The Leopard Sword: Empire IV (31 page)

When Marcus woke again there was daylight streaming into the room, and Sanga was sitting up in bed playing with a set of knucklebones.

‘Morning, Centurion!’ He saluted, then tossed a bone into the air, deftly flicking another into the space between the fingers of his other hand as it rested flat on the bed, before catching the falling bone. ‘All the horses are in the stable. Again.’

He sighed, with the expression of a man who had been playing with the bones all morning. A noise at the door made them both turn their heads.

‘And what have we here? One rather soiled-looking centurion, temporarily forbidden to speak on pain of having all domestic privileges removed . . .’ Dubnus, standing in the room’s doorway, raised a hand to forestall any attempt on Marcus’s behalf to speak. ‘No you don’t! I’ll not have your woman coming down on me like a chosen man with a sore arse just because you’re too dim to follow instructions. And a soldier with a hole in his knee, forbidden to walk and so reduced to sitting in his bed and playing children’s games.
Scarface!
’ Sanga’s comrade appeared round the doorframe with another of Marcus’s men behind him, and Dubnus pointed to Sanga. ‘I’ve received permission from the doctor for these two to pick you up and take you outside for some fresh air, while Qadir and I have a chat with the centurion here.’

‘Best news I’ve had all day.’ Sanga beamed at the prospect of escape from the room’s confines. ‘Drop me off at the latrine, eh lads? I’ve got the turtle’s head as it is, and if I can avoid that bloody orderly picking through my crap I’ll be a happier man. The bastard was sniffing my piss last night . . .’

Scarface bustled into the room and grinned at his mate, taking in the knucklebones lying on his bed.

‘Bones, eh? Used to be right handy with them as a lad. Perhaps we can have a little contest, all in the interest of entertainment o’ course.’

He scooped up the bones and nodded to the other soldier. They lifted Sanga up, each with an arm over their shoulders, and carried him from the room, and the three centurions smiled to each other as they heard Felicia admonishing them not to allow him onto his feet for any reason, and Scarface’s reply.

‘No danger of that, ma’am. I don’t want him trying to leg it away from the losses he’s going to take once we get these bones jumping!’

‘That’s better, eh, a little bit of peace for you?’ Carrying a bowl of hot water and a cloth Dubnus advanced into the room, followed after a moment by Qadir. ‘Your wife asked us to get you cleaned up, since all you’ve done since we brought you in is lie about snoring.’ He set to with the wash cloth, and within minutes Marcus was sitting up with his writing tablet, while Dubnus and Qadir sat on either side of the bed. He wrote on the tablet’s wax, holding it up for them to see.

‘“Thank you for bringing me back”?’ Dubnus laughed. ‘You might not be thanking me in a week’s time, when you’re still not allowed to talk. How’s your head?’ Marcus rubbed the wax smooth and wrote his response across the clear surface. ‘“Better. Headache gone. Face still hurts.” And it’ll go on hurting for a few days. What hit you?’

In a series of one-line statements on the tablet’s limited writing surface Marcus explained what had happened. At length he sat back, already tired by the mental exercise. Dubnus, recognising the signs of his rapid exhaustion, asked one last question.

‘So their camp’s pretty much invulnerable, they reckon?’

Marcus nodded, smoothing the tablet’s surface again and writing a last comment. Dubnus patted his friend on the shoulder and stood up, pushing his chair back against the wall.

‘You look all in. Get some more sleep, and we’ll come back and see you tomorrow, eh?’

Qadir bent over his centurion, muttering a few quiet words. Marcus wrote a reply on his tablet, turned it for Qadir to read and raised his eyebrows in challenge, wearily lifting a clenched fist. The big Hamian looked at him for a moment, before solemnly tapping Marcus’s fist with his own. Then Qadir turned and followed Dubnus out of the door. Outside in the warm spring air they found Scarface and Sanga in the middle of a gathering of their tent party. Sanga was just about to toss the bones for what appeared to be the deciding throw of whatever wager had been agreed, to judge from the men’s intent expressions and the small pile of coins between them. The Hamian put a hand on Dubnus’s arm and shook his head silently, restraining him from either action or comment. He padded silently up to the group, unnoticed by the soldiers until he whipped out a broad hand and caught all four of the bones in mid-air. Sanga opened his mouth to protest, closing it again when he saw the expression on his new centurion’s face. The soldiers started to rise from their crouching positions, but Qadir’s bellowed command beat them to the punch.

