Geraint Jones - Blood Forest

The other eulogies were shorter. Beside Marco’s long and venerated military career, there was little to say about the younger soldiers, whose day of death had been their first taste of combat. And, unlike Titus, the comrades of these younger men were uncomfortable addressing the century, their words sometimes hushed, often choked.

I tried not to listen. I had no need to listen. I had heard such things many times before. Had I not been the speaker? Names and faces fought fiercely to break into my mind: Varo; Priscus; Octavius; good men doomed to bad deaths. I did not even know what fate befell Centurion Marcus. I could only hope that his end had been quick, but I had seen enough in those few days of war to know that that was a fantasy. No, it was not a time I wished to recall, and so instead I concentrated on Titus, painting in my mind the reasons for his leaving the desert, only to rejoin army life in Germany.

The funeral rites complete, we fell to work on the fort’s defences. This wasn’t so much for our own protection – the general opinion being that the Germans were cowards, and would only engage in one-sided hit-and-run skirmishes – but because the auxiliary commander had begged Pavo for legion expertise in their construction, doubtless fearing what would become of his garrison if he was tasked to hold on through winter. Equally doubtless in my mind was that Pavo would have extracted a price for our labours.

Our own section – Titus’s section – were throwing up dirt on to the southern rampart when the troop of cavalry arrived, a familiar face at the head of the dirt-flecked horsemen.

Arminius, his eyes as sharp as a wolf’s.

‘Felix!’ he called to me with evident delight.

Around me, men stood to attention at the approach of the officer, and yet I felt their eyes, wondering how I, a common legionary, was held in such esteem by this nobleman.

I wondered as much myself.

‘Sir,’ I managed.

He dismounted, clasping my hand in comradeship. ‘I’ve brought you a gift!’ He beamed, gesturing to one of his horsemen. I recognized him as the ugly sentry from Arminius’s tent, Berengar, but it was what lay behind the trooper that the German was referring to.

Prone in the dirt, attached by a rope from the saddle, was the body of the spearman Titus had hit with the timber. It was hard to tell at first, given the state of the corpse, which must have been dragged some miles, but the pattern of his cloak gave him away.

‘Where’s Pavo?’ Arminius asked of me.

‘His tent, sir?’ I guessed.

‘Show me.’

As we walked through the camp, men snapped up from their duties to stand to attention in acknowledgment of the officer. He didn’t let one go unremarked, smiling and offering salutations to the troopers. Here, I thought to myself, was a man who knew that men would follow him and not his rank. It was noble birth and the class-based system of the Roman Empire that had given him his position, but Arminius would have risen as a leader had he been born to the lowest peasant.

‘Felix, how are you recovering?’

‘Mending well enough, sir,’ I answered.

He smiled as he took in my black eye. ‘Of course.’ He placed a friendly hand on my shoulder, his voice lowered so that it was for my ears only. ‘The grove. Have you remembered anything before that? Where you came from? How you got there?’

His eyes were kind. His interest was generous.

And yet…

‘No, sir,’ I lied, not wanting to reveal the weaknesses in my armour, even to this man.

His smile returned. ‘Maybe in time,’ he said, and then turned to greet a new arrival.

Pavo, evidently alerted to the arrival of the cavalry, saluted the German prince, his usual scowl only slightly suppressed.

Arminius greeted him, expressing sadness at the loss of the centurion’s men. ‘Tell me what happened.’

Pavo did and, to my discomfort, included my own action in the skirmish. At the mention of my charge in defence of the young soldier – Pavo did not know Cnaeus by name – Arminius’s face took on a reverent expression.

‘The gods spared you in that grove for a reason.’

I could only nod, numb with embarrassment and appalled by the attention.

Then it was Arminius’s turn to tell of how he’d come across the spearman who was now acting as a sled. ‘I’ve had my boys out for days, looking for the savages responsible for the killing in the grove.’

‘You think this was the same group?’ Pavo asked.

Arminius shrugged. ‘There are a lot of people here who don’t care for Rome. I wouldn’t want to say. In any case, we were following a blood trail and found that one. His friends must have caught sight of us, and abandoned him.’

‘And the others?’ the centurion pushed.

‘The trail died in a village. They would have discarded their weapons, and blended in. Nobody gave them up.’

‘So raze the village,’ Pavo said, as if it were the most obvious solution in the world.

‘That will turn a hundred more against us,’ I heard, then turned ashen as I realized it had been my own voice. ‘I’m sorry, sir.’ I addressed Pavo. ‘It’s not my place to speak on it.’

‘No, it’s not,’ he answered with a cold look.

‘But he’s right,’ Arminius said gently. ‘Our army is the greatest in the world, Pavo, but we need to use it in the right way. How many times have we crushed an uprising by force, only to see it spring up again as sons avenge fallen fathers? Let us show the tribes that Rome is the way. Let them see the benefits of open trade, and security. Do this, and they will police themselves. Troublemakers will be brought to heel by their chieftains before blood is spilled.’

Pavo did not look impressed by the argument. His mindset – of bloody reprisal – ran deep in the legions. ‘And what if the chieftain’s the troublemaker, sir?’ he asked, poker-faced.

Arminius laughed, and slapped the centurion on the shoulder. ‘Chieftains are above all greedy, Pavo. They wouldn’t bite the hand that feeds them.’

Pavo only nodded in deference to the ranking officer, and the talk of strategy died.

‘So, you have a body?’ the German then asked. Pavo immediately became fascinated with the links of his chain mail as he explained how the pigs had been fed. Arminius didn’t seem to care.

‘What about his equipment?’

Pavo led on through the fort and then picked up the spearman’s shield from amongst a pile of firewood. Arminius studied its swirling pattern of paint.

‘The Angrivarii tribe,’ he grunted with anger and surprise. ‘Up until now, we suspected it was only the Sugambri behind the attacks.’

‘So the rebellion is spreading?’ Pavo asked.

‘I wouldn’t quite call it a rebellion, Pavo. But the animosity, yes, it seems to be spreading.’ Our small group lapsed into silence as Arminius seemed to consider the implications. ‘The section you lost, can you take me to where they fell?’

Pavo nodded, and from the look that Arminius gave me, I assumed that I was to follow. My centurion noted my presence, but made no protest. Collecting a half-dozen of Arminius’s cavalry for protection, we made our way out across the bridge and south to where the picket line had been placed on a small rise within the treeline.

Beyond the woods, which were only a hundred yards deep, lay open fields. They should have seen the enemy approaching.

‘No,’ Arminius told us, then showed us why. His troopers had found the hides, shallow depressions in the earth amongst the trees. ‘They’d lie up in here overnight. Cover themselves with these branches. Your sentries were looking across the fields, not behind them.’

There were expert trackers amongst Arminius’s troop, men who knew the countryside as if it were their own skin, any blemish obvious to their trained eyes. They pointed to small, fist-sized indentations in the dirt. Besides the indentations, no skill was needed to identify the congealed red matted against the forest floor.