‘The bloody fool would leave his first spear behind to teach him a lesson for getting friendly with us, and now he’s got no one with the balls to step up and do the man’s job for him. And there’s as much hope of Tribune Belletor instilling any determination into this lot as there is of him getting off his horse and showing them a good example. Colleague, how do we find you?’
He shouted the comment to Belletor as he rode into earshot, and the legion tribune waved a lazy hand in reply.
‘We’re well enough, Tribune.’ He smiled down at the two men from the height of his saddle, raising a sardonic eyebrow. ‘Enjoying your walk, are you?’
Scaurus nodded, grinning grimly in reply as he forced his aching body back up to the forced-march pace.
‘I wouldn’t say the word “enjoying” would be the first one that springs to mind, but it’s tolerable, thank you. And an officer soon gains some measure of the pain his commands inflict on his men when he goes about his business on foot. You really will have to try it some day. Perhaps even today, if the way your horse is nodding its head is any clue. Come along, Centurion, we’d better work our way back to the front of the column. Our men will hammer away the miles at this pace all day if we don’t stop them for the rest halt.’
First Spear Frontinius took a quick glance at the sun’s low position in the afternoon sky as his centurions gathered about him.
‘Here’s the thing, brothers. We’ve been marching for the best part of the day, and we must have covered a good fifteen miles, and yet there’s no sign of the grain convoy we’re supposed to be meeting. We have two choices: either to grind away to the west until it gets too dark to march, then set up camp and wait for them to arrive, or to turn round and head back to Tungrorum. We won’t be back in the city before darkness falls, but we brought a cart full of torches with us for exactly that eventuality, and a bit of night marching will be good practice. So I’ve decided to turn the column around and head back to the east.’ The men around him nodded their agreement. ‘Does anyone have a different view?’ There was silence. ‘Very well, get back to your centuries and get them turned round and ready to march. Just to make it interesting, we’ll start off at the forced-march pace and see how long we can keep them going that quickly.’
One of the 2nd Cohort centurions, a man Frontinius had known since they were both recruits, remained behind as the other officers dispersed to their commands.
‘At the forced march, Sextus? Is there something you’re not telling us?’
The first spear shrugged, a look of unease on his face.
‘Nothing I can put a finger on. I just know that I’ll be a lot happier when we’ve got this many men back to the city. I might have been wrong to only leave five centuries to guard the walls…’
A shout from the eastern end of the column snatched their attention, and the two officers turned to see a party of horsemen, thirty-strong, riding swiftly down the road from the city towards them. Ignoring the customary hail of abuse from the infantrymen, their leader trotted his horse down the column to Frontinius’s position, jumping down to salute briskly, and the first spear raised an eyebrow in greeting.
‘Decurion Silus. I presume you’ve not been sent galloping all the way down here just to give your animals a run out?’
The cavalryman shook his head, holding out a message tablet.
‘First Spear, a message from Tribune Scaurus. The bandits are in the field, and looking to take you from behind without warning from the sound of it. You’re ordered to reverse your march and make all speed to join up with the tribune. He’s coming west with the rest of the First Cohort.’
The first spear took the tablet, nodding to his brother officer.
‘There you go, that’s what’s been bothering me all day.’ A thought occurred to him, and he swung back to the decurion with a questioning look. ‘Silus, did you actually get eyes on these bandits as you came west?’
The decurion shook his head dourly.
‘No sir, nothing at all.’
‘So they might as easily have got round you to the east, and the tribune for that matter, and be moving on Tungrorum. Either way we need to head east at the double! Trumpeter, sound the advance at forced-march pace.’ As the horn brayed out the command for the column to start moving, Frontinius fastened the buckle on his helmet to make it tighter, winking at his friend. ‘Come on, then. It’ll be just like the old days, when that sour-faced old sod Catus used to beat us up and down the military road for a full day at the forced pace, and then expected an hour’s spear and sword drill in the dark at the end of it. You might even think he had a point, with hindsight.’
The late-afternoon sun was warming the walls of the Tungrorum grain store as Julius strode the short distance from the city’s south-western gate at the head of his century. He stopped in front of the store’s gate, waiting patiently until a familiar face appeared on the wall above him.
‘Centurion Julius! I thought you had orders to remain in the city and keep the procurator’s gold safe from prying eyes and sticky fingers?’
He grinned back up at the legion cohort’s first spear, gesturing to the cart behind him, a tent party of his century’s soldiers in place of the horses that would usually have pulled the transport. Felicia was sitting alongside the boxes of coin, and she climbed down from her perch to fuss over the cohort’s wounded, who were following behind in a second cart.
‘I had a short but meaningful chat with Petrus that convinced me that we needed to move before he bottled us up in the headquarters building. He’s got a hard-on for this money, and I can’t see him taking disappointment quietly. So here we are, with a cart full of gold and nowhere else to go. Can we come and join you?’
Sergius smiled, shaking his head.
‘So you bring me a few dozen soldiers and so much gold that half the city would happily tear us limb from limb to get their hands on it?’ He looked up at the sky as if questioning the gods, then turned back to his men inside the grain store’s compound. ‘Open the gate!’
The Tungrians ran their heavy load through the hastily opened gates, and Sergius climbed down to meet them, taking Julius’s offered hand with a broad smile.
‘Gold or no gold, it’s good to have you in here with us.’ He bowed to Felicia. ‘You are especially welcome, madam. In the event of an attack I fear that a lot of my men will be wounded.’ He turned back to Julius, waving a hand at the store’s massive, empty expanse. ‘One century of men to hold a facility the size of a legion bathhouse..? Your tribune may be a good man, but I think he’s allowed his balls to overrule his head on this occasion.’
Julius nodded.
‘We’ll just have to pray that the gods really have seen fit to send Obduro away to the west, because if he turns up here I can’t see you and I holding this place for very long against the equivalent of a full cohort.’ He unbuckled his helmet and pulled it off, grimacing at the sweat-stained arming cap nesting inside it. ‘And now, if you’ll forgive me, I’ve an errand to run in the city. You, soldier, help me out of this mail and make sure it doesn’t touch the ground once I’m out of it. I don’t want it covered in dust.’
Sergius watched in bemusement as his colleague unbuckled his belt and handed it to one of his men, then bent over and struggled out of his armour, dropping the heavy mail shirt into the soldier’s waiting hands.
‘You’re going back into Tungrorum in just your tunic? Is that wise? And why would you take such a…’
He fell silent as Julius fixed him with an implacable gaze.
‘A woman I loved a long time ago is being used as a bargaining counter by the local gang leader, who also happens to be our good friend Petrus. If I make any attempt to rescue her by force of arms I’ll have to cut my way through a hundred or so of his men, and more than likely as many of the locals as he can bribe or threaten into my path. It’ll be a bloodbath. I’ll lose more than a few men, and at the end of it I’ll most likely find her with her throat cut.’ He fastened the belt about his lean waist, leaving his sword in the soldier’s arms and taking only his fighting knife. ‘One man on his own though, that’s a different prospect. I can move quickly and quietly, come at them from an unexpected direction, and I have one nice little advantage that they don’t know about. I’ll be back within the hour, but if I’m not you’ll just have to forget me. Focus on keeping this place secure. And for what it’s worth, I’d be most worried about those granaries. The front wall’s easy enough to defend, but they could pick any point along either of the long sides and break through the wall, given long enough, and with the numbers we’ve got it’d be damned difficult to stop them.’ He looked about him. ‘Have you got any archers?’