The Trumpets of Mars (Imperium #2) - Chapter 5

“… and he tripped over a loose cobblestone, landing face-first in a pile of horse shit,” the guard said, finishing a story about a thief who had tried, and failed, to get away from the city guard.

Those on the tables around them shook their head as the men’s laugher once against drowned out nearby conversation. This happened most nights and the regulars, at least, had grown used to the city guardsman gathering to drink after their shift ended. Geganies drank his wine and gave an apologetic look to one of the other patrons who shot them a dirty look.

“Well boys, it’s been fun, but I have to get home,” he said, pushing his empty cup to the center of the table and standing wobbly.

“Your wife’s going to have your ass for coming home drunk again,” his friend said.

“That’s why I get drunk. It makes it easier to ignore the screeching.”

They all laughed as he staggered through the inn and out into the evening. It had been dusk when they’d finished their last patrol and gone into the inn for a quick drink. It was now inky black outside, the streets full of shadows. In summer, people tended to leave their shutters open to get in a breeze, letting the light of their homes and apartments spill out and light up the city.

In winter though, everything was shut tight to keep in the heat, which meant it was always fairly dark. That was one of the main reasons he was glad he was on the daytime shifts. He’d worked nights when he’d first joined the guard, and it had been terrible. Always cold, you couldn’t see the criminal you were chasing, and long stretches of boredom.

Geganies hugged close the side of the street, occasionally reaching a hand out to steady himself on the wall of a building. He was drunk, although if someone called him out on it he’d have pointed out that the cobblestone streets this close to the palace had iced up as the sun had gone down, and it was easy to lose balance.

Of course, that argument would have held less weight seconds later when he stopped at the edge of a building and bent over, wrenching up the stale bread and wine he’d been consuming for the past several hours.

Stretching up, Geganies was just starting to think he felt better getting that out of his system and maybe he was ready to face off against his wife when the sound of a hard footfall caught his attention. He must be drunker than he’d said he was, he thought as he turned, realizing that it was the sound of someone running past him. They had gotten very close without him noticing, which would have looked very bad if any of his compatriots in the guard found out about it.

By the time he drunkenly turned all the way around, the man, or men as it turned out, were on top of him and the first blade had slid into his stomach. Geganies’s mind reeled as he tried to understand why this was happening. He fell to his knees as another blade plunged into his back, and another into his side.

“Thus always to tyrants,” one of the assailants hissed in his ear as a blade slid into his shoulder blade.

Geganies slid to the ground, the world fading out, as he tried to figure out what he’d done to deserve this.

***

Lucilla sat up straight in bed, that moment just after sleep where the body is fully awake, alerted by some sound or warning, but the mind hasn’t caught up yet. Her heart was pounding and it took another moment for her to get her bearings and realize that the thing that had woken her up was a heavy pounding on her chamber door.

No light came through the edges of her window and, besides the pounding on her door, the palace grounds outside her window were silent, which meant it must still be very early in the morning.

“Yes,” she called out, collecting herself.

“Your father has asked for you. He says it’s urgent,” her guard commander said through the door.

“A moment please,” she said, sliding out of bed and hurrying to pull on clothing.

Although she’d always been allowed to participate in some aspects of ruling the Empire, yesterday was the first time she’d been allowed unrestricted access to the machinery of government, sitting in with her father through a long series of updates and meetings. Despite his concerns for her judgment where public displays of affection were concerned, he’d agreed with Ky’s decision to name Lucilla as his advocate while he was away and was actively making an effort to teach her how to govern properly.

At the time, she’d thought it sounded splendid. She’d always resented the way the men in her father’s orbit treated her as an annoyance, something they had to deal with to stay near the reins of power, but not someone they should ever have to take seriously. Of course, that had been during reasonable hours. If leadership included regular summons in the middle of the night, then it might not be as great as she’d thought it would be.

As soon as she was dressed, she left her room for the small audience chamber at the front of the suite she shared with her father, who was already seated inside, a cup of warm wine at his elbow. Ramirus and a guard captain were also there, looking anxious.

