Siege Read online

‘It’s those fucking Syrians!’ I heard a male voice shout repeatedly. I identified him in the group to my front, dark-skinned and bearded. Likely a trader who had followed Varus’s army on campaign, but had escaped its destruction.

  ‘Come here,’ I ordered him.

  I had to repeat my words more forcefully before the man stepped forwards.

  ‘Syrians did this?’ I asked him.

  The man’s volume decreased as he stood closer to me and my men, but his words were thick with bile. ‘Of course they did. Look at that poor girl! They butchered her.’

  ‘You saw them?’

  ‘No, but it was them. Look at her!’ he implored me. ‘Of course it was the savages!’

  H joined me on my shoulder. ‘You witnessed this?’ he asked the man.

  ‘No, but—’

  ‘Then shut your mouth and fuck off. You’re wasting my time. Did anyone see what happened?’ he asked the crowd.

  No one had.

  ‘Anyone here family? Anyone know her?’

  Two pairs of hands crept up. They belonged to a girl who was about the same age as the victim, and a terrified-looking mother with wild blue eyes.

  ‘Come here,’ H ordered them, gesturing that they come forward. I moved aside to let them through, and then cocked my head to listen in on their conversation.

  ‘Who is the girl? Is this your friend? Daughter? Who is she?’ H asked.

  ‘My Latin not good,’ the woman answered eventually.

  H appraised her blue eyes and fair hair, then turned to Brando. ‘Brando. Is she German?’

  Brando let loose a string of words in his native language. When the woman replied, H gestured for the Batavian to join him.

  ‘You’ll translate,’ he told the man. ‘Who is the girl?’

  Brando delivered the words in a voice of stone. The woman’s own words were guilt-ridden and tear-filled. ‘Her family was lost with the legions. Her father was a legionary. She came here with them. Her name was Frida.’

  ‘And what happened to her?’

  ‘I don’t know. She must have gone to the latrines. I woke and she was gone. Then I heard the scream as someone found her.’

  ‘It’s not your fault,’ H assured her, understanding the emotion if not the language. He asked his next question delicately. This was a young girl lying dead, but the world was sick as well as cruel, and so H asked what needed to be asked. ‘Was she … was she selling herself? Was someone else selling her?’

  The woman shook her head strongly.

  ‘Do you think I have no shame?’ Brando translated.

  ‘Wait with them,’ H ordered instead of answering. ‘Who found the body?’ he asked the crowd.

  An older woman with thinning silver hair stepped forward. She seemed unsteady on her feet. She was shaking. Folcher saw it too, and quickly draped his cloak over her bony shoulders.

  ‘Tell me what happened,’ H asked her. He had to repeat himself as the woman’s wet eyes fixed squarely on the body that lay in the dirt.

  ‘I went to the latrine,’ she finally managed. ‘It was dark, and I tripped.’

  ‘On her?’

  The woman lifted her hands. They were stained with blood.

  ‘It was you that screamed?’

  ‘She’s so young …’

  ‘Was it you that screamed?’

  She nodded slowly.

  ‘And you didn’t see anything?’

  ‘It was dark.’ Her eyes crept back to the body. ‘She’s so young …’

  H caught Folcher’s eye, and motioned that he take the woman aside.

  ‘The Syrians did this!’ a voice shouted. ‘They’re not Roman! Get them out of the fort!’

  H walked to the front of the crowd. ‘Shut up and be calm,’ he snapped. ‘Did anyone see Syrians here tonight? Have they been around here, watching the girls? Anything like that?’

  ‘I saw them looking at me when I went to get water,’ a dark-haired woman called out.

  ‘Where were they?’ H asked.

  ‘On the wall. I was filling the buckets.’

  H turned from her, doubtless thinking the same as I: the girl was pretty. Syrian or Roman, every bored sentry would have been looking her way.

  ‘But around here?’ H pressed. ‘Especially with younger girls.’

  ‘I saw some of them playing with children,’ an older man put in, his back stooped but eyes livid. ‘They’re perverts. You’ve heard what they do in the East.’

