The War at the Edge of the World (5 page)

‘You’re showing me up, young man!’

Castus turned on his heel. Ursicinus, the legion’s senior drill instructor, stood with fists on hips. He was a wiry man, and looked like an old grey rat. Castus was a head taller and a foot broader, but the habit of deference was hard to break; he straightened at once and touched his brow in rapid salute.

‘Oh, don’t let me stop you,’ Ursicinus said, smiling sourly. His own drills usually involved marching practice, and leaving the men standing at attention for hours in the rain – the best way, he claimed, to instil a habit of patient obedience.

‘Probably enough for today,’ Castus muttered. He was tempted to continue anyway – order his men to charge, yelling, at the practice stumps with levelled blades. But Ursicinus was one of the highest-ranking veterans in the legion, and Castus knew enough not to try and antagonise him.

‘Optio! Fall the men out.’

Timotheus raised his staff, then he barked the order and the formation broke apart.

‘Impressive, I suppose,’ the drill instructor said. He tapped Castus’s mailed chest with his staff. ‘Just don’t think you’re going to turn them into one of those crack Danube legions! There’s not much call for them out here, y’know.’

‘What would you know about that?’ Castus said under his breath as the older man stalked away. Months of training his century whenever he got the chance – whenever they were spared from mending roads or walls or digging out latrines, or being sent off to guard the supply convoys – had turned what had been a shambolic set of men into something approaching soldiers. They had hated him for it at first, Castus knew that; he had beaten them hard, and managed to discharge some of the worst idlers into other centuries. But now he liked to think that they appreciated the distinction. Now it was only the disdain of the other officers he had to contend with: men like Ursicinus, forty years in the legion and never fought in battle, ground smooth by the routines of camp life and resentful of any suggestion that he might be wrong.

Pfft!
Castus said to himself, and twitched an obscene gesture at the departing instructor. Optio Timotheus caught his eyes and grinned – the younger soldiers had picked up his enthusiasm much more quickly.

‘Shall I take them back to barracks, centurion?’

Castus nodded. Young Timotheus was tough on the men, bit too much vinegar in his blood, but would make a good officer one day. As a deputy, he was perfect. His harsh yells drifted away over the gravel of the drill field as he formed up the men and set them marching back towards the fortress gates. He even got them singing as they left the field.

‘You rile him up and he’ll find some way to get back at you,’ Evagrius said. ‘Or make things hard for the rest of us.’

‘I know,’ Castus said. They were in the office room of his quarters, a whitewashed cell set aside for the routine administration that fell to every centurion’s duty. Like most of the leaking old barrack block, it smelled strongly of damp plaster and mould. Julius Evagrius, standard-bearer and clerk, sat on a stool on the other side of the desk with a heap of wax tablets before him. Castus, leaning by the door, tried not to stare too dubiously at the documents.

‘They don’t mind it, though – the men. Ursicinus is a mean old goat, so they like it when you stick him one in eye!’

Castus grunted, shoving himself away from the door and looming over the table. ‘You should know not to speak about another officer like that,’ he growled. ‘’Specially not to me!’ He jutted his jaw, giving his profile the look of a stack of broken bricks. But he was trying not to smile.

Evagrius assumed a grave expression and busied himself with his documents. ‘Sorry, centurion.’

Standard-bearers, as clerks for their centurions, often had a slightly informal relationship with their superiors, but Evagrius more than most. Besides being a reasonable soldier and an excellent clerk, he also knew Castus’s secret: his centurion could neither read nor write. In the years he had spent with II Herculia, Castus had barely spent six months under a roof, and there had been no time to learn even the basics of literacy. This was fine for a legionary, but since his promotion it had been a constant embarrassment, and one he liked to keep quiet. One of these days, he told himself, he would learn, but for now, squinting at the squirm of letters and figures covering the clerk’s tablets made his head hurt.

‘So what’s the roster looking like?’ he said, gazing out of the window into the darkening portico.

‘Four men still absent on supply escort duty,’ Evagrius said, darting his nib down the list of names, ‘three men – Macrinus, Flaccus and Modestus – in the hospital, two more – Terentius and Claudianus – on leave. Macer detached to the river patrol. Aurelius Dexter still not returned from leave. That’s ten days he’s over now. Shall I mark him down as a deserter?’

