Siege Read online

  ‘I just want to die,’ he told me again.

  I put my arm over his shoulders, fighting for words that escaped me. I wanted to tell him that he could overcome it. That the visions would fade. That the pain would go away.

  I wanted to lie.

  ‘I feel like this every day,’ I told him instead.

  The chin lifted. He looked at me. ‘For how long?’

  ‘Years,’ I admitted.

  ‘The screaming? The nightmares?’

  ‘Not spirits, Stumps. The same things you see.’

  The man slumped back on to his heels. ‘So I’m fucked, then? This is my head from now on? I’m as fucked up as you?’

  He meant no offence with the words and I took none.

  ‘Chickenhead told me how to get better,’ I told him. ‘He said you have to accept your memories. You can’t run from them.’

  ‘I don’t want to feel like this forever,’ Stumps pleaded.

  I took hold of the back of my friend’s head, and pulled him into my shoulder.

  Stumps pushed back from me after a moment, suddenly conscious of his vulnerability. My own itched and bit at me like a swarm of insects as my comrade turned to look at the altar.

  ‘It doesn’t end, does it? War.’

  How could I disagree? All of my life I had seen war’s stain. Regardless of a campaign’s outcome, there was no such thing as a definitive end. Victory was simply the sowing of seeds for the next generation’s battles. Defeat was a grudge that would demand vengeance. No, it did not seem that there was an end to war itself, but one way or another it would end for the soldiers that fought it. Until then it would rage inside of minds if not on battlefields. I did not know of a way to heal these wounds, but I knew of a bandage.

  ‘Come on,’ I told my friend. ‘Let’s go and find some more wine.’

  22

  Blood pounded inside my skull. My chest heaved. Bile was rising from my gut.

  A voice laughed. ‘He’s going to be sick again.’

  I puked. The purple-tinged liquid pattered the dirt floor. Wiping at my mouth, I saw my section laughing.

  ‘Never again,’ I swore to Stumps, the man my equal in degeneracy.

  ‘Just kill me,’ he croaked.

  We had drunk late into the afternoon and then stood a very shaky guard during the night. Arminius’s host had continued to shrink during the daylight hours, creating a jubilant mood in the camp, and so Stumps and I were far from the only soldiers wishing for death as an escape from our hangovers. Instead of that mercy, we were tearing down unneeded buildings for the fort’s supply of wood for fuel and the construction of defences.

  ‘Fu-fu-fuck!’ Balbus called out, grabbing at a hand that trickled blood. ‘Fu-fu-fucking splinter,’ he explained as we tore away the wooden planks of what had been a storeroom.

  ‘What do you think Arminius will do now?’ Dog asked me, his hideous breath threatening to make me gag once more. I was in no mood to answer questions, but as I was the man’s commander, some sense of duty compelled me to concentrate and string a sentence together.

  ‘I don’t know, Dog. He’s left enough of a force to keep us contained, so I expect he’s settling in for a siege.’

  ‘There’re only a few th-th-thousand of them out there,’ Balbus put in, pulling at the splinter in his palm. ‘Not enough to stop the Rh-Rhine legion when they come fo-for us.’

  ‘Who says they’re coming?’ Statius asked, his face darkened by more than just bruises. ‘Why risk leaving the bases to rescue a few hundred of us?’

  ‘Because we’re Ru-Romans?’ Balbus answered, as if speaking to a child.

  ‘Statius is right.’ Folcher spoke up in his thick Latin. ‘Rome must come first, not us. I hope that the Rhine legions stay where they are. Arminius must never cross there.’

  Dog looked at the Batavian with a wry smile. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you? You don’t want that.’

  ‘I do,’ Folcher answered. ‘Rome is bigger than all of us.’

  ‘None of us are saying the Empire doesn’t come first,’ Dog allowed. ‘But are you really saying you want it to forget about us?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Bollocks.’ Statius laughed. ‘You’re not even a Roman citizen. Why would you care?’

  ‘Because I will be a citizen,’ Folcher answered proudly. ‘So will my children. So will their children.’

