There were so many questions that they could not answer. Were all of the Risen being withdrawn, or was it just the local ones? Was he trying to build an army or defend himself? So much was unknowable.
“Are you coming?” Vitus asked, drawing Regulus from his reverie.
“In my own time, yes,” he said, forcing a smile to his face. He followed the two centurions to Bactus’s quarters. He would discuss his misgivings with them, what else was there to do?
“So how did you end up here?” Vitus asked, passing a beaker back to Bactus for the older man to refill. The spirit was hot and raw but warmed Vitus to the core. The house was mainly empty as the legions preferred to remain under canvas despite the villa and its many rooms, so the talk echoed off the walls of the wing of the house Bactus had made his own.
“After Governor Clemens died, the Germani tribes started to get restless. We had taken down as many of them as we could and they just kept coming. The chiefs had been friendly with Clemens but with him gone, they started looking for a fight. Eventually those of us that were left packed up what we could and headed here. I remembered this place from when we came through and it made a lot of sense.” Bactus passed the full beaker back to Vitus and took up his own drink once more.
“You’ve certainly changed the estate, it must have been a struggle to build the wall,” Vitus commented. “We had teams of ten men digging while the rest of us defended them. Some days weren’t too bad, other times we just had to stop work and retreat. Since we got the wall up, it’s been easier to defend. It sounds like the numbers in Rome are massive compared to what we’ve seen,” Bactus said.
“You wouldn’t believe it. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen, they were everywhere I have no idea how we even got out alive. I still dream about it now.” Vitus paused for a moment before asking, “So how did Clemens die?”
“He just got ill,” Bactus answered. “Started with a cough, it got worse and before we knew it he was gone. In the middle of all this, he died of a bad chest.”
“Life goes on, I guess. Just because half the monsters in Hades are running about killing people, normal things still happen. Here’s to the old man,” Vitus said, raising his glass and waiting for Regulus and Bactus to do the same.
“And absent friends,” Regulus added, speaking for the first time in a while. “May the gods be looking after them.”
The three men drifted into thoughts of old and lost friends. Antonius, Vespas and even Domitius, wherever he might be now.
Lucia lay back in her bath, the water was so hot that she had to be careful lowering herself in. Mixed feelings of relief and sorrow flooded through her at the thought of being back at home. Not that she thought about it as home anymore. Seeing the villa sitting among the tents and new wooden buildings had made it feel like a vision rather than actual memories.
She had gone to her old room, wanting to see the place where she had spent most of her formative years but it hadn’t felt the same. She had taken the things she had cared for when she had left the estate, and what was left was simply another room, just smaller than it used to be.
One of the legionaries had come to fetch her then, telling her with undisguised pride that some of the men had fetched and heated water so that she may have a bath. He had even offered to stand guard at the door so that she was not disturbed. Therefore it was with some surprise that Lucia heard the door open.
She reached for her sword, never more than an arm's length away, especially when she was on her own. She shifted in the bath, causing a wave of water to roll over the side. As soon as she saw who had entered the room, tears began to fall unbidden. All the months and miles came crashing down on her as she saw Rosa standing just inside the door.
Her nurse was just as soft and gentle looking as she had always been but she had an unkempt look about her, as they all did these days. Her hair, normally scraped back into a bun at the back of her head was loose, and grey was showing where she would never have allowed it before. In her arms she held a struggling baby, who was doing her best to free herself from Rosa’s grasp.
“You always were quick to find a bath, girl. Always first to shirk a chore in favour of an hour of laziness,” Rosa said, trying to sound stern but she slipped into a crying sob at the end of her words.
Lucia rose from the bath, water pouring of her body as tears flowed down her cheeks. She was not shy of her nakedness, this woman had changed her when she was a baby and helped dress her almost every day since. Sorrow and joy robbed her of words as she stepped toward the old woman who held new life in her hands. She simply smiled a warm, sad smile and threw her arms around the both of them.
“Gods, I missed you Rosa,” Lucia said, through a mixture of crying and laughter. She pulled back from the hug, much to the child’s relief. She stood and took Rosa’s face in her hands and kissed her on the forehead, the cheeks and lastly on the lips.
“Behave, girl,” the old nurse said, feigning indignation. A huge smile broke through her tears and the two women stood, each looking into the face of the other.
“I never thought to see you again,” Lucia said, stepping to a chair where a pile of linen waited. She picked up a towel and began to dry herself.
“You don’t get rid of me so easily, you should know that,” the baby in her arms resuming her struggle.
“Is that Flora?” Lucia asked, remembering the day the baby had been found in the blood soaked arms of her dead mother during the massacre in the cellar of this very house where so many people had lost their lives.
“She’s grown since last you saw her,” the older woman said with a nod.
“She certainly has,” Lucia agreed and the two lapsed back into staring at each other. It held for a moment before Lucia began to laugh with joy. “There is so much to tell you, dear Rosa. So much I want to ask you, as well. I’m hungry now though, will you help me find some food?”
