Адриан Голдсуорти - The Fort

The riders were close now.

‘May we approach?’ The Dacian leading them called out. It was a different herald to last time, a little older and more slightly built.

‘I would speak with you, Flavius Ferox?’ Piso shouted out. ‘Will you come down so that you can see my face and know that I speak the truth – no more, no less?’ The Dacian seemed surprised at this, but said nothing.

‘Can we not speak from here?’

‘I am your senior, centurion, by birth and in the army. It is not fitting that I look up at you.’

‘Don’t be a fool,’ Claudia whispered.

‘I thought that was why you married me,’ he replied, before raising his voice. ‘Sabinus, make sure the scorpio is ready. If there is the slightest sign of treachery then don’t let anyone escape.’

Vepoc winked. ‘Even you, lord?’

‘Use your judgement.’ There were archers lurking in the outer ditch, although none that close to the road or the heralds. Ferox could not see any sign of an impending attack. Still, it was difficult to be sure. Over the last few nights the Dacians had thrown up a rampart less than a hundred paces from the wall, just beyond the remnants of the lilliae, all of which they had filled in. There could be men lurking behind this shelter, ready to pour out of the gaps left in the wall as soon as the gate was opened. If so, then they were unlikely to get there before it was closed again, whatever happened to him.

By the time the gate opened and Ferox walked out, the tribune had dismounted. After some uncertainty, the Dacian and Ivonercus did the same. Piso was wearing a cuirass and the rest of his uniform apart from his helmet, but the scabbard on his left hip was empty.

‘It is good to see you well, my lord,’ Ferox said. After all this was diplomacy, so the truth was neither here nor there. ‘I trust your wound is healing?’

‘It is.’ The young aristocrat coughed nervously. ‘I am sent to ask you to yield the fort and march away with all your men.’ The words were precise and obviously rehearsed. As obvious was the tone of sarcasm. ‘I am informed that you have already refused these generous terms, but am to ask you to reconsider. There is no need for anyone else to die in this place.

‘There, that is done,’ Piso said, ‘and I have kept my word to my charming hosts. Now, give me your sword.’

‘Sir?’

‘Trust me, this is necessary. Your fellows up there can kill me with ease if that is what they want.’ He glanced up. ‘Jupiter’s holy toga, there’s a woman up there. It is true then? Such a pretty little thing too. Your sword, man.’

‘I will not yield, sir.’

‘It is an order. You, Briton, obey me!’ Piso barked the words and Ferox thought that they were directed at him until Ivonercus drew his slim spatha .

‘This is a parley!’ the Dacian said, stepping in front of Ferox, and then grunted as Ivonercus drove the sword into his stomach, the sharp point going between the scales and thrusting up. On the gate the scorpio cracked and its bolt whipped through the air, just missing the top of the Brigantian’s helmet and burying itself in the chest of the standard-bearer’s horse. The beast screamed, and rolled over, throwing its rider.

‘Come on!’ Piso was already running for the gate. There were Dacian shouts, anger mixed with shock, and arrows came, but struck the riderless horses instead of their targets. Ivonercus twisted his blade free and then stabbed the writhing Dacian in the throat.

Ferox dashed back to the gate. Piso was hit beneath the knee by an arrow and fell in a heap. Ferox was close behind, so close that he jumped over the tribune rather than trying to stop. He kept going, the narrowly open gate just a few paces away.

‘Centurion!’ Piso screamed at him. ‘Help me!’

Ferox hesitated, the temptation strong to leave them both to the Dacians. Horns were blowing and men shouting as hundreds of warriors streamed through the gaps in their wall. Breaking a truce was a great impiety. Silures respected few things, and liked nothing better than to deceive an enemy and hurt him without him realising what was happening, but even they felt that a curse would fall on anyone breaking a truce.

Ivonercus spun around as an arrow from a belly bow snapped the rings on his mail and dug into his shoulder. He dropped his sword and staggered on.

The habit of duty was too strong and Ferox turned around, lifted the tribune and swung him onto his back.

‘I’m not your shield, you bastard!’ the tribune snarled, but though arrows came close none touched them and the only one to hit Ivonercus bounced back from his armour. Then they were through the gate and it was slamming shut behind them. Ferox dropped the tribune, none too gently, and ran for the stairs leading onto the rampart. ‘Sound the alarm,’ he shouted.

It was not a planned attack, well thought out and hitting the fort from several directions, but a simple outpouring of rage. Hundreds and then thousands of warriors rushed from cover or came from the camp and hurled themselves at the walls. There were fewer ladders than in the last attack, but every time the men around them were shot down more appeared and soon half a dozen rose against the front rampart. Ferox cut down one warrior who had pushed back the defenders and managed to leap onto the walkway, but few others made it that far. The Dacians died, well over a hundred of them, and many more moaned as they crawled or were carried back when the fury at last was spent. Seven of the garrison were killed to inflict this carnage and thirty more wounded, while they threw or shot far more missiles than usual, for there was a frenzy about the fighting on both sides.

Piso tried to make light of it all, when Ferox went to visit him in the hospital. ‘If I had known that I would be ministered to by such a fair doctor, then I believe I would have stayed here rather than going to Sarmizegethusa,’ he said, beaming at Sulpicia Lepidina, before taking her hand and kissing it. ‘Hygaia herself could hardly be more kind.

‘And I would not have gone, nor trusted to those Dacian bastards – oh, my apologies, lady – if I had known what they were like. Decebalus took me prisoner during a truce, so I wanted to repay the compliment. Oh, and as I have said, that noble fellow, your husband, was quite well when last I saw him. A hostage it is true, but that means that he and the others will be treated well.’ He shook his head. ‘Poor Longinus, but then I suppose you have not heard that he is dead by poison. Did not want the emperor to worry on his behalf, so they say.’

‘We have heard, my lord.’

‘Then perhaps you had better tell me about your situation. Be a few days before this leg heals and I am fit for dancing, so you must command until then, but it is good if I know what has happened.’

Ferox told him, and sensed the tribune’s disappointment as he spoke of their meagre supplies, growing losses, and rapid depletion of missiles.

‘But help will be on its way, no doubt,’ Piso said, as if trying to convince himself.

‘It is to be hoped, my lord, but as long as we hold on here, we protect the route down to the Ister and the great bridge. We are doing our duty.’

‘Yes,’ Piso sounded unsure. ‘Yes, that is good. I saw them working on a couple of siege towers, so that is what you can expect next. Struck me as rickety affairs, so more than likely fall down on their own, but I would judge that they will be finished in a day or two.

‘By the way, I’ll not take up space here that might be needed by those in a worse state. I will take a room or two in the praetorium. Won’t need much, but I’d be obliged if you could spare a boy and maybe a girl or two to see to my needs.’

‘I will see what I can do.’ Sulpicia Lepidina was behind Piso and gave Ferox a look that made clear that no female slave or anyone other than the oldest of the men would be let anywhere near the tribune on their own. ‘Of course we can oblige.’