tanaquiljall (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
tanaquiljall) wrote2013-04-12 07:40 pm
tanaquiljall) wrote2013-04-12 07:40 pm
Fic: Jericho/Rosemary Sutcliff Fusion - Borderland - Teen 1/3
Title: Borderland
Fandom: Jericho/fusion with Rosemary Sutcliff’s works, particularly The Eagle of the Ninth series
Rating: Teen
Contains: Canon-level violence/torture, canon character death
Words: 21,600 words
Summary: A historical AU set in Roman Britain in AD63. Tribune Tiberius Matius Buccio (Major Beck) has been posted to the fringes of the Roman empire — Britain — to help keep the peace following the Boudiccan revolt three years earlier. Settling in to his role, he becomes friendly with local chieftain’s son Jago (Jake Green). When an ongoing local feud takes a murderous turn, he finds himself caught between his friendship with Jago and his duty as a Roman officer.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
subluxate created a wonderful mix to accompany the story called Hinterlands—please listen and enjoy.
Disclaimer: This story is based on the Junction Entertainment/Fixed Mark Productions/CBS Paramount Television series Jericho and the works of Rosemary Sutcliff. It was written for entertainment only; the author does not profit from it nor was any infringement of copyright intended.
Author's Note: This story uses characters and plot elements from Jericho and worldbuilding, tropes and style from Rosemary Sutcliff—see the end notes for more detail on some of the historical background used in the story. It was written for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
smallfandombang. Thanks to Scribbler (scribblesinink) for the beta. Thanks also to subluxate for creating a wonderful mix for the story.
1. Frontier Posting
Tribune Tiberius Matius Buccio huddled deeper into his cloak, seeking shelter from the raw wind gusting across the gently rolling hills that surrounded the fort. Ahead of him, Centurion Longinus seemed indifferent to the weather. Buccio supposed that, eventually, he too would become accustomed to the notorious climate of Britain. Two weeks had so far proved insufficient. Not for the first time, he found himself wishing he was back in the high, dusty plains of Cappadocia in the East.
The fort, with its turf ramparts and wooden palisade, also seemed a poor exchange for the fine stone fort of his last posting. Even the huddle of dwellings and wine-shops that always gathered around any fort seemed drab and mean in comparison, with their thatched roofs and wattle-and-daub walls. Still, everything had seemed to be in good order when Buccio had inspected the fort with Longinus, from the rows of cavalry pickets and barracks to the granaries and latrines and the bath-house. And, like all the men Buccio had so far met, the sentry they now passed as they made late rounds gave challenge and answer smartly enough.
“They’re good lads, the First Thracian,” Longinus had told him the night before, while they shared a drink of wine in the commander’s quarters that would soon be Buccio’s. He sounded sorry to be leaving them, though Buccio knew he was being given a promotion, back into one of the regular legions.
“And what about the natives? The Legate briefed me when I passed through Londinium, but you know how these things are.” Buccio gave a slight shrug. “Not much detail.”
Longinus nodded: although he only carried the rank of cohort centurion and no doubt had received his fair share of inadequate briefings from more senior officers, including tribunes like Buccio, he seemed a welcoming soul. “They’re friendly enough, I suppose. Didn’t get mixed up in all that bad business three years back—.”
He wrinkled his nose as he spoke. There was no need to elaborate on what the ‘bad business’ was: news had reached even the furthest corners of the empire about the revolt in Britain and how the tribes had slaughtered half the Ninth Legion, before the Fourteenth and Twentieth under Governor Suetonius had put them down. The province seemed quiet enough on the surface now, but Buccio and an additional cavalry wing had been sent to strengthen the vexillation at Corinium and make sure things stayed that way.
Buccio nodded to show he’d understood and Longinus went on, “There’s a couple of local duns less than half a day’s ride away. They haven’t caused much trouble recently—apart from the damn cattle raids. You can make your own mind up who to believe, but they’ll both swear blind they didn’t start it and they’re just rounding up what’s theirs. Anyway, I’ll take you over to both of them, introduce you to the chieftains, and let you see for yourself.”
Buccio had met the first of the chieftains that morning: a tall fellow with pale blue eyes as hard as flints who styled himself Constantius—though Longinus told Buccio he had been known by his own name of Cadan until a mere two years before, at which time he had apparently deemed it politically wise to become more Roman than the Romans.
They reached Constantius’ dun by taking the Via Praetoria that led out through the main gate towards Venonae and then, at its end, to Lindum many miles away. The day was clear but cold and the low hills to either side rose in soft greens against a pale blue sky. The little troop—Buccio, Longinus and an escort of a tent party of eight auxiliaries—turned off the road after no more than a dozen miles, leaving the smooth, paved surface that had been laid less than twenty years before and taking a well-worn track of beaten earth, strengthened here and there with corduroys of logs, that quickly led to the dun.
Buccio had been surprised to be greeted by Constantius in the forecourt of the Chieftain’s Hall, rather then beside the hearth inside, as he had been told was the custom of the tribes in Britain. Surprised too, to see that Constantius was clad in tunic and toga rather than the native dress worn by the other men gathered before the hall. Folding camp chairs were brought out for them to sit upon, and glass goblets. Constantius himself filled them with wine before raising a toast to the emperor, instead of calling on the woman of the house to bring out the Guest Cup. In fact, Buccio realised, he could see no women at all except for a wizened old slave who presented a dish of fine red Samianware filled with imported raisins and almonds.
More Roman than the Romans, indeed! Buccio thought, as they rode away an hour later. Perhaps it was the contrast with the dun itself, the usual huddle of reed-thatched huts and small garths set inside a ring of turf banks and thorn bushes, that had made the Roman welcome seem strange. Yet Buccio could not but help feeling as if he had witnessed a hunting dog performing a clever trick to please a foolish master, while it cast sly-eyed looks towards the deer-carcass it had been called off from moments before.
He recalled, too, the sullen expressions of the men who had stood around watching them while Constantius spoke his careful Latin and exchanged the necessary pleasantries with Longinus and Buccio. When the squeal of a horse from somewhere at the far side of the dun had made Buccio turn, wondering what the sound presaged, two of them had—instinctively it seemed—taken half a pace forward, arms akimbo, so that the fall of their cloaks blocked any view in that direction.
Edging his horse closer to Longinus, Buccio murmured low enough that the escort behind could not hear, “If I am not mistaken, I think Constantius would rather we did not trouble his store of wine often—nor his hunting runs.”
Longinus grunted in agreement, his lips twitching wryly. “I think you are not mistaken. Nevertheless, he also takes care not to trouble our patrols. His quarrel is not with Rome.”
Buccio cast a glance over his shoulder at where the dun had disappeared from view behind an outthrust arm of the hills. His eyes narrowed as he recalled the orders the Legate had given him in Londinium. Facing forward, he squared his shoulders and pulled himself up straighter. Silently, he promised himself that Constantius’ quarrel would most assuredly be with Rome if he troubled any man under Buccio’s protection, whether part of the garrison or not.
oOo
The bitter wind that had kept Buccio huddled in his cloak the night before had mercifully dropped the next day, replaced by a soft,warm mizzle rain that twisted his cloak into damp folds as they rode the four miles to the nearer dun.
They were still a mile away when they caught sight of two boys minding a herd of cattle in a marshy pasture to their right. Buccio saw them bend their heads together, before one of them took off over a shoulder of the hill behind, no doubt to carry news of the approaching party. Buccio realised Constantius must also have had word of their coming the previous day, though he had noticed no signs they were being observed until they were close to the dun. While a guard upon his hunting runs was a wise precaution for any chieftain, the stealth with which Constantius maintained his watch gave Buccio pause.
The troublesome thought was forgotten for the present as they rounded the shoulder of the hill and he saw the dun before him. While it was no less carefully sited for defence than Constantius’ dun had been, it bore a more welcoming aspect. Broodmares, some with knock-kneed foals at their sides and others still with swollen bellies, grazed on the slopes below. Once they had passed within the ditch and bank, Buccio saw women sitting in doorways spinning or grinding corn, and he could hear the beat of a hammer on an anvil somewhere to the left.
A dark-haired man some years Buccio’s junior came forward to greet them as they clattered to a halt in the paved space before the largest of the roundhouses. He was clad in a plain woollen shirt and chequered trousers, with his plaid cloak flung back over one shoulder. “Come you in and be welcome.” He gestured towards the low, dark entrance to the hall as he spoke the words in clear but slightly accented Latin.
Buccio’s mare stamped restlessly and tossed her head, and the man took a step forwards and gentled her neck, murmuring something in the local tongue that seemed to soothe her. Buccio couldn’t catch the words and doubted he would have been able to make sense of them even if he had: though he had become fluent in the Cappadocian dialect in his time in the East, he had yet to pick up more than a few dozen words of the native British tongue.
