Marcus was not with them.
‘Where is he?’
Nobody spoke.
‘Where’s his century?’
Nobody talked.
The legate’s runners had found me before I could ask any more – I was to collect the legion’s eagle, and accompany Hook-nose on his mission to inspire the cut and the stabbed and the ripped and the beaten.
A surgeon met us at the tents. He was a stranger to sleep. His clothes were wet where he had made an effort to have them cleaned before this visit. It hadn’t worked. The toga was as stained as his hands. Hook-nose shook one.
‘Show me to my men.’
I lowered Gallus and ducked under the tent flap. The tent’s sides had been rolled up where possible to allow for some breeze, but even so, the humid heat beneath the canvas was like a wet slap in the face.
‘As you were, men,’ Hook-nose told the wounded men who were trying to either stand or sit to attention.
I cast my eye over them. A dozen. All young. At least, I assumed they were – one had his face swathed entirely in bandages. It was to him that the legate spoke first, after placing a hand on the man’s shoulder. ‘This is your legion commander. What cohort are you from, soldier?’
The words were muffled by material, but there was no doubting the pride in them. ‘The Fighting First, sir.’
I saw Hook-nose smile at soldier’s pluck. ‘So you fought in the battle of the night and day?’
‘I did, sir.’ The bandages nodded. ‘I was front rank, for a while.’
‘Did you cut the bastards down?’
‘I did, sir. I don’t know how many, sir, but it was a lot, sir. Sir, do you think I can get back to my century soon, sir? I’d really like to get back to them!’
I saw pride wash over Hook-nose with such power that his face twitched. The legate turned, and looked at the surgeon.
The man shook his head, pointed at his own eyes, and then shook his head a second time.
‘We’ll see what we can do,’ Hook-nose promised the blind man. He gestured to me then. Guessing what was on the legate’s mind, I lowered Gallus so that the eagle was within the man’s grasp. Hook-nose guided the soldier’s hand until it rested on the precious metal.
‘Touched by the Emperor’s own hand, and now your own, soldier.’ Hook-nose spoke with reverence. ‘You may not be with your cohort today, but so long as this eagle is carried you will always be with the Eighth. Our fallen, our wounded, from this war, the past, and the next. You don’t need to worry about getting back to your comrades, soldier. You are already with them.’
We moved on to the next man.
Hook-nose spoke to all of them. Every one. Almost without fail, the soldier asked the legion commander when he could rejoin his unit. On two occasions, I saw battle-scarred veterans weep – not because of their injuries, but because they knew that their wounds would prevent them from ever standing beside their brothers again.
‘There are no malingerers here,’ the head surgeon promised Hook-nose. ‘These men are true heroes of Rome, sir. They just want to fight.’
As an aristocrat, the legate had been trained in oration since childhood, but words failed him as his heart beat with pride at the valour of his men.
‘How did I come to deserve such lions?’ I heard him mutter to a tribune as we walked free of the tents, and that same pride had gripped me as we had moved from man to man – soldiers who were willing to rip out their own stitches if it meant being able to fight alongside their friends.
But there was only one lion in the valley that I called brother.
Marcus.
I had to find him.
35
I walked into one of the tents that made up the legion’s headquarters while on the campaign trail, the canvas trapping the smell of hot air and unwashed bodies.
I laid eyes on a clerk. He shrank a little when he saw me. There was fear on his face, but it was the ink on his fingers that interested me – in front of him was a long list of names. Before the clerk could object, I snatched it up.
Casualties. Lots of them. A dispatch to Rome of statistics. Numbers that would multiply in grief. Tears would be shed. Orations would be given. Libations would be offered. It was the way of Roman war. First blood on the field, then ink on the page. A chain of misery written into parchment that would claw its way across the Empire. At its end, families would feel the same sorrow in their hearts as did the fallen soldier’s brothers. Tragedy from the mountains delivered to cities, villages and farmsteads.
‘I can read it for you, if you like?’ It was a kind offer from the clerk, and didn’t deserve the harshness of my reply.
‘Shut your mouth,’ I growled. My father had insisted that I learn my letters. One of the many lessons he had taught me. My possessed eyes darted across the lists, searching for something I was desperate not to find.
I reached the end of the names. There were a lot of them.
But no Marcus.
I fixed the clerk with a stare. I noticed a slight tremble in his hand. His was a war of words, not warriors. He knew who I was. My temper had been a topic of conversation through the rumour mill long before my stand with the eagle.
‘I’m looking for my friend,’ I said, trying and failing to appear amicable. ‘Are these up to date?’
‘As much as they can be, standard-bearer,’ he offered. ‘These names here’ – he pointed to the bottom of the list – ‘came in this morning with the dispatch riders.’ He was trying to be helpful. ‘May I ask the name of who you’re looking for? Maybe I—’
I snapped Marcus’s details out of my mouth. Name, rank, unit. After a moment, I saw the stylus-scribbler’s eyebrows raise. Then he began to quickly leaf through dispatches. ‘Here,’ he said triumphantly, as though he were handing me the head of the enemy general.
I looked at it. ‘A promotion list?’
‘From General Tiberius, standard-bearer. Your friend’s promotion to centurion has been confirmed.’
I handed the paper back. Marcus, now the centurion he had always wanted to be.
I thought then of the man that he had replaced. The grizzled soldier had been injured in the face on the day that Marcus had first drawn blood. How long ago?
I asked about the officer who had entrusted Marcus with his men. His wards. His sons, and brothers.
The clerk’s face paled. ‘He died of his wounds, standard-bearer. Infection.’
‘You remember him?’ I asked impressed, yet suspicious.
The ink-stained man nodded gravely. ‘Every one,’ he said after a moment.
The clerk’s squinted eyes told me that it was the truth. Like all of us, the mountains ensured that this man had a burden to bear.
I put a hand on his shoulder. It was the kind of thing Marcus would do, but what I said came from my own heart.
‘Good.’
I sought out the Sixth Cohort, and found their commander washing in the shallow river. He was naked, and his tanned arms and shins looked as though they were attached to the wrong torso, so white was his skin.
‘Standard-bearer,’ he greeted me. ‘Not the baths, but it’ll do.’
I exchanged the minimum of pleasantries, and then asked after my brother. Despite the absence of Marcus’s name from the list of casualties, I still felt my stomach knot. It would hardly be the first time a bureaucrat had made a mistake.
‘Marcus? Alive and well,’ his commander informed me, and I felt relief wash out of me like a flood. That cavity was, however, soon filled with guilt – I hadn’t seen my friend for weeks, and I needed only to look at the scarred and bruised flesh of the bathing men to know that those weeks had been a tale of breaking backs and broken blades.