Anthony Riches - Wounds of Honour

‘It’s war, Sextus, there’s no longer any doubt. Sollemnis’s spies tell us that the call has gone out for the tribes to mass north of the Wall, probably within a short march of Three Mountains Fort. From there it’s only about two days’ march to the Wall, and the blue-noses can knock over two more single cohort forts on the way just to get their spirits up. He’s not interested in defending the outlying forts against a force of between twenty and thirty thousand men, since that’s clearly what Calgus will be hoping for. Our defence will focus on holding the Wall while the legions from Fortress Deva and the far south slog their way up the country to join us.’

Frontinius nodded reflectively.

‘So the outlier cohorts march back behind the Wall in good order rather than being slaughtered to no purpose. At least our leader seems to be taking a practical approach to the situation. Does that mean we get the Dacians from Fort Cocidius joining us?’

‘Not this time, despite the fact it seemed to work well enough in last summer’s exercises. No, the Dacians will make a temporary camp down at Fair Meadow and form a two-cohort force with the Second Tungrians, ready to reinforce any of the western Wall forts that get into trouble.’

‘Perhaps some of their professionalism will rub off on the Second. And how long does the legate reckon it will take for the Second and Twentieth Legions to reach us?’

‘That depends who’s asking. To anyone else in this cohort, up to and including the officers, the answer’s fifteen to twenty days. For your information only, I happen to know that Sollemnis called them north nearly two weeks ago, and asked his brother officers not to spare the boot leather, so they ought to show up within a week. With any luck that will give Calgus a nasty shock and put Fortuna on our side rather sooner than he might have expected. Sixth Legion is already deployed, of course, although he was pretty tight lipped as to exactly where they are. Whether it’s accurate or not, the rumour in Cauldron Pool is that he’s got them camped fifty miles back at Waterfall Fort to give him the flexibility to move to the north or west as the situation develops.’

The First Spear shook his head in exasperation.

‘West? Calgus isn’t going to make a push for Fortress Deva. The legion should already be in position to defend our supplies at Noisy Valley. Mind you, rather them than us, if there really are thirty thousand men massing under Calgus.’

Equitius nodded silently, reaching for his cup.

‘We’ll be moving inside the week, I’d guess. There’s no point leaving the Wall units all divided up into cohorts when we can form a legion-sized battle group with two or three days’ marching. So, First Spear, are we ready?’

Frontinius nodded.

‘Ready enough. There’s still the question of completing the assessments, but I think we’ll have time enough for that if I pull the schedule forward.’

‘And our new centurions?’

Frontinius stretched out his legs, pursing his lips in consideration.

‘A timely question. Rufius is everything I expected, tough, professional, more than up to his task. A gift from Cocidius. As for the Corvus boy…’

The prefect took another sip of wine, raising an eyebrow.

‘Yes?’

‘To be honest, he’s surprised me in the last few weeks. He seems to have an excellent grip on his century, Prince Dubnus is backing him to the hilt, he’s converted more than one complete waste of good rations into an effective soldier, and his reputation in the cohort seems to be stronger than I could ever have imagined. He’s a cunning young bastard too.’

‘Cunning? Not quite what I’d expected.’

‘Nor I, but I can’t find any other way to describe a man who hides his men’s abilities from his brother officers. His men run faster than any other century in the cohort, certainly faster than I can keep up with. He hides this, however, with overlong rest breaks to hold down their average speed, or else he takes them on detours to make their performance look slower than it is. I find that very interesting.’

‘And so do I. I wonder what else he has hidden away from view?’

The First Spear reached for his helmet.

‘Exactly. I think it’s time to give him a chance to show us.’

Ordering the guard centurion to assemble the officers, Frontinius installed himself in the principia to wait their arrival, mulling over his thoughts on the subject of his youngest officer while the two men standing guard over the cohort’s treasury stared uneasily at the wall above his head. He was still brooding when the officers started to enter the praetorium in ones and twos, the first arrivals dragging him back to the moment at hand. Rufius arrived in the company of Caelius and Clodius while Marcus and Julius made predictably solitary entrances. When all nine men were gathered in front of him, Frontinius roused himself to their briefing, sending the duty guards out to stand watch at the door.

‘If we wanted to pilfer the pay chests we’d have done it a long time ago. Nobody, with the exception of the prefect, enters without my permission. This briefing is for officers’ ears only.’

He waited theatrically until the doors were closed.

‘Brother officers, the prefect came back in from Cauldron Pool an hour ago, as I’m sure you’ve all heard by now. The message from the boys in the purple-edged tunics is simple enough — prepare for war. There’s a Brit called Calgus mustering thirty thousand painted maniacs somewhere not much more than two days’ march from here, and very soon now they’ll come south with fire and iron, looking for a fight…’

He paused, catching more than one eye riveted to his gaze.

‘A fight they’ll get — eventually.’

‘Eventually, First Spear?’ Rufius’s eyes narrowed with professional interest.

‘Eventually, Centurion. Calgus will muster more spears than the Wall cohorts and Sixth Legion could cope with, even banded together to our full strength, unless he was stupid enough to throw them at us piecemeal. And on the subject of our enemy’s wits I have intelligence of my own for you. Calgus isn’t that stupid, in fact he isn’t stupid at all. I met him five years ago at a gathering of the tribal leaders north of the Wall. I was the supervising officer, with half the cohort behind me to keep the peace between them and make sure it didn’t get out of hand, and it was still, I can assure you, a bloody uncomfortable experience. Not only were the tribesmen a fairly ugly bunch, but Calgus could dispute with Minerva and not come away ashamed.

‘He was recently crowned at the time, and still finding his feet as king of the Selgovae, but where his father was a sly old sod, a master of the knife in the back, the son was clearly a man of a different nature. He’s a clever brute, a barrel-chested, red-haired bear of a man, born to swing a battleaxe but blessed with his father’s silver tongue for all that. He would insist on seeking me out for arguments about the justification for Roman rule of the land south of the Wall. Of course, in the end I had little option but to end the discussion on the grounds that since we’re the ones with our boots on the ground there was little point to it. I expected that to be the end of the argument, and to a degree it was. However…’

He lowered his voice slightly, reliving the moment.

‘… Calgus just stood there and looked at me for a moment, then reached out a hand and tapped me on the chest with one finger. My escort had their iron aired and ready to go in a flash, growling like shithouse dogs, and I reckoned we were a hair’s breadth away from a bloodbath, but Calgus never faltered. He just tapped me gently on the chest again and said, “Just as long as you can fill those boots, Centurion.” Not enough to give me a pretext to have him for inciting rebellion, of course, and half the North Country’s tribal elders were hanging on his words, as dry as tinder if I were stupid enough to provide the spark. Enough to make his point, though, and while I didn’t like him I had to admire the size of his swingers. I’ve been waiting for his name to reach this far south ever since, and now that it has I can assure you all that we have a very worthy opponent. So the word, Centurion Rufius, is most definitely “eventually”. I’ll show you what I think will happen.’