The Sign of The Blood Read online

  And then it came to him. The officer who led the first cohort into battle could make a request of the emperor. It was a tradition going back to before Aurelian’s time. If the officer survived, the emperor would almost certainly grant his request.

  “My lord, may I ask for the lead officer’s reward, when the battle is won?”

  “Yes,” replied Galerius. He sounded irritated. “But understand this, boy, if the raid fails, and you lose me too many Jovians, you’ll regret it for the rest of what will be a truly short life.” He pulled an ivory-handled dagger from a scabbard attached to his belt, walked up to Constantine and placed its tip to his cheek. Constantine felt something wet on his chin. He didn’t flinch.

  “Ambition has its price, Constantine. Let’s see if you’ll pay it.”

  Constantine stared straight ahead. One eyebrow twitched.

  Galerius glared at him, as if he knew Constantine’s thoughts and how much he was hated. He wiped the blade slowly on the shoulder of Constantine's tunic.

  “Know this, a single cohort of your Jovians is all you need to carry out this raid. And don’t come back empty handed. Your stupid face will not be welcome here if your raid is a failure.”

  The temptation to strike out at the emperor filled Constantine like water near to boiling. Galerius waved his hand dismissively.

  Constantine struck his right wrist to his left breast in salute and with Lucius and Sextus behind, headed out of the tent. He had got what he’d wanted.

  He remembered the other officers laughing when a coward had been given the task of leading the first cohort. It would stiffen the man's courage, they said. It had also killed the man. He touched his cheek, saw blood on his finger when he pulled it away. He looked at the slick redness. How many wounds would he have in the morning?

  “I see Galerius still likes you,” Sextus said, as they walked back through the camp. He nudged Constantine. “Let’s show him how a raid should be done. Remember what we did that last morning outside Alexandria?” He gripped Constantine’s shoulder. “Tomorrow will be your day for honors. If what you say about the Persian guards is still true when we get there, this’ll be as easy as finding a cunt in a Roman whorehouse.”

  Lucius put his hand on Constantine’s arm. “What reward will you ask, my lord?”

  “He cannot name it until the time comes to ask for it. It’s bad luck if he does,” Sextus replied.

  “But…”

  Sextus held up his hand for silence.

  As they walked fast through the moonlit camp, Sextus questioned Constantine about the route the Jovians should take and asked him to describe again the layout of the Persian camp. Constantine kept his answers short. He needed to think.

  Why had his father agreed to disinherit him? Why had his first real chance to prove himself come so late? His only hope was the request he’d make of the emperor, if he survived the raid.

  He spotted a slave carrying a water jug and called to him. The man poured cool water over his cupped hands. The smell of Galerius faded as he washed his face. Then he drank some. Nothing could be done about his stepmother, not yet, not from this far away. First, he had to survive, and survive with honor.

  A little way ahead, Lucius bent and drew something on a patch of bare earth. When Constantine joined him, Lucius pointed at what he’d drawn, then rubbed it away. Then he saluted them both, turned, and walked off.

  As he watched him go, Constantine imagined Lucius drifting off to sleep in the arms of one of the thin, charcoal-eyed beauties he'd seen in the Armenian baggage train. He felt a pang of envy. It had been a long time since he’d laid a woman. The Jovians didn’t allow whores in their baggage train.

  He considered eating, he hadn't had anything since that afternoon, but decided against it.

  He looked up at the dust of sparkling stars spread out overhead, as bright tonight as ever he had seen them. The prospect of imminent death heightened every sense. Clinking echoed from the camp around him. The faint, but cool breeze prickled at his skin and in his mouth a sweetness clung from the water he had just drunk.

  Soon it would all begin.

  The command for silence barked out as the Jovians assembled in the parade area. Six hundred men were lined up in long rows. They were his Jovians, a single cohort from a legion he loved. Many of these men would not live to see another night.

  He looked out for men he knew, nodded to them as he passed, noting the polished breastplates and the correct positioning of weapons. He’d made the right decision to wake them.

