Traitor Read online

  I had been one of those soldiers to fall on the backs of an unsuspecting enemy. I felt pride grip me. We were half a legion. And we beat ten times our number, I wanted to say on behalf of my brothers. ‘This is my home,’ I said instead, but it did not loosen his lips. Not on what I was asking, at least.

  ‘Do you know who Germanicus is?’ Milos said instead.

  I did. ‘Part of the imperial family. A general.’

  ‘That’s right. A young one, and a favourite of Rome. He’s on his way here.’

  ‘Iadar?’

  Milos shrugged. ‘Dalmatia. Pannonia. When this war broke out, Rome panicked. They freed slaves and pressed them into service. They recalled veterans to the standards. That army is marching here now, and Germanicus commands it.’

  I thought of the force already gathered with Tiberius, and now more? How could the rebels hope to stand against the gathered might of Rome?

  Perhaps Milos recognised the worry in my eyes. ‘My sons answered Rome’s calls, and now they are her enemies, Corvus.’ He didn’t say anything more than that. He didn’t have to. Roman generals had made their decisions, and then Dalmatian ones had made theirs. Milos’s sons were simply pawns that had been passed from side to side.

  I looked at the empty cup in his hands. ‘Life is a bastard.’

  We sat in the presence of ghosts. His son. My brothers. The past.

  ‘You look like shit,’ Milos said at last.

  I looked up. I saw something in his eyes. There was an acknowledgment there. A willingness to address the truth that sat before him. That I was in trouble. That I was trouble.

  ‘Corvus, how can I help?’

  * * *

  I told Milos how, and then the burly Dalmatian stood, walked away, and said something quietly to the innkeeper. He in turn nodded, then left through the back of the room.

  I had pressed grief for my father down into my stomach, but I could feel it, and so I was glad of what Milos talked about next. Glad to hear him tell the favourite stories of his sons, the bright and beautiful lights of his life. I could pretend, if only for a moment, that the world was not chaos, and my life was not pain.

  I drained another cup of wine. Either it was the most watered down that I’d ever drunk, or my mind refused to be anything but sober. Milos’s own words had developed the slightest of slurs.

  The innkeeper returned and whispered something into Milos’s ear. When the man walked away, Milos bunched his thick brows and leaned across the table, taking my hands in his own. They were rough and calloused.

  ‘This is our home,’ he told me quietly. ‘Our home, Corvus.’

  He gripped my hands tightly, and for a moment I felt panic. The innkeeper was out of sight and I – a Roman citizen – had my hands held before me, and my back exposed, an inviting home for a blade.

  Instead I was given an apologetic smile.

  ‘The four men you are looking for have not come back. A… friend of ours trailed them out of Iadar. He turned back after ten miles, and they were still riding hard.’

  My heart sank. I needed them.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  He nodded, and did not let go of my hands. ‘I am not the only man in Iadar with sons in the mountains.’

  His meaning was clear – Rome was his enemy, and a man keeps eyes on his foe.

  ‘Do you remember what they did?’ he asked me, more loudly than was prudent. ‘When the Romans came and conquered? They took the men of Dalmatia, Corvus. They took them as slaves. They took them as animals. Two of my uncles, gone, made property on a whim.’

  I saw pain pass over his face, and then he smiled.

  ‘I hate Romans, Corvus, I always have, but when I saw you and that girl, I knew you were different. I knew you were no Roman.’

  ‘I am Dalmatian.’

  Milos smiled again, but this time with sadness.

  He said nothing.

  He said everything.

  ‘I helped you then because you were a good man. I help you now because you are a good man.’ With the insight of one who has spent his life in a port, Milos recognised a man about to embark on a journey.

  ‘If you should ever see my boys, Corvus, tell them that their father is proud. So very proud.’

  He recognised a man who was leaving for war.

  Chapter 14

  When I returned to the villa there was no sight of the field hand, Chessa. Cynbel stood a lonely vigil in my father’s courtyard. He had built a pyre, my father’s shrouded body atop it. I could smell the stink of oil that soaked the sheets.

