Gordon Doherty - Legionary

The optio thumped down with a sigh, his weary eyes fixing on Gallus across the fire. ‘Sir, we’ll send back a party tomorrow to bury our comrades. What happened today frustrated all of us, but not one of the men would have done anything differently. Defence was our only option, and it was down to you that so many of us survived.’

Gallus shook his head with a wry chuckle. ‘It’s just galling — I’d give my last nummus to hear that those horsemen had cut down every one of those whoresons further up the path.’ He straightened up, picking up the splintered, blood tinged arrow shaft from his pack, scrutinising the iron tip in the firelight. ‘We need to address the bigger issue here, Felix — just who are we dealing with? Those archers were Gothic going by the arrowheads. But those horsemen,’ he sighed. ‘Who were they? And why did they give us, a legionary column in the middle of nowhere, a body swerve? We would have been easy pickings for them.’

Felix nodded, his gaze falling into the flames. ‘I think the Gothic archers were tracking us from the moment we entered the forest, waiting until we were in the thick to shower us with their arrows. The horsemen I can’t be so sure about, stocky buggers, from the east I reckon…’ The optio’s voice trailed off.

‘Yes,’ Gallus nodded, ‘not what we signed up for.’

‘Not just that, sir. I think I’ve seen their like before, when I was posted out to the frontiers in North Armenia. That place was riddled with little market towns and trading posts, and there were all sorts of barbarians coming in from the steppe to barter hides, meat, slaves, spices and gems. Mithras knows where they picked it all up from. Probably best not to know.’

Gallus nodded, his lips curling in bemusement. ‘Just what the empire needs — another race to grind on her borders.’ He ran his hands through the retreating peak of his hair. ‘I smelt a rat as soon as Nerva delivered the brief. He was nervous — knew something was wrong. His hands were tied by Dux Vergilius and whoever else had the emperor’s ear over this one. This stuff is over our heads — and outside our remit, Felix, and I don’t think we can deal with it now. We’re going to complete this mission, and then get out of here. But first we have other business to take care of. Nerva said no detours, but…’

‘The Goths?’ Felix raised an eyebrow.

Gallus nodded. ‘Time for revenge.’

‘Oi, you couple of fairies! This is as far as I’m goin’,’ the cart driver grumbled as the rickety heap of wood and wheels slowed at the crossroads.

Pavo squinted at the dawn sunshine as he woke. His second morning of freedom. He shivered at the early chill and made it half way through a yawn before he noticed the snoring blonde-mopped young man resting on his shoulder. Shrugging him away, Pavo stood to stretch his spindly legs and ran his palms over his freshly cropped dark bristles. The bed of hay and grain sacks hadn’t been the most comfortable, but he had slept like a baby since leaving the port of Tomis — especially after the stomach churning boat journey to get there from Constantinople. He touched a hand to the black bruise on his ribs as he slid towards the cart edge; Fronto had indulged in one last session of pummelling him. But it was the last one, and that at least warmed his heart.

‘Much appreciated,’ Pavo croaked to the driver, leaping to the ground. The driver glared at him and held out a hand. Still unused to holding money that he alone owned, Pavo rummaged in his purse and dug out two follis of the ten Tarquitius had bitterly handed over to him before he left the villa. He tossed the coins to the driver. Oddly, the driver nodded back to him, as he would to any citizen or freedman.

The cart set off without delay. His travelling companion, still dismounting, stumbled onto the road in his filthy tunic, with a ragged satchel over his shoulder.

‘Oh for…what was his problem?’ The blonde lad cursed.

Pavo shrugged, smiling, rummaging in his satchel to pull out two boiled eggs that he had bought at the docks in Tomis. He peeled the shell from one and munched into the white, eyeing the lad; probably a similar age to himself, with a tumble of blonde curls hanging on his forehead, framing emerald eyes and rosy, chubby cheeks like a cherub bust. But it was the inherently cheeky grin that caught the eye

‘Ah well, I hope he gets as far away as possible before he realises the coin I gave him last night was fake,’ the youth snorted. ‘Sura, Decimus Lunius Sura, unofficial King of Adrianople — here to hinder the legions,’ he grinned, stretching out his hand. ‘Didn’t mean to pass out on you like that, but you were sound asleep when I hitched a ride. So what name do you go by?’

‘Numerius Vitellius Pavo — here because…er…because the streets of Constantinople couldn’t handle my greatness,’ he replied, cursing his poor show of wit as he clasped Sura’s hand. He didn’t really have a proud history to share.

‘Okay,’ Sura nodded uncertainly, wrinkling his forehead and plucking the other egg from Pavo’s hand. Before Pavo could protest, Sura had cracked off the top of the shell and sunk his teeth into the white. ‘Well, I hope you’re up to the walk?’ He mumbled through a full mouth, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder to the plain stretching out ahead.

Pavo turned away, unable to suppress a chuckle at this lad’s swagger, then he hopped up onto the verge at the roadside to take in their surroundings. The River Danubius snaked across the land from the west until its rapids poured into the shimmering waters of the Pontus Euxinus . The silhouetted bulk of the town of Durostorum hugged the banks of the river; the squat stone bulwark of the XI Claudia fort lay dead centre of the plain between the crossroads and the town, a rocky island in the sea of cornfields about twelve stadia ahead of them. He traced his eyes over the train of merchant carts along the road to the fort; a constant flow in both directions — headed in with wine and food and back out laden with legionary wages.

When you fall at the end of a sword, then my hands are clean. He shivered at Tarquitius’ words.

They walked, they bantered then they ate some more when Sura pulled a chunk of bread from his satchel — dry but welcome, and washed down with a skin of chill water. Then as the shadow of the fort loomed closer, both fell quiet. The fort, weatherworn and half-clad in spidering green moss, dominated the landscape for him. He cast an envious glance at Sura by his side; the Thracian’s face didn’t betray any hint of the fear Pavo felt gnawing at his insides again. The legions were sold as a glorious career path, but the truth of military life was brutally summarised by the sight of young men mutilating themselves on the city streets to avoid conscription. It was hard to believe the texts he had read telling of a time when the army was the most sought after vocation in the empire. Sure he was free, but survival was a transient concept in the legions.

‘Watch out!’ Sura yelled, shoving him to the roadside. A trade cart hurtled between them, its rider standing tall — taller than any Roman, with his blonde topknot billowing in his own slipstream. A spray of grit and dust whipped up and over their faces.

‘Bloody Goths!’ Sura spat. ‘Seems they can’t make up their mind whether to trade with us or make war. Those big buggers are exactly the types we’ll be up against after we’ve signed up. They’re everywhere, I hear.’ Sura turned to Pavo with a manic sparkle in his eyes. ‘You scared?’

‘No!’ Pavo started.

Sura grew a wry smile and nodded slowly. ‘I’ll make you a deal,’ he said, looking Pavo up and down, then nodding towards the legionary fort. ‘Let’s face it, neither of us is built like a legionary…you’re more like a baby deer with those legs,’ he prodded a finger at Pavo’s slender knock-knees, scuffed and bruised. ‘So if we’re going to get through life in the legions, we can’t let the veterans mess with us. You watch my back, and I’ll watch yours, eh? Deal?’