Blood Forest Page 6

  ‘The gods spared you in that grove for a reason.’

  I could only nod, numb with embarrassment and appalled by the attention.

  Then it was Arminius’s turn to tell of how he’d come across the spearman who was now acting as a sled. ‘I’ve had my boys out for days, looking for the savages responsible for the killing in the grove.’

  ‘You think this was the same group?’ Pavo asked.

  Arminius shrugged. ‘There are a lot of people here who don’t care for Rome. I wouldn’t want to say. In any case, we were following a blood trail and found that one. His friends must have caught sight of us, and abandoned him.’

  ‘And the others?’ the centurion pushed.

  ‘The trail died in a village. They would have discarded their weapons, and blended in. Nobody gave them up.’

  ‘So raze the village,’ Pavo said, as if it were the most obvious solution in the world.

  ‘That will turn a hundred more against us,’ I heard, then turned ashen as I realized it had been my own voice. ‘I’m sorry, sir.’ I addressed Pavo. ‘It’s not my place to speak on it.’

  ‘No, it’s not,’ he answered with a cold look.

  ‘But he’s right,’ Arminius said gently. ‘Our army is the greatest in the world, Pavo, but we need to use it in the right way. How many times have we crushed an uprising by force, only to see it spring up again as sons avenge fallen fathers? Let us show the tribes that Rome is the way. Let them see the benefits of open trade, and security. Do this, and they will police themselves. Troublemakers will be brought to heel by their chieftains before blood is spilled.’

  Pavo did not look impressed by the argument. His mindset – of bloody reprisal – ran deep in the legions. ‘And what if the chieftain’s the troublemaker, sir?’ he asked, poker-faced.

  Arminius laughed, and slapped the centurion on the shoulder. ‘Chieftains are above all greedy, Pavo. They wouldn’t bite the hand that feeds them.’

  Pavo only nodded in deference to the ranking officer, and the talk of strategy died.

  ‘So, you have a body?’ the German then asked. Pavo immediately became fascinated with the links of his chain mail as he explained how the pigs had been fed. Arminius didn’t seem to care.

  ‘What about his equipment?’

  Pavo led on through the fort and then picked up the spearman’s shield from amongst a pile of firewood. Arminius studied its swirling pattern of paint.

  ‘The Angrivarii tribe,’ he grunted with anger and surprise. ‘Up until now, we suspected it was only the Sugambri behind the attacks.’

  ‘So the rebellion is spreading?’ Pavo asked.

  ‘I wouldn’t quite call it a rebellion, Pavo. But the animosity, yes, it seems to be spreading.’ Our small group lapsed into silence as Arminius seemed to consider the implications. ‘The section you lost, can you take me to where they fell?’

  Pavo nodded, and from the look that Arminius gave me, I assumed that I was to follow. My centurion noted my presence, but made no protest. Collecting a half-dozen of Arminius’s cavalry for protection, we made our way out across the bridge and south to where the picket line had been placed on a small rise within the treeline.

  Beyond the woods, which were only a hundred yards deep, lay open fields. They should have seen the enemy approaching.

  ‘No,’ Arminius told us, then showed us why. His troopers had found the hides, shallow depressions in the earth amongst the trees. ‘They’d lie up in here overnight. Cover themselves with these branches. Your sentries were looking across the fields, not behind them.’

  There were expert trackers amongst Arminius’s troop, men who knew the countryside as if it were their own skin, any blemish obvious to their trained eyes. They pointed to small, fist-sized indentations in the dirt. Besides the indentations, no skill was needed to identify the congealed red matted against the forest floor.

  ‘They forced them down on to their knees here,’ Arminius concluded. ‘Then slit their throats.’

  ‘Why didn’t they call out?’ Pavo asked, almost to himself.

  ‘That close to death, maybe a man becomes a sheep. Maybe he hopes that if he does as he’s bid, then the end won’t come to him.’ Something in his voice betrayed the prince’s first-hand knowledge of such affairs. I had seen enough myself to know that he was right.

  ‘What now?’ the centurion asked, observing the ants that trudged through the red slime.

