The stout wooden gates were blackened and splintered. The upper hinge had broken on one of them, causing it to lean at an awkward angle. Every wooden structure was charred or reduced to ashes. Every stone building and structure that had wooden supports had collapsed.
The ground was littered with bodies. The earthly remains of a garrison that had fought to the death. A couple of foxes looked up as Atius and Silus approached on horseback, gore hanging from their mouths. They watched the men approach resentfully, then turned tail and ran away, trailing ropes of guts behind them. A horde of crows tore at flesh – there was so much death that even this long after the battle, the carrion feeders had plenty to choose from. The air was heavy with the stench of wood smoke and rotting corpses.
Atius made the sign of the cross and muttered spiritual words to himself as the two of them dismounted and wandered disconsolately around. This had been their home, and these had been their friends. Most were hard to recognise now, and all distinctive jewellery had been looted, but Silus knew these men like family. Atius was a more recent recruit to the garrison, but his face was white with the horror of the scene and the realisation that it could so easily have been his corpse being pecked at.
Silus knelt by a body that lay face down, extremities ravaged, and turned it over. Maggots and worms spilled from the mouth and eye sockets, and he recoiled. The bald head and hooked nose were intact enough for Silus to recognise Pallas, Menenius’ secretary. Though he was unarmoured, he still clutched a short sword in his stiffened grip. Even the ageing freedman had joined the battle in the end.
Nearby he found a corpse wearing armour he recognised as belonging to Geganius, and next to him was a man whose neck had been partially severed, who Silus thought might have been Brinno.
Not only Romans were dead. As they walked towards the gate, Atius pointed to where the garrison had made its final stand, but it was unnecessary. The press of corpses was at its densest here, with Roman bodies piled on top of each other facing mounds of unarmoured, long-haired warriors. The barbarians, without armour to protect them from the scavengers, had been picked much cleaner and were mainly bone and gristle, but their long red or blonde hair still outlined their skulls.
Silus didn’t feel nauseous. He had seen enough death and decay both in the army and during his upbringing. He didn’t particularly feel anger, not yet, though he knew it would come. His main emotion was awe at the scale of the destruction. The fort, so strong and impregnable and manned by invincible Romans had been reduced to so much ash, rubble and bone.
The stench was overwhelming as they picked their way out of the fort and through the breached gates. A short walk out of the fort led them to the nearby woods. From a distance they could make out a handful of skeletal figures nailed to the trees that faced the fort. Crows grudgingly dispersed as they approached.
Only half a dozen had survived the battle to be tortured and crucified. Silus presumed the two rotting corpses at the front were Menenius and Damanais. They had been stripped naked, so they couldn’t be identified by brooches, insignia or armour, and their facial features were gone. But the build and hair were right. Silus made a sign against evil and directed a curse on the barbarians to Antenociticus and Nemesis. Atius dropped to his knees, raised his hands to the skies and sang out a hymn of mourning. Silus waited respectfully for him to finish.
When Atius stood, Silus looked around, and saw they were being watched. A young boy stood at the edge of the woods, some twenty yards away, regarding them with sorrow-filled eyes. Silus called to him, but as soon as the boy realised he had been noticed, he turned and hared off into the depths of the wood.
Silus swore and chased after him, Atius close on his heels. The boy, maybe around ten years old, was nimble, darting around trees and leaping over streams, and the older men tired even as they gained ground. Through a break in the trees ahead, Silus saw a rock face that the boy was heading straight for. He signalled for Atius to circle round, and he kept chasing.
The boy hit the base of the cliff at full speed and leaped, grabbing handholds and footholds and ascending vertically like a squirrel up an oak tree. Silus reached the rocks and started to climb. He was a decent climber himself but didn’t have the advantage of the boy’s slightness, and he panted hard as he heaved himself laboriously from hold to hold. Slowly the boy pulled away from him, and grit and dirt fell down into Silus’ mouth and eyes as the boy scrabbled his way upwards.
When the boy was nearly at the top, he paused to look down at the struggling man beneath him and spat. Silus saw the glob falling towards him and turned his face, so it hit him in the cheek.
‘Fuck you, barbarian,’ yelled the boy in a high voice that was attenuated by the wind.
‘I’m not a fucking barbarian,’ yelled back Silus, aware that his lack of armour made him appear unlike a Roman soldier. The boy threw a rock at Silus’ head, and even though he ducked out of the way, the fist-sized chunk hit him painfully in the shoulder.
‘Stay there, you little brat,’ yelled Silus, but the boy just made an obscene gesture, then disappeared over the top of the cliff.
