He held up his hands.
‘Soft hands, you see, and nimble with it. Combine these with a good sharp blade and I could have the bottom sliced out of a purse and the contents in my palm in the space of a breath. It was even easier when one of the pretty girls we knew would saunter by the target with a saucy smile on her face in exchange for a small coin, so that he’d be more interested in the contents of her stola than the man who bumped into him and was gone the next instant. But the day came, as it always does to every thief, when my luck ran out, or my touch deserted me, depending on whether I’m feeling sorry for myself or not. I was caught with my hand on another man’s purse, beaten senseless and then put before a magistrate who was eyeing me up for crucifixion before Drest offered to buy me as a slave instead.’
‘What about your mother?’
Tarion looked across at Marcus.
‘My mother? She died in her sleep the night before I was caught, Centurion, worn out by the hard labour to which she had been reduced by her reduced status when my father died. You might wonder if my capture was partly caused by my being distracted at her death.’ He grimaced at the Roman, shaking his head. ‘Or you might wonder if her death, and her release from the slavery to which she was subject in all but name, was perfectly timed by the gods to spare her the shame of my capture and likely execution.’
Marcus touched the intaglio on his spatha’s hilt in a reflex gesture.
‘And yourself, Centurion? How do you end up sitting in the cover of a tree, waiting for night to fall in order that you may climb into the most dangerous place in all of Britannia? Your voice sounds like that of a cultured man to me, the sort of man whose purse I used to lighten without a second worry as to whether he could afford to lose the contents.’
The Roman shrugged at the thief’s question, long since used to combining fact and fiction in his answer to any such query.
‘Money may serve to relieve a man of the burdens of everyday life, but not every man born into wealth enjoys good fortune. My family was unfortunate, and so I found myself here in Britannia making a home with the Tungrians. You might find it ironic when I relate that I have enjoyed a great deal of good fortune since that day, not least that my brothers in arms have chosen to accept a good deal of personal risk in providing me with shelter. And so when the opportunity to do something as insane as what we plan for tonight arises, I consider myself to be the natural candidate as a meagre means of repaying them for the chance they took in admitting me to their ranks.’
‘There’s more to it than that, I’d say.’
Marcus turned his head to regard Drest, who had rolled over and was sitting up, rubbing his eyes and then rolling his shoulders.
‘You have the air of a man carrying a burden, Centurion, some heavy weight of guilt, or shame. Or perhaps a violent urge for revenge? Whichever it is, you must realise that they are all corrosive emotions, and will pick at your spirit a pinch at a time until one day you discover that you have become an empty vessel, hollowed out by tiny increments but hollow nonetheless.’
The Roman looked back at him levelly.
‘I have my faith to protect me. The Lord Mithras watches over me.’
The Thracian shook his head.
‘The Lightbringer? Yet another in a pantheon of non-existent deities whose only function is to provide his followers with a prop for their need to explain everything that happens as “the will of the gods”.’ He turned to the thief. ‘And that’s enough talk from you, Tarion, get yourself bedded down and sleep for a while. You’ll be first over the wall tonight, and for all our sakes we need you to be fresh when the moment comes to put your head over the parapet.’
‘Well, we’ve made it to sunset without seeing any sign of the enemy, so all things considered I’d call that a successful day, wouldn’t you?’
Julius didn’t answer his tribune for a moment, shading his eyes and staring out from the marching camp to the west, squinting into the sunset.
‘Let’s hope you’re not premature in that statement, Tribune. Unless my tired eyes are deceiving me there are riders coming-’
A sudden chorus of shouts from the sentries watching the western horizon interrupted him, and the camp erupted into the chaos of a stand-to, men grabbing at their spears and shields and running to line the camp’s earth walls in the standard response to the approach of unknown cavalry.
‘This late in the evening? It can only be Silus and his scouts.’ Scaurus shaded his eyes and followed Julius’s stare. ‘Yes, that’s Silus, I can see their dragon standard glinting red in the sunset. He’s got a pair of empty saddles too.’
Tribune and first spear walked swiftly to the camp’s western gate, greeting the incoming horsemen as the sun dipped to touch the horizon. Silus jumped down from his sweat-soaked mount and passed the reins to another rider, gesturing to the horses. One of the mounts was riderless, while another had a dead man’s body draped over its back and held in place by its saddle horns.
‘Make sure they’re properly wiped down, we don’t want them wet when night falls, and give them all an extra half-ration of feed, they’ve earned it.’ He dismissed his men with a wave, turning to salute his superiors with a dejected expression the like of which Julius had never thought to see on his face. ‘Evening sir … First Spear. Forgive me if I’m a little sweaty myself, but we’ve had something of a day of it.’
Scaurus turned away, waving a hand for the two men to follow him.
‘In that case, Decurion, I expect you’ll be needing a cup of wine.’
In the relative security of the command tent, the decurion sipped mechanically at his cup without any sign of tasting the drink, closing his eyes for a moment and rubbing a hand over his weather-beaten face.
‘We dragged the lures for fifteen miles or so, as you commanded Tribune, until we were well past the Frying Pan’s western rim, then dumped them and made our way along the range that forms the western side. I thought we’d had the perfect result until the archers hit us.’
Julius shot a glance at Scaurus as he spoke.
‘Archers?’
‘Yes. No more than half a dozen of them, and they were shooting from the hillside that overlooks the path around the northern edge of the range, but either they were the best shots in the tribe or they got luckier than they deserved. I lost two men, the one you saw and another who fell from his horse with an arrow in his back. Cocidius forgive me, I left him to lie there, and whether he was living or dead I have no clue. I knew that if I went back to recover him the archers would probably hit more of us, and I’d end up with more empty saddles …’
He sipped the wine again, and Julius spoke quickly, flashing a warning glance to Scaurus.
‘That’s the reality, Silus, the hard truth of commanding men out here with no one to fall back on. Do the right thing by your lads and suffer the guilt of a missing man, or do the right thing by him and lose more of them to no military purpose. How would you have felt if you’d ridden back with half your squadron shot out from under you?’ Silus nodded, his eyes starting to moisten. ‘And if you feel like crying, get it over here and now, and don’t go out there until you can look your men in the eye and tell them that you did the right thing, no matter how bad it feels. After all, you’ve got a reputation for being a hard arsed, smart mouthed, couldn’t give a shit arsehole to maintain, or had you forgotten?’