The Leopard Sword: Empire IV (5 page)

The legion tribune shook his head, clearly holding onto his rage by a fine thread.

‘I am Lucius Domitius Belletor, Military Tribune commanding the Seventh Cohort of Imperial Legion First Minervia, on detached duty to safeguard the city of Tungrorum. I have orders from my legion’s legatus to command the services of any and all suitable forces that come within my reach. Which means you, and your men,
Prefect
.’

He raised an eyebrow at Scaurus, who, holding his gaze, replied in a louder tone than before, ensuring that all of the men around the table could hear him.

‘Very well. I am Military Tribune Gaius Rutilius Scaurus, commanding the First and Second Tungrian Cohorts and on detached duty from the army of Britannia to seek and eliminate bandits, deserters and rebels from the province of Germania Inferior. I have orders from the governor of Britannia not to allow my force to fall under the command of any other officer unless I deem this to be in the interests of pursuing my given orders. Perhaps he foresaw just such an eventuality as this one.’ Belletor opened his mouth to speak, but Scaurus held up a hand. ‘I can see I haven’t yet convinced you, and I see nothing to be gained from our discussing this matter in public. Perhaps we ought to ask our colleagues and these other gentlemen to leave us alone for a few minutes?’

Belletor nodded slowly and turned back to the legion centurions, who were, to a man, gaping in silent amazement at the drama playing out before their eyes.

‘Leave us.’

The officers rose and headed for the door through which the Tungrians had entered, followed after an embarrassing pause by the two civilians. Julius, last to leave the room, closed the heavy oak doors and, spotting a thick curtain clearly designed to improve the privacy of the room, drew it across them.

‘I’m guessing you’re the senior man here?’

He turned to face the speaker, a grizzled man with broad shoulders and big hands, his face riven by a heavy scar that ran from his right eyebrow down across his upper cheek, bisecting his lips and reaching down to the point of his chin. Julius braced himself for the expected torrent of abuse, and both Dubnus and Marcus shifted their stances fractionally, subconsciously positioning themselves to fight. The speaker raised his eyebrows and lifted his hands to forestall any argument although he didn’t, Marcus noted, step back from the challenge.

‘No, there’s no need for you to feel threatened. We’re all on the same side here. I’m Sergius, First Spear of the Seventh Cohort.’ He put out a hand, and Julius shook it without hesitation. ‘Whatever’s going on in there probably has to be said between the two of them and then forgotten, so it’s best we’re out of earshot, right?’

Julius nodded, finding himself starting to warm to the other man despite the unfulfilled expectation of hostility.

‘I’m Julius, Centurion, First Tungrian Auxiliary Cohort, and these two are Dubnus and Corvus. Our first spear’s waiting at the west gate with the rest of the men. Any chance we could get them inside before it gets dark?’

Without the restrictions of an audience of their subordinates, Belletor promptly went on the offensive, putting his finger in Scaurus’s face and spitting a stream of fury at him.

‘How fucking
dare
you speak to me that way in front of my officers?’

The older man smiled into his anger, shaking his head.

‘You brought it on yourself,
colleague
. A simple quiet question or two would have shown you the real position of status between us, rather than what you’d like it to be. But let’s ignore your inability to ask questions before throwing your weight around.’

‘My legatus will hear about this soon enough! I’ll have you—’

Scaurus stepped forward, his face white with anger, putting his face inches away from the other man’s and making him take an involuntary step backwards.

‘That was the wrong choice of words, Tribune! Any sorting out between us is going to be done here,
between
us. Put any idea of using your legatus to deal with me out of your mind, because I’m here and he
isn’t
! I’ve dealt with
your
type of officer before, and I’ve learned that allowing your type of
officer
to delude yourselves only brings more grief than shattering your illusions nice and early. The days when even the least capable man with senatorial rank could tell veteran field commanders with equestrian rank what to do are dying away, Domitius Belletor. And as far as I’m concerned, in this particular small corner of the empire they may as well never have existed.’

He picked up the scroll from the table in front of him.