  ‘What kind of playing?’

  ‘Chasing them around. Talking to them.’

  ‘Did they touch them?’

  The man struggled to find a moment in his memory when they had. Slowly, he shook his head.

  H let out a sigh of frustration. ‘Did you think what they were doing was strange at the time? Before this?’

  The man shook his head once more.

  ‘This is going nowhere,’ H whispered behind my shoulder. ‘We’ll hold a cordon until Malchus gets here. He can decide what to do.’

  It was some time before the cohort commander arrived. Some remained to gawp and point blame, while others returned to the comfort of their bunks.

  ‘What a fucking mess,’ Malchus surmised as he looked at the girl. ‘Ripped her clean open.’

  ‘Every one of them’s blaming the Syrians,’ I heard H mutter, gesturing towards the crowd.

  ‘This wasn’t the lizards.’ Malchus dismissed the theory. ‘They like little boys. Probably one of the perverts in our own ranks, H. What do these civvies expect?’ He spoke with bitterness. ‘That the blokes can rape and pillage in the name of Rome, then turn it off when they’re told to?’

  ‘That’s discipline, sir,’ H countered.

  ‘It is, H, which is why we’re not all running around here like a bunch of fucking pirates, but it only takes one or two of the men to fall through the cracks. Keep a close eye on your blokes. People’s brains start to boil under siege.’

  The cohort commander was right. Any battle brought with it its own pressures, but there was a release from that in bloodshed – a relief. If battle was a quick beating, then siege was slow torture: the agony of never knowing when there would be danger or where it would come from; the constant companions of fear and hunger. It changed people. A lucky few came out of it vitalized and with the ability to then attack any obstacle, but most became withdrawn and fearful. Some broke and took their own lives, or the lives of others.

  Looking at the butchered girl in the dirt, I knew that she would not be the last victim to die within the walls.

  24

  I pushed open the doorway and stepped into the courtyard. Sunlight bounced back from the white walls. Alongside paths of painted tiles, perfect lines of flowers shimmered in their ranks like armoured soldiers.

  I walked to the centre of the square garden, dipping my hand into the cool water of the pond. As I moved, my eyes searched for an ambush that I hoped would come swiftly.

  There was nothing.

  I looked into the pond’s calming waters. In the reflection I saw a handsome young man, skin darkened by sun, eyes set alight by life.

  I smiled. I was enjoying this game.

  I went through the house room by room. It was quiet. My family had gone to visit friends and were not expected back until later that night, when they would be soaked with wine and witless. The slaves had been relieved of their duties for the day, and so my footsteps echoed in the deserted building. There was haste in my footfalls; I wanted to make use of this unexpected privacy.

  Twice I searched rooms where window veils played gently with the ocean breeze, dappled light falling across furniture polished as dark as my father’s beard. Twice I searched, and twice I was beaten.

  I left the house and walked on to the street. I could feel the heat through my sandals, but the breeze drew its fingers across my neck like a caress. A prelude to what I searched for.

  Despite the heat, I ran. Sweat began to stain my white toga, but I was young. An athlete. My breath was steady and my limbs
were loose. The coast appeared before me, golden sand and a glittering sea. Hot sand pushed between my toes. I looked left and right along a beach that knew my deepest secret.

  I was alone. The game was wearing on me, but I was young, and competitive. No matter the sport, no matter the challenge, I did not lose.

  I looked at the ocean. The wet prow of a galley glowed golden as the oars beat their way out to sea. I took a moment to indulge my imagination, thinking of her destination. Of Rome. Of endless possibility.

  The ship had left the port of my home town, and now I knew that this was where the game would end.

  I ran along the sand, stamping it from my feet as I reached the paved streets, picking my way between olive-skinned merchants and haggling slaves. A child caught my eye, and smiled for a coin. I threw him two. I wanted my happiness to be a disease. Contagious. I wanted everyone in the port to feel the same thumping heartbeat of anticipation as I did. The same thrill that flushed my skin, and carried me like an emperor above the heads of those around me.

