Legionary (19 page)

‘Only a handful of my veterans made it out of that death trap of an ambush,’ Gallus sighed. ‘But that two recruits scraped through as well tells me that they are either damned good,’ he paused, eyeing Pavo with that iron stare, ‘or bloody lucky!’

Pavo blushed as a chorus of muted laughter filtered around the hall, along with a gentle slap on the back from Avitus. He took a swig of ale, begging its bitter wash to flush away his discomfort. Then, a steaming joint of pheasant was plonked in front of him, the skin roasted and glistening as the meaty juices trickled onto the bed of beans underneath.

‘To our lost comrades!’ Gallus boomed, lifting his ale cup.

‘To our lost comrades,’ the hall replied in unison.

To Brutus
, Pavo echoed in his mind, sipping from his cup. He gazed into the swirling liquid, watching the bubbles rise up and disappear like a never ending tide, like legionaries charging into the field, he thought sourly.

‘Our legion is severely depleted, soldier.’ Gallus spoke. Pavo started — the centurion had sidled up next to him, unnoticed. ‘Firstly from the harvesting of our second-line officers by the I Dacia and even more so by these Gothic raids in the last few days. We are looking to our recruit pool to reinforce our number — we need at least fifteen hundred infantry. You are going to be joining my century. The first century.’ He paused for a moment, watching Pavo’s face for a reaction. ‘I’ll have my eye on you, soldier, I have a feeling it’s best to keep the troublemakers close.’ He held Pavo’s gaze. ‘And one more thing; your sparring partners, Spurius and his big mate…’

Pavo craned forward.

Gallus’ expression was like stonework, ‘…they’re gone. Off with the I Dacia. Seems Tribunus Wulfric likes the fiery ones in his ranks.’ The centurion shook his head, eyes distant for a moment. ‘Anyway, as you were.’ With that, he was gone.

Pavo stared into the space Gallus had been seated. At once shocked, embarrassed and euphoric, he knocked back another mouthful of ale. The punch of the golden liquid now swam like a delicious torrent through his mind as the words sank in. Nothing darkened his horizon now. Nothing. No Tarquitius, no Fronto, no Festus, no Spurius. He felt giddy at the sensation of relief.

‘Anyway,’ Felix cackled, having surreptitiously flanked him on the other side, ‘that means I’m your optio, so you’d better not go drinking too much of that ale and making an arse of yourself in front of me now, lad.’ He motioned towards the other veterans around the table. ‘And over here are your brothers from today; Zosimus and Avitus. I don’t think you’ve met Quadratus?’ A blonde, moustachioed giant, rivalling Zosimus in stature, grunted over the rim of his ale cup. ‘You’ll be in our
contubernium
; so you’ll march with us, drink and eat with us, and share a tent with us…so you’d better not be a farter.’ The optio glared at Quadratus, who shot back an open-mouthed look of innocence.

Pavo had barely given the legionaries each a nod of greeting, when a bowl of swirling garum and dates was set down next to his pheasant. He followed the delicate hand that held the plate, all the way up the slender arms — and there was that fresh, milky white fresco-like face of Felicia, the barmaid from
The Boar and Hollybush
; bright blue eyes framed in amber locks tumbling down over her ample breasts. Did she remember him from the night he had compromised the integrity of Zosimus’ balls?

‘Er, thanks,’ he simpered, ‘you work here too?’

‘Volunteer, actually,’ she spoke briskly and then turned away.

‘Leave it, Pavo,’ Avitus whispered, ‘her brother died in our ranks a few years back.’

Pavo looked back at her, eyes heavy. ‘Goths?’

Avitus hissed back. ‘Like I said, leave it!’

Felicia caught his gaze again as she worked her way around the table. ‘Was there something else?’

‘Eh…’ Pavo stammered, ‘Any chance of another ale?’

‘Another ale? Don’t know about that — I don’t want you starting a fight again tonight,’ she scowled. At this Zosimus cocked an eyebrow and examined Pavo’s face again, then shook his head.

Pavo’s face burned and his heart sank. ‘No,’ he offered, ‘I’ll be making sure we all behave tonight.’

A mock gasp of indignation from the legionaries was followed by a pitying shake of the head from the barmaid, her features melting into a sarcastic grin.

‘You? But you’re
only
a recruit,’ she sighed.

