"You ever get caught with your britches down?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Not yet, thank God. We use more sentries than we used to."
"You mean the men would really rather do extra guard duty than build a safe camp?"
"That's the way it is."
It was my turn to shrug. "Well, Strato, I hope you are never in the situation of having to wish you'd insisted on what you know to be right."
"So do I, Commander."
"Where can I set up? Officers' area?"
"Why, right here, sir, in the tribune's spot. I'll detail a man to put up a tent for you."
"No, Strato, that you won't. I'll put up my own. That way I know it won't fall down in the middle of the night. You'd better see to your duties. I'll get myself settled and wait here for you. Come back when you're able to relax."
He snapped me a salute and went off to supervise the evening's arrangements.
At dinner that night, he introduced me to his fellow centurions and junior warrant officers, and the evening passed very pleasantly, with many reminiscences of the fighting retreat from the Wall in '67 and '68. I rolled into bed around ten and slept like a log until the bugle sounded. I set out early the next morning on the last leg of my journey into Alchester. I found it to be a pleasant place, little more than a permanent camp with a marketplace, but it did boast a mansio, where I managed to get a hot bath and a steam as well as a surprisingly excellent meal. Then, refreshed and revitalized, I visited the market, where I found some remarkably fine pottery work done by a local craftsman. There was one beautiful vase finished in a blue glaze on jet black that for some reason suggested Britannicus so strongly to my eyes that I had to buy it for him, knowing it would please him. It had a long, slender neck and a delicately fashioned bowl, but it was heavy and very solidly made.
By that time, it was late in the afternoon, so I went over to Alchester's main camp and introduced myself to the commanding officer. He was a stranger to me, but he knew who I was, thanks again to Antonius Cicero, and he invited me to dine with him and his officers that evening. I accepted gladly and spent a very pleasant evening with them, managing to evade their casual curiosity about my destination and leaving them with the firm impression that I would be heading south-west to Portus Adurni, or Portchester as men were calling it, where I would take a ship to Gaul to search for exotic weaponry and indulge myself in indolent pursuits, as wealthy men do the world over. By the time I left the dining table to return to the mansio, it was dark.
The main entrance to the mansio was in a narrow thoroughfare that was more of an alley than a street, but it was well lit with flaming torches, which surprised me. I was about forty paces or so from the entrance to the mansio when I saw two men approaching me, weaving drunkenly, their arms about each other. I started to draw aside to let them pass just as the light from one of the torches fell on them, and a series of things happened all at once. I recognized the face of the knife-wielding cutpurse from the theatre at Verulamium. I also recognized his companion as one of the men who had attacked me on the road, the one who had fled screaming when I dropped his companion less than twenty paces from me. And I knew without even turning around that there were two others behind me, because four had been left alive.
I was still clutching the long-necked vase I had bought earlier in the marketplace. Now, without stopping to think, for I knew that I was absolutely right and was about to die if I didn't do something immediately, I leaped towards the two "drunkards, " swinging the vase like a club. It took the cutpurse high on the side of the head and sent him smashing senseless into the wall on the other side of the alley. His friend was taken completely aback and froze, slack-jawed, for just the length of time it took me to shift my weight and kick him full in the balls with my good leg. As he bent double, I brought the still-unbroken vase down on the back of his head and heard his vertebrae crunch. I kept the impetus of the swing going and spun to face behind me, where the other two would-be assassins hung paralysed in surprise. I swung my pottery club high over my head and charged them with a roar. They turned and ran, and I chased them, knowing I had no hope of catching them. I knew I was a cripple, but they had apparently forgotten.
Shaking with rage, I finally stopped and returned to the two I had downed. The second one I had hit lay full in the middle of the narrow street, stone dead, the base of his skull crushed. I crossed to the other one, the cutpurse, as I had thought him. He was unconscious, but he was still alive and his pulse was strong. I looked up and down the street. There wasn't a soul in sight. Who were these people? It was obviously no accident that I had encountered them three times in three days, over a distance of some fifty miles.
I bent over the unconscious one and hauled him to a sitting position. Then I began to slap his face, trying to bring him back to consciousness. I had no worries about being discovered there; no one would question a guest at the officers' barracks. The man did not respond to my slapping. I drew out my skystone dagger and knelt beside him on the ground, picking up his hand and pressing the point of the dagger into the half-moon of his thumb-nail. He responded to that, quickly. As soon as I saw that he was regaining consciousness, I left him to open his eyes naturally. When he did, and saw my face bending over him, his eyes flared with fear.
"You know me, don't you?" I took a handful of his hair and inserted the point of the dagger into his nostril. "Well, I don't know you. But I do know that you have been trying to kill me, and I don't like that. I can think of better ways to die than at the hands of a dung pile like you." My voice was calm and level, showing none of the anger, horror and revulsion that were rioting through me now that the danger was over. I twisted my hand tighter in his greasy hair, pulling him up so that his face strained in discomfort as he tried to pull his head back and away from the point of my dagger in his nostril,
"You're an ugly son of a whore, but you're not going to look any better if I have to lay your nose open on both sides. And I will, friend, if you don't tell me what I want to know. And if you are really strong and can stand the pain and still not tell me, then I'm going to cut your ears off. one at a time. And then I'll carve you a new mouth. One without lips." I pushed and sliced, and the dagger blade passed cleanly through the sensitive flesh of his nostril, bringing a gush of blood and a scream of pain. I inserted the point in his other nostril. "I learned this trick from the tribesmen in Africa. It works well — don't you think so?"
His eyes were starting from their sockets and he was gagging on his own tongue in his terror. I took the knife point away and shook his head by the hair, brutally, and then jammed the point back again.
"Now! Why are you trying to kill me? Why me?"
His mouth worked frantically, but nothing came out. I released his hair and grasped him by the front of his tunic, pulling him up to me and smelling the rancid foulness of his breath.
"I'm going to count to three, and then your nose is gone and we start on your ears. One."
It was as far as I needed to go. He was babbling, "Hired! Hired! We were hired to kill you! Ten gold auri!"
"Hired by whom? How did you know me?"
"We didn't we didn't we didn't! We were looking for a grey-haired man with a limp! A strong man! We saw you in Verulamium."
"You saw me?" I returned my grip to his filthy hair, twisting it violently.
"Are you telling me that I might not be the man you were hired to kill?" He was terrified, nodding his head and grinning as though an admission of mistaken identity would get him out of this situation. I felt disgust swelling in my gorge. I twisted harder.