  ‘Now,’ Arminius told him, ‘I will ride to Minden. Governor Varus needs to hear the news that the Angrivarii, or at least part of that tribe, have taken up arms. Then? Then, Pavo, I am not so sure.’

  ‘Varus doesn’t want a war, does he?’ Pavo asked with disappointment.

  Arminius shook his head. ‘It may be that he has no choice.’ He turned to me then, as warm and beguiling ever. ‘It’s good to see you restored to yourself, Felix. Walk with me,’ he offered, and then grinned as he took in my swollen eye. ‘You should be careful what you bump into.’

  We stepped towards the river’s banks. The water rolled by lazily, undisturbed by the rumour of war.

  ‘Tell me what you think?’ the prince asked me.

  ‘Of what, sir?’ I looked over my shoulder, because I felt eyes on me. They belonged to Titus, and I imagined his mind ticking as his huge frame leaned back against the fort’s wall.

  ‘Your friend?’ Arminius smiled, looking again at my bruised eye. I shrugged, and he went on: ‘Tell me what you think of the tribes. The trouble. The governor.’

  ‘I know nothing about Governor Varus,’ I confessed. ‘The tribes?’ I shook my head in sadness. ‘You said that the chieftains wouldn’t bite the hand that feeds them, but if enough of the tribe want to bite, then the chieftain can either face the legions, or his own people.’

  Arminius nodded slowly at my words.

  ‘You only kill Roman soldiers if you want a war, sir,’ I concluded. ‘One way or another, this season or the next, they’ll get their wish.’

  ‘Is that what experience has taught you?’ he pushed, his eyes on the river’s calm waters.

  I bit back my first answer.

  ‘It’s what common sense tells me. And history. Somewhere, there is always war. It seems as though it is Germany’s time to suffer.’

  ‘Or Rome’s,’ Arminius countered with a sad shake of his head.

  I shrugged. Rome had become such an irrepressible force on the world that it was hard to imagine her military might failing to conquer any foe. Year after year, the Empire’s borders continued to expand across the world like spilled ink on paper.

  ‘I fear that the army underestimates their foe, Felix,’ Arminius told me. ‘The German tribes are fierce warriors. Should it come to it, they will not easily be beaten.’

  ‘Better that they lose quickly. At least then the suffering is shorter.’

  ‘There are more kinds of suffering than battle wounds and death, Felix. Many of them worse,’ the prince mused. Then Arminius came to a standstill. He gazed with reverence across the lush green countryside. ‘It’s beautiful, isn’t it?’ he asked me.

  ‘It is.’ It was.

  With a sad sigh, Arminius placed his hand on my shoulder. When he looked at me, blazing blue eyes biting into mine, his words sparked a fire in my gut.

  ‘Then we shall have to fight for it. Side by side.’

  And with those words, I knew that I would die for him.

  8

  Arminius galloped away with his men shortly after, leaving the spearman that Titus had felled with the timber prone in the dirt. Titus pissed on the corpse, spat on the mangled face, and then the pigs were fed.

  They ate noisily, squealing in delight at their unexpected windfall. Stumps watched them with a snort of angry laughter, addressing the hunched forms of his fellow veterans. ‘Well, someone’s come out of this trip happy.’

  The next morning, a cavalry trooper arrived with a message for Pavo. The centurion called his section commanders together, and they, in turn, broke the news to us.
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  ‘Prepare to move,’ Titus explained sourly. He was still sullen from the loss of his old comrade. ‘They’re gathering the legions at Minden. We’re marching.’

  ‘Where?’ The question blurted from several mouths.

  Nobody knew, but we saw the signs of the army’s departure a long time before we reached Minden. Herds of cattle, sheep and goat were being driven towards the camp, the farmers hoping to get what they could for the beasts before the hungry mouths of the soldiers were on the opposite banks of the Rhine. The century marched through the shit of these animals, along roads built by the sweat and ingenuity of the legions. Many Germans might have resented the Roman presence, a few seemed to contest it, but none would rail against the roads and bridges that the eagles laid in their wake.

