Marius' Mules V: Hades' Gate Read online

  "Centurions Furius and Fabius of the Seventh." A defiant note, almost daring the others to challenge over seniority.

  The air almost crackled with tension. For a moment both pairs of Roman officers locked their gaze on one another and had his ankle been stronger, Botovios would have risked running for it. Instead he stood silent, waiting to see if there was any possibility that these soldiers might just fall on each other in bloodshed. The tension suggested it as a possibility.

  "We've been tracking a small party of Gauls down here that we spotted on the road from the south" the Fourteenth's senior centurion said. "You would be the pair who left the two bodies back on the forest path, then?"

  Suddenly the balance changed in their favour as Botovios saw the figures of numerous soldiers emerging like ghosts from the depths of the forest, armed and ready. Unlike his two original pursuers, these two officers were not without their men.

  "What's your business with him?" the bull-shouldered centurion from the Seventh demanded without an ounce of the respect Botovios would expect from a junior officer to a senior.

  "Our legate," something about the tone of the word 'legate' suggested that it left a sour taste in the senior man's mouth, "Lucius Munatius Plancus, has a standing brief for his patrolling centuries to apprehend and execute any Gaul we find under arms without the permission of the general or his staff."

  The two centurions from the Seventh exchanged a look and the stockier one turned back to their counterparts from the Fourteenth.

  "That's ridiculous! You'll have to execute the whole Gods-forsaken nation. Anyway, this lad's unarmed, so you can leave him be. Go bother the local fauna somewhere, sir."

  Primus Pilus Titus Pullo bridled. He may not be happy with his orders, but to be spoken to in such a manner by a junior from another legion was pushing the bounds of acceptability.

  "Unless you have a damn good reason to be after this man yourself, centurion, you'll want to still that tongue when speaking to a senior officer unless you want to find yourself being lashed within a finger width of your life back in camp."

  Botovios watched, fascinated. After four years of studying the Roman military machine from a distance and through texts he was finally getting to see it operating first hand and it seemed to be nowhere near as organised and efficient as he had been led to believe. Perhaps there was a chance for Gaul after all.

  The stocky centurion ripped something - a small baton or scroll case - from a pouch and tossed it over to the senior officer, who caught it deftly and turned it over to examine it.

  "That's the seal of the Camp Prefect, Priscus."

  "Yes. We're on a job for him. So I suspect we take precedence over your witch-hunt for pitchfork-wielding peasants. Listen, sir: no disrespect, but we've been waiting for this one for weeks, spent time setting up an ambush and plenty of effort tracing him in the first place. He's important, and I'm not about to relinquish him to you because you happened to drop by, regardless of rank."

  "By Juno, centurion, your impudence knows no bounds. Take the lad, then, but I'll be reporting this incident to the Camp Prefect when we return."

  Even as the primus pilus tossed the sealed object back to Furius and he and the accompanying 'Vorenus' turned back to their approaching units and waved them on, heading away into the woods, Botovios realised with an air of sad finality that it was truly over. The original pursuers were starting towards him again and any moment now, he would be in their hands. Then, doubtless, he would be broken, burned and cut until he screamed everything he knew through shattered teeth and bloodied lips. Such a thing must not happen.

  His ankle would not carry him any further and he was unarmed.

  Calmly, his thoughts going out to the Goddess of the woods, Arduenna, begging her for the strength to do what must be done, he turned his back on the centurions. They came on - he could tell from the crunching of their approaching footsteps - but he had not turned his back to protect himself or to take flight. He had done so to conceal his actions as he hurriedly untied the strings on the tiny pouch at his neck and fished around in it, ripping out its contents. For a moment he stared at the vellum and the characters scrawled across it. He knew not what it said exactly - hadn't risked reading it - though he had the gist and knew it must not fall into the Romans' hands, even if they couldn't initially decipher it. With a deep breath, he opened his mouth and stuffed the small piece of vellum inside, starting to chew rapidly as though on tough meat. The maceration mixed with the saliva should serve to clear the writing from the piece before it could ever be found. But just in case…

  A last glance across his shoulder confirmed that the two centurions were almost on him now, climbing over the now-uncovered branch that had initially tripped him. He gave them a confident smile and threw himself down the slope and slid into the ravine.

