Wounds of Honour: Empire I

Book 1: Empire series

by Anthony Riches

Genres: Historical Fiction

Synopsis

The first instalment in Anthony Riches' bestselling Empire series. 'A master of the genre' The Times Thrilling, authentic and action-packed, this novel introduces soldier hero Marcus Valerius: a centurion stationed on Hadrian's Wall in the second century during a revolt against the Roman Empire. Marcus Valerius Aquila has scarcely landed in Britannia when he has to run for his life - condemned to dishonorable death by power-crazed emperor Commodus. The plan is to take a new name, serve in an obscure regiment on Hadrian's Wall and lie low until he can hope for justice. Then a rebel army sweeps down from the wastes north of the Wall, and Marcus has to prove he's hard enough to lead a century in the front line of a brutal, violent war.

Release date: September 24, 2009

Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton

Print pages: 420

Sample

By far the most important thanks to be offered by the author must go to my immediate family, Helen, John, Katie and Nick. I suspect that much longer faces would have been pulled that ‘summer’ day in 1996 if it had been clear exactly what the proposed visit to Housesteads, the site of Wounds of Honour’s ‘The Hill’, would mean in terms of my on/off relationship with the manuscript – and therefore to a degree with my loved ones – over the next twelve years.

The guiding influences that led me to put my hands on a word processor with serious intent – even if I wasn’t quite sure what that intent was at the time other than a burning feeling that I could do that – were, in chronological order; my mother for my letters and the reading habit; my father for fuelling it with his illuminating military history collection and highly informed, unpatronising debate on each fresh subject as I greedily consumed it; and Michael Elliott-Bateman for teaching me how to read the much more interesting stories hidden between the lines. Lastly, with the writing habit already established, the novels of Stephen Pressfield and (of course) Patrick O’Brian particularly stand out as having provided me with signposts as to the level of quality that would be required of my writing were I to stand any chance of publication. Mr Pressfield in particular, his subject matter so close to my chosen time period and with such remarkable skills, left me staring into space wondering whether I should even continue with my half-formed manuscript on more than one occasion. I credit Gates of Fire more than any other single book for influencing my eventual writing style.

In writing Wounds of Honour I have been dependent on more sources of information than I can recall, but particular influence has been exercised by Kevan White’s remarkable website, www.roman-britain.org. Kevan showed me that the dry Latin place names we ascribe to the forts on Hadrian’s Wall – and so many other places – hide so much from our understanding what made the Romans tick, essentially and unsurprisingly, like any other human society. The second that Brocolitia (Carrawburgh) became ‘Badger Holes’ (the literal translation from the Latin) in my head, a good deal else changed in my view of the Wall’s occupiers. Kevan’s website is an excellent source of information of all sorts with regard to Hadrian’s Wall and its occupiers. Any reader with the curiosity to delve behind my necessarily light touch with the wealth of information available on this period in British history could do no better than to start here.

I haven’t been an academic for over twenty-five years now, and so my contacts with academia have necessarily been limited, but I must single out for thanks Dr Simon James of Leicester University for his help in understanding the dominant land use patterns along the Wall in the late second century.

Lastly, when it comes to thanking those involved in getting the manuscript out of its long hibernation on my succession of memory sticks, several people have been instrumental. For those fateful words ‘my book’s doing well’ one cold and windy night in a Belfast security office, and for his unselfish encouragement of a fellow author, Gerry Tate, author of Cappawhite, deserves special thanks. Buy his book! Daniel Kelly and John Mahon were both encouraging at a time when I was just starting to let people see what I’d been nurturing for so long, and both offered honest and constructive criticism that boosted my confidence in the idea of trying to get it published.

Pivotally, Robin Wade of Wade and Doherty Literary Agency saw enough in the script to have a go at selling it on my behalf, and Carolyn Caughey at Hodder and Stoughton saw enough to want to put it in front of paying readers. I am extraordinarily grateful to both of them. Their acceptance of the script for representation and then publication were revelatory moments for me.

Without all these influences, sources, critics and publishing professionals there would be no Wounds of Honour, nor the stories to follow in the Empire series as Marcus Valerius Aquila takes his fight for survival and revenge across the length and breadth of Emperor Commodus’ imperium. To all mentioned, and to those I have omitted for reasons of space, for either instilling the idea of publication or for helping to make it happen, my heartfelt thanks.

