Eagles of Dacia Read online

  The total cost to the century had been surprisingly low. Twenty seven dead or beyond hope, and thirty one walking wounded who would recover to active duty in due course. Of course, all but three of the fallen came from the two centuries in the first assault, and sixteen of them were from Rufinus’ Third. Along with the eight dead from the landslide and the five who had gone back south in the cart, that dropped Rufinus’ first command from eighty men to fifty one. In a moment of bleak, black humour, Rufinus had suggested to Cassius that by the time they reached Apulum, unit strength would be so low they’d have to turn around and head back to recruit in Moesia again. Daizus had survived, of course, and before they moved on, Rufinus needed to bring up the issue of insubordination.

  Still, they had won the day, restored Roman control over an important site, and achieved their first victory as a cohort. They hadn’t bothered counting the enemy dead, which smouldered in a huge ashy pile several hundred paces from the far side of the fortress, but the Sarmatians had clearly lost many more than the cohort. The column of grey from their burning was still visible between the trees and Rufinus scowled at it, and at the second one from the Roman bodies nearby. They had not been able to bury the dead of either side – thick rock lay just beneath the surface of the hillside, and the trees did not help. Burning the dead had not been too easy either, mind, with the melting snow and damp wood, but fortunately there were supplies of logs in some of the buildings in Sarmizegetusa.

  The cohort shuffled slightly in the chill. The snow was now patchy at best on the ground, but the air was damp and frosty, and the sweat of the men’s exertions had dried cold on their skin. Above the sound of several hundred men waiting, Rufinus could hear the distant screams from the hospital, and tried to block them out. He stood straight as a rod with his vine stick jammed under his arm, at the front of his men, as did the other five centurions.

  There was the distant creak and slam of the gate, and finally the prisoners appeared around the curve in the road. Rufinus watched sixty one men and women trudge along the stone paving down to the once sacred temple zone, their hands bound behind them, legionaries driving them on with pila. The tribune had not yet announced their fate, though Rufinus recalled his promises from the parley and could not believe they would walk away from here intact. In a way, he was in two minds about the prisoners’ fate. They were people – women, even – who had fought for a home, and warriors in war deserved a warrior’s death. But that home had not been theirs to fight for, and they had beheaded Dacian locals. And somewhere, deep in the back of his mind, Rufinus could not rid himself of the memory of Tad, the Sarmatian cannibal who had tortured and tried to kill him at an imperial villa half a decade ago. Despite everything, he found the image of Tad colouring his opinion of the Sarmatians.

  The prisoners were herded out into the open and lined up in five rows, with the spare prisoner added to the rear line. There was a long, unpleasant silence, over which they could all hear the gut-churning sounds of the medicus and his men at work in the hospital tent. Finally Tribune Celer stepped out from the small knot of neat-looking officers and up onto a raised stone disc at the edge of the lower terrace of the sacred area.

  ‘You are condemned men and women. All of you. You had the audacity to invade Roman lands and to rape and murder with abandon. Now you will learn that to pit yourself against Rome carries a terrible price.’

  As was Appius Maximus to the Dacians, so shall I be to you.

  Rufinus shivered, and not entirely from the chill.

  ‘Punishment details, step forward.’

  Six men stepped out of Cassius’ First Century, and Rufinus could see the scourges coiled in their hands, six more behind but with empty hands. He swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. He had been beaten with a centurion’s stick, and it had been agonising. But that had just been a cane. The lash could cripple a man, make him bite off his tongue, leave him bleeding to death. But the scourge…

  Each of the whips had fragments of bone and glass cunningly woven along the length. A scourging was not a punishment. It was a death sentence. An execution in a particularly horrible manner. Rufinus watched as the front row of a dozen prisoners were taken to the edge of the treeline, in full view of the cohort and the other prisoners, and tied to branches and trunks. Hundreds of other dark eyes watched from a distance, too. The Dacians from the valley below who had been driven out by these invaders, and who had been brought back here by soldiers over the past hour or two in order to see their enemy punished. They didn’t look as happy at the proceedings as the tribune had told his men they would.

