Gallus squinted ahead and gritted his teeth once more as he beheld the bald-headed, wobbling mass that was Senator Tarquitius, wrapped in a dark-blue cloak over his senatorial toga and sat on some poor bastard of a stallion.
‘Comes with his own insulation, that one, eh, sir?’ Felix whispered from his side.
‘Aye, and his own horseshit,’ Gallus nodded. ‘It galls me to say it, but he is going to be the difference between war and peace with Athanaric.’
‘Then Mithras help us,’ Felix replied solemnly.
They fell silent as they approached the base of the Carpates. A rocky corridor led through the mountains, right into Athanaric’s heartland. A pair of Gothic spearman stood on the outcrops above, one on each side of the pass. They were dressed in red leather cuirasses and woollen breeches and carried longswords and round wooden shields. They sported long blonde locks tied into the distinctive topknots favoured by their military. The pair glared down on the approaching column and the silence was broken only by a stiff, whistling wind.
‘Friendly bastards, eh?’ Felix whispered.
‘I expected nothing less,’ Gallus replied, flicking his gaze briefly up to the sky, now blemished with gathering grey clouds. Then he raised a hand. As one, the column stopped, the mounted figures of Zosimus, Felix, Tarquitius and Salvian flanking him.
‘Ave!’ Gallus called firmly but without warmth. The Gothic sentries did not reply. ‘I am Tribunus Gallus of Legio XI Claudia Pia Fidelis. I have escorted an ambassadorial party here to speak with noble Iudex Athanaric, he has been expecting such a meeting for some months.’
The sentries looked at one another, then glared back down. One of them nodded and swept a finger across the five on horseback. ‘You may ride through.’ Then he squared his shoulders. ‘But the rest of your soldiers can go no further.’
Gallus gripped the reins of his stallion until his knuckles turned white. The land ahead was doubtless garrisoned with thousands of Athanaric’s finest cavalry and infantry, yet he was being stripped of his handful of men like some untrustworthy brigand. This whole sortie was getting so one-sided it was almost a taunt.
‘Don’t give them the excuse,’ Salvian whispered by his side. ‘I can see it in his eyes, he wants you to react.’
Gallus turned to the ambassador, his teeth gritted, then felt his rage dissipate just a fraction; Salvian seemed a good judge of character and intention.
The colour returned to his knuckles and, reluctantly, he turned to Zosimus. ‘Lead the centuries southeast, back to Fritigern’s territory, then make camp there. A good, solid marching camp,’ he nodded firmly, ‘and we’ll be back to lead you home by sunrise in two days’ time.’
The grinding of Zosimus’ teeth was audible over the wind.
Gallus looked to the centurion. The big man was utterly fearless, and the promise of riding into Athanaric’s lair thrilled Zosimus as much as it terrified the others. And that was just why Gallus trusted him implicitly. ‘I’d rather have you by my side through there,’ he nodded to the pass, ‘but I need you to lead these men until we return.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Zosimus relented. ‘We’ve got your back covered, sir. But I want one of my best men with you,’ the big centurion replied with a sparkle in his eyes, then slipped from his mount and handed the reins to his optio, Paulus. ‘Defend these men with your life, Paulus.’ With that, the big Thracian swaggered back past the column, barking orders. Then the aquilifer raised the legion standard and the legionaries snaked round behind him to head back down the trail with a rumble of boots, shields and iron.
Gallus twisted back to face the mountains and the Gothic sentries.
‘Now you may pass,’ one sentry spoke. With that, he lifted a horn to his lips and blew, conjuring a baritone moan that echoed through the pass and all around.
The five riders moved into the pass at a gentle trot. Paulus brought up the rear, one hand on his spatha hilt and his eyes trained on the crevices and boulders lining the walls of the rocky corridor. The basalt-grey passage wove through the mountains for some quarter of a mile in front of them, but they could see the frost-dappled green of a plain at the far end. The clopping of their mounts’ hooves on frozen ground echoed in the corridor as if a full cavalry wing followed them. But the stark truth was that five men of Rome were riding into the Gothic heartland alone.
‘I feel like we’ve been stripped of our swords, shields and armour,’ Felix muttered.
‘That’s not all,’ Gallus replied through taut lips, staring straight ahead. ‘Listen. Don’t look up, just listen.’
Felix frowned. ‘Eh?’
‘Yes, in the gaps between the clopping of hooves,’ Salvian joined in, nodding to Gallus, ‘can you hear it too?’
Felix’s eyes darted across the ground in front of him as he concentrated, then his face fell. Every so often, the juddering vibration of tensing bowstrings sounded.
‘They’ve probably got a hundred chosen archers up there, arrows trained on our necks. We’re walking through a perfect kill zone.’
‘But why?’ Felix hissed. ‘We’re on a peace mission?’