November, AD 181

A brisk autumnal breeze stirred the leaves lining the forest floor, the sharp gust lifting a handful of discarded foliage into a brief dancing spiral before leaving it to flutter its way back to the ground. Padding softly over the shadow-dappled ground, a small hunting party advanced slowly out of the forest’s gloom with spears held ready to throw. The men stepped with deliberate care, each foot lifted slowly and placed back on to the leafy carpet with smooth delicacy. Their movements were unconsciously coordinated, each man obviously familiar with his fellows’ actions from long practice. Calgus, tribal leader of the Selgovae and undisputed ruler of the free northern tribes, was doing what he usually did to relax when he wasn’t roaming the lands north of the Roman wall, pushing forward his preparations for the coming war. Accompanied by his five-man bodyguard, Calgus was hunting wild boar.

While his rule of the land to the north of the Roman wall that split Britannia into two halves was absolute, by right of both blood and simple domination of the other tribal leaders, the presence of his closest protectors was an obvious necessity. With a brooding imperial presence barely fifty miles to the south, it was prudent to assume the worst even in something as simple as a day’s hunting.

‘The pigs seem to have our scent, my lord, either that or something else has put them to fright.’

The speaker spat his disgust into the leaves. Another man, stepping softly across the leafy ground beyond him, nodded, keeping his eyes fixed to their front.

‘Aye. If this carries on we’ll be reduced to roasting hedgehogs.’

Calgus chuckled softly, hefting his spear as if rediscovering its balance.

‘You know the rules, Fael. We eat only what we kill in open hunt. If you want to put meat on the fire this evening then keep your wits about you and your spear ready to throw. You might offer a prayer to Cocidius while you’re at it. Pray for a big stag to wander our way. And you, Caes, for all that the local animal population isn’t jumping on to your pigsticker, you wouldn’t want to be anywhere else on a fine crisp day like this, now, would you?’

Caes grimaced, making a stabbing motion with his spear to emphasise his point.

‘I’d rather be hunting Romans, my lord.’

Fael smiled across at Calgus, raising his eyebrows into his ‘here we go again’ face. They were used to the bodyguard’s bloodthirsty hatred of their former overlords. Calgus winked at him before speaking, taking his eyes off the surrounding forest for a moment.

‘Yes, Caes, as you never tire of telling us. When we finally get the tribes to go to war with them I’ll free you from this tiresome duty and put you in the front rank of the warband, give you the chance to swing an axe with the other champions and ...’

Caes, turning to reply with a wry smile, lurched backwards with the sudden impact of a hunting arrow which punched its vicious barbed-iron head into his chest with a sound like a spear driven hard into a boar’s ribs. He stared down stupidly at the arrow’s protruding shaft for a moment before dropping first to his knees, then on to all fours. Beyond him, Fael toppled backwards into the leaves with an arrow through his throat, a bright fan of blood spraying across the forest floor.

Calgus turned back to his front and hefted his spear, aware that he was hugely vulnerable whether he fought or ran. The hidden archers loosed another pair of arrows into the men to his left while the remaining bodyguards were still looking for targets for their own spears. His last companion fell as he bounded forward to defend his king, his spear arcing uselessly into the trees in a last desperate throw as he went down with a pair of arrows in his chest. The king waited for a long moment for his turn to come, bracing for the arrows’ impact, but none came. Thrusting his spear defiantly into the soft earth, he drew his sword, the scrape of metal loud in the sudden silence. He called out into the forest’s deadening gloom, lifting the weapon into a fighting stance.

‘Come on, then, let’s get this done. Sword, spear or bow, it makes no difference to me. I can go to meet Cocidius knowing that whoever you are, however far you run, my people will hunt you down and gut you slowly for what you do today.’

After another moment’s silence, with the only sound his own harsh breathing, figures broke from the cover of the forest’s scrubby bushes. Four men stood, two slinging bows across their backs and drawing swords, two carrying spears ready to throw. The latter advanced to within easy throwing range and halted, keeping him under constant threat, while the other two men followed with more leisure. One of them, his face obscured by a deep hood, spoke out while the other, a black-bearded athlete with a long sword at his belt, stood impassively beside him.