Silus reached the top of the cliff with a bruised shoulder, scraped knuckles and one skinned knee. As he hauled himself over the top, he rolled onto his back, looking up at the grey sky and gasping to recover his breath.
Atius let out a low chuckle. ‘Is this what you were looking for?’
Silus’ friend held the boy’s long unruly hair in his fist. The boy struggled and spat and swore, while Atius just held him at arm’s length wearing an indulgent smile.
‘Damn, that little shit can move,’ said Silus. ‘Trust you to take the easy option.’
‘Well, the path around the side of the cliff was certainly a little less onerous,’ said Atius.
Silus stood and took the boy’s chin in a tight grip, forcing him to look into his eyes.
‘Listen, boy. We aren’t barbarians.’
‘Where are your shields then? Where’s your armour?’
‘We’re travelling light. Listen to our accents. Look at my hair. Look at his skin. Do we look like Maeatae or Caledonians?’
The boy looked from Silus to Atius, then went limp. Atius loosened his grip, and the boy fell to the ground and started sobbing. Atius squatted next to him and waited. After a few moments, the boy wiped his eyes roughly and looked up at them. Where there had been fear, then grief, now there was anger.
‘Where were you?’
‘What? When?’
‘If you are Roman soldiers, where were you during the attack?’
Atius opened his mouth to answer, but could think of nothing to say.
‘Where were you when the barbarians came to the vicus and killed everyone still alive after the last attack? Why aren’t you dead in the fort, like all the other soldiers? Like my father!’
The boy threw himself at Atius, knocking him onto his back. He sat astride him and started pummelling him. Atius caught his wrists, kicked him off, and threw him away. The boy fell to the ground and started crying again.
Silus and Atius stood and looked down at him.
‘He lived in the vicus?’ said Silus.
‘His father was a soldier?’ said Atius.
‘Oh, crap. Boy, are you Brinno’s son?’
‘Don’t you say his name, you coward. You aren’t fit to speak it.’
Silus searched his memory. The little time he had spent in the vicus had been with his own family, and Sergia was too young to have been playing with a boy this age, but he had a memory of Brinno talking proudly about his boy’s first hunting trip.
‘Fulco? You’re Fulco, aren’t you?’
The boy’s eyes brimmed with defiance, but he nodded reluctantly.
‘Fulco, listen to me. I wasn’t in the fort at the time of the attack. I was performing a mission for the emperor in Eboracum. Atius here was in the fort, but he was ordered to report the attack to the emperor, and to save the prefect’s daughter.’
‘He didn’t save my mother, did he?’
Silus noticed now that the boy was thin and pale with hollow cheekbones.
‘What have you been living on since the attack?’ asked Silus gently.
‘I can look after myself,’ said the boy.
Silus drew some hard tack from his pack and handed it to the boy. Fulco stared at it suspiciously for a moment, then wolfed it down.
‘Fulco, we need to know what happened after Atius left.’
The boy held his hand out for more food. Silus sighed, broke a biscuit in half and gave it to him. ‘You get the rest after you tell us everything.’
Atius made a fire, while Silus brought down a pigeon and a couple of crows, using his belt as a sling and some smooth pebbles as shots. Fulco watched with grudging admiration, and while Atius gutted and plucked the birds, Silus showed Fulco the technique, just as his father had shown him. It involved having a belt of the right thickness, length and pliability, but when Silus was in the field, he made sure everything he carried or wore had at least two functions. For a short moment, Fulco forgot his grief as Silus showed him how his waterskin could double as a flotation device to help him cross a fast flowing river or a wide lake when filled with air, how his snare could be used as a garrotte, how his cloak could be used as the roof of a bivouac, and the myriad uses to which a sharp knife with a stout handle could be put.
Contrary to what they had told Fulco, they let him eat while he told his story. The cooked bird flesh set all their mouths watering long before it was ready, and although the boy had claimed he could look after himself, he still gulped down the meat he was given like a small dog bolting a found carcass before the bigger pack members arrived.
‘Tell us what happened,’ said Atius gently.
Fulco paused mid-bite into a pigeon leg. He looked up at them both over the drumstick, then tore off a chunk and swallowed it whole. Atius and Silus waited expectantly.
‘What do you think happened?’ said Fulco sullenly.
‘We want to hear it from you.’
Fulco took another bite, swallowed, then threw the leg away angrily, though strands of meat still clung to it. The survivalist in Silus cringed at the waste, but he bit his tongue.
‘Fine. They slaughtered everyone. Is that good enough for you?’
‘Where were you? What did you see?’
Fulco’s eyes darted from side to side, suddenly looking like a frightened little boy.
