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‘I know. I will, when the time is right. .’ He cupped the other breast, rubbing his fingers gently across her nipples. ‘And now, given that the baby is still asleep. .’

  Later, as they lay together listening to the sounds of the camp coming to life, he held her tightly and mused inwardly upon the dream, just as he had done before several other dawns along the length of the empire’s northern frontier.

  ‘Mark the passing of my family in an appropriate manner? Never was a truer word spoken, my love. But the time and place is not here and now, it will be at some time in the future which is not yet clear to me. But the time will come, of that I am quite sure. And the place?’ His father’s words from the dream echoed in his mind. ‘Only in Rome. .’

  ‘So we’ve marched all this way to protect a fucking mountain?’ The Fifth Century’s standard bearer glanced around at the peaks to either side of the road and spat in front of his boots. ‘Gods below, but we attract every shitty job going, don’t we? Got a cold, wet quarry that needs watching in case some stray barbarians fancy carrying off the stone? Just send the bloody Tungrians, they’re stupid enough to do anything they’re told!’

  He shook his head, changing hands on his standard’s shaft.

  ‘We can only hope they’ve got a decent whorehouse up there, or we’ll have come all this way to no purpose whatsoever. Mind you. .’ Shaking his head ruefully, he glanced back at his audience, the column of men marching four abreast behind him. ‘The sort of woman who’s made it this far into the mountains isn’t likely to be big on the softer side of the profession. And I really hate it when the mattress thrasher sucking my cock can tickle my balls with her beard.’

  Marcus shook his head at his standard bearer’s diatribe as he marched up the road alongside the stocky veteran, resolving as ever not to rise to the older man’s habitual bitter complaint at any hint of hardship. Eighteen months as Morban’s centurion had taught him that while the twenty-five-year veteran could be silenced for a moment or two, he rarely relinquished the subject of his ire for very long. One of the soldiers slogging along in the ranks behind them raised his voice from the safe anonymity of the men around him to further provoke the standard bearer.

  ‘There’ll be no proper beer neither, eh Morban?’

  Catching Marcus’s glare the standard bearer wisely held back his reply, tipping his head to listen for the sound he expected and softly counting down as he waited.

  ‘Five, four, three, two-’

  An incensed bellow from behind them made both men start, despite the fact they had both been expecting it. Marcus exchanged a glance with Morban as Quintus, his chosen man, unleashed a tirade of irritated abuse in the general direction of the anonymous soldier.

  ‘I’ve a bloody good idea which one of you apes opened his mouth just then, and when I find out exactly who it was you’ll be wishin’ you never joined up! I’ll have you on extra duties for so long your dick will have withered away before you get to do anything better with it than play jerk the gherkin! I’ll break my fuckin’ pole on your back, and then I’ll-’

  ‘Call for another one, will you Quintus?’

  The standard bearer’s voice was quiet enough that only Marcus heard him, and the chosen man bellowed his challenge into the cold mountain air.

  ‘I’ll fuckin’ call for another one! That’s what I’ll do!’

  The standard bearer smirked at his officer.

  ‘That’s five times today. Morban wins again.’

  Ignoring his centurion’s raised eyebrow, he cleared his throat and put an end to his colleague’s tirade by roaring out the first line of a marching song that had been sung a lot over the previous few weeks, as the Tungrian cohorts had marched the length of the empire’s northern frontier along the Rhenus and Danubius rivers.

  ‘I got five by selling my cloak. .’

  He paused momentarily to allow the century’s soldiers to join in, drowning out their chosen man’s indignant voice as they belted out the song in fine style.

  ‘. . five more by selling my spear,

  the final five by selling my shield,

  that’s fifteen fucks, my dear!’

  He winked at his centurion as the men behind them drew breath for the song’s chorus, and Marcus was unable to resist a wry smile in return. His standard bearer and chosen man were at daggers drawn for most of the time, and Morban took any and every opportunity to get the advantage in their uneasy relationship.

  ‘Fifteen, fourteen, thirteen, twelve,

  eleven fucks, my dear,

  and when we get to ten fucks,

  then I’m stopping for a beer!’

