Altar of Blood: Empire IX (18 page)

‘Five per cent?’

The soldier stuck out his chin pugnaciously.

‘Ten per cent. Five going out and five coming back. We assess your goods going out, including the mule, the cart and those pretty swords you’re all wearing, tax you five per cent of their value, then five per cent on the way back too. If you’re lucky you can avoid paying on the cart and so on, since you clearly didn’t buy them over there, but that only works if you don’t get some bastard on duty. Someone like my officer. He’d tax the hole between your buttocks if he could work out its value.’

Morban’s face went white.

‘But that’s …’

The chosen man turned to him with a smile.

‘You must be the money man, given that face you’re pulling. That’s probably going to chew up a big piece of your profits? Seems that way to us too, what with all the unhappiness we get from the first-time traders we deal with when they get the good news.’

The standard bearer took a deep breath.

‘So, you mentioned avoiding this … bridge tax?’

The soldier nodded.

‘Two ways. Hire a boat …’ He pointed to a rickety-looking vessel waiting by the river’s bank. ‘Mind you, they know just how much to charge, and given that you can’t use the bridge to get back if you didn’t pay to use it to cross over, they can get downright greedy when the time comes for the return trip.’

‘Or?’

A slow smile spread across the chosen man’s face.

‘Seems your luck’s in, what with you being one of the lads, and given my officer’s away spending his salary on a spot of sausage hiding, you can pay the unofficial tax, rather than give ten per cent of everything you have to the emperor. We’ll write you up as having an empty waggon and nothing more than a few silvers to your name, say you were off to buy some skins to trade back this side of the river, and you can provide us with a nice little drink for our trouble.’

Morban nodded slowly, shooting Cotta an encouraging glance.

‘That would seem to be the most … pragmatic way to go.’

The chosen man smiled even more broadly.

‘I thought you might say that. Shall we call it three per cent?’

Having made slow but stealthy progress into the forest, covering four miles by Gunda’s estimate, the Tungrians camped in the shelter of a hollow, posting sentries around the rim of the depression and settling down for the night beneath the cover of their cloaks after a meal of bread and dried meat washed down with sips of water from their bottles. Scaurus had finally revealed the nature of their mission into Bructeri territory while the detachment sat around him eating the bread and dried meat they had carried with them from the fortress, looking about him as he talked, taking the measure of their collective resolve.

“So it’s simple. We find this woman, we deal with whoever’s been set to guard her and we take her back to the river. The
Mars
will be back here and ready to collect us from tomorrow morning, and they’ll stay on station right where they dropped us off yesterday until we come back with her, or until three days have passed. I think it’s reasonable for them to assume that if we’re not back after that long on the ground we either won’t be coming back or we’ve decided to march out overland.’

One of the pioneers raised a hand, and the tribune smiled, shaking his head at Angar as the man bristled at such temerity.

‘No Chosen, we’re all risking our lives to attempt this abduction, any man has the right to ask any question he pleases. We’re brothers in arms alone in a dangerous place, so only the most robust honesty will see us through this.’

Abashed, but encouraged by his commander’s gesture of solidarity, the man voiced the question that Scaurus already knew was on every man’s lips.

‘This priestess, Tribune. Is she really a witch? Can she …?’

‘Can she cast spells on us? Turn us into forest animals, or rip our bodies apart with a wave of her hands? I very much doubt it. I—’

‘Tribune?’

All heads turned to Gunda, who had raised his own hand, tentatively but with a clear need to speak.

‘Gunda?’

Aware that his presence in the detachment’s small and tight-knit world was barely tolerated by some of Scaurus’s men, and striving to ignore the fact that both Dubnus and Angar wore expressions which promised great tribulation if his words went astray, the guide spoke slowly and carefully, raising his open hands to demonstrate that he meant no harm.

‘Being of the Bructeri, before I was banished from this land, I can tell you something of Gerhild, if you will allow me to do so.’

Scaurus gestured for him to continue, and even Angar leaned forward to hear his words.