  I knew where the game would end – on the stone pier that drove out into the ocean. It was the closest point we had to Rome. The point where we would sit and dream.

  Today would be the day that dream became reality. Today, when the game ended, a life would begin in its place.

  I turned a final corner between fishing baskets, the smell of salt and olive oil filling my nostrils, and then I saw the pier. It was a scrum of men, women and children. Sailors loaded a galley that was sitting deep as its hull was filled. Old men cast lines into the water for their dinner. The pier was packed, and yet to my eyes it was empty.

  She wasn’t there.

  Somehow, I had lost the game.

  I turned for home. Deflated, my eyes were on the cobblestones as I walked into my father’s thick chest, the bristles of his beard pushing against my face.

  ‘Father?’ I asked, confused. Confused because he was supposed to be with his friends. Confused because, for the first time in my life, the man looked down at me with disappointment.

  And then, he told me how the game would end.

  25

  I was used to waking to my screams, not tears. I felt them roll across my gaunt cheeks as I rose from my bed and swung my feet on to the barrack-room floor.

  I felt hollow. As gutted as the girl who’d been butchered three nights earlier. My body was still, not fighting violently as it did against my night terrors, but my spirit had fled. I was so calm and empty that, for a moment, I wondered if I’d died in my sleep.

  Comrades snored in their bunks; this was not the afterlife. Regardless, I wanted to be free from it.

  I took hold of my cloak, pulling it over my shoulders, and stepped out into the night air. The moon was low, and my section was relieved of duty until dawn, when the entire garrison would stand to, prepared for any assault – a daily ritual. Not wanting to return to the dream that had drained me, I walked towards the centurion’s quarters, which were situated at the end of the block. When the century was off duty, one man would remain at his post there, keeping a log of the soldiers’ whereabouts.

  ‘Felix, Seven Section,’ I told the man on duty. ‘I’m going to the quartermaster’s.’

  ‘Meeting your mate, are you?’ the soldier asked, bored and hoping for conversation.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Stumps. Seven Section. He’s gone to the same place.’

  I hadn’t noticed Stumps’s bunk was empty, and suddenly felt glad that I would have his company. Despite the enemy camped on our doorstep, our life within the fort was taking on the routine of rest and guard duties, and in that discipline Stumps seemed to be finding some sense of order, and a return to his sarcastic self.

  ‘I’m here to see Titus,’ I told the two men that stood sentry at the quartermaster department’s door.

  ‘Yeah, he’s in there,’ one of them answered whilst warming his hands over a crackling brazier.

  I stepped inside.

  Flickering candles lit the room. Placed lower than the man’s towering height, they turned Titus’s already imposing face into a figure of dread.

  ‘Fucking glad you’re here,’ he grunted. ‘Thought I was gonna have to carry him on my own.’

  I looked at the floor. By Titus’s feet lay the prone figure of our comrade.

  ‘Drunk?’ I asked.

  ‘Drunk was hours ago. I’m not sure what I call this. He’s fucking pissed himself too, so watch your hands when you grab him. I’ll take the arms.’

  ‘Don’t you have stretchers?’

  Titus laughed. ‘Sometimes I forget there’s more to this place than a front.’

  ‘Business going well, is it?’

  ‘Yeah, and you could be a part of it.’

  ‘I could use some coins,’ I confessed. ‘I lost everything in the forest. A loan though, not work.’

  ‘Shut up, you tart,’ the man chastised me, shoving a small purse into my hand.

  ‘I’ll pay you back,’ I promised as Titus pulled a stretcher from storage.

  ‘We’ll take it from your share of the chests. Come on. Help me roll the fucker on to this.’

  I did, Stumps mumbling something as his arms flopped over the sides of the stretcher.

  ‘Did he say what I think he said?’ Titus asked.

  ‘Chickenhead,’ I confirmed. ‘He’s been struggling since the forest. I thought he was getting better, but …’ I looked at the limp form between us, at the crotch stained dark with Stumps’s own piss.

  ‘Well, he can’t do this every night. Only so much wine in the fort.’

  We carried the stretcher out of the door and to the barrack block in silence. There wasn’t much conversation between myself and Titus that could be had without privacy.