  ‘I didn’t realize it meant that much to you.’ Dog shrugged, handing the Batavian a hammer.

  ‘That is because it is not appreciated what you have. I will soldier for twenty-five years for this. Maybe I will die.’

  ‘Have you ever even been to Rome?’ Statius asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘So you’d die for a city you’ve never seen?’

  Folcher let his body language talk for him – he would.

  Statius smiled. ‘Rome’s a cesspit. I was born there. If it’s so great, then why does anyone from there leave and end up in the legions?’

  ‘For duty,’ Folcher answered without hesitation.

  Statius laughed at his answer. ‘Because they can’t find work,’ he told the Batavian. ‘Because they hate being poor and hungry. Or, if the Empire feels like it, because they get told to join, and have no fucking choice.’

  ‘Which were you?’ Brando asked.

  ‘What does it matter? I’m here. I’m just telling you, don’t be so quick to die for a city that doesn’t care.’

  Folcher hit a plank of wood violently with the hammer, knocking it to the floor. ‘I care,’ I thought I heard him mutter.

  The conversation died there, returning instead to the necessities of the task, and the ever-at-hand topics of the soldier: wine and tits.

  I held my tongue, instead chastising myself for drinking, and thinking of what Folcher and Statius had said.

  Rome. Folcher was not the only man in the section who had never set eyes on it. The centre of the Empire had controlled my life in one way or another since I was born, but I had never walked its streets, set foot in the forum or taken in its grand temples and palaces. And yet I had killed hundreds for that place. I had suffered for it, and inflicted suffering upon others. As a child and a young man I had looked on the idea of the city with love. Then, witnessing its true face, I had considered her the great betrayer. It was enough to say that I now hated the capital, the Empire and all that they stood for.

  But here I was, sweating and labouring at the Empire’s behest. There seemed no escaping the claws of her eagles.

  ‘Let’s go and see Titus,’ I suggested to Stumps as our task was completed, and we were relieved from duty for a few hours. ‘I need something good to eat, and he’s probably the one to have it.’

  ‘Not me. I’m going to sleep.’

  And so I walked alone to the quartermaster’s department. Alone, that is, aside from the thoughts of Rome, of the puppet master that controlled my life.

  ‘Just get to Britain,’ I said out loud.

  The quartermaster’s building had been built to hold the supplies of a fully manned fort, and was a large wooden building that warranted its own guard force, siege or not.

  ‘I’m looking for Titus,’ I asked one of the pair of legionaries at the door. ‘The QM,’ I added.

  The soldier looked me up and down. No doubt he was on Titus’s payroll.

  ‘I was in his section in the forest,’ I snapped, my hangover and hunger putting me in no mood for games. ‘Is he here or not?’

  ‘Nah, he’s not here,’ the man eventually answered.

  I tried to read his lined face. I had no idea whether or not he was telling the truth, but what did it matter? I wasn’t about to start throwing punches to get to Titus for conversation and food.

  ‘Tell him Felix was looking for him.’

  I considered asking the man where Metella was operating out of. Instead I decided to give up. I would return to the barrack block and follow Stumps’s example of sleep.

  It was a female voice that stopped me in my tracks.
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  ‘Felix.’

  I turned, seeing the German girl who had talked to me as I’d washed the blood of the night raid from my arms and face.

  I opened my mouth to speak …

  But I’d forgotten her name.

  ‘Linza,’ she answered for me.

  I smiled to cover my embarrassment.

  ‘You look lost?’ she asked, smiling too; do all women enjoy a man’s discomfort?

  ‘Looking for a friend,’ I explained.

  ‘Did you find him?’

  I shook my head. ‘In all honesty, I was more interested in his food than his company.’

  My words were meant as a joke, but Linza’s face took on an earnest expression. ‘I have food.’

  ‘What? No. I couldn’t. I’m—’

  ‘Come. I have food.’

  And without waiting for my reply, she took hold of my arm and led me into the fort’s alleyways.

