Wounds of Honour: Empire I (12 page)

He turned his head to look at Marcus’s face for a moment, checking for any reaction. The road ran arrow straight up to the next fold in the land, making Marcus open his mouth to increase his air intake, but he kept his eyes fixed on the horizon.

‘The prefect knows very well what his role here is, and so do I. He’s here for two or three years, to represent Rome, and make decisions as to the course of action the cohort should follow in Rome’s service. I’ve been here for my entire adult life, and I’ll stay here until I retire, or die in combat. My word as to the ways in which those decisions are carried out is final, although since we respect each other’s judgement he will usually issue orders upon which we’ve agreed jointly. I also make all decisions as to who is allowed to enter service, based on what centurions tell me and on what I see with my own eyes. And from what I see and hear,
you
represent a good deal of trouble to both the prefect and this unit. If it were a simple “yes” or “no” on those grounds I wouldn’t even be taking this trouble to understand you better.’

He fell silent for a moment as they marched on side by side, and then spoke again.

‘The prefect, however, sees something in you that he encourages me to consider before making that decision. Your threat of suicide found a chink in his armour you may not have appreciated. His uncle fell on his own sword after losing most of a cohort just like this one in the German forests twenty years ago, but not before writing to tell his nephew why he was doing it. Prefect Equitius still has the tablet. Consequently, his sense of honour is his prime motivation when he considers your case. Would you do the same?’

Marcus blinked for a second at the unexpected question.

‘Yes, sir. I would have no other remaining choice.’

‘Very well.’

Frontinius stopped walking under the shadow of a lone tree growing by the roadside and drew his gladius with a swift movement, holding it towards Marcus with the hilt foremost. The sun eased one corner of its disc out from behind the cloud that had obscured it for much of the day, caressing the landscape with a slender strand of light.

‘Take the sword.’

Marcus did so with a sudden feeling of utter detachment, hefting the weapon with one hand, judging the weapon’s fine balance and razor-sharp blade.

‘It goes with the responsibilities I bear, passed from each First Spear to his successor. It’s an old weapon, forged in the Year of the Four Emperors over a hundred years ago, and it belonged to a prefect who rewarded an act of bravery in battle which saved his life with the gift of his personal weapon. The courage you’ve shown to get this far entitles you to fall on a blade whose honour is indisputable.’

He stood in silence on the empty road, watching Marcus intently, his body taut in its readiness for action, with one hand resting lightly on his dagger’s ornately decorated handle. Marcus looked at the weapon’s blade for a long moment before speaking. His senses sharpened perceptibly, the tiny sounds of bird calls and the breeze’s ruffling of his hair suddenly catching his attention, although the colours of grass and sky seemed to fade to dusty, washed-out shades.

‘Thank you, First Spear, for at least providing me with a dignified exit. I must now look to find revenge for these wrongs in the next life.’

Clamping his mouth firmly shut, he steeled himself for the act, placing the sword’s point firmly against his sternum, and taking a last deep breath before throwing himself forward. A strong arm whipped out and grabbed his rough shirt as he fell towards the ground, turning him in midair. He hit the road’s surface hard on his back, losing his hold on the sword’s hilt and letting it fall. Frontinius looked down at him, holding his hand out, with a new respect in his eyes.

‘You
meant
it. That’s something.’

Marcus reached up and took the hand offered by the officer, climbing back on to his feet. The officer’s sword was already back in its scabbard.

‘I’m sorry, that was deliberately cruel, but I had to know if you had the stomach for what you threatened.’

Frontinius was intrigued by the look he received in return for his apology, the dark eyes seeming to skewer his soul. Perhaps, if the man were trained to
use
that ability …

‘What would you have done if I had failed to use the sword, or turned it upon you?’

A laugh cracked Frontinius’s face, despite the gravity of the situation.

‘I’d have cut your throat with this.’

He pulled the dagger, cocked his wrist and threw the short blade, putting it cleanly into the centre of a truncated branch that projected a foot out from the tree’s trunk at head height, lopped off by a work gang when it had grown to obstruct the road. He reached to retrieve the knife, speaking over his shoulder.

