‘If Licinius will back the man that’s good enough for me, he’s got no axe to grind. And nothing that fool Furius says can be treated with any sort of respect. He would keep insisting that I dismiss you from the service…’
Scaurus shrugged, keeping his face expressionless.
‘In this, as in every other matter, sir, I am your faithful servant. If you deem it fit to send me away from here I will accept your judgement.’
The governor snorted again, slapping a hand down on the table in front of him.
‘Not likely, young man! Your cohort has surprised and then held off two Venico warbands, only for that self-serving fool to tell me that I ought to cashier you? No, Rutilius Scaurus, you are to take your wounded south to Noisy Valley using the legions’ supply wagons, get your men into the hospital, re-equip with whatever you need from the legion stores and then pick up a full load of food and get yourselves back here before dark in two days’ time, no more. I’ll use the legions’ cavalry and the auxiliary horse to keep the barbarians’ necks tucked in, and we’ll attack their stronghold once we’re properly positioned. I want your men back in the line before that happens, they’re too experienced to sit out such a fight and I’ve got a particular part of the battle plan in mind for them.’
Scaurus saluted and turned away, his mind already racing around the challenge of getting his wounded across the difficult early stages of the twenty-mile march to Noisy Valley.
‘One more thing, Rutilius Scaurus.’
The prefect turned back from the tent’s door to find the governor on his feet and holding out a sealed tablet.
‘I’m sending Licinius and the Petriana with you. They can make sure you make it back down the north road without being harassed, and provide a show of force to keep the Brigantes quiet. When you get to Noisy Valley hand this tablet to Licinius. He’ll know what to do.’
With the Tungrians settled into the Noisy Valley barracks previously occupied by the 6th Legion, Scaurus sent his officers to organise the loading of the supply carts, and his bandage carriers to the hospital to offer any help that might be required by the hard-pressed medical staff. With no more commands to issue he sought out Tribune Licinius, finding him in the officers’ mess with a beaker of wine in front of him. The grizzled senior officer stood and shook the younger man’s hand, calling for more wine.
‘Well, Cohort Prefect Scaurus, I was hoping to get a moment or two with you. You Tungrian buggers don’t seem to be able to stay out of trouble, but then y’don’t seem to have much of a problem fighting your way out of it either, eh? I salute you!’
He lifted his beaker, taking a slug of the wine, and watched Scaurus as he sipped his own drink.
‘Something wrong, eh, young ’un?’
Scaurus placed the governor’s tablet, still sealed, gently on the table in front of him, the writing block’s polished case making a soft click as it made contact with the scarred wooden surface.
‘There may well be, Tribune. This is a message from…’
‘… the governor. I can recognise his seal, y’know.’ He split the wax seal with a thumbnail, reading the contents of the tablet with an expressionless face. ‘That old bastard doesn’t muck about when he wants dirty work doing. You have no idea what’s in this message?’
Scaurus shrugged.
‘I have a good enough idea who it concerns, but no idea as to the precise contents.’
Licinius leaned across the table, putting out his hand.
‘Well, it seems that congratulations are in order, young man. You’re provisionally promoted to cohort tribune, with command of the combined First and Second Tungrian cohorts. I can’t make any promises on Ulpius Marcellus’s behalf, of course, but we both know that the rank is rarely rescinded once granted. Well done, young man.’
Scaurus stared back at him disbelievingly.
‘But…’
‘No, there’s no mention of any “buts” in this message. The governor stresses that you are directed to assume command of the Second Cohort immediately.’
‘And Furius?’
Licinius smiled evenly, reaching for his helmet.
‘Former Prefect Furius is to be relieved of his command and shipped out to Rome as quickly as the act can be made to happen. Sounds like the governor has about the same opinion of your colleague that I do, given the dismal tactical skill and military acumen he’s displayed to date, not to mention his apparent lack of anything remotely resembling a set of balls. We’re better off without him, and you’ll have a nice big double-strength cohort to play with.’ He got to his feet, heading for the door, but turned back after a couple of strides. ‘Oh yes, and why not give what’s left of your archers to the Hamian cohort while you’re here, there’s a good lad? That energetic young centurion of yours has managed to get half of them killed in less than a month, so I think the rest of them have earned some time off for good behaviour, don’t you?’
In the base hospital a disciplined chaos ruled, half a dozen of Felicia’s assistants working to put the surviving Tungrian wounded on to the doctor’s table in something like the order of their medical priority. Marcus and Rufius found Dubnus dozing uneasily through the racket, his face pale from the blood he’d lost the previous day.
‘He looks dreadful. Why haven’t they dealt with him yet?’
Rufius waved an arm at the room in response to his friend’s question.
‘Look around you. Every man that goes on to the table before him has a worse wound.’
As they watched a soldier was carried from the surgery on a stretcher, his right leg swathed in bandages down to the knee, below which the remainder of the limb was missing.
‘See, that poor bastard’s lost his leg. Dubnus has it comparatively easy by comparison.’
‘Easy… you come and lie here for a few minutes and then tell me this is easy…’
They turned back to find Dubnus lying with his eyes barely open. He closed them again after a moment, the effort clearly tiring him.
‘I feel like I’ve been beaten with hammers.’
Rufius lifted a bottle of water to his lips.
‘Drink some of this. You’ll be in surgery soon enough. Get that wound cleaned out and stitched, and soon enough you’ll be scaring the shit out of the recruits like a new man. Can you remember what happened?’
The young centurion snorted, then winced at the pain that the action caused.
‘Of course I bloody can. I got a spear in the guts, not through my head. Some big bastard with an axe set about the front rank, killed three men in the time it takes to tell it, and I was stupid enough to jump in to deal with him…’
He paused, grasping the water bottle and taking another sip.
‘He swung at me and buried his axe in my shield… actually put the blade’s edge right through my board, and while he was trying to pull it free I gutted the fucker.’
‘Keeping your attention on the men to either side, of course…?’
Dubnus sighed.
‘As a matter of fact, you superior old bastard, yes, I was. What I wasn’t looking out for was a spear-thrust from behind their front rankers. The bastard must have taken a running jump at me; the blade ripped straight through my armour and skewered me like a piece of liver. I went down like a sack of shit with the whole warband baying for my head, but the rear rank managed to pull me out of the fight while good old Cyclops closed the gap and kept them off me. Remind me to buy that bad-tempered sod a beer next time I see him…’
Rufius nodded sagely.
‘I’d say you owe him a good deal more than that. Let’s have a look at your wound, then.’
He lifted the sheet to reveal Dubnus’s stomach. The wound was a four-inch-long gash, its edges a livid purple and joined by a crust of dried blood.
‘Not too bad. Of course, the first thing that our friend’s wife-to-be is going to have to do to you is open that up again and make sure it’s clean. I wonder if she’ll let us watch?’
Licinius found Furius in his temporary quarters with a terracotta flask of wine. The younger man rose and greeted him, lifting the wine in salute.