Gallus shook his head wryly. ‘We’re at the mercy of Athanaric’s whims now, and he’s a capricious whoreson.’
‘What are you muttering about?’ Tarquitius cut in, his high-pitched warbling filling the pass and startling the others.
‘Just keep your head and your voice down and ride straight,’ Gallus growled, ‘if you don’t want an arrow in your throat.’
Tarquitius’ face paled, his lips flapping as if to speak, but he was mercifully silent.
As they approached the end of the pass, Gallus wondered how a naturally defensible land like this had ever fallen from the grip of the empire. Dacia had been hard won, hundreds of years previously, and the tragedy was it had not been lost to an enemy, but evacuated wilfully. Now the past had come back to haunt the empire, with its fiercest adversary bedded in inside the protective crescent of these great mountains.
Then the ghostly orchestra of wind, hooves and bowstrings dropped away as they rode out of the pass. Another two Gothic sentries eyed their progress from above as they rode out onto the plain enclosed by the mountains.
Gallus gazed in wonderment at the sight: this heartland of the so-called barbarian Goths was thriving and organised. The bulk of the plain was dotted with farmsteads, smithies and workshops. These buildings were surrounded by fields, a patchwork of brown fallow and hardy winter crop, where men, women and children worked the land with oxen, ploughs and sickles. On the wide dirt roads linking these settlements, carts laden with supplies of wheat, barley, peas, beans, flax, linen, leather and iron ore rumbled from place to place. Where the land was unfarmed, horses grazed in their hundreds; tall and strong beasts befitting the image the Goths held as fine horsemen. Then Gallus started at another moan of a Gothic horn. He and the other four darted their eyes to the north of the plain. There, cupped on its northern side by the mountains, stood a thick, stone-walled citadel.
‘Dardarus,’ Paulus whispered from behind.
‘Aye,’ Gallus nodded, ‘a far cry from mud huts and palisades, isn’t it?’
The Goths tended not to fortify their settlements, using timber palisade if anything at all, but Athanaric had clearly veered away from that tradition with this place. The walls were sturdy, at least twice the height of a man and broad as a bull as well by the looks of it. Probably built on ancient Dacian foundations, Gallus thought, noticing the huge limestone blocks that formed the lower half of the wall. Six thick stone towers punctuated the bulwark, each stretching another five feet up and capped with timber covered guardhouses, where huddles of chosen archers stood, watching the activity on the plain. Between the towers, the battlements were dotted with the conical iron helms and speartips of Gothic sentries.
The moaning sounded again as the gates swung open and a party of Gothic cavalry rode out.
‘Looks like we’ve got a welcoming committee?’ Felix said.
‘Relax,’ Salvian replied. ‘I’ll introduce us as exactly what we are – a peace envoy.’
Tarquitius clumsily heeled his stallion forward. ‘No, you will not. I will be speaking and you will be watching, learning.’
‘Senator,’ Salvian spoke evenly, ‘would it not be more becoming of you to maintain a dignified, almost majestic silence for now? After all, these are only lowly cavalrymen. Then, when Athanaric is present, and you do speak, it’ll lend all the more weight to your words.’
Tarquitius shot a furtive glance around the four of them. ‘Yes,’ he muttered. ‘Perhaps.’
Salvian turned to Gallus and issued a wry half-grin.
For the second time that day, Gallus smiled. He realised that disliking this man was going to be difficult.
The light was almost gone as Pavo’s fifty approached the edge of the pine thicket. The night sky was full of thick cloud, and only fleeting appearances of the waxing moon illuminated the flatland ahead.
Then they saw it: Istrita.
The circular, timber-walled settlement was elevated on a small hill and was ringed by a ditch and rampart. Firelight and shadows danced on the thatched roofs of the dwellings inside. Four squat timber watchtowers rose above the walls, one either side of the gate looking south and two on the far side of the village, looking north. Pavo could make out a pair of sentries on the platform of each. As they neared, a heckling of many voices grew louder, then, with a violent smash of clay, a collective cheer erupted.
Pavo’s step shortened instinctively at the noise, and he heard the ripple of armour as the fifty behind him did likewise. His eyes hung on one thing; a pole protruding from the centre of the village. From it hung a blackened, still smoking body. At the tip of the pole, a dark-green banner fluttered in the breeze, and a snake emblem was woven into its fibres.
‘Lupicinus said there was some standoff between Fritigern’s villagers and the rebels?’ Sura said beside him, his breath clouding in the chill. ‘Well I don’t know about you, but I’d say the rebels won?’
Pavo looked to his friend, then glanced round at the clutch of wide-eyed and doubt-ridden faces behind him. His throat dried out as he felt the weight of expectation fall upon him; all of the fifty were glancing at him and then the village. He weighed the next move in his mind and two options materialised: to march on the village, or to wait out here for dawn. Then he remembered Gallus’ words.
