‘Cynbel knew?’
My father nodded. ‘We decided it would be best to keep you apart. Young love is powerful. Dangerous.’ As though that needed saying. ‘It was best for both of you.’
But Beatha was dead. Raped. Murdered. Through teeth clenched in bitter resentment, I told him as much.
And then, for the first time in my life, I saw true fear on my father’s face.
‘Son,’ he began, and I wondered in that moment if I was to see the miracle of tears on his face, ‘the last time I saw that girl was when I sold her.’
I wanted to scream. His treachery and lies were too much, but somehow, I found myself sucked into his game. ‘Sold her to who?’ I demanded, tiring of his fictions.
The old man seemed to shrink. He swallowed.
‘The same person that told us about you to begin with…’
And with a name, my whole world fell apart.
46
I whipped Balius’s flanks, hooves clattering against the stone road as we charged from Iader and towards the mountains that held my legion.
At the town’s edge, a body of men were waiting for me. Arminius was waiting for me. I’d told the bastard that I’d meet him at the port. Despite my haste, I reined in; I would never outride his Germans.
A flash of worry passed over his features as he recognized the bloodlust in mine. ‘I thought you’d deserted,’ he said simply. ‘I’m glad you’re here. Very glad. I was going to give you until the morning. Don’t want to sit around too long with legion pay chests to look after.’
I had no time to be civil. No strength for it. My entire being had been turned over to darkness. ‘I’ll see you at the legion,’ I told him, kicking my heels hard.
‘Corvus!’ the prince called after me. ‘Corvus, wait!’
But I would not. Then I heard a shout as the German kicked his own horse into action, and soon he was in pursuit. A far better horseman on a beautiful mount, it did not take him long to catch me.
‘Corvus!’ he called from the saddle. ‘Just a moment to talk, that’s all I ask of you!’
No.
‘Please!’
No.
‘Please!’
I turned and saw true worry on his features. The kind I would have seen on the face of Octavius or Varo. Brutus or Priscus. Worry for me.
‘Just one moment! Please!’
I gave him that. Balius breathed hard as I slowed him to a trot. I felt his ribcage swell between my legs.
Arminius looked me over. He saw a man rash and reckless, and talked straight. ‘The road back to the legion is not a safe one, friend.’
My eyes spoke for me – what did I care?
The cavalry officer looked at my horse. ‘And he cannot survive you riding him like that.’
I thought a lecture was coming. Some attempt to caution against my haste. Instead, Arminius brought his own horse to a halt, and swung out of the saddle. ‘Take mine,’ he told me.
I stopped Balius in his tracks, and looked at the animal Arminius was holding. The horse was worth a handsome sum. A mount fit for nobility.
‘I can’t take your horse.’
The prince shook his head. ‘Don’t think of it as taking my horse.’ He half smiled. ‘Think of it as giving me yours.’
I was silent. Arminius rubbed the proud neck of his steed. ‘He’s always been a loyal friend to me, Corvus, and I… I think you need a loyal friend.’
The truth in his words drove like a javelin into my chest.
I didn’t want to be alone.
‘I’ll take your bloody horse,’ I growled.
I slid from Balius’s saddle and rubbed his nose. I had become fond of him. He deserved better than being flogged to death by me.
I handed his reins to Arminius. ‘Look after him.’
‘And you?’
‘I can look after myself.’
The prince put a hand on my shoulder. I had thought that I would want to react with violence to the familiar action. Instead I calmed.
His blue eyes sparkled with friendship. ‘What is it, Corvus?’
I wanted to tell him. The gods knew I wanted to tell him. But…
But I couldn’t give voice to it even in my head, let alone my tongue. I just knew that I was in the wrong place. That I had heard the wrong things. Only in the mountains could I set it right. Silence the war raging in my mind.
I lifted myself up on to the magnificent horse. ‘I have to go.’ I looked down at the noble German. ‘I owe you a debt.’
Arminius shrugged. ‘No doubt you will repay it one day, my friend. Good luck, Corvus. I’ll see you in the mountains.’
There was nothing left to say.
‘Yar!’ I shouted, and my mount leaped forwards to carry me to my end.
I rode over hill and through valley. Past forest, river and waterfall.
I saw none of it. A curtain of red hung before my eyes. It had fallen when my father had breathed a name. For now, that name had stayed his own execution. I did not want to consider – I could not consider that it might be a portent to another’s.
Hot tears stung my cheeks as I rode. I wanted to cry out. To scream. To rage against life, and death, and everything I had ever known.
But instead I rode.
I rode to find answers. I rode to find truth. I rode to silence the voice in my head which told me that I had been deceived. That I had made enemies of friends, and brothers of adders.
Somehow, I escaped the valleys and trails unmolested. Maybe the rebels were gone. Maybe they saw a foe so consumed with misery that they considered it better sport to let him suffer.
I found the legion only a little further south than where I had left them. I galloped past the sentries and saw that the force in the valley had swelled.
‘What’s going on?’ I demanded of one soldier. ‘Where have these other troops come from?’ The young man gulped as he took in my face, the bear snout growling above my savage jaw. ‘Tell me!’
‘The legate’s brought up the reserves, sir!’
‘Why?’
‘I – I don’t know, sir.’
I kicked on to find someone that would. A few of the headquarters staff raised eyebrows at the sweat-soaked mount that I dismounted with haste.
‘Where’s the legate?’
I was shown to him. With a knot of officers, Hook-nose was looking at a map on a campaign table. Fleetingly, I noticed a couple of weather-beaten scouts standing to attention in the tent’s corner.
Hook-nose raised his gaze. A smile pulled at his lips. ‘Standard-bearer. Just in time.’
‘Sir.’ I saluted. ‘I’m looking for the Sixth Cohort. Can I take one of these scouts to show me?’
Hook-nose shot me a puzzled look. For the first time he took in my unshaven state. ‘Are the pay chests all right, standard-bearer?’
‘With Prince Arminius, sir.’
He licked his lips. ‘And not with you because…’
Shit. I looked at the faces of the other staff officers with him. Their eyes were on me, now. They sensed blood had just dripped into the water.
‘I heard the Tenth Cohort had been brought up, sir,’ I bluffed, recognizing an officer of that unit. ‘I was hoping the eagle had come with it.’
Hook-nose grinned, then. Not a friendly smile, but that of a hungry vulture. ‘No holding you back from a fight, is there, Corvus?’
‘No, sir.’
He pointed to the map laid out before him. ‘Then come and join us, standard-bearer,’ he ordered. ‘We are about to have ourselves a real battle.’
47
The place was a considerable-sized hill fort that clung to a mountaintop like a limpet. Through reconnaissance, and information obtained from the capture of two rebels who had been caught stealing weapons from the camp, and were now crucified in the valley, the legion had identified the place that was home to the men who had been harassing and killing us for weeks. With high walls, and an estimated three hundred rebels to hold them, it would be a tough shell to break, but the men of the Eighth were hungry to sink metal into the meat of their enemy.