The Wolf's Gold (48 page)

Scaurus bent and placed his weapon on the courtyard’s flagstones, hearing the sounds of blades being lowered to the stones behind him. Gerwulf’s men moved in with their blades held ready to kill, and the tribune watched with the point of a soldier’s sword inches from his face as the prefect stepped forward and sized up the party’s strength with a triumphant smirk.

‘So, what have we here? The bold tribune, come to rescue his lover, his faithful bodyguard, two rather disposable-looking soldiers, and my own dear girl.’

Theodora walked out of the small group, the Germans lifting their blades to allow her to pass, and she put an affectionate arm around Gerwulf’s waist, kissing him on the cheek.

‘Well done my love. I was actually afraid that they were going to make off with me, but you seem to have arrived just in time.’

‘Indeed.’ The prefect looked at Scaurus and his men with a calculating expression for a moment, then flicked a hand at the watch officer commanding his escort. ‘I’ll keep the officer and his servant; you can kill the other two.’

‘Yes, my lord Wolf!’

The Hamians were dragged away to the other side of the courtyard by a pair of men apiece, their scuffles of resistance swiftly silenced by the watch officer’s stabbing sword blows. Scaurus stared at Gerwulf with a sad expression, shaking his head in disgust.

‘You can’t help yourself, can you, Gerwulf? That urge to see men die never gets any weaker, does it?’

The German laughed in his face.

‘In life Scaurus, as you well know, there are killers and there are victims. And I have no intention of becoming the latter through demonstrating any weakness of the kind that has brought you here to me. We’ll go back into the villa now, shall we, and get a fire burning? I’m curious to see just how quickly you feel like telling me how you ever expected to evict me from this tidy little fortress you built for me, once you’ve felt the kiss of red-hot iron a few times.’

Theodora waved a hand dismissively.

‘There’s no need to torture him, he’s already told me what’s happening. Apparently there’s a legion marching on the valley, and it will arrive tonight.’

Gerwulf shook his head with a bark of derision.

‘Bullshit! Legions don’t march in the dark, and even if such an attack was possible there’s no way that infantry could have got here from Porolissum that quickly. He was feeding you false information’ – a thoughtful tone entered the German’s voice – ‘which makes me wonder just how much the tribune here knew about our relationship before now? Perhaps we’ll do without the hot iron and get straight to the point here and now, with nothing more sophisticated than the point of my dagger for an incentive to talk.’

He slid the weapon from its sheath and stepped forward, raising the knife’s point to Scaurus’s eye. The Roman ignored the imminent threat, shaking his head at Gerwulf once more with a pitying note in his voice.

‘You’ve miscalculated, Gerwulf. The Sarmatae came to battle before we even reached the border, and they got their barbarian arses kicked in for their trouble. It seems
some
savages just can’t be educated, doesn’t it? We were already marching south as the advance guard for Clodius Albinus and his legion’s return to Apulum when the news of this rather spectacular piece of larceny arrived, and the legatus has had his men at the double pace ever since. He’s given orders for you to be taken alive at all costs, since he wants to make an example of you that won’t be forgotten for a while. Your future holds nothing more than torture and protracted death, and Theodora’s too, I’d imagine. You’re about to find out what happens when you piss off a Roman aristocrat by biting the hand that’s been feeding you.’

The German shook his head again with a mocking smile on his face.

‘It’s just not quite ringing true I’m afraid. Nice try, Rutilius Scaurus, but I think we’ll just get on with finding out the truth, shall we?’ He raised the knife, putting the point against Scaurus’s lower eyelid. ‘This should be a novel experience for you, using one eye to look into the other.’

A centurion burst into the courtyard panting for breath, gasping out his message as the prefect spun to face him with any thought of torture momentarily forgotten.

‘Lord Wolf! There are lights on the road in the valley!’

Gerwulf strode across to him.

‘What lights? What are you talking about?’

Still gasping for air, the officer pointed back down the road to the wall as he panted out his news.

‘Centurion Hadro sent me to find you, sir. We have torches coming up the road, hundreds of them. He said to tell you it looks like a cohort on the march!’

