My left arm was locked so tightly where I had clung on that it was hard to free. The smell of the beast seemed to permeate my own clothes and skin. I sank to the ground, shaking. Orosius rushed up and dragged me clear. Lentullus staggered from the creek, then neatly passed out. 'Must be the shock,' Orosius muttered, turning aside to attend to him. 'Finding something he could actually do:'
I felt disgusted-with myself, with the animal whose anger had forced me to this, and with the hot blood all over me. I dropped my forehead on to my hand, then whipped away my palm as I felt more blood on that. I managed to limp across to Helvetius. His servant, whose name was Dama, looked up at me.
'I knew I should have gone to Moesia:' he ranted bitterly. Then he burst into tears.
Helvetius was dead.
Hardly had I fought back my own distress when some of the legate's hunting party ventured to reappear. They were led by the Gaul with the sneer, no doubt intent on self-preservation.
It was a brief confrontation. I was still kneeling by Helvetius, gripping his hand. I said to the Gaul, 'I don't want ever to see your face in Free or Roman Germany. You've killed to protect your industry, and you've killed to protect yourself. This is where it stops.'
'Proof?' he jibed, gesturing to the dead centurion.
Suddenly Dama gave voice. He addressed himself to me, as if he could not trust himself to speak to his master's killer. 'Helvetius Rufus was a private man, but he talked to me while I was arming him. He told me what he saw in Gaul.'
'Would you give evidence in court?' He assented.
The Gaul raised a spear. His intention was obvious. But we were no longer unprotected. Both Orosius and Lentullus lifted javelins themselves, ready to throw.
I stood up, covered in blood. I must have looked terrible. 'One word out of place, or a gesture I don't like, and I'll be happy to show you how the aurochs feels now it's dead!'
The men in the hunting party all backed off slowly. I waved them away with an angry gesture. They moved equally slowly out of sight, taking the Gaul from Lugdunum. I do not know what happened to them afterwards, nor do I care. As Celts, they were at far less risk in Germania Libera than we were.
That night we dined on aurochs steaks, but they had a bitter taste. We set a double watch. No one slept much. We broke camp early, then set off in a southerly direction, hoping that somewhere along the riverbank we might find the dead legate's ship.
We were going home. We had two corpses to bring with us, and more than one of us felt broken-hearted. Soon we all were.
Because, as we tramped on mournfully, we came to a wooded area. A little while after we entered it, we found there were other occupants. There were five times as many of them, and they had spotted us. They were a war band of the horse-riding, Rome-hating Tencteri.
LXI
We were surrounded before we had any inkling, but they did not attack immediately. Perhaps they were as surprised as us to find other people in their woods.
We formed up the recruits into a square-quite well, considering they had only learned the manoeuvre theoretically. Helvetius had taught them, however. As a formation the result was passable. But we all knew that we had too small a square.
The real point of a square is to lock shield-rims all around it in a protective wall. We had no shields.
Justinus was too tired and upset for a flamboyant oration, but he told the recruits to do their best. They exchanged frank glances like veterans; they understood the situation we were in.
It was late afternoon. A fine drizzle filled the woods. We were all unwashed, unfed and cold, with mist spiking our hair. I noticed that our boot-leather had set hard and was curled at the edges, with white tracery from mud and salt. The trees had turned colour in the last week or so. Winter was issuing warnings in the frosty air.
I could smell leaf-mould and fear. This was one crisis too many. It felt like a nightmare where you slither through endless ludicrous disasters, knowing it's a nightmare and that you must escape soon, yet unable to break free and wake safe in your bed with someone friendly soothing you.
We could not understand why the Tencteri had made no move.
Sometimes we could glimpse them between the trees. They were on horseback. Their presence was palpable on every side. We heard their mounts stamping restlessly and their harnesses chinking. Once a man coughed. If he lived in this rising river fog, it was understandable.
They were just out of spear range. For what seemed ages we stood there, straining for the first movement that would mean the end for us. We heard the shuffle of hooves in the crisp fallen leaves. We heard a shifty breeze rustle overhead.
I thought I heard something else.
Justinus and I were standing back to back. He must have sensed my tension for he looked round. I had my face raised full into the drizzle, struggling to catch sound or sense. I had nothing to tell him, but that odd quiet soul had brought back from Veleda's tower his habit of solitary action. He listened too, without comment. Then he let out a yelp and before we could stop him, he broke from the square.
He raced the ten strides to where we had left our scant baggage. Luckily he was zig-zagging, for a lance hissed out of the trees. It missed. Next minute he crouched, with some shelter from our horses. We could see him rummaging furiously. Soon he stood up. He leaned his elbows on a horse to steady himself while he held something. It was the twisted, wide-mouthed trumpet he had brought in his baggage for a lark.
When he blew, it came out as more of a waver than the notes he had produced among the Bructeri, but it still retained clear traces of the second night watch. It must have been the only call he had learned to play.
A shower of Tenctrian arrows and spears tried to silence him. Justinus dropped to the ground with his head covered. But he must have heard, as we all did, another note: clear, high, and professionally sustained. Somewhere, somewhere not far away, a second bronze Roman trumpet had sweetly answered his.
We never saw them leaving. The Tencteri must have silently melted away.
Not long afterwards a vexillation of legionaries from the Fourteenth Gemina marched out of the woods. They were all volunteers. The force had been put together and brought downriver on the initiative of the man who was leading them. Despite my prejudice I have to admit that he was Sextus Juvenalis, the prefect of the camp.
They were looking for their missing legate, but the Fourteenth have always boasted about being thorough, so as well as claiming his body they also rescued us.
LXII
Moguntiacum.
A bridge, a tollbooth, a ridiculous column-and the girl I was longing to see.
The journey had taken sufficient time for us to start readjusting to the real world. However, it might take the world longer to adjust to us savages. Along the river had been civilised towns with baths and Roman food. Civilised contact, too, with men we understood, though for most of the journey we had found ourselves clinging in a tight clique of our own, quarantined by an adventure that seemed too big to discuss.
When we finally landed and returned to the fort we had started from, we took the centurion's ashes to rest in the Principia shrine. As we left the parade-ground, the recruits said goodbye. I would certainly be leaving soon, and their close contact with their senior tribune must also end when Justinus resumed the normal loftiness that was expected from his rank. Our tattered band left us on the Via Principia almost tearfully, but just then a group of passing comrades called out a welcome; we watched a swagger hit them, and they went off visibly boasting. Only Lentullus turned back at the last minute, with a shy wave.