S. Turney - Hades' Gate

Both centurions had seen — and caused — worse.

"Fucking typical that he land there" Fabius grumbled. "I call dry. You go in that cold water and search him."

"If I do, you buy the drinks when we get back to camp."

"Deal."

Furius took a deep breath and clenched his jaw, stepping cautiously from the snowy bank into the freezing cold water. He felt instantly as though his skin had shrunk on his leg. His toes were numb before they had even touched the pebbles at the bottom, a foot beneath the surface. He realised he was shivering and his teeth were clicking together rhythmically, and forced himself to stop. It was all in the mind. Shivering actually made you colder rather than helping deal with it.

With another deep breath of apprehension, the veteran plunged his other foot into the icy flow, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. Though he could not feel his feet, he could see them and they were still theoretically working. Grumbling, he took three steps through the water out to the rocks where the body lay.

"Hurry up."

Furius cast a sour look back at his companion as though Fabius had said something stupid which, clearly, he had. Bending over the body, he started rifling through the Gaul's belt pouch, lifting it from the water as he did so. Glancing only momentarily at the coins, he cast them into the water to help appease any local water spirits that might take all life from his toes. He had seen men serving in places like this lose their appendages, black and brittle.

"Nothing in his purse but shitty Gaul coins and a broken brooch pin. Worth shit."

"Go through his tunic."

"Lucius, I am not an idiot!" Ignoring the chuckle and the sarcastic comments from the bank, Furius rifled through the tunic and trousers down to the waterline, finding nothing. One of the submerged hands was tightly clasped shut and he spent precious moments snapping off the frozen fingers so he could check its contents only to find it empty. Silently, he cursed the nameless courier for wasting his time.

"Nothing."

"There has to be something. He's a young 'un. Those twisted bastard druids wouldn't trust such things to a youth's memory."

"There's a pouch on a neck thong" Furius said quickly, moving frozen, numb feet to get a closer look. "It's empty, but it's open, so he's only just taken something from it!"

"Trying to dispose of the evidence. It's either in his mouth or his arse or he threw it in the river."

"Can't search the river, and I ain't searching his arse."

Again, Fabius laughed from the bank.

"A lot of wine!" Furius snapped. "For this, you owe me a lot of wine. And the pick of recruits at the next draft. And preference with equipment."

"Fine, so long as you have something to show for all of this."

"I think…" Furius wrenched the lower jaw down until it cracked, peering inside. "Yes. There's something. Vellum I think."

As Fabius offered obvious suggestions and unhelpful advice, Furius drew the scrap from the mouth and began to stumble on numb feet back to the bank, where his companion helped him up.

"Give me your scarf."

"Piss off."

"My feet are cold-bitten. I might lose my toes. Give me your damn scarf!"

As Fabius reluctantly removed the thick russet-coloured wool garment from his neck and passed it over, Furius unlaced his Gaulish-design enclosed boots and lifted blue-purple feet from them. His socks had become so sodden they had stayed inside as his feet came out accompanied by a sucking sound. With a grimace, he drew the soggy wool socks from the boots and cast them into the river. Ridiculously, standing barefoot in the snow seemed warmer than the water he had been in. Life was starting to return to his feet. As his companion handed the scarf over, Furius bit down on the edge and tore it into two strips.

"Hey, that's my scarf!"

"And these are my feet. Shut up."

Bending, he fashioned a makeshift sock from half the scarf and wrapped it round his left foot, plunging it into the sodden boot and lacing it up. Despite the fact that it would soon become cold and wet again, temporarily his foot felt blissfully warm. It would save his toes and that was, right now, all that mattered. Hurriedly, he repeated the process on his right foot and then stomped around.

"Well?" Fabius was holding out a hand.

Furius grumbled and passed over the scrap of vellum as he stomped in circles, returning life to his limbs. The snow was settling heavily on his shoulders.

"Half of its gone. I reckon he swallowed it."

"I'm not gutting him and searching his innards either."

"There's still faint writing on this part though. I think it's Greek. Yes, definitely Greek. You want to look? Your Greek's better than mine."

Furius glared at his companion as he took the vellum and peered at it. "It's beyond me how you can spend so many years serving out in the east and not pick up the lingo, Lucius."

"Greek's the language of bum bandits. I learned enough to get by — no more."

"It's almost illegible. I can't really make out what most of the words say, and I don't think anyone else will. But there's three names here I can see that look a little familiar."

"What? Come on!"

"Treveri I think? Yes, got to be Treveri. That's one of the tribes near here, yes?"

"All around us. They're the ones who live at Trebeto and all over this forest. No shock that they're involved, given where the little prick was heading."

"And Suevi. I know that name from last year."

"Germanic bastards across the Rhenus. Juno, we don't want the Germanic tribes getting their blood up and throwing in their lot. Bad enough with the argumentative Gauls, Aquitani and Belgae. Priscus is going to have to make some pretty tough decisions in the coming weeks, I'd say. Anything else?"

"Couple of fragments. Nothing concrete. Sporadic verbs and appeals? And this one: Dumnorix. That's a person, not a tribe. Ever heard of him?"

"Can't say I have" shrugged Fabius, "but maybe Priscus has. We'd best get straight back to camp."

"That's several days ride. We need a night to recover first. I'm frozen."

"Then I'll take the horses and you can run; warm yourself up. Come on."

The pair moved back toward the narrow gulley that had afforded them a relatively simple access from the forest above. They would have to get back to camp as soon as possible. It may look like the depths of winter here but, despite the ever present snow, it was already Aprilis and officially Spring. Soon, the army would be mobilizing for the coming season. The question now was: what would their objective be? Britannia again or the flattening of yet more Gaulish resistance?

MAIUS

Fronto flicked an idle finger at a garland of sweet-smelling flowers that stretched from one peg to another on the wall of the spacious tablinum and wrinkled his nose at the scent that threatened to make him sneeze violently.

"I don't see why it couldn't be at our own property? It should be at the groom's property."

Balbus sighed and patted him on the shoulder in a supportive — even sympathetic — manner.

"Tradition has it at my house, Marcus. Anyway, women are funny about holding celebrations in places where blood has been shed regularly. Lucilia would no more allow you to use your townhouse than a public arena, and Corvinia's on her side. When the pair of them set their mind on something only a lunatic would argue."

Fronto nodded sullenly. He was that lunatic. The arguments over the past week had almost caused the calling off of the whole thing. Lucilia had proved to be more stubborn than Fronto could possibly imagine and he had decided it presaged a worrying future for him.

"But we could have had it at Puteoli. It's perfect."