The Wolf's Gold (43 page)

He gestured to Marcus, who took out the veteran’s pendant and wiped it carefully down the blade of the poisoned arrowhead he had pulled from his shield weeks before, staining the metal with its yellow-green coating of poison. Jerking Balodi’s head back, he pushed the metal disc into his mouth and then wrapped a hand over the tribal leader’s lips to prevent him from spitting it out. Julius stepped forward and put his boot into Balodi’s stomach hard enough to double the Sarmatae over, and both men watched as he writhed with the pain of the kick. Staring up at the centurions, his eyes widened as he realised that the metal disc was no longer in his mouth, and Marcus nodded down at him with a look of grim satisfaction. Albinus walked across to the stricken nobleman, looking down impassively as Balodi’s eyes opened wide with the realisation of his doom.

‘My officers tell me that while even a small dose of this poison administered via a cut to the skin will kill a man quickly, ingestion is rumoured to be a good deal slower and more painful.’ Albinus turned back to Purta, whose face was now even whiter than before. ‘The victim, they tell me, soils himself. He struggles to breathe, and he is afflicted with severe pains in the stomach as the poison works on his organs. It will take Balodi hours to die, time during which he will be guarded by my men here in order to prevent any attempt to end his life in a more merciful manner. And if by some chance he manages to survive this dose of his own men’s poison, the process will simply be repeated. Let this be a warning to you all.’

9

Legatus Albinus rose and came round his desk when Scaurus, Julius and Marcus were admitted to his office, shaking his head in apology at having summoned them so late in the evening. After the ceremonious surrender of the Sarmatae nobles, the process of disarming their men had begun, although it was expected to take two or three more days to march every one of them past the growing pile of their surrendered weapons. Cattanius was standing to one side and snapped to attention, saluting the tribune with his usual precision while his legatus launched into an explanation for his untimely summons.

‘I’m sorry, Rutilius Scaurus, to have dragged you away from your tent after such a long day, but news of a most alarming nature has been delivered to me by my man Cattanius here. It seems that the mine at Alburnus Major has been taken by bandits.’

Scaurus exchanged glances with his centurions, shaking his head in disbelief.

‘I find that rather hard to believe, Legatus. When we left it, the mining facility was secure and under the guard of over a thousand men. I can’t see why Prefect Gerwulf would have had any problem in defending . . .’

He fell silent under Albinus’s stare. The legatus gestured for Cattanius to speak, and the beneficiarius stepped forward to explain.

‘The legatus sent me to Alburnus Major along with a century of legionaries to procure sufficient gold from the procurator to pay the soldiers. When I reached the valley, however, I found the gates to the earth wall you built for its defence closed, and manned by Prefect Gerwulf’s soldiers. When I demanded for the gate to be opened they just laughed at me. After a while Gerwulf himself appeared on the wall above me, with Procurator Maximus and the mine owners in shackles alongside him. He told me that he’d decided that when it came to a choice between serving Rome and making off with enough gold to buy an army of his own, the decision was an easy one. It seems that he has turned against the empire, Tribune, an impression I must say was somewhat reinforced when he cut Procurator Maximus’s throat and threw him off the wall to land at my feet. I decided that this was enough of a threat to justify ordering my escort back down the road to Apulum. Once I considered it safe to do so I had their centurion wait in the shelter of the forest beside the road, while I went for a quiet scout over the hills towards the mine.’

Scaurus raised an eyebrow, sharing a glance with Albinus who nodded smugly in reply.

‘What did you expect, Gaius? I didn’t make the man my beneficiarius just because he had his numbers and letters you know! Tell the tribune what it was that you saw, Cattanius.’

‘I went over the mountain that night, and hid on the slopes close to the miners’ quarters. From what I saw the Germans are still sleeping in their own barracks, and using no more than a century of men to patrol the camp once they’ve got the miners locked down. They don’t bring the rest of the cohort out to play until it’s time for the day’s labour to begin again.’

‘I don’t suppose they need much of a presence during the night, given that they’ve probably worked the labourers half to death during the day. What about Gerwulf?’