“You didn’t have to wait for me,” Lucilla said, bending down to kiss her father on the cheek before taking a seat next to him.

“They would have just had to repeat their explanations a second time, and this gives them a moment to collect their thoughts before they announce whatever pending doom is about to befall us. That is another lesson for you, my daughter. Decisions made in haste are never the best decisions. Stop and think about what you are going to say and do - even if the situation is urgent - and you will make far fewer mistakes.”

“I see.”

“Report,” the Emperor said, turning his attention back to Ramirus.

“There’s been a murder,” he said, not dramatically, but clearly indicating that the situation was more than just a simple murder.

“Who?”

“A city guardsman by the name of Geganies. He was one of the men selected to act as executioner for Silo and his supporters.”

“Retaliation?” the Emperor asked.

“Almost certainly. He wasn’t just killed. He was mutilated and his corpse hung outside the coliseum. A note was stabbed into his chest that simply said ‘traitor.’”

“We kept their identities hidden to prevent this exact thing,” Lucilla said.

“You are correct, my lady, we did. They must have some source of information inside the guard, still. Maybe the man talked, or someone else that had been present talked.”

“The other three executioners?”

“All accounted for. Since we believe there is a leak in the guard, Faenius loaned us some of his Praetorians to stand watch over the men and their families while we sort this out.”

“Who are they?” Lucilla asked.

“My lady?”

“You said ‘they’ must have a source inside the guard still. Who are they?”

“Men who still support your brother and the insurrectionists. We got all of the leaders, we’re sure of that, but there’s no way to be certain how many of their followers are left in the city.”

“Is this the beginning of something coordinated, or is this just the violent reaction of a few angry people?”

“We don’t know yet. My first inclination would be to say it’s just a few people acting out, but that assumption leaves us unprepared if I am wrong. I’d rather assume your son still has cells of men in the city. Even the worst-case scenario wouldn’t give him enough for another uprising, but it could very well be enough for targeted strikes designed to weaken us before the battle.”

“I assume you have men out looking for these people?” Lucilla asked.

“I do, but unless they’re talking outside of their small circles, we won’t get much headway until they do something and one of them gets caught. Once we have one, we should be able to unravel their group, although if they’re unorganized, they may be working separately from each other, and might not know of the existence of other pockets of insurrectionists. There’s really no way of telling how many are out there or if we’ve gotten them all until they do something.”

“What about the areas they might strike?” The Emperor asked. “Can we protect the industries critical to military production?”

“No. I can talk to Hortensius, and we can protect some of the larger foundries and factories; but Rome just doesn’t have as large an industrial base as Ky has Hortensius setting up, so he’s been working with a lot of smaller contractors to produce the things we need. They’re scattered throughout the city and a lot are outside the city gates. I would take half of the Praetorians in training just to put a minimal guard on all of these places, and by minimal I mean one or two men apiece. And that doesn’t count the new mills being built, the mining operations up north, or any of the new factories currently under construction. No, there’s just no way to protect everything.”

“So we can expect more losses?”

“Yes, Princeps. I know that isn’t what you want to hear, but it is the truth. We’ll do our best to ferret out these people, but this kind of civil unrest is just impossible to stamp out completely.”

“Put guards on the most vulnerable areas and we’ll have to hope that’s enough. I’m assuming word has started spreading about the killing?”

“Yes. By the time the city guard was alerted to the body hanging outside the coliseum, dozens of people had seen it. By the time they took him down and moved the body somewhere more discrete, well over a hundred spectators had shown up. There’s no way to keep this kind of thing under wraps.”

“What are people saying?”

“Mostly they’re worried that we didn’t get all of the conspirators and there will be another violent coup attempt. So far it hasn’t had any practical impact, but the first couple of days after the insurrection, workers were hesitant to go back out, fearing they might get caught in more fighting. Hortensius complained it slowed down production and warned that if there was more of that, they might not be able to make up the difference.”

“I see. If we can’t get guards everywhere we need them to keep these attacks from happening, we can at least use them to soften the public fear. Make sure most of the guards you do place are conspicuous. Make sure people can see that we’re actively doing something to protect them.”