‘As you were!’ Looming over them, he grimaced down at the two competitors. ‘You, Scarface, should know better than to wager on the bones with a man who’s had all morning to practise. And you, Sanga, should know better than to be caught wagering when there are officers about. The only way this could be any worse for you would be if Morban had already come by and fleeced you both.’ He put out his hand and dropped the knuckle bones onto the ground between them. ‘Reclaim your stakes, soldiers, and be grateful I’m not making you donate them to the burial club. And away with you, all except you two; you need to be carrying this damaged soldier back to his bed.
Don’t
wake the centurion, or the two days of extra duties you’ve both just earned will miraculously turn into four.’

The two centurions watched as Sanga’s mates carried him back into the hospital, Dubnus smiling widely while Qadir scowled back into their indignant glances.

‘Well done, brother.’ Dubnus slapped his colleague on the shoulder. ‘Word will get around quickly enough, and those men who were minded to test your stomach for the centurionate will wind their necks back in. But what was it Marcus wrote on the tablet for you?’

The Hamian raised an eyebrow, deciding to put another marker down as to his changed status.

‘Not that it’s any business of yours,
colleague
. . .’ He allowed the silence to stretch for a moment before continuing. ‘He wrote “Make it yours.”’

Dubnus nodded, a slight smile on his face as he absorbed both Marcus’s advice to his deputy and the manner in which Qadir had swiftly re-established their relationship.

‘Good advice. Come on, then, Centurion, let’s go and give Uncle Sextus the report he’s waiting for.’

Later that day, with the evening sun slipping towards the horizon, the first spear went to brief Scaurus on the two cohorts’ condition, and the information that Dubnus and Qadir had elicited from Marcus. He walked up and down the room as he spoke, coming to his conclusion with a sour face.

‘So pretty much all Corvus was able to tell us was that Obduro is physically nondescript, that he wears a mask at all times unless he’s alone or with a very few trusted men, that he’s got a heavily fortified camp somewhere in the forest, and that Centurion Corvus is predictably burning with the urge to find him and send him to meet his ancestors. In short, nothing we didn’t already know or couldn’t have guessed. He might remember more when he recovers from his whack on the jaw, but until then it’s all he can give us. He did ask to see you when you have a moment, by the way.’

He looked round at Scaurus, who was sitting in a chair and staring up at a copy of Prefect Caninus’s map of the land around the city. After a moment the tribune shook his head and stood up, keeping his eyes on the map.

‘You missed out a point in your summary. Centurion Corvus confirms that our opponent seems to harbour a deep-seated loathing for our colleague the prefect. And two questions spring to mind with the reaffirmation of that admittedly old news. First, why should a bandit chieftain be so fixated on a relatively minor official like Caninus, especially if he’s apparently so ineffective as to attract the man’s derision? And if that’s really the case, how have their paths crossed? What is it that the prefect isn’t telling us?’

Frontinius shrugged, shaking his head in disinterest.

‘I’ll leave the intelligence work to you, Tribune; my interests are purely military, and right now that means getting our cohorts ready to go out there again. I’ve got a century’s worth of soldiers whose boots have fallen to pieces, and more than a few men missing shields because other soldiers seem to have thought it might be funny to throw their boards onto the fires when they weren’t looking, although of course nobody actually saw anyone else actually perpetrate the crime. I’ve even got a centurion from the Second Cohort with a mild case of frostbite. The idiot decided to march out without his socks on.’

Scaurus turned and gave his first spear a hard smile.

