A ripple passed through the ranks. Tullus wasn’t sure if it was excitement, fear or anger at his command, and his guts twisted. Would they disobey him?
‘Good news, sir. I’m fucking starving,’ Piso called out.
There was a burst of laughter. ‘Me too, sir!’ cried Vitellius. ‘I’ve got a skin of wine needs finishing as well.’ In the blink of an eye, the soldiers’ mood became jovial once more. A chorus of requests to return to their tents rang out. Tullus waited until it had died down before repeating that they would each have not one, but two cups of wine apiece.
His men cheered.
Tullus led them off at once, hoping that the thought of free wine would remain uppermost in their minds, rather than a desire to know what was going on.
‘How many years has our pay been the same?’ shouted a voice from the midst of the gathering.
‘Twenty!’ answered a voice. ‘More than that!’ roared another. ‘Twenty-five, at the least!’ said a third.
‘There you are!’ cried the first voice. ‘How little the empire thinks of us to treat us so. We guard its frontier and keep the barbarians at bay. We suffer grievous wounds and lay down our lives in its name, and our reward is to be paid a pittance, and to serve until we die of old age. Why should we accept such injustice?’
The soldiers’ reply, a swelling roar of anger, rose high into the sky.
Relief filled Tullus as his men – who were also listening to the exchanges – kept marching. He glanced at the mob. Fists were being waved, and so were swords. Already volatile, the situation was turning dangerous. He had to consult with Caecina, he thought.
Something had to be done, or blood would be shed.
Chapter VI
Tullus led his men straight to the camp’s main entrance – worryingly, it was unmanned – and from there towards the principia, the headquarters.
The situation had deteriorated faster than he’d thought possible. Not all the soldiers were at the gathering. Gangs thirty to fifty men strong were roaming the avenues, singing and tearing down officers’ tents. Some had been set on fire. Most of the legionaries appeared to be drunk, which suggested to Tullus that the quartermaster’s stores had already been raided. His troops, disciplined and in formation, attracted nothing more than a barrage of abuse and an occasional stone. Others weren’t so lucky, such as the optio who was set upon by a group of mutineers walking by his tent. A quick charge by Tullus and his men saw the rebellious legionaries flee, allowing the bruised and battered officer to pick himself up off the ground.
‘What in Hades is going on?’ demanded Tullus as the optio gabbled his thanks.
‘It started not long after the morning meal, sir. Some say it began in the Twenty-First, others in the Fifth. The officers started getting it first. Insults, catcalls, you can imagine.’ The optio wiped a string of bloody snot from his broken nose. ‘Things got out of hand when some fool of a centurion – begging your pardon, sir – drew his sword. They turned on him like a pack of starving wolves, cut him limb from limb.’
Tullus absorbed this news with a rising sense of horror, and anger. It had been a mistake to go on the patrol – he should have ignored Septimius’ orders and gone straight to Caecina. Yet he was unsure if it would have made any difference – Varus hadn’t listened to him. Nor had Septimius. Would Caecina have been any different? It was too late to find out now in any case. It was also time for Degmar to go. ‘Degmar,’ he called.
The warrior appeared at his side like a ghost. ‘I’m here.’
‘You’re to leave the camp.’
Degmar looked unhappy. ‘I am here to protect you.’
‘It will be safer if you don’t stay, at least until things calm down.’
‘If you order me to, I will obey,’ said Degmar, scowling.
‘I am ordering you to.’ Tullus had no time to explain. He hoped that Degmar understood. ‘Come back in a few days.’
‘And if you’re dead?’
Tullus ignored Fenestela’s angry hiss, and the optio’s startled reaction. His relationship with Degmar was a curious, deep-feeling one – in ways it was like that of two comrades, and in others like that of benevolent father and rebellious son. It was without question not that of master and servant. After Arminius’ ambush, Tullus had used to wonder if Degmar’s pregnant wife would lure him home. A chance meeting with Marsi who were trading on the Roman side of the river not long after their return had ended his concern. Degmar’s wife had died with her baby during a prolonged labour. Tullus had offered to let Degmar go home to see their graves, but he had refused, saying, ‘She’s gone. I stay with you.’
Now, Tullus shrugged. ‘If I’m dead, then you’ll be free to go back to your people.’
Degmar’s dark eyes regarded him, unblinking. ‘I will try my luck at hunting.’ He bent his head a fraction – for him a sign of respect – and loped off towards the camp’s entrance.
Knowing that Degmar would be outside the fortifications and beyond harm lifted some of the weight from Tullus’ shoulders. He eyed the optio. ‘I’m heading for the principia. How do things stand there?’
‘Caecina is barricaded inside, sir. By all accounts, the legates, the camp prefect and the tribunes have been placed under arrest in their tents.’
Tullus pinched the bridge of his nose. Should he attempt to rescue a few of the Fifth’s senior officers first, or was it best to make straight for Caecina, and offer him his strength? Stick to the original plan, he decided. Caecina is the regional commander: he will know what to do.
The principia was being defended by the governor’s guards and a mixture of legionaries from different centuries, some three hundred soldiers in total, when Tullus arrived. Some were digging a ditch and rampart, while the rest stood guard. The sentries’ tense expressions and drawn weapons spoke volumes about the prevailing mood in the headquarters.
Caecina, the province’s governor, was in the large command tent that served in place of the great hall that existed in every permanent camp. Perhaps ten score centurions were there too; a number bore the marks of beatings. Among them, Tullus saw most of his fellows from the Fifth, and Cordus and Victor, but not Septimius. He hoped that Septimius and the other missing centurions, about forty men, weren’t dead. Not all were good officers, but that didn’t warrant their being murdered out of hand.
‘You’re Tullus? The survivor of the Saltus Teutoburgiensis?’ Caecina was a tall, stoop-shouldered man with a heavy brow and beaked nose, yet his voice was surprisingly high. ‘I’ve heard of you.’
Tullus wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing. He came to attention, and saluted. ‘I am he, sir. I’m now a centurion of the Seventh Cohort, Fifth Legion.’
‘I’m told’ – and here Caecina glanced at the centurion who had accompanied Tullus from the entrance – ‘that your entire century is with you. That they have not rebelled.’
At once Tullus felt the weight of two hundred men’s eyes upon him. ‘That’s correct, sir. They’re a steady lot.’
‘And you must be a fine leader. Your actions are to be applauded, centurion,’ said Caecina in a warm voice. ‘Few others have brought any legionaries with them.’ He threw the gathered centurions a hard look. ‘No one has come in with his whole command.’
‘My soldiers are at your disposal, sir,’ said Tullus, bowing his head and thinking with genuine pride: my boys aren’t so bad after all.
‘Several options remain open to us,’ said Caecina to the room at large. ‘We can stay here and wait for Germanicus to come, as surely he must when the news reaches him. I can attempt to deal with the mutineers, and listen to their demands. Rescue attempts could be made for the legates and tribunes. We could even attack the rebels, although I suspect that would not be wise.’