Scaurus frowned.
‘Specifically to you?’
The prefect grinned at him without humour, his expression suddenly bleak.
‘Oh yes, most specifically to me. He’s developed something of a determination to see me dead, it seems. He mocks me with every fresh message that we receive from him, making sure that the survivor seeks me out and tells me in graphic details what will happen to me when I’m captured. He tells them that he’ll know if they don’t pass the message exactly as he tells them to, and that he’ll visit the same fate he has planned for me on them unless they follow his instructions to the letter. He tells them to do it publicly, not in private, so that the people around me hear everything.’
‘Which implies he has some good sources of information close to you?’
The prefect stared at his boots for a moment.
‘Yes, that thought had occurred to me, but whoever it is must be either terrified or utterly devoted to him. Someone with a family member taken hostage, perhaps, or just a loved one who’s an easy target. Don’t forget that a score of travellers pass through Tungrorum every day, on their way along the main road from Beech Forest to Mosa Ford. Any of them could be one of his people, sent to deal out the threats he’s made to ensure obedience from whoever it is he has close to me.’
He leaned back against the wall, shaking his head wearily.
‘Most of my men have family in the city, and every one of them presents an opportunity for threats and coercion to a man as ruthless as he is, so any one of them might be his agent, willing or not. The only answer that I can see is to find this Obduro and remove his head from his shoulders in the time-honoured fashion, and to do it in such a way as not to show the dice I’m rolling until they hit the table.’
The tribune stood and walked across to the map.
‘And given that I’m the commander of the only battle-experienced unit that’s available to help you, I think we’d better start coming up with ways to impose ourselves on this particular gang’s freedom of action. As you say, you’ve been reacting to him for the last few months, and searching for him without any result. I’m guessing that my fourteen hundred men have much more chance of finding him than your thirty.’
Caninus pointed at the forest’s dark mass, dominating the southern half of the map.
‘The only place to take the fight to him is in there. But be careful, Tribune. Arduenna has a justifiable reputation for being dangerous for the unprepared, especially at this time of year. It may be spring, but winter can return to the forest in an instant.’
He touched the amulet on his right wrist in a reflexive gesture, and Scaurus nodded solemnly.
‘I see you are a believer in Mithras Unconquered. I’d be grateful of a chance to worship alongside you, if the city has a temple? And you needn’t worry, colleague. I’m not going to set a single foot into that maze of trees without your advice to guide me. And now I’d better go and see how my men are progressing with their building work.’ He picked up his cloak and made to leave, but turned as he reached the door. ‘By the way, you mentioned that you were sent here from Fortress Bonna. Is that where you were raised?’
Caninus shook his head, pointing to the spot on the map that was Tungrorum.
‘No, Tribune, I’m a local boy, born and brought up here in the city. I travelled away from Tungrorum for several years in the imperial service, but when the chance came to return to my birthplace I jumped at it. Although, with hindsight, perhaps my decision would have been different had I known what I was stepping into.’
Scaurus nodded in sympathy.
‘Never go back, eh?’
The prefect shook his head slowly.
‘No, Tribune, it wasn’t the coming back that was the mistake. My error was in having any expectation of the place being as I’d left it.’
The squadron parted to either side of the road, their hoof beats muffled by the soft ground as they cantered quickly to the west, their shields and spears held ready to fight. For long, anxious moments they rode steadily forward into the murk, unsure of what they might confront at any second, and with every moment the tension mounted. Marcus was starting to believe that they had missed the bandits in the mist, when a sharp-eyed rider on the right-hand side of the road pointed at the fields and shouted a warning to his decurion. Almost invisible in the fog, the indistinct shape of a grain cart was just discernible, with the figures of several men gathered around its rear apparently attempting to free a wheel from the track’s thick mud. Marcus wheeled the big grey to face the bandits, swinging the spear’s head down from its upright carrying position. The horse needed no further encouragement once it saw the weapon’s wicked iron head drop into its field of vision, and it sprang forward across the field’s heavy clay soil toward the robbers at the gallop, clods of earth flying up in its wake.
Faced with a wall of cavalrymen charging down on them out of the mist the bandits wavered for a moment and then turned to run, their attempts to flee reduced to little better than a stagger by the field’s thick mud. Marcus picked a runner as the men scattered in all directions and rode him down, the cold iron blade stabbing brutally into the small of the man’s back and punching him to the ground with a grunt. Tearing the blade free Marcus turned the horse in search of another target. He heard a horse’s scream of distress and the sound of a rider hitting the ground hard, followed an instant later by a bellow of victory underlaid by a gurgling, agonised groan. Riding towards the noise he barely had time to react as a shaven-headed swordsman charged at him from out of the murk, a bloody blade held high and ready to strike at the horse’s long nose. Stabbing out with the spear, Marcus rammed the weapon’s iron head into the attacker’s face, sending him reeling into the mud with both hands clutching at his shattered, bleeding features.
Having kept his seat by clinging to the enraged animal’s neck, Marcus trotted the grey forward past another three grain carts, steering the horse around the bodies of dead and dying bandits. At the head of the short line of carts he found a tight knot of ten or so bandits in the middle of a circle of horsemen whose spears were lowered and ready to stab into them. Silus caught sight of him and rode over to speak face to face, keeping his voice low.
‘Not bad with only one man down. I’ve given orders for him to be placed in one of the wagons, and perhaps if he lives long enough your woman can work her healing magic on him. As to this sorry collection of cut-throats, what do you think? Should we kill them here, or take them back to Tungrorum?’
Marcus grimaced.
‘First things first, I’d say. We need to find out what they did with the carters, and where they were going with that grain. There may be more of them waiting for this lot to return, in which case…’
‘We could clean out that nest of snakes as well. Good idea.’ Silus turned to his men, bellowing an order to his deputy.
‘Double Pay! Disarm them and get them kneeling in a line beside that cart, hands tied behind their backs and their knees hobbled.’ He dismounted, and Marcus followed suit. ‘You do realise that getting information out of them is going to get unpleasant?’
The Roman nodded, preoccupied with sliding the tip of his dagger into a sack of grain and putting the grains that spilled from the small hole under his nose, recoiling slightly from their odour.
‘ Qadir! ’
The chosen man led his mount across the field, kicking at the cart’s wooden wheel to dislodge some of the mud clinging to his boots.
‘Centurion?’
Marcus offered the grain to him, then watched as the Hamian put his nose to the kernels and breathed in slowly. Grimacing, he took one and popped it in his mouth, chewing it briefly before spitting the fragments out with a look of disgust.