As he kitted up, and let his shoulders broaden to take the load and firmed his expression; no trace of weakness could be betrayed. The trainers would verbally destroy anyone who lagged behind, but there was more to be worried about than a bollocking in front of the other recruits. His eyes darted over to Spurius, who slipped on his rusting scale armour as if it was a silk cloak as he joked with Festus.
‘I can’t believe we’re still carrying the wooden swords,’ Sura muttered. ‘Weighs like a bloody rock; just shows they can’t trust us not to cut ourselves, eh?’
‘Or each other,’ Pavo murmured, turning to sit on Sura’s bunk with a nod of the head to Spurius.
‘Eh? Oh forget about him,’ Sura hissed. ‘Listen, I’ve got a plan. If we make for the front of the column at the start of the march, we’ll have one of the officers eyeing us all the way. The column will stretch out as the march goes on and legs get tired, so it’ll be hard work to stay up there, but it’ll keep numbskull over there from trying any funny business. In any case…’
Pavo’s brow furrowed as Sura’s words trailed off.
‘What’re you and your boyfriend moaning about, Pavo?’ A horribly familiar voice grunted from behind him. He half expected a punch in the back of the head. When it didn’t come, he knew he had to turn around and face Spurius. And take a beating. He felt his fear subside into boiling anger — he saw Fronto, he saw Tarquitius. Before he could check himself, he pivoted to face Spurius.
‘What’re you so bitter about? So some of your cronies from the city have offered you a couple of coins to kick my head in — is that all you’re worth? I’m not bringing my issues into the army with me, so why should you? How’s about you just get lost and bother someone else who cares? Like the pigs in the village!’
The barracks fell silent and still, all eyes on the pair. Then a nervous snigger escaped from one of the watching recruits. Pavo felt their stares burn his skin, but none more than that of the grimacing Spurius, whose anger twisted into a terrible yellow-toothed grin.
‘In a hurry to get your face kicked in?’ He sneered. He snapped his fingers and as before, Festus grappled Sura in a shoulder-lock.
‘Just me and you, one on one,’ Spurius hissed. Then, growling like a rabid dog, he sprang forward, grasping at Pavo’s throat with his hands, throwing them both to the floor.
Pavo’s lungs emptied as they hit the flagstones and a rabble of excitement broke out from the onlookers. Gasping through the raining blows to his face, he flapped his arms somewhat uselessly at Spurius’ sides. A dull crack filled his head just as he tasted blood trickling into his mouth from his nose and Spurius hefted his arms back, bent to hammer down for the next blow. If he blacked out…it didn’t bear thinking about.
With a grunt, Pavo clenched his stomach, finding just enough leverage to ram his knee up and into Spurius’ groin with a dull thud. The barracks chorused a collective gasp of shared pain, and with a whimper, his attacker fell away. Dazed, Pavo scrambled back and up onto his feet. Then, a gust of fresh morning air swept the room as all eyes turned to the barrack door.
‘What the…?’ The silhouette of Brutus filled the doorway, glowering at the goings-on. ‘You heard the call! You’re going to pay for this today — there’s a quaint little swamp upriver that you’d just
love
.’ His footsteps grew steadily louder, until they stopped inches behind Pavo.
‘Is there a problem here?’ Brutus spoke gently.
Pavo turned slowly to face the centurion.
Brutus trembled, his face red and his eyes bulging. Then his features fell stony. ‘Care to explain why you’re covered in blood and filth when you should be out on that piggin’ square?’ He roared. ‘Anyone else want to explain that?’
‘He fell as he was gathering his equipment, sir,’ an anonymous voice called out. Brutus pulled a sardonic grin at the answer, and then looked Pavo up and down.
‘It’s true, sir, I fell.’
Brutus shook his head slowly, and then looked up again.
‘And you kicked seven shades out of yourself and these three morons while you were at it? Can’t even bloody lie properly!’ He nodded in disgust at the startled trio of Sura, Festus and Spurius. ‘Enough of this rubbish. Get yourselves out in that square immediately.’ He eyed Pavo again, shook his head then turned and strode from the barracks.
As he left, Spurius shouldered past Pavo with a grunt. Sura exchanged a glare with Festus and then the bull-shouldered recruit wandered off.
‘You okay?’ Sura asked.
‘I have to be, haven’t I — don’t see me getting the day in bed, do you?’ Pavo replied as he clipped his pickaxe and sickle to his belt. Then he touched his fingers to the numbness of his battered face.
