The Sword of Jupiter (Imperium #1) - Chapter 36

Ky watched the centurions and Optio, who’d been sent to help work with the Picts, carry more wounded Romans who’d only volunteered to help train them. So far they had been at this all day, and very little progress had been made. For the Picts, fighting was a way of life and they went at it full tilt. Except for when they were young, the only training someone got was at the end of another man’s ax. If they survived the experience, they might learn from it and become better warriors. If not, then at least they wouldn’t be a burden to the tribe.

It had taken the bulk of the morning to just get most of them to understand that, in training, they didn’t need to actually kill their opponents. Already, several Romans had needed some level of medical treatment and their list of actual volunteers had begun to dwindle.

They did learn and, by the time the sun had started making its way down towards the horizon, they had figured out the basic idea of what training was. Ky tried to keep from getting frustrated, but at this rate, the Carthaginians would show up before they actually learned what coordinated action was.

Ky’s plan for the battle had some similarities to the plan that they’d used in the battle of Devnum, in that there would be a force whose job it was to stand their ground and a force whose job it was to hold and attack when the moment was right. Originally, he’d planned on putting the new Picts with the attacking force, since that seemed what they were most suited for, but the longer he watched them train, the less certain Ky was of that. Holding back in the face of the enemy wasn’t just discouraged in Pict culture, it was seen as a literal offense to the gods.

The problem was, the defending force needed to hold their ground also, and let the Picts come to them. He’d picked his spot very carefully and it was vitally important that the Romans lure the Carthaginians onto that ground for the final battle. If the Picts were in the defending force and charged at the first sight of the enemy, the plan would fail and they would be annihilated piecemeal. If the Picts were in the attacking force and attacked before the Carthaginians were in position and locked in combat with the defending force, the plan would fail and they would be annihilated piecemeal.

One of the only reasons Ky thought this plan would work was the high level of professionalism the Roman legions displayed and their ability to be precise in the face of serious conflict. If they couldn’t get the Picts to follow the plan, then that would be five-thousand fighters that they couldn’t use until maybe the tail end of the battle, which was why it was imperative that they get them to see the reasoning behind the training.

Despite what some of the legionaries probably thought, it wasn’t that the Picts were dumb or incapable of understanding. They just lived under a very different culture where a warrior’s aggressiveness was tied up not only in their social beliefs, but also in their religious ones.

Ky watched another attempt by the trainers to hold and attack at a predetermined signal, only to have several hundred Picts rush forward at the charging Romans, followed by shouts and drums signaling them to stop, when a messenger rode up at a gallop.

“Consul, I was sent by the commander of the city guard. There is an issue with the …” The man paused, his eyes darting to the Pict leaders gathered nearby.

Ky could imagine the word that the messenger had planned on using before seeing those men turn their attention his way.

“ … some of the men. They need you urgently.”

“What kind of issue,” Ky asked, preferring to know what he was getting into.

“A woman was attacked and her husband beaten. Witnesses reported several … of our allies were involved. A crowd has already started to gather and the commander is worried that it will spill over.”

Ky cursed himself. This was exactly the sort of incident he feared when the Picts asked to be allowed to send men into town. His hands had been tied, but he’d warned both the city guard and the praetorians that were patrolling as part of their training to be extra vigilant.

“I will send some of my men with you,” Llassar, who had been listening, said.

“I appreciate the offer, but I think it might be best if only you came with us. You can make sure we treat your men fairly, but we should be careful until we have a better idea of what’s happening.”

Ky wanted to say that the last thing they needed was to add more Picts into an already riled-up situation, but he was trying to be diplomatic.

“Fine,” Llassar said, collecting himself and getting the horse he’d been assigned at the beginning of that day’s training.

“Ride ahead and tell the city guard to keep the people back and tell the Picts to just wait until Llassar and I get there. Hopefully, everyone will keep their cool until we sort this out,” Ky said to Carus as they began to ride out of camp.

“Consul, we should get together more men, just in case.”