The man tipped back his head, meeting Buccio’s gaze as Buccio frowned down at him. Warmth and a little amusement flared in the dark brown eyes set under flyaway brows. “I was just telling our sister here—” The mare was nudging his shoulder, snorting contentedly, as he went on stroking her neck. “—that there is no need to be afeared. We are among friends here.”
“So we are!” Longinus dropped from his horse and came to clasp the man’s arm, a broad smile on his normally dour face. “Jago! Is your father within? I bring the new Commander to meet him.”
“Sa, he is within. Come you inside.” Jago, relinquishing the bridle of Buccio’s horse to the auxiliary who had come forwards to take it as Buccio dismounted, turned and gave Buccio an appraising look for a moment, before he led them into the dim, smoky interior of the hall.
Buccio found all within much as he had expected from the amused warnings of fellow officers when, on his journey from the East, he had admitted the place of his next posting. As promised, the reek from the fire in the centre of the hall caught at his throat even as he crossed the threshold, and he swallowed down a cough. The place was also dim, though there was light enough from the leaping flames to show him an older, large-bodied man sitting on a low stool to one side of the fire. Another, younger man crouched at his side, the resemblance between them close enough that Buccio guessed they were near kin. They were bent over something in the older man’s hands—a piece of horse harness, Buccio saw, as he turned it over and it caught the light—but they looked up as Longinus and Buccio followed Jago inside.
“My father—,” Jago still spoke in Latin. “I have brought you Centurion Longinus and the new Commander who is to come after him.”
“So.” The older man laid aside the leatherwork. “Come you in beside the fire. Though the wind’s bite is not so fierce today, this damp air is none so good for old bones.” He, too, spoke Latin, though with less fluency than his son and a shape to it that suggested the little Buccio knew of the tongue of the tribes. Acknowledging the dip of the head that Longinus gave him in greeting, he turned his scrutiny to Buccio. “I am Jowan, and this is my son Ennor.” He indicated the man at his side. “My older son, Jago, you have already met.”
“And I bring you Tribune Tiberius Matius Buccio, who is to be Commander after me.” Longinus waved Buccio forward.
Before Buccio could speak, a woman came forwards from the shadows on the other side of the fire. She carried a bronze cup in her hands, which she offered first to Buccio. “Drink, and be welcome.”
Buccio saw, as she moved further into the light, that her copper braids were scarcely touched by frost, though she must be of an age with Jowan. Her eyes when she lifted them to smile at him, were the same shape and colour as Jago’s and he guessed from that, and from her bringing him the Guest Cup, that she must be Jowan’s wife.
Buccio carefully took the cup from her, recalling all he had learned of the customs of the tribes from a native-born duplicarius who had been part of the cavalry wing he had brought with him from Londinium. He was aware that Jowan and Jago and Ennor had their eyes upon him, and that this was a test of sorts. Returning the woman’s smile, he did his best to repeat one of the few native phrases he had painstakingly learned. He drank and gave the cup back in to her hands.
Her mouth twitched briefly as she turned away to carry the cup to Longinus, and he suspected he’d mangled more than one word. But before he could speak again, Jowan laughed, a pleasant, low rumble, and said something in the native tongue that Buccio thought included the word ʽtribune’ but which he could make neither head nor tails of otherwise. His confusion must have been evident on his face, because Jowan gave him a kindly smile and, speaking Latin again, said, “It seems the Tribune knows something of our customs and our speech.”
Buccio gave a slight bow. “Only enough for courtesy’s sake so far, Lord Jowan. But I hope to learn more in time.”
The woman was now carrying the cup to her husband. Taking it from her, he drank and then said, looking at Buccio over the rim, “From Rome, that is a courtesy indeed.” He softened the slight edge to the words with another smile. Buccio was sharply reminded that though Jowan and his people might be more truly welcoming than Constantius had been, and though they had traded long with Rome and learned its language, they were still a frontier people, brought under Rome’s rule only when Jowan had been the age his sons now were.
Jago had taken the Guest Cup from his father, exchanging a look with him before he too drank and passed the cup on to his brother. Then he turned and offered Buccio a smile. “If the Tribune would learn, I would gladly teach. Perhaps the Tribune is fond of hunting?”
Jowan’s wife had disappeared into the shadows but now returned with barleycakes sweetened with honey, and Jowan waved them towards the fire, to share the food and pass around the Guest Cup between them. Settling into his place, feeling his knees creak a little as he squatted, Buccio nodded. “I have hunted often among the rocks and the high plains of the East when duty spared me.”
Again there was an amused look in Jago’s eyes, and one corner of his mouth turned up in a crooked smile as he too folded himself up in his place. “We have no high plains here, but our game is good. I will take the Commander hunting when duty spares him. He has only to send word of the day and I will come to the fort with spears and ponies.”
Buccio hesitated, recognising that here was a chance to build stronger bonds with the local Tribe, yet unsure whether he should make himself so beholden to them.
“He’s a good guide,” Longinus offered, around a mouthful of barleycake. “I’ve been out with him several times myself.”
So it seemed it was already a matter of custom. Buccio returned Jago’s smile. “I shall send word.”
oOo
2. A Good Hunting
A few weeks later, Buccio found himself following behind Jago as the two of them rode along a track which hugged the lower slopes of the line of hills that ran northwards from the fort. Jago was making good on his offer to take Buccio hunting.
Open woodland stretched out on either side of them: beech mostly, with here and there a glossy-leaved holly bush or a great-girthed oak. Under the trees, from whose twigs young green leaves were unfurling shyly, a shimmering carpet of nodding blue flowers stretched out on either side, their bells shaking noiselessly in the light breeze. The sky above mirrored the ground: a soft, high, blue. When the track widened or the trees thinned, Buccio lifted his face gratefully to warm it in the sun that had, after several grey weeks, at last made an appearance.
Tilting his head back down as the trees closed in again after one such brief glimpse of warmth, Buccio fixed his gaze thoughtfully on the back of the man in front of him.
He had met Jago several times since that first encounter in the dun: it seemed some business or other of the Tribe brought him to the fort nearly every week. Often, Buccio learned, he came to speak to the quartermaster or one of the other senior officers regarding supply contracts or the provision of horses. Once, as Buccio was returning to his office in the praetorium, he ran across Jago lounging outside the hospital, waiting for the senior surgeon to look at a young kinsman who had taken a cut on his arm that had festered and would not heal. The boy had, it seemed, been injured while breaking a horse. Buccio found himself passing a pleasant half hour discussing ground-training techniques with Jago, before the boy emerged from the hospital with his wound salved and bandaged. Jago had shepherded him away home, while Buccio had reluctantly continued on to face the paylists and duty rosters that awaited him in his office.
Another encounter had been less enjoyable for both of them: Jago had come to speak to him about the theft of some cattle by Constantius’ people. Jago—clearly still visibly angry, despite his best efforts to speak quietly once he was shown into Buccio’s presence—asserted Constantius’ men had first threatened the herd boy with knives and then dealt him such a blow to the head before they drove off the cattle that it was likely his wits would never fully recover. When Buccio questioned how Jago could be so sure Constantius’ people were responsible, when the boy could not provide reliable testimony of what had happened, Jago’s eyes flashed for a moment. Then, taking a deep breath and reining in his fury, he explained he and his brother, Ennor, had made a foray onto Constantius’ lands and found the cattle penned in a remote valley in the hills
“Why did you not simply drive them back?” Buccio wanted to know.
Jago’s mouth twitched at that. “Because the Commander asked us to bring such matters to him, rather than take justice into our own hands.”
“So I did.” Buccio dipped his head in acknowledgment. It seemed Jago and his father had heeded his parting words when he had first met them, warning them that he would look unfavourably on any continuation of the low-level lawlessness Longinus had contended with. “I will look into it.” With another dip of the head, he indicated that the interview was over and bent back to the tablets in front of him.
“Tribune—.” Raising his gaze again, Buccio saw Jago had taken a step closer and the anger was back in his expression. “If it were only the cattle taken, I would not have troubled you. But the boy—.”
Buccio leaned back in his camp chair and, placing the tips of his fingers together, gave back look for look. “I have heard your story—” He ignored Jago’s snort. “—and when I have asked Constantius for his tale, I will decide the truth of it. Until then, be satisfied that I will investigate with all my powers and that justice will be done. And until then, go you home and take care of the boy, and pray to your gods, as I will to mine, that they return him his wits.”
Jago looked for a moment as if he would say more, before he gave a curt nod and strode out of Buccio’s office without another word.
Constantius, of course, claimed the cattle had simply wandered onto his lands, and that they had merely been penning them until they could return them. He declared that the herd boy must surely have slipped and hit his head before the cattle strayed, and had invented this wild story of a raid to cover his own failure to take care of the beasts.
