The Wolf's Gold (14 page)

Julius nodded grimly.

‘You’d best be careful not to outstay your welcome once the barbarians make their appearance. I’d rather find out they’ve arrived some other way than watching your heads bobbing about on spears.’

Silus turned away, jumping into his mount’s saddle.

‘Don’t worry about us, we’ll give the unwashed hordes the appropriate measure of respect. You’ll have plenty to keep you busy, I expect, what with finishing off the defences and choosing a name for the impending arrival?’

Julius nodded without any change in his expression.

‘Indeed. I was discussing that very subject with the baby’s mother-to-be last night, and the two of us were pretty much agreed to call the baby after you . . .’ He waited for a moment, allowing the idea to sink in and then, before Silus could muster any reply, shook his head sadly. ‘Until Annia pointed out that any child called “Nosey Arsehole” was going to be at a disadvantage in life.’

Silus threw back his head and laughed uproariously.

‘Harsh but fair, First Spear, harsh but fair. Come along then, Centurion Two Knives, let’s get you mounted and be on our way. I want to be tucked up in our hiding place before the sun gets too high. And since the subject of our first spear’s impending arrival is clearly forbidden, we’ll work out what to call that greedy little mare of yours instead.’

The assembled centurions of the two Tungrian cohorts snapped to attention as Julius stalked into the morning officers’ meeting. Some of them stared fixedly at the hills behind him, not daring to meet his eyes, while others, men that had known him longer and in one or two cases had previously outranked him, met his stare with hard, impassive eyes.

‘Gentlemen, the rumour’s all over the camp so let’s lay it to rest. Yes, I am going to be a father. At some point in the future when we’re all staggering drunk in celebration of beating off the barbarians and toasting those of us that don’t survive the experience, you’re all welcome to take the piss as much as you like, as long as you don’t mind having your many and varied shortcomings exposed in return. For now though’ – he looked around at his officers, taking stock of their grim, bearded faces – ‘I couldn’t give a shit about any of that. We have one objective today, to get that wall built high enough and strong enough to resist a determined attack by thousands of gold-crazed barbarians. The tribune is away making sure that the legion centuries on the slopes to either side of the wall will have their defences in place, but we all know that if they’re going to come at us it has to be straight up the valley. Yes, they’ll send patrols round the flanks but they’ll get no joy there. It will all come down to a straight fight to get over the wall, and as far as I’m concerned, we have to have it ready to defend by the time darkness falls tonight.’

He looked around at his officers with a hard stare.

‘So it’s time to stop the soft treatment. We need those miners working like animals today, not taking this as an opportunity to get some sunshine on their backs, so here’s a direct instruction for all of you. The first man you see slacking off, soldier or miner, you take your vine stick to him and you make it clear to all of them that the next one will be getting a tickle from this . . .’ He held up the whip, allowing its braided leather straps to hang free. ‘And if you have to, then you send the next man you have to pull up to me. I’ll be setting up a whipping post by the main gate so that anyone who gets to ride it does so in full view of the rest. Now get to it, and don’t let me down.’

The scouting detachment rode down the road beyond the rapidly growing wall at a swift trot, each man keeping watch in a different direction as a defence against the potential for roaming Sarmatae scouts to surprise them from the dense forest around them. At the Ravenstone valley’s end they turned north, rejoining the path up the road that the cohorts had left to reach the mine complex. Two hours’ riding saw them over the ridge at this valley’s far end and taking their lunch in the shelter of a sparse copse of straggling trees, whose trunks and branches had been twisted and bent to the east over long years of exposure to the wind. Silus sat chewing his bread with his coarse wool cloak wrapped tightly about his body, looking down the valley’s length with professional interest.

‘Not so different from the mountains to the north of the Wall in Britannia, is it? We could almost be hunting down Calgus and his bluenoses, rather than riding out for a game of cat and mouse with these Sarmatae. Now, as to this horse of yours . . .’

Marcus leant back and rubbed the mare’s neck affectionately, provoking an immediate nudge in his back from the animal’s snout.

