The tribune looked from Varus to Dubnus, and then back again.
‘About your persons? Does that mean …?’
Dubnus nodded sourly.
‘Yes. It does. And if you don’t mind, Tribune, I’d rather not discuss it any further. I may never be the same again.’
Mastering his sudden urge to laugh out loud with a visible show of will, Scaurus nodded gracefully.
‘Very well, we’ll pass over the means by which you managed to preserve what was left of our gold …’ A thought occurred to him. ‘Is there any of it left, by the way, and if there is … where is it?’
Varus patted his purse.
‘Enough to get us back across the Rhenus, and to take what’s left of our men wherever we decide is the safest. But as to where that might be …’
Silence fell across the circle of men, broken at length by the tribune.
‘And there’s the rub. The decurion can probably get away with just returning to his unit, and telling anyone who comes asking that Tiro went across the border into Bructeri territory and didn’t come back. Which is true, as it happens, even if it does omit a few details. But ourselves?’
Marcus poked at the fire with a stick he was holding before he spoke, his face illuminated by the blaze’s orange light.
‘It’s hard to deny that Tiro’s instructions to have the Angrivarii kill us all must have come from Cleander. Which means that any return to Rome would be risky in the extreme. It might be wise for us to find somewhere quiet and vanish for a while, the remnants of our detachment too, to avoid their being tortured for information if they’re spotted returning to the cohort. In due course Cleander will probably fall victim to his own inflated sense of self-worth, and manage to get himself executed, at which point we can possibly risk coming out of hiding. Possibly.’
‘But …?’
The young centurion looked up at Scaurus, his expression sombre.
‘But we’d be leaving Julius and two cohorts of good men at the mercy of Cleander’s decision as to whether our disappearance is genuine or just contrived, since he won’t get any reassurance on the subject from Tiro. Or anything at all, other than a bald statement from whoever he’s set to watch his spymaster that Tiro crossed the river with us and nobody came back. And it won’t take long for our association with our colleague’s cousin and his fleet to make him start thinking, will it?’
Scaurus nodded.
‘And if he suspects we’ve survived, he’ll probably stop at nothing to find out where we are. That would put Julius and Annia at severe risk of falling under suspicion, and being tortured for our whereabouts. Not to mention your son. And of course there are two cohorts of men to consider. If he sees fit to do so, a man in Cleander’s position could condemn them all to never seeing their homes and families again with the swift flourish of a pen.’
An uncomfortable silence fell upon them, each man reflecting on an unpalatable choice.
‘Rome it is then.’
Scaurus nodded at Marcus’s flat statement.
‘Unavoidably so. I’m sure we can come up with some explanation or other for our deviation from the original plan to escape by means of the fleet, and justify surrendering the witch without making ourselves look like traitors.’ He stared at the young centurion for a moment. ‘And at least one good thing came of all this. It looks to me as if whatever it was that she did to you last night has burned away both your need for revenge and your sense of self-loathing at having taken it.’
Marcus stared into the fire as he answered, his expression unreadable.
‘Possibly it has, Tribune. I no longer feel anything for the men I’ve killed, no remorse, no connection to them at all. It’s as if all that death took place somewhere else, and I was simply an observer. But as to whether it has quenched the heat of my urge to revenge on the men who killed my wife?’
He poked at the logs again, staring into the flames as if seeing something there that held his attention for a long moment before he spoke again.
‘Perhaps …’