‘I was in the fort. I had sneaked in to see my father. The guards turned a blind eye to let me do that every so often, especially if he hadn’t had any leave for a while. I would hang out with his contubernium, playing dice and knucklebones, or talking about battles and girls. Sometimes they would let me drink some of their beer. I didn’t like it much.’
The boy’s gaze was far away now, and Silus and Atius were silent, unwilling to break his reverie.
‘When the alarm sounded, it was late, but they were all still drinking and gambling. Not drunk, you understand. They grabbed their weapons and armour and ran for their stations. My father was the last one out. He gave me a hug and told me to hide.
‘At first all I could hear was the auxiliaries preparing for battle. Shouts of orders. Clattering boots. I hid under my father’s bed. He had a box with letters carved on little wooden leaves. I looked at them while I waited. I can’t read very well, but I could see my mother’s name at the bottom of most of them.
‘Then I heard the sounds of battle. Screams. Swords clashing. Then a massive crash. I don’t know if it was because I was being brave or because I was scared, but after a while I didn’t want to be alone any more. I crawled out from under the bed, and went to the window to look out. I could see the main gate burst open and in flames, the Romans in a half circle trying to hold back the enemy. I watched them fight until they were almost all dead.
‘In the end, there were just a few left. A few surrendered.’ Fulco looked sharply at the two men. ‘But not my father. Nor the commander and his deputy, or that centurion Geganius. I don’t know their names. You need to know that. They fought until they were overpowered.
‘I watched the officers kneeling. Two barbarian chiefs were talking. I couldn’t hear what they were saying. Then they dragged my father over and… and…’
Fulco swallowed, and his eyes glistened. ‘They killed him. Then they killed Geganius. Then they dragged the rest of the survivors off towards the woods. All the barbarians went along to watch, and for a moment the fort was deserted. I took my chance and ran.’
Fulco raised his head defiantly. ‘I wanted to kill them all. The murderers… but… there was only me. I had no choice.’
Silus put a hand on Fulco’s shoulder. ‘You did right, boy. It’s what your father would have wanted.’ Atius was looking down, and Silus wondered if he too was feeling the guilt of being the survivor.
‘Did you see anything else?’
Fulco shook his head. ‘A little. Once I was out of the fort, I found a hiding place amongst some rocks, and I… I watched. I saw them start to nail them up to the trees. At the front they had the commander’s deputy and another centurion. They made the commander watch while they crucified them. When all the men were nailed up, screaming and begging, they left with the commander tied over the saddle of one of their horses.’
‘What?’ Silus’ voice was harsher than he meant, and it made the boy start.
‘What?’ repeated Fulco.
‘Menenius survived?’
‘Is he the commander? Yes, he did. Or, he was alive when I last saw him.’
‘Gods,’ whispered Silus. ‘Poor bastard.’
‘Silus,’ said Atius. ‘We have to rescue him. Christos alone knows what tortures they are inflicting on him.’
‘That’s not the mission.’
‘Fuck the mission. He is our commander. We owe him our loyalty.’
The two men glared at each other. Then Fulco spoke again.
‘Then I went back to the vicus. Everyone was dead.’
Atius and Silus focused back on Fulco.
‘Everyone?’
‘Not a single thing left alive. Man. Woman. Child. Dog, pig, chicken.’
‘Your mother?’ asked Atius tentatively.
Fulco shook his head. ‘She wasn’t there.’
Taken as a slave, Silus thought. Her fate would probably be worse than Menenius’. He kept that to himself, though he knew Atius was thinking the same thing. At least his own family had been spared that.
They all sat in silence, then. In each other’s company, but alone with their thoughts of guilt and loss and anger and despair.
The fire burnt lower, and with an effort Silus shook himself out of his despondency.
‘Atius,’ he said. ‘It’s getting late. Let’s prepare a camp and settle down. We can make an early start. Boy, you can stay with us for the night. In the morning we ride north, into danger, and you can’t come with us.’
Fulco nodded.
‘Go and find us some wood for the fire then. Good lad.’ Fulco stood and shuffled away, picking up sticks and branches unenthusiastically. Atius and Silus started gathering the material for a bivouac. The fort was only a short distance away, with stone walls and at least some remaining roofs intact. But though it was unspoken between them, they knew that none of them would want to spend the night amongst the corpses and lemures of their departed comrades.
It started to rain.
‘Do you think he will make it?’ asked Atius for the tenth time.
Silus shook his head in exasperation. ‘We gave him supplies. We pointed him in the right direction. He is a sharp kid, he’ll be fine.’
‘He’s lost everything, and he has no one. Even if he makes it back to Roman lines, what future does he have? Living on the streets, or taken into slavery.’