Buccio went himself with a detachment of auxiliaries to retrieve the cattle and drive them back to Jowan’s dun. As he told Jowan and Jago, sitting once more by the fire in the Great Hall with the Guest Cup passing between them, he did not much believe Constantius, but there was little proof to be had one way or the other. The cattle were returned, and Constantius knew Buccio’s eye was on him. Buccio would step up the patrols in the hills and, he was sure, there would be an end to such incidents. Jowan and Jago had seemed less than convinced, but had agreed to let the matter rest.
There had been no further trouble of that kind in the weeks since, enough that Buccio thought he might be able to step down the patrols he had been sending through the hills. Indeed, he might be forced to, for there was trouble brewing on another front: there had been more than one occasion when Constantius and his people had provided short measure or inferior goods on the contracts they had with the fort. When the quartermaster had sent his men to fetch the goods, with orders to make the selection from Constantius’ barns and storehouses themselves, there had been angry words and almost an exchange of blows.
The officials sent to collect the taxes due that spring had also found Constantius’ people less than cooperative, with one excuse after another given as to why the tax collectors must return in a week or a month. While there had been no open threats made, sometimes the officials had been faced with groups of sullen-faced young men loitering nearby, fingering the daggers in their belts. Reluctant as Buccio was to make a show of force—and risk provoking the fight he was keen to avoid—he felt it was fast coming time to send a detachment of auxiliaries with the officials to ensure Rome’s demands were met.
All of it had reinforced the impression growing in Buccio’s mind that the devotion to Rome and all things Roman that Constantius had displayed at their first meeting had been a mere veneer that concealed a deep resentment of Buccio and his men’s presence.
Dismissing the troubles that awaited him on his return to the fort, Buccio followed Jago as they left the ponies in a hollow a bowshot from the track and headed up into the hills on foot, each carrying a brace of the light hunting spears Jago had brought with him. Yet though they found plenty of spoor, and here and there a tree with a ring of nibbled bark, they saw no sight of their prey all morning except for a fleeting glimpse of brown hide and a flash of white that was gone almost as soon as Buccio touched Jago’s arm to draw his attention to it.
“I am sorry I have proved such a poor guide,” Jago said, as he brought out a midday meal of wheaten biscuit and dried meat from the bag slung across his pony’s withers.
“No matter.” Buccio smiled as he took the food from him. “I am sure we shall have better luck after we have eaten.”
He turned back to look at the view as he ate: when they had returned to the ponies, Jago had led them up a deep valley until they climbed above the woods and found themselves out in the open again. Here, on the crest of the hills, the wind bent the long grass sideways, and hawthorn and gorse bushes leaned before it like old women bent from carrying water. A wide valley lay spread out below, stretching towards another ridge of hills that rose several miles away. On the nearer side, a mile or so from the foot of the hills, the road north to Lindum ran arrow straight. The fort and Jago’s dun lay somewhere to their right and behind them, where they sat.
Finishing up his food, Buccio nodded at the land below. “How far do your father’s hunting runs stretch?”
Jago gave him a sharp look, as if guessing at the purpose behind the question, before he relaxed again. Lifting an arm, he pointed to a longer, wooded spur a little to the north. “See where the land rises? So far and no further. From there down to the river.” He swept his arm around towards where the river must run, marked by a line of rushes and shrubs, with only the occasional glimmer of water reflecting the noon sun.
“And beyond belongs to Constantius?”
Jago’s mouth twisted into a crooked smile. “As you well know.”
“As I well know,” Buccio agreed, not minding the slight jibe. “Still, it is good to see it with my own eyes and not just in the reports of my decurions.”
“That is so.” Jago dipped his head in acknowledgment, before he quickly brought his gaze back up to meet Buccio’s. “It is good for a man to know his own limits.”
From the way he spoke, Buccio knew they were no longer discussing hunting runs. “I suppose it is,” he said carefully, wondering exactly what they were speaking of now
Jago went on looking at him steadily, his expression serious. “And there are things which are one man’s business and no other man’s. And other things which are the Tribe’s business and no other tribe’s. And—.” He paused and again his mouth twisted into a crooked smile, though this time there was a hint of bitterness in it.
Buccio, understanding, finished the thought. “And there are things which are the business of the Tribes and no business of Rome’s?”
Jago nodded. “Yes.” He held Buccio’s gaze a moment longer before he turned away and, gathering up the pouch that had held the food, got to his feet. “We will try the next valley over. We may have more luck there.”
They made their kill an hour later—a fine roe deer—but Buccio was still thinking about that conversation when they arrived back at the fort, the gralloched carcass slung across the rump of Jago’s pony. Rome was largely content to let the tribes govern their own affairs, as long as their customs did not trouble others or run counter to Rome’s laws. Rome was, of course, the ultimate authority: Buccio had found himself playing magistrate several times to settle disputes between his troops and the tribesmen living and working in the ragged settlement outside the fort’s gates.
Watching Jago as he helped two of the auxiliaries unload the deer from his mount, Buccio wondered just where Jago drew the line between the business of the Tribes and the business of Rome, and what would happen if either of them sought to cross it.
With the deer being hauled away to provide a little variety for the officers’ mess, Jago turned to Buccio. “A good hunting?” he asked, with a smile and a dip of the head.
“A good hunting,” Buccio agreed, handing back the spears he still carried. And not just because they had made their kill: Jago had proved a pleasant companion on the hunting trail, silent for the most part, but ready enough when he did speak to share his knowledge of a country that was still strange to Buccio or, as they had made their weary way home, explain the customs of his Tribe and teach Buccio a little more of the native tongue. Heading for the bath-house a few minutes later to soak away the aches of the day, Buccio found himself looking forwards to the next time he could spare a day from his duties and go hunting again.
oOo
3. “A strange way of doing things”
Jago took Buccio hunting again a few weeks later. This time, they went in search of waterfowl among the reeds and marshy ground that edged the river to the west of the fort. Buccio learned to handle the small fowling bows and arrows fletched with red-dyed feathers that Jago brought with him; he had to force himself to suppress an uncharacteristic whoop when, after several failed attempts, he made his first kill.
It was late afternoon, and the two of them were wet and muddy by the time they returned to the fort, a half dozen birds dangling from their saddles. It had been raining on and off all day, and there had been much splashing around at the water’s edge to retrieve the birds they had shot or, in Buccio’s case, the spent arrows when he missed.
The fort wore a gloomy aspect under the still louring clouds as they approached. Perhaps it was just the weather that made it seem so—or perhaps it was the thought crowding into Buccio’s mind that, once he had visited the bath-house, he would have to return to the necessary tedium of drawing up duty rosters and determining punishments for the men who had earned them and deciding on the repairs that needed to be made to number three barracks. And after that, he would face stilted talk in the officers’ mess in place of the easy conversation that had ebbed and flowed with Jago during the day as the demands of hunting allowed.
“Come, join me in the bath-house,” Buccio blurted out. He had not meant to say it: the words took him as much by surprise as they evidently did Jago, to judge from his raised eyebrows; but once they were out, Buccio knew he had been right to say them.
Jago gave him a long, considering look, before saying slowly, the corner of his mouth curving up in that wry smile of his, “I should like that.”
They left the ponies and their gear at the gate and, having sent for clean tunics to be brought from Buccio’s quarters, made their way to the bath-house set outside the fort walls. Jago checked at the entrance. Glancing round, Buccio saw him looking uncertainly about the changing room. It was still somewhat empty, just a tent party of auxiliaries climbing back into their gear, with gear for maybe another tent party hanging from the pegs or piled on the benches beneath them.
“This is the first time you have visited our bath-house?” Buccio asked, his voice echoing a little: the auxiliaries who were there before them had fallen silent when they caught sight of the newcomers.
“It is.” Jago took a step further inside and sideways, out of the way of two of the auxiliaries who, gazes turned down, headed outside with a muttered “Sir,” and a nod in Buccio’s direction.
Jago turned back to Buccio. “Centurion Longinus did not honour me with an invitation.” The crooked smile was back, but Jago’s eyes were warm with appreciation.
“No?” Buccio gestured for Jago to follow him further into the room as the remainder of the soldiers hurried out. He pointed to the space reserved for the officers. “So, here is a place to hang your clothes, and Marius here will bring you a towel.” He nodded to one of the auxiliaries currently on bath-house duty.
A short while later, stripped of their outer gear and wrapped in towels, Buccio and Jago made their way through the cold room, where several soldiers were taking a plunge in the pool, and on into the warm room. Here, the rest of the soldiers were lounging and chatting; two were throwing dice; others were listening to one telling a funny story or a joke, to judge by a roar of laughter that rose up as Buccio and Jago entered; the bath-house attendants were busy scraping oil from two more.
Buccio led them to the bench that ran along the opposite wall from where the soldiers sat, not wishing to disturb the men. Jago leaned forwards, resting his arms on his knees, still looking around him, the blue swirls of the tattoos on his back and shoulders seeming to shift on his skin as he settled himself.