  * * * * *

  Centurion Furius, the bear-shouldered centurion of the Second century, First cohort of the Seventh legion, dropped the last seven feet from the rocky gulley to the grassy floor of the ravine, mere paces from the fast flowing icy river.

  "Sometimes I think we should have stayed in Puteoli with Fronto. It'd have been warmer and filled with fewer arseholes."

  The taller of the pair, already standing on the grass and dusting the muck of the climb from his hands, grinned.

  "You got bored after a week. I managed a month. Neither of us can keep up with the old bastard's wine habit, and those women are more demanding than any bloody senior officer. Our place is with the army and you know it."

  "Even if we spend all our time out on our own knee deep in snow hunting boys not old enough to grow a beard?"

  "Even if. Besides, what we're doing is important. You know that. Priscus isn't a man to sod around on wild chicken hunts. A man after my own heart, that one."

  Furius nodded. There were perhaps three or four men in Caesar's army that had a pedigree that outstripped their own, and Priscus was one - probably the best.

  "He's not going to be happy if we've spent three weeks chasing around Gaul unravelling all this crap only to let the miserable little runt throw himself off a cliff without an interrogation. We'll be right back at the start, having to locate another contact."

  "Let's just have a look at the bugger first. Come on."

  The pair waded through the knee deep white toward the river's edge.

  "You should have told that knob from the Fourteenth that you were the Primus Pilus, you know" Fabius said, shaking his head as he trudged towards the water. "You had more authority than him and you know it, yet you let him go on assuming you were a junior."

  "I'm not wearing the crest or the tunic with the gold embroidery, and he couldn't see my cloak pin insignia that far away. I could be any centurion. And anyway, I'm imagining what Priscus is going to say to him when he accuses a 'junior' of getting in the way of his own duty. The prefect'll tear him a second arsehole."

  "He had a second arsehole standing next to him!"

  Snorting his agreement, Furius peered into the river.

  The Gaul, whose name was unknown to them, but who they had bribed, cajoled, threatened and even tortured numerous of his countrymen just to locate, lay on the rocks close to the bank. He was a shattered thing: a broken mass of flesh and muscle with sharp white bone protruding through the skin in numerous places. He had landed flat on his back and had probably died that very instant. The blood had all run out now, washed clean from body and rocks by the fast flow, leaving him grey and clean, the water lapping at his legs and arms where they dangled from the rocks. The back of his head appeared to have gone entirely, the sharp rock that it had hit now protruding half way through his brain. It was a mess.

  Both centurions had seen - and caused - worse.

  "Fucking typical that he land there" Fabius grumbled. "I call dry. You go in that cold water and search him."

  "If I do, you buy the drinks when we get back to camp."

  "Deal."

  Furius took a deep breath and clenched his jaw, steppin
g cautiously from the snowy bank into the freezing cold water. He felt instantly as though his skin had shrunk on his leg. His toes were numb before they had even touched the pebbles at the bottom, a foot beneath the surface. He realised he was shivering and his teeth were clicking together rhythmically, and forced himself to stop. It was all in the mind. Shivering actually made you colder rather than helping deal with it.

  With another deep breath of apprehension, the veteran plunged his other foot into the icy flow, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. Though he could not feel his feet, he could see them and they were still theoretically working. Grumbling, he took three steps through the water out to the rocks where the body lay.

  "Hurry up."

  Furius cast a sour look back at his companion as though Fabius had said something stupid which, clearly, he had. Bending over the body, he started rifling through the Gaul's belt pouch, lifting it from the water as he did so. Glancing only momentarily at the coins, he cast them into the water to help appease any local water spirits that might take all life from his toes. He had seen men serving in places like this lose their appendages, black and brittle.

