‘You’re a barracks officer. This place needs a man who can face the tribes with a drawn sword, not just a head counter.’
No amount of argument, or attempts by Marcus to discuss the great campaigns of history and show his understanding of either strategy or tactics, could change the Briton’s gruff opinion. As far as Dubnus was concerned, his new companion was quite simply not a fighting man, praetorian or not, at least not until he’d proved otherwise. The skirmish on the road to Yew Grove apparently didn’t count.
The strangely matched pair reached the Wall late in the morning of the ninth day of their march, a morning of fitful rain from a uniformly grey sky having given way to intermittent gloom and sunshine while towering walls of cloud rolled west in stately procession. The road from the south ran to the walls of a fortress set a mile back from the Wall before forking past its walls to the east and west. They halted a little way from the imposing structure while Dubnus drew a map in the dust with his dagger, pointing to each fort on their route in turn.
‘This fort is The Rocks, home to the Hamians. The next fort to the west is High Spur, that’s the Thracians. To the east there’s Ash Tree, that’s the Raetians and Fair Meadow is next, again set back behind the Wall, home to our sister cohort, the Second Tungrians. Then we’ll reach the Hill.’
The last fifteen miles of their journey took them along roads busy with military traffic, and for a while Marcus quailed at the appearance of each new patrol. He soon realised that the troops they passed, recognising the colour of Dubnus’s tunic, were more interested in passing snide comments than looking for fugitive Romans. Another ten-man patrol passed in the opposite direction, one brave soul calling out, ‘Who’s your girlfriend, Chosen?’ once the distance between them was sufficient for safety, and his fear evaporated, replaced by a sudden feeling of superiority.
‘I don’t see much discipline here…’
Dubnus laughed over his shoulder.
‘Oh, they’ve got discipline! They’re tough, better than most legionary soldiers, better trained, harder trained. All they know is fighting, unlike the legions where every man seems to have a trade first and a sword as an afterthought. They have to be ready to fight at any time, since their enemy is everywhere around them…’
He was silent for a moment.
‘Their enemy is their own people. Can you imagine what that feels like, knowing that you might have to put your own brother to the sword if it came to war? You’re not a fighting soldier, you wouldn’t understand…’
Marcus closed his mouth, considering the statement. Perhaps the other man was right. The only soldiering he’d known was in barracks, the continual watch over Rome that was intended to keep a boot on the city’s throat rather than to protect it. What would it be like to face enemies both outside and inside the empire’s walls, a situation perhaps as confusing for the local troops as it was dangerous?
A mile later they saw more troops marching towards them, a full century in campaign array, each man with a heavy pack on his carrying pole and two spears. Dubnus stopped in the road, putting his hands on his hips and smiling broadly.
‘Those men are the best soldiers on the Wall. Those men are Tungrians.’
Their centurion was marching at the head of his men with his helmet buckled to his belt, a big, scar-faced man with a full black beard. A distinctive white streak ran from forehead to collar through his wiry black hair. He recognised Dubnus at some distance and trotted forward from his place, clasping arms with him as if he were an equal before turning and barking orders at his own chosen man to halt the column and give the men a five-minute break. They talked animatedly for a moment or so in their own language before Dubnus turned to Marcus.
‘This is Clodius, centurion of the Third Century.’
The other man nodded carefully, taking in both Marcus’s native clothing and his distinctive physical appearance with a glance. Eyes hard with suspicion momentarily bored into Marcus’s before he turned away to his men. The soldiers treated Dubnus with respect during their brief halt, their body language betraying his apparently dominant position within their small world. Marcus tried to fade into the background, conscious of the troops’ inspection of him. He wondered what they would make of his worn boots and rough local clothing, his jet-black hair and darker complexion. Most of them had the fair local colouring, while only a few had black hair like Dubnus and Clodius.
The century marched away to the east after a few moments, leaving them to resume their own journey. They had passed Fair Meadow, a mile south of the Wall, by mid-afternoon, its whitewashed stone sides standing out from the country around like a ship at sea. Turning north for a short distance, they climbed a shallow ridge, at the top of which the fort for which they were heading came into view. Shaped in the usual rectangle, it butted up to the white line of the Wall at the top of the next ridge, an untidy cluster of town buildings huddled against its lower rampart.
‘The Hill,’ Dubnus confirmed.
At the gate he was greeted with the same mixture of respect and deference that Marcus had noted on the road, and told the sentries to call for the officer of the watch. The centurion arrived quickly, listened to Dubnus for a moment, and then, apparently expecting the arrival, led Marcus away to the headquarters building in the centre of the fort. Dubnus nodded farewell, turning away to rejoin his own unit without any show of emotion. At the entrance to the headquarters, Marcus was delighted and relieved to find Rufius waiting for him.
‘Well, young Corvus, here you are, then! Looking a little thinner if that’s possible, although it suits you well enough. Makes you look more determined, and that’s no bad thing in your situation.’
He dragged the younger man into the entrance hall, away from the sentry’s straining ears, pulling a wax tablet from his tunic.
‘I have a formal request from Legatus Sollemnis to the prefect here, backed up by a quite astonishing amount of gold for the cohort’s burial fund, asking him to take you in… no, don’t smile yet, man, that’s only a start. Even if he says yes, which I believe unlikely, I expect his First Spear will fight the idea tooth and nail. I know I would in his place. So, before we go in to see the prefect, here are the two rules that you must follow if we are to see you safe. One, keep your mouth shut and let me do the talking as much as possible. I know these people and you do not. Two, if you’re asked a question, keep your answer direct and simple. If you strike them as anything other than what I’ve described, you won’t get past the door. Understand?’
The cohort’s prefect was a dark-faced man, from the north coast of Africa by Marcus’s best guess, and looked to be in his early thirties. He kept a remarkably straight face when Rufius handed over his message from Sollemnis, scanning the tablet for a long moment before tossing it back on the desk in front of the retired officer, one hand distractedly teasing his thick brown beard. Rufius stood impassively in an unconsciously adopted parade rest, uncomfortably aware of both the man’s stare and his unquestioned power inside the garrison’s small world. He made no move to retrieve the message. After a long pause the prefect shifted his gaze from Rufius, sizing up Marcus in a single glance of his dark brown eyes before speaking in a well-educated and reasonable tone.
‘So, it’s better if I don’t know his real name, he’s officially declared traitor, his family are either all dead or in hiding, and yet the commanding officer of the Sixth still sees fit to send him into my care and invites me to betray the empire alongside him. He looks like all the other failures my First Spear rejects each year during recruitment, and yet Gaius Calidius Sollemnis commends him as “intelligent and resourceful” and asks me to take him under my wing. As a centurion! I’m not sure I have sufficient education to express my amazement…’