‘The Wolf seems to have requisitioned the woman’s house, and most likely her body too. I saw him leave the place the next morning, and he was looking about as smug as you can imagine.’

Scaurus nodded grimly.

‘No wonder. He’s putting one over on the empire on a monumental scale, isn’t he? The signs were there to be seen, gentlemen, but they were lost in the enmity between myself and my colleague Belletor. If the man was willing to slaughter an entire village simply to provide his men with sport then I have no doubt he’s capable of murder in support of a robbery on such an epic scale.’ He turned to Albinus with a note of urgency in his voice. ‘I presume you plan to send a relief force to the valley at once, Legatus? Procurator Maximus’s strongroom held enough gold to mint well over a hundred thousand aureii, and every day that passes will see enough for another three thousand unearthed from the mountains. And that’s before we give any thought to the mineworkers, who are probably being worked to death to wring out every last speck of gold before Gerwulf quits the valley and makes a run for the north. Every day we delay will deepen the damage that he’ll do to the mine’s ability to generate wealth, never mind what he makes off with.’

The legatus shook his head with a scowl, waving a hand about him.

‘What I didn’t tell you earlier is that we don’t have quite the strength to hand that we’ve led King Purta to believe. Put bluntly Gaius, there’s no way any of the forces whose threat is keeping the Sarmatae in their camp can be spared. Our two under-strength legions and the auxiliaries supporting them are fifteen thousand men, and we have our boot on the throat of an enemy with getting on for twice that strength. While we give every indication of being in control of the situation, and of having as much time as is necessary for a managed process of disarming and dispersing the Sarmatae host, in truth it’s something of a confidence trick. We keep the barbarians subdued by perpetuating their belief that they are in the presence of overwhelming strength, but if we send even part of a legion away to the south to recapture the Ravenstone valley then there is every chance that they might realise how weak we really are. Purta might decide to take the risk of attempting to smash a way out to his own land through one of the valleys to the north, if he knew that there were only a few cohorts in his path. So, until we have them fully disarmed and dispersed I simply cannot take the risk of putting the entire frontier in jeopardy, which means that I can afford no more than your two Tungrian cohorts. And you’ll have to march before daybreak, in the hope that your departure will go unnoticed.’

Scaurus straightened his weary back.

‘You wish me to recapture the mine, Legatus?’

Albinus smiled indulgently.

‘Ever dutiful, eh Gaius? No, Tribune, I do not expect you to pull off any such masterstroke, although Mithras knows that if you did it would be good for all of our reputations. I do expect you to keep the Germans bottled up though, and give me enough time to disperse these Sarmatae animals back to their homelands. I’ll follow you down the road to Alburnus Major quickly enough, once I’m assured that they can’t simply turn around and come back for another try, and in the meantime all you have to do is patrol their perimeter and keep them from escaping. Think you can manage that?’

Julius opened his mouth to make a comment, but before the words were formed Scaurus had his fist against the bronze of his chest plate and then extended in a vigorous salute.

‘Yes Legatus, we’ll make sure that the emperor’s gold stays where it is until you reach the mine. I’ll go and muster my men to march.’

The three men were silent until they were outside the command building. Scaurus turned to face his officers before either of them had a chance to speak, the breath steaming from his lips as he spoke in low, urgent tones.

‘I
know
. The men are exhausted, we’ve over a hundred men wounded, and we’ve no more chance of keeping Gerwulf “bottled up” than we have of taking the mine in the teeth of any sort of determined defence. Believe me, I know all these things. And so, if truth be told, does Clodius Albinus. The problem is that he has to be seen to do
something
. He can’t ignore the problem and simply allow Gerwulf to get away with several cartloads of gold. Nor can he detach enough strength to break into the mine without giving Purta the scent of a chance to turn defeat into victory. All he can do is throw someone he can trust at the problem in the hope that we can pull off the impossible.’

Julius shook his head, his face creased in disbelief.

‘And if we can’t? What if Gerwulf decides to run for it at the very first sight of a Roman uniform? He’ll have his patrols out, that’s sure enough. I very much doubt we could stop that many angry Germans with their tails up, given that they’ll be fresh and we’ll be in an even worse state than we are now after four days’ forced marching. What happens when Albinus finally turns up to find the cupboard empty and us holding nothing but our dicks?’