  Sextus called the officers together. Excitement buzzed like a swarm of bees through the ranks. Men winked conspiratorially at him. A warm pride settled inside him. Who could doubt him now?

  No trumpet call or speech marked the departure of the three thousand, eight hundred and six men of the 2nd Jovian Legion from the camp. Night marches make men quiet. Only the scuff of hob-nailed boots and the soft clink of shifting armor broke the silence as they made their way across the grass toward the shadow of the forest.

  His mount was one of his favorites, an older black stallion with a white blaze on its forehead and long graying socks. He was a reliable horse, a quality likely to be in demand before the following day ended.

  Settling in the saddle, he pulled his cloak tight around his shoulders against a midnight chill. He opened two of the side clasps on his wire mail coat. Behind him the Jovians marched at time and a half, not as fast as they could go, but quick enough. They would have to keep up that pace for hours, and then fight.

  When a far-off dog, probably one of those following the army, began a plaintiff howl, he glanced back. The rows of spearheads and helmets behind him glinted, as if they’d been dipped in the rock oil that seeped from the earth in these parts. His head craned as he followed the snaking column back along its arc.

  Behind the four hundred and eight men of the first cohort he could make out the Legate's mounted bodyguard on grays, four abreast, red tassels dangling like bloody garlands from their bridles. He could not see Sextus but knew he’d be riding somewhere toward the rear of the grays. Looking further back, a gold legion eagle and dragon standard stood out at the head of six cohorts, the main body of the Jovian infantry. Two mounted half centuries, the rearguard, could just about be made out far back toward the darkened Roman camp.

  An older optio rode quietly beside him. The man had yellowing skin and three-cornered eyes. Constantine knew him. He came from one of the nomad tribes, a Scythian who he’d had to order once to stop beating one of the packhorses. The man wore his slick black hair long, past his shoulders, and had a clump of amulets and charms jingling around his neck clicking against an old, crudely-mended wire mail coat.

  “Have you prayed to your gods, my lord?” said the optio. They were the first words he’d spoken since they’d left the camp. But he still didn’t look at Constantine.

  “Why should I do that?”

  The optio turned suddenly and leaned toward him, almost unseating himself from his saddle. “You could seek the help of your family gods, that’s all, to help prepare your next journey.” He pushed his face close to Constantine’s. His eyes bulged as if they might pop.

  Constantine stared back at the man, refusing to be intimidated.

  “Don't expect any help from this lot.” The optio motioned his head toward the men marching behind. “They wouldn't have coins to close the eyes of their own mothers. But a man like you, my lord.” The optio sighed, as if he knew something he shouldn’t.

  “I won’t be needing coins.”

  The optio turned and shouted to the men marching behind.

  “Heh, Illyrian bastards, I told you the new officer would have the balls for a fight.”

  A muted cheer went up. The men began chanting a marching song concerning what parts of the enemy's anatomy they would take as souvenirs. The low chant spread down the ranks until the optio turned and barked, “Silence!” A hush spread back along the line as if a blanket had fallen.

  “You have some qualit
ies to bring to the fight too, optio, don’t you?”

  The optio grunted. “Yes, my lord. We Scythians fly above the grass like black kites and wake men from their beds with a point at their throat.”

  Constantine punched the air in reply.

  They were close to the darkness of the tree line now. It looked as if some shadowed metropolis lay ahead, one whose battlements had been worn by time and uncounted campaigns into a jagged line from horizon to horizon. He licked his lips. They were dry. His tongue too. The shadows could be hiding Persian scouts. If they fled back fast to their camp, any chance of a surprise attack succeeding would be gone. So much hung by the thinnest of fate’s threads.

  This would be only the fourth time he’d engaged an enemy, and the second he’d led men, and the first surprise attack he’d ever been on. He knew how it should be done, his training had made sure of that, but he also knew how much could go wrong. And he needed nothing to go wrong.

