‘They’ll kill us,’ replied Caecina.
Waves of impotent fury battered Tullus’ mind. He wasn’t sure that they could save Septimius, but they had to try. ‘Sir-’
‘Stay your hand!’ ordered Caecina.
‘Save me, sir! Save me!’ Somehow Septimius had wrestled free of his captors’ grasp. He took a step forward and tripped, landing on one knee. Half upright, his face twisted with terror, he called out to Caecina, ‘Help me, I beg of you, sir!’
Caecina looked away.
Despite his best intention, Tullus laid a hand to the hilt of his sword.
Whether Bony Face’s reaction was because he’d seen Tullus, or because he had already made up his mind, was never clear. With terrible swiftness, he strode in behind Septimius. Tullus watched in horror as Bony Face thrust with all his might. The blow was so savage that his sword travelled clean through Septimius’ chest and emerged, crimson-tipped, from his chest. Spitted like a roast piglet, Septimius hung there, his eyes wide with agony and shock, and his lips twitching. Bony Face planted a studded sandal in the small of his back and shoved him forward, off the steel. Blood spurted from the wounds front and back as Septimius flopped on to his face, already a corpse.
‘Our demands must be met!’ shouted Bony Face, brandishing his bloodied weapon. ‘If they are not, the same doom awaits you all!’
‘KILL!’ shouted a faceless legionary in the mob.
His cry was taken up at once, the way one stone starts a landslide. ‘KILL! KILL! KILL!’
Decorum forgotten, Tullus had pushed Caecina halfway towards the entrance to the principia before the third ‘KILL!’ had been uttered. ‘Inside, sir. Now!’ Caecina didn’t protest, and the other senior officers followed Tullus with indecent haste. ‘Orderly withdrawal, Fenestela,’ he roared, praying that the mob didn’t tear his men apart.
To his huge relief, the mutineers did not attack. Fenestela and the rest pounded in, and the wagon was rolled back across the entrance. Laughter and insults rolled in over the earthen rampart, buffeting their ears. ‘Cowards!’ ‘Yellow-livered whoresons!’ ‘Arse-humping Greeks!’ ‘Come out and fight!’
‘Fuck, that was close,’ said Fenestela. ‘If you’d moved a moment later, we’d be halfway to Hades.’
‘Septimius was no good, but he deserved better than that,’ said Tullus.
‘You know that Bony Face is one of Septimius’ soldiers?’
A ball of icy fury formed in Tullus’ stomach. ‘One of his own men murdered him?’
‘Aye. I’m fairly sure that the twins and Fat Nose are in what was his century as well.’
Tullus swore, long and hard. Remember their faces, he thought.
‘What do we do now?’ asked Fenestela in an undertone as he eyed Caecina. His tone made clear what he thought of the governor’s behaviour.
‘Caecina was right to hold us back,’ said Tullus, bringing his own fury under control. Fenestela looked surprised and Tullus added, ‘We would have been massacred, and for nothing. We might be yet, if those defences aren’t improved.’
Fenestela hawked and spat. ‘It’s a terrible thing to watch a man being butchered in front of you, even someone like Septimus.’
‘It is,’ growled Tullus, Septimius’ terrified face vivid in his mind. Yet another man to avenge, he thought.
‘What now?’
‘We send messengers to Rome, if that hasn’t been done already, and to Germanicus. We finish the ditch and rampart, and hold this position. In the middle of the night, we can go to the well and raid the stores, and take enough water and food to last us a while. Then we wait. That’s what we fucking do.’
‘Germanicus better get here soon.’
Fenestela was right, thought Tullus, listening to the mutineers’ bloodcurdling roars. If Germanicus came too late, he would find nothing but corpses.
Chapter VII
Three days went by in the great summer camp. Piso and his comrades were often on sentry duty, watching the groups of mutineers who surrounded the principia. To Piso’s relief, they made no attempt to attack the position. Much of the time, it seemed that the rebellious legionaries’ only purpose was to drink every drop of wine they could find. Once it became clear that there was to be no assault, morale within the headquarters rallied a good deal. Because of the mutineers’ drunken state, Piso and Vitellius didn’t object when Tullus sent them out at night to collect water and steal much-needed supplies.
Each day, Caecina sent messengers on horseback to find Germanicus. As he said repeatedly, ‘One might fail to get through, or two, but not all of them. Germanicus will soon hear of our plight.’
His words did little to reassure Vitellius. ‘How will Germanicus bring the mutineers around?’ he asked Piso over and over. ‘Other than by granting their demands of course, which isn’t likely.’
Piso had no answer, but he’d heard Tullus saying that Germanicus would know what to do, and that was good enough for him. All they had to do was hold out until the general arrived. He was less than impressed, therefore, when Tullus sought him and Vitellius out early on the fourth morning with orders to go out into the camp to see what they could discover about the mutineers’ intentions.
‘It won’t be that dangerous,’ Tullus declared. ‘The stupid bastards have only placed a couple of sentries around the sides and rear. It’ll be easy to slip out.’
‘It’s not that, sir,’ said Piso, his fear giving him the courage to answer back. ‘What if we get recognised?’
‘Wear a hooded cloak. Avoid the Fifth’s tent lines – go and see what’s happening where the other legions are camped. If you do happen to spy anyone you know, just walk the other way. It can’t be hard to avoid attention in a camp of seventeen thousand men.’
Tullus was right, Piso told himself. ‘All right, sir.’
‘Good lad. You’ll be fine.’ Tullus gripped his shoulder. ‘I’d come with you, but Caecina has forbidden it. Says he needs me here.’
‘Is anyone else to go, sir?’ asked Vitellius.
‘Six others from the century. You will operate in pairs, though. You’d attract more attention in larger numbers. It’s tunics, belts, swords and a cloak each – nothing more. I’ll be back soon.’ With an approving nod, Tullus left them to it.
Piso and Vitellius exchanged a meaningful glance.
‘It can’t be worse than the forest was,’ muttered Vitellius.
That was small consolation, thought Piso. If they were denounced by a single legionary, they’d be beaten to death in the blink of an eye, as traitors.
‘Ready?’ hissed Piso. They had both just clambered over the rampart and ditch that now ran around the principia. There was no one in sight, but that would change fast, even at this early hour. Not every mutinous legionary lay abed until midday.
‘Aye.’
Piso was already walking north. He wanted to put a good distance between them and the Fifth’s lines, which lay near the camp’s southern gate. Apart from a handful of former comrades from the Eighteenth, he didn’t know a soul in any of the other three legions, and was glad of it at this moment.
‘Hood up or not?’ asked Vitellius, pacing alongside.
‘Heart says up, head says down,’ answered Piso. ‘It’s not cold, though, is it?’
Vitellius’ hand fell to his side. ‘Aye, I suppose you’re right. Makes it a shitload more frightening, though, eh?’
‘Gods, aye.’ Piso was fighting a continual battle to keep his fingers from straying to his sword hilt. He gave the phallus amulet at his neck a surreptitious rub. ‘What should we talk about? We can’t walk in silence – that might draw attention too.’
‘That’s easy,’ replied Vitellius, chuckling. ‘Stories about hunting, drinking and whores will keep us busy for hours. Longer, if you talk about gambling.’
‘You start.’
‘All right.’ Vitellius launched into the tale of a three-day drinking spree that he’d been on once, with Afer and two others of their old contubernium in the Eighteenth.