The German turned away from him, putting his face so close to Scaurus that the Roman could smell the spiced meat on his breath.

‘What kind of fucking trick is this?’

The tribune shrugged.

‘I did try to tell you. That’s my lads closing the front door as the advance guard for the Thirteenth Gemina. Legatus Albinus resolved that we should all march through the night by torchlight, so by morning I expect you’ll be knee-deep in legionaries, and not just in front of the wall either. He’ll seal this place up tighter than an Egyptian tomb and wait until you surrender for lack of food. Of course, the miners will starve to death before it gets to that point, but the legatus doesn’t really care very much about those sorts of incidentals. As we used to say when I served under him in the German Wars, there’s hard, there’s downright ruthless, and then there’s Decimus Clodius Albinus.’

For a moment he was sure that his captor was going to slam the dagger still held in one hand into his belly, but the German turned away and dropped the weapon back into its sheath.

‘You four, take these two prisoners back into the villa and keep a close eye on them. I’ll be back when we know the truth of this apparent attack. The rest of you come with me!’

Marcus and the men huddled in the grass around him had watched in silence as the star that formed Orion’s knee nudged down onto the horizon and disappeared, and the Roman had fingered his amulet and muttered a prayer to Mithras that Silus had managed to achieve his part of the plan as required. After a short while a centurion had run up the hill towards the villa, gasping for breath as he’d struggled against the weight of his armour. In the valley below them they could hear the sounds of soldiers being called to arms, the shouts and curses of their officers and the clatter of equipment. Dubnus had stared at the runner’s back, muttering what they were all thinking.

‘It seems as if Silus has managed to get their attention.’

Marcus’s whispered reply had been a low growl.

‘Indeed. All we need now is for Gerwulf to put his head into the noose.’

The sound of boots on the road that reached them a moment later made the raiding party tense in anticipation, every man straining his eyes up the road into the town. A body of men came running down the hill from the villa, Gerwulf once again in their midst, and Qadir raised his bow in the shadow of the tree once more, only to lower it with a disgusted shake of his head as the pack of men raced past them and on down the valley.

‘There were nineteen of them before, including Gerwulf, but now there are four less. Either our tribune fought and died, but managed to kill four men, or those soldiers have been left behind to guard captives.’

Marcus pulled a face at Qadir’s conclusion.

‘How many men would your two archers have taken down before they were killed, do you think?’

The answer was immediate.

‘Two apiece. Possibly three if they were fortunate.’

‘Exactly. And the tribune and Arminius would have done at least as well. There are too many men left standing for there to have been a fight, and none of them are wounded, or even blooded. I think they’ve been captured.’ He looked at his friend with a grimace of frustration. ‘Mithras, but I’m tempted to kick the doors on that place and pull him out now, but his orders were very clear. Follow me.’

They stood, and Marcus, Dubnus and Martos put on the iron caps they had taken from the men at the mine’s entrance, hefting their captured shields. Marcus led them down the road at a purposeful trot in the wake of Gerwulf’s men, whose hobnails could still be heard clattering down the road towards the wall in the darkness ahead of them. Rounding a corner they came into sight of the Raven Head mine’s camp, now visibly different with the erection of a high palisade around the barracks buildings. A quartet of soldiers was standing guard on the gate, and another four stood on the palisade above them with bows, the latter staring to the west from their elevated position at the lights in the valley beyond the wall. Marcus quickened his pace, running towards the guards with his swords still sheathed and trusting that the three men’s disguises would hold for long enough.

‘So, here we are again?’

Theodora shot a caustic look across the villa’s dining room at Scaurus as he settled back into his chair and ignored the two soldiers whose swords waited only inches from his back, shaking her head at him with a disdainful expression.

‘Don’t go getting any ideas, Tribune. Our couplings were purely professional. You’re
really
not my type.’

He smiled up at her, patting his crotch.