‘Better do that. Good riddance to him too. He’s welcome to his flogging if he shows his face here again.’

‘So that’s fifty-eight men present for duty, centurion.’

‘Right – sign that off for me.’ Castus’s own cramped scribble would never pass as a signature, but the standard-bearer had devised a reasonable-looking alternative.

‘There’s a memorandum here from Tribune Rufinius. Faulty brothel tokens are still turning up and they haven’t tracked down the source. He asks all centurions to check before issuing new ones.’

‘I’ll leave you to see to that. Anything else?’

‘That’s everything,’ the standard-bearer said. He closed the last wax tablet and slipped it in his pouch. Castus was sure that the canny Evagrius himself, together with his fellow clerks in other centuries and the merchants in the city, was behind most of the assorted scams and ruses in the fortress. Corruption was an institution in military camps all over the empire, and Eboracum had many a blind eye.

‘Dismissed,’ Castus said, although Evagrius was already on his way out, whistling.

The hospital building occupied almost a full block between the praetorium and the grain silos. Castus never liked going there – the dim complex of rooms contained a heady reek of sour vinegar that turned his stomach, and he had a suspicion that illnesses somehow travelled through the air – but owing to the legionaries’ habit of constantly injuring themselves and picking up diseases, he was obliged to pay regular visits.

Now he followed the medical orderly along a corridor between starched drapes and into one of the wards. He was trying not to breathe too deeply, just in case.

‘These three are yours, I think,’ the orderly said. Castus merely glanced at the first two: they were legitimate enough. One had managed to impale his foot with the throwing dart on the drill field; the other had broken his leg falling off a horse. Both were eager enough to be discharged back to barracks: the hospital diet of herbal soup and blood pudding was designed to be unappetising.

‘And this is Julius Modestus, who still has a fever.’

Castus stood by the bed, glowering. Modestus was looking more than usually sallow and sweaty. He opened his eyes and gave a weak cough. This was his third time in hospital since Castus had taken command of the century, and between his illnesses and his frequent punishments he had spent barely ten days on duty.

‘What are you doing for him?’

‘Oh, just herbal infusions and bed rest. A little light massaging of the limbs is often efficacious…’

Castus gave him a sideways glance. Medical orderlies were known to take bribes to keep shirkers in hospital, but this one looked sincere. He nodded, waited until the orderly had moved away, and then stooped over the bed.

‘I want you back on your feet in two days, Modestus,’ he said in a low voice, ‘or I’ll send Timotheus and Culchianus over here to give you the sort of massage you won’t appreciate. Understood?’

‘Understood,’ Modestus croaked, then gave a few more coughs as Castus paced quickly back towards the fresh air.

‘Ah, the terror of the Tigris is here! The despoiler of the Euphrates!’

‘Watch what you say, Balbinus, or he may despoil you – he has that Herculian look in his eyes!’

‘Only joking, my dear Knucklehead. Come and despoil a cup of beer with us!’

Castus tried to smile – how the unfortunate nickname from his old legion had managed to follow him across half the empire he had no idea. He sat down at the table, and the other three centurions shuffled along the bench to give him room.

The centurions’ messroom was at the back of a small warehouse beside the main market. It was gloomy, and smelled of stale beer, but there was a fire burning in the brazier in the corner. The walls, painted with crude colourful murals of nude shepherdesses being chased by satyrs, were covered in scratched graffiti: the names of generations of centurions and tribunes of the Sixth, with accompanying obscene comments. There was a sense of heritage, if nothing else.

‘Still enjoying life at the edge of the world, then?’ Balbinus said, and stifled a belch. ‘Or are you pining for the delights of Antioch, eh? The dark-eyed gazelles of Ctesiphon?’

‘It’s all right,’ said Castus, and took a heavy slug of the warm sour beer. Balbinus was obviously drunk, but he barely understood most of what the man said at the best of times.

‘Leave him be,’ said Valens, the third man at the table. ‘I smell the hospital on him.’ For a moment Castus thought that the stale vinegar odour really had clung to him somehow; then Valens tugged at the end of his long nose and winked.