  We were silent as we walked, my mouth kept shut out of fear of further embarrassment. Embarrassment that this woman had taken such pity on my skeleton-like body that she needed to feed me. My discomfort wasn’t helped as other civilians shot us looks as we passed, doubtless convinced that it was my cock guiding me, and not my stomach.

  Linza ignored the looks. She was either oblivious to them, or didn’t care, and we soon arrived at a barrack block that was being used to house civilians.

  ‘Wait here,’ she instructed me, disappearing within.

  As I did, I watched a group of young children playing in the dirt. Two young boys waved sticks at one another, the German warrior and the legionary. It was a game now, but if the siege broke … I could only hope the end would be quick for them.

  ‘Here.’ I opened my eyes to see Linza had returned with a bowl of stew and a handful of biscuits.

  ‘I can’t take this,’ I protested.

  ‘We’ll share. Come on,’ she said, gesturing that I join her on one of the barrack block’s steps. ‘The others were happy to give it. They like having a soldier around.’

  ‘Why?’ I asked, sitting back against the wood.

  ‘You know why,’ she replied with a dark expression.

  We ate silently for a while after that, dipping the biscuits into the thick stew. It was good. The siege was only days old, and Caedicius had not imposed rationing on either civilians or the fighting men.

  ‘Where are you from?’ she asked me through a mouthful.

  ‘The Seventeenth Legion.’

  ‘No. In the world.’

  I had known what she meant, but was hoping I could sidestep the question. I looked at her, and saw a face that was open and without guile.

  ‘Dalmatia,’ I replied, and found myself smiling. Speaking a word of truth somehow made my shoulders feel lighter. After years of deceit, a brief moment of honesty warmed me like sun on my face.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ I told her, feeling that heat as if I were there. Remembering what it had been like to grow up in a sun-drenched port city.

  ‘You miss it,’ she stated. My feelings were easy to read.

  ‘I do.’

  ‘How long since you were there?’

  ‘A long time,’ I answered as I took another bite of biscuit. ‘And you?’

  ‘From Batavia. I followed the army this summer to Minden. My first time from home.’

  Linza’s missing husband was a Batavian auxiliary in Varus’s army, and so, like so many other loved ones, she must have followed him that summer on campaign. No one in the Empire expected that the intended show of strength would degenerate into the massacre of an entire army.

  ‘You’ll be home soon.’

  ‘Maybe.’ The girl shrugged. ‘But without my husband.’

  ‘I’m sure he got out,’ I offered lamely.

  She gave me a tired smile, thanking me for my effort. ‘Tell me more about Dalmatia,’ she asked me, apparently to steer us clear of grieving waters. She had no idea that her question would lead me to my own heartache.

  ‘I’ve got watch tonight,’ I apologized, getting to my feet. ‘Let me give you some coins for the food.’

  I was relieved when she refused my offer; I had none.

  ‘You can bring to me next time.’

  ‘This is where you live?’

  ‘Yes. And my name is Linza. So you don’t forget again.’

  She had a good smile. I couldn’t help but get swept up in it. ‘Thank you.’

  I walked away, and made for my own barrack block. As I picked my way through the space between the wooden buildings I thought of home, and Dalmatia. I thought of Linza’s smile, and how it had reminded me of a woman I had left there.

  My woman.

  I put my face in my hands, and tried not to scream.

  23

  There was a sharp chill in the night’s air, but my section was mobile, the thick cloaks draped over our armour catching the heat from our movements, and warming all but our faces. The tramp of hobnails was punctuated by sniffling noses.

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Dog, breathe through your nose,’ Stumps begged.

  ‘It’s blocked.’

  ‘I can feel your breath peeling off my skin.’

  ‘It’s not that bad.’

  ‘You don’t have to smell it.’

  Stumps’s insults were a signal of high spirits. It had been a good day. Arminius’s army had shown no sign of growing, and the men of the section had enjoyed the labour of tearing down the buildings and then an afternoon of rest before this night duty. With three of the other sections we were assigned to rove below the walls, vigilant for break-ins from outside or theft within. It was a typical duty for a frontier soldier. Enforcing the law was a far more common order than to close with, and engage, the enemy. Of course, I knew that administering Rome’s laws could be just as bloody as any battle.

