Gordon Doherty - Viper of the North

Quadratus cocked an eyebrow. ‘Fair enough then. Pavo, you’re with me.’

They stalked off the bridge then across the wide dirt path that hemmed the northern bank of the river. Then Quadratus made a forking gesture with two fingers, each pointing round a side of the thicket.

Pavo nodded, buried his fears and set his eyes on the undergrowth. He held his spatha before him, ready to cut through the gorse bush or any Goth that might try to spring upon him.

‘Wait, what’s that?’ Quadratus whispered from a few feet away.

Pavo squinted through into the gorse and saw nothing but a tangle of leaves and branches. Then his skin froze as he saw the outline of. . something, something in the shade and foliage. It looked like a figure, crouching in the shadows. He blinked, sure it was a trick of the light, but sure enough, there was someone there. A man, a huge man.

Pavo filled his lungs to roar, when a shape burst from the gorse, butting into his chest. The wind was gone from his lungs and he tumbled back, instinctively lashing out at the figure. Then, bleating filled the air and his spatha blade stopped only inches from the neck of a panicked goat. A little Gothic boy in a blue tunic ran out after it.

The boy hugged the goat’s neck, eyes wide in panic.

‘My oxen! They’re trapped in the swamp back there!’ The boy cried, pulling the goat back from Pavo by its tether. The lad’s eyes were red with tears, his topknotted blonde hair bedraggled and spattered with mud. A bout of pained lowing sounded from behind the gorse.

‘It’s okay,’ Pavo said in a soothing tone, tucking his spatha into his scabbard, his skin prickling in embarrassment.

Quadratus closed his eyes, shook his head and muttered a frustrated prayer to Mithras. ‘False alarm, sir,’ he shouted over his shoulder to Lupicinus.

Pavo looked again into the foliage, frowning as Lupicinus’ belly laughter filled the air.

‘Perhaps you’ll be capable of dealing with this situation, Pavo? You and Centurion Quadratus can round off this business.’ With that, he swept his hand above his head in a circle. ‘The rest of you, back to the fort. There is much to sort out with this sham of a legion.’

With a thunder of hooves and boots, the comes and the rest of the group were off. Pavo and Quadratus shared a dark look, then the boy tugged on the hem of Pavo’s tunic.

‘My oxen?’

Pavo nodded and tried to soften his expression. ‘Don’t worry, we’ll see you safely on your way. Show me where they are.’

The boy scampered round the gorse bush and Pavo followed. As he passed Quadratus, the big Gaulish centurion grumbled, his foul glare fixed on the departing Lupicinus.

‘If I ever whinge about Gallus again, kick my stones for me, will you?’

The figure remained in the shadows of the thick foliage, his gaze trained on the two Romans as they crossed the bridge into the empire again. With the oxen freed, the boy came to him, holding out a hand.

‘I have done as you asked, sir,’ the boy said nervously, holding out his cupped hands, screwing up his eyes at the shadows.

‘Aye, you have done well,’ the dark figure replied.

The boy gulped as the dark figure leaned forward just a fraction, so a sliver of sunlight sparkled on three bronze hoops dangling from an earlobe, then dropped a pair of coins into his hands.

The figure watched as the boy led the animals away, a dark cloud passing over his mind as he thought of his men further up the trail that would slit the youngster’s throat. But destiny required ruthlessness and a jealous guarding of knowledge, and that destiny beckoned.

Yes, he mused; the Roman borders were weaker than ever.

It was time to begin.

‘No,’ Pavo growled, ‘take my hand!’ He stretched every sinew in his arm, his fingertips shaking as they hovered only inches from Father’s. The dunes all around them shimmered in the white heat of the placid but never-ending desert. The figure in front of him was barely recognisable as the powerful legionary Pavo had looked up to as a child. This man was haggard, his hair wiry and patchy, skin lined and features tired. But most horrifically, his eyes were gone and only empty, cauterised sockets remained. But he was still Father and now, stood only paces from him on the lip of this dune, he just wanted so much to embrace him once more.

‘Please, take my hand!’ Pavo cried out, but his own voice sounded distant and weak. That was when it always started. First, the sun darkened, then the dunes turned a sickly grey, and then the roaring began. Like a pride of lions at first, then like the cry of a thousand titans, the desert wind engulfed them and the still dunes were coaxed into a ferocious wall of stinging sand. Pavo struggled to resist the urge to blink as the boiling grains stung his eyeballs, but it was no use; the outline of Father grew faint in the storm. Only as he was about to fade completely, he lifted his hand towards Pavo’s. But it was too late.

‘No!’ Pavo sat bolt upright in his bunk, his skin bathed in sweat and his bedding soaked through despite the winter chill in the barrack block. He saw his breath clouding in the air before him in the faint sliver of moonlight that shone through the crack in the shutters above. All around, the exhausted men of his contubernium lay in deep slumber: Centurion Quadratus, Optio Avitus, Sura and the four recruits, Noster, Nero, Sextus and Rufus. He sighed, annoyed that the nightmare had come to him for the second time that night. Then he realised that his hand was trembling, clutching the bronze phalera. He slipped the leather strap from his neck and examined it in the moonlight. His mind drifted back to that day in Constantinople’s slave market, all those years ago, when it had first come into his possession.

Then, his thoughts crept to the years of servitude and abuse that had followed. The echoes of slaves screaming in the basement of Senator Tarquitius’ villa poisoned his mood and quickly brought the chill through the skin to his bones.

He shook his head and wiped the thoughts from his mind. Then he reached to the bedpost and untied the strip of scarlet silk Felicia had given him. He held it under his nose; it still carried the scent of her perfume. It cleared his mind of troubles, conjuring up fleeting images of her in an inviting pose that finally dissipated into blissful sleep. But only moments after he started snoring, a wail of buccinas filled the fort, the Roman horns sounding for morning wake up and roll-call.

Pavo’s eyes shot open, the whites bloodshot. He groaned and sat up.

‘Bloody Mithras, keep the noise down,’ Avitus groaned from the bunk opposite. Then he looked down to Quadratus on the bunk below. ‘Mind you, it’s less of a din than your farting,’ he cackled. Then, when Quadratus poked his head from his bunk and shot him a serious glare, he added, grudgingly, ‘. . sir.’

‘Hold on,’ Sura croaked from the bunk above Pavo. Sitting up, shivering, still clasping his blanket around him, he nudged open the shutter next to his bunk. ‘It’s not even dawn — what’s going on?’

Pavo looked up to his friend, frowning, then the pair’s faces fell into a weary realisation.

‘Lupicinus!’ They groaned in harmony.

The sky was still jet-black and the torches around the inner fortress walls guttered and crackled. Pavo felt as if he was in some lucid nightmare; frozen, belly rumbling, tired beyond belief. Still in better shape than some of the recruits , he mused dryly, hearing their teeth chatter and them stamping their boots to stay warm. Behind the legionaries, the handful of auxiliaries were lined up, and a sorry sight they were: one in three had a helmet and even less possessed a shield. To the rear, the turma of equites and less-than-impressed foederati had mustered also. Then, Lupicinus’ two centuries of comitatenses legionaries filed into place in armour that contrasted starkly with their limitanei counterparts. Pavo stifled a snort; so the disturbingly small total of the ‘reinforced’ XI Claudia — less than five hundred men — had been mustered in the dead of night by the regal arsehole that was Comes Lupicinus. Now, the blend of incredulity and rage on the faces of the front line veterans demanded an explanation.