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The order was obeyed. The disarmed guards went to the ninth wagon, and pulled from there two bound and gagged women. Sigrun and Heidi. The other guards freed the prisoners, then turned to their prince for directions concerning those who would be slavers. They already knew the fate of their fellows, though the would-be slavers seemed to be ignorant of this. They were to be stripped to the waist, tied to the wagon wheels, and receive as many lashes as the merchant captain deemed necessary to wash away the taint they had brought to the company.
“We could have fought,” one of the guards said to Rutilius. “We have you heavily outnumbered. Yet we surrendered peacefully. Surely that is worth some mercy, lord.”
Rutilius grinned. “You should be more observant as a merchant scout,” he admonished. “Look to your right. Not two hundred paces away are thirty one Batavian cavalrymen in battle order. Had you attacked, I would have faded back to give them room to fall upon your exposed flank and slaughter the lot of you.”
The man blanched as if struck by a pole. Ulnas laughed.
“I must be more careful in my selection of men at arms,” he said. “Those six are new- I hired them near Mogontiacum a week ago. I thought them veterans and well-drilled, but looks can be deceiving. I apologize, lord, for failing in my responsibility as captain.”
Rutilius gave a brief nod in acknowledgement. Ulnas was serious, and his apology heartfelt. “Better to learn now than when brigands attack,” he said. “Bring the women here.”
Rutilius looked down at Sigrun. “Where are the other two? The maid Inga, and the Lady Katja? And why were you found twenty miles to the east, when Acquae Granni is one hundred thirty miles to the west? What happened?”
Sigrun could not meet his gaze. “Katja and Inga took the pale horse last night and rode off. Heidi and I tried to follow, but the wagon would not steer straight. We ended up getting stuck. This morning, three men found us trying to get the wagon out of the culvert. They helped, then tied us up and smuggled us into the caravan.”
“That does not answer my questions, woman,” he said sternly, and in Batavian.
A tear fell from the big woman’s blue eyes. “I cannot do this anymore. I apologize, Marek, for deceiving you. It was all Katja. That little vixen and her sister offered us much wealth to play the part of her escort, and to please the man she pointed out to us. I was given to you.” She lifted her head to meet his steely gaze. “I may have been paid to lay with you, but I would have done so freely.”
Rutilius ignored the attempt at praise as a guile to soften his anger at these revelations. “Heidi was her sister, not Inga.”
Sigrun shook her head. “Inga was her sister, lord. Heidi was paid, as was I, to seduce yon straight-spined captain. They came to our village, Goat Horn, in Chatti lands. They sought us out and bought our services with enough wealth to make a fine dowry, ensuring we could have our pick of husbands. They said they chose us because we spoke with accents- we had grown up in Batavodurum before our father was killed by his jealous brother ten years earlier and our mother fled with us to the Chatti. Katja took us by boat across Father Rhein to the Roman burg, where she explained our role and told us what to say. A day later, there you were.”
“So you were diversions,” Rutilius mused. “For what?”
Sigrun shrugged. “I do not know. Katja hired us to play a part. We did so. Evidently well enough to get you into bed, twice.” That last was said with a sly grin.
But it was not effective. Every answer she gave raised new questions. “How did Katja know where I would be and when? I did not know this myself. How did she know of my wife’s gesture of sating my urges with lonely widows when we have been apart for a spell? And how would she know I would accept it?”
“She is fey,” Sigrun said simply. “The fey are different than us. Her father was Chatti- I saw that in the lines of her jaw and the broadness of her cheeks, as well as the complexion. I heard Inga once mention the father of Katja being a king. I believe it- she had the look of Horobard about her.”
Rutilius remembered the body of the large man brought to him by Wotan’s Sacred Grove. A bear of a man, the giant who had led the warhost penning four legions, and refused to let them free. He had died in the battle. He did indeed have honey-blonde hair and broad cheekbones, with a narrowing jaw. A male version of the girl with the seizures. “”Horobard was no fairy elf,” he said. “He was a true man, though a poor general.”