Go to the village, sort out the mess there, and then get back to the fort, Pavo. But by Mithras do it fast. For I fear there is a snake in the grass, and out here, we are in its sights.
If Gallus’ suspicions were correct then waiting for dawn could be a fatal mistake, he realised, as any roaming rebel riders could hack down fifty legionaries isolated on flat ground like this. He looked up to eye his fifty.
‘We should leave it till morning,’ Crito said before Pavo could speak. ‘We’ll get a clearer picture of the place then. Besides, we’re all tired and hungry – we need to rest.’
Pavo spun to him, angry with the veteran’s interjection but also anxious at his decisiveness and confident tone. And all of Crito’s cronies were nodding, murmuring in agreement. Pavo felt his heart shrink. Perhaps the veteran was right; despite Gallus’ advice, the land around Istrita seemed to be deserted and this thicket offered a modicum of shelter; maybe waiting out here until daylight was the safer option.
No, he insisted in his mind, Gallus has been out here for longer than Crito or anyone else in the fifty, and he is the far more experienced soldier. He felt his heart thunder as he tried to assemble the words of his argument for marching on the village here and now. His tongue felt bloated like a damp loaf of bread, and his lips seemed like dry, taut rope.
‘We should march on the village to . . . ’ he started, the prickling doubt in his chest choking his words.
‘What’s that?’ Crito cut him off, cupping a hand to his ear, exaggerating how little he had heard.
Pavo spun away, humiliation burning on his neck, pretending he was eyeing the village. At that point, the words of Salvian floated into his head, and he saw the ambassador’s calm, cool countenance in his mind. Breathe in through your nose, slowly. Let the breath fill your lungs . . . Pavo did this, certain it would not be enough. But he felt his heart slow again, and his blood seemed to flow warmer and smoother in his veins, the jitteriness in his limbs subsiding. He turned back to the fifty.
‘We march on the village tonight,’ he said, his words even and his tone a little deeper.
Crito gasped, shook his head, then his lips twisted over gritted teeth. ‘Then you’ll be sending fifty men better than yourself to their deaths . . . sir!’ He spat the last word like a piece of gristle.
Pavo felt his shame of moments ago boil into anger, and realised his own lips were twisting to match Crito’s expression. The first words of a bitter retort danced on his tongue, then he heard another smash of clay from the village and saw fear dance across the faces of the fifty. He sighed, closed his eyes and dropped his hands to his sides. He focused his thoughts and worked back over his reasoning. Then he looked up to set a sincere gaze on Crito.
‘I want every one of us to return to our homes as soon as possible, safe and well. You make a good point, Crito,’ he said. Crito seemed disarmed by this statement, his grimace falling. ‘So three of us will reconnoitre the village, while the rest stay out here, safe and concealed.’ He looked to the rest of the fifty. ‘You can eat your fill and slake your thirst until we return.’
The legionaries looked to one another, each checking for looks of dissent on the faces of the others, but finding none. Pavo glanced to Sura, who wore a look of relief.
‘Habitus,’ Pavo barked at the beanpole legionary, one of Crito’s cronies, ‘If we don’t return for whatever reason, if anything should happen to us, you should return to Wodinscomba and look to rendezvous with Tribunus Gallus and his men when they come back through that way on their return from Dardarus.’ Then he nodded to the two men nearest to him. ‘Crito, Sura, drop your shields and spears; you’re with me.’
With a grumble, Crito jogged forward to join Sura. Then the three set off, stalking forward in a crouch to stay low and in the shadows as they neared the ditch surrounding the settlement. Mercifully, the Gothic sentries on the watchtowers seemed more interested in the source of the commotion inside the village than the night shadows outside. Pavo and Sura slid down into the ditch and then scrambled up the earth rampart to push their backs up against the timber palisade. There, they fired glances at Crito, still climbing from the ditch, then to the tip of the wall and then to the village gate. Another raucous cheer erupted from within the village along with a smash of iron upon iron.
‘Sir!’ Crito hissed.
Pavo didn’t turn to the veteran, instead locking his gaze on the guard towers. ‘For Mithras’ sake, Crito, keep your voice down!’
‘Sir!’ Crito said again, this time in a half-hiss, half-yelp.
Pavo spun to him; Crito was some five paces away, ducking near the top of the earth rampart, eyes wide and mouth agape. He followed Crito’s panicked stare and gawped at the dark shape that lumbered towards them.
A sliver of moonlight revealed a hulking Gothic warrior, bare-chested, skin and hair coated with black dirt, spear hefted in his hands. Pavo grappled at his spatha hilt, when footsteps sounded from behind him. He spun to see two more dark shapes rounding the walls on their other flank. Pavo rushed to meet the nearest of them, but the Goth swung his spear shaft like a club. Pavo’s nose cracked and a white light filled his head.
Darkness took over.