Silus pulled on the reins of his horse sharply, causing his mount to stop abruptly with a whinny of protest.
‘What did you expect me to do, Atius? Escort him home and set him up with a nice noble family, so that one day he will become a senator?’
‘There’s no need to be like that.’
They rode in silence for a while.
‘Do you think Menenius is still alive?’
Silus rolled his eyes. Again, it was at least the tenth time he had asked.
‘I am no wiser than the last time you asked, Atius. Though I pray for his sake that he is dead. We both know what the barbarians do to their prisoners.’
‘I still think we should be looking for him. He should be our priority.’
‘Look, we have a job to do. And that job happens to be to find the bastard who killed my family. Nothing and no one is going to get in the way of that. Do you understand?’
Without waiting for a reply, Silus goaded his mount into a canter and pulled away from Atius, settling back into a walk when he was a hundred yards or so ahead. The terrain was scrubby. A little elevated above the marshland they had ridden through for most of the day, the horses squelched morosely through the mud that came up to their fetlocks. Now they could make better time on the firmer ground, and there was better grazing for the horses when they stopped for breaks. Well beyond the vallum Hadriani now, they were fully in barbarian territory. The maritime supply base of Horrea Classis lay far to their east, and there was no hope of reinforcements, shelter or resupply from Roman forces. The horses’ energy needed to be conserved as they could not exchange them at the mansiones that dotted the Roman roads in Britannia, and if one broke a leg, they would be on foot from there onwards.
A light drizzle reduced visibility, but up ahead on a small hill, Silus saw a palisade appearing from out of the gloom. He pulled up and waited for Atius to reach him. He gave his friend what he hoped was an apologetic shrug, and they continued forward.
As they neared, they saw the wooden palisade was torn down and burnt in many places. They rode through one of the gaps into the barbarian hill fort. Like many hill forts, this was clearly primarily a civilian settlement, more akin to a Roman vicus than a fort. There were a number of roundhouses arranged in a circle inside the palisade around a central open area. The roundhouses had steep conical thatched roofs supported by wooden timbers, and walls of wattle reeds daubed with clay and insulated with grass and heather. Or at least, enough of some of the houses remained for Silus to see how they should have looked. Most of them were charred, the roofs collapsed inwards, and the walls fallen or ripped down.
They dismounted, tied up their horses, and wandered slowly around. There were no carrion feeders here. No hordes of crows, or scavenging foxes. The skeletons had long ago been picked clean and washed by the rain. Silus crouched by one collection of bones, still recognisably human despite a missing leg that may have been dragged away to be feasted on by a fox’s young in its den. The bones were too small to belong to an adult. A child then, though he couldn’t tell what sex. He picked up the skull, looked into the eye sockets, then rotated it in his hands and saw the catastrophic split in the top of the cranium, long and wide. A heavy two-handed sword blow, he thought. He let the skull roll out of his fingers, and looked over to Atius.
Silus’ friend stuck his head into one of the roundhouses, then pulled it out again abruptly, grimacing. Silus went over to investigate what had upset his friend. Atius shook his head, but Silus looked inside anyway.
The smell was still overpowering, retained by the house’s largely intact roof and walls. The dwelling, as with most, was a single open room, with beds and storage jars around the periphery, animal skin rugs on the floor and a central fire. The cooking pot was overturned and had long since been licked dry.
On one of the beds were two adult skeletons, one atop the other, facing each other. A legionary pilus still skewered them together, like a spit with pieces of meat on for roasting. Some desiccated sinew and flesh still hung off them, especially where the two were pressed together and the scavengers had found it hard to reach. Another child’s skeleton lay partially in the central fire, the bones charred. The skull was disarticulated from the neck, but Silus didn’t know whether that was from wild animals or the Roman soldiers who had massacred these villagers.
He came back out, and walked over to Atius, who was standing and staring into the distance, face pale. Atius was mouthing a silent prayer, and Silus let him finish, waiting beside him patiently.
‘Was it necessary?’ asked Atius when he was done.
‘That’s not our job to decide.’
They were quiet for a moment. ‘Once, some parents brought their children to the Christos for him to pray over and lay his hands on them. The disciples of the Christos were angry and told them to go away. But the Christos said to let the children come to him. For, he said, the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. Silus, they killed the children.’
‘Have you forgotten who you are talking to?’ Silus’ tone was low and full of warning.
‘Of course not. But these children did not kill your family.’
‘Their kin killed my kin. They deserve every punishment that the Augusti and the gods throw at them.’ Silus turned towards the hut and spat in its direction. Atius’ face hardened for a moment. Then his head dropped. He put a hand on Silus’ shoulder, and Silus grasped it briefly.