“The last thing we need is more men involved, especially legionaries. If the people think we’re hiding something or treating our allies differently than we treat our citizens, the problem will worsen. The city guard will be there if things should get out of hand.”

“My understanding is that this happened on the outskirts of the city. There won’t be that many of the guards there.”

“You’re not going to let this go, are you,” Ky asked, giving Carus a level look.

“No, Consul.”

“Fine, since it’s on the outskirts, Faenius, station a squad of praetorians nearby, preferably outside the city. If things get out of hand, they can come in and retrieve us. Fair?”

“Of course, Consul. We follow your lead,” Carus said with a devious smile.

Ky just shook his head and put his game face on. When they arrived, he saw the messenger hadn’t been exaggerating. There were well over a hundred citizens pushing in tight against the front of a bar or drinking establishment of some kind, the city guard forming a half-circle around the entrance keeping them a few yards back. The crowd was loud and slowly pushing against the guardsman, their taunts and yells already fairly vocal about what they thought should happen.

For a moment, Ky worried that they might not move at the yells of his guards, which would mean forcing their way through. The last thing he needed was to harm any of the citizens, especially before they’d done anything actively hostile. Although he knew this moment was coming when the Picts and Romans would come to a head, now that it was here he had to thread a very fine needle to keep their new alliance from falling apart.

Thankfully, after a few beats, the crowd parted and let Ky, his lictores, and Llassar through. Once inside the circle, they dismounted and found two guardsmen in an intense stare-off with two Picts, the two groups glowering at each other but thankfully stopping there.

A roman with bruises on his face and blood dripping down the shoulder of his tunic sat on the ground a few feet away next to the body of another man, who wore a tunic the front of which was soaked through with blood. Sophus highlighted and identified a cut across the area of the tunic that covered the stomach as the most likely source of all of the blood.

Near the fallen Roman was the body of a Pict, his throat torn open and blood pooling under his body.

“Thank you for waiting peacefully. I’m going to listen to what the soldiers have to say and then I will hear your side,” Ky said in the proto-Celtic language used by the Picts before switching to Latin. “What happened?”

“A citizen alerted us to an altercation between these three and two shop keepers, who said the barbarians were violating their women. When we arrived, one of the men was dead and they had the other pinned to the ground. We separated them, but a mob had started to form and was getting violent, which made taking them to a holding area impractical. Instead, we waited and sent a man for backup. They arrived and our officer told us to hold until someone higher up could come and deal with the situation.”

Ky looked around again before saying, “I don’t see any women here. Where are they?”

“They had run off before we got here. They said the woman had run off before we arrived.”

“That’s unfortunate,” Ky said, deadpan, before turning to the Picts. “Tell me what happened.”

“We were looking through the stores. We’d been told about being paid soon, and we wanted to see if there was anything here other than food worth having when three women ran up to us. They were aggressive, offering themselves for coin. They were attractive and, had I had the coin, I might have taken their offer, but we were warned to keep our distance from Romans and to do nothing that might cause conflict, and we would be held responsible for anything that happened, even if we didn’t cause it. Bedwyr speaks the Romans’ language, and told them no.”

Ky looked to Llassar, surprised. He’d warned him to watch his men when Ky had given permission from small groups of Picts to go into town, but he hadn’t realized Llassar had given such a specific warning to them.

“The women went mad,” the man said, continuing. “One tore at the shoulder of her dress, and threw herself to the ground. They started yelling, and these men came upon us. Bedwyr tried to explain, but they attacked us with knives. Bedwyr had been closest, talking to them, and the dead man cut his throat before we could react. We came unarmed, but managed to get their weapons from them. We did kill the man and would have killed his friend before these men came.”

“I see,” Ky said, before turning to the man sitting on the ground. “What happened?”

“These animals were attacking three women. They walked right up to them and grabbed them. They tore at one of the women’s clothes, ripping pieces of it off, and threw her to the ground. Claudio leapt in to stop them and that animal stabbed him. I got a weapon away from them and managed to get one of them before the other two got me on the ground. I thought I was a dead man before the guard arrived.”

