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  The centurion got to his feet. Unsteady feet. He placed a hand on my shoulder, whether to support himself, or me, I didn’t know.

  ‘Forget who you were, if you need to. But when we do finally get out there, and I’ve got my war, then be who you are.’

  He stopped at the tent flap. For a second, the usual harsh snarl was gone. I glimpsed the man, stripped of the ambition.

  ‘No one should die amongst strangers,’ he told me.

  It wasn’t until later, much later, that I understood the words were intended for his own ears.

  9

  Cnaeus and Micon returned from their errand. From the look of relief on their faces, Pavo had been happy with what they’d brought him. From their pouts, however, I suspected that the food and drink had been provided from out of their own pockets. No surprise there. That was the way it went in the legions. If these two youngsters could climb to Pavo’s rank, or Titus’s status, then they’d be the ones dispatching boy soldiers to acquire chicken and wine. Until then, they’d have to suck it up.

  They did and, run down as they were by the march back from the Lippe, not to mention the constant graft on the section’s behalf, the pair were soon asleep.

  I was glad of their slumber, for two reasons.

  First, because ever since I had saved his life at the bridge – and I say that as simple fact, not hubris – the boy Cnaeus had been looking at me with something close to reverence. On the times that he’d come close to addressing the matter, I’d given him a look of what I hoped passed for cold-blooded murder, and that had been enough to kill the unwanted conversation in its infancy. Still, the puppy-dog adoration was uncomfortable even if it was given in silence, and so was one reason I was glad the young soldiers were asleep.

  The second was because I did not want it known that I was about to leave the tent. With perhaps the exception of Rufus, who gave me the impression of being an avid family man, the others in the section were still absent, presumed drunk. Regardless of their destination, I doubted that any of them would make it back much before sunrise. It was now time for my own excursion, and so I stepped over the sleeping forms of the boys and out into the starlit night.

  My first stop was Pavo’s own tent, and I found what I had expected to see: the centurion, snoring loudly, a half-eaten chicken in his lap. With a final look about me, I made my way inside.

  My search was short, and fruitless. A map was what I wanted. I would have been surprised if Pavo, at his rank, had possessed one of a large enough scale for my designs, but the chance his drunken stupor had offered was too good to pass up. I was not surprised to note that there were no bags of coins or signs of wealth within the tent. Either Pavo was a master at concealment, or he was broke.

  I had no money of my own, and I would need it for what I had in mind. Still, it was not an insurmountable problem. I had a feeling I knew where to get it.

  The camp appeared deserted as I walked along the tented lines. The sentries were pushed out on to the distant earthen ramparts, while the broke and the boring slept in their tents. Any man wanting a drink would be in the town, surrounded by loose women and, I hoped, looser tongues.

  Finding the quartermaster’s was no problem, its location seared into my memory from other encampments and from the painful strides I had taken with the burden of equipment in my arms. As I had hoped, a glimmer of candlelight shone from within. For the protection of the legion’s goods the engineers had erected a wooden structure for the stores, and I rapped the panel beside the open door.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’ growled the quartermaster, his birthmarks shifting with distaste.

  ‘Need a loan, sir,’ I told him simply. As I expected, this caused no consternation.

  ‘Well, come in then.’

  From the quartermaster’s interest in Titus, I had the feeling the pair conducted business together, and where there is black-market business there is money, and where there is money there are loans.

  The quartermaster would not be retiring a poor man, and it was a hefty rate I agreed to; I’d be paying back double what I borrowed.

  ‘There’s gonna be a payday before we break camp,’ the slab of a soldier told me. ‘You’ll pay me then.’

  I didn’t need to ask what would happen if I didn’t. Men like him always held others in their pockets. Men who’d break fingers, or slit a throat, to be forgiven their own debts.

  What I wanted to ask for was more information on the army’s planned movement. The quartermaster would be in the know, but I’d need to tread carefully, coming across as just an interested foot-slogger and nothing more.

  ‘So there’s a date set, sir? For us leaving?’