“That’s fine for public relations, but it will make them less valuable for actually protecting these locations.”

“I know, but it might not matter. These people, whoever they are, will know we’ve put out guards and will probably realize how thin we’re stretched. Still, only do it for the less critical locations. Make sure Hortensius’s main foundry is completely covered. The last report I saw said we were behind on the metal pieces more than the crossbow frames, and we’re still behind on getting swords and armor for the new recruits. We can’t lose any time from the foundry going down. Use your best judgment on the rest.”

“Yes, Emperor.”

“Good. Now, what’s the next problem?”

***

Instead of heading back to bed, Lucilla decided to get her day started. She knew her guards wouldn’t love that, since the night shift guards were still on and they’d have to rotate in the field, which meant waking their replacements up early, but she decided they’d just have to deal with that.

Ky might have only appointed her to serve as his voice while he was gone because she could speak to him over the earpiece he’d given her, but she wasn’t ready to be anyone’s mouthpiece, even his. If she was going to take this responsibility, then she was determined to take it seriously.

She’d spent a good part of the day before getting up to speed on how far along everything from the industrial projects to the training of soldiers was. Since she couldn’t read at the speed Ky seemed able to, she couldn’t just comb through reports and instead had to rely on some of Ramirus’s people to brief her as best they could. Today, she wanted to see as much as she could in person and was starting her tour with the Pict training grounds, since everything she’d seen said this was the weakest point in their military buildup. These were the men who’d decided not to officially join the legions and would only serve until after the springtime battle, after which they and their camp followers planned to return home.

She understood that desire and not wanting to submit to the Roman way of doing things, but this also meant that they weren’t training to the level the Roman soldiers were and there was some concern they might not be a viable fighting force when the time came. Watching their progress so far, she was equally concerned.

What legion training she’d witnessed had been an orderly affair with different stages of training based on the collected men’s experiences and a progressive training schedule starting with the basics such as marching and building on that to training as entire centuries.

The Pict training, on the other hand, looked more like disorganized wrestling matches than actual training. Most of the Picts in the area she was touring had formed a circle around several pairs of men each trying to pin the other to the ground. It looked brutal and as she watched, one of the men snapped his opponent’s arm, leaving it pointing at an unnatural angle. She was floored. Even if the wound were to heal properly, that man would now not be able to fight in the coming battle. It seemed an amazing waste, considering how outnumbered the alliances’ forces were already. They needed every man they could get, and having one injured so purposefully in training was just taking one more warrior out of their lines. The worst part was, she couldn’t see any point to it. No one would learn anything or become better prepared to defeat the enemy from this chaotic wrestling match.

She must have let some of what she was thinking pass across her face, because one of the Picts who’d been watching yelled, “Disturbed, little princess?”

She’d gotten a few snide comments since they returned to Roman lands, although not as many as she’d feared, probably because the Picts that had accompanied them were from villages other than the one she’d been held at. Most of the time, the comments were about her having been their prisoner, and they seemed to collectively consider allowing herself to be captured as some kind of personal failing she should be ashamed about.

“I am only disturbed by how easily you Caledonii seem to be beaten,” she replied, showing no emotion but hitting him where she knew he’d feel it, metaphorically, of course.

The Picts respected strength and bravery above all other things. Apologizing or meekness wouldn’t gain their respect or defuse the situation. If anything, her experience with them so far had told her that it would increase the problem. She sized up the man who’d yelled at her. He was big and beefy, which described almost all of the men that had been sent south to help their new ally, but he was younger than most of the others. A new warrior trying to prove his metal.

“I have something you can beat,” he said, grabbing himself in a vulgar method just in case the subtlety of his comment had somehow passed her by.

“I’m sure you manage that quite well all by yourself. Besides, you don’t want your friends and comrades to see me standing over you lying unconscious on the ground with my boot on your throat.”

“My lady,” one of her guards warned as the men around the taunting Pict bristled.

“I know,” she said, but didn’t back down.