‘It seems to me that the giving of names can bring bad luck, if poor old Bonehead is any indication. It might be better to leave her as she is, safely anonymous.’

The decurion snorted derisively.

‘That’s all very well for you, when you’ll only be getting onto her every now and then, but we’ll have to feed and exercise her every day. What am I supposed to do, tell my men “go and feed the mare”? I can just imagine the confusion. No, if you won’t name her then we will. What do you think lads?’

One of the riders spoke up from behind them.

‘She tried to bite me this morning, the crafty bitch. What about Nipper?’

Silus nodded.

‘Nipper. I like the sound of that. There you go, Centurion, problem solved. We’ll just . . .’ He turned back to the view down the valley, his eyes narrowing. ‘Nobody move.’

Holding himself stock-still, Marcus swivelled his head slowly to look at whatever it was that had caught the decurion’s attention. A mile or so down the valley’s length, at the point where the river far below them swung in a tight horseshoe to the north, a party of horsemen had come into view. Silus grimaced at the sight, shaking his head.

‘At least fifty of them. There’s no way we can fight them, and if we try to run there’s a good chance they’ll chase us down before we can get clear. I reckon the best we can do is keep our heads down and let them pass us by. Get down behind the trees, slowly and smoothly, and keep your mouths shut. With a bit of luck they’ll stick to the river and give us a nice wide berth.’

The soldiers watched as the enemy scouts made their way down the valley floor at a careful pace, the riders looking about them suspiciously.

‘They’re ready for trouble, almost as if they know we’re hereabouts.’

Silus nodded at Marcus’s whispered comment.

‘They know we’ve taken occupation of the valley alright. You can be sure that the scouts whose tracks the centurion here found yesterday will have made a careful count of our numbers as we marched in, and they’ll have noted that we had hardly any cavalry. That’s why this lot have been sent forward in enough strength to deal with any riders that we might have out looking for them. It was as well that we were snuggled down here behind these trees.’

‘And once they’re past us?’

‘The decurion smiled tightly at Marcus’s question.

‘Once they’re past us, Centurion, that’s when the fun starts.’

The Tungrian scouts sat in silence as the enemy party rode slowly down the valley, watching from the scanty shelter of the copse as the Sarmatae picked over the valley floor, clearly looking for any signs of Roman cavalry activity. Silus shook his head in professional exasperation, staring down at the riders in their apparently listless examination of the ground to either side of the river.

‘Whoever’s in command down there must have a head that’s all skull. I’d have spaced them across the valley and swept every last inch, not just ridden up the riverbank.’ He sighed. ‘I suppose we should be grateful, but I hate to see a job done badly.’

They waited until the enemy scouts had ridden out of sight around the shoulder of the hill on which the Tungrians were perched, and Silus got slowly to his feet.

‘We can expect the main body to come down the river behind them soon enough, so it’s time to be on our way just in case they double back and put us between the hammer and the anvil. You three, you’re to ride south over the hill and through the forest until you find a clear path back to the Ravenstone. Warn Julius he’s got the rest of today to get that wall raised at the very best. If you spot the Sarmatae again then you go to ground and wait for them to piss off unless they’ve seen you, in which case you ride like madmen for the mine and the best of luck to you. The rest of us are going to find somewhere a bit less exposed to watch from.’

The three men mounted up and rode down into the valley at a fast trot, Silus anxiously craning his neck to look to the east for the riders who had already passed them, but his men forded the shallow river and ascended the far side without any sign of the advance party.

‘This ought to do nicely.’

They led the horses deeper into the forest that crowned the hill, leaving Arabus to guard them while Marcus and Silus watched the valley from the cover of the trees. After an hour or so the first riders of the Sarmatae vanguard trotted past their hiding place, some of them close enough for Marcus to see their faces. Silus watched them with a professional scrutiny, muttering quietly in the Roman’s ear.

‘At least this lot are doing their jobs properly, although I’d have been tempted to comb these woods as well as the valley’s slopes. And by the gods, there’s some stunning horseflesh out there. Watch what they do when they reach the end of the valley.’

