He drew Marcus to one side.
‘What I didn’t mention yesterday, when I gave your century the reward of being first in the line of march, was the role traditionally played by the leading century in this cohort in time of war.’
‘Sir?’
‘The first-placed century gets all the kudos, carries the standard about and dies gloriously in its defence if all is lost. The second-placed century, on the other hand, gets all the dirty jobs, scouting in front of the cohort, diversionary tasks and the like. In other words, all of the fun. Are you game for a little fun, Centurion?’
Marcus straightened his back, pushing his chin out.
‘Yes, sir!’
‘Good. In that case I’ve got just the job for you…’
With the 9th Century detached for the First Spear’s speculative mission, the cohort marched from the fort seven hundred men strong, Julius’s 5th Century marching with the standard at the heart of the column that snaked out on to the military road and headed purposefully away to the east at the double. Marcus waited in front of his men until the last were clear of the vicus, then turned to address them over the diminishing clatter of hobnails on the road’s surface. His farewell to Rufius had been hurried, his friend simply clasping arms and tugging his head down to whisper into his ear.
‘Keep it simple, Marcus, and don’t be afraid to ask Dubnus for advice if you’re uncertain about anything. I expect to see your pretty Roman features within a day or two, so don’t disappoint me.’
Marcus nodded to himself without realising it, then turned to face the century, drawn up in parade formation.
‘Very well, Ninth Century, we’re on detached duty until our present task is finished and we head for Cauldron Pool to rejoin the cohort. Let’s go hunting.’ Four hours later, having slipped through the wall at a now unguarded mile fort, far enough from the Hill to be out of sight of anyone watching the fort, the 9th stole quietly back towards their camp in the steady light of a cloudy afternoon. The emphasis now was upon stealth rather than speed across ground, the soldiers picking each footfall with care to avoid snapping fallen branches, their passage marked by nothing noisier than the buzzing of disturbed flies in the oppressively heavy air. Dubnus, long accustomed to the hill country’s weather, looked at the sky for the tenth time in half an hour, working out how long they had before the inevitable rain started falling. The century was stretched across the rough country in a half-mile-wide net, each tent party spaced across its own hundred-pace frontage, the men at each end keeping sight of their opposite numbers in the neighbouring parties. Marcus and Dubnus moved silently in the rear, waiting for any sign that their men had made contact, their backs covered by a watchful Antenoch. If the Hill were under observation, for whatever purpose, they would know soon enough. At length, later than Dubnus had predicted, a steady rain began to fall, slowly growing heavier until water had penetrated down everyone’s necks, no matter how tightly capes were fastened.
‘At least the rain will cover any noise we’re making.’
Dubnus snorted at Marcus’s comment, flicking water out of his beard.
‘You’ve officially been here too long when you start finding reasons why it’s good for rain to fall.’
In the early afternoon, after an hour or more of painstakingly slow progress in the continuing rain, a flurry of hand signals rippled down the line of soldiers, who, as instructed, went to earth once the message was passed on. Marcus and Dubnus made careful haste up the line until they reached the soldier who had raised the alert, behind the cover of a thorn bush. He pointed forward, then pointed to his nose and sniffed audibly. Marcus sampled the air, finding the slight tang of wood smoke on the breeze, and nodded to Dubnus, who leant in close to whisper in his ear above the rain’s pattering.
‘I’ll take the two closest tent parties in.’
Marcus nodded. The rest of the century would stay in place until the order was given to move again.
‘We’re too far from the Hill for this to be the watch point. Try to do it silently, and we’ll get the watcher as well…’
After a whispered conversation with the two tent party leaders, their men gathered behind the thorn bush. Dubnus whispered a command and the group split up, one tent party remaining with the officers, the other snaking away on their bellies to move around behind the source of the smells that had betrayed their quarry.
Marcus and Dubnus crept up to the edge of the copse from which the cooking smells were emanating, allowing time for the men making their way around to the far side to get into position. As they slowly eased in between the trees the guttural sound of native conversation grew louder. Clearly the hidden men did not fear discovery. Raising his head with a hunter’s patient stealth, Dubnus peeped through the top of a bush, then sank back into place. He whispered to the nearest man, Marcus straining to pick up the words despite his proximity.
‘Three men, one well dressed, one poorly dressed, one old. Kill the young peasant, spare the others if you can.’
The whispered command was passed around the group, and a man wormed around to brief the other tent party, while the soldiers readied themselves to spring. Dubnus hefted his throwing axe, then stepped out of the shade of his bush, barking a low challenge at the startled Britons as Marcus came to his feet. A rough circle of bare ground had been created in the copse’s middle, half a dozen trees having been felled to clear enough space for a shelter of branches and turf to be erected in its middle. To one side of the clearing a man of about twenty years, dressed in rough woollen leggings and tunic, was tending a cooking fire protected from the rain by a crude turf roof, over which were suspended half a dozen gutted hares, his shocked face an upturned white blur. An old man of fifty or so, sitting on the stump of one of the felled trees, was looking up at the last member of the group, a man in his early middle age and dressed, as Dubnus had indicated, well enough to be a local noble of some kind.
The cook leapt to his feet, reaching for a sword propped against his cooking spit. A spear blurred out of the trees behind him and thudded into his body, arching his back and dropping him across the fire face first. The other two men drew swords, spinning back to back as the rest of the hunting party burst into their hiding place, snarling defiance at their attackers.
‘ALIVE!’
Dubnus stepped into the clearing, smashing the noble’s sword from his hand with a sweep of his axe, following up with a shield punch that knocked the man out cleanly. Faced with half a dozen armed troops, the older man’s resistance crumbled, and the soldiers disarmed him without a struggle. Marcus strolled into the copse, eyeing the dead cook, whose rough clothes were smouldering.
‘Get him off that fire. There may be others close at hand. We need to know what these men were about, and quickly…’
‘Yes. Put the knife to the older man.’
Marcus turned to find Antenoch at his shoulder.
‘Why him?’
The subject of conversation glowered up at them, crouched in a kneeling position under the swords of a pair of soldiers, his wrists and ankles bound firmly. Antenoch squatted to look into his eyes, smiling at him without any change of expression in his own eyes.
‘He’s seen more than most, to judge from his age. Probably fought in the uprising of ’61, killed, saw men die horribly…’
‘Wouldn’t that just harden him?’
‘For a while, but as a man grows older his own mortality begins to press upon him. I can get the information we need. But I’ll have to shed blood to get it quickly enough.’
Marcus hesitated.
‘Centurion, they wouldn’t think twice about skinning you alive if they captured you.’
‘And we have to descend to their level?’
The other man shrugged.
‘Depends whether you want to win or not.’