‘So, Calgus. It seems that we have you at something of a disadvantage.’

His Latin was cultured, almost urbane.

The Briton laughed, disturbingly relaxed in the face of levelled spears.

‘So, Roman, you’ve come to talk. And there I was bracing myself for your blade.’

The hooded figure nodded slowly.

‘Oh yes, you’re just as the stories tell. I’ve just slaughtered your bodyguard ... well, most of them ...’

He pointed to Caes, still helpless on hands and knees, a thin line of bloody drool trickling from his mouth.

‘Finish that one.’

His companion flashed out his blade and stepped forward, stabbing down into the helpless Briton’s exposed neck, then stepped back with the sword held ready. Calgus stood completely still, watching the act impassively. The hooded man spoke again.

‘Better ... and yet there you stand, as relaxed as if we were your oldest friends and not foreign assassins with your life at the points of our spears and your brother warriors dead at our hands. Well, Calgus, for all your obviously genuine bravado, whether you live or die is as yet not clear. Not even to me ... A word to my rather rough-edged colleague here will have your guts steaming in the leaves, without very much thought and certainly without any remorse at all. You can be a problem removed for Rome in the blink of an eye, or an ally for one particular Roman over the next few months. Choose the former and you’ll end your days here with minimal honour and no dignity. Choose the latter and you’ll stand to win a prize beyond that of any king of this land over the last hundred years.’

The Briton narrowed his eyes, seeking to discern the truth in his ambusher’s eyes.

‘What prize?’

‘An eagle, Calgus, an imperial legion’s standard, and quite possibly the head of that legion’s commander to boot. So, king of “free Britannia”, are you minded to discuss a bargain with me, or would you rather negotiate with this barbarian’s blade?’

‘You seem to leave me without much of a choice. What token do I have of your sincerity, if this is a deal to be made at the point of your sword? And how do you know I’ll keep it?’

The hooded man nodded to his companion, who struck at the nearest of the spearmen with unexpected speed and dropped him into the leaves with his throat opened, then reversed his sword and ducked under the other’s spear-thrust. He punched his blade’s point through the man’s ribs with one powerful thrust, then twisted the sword quickly and ripped it free, the open wound spraying blood across his booted feet as the man fell helplessly to the forest floor and started to bleed out.

‘You’ll be needing some sign of your victorious struggle with your would-be assassins if your people aren’t to smell a rat. I trust you can spin a colourful yarn to explain how you cheated your killers? And I know you’ll keep the bargain if you make it – the inducements I’m offering are too strong for you to do anything else. Now, make your mind up, Calgus. Shall we be partners in your long-planned war on my people?’

Calgus spat into the leaves.

‘For all the bad taste in my mouth, I will entertain your scheme.’

‘Good. Now give me that flashy brooch that’s holding your cloak closed. Don’t worry, you’ll see it again in another place ...’

Calgus unpinned the brooch, an intricately worked gold replica of a shield, decorated with a swirling pattern, a polished piece of amber in place of the shield’s metal boss, dropping it on to the outstretched palm. The hooded man turned away, calling back a parting comment over his shoulder while his companion backed away beside him, sheathing his sword and taking the bow from its place on his shoulder. He nocked an arrow and lifted the bow in readiness to shoot, deterring any thought of pursuit.

‘You will see me again, Calgus, but not before you have your people in the field with death in their hearts.’

The two men merged with the forest’s shaded depths and were lost to the king’s eyes. He stood staring after them for a long moment before turning back to his fallen companions.

‘Death in their hearts, Roman? That won’t be hard to arrange.’

Februarius, AD 182

One of the front rank spotted them first, a good three dozen men silhouetted against the afternoon’s bright skyline where the road rose to surmount a ridge that crossed their path in its long descent from the Pennines’ eastern shoulder. He shouted a warning in a voice made hoarse by urgency. The small detachment’s commander, a veteran watch officer with a face seamed by experience, stopped in mid-stride and followed the man’s pointing arm, taking a moment to measure the depth of their predicament. When the road had risen to its previous vantage points he’d seen no other troops in front or behind them, just the plodding mule cart they’d passed an hour ago, now far behind them. That many barbarians would make short work of his sixteen men, and the legionaries’ heavy armour ruled out any chance that they could outpace their ambushers back down the road to the south. Dropping his pack on to the verge, he drew his sword and pointed with it towards the distant enemy. Unless he kicked his dithering troops into activity quickly the tiny unit would shatter before the barbarians got within spear-throw.