‘First, Tribune, my orders, which were handed to me by my provincial governor,
insist
that I operate independently of any other command unless I choose to do otherwise. Secondly, Tribune, the facts are that you’ve less than half my strength in spears and you’ve been given the Seventh, one of the traditionally weaker cohorts in any legion. Your command is highly likely to be packed with raw recruits and boys barely out of the first year’s training. And thirdly,
Tribune
, my perceptions of your achievements, if I’m being blunt, are that you’ve done little more since you got here than line the walls of this city with your troops. My officers were assaulted by a score of bandits little more than ten miles from these walls, and none of them showed any of the fear for our uniforms that I would have expected if your men were patrolling with anything like the necessary vigour. My two cohorts are hardened from recent battle in the barbarian uprising across the water in Britannia, and I have no intention of wasting their abilities by allowing them to sit around and go soft under your command.’

Belletor shook his head decisively, still refusing to concede the point, his lip curling in amazed contempt.

‘I am a
legion
tribune! That automatically gives me the right to command you, a mere auxiliary! Anything else is simply—’

To his obvious fury, Scaurus had turned his back and walked away from him, his boots rattling against the floor’s flagstones as he examined the murals decorating the walls. He replied without turning to face the other man, his voice rich with irony.

‘A
legion
tribune? I’ve stood in your boots as a
legion
tribune, but that was years ago, in the wars against the Quadi. I know how much power a broad-stripe tribune has, Domitius Belletor, hemmed in between the legion’s legatus and the more experienced narrow-stripe tribunes and their senior centurions, all of whom expect the right to tell you what to do. I’ve been fighting for the empire for the last ten years in one province or another, and I’ve earned my
second
tribunate the hard way, with this.’ He tapped the hilt of his sword. ‘So, far from being your subordinate, Tribune, I consider myself at worst your equal, and, in terms of my command’s strength and abilities, my own training, and my combat experience, clearly your superior. You’re free to play the big man with the local officials to your heart’s content, and you’re probably wise to keep your men behind these nice thick walls and out of harm’s way, but if you lift one finger to impede me as I go about ridding this province of the men preying upon it you will find me a very dangerous enemy indeed. You choose.’

Sergius nodded to Julius’s request, and before resuming the conversation he sent one of his colleagues to deal with the matter of getting the Tungrian cohorts inside the city’s walls. The two civilians were keeping themselves to themselves in one corner of the entrance hall. The taller of the two, well built and with a haughty look about him, was talking intently with his colleague, a leaner man with a look of sharp intelligence.

‘Our boy’s got a bit of a temper, I’m afraid.’

Sergius’s knowing smile betrayed his feelings on the subject, and Julius found himself warming to the legion officer.

‘Ours too, but we hardly ever see it.’

Sergius chuckled quietly, his voice low to avoid it being carried in the lobby’s quiet to the men at the door.

‘Which makes you pay attention when he displays it, eh? Whereas we’re all worn down by Tribune Belletor’s incessant rages, to the point where he’s become something of an amusement to the cohort.’

Julius frowned.

‘So what’s he doing here?’

‘Can’t you guess? Tribune Belletor’s daddy is very well connected, and very rich. That’s how his lad got a legion tribunate, and that’s why our legatus has to tolerate him, if he knows what’s good for him. The orders to send a cohort down here provided the big man with the perfect excuse to get a bit of peace and quiet.’

Julius’s face took on a pained expression.

‘But the Seventh Cohort? Surely this isn’t a job for raw troops?’

‘I couldn’t agree more, but you wouldn’t find the legatus signing up to that point of view. First Minervia’s still under strength, what with all the men that died of the plague and the lack of young lads to replace them, given the number of civilians that died at the same time. We’ve already had to send three cohorts off to reinforce the army in Britannia after some idiot managed to lose the best part of a legion . . .’ The look on Julius’s face stopped him in mid-flow. ‘What?’

‘We were there, First Spear. And it wasn’t pretty.’

Sergius shrugged.

‘It never is. I was a green centurion when the last war with the Chauci started, and it took a lot less than a year for me to go from being desperate to get into the fight to being happy if I never saw another dead barbarian, as long as I didn’t have to watch any more of my men die. Anyway, three cohorts to Britannia, another two sent to the coast to help the “scribblers” keep our boot on the Chauci’s throat . . .’

