But instead a single warrior came forward, an older man with flowing grey-flecked hair who had not yet taken part in the combat, his armour and weapons still gleaming and clean. He was wearing a muscled cuirass that looked Etruscan, and his helmet was like the Greek ones that Fabius had seen carved on the Parthenon in Athens. He remembered that many of the Celtiberians had served as mercenaries during times of peace at home, fighting for Carthage in the last war, and that battle scars and looted armour were all the pay they wanted. This man was not old enough to have served Carthage, but he could have been among the mercenaries on the Macedonian side at Pydna; his left eye socket was empty and he had a livid weal across his face that must have been caused by a savage blow decades ago, when he was a young man. Behind him an emaciated boy held the great curved cow horn that had signalled the retreat. Fabius realized that the man must be the chieftain. He had stopped at the edge of the mud, resplendent in his armour, his feet planted apart in defiance, looking at the Romans and then focusing his gaze on Scipio, who was standing dripping in the mud a stone’s throw away and watching him intently
The man pointed at him. ‘You are Scipio,’ he bellowed hoarsely, speaking in heavily accented Latin. ‘My grandfather fought a Scipio at Cannae, and now I will fight a Scipio at Intercatia.’
‘Do you challenge me?’ Scipio bellowed back.
‘On my command my warriors will return and fight to the death, and many more Romans will die. Or the contest can be finished with a single combat.’
‘What are your terms?’
‘That my men should be allowed to leave their arms and go free, that the woman and children of Intercatia should be left unmolested with their remaining houses unburned, and that they should be fed. I have heard that the word of a Scipio is a word of honour. Is that so?’
Scipio squinted up at him. ‘It is so.’
‘Do you give me your word?’
‘I give you my word.’
‘Then let the contest begin.’ He dropped his shield, shoved his sword into the ground and removed his helmet, taking a thong offered to him by the boy and tying his hair back. The boy undid his cuirass and took it from him. He was wearing nothing beneath it except his kilt, revealing a torso that had once been finely muscled but was now showing his age, the scars of many wars standing out as red weals against his pale skin. Scipio stripped off his own armour as the chieftain picked up his sword and limped towards the mud, dragging one leg behind him. Fabius could see why the man had not joined the melee earlier: he would have found it virtually impossible to stand upright. As his warriors closed up in a semi-circle behind him, Fabius sensed that they had done this before, watching duels for honour and women and power in this very place, contests that the chieftain in his younger years had undoubtedly walked away from many times victorious. This time it would be different. The contest with Scipio could only have one outcome, and they all knew it. The terms did not even allow for the chieftain’s victory, and if it came to it he could not afford to deal Scipio a death blow; if he did so it could only result in the Roman soldiers going on a rampage and massacring his people, whose future therefore depended on Scipio surviving and keeping his word. The chieftain was sacrificing himself for his women and children, in a time-honoured fashion that would also leave his warriors satisfied that honour had been done and their own rituals observed.
Fabius turned and looked at Scipio, at his hardened torso and his sword held ready by his side, his face grim and emotionless. He could guess the thoughts that were running through his mind. As boys they had dreamed of war as glorious contest, as battles between armies and warriors where the best fights were the most evenly matched, not just for Rome and glory but tests of manhood where the victor could walk away uplifted by killing an opponent who could as easily have won the day. But the reality of war was rarely like that. It was uneven, and messy. There might be honour in Scipio’s word, in his fides, but there would be no glory for him in this fight. Scipio was doing what he had to do to allow the enemy warriors to walk away with dignity, a decision that might make them more likely to be Rome’s allies in future, and to save his legionaries from dying unnecessarily. But this would be little more than an execution, the chieftain’s fate as certain as the deaths of the deserters they had watched being mauled by lions at the triumphal games after the Battle of Pydna. After years of yearning to return to war, Scipio was in at the ugly end, and Fabius knew he would be steeling himself to show utter resolve in what he had to do.
He knew that Scipio would not sham a fight, that he would respect the old warrior’s pride by fighting him man to man with his full strength for however long it lasted. The chieftain limped into the mud and stood a few feet from Scipio, his legs apart and his sword held in front of him with both hands, the blade down. Scipio nodded, and the man suddenly swung his blade like a scythe in front of Scipio’s chest, nicking the skin and making him fall back, staggering slightly. The man still had strength in his arms and a lifetime’s skill with the Celtiberian sword, its slashing blade longer than the Roman gladius but less versatile at close quarters. His weakness lay in his poor mobility, and Scipio was going to have to get around him and under the arc of the blade, deflecting it and going for a thrust. Scipio edged forward, crouched down this time with his sword held at the ready, just raising it in time to parry another vicious sweep by the chieftain that nearly sent Scipio’s gladius flying. He backed off again and crouched lower, suddenly springing to the side and catching the chieftain off-balance as he tried to twist his body round to confront him. Scipio darted in and thrust his sword hard into the man’s good leg, pulling it out of the calf just in time to avoid another sweeping blow. The man shifted, nearly toppling over, the mud beneath him shiny with fresh blood from the wound, steaming on the cool ground.
The chieftain had shown his skill and courage in front of his warriors, but now they would expect no more. At the next swing Scipio parried the blade, deflecting it, and then leapt forward and this time thrust his own blade into the man’s abdomen, running him through to the hilt and then holding him close, swaying together with him in the mud. The chieftain retched, throwing up yellow bile streaked with blood, and then Scipio pushed him back and heaved the sword up and down, slicing open a huge wound from the man’s pelvis to his ribcage. He withdrew the sword and the chieftain fell back, staggering and twisting, and as he did so the wound gaped open and his intestines spilled out, blue and red and steaming, dripping with blood. He looked down with his one eye, his face sheet-white, his expression uncomprehending. His intestines had dropped in a loop to the ground and he tripped over them, sprawling forward and then raising himself on his knees, scooping them up with his hands in the mud and trying to put them back inside.