“They had the weapons?”

“Yes. They were threatening the women with them.”

“All three of them had weapons?”

“Yes,” he said, and then hesitated. “Maybe. I don’t know. I just know that some of them did.”

Ky looked around, at the Romans and the Picts before turning back to the guardsman, “There were only the two knives?”

“Yes.”

“Can I see them?”

The guardsman handed them over. Both had blood on the blades, and Sophus highlighted skin and biological material that suggested one had killed the Pict and the other had killed the Roman. Ky was pretty sure Sophus could have identified which was which if he needed to, but he didn’t. He’d noticed the issue the moment he’d been handed the weapons, without Sophus’s assistance.

“These are Roman weapons,” Ky said.

“Are you sure?” the guardsman asked.

“Yes. I’ve had time to look at many of the Pict weapons, and their metallurgy isn’t as advanced as Rome’s. Their iron is weaker, often pitted. And they use them until they break. You find very few Pict weapons without nicks, gouges and wear. These are practically new. I’d bet they’d hardly been used.”

“They could have bought or stolen them.”

“Have you had any reports of thefts from vendors or citizens?”

“Nothing more than normal.”

“And they haven’t been paid yet, so what would they have bought them with. And why would only two of them be armed, and not the third, if that’s what they decided to do.”

“I don’t know.”

“He said they tore off pieces of the woman’s clothes. Did you find anything like that?”

“No,” the guardsman said, starting to look concerned.

“Do you know this man, either of them?”

“That one,” The guardsman said. “He’s been employed as a street thug sometimes.”

Ky had seen mention of that in the Roman documents he and Sophus had been examining. It was a case of convergent evolution that Sophus had highlighted as interesting. In the original history, during the days of the late Republic, a time period this world had not reached in the same way, there had been rival gangs that, besides being criminals preying on citizens, were often employed by politicians themselves as sort of a muscle for hire.

The Emperor had been working to put a stop to them, but the three gangs currently in Devnum had well-connected friends, including members of the guard itself, who managed to keep them from being arrested, for now. They were one of the things Ky hoped to solve with the praetorians, once they finished being trained.

It was unclear when something similar started being used in this time period, but it wasn’t an unheard-of practice, and Silo himself had tried to use some of the men from one of the organized gangs here in Devnum to force a stop to the voting on the anti-slavery laws Ky had gotten passed. Ky would have to check to see if this man had been involved in the group hired by Silo, but his suspicions were instantly up as he realized that the dead Roman had been involved in one.

“Optio,” Ky said to the Roman guardsman he had been dealing with. “In your experience, does someone employed by one of the gangs as a street-tough often come to the aid of a woman being assaulted?”

“In my experience, they are usually the ones doing the assaulting.”

“That was my thought. Do these men sometimes have women with them?”

“Sometimes.”

“I think you should find which women have been working with them, and see if our allies here can identify any of them as the women they encountered.”

“Are you saying you think this was set up?”

“Does this whole thing seem to fit that man’s story?”

“No, consul. What do you intend to do?”

“Let you work; find out what happened.”

“What about the crowd? They are starting to become hostile.”

“I’ll talk to them,” Ky said, before getting Llassar’s attention. “Get your men ready to travel. We’re going to take them and their fallen friend back to your camp. They’ll have to remain in camp until this is sorted out.”

“We’re to be punished?” one of the men said, angrily.

“No, unless you’re lying to me. Everything here says you’re telling the truth. They are going to look into it more and see if they can prove it one way or another. That man will be held by the guard for now, since everything is telling me he’s lying. I’m sorry if you feel being confined to camp is a punishment, but until it’s sorted out, it’s safer for you and for these people if we keep you away for now. I know it’s not fair, but sometimes we have to deal with what is. Once we’ve sorted it out, I will make sure we get justice for your friend.”

Neither man seemed happy about it, but at least they didn’t throw a fit. Ky found his horse and mounted it, so that most of the people in the growing crowd could see him.