  ‘He would approve of his cremation being here,’ my old tutor told me. I could see the relief in his eyes that I was alive.

  ‘They’ve left Iadar. Ridden west.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The men who killed my father.’

  Cynbel accepted that, for now at least. He knew that the men who had done this had come for me, not him.

  ‘Why did they leave?’ he asked.

  I looked at the floor. I had been asking myself the same question. They could have waited for me here. Perhaps they heard enough from my father to convince them that I hated him more than anyone, and that his home was the last place I would seek sanctuary. The thought that he had likely felt that way at his end burned me with shame. For a moment I felt the strongest desire to simply lie on the ground and give up. I wanted vengeance, but I knew only one place to carry my sword, and that was against the brothers of my legion. The thought of it made me sick, and yet…

  ‘I’m going to avenge him,’ I promised. ‘They will die for this, Cynbel.’

  Cynbel’s look was patient, and pained. I could see that he wanted to speak. Wanted to be my tutor again. Instead he asked, ‘Do you have words for your father?’

  I said nothing.

  ‘It is the way to speak of the dead, and their deeds, Corvus.’

  ‘My actions will speak for me,’ I promised. ‘He will see them.’ I hoped.

  Cynbel could see that my mind was set. The truth was that I didn’t know what to say, or how to say it. Father, you raised me well and I repaid you with accusation, attack and abandonment? Father, I have spent the years of my adult life wanting nothing more than to kill you, and now I find that you wanted nothing more than to save us from ourselves until we could be free to grow as families in the soil of our homeland? Father, I was only miles away when I allowed men to come into your home, drag you from your bed, and hang you in your own home? Father, if I hadn’t been feeling so ashamed of myself we could have left the hillside sooner, and been here to protect you?

  Father.

  Father.

  ‘I have nothing to say.’

  Cynbel nodded, and stepped closer to the shrouded body, placing a caring hand on the head of a dead man.

  ‘Peregrinus was my greatest friend in the world,’ he said in a voice both grave and proud. ‘For many years he was my master in law, but he was ever my brother in heart. Never, when I was his slave, did he ever raise his voice to me, let alone his hand. Always, when I needed it, did he give me great strength and counsel. Without him, I could never have overcome the death of my beloved wife, and later, my daughter Beatha.’

  The thought of her took my air. I looked down to hide my tears.

  ‘Peregrinus was gifted. He worked hard, and things came easier to him than to others, but power and station were never something he desired. Position after position he declined, wanting only modest lands where his children, and mine, could raise their own families in peace.’

  Every word stung my ears. I knew nothing of this man. How wrong I had been to hate him…

  ‘Peregrinus was a great man,’ Cynbel went on, ‘and a brave warrior.’

  My eyes snapped up from the ground. Warrior?

  Cynbel did not acknowledge my look.

  ‘He fought not for wealth, or glory, but for the love of his comrades. His citations meant nothing to him. The lives of his men, everything.’

  His citations?

  His men?
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br />   ‘Peregrinus was wise, philosophical, and always a student. He set himself to better no other man but himself. He set himself to conquer no other life but his own. Though he lived with regret, he took great pride in the life of his son, Corvus. “Cynbel,” he said to me, “the gods gifted me with only one child, but they set within him the character of twenty.”’

  I felt dizzy. This was not the man I had known. Cynbel knew as much. These words were for me, though he spoke them to the sky.

  ‘It is not a father’s duty to be a friend, because he must be a leader. An emperor of his family. A father’s duty can be burdensome, lonely and thankless, but a father does not sire and raise his children for praise. Peregrinus was not a man to seek glory in any way. What he sought was duty in all its forms. Duty to his men, duty to his friends, and duty to his son. In all of these, he was a most accomplished man, and the world is lesser for his passing.’

  I was stunned. Shaken. I had been assaulted not with shield and sword but with truth, and it weakened me as no enemy ever had.