Rosa smiled and let out a chuckle of her own, “You haven’t changed, my girl, not one bit.”
She heard the words and darkness fell over their joyous reunion. Of all the things they might say to one another, this was probably the least true. She had changed more than she could ever explain to Rosa. She shook her head and put it out of her mind.
“Answer me one question, before we eat.” The older woman looked sad and Lucia knew the answer before she asked. “Is there any news of my father?”
Rosa shook her head and stepped forward, not to stop Lucia’s tears but to share them.
Chapter Nineteen
“Anything that will catch the light, get rid of it or blacken it. We are going in at night but they will have torches and fires,” the centurion said to the three units of eight legionaries. “We go in quiet and fast. We’ve had scouts out around the defences they’ve built and we can see at least half a dozen points of entry. They’re lucky they haven’t had a serious Risen attack or it would all be over for them in minutes.”
Julius watched the legionaries donning their armour and checking weapons. They all put on loose tunics, made large enough to cover the armour they wore, to deaden sound and stop light from reflecting off any exposed metal.
This was the first time he had been close to the fighting men in camp. He had ridden while they marched, and that meant he hadn’t spent any time in their company. He would not, of course, be going with them on the rescue, but he wanted to see them prepare.
He would be joining Numarius as he met the men from inside the town for a meal. It would be the first sign that something was amiss if they failed to honour the invitation that had been extended to them. Julius had questioned the wisdom of this, something he felt able to do around the legate.
“Julius, if I ran from every sign of danger, what kind of leader would I be?” Numarius had asked with a genuine smile.
“Safer, at least,” It was a glib answer, but it elicited a thunderous laugh from Numarius.
“There is that, I suppose,” the legate conceded and then turned serious. “No, we go in as plann
ed. I take you and an escort of eight men, that won’t arouse suspicion. We enjoy our meal and put everything else out of our mind. If they suspect we think anything is amiss, they won’t expect an attack while I am inside. We let the men do what they are best at and if we need to, we join the fight. I’m hoping that it won’t come to that, because under the cover of darkness three units of legionaries can do an awful lot of damage.”
“Is it okay that I’m scared?” Julius asked.
“It’s the most natural thing in the world, Julius. If you weren’t, I’d worry you hadn’t understood the plan, or that you were stupid. I’m always nervous before a fight, and despite the fact we will be eating and drinking, that’s exactly what this will be.”
Numarius slapped him on the back, hard enough to make the young man cough. Julius was left wondering if the legate had ever been genuinely scared of anything in his life. He seemed like the kind of man who walked through life without a care. The kind of man who made the bad guys worried, not the other way around.
Now watching the legionaries preparing for the fight and he began to worry all over again. They had no idea how many Gauls they might face inside the town. Moreover, they were doing all of this based on the general’s hunch. For all they knew, they were about to crash into the town and begin killing innocent people. For what it was worth, he did not think Numarius was wrong, it just worried him.
He stepped away from the legionaries and out into the now familiar workings of the legionary camp. Men moved between the tents, fetching water or performing a multitude of other tasks. Unlike at the beginning of the mission, there were now civilians, lending an alien feel to the military camp.
The day was drawing towards night, and there was a burgeoning chill in the air. Out on the horizon the Alps were carving a white edge on the horizon. It would not be long before they would make the crossing. Otho had given each of the recruitment cohorts instructions to meet up with the main force in Northern Italy. They would cross the mountains before the weather made the crossing too difficult and the different parts of the army would become one large force.
Julius found his tent, deep inside the ranks that held legionaries and auxiliaries. As he approached, a legionary was sat outside his own tent with what looked like a tunic draped over one knee. The man had a needle and thread and was in the middle of repairing a tear in the cloth. He nodded as Julius lifted the flap and ducked underneath.
He had been accepted by the men who tented around him, both through familiarity and because they knew the legate had taken him under his wing. Either way it made this strange new life a little easier to cope with.
Julius slipped out of his tunic and into a cleaner, fresher one he had prepared earlier. The general and his escort would attend in armour, which would not be deemed unusual as the legion was in the field. Julius checked his appearance once more, then stepped back outside and headed toward the legate’s tent.
Numarius was just making his way out of his own tent as he arrived, the escort of eight men standing to attention.
“Ah, Julius, perfect timing,” the older man said with a smile before turning to one of his aides who was standing to one side, holding the legate’s horse for him. Even though the legions were camped just a short walk away, it would not do for one of the most senior men in the empire to arrive without a little show.
Julius mounted his own horse, aided by a stable hand who looked just a couple of years younger than he was himself. The boy smiled conspiratorially at Julius, his eyes darting up to
the armoured general. He had become used to being in the presence of such a powerful man, but could not help returning the grin, hidden by the flank of the horse. He did his best to hide the expression, but he must not have done such a good job because Numarius asked, “Something amusing you?”
“No, sir. Just excitement I guess,” Julius answered.