‘It’s going to get worse, you know that, don’t you,’ said Silus. ‘Last year was brutal, a lightning thrust right through Caledonia, destroying anything that stood in the way of the legions. But its aim was to cow the barbarians into submission with a show of power. This year is different. This year, Severus means to eliminate them. When he is done, there will barely be anyone left alive of the tribes of the Maeatae and the Caledonians. Maybe you should be thankful you are with me, trying to track down the man who broke the treaties and is bringing this destruction down on his people, rather than with the auxilia and legions who will be slaughtering these so-called innocents.’
Atius didn’t answer. After a moment more, Silus sighed. ‘There is nothing for us here, no supplies and no survivors to question. It’s getting late. There should be a temporary marching camp maybe two hours’ ride to the north, abandoned after last year’s campaign. Let’s get there to shelter for the night.’
The camp was further than Silus remembered or maybe the going had been slower than expected, as night had fallen by the time they reached the southern bank of the river the locals called Uisge Theamhich. He had scouted this way before, had actually been the one to report the suitability of the site. The northern bank of the river had been a good place for a marching army to set up for the night – easily defended and with fresh water. Roman doctrine through the centuries had always been to make a fortified camp every night when marching in enemy territory, and between them the soldiers carried all the tools and materials to dig ditches and make palisades. Though hugely time consuming, and always a massive pain in the backside for the legionaries and auxiliaries at the end of a long day’s march, it had been an immutable part of the Roman routine since the time of Julius Caesar and before. Not only did it protect the army for the night, but it also provided a defensive position to the rear should the advance be checked by superior numbers, and further, it created a series of stepping stones that allowed smaller forces to hold the territory that had been taken.
The river wasn’t particularly wide, and at the ford that Silus had scouted previously the depth was only waist high, but it was fast flowing. They led their horses across the river rather than ride them and risk being thrown if their mounts lost their footing, and by walking downstream of the horses, they were partly sheltered from the buffeting of the cold water. Nevertheless, they were shivering and soaked when they pulled themselves up the northern bank. The camp lay about a hundred yards further north.
The marching camps of Severus and Caracalla, although varying to some extent with the vagaries of the terrain, followed a common pattern of a v-shaped ditch, an earth rampart and a palisade of sharpened stakes. There were no gateways as such, just gaps in the defences, with ditch, rampart and palisades set a few yards further forward, to break the charge of an enemy. The stakes had been taken away by the departing soldiers to build the next camp, but the ditch and rampart remained.
Silus and Atius remained dismounted and approached warily. The camps had been abandoned at the end of the last campaigning season, and so could be occupied by anyone who fancied a pre-constructed place for defence and shelter, either for the night or more permanently.
And indeed, as they neared, Silus and Atius smelled the smoke from a wood fire and heard voices from within the boundaries.
‘Do we go round?’ asked Atius.
Silus considered. He was cold and wet, and had been looking forward to a place to rest for the night and get warm and dry. He didn’t relish journeying onwards in the dark for however long was needed to find another place to stop, and then having to construct a shelter before getting rest. On the other hand, he wasn’t supposed to be taking unnecessary risks.
‘Let’s check it out,’ he said.
They tied the horses to a small tree and crept towards the camp. The square structure was big, enclosing around sixty acres, which meant that each side was around five hundred yards long – enough to contain a legion of five thousand men. But the locals were scared enough of the Romans returning to avoid settling in the camp, despite its advantages. The voices from within had to be of travellers or maybe a barbarian war party large enough to be unafraid of a Roman return.
There were four entrances across the ditch at each point of the compass. Silus and Atius approached the boundary about a third of the way along from its south-west corner, slithered down the muddy bank into the ditch, then kept low and inched towards the entrance. The intermittent rain was back in force, sending rivulets down Silus’ neck. But the discomfort was offset by the advantage from the reduced visibility. As they neared the entrance, Silus saw a sentry, wrapped tight in a cloak, leaning on a spear for support, head down in a vain attempt to exclude the weather.
Silus signalled Atius to stop, then drew his knife and approached silently. At the last moment, the sentry sensed Silus’ presence and looked up, eyes wide. He was way too slow. Silus’ knife punched into the sentry’s voice box, and the man went down, clutching his throat and gurgling quietly. Silus beckoned Atius over, and they took an ankle each and pulled the man into the deep shadows of the encircling ditch. With the sentry disposed of, Atius and Silus slipped through the entrance into the camp.