  I walked forwards to my father, and placed my hand on his cold body.

  ‘Forgive me,’ I begged.

  But the dead can forgive nothing.

  I did not hear Cynbel light a torch. It was the heat of it that made me turn. His face was brave, and noble.

  ‘Send him to his gods, Corvus.’

  My hand was shaking as I took the torch, and touched it to the pyre. Cynbel had built it well, and the fire spread with speed. The heat of it assaulted my skin, but I would not step back. Not until Cynbel pulled at my arm.

  We stood in silence as the pillar of smoke rose to the sky. The smell of woodsmoke, oil, and the burning flesh of my father filled my nose.

  I turned to Cynbel. ‘My father was a soldier?’

  He shook his head. ‘Your father was a warrior.’

  ‘Warrior, soldier. They’re the same thing.’

  ‘Have you ever seen a wolf, Corvus?’

  ‘A few times.’ I frowned, not understanding why he was changing the subject. ‘Never alive.’

  ‘But you know of them. Their nature?’

  ‘Of course. What’s this got to do with anything?’

  ‘And you know dogs,’ my old tutor went on slowly, disregarding my impatient tone. ‘They have four legs and fur, just like a wolf, but are they the same?’

  ‘You’re saying that a soldier and a warrior are like a wolf and a dog?’

  Cynbel shook his head again. ‘No.’

  I tutted in frustration. ‘So what’s the difference?’

  ‘I’ll tell you once we’re on a ship. We need to leave here, Corvus.’

  I could see in his eyes that it was not a return of the men that frightened him. It was my pursuit of them.

  Answers about my father could wait. Vengeance could not. ‘I’m not going on a ship.’

  Cynbel sighed, and words failed him.

  ‘They killed him,’ I said. ‘Don’t you want revenge?’

  I saw in his eyes that he did, but also that he had another duty. A duty to a dead man. ‘How can I face your father in the afterlife if I also lose his son?’

  I grunted. The killer in me was rising. ‘Well then we can face him together, can’t we?’

  ‘He didn’t want this life for you Corvus,’ Cynbel pleaded gently, ‘he wanted you to live a peaceful life. A life with love.’

  The killer in me had reached the surface. Cynbel saw it. There was despair in his eyes.

  ‘It is only the desires of the powerful that matter, Cynbel. The rest of us only dance to their tune.’

  And that tune was war.

  Chapter 15

  We rode from Iadar that night.

  Cynbel was with me. We’d found him a horse in the town, and an axe in my father’s home. I had never seen my tutor carry a bladed instrument in my life, not so much as a dagger, but now he was set on our ride into Pannonia.

  ‘If we must, we must,’ was all that he said on it. I knew that he wanted us both to take ship and leave this region forever, but I would not, and so he would not.

  I felt some guilt at that, but not much. The truth was that I could see that there was rage in Cynbel’s eyes too – he was just doing a better job of hiding it.

  We had packed blades, food, water and coin. The silver had been secreted in my father’s home, undiscovered by the men who had killed him. They had come to put men in the ground, not dig treasure out of it. Many soldiers are driven by plunder, but the legionaries who had come calling my name were in search of a different prize.

  Honour.

  My desertion was surely a stain on the reputation of the Eighth Legion, and they had ridden to restore their pride. I could only guess at how they had come to learn of the true nature of my disappearance, and those guesses came back empty. Perhaps I would get my answers in time, but what did it matter?

  My father was dead, and so I would ride for revenge.

  We left the town in darkness, and away from the road. We did not want our departure noted. Cynbel had sworn Chessa to secrecy, and asked the field hand to take care of my father’s estate. I thought that the young man was just as likely to loot it, but I was indifferent to its fate. There was nothing for me there. I would not return. Cynbel knew the same – his favourite boxes of scrolls had been packed carefully onto his horse.

  ‘We’ll need them,’ he’d said when he saw my look.

  ‘For kindling?’

