Sword of Rome(110)
The Batavian froze as the impact of the words struck. Ten paces away, Valerius heard them too and felt something swelling up inside him: a snarling beast with an appetite for only one thing. Blood. For a month this man had dogged his footsteps and his dreams with his promises of pain and death. One step forward and he would finish it one way or another.
‘What are you waiting for?’ he spat. ‘Perhaps you aren’t so brave without your wolf pack?’
Claudius Victor’s face twisted with revulsion, but he remained where he was. He had formed an image of the man he hunted and that image was of a victim to be humiliated and destroyed. The man he faced across the dusty ground was a new Valerius Verrens, and the savage certainty on the scarred face made the odds less than favourable. Cripple or not, the sword the Roman held in his left hand was killing sharp and rock steady and the Batavian felt an unfamiliar thrill of fear as he imagined the blade slicing at his throat. He glanced at Serpentius and the Spaniard met the look with a barking laugh that sent a shudder through the cavalrymen facing him. Relaxed and loose, he stood with a sword in his right hand and one of the deadly little Scythian throwing axes in his left. The message in his eyes was that Claudius Victor wouldn’t get within a sword swing of Valerius before he felt the bite of the axe. Victor looked up at the walls, judging the threat from the arrows and spears, still tempted to launch his men in an attack that would sweep away the three upstarts whose continued existence was an insult to his brother’s shade. Even as he made his decision, the gate opened and fifty armoured men trotted out to form a line in front of Valerius, Serpentius and Domitia.
‘You had your chance,’ the voice from the wall shouted. ‘Now leave or I will see you and your men dead.’
For a moment, Valerius thought that Claudius Victor would attack the legionary shield line single-handed. His whole body shook as if he was having some kind of seizure, his eyes bulged and his jaw was clenched so tight that spittle drooled from between his lips. When one of his men tried to pull him towards the horses, he backhanded him across the face so that the auxiliary fell away with blood streaming from smashed lips. Eventually, Victor recovered his reason. When he spoke his voice was thick with loathing and the words were aimed directly at Valerius.
‘Do not think you can hide from me for ever, Roman. This little place will soon be squashed flat and when it is I will come for you. The death I promised earlier will seem merciful compared to the torment you will meet then. I will geld you and blind you, cut the tongue from your head and remove your fingers and toes with a blunt axe. My men will use you as a woman and my women as a slave. Every moment of every day you will pray for the release of the impaling spike or the slow fire.’
He marched back to the horses and tugged at something attached to the saddle of the latest arrival. A round object flew through the air and rolled through a gap in the line of defenders to Valerius’s feet. With a last look of pure hatred Claudius Victor leapt into the saddle and rode away at the head of his men. It was only when he was out of sight that Valerius looked down and found himself looking into the startled eyes of Cornelius Metto.
XL
‘In these unhappy times it is sometimes difficult to tell one’s friends from one’s enemies.’ The grey-haired general pursed his lips and studied the man in front of him with a mixture of puzzlement and distaste. Tall and well set, but with a month’s growth of beard and dark hair that hung low over hard, unyielding eyes, Gaius Valerius Verrens looked more brigand than soldier in his ill-fitting tunic and mail. ‘You say you have dispatches for the Emperor?’
‘Information, rather than formal dispatches. I have come from the north.’
Titus Vitricius Spurinna’s lips pursed and Valerius allowed himself a smile at the patrician’s reaction. The north meant enemy territory and Vitellius, and the manner of their coming had been mysterious enough to confirm what that hinted at. No one liked a spy, at least not until they needed the intelligence he’d risked his neck for. They were talking in the principia at the centre of Placentia’s fort. Valerius had sent Serpentius to find them fresh horses, while Domitia had been welcomed by the wife of the town’s leading magistrate and would even now be enjoying the bath she’d craved.
‘You were fortunate the guard commander vouched for you.’ Spurinna gave a sniff, followed by what might almost have been a resigned sigh. ‘And as it happens, I have heard the name Gaius Valerius Verrens. News of your exploits in Britannia spread even as far as the German frontier, and, of course, your missing hand confirms your identity more certainly than any papers.’ Valerius bowed his head in acknowledgement of the compliment, but he found himself disliking this pompous little man with his narrow, heavy-browed eyes. Still, Spurinna’s dispositions and the way he had dealt with Claudius Victor and his Batavians marked him as a soldier. As did his next words. ‘An officer who has experience of a siege may be an asset in the days ahead.’