Of all the fifty or so centurions in the Sixth, Valens was only one Castus could consider a friend. Perhaps because he too was a relative newcomer – he had been transferred from one of the legions on the Rhine five years before. Although he had a wry sardonic air that Castus often found baffling, Valens at least had the bearing of a soldier. Not a stewed drunk and a gambler, like Balbinus and his friend Galleo.

‘Man of few words, our Knucklehead,’ said Galleo, scooping a fistful of coppers across the table. ‘That’s what they teach them out there on the Danube –
act first, speak later
… Mind you, with that barbarous accent he’s got, you’d hardly know what he was saying anyway!’

Castus stared across the rim of his cup, unblinking. He kept his expression neutral, his hands loose. Let them think what they liked about him. Let them joke if they wanted. One swift jab of his arm and he could shatter the cup between Galleo’s eyes, grab the other man by the hair and dent the table with his face. He enjoyed the bitter flavour of that thought, the intention idling in his mind.

When he first arrived at Eboracum, he had been given the usual initiation. In the corner of the messroom behind a barricade of benches and tables, they’d set upon him: he’d been expecting it, and managed to wrestle all six of the centurions in the cohort to surrender at the cost of a second broken nose and a cracked rib. Valens was the only one who took it lightly now – the rest all treated Castus with a sly mocking disdain. He had hurt their pride, he supposed, but they all knew he could beat them again if he wanted to – he was like a half-tamed bear brought to a feast, for the revellers to goad and dare themselves.

Still, he tried not to blame them for it. Service on the north British frontier held few rewards, and the centurions had little to boast about. So what if they mocked him for his military experience? So what if they laughed at the way he kept his boots and belts oiled and shining, his tunics cleanly laundered, his metal bright? He worked hard at training his men, and he drank little, and if they hated him for that he did not care. The army was his life, his only love. He had seen his father slump into indignity and be destroyed by it, and he would do anything to avoid that.

‘Easy, brother,’ Valens said quietly, leaning across the table. He nodded towards the door. ‘I’ve got a couple of spare tokens for the Blue House, if you’re interested.’ Balbinus and Galleo were busy rattling dice in a cup. Castus drank down the rest of his beer and upended the cup on the table.

‘Leaving so soon?’ Balbinus cried, flinging the dice down. ‘And you haven’t even told us again how you beat the King of Persia at arm-wrestling!’

‘You worry me sometimes,’ Valens said as they walked together past the warehouses. ‘You fall into one of your silences, and I think you’re about to start breaking people’s heads open.’ The air was still, the crescent moon bright; it was as close to a pleasant summer’s evening as Castus had known in this country. ‘Mind you, I’m sure nobody’d think any the worse of you if you did…’

‘They’re just talking,’ Castus said, shrugging lightly. ‘Nothing better to do.’ The mood of irritation still gripped him; but there was only one person he wanted to see now, and he knew where to find her. He could still taste the beer on his tongue, and worried that his breath might smell of it – cupping his hand over his mouth, he breathed and sniffed.

The sound of rapid hoofbeats came along the wide central street from the north-west gate. Both centurions stepped back into the shadow of the portico; a solitary horseman in a thick native cloak was riding hard along the street. He reined in before the gates of the headquarters building, shouted a reply to the sentries as he dismounted, and then ran inside.

‘Looks like he’s late for his supper,’ Valens said as they continued across the street and down the broad colonnaded avenue towards the river gate. Knots of men passed in the darkness, some of them saluting when they noticed the centurions’ staffs. A wagon loaded with barrels from the legion brewery groaned by, and then they were passing beneath the arches of the gatehouse and out of the fortress.

The road ran down from the gates to the stone bridge that crossed the river. On the far side, the lights of the civilian settlement spread along the banks. The colony of Eboracum, capital city of Britannia Secunda province, was almost as old as the fortress; Castus had been surprised at its size when he had first come here, although compared to the cities of the east it wasn’t much. Tiled roofs caught the moonlight, and the smoke of a thousand hearths and kitchen fires rose towards the tattered night clouds. City and fortress depended on one another, but the soldiers of the legion did not mix much with the civilians on the other side of the river.