  He shrugged. Transaction over, he only wanted me gone. I sat still, patient and earnest, giving him the impression that the quickest way to get rid of me was to send me away with some titbit of information in my ears.

  ‘Couple days, tops. Plans to be finalized.’ He made it sound as though he was privy to those plans. Perhaps he was, or perhaps he enjoyed elevating his station.

  ‘You know where we’re going, sir?’

  ‘North. Now fuck off.’

  It didn’t do to push, and so I did as I was bid.

  Entering Minden I saw that I was hours late to the party; many soldiers were already vomiting in the alleyways, or bartering hard with the business-savvy whores. The working girls avoided me, sensing my sobriety. Drunk and horny, powerless against their desires, that was how they liked their clients.

  ‘Where’s the Three Bears?’ I asked a soldier who was supporting a comrade, the pair staggering as if escaping battle.

  ‘Next street down, on your left.’

  I nodded thanks, and made sure to give the area a wide berth, because that inn was the favoured watering hole of my own century.

  Instead, I found an establishment that had been a German home a few months before. The inside was crowded with soldiers, legionaries and auxiliaries, standing and sitting on oak benches, wine flowing freely from skins and across the bare breasts of fair-haired whores. Never known for their restraint, the mere rumour of war had been enough to send the soldiers into an orgy of decadence. I remembered the feeling: you can’t take it with you, so why not enjoy your last few days on earth? Most of these soldiers would not be truly fearing death, but the excuse for excess was enough. Let the wine and tits flow.

  I edged my way to what served as a counter, a long table set against the far wall. Behind it, the German proprietor was flanked by two hulking Roman soldiers who were making a little extra on the side; the inn’s owner was savvy enough to know that the local muscle would never be as respected as the army’s professional warriors.

  I put a coin on the table, and was handed a mug of bitter wine, the kind that makes you want to drink more if only to forget the taste of the last cup. I settled in to wait. I would stay here until the crowd began to thin, men falling on their backs to sleep or fuck. By then I would be a part of the wine-soaked furniture, and with luck Fortune would have guided me to an inn where the keeper was a talker. Until then I drank, slowly, and I watched.

  I wasn’t the only one.

  I found him at the end of the bar, a gnarled veteran, a Roman, perhaps forty years old. He was beside a taller, silver-haired comrade, but neither talked much, they simply watched me. Why?

  It was too early, but my sense of unease overcame me. I slipped the German an extra coin for my next drink.

  ‘The two in the corner. Were they here before me?’

  He nodded, which was all I got for my coin. Money well spent. I had not been followed.

  But who were they?

  I tried to put it out of my mind. Perhaps they were simply wondering why a Roman was drinking alone. Bored, they were making conversation, and I had provided a topic. Yes, that must be it.

  My attention was quickly pulled to the front of the room, where a fight had broken out between a group of Roman infantry and German cavalry. It was a good fight, the men just drunk enough to withstand pain
, but sober enough for their punches to aim true. As the other soldiers cheered them on, I felt myself smile. For a moment, I was there with my old comrades, Varo throwing men around as if they were empty tunics. It was we who were fighting, having each other’s backs, the black eyes a badge of honour to be laughed about the next day.

  The two groups were finally pulled apart, and I recognized one of the men restoring order as the large German who had guarded Arminius’s tent, and had dragged the body of the spearmen behind his horse: Berengar. If he recognized me he gave no sign, and, the scuffle over, the drinking resumed. I turned back to my table.

  And found the two Roman watchers seated beside me.

  ‘Comrade,’ the silver-haired one greeted me.

  ‘Brothers,’ I acknowledged, lifting my cup, trying to appear more drunk than I was, then turning my head from them in an attempt to break the conversation.

  It didn’t work.

  ‘I know you.’ The shorter, gnarled man spoke. His words were not condemning, simply intrigued. I felt the safest course of action was to humour him.

  ‘Then you’re a lucky man.’ I smiled, splashing wine out of my cup.