  Rufinus breathed deeply as a man with a scourge lined up behind every other man. The second group of six soldiers, again veterans from Cassius’ unit, crossed to the unattended prisoners. Each of them drew a knife from their belt. Rufinus felt his blood chill. The veteran legionaries were grim-faced, each and every one. Cassius, too, had a dark scowl plastered across his visage.

  ‘I have read the stories of your people’s atrocities with prisoners,’ Celer snarled. ‘Romans scourged to death. Romans flayed and hanged from trees for the animals to gnaw on. Thus I bring you your own horrors, visited upon yourselves. Begin.’

  Rufinus watched. He didn’t want to. He wanted to look away. No matter what he thought of these people, such torture was simply unnecessary, and it held rather profound and horrifying memories for Rufinus on a personal level. He would never approve of it. Not after the work of the Syrian. Cassius watched, too. They all did. No one looked away. It would be considered weakness.

  The screaming would stay with Rufinus until the day he died. The piercing wails as knives sliced flesh and knotted, barbed whips tore skin and muscle away from bone. It was an appalling noise, and it took half an hour to finish off all twelve and then hang their remains from other trees before forcing the reluctant, struggling and shouting prisoners of the second line over to the trunks trees amid the gore and dark spatters and tie them in place. Then it began again.

  Two hours, the Dacian former citizens of Sarmizegetusa and the men of the Thirteenth Gemina watched the enemy being tortured to death. The only relief was that despite tiring arms, the punishment details swiftly became better at their jobs and made it all happen faster. Rufinus wondered why Cassius had not rotated his men to give them a rest. The twelve weary, blood-soaked legionaries persisted until they were faced with fifty brutalised corpses, ten flayed yet still alive and wailing, all hanging from the trees.

  Only when there was one remaining ashen-faced Sarmatian standing in the centre did it stop. Without seeking the tribune’s permission, Cassius dismissed his punishment details, sending them off to the bath house with a chitty for a quadruple wine ration. Celer was too busy to notice or care as he cleared his throat from his ancient stone podium.

  ‘You live. My men will give you food and coin to see you safely back to your own people, and documents of free passage with my seal. Take back news of what you witnessed here, that your fellow savages learn what it means to cross swords with Rome.’

  Cassius nodded to two of his men, who crossed and took the last prisoner away, speaking to him in his native tongue, on the assumption that he had not comprehended the triune’s words. Once they were gone, Celer turned to the Dacians.

  ‘Witness the might of Rome, her mighty eagle spreading its wings over the empire, protecting her people. Never again shall raiders be allowed to reach your homes and families. Even now the legates work to strengthen and man the borders. Be safe and content within the Pax Romana.’

  How magnanimous, Rufinus thought darkly.

  ‘Men of the Thirteenth,’ the tribune called, turning to the assembled legionaries, ‘we shall tarry here one day as reward for your efforts. Awards will be allocated tomorrow when I have had time to go through everything. Wine rations are doubled for every man tonight, and the bath house will be made available on a rota. Centurions, dismiss your men.’

  Cassius did so without delay, sending his men to the houses that had been allocated to
them within Sarmizegetusa. Rufinus wondered for a moment whether the tribune had bothered to check whether those houses belonged to the refugees now returning, but decided probably not. Turning, he dismissed the Third Century and then, as the cohort dispersed, Celer and his staff moving back toward the road up to the town, Rufinus strode over to the stone circle in the floor where the tribune had been standing.

  Some ten feet across, it appeared to have been an altar of some kind, mimicking a sunburst, with radiating slabs. Runnels within the structure, which emptied into a drain alongside, were clearly part of a sacrificial system, and though that could mean anything from chickens to bulls, somehow Rufinus found himself picturing children being killed there and felt sickened at the image. The last of the snow on the disc showed the tribune’s boot prints where he had stood, and the image burned itself into Rufinus’ brain as the perfect analogy for the empire.

  Damn it, but he was beginning to think like Senova.

  A presence close by made him turn and he found Cassius standing nearby, staring up at the dangling bodies in the trees.

  ‘Your men did their duty with honour,’ Rufinus said, offering what little comfort he could.