Buccio leaned back and closed his eyes, letting the warmth of the room sink into him. He heard the soldiers opposite quickly grow quiet and then leave in the direction of the cold room. The room felt silent, apart from the occasional quiet rattle as the bath-house attendants went about the business of tidying and cleaning in readiness for their next patrons.
“Do they always do that?” Jago’s words were quiet, barely above a murmur.
“Do what?” Buccio cocked open an eye.
Jago was looking after the departing soldiers. “Leave when you come in?”
“I suppose they do.” Buccio hadn’t much thought about it. He gave a slight shrug. “I shouldn’t imagine they much want to be around officers when they’re off duty.”
Jago had turned his gaze on Buccio, his expression thoughtful. “No, I suppose not,” he said finally. He sounded almost sad.
Buccio straightened, feeling a little defensive for his men. “I suppose that seems odd to you. There are no such distinctions among the chieftain’s hearth companions?”
Jago laughed, scrubbing a hand over his hair. “Oh, the greybeards can curse out the young whippersnappers if they think they crow too loudly.” His expression sobered and he gave Buccio another long, melancholy look before he said with a shrug, “But we grew up together and… the Tribe is the Tribe. We are all cousins of one kind or another.” Abruptly, he sat up and stretched, flexing his shoulders. “So when do we bathe? I think I would be cleaner by now if I had simply stood outside in the rain all this time.” He grinned at Buccio, clearly enjoying teasing him.
Buccio returned the grin, finding in turn that he was rather enjoying being teased. It had been a long while, he realised, since there had been anyone at all to tease him. Not since he’d left his home in Corduba and, following the career path expected of him as an equestrian, joined the army as prefect of an auxiliary cohort. That was nearly fifteen years ago now and he’d barely recognised his old friends on the few occasions he’d managed to get home on leave between postings.
He went on grinning at Jago. “But you would have been cold and stiff and sore if you had stood in the rain,” he pointed out, countering Jago’s objection. “And if it is water you seek, you must wait a while. First, we must go to the hot room, where we may sweat out the dirt we have gathered to us. Then we will return here and the attendants will bring oil and scrape away the dirt. Only after that shall we take our plunge in the pool.” He gestured back towards the cold room.
Jago shook his head. “It seems a strange way of doing things. But lead on.”
Later, as Jago and Buccio lay on the massage tables while the attendants worked the remaining knots out their muscles, and anointed them with Buccio’s personal stock of oil before scraping them clean, Jago opened one eye and murmured sleepily, “I think I could become used to this.”
oOo
4. “Our word against theirs”
Buccio stared in disbelief at the breathless scout, before he pushed to his feet. “Where?” He reached for his helmet as he snapped out the question.
“The far side of Boundary Hill, sir. There’s a valley….”
Buccio nodded. He didn’t know the valley, but he knew the hill the scout had named. The ridge was the one Jago had pointed out on their first hunting trip together, the rise of land marking the divide between his father’s lands and those controlled by Constantius. It was no great surprise to learn that the brawl the scout was reporting had taken place there. It was rather more of a surprise—and an unpleasant one—that there had been a brawl at all; things had seemed to have been quiet between Jowan’s people and Constantius’ for several weeks now.
“Casualties?” Buccio indicated with a jerk of his head that the scout should follow him as he made for the door.
“One dead, three injured, one of them badly, sir.” The scout gave his report briskly enough, but Buccio caught the anxious look he threw his commanding officer. “Don’t know how many of theirs. We hadn’t a chance to count before the decurion sent me back.”
Buccio grimaced as they clattered out of the praesidium and across the hot, dusty parade ground. It was always a possibility, of course: the risk his men took every time they left the fort. It was part of the job. He didn’t like it any better for that. “Did they say why?”
“Something about stolen horses, sir.”
“Gods!” Buccio beat his fist against his hilt of his sword. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get his point through to Constantius, except by making the consequences so severe no leader in his right mind would consider provoking such a reaction—a step he was reluctant to take—but he’d thought he’d made some progress with Jowan and Jago. Would these people never learn?
Less than two hours later, he was riding up a sheltered valley that opened north-east. A full four cavalry units rode behind him: as he’d made his way to the main gate, he’d decided the delay in gathering the troops would be worth the message such numbers would send.
With a wave of the hand, Buccio sent two tent parties to relieve the auxiliaries guarding the carefully separated groups of tribesmen. The native warriors were squatting on either side of a small stream that chattered down the slope from a spring in the north-west corner. Surveying the two clusters of men, Buccio quickly caught sight of Jago and Ennor in one group and Constantius in the other. Jago had lifted his head as Buccio and his troops approached, his expression taking on a rueful cast as he met Buccio’s gaze.
“Have Jago and Constantius brought to me.” Buccio barked the order at the decurion next to him before dismounting and striding across the rough turf to where the dead had been laid to one side. He counted five bodies, not including the auxiliary, who had been laid a few feet away, his red cloak covering his stiff form.
The wounded were being tended further up the slope, next to the outfall of the spring. The two lightly injured auxiliaries, one with his arm in a sling and the other with a bandage tied around his upper arm, sat either side of their more grievously injured comrade, lying flat on his back. Three more auxiliaries stood between huddles of injured tribesmen, alert to the possibility they might start the brawl again despite their wounds.
Buccio stirred the foot of one of the dead tribesmen with the toe of his sandal, before lifting his gaze and fixing it on the figure of the dead auxiliary. Would there be no end to this foolishness?
A faint cough behind him indicated the decurion had returned with the two ringleaders. Turning, Buccio saw the decurion had assigned a pair of soldiers to each man as escort. A wise precaution: Jago was glaring angrily at Constantius, muscles tensed as if struggling to restrain himself from flinging himself at the other man. Constantius held himself as if ready to react, a slight smirk on his face.
“I’d like an explanation of what happened here today. From both of you.” Buccio inclined his head in Constantius direction. “You first.”
Constantius turned his head to look at Buccio. “We made a trade for horses.” He jerked his head in the direction of a half dozen beasts that had been herded together at the foot of the hill. Buccio heard Jago snort, presumably disputing the transaction had taken place. He ignored the sound, concentrating on Constantius as he continued speaking. “At a steading near here. We were driving the mares home when these men set on us without warning. Three of my people were killed before we were aware of the danger. We were defending ourselves when the Red Crests arrived and pulled them off us. We did nothing wrong here.”
Constantius lifted his chin, his icy stare challenging Buccio to dispute his account of events. Too much, Buccio decided, matching Constantius look for look. He was reminded again of the way Constantius had first greeted him; there was none of the would-be Roman in Constantius’ air now.
Pressing his lips together, Buccio turned towards Jago. “Your story?” He raised his eyebrows.
“My story?” Jago choked out a half-laugh. “They attacked one of our farms. Fired the house-place when all were asleep within. Drove off the horses. One of the farm hands raised the alarm. We followed to reclaim what is ours.” He gave Buccio a quick look that suggested he was not much expecting to be believed.
Buccio knew whom he trusted to be telling the truth of the two of them—unless he had badly misjudged Jago after all. But the reason for the battle was not the only matter to be settled. “Why did you not come to me with this?” he demanded. “As well you knew you should.”
Jago shrugged. “If we had done so, our horses would have been long gone and well hidden, and it would have been but our word against theirs.”
“So, instead, we have more dead. My own man among them.” Buccio cast a pointed look in the direction of the dead Roman soldier.
Jago bowed his head briefly. “For that, Tribune, I am sorry.”
A glance at Constantius showed no such remorse in his expression, but rather a hint of satisfaction.
“Hmm.” Buccio thought a moment longer, before giving his orders. “Decurion, have all the horses rounded up and taken to the fort.”
“What—?” Jago took a step forward.
Buccio gave a warning shake of the head. “For the present, they are forfeit. Until I have had time to consider this matter further. And the dispute between your peoples is over. Do I make myself clear?”
Buccio looked between the two men. Constantius was still smirking, but he gave a shrug and a dip of the head to say he was happy to accept Buccio’s ruling— as well he might be if the horses had never been his in the first place. Jago, on the other hand, looked anything but happy; his eyes glittered dangerously.
“This isn’t over,” he said, his tone even and cold with anger.
“Oh, yes, it is.” Buccio reached out and caught Jago’s arm, towing him away from Constantius. He pointed to where the other two units he had brought with him were ranged at the mouth of the valley. “In case you misread my message, I have enough men and more to fill these hills, so that neither you nor Constantius nor your peoples may take a step without me knowing of it.” He turned Jago to face him and gave him an earnest look. “Go home. Be with your families. Care for your wounded and bury your dead. And I will help guard your peoples so there can be peace.”
Jago looked as he were going to speak but then decided against it. Instead, he gave Buccio a quick nod.