The internal plan of marching camps was also formulaic. The spaces for the tents were arranged so that every contubernium knew exactly where they would pitch for the night, and there was a large open area between the ramparts and the tents known as the intervallum. This distance from rampart to tent ensured that the soldiers were out of reach of missiles sent from beyond the rampart, ensured that the soldiers could easily access the ramparts for defence, and also acted as a parade ground on which the units could form up into battle order, ready for deployment.
It was in this intervallum region that the barbarian interlopers sat, huddled together. An empty marching camp was an eerie place, and one didn’t need much of a superstitious mind to be made nervous about occupying one of the semi-permanent buildings that had been constructed.
There were four men, the flickering light from the flames illuminating long hair, the red colour bleached out by the orange glow from the flames. The fire hissed and spat as the raindrops landed and evaporated. Smoke and steam rose into the black sky.
The men talked in low voices, grumbling about the weather and cursing the Romans, their own leaders, and the gods, that they should be out in this cursed place. Silus heard enough to make out that, like himself, they were a group of scouts, on the lookout for Roman incursions. He beckoned to Atius, and they retreated back to the palisade, out of earshot.
In a low voice, Silus said, ‘What do you think?’
‘They look tired and their lack of alertness is negligent. We can take two before they know we are on them, which then leaves us two on two with the advantage of surprise. I like the odds. But why? Just for a place to rest for the night?’
‘We are on an intelligence mission, remember? These are Maglorix’s men, Maeatae, I’m sure of it from their accents. If we take one alive, we can find out where that bastard is.’
Atius considered for a moment then nodded. They quickly sketched a brief plan of attack, then advanced towards the men, their knives drawn.
The barbarians were blinded by the fire, all of them facing inwards to get the most comfort from the heat and light. They clearly had great confidence in their sentry or felt that they were not in dangerous territory. Silus and Atius were able to approach the small party from behind without the slightest warning. In unison the two Romans stepped forward. They each grabbed the hair of their pre-selected victims, jerked their heads back to expose pale necks, and sliced their throats. Crimson liquid fountained outwards, spurting onto the fire, and a smell like blood sausage filled the air.
Silus and Atius hurled the men to one side, ignoring their dying efforts to stem the catastrophic haemorrhage. They drew their short swords as one, and threw themselves at the remaining two barbarians, while the shocked warriors were still coming to terms with what had happened.
Atius’ target ducked sideways, just avoiding an impaling thrust, and grabbed his spear from where he had left it, butt end buried in the ground. Atius gave his opponent no time to prepare, ducking inside the spear’s reach to thrust again for the man’s chest. The barbarian twisted, the sword slicing across the muscles of his unarmoured chest, but not penetrating. He grabbed Atius’ wrist, then abandoned his spear to grip Atius’ sword hand with both his hands.
Silus’ target was the one they had selected to live. The smallest of the four, they had figured he would be the easiest to overpower. But it turned out he was also the quickest. Reacting as soon as the two Romans had made their appearance, he turned and ran for the nearest exit.
Silus started to pursue, then realised immediately that this light young warrior would leave him standing. But he couldn’t let him go: who knew how far away the nearest reinforcements were?
Silus grabbed the spear the warrior had abandoned, hefted it to gauge the weight, then lined it up. He would only get one chance at this, then the warrior would be gone, and their lives would be in danger. He threw.
The spear sailed true through the air and implanted itself cleanly between the warrior’s shoulder blades. He pitched forward with a cry, and was still.
Silus turned to where Atius was wrestling with the sole surviving barbarian. The warrior had Atius’ sword arm pinned tight, but the Roman’s other hand was free. Silus saw his friend draw back, the knife clutched tight. As the blow came forward, Silus cast his weapons aside and barrelled into the barbarian, knocking him sideways and saving his life.
‘Christos, Silus. What the fuck are you doing?’
The barbarian was winded, but as Silus straddled him, pinning him to the ground, he started to struggle. Silus grabbed the man’s wrists, but he was strong and lithe, and Silus couldn’t hold him.
‘Mine’s dead,’ gasped Silus. ‘Fucking help me! I want this one alive!’
The barbarian’s grasping hands closed around Silus’ discarded knife, forcing it upwards despite Silus’ efforts.
‘Atius!’
Atius took two steps forward and stamped on the hand holding the knife. Bones crunched and the barbarian howled. Atius pressed the point of his sword into the warrior’s throat, and the struggles ceased.
Silus got slowly to his feet, taking deep gulps of air into his lungs. The Maeatae warrior lay on his back, holding his broken wrist gingerly with his other hand, looking up at the two auxiliaries with a furious glare. The tip of Atius’ gladius still indented the skin over the barbarian’s larynx, and he held himself still, aware that any sudden movements could lead to a hole in his windpipe.