“Citizens,” Ky said to them, looking at the sea of faces. “I know all kinds of rumors are making the rounds about what happened here and you want to see justice happen. I promise you …”

Ky was interrupted by screams and then a slow but increasing number of people running in their direction from the center of town. Ky connected the dots at once and knew what he’d find when he went to investigate whatever was causing people to flee. The thugs connected to Silo. Victims who ran away before anyone could see them. Blaming their new allies who many Roman citizens would have already been suspicious of.

Ky had expected Silo or one of his supporters to start complaining the moment he entered the city, but so far they hadn’t made any complaints in the forum or in person. Ky had been concerned that they were being so silent, but assumed that they were just gathering their forces and making sure they had enough backing this time, since they’d been sidestepped the last time they’d tangled with him. Although he’d had warnings from Ramirez and the Emperor that if he pushed too far, they might try a more forceful approach to getting their way, both men had made it seem that if he stopped where he was, the Emperor still had enough support among the people to keep Silo from acting rashly.

Ky knew without a doubt that they’d been wrong. Silo had set up this incident, probably as a pretext for military intervention, but hadn’t waited to see the outcome or if he actually got enough of the mob to turn against the Emperor to ensure support. They’d decided to go now regardless, probably thinking they needed to go now, before Ky could go north again and possibly bring down more Picts, putting the odds even further out of their favor.

“Return to your homes,” Ky said loud enough to pierce the growing commotion.

Although the guardsman had been saying that same thing for twenty minutes, the people listened this time, although most likely more out of fear for whatever was causing panic than from listening to any actual orders.

As the crowd began to disperse, Ky found the lead guard and said, “Get as many men as you can and form up here.”

“Shouldn’t we go …”

“NO!” Ky said, vehemently. “Do not go into the center of town until we have amassed more men.”

“Silo and his two legions?” Carus asked, causing the guard commander to suddenly realize what was happening, his face going white.

“Yes. Send someone back to bring as many praetorians as possible, and one legion. The other two are to circle the town from either direction. They wouldn’t all have been able to get into the city this quickly without being noticed, so most are still probably formed outside of town. If they are not in their camp and are armed, whichever legate finds them can give them one warning to throw down their weapons. If they don’t comply, I want them caught between the two legions circling the town and smashed.”

“My men can help secure the city,” Llassar said.

“They set up this situation here as a pretext, hoping to rely on Roman prejudices. If your men could help the two circling legions, that would be appreciated, but I want to take as many prisoners as possible. No killing anyone who surrenders and no entering the town.”

Llassar didn’t seem happy, but he nodded.

“I’ll send one man with you and your two men,” Carus said to Llassar, surprisingly switching to the Pict language.

Ky hadn’t realized that Carus had learned the man’s language, but it made sense. His word usage wasn’t perfect and it was clear he was still learning, but it was intelligible. He was more intelligent than he normally let on, and once he realized what Ky was planning, he would have started learning the language.

As Llassar’s two men doubled up on his and Carus’s man’s horse, Ky made sure the guardsman were headed to retrieve reinforcements on their own.

“They’ll be going for the palace,” Carus said. “we’l go and try and assist the Emperor.

“No,” Ky said.

“Even with the additional praetorians you sent, there is no way they will be able to stand against the forces Eborius is likely to send. We have to go to the Emperor’s aid.”

“I know, and I am going to try and get to the Emperor and hold them off until the rest of our forces can get here. You, however, aren’t going. I can’t protect you, not against those numbers.”

“We aren’t here for you to protect us. We are here to protect you.”

“There’s nothing they can do that will hurt me. You don’t need to go.”

“Consul, we are wasting time. Where you go, we go.”

Ky could see that Carus meant every word of it. He worried that he would be taking his men to their deaths, but he didn’t have time to argue.

“The number of people coming this way is going to make it slow going, and I want to harm as few of them as possible,” Ky said instead.

“Then we should stop discussing it and go,” Carus said.

Ky didn’t begrudge the drop in protocol. Things were tense and he knew they didn’t have much time.