  ‘But not from here,’ he wondered aloud, and my stomach began to knot.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘What legion you with?’ the taller of the pair asked.

  ‘Seventeenth. I’m new,’ I explained, with a gesture about me, making a show of my lack of companions.

  ‘You look like you’ve got a few miles on you.’

  I smiled. ‘I was married.’

  They smiled too, but I could see that, in the depths of their minds, old memories were being dragged to the surface.

  ‘Well,’ the shorter one concluded with a look towards the whores, ‘I can see why a married man would come here. Drink?’

  I took a long, saddened look at my cup, now drained. ‘I need to get back to camp. My centurion, he’s a real bullshitter.’

  The veterans smiled their understanding, and I got to my feet. I’d only taken a step when the silver-haired man had his epiphany.

  ‘Pannonia! That’s where I know you from! You were Eighth Legion!’

  ‘Not me, brothers.’ I smiled again and turned away, but a hand gripped my shoulder.

  ‘It’s him!’ the shorter one spat to his friend, anger rising. ‘You piece of shit!’ he snarled at me. ‘You were—’

  I didn’t let him finish, smashing my elbow into his mouth. His knees banded like a newborn foal and his friend instinctively caught him as he fell, giving me the chance to bolt for the doorway. I could not be sure if they were alone, and to be exposed would see me die in the most painful way imaginable, so it was without thinking that I pulled the purse from beneath my tunic and cast the coins into the air as I ran, the silver rain bringing excited cheers from soldiers and whores alike. I was instantly pained at the loss, but I hoped that my life was a worthy investment.

  I was in the alleyway a second later. A few calls to stop me rose above the cheers but, distracted as they were by the money on the floor, nobody listened. Nor did anyone in the street. The soldiers had come into town to drink and screw – why should they care what went on between others? I resisted the urge to run, knowing that it would draw attention from any policing patrols of the camp guard, and so I was only at the end of the alleyway when the silver-haired soldier stepped into the night.

  Shit. His friend was with him, stumbling a little, but otherwise recovered. I went for the first turn I could find and took flight. The hobnails of my sandals sounded like hammers on anvils, but with a head start, and in the tangle of dark streets, they had no hope of finding me.

  It didn’t matter.

  Somebody knew my secret.

  10

  The next day, at dawn, an ill-tempered Pavo called reveille. The other men of the section grumbled, hung-over, but I was anxious to escape the tent, which was thick with the smell of stale wine, and staler farts, and so I was the first into the morning’s wan light.

  I had slept fitfully, the adrenaline from my chance meeting taking time to dissipate. Then I had been woken time and again as the men of the section stumbled in. To my relief, they’d drunk enough to pass out quickly; I’d been expecting another showdown with an inebriated Titus. Rufus was the last to arrive, his gentle footsteps padding in shortly before reveille had been called. He was sober, having spent the night with his family.

  The century formed up on parade, several soldiers swinging on their feet like corn in the wind. Farts erupted from up and down the lines, and at least one man in the rear rank twisted to vomit on his heels.

  ‘Glad to see you’re all well rested,’ Pavo snorted through the side of his mouth. He’d passed out earlier than most, and as a consequence he looked one of the more human of the century. He didn’t bring up the fact that men had disobeyed his orders and left their tented quarters. Better, in his mind, to skip over the incident and pretend it had never happened.

  ‘Now we’re back,’ he continued, ‘we’re getting worked into the fort’s guard schedule. From noon, you’ll split down into sections to provide checkpoints and roving patrols in Minden.’

  He saw some of the men smile knowingly to their comrades, and growled, ‘Roving patrols doesn’t mean you do a fucking crawl from one inn to another. Now the army’s moving there’s a lot of people coming in, and a lot going out. Be on the lookout for anything suspicious. Spies, thieves, deserters.’

  After ordering the two boy soldiers to clean the equipment of the veterans, Titus and his clique fell with glee back on to their bedrolls. Chickenhead, I now noticed, had never even bothered to rise, Lupus purring contentedly on the ugly man’s chest.