“Tis her mother who is fey,” said Heidi, coming to the side of the flaxen woman. “Halla, they call her. Halla of the Marsi, the seeress who has lain with both Horobard and the Bructeri King. She has power, that one, and travels often to the Smoky Lands to seek the future. It was she who foresaw your Eagles penned by the Grove, with Horobard leading them.”
Rutilius snorted. “Both men are dead by my actions. She advised Horobard to go north, eh?” Then he sobered. He knew why Katja had sought him out, and how. She had inherited her mother’s gift, and came to avenge the loss of her father and punish the man whose actions turned a prophecy of glory into the worst defeat the tribes had suffered since Germanicus. “She was to kill me.”
Sigrun nodded. “She had packets of powder with her. I had assumed them to be medicine, especially after she strewed them in your wine. They could not be poison- not with the reaction they gave you!” This time she flashed a wide smile. “But then again, it could be she used the wrong powder.”
Vague memories came forward now. He had been poisoned, probably with the same substance that Domitianus used to murder Mucianus. That old man had died in the arms of some senator’s wife in the middle of fornication. It could be the Marsic princess had wanted to do him in in the same way- a manner no man would look into. Death by choking poison or other means would arouse suspicion. Four women alone in a foreign province, last seen with the poisoned man? It would not take long to find and crucify them. But should he die while copulating… The matter would be closed quickly.
“No, she used the right powder,” Rutilius said. “She just used it on the wrong man. My heart is still young and strong- it would not burst as would an older man.”
“I can vouch for that,” Sigrun said bluntly. Her loins still ached. “There is much about you that would not burst, even after hours of pleasure.”
Rutilius blushed deeply. He remembered little of the nights, but he remembered well the mornings- at least some of them.
“I earned my wages many times over,” Sigrun said with a nod as Rutilius awakened those hazy memories. “I even had to call in help. Inga aided me in pleasing you the first night, and Katja herself the second.”
That broke the dam holding back his recollections. Katja had effortlessly accepted his organ that hazy morning- definitely not the way a virgin would react. Nor was her rhythm that of a girl becoming a woman for the first time. She was inexperienced to be sure, but not unduly so. She had made love before.
Then it hit him. The night which led to that morning. He had thought it a dream, but now knew it to be true. He awoke to the sound of his sword being drawn, and took the blade from her hand. Then they coupled, eagerly and thoroughly. Twice, there on the floor, before he brought her to the bed and returned to sleep. She had drawn the sword to plunge it into him, but something in her changed- maybe a seizure, maybe a second thought- and instead his personal sword had plunged into her.
“She wanted me dead,” he said, explaining a bit about the encounter with her and the blade, “yet could not do the deed.”
“I do not think so,” Heidi said. “She could have slipped another powder into your morning water, and then fled. She would have killed both you and Sigrun and been long gone. The same with your dagger, which was by your sword. Quick and easy, and then gone to leave Sigrun and I to take the blame. And if she wanted you dead, she would not have said what she said when she and Inga rode off to the east and the boat.”
“I had thought that just foolishness,” Sigrun said. “Why would Marek care if a witch is no enemy of Rome or not?”
“Because he is a governor, or soon will be, and she is fey,” Heidi retorted.
“Both Katja, Halla, and Veleda are fey,” Sigrun reminded her. “All share the blood of sacred Aurora. And look what it got them? Halla is disgraced- none will trust her word now. Katja is a little vixen who hired whores to get close enough to kill, then slept with her target herself instead. And Veleda has disappeared into the shadows of the Batavian defeat, in which she was the major advisor. None of any importance anymore. What does any of this folklore have to do with anything?”
“Veleda?” Rutilius and Dieter said in chorus.
“Katja said Veleda was no enemy of Rome,” Sigrun repeated. “This from the mouth of a fey who tried to screw you to death, about a woman whose words directed the whole of northern Germania in a losing war with Rome. Like anyone is going to believe that!”
