Anthony Riches - The Leopard sword

‘And me!’ Julius was hobbling across the square with a spear as a prop, and he took his place alongside his comrade with a wink. ‘I’ve come to offer you the chance to surrender, Petrus. If you give it up now you’ll be treated far better than if you make us work for it.’

Petrus’s smile broadened.

‘Just when it doesn’t seem as if life could get any better, the last piece of the puzzle falls into place. The soldier who invaded my business, killed two of my men and stole a valuable item of my property presents himself to me on a silver plate with an offer of “ the chance to surrender ”.’ He wiped an imaginary tear of mirth from his eye, shaking his head at the grinning centurion. ‘Surrender? Really? To quote your words back at you, I’ll have your cock and balls fed to my dogs, Centurion, and I’ll do it while you’re still alive to enjoy the sight. Right lads, let’s have-’

Julius held up a hand.

‘Before you set your men on the pair of us, there’s just one thing.’ He put a shiny brass whistle to his lips and blew a long shrill blast. For a moment the men around him heard nothing other than the echoes of the whistle’s note dying away, but just as the smile was returning to Petrus’s face, and with a sudden rattle of hobnails, a century’s strength of soldiers burst into the square from several directions, their shields and spears raised to trap the gang members where they stood. Julius raised his eyebrows at Marcus, who raised his cavalry helmet’s face mask and grinned out at the men of his own century as they herded the captives into a tight knot and forcibly disarmed them at spear point. A hulking gang member scowled down at the diminutive Hamian confronting him, only to find himself with the point of the easterner’s dagger pressed firmly into his crotch.

‘Move it or lose it, arsehole.’

The soldiers around the Hamian nodded approvingly, and more than one gave the big man a look that promised there was worse to come were he not to obey the command promptly. Qadir strolled across to Marcus with a quiet smile, looking his centurion up and down with a slight smile.

‘Is there any way in which we may be of service, Centurion Corvus?’

Marcus shook his head, wearily resting the Greek shield’s rim on the square’s cobbles.

‘Apart from telling me how you knew I’d be here, no.’

‘You will recall that you asked me to set a watch on the city’s gates yesterday, and to send a fire arrow over the wall to tell you if someone came after you, and in which direction. The same man walked into our lines while we were mopping up those bandits who had not been blasted to their gods, with one of Prefect Caninus’s men at knife point. He told us that Caninus would be here to retrieve his gold, and that you would attempt to prevent him from leaving the city.’ He gave Marcus an appraising look. ‘Shall I have one of our men carry that shield down to the barracks?’ He reached out and lifted the shield out of his friend’s hands, pulling a face as he raised it to the fighting position. ‘This is remarkably heavy, presumably largely due to the unusual amount of iron welded onto the rim. Here, you…’ He passed the shield to Scarface, who took it with only a minimal display of bad grace. ‘Take this to the centurion’s quarters. And take a man with you; the streets aren’t entirely safe yet.’ Scarface gathered a mate to him by eye, and the pair set off towards the Tungrian barracks with a conspiratorial look. Qadir turned back to Marcus. ‘That way you won’t have to put up with him hanging about you for the next hour or so, since I expect them to duck into the first beer shop they find with the door unlocked. Perhaps your wife would appreciate your presence at what’s left of the grain store, given that she’s not sure if you’re alive or dead?’

Marcus nodded, and then wrinkled his forehead as he remembered one last thing.

‘You might want to send a tent party and your watch officer down into the temple. Respectfully, mind you. It seems that Our Lord’s not in the mood for misbehaviour. There are two of Caninus’s men down there with fairly nasty injuries, plus the man himself pinned under the stone frieze, and a large chest full of gold that needs uniting with the one that we took from Procurator Albanus. In fact perhaps you’d better escort that back in person, and whatever you do…’

‘Don’t let Morban near it?’

‘Exactly.’

The standard bearer frowned at the two centurions.

‘That’s not fair, I-’

‘Resemble that comment? I’m sure you do, Standard Bearer.’ Qadir shook his head at the older man. ‘Just content yourself with running a book on how much coin there is in the chest.’ He saw the standard bearer’s face brighten. ‘And no, no one’s going to be allowed to open it until the tribune’s present. If you’re lucky, perhaps he’ll let you do the honours.’

Marcus snorted his laughter.

‘Not if Uncle Sextus has any say in the matter, I’d imagine…’

His voice trailed off, as Morban’s face fell and the big Hamian pursed his lips in dismay.

Tribune Scaurus offered Marcus a cup of wine, and looked his officer up and down.

‘You seem none the worse for your adventures of the last twelve hours, Centurion Corvus.’

Marcus bowed slightly, then sipped from the cup.

‘Thank you, sir. I seem to have enjoyed a good-sized piece of luck.’

Scaurus raised an eyebrow.

‘The more audacity we bring to this life, the luckier we seem to be when it pays off, no matter how we make that luck happen. And it seems that Mithras has smiled upon you, Centurion. Perhaps the temple’s pater will reward you with the advancement of another grade, once he’s recovered from his bang on the head. Caninus, it seems, will live to go on the cross if we’re prompt with the punishment.’ He laughed bitterly. ‘And we’ll be prompt with the punishment, you can be sure of that! I want Tungrorum to see all three of them pay the price for their crimes. Caninus, Petrus and Tornach, I’ll have them all crucified and the rest of their men branded as thieves and then sold on to the local farms to serve the empire for the rest of their lives. That should make Tribune Belletor happy, at least. He’s been dropping dark hints that he’s going to mention the destruction of half the grain store to his legatus in his next despatch, and I wouldn’t put it past the snivelling little man to have a decent-sized victory go into my record as a defeat, given the chance. The real shame, of course, is that we lost First Spear Frontinius so needlessly. Yet another mistake on my part.’ He shook his head. ‘The first rule of soldiering, Centurion, is to admit your errors, accept them as your own and belonging to no other man, and then learn from them and never repeat them. I so badly wanted Caninus to be telling the truth that I let it blind me to the reality. One thing I would like to know though…’

Marcus raised a questioning eyebrow.

‘If, as you suspect, Caninus left his brother dead in that stable ten years ago, rather than this apparently fictional girl Lucia, how in Hades did he send me a severed head that was so obviously his?’

The centurion sipped at his wine.

‘That’s easy, Tribune, if you can accept the proposition that the Caninus twins weren’t the only boys their mother raised. It seems there was another brother a few years younger than Quintus and Sextus, and their mother logically enough named him Septimus. When I found the headless corpse of an unidentified male in Caninus’s fortress earlier today, I also found the words “Septimus will have revenge on the fratricide Sextus” scratched into the wall of the cell where he’d been held, and the body’s hands had that same broad-fingered look to them. And Caninus was quick enough to admit it, when he thought he could kill me and walk away with the gold. He wasn’t Quintus, the older of the twins who let his wits talk him out of trouble; he was Sextus, the younger brother whose violent and ruthless nature couldn’t tolerate his twin having something he wanted for himself. Caninus must have told their younger brother, Septimus, that he’d killed his twin, either to cow him or perhaps simply because he could. When I found the headless body it was clear that Sextus, or Quintus as we believed him to be, was making his move, and intended to use his remaining brother’s head to make you believe he was dead. Julius told me how badly battered it was, the eyes and teeth literally torn out?’