The Iron Hand of Mars (38 page)

Fate had been generous for long enough, and now she turned her glamorous back on us. Impelled by the increased current and weighed down by a flooded bilge, the flagship slowly started to rotate. Even to us it became obvious she had decided to sink. This was desperate. In November, the river was at its lowest, but it still surged formidably and we were not exactly web-footed coots.

Helvetius shouted “We have to put her in—
before
the Rhenus takes her!”

He was right. We were the wrong side of the river—still on the
wrong
river—but if she sank in midstream we would lose everything, and men would drown. The recruits might have grown up as harbour boys, but only the famous Batavians had ever swum the Rhenus and survived to boast. I said nothing, but at least one member of our party (me) had never learned to swim at all.

Luckily, although the cantankerous galley strongly objected to sailing nicely to safety, it was perfectly willing to run aground on a hostile shore.

We brought her in, which is to say she bumbled of her own accord up the muddiest beach she could find, with a rending crunch that told us she was now ready to rot. Although the ship was beached, her bitter crew had to wade through a spreading morass of turgid water and silt to reach what for human feet counted as land. She had chosen the Tencteri bank. At least, we hoped, they would not know we had slipped away from Veleda's tower in circumstances their Bructian colleagues might have wanted to query.

The junction of these two great rivers was a sombre scene. The air felt cold. The whole area was unwelcoming. With the ground too spongy for farming, the place seemed lonely and deserted. A sudden flock of heavy geese overhead, silent apart from the eerie swishing of their wings, startled us more than it should have done. We were on edge to the point where it could cause mistakes.

We were in sight of the Rhenus, so we despatched a small party to squelch to the riverbank and look for a Roman ship to hail. For once there were none—naturally. Our bored watch party came back, against orders, feebly maintaining that the ground was too marshy to cross, but we were too dispirited to harangue them. Helvetius being a centurion, made a tiresome attempt to revive us with action.

“What now, Falco?”

“I intend to dry my boots, then spend at least three hours sitting on a hummock and blaming other people for what went wrong … What does anyone else suggest?”

“Tribune?”

“I'm too hungry to have brilliant ideas.”

We were all hungry. So Helvetius proposed that since we were trapped here, and since the area was teeming with marsh birds and other wildlife, we might as well unpack our unused javelins and seek out prey with some flesh on it. I could remember what he had once said about stupid officers wanting boar-hunts in places they knew were dangerous, but the recruits were morose with starvation, so we let him lead off a forage band. I sent Lentullus out with a bucket looking for crayfish, to keep him out of our way. The rest of us unpacked the galley and loaded the horses, temporarily reprieved from the pot now that we needed them. Then we set off for drier ground where we could camp.

I had wet feet, and the prospect of sharing one eight-man tent with twenty-four other people was already causing misery. The flints in our tinder-box were now so worn nobody could start the fire. Helvetius had the knack—he was competent at everything. We were, therefore, badly in need of him just at the moment when Orosius and the others sloped into camp with a couple of mangled marsh birds but no centurion, admitting that Helvetius seemed to be lost.

It was so out of character I knew straight away that some disaster had occurred.

*   *   *

Justinus stayed on camp duty. I took Orosius, a horse, and our medical casket.

“Where were you last with him?”

“No one was sure. That's why we all came back.”

“Jupiter!” I hated the sound of this.

“What's happened, Falco?”

“I think he must be hurt.” Or worse.

Inevitably the lad could not remember where the party had strayed. While we were searching the marshes we seemed to hear noises as though someone was tracking us. We could have imagined it, for the sounds were intermittent, but we had no time to investigate. We came to a place where side-channels stagnated amongst giant reeds. There, on a ridge of firm turf, alongside a creek, we found our man.

He was alive. But he had not been able to call for help. He had a Roman throwing-spear piercing his throat, and another in his groin.

“Dear gods! Orosius, one of you careless young bastards will be strangled for this…”

“Those aren't ours—”

“Don't lie! Look at them—
look
!”