But Dieter and Rutilius believed. Only Rutilius had been privy to the briefing given him by Titus Vespasianus himself prior to their departure from Rome, but Rutilius withheld nothing from his Guard Captain. One of the tasks he was to accomplish during his reign was the capture of the Bructeri prophetess, a task the Imperator thought easy with the new Bructeri king being such good friends with the Roman governor he was sending. Only Rutilius and Dieter knew of this, and other tasks, yet somehow the Marsic vixen knew, too. And more, Halla and Veleda were rivals- why would Katja betray her mother to protect her mother’s rival?
“Did she say anything else?” Dieter asked.
“Only for us not to worry, that we would be home shortly, and safely,” Heidi replied. “And that you would be thankful that she ditched us the way she did, the bitch!”
Rutilius shifted his gaze from the maidens to the merchant at that. Ulnas was readying the whip, to punish his men for bringing disrepute upon the company.
“Hold!” he commanded. He dismounted quickly, Batavian style, and ran the short distance to the captain. “I wish to question these men.”
Ulnas wondered what that was about, but let the whip rest. The magistrate was wise to ask before the whipping rather than later- few men ever survived fifty lashes. He nodded to the Roman.
“You knew your fate for smuggling slaves,” he said. He gazed at the one with the Pegasus-bruise marring his forehead. “And you attacked my officers and I in Argentorate.”
This brought a huff from the merchant captain. Had he known this, the men would never have been allowed to set foot near his caravan! But Rutilius had other memories- of four women who sat calmly by watching the brief fight erupt and climax within seconds- and never spilling a drop of their drinks.
“You were dressed as farmhands,” Rutilius continued. “Since you are guards by trade, that made your dress a disguise, which leads to premeditation. You disguised yourself to attack. Yet until a few minutes ago, you thought me a German. One does not need to dress as a farmhand to attack a foreigner.”
Melnis nodded. “The little honey-haired one paid us two denarii a piece to have a bit of fisticuffs with some Germans. We took her money, drank up the wages, and moved in to throw our punches. But when we saw the jewelry you had, we decided to do you in for real. We thought ourselves blessed that you did not kill us, and further favored when the gods threw the two whores in our path. Righteous compensation for getting our faces smashed, we thought. I still wear the brand your ring gave me.”
Rutilius turned away, his suspicions confirmed. He gave a short nod to Ulnas, who in his mercy for their honesty, decided to reduce the lashes to thirty and cast them from his company.
“Give the scourge to another, captain,” Dieter called. He had thought through the cryptic message of the vixen and saw that she too was no enemy of Rome or of Marcus, despite the blood. The merchant had come to the farm from Argentorate, and came there from Mogontiacum. A merchant who had grown up in the home of an auxiliary officer, who knew military ways. “I would know the disposition of the forces you must have passed through on your way here.”
Rutilius kicked himself mentally for not thinking of that himself. Such a simple connection.
Ulnas turned the lash over to a lieutenant and drew a quick map in the dirt with a spear borrowed from a Batavian.
“Here is the Rhenus,” he explained, “and here Mogontiacum, where another great river meets.”
“We are familiar with the lay of the land,” Dieter said bluntly. “He was acting governor of both provinces after Civilis was defeated, and remained governor until Vespasian sent new ones north to replace him.”
That dropped a denarius on Ulnas. “You are that Rutilius?” he asked in wonder. “I did not know you had a cognomen!”
“Back then I did not,” Rutilius replied. “The Imperator gave it to me a month or so ago.”
“Ach, a deed well done,” said Venator the Hunter to Lupus the Wolf. “Anyway, here to the south of Mogontiacum, where the valleys narrow near Borbetomagus, stands the bulk of the VII Gemina. The other three cohorts are stationed a bit to the west, guarding a trail that leads through the hills and could flank the rest of the legion. The VIII Augusta is set further north and more to the west, within easy marching of the castrum should it be threatened..”