‘Gerhild is no witch. She is simply …’ He shook his head as he searched for the right Latin word, then nodded to himself. ‘Good. She is a good person, and her gifts should be considered with that in mind.’ He looked around the silent hollow, painfully aware that every man was hanging on his words. ‘She has three gifts given to her by the goddess Hertha at her moment of birth. She can heal the sick, on occasion, with her touch and her words, not simply those who are physically ill but also those who are troubled in mind. She can influence the minds of men, although she rarely chooses to do so. And she dreams what is yet to come. She—’

‘She sees the future?’ Gunda raised a hand as if to still the outburst from Dubnus, and to his own surprise the Briton froze just as he was in the act of rising to voice his disquiet.

‘She sees a little of the future, and only very rarely for herself, nearly always for others. And the gift is fickle. She might foretell the birth of a girl child accurately, but fail to see that the child’s mother will die in childbirth, which has made her wary of using it. Such a gift can be a curse, it seems.’

Scaurus pinned Dubnus in his place with a piercing stare, standing up and taking his man’s attention back from the scout.

‘So she cannot see us coming, and she has no witch powers for us to fear.’

‘No, Tribune, she does not.’ Gunda shook his head obdurately. ‘And even if she did, she is a child of Hertha, the earth goddess. She could no more take a life, anyone’s life, than fly to the moon.’

The tribune nodded decisively.

‘Good. And that, gentlemen, concludes this briefing. Those of you who didn’t draw guard duty would be well advised to get some sleep. Tomorrow will be another long day.’ He caught the scout’s eye and gestured for the German to accompany him to the other side of their small camp. ‘You seem to know this woman Gerhild rather better than I would have expected, given your long exile from the tribe?’

Gunda nodded, holding the Roman’s stare.

‘Every man in our tribe knows of her, Tribune.’

‘And had you known this was our mission, would you still have accompanied us?’

The German laughed softly, tapping the purse at his belt.

‘Four gold aureii is a lot of money for a man with no tribe, and no one to care for him when times are hard. Yes, I would still have joined you. Although I might have been minded to demand more money, given the risks you run. If you manage to find Gerhild and capture her you will incur the fanatical enmity of every man in my tribe, and that would be a terrible threat for a hundred times your number.’

Scaurus nodded and turned away, then called back over his shoulder.

‘Gunda? You wouldn’t happen to have some clue as to her location you could share with me, would you?’

The guide laughed again.

‘No, Tribune. I have been away from these lands for half my lifetime. I do not know where Gerhild is to be found.’

Varus drew the first spell as watch officer, slowly walking the roughly circular perimeter and stopping at each sentry’s position to listen to the forest’s night-time noises. After two hours Marcus, unable to sleep as was so often the case, rolled out of his cloak and climbed the slope to join him. He found his friend squatting down next to the slight figure of a Hamian, both men’s heads tilted as they listened to something out in the darkness. Recognising the archer as Qadir’s chosen man, he squatted down next to him with exaggerated care to avoid making any sudden noise.

‘What is it, Husam?’

The easterner spoke quietly without taking his eyes off the almost invisible ranks of trees before him.

‘A boar, Centurion. Sow and piglets. They would make good eating if there was light to shoot.’

The Roman nodded, and opened his mouth to speak again only to fall silent as another, more distant sound reached his ears.

‘Can you hear …?’

He frowned, trying to distinguish whatever it was he was hearing from the wind’s gentle susurration through the branches above. Varus was silent for a moment, then leaned close to whisper in his ear.

‘It sounds like … chanting?’

As they watched, a faint glow appeared in the depths of the forest before them, so distant and well shielded by the intervening trees as to be almost invisible, no more than a rumour of what had to be a sizeable fire.

‘It sounds like some ritual or other. Who knows what gods these barbarians worship?’

Varus fell silent again as the chant’s tempo stepped up, a man’s voice now just audible over their incessant rhythm.

‘And there is the priest.’

Marcus nodded his agreement with the Hamian’s opinion.

‘It certainly sounds like one. He’s whipping them up into a frenzy.’