As she turned and slinked away, Pavo’s neck boiled with humiliation, yet his eyes hung on every swing of her broad hips. The stifled sniggering of Pavo’s companions rumbled into harsh cackling. He turned on them, his teeth grinding. All the faces were wrinkled in hilarity. Then the barmaid drifted past behind Zosimus. She winked at him. His heart skipped a beat, his jaw fell open and the tension fell from him like a stone.

‘I think she might have guessed that you like her,’ Avitus sniggered.

Pavo, lost for words, raised his eyebrows in defeat.

Felix cast an arm round his shoulder. ‘You’ll get used to her tearing you to shreds. It means she likes you.’

Pavo grinned.

‘Trust me, I would know,’ Avitus added eagerly.

Pavo frowned.

Gallus watched the activity on the dockside pensively, sipping water from his cup. What he would gain from this he wasn’t sure, but his gut told him to come here and see this new legion set sail. Sitting alone on a bench outside the dockside drinking hole he was, for the first time in months, dressed as a citizen, not a soldier. For a moment, his thoughts wandered; the absent weight of his scabbard and spatha felt like a missing limb. It felt strange, it let old memories back in.

He shook his head and turned back to the water’s edge. So the I Dacia legion was almost ready to ship out, to begin their role as a roaming sentry legion, sailing the lower Danubius and the western Pontus Euxinus. Their fleet was supposed to complement the
Classis Moesica
, but in reality the rickety collection of
triremes
that the limitanei used to patrol these waters would be the mongrel herd hanging on to the stern of this immaculate new fleet.

Having ravaged the XI Claudia for officers, the ships of the fleet were already well-manned with legionaries, their armour as pristine as the trireme timbers were fresh. Now they would head upriver to collect Fritigern’s mercenary hordes. It galled Gallus to think the Roman peasants in his ranks were being clad in rusting, ancient armour while the Goths they fought to protect the empire from were being dressed in the finest, freshly tempered scale-plate vests. He wondered just how strong the borders could be if the same investment was made into the limitanei ranks.

The sixty vessels cut their moorings and drifted free of the dock wall. At this, the gathered crowd roared in farewell. Once in the current of the mighty Danubius, the ships engaged their triple banks of oars, and then began to row upstream, with the power of the remiges winning against the current of the river. Gallus squinted, sure the fiery locked figure on the head trireme was glaring back at him.
Wulfric
.

The fleet gradually disappeared as it slipped upriver towards the late afternoon sun. The limitanei of the Danubius were well beyond cracking point now that the I Dacia initiative had begun. Once the Bosporus mission set sail, the empire was wide open. The thought chilled him to the bone.

Wide open
.

A bitter galerampaged across the vast Bosporan plains, torturing the fresh snow, never allowing it to settle for longer than a brief instant before whipping it back up in a never-ending cycle of blinding, stinging white. This absurdly late snowfall had coated the land just two nights previous, blotting out the spring sun.

Amalric shivered violently, pulling his furs tight, swishing his blonde locks around his neck and gripping his thighs firmly into his mount to draw in even a fraction more heat from the beast. His face was so cold it almost obscured the blue stigma spiralling across his jaw. Allfather
Wodin,
the great god, had deserted them; so was this the end for the Greuthingi Goths of Bosporus? He eyed his King, Tudoric, mounted next to him; the proud man wore the cold expression of a defiant leader — what more could he offer in these bitter circumstances? Then he surveyed the hastily assembled blizzard of infantry lined up in ranks behind them; men of all ages clad in the best leather and iron armour that the Gothic communities of the region could gather. The finest swords, shields and bows were on display and every one of them stretched proudly to their full height, topknots billowing in the icy gale. This was it, end of the line. All or nothing; to go for broke against the massive shadow staining the other end of the plain, or sit here and die. These demonic horsemen had poured in through the narrow neck of the peninsula, massacring, pillaging and desecrating everything in their path. The Gothic people had been brushed westwards like litter. Here it came to a head; Amalric and his army were now trapped in this icy waste. Nowhere left to run. The flat-faced yellow predators circled their stricken prey.

The Gothic women and children stood to the rear, armed with clubs and daggers, shivering and sobbing. The Gothic fleet, sent to rescue them, had never turned up. Thus, their only option had been to turn around and face their dark pursuers. But their tormentors did not take the bait. For days, they waited, watched as the Goths froze and starved. Gradually, the defiant morale of Tudoric, Amalric and the army had ebbed.

