‘This is getting silly,’ Sabinus observed. ‘Even if we do manage to tiptoe past all these sleeping savages, make it up three flights of stairs and find Rhoteces, we’re bound to make some noise getting hold of him. So how do we get back down and out again through all that lot? Not even the Lord Mithras could spirit us past them.’
‘You don’t go back down, but you will need our Lord Mithras’ help.’ Faustus grinned. ‘I’ll give you some rope and you can leave through the windows, it’s fifty feet down straight on to the riverbank. I’ll lend you two or three of my lads to stay in the boat and they can pick you up as you come out.’
Vespasian nodded. ‘I suppose that give us the best chance of escape, but, no offence, Faustus, I would prefer if you would give me the three lads who were transferred from the Thracian garrison to man the boat; one owes me his life, they’ll have more reason than most to hang around when it starts to get dangerous.’
With a shrug Faustus acquiesced. They were hunched around a table in a small, ill-lit hut built up against the siege wall, which Faustus used as the headquarters for the first cohort. The air inside was barely breathable owing to the stench of the disguises they had ripped from the dead Getae three hours before.
Vespasian looked at Sabinus and Magnus, who nodded reluctantly, then around at Sitalces and the rest of the Thracians crowded behind him, peering at the map. ‘Well, Sitalces, what do you think?’ he asked the huge Thracian.
‘We have a saying in Thracian: “A faint-heart never fucked a pig.”’
Vespasian joined in the general laugher. ‘I’ll remember that one. Well, gentlemen, we’ve got a Titan of a pig in front of us, let’s give it a fucking that it won’t forget.’
‘What do you think the chances of success are when you storm the place tomorrow?’ Vespasian asked Faustus as they wove their way through the crowded siege lines towards the river. They had drawn some questioning looks from the legionaries still at work in the torchlight, but the sight of their primus pilus and an escort of a heavily armed contubernium — a unit of eight men — led the soldiers to the assumption that it was a group of Getic deserters being taken for questioning. They had removed their weapons which, along with their regular clothes, Vespasian’s uniform, a couple of crowbars and the ropes, were in a hand-cart being pulled by Varinus and his two mates Lucius and Arruns.
‘It’ll be a hard slog but we’ll get there. The key to it is timing. We need to contain the thousand or so enemy in the fortified village so that they don’t take the towers in the rear in the half-hour that it will take to push them to the walls, or, once we’re there, burst through the siege lines and escape whilst we’re busy trying to get over the fortress’s walls. That’ll be the job for the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth cohorts, whilst we and the sixth take one tower, the third and fourth take another and two cohorts of the Fifth Macedonica take the third, leaving their other two cohorts to guard the gates. I’ll give Poppaeus his due, he does think things through and he knows how to conduct a siege, which is more than can be said for some of the twats that I’ve served under.’
‘What time is the attack set for?’ Sabinus asked.
Before Faustus could reply a horribly familiar voice interrupted. ‘Faustus, where the fuck did you find these savages?’ Centurion Caelus loomed out of the darkness accompanied by two torch-bearing legionaries. ‘If you’re taking them to the general for questioning then you’re going the wrong way.’
‘Piss off, Caelus, and mind your own business,’ Faustus growled. Vespasian and Sabinus lowered their heads in an attempt to hide their shaven un-Getic faces; Magnus retreated behind Sitalces.
‘Prisoners are the general’s business, and I make the general’s business my business,’ Caelus replied, taking a torch from one of his legionaries and thrusting it towards Vespasian. ‘They don’t seem too keen to be seen, do they?’
‘Keep back,’ Faustus warned as he tried to step between Vespasian and Caelus, but Caelus was quicker and he grabbed Vespasian’s chin and forced his head up.
‘Well, what have we here?’ he drawled, staring coldly into Vespasian’s eyes. ‘A tribune disguised as a Getic warrior.’ He looked around at the rest of the party and recognised Sitalces and the other Thracians. ‘All of you dressed the same… not really messengers from the Queen, eh? Spies, more like.’ He turned back to Vespasian. ‘I knew you were up to something with these hairy bastards back up in the pass when you gave them orders. You hadn’t spoken to them once on the journey yet you knew Sitalces’ and Artebudz’s names. Now I understand why you put all our lives in danger, you’re on a secret mission for someone that couldn’t wait. The general will be very interested, I’m sure, when I tell him what’s going on.’
‘Centurion, you will do no such thing,’ Vespasian ordered futilely. ‘Faustus, grab him!’
Caelus jumped to his right, away from Faustus as the primus pilus made a lunge for him, and swung his torch round, narrowly missing Faustus’ face, causing him to back off. Then, with a sneer, he sidestepped between his two accompanying legionaries and sprinted off into the night.
‘You two get back to your century,’ Faustus ordered Caelus’ two legionaries, ‘and don’t say a word about this to anyone unless you want to spend the rest of your service on latrine duty and having the skin whipped off your backs at regular intervals.’
The two men, looking suitably terrified at the very real threat, nodded quickly, saluted their primus pilus and beat a hasty retreat.
‘Bugger it,’ Vespasian snapped, ‘he’s going to cause us a shitload of trouble.’
‘Yeah, but what can Poppaeus do? He might guess that we’re going to try and enter the fortress but he doesn’t know how, and by the time Caelus reaches the camp we’ll be getting in the boat,’ Magnus pointed out.
‘You’re right, I suppose; we’d best get a move on.’
Vespasian scrambled down the steep riverbank towards the eight-oared, flat-bottomed oak boat, twenty paces long and three across at its widest point. It was moored on a jetty amongst the reeds at the bottom of the bank and guarded by two of Faustus’ men. It was mainly used for transporting supplies to and from the ships stationed out in the river; their stern- and bow-lamps could be seen, bobbing lethargically in the oil-dark night, sending sparkling ruby reflections in thin, rippling lines across the gently flowing water.
‘Get the gear stowed as fast as you can, Varinus,’ Vespasian ordered as the three legionaries brought the hand-cart down the slope accompanied by much swearing.
‘I’ll have some men waiting a couple of miles or so downriver from our camp, with your horses and one for the priest,’ Faustus informed them as they started to clamber into the boat. ‘They’ll have torches so you can see them. From there Tomi is one day’s hard ride; you will need to follow the river until the old fortress at Axiopolis where it bends sharply to the north, leave it there and head towards the coast just south of east.’
‘Thank you, my brother,’ Sabinus said, taking Faustus’ hand in a strange grasp. ‘May our Lord keep you in his light.’
‘And you also, brother,’ Faustus responded as Sabinus turned to go.
‘Live through tomorrow night,’ Vespasian said, clasping the centurion’s forearm.
Faustus smiled. ‘Oh, don’t worry about me; it’ll take a lot more than a pack of horse-fucking savages to send me to the warmth of Mithras’ light.’
‘I’m sure it will.’ Vespasian turned to get into the boat. As he took his place in the stern next to Sabinus at the steering-oar a series of bucina calls broke out from the Roman siege lines above them.
‘Shit!’ Faustus exclaimed.
‘That’s “all cohorts to stand to arms”. What is it, do you think?’ Vespasian asked.