  ‘For staying alive.’ He’d said no more than that. Later, in the moonlight, I would see that his face was set, and grave.

  We rode until the near dawn, and hid ourselves in a woodland gully, deep enough that the horses were out of sight. Cynbel left our hide as light approached. I heard some noise – he was covering our tracks.

  When the man returned he said nothing. My eyes asked him a question, and still he said nothing. Instead, he pointed at the dirt and I gathered his meaning – I was being told to sleep.

  I made to protest, but the truth was that my eyelids had been at war for hours. I was drained of emotion, and energy, and when I sat back against the dirt of the gully it felt as though I was sinking into the arms of my beloved.

  I looked at the old Briton who was peering out into the forest like a hound. I thought about how I had denied him another morning – and all others – to visit the resting place of his daughter.

  With shame, I closed my eyes.

  * * *

  When I woke I found myself flat across the bottom of the gully. The sun was high and beating through the trees. My mouth was dry, but I was rested.

  Cynbel was awake. There was a smile at the corner of his lips.

  ‘You’ve been watching me sleep?’

  ‘I’ve been watching you snore.’ He handed me water. ‘Here.’

  ‘No wine?’

  ‘No wine.’ He shook his head. ‘We need our wits about us, Corvus. We have a long ride ahead of us, I expect?’

  I nodded, and started to get to my feet. He gestured me down. ‘Not now. We’ll travel by night.’

  His words were pleasant, but I found myself sitting as though there was a weight of command to them.

  I studied him. ‘You were a warrior,’ I said.

  That he had been a tribal fighter of sorts was not a fact that Cynbel denied. From what I understood, it was their custom in his native Britannia that all fit men must serve in time of war. As a young man he had been taken as a prisoner, and sold into a slavery that had brought him across the Empire to my father’s home. Still, there was a big difference between a man who was forced to fight, and one who comes to arms willingly, and I was beginning to suspect that Cynbel was a natural soldier.

  I told him so.

  ‘I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.’

  I didn’t believe him. ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘It’s my turn to sleep, you cheeky shit.’ The Briton grinned. ‘Wake me when the sun’s setting.’

  We left the woods under cover of night. Our destination was th
e east, and Cynbel was astute in the terrain that he chose to lead us there. Not once did we find ourselves in a dead end or a bottleneck. Even beneath stars and moon, Cynbel read the land as well as he did the works of historians and Greek philosophers. Before the sun rose he had found us a place to take shelter. There was no doubt that he was a warrior, and a different breed to me. I had been a cog in a killing machine, but Cynbel was an artist and a hunter in one.

  We spoke little. Voices carry in the night. Sometimes we heard them. Sometimes we saw flames in the distance. We came across the scars of war, but Cynbel kept us from its claws. At first I had questions – about him, about my father – but soon I fell into the trance of his art. My thoughts were focused on looking and listening to what was around and in front of us, and not behind, at my past. We were tuned in to survival, not regret and remorse. There were times when I thought about my beloved, my brothers, and my father, but this was often as I closed my eyes, so tired that not even ghosts could keep me awake. I fell into deep, dreamless sleeps. Even my headaches seemed unable to trouble me. Such was the way of it for four days, until the mountains grew higher, the peaks grew sharper, and I was certain that we were in the heart of the territory under control of the rebel army.

  ‘This will do,’ I told Cynbel.

  He nodded, and said nothing.

  It was time to meet the rebels.

  Chapter 16

  We stopped at a stone homestead that had been gutted and burned. There were blackened bodies inside. The smell of burned flesh and thatch still lingered, but we brought our horses inside of the place. I drove stakes into the floor and tethered them. ‘They can stay in here,’ I told Cynbel, and then I set to removing a bundle of firewood from Ahren’s back.

  ‘Let me help you,’ Cynbel said. I had told him how I planned to meet the rebels. I could see in his eyes that he did not agree with the plan, and yet he had said nothing.

  I placed the bundle of wood down outside the hovel. ‘Can you think of a better way?’ I asked his silhouette.