‘Tribune Licinius, welcome. Join me in a beaker or two of wine, to celebrate our escape from certain death yesterday…’
His smile faded as he realised that the senior officer hadn’t moved from his place in the barrack’s entrance, his stance formal and a writing tablet held open in one hand.
‘Cohort Prefect Gracilus Furius, I am hereby ordered by Governor Ulpius Marcellus to direct that you relinquish your command with immediate effect. I suggest that you accompany me to the commander’s residence. You can stay the night there, and avoid all the awkwardness that goes with sudden changes of command…’
The wine flask dropped from Furius’s hand and cracked on the wooden floor, his fingers suddenly numb with the shock. The wine trickled out across the floorboards unnoticed by either man.
‘There must be some…’
‘There’s no mistake…’ Licinius’s tone was gentle; he knew the enormity of the blow being dealt to the other man. ‘I can assure you that the governor is very specific in his instructions.’
‘But this simply cannot be. If anyone should be relieved of command it’s that jumped-up puppy Scaurus, not me. He…’
The grim look on Licinius’s face as he advanced across the room silenced him.
‘Citizen Furius, you were, to be brutally honest, quite the worst commanding officer I’ve met in several years of service in this province. You are a coward, which I’m told you’ve proved on more than one occasion, but worse than that you lack any real aptitude for the command of soldiers in the field. If you leave with me now, quietly and without making a drama out of your departure, you can at least go home with some dignity. The governor will send you home with the next set of dispatches to the emperor, and you can tell your friends that you took part in a battle with a fearsome tribe from the far north. Tell them it was a great victory and that you were sent home to report on it as a mark of favour. If you kick up a fuss, however, the story will get home long before you do. You don’t want that to happen, and neither will your father. Keep the family name proud, eh? Don’t embarrass the old man any more than you probably already have. Come on, I’ll have your gear sorted out and brought over later.’
Furius stared at the senior officer for a moment, the fight going out of him as he sensed the deep anger underlying the older man’s gentle tones in the hard lines of his face.
‘I’ll come with you. It wouldn’t do to make a scene…’
They walked from the tent and into the cool evening air, the sentry snapping to attention and saluting. Licinius nodded to the man, but Furius was lost in a world of his own, his downcast face a study in misery. The sentry waited until the two men were out of sight then whistled to his mate, walking a patrol beat along the line of barracks.
‘Crucifix Boy just left with that old bugger from the cavalry, and he wasn’t looking happy. Best tip the wink to the first spear…’
As he crossed the fort a pace behind Licinius, a thought occurred to Furius, a sudden shocking idea that wormed its way into his mind and sat festering for all of ten seconds before he blurted it out, his tone both aggressive and fearful.
‘It occurs to me, Tribune Licinius, that there are only two options for my immediate replacement. Either you’ll put a man of your own choosing into my place, or else…’ He looked at the man walking slightly ahead of him, finding his face imperturbable. ‘… or else my former colleague Scaurus will command both his own cohort and mine. Which is it, Tribune?’
Licinius stopped walking and turned to face him, his features skull-like in the fort’s deep shadows. His voice was harsher than before, as if he were holding on to some last vestige of patience.
‘Leave it alone, Furius. Let go of this failed attempt to regain a life to which you’re not suited, and turn back to that which you can manage.’
Furius put a hand to his head, staring up at the stars in genuine amazement.
‘So I am removed from my command and replaced by him. By him! Zeus, Jupiter and Mars, but I’ll see someone damned for this indignity. My father will…’
He quailed back against a barrack’s wooden wall as Licinius took a handful of his tunic and twisted it harshly.
‘Your father? You think the influence of a moderately successful merchant will be enough to protect you while you spread your poison round Rome. You bloody fool, do you have any idea who Cohort Tribune Scaurus’s sponsor is?’
He waited for a moment until Furius shook his head.
‘I had assumed from his slow progression…’
‘… that he was without patronage? Well then, how does this name suit you?’
He leant in close to the wide-eyed Furius and whispered a single word in his ear.
‘No.’
‘Oh yes, you heard me correctly. I heard your father had to pay a small fortune to get you back into legion service, to find a legatus willing to overlook your reputation from the last time you were allowed into uniform. And even then you lasted only a matter of months before you gave him the excuse he was waiting for to ship you on to another province, once he realised just what a liability you were. All those years that you sat on your arse at home, whoring, drinking and waiting for Daddy to buy you another chance, your colleague Scaurus concentrated on building up his military skills the hard way. His backer could snap your family’s power with a crook of his little finger, but Scaurus was never willing to take advantage of that influence, quite the opposite, as it happens. He loved the joy of commanding men in battle far too much to consider promotion away from the sharp end of the spear, and so for years he was content to be a legion tribune. He might have frustrated his sponsor in the process, but the man recognised his quality and never stopped backing him, and I’ll warn you just this once, you’ll spread evil gossip about the man at your peril. Just a few quiet words in the right ear and you’ll find yourself robbed, buggered and murdered in some Roman back alley. I advise you to accept your lot and get on with the rest of your life.’
Furius nodded slowly, his eyes fixed on the older man’s. Licinius relaxed, judging that his words had beaten the last resistance from the man.
‘Come on, then, let’s get you into the residence and away from prying eyes.’
In the hospital, Felicia’s assessment of Dubnus’s condition was delivered to his friends in a quiet, tired voice as she leant across the big centurion to look closely at his wound, taking a slow long breath in through her nose with her face close to the blood-crusted gash.
‘A spear, yes? Good, the wound won’t be too deep, then. It looks like his mail did its job and took most of the force of the blow. And there’s no smell of infection, that’s a good sign. Now we can do this one of two ways, Centurion. I can dose you with something to make you sleepy, or we can just get it over with now. It will hurt either way, but with the tincture the unpleasantness will seem to have happened in a dream, whereas you’ll know every second of the pain without it.’
Dubnus closed his eyes with exhaustion, shaking his head slowly.
‘I already feel like a dead man, lady, so let’s get this done and over with.’
The doctor nodded to her assistants.
‘Strap his legs down well. I’ll need the small-wound forceps, vinegar, clean linen swabs and a small drain tube. Oh yes, and the honeycomb. And you two gentlemen…’ She smiled wanly at the waiting centurions. ‘… can help me by putting down those helmets and sticks and coming over here to hold his arms. Once we get the wound open he’s going to be in more pain than when the blade went in.’
By the time Julius arrived an hour later Dubnus was sleeping exhaustedly in his bed, his stomach heavily bandaged and a tiny bronze tube protruding from the wrappings.
‘He’ll live, I presume?’
Rufius nodded tiredly.
‘He will, if our colleague’s woman has anything to do with it. I’ve not seen a wound cleaned out with such care for many a year, nor a man take such torture without even a grunt.’