Eagles and Dragons Tribune Box Set

III - Knives in the Dark-2

Goodbye for now, my truest love.

Adara

Lucius closed his eyes, buried his face in the parchment to allow the scent of Adara’s perfume to take hold of him. His mind stood on a precipice of collapse as soft emotions clung to his aching heart. His eyes began to burn beneath his tired lids. How he missed her, his young growing children, their family life back in soft, green, sunny Etruria.

Then, with a jerk, he ripped his face from the letter, remembering some of Adara’s words. He scanned the script again, worry mounting, and found it. Dagon and his men love you and follow you. Lucius flipped the scroll over again to inspect the seal, but it did not appear to have been tampered with. Nevertheless, a skilled person would be able to heat it slightly, open the seal and re-adhere it without anyone being the wiser. That one phrase, written by his wife in a personal letter could endanger them all. Emperors did not want commanders who were loved by their troops above themselves. Too many usurpers and mutinies had been borne out of such sentiment among the soldiers.

Lucius slammed his fist on the table, breathed deeply to crush his rising panic. He had been in the imperial favour for some years now, especially since he had helped rid the emperor of Plautianus, the brutal Praetorian Prefect. Now, in far-off Britannia, at war, there were far too many military men itching to gain favour over their comrades, who would not hesitate to inform on anyone they saw as competition. Lucius Metellus Anguis, the Dragon, was indeed ‘competition’.

“Gods protect us,” Lucius whispered, casting a glance at the niche where he prayed. “Grant us swift victories as we move northward, so that I may bring my family closer to me all the sooner.”

Darkness and the cold commingled perfectly in the night. There was a pervading sense of uneasiness when all nocturnal motion ceased, insects, birds and other predators. Lucius stood in the middle of a vast, barren field. The crops were burned to charred stubble, still glowing and yet, that biting cold. His feet froze in the mud, a sense of ice climbing up through his veins like roots fastening him to the ground. He was naked but for his dragon ring and he fidgeted with it as whispers pierced the darkness about him, the night littered with wraiths approaching him more with every utterance.

He shook for cold, for fear, but fought back the urge to scream. I am not afraid! I am not afraid! I am not afraid! He cursed to the dark, feeling heat within.

Then the ground released his feet. In that moment a note sounded, and a light pulsed. The moon, full and luminous, began to blaze where it hovered behind smoky clouds like a fire in the night sky.

Ahead of him, not twenty paces in the darkness, a lone figure of muscled mass swayed on his feet staring at Lucius beneath matted locks. The two approached cautiously, then the other spoke…

“I asked to speak with you…” he said and paused. When next he opened his mouth, the Boar of the Selgovae stood still as a red cicatrice sliced across his neck before he was yanked back into the darkness, eyes gaping at Lucius.

A circle of flame sprang up from the earth, from the depths of Hades itself, to surround Lucius. The dragons on his forearms seemed to writhe. From deathly cold to unbearable heat, Lucius felt death near and only returned to hope at the sound of galloping, thunderous hooves blasting through the ring of fire in a burst of white and red.

The horsewoman released Lucius outside the fire in the darkness again. Lucius, on his back, looked up to see stars shooting down from the heavens to burn up the wraiths as if from some heavenly bow. Standing above him then, a slender arm of warmth and familiarity reached out to him, helped him up and…

“Wake up…Lucius…”

The parchment burned on Lucius’ campaign table where he had fallen asleep, and as he jerked awake, Barta burst through the door and strode over to him with a blanket to smother the hem of Lucius’ sleeve which had just caught. Lucius jumped up, disoriented and stared at the charred remains of Adara’s letter. The images of his dream rushed back with a sense of panic.

“My Gods,” he remembered. “The Boar!” Lucius grabbed his sword and ran outside.

“Praefectus! Anguis!” Barta called after him.

Lucius looked up at the night sky as he approached the structure of the exercise hall. The moon burned ivory behind the clouds.

“Open the doors!” he commanded the two guards as he approached the torch-lit entrance. The guards, trusted men, saluted sharply and knocked with the butt end of their pila on the oak doors, their signal to the guards inside to unbar. There was a return knock and the doors groaned open. “Has anyone been through here since we left earlier?” Lucius demanded.

The men looked puzzled and shook their heads, looking at their praefectus and Barta who had just come running up. “No, sir!” answered the optio, a man named Taboras. “Not a soul’s been here. All’s extremely quiet.”

Lucius moved into the hall. “Close the doors behind me. I’m going to see the prisoner.” With that, he plunged into the darkness of the hall to a stone staircase at the far end. Barta, Taboras and one other trooper followed.

“Praefectus? Do you suspect something?” Barta asked, fingering his throwing daggers.

“Maybe, Barta.” Lucius held his sword in front, rushed into the lower reaches of the hall where the cells were located.

They stopped when they reached the bottom, the sound of dripping water audible among the stone and iron cells. Lucius took in the scene with his accustomed quickness. There was a pained grunt at the far end and he rushed toward the guttering torches facing the Boar’s cell. A flash of steel and another grunt.

“Hold there!” Lucius commanded, but the flicker of a shadow darted toward a far corner just ahead of one of Barta’s daggers which crashed to the stone flagging. “Where is he?” Lucius asked out loud. There was another grunt and he turned with his torch to the cell.

There in the darkness knelt the Boar, chained at the neck and arms like a brawny circus bear before the mob. He looked up at Lucius momentarily and sat back against the wall to reveal two daggers, one protruding from his right shoulder, the other, which had cut the side of his head, lay red upon the ground.

“Mars’ balls!” Lucius raged. “Get more men,” he said to the trooper. I want this place searched top to bottom for whoever did this!”