She’d watched the Picts with Ky. They deferred to him, listening to his advice and counsel, even though he’d slaughtered dozens of their countrymen. Partly, it was because Talogren showed him respect, but partly it was also because he’d won their respect. Talogren, actually, was another example of that, since he too had won their respect through strength of arms.

Ever since the attack in the forest clearing, where she’d been unable to defend herself properly, she’d trained every day to better be able to defend herself. She’d made her guards spar with her and brought in trainers to teach her how to survive one-on-one combat. She knew she wasn’t up to the level of most of the men she might have to face one day, especially considering the weight and strength disparity, but she was closing the gap. She was, of course, not stupid. She knew when the odds were against her and when it was better to back down instead of trying to take the problem head-on, which is what her guardsman was trying to warn her about.

This wasn’t one of those circumstances, though. Barring serious injury, this was the only way to get the Picts, and probably many of the Roman soldiers, to start taking her seriously as anything other than some noblewoman.

Since she knew she was going to be moving among the people, she’d dressed in the knee-length tunic popular among upper-class women instead of the more ceremonial toga, which was good, because it allowed her enough movement to fight without the danger of suddenly becoming immodest, which would probably work counter to what she hoped to achieve.

She did have to make a slight alteration though. Reaching down to the bottom hem of the tunic, she pulled hard, ripping it, and tearing it up to her mid-thigh. She tested the change and found she could move better, since the tunic, as it was, held a little too tight around the knees, which was the fashion at the moment. She hoped the rest of the woven fabric would hold together, at least long enough for her to get back into town and change.

She’d been watching the Picts wrestle both here and when they’d stopped at nights on the way down from the north and had worked out enough of the rules to know that she’d have to stay inside the circle in the dirt. The first man, or woman in her case, to be thrown out, surrender, or be knocked unconscious would give up a point to the other fighter, with the winner being the first one to three points.

Stepping into the ring, she stood there with her hands on her hips while the mouthy Pict from earlier just stared at her.

“Are you planning on fighting me, or just stand there like a little girl?”

That had the desired effect, his face turning bright red as his friends laughed at him. She’d been training hard, but even a young Pict warrior was more experienced than her and in better physical condition than she was, so getting him off balance was one of the ways she could even things out.

He didn’t wait or try for any subtlety, roaring and charging straight in, arms outstretched. This was one of the things she’d actively trained for the most, aside from basic sword work.

She stepped into him and turned so that her back was towards him. As he started to wrap his arms around her, she grabbed his right arm and pulled, while bending at the waist to put her shoulder into it. With his charge, he still had a fair amount of momentum as he crashed into her, and she was able to use that to send him flying over her shoulder and out of the ring. Her guard commander had called it the ‘flying mare’ and it was apparently a go-to technique among Greeks who wrestled, especially among the smaller wrestlers, which is why he’d picked that move to teach her. She hadn’t gotten nearly the distance or power with her guards when she’d practiced the move, but thought perhaps this time was different because he’d been actively trying to harm her and they were always more careful with their ‘attacks.’

The Pict hit the ground hard, but to his credit, he immediately spun and popped back up. She was also impressed that he moved in much more cautiously when he re-entered the ring, which meant he learned from his mistakes. He feigned into her right, and Lucilla made a mistake, taking the bait and stating the sweep of her foot the Greeks liked to call ‘fancy foot.’ It was considered a cheap move by most of the wrestlers, but her guard captain had said it was pretty reliable for the smaller wrestlers, since it didn’t rely on strength, and once her opponent was on the ground she’d have a chance to do a hold that didn’t rely on strength, but instead on pressing against the joints.

Unfortunately, the sweep had her body turned at the wrong angle and the Pict was able to reach out and grab her around the middle, lifting her easily off the ground and sending her sailing out over the edge of the ring. She managed to twist her body around so that she didn’t land flat on her back, although it still hurt like hell when her knees and right arm smashed into the hard-packed earth.

As soon as she hit, though, she pushed herself off the ground and charged back in, determined to not let that stop her. He hadn’t been expecting the charge and took an instinctive step back to give him a moment to think about what was happening, which Lucilla had hoped for and taken advantage of. She hoped that, despite seeing her attempt the move just a few seconds before, he wouldn’t know what she was trying to do. All of the wrestling she’d watched the Picts do were simple holds and throws, relying on brute strength more than anything. She hadn’t seen any of the more finessed Greek-style moves her guard captain had been teaching her, which explained why he’d put him in a perfect position to be thrown earlier.

