The blade swung again. This time it bit the neck, but the strike was weak. There was no scream, and I expected Plancus’s spine had been broken. The man yet lived, though, and his gurgled coughs spat out across the cold dirt.
Caedicius spoke to Malchus again. The words were hidden, but there was no mistaking the urgency in his face.
Malchus swung. It was a beautiful strike, and in its arc was delivered a message: those who crossed Malchus would die terribly for it. I could only imagine what restraint it took the man to hold back from kicking the severed head across the square, and hacking the body to pieces. Instead, Plancus’s leaking body was loaded on to a stretcher and carried clear.
‘Next one,’ Malchus called.
My stomach knotted into a ball of stone. Blood beat against my skull. Finally, I chanced a look at Stumps – my comrade’s face was white. He was no fool, and the plot of this play was now obvious. Stumps knew that Titus could be the next man to kneel before the bloodied block.
‘Please, no,’ I heard him murmur through shaking teeth.
His wish was granted. It was Metella that they brought forwards. She carried herself like the bravest of soldiers, and as she approached the block, she sent a stream of violent spittle towards her executioner.
‘Try that on me, you bastard coward!’ she boomed at Malchus. ‘Easy to kill someone when they’re on their knees.’
‘Be silent!’ Caedicius ordered. ‘Die with some decency, woman.’
‘Oh, fuck off,’ Metella snarled instead. ‘I’ll see you all soon, anyway!’ she shouted as she was shoved hurriedly to her knees. ‘This fort’s fucked! No one’s coming for you, darlings! You’ll starve to death here, or die out there!’
Malchus wasted no more time in shutting her up, shoving Metella’s throat against the block with such force that the woman’s final words were choked from her.
This time, the stroke was quick; Metella’s head rolled across the dirt, crimson splattering the frosted floor in a final act of defiance.
Plancus’s death had caused revulsion in the ranks. Metella’s had brought fear – not from her death, but from her prophecy. She had voiced what all but the most optimistic in the fort feared deep down in their souls: that the fort was beyond help.
Caedicius could smell the panic. ‘Do not heed the words of a criminal,’ he began. ‘No one will starve here. There is a plan of action! It is a secret one, but something that you will all hear of soon, I promise. For now, continue in your duties. Continue to uphold the traditions and expectations of Rome!’
There was a finality to those words, and as I heard them, the first spear-point of hope began to push its way into my chest.
I felt eyes on me. It was Stumps. We shared a look: Titus?
Malchus paced forward to stand beside his prefect. My heart caught in my throat. I knew that the next words from the killer’s mouth would mean the death or salvation of my friend.
‘Parade!’ Malchus growled. Time seemed to stand still as his first command echoed in the crisp air.
‘Parade!’ the executioner called again.
‘Dismissed!’
59
I have marched across nations to war, and I have crossed a continent to escape one, but I have never felt a march so long as the one that followed our dismissal from the executions. The few hundred yards from parade ground to barrack block felt like an eternity.
I had almost collapsed in relief when the order to dismiss had passed through Malchus’s snarling lips. The cohort commander and his bloodied sword had trailed the prefect from the parade square, the prisoner’s escort following in their wake, stretchered bodies carried behind them. In none of this was there any sight of Titus.
Returning to the barrack block, I felt as though the regulation marching pace was like wading through tar. I wanted nothing more than to break ranks and sprint, but I had no choice but to force my worry back into my chest.
Stumps, having little idea of my conversation on the walls with H, had none of the same concerns, seeing only that Titus had seemingly escaped from death’s grasp once more.
‘He’s a slippery fucker.’ He beamed at me as we marched. ‘Like a fucking eel, he is. Wriggles his way into and out of everything. Shame about Metella though. I liked her.’
‘Me too,’ Brando agreed. ‘She went out well.’
‘By fuck she did, didn’t she?’ Stumps laughed with pride. ‘Spat right in Malchus’s face, the cunt!’
‘Keep your voice down,’ I hissed.
He gave me an apologetic look. ‘She did die well though. Bigger balls on her than most men.’
Albus called us to a halt outside our barrack block. The movement was observed far more crisply than it had been earlier that morning – the executions had had the desired effect of sharpening minds and attitudes. Overall, though, I sensed a feeling of disquiet in the air. Stumps was buoyed up by the fact that his friend had escaped the fate of his fellow ringleaders, but Metella’s last words had struck a deep chord with the fort’s garrison, and it showed in their stooped postures, and the absence of good-natured insults and laughter.
Albus was as glum as any of the men. ‘Fall out,’ he told us, already walking to his quarters. ‘Next duty’s at noon.’
I was already sprinting to our room.
‘You missed your bed that much?’ Stumps called after my back. I ignored him, pushing open the door and pulling back the partition to our living space.
A familiar figure was lying in my bed.
‘All right?’ he grunted.
Titus lay back on my bed, chewing a piece of dried meat. He was not alone in the room. Centurion H leaned back against the wall, his arms folded.
‘How was it?’ he asked me.
I shook my head. ‘Malchus is a bastard,’ was all I said.
‘I’ll miss Metella,’ Titus said, getting to his feet. ‘Plancus deserved what he got, the fucking idiot.’
I was about to tell Titus that no one deserved such a death as Plancus had suffered, when what was left of our section began to enter behind me.
‘Brando,’ H put in quickly. ‘Watch the door.’
‘You slippery bastard,’ Stumps smiled, pushing his way through and hitting his friend across one of his massive shoulders. ‘How the fuck did you pull that off?’
‘Ask them,’ Titus grunted, with just a nod of his head towards myself and H.
‘We’re not out of the fire yet,’ H explained, frowning. ‘But the prefect’s seen enough to know that we can’t stay here forever. We’ve had no instruction or word from the garrisons on the Rhine, so if they have sent any scouts they’re not making it past the goat-shaggers.’
‘What’s this got to do with Titus?’ Stumps asked, pulling a face.
H shrugged. ‘In return for his life, Titus has volunteered to go on a scouting party of our own. We’re going to search out their army, and find a way to bolt around them to the Rhine once we get a heavy enough storm. I convinced Caedicius that the best people to come with me and do it are the ones who got away from Arminius in the forest.’
‘H is going to lead us,’ I put in. ‘Me and Titus, anyway.’
My friend’s face darkened. ‘Having your own little picnic is it, you fuckers? Well, what if I want to come?’ Stumps was clearly desperate not to lose sight of a comrade he had only moments ago thought condemned.
‘You’re in no state to lower yourself on to a latrine, never mind fight,’ Titus told him – truthfully.