“Yes, Praefectus!” the trooper snapped and headed back to the surface. Shortly thereafter a cornu sounded, raising the alarm.

Lucius opened the cell, waving Barta back. He knelt down before the Boar. Was it him or had the lifelike tattoos upon the warrior chieftain faded?

“What did you see?” Lucius asked him. “Who was it? One of your people? A rival?”

The Boar laughed. “My rivals are all dead, Roman. And imprisoned, I am as good as dead also, to my people.”

“What did he look like?” Lucius pressed. He could see the blood seeping from the shoulder wound.

“I did not see anything other than a cloaked figure and a flash of a blade.”

Lucius picked up the blade on the floor and held it up to the torch light. “Barta.” Lucius handed the blade to the big Sarmatian and put his finger to his mouth, his expression dark. “Taboras,” Lucius called to the optio.

“Sir!”

“Go to the mansio and see if our Praetorian messenger guest is in his bed.”

“Yes, Praefectus!”

“Take extra men.”

The optio paused, nodded and left.

Lucius turned to the Boar. “I’ll have my medicus take care of this.” Lucius yanked the blade out of the chieftain’s shoulder. The warrior bit down as the blade scraped bone on the way out. Lucius tied a piece of cloth around the wound as a temporary tourniquet.

“Why help me, Roman? Is my fate not to die by Rome’s hand anyway?”

“Quiet. Keep your strength,” Lucius answered abruptly before standing up and backing out of the cell. The trooper returned then with ten more men. “Keep a tight watch. I don’t want any harm to come to him. The physician will be here shortly.” The men all saluted. Lucius moved to where Barta stared at the wall where the assassin had disappeared. “Anything?”

“Nothing, Praefectus. It’s as if he vanished into thin air.” Barta looked uneasy. Lucius showed him the matching knife.

“Things that vanish don’t carry these.”

“No, Praefectus. They do not.”

The two men went back up to the drill hall which was now full of armed men. There, Taboras told Lucius the Praetorian had been in his bed at the mansio, and that he had raged that he had been disturbed.

There were no more incidents that night. When day came, it dawned clear and crisp over Trimontium, with occasional puffs of white cloud. Lucius stood in the midst of the courtyard of the commander’s house surrounded by his decurions, Dagon and Barta. From where he stood, he could see hawks wheeling and diving around the distant peaks, revelling in the gusts of wind. His crimson cloak whipped about him, bringing him back to the Praetorian before him.

“Praefectus! Are you listening to me?” the man yelled and Barta stepped up. Lucius quickly put a hand out to stop him. Crato sneered.” Careful barbarian or I’ll have you flayed.”

“That’s enough!” Lucius boomed in his parade ground voice. He moved one step closer to the Praetorian who was much smaller but who did not bat a lid. “You may have special privileges with that uniform you’re wearing, but this is my command and nobody, nobody, threatens my men.”

“Your men? Yours? These are all men in the service of his Imperial Majesty Septimius Severus, your emperor. These are not your men!”

“We all serve the emperor and while the emperor is away, I command and guard this ala, these men, in his name. You would do well to remember that, Crato.” Lucius stepped back a little, eyeing the man, “And,” he added, “if I see fit to wake you in the middle of the night to carry out an investigation of a cowardly act, I will do so.”

Crato was fuming and struggled to regain his composure under the gaze of the tattooed Sarmatian warriors about him. But he did, and managed to cloak his rage.

“Very well,” he said. “Do you have any other dispatches?”

“Yes.” Lucius held out a small, sealed scroll. “In addition to the one given you yesterday, this one outlining the incident last night.” The Praetorian showed no sign of surprise. “I have a copy in our files as well. For the record.”

“Of course, Praefectus.” The man turned to leave. He seemed eager to be away.

“Wait. One more thing,” Lucius said, Crato stopping and half turning toward him.

“What?” he snapped.

“You may want these.” Lucius produced the throwing daggers that had been used on the Boar the night before and tossed them to the ground between himself and the messenger. The clang was ten times louder in the courtyard than it would have been elsewhere. Lucius and the Sarmatians all stared darkly at the Praetorian.

“Humph! I’ve never seen those in my life. You should be more careful, Praefectus,” he spat. “Those look quite dangerous, wherever they came from.” With that, he went out into the street where his horse was being held for him.

Dagon stepped up to Lucius as he stooped to pick up the daggers.

“You have a knack for making enemies, Anguis. That one will be back.”

“Yes he will. I fear he is the small fish.”

“Amongst my countrymen, it is a serious matter to lay a dagger down between two men. You have thrown two between yourself and one of Caesar Caracalla’s men.” Dagon sighed, struggling as he usually did when reconciling the superstitions of his homeland and the hard business of war. “Perhaps centurion Alerio will be able to give some insight?”

“Perhaps, Dagon.” Lucius snapped to and addressed the assembled decurions. “I want the guard on all the Selgovae prisoners doubled at all hours. Tripled on the Boar. We should start preparing the entire ala to move out. I want to head northward as soon as the prisoners are picked up by VIth Legion and once we have met with the Votadini leaders. Make your preparations. You all know your business.” Lucius raised his voice slightly. “Let’s show these Praetorians how real warriors behave!”

The courtyard reverberated as the usually quiet men roared their agreement, chanting, “Anguis! Anguis! Anguis!” as they dispersed.

“His wounds have been bound and stapled. He is well now,” Dagon added.

“It’ll take more than a couple of daggers to kill the Boar, you can be sure of that. I’ll go and speak with him.”

“When?”

“Now. You take over for inspection.”

Dagon saluted as Lucius went into the street, Barta several paces behind.