  Marcus stopped marching and stepped off the road, watching the passing soldiers with his hands on the hilts of the swords that had long since earned him the nickname ‘Two Knives’. The cohort’s centuries ground wearily past him up the long road, whose course twisted and undulated with the valley’s floor as it climbed towards the mist-covered peaks that were their objective for the day.

  ‘Having fun yet, young ’un?’

  Nodding in reply to his colleague Otho’s greeting, and laughing at the wink that creased the older man’s seamed and battered face as the cohort’s Seventh Century marched past, Marcus stretched his back as he looked down the column’s length. Taking a moment to enjoy the sun’s warmth on his face, he pushed his shoulders back and rotated his head to work out some of the stiffness in his neck. His body, already wiry with corded muscle from the effort of routinely carrying fifty pounds of weapons and armour on his back day after day, had been exercised to the point of perfection by three months on the long road from Fortress Bonna in Germania Inferior. He looked around him at the towering hills on every side of the road’s long straight ribbon, shading his brown eyes against the afternoon sun with a long-fingered hand and musing on the mountainous land around them for a long moment before his reverie was interrupted.

  ‘Still having problems with dear old Quintus are you then? I could hear him shouting from here, and we’ve reached that point in the day when even the hardest of chosen men are usually hanging from their chinstraps with the rest of us.’

  He started walking again as the Eighth Century’s centurion passed him, shaking his head ruefully at his friend’s question.

  ‘What do you think, Dubnus? Mithras knows you were hard enough when you were my chosen man back in Britannia, but you were always fair enough with the men. Yes, you were as harsh with them as you had to be when they needed it, but even you knew when to let them have a little slack in their collars.’

  The big man acknowledged the point with a nod, scratching at the skin beneath his heavy beard and flicking sweat from his fingers.

  ‘Whereas Quintus. .’

  ‘Never seems to give them a moment’s grace. Every tiny misdemeanour, all the usual silly little things that soldiers do, it all has him screaming at them as if they’re recruits rather than battle-hardened soldiers. Quite how Julius used to put up with it baffles me.’

  His friend gave him a sideways glance.

  ‘Julius never had any problem with it, Marcus. He didn’t get the nickname “Latrine” without good reason, he really can be full of shit when he thinks it’s necessary. .’ He paused significantly. ‘And he thinks it’s necessary most of the time. Not that I don’t love him like a brother, but when I was his chosen man, before I was set to turning you from a snot-nosed youngster into a half-decent centurion, he regularly used to tell me I wasn’t hard enough on his men. So when I was transferred to command your old century last year he took his chance and appointed Quintus for the job.’

  Marcus nodded unhappily.

  ‘And now I have to deal with the consequences. I can’t demote the man, not without good reason. .’

  ‘Which you can be sure he’ll never give you. He may be a bit of an arsehole, but to be fair he is all soldier.’

  ‘And I probably can’t persuade him to be any more lenient.’

  Dubnus nodded again.

  ‘You’re more likely to persuade
Morban to stop gambling. Or drinking. Or whor-’

  ‘Yes. So I’ll just have to put up with it, I suppose.’ Marcus sighed, looking up the column’s line at the peaks rising before them. ‘At least this incessant marching is coming to an end, if only for a few days.’

  Dubnus snorted.

  ‘Yes, but at the price of being perched on top of a mountain with only a bunch of miners and goats for company. That, and any women who’ve made their way up here in search of either gold or marriage. Although they’re likely to be about as good looking as the goats.’

  His friend smiled.

  ‘Morban was telling me as much only a moment ago. I’m going to drop down the column and see how Qadir’s treating my old century.’

  Dubnus laughed.

  ‘In that case you can expect to be getting the cow’s eyes from Scarface. I hear he’s still telling anyone stupid enough to listen to him quacking on about it just how wrong it was that you didn’t take a few picked men with you when Julius put you in charge of the Fifth Century. A few picked men including him and his mate Sanga, of course.’

  Marcus shrugged.