Amalric knew that their number could not hope to win this battle, and the war drums played by the Goths took on a dirge-like quality. At the last count, seven thousand stood in waiting behind him for inevitable death against the estimated twenty thousand baying, lasso and spear wielding cavalry and spear infantry.

As he scoured the shadow of his enemy one more time for any hint of hope, he noticed what looked like a mirage in the snow; a tiny black shape rippling towards him thought the raging blizzard. His senses keened.

‘An emissary?’ Tudoric suggested to Amalric.

‘I implore you, my king — be wary of these dogs,’ Amalric replied, ‘they may not even know the meaning of the word emissary.’

‘I don’t think I’ve ever trusted anyone less,’ Tudoric agreed, issuing a wry grin to his second-in-command. ‘Unfortunately we have no option but to parley. Train the best archers on our guest. Should I not return — you are king.’

With that, Tudoric spurred his horse into a canter towards the approaching horseman.

Amalric was stunned for a moment and then cursed silently; his king was brash, too brash at times. He raised an arm to the line of chosen archers, the men who could kill accurately from the horizon, the front line of the Gothic forces. In unison, they picked arrows and nocked their bows, before arching their chests and raising their weapons to meet the required trajectory to perforate the approaching horseman.

Turning back, Amalric’s heart thundered as Tudoric slowed to a trot, matching the actions of the Horseman. The pair circled each other tentatively, before settling to a standstill. Through stinging, driving snow, Amalric peered at the distinctive features of the rider — short in comparison with a Goth, but broad like a bull, and bearing three terrible, red, welted scars symmetrically on each cheek. Their reputation had started as raiders, but quickly word had spread of them as centaur-like demons such was their riding ability.

The rider nodded assertively as he spoke to Tudoric; the king sat with his back straight as usual, equanimity personified even at this; the darkest of hours. The conversation continued in a one-sided manner, and Amalric afforded a glance back along the Gothic lines. Towards the rear, where the families and the bulk of the army were formed up, Amalric grimaced at every spirit-sapping shuffle of a frozen kinsman falling, exposed and exhausted from the terrible conditions. Then he turned back to the meeting, Amalric felt his stomach turn over — a flash of steel glinted through the whipping winds.

The rider had somehow hooked his arm around King Tudoric’s neck, holding a hound’s-tooth dagger to his throat. Immediately, Amalric raised his hand to the chosen archers. At once, their taut bows slackened slightly. He knew that despite their extreme skill, the chance of killing their own leader was too great, especially with the turbulence of the blizzard.

An excruciating silence ensued, before the rider bellowed in an unknown jagged tongue. The aggressive rant rolled over the whistle of the blizzard until he finished his speech by drawing his dagger slowly across Tudoric’s throat, letting a wave of dark blood jet forth, soaking the king and his horse. The Gothic people at once erupted into a torrent of moans and laments, some falling to their knees as Tudoric tumbled from his horse into the scarlet snow.

Amalric stared in horror, his heart hammering. The end had begun, and now he was king. The word to loose arrows lodged in his throat as he turned to his archers, his eyes widening as an ethereal dark mass emerged from the snow on the Gothic flank. His jaw simply hung open at the sight; an unchecked horde of a thousand or more demonic cavalry was charging directly for the exposed flank of his ranks. A cold certainty gripped his soul. Amalric drew his sword.

‘Archers! Right flank, loose!’ He roared. The archers stumbled and cried out as they saw their fate haring in on them. They let fly with a swarm of arrows, accurate as usual, bringing down several of the onrushing cavalry, but not nearly enough.

Amalric roared as Tudoric’s killer trotted calmly back to his lines and the flanking riders poured into the side of the Gothic line. Up ahead, the full weight of the demon army now poured forward. The hiss of a thousand arrows filled the air, then a sharp pain ripped into his shoulder and his world was hurled upside down in chaos as the massacre began.

Bearing the pain of the blisters, scratches and bruises from the battle, Pavo and Sura hobbled up the dusty road into Durostorum. Dressed in clean tunics, belts and boots bearing purses modestly lined with a handful of folles — the legionary wage minus funeral club and kit replacement — they were ready for the night ahead, the last night before shipping out on the Bosporus mission.