There was a rumble of agreement, especially from the junior officers at the table: optiones, signiferi and tesserarii.
‘I’d like to see the tribes try to surprise us,’ said Cordus. ‘The Seventeenth, Eighteenth and Nineteenth must have been sleepwalking to have been ambushed the way they were.’
Their comments revealed how little understanding men had of the massacre in the forest. Tullus battened down his fury. Making a scene would get him nowhere. ‘As if the same wouldn’t have happened to them,’ he muttered.
‘I know,’ said Fenestela, glowering.
Tullus continued to eavesdrop on his adversaries’ conversation. Before long, the topic had changed to the recent unrest among the legionaries. Some of the officers present felt that there was real cause for concern, but they were shouted down by Cordus and Victor.
Tullus had heard officers talking about it before, but wasn’t aware of such feelings among his own men. ‘You heard anything?’ he asked Fenestela.
Fenestela’s expression grew cagey.
A little alarmed, Tullus thumped a hand on the table. ‘Speak!’
‘Calm down.’
Those words would have made Tullus punch most men in the face. He had been through too much with Fenestela, however. ‘Tell me,’ he demanded.
‘There have been meetings. Some of our men have attended. I haven’t,’ Fenestela added.
‘What kind of meetings?’
‘From what I understand, they’re about demanding a rise in pay, and for the older soldiers, how to be granted their discharge. The vast majority of those present are ordinary legionaries. A lot of conscripts, as you’d imagine. The word is that men from the Twenty-First Rapax are involved too, but it may just be gossip.’
‘Why in Hades haven’t you told me about this before?’
‘The meetings mean nothing. They’re like the hot air rising off a pile of shit on a winter’s morning: smelly but with no substance.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that. How many of our men are we talking about?’
‘A few of the conscripts,’ admitted Fenestela. ‘Six, maybe ten.’
‘By all the gods, Fenestela!’ hissed Tullus.
Fenestela made an unhappy gesture. ‘Maybe I should have mentioned it before.’
‘You should have, curse you. I want to hear every snippet of information from now on, clear?’
‘This from the man who didn’t tell me of his suspicions about Arminius until the night before we set out for Vetera,’ grumbled Fenestela. He raised a hand when Tullus let out another oath. ‘All right, all right. I’ll tell you everything I hear.’
‘Good,’ said Tullus, taking a drink and wondering if he was losing his touch. Five years earlier, something like this would not have escaped his notice. Like as not, he decided, it was because he now tended to avoid the company of his soldiers. His reasoning was simple: the conscripts were a pain in the arse, and his other duties – paperwork, meetings with quartermasters and so on – took up every hour of the day. Deep down, though, Tullus knew it was for another reason.
He was wary of becoming attached to the men under his command, plain and simple. The deaths in ambush of almost his entire cohort, and indeed his legion, had sliced a gaping wound in his soul, an injury that was slow to heal. Any time it showed signs of improvement, he only had to think of his butchered soldiers or the lost eagle for it to return to its original, agonising state.
Tullus’ fists clenched around his wine cup. I will avenge my men and my legion one day, he swore to himself. All will be well when Arminius is dead, his warriors beaten and the Eighteenth’s eagle recovered. Germanicus will lead us to victory – I know it.
‘Well, well, if it isn’t Tullus, the hero of the Saltus Teutoburgiensis.’
A red mist descended over Tullus. He looked up to find Cordus standing over him, a sneer twisting his chubby face. ‘I’m no hero,’ said Tullus, wanting nothing more than to smash Cordus’ teeth down the back of his throat.
‘I was being sarcastic.’ Cordus called out to his companions: ‘Tullus is here! The centurion who managed to save ten soldiers out of an entire cohort.’
Fenestela reached out a hand to stop Tullus launching himself to his feet, but it was too late.
‘It was fifteen,’ said Tullus, pushing his face so close to Cordus’ that the man took an involuntary step away. ‘Fifteen.’
Cordus’ complexion went puce. ‘Move back, Tullus! You forget that I am your superior.’
‘Forgive me, sir.’ Tullus obeyed, his tone as insolent as he could make it.
‘You impertinent dog!’
Tullus leaned in and placed his lips against Cordus’ ear. ‘You love to taunt me, but I’d wager a year’s pay that you wouldn’t have made it through the forest. You’d have shit yourself and run off into the bog, like I saw so many do, or committed suicide because you couldn’t face death in battle.’
‘How dare you?’ hissed Cordus, furious.
Tullus glanced around the room. All eyes were on them. Good, he thought. ‘I look forward to your leadership, sir, during the campaign next year, like every officer in the legion.’ He saw heads nodding, and a few cups being raised. Apart from Fenestela, Victor and the rest at his table, the others present had no idea of the animosity between him and Cordus. Tullus lifted his own beaker. ‘To our general, Germanicus, and to victory over the savages!’
With a great roar of approval most of the customers were on their feet, shouting, ‘Ger-man-i-cus! Ger-man-i-cus!’
With poor grace, Cordus added his voice to the clamour. He gave Tullus a venomous look as he headed for the latrine, but Tullus didn’t care. ‘That round went to me, I think,’ he muttered, retaking his seat. When Tullus revealed what he’d said, Fenestela let out a chuckle. ‘He won’t forgive you that one too quickly.’
‘Maybe he won’t,’ replied Tullus, still angry enough not to care. ‘But I won’t take an insult like that lying down. Escaping that forest with you and the rest was the hardest thing I’ve done. It’s also what I am proudest of, even if I should have saved more men.’
Fenestela gripped his arm. ‘No one could have done more than you did, you hear me, Tullus? No one. Every single man who was with us would say the same.’
Fenestela’s words could not convince Tullus that he had not failed, but he nodded.
As if sensing his anguish, Fenestela filled Tullus’ cup to the brim and pushed it across the table. ‘To fallen comrades. May we see them again one day.’
‘One day.’ Chest tight with grief, Tullus drank.
A horse galloped past the front of the tent with a thunder of hooves, moving in the direction of the road north. The rider’s urgency was an unusual enough occurrence for heads to turn, and questions to be asked. An optio near the door flap went and poked his head outside. ‘Looks like an official messenger,’ he announced.
The clamour in the tent soon returned to its previous volume, although men were now debating the messenger’s reasons for travelling with such speed. Later, Tullus would decide that no one could have predicted the calamitous news that he bore.
Not long after the rider had gone by, shouts and cries on the avenue outside became audible. This time, a centurion went to see what was going on. Not everyone spotted him come back, twenty heartbeats later, but Tullus did. The man’s face was as white as a senator’s new toga. Tullus shushed Fenestela and jerked his head at the centurion, who took a deep breath and said, ‘Augustus is dead.’
Tullus felt a sudden lightheadedness. Fenestela’s expression was so shocked it verged on the comical. Few others had heard, however.