Выбрать главу

‘Perhaps you’ll have more luck than I normally do in avoiding him getting it all over himself and whoever’s feeding him.’

Taking their daughter from Julius she sat the child on her knee and reached for the other bowl, only to freeze as an infant’s wail came from the nursery on the floor above them. Giving her a knowing look Julius reached out and took Victoria, who looked up at him with the same slightly baffled expression with which she had regarded him since his return the previous day. Returning with the baby, Annia went into the kitchen and busied herself with a pan of milk whose contents, suitably warmed, went into a terracotta bottle which, once filled through a trio of slots in a dished section at the thicker end, had only a tiny hole at its pointed end from which the baby might drink. Marcus looked up as she walked back into the room with the infant, his face hardening at the sight of the child. The woman took her seat in silence, lying the child back in the crook of her arm and positioning the bottle to dribble a thin stream of warm milk into his mouth. Only when he was contentedly sucking away at the spout did she look up at Marcus with an expression he’d learned brooked no argument.

‘I know what you’re thinking. You look at this baby and all you can see is Commodus violating your wife and bringing about her death. And you’re right. The emperor did rape her, and the blame for her death does lie with him. But it doesn’t have anything to do with this innocent. I promised Felicia before she died that I’d raise him as my own, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.’

She tipped her head at her husband, who wisely concentrated on putting food into his daughter’s mouth.

‘Julius has already agreed, not that I gave him any choice, and you’re going to promise me never to do anything to bring harm to the child. You’ll keep the facts of his birth to yourself, no matter what provocation might come your way, and you’re going to allow him to grow up to be the best man he can possibly be, with Julius and me to guide him. And do you know why?’

The Roman shook his head in silence.

‘Then I’ll tell you. You’ll be gone again soon enough, away to perform whatever suicide mission it is that’s been dreamed up for you and Rutilius Scaurus this time, leaving me here with these three. A pair of two-year-olds and a newborn to raise-’

‘We can hire a nurse. More than one if need be.’

Her smile was thin enough for the meaning to be clear.

‘Nurses feed children, bathe them and clean their backsides three times a day. But they don’t often raise children, talk to them, entertain them, or give them love.’

‘But the right nurse-’

‘Will still only be a nurse and not a mother. I’ll be mother to the three of them, and Julius, given he’s not going with you, can play at being a father for a while. While you go and do your best to get yourself killed, no doubt.’

She looked at Julius again.

‘He’s told me the sort of thing you get up to.’

Julius shrugged apologetically, and Marcus found himself unable to resist a wan smile.

‘I surrender. All I have to offer is abject apology …’

The woman stared at him for a moment in silence, her expression softening.

‘The gods know you’ve been through enough, Marcus, your family destroyed, your name and honour trampled into the dirt, and now this latest horror. Doubtless you’ll be happier killing barbarians in whatever part of the empire it is you’re being sent to this time than moping here, with your fingers twitching for the emperor’s throat. Perhaps you’ll even be able to forget all this, for a while at least. Just don’t forget, while you’re out there killing Rome’s enemies, that you’ve got a son here who’ll need a father if he’s to grow up whole.’

Marcus nodded gravely.

‘I can’t argue with you, Annia. And I thank you for your devotion to my wife, and to her memory. I promise by the name of Our Lord the Lightbearer never to harm the child through act or word. What name have you given him?’

Annia’s face softened again as she looked down at the feeding baby.

‘I decided upon Felix.’

Marcus smiled bleakly.

‘Felix? He’s certainly had his fair share of luck, I’d say, but-’

He looked down in dismay as Appius buried a food-streaked face in the wool of his tunic.

‘Ah. I see what you mean.’

‘Every man is to wear mail. No scale armour or crested helmets for the centurions, no bronze for the officers and no segmented armour to be worn by the men either. I want nothing to differentiate any of us from each other, or to indicate who might be a centurion or senior officer.’

Scaurus looked at the gathered centurions with an expression that told them he was deadly serious.

‘Vine sticks will not be carried, and medal harnesses will not be worn. The glorious panoply of the legions is all very well if you’re marching into enemy territory with four eagles and forty cohorts at your back, but not quite as well advised when your party numbers as few men as ours will. There will be no decorated equipment of any sort, just standard-issue items straight from the stores with nothing to make the user stand out. Shields, oval shields mind you, will be painted plain green and kept in their covers until such time as we’re across the river, and their metal edging will be removed and replaced with rawhide. I want any casual observer to think at first glance that the men he’s looking at are German, and I want as much uniformity between every man’s armour and equipment as possible.’

‘If I might be so presumptuous as to question this decision, Tribune, why is it that you wish all of us to appear identical?’

Scaurus turned to face Qadir.

‘Because, Centurion, if any of us are captured the best we can hope for is a quick death, with as little further unpleasantness as possible.’

The Syrian raised an eyebrow.

‘You imply, Tribune, that these Germans habitually use torture on their captives?’

Scaurus shook his head.

‘Not always. It depends on the tribe, and how their interactions with Rome have left them feeling towards us. I myself heard enough screaming from enemy camps during the war with the Marcomanni and the Quadi to know that being taken prisoner is often by far a worse alternative than stopping an arrow or a spear. Of course a chieftain may order his men to spare captives, looking to sell them back to Rome or simply enslave them, or he may choose to punish their audacity in breaching his territory by making an example of them. The histories mention soldiers being caged and starved to death, or set alight to burn for the Germans’ amusement, but when it comes to officers their ferocity is unbounded. The survivors of several defeats have returned with tales of men having their eyes pulled out and their tongues severed, but the most bestial treatment is sacrifice on an altar in one of their sacred groves. There are tales told by the very few men who survived German captivity of more than one senior officer having his ribcage cut open with a saw, then pulled apart with simple brute force, and his heart pulled still beating from his body.’

He looked around his mesmerised audience and shrugged.

‘A fate that I’d be happy to avoid if the only price I have to pay is to be parted from my bronze for a while.’

He’d hoped the quip would lighten their mood, but Cotta shook his head in disbelief.

‘They actually sacrifice men to their gods? I thought those were just-’

‘Stories used by the veterans to keep the younger men in their place?’

All eyes turned to the tribune’s slave Arminius, whose usual practice was to sit in silence and observe proceedings with a faint air of disdain.

‘Not in the case of my people, the Quadi. We sacrifice men, and women, to our gods, Tiwaz the god of war, and Wodanaz who guides our souls to the underworld. Some sacrifices are entirely voluntary, such as a slave who wishes to be with his dead master …’ He paused, nodding at Scaurus. ‘Others, obviously, are not. But do not imagine that the tribes east of the Rhenus reserve this treatment especially for you Romans. Any captives in time of war are treated with just the same disregard for their lives. It is simply our way.’