They were Roman javelins. No question about it. They had nine-inch spikes with soft iron necks which had bent on impact. That was by design. Stuck in an enemy's shield, a long wooden shaft dragging on a crooked head impedes movement and is impossible to pull out and throw back. While the victims struggle, we rush them with swords.

The centurion's eyes were pleading—or, more likely, giving me orders. I refused to meet their deep brown, agitated stare.

Somewhere nearby a bird rose, screaming.

“Keep watch, Orosius…”

Blood should never make you panic, a surgeon once told me. He could afford to be philosophical; there was money in blood for him. At this moment, if that surgeon had stepped out from a willow tree, I would have made him a millionaire. Helvetius moaned, proudly holding in the noise. Faced with a man who was suffering so horribly, it was hard not to be terrified. I dared not move him. Even if I could get him to camp, there was no advantage; what had to be done might as well be done here. Then we could think about transporting him.

I rolled my cloak into a bumper to support the lower spear; Helvetius, still unaffected by shock, was gripping the other himself. Breaking the wooden shafts would help lessen their weight, but with the iron stuck in those positions I dared not try …

Voices. Orosius, glad of the excuse, disappeared to investigate.

I was muttering, partly to reassure Helvetius, but more to calm myself. “Don't look at me like that, man. All you have to do is lie there acting brave. It's my problem…” He kept trying to say something. “All right. I'm going to do my best—you can give me your list of complaints later.”

I knew I had to work quickly, but it would have been easier if I had felt at all confident. Most of the blood was coming from the neck wound. One barb had failed to penetrate, which could mean the whole thing was extractable. I closed my mind to the thought that the other wound might be bleeding internally. You have to do what you can.

Our medical box was one item Justinus had managed to save from the Bructeri. Its contents were mainly salves and bandages, but I did find a couple of slender bronze hooks which might help me hold back the surrounding skin enough to free the barb. There was even a gadget for extracting missiles, but I had once seen one used: it had to be inserted, twisted under the point, then pulled out very skilfully. It was a skill I lacked. I elected to try without it first.

There was movement or noise in the channel to my left. Not quite a splash, more a skirling of water. It was so slight that I hardly registered it as I bent over Helvetius; I had no time for otters or frogs in the bulrushes.

“
Aurochs
…” Our tough old soldier was hallucinating like a fevered child.

“Don't try to talk—”

Then came a flurry in the osiers, a rush, a cry, and a group of men sprang from nowhere. They had their spears up for hurling, but thoughtfully held on to them with a tight grip once they discovered us.

 

LVII

It was a hunting party, led by some high-class bastard in discreetly well-woven brown wool. He had a Spanish horse, several reverent companions, two bearers bringing extra spears, and a bad case of apoplectic rage. He stared round, spotted me, and it was in perfect Latin that he spat, “Oh Castor and Pollux—what are
people
doing here?”

I stood up. “Existing—like yourself!”

My own Latin stopped him dead.

He hurled himself from the horse, dropped its bridle, then strode nearer—but not too near. “Thought you were Tencteri. We've heard them about.” That was all I needed. “I've lost my quarry. Something big—”

The haircut he was tearing at was black and cleanly layered to show the handsome shape of his head; the teeth he gnashed were even, orderly, and white. His belt was nielloed with silver; his boots were supple jobs whose tassels were affixed with bronze studs; his signet-ring was an emerald. His rage was the kind you can see any day in the Forum of the Romans after some inattentive donkey-driver has barged aside a man of note coming out of the Basilica Julia.

I was very tired. My body ached. My heart had rarely been more dreary. “Your quarry's here,” I said quietly. “Not quite killed yet.”

I stepped aside so the man with the ear-splitting senatorial vowels would have a better view of our centurion, lying wounded at my feet.

“This is Appius Helvetius Rufus, centurion of the legio First Adiutrix. Don't worry about it,” I said courteously. “Helvetius is a realist. He always knew he stood in less danger from the enemy than from the crass incompetence of senior staff…”

“I am a Roman officer,” the leader of the hunting group informed me haughtily, raising his well-groomed eyebrows under his neat black fringe.