‘Scribblers?’

‘The Thirtieth Legion, Ulpia Victorious. Our sister legion in this province. When the call goes out for men to help with manual work it usually gets directed our way, whereas they seem to get all the reading and writing work. If the governor’s office needs twenty clerks to sit around scratching their arses they get the job, and if there’s a forest that needs cutting down they call for us. They call us “grunts”, and we call them “scribblers”, and it’s been that way for as long as I’ve served. So, we’re five cohorts down before we consider upkeep on the fortress, men on leave and the usual long list of malingerers, which means that a cohort was all our legatus could spare. Even with that small a loss of manpower the legion will be deep in the shit if the hairy boys that live on the other side of the Rhenus decide to come across in any numbers. So he sent us, as fine a collection of half-trained soldiery as ever hid behind a shield, and he was probably happy to see the back of us. And Tribune Belletor.’

Julius conceded the point.

‘Understandable. But surely five hundred of you ought to be able to scare the bandits back into their holes?’

Sergius glanced at his brother officers, a wry smile lighting up his face.

‘And that’s exactly what we thought when we got here six weeks ago. Send a couple of centuries out to garrison the roads and they’ll soon enough wind their necks in, but . . .’

The doors to the chamber opened and Scaurus pushed his way through the curtain.

‘Right, gentlemen, let’s go and get our soldiers bedded down for the night.’ Pausing to fasten his cloak about him before stepping back into the cold air, he spoke to the civilians in passing. ‘My apologies, gentlemen, for rushing off so quickly, but it seems the available barracks are all full of the legion’s men, and so I must find a spot inside your walls to pitch my cohorts’ tents. I’ll be back here early tomorrow morning though, and then we can discuss how to start dealing with the thieves that have made life so awkward for you these past few months. That and what I’ll need from you to feed and shelter fourteen hundred fighting men.’

‘How long can we keep the men in these conditions? In this weather?’ First Spear Frontinius pulled a thoughtful face. ‘Days. A week at best. The tents have taken a bit of a beating already, and with this much moisture in the air they’ll start falling to pieces sooner rather than later. We need to get the men into proper barracks, stone built for preference, but wood will do if there’s nothing better. Perhaps the legion will help us? After all, aren’t First Minervia supposed to be good at that sort of thing? Their tribune may not be cut from the finest cloth, but the officers sound experienced enough, from what Julius told me earlier.’

Scaurus took a sip of his wine before answering his first spear’s musing. He made a point of consulting the older man most nights, having found him a source of sound advice in the months since taking command of the Tungrians. His thin face was set in contemplative lines.

‘Perhaps they will help us, but I won’t be pinning my hopes on it. As for the officers, this Tribune Belletor is an idiot, pure and simple, the sort of man that gives the aristocracy a bad name. His centurions seem a decent enough lot, but I don’t see much fire in their guts. They’ve seen battle, but not any time recently. I don’t know about you, but I’ve found that combat experience has a tendency to make or break the man. It can make him stronger, and bring his best points to the fore, or it can just as easily blunt his edge. The First Minervia hasn’t seen a decent fight in ten years now, and that’s a long time for a man to brood on the things he’s seen and done. I think I’d be a bit happier if Tribune Belletor was commanding a few centurions with less friendliness but more recent scars, if you know what I mean. Anyway, it is what it is, so we’d better make the best of it. At least the governor managed to send us to a place where the name
Aquila
isn’t on every man’s lips. With a little luck it’ll have thrown any more imperial agents off the scent for the time being, and we can forget about that particular risk.’

The first spear raised his cup.

‘I’ll drink to that. As, I’d imagine, would Centurion Corvus.’

Scaurus drank, and then sat back in his chair, stretching wearily in the light of a pair of oil lamps.

‘Speaking of Corvus, did the doctor manage to keep alive those bandits we captured?’

‘She managed to keep some of them breathing, four at the last count. Another two died from their wounds on the way here.’