  ‘I saw a ghost once. On a night duty.’ Dog spoke up, doubtless wanting to steer the topic of conversation away from his breath.

  ‘A ghost?’ Micon asked, his face suddenly animated in the torchlight.

  ‘Yeah. On the walls at Mogontiacum.’ Dog was referring to the stone fort there, which sat beside the Rhine. ‘It was walking the walls, and wailing.’

  Statius snorted. ‘Bollocks.’

  ‘It’s the truth.’

  ‘It was probably just some pissed soldier.’

  ‘Nope. It didn’t have a head. It was a ghost, I’m telling you.’

  ‘Probably shoved his own head up his arse so he didn’t have to smell you,’ Stumps said provocatively.

  ‘You don’t believe in ghosts?’ asked Dog.

  ‘Not really. How many goat-fuckers are dead on the other side of that wall? They’d all be running around here, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘Only unhappy spirits are ghosts,’ Dog argued.

  ‘Yeah, and I’m sure they were really happy dying from their wounds in a stinking ditch.’

  ‘I believe in ghosts.’ I spoke up, surprising my men.

  ‘What?’ Stumps’s face creased beneath the brim of his helmet.

  ‘I believe in ghosts,’ I repeated. ‘But not like Dog thinks he saw. I think that ghosts live in our heads. They come with us from battlefields. Those dead Germans in the ditch? Their ghosts went back with their friends. Some of them are in the heads of the men who fought on the wall.’

  Stumps chewed over my words, doubtless thinking of the voices he heard inside his own mind, and the images that were painted there. ‘That makes sense,’ he agreed.

  Brando and Folcher were also slowly nodding.

  ‘Not many of us to carry the ghosts out of the forest,’ Brando considered. ‘A lot to fit in a few heads.’

  Folcher rubbed at his face, almost as if he was trying to feel for a presence within. ‘If that is true, I would be happy to see these things. To have my comrades still with me.’

  His words hit me. I had carried my ghosts, but I had always considered it a curse. Could it be that through my own suffering, I offered my comrades a taste of immortality? Was that not a
price worth paying in pain?

  When the scream echoed through the night, I almost thought that they were answering me, but moments later, a trumpet began to blare from the direction of the headquarters building.

  ‘They’re su-sounding the assembly,’ Balbus said. The distinction was important; this was not a stand-to. We were not under attack.

  I led the section at a jog-trot towards the trumpet. The other sections of the night’s watch converged with us. The crest of Centurion H appeared from the door of the headquarters building.

  ‘With me!’ he shouted, and led off at a run.

  I recognized our direction. We were going into the part of the fort that had been turned over to the civilians. I wondered why, but heard my answer before I saw it: angry shouts; cries of grief. So deep in the night, they could only mean death.

  The alleyway between buildings was packed with three dozen civilians. Most were adult women, and the ones that were not crying hissed insults at whoever was in their midst. I saw then flashes of shields – soldiers were in the centre of the crowd.

  ‘Close shields,’ H ordered us. ‘Keep weapons sheathed. We’ll push them off if we have to.’ Then he ordered the civilians: ‘Move back!’

  ‘Fuck you!’ a young woman spat back.

  ‘Last chance, darling.’

  The noise of the crowd dropped as the civilians finally began to realize the power of the overlapping shields, and the centurion’s intent to use them.

  They moved, and as they pulled away they revealed a section of soldiers who had closed in a circle. As the crowd gave them space these men opened their formation, revealing a body in their centre.

  It was a young girl. She was shy of her teens. A quick look was all I needed to see that she’d been butchered like a pig.

  ‘Felix, use your section to close off this stretch of the alleyway. Make some space around her,’ H ordered, gesturing to the slaughtered girl. He then moved his other sections, and very soon the girl’s body was in the centre of an island of calm. On the edges of that space, angry faces spat and cursed at the soldiers who kept them from the body.