The priest shouted what sounded like a challenge to his followers, and the chanting started once more, louder than before. A scream reached their ears, its shrill, agonised note clearly audible over the chanting despite the distance, and Varus jumped at the unexpected sound.

‘Mithras!’

Marcus shook his head slowly, closing his eyes.

‘Mithras? I doubt it.’

The scream sounded again, more tormented than the first time, as if pain and outrage had suddenly been replaced by simple, agonised terror. They listened, the hair on their necks rising as the outraged voice rose to a horrified falsetto and then abruptly died away, as whatever was being done to the priest’s victim apparently took his life and gifted him peace from his torment.

‘What the fuck?!’

Dubnus was beside them with a hand on his dagger.

‘Keep your voice down, Centurion, unless you fancy being the next man to enjoy the attentions of a priest of Wodanaz.’

Scaurus had climbed the slope behind him, and stood looking out at the flickering mote of torchlight.

‘Wodanaz?’

‘The locals’ version of the god Mercury, as close as they can be matched. Like Mercury he is the god who acts as the spirit guide for the newly dead, leading them to the underworld. His priests tend sacred groves, clearings in the heart of the forest that are decorated with the bones and remnants of the tribe’s enemies, rusted weapons and scraps of armour. Each grove is surrounded by the most hair-raising warnings to come no closer without the blessing of the god, which is to be dispensed, of course, only by the priest. And in that grove, when the time is deemed to be right, captives are sacrificed to Wodanaz, perhaps burned alive above the altar and pierced with spears as they burn, their blood channelled to spill across the stone, perhaps eviscerated and torn open to allow their hearts to be torn bodily from their bodies.’ He stared out at the distant light for a moment. ‘We’re in no danger here, they’ll all be away to get drunk and sleep wherever they fall soon enough, which ought to make tomorrow a good day for making progress through this green underworld.’

He fell silent, and the three centurions looked at each other.

‘Have you ever seen a sacred grove, Tribune?’

The older man spoke without turning to face Varus, his voice suddenly bleak.

‘Yes. At night, with my face black with ashes and a dagger in my hand. And trust me in this, young man, once was enough for one lifetime.’

After a night spent comfortably enough in the mansio situated close to the bridge’s eastern end, Cotta and his companions made their way through the wooden walled fort that protected the crossing until they reached the gate through which they had to pass to enter Bructeri territory. Manned by a centurion and his command’s full strength, the gateway was built on a scale that they hadn’t seen before even on the northern frontier in Britannia. Massive timbers cut from mature trees were fixed in place by heavy iron nails driven in at different angles to ensure the gate’s ability to resist attack, and reinforced with thick bars of iron designed to spread the load of any attack. The century’s soldiers were arrayed along the thick wooden palisade on either side, their demeanour that of men equipped and ready for violence, given the opportunity. The centurion, by now well aware of Cotta’s status as an ex-soldier, strolled down to the gate to meet them.

‘Here we are, another group of lambs ready for the slaughter.’

His greeting was made without humour, or any hint of it being anything other than a blunt statement of his opinion.

‘Really, Centurion?’ Cotta put his hands on his hips and shook his head in apparent mystification. ‘What’s so bad about this particular set of long-haired lunatics? Me and my boys here have seen the same thing in every shithole from Britannia to Parthia, and it’s almost always never as bad as everyone tells us.’

The officer looked down at him with something akin to sympathy.

‘It’s very simple, Centurion. This lot don’t just resent our presence on their doorstep, they detest it. They hate us, they fucking loathe us, they want us all dead and preferably with our balls cut off and stitched into our mouths while we’re still breathing. Of course they don’t do anything to piss us off badly enough that the governor would sanction a punitive raid, and in any case my prefect says the man’s shit scared of upsetting the Bructeri and having a war on his hands, the prick. No, they leave us well enough alone, apart from their younger men prowling around out there every now and then, barking at the moon to let us know they’re there.’ His eyes hardened again. ‘But they must be getting Romans from somewhere, because every now and then we’ll hear them sacrificing a man out there in the forest.’

He bent close to Cotta, lowering his voice.

‘Do you know which word a man uses the most when there’s a knife being taken to his balls?’