  With the youngsters cleaning, I awaited some order of my own from the section commander. Latrine duty, perhaps, or cooking the section’s breakfast. None came, and Titus must have felt my surprised eyes.

  ‘Get some sleep,’ was all he told me, his voice infuriatingly impartial.

  I lay down, expecting some trap, but there was none. Within moments, the big man was snoring along with the rest of them.

  Confused by the sudden neutrality towards me, I simply lay on my back, watching the hide of our tent grow lighter as the sun climbed higher.

  With armour scrubbed bright by Cnaeus and Micon, Titus led our section into Minden. Pavo had instructed him as to our destination, and we took up position on one of the town’s arteries, our orders to question those coming and going. If necessary we would search their goods and persons.

  I was paired with young Micon to search the outgoing, while Cnaeus and Stumps searched the incoming. Titus and the remaining veterans leaned against the wall of a hovel, watching the traffic and the performance of the searchers. I had hoped to question these civilians, perhaps discover what I had been unable to find the previous night, but none spoke Latin, or at least none admitted to as much.

  During a quiet spell I noticed that Titus’s group had been joined by two young boys. They were red-haired, and from the way that they shuttled back and forth to the man, it was obvious that these adolescents were Rufus’s children. It was forbidden to marry in the ranks, but many a soldier had an unofficial family that followed with the army’s baggage train. It would be a brave commander who would try to upset the status quo: he’d have a mutiny on his hands if he did so.

  The task of searching the outgoing carts was monotonous, but I embraced it. After the shock of being recognized in the inn, I was glad of a task in which I could lose myself. That being said, instinct is a hard beast to tame, and I felt my eyes on stalks whenever a soldier appeared in the periphery of my vision. Should those men come across me I would have no choice but to run, die or, more than likely, both.

  Such thoughts in my head, I took a moment to look over my shoulders and assess my surroundings. There, with Titus, was a familiar figure, but not one from which I needed to hide. It was the quartermaster, taller and wider than even Titus, though his bulkier frame was padded out with fat. They seemed to be on cordial enough
terms: two men passing the time of day. It was only later, when a cart covered with a hide sacking came towards me, that they interrupted their conversation and approached.

  I was just about to pull back the covering when Titus’s hand squeezed me gently by the elbow. ‘This one’s fine. Let her through.’

  Low profile that I wanted, I was happy to oblige.

  Micon, however, had ears of cloth to match his brain, and tugged back at his own corner of the sheeting before Titus or the quartermaster could stop him.

  They’d been buried beneath hay, but the bumping on the road had shaken enough straw free to allow a glimpse of the cart’s contents. Swords. Chain mail. Arrows.

  In one smooth movement, Titus was able to pull the covering back into place, while simultaneously delivering a backhand across the startled Micon’s face.

  ‘What did you see?’ Titus growled into the boy soldier’s ear.

  ‘No-no-nothing,’ he stammered, and, slow as he was, that was probably true. Titus knew that I was a little quicker with my wits, and his eyes met mine.

  ‘Straw,’ I said simply.

  The cart went on its way, soon clear of the town, and the quartermaster, face twisted in anger, stomped off in the opposite direction.

  ‘Moonface,’ Titus called to the veteran. ‘Take over from him.’ He gestured towards me. ‘You. Let’s take a walk.’

  It was a short walk into a narrow alleyway off the main street. From the drying vomit on the dirt, it seemed there was an inn nearby.

  ‘What did you see?’ Titus asked me again.

  ‘Straw,’ I told him, straight-faced.

  He seemed content with that, but if he believed in the silence of a man he had beaten, he must have had better reason to do so than my word.

  ‘Twelve,’ he finally told me, smiling slightly. There was guile there, and more than a little smugness.

  The conversation had broken ranks, and I had no idea why, or to where. My face told him as much.

  ‘That bloke, the one with the birthmarks, he’s the quartermaster,’ he told me, beginning his explanation, ‘and a bent bastard. Sells the straw, like you saw. But you know what he’s really good at?’