The decurion stared at him for a moment, then stuck his jaw out and drained the wine in a single gulp, putting the cup down on the tent’s map table with a soft click. He saluted and turned for the tent’s doorway, stopping to brace his shoulders before stepping through and back out into the scrutiny of the cohort’s men.
‘That was harsh, Julius, even if it did seem to put some life back into the man.’
The first spear turned to look at Scaurus with narrowed eyes.
‘I agree, Tribune. In truth it should be you and I agonising over a man left for dead, and quite possibly writhing under the ink monkeys’ knives even as we speak. But then you and I have long since hardened ourselves to those sorts of dilemmas, haven’t we? And now, if you’ll forgive me, I’ll be away to tell the sentries on the western wall just what I think of the fact that I spotted Silus and his men coming in before they did. After all, I do have a reputation as a tirelessly vindictive bastard whenever I find any sign of weakness in my cohort, don’t I?’
He stepped out of the tent, leaving the tribune staring after him. Scaurus refilled his wine and drained it, dropping the empty cup onto the table, watching as it rolled to the edge and fell to the grass floor. From outside the sound of his first spear’s enraged shouting reached his ears, and the Roman shook his head with pursed lips.
‘Hardened ourselves to those sorts of dilemmas? It feels more like we’ve both found our own ways of coping with the pain to me. And now for tomorrow’s dilemma …’
He unrolled the scantily detailed map of the area north of the wall and moved a lamp to illuminate it, leaning his clenched fists on the table and staring down at the lines on the thick paper with a calculating expression.
‘We have word from the scout party you sent to the north, my lord King!’
Brem stood up from the fire around which he and his bodyguards were warming themselves, turning to face the speaker. Alongside the member of his household who had spoken stood the leader of the half-dozen men he had begrudgingly sent over the northern hills’ rim at Calgus’s suggestion. The man’s heavily tattooed face was forbidding in the firelight, and Brem realised that he was one of the hunters who ordinarily accompanied his hunt master Scar, men with the ability to ghost through the forest without leaving any trace of their passage, and preternaturally skilled with the bow. Beneath the swirls of ink his face was hard, lined and seamed by a lifetime’s exposure to the elements, and his eyes were stone-like in the tattooed mask, flat windows on an untroubled spirit.
‘You have news of the Romans?’
To the king’s relief the scout bowed before speaking, saving him the problem of whether to punish a man who he guessed knew and cared little for such things as failing to show the proper respect. When he spoke the words came out in a low growl, almost inaudible over the fire’s roaring crackle.
‘Enemy horsemen, King Brem, riding along the northern side of the hills towards the east. We shot two of them from their horses.’
‘Did either of them live?’
Calgus was at Brem’s shoulder, his body alive with twitching impatience.
‘No. The enemy took one body, the other was dead where he fell. I have trophies …’
He gestured to a leather bag hanging at his side, but the king raised a hand to forestall any grisly display.
‘Good work. Make sure that your prizes are given to the priests when you return to The Fang, and they will be given pride of place in the eagle’s shrine. Now go, and eat your fill from the deer your brothers have brought down for us.’
The hunter nodded and stepped back from the fire, his face vanishing into the shadows and leaving Brem and Calgus looking at each other. The Selgovae kept his face neutral, knowing that this was not the time for any display of pleasure at being proved right in his guess as to the Tungrians’ dispositions.
‘It seems that you were right, Calgus. The enemy are at large between us and The Fang, and we are miles too far to the west as a consequence of following what seemed to be their trail today.’
Calgus bowed deeply.
‘A lucky guess, my lord King, and fortunate in that you humoured me sufficiently to send your best men to investigate my wild idea. I am grateful to have been of some little value to you.’
The king stared at him for a moment, until he was convinced by his adviser’s apparent show of modesty.
‘Indeed. The question is how we should now react to this news? I am minded to run our men to the spot where the scouts intercepted these horsemen, and follow their trail to wherever it is that the Romans camped for the night. I’ll wager they won’t have gone far by the time we get there.’
Calgus thought hard for a moment, masking his horror at the plan’s high likelihood of failure with a calm expression of contemplation.
‘In truth, my lord King, while your first reaction is a valid response to this news, I wonder if we might run the risk of your warriors being wearier than would be ideal when we overtake the Romans. And let us not forget, they still have enough horsemen to scout the ground around them well enough that they will doubtless see us coming before we see them. I wouldn’t put it past these Tungrians to have a prepared position ready by the time we arrive, and I doubt we have the strength to attack them head on under such circumstances. It might be better to use your men’s strengths in a different manner?’
He held his breath, waiting for the king to dismiss his doubts, but the success of the scouting mission he had inspired was enough to stay Brem’s hand.
‘And how would you suggest I do that?’
The Selgovae lowered his body painfully to squat on the dry earth, waving his fingers at the ground.
‘I’ll show you — if I might borrow a knife to draw a picture here?’
Brem pulled a dagger from his belt and handed it to him, waving a hand to calm his bodyguards as they reflexively reached for the hilts of their swords.
‘Go on.’
The Selgovae drew a circle in the dirt with the knife’s point, then sketched in the line of the Dirty River to its north-east.
‘This is the ring of hills, here is The Fang, and we are here …’ He scratched a pair of crosses onto the hard surface, one alongside the river, the other almost directly opposite it beyond the circle to the west. ‘Our opponent is here, more or less …’ He drew another cross to the circle’s north. ‘On the face of it he has us at a disadvantage, since he is between us and the fortress. But I do not think he plans to attack us there, for he knows that he would be trapped on the wrong side of the river, and therefore facing certain destruction. No, I think he will make another sidestep, expecting us to come after him now that we know where he is, and there is only one way he can move without any risk.’
‘South?’
‘Yes, my lord King, south. I think he will climb over the hills and dive back into the forests that grow so thickly in their bowl. The only question is whether he will then turn east or west when he reaches the fork in the bowl’s centre.’
Brem looked down at him, his face ruddy in the firelight.
‘And what would you do, if you were this Roman?’
Calgus didn’t hesitate.
‘Whatever I thought you might expect the least, my lord King. I think I would turn … west, and go as fast as possible while you hopefully searched for me to the east. And this has one more advantage as a strategy.’ He waited until the king’s silence encouraged him to continue. ‘When we finally found his track heading away from The Fang we would be enraged at being sidestepped once more, and would chase him back to the west while whoever it is that he has sent after the eagle makes good their escape.’
He waited, tensed for the inevitable explosion at the mention of the eagle, but to his surprise Brem nodded his head slowly.