“He knows,” Dieter said, with both Glam and Amalric nodding. Calvus was set up to block the road from the north to keep Cordinus from moving to Rome, but the southern units were placed there to prevent legions from the east from crossing at Argentorate and moving north. Whichever legion gets entangled in battle, the other can move to assist- the three cohorts holding that flanking trail see to that. Calvus was set to defend from any direction- which meant he knew the fate of Clemens.
“I care little for the deployment of the legions,” Rutilius said bluntly. He was cutting to the point. “Do you know where Calvus himself is, and where he has his cavalry?”
Ulnas smiled at that, as the German nodded. They did not need to know the deployment of the legions, because none had any intention of tackling them- and foot-bound legions could not catch a two-turma band of Batavian cavalry anyway. The threat was Calvus himself, and the cavalry he commanded.
“Sextus Caelius Calvus was here in the north with VIII Augusta,” Ulnas reported. “Then, a few weeks ago, he moved his headquarters to the VII Gemina. His horsemen were here to the west of the VIIIth twelve days ago, but I have seen Pollus and three turmae coming in for resupply at the baggage trains of the VIIth before heading east. Methinks he has one ala, spread out in groups of three to five turma to his south, with but a bit to the north watching the Rhenus road.”
That matched with what the Chatti women told. If Pollus is east of the road, and Ianias and his boys to the west, and both facing south, Calvus was definitely re-orienting his forces to face a possible threat from the south.
“How well are you known to this decurion Pollus?”
Ulnas shrugged. “I’ve traded with him.”
Dieter saw what Rutilius wanted. “Ulnas, if you gave news to this Pollus, would he believe it?”
Ulnas nodded. “Aye, his family is known to mine. We are not kin, but we trust each other and talk whenever we are together. I give him news of the villages, and he provides me with news of the province as a whole. His tips help me get better prices, mine tell him where potential problems may be starting. It works well.”
Rutilius nodded solemnly. “I want you to go back to him. Leave some guards and your wagons here- Calix will help watch over them, but I need you to do the Empire a favor. Go to Pollus, and tell him the truth about Calvus. After that, he may do as he wishes.”
“And what is this truth about Calvus I am to tell him?”
“That Calvus lied to him. The boys of Germania Inferior are no threat to Vespasian, and never were. Clemens packed the XIV Gemina with men loyal to him in an attempt to usurp the office of Vespasian during his triumph, but failed. The XIVth is now in bits and pieces heading all over the empire. Troops are coming to relieve Calvus of duty for his part in the conspiracy, and Calvus is reorienting his legions to face these loyal men. Pollus is to be informed, and when sent into battle, he is to make his choice: will he follow treasonous orders, or join the loyal troops in standing by the Imperator.”
Ulnas drank that in and nodded. “Aye, if I tell him this, he will believe it. He has himself been moved from north to south, and from west to east. This movement makes perfect sense in the scenario you describe. One question, though. How much of this is truth?”
“Most of it,” Rutilius said with a grimace. “Clemens did pack his legion with traitors and wanted to take Rome, but we stopped him. The legion was disarmed peacefully, and dispersed. Calvus was to stop any help from the north- but now faces a threat from the south, thus the repositioning.”
“But the troops from the south?” Ulnas queried. “There are none, are there? That part is false.”
“Not exactly,” replied Rutilius with a wan, weak smile. “The new governor Nobilis is coming up that road with seven cohorts of infantry. He wants a battle to prove himself. I do not. Calvus thinks the I Italica is coming up the road. It is still on the Dacian border as far as I know. I have to get Calvus to stand down now, before Nobilis arrives. Thus there will only be fifty three private Guards, six lictors, and one able praetor coming from the south.”
“You have stones like melons,” the merchant said with a hearty laugh. “We Gauls admire courage, no matter the man who displays it. I shall ride to Pollus and give him your message.”
“And I and my men will do the same to Ianias,” Rutilius concluded. “And recon the position of Calvus as well. I do not like going to war without knowing how the enemy is set up, especially if I do not want a battle at all.”
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