‘Then you’d better send out some officers and make the city’s tradesmen happy, hadn’t you? I want both cohorts fully combat-effective immediately. Starting tomorrow we’ll be sending patrols up and down the main road, and generally getting back up onto our feet and into Obduro’s face. Doubtless the men are all still rolling their eyes and muttering to each other at the way his goddess sent snow to frustrate us, and I’ll not give them time to brood on that thought. Every grain convoy from the west will have to have an escort once it’s a day’s march out from the city, and Decurion Silus and his mounted scouts are going to have their work cut out making sure that Obduro doesn’t get his men out of the forest unobserved. And you’d better send some men south, with ropes, to rip out enough of that bridge to make it useless for any further attempts to cross the Mosa. The legion cohort can make damned sure that Procurator Albanus’s grain store stays secure, and garrison the city while we invest some boot leather in preventing Obduro’s men from taking one single bag of grain more from the convoys. I’ll have his deserting Treveri scum eating acorns by the time autumn’s here, and then we’ll see just how their goddess decides to feed them. Carry on, First Spear, I’m going to pay a visit to Centurion Corvus as requested. Who knows, he might have remembered something that will help us?’

Marcus woke again to find Sanga lying asleep on his bed, and he quietly climbed off his own mattress, standing still for a moment to allow the slight feeling of dizziness to pass. Walking quietly on bare feet, he made his way up the corridor to the latrine, then went in search of his wife. Felicia was delighted to see him on his feet, despite her immediate concern for his well-being, which were quickly dispelled when he waved her away and turned a full circle with his arms out.

‘Well, you seem to be spry enough that I think we can assume the effects of the mandrake have completely worn off. You won’t be able to speak or eat solid food for some time yet though.’

‘And that’s why I brought this for him.’ They turned to find the tribune standing in the doorway with a smile on his face, a small iron pot dangling from one hand. ‘There’s a food shop at the end of the street whose proprietress was only too happy to lend me the pot in the likelihood of getting your business for the next few weeks. Pass me a cup and I’ll pour you some.’ Marcus found his glass drinking tube and took a sip at the soup, nodding his thanks to the tribune. Scaurus sat in silence until the cup was empty, watching as the hungry centurion consumed the soup as quickly as its temperature would allow.

‘That’s better, eh? There’s more in the pot for when I’m gone. I’d imagine you’ll be spending another night in here just to be sure you’re over the worst of it, but that ought to keep you going until morning. And now, Centurion, to business? First Spear Frontinius tells me that you passed a message requesting a conversation with me, although from the look of things most of the speaking will be done by me.’

Marcus nodded, reaching for his tablet and writing several lines of text. He handed the wooden case to Scaurus, who read the words and stared back at his centurion with his eyebrows raised in astonishment.

‘
Really?
You’re sure of this?’

After thinking for a moment, Marcus held out his hand and took the tablet back. He smoothed the wax and wrote another statement. Scaurus looked grimly at the text, shaking his head.

‘You got that close to him?’

Marcus wrote in the tablet again. Scaurus read the text aloud, a wry smile on his face.

‘“Take a tent party with you.” A tent party? I’ll need a damned century if he’s as dangerous as you say. And the nastiest, most bad-tempered officer in the First Cohort. Do any names spring to mind, Centurion?’

Julius was on the point of setting out into the city, the key to Annia’s secret door tucked away in a pouch on his belt, when a knock sounded at the door of his barrack. Opening it, he found one of the men assigned to guard duty waiting with a small scroll in his hand.

‘Delivered to the duty centurion just now, sir, with your name written on it.’

Julius frowned, taking the scroll and turning it over to read his own name in tidy handwriting.

‘Delivered? Who by?’

The soldier shook his head.

‘Just some kid or other running an errand for a coin. He gave it to the men on the gate and legged it before anyone could ask any questions.’

Julius nodded, dismissing the man with a distracted gesture. By the light of his lamp he unrolled the paper, squinting in its dim illumination to read the short message.

Shaking his head, the hulking centurion muttered angrily into the room’s silence, his fist clenched around the paper.

‘
Closed?
Not by a long way it’s not. You’ve just signed your own death sentence . . .’

Squaring his shoulders he turned to the door, only to be brought up short by another knock. Wrenching the door open he drew breath to bark out his irritation, finding himself toe to toe with the tribune, dressed and equipped for battle. Snapping to attention he stood under his superior officer’s scrutiny for a long moment before Scaurus spoke.

‘Interesting, Centurion. I thought I’d have to get you out of your bed, given the hour, and yet here you are fully dressed and ready for duty, from the look of things. And you seem to have a piece of paper screwed up in one hand.’