Джерейнт Джонс - Siege

‘Next four,’ Malchus ordered, taking the rope from Micon and the other soldiers who had held down the condemned prisoner and tossing them towards the ranks of our depleted century.

Brando snatched one from the air as if it were hewn from gold.

The second German victim whimpered like a dog as he was pushed into the dirt, and I heard the big Batavian plead with Malchus as he strode to his side.

‘Let me gut the bastard, sir,’ Brando begged, and I suspected Malchus would have agreed, had Prefect Caedicius not answered for his more bloodthirsty subordinate.

‘Send them alive and unable to fight, and they become a burden on their own people, soldier. If you kill him, he’s just food for the crows.’

Brando stood to his full height. He was an imposing bastard. Respectful of his seniors, but imposing. ‘Then let me do it slowly, sir. Please. They killed my friend, sir. They killed my whole cohort in the forest. Please, sir, let me send him back with a lesson.’

Eventually, Caedicius gave a slow nod. Malchus took the rope from Brando, and handed the Batavian his blade.

The German writhed as if he were possessed by spirits. It did him no good. Brando took his tongue first. He was savage in his work, and most of the man’s lips came with it. His ears were next.

‘Hurry this up,’ the prefect ordered, eyes on the rain clouds, and Brando hacked at both of the man’s wrists until they were ragged stumps. As blood pooled into the dirt, the prisoner rolled on the floor like an eel gaffed out from a stream.

One after another, the German prisoners were pulled forwards to similar fates. Eventually, one of the pieces of bloodstained rope found its way into my hands. From a long acquaintance with death and fate, I knew without looking who the victim at my hands would be: the young boy I had dragged from his tent. The young boy that I, with Folcher, had brought to this place.

‘You want to cut him?’ Malchus asked me, seeing my gaze linger on the boy’s thrashing eyes.

‘He’s young,’ I tried, feigning indifference. ‘Don’t we need slaves, sir? Maybe he’s worth keeping.’

Malchus shrugged, oblivious to my true intention. ‘Not with winter coming. Take hold of his arm, Felix. Hold him still.’

And so I did, watching as Malchus’s dagger bit into the red meat of the boy’s tongue. Through the rope, I felt every lashing second of defiance. Every wild jolt of panic. Malchus soon tired of the boy’s resistance and rammed his fist into his face. The boy didn’t know it, but the punch was a mercy: he was barely conscious as the gore-painted axe head chopped into his thin wrist and took his hand.

I fought down the bile that rose in my throat. What good was a sign of weakness now? What good was pity? Mercy? I had to think of my friends. I had to think of Linza. This boy and his comrades belonged to an enemy that wanted us dead. That wanted Linza raped and enslaved. Now, at least these ten were no longer a threat.

‘Send them out of the camp,’ Caedicius ordered, loud enough for the assembled troops to hear. ‘Let this be a lesson to them, and to anyone who dares take up arms against Rome.’

‘I have a suggestion, sir,’ Malchus quickly put in with a grimace that touched on a smile. Prefect Caedicius listened, and agreed, and so it was that the prisoners were freed with their hands after all, or at least one of them, stuffed into tongueless mouths. Of the ten prisoners dragged on to the square, only six survived the initial shock of their injuries to stumble in agony from the gates, their moans stifled by their own amputated flesh. Another dropped before barely clearing the gates.

‘They won’t survive more than a few days,’ Stumps said to me later, dispassionately. ‘Drain on the enemy resources, my arse. The prefect knows he fucked up, and he wants to pretend we didn’t leave forty of our blokes out there, where the same thing’s happening to them.’

I kept my mouth shut. Stumps had spoken for us both and, sure enough, the enemy were quick to make their own point, for later that day a large body of horsemen arrived and pulled to a halt beyond bow range. Their horses were trailing something, and the soldiers with the keenest eyesight told us that they were the bodies of the raiding party. The German riders then fell on these corpses with glee, hacking until there was nothing remaining but a pyramid of chopped limbs and skulls.

I knew that amongst that carnage would be the bodies of Folcher and Dog. One of those men was a friend that had escaped slavery with me. The other, a soldier I had barely known, yet I had been responsible for. Both men had lived for families, and dreams. Now they were reduced to food for crows and foxes.

‘Fuck war,’ Stumps snorted angrily beside me, and I did not know if I had ever heard words so heartfelt and true. ‘ Fuck war. ’

We slept for a long time after the raid and the mutilation of the prisoners. It wasn’t a good rest for some, and men cried out and shook in their sleep, fighting unseen battles, losing the same friends over and over. I wasn’t the only man to wake more exhausted than when I’d fallen into sleep.

‘He’s not here.’ Brando spoke sadly, looking at the empty bunk that had been occupied by his closest friend. ‘I’ve been awake for hours, but I didn’t want to open my eyes.’

We were alone in the bunk room; I presumed that Stumps was drinking with Titus, and had taken Micon with him like a cherished younger brother.

I rose from my mattress and put a hand on the Batavian’s shoulder. He didn’t need words, or promises from me. He just needed to know .

‘I don’t think he would blame me for leaving him behind, Felix.’ Brando rubbed his hands together as if he were milling wheat. ‘He knows I would have died with him if he was breathing.’

I nodded at that truth.

‘I tried to hide his body in the trees. Maybe they didn’t find him?’

Maybe. Or maybe Folcher’s severed head and dismembered limbs were in the pile of bodies that the Germans had stacked beyond the wall. Prefect Caedicius had sent a work party to recover the fallen so that they could receive a proper burial, but German horsemen had burst from the trees. They had baited the trap with our need to give the men a decent burial, and the work party had narrowly escaped with their own lives.

‘He’s in a better place,’ I told my friend. How many soldiers had heard that promise?

The door to the barrack room pushed open then.

‘Balbus,’ I greeted the man at the threshold.

‘I’m su-sorry it took me so long to get back,’ the soldier told me, head bobbing in earnest, his eyes struggling to meet my own. From experience, I could see a familiar slope in his neck and shoulders where shame had gripped him. Shame that he had been spared the slaughter when others had fallen.

‘How’s the hand?’ I asked him, hoping to pull him from those thoughts.

‘It’s fu-fine,’ he bluffed.

I stood and took it. Beneath the bandage I could feel swelling. Balbus tried to mask a wince as I applied pressure through my fingers.

‘You’re a good man, Balbus, but a shit liar,’ Brando said from the edge of his bunk, recognizing the hurt and the reason for hiding it.

‘I’m su-sorry about Folcher,’ Balbus answered with feeling. ‘He-he was a great bloke.’

‘He was,’ Brando agreed, standing so that he could meet Balbus’s eye man to man. ‘Dog, too. He was long a friend of yours?’

‘Tu-ten years,’ Balbus confirmed.

‘Then he wouldn’t want you trying to fight with one hand, would he?’ the Batavian pressed gently. ‘This siege isn’t going anywhere, my friend. Get your rest. Get it for us, and for Dog.’