‘Nor you mine, if truth be told. I’ve never really been all that attracted to maneaters, although I can only salute your abilities beneath the sheets. You were good enough value in bed, but I think you’d soon get a little monotonous as a life companion.’ He returned her cold stare with an unruffled shrug. ‘I’m sorry Theodora, but you must realise that your apparent nymphomania makes you somewhat more demanding than most men could manage.’ He laughed at her piqued expression. ‘And do please spare me the indignant glare, madam, because we both know that your main value to your partnership with your
brother
is your skill as a seductress, don’t we?’

Marcus called out the night’s watchword again, shouting a command as he closed with the gate guards.

‘They’ll be sounding the horns any moment now. Close the gates!’

Responding without thought to the note of command in his voice, the four men ran to the gates, starting to heave them closed as the Roman and his companions unexpectedly drew their swords and tore into them. Before the man on the fighting platform above them had a chance to respond to the sudden onslaught, they found themselves under attack by Qadir and his Hamians, two of the enemy falling to the first volley while the men below died on their attacker’s swords without ever really comprehending what was happening. One of the men on the elevated platform drew breath to shout for help, then somersaulted over the railing as an arrow hit him in the head, the air hissing out of him in a scream that was cut off by his crunching impact with the ground.

After a moment’s silence a door opened in the wooden hut that had been tacked onto the side of the palisade, an angry voice calling from just inside. The second wave of Marcus’s party hurried through the arch as Martos and Dubnus put their shoulders to the heavy gates, and the young Roman slapped Lugos on the shoulder, pointing at the open door.

‘What the fuck are you lot pissing about at now? I’ll have your fucking—’

The guard commander stepped through the door and died without ever knowing what had hit him, his corpse bouncing off the door frame with its head smashed by Lugos’s hammer. Bellowing his joy at a chance to fight, the giant Briton raised his leg and kicked the next man in line behind the guard commander back into the hut, then squeezed his bulk though the door frame and punched the hammer’s head into the fallen soldier as he struggled back to his feet. A chorus of screams sounded as he waded into the remaining occupants, the flimsy structure shaking as the warrior unleashed the full fury of his monstrous strength.

‘Shut those gates!’

Qadir and his archers hurried into the palisade as the entrance was secured.

‘There are more soldiers coming.’

Marcus lifted a wry eyebrow, raising his voice to be heard over the bestial roars that Lugos was uttering as he ripped through the helpless guards.

‘It’s hardly surprising, is it? He’s making enough noise to wake the dead.’

Theodora put her head on one side and looked down at him with a different, more calculating expression.

‘And just how long have you known
that
?’

‘How long have I known for certain that you’re the “Wolf’s” sister? Oh, about a week, although I was starting to wonder about you a good while before that. While we were intimate I noticed that you had the faintest hint of fair hair in your scalp, almost unnoticeable unless a man got close to you from behind and you put your head back. I put your dying your hair down to a cosmetic choice, although I’ve always preferred blondes myself, and so I thought no more of it for a while.But when I reached Porolissum I asked a few questions about Gerwulf of an old friend of mine, a man who moved in the same aristocratic circles that you and your brother flirted with during your time in Rome. When he reminded me that the prince had a younger sister – and told me what a swathe she cut through the youth of the senatorial class for a short time – it set me to thinking again, and my thoughts came back to those blonde hair roots. Clodius Albinus told me that Gerwulf’s sister was a blonde, a particularly vivacious young woman who broke several young men’s hearts when she vanished overnight, apparently following her brother when he went to serve on the frontier, and prompting all those scandalous and bitter stories about the two of you being incestuous lovers. Of course, everyone thought you’d be back in no time. The expectation was that life on the frontier would simply be too dull for you after the pleasures of the capital, but now that I’ve met you I know that wasn’t the case, was it?’

She smiled at him, her confidence returning after the shock of his revelation.

‘Far from it, Tribune. It was Rome that was tedious, compared to all the fun we had once my brother was serving. There was always a senior officer willing to look after Gerwulf’s career in return for my favours, and to protect me from being sent back to Rome. It was
much
more fun after he took command of these Germans though. An independent command provides so many more opportunities for mischief.’