  At times, the century would be pushed aside on these packed roads, the hooves of a cavalry mount thundering by. Titus and the other sweats would call out to these troopers for news. If the messenger was not in too much of a hurry, or if Titus should happen to have a wineskin in his hand, then they would rein in their steeds, coming to a walking pace beside us. In this fashion, we heard fragments of what lay ahead for the legions.

  It appeared as though Governor Varus had changed his plans, and the army would not move back to the Rhine via the string of forts along the River Lippe, where the legions could be kept resupplied by boats. Instead, the army was to head north, into the lands of the Angrivarii, the tribe that had assaulted our century at the bridge; it looked as though Arminius’s message to Varus had got through.

  The prospect of some limited campaigning raised the spirits of the troops, and there was a notable surge in the pace of the march. Perhaps this would be a chance to strike back at the people responsible for the murder – for that was what it was – at the river. For men like Pavo, it offered the scent of the elusive plunder.

  I was buoyed by the news myself – north! A plan of action began to form, and I felt myself pushing the pace of the man ahead of me, willing him on towards the camp and the information that I wanted.

  ‘If we’re not following the river, resupply is going to be a pain in the arse,’ Titus mused.

  Little that I knew of the man, I suspected I knew enough to recognize that he was smelling some opportunity for profit.

  ‘That’s a cohort up ahead,’ Chickenhead said, his veteran’s eye picking up a sizeable force of soldiers by the dust kicked up in their wake. A cohort was made up of six centuries, slightly under five hundred men, and was a considerable fighting unit.

  ‘Why are they going south?’ Stumps asked, giving voice to my own thoughts.

  There were no answers for us, and as we neared Minden, we saw several other detachments, all considerable in size, heading south from Minden and away from the intended direction of Varus’s thrust against the Angrivarii.

  ‘Maybe the messengers were wrong?’ Stumps queried, but he knew as well as the rest of us that those men would be the best informed in the army.

  The late-summer day was warm, and by the time we arrived at the camp gates our faces were dirty brown with dust, rivers of sweat running along our spines and down into the cracks of our arses. I felt good after a week of legionary rations nourishing my body. I must have been the only man in the camp to be glad of the hardtack biscuits, but after months of living on insects, berries and whatever unfortunate animal I could trap, the tough mouthfuls felt like an emperor’s banquet, and energized my muscles.

  Within the fort, huge areas had been emptied where cohorts had packed away their tents and marched out. We soon learned the reason for this exodus. Titus called out to a familiar face and the veteran fell in alongside us, expressing his relief to know that Titus was not amongst the dead of the bridge before telling us of the troop movements.

  ‘They’ve gone to garrison the River Lippe forts over winter, and the towns.’

  ‘The towns?’ Titus was as thrown by this as I was myself. Garrisoning a fort was one thing, and their very purpose meant these camps were often situated close to the same strategic resources that encouraged the growth of settlements: ports, rivers, junctions, mines. But it was almost unheard of to garrison the towns themselves, at least with sizeable units of front-line-grade troops.

  ‘Governor Varus’s idea.’ The soldier shrugged. ‘We want them to be sheep, we got to show we’re the shepherd. That’s what he said.’

  ‘He’s not done anything like that before,’ Titus replied. There was a question behind the statement.

  ‘Lads reckon that German talked him into it.’

  ‘Arminius?’ I asked, unable to help myself.

  Titus’s friend nodded. ‘Rumour mill says his people got some kind of feud with another bunch of goat-shaggers, and he’s talked Varus into smashing them up for him.’ He turned his attention back to Titus. ‘I don’t know, mate, I just hope there’s some bloody loot in it. Been a long couple of summers, you know?’

  Titus told his friend to find him later for a drink as our under-strength century came to a ragged halt in an open area of camp set aside for our tents.

  Pavo, the red crest of his helmet blowing slightly in the evening breeze, could not wait to be rid of us. ‘Section commanders, get your tents up and kit squared away. Nobody leaves the lines. I’m going to get our orders.’

  Chickenhead snorted. ‘He didn’t even bother to fall us out.’

  ‘I’m going,’ Rufus told Titus, and nobody tried to stop him as he slipped away without a further word to visit his family on the camp’s fringe.

  I caught Titus’s eye and got the meaning. Back here, within the ramparts of the camp, there was nothing to gain from provoking him except another beating.