As the two men watched from their shelter the riders turned south toward the Ravenstone, some two thousand strong beneath blood-red banners decorated with white swords which danced prettily on the breeze. Silus nodded to himself.

‘If we ever doubted that they would be heading for the mine, there’s the proof. At that pace they’ll reach the wall well before darkness. Let’s hope that Julius has managed to build it too tall for a horseman to jump, because that many pigstickers would make a nasty mess of the defenders if they were to get behind it.’

‘A blood-red flag decorated with a white sword? That will be Boraz, he goes to war under just such a flag.’ Cattanius looked around the officers gathered on the wall with a faint smile. ‘And I think that we can be grateful that our intelligence was correct. As you can see, Boraz is very much the junior partner in terms of the size of his warband.’

While the tribunes and their first spears stood and watched the barbarian outriders move cautiously up the valley, their men were still labouring around them, the soldiers catching turfs and laying them along the top of the rampart to form the five-foot-high parapet, behind which the defending troops would be protected from enemy spears and arrows. Julius looked out at the oncoming mass of horsemen with a long stare of appraisal.

‘If that’s the size of their advance guard then I’d say it’s of little matter to me which of your two kings has come to play. Either way we’re all dead men, if this wall fails to stop them getting among us.’ He looked about him with a grim smile. ‘Mind you, their arrival seems to have put a little more urgency into the construction.’ Where the mine workers had previously been working hard enough to avoid the ever present threat of a flogging for anyone caught slacking, their efforts had redoubled at the sight of the barbarian cavalry making their way up the valley. ‘Let’s not tell them that the wall’s already high enough to deter that lot, eh? I quite like them putting the extra effort in.’

The officers watched as the Sarmatae vanguard rode cautiously up the valley, until they were no more than fifty paces beyond the best distance that an archer atop the wall’s fighting platform could hope to coax from his bow. A single rider came on, the tail of a scarlet banner trailing over his shoulder. Reining his horse in a few paces from the wall’s foot, he sat in silence for a moment and looked up and down the rampart with an amused smile before calling out to them.

‘How very Roman.’ His voice carried to the officers easily enough in the afternoon’s calm, the confident tones of nobility obvious to the listening Julius. ‘You hide behind your walls without any regard for the cowardice you display. Far better to meet an enemy on the field of battle, sword to sword, than to disgrace yourselves like
this
. . .’ He waved an expressive hand at the wall, shaking his head in apparent sadness. ‘When you go to meet your ancestors they will ask you whether you died like men, and all you will be able to say is that you built a tall, strong wall and then hid behind it with your knees knocking together.’

Scaurus looked down at him dispassionately.

‘Possibly, but I won’t be talking with my grandfather any time soon, whereas you my friend have already booked a place at the table with yours tonight, unless you get to whatever point it was you came to make and then shift your arrogant barbarian backside out of the range of my bowmen.’

The horseman nodded up at Scaurus.

‘As you wish. I am Galatas, son of King Asander Boraz and commander of his horsemen. My father has sent me before him in order to offer you a most generous gift. You will be permitted to depart this place with your lives, and with your weapons and armour, if you will quit your defences tomorrow at dawn. My father is willing to allow you this magnificent gift of mercy if you will swear to withdraw from this part of your province, and promise never to return.’

Scaurus looked down at the horseman for a moment before speaking, shaking his head gently from side to side.

‘A generous offer indeed, and I must ask you to thank your noble father for his magnanimity. I am forced, however, to refuse this“gift of mercy”. It seems to me that while we would be leaving this place with our lives and our equipment intact, our honour and dignity would be left here shredded beyond any repair. I’m sure that your father, man of honour that he undoubtedly is, will understand my reluctance to accede to his request.’

Galatas smiled darkly back up at the Roman.

‘This is both as I expected and hoped. It is a mark of pride for our people that no man can truly consider himself a warrior until he has taken the head of one enemy soldier, and has the dead man’s helmet to bear witness to his conquest. Your crested helmet will look fine on the wall of my great hall when I succeed my father. Perhaps I will cut off your ears before I kill you, to nail up alongside it?’