‘Piss buckets and shields! Form a line!’

He kicked one of the nearest men in the backside to reinforce his point. Hard.

‘Fucking move!’

The legionaries shed their pack yokes at the roadside and fumbled to free shields slung across their backs with fingers turned numb by fear, quickly forming a thin line across the road. Helmets, previously hanging round their necks, were slid over their heads, the cheek-pieces adding a much-needed martial brutality to faces suddenly pale with terror. The watch officer stalked out in front of them, sword still drawn.

‘Eyes on me! On me!’

The legionaries unwillingly dragged their gaze away from the advancing barbarians, now streaming down the shallow slope a few hundred paces away.

‘Don’t worry, you lot are so pretty compared to the local girls, this bunch are probably looking for a shag rather than a fight.’

One or two of them smiled wanly, which was better than nothing.

‘And they fucked up by giving us time to get dressed up for the party. So, when I give the order, throw your spears, air your blades and get ready for them to hit your shields. Use your shields to throw them back! Don’t leave the line. They want you to fight alone, outnumbered three to one, or to run so’s they can spear you in the dog blossom. Your best chance ...’

He slapped a man whose eyes had wandered back to the advancing Britons.

‘On me! Your only chance is to stay in the line, and keep parrying and thrusting like you’ve done a thousand times in drills. They will give it up once they know we won’t be a pushover. I will be behind you, and I will step in for the first man that falls! Spears ... ready!’

Stalking round to the line’s rear, he looked at the ground, gauging from the number of spreading dark patches in the road’s dust how many of his men had already lost control of their bladders. There was enough piss steaming in the winter’s chill air that their ability even to wait in line for the barbarian charge was hanging in the balance. They would all be dead inside of five minutes, he realised, mentally shrugging his shoulders and getting ready to give a decent account of himself. The men that the detachment was escorting had dismounted from their horses, the stocky veteran and his younger, taller companion something of a mismatched pair. Bloody civilians. At least they had a means of escape.

‘If you’re going to ride for help, this would be a good time!’

The older man, a legion veteran if the watch officer was guessing correctly, simply smiled back, green eyes twinkling out of a weatherbeaten face still ruddy despite the prospect of imminent death. He was evidently in his late forties, and from the quality of his clothing comfortably well off, cloak pulled across his chest and draped across one shoulder in the military style. While the younger civilian had accompanied the detachment since leaving the fortress at Dark Pool, three days’ march to the south, the older man had ridden into the small fort that had sheltered them the previous night, arriving well after the sun’s setting. His apparent lack of concern at the danger of meeting robbers on the road had caused more than a few raised eyebrows among the more experienced troops, despite the chain-mail vest beneath his cloak, the short infantry-pattern sword hanging at his waist and the purposeful way in which he conducted himself.

‘I’m Rufius, formerly an officer with the imperial Sixth Legion. I never ran away from a fight in twenty-five years of service, and I won’t break that habit now ... Besides, we’ll see this lot off easy enough.’

The watch officer nodded slowly.

‘Fair enough. What about you?’

The younger man shook his head grimly, too tense for humour, drawing a long-bladed cavalry sword with a glimmer of polished iron. The watch officer wondered just how much use that was going to be, given that its owner seemed to be barely out of his teens. His voice when he spoke was strong enough, though, without any hint of the quaver that might have been expected given the circumstances.

‘Marcus ... Marcus Valerius Aquila. I won’t be running away either.’

The veteran soldier alongside him nodded approvingly, unsheathing his sword, and gestured to the legionaries’ line.

‘Shall we?’

The watch officer shrugged, turning back to face the oncoming warband.

‘It’s your funeral. Stay with me, you’re now my reserve. When a man goes down, you go into the line in his place. Right, detachment, spears ready to throw ... wait for it!’

