Anthony Riches - Wounds of Honour

‘No, it isn’t Frontinius. He keeps me on my mettle, makes sure that his men have effective equipment, but he tolerates my provision of the better things in life as a necessary evil. And makes sure that my business pays a healthy percentage to the burial club. No, the problem’s a step lower down the ladder than Frontinius.’

Tacitus’s eyes narrowed with the admission.

‘A centurion? Tell me more…’ Marcus woke again when Dubnus shook his shoulder, nodding silently at the big man’s silent instruction to watch the arc to their front. The chosen man rolled into his cloak and was still, leaving Marcus alone in the darkness. He watched the silent forest with slow head movements, remembering the instruction to use the corner of his vision rather than looking directly at the subject. After a few moments purple spots started to dance in his vision, making him close his eyes for a moment before starting the process again. After an hour or so a faint sound caught his attention, a tiny click out in the trees, but sufficient to snap his senses alert. A moment later there was another, louder, and then again, the almost imperceptible but unmistakable sounds of men moving across the forest floor.

He reached out with a foot and nudged Dubnus awake, keeping his attention focused on the scene to his front. The chosen man rose silently, moving his head alongside that of his centurion.

‘Breaking twigs.’

He pointed in the appropriate direction to back up his whispered warning, then kept silent. Dubnus listened for a moment and nodded, bending close to Marcus’s ear.

‘They’re here. Perhaps too many for us. We’ll sound the alarm and get back into camp. The others will do the same.’

Marcus nodded, shaking the sleeping soldier awake and whispering in his ear to be ready to run. While Dubnus prepared to put the signal horn to his lips, ready to blow the note that would alert the camp, Marcus prepared for the short run back through the surrounding trees. He leant his weight on the stub of a branch, readying himself to vault the fallen tree that formed the rear of their hide. With a rasping cough the stump, rotted through beneath the bark, tore away from the trunk under his weight, the noise echoing out into the forest’s silence. For a moment the silence returned, but then, with a sudden chorus of shouts and yells, came the sound of men running across the forest floor towards them.

With a curse Dubnus put the horn to his lips and blew one high note that drowned out all other sound, tossing the horn away and hefting his club, shouting into the darkness.

‘Ninth, to me!’

Their chance to run was gone, the enemy, alerted by the snapping wood, charging in at them too quickly for flight to be a realistic option. Marcus readied himself, stepping alongside Dubnus and bracing himself for the enemy’s assault with his stave held ready to strike.

A body hurled itself out of the darkness, and was met by a vicious swing of Dubnus’s club. Two more followed, both men going down under the defenders’ blows, and then a torrent of tribesmen assaulted the trio, splitting them into tiny islands of resistance. Marcus swung his stave into one attacker’s belly, releasing it as it caught in the reeling man’s clothing, swept his sword out and stepped forward to strike at another, hamstringing the man as he shaped to attack Dubnus from behind. A massive tribesman stepped into the fight, swinging his own club in an expert backhand to deal a fearsome blow to Marcus’s head. He fell, vision dimming as consciousness slipped away, vaguely aware of a figure standing over him with a sword held high, screaming incoherently as the sword poised for its strike. Frontinius briefed Prefect Equitius an hour later, once the excitement of a full cohort stand-to was over and the centuries had gone grumbling back to their interrupted sleep. He’d been on the scene in minutes with the duty century, but only in time to greet the 9th’s men as they carried their casualties off the hill.

‘It was nothing really, just a few barbarian scouts running into our listening patrols. It was too dark for much serious fighting, and what there was seems to have been scrappy. More like a vicus bar brawl than a real fight. The turning point appears to have been one of our lads going into a blood rage in the middle of the skirmish and slicing up several of the barbarians, after which they seem to have thought better of the whole thing. We’ve got a man dead and two wounded, one light sword wound and a nasty-looking concussion. That’s the good news. The bad news is that the man with the concussion is our very own Roman centurion, his helmet stove in by a barbarian with a strong club arm.’

Equitius groaned.

‘So now he’s stuck in the fort hospital for any and all to see?’

Frontinius shook his head.

‘No, I spent a few minutes with the doctor and had him hidden away in a quiet part of the building, away from curious eyes. I’ve also told the Ninth to keep the news of his injury to themselves. The Prince can run the century for the next day or two.’

Equitius nodded thoughtfully.

‘So this might even work to our advantage, and keep him out of sight until it’s time to deploy into the field.’

Frontinius snorted a mirthless laugh.

‘Yes. And we get to find out if his skull is thick enough to keep his educated brains in one piece, or whether the blue-noses have just solved our problem for us.’ Light pricked at Marcus’s eyes as they struggled to open. He could see only a ball of light, with a dark figure floating behind it. Closing his eyes, and surrendering to the darkness again, and whatever it was that was happening, seemed much the easiest thing to do.

When he woke again the metallic taste in his mouth was gone, and the light that greeted his cautious gaze was that of weak daylight, a pale shaft through a window in one wall of the room in which he lay, still exhausted, in a narrow bed. Underneath heavy blankets he was naked, while his head ached awfully. A familiar voice called out from close by.

‘Orderly! Orderly, you dozy bastard! Fetch the doctor! He’s awake.’

The owner of the voice came back into the room and, fighting his eyes back into focus, Marcus recognised an exhausted-looking Antenoch.

‘Lie still, the doctor’s coming.’

He sat down in a chair at Marcus’s bedside, running a hand through his disordered hair.

‘We thought for a while you might not live, you were out of it for so long. Only the helmet saved you, and you should see the dent in that! You won’t be…’

He stopped in mid-sentence, as another figure entered the room. Marcus gingerly turned his head to see the new arrival, blinking at the sunlight, recognising the doctor with a shock.

‘You… but you’re a…’

‘A woman? Evidently your concussion hasn’t entirely removed your cognitive powers, Centurion Corvus.’

It was the woman from the farm… an image of her fury at the sight of slaughtered cattle flashed into his mind. Felicia…? His memory grasped for the name, making his brow knot with the effort.

… Clodia Drusilla? Felicia Clodia Drusilla! He raised an arm, the limb seeming heavy.

‘Water… please?’

Antenoch put a cup to his lips, the liquid ungluing his mouth and throat.

‘Thank you. Madam, I am…’

‘Surprised?’

Her eyebrow arched in a challenge that Marcus knew was completely beyond his faltering capabilities.

‘… grateful for your care.’

He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling his body sag against the bed with exhaustion. Her voice reached him, as if from a distant place.

‘And now, Master Antenoch, it’s time for you both to get some proper sleep. Go back to your unit and sleep for at least ten hours. Here, I’ll make it a formal written command… there, “to sleep for ten hours without interruption”. Give that tablet to your chosen man. And tell him that the centurion will be ready to receive visitors tomorrow afternoon at the very earliest…’ Calgus stood astride the Wall with his adviser Aed as the sun set that evening, watching his warriors pouring back to the north through the North Road’s smashed gates. They were moving in good order for the most part, one or two supporting comrades clearly the worse for drink, but if individuals had overindulged in captured wine it was of little concern to him. Behind them the fortress of the Rock was still smearing the sky with the grey reek of its smouldering timbers, while torches were being lit by his marching troops to provide illumination for the night movement. All things considered, he mused, he had enough reason to be satisfied as his first attack played to its close. At length his adviser Aed spoke, his opinions delivered with the customary candour that Calgus valued, where most others would tell him simply what he wanted to hear.