Sword of Rome(101)

‘That could take weeks.’ The challenge came from Fuscus, one of the legionaries. It had to be Fuscus, who had moaned and whined all the way from Moguntiacum. Fuscus who couldn’t keep his mouth shut. ‘Maybe we should split up and try to get through in pairs?’

‘In Batavian breeches and cloaks?’ The gully rang with a sharp crack as Metto slapped his comrade on the back of the head. ‘Without a pass or today’s watchword? We wouldn’t last beyond the second hour. And then it would be the axe or the fire, maybe even the cross for traitors like us.’ The other legionaries growled at the hated word, but Metto was unrepentant. ‘Aye, curse you may, but that’s what we are as far as those men out there are concerned. Traitors deserving of a traitor’s death.’

‘Maybe we should turn ourselves in,’ Fuscus persisted, rising to his feet. He pointed at Valerius. ‘If we handed him over we might even get a reward. They’d pay well for one of Otho’s spies …’ His voice tailed off with a curious hissing sound like an angry snake. Or a man who’d just had a long knife pushed very deliberately between his ribs and into his heart.

Serpentius pulled the blade free and allowed the legionary’s body to drop to the earth. ‘Only one step from saying it to doing it,’ the Spaniard said cheerfully, wiping the blade on Fuscus’s cloak. ‘Anyone else have any ideas they’d like to share?’

Valerius had been as surprised as any of them by Serpentius’s swift response to Fuscus’s revolt, but he dared not show it. With barely a glance at the dead man, he met the remaining legionaries’ eyes one by one. When he reached Metto, the centurion gave him an almost imperceptible nod that confirmed he still had them. He’d been fortunate that Fuscus was a fool, and a fool who had made himself unpopular at that. If it had been one of the others, the outcome might have been different.

They doused the fire and readied themselves in the darkness. Valerius knew they had to get as far from Valens’ army as they could before daylight, but there was another, greater danger to be considered. Claudius Victor was out there somewhere and he would know he had his prey in a trap. They travelled through the hills in single file with every man thanking the gods for the lack of a moon and the pitch black night that hid them from their enemies. Serpentius was mountain born and mountain bred, and he could move in the dark as easily as in the day. With barely a pause, he took them westwards where he had identified a valley that led south and would, in time, hopefully bring them to the plain and Italia. Despite the Spaniard’s lead, the men were wary and progress was necessarily slow. Valerius hid his frustration. He knew every moment of delay put his mission at greater risk and might cost thousands of lives. Otho would be aware of his enemy’s dispositions by now, but Valerius had learned much that could mean the difference between victory and defeat.

When they reached the valley mouth, Serpentius halted the little column and made his way back to where Valerius waited. ‘Something doesn’t smell right.’

‘Take Metto.’ But his words were wasted. Serpentius was already gone.

They waited for what seemed like an eternity, the horses moving restlessly, but cavalry-trained to stay silent. Valerius strained his ears until they hurt and his eyes searched the darkness until every variation of shade seemed to move and threaten. Eventually, he could take no more and lifted his heels to push his horse into motion. ‘Only one.’ The whisper almost stopped his heart as Serpentius threw a wolfskin cloak across his saddle. The Roman shivered. Mars’ arse, he must be getting old. He hadn’t had the slightest notion of the former gladiator’s return until the weight of the cloak fell on his knees.

They were three more days in the mountains, eking out their rations and watering their horses in the streams that cut every valley. Serpentius had buried the Batavian whose wolfskin cloak now acted as Valerius’s saddle cloth, but they knew the fact that the man was missing would be as good as a signpost to Claudius Victor. Valerius could almost feel the Batavian’s warm breath on his neck.

Every man felt a surge of relief when they eventually emerged from the claustrophobic embrace of the hills at a tiny settlement beside a small stream the inhabitants laughably claimed was the Padus. The villagers had fled at the first sight of wolfskin cloaks and gleaming iron, but when the strangers made no threatening moves and didn’t loot the houses the bravest gradually returned. They called their village Forovibiensis and spoke a guttural Latin that Valerius at first struggled to understand. Still, he managed to trade the dead man’s cloak for three loaves of hard country bread and a skin of some earthy drink that might once have been wine. Gossip was as important to these rustic people as trade goods and they listened with dismay as Valerius told them of the great army gathering to their north. One of the elders nodded seriously. Apart from Valerius’s men, he said, they had encountered no soldiers, but this information accorded with what their watchers could see from the mountain behind the village. Columns of smoke where no smoke should be seen, thick and dark, towering in the still air over the plain like ominous statues.