Salonius looked away and ground his teeth, wincing as he heard the first thud. With open sympathy, he began to heft the unconscious man. Another two bangs. He paused and waited without looking. He heard the second nail being positioned and three more bangs. Taking a deep breath, he turned to the grisly scene, lifting the unconscious prisoner to the bar. While the whole idea of what they were doing repulsed him, the captain was right and he knew it. These men deserved this; they deserved worse than this in truth, and Varro was doing nothing needlessly cruel.
He forced himself to watch as the captain tied the man’s wrists to the rail. With a glance at the crowd before the inn, he realised that he had to appear as invested in this as the captain. He reached down to the bag and withdrew two nails, grasping the hammer. Varro raised an eyebrow.
“My turn” Salonius rumbled, looking distinctly unhappy. “I assume you’ve got a speech ready?”
Varro nodded.
“Then go speak” the young man said, holding the nail in position over the wrist. Gritting his teeth, he swung the hammer. Of course, Varro’s victim had been dead for quite a few hours and had bled mostly dry. This was a whole different matter. He made sure he stood to one side, grateful that he’d taken the opportunity to give the man a heavy blow to the head on the way over to the tree. Though he wasn’t quite dead, the chances of even agony waking him now or ever again were very small. Continuing his grisly work with a professional concealment of his true feelings, he concentrated on Varro’s voice and allowed himself the bliss of detaching himself from his work.
“You think we are brigands or murderers. But even out here at the frontier, there is justice in the Empire.”
He waited a moment for his words to sink in and then continued.
“These two men are traitors. They have betrayed not only their own unit, but the army and the people of the Empire. I have seen first-hand evidence of their involvement in corruption, murder and intrigue and their fate is clear under Imperial law. As a captain in the fourth army it is my duty to carry out that punishment.”
He turned to see Salonius standing back, the blood-soaked hammer hanging in his blood-soaked hand, an unreadable expression on his face. Bending, he retrieved a sword from the kit. He turned, made sure the crowd was watching and then slowly, deliberately, and with great force, drove the blade through the chest of the hanging man. With a sigh he let go of the hilt and left the sword jutting out of the chest of its former owner.
Salonius shuddered and let the hammer drop, speaking in a quiet voice, unheard by the crowd at the inn.
“Are we done? Did we achieve anything?”
Varro nodded.
“While you were busy, I saw three men disappear off up the road toward the way station on horseback. I suspect in an hour or more this village will be filled with panicked guardsmen and two very angry conspirators. We need to get back to Catilina and get ourselves hidden.”
The young man nodded and, leaning down, wiped his hands on the grass, taking the opportunity to look up subtly and observe the crowd around the inn. There was a tense silence as the population of the village hovered nervously between the dangers of confrontation and the consequences of inaction.
“Which way?”
Varro nodded toward the road and, stretching, began to walk.
“Same way we came in, bold as iron. Nobody’s going to follow us after that. They’ll just be glad we left.”
Salonius fell in alongside him and tried to keep his face impassive and stare straight ahead as they passed the villagers. As they passed the last house he felt a little of the tension drain from his back and, despite willing himself not to, his pace picked up a little until the pair of them had rounded the first bend in the road and the village had disappeared from view.
“We’d best get off the road,” he said, glancing ahead with some trepidation, expecting to see riders bearing down on them round the next corner.
Varro shrugged. “Should have at least a quarter of an hour yet, even if they tried to break their horses.”
The pair walked on. Despite Varro’s casual comments, Salonius noted that their pace picked up considerably as they rounded the corner. After perhaps half a mile of dusty road, they recognised the small village boundary stone that marked their departure point. Taking a deep breath and a nervous glance up the road, Salonius stepped on to the grass and held up his hand to ward off the thin branches snapping back at his face in the captain’s wake.
On springy grass without the constant crunch of gravel beneath their boots, all the sounds of a summer morning flooded in and filled their ears. Birdsong, the buzzing of bees, the splashing of the fast, narrow river in the middle distance and the occasional scurrying noise in the undergrowth all combined to send a flood of calming relief through the two men as Varro finally pushed through the last branches and broke out into the clearing where Catilina sat on a rock. The reins of the three horses were tied to a branch behind her, while she, herself, sat with a hefty Imperial blade between her fingers, point-down on the grass. Salonius raised his eyebrows as he recognised the blade from his saddle. For some odd reason, the lady seemed perfectly natural and happy bearing a heavy military blade.
Varro smiled at her and turned to Salonius, pointing up the slope at the side of the valley.
“Can you climb up there as quietly as you can and find somewhere to hide? As soon as you see horses, get back down here fast.”
Salonius nodded and strode across the clearing.
“But for Gods’ sake don’t get seen coming back down!”
The young man made an affirmative noise and began to clamber up the bank beyond the small knot of trees. Varro wandered across the clearing and sat on a stone near Catilina.
“Shouldn’t be long; then we can get going up toward Saravis Fork.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve been thinking; it’s dangerous to come back this way, but I really can’t see an alternative. There’s no Imperial road other than this. I believe there are native trails but even then it could take weeks to get back down. Are you sure you want to risk this? Going to the very border of the Empire and maybe even getting trapped there?”
Catilina nodded and patted him on the wrist in a soothing manner, idly spinning the blade on its point with her other hand.
“I’m quite sure, Varro.”
“But…”
“You don’t understand” she stated, cutting him off. “It’s been a long time since we were together, but you knew I’d wait, surely? I knew you would. There’d always be time for us to be together again, but now…”
Varro lowered his head and Catilina smiled sadly.
“I don’t know whether we’ve got six months or two days. If Scortius is the genius they say he is, we may even have many years. However long you’ve got, you’re spending it with me. On that point there’s no give!”
Varro looked across at her and grinned.
“Who does know how long they’ve got eh?”
Salonius burst through the leaves and ran out into the clearing, trying to arrest his momentum. Coming to a halt in the centre, he put his hands on his knees and breathed deeply, looking up at Varro and Catilina. The two were sitting close together with their hands on their knees. Catilina was smiling a genuine warm smile, while the captain appeared flushed and looked away momentarily.
Salonius grinned at Catilina.
“Hope I’m not interrupting anything my lady?” he muttered very quietly.
“Of course not, Salonius” she replied, almost in a whisper, her smile taking on a mischievous edge. “I take it we’re moving?”
The young soldier nodded.
“They should be passing us any moment now.”
“How many?” Varro enquired, professionalism once more taking over.
“I counted eight.”