Scaurus smiled again, easing the severed head back down into the oil’s greasy embrace and wiping his hand on a towel offered to him by Julius before taking a heavy cloth-wrapped item from his first spear.
‘And I’m sure that Praetorian Prefect Perennis will be more than delighted to have his confidence in you repaid. After all — ’ he weighed the mysterious parcel in both hands before removing the wrappings and placing the rescued eagle onto the table before him ‘- you seem to have done a masterly job of suborning a previously honourable centurion into your deceit, don’t you?’
Sorex goggled at the statue, lovingly polished to a gleaming shine and in every respect the equal of the counterfeit eagle alongside which it sat.
‘But that’s …’
‘Yes, it is a bit of a problem, isn’t it? Only a week or so ago the Sixth had no eagle, and was facing the ultimate sanction for a legion in such disgrace, and now it has two of the blessed things. It’s something of an embarrassment of riches, you might say.’
Sorex tried again.
‘That can only be a fake, cobbled together by the Venicones, or by this man Calgus I sent you to catch. Mine is the real eagle!’
Scaurus acknowledged the point with pursed lips.
‘I had the same concern, if I’m honest. After all, there was always bound to be benefit to someone in making a fake eagle, and I am forced to admit that yours is really rather authentic in appearance. Indeed it’s so very close to the one that Centurion Corvus and his men rescued from The Fang in terms of both its construction and finish that I’m driven to assume that it was cast from the original moulds. Moulds which, as I’m sure you know, reside in Rome.’
He waited in silence for a long moment.
‘No answer, Tribune? Doubtless you’re now considering whether you should unveil your eagle to your men as soon as this somewhat embarrassing meeting is concluded, and put it in the hands of a brand new and delighted eagle bearer who you will promote from the ranks of the best and most dedicated soldiers in the legion. The soldiers will be ecstatic at the removal of the shame that’s been hanging over them for the last two years, and nobody will be particularly interested in the claims of an obviously embittered auxiliary tribune to be in possession of the genuine article, not when the one you “rescued” from the Brigantes is so obviously genuine.’
Sorex met his colleague’s eye at last, and in his angry gaze Marcus could see confirmation of Scaurus’s words. The legion tribune stared back at Scaurus for a long moment before shaking his head and raising both hands before him in an apparent appeal to his colleague’s understanding.
‘What else am I to do, Rutilius Scaurus? I have no choice. Perennis holds the power of life and death over my family, and any failure to follow his instructions will bring disaster on us all. The eagle … my eagle … will be restored to its rightful place in the heart of the legion.’
Scaurus nodded knowingly.
‘Which is no more than I expected. And so when the three new legati arrive to take up their commands, they will find exactly what they were told to expect by their master before they rode north from Rome. Three legions camped along the length of the Emperor Hadrian’s wall in a nice compact group and with their grievances at being sent north having been neatly addressed by the pull back to this more southerly line of defence. They will find the Sixth Legion still overjoyed at the recapture of its lost eagle, and of course they will find you, as ordered, waiting for them with enough gold to award a donative of two years’ pay to every legionary in the country. Am I right?’
Scaurus looked directly into Sorex’s indignant stare for a moment before picking up the eagle that had been rescued from The Fang and turning it over, scanning the metal carefully for the tiny marks and scratches that two centuries of campaigning had inevitably worn into its surface. Putting it down again, he lifted the fake eagle and considered it equally carefully.
‘Quite excellent work, and most realistically aged too.’ He held up the metal bird, showing the fine patina of age that closely echoed that of the original. ‘So, you carried that eagle with you from Rome, with orders to restore the legion’s pride, and then you sent my cohort north on what was always intended to be a fruitless hunt after a prize you expected to have vanished in the northern mists long ago. You sent us to chase a rumour in order to carry out the last of your orders from the praetorian prefect, which was to send Centurion Corvus here to his likely death along with the rest of us, with a pair of paid assassins nice and close to him just in case the Venicones didn’t look like doing the job. And you did this because of the consequences that you knew would befall your family if you failed to carry through your orders from Rome.’
Sorex stood in silence, his face red with shame.
‘Nothing to say, Sorex? In that case I will share a suspicion with you. When these three new legati arrive to take up their commands, I suspect that it will become clear that the man behind the throne has decided to break with tradition. Where the commander of a legion would usually be from the senatorial class, these three will all be equestrians. Equestrians, Tribune, men without access to the highest positions in the imperium, men like me and indeed, as you’ll be painfully aware, men like Praetorian Prefect Perennis. I’m told that he’s already managed to have one of his sons put in command of the Pannonian legions, the best recruiting ground in the entire empire and so very handy for a quick march on the capital. So it’s my bet that the army in Britannia will come under equestrian command very shortly now, handed to three men who will have access to a very large amount of gold indeed, all freshly minted. Gold like this …’
He tossed a shining gold coin at the tribune, watching as the other man caught it and looked down at the coin nestling in his palm.
‘It’s an attractive design, if a little unconventional …’
‘How did you-’
‘How did I get this? Camp Prefect Castus has gathered men of dubious but valuable skills to him for as long as I’ve known him. And when I discovered that he had a highly skilled thief in his retinue, I prevailed upon him to see if the man could provide me with any evidence of my strong suspicions with regard to the contents of those heavy chests that you were there to meet off the boat at Arab Town. You see it’s just not usual for legionary pay chests to come from anywhere but Rome, in my experience. The throne likes to gather all imperial funds to itself before distributing a share to the provinces, as a means of ensuring that the only embezzlement which takes place is that which has been officially sanctioned. And so the sight of so much gold coming into the province in such an unorthodox manner piqued my curiosity. Procurator Avus was momentarily distracted by the sight of Centurion Corvus here dealing rather brutally with a pair of Sarmatae swordsmen who had apparently sought to challenge him to a somewhat more robust sparring session than usual, enough time for the now sadly deceased Tarion to lift a coin from his purse and replace it with another. And you can imagine just how many more questions were raised for me when I actually got to take a good look at one of them, and for the camp prefect for that matter. After all, I may only be an equestrian, but even I can put two and two together.’
Sorex shook his head violently, holding up a hand.
‘I was simply told to restore the legion’s morale with the new eagle. I really had no idea …’
Scaurus’s voice was flat, devoid of any emotion, but it cut the young prefect off in mid-flow with the power of a slap.
‘Oh, but you really did, didn’t you, what with a fake eagle for you to “discover”, and enough gold to buy the loyalty of three legions with three new legati on their way to take command. And lastly, with orders to send my cohort north to its almost certain destruction? Come on Sorex, you knew only too well that you were playing a dangerous game that was intended to provide the manpower for an equestrian coup against the throne, and the senate for that matter. Commodus had abdicated his power to Perennis, and the praetorian prefect sees no reason not to make the arrangement permanent it seems with his sons’ Pannonian legions, which I’d guess he will call south once he has confirmation that the Britannia legions are marching on Rome; there’ll be no force capable of retaking the capital other than the army in Germania. But then this gold came to Britannia via Germania, which means that the governors of the German provinces have probably agreed to sit on their hands and watch without intervening. And of course the Praetorians will be happy enough to see their leader take full control of the empire, given that he’ll doubtless reward them even more handsomely than the common soldiery. Everyone wins, don’t they, Fulvius Sorex? I suppose that even your father can expect to have some part in the new regime, once the senate has been strong-armed into acclaiming Perennis as emperor, presumably with Senator Sorex leading the cheers of assent?’