  "Nothing in his purse but shitty Gaul coins and a broken brooch pin. Worth shit."

  "Go through his tunic."

  "Lucius, I am not an idiot!" Ignoring the chuckle and the sarcastic comments from the bank, Furius rifled through the tunic and trousers down to the waterline, finding nothing. One of the submerged hands was tightly clasped shut and he spent precious moments snapping off the frozen fingers so he could check its contents only to find it empty. Silently, he cursed the nameless courier for wasting his time.

  "Nothing."

  "There has to be something. He's a young 'un. Those twisted bastard druids wouldn't trust such things to a youth's memory."

  "There's a pouch on a neck thong" Furius said quickly, moving frozen, numb feet to get a closer look. "It's empty, but it's open, so he's only just taken something from it!"

  "Trying to dispose of the evidence. It's either in his mouth or his arse or he threw it in the river."

  "Can't search the river, and I ain't searching his arse."

  Again, Fabius laughed from the bank.

  "A lot of wine!" Furius snapped. "For this, you owe me a lot of wine. And the pick of recruits at the next draft. And preference with equipment."

  "Fine, so long as you have something to show for all of this."

  "I think…" Furius wrenched the lower jaw down until it cracked, peering inside. "Yes. There's something. Vellum I think."

  As Fabius offered obvious suggestions and unhelpful advice, Furius drew the scrap from the mouth and began to stumble on numb feet back to the bank, where his companion helped him up.

  "Give me your scarf."

  "Piss off."

  "My feet are cold-bitten. I might lose my toes. Give me your damn scarf!"

  As Fabius reluctantly removed the thick russet-coloured wool garment from his neck and passed it over, Furius unlaced his Gaulish-design enclosed boots and lifted blue-purple feet from them. His socks had become so sodden they had stayed inside as his feet came out accompanied by a sucking sound. With a grimace, he drew the soggy wool socks from the boots and cast them into the river. Ridiculously, standing barefoot in the snow seemed warmer than the water he had been in. Life was starting to return to his feet. As his companion handed the scarf over, Furius bit down on the edge and tore it into two strips.

  "Hey, that's my scarf!"

  "And these are my feet. Shut up."

  Bending, he fashioned a makeshift sock from half the scarf and wrapped it round his left foot, plunging it into the sodden boot and lacing it up. Despite the fact that it would soon become cold and wet again, temporarily his foot felt blissfully warm. It would save his toes and that was, right now, all that mattered. Hurriedly, he repeated the process on his right foot and then stomped around.

  "Well?" Fabius was holding out a hand.

  Furius grumbled and passed over the scrap of vellum as he stomped in circles, returning life to his limbs. The snow was settling heavily on his shoulders.

  "Half of its gone. I reckon he swallowed it."

  "I'm not gutting him and searching his innards either."

  "There's still faint writing on this part though. I think it's Greek. Yes, definitely Greek. You want to look? Your Greek's better than mine."

  Furius glared at his companion as he took the vellum and peered at it. "It's beyond me how you can spend so many years serving out in the east and not pick up the lingo, Lucius."

  "Greek's the language of bum bandits. I learned enough to get by - no more."

  "It's almost illegible. I can't really make out what most of the words say, and I don't think anyone else will. But there's three names here I can see that look a little familiar."

  "What? Come on!"

  "Treveri I think? Yes, got to be Treveri. That's one of the tribes near here, yes?"

  "All around us. They're the ones who live at Trebeto and all over this forest. No shock that they're involved, given where the little prick was heading."

  "And Suevi. I know that name from last year."

  "Germanic bastards across the Rhenus. Juno, we don't want the Germanic tribes getting their blood up and throwing in their lot. Bad enough with the argumentative Gauls, Aquitani and Belgae. Priscus is going to have to make some pretty tough decisions in the coming weeks, I'd say. Anything else?"