The barbarians’ trot had become a run now, closing the remaining distance between them quickly. Half a dozen of them were carrying axes, great tree-cutting blades that would cleave a man down to his waist or lop off a limb, armour or no armour. They were close enough for details to stand out now, lime-washed hair standing stiff from their heads, blue patterns swirling across their faces and jewellery flashing brightly in the afternoon’s pale sun, close enough for their harsh battle cries to raise his neck hairs. This was no chance encounter, but a tribal warband dressed and tooled up for a fight, probably fired up by the local beer too, eyes wide and teeth bared in snarls of eager anticipation. The detachment’s line shivered, more than one man starting to shrink backwards at the prospect of imminent brutal death. Before their collective breaking point was reached the veteran stepped up to their rear, dimpling the skin of the rearmost man’s neck with the point of his sword. He spoke in a matter-of-fact tone, loudly enough for the detachment to hear him above the growing din of the approaching barbarians.

‘Back in line, sonny, or those blue-nosed bastards won’t get the chance to do you.’

More than one man looked round at him wide eyed, while the legionary in question inched forward again. One or two of the older salts, the men that already knew, and with grim resignation accepted, that their lives were about to become short and interesting whether they fought or ran, smiled in quiet recognition and raised their shields slightly in unconscious reaction to the voice of command. The watch officer nodded his head with respect, keeping his eyes on the charging barbarians and raising his voice to be heard above their harsh cries.

‘Wait for it ... Spears ...’

As the watch officer opened his mouth to order the spears thrown, in the last seconds before the Britons would career into the flimsy shield wall, a sudden flurry of movement at the forest edge fifty paces to their left caught his eye. He snapped his attention back to the more urgent events happening less than twenty paces from his men’s shields.

‘Throw! Throw!’

The legionaries hurled their spears into the oncoming mass of men, dropping two of them in screaming heaps and dragging down the shields of half a dozen others, then drew their swords and braced to receive the charge. With a clash of metal on steel the barbarians’ rush collided with his men’s defence. Sheer weight of numbers forced the line back half a dozen steps before the desperate legionaries managed to absorb the momentum. Only the slight slope favouring their defence had saved them from being overwhelmed by the impact, the watch officer estimated. He stepped back behind them to keep his position, watching with amazement as armoured men started to emerge from the trees behind their attackers. The initial screaming and shouting of the charge and contact had died away, and both sides fought in almost total silence, broken only by the rasp of laboured breathing and the occasional grunt of exertion or scream of pain.

To his front a man staggered dying out of the line, a two-stepper if ever he’d seen one, his throat ripped out in a fountain of hot blood whose coppery stink filled his nostrils. The men to either side of the sudden gap in the line inched together, unable to properly fill the dying man’s empty place. As the casualty sprawled full length on the road’s cobbled surface, twitching out his life in a quickly spreading pool of his own blood, Rufius shouldered his younger companion aside, grabbed the fallen shield and stepped into his place. Battering aside a vicious axe blow with the shield, he stepped forward with a speed and grace that belied his grey hair to gut its owner with a swift twisting stab of his short sword as the tribesman struggled to regain his balance. Clutching at his steaming entrails, the barbarian fell to his knees, staring with horror at the horrific wound with a rising wail of distress.

Another of the small detachment went down, an axe buried deep in his shoulder while its blue-painted owner wrestled frantically with the handle, trying to prise the blade free. In a second Marcus Valerius Aquila was in the gap, stooping to grab the fallen man’s infantry sword with his left hand even as he slid the cavalry sword up beneath the axeman’s ribs in a perfect killing thrust, getting a face full of blood as the price for his successful attack. Chopping away a spear-thrust from his left with the borrowed weapon, he swiftly kicked the dying barbarian off his sword, using the freed blade to hack off the spearman’s hand at the wrist before turning his wrist over to swing the long sword backhanded, and neatly sever the head of another attacker on his right. Stepping back into the line to regain his balance, the borrowed infantry sword held forward in his left hand, the longer sword held farther back to level the points of the two weapons, he paused for a moment, breathing hard with the sudden effort, his eyes wide with the shock of combat but still seeking new targets. The barbarians closest to him edged cautiously back from the fight, almost comically wary of the sudden threat from the twin blades.

From the rear of the warband a guttural voice shouted harshly in broken British over the clash of steel, a sword pointing at the retired officer’s place in the line.