  ‘I’ll get the tent up.’

  Pavo returned a few hours later. Possibly, getting his orders had involved wine, a lot of wine, or more than likely he had made a stop at an inn on his way back from headquarters, spending the coins he had extracted from the auxiliary commander in return for the century’s work on the fort’s defences.

  His reddened face pushed its way inside our tent, growing ruddier still as he realized that only I and the two young soldiers were present. ‘Where’s the rest of ’em?’ he slurred.

  ‘Sentry duty, sir,’ I said, to save him face in front of the younger soldiers.

  He knew as well as I did that they were away drinking, but he caught on and accepted the rescue. ‘Ah, yes. Yes. You two,’ he sneered at the boy soldiers, ‘fuck off and find me some chicken.’

  They got to their feet quickly, reaching for their mail and arms.

  ‘You don’t need that shit! Just get me chicken!’

  They scuttled out, Micon on the heels of Cnaeus, the leader of the pair.

  ‘And wine!’ the centurion called after them.

  I expected him to go then, back to his own tent, but to my surprise he sat down on the bedroll opposite me, observing through eyes that had narrowed into slits. He was more the worse for wear than I’d thought.

  ‘You all right, sir?’

  ‘You know you’re the only one who calls me that?’ he answered quickly, the words unexpected. ‘Sir.’

  I didn’t know what to say, and so I kept my mouth shut. More wine than man, he had enough conversation for the both of us.

  ‘I mean the young ones do, yeah, but they don’t mean fuck all. The salts, though. You’re the only salt who calls me sir.’

  So he’d worked that out. Fine. I wasn’t about to help him piece it all together.

  ‘I’m just older, sir. I’m no more a sweat than those two boys.’

  ‘Oh, save the bullshit. We’re both outcasts in this century, so let’s talk like fucking men.’

  I nodded, but I kept my mouth shut. I had nothing to say to him. Nothing truthful, anyway. Maybe with as much wine in me as he had, things would be different, but I was sober, and I saw an opportunity to take advantage of my commander. ‘You’ve achieved something most soldiers never do, sir. Men are jealous of that.’ I was buttering him up: he was not immune to compl
iments, but he was bitter.

  ‘Achieved what? I’ve never even fought in a bloody battle. I know it’s not my fault, I didn’t have any bloody choice about when I was born, and when the legions would take me, but still! Look at that bastard Chickenhead. He looks at me, and he sees a puppy. Why do you think I let him lie on his arse all day? Because if I don’t, he can make trouble for me! The other salts listen to him because he’s been there, and done it. And Titus! Titus …’

  He trailed off, and I didn’t push him. I knew what he was: a sour man with lofty ambitions. Doubtless he’d got his position by being a better soldier than his peers. Fitter, harder working, and a better arse-kisser. Such things can take you so far, but that ceiling was low, with eighty men below you, and a fat, corpulent class above, their positions secured by noble birth, and no amount of skill or grovelling could see you reborn.

  Pavo had gone quiet, his eyes closed. I hoped he’d fallen asleep, but it seemed as though he was simply taking a moment for contemplation.

  ‘I need this war. I don’t know if it’s even going to be a war, but I fucking need it. I can’t stay where I am for the rest of my days.’

  I nodded at the truth of his words. War took life, but it gave birth to careers. Pavo’s ambitions seemed set to the highest rank of the legions, but he was in competition with dozens of other centurions, most of them his senior in terms of age and experience. To reach the top he needed war, and lots of it – dead men’s sandals and glory. I could see by how much he yearned for it that it was something he had never experienced.

  Even a drunk could see the distaste etched on my face. ‘You’ve seen war, haven’t you?’ He smiled. ‘You’re as salty as any of them.’

  He thought on this as he held back what I hoped was a belch, but I suspected was vomit. Once gathered, he continued. ‘You know, if you told them, they’d accept you. Why are you hiding it?’

  I held my tongue. Pavo sneered, drunk and amused.

  ‘I have an idea why, but it won’t do either of us any good to say it, so fuck it, hey?’ he slurred. ‘I’m going to need good men.’