Адриан Голдсуорти - The Fort

‘So we will not give them any time. The weather is breaking and spring on its way. From now on we work, day in and day out. Sabinus.’ Ferox nodded at the man.

‘Sir.’

‘I want that bath house finished and running before the end of the month. You are in charge.’

‘Sir.’

‘I also want the ditches cleared, roofs repaired where they need it, and then we go through all the stores and equipment here and make sure they are in perfect condition. That’s your job, Festus.’

The ape nodded.

‘Both of you will take work parties from all the units here. You know how it’s done. Put them into teams and make it a competition over who can do a job best and fastest. Prizes will be extra wine in their ration, and extra passes to bathe or to visit the canabae . I know it is small, but there are a couple of bars.’ He did not need to add, that in the bars there were bound to be at least a few girls available for hire.

Festus coughed. ‘Our men are veterani, sir. They are not obliged to work or perform fatigues.’

‘The craftsmen won’t mind, and all of them will be happy to help with the bath house. The rest will do the lighter jobs, but we will mix up the teams. Give each party some auxiliaries, galearii when they can be spared from their own duties, and a score of Brigantes to help. Then it’s about making their Britons do a better job than the ones with the other teams. We will make sure there are men with decent Latin in every group. See to that, Cunicius.’

Festus and Sabinus still looked dubious.

‘And the Brigantes are also going to drill like they have never drilled before. I want some of your best legionaries to act as instructors and tell them not to go easy. Let ’em pass on all those years of experience. And the workshops can make sure all the kit is up to scratch. I’m also putting you in charge of that, Festus. See if you can turn those barbarians into proper soldiers. You deal with the infantry.’

Festus was grinning now. ‘A pleasure.’

‘I want them exhausted, not dead, mind you.’

‘Do my best, sir.’

‘And never strike them. Not ever!’ Ferox could see the centurion’s look of disappointment. ‘Do that and we will have a mutiny. Scream at them, insult them, but they are warriors and if you touch them they’ll try to kill you for honour’s sake. So warn your men. And tell them that as soon as they start training with practice swords they can pound on them as much as they like – if it’s in a fight, even a training fight, then a blow is no insult.’

The ape bared his teeth happily.

‘Julius Dionysius?’ Ferox wondered whether the man really was a citizen. A lot of educated easterners were a good deal more civilized than many a Roman, and if they enlisted often gave themselves Roman names to make people think that they did have the franchise. No doubt it was in his records, but he was not sufficiently curious to check.

‘Sir.’

‘You see to the cavalry. And I want all the horses and other animals in the garrison fit again. Get as many out exercising as you can, every day you can. We only stop for the worst storms. Nothing else.

‘And finally, we are all going to stretch our legs as much as we can. Patrols. Every day from now on. On foot and on horseback. Up and down the valley. We’ll start short and make them longer, each of us leading one in turn. For the moment each will return to the fort by nightfall. In the future, we’ll see. … We can see who is about and what is happening in the world. There’s never any harm in that. At the very least, Sabinus here can get a chance to converse with his trees.’

Sabinus chuckled and the rest laughed. He must have told Cunicius at some point since he had arrived.

‘Drive them hard, and don’t let up.’

‘Sir?’ Sabinus spoke with obvious reluctance. ‘What about the Britons, sir? Are they going to run?’ He turned to Cunicius, spreading his hands in apology. ‘Sorry, but it sounds as if many of them are even less happy.’

Cunicius seemed about to speak, but then said nothing and just shrugged.

‘Some are bound to try,’ Ferox told them. ‘Fatigue will help, and now that they are in the fort it is harder to slip away.’

‘What about the pickets – and these patrols?’ Dionysius seemed the sharpest of the group, and Ferox was already glad to have him. ‘Perhaps we should make sure that there are always reliable soldiers to watch them?’

Ferox shook his head. ‘We need to show trust if we are to earn it.’ Festus sniffed, Sabinus and Cunicius both showed concern, while Dionysius’ smooth features were impassive. Ferox liked him all the more. ‘However, we can work up to things. For the moment, we jig the duty roster so that only the men and groups we trust get faced with temptation.’ Dionysius gave the slightest of nods. ‘Have many men run from the garrison since it was established? We all know the promises offered by Decebalus and so do the men.’

‘None of Minervia.’ Festus’ chin thrust out even more, and his little eyes were belligerent.

Sabinus coughed. ‘A couple of men vanished last autumn.’

‘We don’t know they ran,’ Festus maintained. ‘Bandits had been seen, and the Red Alans were on the prowl.’

Ferox kept his face rigid. ‘These are dangerous lands.’ He remembered the Roxolani, the Red Alans, from his years on the Danube. They were Sarmatians, horse folk, always on the move until the snows made it impossible, not just brave warriors, but clever ones – and thieves and marauders. He had liked them, apart from when they had been trying to kill him. In some odd way – odd because their lifestyle was very different – they had reminded him of his own tribe, the Silures of western Britannia.

There was another awkward silence. ‘Before the vexillation from I Minervia arrived, there were some desertions,’ Dionysius explained, for he had been at the fort the longest. ‘The vexillation was chosen for its reliability, as were many of the other troops sent here. We have a lot of experienced men, a good few of them only a few stipendia short of retirement.’

Festus preened at the praise of his men. ‘Good men, all of them. Sensible too. No sense in buggering off and losing that fat bounty they’ll get on discharge.’

‘And I take it their families were left back in Germania at the main castra?’ Ferox guessed at least half the men, and probably more, had ‘wives’ and children. Army regulation said that soldiers were not to marry, but men were men, and few wanted to wait out twenty-five years before finding the right woman and starting a family. The army turned a blind eye, knowing that it was better that way.

‘Well, it’s rough up here, the winters savage,’ Festus said.

‘And they were told that we would not be here long enough to make it worth putting the families through the hardships of the journey,’ Sabinus added, his tone dubious. ‘And…’ he trailed off, before rallying. ‘A few were allowed to come anyway, and a dozen or so more made it up here with the last big supply convoy.’

‘Soldiers’ women tend to be a tough bunch,’ Ferox said. He did not add what Sabinus, Dionysius and many of the veterans – if not perhaps Festus – understood. Fear of losing the discharge bonus due in a couple of years was one incentive to keep the legionaries away from the temptation of running. Even bigger for many was the knowledge that running meant that they would most likely never again see their families, and that these would be evicted by the army and sent away with nothing. Someone high up had worked this out, realised that I Minervia had more than its share of men nearing the end of their enlistment, and formed this vexillation – and another sent further to the east – to serve in this out of the way, bleak outpost in the belief that they were least likely to be lured away into Dacian service. The same was true of most of the auxiliaries, notably sixty men from cohors I Hispanorum veterana , whose main base was far away in Thrace, and all of whom had served at least twenty-three stipendia.