  "Couple of fragments. Nothing concrete. Sporadic verbs and appeals? And this one: Dumnorix. That's a person, not a tribe. Ever heard of him?"

  "Can't say I have" shrugged Fabius, "but maybe Priscus has. We'd best get straight back to camp."

  "That's several days ride. We need a night to recover first. I'm frozen."

  "Then I'll take the horses and you can run; warm yourself up. Come on."

  The pair moved back toward the narrow gulley that had afforded them a relatively simple access from the forest above. They would have to get back to camp as soon as possible. It may look like the depths of winter here but, despite the ever present snow, it was already Aprilis and officially Spring. Soon, the army would be mobilizing for the coming season. The question now was: what would their objective be? Britannia again or the flattening of yet more Gaulish resistance?

  Chapter One

  MAIUS

  Fronto flicked an idle finger at a garland of sweet-smelling flowers that stretched from one peg to another on the wall of the spacious tablinum and wrinkled his nose at the scent that threatened to make him sneeze violently.

  "I don't see why it couldn't be at our own property? It should be at the groom's property."

  Balbus sighed and patted him on the shoulder in a supportive - even sympathetic - manner.

  "Tradition has it at my house, Marcus. Anyway, women are funny about holding celebrations in places where blood has been shed regularly. Lucilia would no more allow you to use your townhouse than a public arena, and Corvinia's on her side. When the pair of them set their mind on something only a lunatic would argue."

  Fronto nodded sullenly. He was that lunatic. The arguments over the past week had almost caused the calling off of the whole thing. Lucilia had proved to be more stubborn than Fronto could possibly imagine and he had decided it presaged a worrying future for him.

  "But we could have had it at Puteoli. It's perfect."

  "And too far for some of the guests to travel. The gathering this evening will be well attended, Marcus. Half the luminaries of Rome that are coming would not have done so if they'd had to travel all the way down the coast to your villa."

  "The perfect reason to have it there."

  Balbus took a deep breath. "Listen, Marcus." he said with quiet strength, a steely edge in his voice making Fronto turn and frown, "I know you're not a young man and that this is a very personal thing for you. I know that you think it should be as private and low key as possible and that you should be hidden away from public eyes. But Lucilia is a young woman - little more than a girl still, despite h
er strength of will. Young girls have few dreams and fears in life and one is the fear that they'll be married off to a sour old senator as a breeding machine. Lucilia has always known I would not do that, but she has, against all odds, actually achieved a match with someone she genuinely cares about and she wants to celebrate that; to shout it to the very halls of the Gods. If you turn this ceremony sour I personally will plague you for the rest of your life. Do you understand me?"

  Fronto, his brow furrowed, nodded resignedly.

  "Sorry, Quintus. You know I want this, but you know how much I hate pomp. I feel like a general returning to Rome for a glittering public triumph. It makes my skin itch; and that's just the ceremony. I can't think as far ahead as the evening's festivities. Best part of a hundred sycophants, megalomaniacs and hedonists drinking all our wine and eating all our food while they pass judgement on us."

  "I know. But it's one day. You're not doing it for yourself - you're doing it for her. Now man up, rivet a smile on that sour cat's-arse of a face and straighten yourself. You look like a hunchbacked vagrant."

  "It's the knee. Something's still not right with it. Whenever I stand still for an hour I start to sag to one side."

  "I know. But that's because in six months you've carried out the exercises you were given - what? - three times? Wine and chariot races are no substitute for a health regime."

  "Oh piss off Quintus. You sound like Faleria now."

  He looked around at the garland strewn, drape-infested room.

  "And you could have removed all the family death masks. Is that really appropriate?"

  "Our ancestors have as much right to see this as I do. Pull that fake smile up a notch - the witnesses are here."

  Fronto's smile passed from the forced to the genuine as the ten witnesses for the ceremony appeared in the doorway, escorted by Balbus' body slave. The rest of the household were all busy attending the women, leaving them with one decrepit gardener and the reedy Greek that Balbus treated like a family member.