Marcus turned for the door, the cloth dangling in one hand.
‘Felicia. Her name is Felicia. And she promised to marry me.’
Julius and Rufius exchanged amazed stares, then Julius reached over to shake the only man in the room who was still asleep. ‘Dubnus. Dubnus! You are not going to want to miss this.’
Calgus and his bodyguard left the warband’s camp in the dawn’s first light. They slipped away unnoticed, save for a few words with the men patrolling the camp’s western face, men of the Selgovae tribe and still fiercely loyal to their tribal leader. Calgus whispered fiercely into the ear of the warrior commanding the watch on the camp’s western wall.
‘You’ve seen nothing all morning, Vallo, clear?’
The guard’s leader, a grizzled and scar-faced veteran of two uprisings against the hated invaders, and fiercely loyal to Calgus, nodded impassively. He had been on guard the previous day, when the messenger he had been warned to expect had walked out of the forest from the west, stopping fifty paces from the camp’s wall. When Vallo had gone forward to speak with him the northerner had simply uttered his message for Calgus and then turned impassively away, without any apparent regard for the dozen Selgovae warriors standing behind their leader. Now Vallo stood in front of his king, looking unhappily at the half-dozen men of Calgus’s bodyguard as they clustered around their chieftain.
‘We will keep silence, my lord. We will guard your tent, and tell any that ask that you are ill.’ He leaned closer to Calgus, his voice tense for all the softness of the muttered whisper. ‘But I do not like the risk you take in doing this.’
Calgus nodded and slapped the veteran’s shoulder, looking round to ensure they remained unseen in the sleeping camp before replying in equally soft tones.
‘I know. The Votadini will complain more loudly in my absence, and their king will continue his plotting, but this thing has to be done in absolute secrecy if it is to bring us the victory we need.’
‘So you walk out into the forest with a handful of warriors. My lord, it is a mistake! It is the same mistake as when you were ambushed by the Romans when you went hunting. Your bodyguard all killed, and you spared only by the strength and speed of your sword arm?’
Calgus laughed softly, recalling his first encounter with the Roman traitor who had proved the key to their initial triumph over the Roman 6th Legion.
‘Aye, there’s a story. I’ll recount it to you in full one night, when we’ve run the Romans off our land for good, but for now trust me when I tell you that this is a risk I cannot avoid. Not if I am to bring about the great victory we need to get their dirty feet off our land.’
The warrior bowed and stood aside, watching as the men of his chieftain’s bodyguard ducked through the artfully concealed opening in the palisade that surrounded the camp and moved out into the trees ahead of the king, their spears ready to throw and their eyes on the forest about them. Turning back to his men, he gestured for them to continue their guard duty, looking across the camp long and hard to ensure that no early riser had spotted Calgus’s quiet departure. When he turned back to the forest, the small group of men was already out of sight, hidden by the profusion of vegetation that flourished between the thick trunks of the oaks.
The small party made cautious progress through the silent forest, using a hunter’s track through the dense undergrowth which had seen little recent use, to judge by the luxuriant foliage growing across it. They broke off the line of their march several times to wait quietly in the cover of the thick undergrowth, in hopes of surprising any attempt at following them through the forest’s gloom. By midday they were crouched in the shelter of a fallen tree at the bottom of a valley about five miles from their camp.
‘No, my lord, we are not followed.’ The leader of the warlord’s personal guard shook his head with absolute certainty, his voice pitched low enough that only Calgus could hear him. ‘The forest is quiet, and anyone following us along these overgrown paths would be heard from two hundred paces.’
Calgus nodded his satisfaction.
‘Good. Then I can push on without fear of being observed.’
The warrior pulled a face, looking around at the deep forest’s confusion of trees and bushes.
‘In all truth, my lord, I have a greater fear of what lies ahead of us than with what might or might not lie behind. What I have said is as true for us as for any man tracking us…’
Calgus nodded his understanding.
‘I know. Once we start moving we’ll be making as much noise as a herd of pigs on the hunt for nuts. But nevertheless I have to move on and take that risk. I have an appointment on the far side of this hill that I am unwilling to miss.’
‘My lord.’
The bodyguard stood, gesturing to his comrades to prepare to renew their march. Calgus shook his head.
‘“I”, not “we”. This is a task that I must carry out alone, and you men must wait here for my return. While I’m away you can prepare torches, in case I’m later coming back over the hill than would be ideal, but you will under no circumstances attempt to follow me.’
‘And if you don’t return before dark?’
Calgus nodded.
‘It’s possible. In that case you are to build a large fire, and take turns in watching out for me, but you are still to stay here.’
He turned away and headed on up the hill, pushing aside a branch that was overhanging the path.
‘And if you still don’t return, my lord? How long should we wait?’
Calgus paused for a moment, calling back over his shoulder.
‘As long as it takes.’
He turned back to the path, muttering under his breath.
‘Which, if I’ve misjudged my gamble, won’t be very long. If I’ve got this one wrong we’ll all be dead before dark falls.’
He climbed the hill with a hunter’s caution, his eyes and ears straining for any hint of a presence in the trees around him, but neither saw nor heard anything to give him pause, continuing his careful ascent until he reached the top of the hill. Sliding into the shadow of a tree, he became absolutely still, so quiet that he could feel his own heart beating, and listened again. After a moment he caught a sound through the incessant drone of the forest’s insects, only a faint fragment of noise, but enough to tell him that he was in the right place. As he eased back to his feet a spear slammed into the tree’s trunk a foot from his face, stopping him dead as a warrior rose out of the foliage, another spear pointed straight at him, more men at his back. Each one of them was heavily tattooed, swirling blue patterns decorating their hands and faces. The king of the Selgovae raised his open hands, careful to make no move that might be interpreted as threatening.
‘Well, that’s the hardest part of the trick done; I’ve found you without getting myself killed. Shall we go down the hill and see who’s waiting for me at the bottom?’
The man behind the levelled spear scowled at him, gesturing his men forward.
‘Take his weapons and tie his hands.’
He watched as the rebel leader was relieved of his sword and had his wrists tied together in front of him. Calgus’s return stare remained steady throughout the swift process of disarmament and restraint.
‘Do your people always treat invited guests in this way?’
The spearman snorted mirthless laughter.
‘We are a long way from home, and the Hunting Hounds have learned the hard way to trust nobody until they are proved worthy of it. Bring him.’
Prefect Furius paraded the Second Tungrians after breakfast the next day, waiting next to his first spear as the cohort marched on to The Rock’s parade ground. The older man spoke after a moment’s silence.
‘You intend going through with what we discussed?’
The prefect nodded confidently.
‘Absolutely. I’ll have Prefect Bassus’s murderer underground before we leave here, that or the local crows will eat well for the next few days. My only concern about dealing with the matter today is that you haven’t managed to find the bastard over the last two months.’