Buccio tightened his grip on Jago’s arm and stepped closer, speaking only for Jago’s ears now. “But cross me again,” he warned, “take the law into your own hands again, and you will feel how heavy Rome’s hand can be, and learn that there is nothing which is not the business of Rome.”
oOo
Chapters 5 to 8
Chapters 9 to 12
Fandom: Jericho/fusion with Rosemary Sutcliff’s works, particularly The Eagle of the Ninth series
Rating: Teen
Contains: Canon-level violence/torture, canon character death
Words: 21,600 words
Summary: A historical AU set in Roman Britain in AD63. Tribune Tiberius Matius Buccio (Major Beck) has been posted to the fringes of the Roman empire — Britain — to help keep the peace following the Boudiccan revolt three years earlier. Settling in to his role, he becomes friendly with local chieftain’s son Jago (Jake Green). When an ongoing local feud takes a murderous turn, he finds himself caught between his friendship with Jago and his duty as a Roman officer.
subluxate created a wonderful mix to accompany the story called Hinterlands—please listen and enjoy. Disclaimer: This story is based on the Junction Entertainment/Fixed Mark Productions/CBS Paramount Television series Jericho and the works of Rosemary Sutcliff. It was written for entertainment only; the author does not profit from it nor was any infringement of copyright intended.
Author's Note: This story uses characters and plot elements from Jericho and worldbuilding, tropes and style from Rosemary Sutcliff—see the end notes for more detail on some of the historical background used in the story. It was written for
smallfandombang. Thanks to Scribbler (scribblesinink) for the beta. Thanks also to subluxate for creating a wonderful mix for the story.Tribune Tiberius Matius Buccio huddled deeper into his cloak, seeking shelter from the raw wind gusting across the gently rolling hills that surrounded the fort. Ahead of him, Centurion Longinus seemed indifferent to the weather. Buccio supposed that, eventually, he too would become accustomed to the notorious climate of Britain. Two weeks had so far proved insufficient. Not for the first time, he found himself wishing he was back in the high, dusty plains of Cappadocia in the East.
The fort, with its turf ramparts and wooden palisade, also seemed a poor exchange for the fine stone fort of his last posting. Even the huddle of dwellings and wine-shops that always gathered around any fort seemed drab and mean in comparison, with their thatched roofs and wattle-and-daub walls. Still, everything had seemed to be in good order when Buccio had inspected the fort with Longinus, from the rows of cavalry pickets and barracks to the granaries and latrines and the bath-house. And, like all the men Buccio had so far met, the sentry they now passed as they made late rounds gave challenge and answer smartly enough.
“They’re good lads, the First Thracian,” Longinus had told him the night before, while they shared a drink of wine in the commander’s quarters that would soon be Buccio’s. He sounded sorry to be leaving them, though Buccio knew he was being given a promotion, back into one of the regular legions.
“And what about the natives? The Legate briefed me when I passed through Londinium, but you know how these things are.” Buccio gave a slight shrug. “Not much detail.”
Longinus nodded: although he only carried the rank of cohort centurion and no doubt had received his fair share of inadequate briefings from more senior officers, including tribunes like Buccio, he seemed a welcoming soul. “They’re friendly enough, I suppose. Didn’t get mixed up in all that bad business three years back—.”
He wrinkled his nose as he spoke. There was no need to elaborate on what the ‘bad business’ was: news had reached even the furthest corners of the empire about the revolt in Britain and how the tribes had slaughtered half the Ninth Legion, before the Fourteenth and Twentieth under Governor Suetonius had put them down. The province seemed quiet enough on the surface now, but Buccio and an additional cavalry wing had been sent to strengthen the vexillation at Corinium and make sure things stayed that way.
Buccio nodded to show he’d understood and Longinus went on, “There’s a couple of local duns less than half a day’s ride away. They haven’t caused much trouble recently—apart from the damn cattle raids. You can make your own mind up who to believe, but they’ll both swear blind they didn’t start it and they’re just rounding up what’s theirs. Anyway, I’ll take you over to both of them, introduce you to the chieftains, and let you see for yourself.”
Buccio had met the first of the chieftains that morning: a tall fellow with pale blue eyes as hard as flints who styled himself Constantius—though Longinus told Buccio he had been known by his own name of Cadan until a mere two years before, at which time he had apparently deemed it politically wise to become more Roman than the Romans.
They reached Constantius’ dun by taking the Via Praetoria that led out through the main gate towards Venonae and then, at its end, to Lindum many miles away. The day was clear but cold and the low hills to either side rose in soft greens against a pale blue sky. The little troop—Buccio, Longinus and an escort of a tent party of eight auxiliaries—turned off the road after no more than a dozen miles, leaving the smooth, paved surface that had been laid less than twenty years before and taking a well-worn track of beaten earth, strengthened here and there with corduroys of logs, that quickly led to the dun.
Buccio had been surprised to be greeted by Constantius in the forecourt of the Chieftain’s Hall, rather then beside the hearth inside, as he had been told was the custom of the tribes in Britain. Surprised too, to see that Constantius was clad in tunic and toga rather than the native dress worn by the other men gathered before the hall. Folding camp chairs were brought out for them to sit upon, and glass goblets. Constantius himself filled them with wine before raising a toast to the emperor, instead of calling on the woman of the house to bring out the Guest Cup. In fact, Buccio realised, he could see no women at all except for a wizened old slave who presented a dish of fine red Samianware filled with imported raisins and almonds.
More Roman than the Romans, indeed! Buccio thought, as they rode away an hour later. Perhaps it was the contrast with the dun itself, the usual huddle of reed-thatched huts and small garths set inside a ring of turf banks and thorn bushes, that had made the Roman welcome seem strange. Yet Buccio could not but help feeling as if he had witnessed a hunting dog performing a clever trick to please a foolish master, while it cast sly-eyed looks towards the deer-carcass it had been called off from moments before.
He recalled, too, the sullen expressions of the men who had stood around watching them while Constantius spoke his careful Latin and exchanged the necessary pleasantries with Longinus and Buccio. When the squeal of a horse from somewhere at the far side of the dun had made Buccio turn, wondering what the sound presaged, two of them had—instinctively it seemed—taken half a pace forward, arms akimbo, so that the fall of their cloaks blocked any view in that direction.
Edging his horse closer to Longinus, Buccio murmured low enough that the escort behind could not hear, “If I am not mistaken, I think Constantius would rather we did not trouble his store of wine often—nor his hunting runs.”
Longinus grunted in agreement, his lips twitching wryly. “I think you are not mistaken. Nevertheless, he also takes care not to trouble our patrols. His quarrel is not with Rome.”
Buccio cast a glance over his shoulder at where the dun had disappeared from view behind an outthrust arm of the hills. His eyes narrowed as he recalled the orders the Legate had given him in Londinium. Facing forward, he squared his shoulders and pulled himself up straighter. Silently, he promised himself that Constantius’ quarrel would most assuredly be with Rome if he troubled any man under Buccio’s protection, whether part of the garrison or not.
The bitter wind that had kept Buccio huddled in his cloak the night before had mercifully dropped the next day, replaced by a soft,warm mizzle rain that twisted his cloak into damp folds as they rode the four miles to the nearer dun.
They were still a mile away when they caught sight of two boys minding a herd of cattle in a marshy pasture to their right. Buccio saw them bend their heads together, before one of them took off over a shoulder of the hill behind, no doubt to carry news of the approaching party. Buccio realised Constantius must also have had word of their coming the previous day, though he had noticed no signs they were being observed until they were close to the dun. While a guard upon his hunting runs was a wise precaution for any chieftain, the stealth with which Constantius maintained his watch gave Buccio pause.
The troublesome thought was forgotten for the present as they rounded the shoulder of the hill and he saw the dun before him. While it was no less carefully sited for defence than Constantius’ dun had been, it bore a more welcoming aspect. Broodmares, some with knock-kneed foals at their sides and others still with swollen bellies, grazed on the slopes below. Once they had passed within the ditch and bank, Buccio saw women sitting in doorways spinning or grinding corn, and he could hear the beat of a hammer on an anvil somewhere to the left.
A dark-haired man some years Buccio’s junior came forward to greet them as they clattered to a halt in the paved space before the largest of the roundhouses. He was clad in a plain woollen shirt and chequered trousers, with his plaid cloak flung back over one shoulder. “Come you in and be welcome.” He gestured towards the low, dark entrance to the hall as he spoke the words in clear but slightly accented Latin.
Buccio’s mare stamped restlessly and tossed her head, and the man took a step forwards and gentled her neck, murmuring something in the local tongue that seemed to soothe her. Buccio couldn’t catch the words and doubted he would have been able to make sense of them even if he had: though he had become fluent in the Cappadocian dialect in his time in the East, he had yet to pick up more than a few dozen words of the native British tongue.
