Джерейнт Джонс - Legion

I shook my head. ‘I get different ones every day depending on which cohort has the camp guard, and I can’t talk to them. Legate would have their heads if they seemed distracted.’

‘But he’ll be all right with you drinking?’ Marcus smirked.

‘He loves me,’ I said honestly. ‘Calls me the hero of the Eighth.’

Marcus grinned. ‘ Fear the Eighth. ’

‘You heard about that?’

‘The whole army’s heard about that! The battle is growing famous, brother.’

‘What are they calling it?’

When Marcus smiled with pride, I could tell that the name was going to be a pompous one. ‘The battle of the night and day,’ he said with adulation in his tone.

Gods. Worse than I thought. ‘It was day, then night,’ I corrected.

‘Well, that’s what they’re calling it.’

‘Great.’

My friend looked at me sideways. ‘Shouldn’t you be wearing your bearskin?’ he asked, referring to the thick fur that draped from helmet over shoulders, a symbol of my rank.

‘Slaves are still cleaning it,’ I said. The previous man in my position had left his mark with pints of blood.

‘There’s nothing more important than the appearance of a soldier,’ Marcus replied. ‘It’s the four Ds, Corvus. Dress. Discipline. And dealing death .’

I rolled my eyes. ‘I missed you, brother.’

I found a quiet inn with Marcus. After a few drinks, I relented under his barrage of questions about the battle, and began to answer. The memories were not pleasant for me, but neither were they painful. I suppose I was numb. I don’t know how much of that had to do with the wine. It certainly became easier to talk once the first jug was empty.

Marcus hung on every word. At times there was pride on his face, at other times, envy. Never was there disgust or fear that he would likely face such horrors, and soon. ‘I can’t wait for battle,’ he told me honestly.

I didn’t hold his naivety against him. The truth was that I had been eager to spill blood, and now it seemed I was still anxious to spill more. ‘You lose yourself in it,’ I explained. ‘There’s no past or future, brother, there’s just that breath. That stab, or parry.’

‘You loved it?’

I shook my head. ‘No.’

Marcus frowned. ‘But you want more?’

I did.

‘I don’t understand.’

Neither did I.

‘Tell me about the eagle.’

I told him about Priscus instead. Marcus took a deep breath of pride. ‘He died for Rome.’

No. ‘He died for Brutus.’ I’m not sure if that was true. At times, Priscus had displayed flashes of the same devotion to a faraway city as my oldest friend.

Marcus shrugged his shoulders. ‘Brutus is a soldier of Rome, and so if Priscus died for Brutus, then he died for Rome.’

There was no getting away from it, and so I drank. ‘Well, here’s to Rome then.’ Here’s to the city neither of us has ever seen. Here’s to the city that controls our lives, and our deaths.

Marcus grinned. The toast had probably got him hard. ‘To Rome!’ He saluted.

The next day, he’d get his chance to die for her.

By virtue of my new position I attended the fort’s headquarters building to hear the legate’s orders for the coming campaign against the rebels. As well as Hook-nose, the briefing was attended by the legion’s tribunes, cohort commanders and senior centurions. My friend Varo was not amongst the mass, which was just as well – the courtyard at the centre of the building was tightly packed, and Varo would have likely crushed someone with his bulk. I had been required to bring Gallus with me, and I stood with the eagle at the front of the assembly. In such a position, I could see the faces of the men whose orders breathed disciplined life into the legion. Their faces were hard, and eager. They wanted after the enemy. They wanted blood.

Hook-nose promised it to them, but not before he had pointed me out as an example of what made our legion the finest in all of the army – nay, the world. I was glad that I was wearing the bearskin, then. The slaves hadn’t been able to rid it of the stink of blood and guts, but at least the hooded peak formed by the bear’s maw did something to hide my face.

‘Men,’ the legate went on, ‘our legion has been tasked by the noble Tiberius with clearing out the enemy from between Siscia and Salona.’ These were the main camp of Tiberius’s army, and the regional capital on the coast – a walled city that had withstood the early attacks of the rebels. This enemy had now retreated into the mountains. ‘It’s our job to dig them out!’ the legate explained.

I watched the faces of the gathered officers. I saw some grit their teeth. Another snarled. They wanted open battle but, to get at the enemy, they’d take whatever they were given.

‘Halfway between the cities is the River Titius, and we’ll use that as our axis of advance. It’s no good for river transport, and so the baggage train will be needed for supplies. Eighth Cohort, you’ll provide its security. Don’t think that you’ll be in for an easy time, though. We expect the rebels to target you to try and gain supplies for themselves. They’ll be getting hungry in the mountains.’

‘We’ll feed them some steel, sir,’ a voice promised.

Hook-nose grinned. ‘I’m sure you will.

‘Now, the two tribes between the cities are the Colopani and Sardeates, and both are expected to be hostile. First and Second Cohort, as you have both had the honour of being recently blooded, you will advance along the river plain, so much as there is one. We don’t expect that the enemy will stand and fight, if they are even there at all. Recent scouting reports suggest that the fighters from those tribes are up in the mountains.

‘Number Seven Cohort will clear the mountains to the east of the river. Number Six, the west.’ Marcus . ‘The Ninth will follow on behind the baggage train to catch any rebels emerging from their holes, while the Third and Tenth will remain here to hold the fort, and to act as a reserve force. Prince Arminius’s cavalry will be split between the reserve and the valley floor.’

I followed Hook-nose’s gaze to a tall, muscled man of royal blood and bearing. He had the blond and vital look of a German, with an honest and noble face that was shaved in the Roman way. A simple inclination of his head was all that he gave to acknowledge the legate’s order. Like all well-born, the man seemed perfectly at ease with power and command.

‘Now,’ Hook-nose asked of his assembly, ‘are there any questions?’

I watched as a number of hands went into the air, but I didn’t listen to the enquiries, or their answers. Instead I thought of Marcus, and how his cohort would be going into the mountains. I thought of him, and remembered what Brutus had said of his own comrades who had carried out that task in the last war.

I never saw most of them again.

Marcus’s cohort held the fort’s guard duty, and so, after the briefing had broken up, I sought out Varo and Octavius.

‘I like your new hat,’ the slighter man greeted me, poking at the bear on my head. ‘Stinks though.’

We were in the spacious centurion’s quarters that had once belonged to Centurion Justus, but were now home to Varo. I looked at my friend, and saw worry in the lines of his face. Not worry for himself, I was certain, but from the burden of command – he was about to lead eighty men on a combat operation for the first time.

‘I only ever wanted to soldier,’ he told me with a sigh. ‘The extra money’s nice though.’

‘Got to live until payday first.’ Octavius smirked. There were only two pay parades held a year, and our second was still some time away. ‘Isn’t that your job now?’ he asked me.