  ‘When Julius appointed me to lead his old century he made it clear that I wasn’t to try stripping the good men out of the Ninth. I was lucky to take my standard bearer with me, although that might be a strange new definition of the word ‘lucky’. Julius told me that there wasn’t any need to bring anyone else with me, since I was inheriting “the best bloody century in the cohort”. He also mentioned that “the First Spear wouldn’t have liked it” if I were to even consider moving men between centuries.’

  Dubnus pursed his lips.

  ‘Yes, well I wish he’d stop invoking his predecessor’s name whenever he wants to justify something. “Don’t allow your men to slack off the march pace, the First Spear wouldn’t have liked it.”’

  Marcus grinned back at him, surprised to find himself appreciating his friend’s humour given the trauma of their former senior centurion’s recent death in Germania.

  ‘Indeed. “Don’t drink too much of that red, the First Spear wouldn’t have liked it.”’

  Dubnus smirked, miming a cup at his lips.

  ‘When we all know very well that Sextus Frontinius would have been guzzling it just as fast as the rest of us.’

  Marcus sighed.

  ‘I know he’s just doing his best to keep our chins up, but all the same it’s time to let Uncle Sextus go, I’d say. Anyway, I’m going to see how the Ninth are doing.’

  Marcus stepped back off the road again and waited until his former century drew level with him, falling in alongside their centurion with a nod of greeting. The men were good friends, and for a while they shared a companionable silence amid the jingle of equipment and the rattle of hobnailed boots that routinely accompanied them on the march, until the century’s standard caught his eye.

  ‘That thing’s clearly been polished to within an inch of its life. It must be a shock for the poor thing after so long under Morban’s version of cleaning.’

  Qadir nodded solemnly, his reply couched in the cultured terms that had deceived more than one soldier into mistaking him for a soft touch.

  ‘My standard bearer spent a long time in Morban’s shadow, as you may recall. He seems to enjoying his moment in the sun, so to speak.’

  The man in question, a lanky individual who had been Marcus’s trumpeter when he’d commanded the Ninth Century, nodded respectfully to his former centurion, and Marcus found himself smiling back at the man.

  ‘I’d imagine you’re still missing Morban, eh, Standard Bearer? Who else is going to keep you sharp with a never-ending flow of complaints, insults and dirty stories, or lighten your purse for you whenever it gets too heavy for comfort?’

  Qadir nodded with a wry smile.

  ‘The Ninth Century is certainly a different place without him. Sometimes I find myself missing his continual flow of nonsense and incitement to gambling. .’

  ‘But the other nine-tenths of the time?’

  ‘Exactly. Blessed peace, and straightforward soldiering for the most part, only broken by the occasional grumbling every time one of my soldiers catches sight of you in front of the Fifth.’

  He raised his voice for the last comment, making sure the men behind could hear him, and Marcus raised an eyebrow in mock surprise.

  ‘Really? I’d have thought even Scarface would have got over his disappointment at not having to soldier under the tender mercies of my chosen man by now.’

  Marching in his usual place a few ranks behind his former and present centurions, the soldier Scarface kept a dignified silence, although he muttered a quiet aside to his mate Sanga once the two men had returned to their conversation about whatever it was that centurions discussed.

  ‘Cruel, that was. Very cruel.’

  Sanga shrugged minutely under the weight of his spears, shield, helmet, mail shirt and pack pole, his head thrown back to suck in the cold mountain air.

  ‘So perhaps now you’ll be happy to let “Two Knives” take care of his own life, eh, without your having to run round after him all the time?’

  Scarface’s gaze remained locked on the back of Marcus’s head.

  ‘Not right that we shouldn’t be allowed to go with him to the Fifth, not right at all. .’

  Sanga shook his head in disgust and fell silent, concentrating on carrying half his own body weight up the road’s unremitting incline while his tent mate grumbled away to himself.

  Qadir looked out at the mountains to either side for a moment before speaking again, his face creased in a gentle smile.

  ‘At least this far from Britannia there’s little danger of anyone having even heard the name Marcus Valerius Aquila. We may not be happy at having been sent east, but at least you’ll be able to stop worrying about any further attempt to apprehend you, eh Centurion Corvus?’