  X

  Lower Armenia, 297 A.D.

  Juliana groaned, pressed her hand over her mouth, and rocked. Her mother would be angry. She’d never have allowed Juliana back in their house after what had happened. To be touched down there, even by a half-man, would bring shame on their house, even if the insult had been brief, as if he was checking for something.

  She was alone in the tent, sitting on a plump cloud of cushions, a cream silk ribbon tied tight around her forehead. Tiny silver disks jangled from it as she moved. The muslin tunic she wore reached down to her ankles. It reminded her of something a priestess might wear.

  Sticky yellow dust had been smeared over her face, her arms, and her legs. It reeked of ox fat. Swirly symbols had been painted on the backs of her hands. All the time the drone of a priest’s chant could be heard nearby. The sweet taste of the drink lingered in her mouth. She’d slept for a while after she’d drunk it, feeling as if a weight sat on her head, despite every instinct telling her to stay awake.

  She rubbed her hands when she woke. The symbols on them smudged. She sighed.

  A haughty voice rang out. The chanting stopped. The priest still watched her. Or was he a different one? The chanting restarted.

  An image came to her, floating in front of her; a knife held high, streaked with blood, her mother’s ash-blackened hands reaching toward it as it came down. Her mother had died too easily. She would not be like that. She touched her lips and swallowed hard. Please, when would the dawn come?

  XI

  Germania, 297 A.D.

  Blood flowed onto the forest floor around Crocus, turning the mulch red. To his right, two of his axe men were butting helmets. They had won. In the distance, Roman victory horns blew.

  As a chieftain’s son of the tribe of the Alemanni, he was expected to remain loyal, even if his elder brother wanted to steal his wife and kill his children. But he couldn’t. When the Roman Caesar had launched his campaign to drive the Alemanni away from Germania Superior, Crocus had seen his chance. Twenty axe men had come with him.

  After this victory, he would have a thousand axe men by the feast of the dead. If this Caesar kept his word.

  Whimpering made him turn his head. He passed his battle axe from his right to his left hand. When finishing off an easy enemy, it was wise to use your weaker hand.

  He stumbled over a dead body, the man’s head spliced in two. Gray brain mush had been splattered all around, causing his sandals to slip under him. The whimpering stopped. But he knew where it had come from. A large oak tree stood out against the whitened hulks of the spruce trees, which filled this part of the great forest. At least ten dead bodies lay in the space around it. One of his own men lay there, his face calm, but his body split in two with blood in a pool all around it.

  He rounded the tree and gasped. A Pomeranian boy, from the land close to the winter sea, was huddled at its foot. Blond hair hung around his thin, pretty face.

  The boy stared up at him, his mouth open.

  Crocus looked around, checking for any enemies that might still dare attack him. But there were none.

  He glared at the boy, bent down. “Hide under the bodies,” he said. He pointed at a pile of blood-soaked bodies nearby.

  XII

  Lower Armenia, 297 A.D.

  “We're approaching the land of the Cimerii,” the optio said, turning to look at the men behind. “I hope none of you runts is afraid of the dark.”

  A few of the men marching behind sniggered. Most stayed silent. The shadowed tree line came closer with each step. They’d have heard the same stories Constantine had about the daemons that roam these forests.

  He looked up. The moon lit the valley like a giant torch. A breeze ruffled his hair. He shivered. The coolest breeze he’d felt in a long time tickled at his face. Was the weather changing?

  A silver gilded cloud sailed toward the moon, as if it might snuff it out. When he'd been assigned to his first campaign across the Danube four years before, he’d imagined his father riding into camp on moonlit nights such as this, and them laughing together. It had never happened, but the hope had been enough, when things had looked bleak.

  They passed under the trees, their path no more than a hunting track now, the column of men tightening as a snake would as they went in.

  “Them Persians will pull out their beards when they see us, my lord.” The optio lowered his voice, looked around to see who might be listening. “Let’s hope they get no time to form up ranks. If they do, this raid will be a stupid waste of good men.”

