I saw the man’s pale silhouette nodding. ‘My men and I are being held as a reserve, to cut off any survivors that try and escape.’
I snorted. ‘There won’t be any survivors. We’re coming at them from both flanks. The other angles are high rock and cliff.’
‘Someone always survives.’ I saw his smile flash in the gloom. ‘How else would we get our stories?’
I said nothing. For a moment, we fell into silence.
‘Why are you here?’ I finally asked him.
‘I came for my horse.’
‘Oh.’
‘And to see my friend.’
I choked out a short laugh. I was still drunk. ‘Dangerous occupation, being my friend.’
‘Those who seek to change and better the world are often in the positions of most peril.’
I rubbed my grubby hands over my face. ‘Gods, it’s like talking to bloody Plato with you.’
Arminius laughed at that. Where my own mirth was dark and desperate, his was rich and booming. ‘I have been accused of loving the sound of my own voice,’ he confessed.
‘By who?’ I couldn’t think that many people would contradict a noble. By openly questioning the word of Rome, I had already stepped over the greatest boundary, so what was one more?
‘Her name is Thusnelda,’ he told me, and the tent seemed to warm. Not even the darkness could hide the German’s glow. ‘She has eyes like jewels and hair like gold, and one day, Corvus… one day, she will be my wife.’
‘She sounds beautiful,’ I said dutifully.
‘You will have to come to the wedding.’
I snorted. ‘You like to dream, don’t you?’
Arminius’s teeth shone brightly. ‘I do, my friend. I dream of great things.’
Experience had told me to laugh at his naivety, but there was something about the German prince that was irrepressible, as though he was beyond the rules that governed the lives of mere mortals. ‘I’m sure you will see them all come true,’ I told him honesty.
The German placed a hand on my shoulder. ‘Thank you, my friend,’ he said, and I could hear the sincerity in his voice. ‘And what do you dream?’
He was smiling. I was not. ‘I don’t.’ I spoke without heat. ‘I don’t have dreams, Arminius.’ I left out that nightmares now raged in their place. ‘My dreams died a long time ago.’
For a long time he said nothing. I felt as though he was taking a measure of me. How close he could step to the edge.
Eventually, he dared to tread closer than any other had done. ‘One day’ – he spoke as softly as wind in the forest – ‘I would like you to tell me about her.’
I wanted to growl, then. I wanted to swipe his hand from my shoulder. I wanted to rage, and to accuse, and to throw off the shackles of friendship before another of my betters died and left me.
Instead I simply promised, ‘I will.’
There wasn’t much to say after that. Arminius rose, and paid homage to the eagle by touching its feathers. By the light of a candle, I could see the devotion in his eyes. This man loved Rome, and his fellow soldiers. I had no doubt he would die to see that totem remain in the lawful hands of those who protected Rome.
At the tent’s flap he turned. ‘I’ll come and find you when it’s over. Try to be intact.’
I grunted, but a ghost of a smile played at the corners of my mouth. For a brief moment, this man had helped me forget. ‘Take care of yourself, prince.’
He closed the flap. I stood and stretched limbs sore from the road and soaked in wine. I was unshaven, stinking and unsoldierly, but none of that mattered. No one would be looking at me.
‘You’re the hero here,’ I told the eagle.
Under arms and clad in armour, I carried her forth to the waiting slaughter.
48
The night air was hot, dark and oppressive, as though I were walking into a cave that led to the underworld. I snorted grimly as I realized that for some of us, it would.
I strained my eyes against the moon-touched black. I felt the movement on the valley floor. Didn’t see it. The Tenth Cohort were preparing for battle, but Hook-nose had forbidden any torches, lest they were spotted by the scouting parties that the enemy had undoubtedly dispatched. Instead, moonlight was caught here and there by polished armour and helmet. It looked as though some huge, malevolent centipede was stirring for the kill.
I walked through this quiet commotion, Gallus the eagle in my hand. I heard men mutter and curse, prophesy and promise.
‘I should have listened to my dad, and been a baker.’
‘Watch it! You nearly stabbed me with your javelin, you cock!’
‘I’m telling you, they’ll run when they see us.’
‘I’ll watch your back, brother.’
I tried to walk by these pre-battle rituals quickly – it was too much of a reminder that I was without my own battle-brothers – but I carried a famous totem, and she shone in the night.
Voices in the dark. Some between friends. Others for my own ears.
‘’Ey, look. The eagle.’
‘That must be Corvus. He killed the enemy general to get that back.’
‘Standard-bearer! Sir! Can we please touch the eagle?’
I stopped. That was a mistake. Word spread. Others came closer. In the dark I saw wide eyes, some opened in awe, others in fear.
‘There’re only three hundred of them, right, sir?’ A young lad. A boy.
‘Enough for a morning’s hard work,’ a veteran answered. ‘It’s an honour to march with you, standard-bearer.’
‘The honour is mine.’
And it was. How could it not be? I was opposed to the senseless brutality of the mountain campaign. I was worried for the fate of those Dalmatians I had called friends. I was sick of my own life.
But these men?
They were not Varo and Octavius. Brutus and Marcus. They were not my brothers, but they were cast in the same mould. Born of the same blood. They would die for me, I realized with a stab of humility in my heart. They knew nothing of me save that I was of their legion. Their army.
And they would die for me.
Would I die for them?
I looked about at the eager faces in the moonlight. I saw a gruff soldier put his arm around a wide-eyed youngster. ‘Hey,’ he said, nodding at the eagle. ‘That’s what we’re fighting for, lad. Just follow the eagle, and we’ll be all right.’
And by following the eagle, they would be following me.
How could I not die for them?
‘Keep your shields tight and high when you reach the wall,’ I advised them, fumbling for words that I felt duty-bound to give. ‘Watch your shins as you go over.’
Armoured skulls nodded in the darkness.
‘I must be going.’ What to say? ‘I’ll see you at the top.’
A promise to strangers. An oath to brothers.
‘See you at the top,’ they echoed. ‘See you at the top.’
I found the front line of the Tenth Cohort and met its commander. He was a tall man with a thin face cast into deep shadow by the late hour and the cheek-plates of his helmet. His name was Paulus, and he was hungry.
‘We’ve been sitting on our arses for weeks waiting for this call,’ he told me. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’ve drilled the men from dawn till dusk, but to be in camp when the rest of the legion is slitting throats? Insufferable.’
There were worse things in life to suffer than sitting out combat, but that wasn’t something to say to an infantryman. With little surprise, I realized that I too was anxious for the coming battle. Anxious for the single-minded chaos of kill or be killed, to be away from the torment that had raged inside my mind since my father had uttered his bitter words.