He was just starting to move forward again when she hooked her foot around his ankle and pulled just as he was starting to take a step, making him susceptible to being tripped. As soon as he went over, she was on top of him like a squirrel climbing a tree, dodging his hands as she tried to get a grip on his arm and get it into a hold. She almost had it, but his greater strength proved the day and he tossed her aside hard, rolling her halfway out of the ring in the process and scoring his second point.

She was getting angry herself as her side scraped across the ground and the skin on her knee and chin tore open. She pushed herself back up and wiped the blood dripping down her face away, reading herself for another go.

“Ready to give up, little bird?” he asked, surprisingly not sounding insulting as he had before.

“I’m happy to take your surrender, if you want,” she said, smiling deviously at him.

The crowd watching them roared in laughter. Her opponent smiled and shook his head before taking his stance. She’d used most of the moves she’d learned from her guard and she knew she didn’t have the strength to pin him, leaving her few options. She waited for him to come for her, patiently. For thirty seconds, they stared at each other, both making counter moves as the other circled to stay across their opponent and not allow an attack to come in from the side.

She almost thought he had the patience to wait her out, which would have surprised her. She’d observed that the Picts, at least generally speaking, liked a straight-up fight and didn’t have the patience to wait out an opponent. Finally, he made his move. He went to her left again and she thought for a second that he might have been going for a faint, holding until he fully committed. As soon as he did, extending his lunge to grab her, she made a small step to the side and kicked out with all of her might.

The fighter was good, she’d give him that, but he was used to fighting men, who had an almost instinctually taboo from striking sensitive areas below the belt, which in turn made all of her opponent’s stances wide and unguarded. It had the benefit of giving him leverage if he got ahold of someone, which he’d shown by tossing her so easily out of the ring earlier.

This time, there was no powering through. He froze and then dropped to his knees, his hands going to cover the area, the move purely instinctual, since it was too late to do anything about the actual injury. She stepped forward and swung with all her might, smashing her fist into his temple. She didn’t have the strength to permanently hurt him, but combined with the other pain the main was feeling, he toppled over. It wasn’t a victory, since she neither pinned him nor got him out of the ring, but it was enough for the crowd to go wild.

She ignored the crowd for the moment and limped to her opponent, since her knee was starting to hurt badly. He wasn’t unconscious and started to shake away the pain as she reached down and grabbed his hand to pull him up.

“That was fun,” she said, smiling.

“Fun for whom, little bird?” he asked, smiling equally.

She raised their hands over her head and the crowd crushed in on them, cheering and slapping both of them on the back. Her guard commander, who she assumed was freaking out outside the scrum of cheering Picts, was panicking, pushed his way in and managed to get her out of the crowd without her being trampled.

“That was foolish,” he admonished, escorting her towards their horses where he could administer first aid.

“It was necessary,” she said.

She appreciated how her guards looked after her, more so after two previous guard commanders died protecting her, once from the Carthaginians and once from the Picts. She was, however, not prepared to bend to them the way a child bends to a parent.

“She’s right,” Llassar said, seeming to appear out of nowhere.

Her startled guard commander dropped his hand to his gladius, only removing it when Lucilla hit his hand with the back of hers. Although Llassar’s eyes followed her hand, he didn’t comment on what other Picts might have taken offense to.

“Did you know we have legends about warrior queens of old, who fought dragons left from when the earth was young?”

“I didn’t,” she said.

She had mixed feelings about Llassar, who’d been involved in her capture and imprisonment. He hadn’t personally mistreated her, but his men had been far from gentle with her. Now, here he was, seemingly offering her words of encouragement after she put down one of his men.

He didn’t say anything else, just continued past them, like the statement had been an afterthought. Lucilla watched him walk away, slightly confused by the entire interaction, before her guard commander nudged her to continue on to the horses and medical attention.