Scaurus smiled wearily at his first spear’s question.

‘Well in that case, First Spear, I’d imagine you’ll be under the command of a new tribune soon enough. Clodius Albinus knows the realities of life as well as I do. And when he has me stripped of my command and sent home to Rome in disgrace there’ll be nothing personal in it. It’s just the way the empire works. Now if you’ll excuse me for a moment . . .’

He ushered Cattanius out of earshot as the beneficiarius left Albinus’s office.

‘Tell me soldier, what state were the mine owners in when Gerwulf had them paraded before you on the earth wall?’

The beneficiarius shrugged.

‘Pretty much as you’d expect, Tribune. They looked as if they’d been through a hard time over the previous few days. Both Felix and Lartius had clearly taken beatings, and Theodora didn’t look very much happier even if she was relatively unmarked.’

Scaurus frowned.

‘Unmarked? She’d not been beaten?’

‘Not from the look of it, although I’d say that she’s probably been suffering in slightly less violent ways. It’s hard to put a finger on exactly what it was, but as I said earlier, Gerwulf seemed very familiar with her. I might have been mistaken . . .’

‘Sexually familiar?’ Cattanius hesitated to answer the question, and Scaurus smiled thinly at him. ‘The woman and I shared a couple of encounters, Beneficiarius. I might have found her entertaining but I wasn’t about to ask for her to marry me. Whether Gerwulf has been raping her, or even if she’s just decided to surrender to the inevitable in order to get an easier time of things, either way I need to know what you think. Whatever the situation is, we may be able to gain some advantage from it once we’re inside the facility.’

‘If I had to bet my life on it I’d say she’s decided to make it easier on herself. She didn’t appear to have been beaten, and her bindings were light compared with the way he had the other two trussed up.’

Scaurus patted him on the arm.

‘Thank you. Be ready to march at dawn. We’ll need your detailed memory of the valley’s layout should we be graced with a miracle of some nature and actually get inside.’

Marcus held his wife close, feeling her breath hot on his neck as she clung to his armoured body.

‘It’ll be a non-event. Gerwulf’s far too clever to still be in occupation of the mine by the time we get to the gates, he’ll have made a swift exit to the north with his gold long before we’re close enough to present any problem.’

Felicia pushed him away and held him at arm’s length.

‘All I’ll say to you is what I know Annia’s telling Julius. You’re all tired, and it’ll be much worse once you’ve marched all the way back to that damned mine. None of you will be in any condition to fight, so just make sure you don’t have to. And if that means letting that odious man escape with some gold, then so be it.’ She stared up at him with a fierce expression. ‘No amount of treasure reclaimed for Commodus to spend on circuses will compensate your son if he has to grow up without you!’ Her face softened. ‘And believe me, that was the gentle version. Annia probably has your first spear by his testicles about now, and not in a way he’d prefer.’

Marcus nodded tiredly and bent to kiss his wife goodbye, watching fondly as she ducked out through the tent’s flap. Taking a moment to strap on his swords, he went to follow her, only to stop and stare in amazement at the sight that presented itself as he stepped out into the early morning’s torch lit gloom.

‘No!’ He raised a finger to silence any protest, shaking his head vigorously. ‘
No!
You’re not coming with us!’

He looked down at the obdurate child standing before him beside his grandfather with exasperation, while Lupus stared back up with a mixture of anger and desperation. The boy was wearing the mail coat and helmet that had been made for him in Germania, and the half-sized gladius with which he was allowed to practise on special occasions was belted to his waist. The Roman shook his head again.

‘You’re not coming because we’ve four days of forced marching in front of us, thirty miles a day when you know very well your legs won’t last more than ten. We’re not taking any carts, so there’ll be nothing to ride on. You’re not coming because at the end of that forced march we’ll probably have to mount an attack on a cohort of barbarians which will turn into a bloody slaughter no matter who wins. You’re not coming because I won’t have the time to look after you, and because your grandfather will be too busy complaining about his feet.’ Morban raised his eyebrows in protest, but kept his silence. ‘And you’re not coming because—’