A little further and they passed the entrance of the engineers’ compound, a palisade ring full of burly soldiers hauling ropes or carrying timber to the wagons that would transport it back to the fort. Once more, Varro clicked his tongue in irritation. Such a waste, hauling literally tons of siege equipment forty miles from the fort and not even deploying it. Shaking his head sadly, the captain turned, looping slowly round the farthest tents, and began the more exerting climb back up the slope towards his tent.
Not far from the command tents, Varro spotted his counterpart from the third cohort observing preparations among his own troops. Turning to Salonius, Varro gestured towards the captain of the third. “You can leave me now,” he told the young guard. ”I’ll be fine from here. Go help with packing the headquarters tent and my gear.”
Salonius saluted and began to stride off between the last of the tents to the captain’s at the summit, while Varro slowly and carefully made his way to his comrade. The standards outside the tent had already been taken down, Salonius noted as he approached, and a number of the ropes had been unfastened. Ducking beneath a remaining line, the young guard pulled aside the leather flap and, leaning into the darker confines of the Headquarters tent, suddenly found himself dragged bodily inside.
He took a moment after he was released to regain his footing. Glancing quickly around himself, he caught the heavy-set faces of three men, including the memorable square jaw of the guard from earlier. Yanking himself back, he pulled his tunic out of the grip of the man who had hauled him in and stood as straight as he could, raising his arms and clenching his fists tight.
“Alright. Let’s get this over with, then.”
Varro arrived at the muster area for the wounded. The carts were full, noisy and gave off the sickly-sweet stench of wounds, sickness and decay. One of the medical orderlies waved him over respectfully. The captain walked carefully across to him, took one look at the meagre space in the cart and shook his head.
“There is not a hope; not a chance in three hells of you getting me on that cart. Scortius or no Scortius, I’m taking my horse.”
He turned his back on the protesting orderly and strode away from the carts to where the Fourth were busy performing their last minute checks before the return journey began. He strode over to the collection of white crests gathered around the horses at the head of the column. A quick head count revealed the command guard of the second cohort to be a man short. As he approached, they moved fluidly into two lines of seven, came to attention and saluted in unison. Varro nodded his acknowledgment and scanned the lines for Salonius. Perhaps he was attending to something before assembly and… no; there he was. So who was missing?
The captain glanced once more up and down the lines and allowed his gaze to settle on his newest guard, noticing for the first time the faint purple and brown of a sizeable bruise blossoming slowly around his left eye. With a frown, his eyes wandered among the other guards, this time paying close attention. Two more of them sported facial bruising.
“I’m not going to ask what went on, but I’m a man down, and I want to know where he is.”
There was a moment’s silence, then someone from the second row cleared his throat.
“Gallo had to go see the medic, sir, for stitches. He’ll be back in a few minutes”
Varro grumbled and allowed his frown to deepen.
“As if there aren’t enough barbarians out there waiting to give you all a damn good thrashing, you have to go beating your own to a pulp. Get your horses saddled and ready. We leave in ten minutes, with or without Gallo.”
Still grumbling to himself, the captain spun and headed for his own horse, already saddled and being tended to by his servant who would travel with the baggage train at the rear. As soon as their officer was out of sight, the guards stood at ease and the man beside Salonius turned his head slightly, giving the shorter, younger recruit a sidelong glance up and down.
“You fought off three of them?”
Salonius nodded, concentrating on a point in the middle distance.
“Maybe you do deserve the crest.” The soldier turned away, his plated torso armour scraping Salonius’ as he went.
“Short and young does not necessarily mean weak and frightened”, Salonius grumbled to himself under his breath and from between clenched teeth. The engineers were happy enough with new recruits as long as they could handle a mallet and haul on a rope, but the command guard were supposedly the cohort’s best, and were paid accordingly. It would take some time to settle in here and turn their resentment into respect.
With a sigh, he turned and looked at the horse he’d been given. He’d ridden a horse a few times, years ago, but not since joining up; engineers used horses for transporting equipment and for labour, not for riding. It was already saddled and waiting. With a disbelieving shake of his head, Salonius walked over to the horse.
The column had been rumbling across the landscape for half a day, the immense cloud of dust thrown up into the air by an entire army on the move making the beautiful azure blue sky somewhat difficult to see. The adjutant and the senior staff, along with the flag and standard bearers, rode as the vanguard, in the clear and open air. Behind them came the various ancillary officers, camp staff and the like, followed by the six cohorts themselves in numerical order and finally the engineers and the baggage train, slowly grinding away the miles.
Some half a mile behind the column came the army’s provosts with the prisoners taken the previous day, staggering along in three lines, chained together to be ransomed, sold or executed at the marshal’s whim later.
Varro sat astride his horse at the head of the second, blinking regularly to keep the dust from his eyes and wincing with every step of his horse. After only an hour of travel, he’d realised why Scortius had wanted him in a cart. By the second hour, his wound had begun to leak again slightly and, though it was a seep rather than a flow, by now, nine hours into the journey, his left leg was soaked with crusty dried blood and coated with dust. When they finally reached the fort it would take more than a quick dip to clean all this off.
He glanced over his shoulder at the command guard of the second, fifteen now off-white crests in three lines of five, riding silently behind him. With a quick motion to the guard to continue on as they were, he wheeled his horse and gently walked it out of the column, continuing a hundred yards or so until the cloud of disturbed dust swirled behind him and he could breathe fresh, untainted air. The summer sun shone down on a verdant green landscape, quite beautiful even with the disturbances of thousands of marching boots; a landscape most of the column would barely see through the dust.
Stopping his horse, the captain took several deep, clean and satisfying breaths. Perhaps he should request a break in the march? As he sat astride Targus, his bay colt, scanning the hills to the west, his eyes caught a brief sign of movement. Suddenly alert, he strained and focused on the shapes and slowly they swam into focus: perhaps a dozen or so riders. Some were clearly armoured, glittering in the sun. And then he saw the flag being borne by one of the riders, and recognised the black banner with the silver ram and bolt of lightning. With a sigh of relief, he kicked his horse into a trot once more and set off at a tangent to intercept the approaching riders, safe in the knowledge that no barbarians would be stupid enough to try a ruse against such a large armoured column. Besides, they’d broken the back of the local tribes yesterday.
As the party of a dozen riders slowed to a trot and hauled on the reins to pull alongside Varro and his mount, he recognised the pale face of Corda, his second in command, covered by his helmet and partially hidden behind the bandana pulled up across the lower half and hiding the thick, black beard. The dozen men were the second cohort’s contribution to the prefect’s honour guard. As Varro drew his steed to a halt, the riders also stopped, saluting their commander wearily. Varro grinned as his second in command untied the bandana, revealing the yet paler skin of his lower face, framed with his dark beard and untouched by the dust of travel. Corda, never a man given to frivolity, displayed his usual scowl, which deepened as he spotted the dried blood encrusting his superior’s leg.