‘They’re not made for throwing, but when you practise enough anything’s possible. As you may discover. Now march!’

They walked on along the road’s arrow-straight path, passing an eight-man detachment patrolling back towards the Hill.

‘Keep marching.’

The older man turned back for a hundred yards, marching alongside the detachment and studying each man’s uniform in turn before turning once more, calling over his shoulder to the tent party’s leader.

‘A very good turn out, young man, we’ll make a chosen man of you yet!’

‘Thank you, First Spear!’

He jogged back along the road to catch Marcus, barely breathing hard with the effort. Slowing to a brisk walk, he resumed the conversation.

‘My cohort, less than a thousand men, is expected to keep the peace along this sector of the line, out to a range of fifty or so miles either side of the Wall. We are the only law this country has, both in front of and behind the rampart. We control two tribal gathering points, the only place those peoples are permitted to come together, and then only under the supervision of an officer of this unit. They hate us with a passion, more so since we are their own people turned to the empire’s purpose, and within our area of control there are
fifty
of them for every soldier within our walls. Our strength, the thing that counterbalances that disadvantage in numbers, is our discipline, the strength of our resolve. We dominate the ground, we know its secrets, and we
own
every fold and seam. They know that, know that we’ll die to keep it ours, but that many more of them will have to die to take it from us. Yes, there are legions within a few days’ march, but we’ll have to meet any attempt to dislodge us alone, most likely us and the other ten thousand or so men like us along the frontier.

‘Men join this unit at an average age of fourteen summers, serve most of their adult lives in the ranks, most of that time doing boring or dirty jobs unless they get the chance to become an immune, with a few hours of death and terror thrown in every few years. Some of them, the better soldiers, rise to command tent parties, or if they’re really effective, to the position of watch officer, and even fewer to chosen man, deputy to their centurion, responsible for keeping the century aligned and pointing the right way in battle. The best of them, the boldest and the bravest, ten men in eight hundred, reach the position of centurion, with their own rooms, high rates of pay, but most of all with the privilege of leading their century into battle in the proud traditions of the Tungrians. What makes you think you can live up to their ideal?’

Marcus took a moment before replying, weighing his words carefully to avoid his earnestness being mistaken for desperation.

‘I can’t promise you that I will. But I can promise you that I will do everything in my power to make it so …’

The older man stopped, trying hard to suppress a smile as he cocked a sardonic eyebrow.

‘So we’ll do for you for now, will we, until the issue of your legal status is forgotten? What then, I wonder?’

Marcus’s nostrils flared with his anger and he turned swiftly, making the other man tense involuntarily and extend a stealthy hand towards his sword’s hilt as a dirty, broken-nailed finger tapped his armoured chest.

‘
Enough!
I’ve been hunted across this country, questioned by you and your prefect as if I
were
a criminal, instead of an innocent man whose entire family has been slaughtered, and had my honour and my ability doubted one time too many. I’ve put up with it all because I’ve been in no position to argue with the men judging me, and perhaps that’s still the case, but for now I’ve tolerated just as much as I can. So, make your mind up, First Spear, either give me the chance I crave or cut my bloody throat, but you
will
stop playing with me, one way or another!’

Folding his arms, he glared back at the officer, clearly at the end of his patience. Frontinius nodded slowly, walking around him in a slow deliberate circle until he once again faced the younger man.

‘So there is anger in there, it just needed a spark to light the tinder. Just as well too, you’d be no good to me if you didn’t have fire in your guts, although you’ll be sorry if you ever speak to me that way in front of any other man. Very well, I’m decided. I’ll go against tradition, break the rules and offer you a bargain. I’ll give you a position as centurion, probationary, mind you, and with the decision as to your suitability entirely mine, on the condition that I get something I need. Something my cohort needs more than anything else, right now.’

‘You’ve
accepted
him?’

Equitius’s eyes widened with genuine surprise.

‘Yes. He’s being issued with his equipment now.’

The prefect smiled quietly.