  “The Legate knows what he's doing,” said Constantine.

  “Yes, my lord, I’m sure whoever set this party going knows exactly what he’s doing.” He looked Constantine up and down. “I suppose if you have half your father’s luck we'll be finished soon enough.”

  Constantine shook his head, held his reins tighter. It was the same every time he’d been appointed over men older and more experienced than him, who turned out to know less than he did.

  “Keep your voice low, optio, or none of us will be heading back at all.”

  “I know when to keep quiet, my lord.” The optio spat out his words. “All the men want is a chance to win back the honor of the Jovians.”

  “And if you keep prattling, I’ll put a gag on you.” Constantine leaned toward the optio and wiped a fist across his mouth.

  The optio stared at him, his eyes narrowed.

  The track ran down into the boulder-strewn bed of a dried-out stream. It was a while before the stream widened.

  “The Persian nobles' tents are visible from where we attack, optio. I expect we’ll find their King’s family there. That’s where I will be heading.”

  The optio turned to him. “I expect there’ll be boxes of jewels in their tents too. Persian women like jewels too, I am sure.”

  “That’s not what we’re looking for,” said Constantine. He peered into the gloom.

  Thin oaks ran away in all directions. They looked like the columns of a ghostly moonlit palace. Intertwining branches arched like a roof overhead. Stars sparkled here and there like distant jewels. The faint clinking of the men behind rippled in the air, as if some animal was awakening. He looked back and felt a tingle of excitement. The time to prove his courage, to face down every doubt, had arrived.

  Most of the legionaries would, he knew, be praying about now for the delights of victory or, if the fates were not to be so fortunate, a speedy death. A swell of whispering passed through the ranks. He knew what that meant. Men would be renewing their Mithraic death pacts, about who would finish off who to avoid being captured alive.

  Or they’d be passing on last messages for loved ones, should they fall. Such things were not for him. All his promises had been made to people very far away. He gripped the pommel of his sword, checked it moved freely in its scabbard. Most of the other officers used the regular cavalry sword, the spatha. His was similar but wider, lighter, better balanced, its handle covered in a gold mesh, its scabbard strips of amber and sky-blue lacquer.

  He valued t
he present from his father above almost everything else he owned. It had been given to him to mark his acceptance into the Jovians. The best armorers in Rome had fashioned it from tongues of Hispanic iron twisted and forged flat. The blade, which could cleave a man in two, had a snakeskin pattern of wavy silver and black charcoal embedded in it. Only the tiniest of bumps on its blade marked the few times it had been used in anger.

  “That's a fancy sword, my lord.” The optio grimaced, displaying his broken teeth and a flash of resentment in his eyes.

  “Are the men still in formation, optio?” He’d learned to ignore fishing expeditions. Every time he’d given anything away in the past, he’d heard it repeated back to him later, garbled and mostly wildly distorted. He’d been warned to expect jealousy, as he was the son of a serving emperor, but the way some men twisted his words never failed to surprise him.

  The man nodded, turned his horse. “I’ll check, my lord,” he said, before disappearing back along the line.

  Constantine glanced after him. The man had probably heard who Constantine was and presumed that meant he lived a life full of compliant slaves and soft concubines. Even his sleeping in the tent of the centurions every night didn’t change what some men wanted to believe.

  The next watercourse they entered almost fooled him into thinking they’d reached their destination. Then he saw it had water at the bottom. As they climbed out the other side the moon fell below the tree tops and their progress slowed.

  He had to be thankful that the Jovians had been instructed by the optio, on his orders, to carry their shields strapped to their backs with a chalk line marked on it, and all scabbards wrapped in rags, and all cloaks worn tight. The chalk made it easier to see the man in front in the darkness.

  When they came to the edge of what appeared to be the right dry gully, he was almost sure they’d lost their way and contemplated riding ahead himself. All doubt vanished when he saw the outline of the decomposing human heads in the distance. An owl hooted. It was a good omen.