  ‘I wish I’d known he was like this,’ Titus admitted as we reached our destination. ‘I’d have come see him. I will do now. I’ll come and see him tomorrow.’

  ‘Put it down here, and we’ll carry him inside.’

  ‘Fuck,’ the big man snarled as we entered the barrack room. ‘You smell that? He’s fucking shit himself, too.’

  He hadn’t. It was Dog’s breath. I tried to catch the laugh, but it was too late, and enough escaped for Titus to catch it.

  ‘What?’ he asked.

  I told him.

  ‘Don’t start laughing,’ he whispered, and I could tell he was holding back his own giggle. ‘You’ll wake them all.’

  Perhaps I could have held it, but then Stumps murmured his way back to life, the cloud of his drunkenness rising just enough for him to slur.

  ‘You fucking bastards,’ he accused us. ‘You pissed on me!’

  It was too much, and laughter ripped through the room like cavalry into broken ranks. It drove us to our knees, leaving us breathless.

  ‘You took me out of bed and pissed on me!’ Stumps moaned sadly, adding to our fits.

  Eventually, my section had thrown enough curses and objects that the laughter dried out, and there, as I collapsed on the floor with a piss-soaked comrade and a murderer, I remembered for a moment how it felt to be truly happy.

  Dawn’s stand-to came and went. I walked to the civilian blocks, trying to ignore the sidelong glances that came from alleys and doorways. Following the recent murders, the fort’s streets were thick with suspicion and scorn. All knew that there would be more blood spilled on dirt and cobblestone. None but the killer knew when.

  ‘I’m looking for Linza,’ I told a skittish child. ‘Do you know her? Tell her Felix has come to see her.’

  Doubtless eager to escape the scarred man in front of her, the child slipped away and inside. Linza appeared soon after.

  ‘Breakfast?’ I asked. ‘Where can I buy it?’ I held out two coins, and after saying hello, Linza led me to where a trader was selling bowls of thick stew – suspiciously thick.

  ‘I think sawdust’s part of the recipe,’ I half joked, hoping I was wrong. ‘But at least it’s hot. How are things around here, after the girl?’

/>   It was not the happiest topic of conversation, but we were besieged by an enemy bent on our deaths or enslavement – it was not a happy time.

  ‘People are scared of the Syrians,’ she told me. ‘You know in the East, they do this to their own families? Also the men fuck the men.’

  I could see in her wide blue eyes that she believed it. The march into eastern Germany was likely as far as she’d ever been from home. The idea of civilizations in the desert was a concept beyond the comprehension of the untravelled mind, no matter how intelligent or open – seeing was believing.

  ‘All men are capable of evil,’ I replied.

  I had meant the words as comfort, but saw from her look that I had blundered. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. There are good people, too.’

  ‘No. You are right.’ She shrugged, then switched direction. ‘You look tired,’ she observed, although without judgment – there was something about the Batavian manner that was friendly and yet uncompromisingly direct. I had noticed it in Brando and Folcher.

  ‘I don’t sleep well,’ I found myself saying before I could stop.

  ‘Why?’

  I didn’t reply, instead talking to her of Stumps, and how I had found him at the altar. I don’t know why I told her, only that her eyes encouraged me to be open.

  ‘He misses his friends,’ she said when I finished, recognizing the same pain she no doubt felt for her husband.

  ‘He does.’

  ‘Did you have a day for them? Have you made sacrifices for them?’

  I thought about how Stumps had angrily poured wine into the dirt beneath the altar.

  ‘Not really,’ I confessed.

  ‘You should.’

  I ate on in silence, knowing that she was right. After I had said a fond farewell, I walked quickly from the civilian part of the camp in search of Titus.

  ‘I’d like that,’ the big man agreed as I made the suggestion. ‘I’d really like that. Let me sort it out.’

  And so the next day, we remembered our dead.

  26

  On the day of the service in memory of our friends, a strong wind raked itself off the river, bringing its chill into our throats and nostrils as we stood guard on the southern wall.