‘Well get your gear together.’ Sura handed him his pack, before sliding on his own. ‘It’s not over yet.’
Pavo splashed down from a gnarled tree stump into a putrid soup of bog water. At once, he was up to his neck in the sulphurous swell and his armour and kit morphed into stone, pulling him greedily down. He spluttered mud from his lips, blinking the filth from his eyes as he saw Centurion Brutus and his troops shoot off into the distance — and then the following recruits splashed down to miss the hazard and were gone, too.
‘There goes the plan,’ he croaked, flapping at the stump. The pace of the march had been just about bearable, but the terrain was the true test. He and Sura had managed to stay near the front for the first few miles until Sura had dropped back, tiring. Now the plan was well and truly scuppered.
With a groan, he pushed forward, launched his shield from the bog onto the track, then stretched his fingers to claw at the stump, grappling the gnarled roots to pull himself out and onto his knees with a grotesque squelching. Panting, he started slopping the mud from his vest, savouring the moment of respite from the pace of the march until a set of footsteps thundered up behind him. His skin crawled,
Spurius, Festus!
Then the footsteps ended with a graceless splash.
‘Bollocks!’ a mud-coated figure gurgled from the bog.
Sura
.
His friend had inexplicably landed face-first in the bog, and was now thrashing gracelessly. Pavo looped an arm around the stump and craned back into the thick mess, wrapping a forearm under his friend’s shoulder and round his neck. This time, his muscles really felt the strain as purchase was harder to come by. He wrenched backwards, ignoring Sura’s exaggerated choking fit. Grunting, heels scraping for leverage on the bank of the bog, they finally came loose just as Pavo’s vision began to spot over.
‘Urgh!’ Sura spluttered, caked in the dark sludge, and bleeding from his knees.
‘I know it’s not too pleasant,’ Pavo shot a nervous glance down the track — empty, for now, ‘but humour me — let’s start running again?’
Sura, staggered to his feet, shooting daggers.
‘Spurius?’ Pavo hissed in exasperation.
‘Oh, aye, right. Sorry. Don’t think he’s passed us yet, has he?’
‘Don’t know — I was too busy floating face down in that shit when the others passed. Come on, we can talk while we run.’
They set off at a jog again. ‘A good, hard kicking, Pavo, that’s what the whoreson needs. Then he’ll think twice about bothering you, or me for that matter, in future. If we could just get him or Festus on their own…’ Sura gasped as they picked up the pace.
Pavo grunted in semi-agreement, his eyes fixed on the muddied armour of the recruits just ahead, but not so far ahead that they couldn’t be caught.
Safety in numbers
, he thought. He glanced back over his shoulder. Nothing. A clear run to the end and safety by the looks of it. A giddy confidence laced his blood — then his heart leapt as he faced forward again, star jumping over an oak stump he had nearly run into. A fit of giggles worked loose from his chest and he turned to tell Sura, when a dark shape swung from out of nowhere and smashed into his nose, filling his head with white light and a deafening crack.
Blackness swamped his mind. Through the bleariness, he saw a tree branch quivering gradually to a standstill above him, outlined by the blue-grey sky. Flat on his back, he craned his neck up; several paces away he made out the figure of Festus — raining blows on the grounded Sura. Dread grappled his heart. He made to scramble to his knees when another figure darted out in front of him to boot him in the chest. Spurius.
Pavo grunted, thudding back onto the dirt.
‘Time to take a serious beating, maggot!’ Spurius snarled, whipping his wooden sword out and smashing it against the still juddering branch, spraying shards of bark.
Pavo scuttled backwards on the heels of his hands. Spurius stalked forward — cool, unspent and suspiciously free of mud; they had no doubt taken a shortcut. Not for wasting any time, Spurius lunged, swiping his sword down at Pavo’s midriff. Rolling clear of the brunt of the strike, Pavo yelped as Spurius’ sword burned his flank. The pain sparked realisation in him — he had to act. This time Spurius roared as he thumped forward like a rhino. At last, Pavo found composure; he sprang to his feet, jinking to safety just as Spurius’ sword splattered into his mud imprint.
‘You’re going to be drinking your food when I’m finished with you!’ He spat.
Then, from behind him, Festus piped up. ‘And that’s just for starters — there’s money on your head.’
Pavo forced himself to focus, despite the wailing that accompanied the peripheral image of Sura being beaten to a pulp.