“Good man,” he said, slapping Julius on the back as the two horses drew close to each other. “Very good man, smiling in the face of danger, I like it.” The legate looked about him, at the rest of the party.
“Lead the way, Centurion,” he said to the man at the head of the escort, and the eight men began to march towards the gate of the camp.
The sun was lowering below the tops of the buildings as the party reached the town. Numarius rode, back straight but with a relaxed expression on his face. Allowing the marching men to set the pace, he seemed like a man looking forward to a good meal.
Around the perimeter of the town lay the decaying bodies of fallen undead. Not in the quantity that they had seen in other towns, and Julius began to wonder at the luck of such a place, not to have been attacked by a large horde.
“Just relax, Julius. Smile for goodness' sake.” Numarius said, turning to the young man at his side.
He forced a smile on to his face and it must have looked false as the legate started to laugh at the sight of it. It had the effect of making him relax, and the smile began to feel more natural.
The makeshift gate of the barricade began to slide to one side. The men they had seen yesterday were standing just inside, dressed in clean tunics and looking eager to greet their guests. Numarius pulled up just short of the defences, stepped down and passed his horse to one of the escorting legionaries. Julius followed suit, keeping pace with the legate but remaining a respectful few steps behind.
Suddenly Julius had the urge to look around, wanting to know when and where the legion units would attack the town. He resisted and instead stepped through the opening gate. As he passed into the town he saw that the barrier had been constructed from a cart that had been reinforced with large planks of wood. As it was rolled back into place behind them, he couldn’t help wondering if it would open for him again.
The meal was held outside, and it seemed more like a festival than a private dinner. Julius had expected a bunch of dour men sitting around a stuffy room playing mind games, each trying to find out what the other knew, or thought they knew. There was a big fire in the centre of the town and a couple of pigs were slowly being turned on spits. He didn’t know how long it took to cook something that large, but he guessed the meat had been on the spit before the legions turned up.
As well as the fire there was music plucked out on stringed instruments he had never seen before by four men with thick black beards, and torches lit the parts of the town that the fire didn’t reach. All in all it seemed like any other celebration, and he began to wonder if Numarius didn’t have the situation wrong.
A young man dressed in a toga, walked past carrying a basket of vegetables. Julius pulled at his arm to stop him for a moment. The young man, no older than himself, looked worriedly over his shoulder.
“What celebration is this?” Julius asked.
“It is something to do with the Gauls. I’m sorry I can’t talk to you,” the young man said, rushing off with his burden.
He watched the boy move away and the sense that something wasn’t right rushing straight back from its brief banishment. Sipping at a beaker of wine he had been handed by a elderly matron as they had arrived, he sat down on a rough wooden bench.
Numarius had given him instructions to mingle with the crowd as soon as he had realised this was not to be a formal meal. He had told him to keep his eyes sharp for anything unusual. This he did now by casually glancing around the celebrations, watching people wander into the torchlight and then become swallowed by the darkness again. The town was full of shadows formed by the buildings and the firelight, and it made the strange place even more alien.
There were a lot of Gauls in the town, and not just the men who all seemed to be massive walls of muscle with wild hair and scarred skin. There were women of all ages and children as well, and it was this that struck Julius as odd. Not the presence of Gaulish women but the lack of any other females at all. The two different peoples were easy to distinguish, their dress and hair styles were very distinctive, so he began to make a quick mental tally.
It soon became clear that this was
the answer to this puzzle. Something had happened to the women and children of the town. If they were being held captive, it would be enough to keep the men from talking to the legions. The more Julius saw, the more he was convinced that Numarius was right, and that this town was being held against its will. The question was why?
Across the square, the legate was drinking with one of the town elders they had seen earlier that day, and two heavily bearded Gauls. There was nothing in the manner of the men that gave an onlooker the slightest sign that anything was wrong. He knew Numarius to be capable of hiding his thoughts, but the Gauls were just as hard to read. Either they were as good as Numarius at managing their expressions, or they were convinced that the legate knew nothing of what was happening in the town.
Across the square, Julius saw someone move in the shadows. Whoever it was they appeared one second, and was gone the next. It could have been anyone, he was sure, but the atmosphere in the town was beginning wear on his nerves. He stood up and, trying to remain casual, drifted through the crowd toward the legate and the elders.
“Ah, Julius, come and join us,” Numarius's voice carried over the sound of the music and the gathered people as the younger man came closer. The legate even sounded slightly drunk, but he assumed it was an affectation.
He smiled and moved through the remainder of the crowd toward the group. As he reached them he caught the end of what the general was saying, “...saved the legion from destruction. He talked the town into fighting the undead and won the day.”
One of the Gauls leaned toward Julius and squeezed his shoulder. He smelled of beer and burned meat, and unlike Numarius, he thought the man was definitely drunk. A tankard of dark brown beer was thrust into his hand, and he swallowed a mouthful out of politeness rather than a wish to drink. The beer was heavy and sour and he wished his stomach luck for when the liquid hit the bottom of it.
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