Ovid

I risked a look myself.

I couldn't believe it either.

'Hey, good shot, Titus!'

'Bull’s-eye!'

'Ti-tus! Ti-tus! Ti-'

'Watch me! Hey, you guys, watch me!'

They swarmed over and around the barricade like a pack of frisky wolf-cubs, squeaky clean in their nice new armour. None of them could've been more than nineteen or less than five-ten, except for the decurion bringing up the rear, who was small and grey haired, and red as a beetroot with yelling orders no one was listening to:

'Hey, you bastards! Keep together! You there, Marcus Sedilius, get that effing point up! Quintus, not the effing edge, you little bugger! If I've told you once I've told you a thousand times…'

It wasn't the time or place for it, I knew, but I couldn't help myself. Maybe it was hysteria. I sat down with my back against one of the coach wheels and laughed until the tears came while those kids took the bastards apart. Not that it was any great deal. The few still on their feet after the javelin volley probably didn't know what day it was or which way was up, let alone what had hit them. I only saw the youngsters in trouble once when a big guy with shoulders hunched like a bear had one of them backed up against the barricade. The decurion was between the two before you could say "knife", and he finished the bastard off with as nice a parry-feint-and-thrust as I'd seen outside a demonstration bout.

When it was over he wiped his sword neatly on a clump of reeds, slid it back into a well-worn scabbard and came across to me.

'You all right, sir?' he said.

'Yeah. Yeah, I think so.' I looked round to check my team. Apart from Flavus we'd all made it out the other end. One of the Gauls had a cut shoulder, another was bleeding from a head wound and a third was limping, but they were all on their feet and I couldn't see any stray bits lying about the place. Not Gallic bits, anyway. Lysias the coachman had stayed well out of it, snug in his box. I made a mental note to dock the bugger of his perquisites when we got home. 'Thanks, friend.'

The decurion spat modestly. ''S nothing, sir. Lucky the lads and me was passing.'

'Recruits, are they?'

His boot of a face split into a grin that revealed teeth like tombstones.

''S right, sir. Trained 'em myself. We're on our way to Puteoli. Young Titus there heard the ruckus from the road.'

I saw something move out of the corner of my eye and spun round with my sword raised. One of the bodies at the edge of the group was up and sprinting back down the track, his hand pressed to the side of his blood-soaked jerkin.

'Shit,' the decurion growled. 'Marcus!'

'No! Wait!' I shouted; but I was too late. The javelin had already caught the guy in the back of the neck and pitched him forwards like a struck rabbit.

'Wheee-ooh!'

''Way to go, Marcus!'

Evidently the star pupil. The decurion hadn't moved.

''Scuse me, sir,' he said politely. Then, turning on the cheering kids: 'How many effing times do I have to tell you buggers? Before you relax check your effing bodies. Whose was he?'

'Sorry, decurion.'

'Sorry's no use, young Quintus. Sorry don't butter no beans. You're on report, lad.' He turned back to me. 'Now, sir. Care to tell me what happened?'

I shrugged. 'They jumped us. That's about all I can tell you.' I wasn't going to give much away if I could help it. Even if the guy had saved my life.

The decurion cast an expert eye over the barricade. 'Waiting for you, sir, from the looks of things. Big gang too, and well armed. 'S not often you see something like that so close to a main road. You sure they wasn't after you special?'

'Why should they be after me?'

'You'd know that better than I would, sir.' A careful answer, carefully delivered. The guy wasn't stupid, that was for sure. Not that he'd press the issue. I'd seen from the first that he'd taken in the quality of the carriage and the purple stripe on my tunic. He wasn't showing any interest in the swords my lads were holding, either. Which meant he'd noticed them, too.

'No reason that I can think of,' I said.

He rubbed his nose with a finger that looked like it had been hacked from an olive stump. He didn't believe me, that was for sure. But disbelief is one thing. Calling a purple-striper a liar to his face is another.

'Then it's a mystery, sir,' he said. 'Maybe we should've taken that last sod in and kicked his balls until he talked.'

Oh, yeah, I thought. Great. So now tell me something I don't know.

'Maybe it's not too late at that.' He wheeled round. 'Hey, you bastards! Any more live ones there?'

'Just stiffs, decurion,' the kid who'd thrown the javelin called back cheerfully.

'You sure this time, young Marcus?'

'Yes, decurion.'

'Shit.' He turned back to me. 'Never mind, sir. Can't be helped. Can I have your name, please? For the report, like?'

I knew better than to lie this time. Names were too easy to check up on.

'Corvinus,' I said. 'Valerius Messalla Corvinus.'

His eyes widened. 'Any relation to the consular, sir? Valerius Messalla Messalinus?'

'Yeah. He's my father.'

The decurion's face lit up. He threw me a flawless military salute.

'Sextus Pomponius, sir. Ex-PFC, third century, Twentieth Valerians. I served under your father in Illyria.'

Oh, whoopee. Just what I needed, an Old Boys reunion. Still, the guy had done me a big favour. The least I could do was give him the courtesy of some small talk. 'You were in the Rebellion?'

''S right. When we near lost the whole effing province and then some. Pardon my language, sir.'

'How was my father? As a general?' I really wanted to know. If you believed what Dad said when he'd fought his way through the Illyrian Revolt with the Wart he was Caesar and Alexander rolled into one. I'd be interested to know what the guys at the bottom had thought of him.

Pomponius's face set like concrete.

'He was okay, sir,' he said cautiously.

'But nothing special?'

'Doesn't apply, sir. The governor wasn't a soldier. Begging your pardon. Not his fault if he was more of a bum-on-the… more of an administrator, sir.'

I grinned. Oh, beautiful! He'd got Dad to a T. 'Sure. Go ahead, Pomponius. A bum-on-the-bench type describes my father perfectly.'

I got no answering smile. The decurion gave me a look like an old-fashioned matron whose pet parrot has just told her to piss off.

'Like I said, sir. The governor was okay. For a…for an administrator, sir.'

'What about Tiberius?'

Pomponius relaxed visibly.

'Tiberius,' he said simply, 'was the best effing general I ever served under, sir. Bar none.'

High praise, coming from this little guy. Pomponius had probably cut his first tooth chewing on a helmet.

'I'd heard he wasn't too popular with the men,' I said.

'Sure, he was hard, sir. Maybe too hard. But you knew where you were with the General. Even when we was belly-aching the years before the frontiers blew up there was never a word against Tiberius personal. Maybe he's First Citizen now, sir, but the General's got the Eagles in his blood. He's Army first and last, no flash, a real professional. You can't catch fish by grabbing their tails, you've got to take things careful. Look at old Varus, he-'

'Hey decurion! Come and see this!' It was smartass Marcus again. The javelin king. He was crouching over the guy I'd killed by the coach.

We went over. The dead man was lying face-up, his right arm thrown out sideways with the hand bent back.

'Look at his wrist.' The kid pointed. On the inside of the forearm was a blue ram.

'Fuck.' Pomponius said softly.

I'd only seen this sort of thing on Gauls before. They go in for it a lot, even in the more civilised parts. The skin's punctured with needles in the shape of a design and then dye rubbed into the wounds. It doesn't come off even with scraping. My four lads were covered in the stuff.