Douglas Jackson - Hero of Rome

Now he stared into Crespo’s features from two feet away. Did he sense uncertainty? By the gods, he hoped so. The fire which had started in the crook of his elbow was moving up into his shoulder and on into the base of his neck and it was like no pain he’d ever experienced. Crespo’s washed-out eyes glared back from a long, narrow face that had somehow stayed pale while the sun turned most men’s walnut brown. Valerius could make out a pattern of individual pockmarks dotting his opponent’s forehead and chin, evidence of some childhood disease unfortunately survived. His nose was long and sharply angled, like the blade of a pioneer’s axe, and below it hung a thin, rat-trap mouth that reminded Valerius of a viper’s. Oh, he was a handsome fellow was Crespo. But handsome or not, he was a sword hilt taller, and, though Valerius was broader in the chest and shoulder, the centurion had the wiry strength of fifteen years in the legion; the kind of strength you didn’t get from running errands in the law courts. Still, growing up on his father’s farms had given Valerius his own strength, and the confidence to use it.

The sweat started at the very edge of Crespo’s hairline: tiny, almost invisible diamonds of moisture among the untidy dark stubble the unit’s barber had left him. Valerius watched, fascinated, as they slowly grew in size, until two or three joined and formed a clear drop which trickled gently down the centurion’s sloping forehead until it reached the point where it joined his nose. And stopped. He felt disappointment. The droplet had seemed an omen. If it had carried on and run down the blade of the axe to the tip, he was certain it would have foretold victory. Now he wasn’t so sure. Still, it was a sign of something. Was there a loosening of the talons, a sense that the opposing force, though it felt as relentless as ever, had passed its peak? Or was Crespo luring him into a trap? Allowing him to think he’d won and then producing a burst of energy he’d kept in reserve for the moment he had him slightly off balance? No. Wait. Patience.

‘Tribune?’

Valerius recognized the voice but tried not to let it affect his concentration.

‘Tribune Verrens?’ The tone was a little more officious than was proper in a double-pay man addressing a Roman officer, but when the double-pay man was clerk to the Twentieth’s commander it seemed sensible to ignore the potential slight.

‘Had enough yet, pretty boy?’ Crespo’s lips barely moved as he hissed the words through clenched teeth. The thick Sicilian accent grated on Valerius’s ears as much as the insult.

‘What is it, soldier?’ Valerius addressed the man behind him but kept his eyes on Crespo and his voice steady. The joined fists remained as motionless as if they were carved in rock.

‘You are to attend the legate, sir.’ The announcement brought groans of disappointment from the dozen legionaries crowding around the tree stump. Valerius could have groaned with them. He sensed that the contest was there to be won. But you didn’t keep the legate waiting.

Which posed a problem: how to extricate himself without giving Crespo something to crow about? He knew that the instant he relaxed the centurion would force his arm over and claim victory. A small thing, a minor defeat which a man could easily bear and would cost nothing but a little hurt pride. But he wasn’t prepared to give Crespo even that satisfaction. He thought for a few seconds, allowing Crespo to anticipate his moment of triumph, then, maintaining his grip, rose smoothly to his feet, drawing the puzzled centurion with him. Crespo suppressed a curse and glared at Valerius as the young tribune used his left hand to untie the cloth binding their wrists. ‘There’ll be another time. I had you where I wanted you.’

Valerius laughed. ‘You had your chance, centurion, and I have better things to do.’ As he pushed through the grinning crowd of off duty legionaries at the heels of the legate’s messenger he heard Crespo boasting dismissively to his cronies, the senior men he kept loyal by handing out light duties: ‘Too soft. They’re all the same, these rich boys, just short-timers playing at soldiers.’

It took Valerius twenty minutes to wash the sweat from his body and don his uniform over his tunic and braccae, the calf-length trousers the legions had adopted after their first winter in Britain. First the dark red over-tunic, then the belt round his waist with the decorative apron of studded leather straps that were meant to protect his groin, but in reality wouldn’t stop a goose feather, never mind a spear. Over the tunic, his orderly helped him strap the lorica segmentata, the jointed plate armour that covered his shoulders, chest and back and would stop a spear, but was also light enough to allow him to move fast and fight freely. The short-bladed gladius hung from the scabbard on his left hip, the weight comfortable against his upper leg, ready to be cross-drawn with that musical hiss that always made the hair stand up on the back of his neck. Finally, the heavy polished helmet with its neck protector and cheek pieces, topped by the stiff scarlet horsehair crest. He knew he was testing the legate’s patience, but Marcus Livius Drusus was a general in the mould of the great Gaius Marius and anything out of place would be noted and remembered.

When he was satisfied, he marched the short distance from the bivouac he shared with another of the legion’s six military tribunes to the tented pavilion which doubled as the commander’s living quarters and the principia, the legion’s nerve centre. The surroundings were comfortingly familiar. Neat rows of tents, divided into units of centuries and cohorts, the via praetoria stretching off to the point where it was bisected by the via principalis just before the principia, and beyond that the supply area, workshop tents and horse lines. Glevum, the Twentieth’s permanent headquarters, lay forty miles to the north-east, but since he’d arrived in Britain all those months ago, fresh-faced and nervous at the port on the River Tamesa, he’d spent more time on the march or on engineering detail than in the fort. Marching camps like this, hardly varying in any way, were more home to him now than his father’s villa. From the first, soldiering had come perhaps not easily but certainly naturally to him. In those early days he’d often lain wrapped in his cloak, exhausted after a long day on patrol, and wondered at the fate which had brought him here, where he belonged. He knew instinctively that his ancestors had fought at Romulus’s side, marched with Scipio and stood with Caesar at Pharsalus. It was there, inside, in every nerve and sinew

He recognized the two legionaries on guard outside the principia as permanent members of the legate’s bodyguard. The man on the right raised his eyebrows, warning of the reception he was likely to receive. Valerius grinned his thanks then switched to his expressionless soldier’s mask. Inside, the general bent low over a sand table at the rear of the tent, flanked by a pair of his aides. Valerius removed his helmet and stood for a few seconds before clashing his fist against his chest armour with a loud crash.

‘Tribune Verrens, at your service, sir.’

Livius turned slowly to face him. The afternoon heat had left the inside of the principia airless and clammy, but even so he wore the heavy scarlet cloak that marked his rank over his full dress uniform, and by now his puffy, patrician face and balding scalp matched it almost to perfection.

‘I hope I didn’t disturb your games, Verrens?’ The voice was excessively cultured and the tone almost solicitous. ‘Perhaps we should have our tribunes wrestling in the mud with the common soldiery every morning? It would raise their morale considerably to inflict a few lumps and bumps on their officers. We might even lose a few, but then tribunes aren’t much good for anything in any case. Yes, good for morale. But… not… good… for… discipline!’ The final sentence was barked out with all the venom Livius could inject into it. Valerius picked out a worn spot on the tent wall behind the legate’s right shoulder as he prepared to ride out the inevitable storm.