him, his expression unrepentant.
‘As I was trying to say, I agree with you completely.’
‘Then why ask me even to speak to him?’
The prefect stood up, walking around the desk to join his senior centurion at the window.
‘Three reasons, Sextus. Firstly, I took that rascal Quintus Tiberius Rufius to one side once the boy had said his piece, and asked him why the Sixth’s commander was willing to risk his life for this matter.’
‘And?’
‘The young man doesn’t know it, but the legatus is his real father. Nor in my opinion must he find out, after the shocks he’s had. Apparently our colleague in arms and the senator were friends in the service, tribunes in one of the Hispania legions, and when Sollemnis got a local girl pregnant, it was Valerius Aquila and his new wife who took responsibility for the child. And, as you’ll be aware every time you look at the equipment our troops use, we owe him more than one favour.
‘Secondly, if we don’t give the man the chance to try, he’ll walk out into those hills and fall on his sword. I’ve seen enough men in that situation, and he has the same look in his eyes…’ He paused for a moment, staring into space at nothing in particular. ‘… without hope, beaten down by circumstance but still determined to stay in control of his destiny. I have some respect for that attitude, as you may be aware.’
A long silence ensued, until the centurion spoke again.
‘And your third reason, Prefect?’
Equitius paused for a moment, his lips pursed in thought.
‘I just wonder if there isn’t more to the man than we might suppose. You’re the judge of men — you decide.’
‘And if I still decide against?’
‘Then Tribulus Corvus will have to work out his preferred means of taking his own life.’
*
Marcus and Rufius jumped to their feet at the sudden opening of the prefect’s office door. The senior centurion stepped through the frame, stopping in front of the younger man and looking him up and down with slow care. He saw, through the shadows of exhaustion, a hard face with a determined set, its hawkish aspect enough to make a stranger approach with care.
‘Are you tired, candidate?’
‘Yes, First Spear.’
‘“Sir”’ will be enough for the time being.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Do your feet hurt?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Are you hungry?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Could you march another ten miles if your life depended upon it?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Very well, we’ll march.’
The officer accepted his cloak, sword and helmet from a soldier who had run to fetch them, handing over his vine stick while he buckled the weapon to his body. He looked inside the helmet to check the position of the woollen cap that nestled inside the bronze dome, catching Marcus’s sideways glance.
‘My one concession to advancing years. The old pot can be painful to wear in the absence of hair, even with the issue liner, and we don’t wrap rags round our heads under the helmet in this cohort.’
He secured the helmet by its chinstrap, taking his vine stick back from the waiting man.
‘Dismissed, soldier. I believe your century have drawn duty cleaning the bathhouse.’
They walked up the fort’s slope, past barrack buildings and staring soldiers, to the Wall itself, towering twelve feet above the fort’s stone roads. First Spear Frontinius led the way up the ladder of one of the two gate towers, bringing Marcus out on the rampart. The sentries looked on in surprise while he gestured for the Roman to look out over the scene beyond the Wall. A hundred-foot drop, almost sheer, fell away from the Wall’s base to the plain below, a mighty natural defence that must have made the military engineers salivate with its potential when the rampart’s line was first planned.
The escarpment ran in both directions as far as the eye could follow its sinuous path, the whitewashed wall that topped its line clearly visible for miles. Below the Wall the ground was more or less flat, until it swelled into shallow hills a mile or so distant, their slopes heavily forested.
‘We cleared away the trees from the land in front of the Wall.’
Marcus nodded his understanding. Such open ground would make any covert approach to the fort almost impossible. A fair-sized lake fed the Fort’s bathhouse, the water flowing down from its location on the higher part of the plain. A notch had been cut in the escarpment by the stream over the ages, and here, a hundred yards past the eastern wall of the fort, and behind the Wall, he could see the high-domed roof of the bathhouse. Frontinius tapped him on the shoulder, recapturing his attention.
‘This view shows our place and role here more clearly than any speech I might make. On this side of the Wall, there is order. Order, discipline, cleanliness, the right way of things. On the other side there is nothing better than barbarism, surly tribesmen with an appetite for Roman goods but little desire to enter our society. The tribes to our immediate front, the Selgovae, Votadini and Dumnonii, number at least a hundred thousand. The tribes from beyond Antoninus’s Wall, farther north, Maeatae and Caledonii, barbarous tattooed animals all of them, as many again. Even the people to our rear, Carvetii and Brigantes, would cheerfully put a dagger between our shoulder blades given half a chance, for all their veneer of civilisation. We on the Wall are ten thousand men in a sea of hostile spears — even the northern legions are several days’ march distant. If the natives decide to fight, which currently seems inevitable given that their leader Calgus has spent most of the last year whipping them up for it, we’ll have to face down several times our own number until the legions can get forward. And they won’t get here at all if the tribes in their own operational areas decide to join the fun. Life here is as dull as it gets most of the time, but it could quickly become a lot more exciting than any of us would wish.’
&n
bsp; He led Marcus back down through the fort, out of the massive southern gate and through its small collection of houses and shops. Women and children in the street stood respectfully as the officer passed, even a couple of hard-faced prostitutes favouring him with smiles.
‘They depend on us for their livelihood. If the prefect decided that the Hill would be more secure without the hangers-on, they would be destitute. Mind you, there are so many men with women and children in the town now that I suspect they form no risk to our security.’
They marched over a bridge spanning the massive ditch that separated the civilian and military zones, Marcus readjusting to the renewed pain in his feet. The road fell away steeply towards the parade ground’s expanse, across which several groups of men were training with swords and shields. The older man marched briskly past them, barking directions to individuals whose performance caught his eye.
‘You, yes, you, with the red hair, lift your shield higher! You’re supposed to be stopping blue-nose spears, not protecting your bloody ankles! Chosen Man, show him what I mean, he clearly can’t understand… Well done, that man, excellent sword work!’
They passed the final group and left the parade ground behind before he spoke to Marcus again, talking at the air in front of him rather than turning to face the younger man.
‘Recruits. In two months we’ll have knocked them into rough shape, and toughened them up enough to give them a good chance of surviving a battle, and in six they’ll be every bit as good as any legionary. We’ve got men serving with ten and twenty years with the cohort, some who fought in the last uprising. What I’m being asked to do is put you in command of eighty of those men, all of whom, since they grew up playing at soldiers in the woods and fields of this area, have more idea of real soldiering than you do. The very idea of it makes me feel sick. This is my cohort, my fort and my parade ground. I was passed the leadership of them all, every man that serves here, by my predecessor, and when I retire I’ll bring the best centurion in the cohort down to that parade ground. I’ll make him promise me, and the shrines of Cocidius, Jupiter, Mars and Victory, to maintain the traditions we live and die by. I’m responsible for those traditions now, and for making sure that my decisions are made in the best interests of the unit. My cohort.’
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