Altar of Blood: Empire IX by Anthony Riches Read Free Book Online Page B

truth of it, of a young broad stripe tribune by the name of …’ He looked down at a tablet. ‘Ah yes, Lucius Quinctius Flamininus. You’d be more than a little perturbed, Rutilius Scaurus, had you been present in any of the interviews I’ve been forced to endure with that young man’s father, given the depth of his righteous anger towards yourself and your tribune here.’
    Nodding to himself as if he’d just recalled an important detail, he turned his attention back to the paper before him.
    ‘Which reminds me, Tribulus Corvus, or whatever it is that you’re calling yourself these days, you too are discharged from your position as a military tribune, thanks from a grateful throne, etcetera, etcetera. I commend you for your role in the Parthian matter, and I recommend that you never allow Flamininus the elder’s men to corner you on a dark street.’
    Putting the quill down he looked at the two men before him with an expectant expression.
    ‘Nothing to say, Rutilius Scaurus? No protest at having your rank stripped away after having done such a fine job in the east?’
    Scaurus shook his head, his features impassive.
    ‘It wasn’t my rank, Chamberlain. It belonged to the empire.’
    The chamberlain raised a sceptical eyebrow.
    ‘Oh how very noble. And these Britons you’ve dragged halfway across the empire and back again? How sanguine will your reaction be if I reassign them to a new tribune? Some ambitious young man with a career to build and somewhat less concern with how he might do so than you when it comes to the preservation of his men? After all, there’s always a war brewing somewhere, an opportunity for such a man to make his name at the expenses of a few thousand soldiers’ lives …’
    He looked at Scaurus for a moment.
    ‘Does that prospect not concern you, Rutilius Scaurus?’
    The subject of his scrutiny shook his head.
    ‘Nothing lasts forever, Chamberlain. If you’ve chosen to retire me then I shall simply have to make the best of it. If …’
    ‘ If indeed. You’re a perceptive man, Scaurus, I’ve never denied that, even whilst cursing your gift of causing upset among the richest and most influential men in Rome. I do have something in mind for you both, and for the men who follow you, although you might find yourself wishing I’d decided to let you idle away the rest of your life.’

2
    ‘Germania? Again?’
    Scaurus smiled at the most outspoken of his centurions in the transit barracks’ lamplight. He’d decided to decamp from the house on the Viminal Hill in order to ensure that no hint of the Tungrians’ latest mission, or even their immediate destination, could reach prying ears. A former prince of the Brigantes, the tribe through whose lands the Roman defence of northern Britannia ran from sea to sea, Dubnus had long since given up any pretence at moderating his forthright manner.
    ‘Yes, Centurion, it’s Germania Inferior. Again. But this isn’t the Germania Inferior you know. What you saw was the civilised edge of the province where it abuts Gallia Belgica, farmland for the most part with the occasional vineyard. Whereas in reality Germania Inferior isn’t really much more than a military buffer zone, a strip of land no more than thirty miles deep protected by legions and auxiliary cohorts camped along the length of the river between the sea in the north-west and Fortress Bonna two hundred miles to the south-east. The governor of the province has two simple tasks to perform, the most important of which is to ensure that the barbarian tribes who inhabit the land on the other side of the river don’t get any ideas about crossing the Rhenus and settling in the Gaulish provinces to the west. And while the mission that the chamberlain has set out for us will initially take us to Germania Inferior, we won’t be staying there for long.’
    The men he’d gathered for the briefing seemed to collectively lean closer to their newly reinstated tribune. In addition to Dubnus,