Gordon Doherty - The Scourge of Thracia

‘Then you should have this.’ She tucked the purse into the belt of his damp, muddy tunic, then searched his eyes. ‘And the others?’

Pavo shook his head. ‘Only four returned from Persia with me. Tribunus Gallus, Zosimus, Quadratus and Sura. The rest gave their lives bravely.’

Felicia closed her eyes as if stifling a show of grief, then clasped his hands inside hers. ‘I need to know. Did you find him?’

The question caught him off-guard. So much had changed in those months in the burning sands. ‘I found him,’ he replied, trying to keep the emotion from his voice. ‘He was alive, Felicia. My father was alive.’

Her eyes widened. ‘Then where is. . ’ she started in a whisper, then faded away as she saw Pavo look away. Instead, she simply embraced him again.

Pavo felt her warmth against him, sensed his heart beating a little faster, felt his loins stirring once more. He pulled back, cupping her chin and moving to press his lips to hers. But he halted, inches away, recalling something from moments ago. ‘You said I was a friend.’

She frowned. ‘What?’

‘To that harridan who was determined to hack my bollocks off. Just a friend, you said?’ he backed away, shaking his head, the lust of moments ago crumbling.

‘Pavo?’ Felicia replied, her face knitted in confusion.

Pavo felt that creeping jealousy tingle inside his chest again as he pieced it all together. ‘You were talking to her about some primus pilus. About love?’

‘Pavo,’ she tried to interrupt.

But he was having none of it. Already he understood what had happened. He and the XI Claudia had been missing for only days, probably, when she had given him up for dead and thrown herself at another man.

‘ Pavo! ’ she roared. It was a cry that nearly knocked the rest of the mud from his flesh and clothes. Even the dull babble outside seemed cowed momentarily. And her paleness of a moment ago was suddenly consumed by a flushing red band across her nose and cheeks. Her look was flinty, to say the least, and Pavo was frozen by her demeanour. She strode to him, reached up, scooped her hands around the back of his head and pulled him down, pressing her cherry lips to his.

Pavo’s mind flashed with confused voices and thoughts. His loins were more single minded. He pressed his body against hers once more and they remained interlocked for what felt like an eternity. At last, they parted. She held his gaze with an earnest one of her own. ‘I am in love. . with an utter fool of an optio,’ she said with a wistful smile.

‘Then what was all that about?’ he said.

‘We can’t talk here,’ she whispered, then took him by the wrist and led him out and into the night. With a series of determined squelches, she marched him to a small tent on the southern edge of the sprawling camp. There, without ceremony, she picked up a bucket of water resting outside and hurled it over Pavo.

It was freezing cold — more so even than the currents of the River Tonsus. He gasped in fright, then stammered in confusion. ‘What the?’

‘You’re filthy,’ she said calmly. ‘Now come inside and take that sodden, grubby tunic off.’

‘It was clean a moment ago,’ he muttered, then obediently removed his tunic and hooked it on a pole outside before following her inside dressed in just his loincloth. Inside, she struck a flint hook to an oil lamp that poured an orange bubble of light around the space and revealed two beds — one for her and one for the harridan Lucilla, presumably. She handed him a towel and as he dried himself, she poured them each a cup of fresh water and broke a small loaf of bread. They sat cross-legged on her bed, facing one another, Pavo gladly helping himself to some bread.

‘This place is a wolves’ den,’ she whispered, glancing at their dancing shadows on the tent canvas, as if they might be listening in.

Pavo’s chewing slowed. A forgotten but familiar, stony feeling settled in his gut. In his time away from imperial lands, he had forgotten — or had chosen to forget — the web of intrigue that laced every corridor, the rust of corruption that weakened every city gate and the stale breath of perfidy that lingered like mist in every province.

‘The Speculatores are at large,’ she said, mouthing this in an almost inaudible whisper.

Pavo’s blood chilled. The Speculatores had no place here, in the Eastern Empire. They were a grim and ancient institution of the West. Yet these shades had been ever-present yet unseen in all his time with the legions. Men who operated like wraiths in the shadows, stirring up dissent, murdering and stealing as they pursued dark agendas lost on most common men. They had ruptured Felicia’s life, recruiting her young brother and sending him into the ranks of the XI Claudia as an assassin. They had tried to poison the cohorts of the Claudia again, assigning Avitus to the ranks. Both agents were now long dead. The man they had been sent to slay was still very much alive and seemingly forgotten by these shadowy agents. But what was it about Gallus? What had gone on in his past life in the West that caused them to harry him so?

He thought of Gallus’ few words in these last days.

The Praesental Armies of East and West will unite in Thracia. When they do, it will be the first time they have come together in so very long. The Goths should be wary. . as should we all.

Was the Speculatores’ presence a precursor of the Western Emperor Gratian and his armies coming to these lands? He thought of Gallus’ reaction to the news of Gratian’s army coming east. ‘Of course. . ’ he muttered.

‘Eh?’ Felicia said.

He shook his head. ‘Why are they here?’

Felicia held her hands out in exasperation. ‘I know nothing other than that they are here and have been for some weeks.’

‘You’ve seen them?’

‘I could not mistake their kind, Pavo,’ she said gravely.

‘Aye,’ he nodded, placing a comforting hand on hers, thinking of her dead brother. ‘Where, when?’

She leaned closer to whisper once more. ‘Near the principia.’

Her words tickled his ear and sent a shiver racing down his back. He tried to bury the stirring this brought about in his groin and thought of the haphazard arrangement of tents at the heart of the camp. Was the detestable Tribunus Barzimeres in league with the Speculatores? Or were they here to kill him or another? Suddenly, he feared for Gallus: what if they had come, after years of silence, to finish the job?

‘By day they behave like every other wastrel in this camp — drinking, spitting and swearing,’ Felicia continued. ‘They can blend into any background. But at night, I saw one of them staggering, alone. He tripped and stumbled along until the moment came when not an eye was upon him — except mine — then he suddenly crouched, his clumsiness gone, his eyes keen. He saw that the principia area was empty, then stole past the sentries and into the tents. I watched, seeing him dart from one tent to the next, searching for. . something. ’

‘And the sentries?’ Pavo gasped, then slumped in realisation that they were doubtless inebriated and ignorant to the goings-on. He sighed, knowing that the seed had been sown in Felicia’s mind. With these agents present in the camp and with the dark furrow they had ploughed in past affairs, he knew she would not rest on the matter, and neither could he. ‘We must find out more. We must.’

Felicia’s face spread with a superior smile. ‘And that is why you heard me talking about a primus pilus.’

Pavo’s eyes darted, then he laughed wearily. ‘You’re leading on some poor officer with a tent in the principia so you can keep an eye on the Speculatores?’

She nodded haughtily.

‘Not leading him on too much?’ he cocked an eyebrow.