‘What’s your name?’ said Silus in perfectly accented Brittonic Celtic.
The Maeatae warrior’s eyes widened.
‘You are one of us?’ he hissed. ‘Traitor.’
Silus’ face remained impassive. ‘I’m not one of you, barbarian pig. I’m a soldier in the Roman army, and you are going to be a dead barbarian pig if you don’t answer my questions.’
‘Ask me what you like. I won’t tell you a thing.’
‘We’ll see.’
Silus retrieved the tough string from his snare and used it to tie the barbarian’s ankles together, the material biting deep into the skin and cutting off the blood supply to his feet. He then did the same with his wrists, and though the barbarian gritted his teeth, he couldn’t fully suppress a cry of pain when his crushed bones ground against each other as the bonds tightened.
When he was safely trussed, Silus took a step back, then kicked him hard in the ribs. The barbarian groaned, squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them to continue his defiant stare.
‘Your name,’ said Silus.
‘Laeg,’ he said. ‘Now tell me yours, so I can look for you in the next life.’
‘I am Gaius Sergius Silus. Come and find me. This is Atius, but he believes he will end up somewhere else, so he might be harder to track down.’
‘What are you saying?’ asked Atius, able only to pick out his name from the barbarian words.
‘Just making introductions so far,’ said Silus. ‘Help me get him upright.’
Atius and Silus pulled Laeg to his feet and Silus looped the bonds of his wrists over the top of one of the few remaining spiked stakes that had made up the palisade. The pain in his broken wrist was obvious, but though he hissed air through gritted teeth, he made no protest.
‘So, let’s have a talk,’ said Silus. ‘I only want to know one thing: where is Maglorix?’
Laeg’s face remained expressionless.
‘You must know how this will go,’ said Silus. ‘We are going to kill you. Do you want to die in terrible pain, or do you want it to be swift and easy?’
‘It doesn’t matter to me, traitor. As long as I keep my honour, Belenus will come in his chariot to take me to the Otherworld.’
‘My friend here believes his god, Christos, could kick your god Belenus’ ass. Tell me where I can find that piece of shit, Maglorix.’
Atius looked sternly at Silus when he heard the name of his god, with warning in his eyes, but he said nothing.
‘If his god is as weak as he looks, I think that is unlikely. But have a care: you are not fit to speak the sun god’s name, traitor.’
‘Me? I don’t give a fuck about the gods. What good are they to me if they can’t save innocent women and children? So fuck Belenus and fuck you.’
Laeg lunged at Silus, but the bonds held tight, and he screwed his eyes up at the pain. Then he started to laugh.
‘I think you have experienced loss, traitor. Your wife? Your children? Was it Maglorix? Is that why you ask me where he is, not where the warband is or where the Caledonians are?’
Silus punched him with his right hand straight in the ribs with a follow up from his left into his midriff. As the breath whooshed out of him, head coming down, Silus punched him with an uppercut to the jaw and then a straight jab to the nose. Cartilage crunched, bone broke, blood ran down Laeg’s moustache and soaked into his beard. Silus drew his fist back for another blow, and found it caught and held fast by Atius. He rounded angrily on his friend.
‘Silus,’ said Atius gently. ‘I don’t know what he is saying to you, but it looks like he getting to you. He is winning.’
Silus stayed defiant for a moment, then nodded and took a breath. Atius was right. He was letting his emotions get away from him. Laeg was probably trying to provoke him into killing him before the barbarian could be tortured into revealing any secrets. What would Oclatinius say if he could see him now? His mentor had taught him how to extract information from a prisoner, with techniques learnt over many decades of experience. For Silus, this would be a first, but now the anger inside him was like ice, not fire, and he felt fully in control.
Slowly and with purpose, he drew his knife from his belt. He held it up and tested the edge with his thumb. Laeg was breathing heavily through his mouth, nose bubbling with blood, but he kept a fascinated gaze on the knife.
‘Silus?’ said Atius uncertainly. ‘What are you doing?’
‘What Oclatinius trained me to do. If you don’t have the stomach to watch, turn your back.’
Laeg was still wearing the cloak that had been sheltering him from the cold and rain, and Silus used the blade to cut the straps holding it in place, so it fell to the ground. Beneath, Laeg wore breeches and a tunic. As Silus cut the tunic away, he spoke in a conversational tone.
‘Tell me about the Otherworld. When Belenus takes you there, are you made whole again? Will your wrist be mended? Your jaw?’ Silus cut the cord that kept Laeg’s breeches up, and they fell around his ankles. Silus looked pointedly at the barbarian’s manhood, shrivelled from fear and pain, and shook his head.
