Anthony Riches - The Wolf's gold

‘It’s that fucking tribune.’

He nodded at the comment, pacing forward until there could be no doubt that it was indeed Scaurus waiting for them, leaning against the tunnel’s side with his sword still sheathed.

‘Wondering what I’m doing here, are you Gerwulf? The answer’s simple enough, I’ve come for you . Much as it pains me to be the bearer of bad news, I’m afraid that I won’t be allowing you to leave this mine tonight.’

Gerwulf waved his men forward.

‘With you as a hostage I’m sure some agreement can be-’

The leading soldier’s head snapped back, and he fell to the ground with an arrow protruding from his forehead.

‘My man’s arm must be tired after his evening’s exertion. He usually puts his shots into the eye socket at this range. Would anyone else like a demonstration? He’s not in a very good mood, I’m afraid, owing to the unexpected death of two of his comrades.’ The remaining four men kept very still. ‘I thought not. And now allow me to introduce, I’m sorry, re -introduce you to my new friend Karsas.’

A hard-faced man dressed in the rough, dirty clothing of a miner stepped out of the same side tunnel from which the tribune had emerged, his muscular arms crossed and his face set firm.

‘He is unknown to you Gerwulf, and yet you two have met before. In a valley much like this one, and not too far from here, you set your wolf pack on his people one night, without warning and without mercy. You butchered the men and raped their women before murdering them, you showed no mercy to any of them, and you left their corpses to rot.’

Gerwulf shrugged.

‘You’re going to have to be more specific. There was more than one village.’

The miner scowled, and Scaurus shook his head in disgust.

‘Nobody knows this better than the men who labour to keep this mine operational. They are the dispossessed, Gerwulf, men who ran from your swords and left their families to die. They have had a long time to wallow in their self-hatred, my new friend here and his comrades. .’ More men crowded out of the tunnel behind him, and hearing a scrape on the rock floor behind them the Germans turned to find another half-dozen filling the corridor to their rear. ‘And they yearn for the chance of revenge. They tell me that they come from five villages, places of happiness and contentment which you had your men tear to pieces in order to satisfy your need to destroy. The boy you murdered was from this man’s village, forced to witness the death of his father and brothers, and the rape of his mother and sisters. He was a boy, Gerwulf, but inside he was already an old man, his spirit shrivelled by what you did to his family. And to his . .’

A miner stepped forward with a pickaxe in his hands, scowling with murderous intent.

‘And to theirs .’

Scaurus pointed at the men behind the soldiers, who were slowly but purposefully advancing with their axes and shovels ready to fight. Holding up a hand, he showed the Germans a nugget of gold the size of a man’s eye, turning it in the air before his face to examine its rough surface as he continued speaking.

‘Strange stuff, isn’t it? It’s just a yellow metal with no obvious benefit other than a certain cosmetic value and the fact that it’s quite rare, and yet it seems that once a person possesses enough it changes them. Take your sister, for example. Even with the miners released and on the rampage she still insisted that two of the men you set to guard us carry a chest full of small nuggets and dust all the way up here. It’s the last sweepings of the Alburnus Major strongroom, apparently, and just too precious to be left behind, even if you have got several cartloads of the stuff waiting for you on the other side of the mountain.’

He hefted a tightly woven bag the size of a grapefruit, licking his finger and dipping it into the bag through a slit cut in the top. Holding the digit up, he admired the glittering sparkle for a moment before rubbing the powder off with his other fingers and causing a cascade of flashing motes to drift to the tunnel’s stone floor.

‘This, apparently, is gold dust. I had a look at it earlier, and I have to say I was quite impressed. Imagine, a powder almost as fine as flour, and yet so very heavy. You know I saw this, and I thought of you . You, and my new friend Karsas here.’

He handed the bag to the silent miner, who nodded to the men around him and behind the Germans. The trap closed on Gerwulf and his men with sudden speed, the labourers to either side of them charging in with their tools raised for battle, overwhelming the bodyguards without regard for their swords. The German saw his men fall under their frenzied attack, then reeled as an axe handle hammered into his helmeted head. Staggering against the passage’s coarsely chiselled rock wall, he felt rough hands tear the sword from his grip and pinion him tightly, forcing him to his knees. A hand grabbed his hair and dragged his head back, and another wrapped itself around his nose and mouth, abruptly closing off his windpipe from the mine’s cold air. Scaurus strolled into his blurred vision, gesturing to the hard-faced labourer beside him.

‘So, as I was saying, the moment I clapped eyes on that bag of precious dust, my thoughts immediately turned to the two of you. You see, earlier this evening I promised Karsas here a chance at taking revenge for Mus, and for his wife and family, and for all of the innocents you murdered to keep your men fed and amused while you were killing time waiting for your sister to call you in to rob the Ravenstone. So I promised to help him if I could, although I wasn’t sure if the chance would ever even become a reality, much less how he might go about it. Then, after we’d taken your sister prisoner and while we were waiting for you, I naturally mentioned the usual methods of which the empire is so very fond, but that all seemed a little tedious for Karsas.’

Gerwulf was already feeling the need to breathe, a dull nagging insistence in his chest for air.

‘And, of course, I reflected that my good friend Clodius Albinus, when he gets here in a week or so, might not really be all that keen on a public execution. I have a feeling that this unpleasantness will be brushed under the rug, you see, and crucifixions tend to be a bit high profile for that sort of discreet house cleaning. So I asked Karsas what he had in mind. He told me that he wasn’t really bothered, just as long as he got to look into your eyes as you die. Yes, I’ve warned him that it’s not half as satisfying as a man imagines before the deed is done, but he does seem somewhat set on the idea — and who am I to refuse the request of a man who’s suffered so badly at your hands?’

The imperative to breathe was pounding in Gerwulf’s chest now, a rending ache that felt as if he were being turned inside out. Scaurus’s words were becoming more distant, seeming to echo down a long tunnel.

‘And then I remembered to open the chest which Theodora had thought so important, and it provided instant inspiration. Why not make the punishment a fitting one? Why not take your life with the one thing you seem to have craved the most? Of course, we’ve both heard of men being killed with gold before, molten gold poured down the neck, stabbing with a golden blade — although Mithras knows how you could ever get the stuff to hold an edge — but I’ve never heard of this particular method before. I think you’re going to be impressed. So. .’

He gestured to the man behind the German, and as Gerwulf was on the very brink of passing out, his eyes rolling upwards and his body starting to go limp, the hand that was clamped over his mouth and nose was removed. Staring up into the remorseless eyes of the man who was about to kill him, and with no more control over the reaction than he had over his bowels, which had already voided themselves into his leggings, he sucked in a huge, gulping gasp of air that seemed to last a lifetime, filling his lungs with an involuntary groaning whoop. And as he breathed in, sucking the mine’s frigid air deep into his body, the stone-faced miner upended the bag of gold dust onto his face and poured a torrent of the glittering powder down his gaping throat.