  Marcus nodded, his face softening at the thought.

  ‘It had crossed my mind. Although I’m also forced to conclude that I’m exchanging the chance to be free from pursuit for the likelihood that I’m taking my wife and child into a war. I don’t think we’ve been sent all this way east just to make the numbers up.’ Hearing the heavy thud of hoofs on the road’s grass verge he turned to see a handful of horsemen cantering up the long column of soldiers. ‘And as if to prove me right, it seems that our mounted squadron is about to be allowed off their rope.’

  The leading rider reined his horse in alongside the pair, grinning down at them with undisguised glee from beneath his crested decurion’s helmet, whose polished face mask was raised to allow him a full field of view.

  ‘Greetings brothers! The time has come for the “First Tungrian Horse” to prove its value once more. After weeks of nothing better than plodding along coughing up the dust raised by your flat feet, we are ordered to scout forward up the road as far as the turn for the mine. The tribune suspects that this country may harbour any number of barbarian scouts, and so bids me ride out to give them the opportunity for some practice with their bows. Since I have permission to seek your participation in this perilous mission, purely in order to improve the odds of my survival by providing the enemy with a wider variety of suitable targets, I’ve taken the liberty of saddling your usual mounts for the trip. Will you give both your feet and noses a rest by accompanying us on our ride?’

  Marcus looked at Qadir, the Hamian’s response a shrug of feigned disinterest. Looking up at the grinning decurion, the Roman raised an eyebrow.

  ‘It’s tempting, Silus, although it appears that you’ve saddled that monster Bonehead for me once again, despite your repeated accusations that the poor animal lacks the appropriate discipline for a cavalry horse. And is that the tribune’s man Arminius I can see towards the back of your scouting party, clinging to his horse’s mane as if it were a handle made of iron?’

  The big German, mounted on a heavily built animal judged to be the only beast in the cohort’s cavalry detachment capable of carrying his weight without breakin
g down, scowled at Marcus from the party’s rear.

  ‘I can hear you, Centurion, and whilst nothing would make me happier than getting down from this animal now and never remounting a horse in all my remaining years, you know the blood debt I owe you. When my master gives these men leave to take you into harm’s way, I have no choice but to accompany them alongside you.’

  Silus grimaced, leaning down from his saddle to speak in Marcus’s ear.

  ‘Between you and I, even that big bugger Colossus is starting to look a bit resentful at having to carry all that weight around. It’s a good thing your man Lugos doesn’t have a hankering to follow you into the shit quite so eagerly, or we’d no horses left standing inside a week. So, will you join us, or are you minded to give your German an excuse to dismount?’

  Marcus shrugged up at Silus, holding out a hand.

  ‘Very well, Decurion, since I have no option but to respect Arminius’s example, I presume you stopped at the medical wagon to pester my wife for my helmet?’

  The horseman grinned even wider, raising his left hand from behind his mount’s side to display the masked cavalry helmet Marcus had purchased in Tungrorum for the purposes of deceiving the followers of the bandit leader Obduro, much to Felicia’s disgust when she had discovered the price he’d paid for its fine workmanship. The Roman took off his centurion’s helmet and passed it to Qadir with a wink.

  ‘Can you think of a soldier who might be sufficiently careful to be entrusted with this? I’ll take his shield and one of his spears in return.’

  The Hamian nodded, dropping back a few ranks and handing the crested helmet to the soldier Scarface, taking one of his spears and helping him to pull the shield from its place strapped to his back.

  ‘There you go, soldier, you’re trusted with the centurion’s helmet until he comes back from scouting with the cavalry.’

  Scarface took the additional burden with a solemn nod, ignoring the guffaws of the men around him, and watched as Marcus and Qadir mounted the horses Silus had saddled for them and rode away up the road’s gentle slope.

  ‘Perhaps carrying that lump of iron for the next few hours will teach you to wind your bloody neck in. .’ Sanga fell silent when he realised that his comrade wasn’t listening to a word he was saying, but staring down at the helmet with an expression of pride. ‘And then again perhaps not. .’