‘What about your prick? Will that grow back? Not that it looks of much use to any woman.’
Laeg’s lips worked, and he whispered, ‘No.’ Silus took hold of his cock and laid the blade against the base.
‘Silus,’ whispered Atius. ‘Sweet Maria.’ But he made no attempt to stop him.
‘Tell me where to find Maglorix.’
‘Please,’ said Laeg, tears springing to his eyes. ‘Don’t do it.’
‘I am going to cut off your cock and balls and feed them to the crows. I wonder how you will enjoy the afterlife without them. This is the last time I will ask. Where is Maglorix?’
‘Tell him,’ yelled Atius, understanding the threat without knowing the words, and not caring that Laeg would not understand him.
There was a moment’s silence, then Silus sighed and shook his head.
‘Wait,’ said Laeg. ‘I’ll tell you. Belenus, forgive me.’
Silus didn’t withdraw the blade, just waited expectantly.
‘Maglorix is with his warband.’ The words were muffled and nasal. ‘He is gathering more Maeatae tribes for the war, and persuading the Caledonians to join him.’
‘Where?’
Laeg sighed. ‘Inchtuthil,’ he said, and dropped his head.
Atius looked at Silus. ‘Did he say…?’
‘Inchtuthil,’ confirmed Silus. ‘Pinnata Castra. That’s bold.’
‘But…’ said Atius, ‘isn’t it haunted?’
Silus’ attempt at a brave laugh came out weak and strained. Pinnata Castra was a Roman legionary fortress built in the early stages of the invasion of Britain, when the Romans were subduing the Caledonians over a hundred years before. Agricola, the governor at the time, built the fortress after his mighty victory at Mons Graupius, a defeat for the Caledonians that still rankled with the barbarians as much as Alesia for the Gauls, or indeed Cannae for the Romans. Taking around three years to construct, the fortress was of a size to rival the great legionary fortresses at Eboracum, Deva Victrix and Isca Silurum. But after being occupied for only six years, the Legio II, Adiutrix, which called it home, was withdrawn to Moesia to deal with a Dacian invasion. Jealous of the Governor’s victories, the Emperor Domitian recalled Agricola to Rome.
With typical Roman attention to detail, the soldiers had taken everything they could carry with them, and destroyed or buried everything they couldn’t. Every piece of pottery was smashed into pieces no bigger than the tip of a man’s finger. The timber from all the houses was removed and the wattle burned. There was even a rumour that the soldiers had carefully buried nearly a million nails that were too heavy to carry to deny them to the locals. Inchtuthil remained in enemy territory, beyond both the walls of Hadrianus and Antoninus, deserted and useless, but nevertheless a constant reminder to the locals of the awesome power that Rome could bring to bear if it was so minded.
Silus had seen the fortress from a distance once when scouting far to the north. The earth and timber curtain walls, once faced with stone, had collapsed. Through the gaps, he could see inside, and where once there had been barracks and drill halls, mess halls and headquarters and workshops, there was now just debris.
An empty legionary fortress is a chilling sight. Five thousand Romans had marched from that place to the battle of Mons Graupius, from which thousands of Caledonians and hundreds of Romans had never returned. In the dusky gloom, as Silus had watched the fort, he swore he could see the lemures of long dead soldiers patrolling where once there had been ramparts. There was no sign of local tribesmen though, no doubt as scared of the haunted fortress as he was himself. Silus had given the place a wide berth, and found a good reason to scout well away from the cursed place.
And now Maglorix had set up camp here.
‘It’s a pretty big statement to his men,’ said Silus. ‘He is showing them he isn’t afraid of Rome, or the afterlife. Not like Laeg here, who doesn’t want to go to the next world without his prick.’
Laeg didn’t understand the Latin, but his eyes were still wide with fear, not least because Silus still hadn’t taken the blade away from his genitals. Silus looked down at his knife as if only just realising he still held it. He took a step back, letting go of the warrior’s fear-shrivelled parts.
‘So,’ said Silus. ‘It looks like we are going to Pinnata Castra.’
Atius didn’t look pleased at the prospect, and spat to ward off evil. ‘What about him?’ he asked, nodding at Laeg.
Silus thought for a moment, then plunged the knife through Laeg’s ribs and into his heart. Laeg spasmed, opened his mouth, and blood poured out. His head lolled to the side and he sagged limp in his bonds.
Atius pursed his lips, then said, ‘After all that, I hope he gets to use his cock in his afterlife.’
Silus gave him a steady glare, then shook his head. ‘Let’s make camp.’