“I know who you are.” Something in the caustic way I dared return his stare must have warned him. “I know a lot about you. Your finances are based on a complicated debt structure; your domestic life is in turmoil. Your wife is restless, and your mistress deserves better. And both of them would
hate
to know you visit a certain party in Colonia…”

He looked amazed. “Are you threatening me?”

“Probably.”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Didius Falco.”

“Means nothing,” he barked.

“It should do. I would have introduced myself six weeks ago, if you had been available. Then you would also have avoided an officeful of unanswered despatches, including Vespasian's critical letter about your legion's future.” He was about to speak. I continued without raising my voice or hurrying: “He's also questioning
your
future. Your name is Florius Gracilis. Your legion is the Fourteenth Gemina, and we'll just have to pray they have sufficient experience to survive a legate whose attitude to command is casual beyond belief.”

“Listen—”

“No, you listen, sir!” I used the title as an insult. “I have just found you using army-issue spears for private purposes, on the wrong side of the Rhenus, in company which the Emperor will certainly call unethical—”

One of the legate's companions made a sudden obscene gesture. I recognised the rapidity of the movement as much as his cleft chin and vivid sneer.

I looked the man straight in the eye. “You're a very long way from Lugdunum!” I said.

 

LVIII

The Gaul I had last seen arguing with the two German potters squared up angrily. I had been in another world since I had travelled through his province on my way to Upper Germany, but the quarrel at Lugdunum and finding the potters' bodies now came back to me vividly. The big Gaul with the sneer said nothing. Just as well. It would keep. Out here, feeling vulnerable, I was reluctant to tackle him.

I sensed more than saw the faint movement from Helvetius. I knew he was warning me. Suddenly I understood why the centurion was lying on this ridge of turf with two spears in him. I remembered a conversation I had had with him before we left Moguntiacum. He too had seen the Gallic potter arguing with Bruccius and his nephew at Lugdunum; he had even seen the Gaul tailing them later. Maybe the Gaul had seen Helvetius. In court, a centurion's word would be enough to convict a provincial. Finding Helvetius alone out here in the wilderness must have seemed like a gift from the gods to a man who had killed twice already.

I wondered if Florius Gracilis knew just what kind of “accident” had befallen the wounded man, but from his face when he first saw Helvetius I doubted it. Involving himself in corruption was one thing; murder would be too foolish.

Not knowing the full story, Gracilis opted for bluster. No doubt he believed he had covered his tracks on the tendering fraud and could fudge matters generally once we reached home. “A tragedy,” he muttered. “Let me know if I can help … Most unfortunate. Accidents will happen. Whole trip has been most inconvenient from day one. I was supposed to be meeting some pedlar who said he could show me the Varus battlefield. Hopeless crook. Took my money to equip himself, then failed to show.” Dubnus.

“If he's a Ubian with a long lip and a strong line in grousing, I hijacked him,” I said. My position strengthened subtly. Dubnus was also a witness to the legate's junketing, and now I had control of Dubnus … I saw Gracilis narrow his eyes; he took the point. To reinforce it I added another: “The pedlar betrayed us to the Bructeri, and it's safe to say he was planning the same fate for you.”

“Oh I doubt that!” Even after years of watching senators, this man's arrogance took my breath away.

Somehow we had to get home. I was prepared for bargaining. I set my feet more stubbornly and told the legate bluntly, “If this Gaul is a friend of yours, you should be more careful. There are two dead men in Cavillonum he may be called to account for.” I offered him a get-out. “The victims were local to your command. The community at Moguntiacum will look to you to deal with it.”

I had judged him correctly. “Sounds as if I have something to investigate!” The legate distanced himself imperceptibly from the man with the cleft chin. Sharp practice has a lovely habit of working both ways eventually. “I have no idea what you are doing here,” he challenged me. It was the cool, smooth, patrician voice of a man who expects to get away with everything on the grounds of his cool, smooth, patrician ancestry. “I myself am engaged on a political reconnaissance.”