Geraint Jones - Blood Forest

The second was because I did not want it known that I was about to leave the tent. With perhaps the exception of Rufus, who gave me the impression of being an avid family man, the others in the section were still absent, presumed drunk. Regardless of their destination, I doubted that any of them would make it back much before sunrise. It was now time for my own excursion, and so I stepped over the sleeping forms of the boys and out into the starlit night.

My first stop was Pavo’s own tent, and I found what I had expected to see: the centurion, snoring loudly, a half-eaten chicken in his lap. With a final look about me, I made my way inside.

My search was short, and fruitless. A map was what I wanted. I would have been surprised if Pavo, at his rank, had possessed one of a large enough scale for my designs, but the chance his drunken stupor had offered was too good to pass up. I was not surprised to note that there were no bags of coins or signs of wealth within the tent. Either Pavo was a master at concealment, or he was broke.

I had no money of my own, and I would need it for what I had in mind. Still, it was not an insurmountable problem. I had a feeling I knew where to get it.

The camp appeared deserted as I walked along the tented lines. The sentries were pushed out on to the distant earthen ramparts, while the broke and the boring slept in their tents. Any man wanting a drink would be in the town, surrounded by loose women and, I hoped, looser tongues.

Finding the quartermaster’s was no problem, its location seared into my memory from other encampments and from the painful strides I had taken with the burden of equipment in my arms. As I had hoped, a glimmer of candlelight shone from within. For the protection of the legion’s goods the engineers had erected a wooden structure for the stores, and I rapped the panel beside the open door.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ growled the quartermaster, his birthmarks shifting with distaste.

‘Need a loan, sir,’ I told him simply. As I expected, this caused no consternation.

‘Well, come in then.’

From the quartermaster’s interest in Titus, I had the feeling the pair conducted business together, and where there is black-market business there is money, and where there is money there are loans.

The quartermaster would not be retiring a poor man, and it was a hefty rate I agreed to; I’d be paying back double what I borrowed.

‘There’s gonna be a payday before we break camp,’ the slab of a soldier told me. ‘You’ll pay me then.’

I didn’t need to ask what would happen if I didn’t. Men like him always held others in their pockets. Men who’d break fingers, or slit a throat, to be forgiven their own debts.

What I wanted to ask for was more information on the army’s planned movement. The quartermaster would be in the know, but I’d need to tread carefully, coming across as just an interested foot-slogger and nothing more.

‘So there’s a date set, sir? For us leaving?’

He shrugged. Transaction over, he only wanted me gone. I sat still, patient and earnest, giving him the impression that the quickest way to get rid of me was to send me away with some titbit of information in my ears.

‘Couple days, tops. Plans to be finalized.’ He made it sound as though he was privy to those plans. Perhaps he was, or perhaps he enjoyed elevating his station.

‘You know where we’re going, sir?’

‘North. Now fuck off.’

It didn’t do to push, and so I did as I was bid.

Entering Minden I saw that I was hours late to the party; many soldiers were already vomiting in the alleyways, or bartering hard with the business-savvy whores. The working girls avoided me, sensing my sobriety. Drunk and horny, powerless against their desires, that was how they liked their clients.

‘Where’s the Three Bears?’ I asked a soldier who was supporting a comrade, the pair staggering as if escaping battle.

‘Next street down, on your left.’

I nodded thanks, and made sure to give the area a wide berth, because that inn was the favoured watering hole of my own century.

Instead, I found an establishment that had been a German home a few months before. The inside was crowded with soldiers, legionaries and auxiliaries, standing and sitting on oak benches, wine flowing freely from skins and across the bare breasts of fair-haired whores. Never known for their restraint, the mere rumour of war had been enough to send the soldiers into an orgy of decadence. I remembered the feeling: you can’t take it with you, so why not enjoy your last few days on earth? Most of these soldiers would not be truly fearing death, but the excuse for excess was enough. Let the wine and tits flow.

I edged my way to what served as a counter, a long table set against the far wall. Behind it, the German proprietor was flanked by two hulking Roman soldiers who were making a little extra on the side; the inn’s owner was savvy enough to know that the local muscle would never be as respected as the army’s professional warriors.

I put a coin on the table, and was handed a mug of bitter wine, the kind that makes you want to drink more if only to forget the taste of the last cup. I settled in to wait. I would stay here until the crowd began to thin, men falling on their backs to sleep or fuck. By then I would be a part of the wine-soaked furniture, and with luck Fortune would have guided me to an inn where the keeper was a talker. Until then I drank, slowly, and I watched.

I wasn’t the only one.

I found him at the end of the bar, a gnarled veteran, a Roman, perhaps forty years old. He was beside a taller, silver-haired comrade, but neither talked much, they simply watched me. Why?

It was too early, but my sense of unease overcame me. I slipped the German an extra coin for my next drink.

‘The two in the corner. Were they here before me?’

He nodded, which was all I got for my coin. Money well spent. I had not been followed.

But who were they?

I tried to put it out of my mind. Perhaps they were simply wondering why a Roman was drinking alone. Bored, they were making conversation, and I had provided a topic. Yes, that must be it.

My attention was quickly pulled to the front of the room, where a fight had broken out between a group of Roman infantry and German cavalry. It was a good fight, the men just drunk enough to withstand pain, but sober enough for their punches to aim true. As the other soldiers cheered them on, I felt myself smile. For a moment, I was there with my old comrades, Varo throwing men around as if they were empty tunics. It was we who were fighting, having each other’s backs, the black eyes a badge of honour to be laughed about the next day.

The two groups were finally pulled apart, and I recognized one of the men restoring order as the large German who had guarded Arminius’s tent, and had dragged the body of the spearmen behind his horse: Berengar. If he recognized me he gave no sign, and, the scuffle over, the drinking resumed. I turned back to my table.

And found the two Roman watchers seated beside me.

‘Comrade,’ the silver-haired one greeted me.

‘Brothers,’ I acknowledged, lifting my cup, trying to appear more drunk than I was, then turning my head from them in an attempt to break the conversation.

It didn’t work.

‘I know you.’ The shorter, gnarled man spoke. His words were not condemning, simply intrigued. I felt the safest course of action was to humour him.

‘Then you’re a lucky man.’ I smiled, splashing wine out of my cup.

‘But not from here,’ he wondered aloud, and my stomach began to knot.

‘Oh?’

‘What legion you with?’ the taller of the pair asked.

‘Seventeenth. I’m new,’ I explained, with a gesture about me, making a show of my lack of companions.