The man tipped back his head, meeting Buccio’s gaze as Buccio frowned down at him. Warmth and a little amusement flared in the dark brown eyes set under flyaway brows. “I was just telling our sister here—” The mare was nudging his shoulder, snorting contentedly, as he went on stroking her neck. “—that there is no need to be afeared. We are among friends here.”
“So we are!” Longinus dropped from his horse and came to clasp the man’s arm, a broad smile on his normally dour face. “Jago! Is your father within? I bring the new Commander to meet him.”
“Sa, he is within. Come you inside.” Jago, relinquishing the bridle of Buccio’s horse to the auxiliary who had come forwards to take it as Buccio dismounted, turned and gave Buccio an appraising look for a moment, before he led them into the dim, smoky interior of the hall.
Buccio found all within much as he had expected from the amused warnings of fellow officers when, on his journey from the East, he had admitted the place of his next posting. As promised, the reek from the fire in the centre of the hall caught at his throat even as he crossed the threshold, and he swallowed down a cough. The place was also dim, though there was light enough from the leaping flames to show him an older, large-bodied man sitting on a low stool to one side of the fire. Another, younger man crouched at his side, the resemblance between them close enough that Buccio guessed they were near kin. They were bent over something in the older man’s hands—a piece of horse harness, Buccio saw, as he turned it over and it caught the light—but they looked up as Longinus and Buccio followed Jago inside.
“My father—,” Jago still spoke in Latin. “I have brought you Centurion Longinus and the new Commander who is to come after him.”
“So.” The older man laid aside the leatherwork. “Come you in beside the fire. Though the wind’s bite is not so fierce today, this damp air is none so good for old bones.” He, too, spoke Latin, though with less fluency than his son and a shape to it that suggested the little Buccio knew of the tongue of the tribes. Acknowledging the dip of the head that Longinus gave him in greeting, he turned his scrutiny to Buccio. “I am Jowan, and this is my son Ennor.” He indicated the man at his side. “My older son, Jago, you have already met.”
“And I bring you Tribune Tiberius Matius Buccio, who is to be Commander after me.” Longinus waved Buccio forward.
Before Buccio could speak, a woman came forwards from the shadows on the other side of the fire. She carried a bronze cup in her hands, which she offered first to Buccio. “Drink, and be welcome.”
Buccio saw, as she moved further into the light, that her copper braids were scarcely touched by frost, though she must be of an age with Jowan. Her eyes when she lifted them to smile at him, were the same shape and colour as Jago’s and he guessed from that, and from her bringing him the Guest Cup, that she must be Jowan’s wife.
Buccio carefully took the cup from her, recalling all he had learned of the customs of the tribes from a native-born duplicarius who had been part of the cavalry wing he had brought with him from Londinium. He was aware that Jowan and Jago and Ennor had their eyes upon him, and that this was a test of sorts. Returning the woman’s smile, he did his best to repeat one of the few native phrases he had painstakingly learned. He drank and gave the cup back in to her hands.
Her mouth twitched briefly as she turned away to carry the cup to Longinus, and he suspected he’d mangled more than one word. But before he could speak again, Jowan laughed, a pleasant, low rumble, and said something in the native tongue that Buccio thought included the word ʽtribune’ but which he could make neither head nor tails of otherwise. His confusion must have been evident on his face, because Jowan gave him a kindly smile and, speaking Latin again, said, “It seems the Tribune knows something of our customs and our speech.”
Buccio gave a slight bow. “Only enough for courtesy’s sake so far, Lord Jowan. But I hope to learn more in time.”
The woman was now carrying the cup to her husband. Taking it from her, he drank and then said, looking at Buccio over the rim, “From Rome, that is a courtesy indeed.” He softened the slight edge to the words with another smile. Buccio was sharply reminded that though Jowan and his people might be more truly welcoming than Constantius had been, and though they had traded long with Rome and learned its language, they were still a frontier people, brought under Rome’s rule only when Jowan had been the age his sons now were.
Jago had taken the Guest Cup from his father, exchanging a look with him before he too drank and passed the cup on to his brother. Then he turned and offered Buccio a smile. “If the Tribune would learn, I would gladly teach. Perhaps the Tribune is fond of hunting?”
Jowan’s wife had disappeared into the shadows but now returned with barleycakes sweetened with honey, and Jowan waved them towards the fire, to share the food and pass around the Guest Cup between them. Settling into his place, feeling his knees creak a little as he squatted, Buccio nodded. “I have hunted often among the rocks and the high plains of the East when duty spared me.”
Again there was an amused look in Jago’s eyes, and one corner of his mouth turned up in a crooked smile as he too folded himself up in his place. “We have no high plains here, but our game is good. I will take the Commander hunting when duty spares him. He has only to send word of the day and I will come to the fort with spears and ponies.”
Buccio hesitated, recognising that here was a chance to build stronger bonds with the local Tribe, yet unsure whether he should make himself so beholden to them.
“He’s a good guide,” Longinus offered, around a mouthful of barleycake. “I’ve been out with him several times myself.”
So it seemed it was already a matter of custom. Buccio returned Jago’s smile. “I shall send word.”
A few weeks later, Buccio found himself following behind Jago as the two of them rode along a track which hugged the lower slopes of the line of hills that ran northwards from the fort. Jago was making good on his offer to take Buccio hunting.
Open woodland stretched out on either side of them: beech mostly, with here and there a glossy-leaved holly bush or a great-girthed oak. Under the trees, from whose twigs young green leaves were unfurling shyly, a shimmering carpet of nodding blue flowers stretched out on either side, their bells shaking noiselessly in the light breeze. The sky above mirrored the ground: a soft, high, blue. When the track widened or the trees thinned, Buccio lifted his face gratefully to warm it in the sun that had, after several grey weeks, at last made an appearance.
Tilting his head back down as the trees closed in again after one such brief glimpse of warmth, Buccio fixed his gaze thoughtfully on the back of the man in front of him.
He had met Jago several times since that first encounter in the dun: it seemed some business or other of the Tribe brought him to the fort nearly every week. Often, Buccio learned, he came to speak to the quartermaster or one of the other senior officers regarding supply contracts or the provision of horses. Once, as Buccio was returning to his office in the praetorium, he ran across Jago lounging outside the hospital, waiting for the senior surgeon to look at a young kinsman who had taken a cut on his arm that had festered and would not heal. The boy had, it seemed, been injured while breaking a horse. Buccio found himself passing a pleasant half hour discussing ground-training techniques with Jago, before the boy emerged from the hospital with his wound salved and bandaged. Jago had shepherded him away home, while Buccio had reluctantly continued on to face the paylists and duty rosters that awaited him in his office.
Another encounter had been less enjoyable for both of them: Jago had come to speak to him about the theft of some cattle by Constantius’ people. Jago—clearly still visibly angry, despite his best efforts to speak quietly once he was shown into Buccio’s presence—asserted Constantius’ men had first threatened the herd boy with knives and then dealt him such a blow to the head before they drove off the cattle that it was likely his wits would never fully recover. When Buccio questioned how Jago could be so sure Constantius’ people were responsible, when the boy could not provide reliable testimony of what had happened, Jago’s eyes flashed for a moment. Then, taking a deep breath and reining in his fury, he explained he and his brother, Ennor, had made a foray onto Constantius’ lands and found the cattle penned in a remote valley in the hills
“Why did you not simply drive them back?” Buccio wanted to know.
Jago’s mouth twitched at that. “Because the Commander asked us to bring such matters to him, rather than take justice into our own hands.”
“So I did.” Buccio dipped his head in acknowledgment. It seemed Jago and his father had heeded his parting words when he had first met them, warning them that he would look unfavourably on any continuation of the low-level lawlessness Longinus had contended with. “I will look into it.” With another dip of the head, he indicated that the interview was over and bent back to the tablets in front of him.
“Tribune—.” Raising his gaze again, Buccio saw Jago had taken a step closer and the anger was back in his expression. “If it were only the cattle taken, I would not have troubled you. But the boy—.”
Buccio leaned back in his camp chair and, placing the tips of his fingers together, gave back look for look. “I have heard your story—” He ignored Jago’s snort. “—and when I have asked Constantius for his tale, I will decide the truth of it. Until then, be satisfied that I will investigate with all my powers and that justice will be done. And until then, go you home and take care of the boy, and pray to your gods, as I will to mine, that they return him his wits.”
Jago looked for a moment as if he would say more, before he gave a curt nod and strode out of Buccio’s office without another word.
Constantius, of course, claimed the cattle had simply wandered onto his lands, and that they had merely been penning them until they could return them. He declared that the herd boy must surely have slipped and hit his head before the cattle strayed, and had invented this wild story of a raid to cover his own failure to take care of the beasts.
Buccio went himself with a detachment of auxiliaries to retrieve the cattle and drive them back to Jowan’s dun. As he told Jowan and Jago, sitting once more by the fire in the Great Hall with the Guest Cup passing between them, he did not much believe Constantius, but there was little proof to be had one way or the other. The cattle were returned, and Constantius knew Buccio’s eye was on him. Buccio would step up the patrols in the hills and, he was sure, there would be an end to such incidents. Jowan and Jago had seemed less than convinced, but had agreed to let the matter rest.
