He paused, raising an eyebrow at Marcus.
‘When I knew that I was to go north from here in your company, I spoke to your men to find out what sort of person you are. They told me that you were trained to fight by retired gladiators?’
The Roman answered without taking his eyes off the horizon.
‘By one retired gladiator and a soldier recently paid off from his service.’
Drest smiled.
‘Which explains your ready ability to resort to dirty tricks when you sense a need to level the odds in a fight?’
Marcus shrugged.
‘The teaching of dirty tricks was shared between them, but it was the soldier who taught me how to lose the veneer of civilisation and fight like an animal when the need arises. He’d seen battle in the German Wars, and understood just how thin the margin between victory and death can be.’
‘Yes, your men told me about your wilder side too.’ The Thracian waited for a moment, and when Marcus failed to respond he started talking again. ‘Unlike you, I wasn’t cut out for the arena, and I realised as much within a few weeks of signing my life away. There’s a very simple hierarchy in any ludus, and most instructors can see where a man will fit within that pecking order within a few hours of their arrival. Firstly there are the idiots who simply shouldn’t have been allowed entry, men who will be defeated and quite probably killed in their first bouts simply because they are too dull-witted or physically soft, included purely to make the numbers up and provide the crowd with a splash of blood on the sand nice and early in the day. Perhaps one or two men in ten fits that description, poor bastards. Then there are the workaday fighters, men with the muscles needed to sustain the pace of the fight and who can be trained to wield a sword or throw a net with sufficient dexterity to have a decent chance of surviving, if they also have the resolve to put another man down when the opportunity presents itself. Seven or eight men in every ten fit into that category in some way or other, the competent fighters who will never be champions but whose careers might last long enough to see them survive, as long as they have some measure of luck. And then there are the remainder, perhaps one man in every ten. The predators, Centurion, the born killers whose circumstances and upbringing have sharpened the advantage that nature gave them to a razor edge, and hardened them to maiming and killing their opponents in the arena. Just how deadly they are depends upon their abilities with a sword, but the very best of them, those with the speed or the cunning to take down whatever the life of a professional fighter throws at them, they are the men who retire with a wooden sword and an income for life.’
He paused again, looking at Marcus.
‘And in which of these categories would you say that I fit, Centurion?’
The Roman turned to face him, looking him up and down.
‘You clearly had the muscles after two years of manual labour, and your sword work seemed competent enough from what I saw when you were sparring with your Sarmatae, but I see one thing lacking for you to have been in that last group of killers.’ Drest waited, a slight smile creasing his face. ‘You talk too much, even when you’re sparring. You’re a man better suited to calculation and intrigue than to the cut and thrust of combat.’
The Thracian nodded.
‘Perceptive enough, Centurion. I was clearly doomed to live a precarious existence as a fighter, never quite dangerous enough in combat to stand out from my fellows, and always at risk of being singled out by one of the predators and maimed or killed just for getting in his way.’
‘So what happened? You clearly survived.’
Drest shrugged.
‘I never fought. Prefect Castus toured the ludus one evening as part of his official duties as first spear of Twelfth Thunderbolt, looking for gladiators to put on a show for the legion, and happened to observe me giving after-hours instruction to one of the poor fools who was destined to die in his first bout, unless the gods took a rather more generous view of things than he was likely to get from his fellow competitors. His interest was piqued, and so he had the ludus’s owner call me over to enquire as to why I was still working with the man when I could have been resting in my cell. When I told him of my fears for my comrade he turned to the owner and purchased me on the spot. When I asked him why, my thoughts still reeling as he led me away to his quarters and wondering if I would be expected to warm his bed for the privilege of my rescue, he told me that decent men were rare enough to merit saving. In truth he had chosen better than he knew, for though I do not have that killer instinct of which I spoke, I do have both my letters and my numbers, and I have learned the art of commanding the other men in his service. And now, Centurion, you would doubtless like to know why I have told you all this?’
Marcus stared at him flatly, his tone mildly acid.
‘It had crossed my mind.’
‘It’s clear to me now that Prefect Castus rescued me from either death or being maimed in the arena, and in return I have enjoyed a decade of life in his service, with the promise of my freedom when he retires. And so Centurion, if he tells me that I must swim the River Styx with a knife in my mouth and rob Charon of his accumulated coinage, then you can rest assured that I will do so to the best of my abilities, as repayment of the debt I owe him.’
The Roman looked at him for a moment longer, his expression thoughtful.
‘And I believe you in that. But what about your companions?’
‘We all owe the prefect our lives in one way or another.’
Marcus shook his head.
‘I know that. My question has more of a bearing on their characters than their histories.’
Drest shrugged.
‘Every man makes his own choices in life, but I’ve never seen any of the three of them refuse to obey an instruction given to them by either the prefect or by myself in his place. I believe that they will do as instructed when the time comes.’
The young centurion raised a hand to point at the hills on the northern horizon once more.
‘I hope you’re right. I expect that where we’re going will be an unforgiving place to discover that such faith is ill founded. Tell your men that we leave the fort an hour after sunset, and send your thief to me. I have a task for him.
The Tungrians marched to the north-west from Lazy Hill for less than an hour, passing the ruins of a long abandoned outpost fort and following the weed-riven remnants of the paved road that skirted the edge of the Dirty River’s swamps, when Julius called a halt in a narrow valley that hid them from any observation. The bemused soldiers stood in their column and talked quietly as their centurions hurried forward to the column’s head at the insistent summons of a trumpet. Sanga rested his shield on his booted foot to keep the brass rim from unnecessary scratching and looked at Saratos with a wry smile.
‘Now we’ll find out what it is that the tribune’s got in mind for us, eh? Let’s hope he’s got a trick or two in mind or we’ll be up to our arses in hairy bastards like you before we know it, eh?’
Tribune Scaurus launched into his briefing without preamble, his tone laced with urgency to be back on the march.
‘As far as the hangers-on and probable spies at Lazy Hill are concerned, we’ve marched north to attack The Fang. I expect that at least one of the natives that have clustered around the legion cohort there like flies on shit will be over the wall and away across the river, once the sun sets tonight, taking the news of our departure to whoever it is that rules the Venicones. And they in turn will be baffled, gentlemen, baffled and not a little worried given that we’re not going to make the expected appearance outside their walls tomorrow. They will be nervous at our non-appearance, given that it’s only ten miles from the wall to their fortress, and they will wonder just what it is that we’re doing out here if it’s not to attack them directly. Their chief won’t take kindly to having our boots on his land, and not knowing where we might be heading, so he’ll be pretty keen to know where we’ve got to. Scouts will be sent out to find us, which of course they will, given the trail that we’re going to leave behind us as we march, and it’s when they find that trail that the real fun will start. Don’t forget, gentlemen, I spent months getting to know this landscape before Calgus managed to whip the tribes up into rebellion, and I have a few choice pieces of ground in mind.’