‘Thank you. You’ve allowed me to discharge a debt to Sollemnis.’

The senior centurion grimaced.

‘We’ll see. All I’ve agreed to is to give him a chance. One I fully expect him to fail to grasp. In return I get two centurions for the price of one. Or, more likely, one very good centurion and a corpse for quiet burial …’

Equitius stared at him questioningly. His First Spear smiled grimly in return.

‘Well, you didn’t think I was going to let a fully trained legion centurion slip through my fingers, did you? I had a quiet chat with Tiberius Rufius earlier today and he made me an interesting proposition, given our current dearth of trained centurions. It’s a deal I resolved to accept only if there was a hint of talent in young Corvus – which, to be fair, there is. Your friend the legatus gets a hiding place for his son, and in return I get the use of his man Rufius until the first snowfall of next winter. Sounds like fair barter to me.’

4

Marcus didn’t realise how his place with the Tungrians had been secured until the soldier ordered to take him to the fort’s stores for equipping pointed him through the door into their twilight world. Quintus Tiberius Rufius stood waiting for him beside the long wooden counter, a pile of equipment and clothing stacked next to him. Marcus paused in the doorway for a moment, adjusting to both the gloom and his own surprise.

‘Quintus, what are you …’

The older man grinned sheepishly, clearly torn between his pleasure at being back in uniform and what his presence said for the provenance of his friend’s recruitment.

‘I’ve taken the salt again, lad, accepted the offer of a centurion’s berth for a year, or more if it works out well.’

Marcus made the connection, and his face creased with sudden anger.

‘So I get a chance to make a new start at the cost of your service? Well, it isn’t going to …’

He stopped speaking, brought to a halt by Rufius’s raised hand.

‘Just a moment, lad.
You!
Come here!’

The store’s clerk detached himself from the rack of spears behind which he’d been lurking, and unwillingly presented himself at the counter’s far side. Rufius shot out an arm, grasping him firmly by one ear and dragging his head across the broad expanse of age-polished wood.

‘Interesting, was it, our conversation?’

The head shook vigorously, or as much as possible with one ear pinned to the counter. Rufius drew his dagger, and slid the point under the pinned ear’s flesh, allowing the steel to caress its curve.

‘Good. Let’s be clear, if I hear anything about the last minute of my private conversation with my friend here repeated I’ll have this ear off your head within the hour. You might be an immune, but it won’t protect you from my blade. Got it?’

The head nodded frantically.

‘Good. Now go and hide in the back of this shed, and don’t come back out until I tell you to.’

The clerk vanished into the gloom without a backward glance. Rufius turned back to his friend with a wry smile.

‘One thing you learn early on, everything you say in a cohort’s stores is public property, just as sure as the stores officer is the richest man in the fort if he has an ounce of wit about him. Now, you were in the middle of telling me how you weren’t going to tolerate such treatment, my being blackmailed to serve with the cohort in return for your safety?’

‘I …’

Rufius raised his hands again, silencing the other man.

‘One moment. Before you say any more, I think I should make
my
position clear. When Sollemnis asked me to bring you here, he warned me that Prefect Equitius is desperately short of experienced officers. He cautioned me that Equitius, or more likely his First Spear, might try to induce me to serve here. And do you know, when he told me that my heart fairly leapt in my chest. You think I’m being blackmailed, and yes, Frontinius thinks that he’s extorted a bargain from me that serves him well, but the real winner here is
me
.’

Marcus frowned his lack of understanding.

‘But why? Surely you’ve earned an easier time after twenty-five years of service?’

Rufius reached into the pile of his new kit, pulling from it his vine stick, the twisted wood shiny from years of use.

‘See this? A simple piece of wood with no more value than kindling for a fire, until I pick it up. In my hands, however, it becomes the symbol of my authority. For fifteen years I carried another, very much like this, all over this country, until it was like part of my body. It was the first thing I reached for in the morning, and the last thing I put down at night, and let me tell you, I
loved
that life. And do you want to know the worst day of my twenty-five years under the eagle?’