There had been no further trouble of that kind in the weeks since, enough that Buccio thought he might be able to step down the patrols he had been sending through the hills. Indeed, he might be forced to, for there was trouble brewing on another front: there had been more than one occasion when Constantius and his people had provided short measure or inferior goods on the contracts they had with the fort. When the quartermaster had sent his men to fetch the goods, with orders to make the selection from Constantius’ barns and storehouses themselves, there had been angry words and almost an exchange of blows.
The officials sent to collect the taxes due that spring had also found Constantius’ people less than cooperative, with one excuse after another given as to why the tax collectors must return in a week or a month. While there had been no open threats made, sometimes the officials had been faced with groups of sullen-faced young men loitering nearby, fingering the daggers in their belts. Reluctant as Buccio was to make a show of force—and risk provoking the fight he was keen to avoid—he felt it was fast coming time to send a detachment of auxiliaries with the officials to ensure Rome’s demands were met.
All of it had reinforced the impression growing in Buccio’s mind that the devotion to Rome and all things Roman that Constantius had displayed at their first meeting had been a mere veneer that concealed a deep resentment of Buccio and his men’s presence.
Dismissing the troubles that awaited him on his return to the fort, Buccio followed Jago as they left the ponies in a hollow a bowshot from the track and headed up into the hills on foot, each carrying a brace of the light hunting spears Jago had brought with him. Yet though they found plenty of spoor, and here and there a tree with a ring of nibbled bark, they saw no sight of their prey all morning except for a fleeting glimpse of brown hide and a flash of white that was gone almost as soon as Buccio touched Jago’s arm to draw his attention to it.
“I am sorry I have proved such a poor guide,” Jago said, as he brought out a midday meal of wheaten biscuit and dried meat from the bag slung across his pony’s withers.
“No matter.” Buccio smiled as he took the food from him. “I am sure we shall have better luck after we have eaten.”
He turned back to look at the view as he ate: when they had returned to the ponies, Jago had led them up a deep valley until they climbed above the woods and found themselves out in the open again. Here, on the crest of the hills, the wind bent the long grass sideways, and hawthorn and gorse bushes leaned before it like old women bent from carrying water. A wide valley lay spread out below, stretching towards another ridge of hills that rose several miles away. On the nearer side, a mile or so from the foot of the hills, the road north to Lindum ran arrow straight. The fort and Jago’s dun lay somewhere to their right and behind them, where they sat.
Finishing up his food, Buccio nodded at the land below. “How far do your father’s hunting runs stretch?”
Jago gave him a sharp look, as if guessing at the purpose behind the question, before he relaxed again. Lifting an arm, he pointed to a longer, wooded spur a little to the north. “See where the land rises? So far and no further. From there down to the river.” He swept his arm around towards where the river must run, marked by a line of rushes and shrubs, with only the occasional glimmer of water reflecting the noon sun.
“And beyond belongs to Constantius?”
Jago’s mouth twisted into a crooked smile. “As you well know.”
“As I well know,” Buccio agreed, not minding the slight jibe. “Still, it is good to see it with my own eyes and not just in the reports of my decurions.”
“That is so.” Jago dipped his head in acknowledgment, before he quickly brought his gaze back up to meet Buccio’s. “It is good for a man to know his own limits.”
From the way he spoke, Buccio knew they were no longer discussing hunting runs. “I suppose it is,” he said carefully, wondering exactly what they were speaking of now
Jago went on looking at him steadily, his expression serious. “And there are things which are one man’s business and no other man’s. And other things which are the Tribe’s business and no other tribe’s. And—.” He paused and again his mouth twisted into a crooked smile, though this time there was a hint of bitterness in it.
Buccio, understanding, finished the thought. “And there are things which are the business of the Tribes and no business of Rome’s?”
Jago nodded. “Yes.” He held Buccio’s gaze a moment longer before he turned away and, gathering up the pouch that had held the food, got to his feet. “We will try the next valley over. We may have more luck there.”
They made their kill an hour later—a fine roe deer—but Buccio was still thinking about that conversation when they arrived back at the fort, the gralloched carcass slung across the rump of Jago’s pony. Rome was largely content to let the tribes govern their own affairs, as long as their customs did not trouble others or run counter to Rome’s laws. Rome was, of course, the ultimate authority: Buccio had found himself playing magistrate several times to settle disputes between his troops and the tribesmen living and working in the ragged settlement outside the fort’s gates.
Watching Jago as he helped two of the auxiliaries unload the deer from his mount, Buccio wondered just where Jago drew the line between the business of the Tribes and the business of Rome, and what would happen if either of them sought to cross it.
With the deer being hauled away to provide a little variety for the officers’ mess, Jago turned to Buccio. “A good hunting?” he asked, with a smile and a dip of the head.
“A good hunting,” Buccio agreed, handing back the spears he still carried. And not just because they had made their kill: Jago had proved a pleasant companion on the hunting trail, silent for the most part, but ready enough when he did speak to share his knowledge of a country that was still strange to Buccio or, as they had made their weary way home, explain the customs of his Tribe and teach Buccio a little more of the native tongue. Heading for the bath-house a few minutes later to soak away the aches of the day, Buccio found himself looking forwards to the next time he could spare a day from his duties and go hunting again.
Jago took Buccio hunting again a few weeks later. This time, they went in search of waterfowl among the reeds and marshy ground that edged the river to the west of the fort. Buccio learned to handle the small fowling bows and arrows fletched with red-dyed feathers that Jago brought with him; he had to force himself to suppress an uncharacteristic whoop when, after several failed attempts, he made his first kill.
It was late afternoon, and the two of them were wet and muddy by the time they returned to the fort, a half dozen birds dangling from their saddles. It had been raining on and off all day, and there had been much splashing around at the water’s edge to retrieve the birds they had shot or, in Buccio’s case, the spent arrows when he missed.
The fort wore a gloomy aspect under the still louring clouds as they approached. Perhaps it was just the weather that made it seem so—or perhaps it was the thought crowding into Buccio’s mind that, once he had visited the bath-house, he would have to return to the necessary tedium of drawing up duty rosters and determining punishments for the men who had earned them and deciding on the repairs that needed to be made to number three barracks. And after that, he would face stilted talk in the officers’ mess in place of the easy conversation that had ebbed and flowed with Jago during the day as the demands of hunting allowed.
“Come, join me in the bath-house,” Buccio blurted out. He had not meant to say it: the words took him as much by surprise as they evidently did Jago, to judge from his raised eyebrows; but once they were out, Buccio knew he had been right to say them.
Jago gave him a long, considering look, before saying slowly, the corner of his mouth curving up in that wry smile of his, “I should like that.”
They left the ponies and their gear at the gate and, having sent for clean tunics to be brought from Buccio’s quarters, made their way to the bath-house set outside the fort walls. Jago checked at the entrance. Glancing round, Buccio saw him looking uncertainly about the changing room. It was still somewhat empty, just a tent party of auxiliaries climbing back into their gear, with gear for maybe another tent party hanging from the pegs or piled on the benches beneath them.
“This is the first time you have visited our bath-house?” Buccio asked, his voice echoing a little: the auxiliaries who were there before them had fallen silent when they caught sight of the newcomers.
“It is.” Jago took a step further inside and sideways, out of the way of two of the auxiliaries who, gazes turned down, headed outside with a muttered “Sir,” and a nod in Buccio’s direction.
Jago turned back to Buccio. “Centurion Longinus did not honour me with an invitation.” The crooked smile was back, but Jago’s eyes were warm with appreciation.
“No?” Buccio gestured for Jago to follow him further into the room as the remainder of the soldiers hurried out. He pointed to the space reserved for the officers. “So, here is a place to hang your clothes, and Marius here will bring you a towel.” He nodded to one of the auxiliaries currently on bath-house duty.
A short while later, stripped of their outer gear and wrapped in towels, Buccio and Jago made their way through the cold room, where several soldiers were taking a plunge in the pool, and on into the warm room. Here, the rest of the soldiers were lounging and chatting; two were throwing dice; others were listening to one telling a funny story or a joke, to judge by a roar of laughter that rose up as Buccio and Jago entered; the bath-house attendants were busy scraping oil from two more.
Buccio led them to the bench that ran along the opposite wall from where the soldiers sat, not wishing to disturb the men. Jago leaned forwards, resting his arms on his knees, still looking around him, the blue swirls of the tattoos on his back and shoulders seeming to shift on his skin as he settled himself.
Buccio leaned back and closed his eyes, letting the warmth of the room sink into him. He heard the soldiers opposite quickly grow quiet and then leave in the direction of the cold room. The room felt silent, apart from the occasional quiet rattle as the bath-house attendants went about the business of tidying and cleaning in readiness for their next patrons.
