None were spared. In the eyes of the victor, all were guilty by association.
But it was not my fight. Not in this moment. I strode through the bloodshed like a centaur, with only one aim in mind.
To know the truth.
I found the man who possessed it on the far wall. His back was turned to me, but even in his arms and armour, I would recognize him anywhere. I had seen that silhouette grow from a boy to a man, and then from a man into a soldier.
I climbed steps of stone. Placed the bloodied eagle against the rampart. The man made no movement at the sound. He was looking out over the mountains. I followed his gaze. The wicked slopes were cast soft yellow in the morning sunlight. It looked like a king’s hoard of gold. Endless piles of treasure. There was no sign of suffering. No sign of the evil that had changed this man.
‘Marcus?’
He didn’t turn. Instead he pulled his centurion’s helmet from his head and laid it atop the stone of the objective his men had fought to take. Evidence of their sacrifice lay all about. A carpet of bodies. A slick paint of blood.
‘Marcus…’
He turned, and I expected to see the face of my brother.
I tried not to shudder.
This wasn’t the man I knew. This wasn’t the boy that I’d run with through woods and over hills. This wasn’t the brother who knew my secrets, fought by my side and promised me eternal friendship. This was the cold face of a stranger. Dead eyes like a shark’s, a fresh scar painted along his jaw.
‘Marcus…’ I began again, but the next words caught in my mouth.
I had come here to speak words that sounded treasonous to our brotherhood. Thoughts that had been like knives in my mind. I had sought him to seep poison, and to have him laugh at the accusation, but now, as I saw the death in his demeanour, my stomach soured to acid, and I realized that I could have been wrong about everything.
Marcus wiped a hand at the sweat and dirt on his face. It left him with a grotesque, bloody red mask.
‘You went to Iader,’ he said, his tone like the stone of the mountains that loomed about us, spectators to our tragic theatre. ‘I didn’t ever think that you’d go back to Iader.’
I tried to speak. Fear and thirst held my tongue. I tried to control my limbs. They were beginning to shake.
‘You spoke to your father?’ There was something in his eyes, then. Not guilt. Not pity.
Anger.
He snorted, and spat. ‘I should have killed your father.’
It was too much. The word burst forth from me like a spear-point from my chest. ‘Why?’ I demanded.
He looked through me.
‘Why, Marcus? Why should you have killed my father?’
For honour, I wanted him to say.
Because he’s a liar.
Because he killed your beloved.
But he said none of that. He simply stared.
‘Why should you have killed my father?’ I raged against the dawn.
But we both knew why.
Because he had talked.
Because he had given me a name.
My father had talked, and given me the name of the man who had bought Beatha, and promised to keep her safe.
‘Tell me you lied to me, brother!’ I suddenly pleaded. ‘Tell me you lied!’ I struggled for words. ‘Tell me you… tell me you bought her, and sold her! Tell me you bought her, and sold her, and set her free! Tell me… tell me…’
I saw fire in his eyes. Anger on his face. I was no longer looking at my brother. This was not Marcus of Iader. This was the leader of the Barbers. This was a killer.
He always had been.
‘She was a slave, Corvus!’ Marcus suddenly hissed. ‘A SLAVE!’
My vision swam. I staggered. I put my hand against the wall to steady myself as white light began to push against my vision.
‘You betrayed me!’ I heard him snarl through the ringing in my ears. ‘We were supposed to be brothers, Corvus, but you chose her over me! A slave over your brother! A slave over Rome!’
Every word was a war-hammer to my chest. I sank back against the wall. Felt puke in my gullet. Hot blood tingling through my body, but no anger – just a revolting sense of loss.
Beatha was dead, and my brother had died with her.
‘Tell me it isn’t true,’ I croaked.
He stepped forwards then. As he came towards me, I didn’t see the man I knew. I saw the soldier I feared.
‘If you did it, just kill me,’ I uttered. ‘Just kill me, Marcus. Just kill me.’
Instead he stared through my soul, then spat on to the bloody stone.
‘You never were a soldier, Corvus,’ he accused me with bitter disappointment. ‘You never were a soldier.’
I saw the anger in him then. I expected the blade.
Instead, words fell from him like the executioner’s sword: ‘And you were never my brother.’
The ringing in my ears became a roar. The white crept over my eyes like a tide.
And then, I suffered no more.
50
When I opened my eyes, Marcus was gone.
Looking about me, I saw that my only company was the dead. Already, the crows were taking eyes.
‘Yar!’ a commanding voice from below shooed them away. I heard steps on the stone.
I didn’t push myself to my feet. I didn’t care for life, let alone my appearance.
A blond head appeared at the top of the steps.
‘Arminius…’
The German prince took in my sorry state, and hurried to kneel beside me. ‘You’re hurt?’
I shook my head. I wasn’t injured – I had been gutted. I felt hollow. Numb. My brother was the architect of my life’s pain. I should feel anger. Terrible anger. Instead I felt…
Nothing.
‘I keep meaning to die,’ I said honestly.
It took a moment for the prince to assess my words. When he had, he said, ‘The gods do not want you yet. You have a part to play for them, brother.’
Brother?
‘My name is Corvus,’ I said with too much heat.
Arminius gave an apologetic smile.
I saw hope in it.
I dashed that promise against a rock in my mind, and pushed myself to my feet. All about me lay the dead. Roman. Dalmatian. Dozens upon dozens, and for what? This was no town. This was no great victory. It was a bleak home in the mountains, now laid to waste to supposedly protect those who dwelt in these lands.
‘I’ve had enough,’ I suddenly growled, sweeping out my arm. ‘Of all this! They won’t listen,’ I told Arminius. ‘They won’t change! It will be like this, over and over! Romans die. The natives die. And for who? For what?’
‘For the glory of Rome?’ the prince suggested, but I could see that he was testing me.
‘Fuck Rome.’
The words hung in the dead air. Arminius looked into my eyes. What he saw in there scared him, and he looked quickly away.
To the dead.
He moved beside a legionary whose young face was turned up to an uncaring sky. Then he turned his attention to a Dalmatian – he was about the same age as the enemy he had died fighting. Arminius sighed sadly. ‘These men were both recruited, trained and told to fight for Rome. Now they are enemies, when they should be friends. They have been turned on each other to line the pockets of rich senators and a distant emperor. Does that seem fair to you, Corvus?’
I said nothing.
‘But such voices can only be heard through violence. The rebels need to stand long enough to be heard. Maybe then they can have a voice. Maybe then this sacrifice will have been worthwhile…’ He looked at me. ‘But they’ll never do it without the right leadership.’