  ‘I took volunteers only,’ Cassius replied. ‘Filthy, degrading work. Execution I could accept easily, but that…’ He gestured to the pink and red shapes hanging in the trees at the edge of the sacred area, some still crying. ‘It feels like a sick joke to do that here of all places.’

  Rufinus shrugged. ‘Oh I don’t know. I’ve a notion that this place is far from innocent. Something about this altar disturbs me. I don’t think I’ll ever understand the Dacians. Or the Sarmatians. Or our own people, for that matter.’

  ‘Our own?’ Cassius snorted. ‘Speak for yourself, Rufinus. I’m from Epiphania. Moesian born and bred.’ He sighed. ‘You’ve only been here a few weeks, though. Give it time.’

  ‘I don’t think I’ll have time. Celer seems Hades-bent on racing us north to join the legion, and then I’ll be shuffled off or kept busy somehow until Albinus finds a way to send me back to Cleander.’

  ‘I don’t understand how the chamberlain has the right to send praetorians away,’ Cassius frowned. ‘Your posting here is a mystery, Rufinus.’

  The younger centurion looked around nervously. ‘That’s not a discussion for this place. Not one I expected to have with anyone, in fact, but perhaps we’ll head to quarters and I’ll talk over a cup of wine.’

  Cassius nodded and then turned at the sound of thumping paws. Acheron came bounding across the wet grass and leapt up at him, planting two heavy paws on his shoulders and almost knocking him down. Senova was walking across the sanctuary behind him, her face grim.

  ‘I told you not to come,’ Rufinus said wearily.

  ‘I had to see it.’

  ‘No you didn’t. I had to, otherwise I wouldn’t have been here, either.’

  Senova came to a halt next to them, her breath pluming in the cold, her soft shoes soaked through and cloak pulled tight about her. She looked up at the bodies hanging in the trees, some still whimpering.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Rufinus urged her.

  ‘I suppose it is only what they would do to us,’ she said in an odd matter-of-fact tone.

  Rufinus blinked. ‘What?’

  ‘The punishments the tribune dealt. They are Sarmatian punishments, after all.’

  ‘You sometimes still surprise me,’ Rufinus said to her.

  She shrugged. ‘When you have seen the threefold death once or twice and sacrificed a few animals, the squeamishness quickly fades.’

  Cassius snorted. ‘You could teach some of our legionaries a thing or two.’

  Come on.’ Rufinus grasped Senova’s elbow and turned her, urging her back toward the road that led up to the fortress-town’s gate. Acheron went to investigate the piles of meat near the trees and, regretfully left them alone to bound after his master. The four figures journeyed back up the slope from the grisly sanctuary in silence.

  The town sulked in the cold, columns of black smoke coiling up from many of the roofs as legionaries or locals lit fires to warm their homes, whether they be temporary or permanent. Men of the Thirteenth were now in position, guarding the walls and gates, and Rufinus and his friends strode through the strangely part-Roman, part-Dacian town to the house allocated to the Third Century’s commander. The building was a squat stricture of wooden boards with a stone base up to a course of around a foot from the ground. Its roof was of similar boards, giving it a drab, dour appearance, particularly in the gathering gloom of the evening.

  Rufinus had not yet had time to do anything other than take a quick look in the place and drop his kit. His century were quartered in the next four houses along the line. In theory Daizus should share this place with his centurion, but the optio had chosen to stay with the men instead and Rufinus remained grateful for that.

  Some helpful person had supplied the house with a tray of bread and cold cuts of meat and a jug of wine and had lit an oil lamp on a shelf near the door, closing the window shutters to keep out the cold. Rufinus shuffled wearily into his room and crossed to the cot, sagging onto it and reaching for bread and meat. Senova found a comfortable seat, Acheron curled up at her feet, and Cassius poured wine for her and closed the door before wandering over to another chair.

  ‘Level with me, Cassius,’ Rufinus said suddenly. ‘You’re a veteran and a good man, and I saw your face this afternoon. You’re not pleased.’

  The older centurion frowned reluctantly. ‘It is not our place to speak ill of our superiors, Rufinus.’

