‘I saw Pavo go under a horse,’ I told him. What had happened to Moonface, none of us knew.
‘They executed every one of the officers?’ Titus asked me again.
I nodded.
‘Lot of room for promotion now,’ Stumps joked darkly.
‘Maybe if there was a legion.’ Titus shook his head. ‘I still can’t believe it. Three legions? How many people that I knew just disappeared in that forest?’
The answer was in the hundreds. The Seventeenth Legion had been home to Titus and Stumps for years. Their friends, acquaintances and enemies of decades had been wiped away in the space of days.
‘I didn’t think I’d ever see a legion fit into one barrack room.’ Titus grimaced, looking around at the half-section that had survived the massacre.
Silence fell. It was time for him to tell his own story.
‘Micon.’ He pulled some coins from a purse. ‘Go find us some wine. Good lad.’
‘You know he’ll be wandering around the camp lost as fuck?’ Stumps asked.
That had been Titus’s intention. He wanted total privacy for his own story. He had that confidence in Stumps, his old comrade. He had it in me, a witness to his secrets.
‘When our battle lines broke, I was on my own. I was lost. I made it to the trees, but there was a group of them after me. I couldn’t make it back to the body. I’m sorry.’
Stumps nodded. ‘It was chaos.’ he agreed, letting his friend know he understood, and held no grudge that Titus had made his own escape. ‘Felix thought you were dead.’
I didn’t know what to say. Titus filled the space.
‘I took a spear and went down, but the mail held. You know what it was like. I probably looked dead.’
Stumps nodded again at the words. Evidently I was forgiven my own fictitious part in Titus’s separation from his comrades.
‘I got away from that first lot,’ Titus went on, ‘but when I came out of the forest my tracks were picked up by a group of horsemen. I could see them coming after me, but I kept my nose just ahead by going through rivers and trees when I could. I even crawled for a fucking day.’ He spat, angry at the memory. ‘I could see smoke on the horizon, just enough for it to mean life, not pillaging.’
‘This place?’ Stumps asked.
‘This place. But the horsemen got me first. My legs gave up on me with less than a mile to go.’
‘Then how…’ Stumps began.
‘They were Roman.’ Titus laughed, enjoying the irony. ‘I’d been running from Romans. They were out looking for Varus’s army.’
‘Why?’ I asked.
‘Remember when Varus abandoned the baggage train? A lot of civvies turned back then. The smart ones had even turned back before that. The hairies probably got most of them, but some made it here. The command here didn’t know how bad things were with Varus, but they knew it was bad enough for him to abandon the baggage train, and so the camp commander sent out scouts.’
‘You were the one that told them about Arminius?’ I suspected.
‘I was. They barred the gates then, and Prefect Caedicius loves me for it.’ The big man grinned. ‘Gave me any choice of post I wanted.’
‘Let me guess.’ Stumps laughed. ‘You told him you wanted to be commander of anus inspection for the archers?’
‘I told him I wanted to be quartermaster, you dickhead. Every fort has a black market, and a fort under siege is our chance to get rich.’
I think I smiled at that point. Titus had survived the massacre of the forest and had escaped Arminius’s army by a whisker, only to become besieged by them, but money was foremost on his mind no matter his predicament.
‘I’ve got plans if we survive this place,’ the man grunted, feeling my look. ‘And call it fortune if you want, but someone wanted me to be here. Stumps, Metella is here. She’s been running the show since the army pulled out of Minden.’
Metella. I remembered the name, and the woman. She was as massive as Titus himself, with a mouth more foul. The industrious camp follower had run an inn in the town where the army had pitched its tents for the summer, and evidently her business did not stop with wine. As a friend of Titus’s, I should have guessed as much.
‘I’m the quartermaster,’ Titus spelled out. ‘And she runs the black stuff.’
Despite the death and the misery, fortune did seem to smile on this man who lived for coin.
‘I’m glad you’re in your element,’ I offered. ‘But why are you telling us this?’
Titus shrugged, as if it was obvious. ‘I want you two in on it.’
‘You actually think we’re leaving here alive?’ Stumps laughed.
Titus face’s clouded over. His words were steel. ‘We didn’t come this far to die here. Do you want in on this or not?’
Stumps shrugged. ‘I’ll keep you company.’
‘And you?’ he asked, the question thrust towards me like a spear.
I held my tongue for a moment, looking into my comrade’s dark face. ‘Let’s talk outside.’
We stepped on to the packed dirt outside the block, and walked in silence. I had no destination in mind, only that I wanted privacy with the man who knew that I had deserted from the Eighth Legion in Pannonia. For my part, I knew that Titus was a smuggler and a murderer. He was not the kind of person to hold secrets without considering them leverage, nor would he look on a loose end with favour.
‘You still think I want you dead.’ He half smiled, reading my thoughts or, more likely, my body language; I realized then that I was tense and coiled, as if waiting on him to strike. In truth, there was an uncomfortable tension within the fort that plucked at my senses. I wondered now if its cause had been Titus, watching me, and waiting.
‘You’re not a talker, Felix.’ Titus said, stressing my new name to remind me that he was aware of my true identity, or at least part of it. ‘You haven’t even told Stumps about what happened.’
‘I’ve told no one,’ I confirmed.
‘We’re the two most honest men in the army.’ Titus smiled. ‘I’m a selfish bastard, and I’m all right with that. I’m not going to pretend that I give a shit about anything other than myself and a few mates. After what we went through in the forest, I think you fall into that second category.’
It was something I’d considered before. True, the forest had taken us from plotting each other’s deaths to saving each other’s lives, but that made us comrades more than friends. Friend? Could I call him that? Did I truly have his trust? Did he have mine?
The big bastard grinned. ‘You were glad to see me, weren’t you?’
I had been.
‘Friends then,’ I allowed, and the man snorted. ‘What happened to the pay chests?’ I asked, more out of curiosity than from any remote hope of touching them. For a moment, I had seen those coins as my passage to Britain and a new life. Now I expected they were scattered across the forest’s floor. I was half right.
‘I buried them,’ Titus confided in me, with the same sense of sadness as if he’d buried his own family. ‘Goat-fuckers were looking for survivors, so I found a spot by a river and buried them.’
‘What about the donkey?’ I asked suddenly, referring to the beast that had carried the chests.
Titus choked on a laugh. ‘What about it?’
‘I don’t know. What happened to it?’
‘I killed it, of course. Didn’t want any witnesses… Fuck me, you’re a strange one, Felix. I let it go. Didn’t want the hassle of its tracks. Bloody donkey.’ He laughed again.
I had surprised myself with the question, but I was almost relieved to know the animal had been let loose.
‘I remember how to get there.’ Titus brought my wandering mind back to the hoard of coins. ‘I have a life waiting for me outside of the army,’ he reminded me.