‘Kill officer! Kill him!’

Distracted from his open-mouthed appraisal of Marcus’s swordplay by movement in the periphery of his vision, the watch officer found his attention dragged back to the detachment’s left, where the newcomers from the forest were advancing quickly to combat the barbarian flank and rear. The ten men ran quickly to within a dozen paces, threw their spears into the unsuspecting enemy’s rear, then drew their swords, and, screaming bloodlust, went to work on their unprotected backs. Seizing his fleeting chance with both hands, as the tribesmen closer to his men started looking back over their shoulders in bewilderment at the screams from their dying comrades, the watch officer gave the only command possible.

‘Counter-attack! Boards and swords, punch and thrust! Get into them, you dozy bastards!’

The response was almost uncomprehending, the product of a thousand mindless practice drills. The legionaries punched hard with the bosses of their shields at the Britons’ faces, then stepped forward a pace with a collective thrust of their short swords. Two of the distracted tribesmen went down screaming, while several others edged back, allowing the line time and room to repeat the attack. The warband’s leader turned to face their new assailants, spearing one of them with a powerful throw, drew his sword and roared defiance as he advanced into their line. A massive soldier with a crested helmet stepped out to meet him, slapping the sword-thrust aside with an almost casual flick of his shield before lunging his own weapon deep into the barbarian’s chest in one swift flowing movement, twisting it to free the blade as he brutally stamped the dying man off its length. A lone tribesman turned and ran at the sight, joined a second later by another. Like the gradual collapse of an overloaded dyke, another two ran after them, then five, at which point the remainder simply turned and fled. They left a dozen dead and dying men on the ground.

The surviving Romans, half of the legionaries sporting a wound of some kind or other, leant breathless on their shields and watched them run, happy enough to let their enemy escape unhindered when a minute before they had been facing impending death. The watch officer walked across to the newcomers, followed at a discreet distance by Rufius, while Marcus dropped the infantry sword beside its dead owner and wiped the drying blood from his own weapon, suddenly exhausted. The other detachment’s leader, a dark-bearded athlete of a man with the horsehair crest of a chosen man on his helmet, was staring after the retreating warband with a look that seemed to combine disgust and regret.

‘Whoever you lads are, you have the thanks of the Sixth Legion. If you hadn’t come out of the trees we were dead meat. You must have balls the size of apples to do what you just did with ...’

The watch officer’s flow of gratitude dried up as he realised that the other man wasn’t paying him any attention, but was still watching the retreating Britons. After a moment the chosen man spoke, flicking indifferent eyes over the legionaries.

‘You’d better tell your officers to stop sending anything smaller than a full century up the road to Yew Grove. Next time you won’t be so lucky.’

He turned to his own men.

‘Take heads, then get ready to leave. We’ll march to the fortress in company with this lot. You two, you didn’t kill anyone that I saw so you can make a sling to carry Hadrun up to the fort. We’ll put him underground somewhere he can’t be dug up again.’

Rufius caught his arm, stepping back with open palms as the heavy-framed man swung back to face him with an angry look.

‘No offence, Chosen, but we’re only trying to thank you for what you did. Most men in your position would have given serious thought to letting us get on with things on our own ...’

Marcus overcame his momentary exhaustion to raise his head and study the other detachment’s leader and his troops carefully in the moment’s silence that followed, intrigued by his first sight of native troops in the field. They wore chain mail, unlike the plate armour protecting the legionaries, and their weapons and clothing seemed of a lower quality. He noted, nevertheless, the same hard-edged efficiency in their movements, the same lean wiriness. Like their legion colleagues, these were men that had learnt the hard way not to waste energy on non-essentials. The chosen man’s eyes narrowed, his face expressionless.

‘We’re Tungrians, Grandfather, and we were doing our duty, nothing more, nothing less. We were moving quietly through the forest, and found that lot waiting by the road before they saw us. After that it was only a matter of pulling back and waiting for someone to come along. When we saw the size of your party it was obvious that we would have to help you out ... although I doubt it was worth the loss of one of my men.’

Rufius smiled crookedly at the bald statement.

‘I understand better than you might imagine. And nevertheless, from one fighting man to another, you have my respect.’

He turned away, clapping an arm round the watch o