  ‘True. But there are things going unsaid around here, and such strained silence does no one any good. I think it’s time we spoke our minds to one another, and I suspect your truths are less damning than mine, so I am hoping you will go first.’

  Cassius, foregoing the wine, withdrew his bottle of fruit spirit and took a nip from it, sucking in air through his teeth.

  ‘Alright. If we’re opening the book of our souls, I do not particularly like the tribune. There.’

  ‘Why?’

  Another sip of spirit. ‘He’s a man ruled by his heart, and I think his heart is dark. He is good at his job, though, and that counts a lot for a senior tribune. Legions rely upon them, after all. I just worry about the directions he might take at any moment. He could become dangerous if unchecked. But he is close to the governor, and that makes him untouchable anyway, so all this is moot opinion and conjecture.’

  Rufinus nodded. ‘And what do you think of Albinus?’

  Cassius shook his head. ‘That is not a conversation I am willing to have. Now it’s your turn. Tell me why you’re really here.’

  Rufinus looked at Senova, oddly feeling it necessary to seek her approval. She nodded, and he took a drink of wine.

  ‘Cleander sent me on detached duty.’

  ‘That, we all know.’

  ‘His given reason, and this has to be our secret, is to monitor Albinus and Niger, both of whom he believes have been speaking out against both him and the emperor.’

  Cassius shook his head. ‘They would never be so stupid as to speak out against the emperor. No one would. But against Cleander? Yes, I have heard this myself. But then half the world speaks out against Cleander when they are sure he is not listening. The man is known to be a snake. I wonder why you are working for him?’

  ‘That’s the other thing,’ Rufinus replied with a sigh. ‘He has me by the balls. He has my brother under his “protection”, and controls the praetorian guard. And he doesn’t like me – sees me as a threat, particularly since I’ve threatened to put a sword through his oily face more than once. I suspect the main reason I am truly here is because it is about as far away from him as he can send me.’

  Cassius nodded with a strange expression.

  ‘If we were truly safe and alone, there are things I could tell you, Rufinus. Things that would make you blanch. But not here. And not now.’

  ‘If you could help supply me with that Cleander w
ants, perhaps I can go home and he might even free my brother,’ Rufinus urged.

  ‘No. Not now. Not here.’

  Cassius suddenly rose to his feet, looking uncomfortable. ‘I wanted to know why you were here, and I do though, gods, now I wish I did not. I am not a man for intrigues, Rufinus, like you guardsmen and your courtier friends. I am a soldier, and a good one. I lead men in battle and in garrison. And now I need to think. I will bid you good night.’

  Rufinus watched Cassius leave, wearing a troubled expression, and once the door was shut again he turned to Senova. ‘What do you make of that?’

  ‘He has the face of a hen who knows the fox is on the prowl.’

  Rufinus rolled his eyes. ‘If we could just dispense with the weird Briton analogies for a moment?’

  Senova folded her arms. ‘He is nervous. He knows something that has a bearing on why you are here, but he is reluctant to tell you of it. I think he fears the effects.’

  ‘Repercussions,’ Rufinus nodded.

  ‘Yes. Those. Whatever he is nervous about, that is what you need to know.’

  ‘It’s going to be a bit of a task getting it out of him, though. I can’t see him just dropping it into conversation.’

  There was a long silence, which became uncomfortable with every passing heartbeat. Rufinus smoothed a wrinkle out of the blanket on his cot. ‘I…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t suppose you would like to stay here tonight?’ he hazarded in a small, weird voice. ‘Since I’m not in a barrack block or a camp tent for a change.’

  Senova’s eyebrow arched, and Rufinus couldn’t tell whether that was good or bad. ‘Like a camp follower, you mean?’ she answered. ‘As your woman who cannot be a wife and has to live outside the fort like a dependent whore?’

  Rufinus found that his throat had gone rather dry again.

  ‘Well, it’s just that you and me… I mean, I know it’s not perfect. But I’m an officer now, and…’

  ‘You are an officer here. In Rome you are a guardsman.’

  ‘Is that a no?’ he prodded, feeling slightly crestfallen.