Anthony Riches - Wounds of Honour

The warrior sighed and shook his head at a memory, his breath still shaky with pain.

‘I warned him not to take her, I told him that no good would come of it. It offended Cocidius. She’s one of his people…’

He nodded his head at Marcus.

‘… although I can’t say if she still lives. Or what’s been done with her.’ The confession and burials took another two hours, during which time Dubnus took three tent parties and found the watcher’s hide post betrayed by the Briton, leaving the lone watcher’s head tied to a branch by the hair as a calling card. The century took a swift meal of bread and cheese from their packs, then headed north-east in early evening’s half-darkness, dragging the unwilling noble with them and using their intimate knowledge of the terrain to make reasonable progress under a fat full moon.

When they stopped five hours later, within thirty minutes’ march of their target, Marcus and Antenoch took the noble off into the dark, a tent party of soldiers shadowing them in a watching arc to ensure that no unfriendly strangers interrupted. Dubnus busied the century with the task of camouflaging their faces with saliva-moistened mud, each man painting broad stripes across another’s features to break up the large area of pale flesh. Out of sight of the halted century Antenoch pushed the man to the ground, and pulled his knife, finding Marcus’s hand on his shoulder.

‘My turn. Translate.’

He squatted next to the noble, pulling his regulation dagger from its place at his side.

‘I always thought I’d never use an issue weapon for a dishonourable purpose. This country is changing my mind in all sorts of ways. We’re a mile from your farm where, I’m told, you have a Roman woman captive…’

The other man shrugged at the translation, spitting at Marcus’s feet.

‘We offered your companion the chance to change his mind earlier. My bodyguard here only cut off one of his balls, and then allowed him to think again about telling us what he knew. He told us that you had already taken the woman by force, and that you intend giving her to your men as a celebration of the great victory to come.’

Another shrug.

‘You don’t get that extra chance to change your mind. You will die here, either intact and quickly, or no longer a man and in terrible pain, and very slowly. I expect that the wolves will find you quickly enough if we slit your belly and peg you out for them. Take a moment to consider your choice, but don’t expect to get an opportunity to make that choice more than once.’

The nobleman looked from Marcus to Antenoch, who nodded slowly to emphasise the threat. He coughed noisily to clear his throat, then glared up at Marcus. His Latin, roughened by lack of practice, was nevertheless clear in its emphasis.

‘Better to die without my manhood than to betray my people. You should understand that. Do what you must.’

Marcus turned away, his mind thousands of miles and several years distant. On a windy afternoon late in the year, training inside the house to avoid dust stirred up by the gusts outside, his trainer, sensing boredom in his student, had suddenly dropped his sword to the floor, and indicated to him to do the same.

‘Sometimes you won’t have a blade to defend yourself with, Master Marcus. In the arena I’ve had my blade smashed from my hand more than once, but still won the fight.’

‘How?’

‘Ah, got your attention now, have I? Simple enough, young man, know where to strike a man, and how hard to strike him. If you’re fast enough to get inside his defence and land a blow, you can choose to put your opponent on his back or simply take his life. Just hit him here…’

Pointing a finger to touch Marcus’s throat.

‘… and you’ll stop him breathing. You choose how long for. A little tap will put him down for a moment, short of breath and helpless. A decent thump, carefully measured, will probably knock him out for a few minutes. Anything harder will almost certainly kill him. Since swords obviously don’t entertain today, let’s practise that killing blow, eh?’

He raised an arm, pointing to the back of his wrist.

‘Strike here, as hard as you like… no, boy, I said hard. Your opponent just smiled at you and stuck his sword into your guts. Pick a point a foot behind the target and punch at that… Good, excellent follow-through! Again… Excellent! Now let’s work on the harder job, just knocking the man down for a little while…’

He spun back and struck the kneeling man’s throat with the dagger’s hilt with killing force, dropping him choking into the grass. After a moment or so the spasmodic jerking slowed, then stopped altogether. He knelt, and put two fingers to the man’s neck.

‘Dead. He’ll meet his ancestors a complete man, and I didn’t dishonour the blade.’

Antenoch frowned in the moonlight.

‘Why didn’t you torture him?’

‘Because he wasn’t going to talk. And we don’t have the time to waste carving one man when there’s a job to be done. Come on…’

He turned back to the century’s waiting place, leaving his clerk staring quizzically after him in the darkness.

The Tungrians made a silent approach to the farm, advancing down the dark hillside that brooded to its south until the black shapes of its round huts and fenced enclosures which surrounded them stood out against the stars. A stop group of three tent parties moved carefully around the buildings, heading for their position at the farm’s rear to catch any escapees, while the rest of the century dropped their packs into a large pile and advanced to the walls, still silent behind their shields.

In the darkness a dog awoke, smelt strangers and barked indignantly, joined a heartbeat later by half a dozen others. Marcus drew his sword and jumped the wall, sprinting across the empty animal pen and kicking hard at the door to the main building. It resisted his attack, and he stepped back to allow a pair of soldiers to shoulder-charge through the barrier, moving through the shattered doorway in their wake and peering into the gloom over the top of his shield, sword ready to strike.

A man charged out of the darkness, a faint light reflecting the line of steel brandished high above his head, and without conscious thought Marcus stepped forward into the brace and punched his shield into the contorted face, stabbing his sword upwards into the unprotected chest. He stepped back again, watching the body crumple back into the darkness. A shriek sounded from the far side of the hut as another point of resistance was extinguished. Dubnus moved swiftly past him, stepping over the sprawled body of his kill, and headed away into the darkness. Marcus followed, through a wooden archway and into a smaller hut, this one lit by a candle in whose puddle of light huddled a woman and her three children. Dubnus grabbed a soldier, pushing him at the terrified group.

‘Watch them. Kill them if they try to escape.’

On the hut’s far side, barely illuminated by the candle, was a heavy door, secured by a bar. Dubnus tossed away the bar and heaved the door open, then ducked away as a wooden bowl flew past his ear. A cultured female voice spat Latin imprecations at them from the darkness within.

‘Come on then, you bastards, come and get me!’

Dubnus backed away from the door, gesturing to Marcus to try his luck. Marcus peered around the frame, quite unable to make out anything in the dark.

‘Chosen, get me some light. Ma’am, we are the Ninth Century of the First Tungrian Cohort, Imperial Roman Auxiliary forces. You’re free…’

A slight scraping movement inside the room made him duck instinctively, but the wooden cup caught him neatly under the eye, making stars flash before him for an instant.

‘Jupiter! Where’s that bloody light? Captured Roman citizen or not, if you throw one more thing at me I’ll…’