‘Ours, as it happens, and if they’ve survived it’s probably been the saving of them. We made to ride around the Frying Pan’s southern rim only to find ourselves overtaking two thousand angry-looking barbarians who’re heading the same way with the evident aim of cutting off any survivors that might have made it through the forest.’
Marcus looked at him with fresh respect.
‘You rode back up here, even though there’s no way to escape if the Venicones block the road south of the wall?’
Silus shrugged.
‘I was struck with an irrational urge to hear that song your mules like to sing about us just one time more before I die.’
Arminius looked up at him, shaking his head in disgust.
‘Irrational. That’s one word for it, I suppose.’
‘Doesn’t look like much, does it?’
Tribune Scaurus turned the eagle over, examining the dents and scrapes that it had suffered over the two hundred years of its life. He was standing with Julius at the head of the Tungrian column, although this was little more than a thousand-pace-long row of soldiers lying on both sides of the rough track that bordered the forest this far north of the wall, most of them taking the opportunity to sleep after their exertions of the previous few hours.
‘The damage you mean?’
Julius nodded, pointing at a long scratch on the underside of the bird’s left wing, revealed by the careful removal of the dried blood that had coated the standard’s surface.
‘Surely there’s no need for something that important to look like something a scrap merchant would turn his nose up at?’
Scaurus shook his head briskly, looking down at the eagle in his hands.
‘You’re missing the point, First Spear. Of course it would be easy enough to polish out that scratch, but this is not only a symbol of imperial power, but of that power’s longevity. We’ve ruled the lands around the Mediterranean Sea for hundreds of years, and subjugated the greatest powers the world has ever seen. Greece, Egypt, Carthage, the Gauls, the Persians, they’ve all been ground into the dust under our boots no matter the losses we’ve taken in the process, and the Sixth Legion’s eagle has been witness to over two hundred years of that history. That bird was first blessed by Caesar’s nephew Octavian, the man we now call the divine Augustus, and it was present at the battle of Actium that sealed his victory over the usurper Marc Anthony. It looked down on Galba when he was declared emperor in the Sixth’s camp in defiance of Nero, much good that did him mind you. It screamed its silent defiance at the Batavians when they revolted on the Rhenus and had to be put down in a welter of blood, and it marched to war in the conquest of Dacia under Trajan. If that battered and scratched bird could talk, First Spear, it would have tales to tell that would leave us both wide-eyed at the glory it has seen and horrified at the shame it has suffered since its capture.’
He looked up at Julius.
‘Our duty is to ensure that it remains out of barbarian hands, either by fighting our way through to safety or by hiding it beyond any risk of its being discovered if that proves impossible. Which sounds like the more likely eventuality to me, given the decurion’s report.’
Silus had ridden in with what remained of the raiding party half an hour before, just as the cohort was straggling exhaustedly out of the forest’s eastern side, and if their hearts had been momentarily lifted at the safe return of their battered but triumphant companions, the news he’d brought from the south had dashed their hopes in an instant. Julius nodded darkly, spitting on the ground at his feet.
‘The wall garrisons will have been away down the road to the south without ever giving us a second thought, and a line of burning forts will have made that painfully clear to the ink monkeys. We’re lucky that Silus managed to get around them to provide us with a warning.’
Scaurus set the eagle down on the ground beside him and turned back to his first spear.
‘Agreed. So what now, do you think? Do we run, and probably do little more than put off the inevitable, or make a stand and end up as a hill of corpses?’
Julius shook his head.
‘Run? Where can we run? There’s a war band to the south, a burned-out forest to the west, an impassable swamp to the east and if we run north the Venicones will hunt us down soon enough, given that we’re out of supplies and pretty well exhausted. We’d not even make it to The Fang ahead of them, and believe me, I gave that idea some very serious consideration. We’ll just have to stand and fight, although with the numbers they’ve got it’ll be a damned short …’ He frowned at a figure of a centurion advancing up the column towards them with a determined stride. ‘Cocidius spare me, that’s all I need.’
Scaurus turned to see what he was looking at, a wry smile creasing his tired face.
‘There’s something in that man’s stride that reminds me of the officer he replaced in command of the Tenth Century. Doubtless it won’t be long before he takes to calling us all “little brother” and growing his beard … if we live that long.’
Julius waited with his hands on his hips until Dubnus reached them, nodding at his officer’s salute.
‘You’ve heard the news, and now you’ve come to offer your boys as a sacrifice to delay the Venicones while the rest of us make a run for it, right?’
His brother officer shook his head, refusing to take the bait.
‘Running’s no use, we need to fight. But not here.’
The tribune raised a quizzical eyebrow at him.
‘If not here, Centurion, then where exactly would you suggest we can make a stand with any chance of success?’
The big man pointed a finger at the forest.
‘Back in there, sir.’
Julius shook his head.
‘We’re better off out here. At least here we can form a line of sorts, whereas in there they’ll mob us from all sides and drag us down like a wolf pack falling on a stag.’
He went to turn away, but found Dubnus’s hand on his arm.
‘You’re wrong, Julius. You’re forgetting that you’ve got a century of very pissed off axe men, or most of one at any rate, and they’re all looking for a way to get some revenge on the Venicones.’
‘And?’
‘And I know how we can turn that into a fighting chance to face the bastards down.’
The first spear turned back to him, looking closely at his officer’s face.
‘You seriously think that we can hold off that many angry headcases without a formed line?’
Dubnus grinned back at him.
‘Give me an hour and I’ll give you a line in the middle of the forest that’ll hold the bastards off for a lot longer than anything we can do out here.’
Julius nodded slowly, turning back to his tribune.
‘You were right, sir, he is turning into Titus before our bloody eyes. Very well, Centurion, whatever it is you have in mind you’d better get on with it. We’ll be lucky to get an hour for you to work whatever trick it is that you’ve got in mind.’
9
Calgus stared up at the burning fort, which the leader of Brem’s suddenly more respectful bodyguard had informed him had been named the Latin equivalent of ‘Lazy Hill’ by the Romans, with a mixture of pride and renewed hope. The pride came from the fact that his prediction had been accurate as to the invaders’ longer-term ability to stick it out at the very edge of their empire, the hope from allowing himself the faintest glimmer of belief that he might still come out of this whole thing with his dream of evicting the Romans from the province intact. He would advise Brem afresh, he mused, advise him to join forces with the tribes to the north of his land, extending to them the promise of enormous wealth if only they added their muscle to that of the newly ascendant Venicones, the tribe that had sent the Romans running and re-conquered their tribal lands south of the wall without even having to fight. The Caledonii, now there was a people with a thirst for revenge if ever he had seen one, still smarting from their defeat by the Roman Agricola a century and more before, and ready to flood south in huge numbers if the right lever were applied to them. A lever like a Roman legion’s captured and defiled eagle might just be enough to tempt them to take the field in overwhelming strength and punch through the southern wall as his own people had done two years before, raising the Brigantes people who lived in captivity behind it in revolt once more. With the entire north aflame the Romans would retreat back to their legion fortresses, unless of course his forces — for by then the rebel army would surely be his once more — managed to isolate and overrun them one at a time and lay the huge riches of the undefended south open to his depredations …