S. Turney - Hades' Gate

"Pullo — Primus Pilus of the Fourteenth, and Vorenus, pilus prior in the same legion. And who the hell are you, soldier ?" the man stressed the last word. Botovios found himself nodding. The primus pilus was the top officer in the legion's centurionate. The chances of his hunters outranking the newcomer were tiny.

"Centurions Furius and Fabius of the Seventh." A defiant note, almost daring the others to challenge over seniority.

The air almost crackled with tension. For a moment both pairs of Roman officers locked their gaze on one another and had his ankle been stronger, Botovios would have risked running for it. Instead he stood silent, waiting to see if there was any possibility that these soldiers might just fall on each other in bloodshed. The tension suggested it as a possibility.

"We've been tracking a small party of Gauls down here that we spotted on the road from the south" the Fourteenth's senior centurion said. "You would be the pair who left the two bodies back on the forest path, then?"

Suddenly the balance changed in their favour as Botovios saw the figures of numerous soldiers emerging like ghosts from the depths of the forest, armed and ready. Unlike his two original pursuers, these two officers were not without their men.

"What's your business with him?" the bull-shouldered centurion from the Seventh demanded without an ounce of the respect Botovios would expect from a junior officer to a senior.

"Our legate," something about the tone of the word 'legate' suggested that it left a sour taste in the senior man's mouth, "Lucius Munatius Plancus, has a standing brief for his patrolling centuries to apprehend and execute any Gaul we find under arms without the permission of the general or his staff."

The two centurions from the Seventh exchanged a look and the stockier one turned back to their counterparts from the Fourteenth.

"That's ridiculous! You'll have to execute the whole Gods-forsaken nation. Anyway, this lad's unarmed, so you can leave him be. Go bother the local fauna somewhere, sir."

Primus Pilus Titus Pullo bridled. He may not be happy with his orders, but to be spoken to in such a manner by a junior from another legion was pushing the bounds of acceptability.

"Unless you have a damn good reason to be after this man yourself, centurion, you'll want to still that tongue when speaking to a senior officer unless you want to find yourself being lashed within a finger width of your life back in camp."

Botovios watched, fascinated. After four years of studying the Roman military machine from a distance and through texts he was finally getting to see it operating first hand and it seemed to be nowhere near as organised and efficient as he had been led to believe. Perhaps there was a chance for Gaul after all.

The stocky centurion ripped something — a small baton or scroll case — from a pouch and tossed it over to the senior officer, who caught it deftly and turned it over to examine it.

"That's the seal of the Camp Prefect, Priscus."

"Yes. We're on a job for him. So I suspect we take precedence over your witch-hunt for pitchfork-wielding peasants. Listen, sir: no disrespect, but we've been waiting for this one for weeks, spent time setting up an ambush and plenty of effort tracing him in the first place. He's important, and I'm not about to relinquish him to you because you happened to drop by, regardless of rank."

"By Juno, centurion, your impudence knows no bounds. Take the lad, then, but I'll be reporting this incident to the Camp Prefect when we return."

Even as the primus pilus tossed the sealed object back to Furius and he and the accompanying 'Vorenus' turned back to their approaching units and waved them on, heading away into the woods, Botovios realised with an air of sad finality that it was truly over. The original pursuers were starting towards him again and any moment now, he would be in their hands. Then, doubtless, he would be broken, burned and cut until he screamed everything he knew through shattered teeth and bloodied lips. Such a thing must not happen.

His ankle would not carry him any further and he was unarmed.

Calmly, his thoughts going out to the Goddess of the woods, Arduenna, begging her for the strength to do what must be done, he turned his back on the centurions. They came on — he could tell from the crunching of their approaching footsteps — but he had not turned his back to protect himself or to take flight. He had done so to conceal his actions as he hurriedly untied the strings on the tiny pouch at his neck and fished around in it, ripping out its contents. For a moment he stared at the vellum and the characters scrawled across it. He knew not what it said exactly — hadn't risked reading it — though he had the gist and knew it must not fall into the Romans' hands, even if they couldn't initially decipher it. With a deep breath, he opened his mouth and stuffed the small piece of vellum inside, starting to chew rapidly as though on tough meat. The maceration mixed with the saliva should serve to clear the writing from the piece before it could ever be found. But just in case…

A last glance across his shoulder confirmed that the two centurions were almost on him now, climbing over the now-uncovered branch that had initially tripped him. He gave them a confident smile and threw himself down the slope and slid into the ravine.

* * * * *

Centurion Furius, the bear-shouldered centurion of the Second century, First cohort of the Seventh legion, dropped the last seven feet from the rocky gulley to the grassy floor of the ravine, mere paces from the fast flowing icy river.

"Sometimes I think we should have stayed in Puteoli with Fronto. It'd have been warmer and filled with fewer arseholes."

The taller of the pair, already standing on the grass and dusting the muck of the climb from his hands, grinned.

"You got bored after a week. I managed a month. Neither of us can keep up with the old bastard's wine habit, and those women are more demanding than any bloody senior officer. Our place is with the army and you know it."

"Even if we spend all our time out on our own knee deep in snow hunting boys not old enough to grow a beard?"

"Even if. Besides, what we're doing is important. You know that. Priscus isn't a man to sod around on wild chicken hunts. A man after my own heart, that one."

Furius nodded. There were perhaps three or four men in Caesar's army that had a pedigree that outstripped their own, and Priscus was one — probably the best.

"He's not going to be happy if we've spent three weeks chasing around Gaul unravelling all this crap only to let the miserable little runt throw himself off a cliff without an interrogation. We'll be right back at the start, having to locate another contact."

"Let's just have a look at the bugger first. Come on."

The pair waded through the knee deep white toward the river's edge.

"You should have told that knob from the Fourteenth that you were the Primus Pilus, you know" Fabius said, shaking his head as he trudged towards the water. "You had more authority than him and you know it, yet you let him go on assuming you were a junior."

"I'm not wearing the crest or the tunic with the gold embroidery, and he couldn't see my cloak pin insignia that far away. I could be any centurion. And anyway, I'm imagining what Priscus is going to say to him when he accuses a 'junior' of getting in the way of his own duty. The prefect'll tear him a second arsehole."

"He had a second arsehole standing next to him!"

Snorting his agreement, Furius peered into the river.

The Gaul, whose name was unknown to them, but who they had bribed, cajoled, threatened and even tortured numerous of his countrymen just to locate, lay on the rocks close to the bank. He was a shattered thing: a broken mass of flesh and muscle with sharp white bone protruding through the skin in numerous places. He had landed flat on his back and had probably died that very instant. The blood had all run out now, washed clean from body and rocks by the fast flow, leaving him grey and clean, the water lapping at his legs and arms where they dangled from the rocks. The back of his head appeared to have gone entirely, the sharp rock that it had hit now protruding half way through his brain. It was a mess.