Julius cleared his throat, looking at Scaurus with a questioning expression.
‘First Spear?’
‘I’m less interested in why they want to take this desert city and rather more in how you think we’re going to stop them. And how you think we’ll even be able to reach the place, given you think that the force that destroyed Varus’s cohort was only part of their strength.’
Scaurus nodded with a knowing look.
‘I thought you might be, so I prepared a list of the things that we’re going to need if we’re to stand a chance of putting them back in their place.’
He opened a tablet.
‘I’ll take you all through them tomorrow, since you’re going to be doing most of the work to procure them, in some cases by means of subterfuge and probably even theft. Some of them are simple enough, and merely require the expenditure of gold, albeit that we might have to exercise a little wit to avoid overpaying. Others will require the exercise of a little of that senatorial authority we’ve heard so much about. And one, gentlemen, the most important factor of all if we have to face the Parthians in battle, will cost us nothing whatsoever – but only if we’re in the right place at the right time.’
Marcus came out of the headquarters building to find the two Britons who had travelled with the Tungrians from Rome waiting for him, the giant Lugos looming over his one-eyed companion with whom a fierce initial enmity, born of their different tribal origins, had evolved into firm friendship over the years of their service with the Tungrians.
‘Tribune. We find ourselves with nowhere to sleep, unless we …’
Martos fell silent as Marcus put his hands on his hips and stared back at him with a jaundiced eye.
‘This was Dubnus’s idea, wasn’t it?’
The Briton shrugged.
‘He might have mentioned it. It seems that all you important men will sleep in a barracks block, with one tent party room apiece.’
The Roman nodded, unable to resist a smile at his memory of tribune Umbrius’s horrified reaction to the revised billeting.
‘We have to sleep in a barracks? Like the soldiers?’
Scaurus had been unmoved by his officers’ collective amazement.
‘Give me one good reason why not? But make it a good one, Tribune, or my admittedly generous offer might just slide off the table to be replaced by something less luxurious.’
‘Less …’
‘Luxurious. I’m offering you young gentlemen as much space as is usually occupied by an eight-man tent party, with an additional room for your equipment and space enough for your servant to sleep in besides. If I were you I’d take me up on the offer, or you might find yourselves sharing.’
Umbrius had stared at him for a moment.
‘You want to tell me that I can’t do this. You want to go to the governor and have him overrule me. But you’re worried as to what I might do if you were to do so. And you’re right to be concerned.’
Umbrius had nodded, reluctantly agreeing to the drastic revision of their living arrangements, and the tribunes had trooped out to discover just how appalling their new quarters were.
‘Dubnus think you make enemy. Ask we to sleep with you.’
Marcus sighed at Lugos’s blunt statement of the facts.
‘He may be right. And the company might help me to stop brooding about my wife and child. Come on.’
They found the barrack easily enough, grinning at the loud complaints issuing from within several of the rooms as the sons of Rome’s aristocracy discovered their new living conditions. Flamininus was standing outside his room with a cup of wine, and his bemused expression became a sneer when he saw Marcus approaching.
‘Here he is. This was your idea, wasn’t it, Thin Stripe? And what are these, your barbarian catamites?’
Martos, who had removed his eye patch during the walk from the headquarters building, grinned evilly and stepped in front of the nonplussed tribune.
‘This barbarian speaks your language, so mind just how hard you push or you might find that I oblige your apparent need to fight. I only have one eye, boy, but I can recognise a fool when I see one.’
‘He can’t speak to me like that!’
Marcus nodded, his face lit up with amusement.
‘I think you’ll find that he can. That, Flamininus, is a genuine example of British tribal aristocracy. He’s a king, and kings speak to anyone they like, any way they like.’
‘And yet he’s following you round like a-’
He flinched back as the Briton leaned forward.
‘Say the word, Roman. Give me a reason to stop your wind.’
He stepped back, looking the tribune up and down.
‘I was captured in battle by this Roman, as was my companion here.’
He waved a hand at Lugos, who stepped forward, forcing Flamininus to incline his head to look at him as he stared down at the tribune dispassionately.
‘We could both have been executed, but Tribune Corvus not only treated us both fairly, he refused to enslave us. And so we follow him, in the hope of repaying our life debts. And beware, Roman …’
He leaned close to Flamininus again, lowering his voice.
‘Lugos here makes me look like a priest when he decides that the time to fight has come. If he catches any of you people in the Tribune’s quarters I imagine he will tear that man’s arms off.’
Marcus walked on, and the two Britons made to follow, but Flamininus fired a parting jibe at Martos’s back.
‘If you’re such a great warrior, how do you come to be missing an eye?’
The Briton turned to stare back at him, and Marcus stepped between them.
‘He lost the eye storming his tribal capital, after he was betrayed by an ally who sought to take his kingdom. By the time we were in control of the fortress he’d killed a score of the enemy tribesmen, most of them by the simple but direct method of cutting off their genitals. Think on that before you provoke him again, because this is the last time I’ll stand between you.’
They found the barrack much as expected, but the floor was dry, and Lugos made swift work of the detritus that littered the room once Martos had taken a lamp from his pack and lit it, bringing a glow of warmth to the room.
‘Have sleep in worse.’
Martos nodded at the giant’s observation.
‘Not in these beds you haven’t. I doubt they’ll hold your weight.’
Lugos shrugged.
‘I sleep floor. Is dry.’
Marcus untied the ribbon around his chest that denoted his rank and took off the heavy front and back plates, stretching luxuriously before rolling himself into his blanket in one of the four bunks that filled the room.
‘We’ll get rid of two of these beds tomorrow, but all I want now is to enjoy the feeling of not carrying all that bronze around on my back.’
Martos, having shrugged out of his chain mail, chose another bed and emulated the tribune’s example.
‘You’re lucky. You might think that a man of my age would be used to the weight, but it only gets worse as the years go by.’
A note of curiosity crept into the Roman’s sleepy voice.
‘So why didn’t you return to your own people when the cohorts marched for Rome last year? You could have chosen to live quietly, filling your days with hunting, instead of accompanying us to this distant part of the world to fight for an emperor you can only despise?
The Briton was silent for a moment.
‘I could never have returned to the Dinpaladyr for any longer than a few days. Even during my brief return I was aware of the tensions building around me. I gave the throne up, Marcus, and named my nephew as my successor. My presence anywhere in his kingdom would have been a provocation, one way or another. The young king’s advisers would have seen me as a threat, and those who were unhappy with their rule would have sought to make me their champion. No good could have come of it. And …’