‘My head? You’re here to assassinate me?’ Pavo felt his gut ripple. The forest had never seemed so dark or lonely.
Spurius nodded slowly, a finality written all over his broad features. ‘Remember what happened to Pulcher of The Greens?’
Pavo’s throat tightened as he remembered the day at the races. Pulcher, the man who had hired him to steal the bronze standard, had been conspicuous by his absence. Then the very standard itself had been raised from the Blues crowd, complete with the grey, scabbed, staring head of Pulcher himself.
‘You would work for the scum who do that to people? Don’t have a mind of your own?’ Pavo hissed, grateful of the anger that overwhelmed his fear once again. Drawing his own wooden sword, he steadied himself. ‘What if I was to promise you a couple of coins to torture and kill someone — would I suddenly be your master? Is that all you’re worth? Is that what your mother hoped for when she bore you — a brainless murderer?’
Spurius’ face wrinkled in scarlet fury and his brow knitted into a tight v-shape. ‘Nobody’s my bloody master!’ he barked. ‘I just do what I’ve got to do…’ then his pupils dilated. ‘And don’t you ever talk about my mother!’
Pavo’s brow furrowed — the man was driven, but coins were not his motivation. No, something was tearing at him from inside.
He stalked to the right, and then back to the left, as Spurius jinked and jostled — moving like a cat despite his bull-like build. Having only his recent legionary training to rely on here, Pavo focused on the eyes, then the sword hand, then the feet of his opponent. There had to be a technique to this, he prayed. Knowing his opponent only had a short window before the rest of the recruits and officers would catch up, Pavo played the defensive game, skipping back for every step Spurius took towards him, watching his opponent’s face glow redder at every turn.
Spurius broke the pattern, ducking to Pavo’s left. Pavo skipped backwards, raising his sword and tipping the hilt towards Spurius’ outstretched head — the strike was on! But his attacker read the move perfectly — it was just a feint before he whipped over to Pavo’s right, swinging the edge of his sword straight into Pavo’s ribs. A disembodied scream of agony rent the air over the thick cracking of a bone. He glanced at his unused shield, lying caked in mud as his legs wobbled, and gave way to the wave of nausea and blackness washing over him. He heard himself splash into the grime, but didn’t feel a thing. In the numbness of semi-consciousness, blows rained down on his already pulped face.
Dim images of Spurius’ frothing face came and went, twinned with hard as stone hammer-blows into his body. Then the blunt darkness was ripped away at the noise of cold hard iron being slid from a scabbard. Pavo’s eyes opened as slits; Festus was handing Spurius an iron sword. Spurius grappled the hilt with both hands, eyeing its length.
‘Don’t bugger about — finish him!’ Festus growled. ‘I’ll get the bloody lash if they find out I brought that thing out.’
‘Aye, and what d’you think I’ll get for this?’ Spurius grumbled back, juggling the sword in his grip.
Pavo noticed something ripple across the thug’s face as he spun the blade over in his hands. Was it, surely not…
reluctance?
‘In the name of…’ Festus snarled, snatched at the blade and whipped it over his head, then bared his tombstone teeth. ‘Lights out time,’ he grunted matter-of-factly.
Pavo’s body lay anchored to the ground like lead, every bone screaming out to move but crippled in agony. He winced in a desperate attempt to roll over, but sank back into the path of the onrushing sword swing. Grimacing, he waited on the blackness, the pain that was to come.
But nothing. Then the canter of hooves.
‘Brutus!’ Festus hissed.
Pavo cracked open an eye to see Festus empty handed. A dull clank a few paces into the foliage signalled the location of the sword. He stumbled to his feet, his face caked in mud and blood and feeling like fire.
‘This seems to be your specialty, looking like a whore’s breakfast!’ Brutus boomed, scowling at Pavo’s pathetic form. ‘I’ve already bloody finished the march and had time to come back here — and I’m twice your age. Who’s going to tell me what this carry-on’s all about?’ Immediately, Festus stood to attention and addressed the centurion.
‘The idiot tripped, fell, and bloodied his nose again, sir.’
Brutus’ gaze steeled. ‘Did he kick the shit out of himself while he was at it…
again?
’
Pavo glanced over the scene; Sura, with a face like a cauliflower, Festus, still snarling, and Spurius — Spurius looked haunted. Whatever was going on in the man’s head it wasn’t pretty. He looked Brutus in the eye.