“Do they always do that?” Jago’s words were quiet, barely above a murmur.
“Do what?” Buccio cocked open an eye.
Jago was looking after the departing soldiers. “Leave when you come in?”
“I suppose they do.” Buccio hadn’t much thought about it. He gave a slight shrug. “I shouldn’t imagine they much want to be around officers when they’re off duty.”
Jago had turned his gaze on Buccio, his expression thoughtful. “No, I suppose not,” he said finally. He sounded almost sad.
Buccio straightened, feeling a little defensive for his men. “I suppose that seems odd to you. There are no such distinctions among the chieftain’s hearth companions?”
Jago laughed, scrubbing a hand over his hair. “Oh, the greybeards can curse out the young whippersnappers if they think they crow too loudly.” His expression sobered and he gave Buccio another long, melancholy look before he said with a shrug, “But we grew up together and… the Tribe is the Tribe. We are all cousins of one kind or another.” Abruptly, he sat up and stretched, flexing his shoulders. “So when do we bathe? I think I would be cleaner by now if I had simply stood outside in the rain all this time.” He grinned at Buccio, clearly enjoying teasing him.
Buccio returned the grin, finding in turn that he was rather enjoying being teased. It had been a long while, he realised, since there had been anyone at all to tease him. Not since he’d left his home in Corduba and, following the career path expected of him as an equestrian, joined the army as prefect of an auxiliary cohort. That was nearly fifteen years ago now and he’d barely recognised his old friends on the few occasions he’d managed to get home on leave between postings.
He went on grinning at Jago. “But you would have been cold and stiff and sore if you had stood in the rain,” he pointed out, countering Jago’s objection. “And if it is water you seek, you must wait a while. First, we must go to the hot room, where we may sweat out the dirt we have gathered to us. Then we will return here and the attendants will bring oil and scrape away the dirt. Only after that shall we take our plunge in the pool.” He gestured back towards the cold room.
Jago shook his head. “It seems a strange way of doing things. But lead on.”
Later, as Jago and Buccio lay on the massage tables while the attendants worked the remaining knots out their muscles, and anointed them with Buccio’s personal stock of oil before scraping them clean, Jago opened one eye and murmured sleepily, “I think I could become used to this.”
Buccio stared in disbelief at the breathless scout, before he pushed to his feet. “Where?” He reached for his helmet as he snapped out the question.
“The far side of Boundary Hill, sir. There’s a valley….”
Buccio nodded. He didn’t know the valley, but he knew the hill the scout had named. The ridge was the one Jago had pointed out on their first hunting trip together, the rise of land marking the divide between his father’s lands and those controlled by Constantius. It was no great surprise to learn that the brawl the scout was reporting had taken place there. It was rather more of a surprise—and an unpleasant one—that there had been a brawl at all; things had seemed to have been quiet between Jowan’s people and Constantius’ for several weeks now.
“Casualties?” Buccio indicated with a jerk of his head that the scout should follow him as he made for the door.
“One dead, three injured, one of them badly, sir.” The scout gave his report briskly enough, but Buccio caught the anxious look he threw his commanding officer. “Don’t know how many of theirs. We hadn’t a chance to count before the decurion sent me back.”
Buccio grimaced as they clattered out of the praesidium and across the hot, dusty parade ground. It was always a possibility, of course: the risk his men took every time they left the fort. It was part of the job. He didn’t like it any better for that. “Did they say why?”
“Something about stolen horses, sir.”
“Gods!” Buccio beat his fist against his hilt of his sword. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get his point through to Constantius, except by making the consequences so severe no leader in his right mind would consider provoking such a reaction—a step he was reluctant to take—but he’d thought he’d made some progress with Jowan and Jago. Would these people never learn?
Less than two hours later, he was riding up a sheltered valley that opened north-east. A full four cavalry units rode behind him: as he’d made his way to the main gate, he’d decided the delay in gathering the troops would be worth the message such numbers would send.
With a wave of the hand, Buccio sent two tent parties to relieve the auxiliaries guarding the carefully separated groups of tribesmen. The native warriors were squatting on either side of a small stream that chattered down the slope from a spring in the north-west corner. Surveying the two clusters of men, Buccio quickly caught sight of Jago and Ennor in one group and Constantius in the other. Jago had lifted his head as Buccio and his troops approached, his expression taking on a rueful cast as he met Buccio’s gaze.
“Have Jago and Constantius brought to me.” Buccio barked the order at the decurion next to him before dismounting and striding across the rough turf to where the dead had been laid to one side. He counted five bodies, not including the auxiliary, who had been laid a few feet away, his red cloak covering his stiff form.
The wounded were being tended further up the slope, next to the outfall of the spring. The two lightly injured auxiliaries, one with his arm in a sling and the other with a bandage tied around his upper arm, sat either side of their more grievously injured comrade, lying flat on his back. Three more auxiliaries stood between huddles of injured tribesmen, alert to the possibility they might start the brawl again despite their wounds.
Buccio stirred the foot of one of the dead tribesmen with the toe of his sandal, before lifting his gaze and fixing it on the figure of the dead auxiliary. Would there be no end to this foolishness?
A faint cough behind him indicated the decurion had returned with the two ringleaders. Turning, Buccio saw the decurion had assigned a pair of soldiers to each man as escort. A wise precaution: Jago was glaring angrily at Constantius, muscles tensed as if struggling to restrain himself from flinging himself at the other man. Constantius held himself as if ready to react, a slight smirk on his face.
“I’d like an explanation of what happened here today. From both of you.” Buccio inclined his head in Constantius direction. “You first.”
Constantius turned his head to look at Buccio. “We made a trade for horses.” He jerked his head in the direction of a half dozen beasts that had been herded together at the foot of the hill. Buccio heard Jago snort, presumably disputing the transaction had taken place. He ignored the sound, concentrating on Constantius as he continued speaking. “At a steading near here. We were driving the mares home when these men set on us without warning. Three of my people were killed before we were aware of the danger. We were defending ourselves when the Red Crests arrived and pulled them off us. We did nothing wrong here.”
Constantius lifted his chin, his icy stare challenging Buccio to dispute his account of events. Too much, Buccio decided, matching Constantius look for look. He was reminded again of the way Constantius had first greeted him; there was none of the would-be Roman in Constantius’ air now.
Pressing his lips together, Buccio turned towards Jago. “Your story?” He raised his eyebrows.
“My story?” Jago choked out a half-laugh. “They attacked one of our farms. Fired the house-place when all were asleep within. Drove off the horses. One of the farm hands raised the alarm. We followed to reclaim what is ours.” He gave Buccio a quick look that suggested he was not much expecting to be believed.
Buccio knew whom he trusted to be telling the truth of the two of them—unless he had badly misjudged Jago after all. But the reason for the battle was not the only matter to be settled. “Why did you not come to me with this?” he demanded. “As well you knew you should.”
Jago shrugged. “If we had done so, our horses would have been long gone and well hidden, and it would have been but our word against theirs.”
“So, instead, we have more dead. My own man among them.” Buccio cast a pointed look in the direction of the dead Roman soldier.
Jago bowed his head briefly. “For that, Tribune, I am sorry.”
A glance at Constantius showed no such remorse in his expression, but rather a hint of satisfaction.
“Hmm.” Buccio thought a moment longer, before giving his orders. “Decurion, have all the horses rounded up and taken to the fort.”
“What—?” Jago took a step forward.
Buccio gave a warning shake of the head. “For the present, they are forfeit. Until I have had time to consider this matter further. And the dispute between your peoples is over. Do I make myself clear?”
Buccio looked between the two men. Constantius was still smirking, but he gave a shrug and a dip of the head to say he was happy to accept Buccio’s ruling— as well he might be if the horses had never been his in the first place. Jago, on the other hand, looked anything but happy; his eyes glittered dangerously.
“This isn’t over,” he said, his tone even and cold with anger.
“Oh, yes, it is.” Buccio reached out and caught Jago’s arm, towing him away from Constantius. He pointed to where the other two units he had brought with him were ranged at the mouth of the valley. “In case you misread my message, I have enough men and more to fill these hills, so that neither you nor Constantius nor your peoples may take a step without me knowing of it.” He turned Jago to face him and gave him an earnest look. “Go home. Be with your families. Care for your wounded and bury your dead. And I will help guard your peoples so there can be peace.”
Jago looked as he were going to speak but then decided against it. Instead, he gave Buccio a quick nod.
Buccio tightened his grip on Jago’s arm and stepped closer, speaking only for Jago’s ears now. “But cross me again,” he warned, “take the law into your own hands again, and you will feel how heavy Rome’s hand can be, and learn that there is nothing which is not the business of Rome.”
Chapters 5 to 8
Chapters 9 to 12