Frontier Wolf by Rosemary Sutcliff

Author:Rosemary Sutcliff [Sutcliff, Rosemary]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
ISBN: 9781448173006
Publisher: RHCP
Published: 1980-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

10 Fire Along the Frontier

THE FRONTIER PEACE had been broken. Two soldiers had been killed and so had the Praepositus’s favourite horse.

Now in the Sacellum of the fort, the Praepositus and Ducenarius Aquila faced each other. The lamp had been lit on the table, for outside the wet and windy daylight was fading fast, and in the upward light the snarling silver dragon-mask of the Ordo standard seemed to hover forward on its spearshaft, its shadow, and the shadows of the two men flung far up the rough plastered walls behind them.

Only a few moments before, Connla also had stood there under guard, listening to his sentence decreed by the Tribune. He had stood there with that wicked laughter of his like summer lightning all about him. Only once he had licked his dry lower lip, as though maybe the thing was not so funny, after all. That had been so short a time ago that it seemed to Alexios that he could still hear the footsteps of guard and captive in the colonnade outside.

‘In the Name of Light, Sir!’ Alexios was saying, ‘Horse-raiding – horse stealing – they’re a rough sport, a – a game of skill, to the tribesmen.’

‘I do not need that you should explain the tribesmen of North Britain to me,’ said the Praepositus.

‘With respect, Sir, I think you do.’ (With respect, with respect . . .) ‘The whole thing was more than half in jest – only the jest went wrong.’

‘It went wrong indeed. Therefore I intend to make an example of the jester, that no one may make the same kind of jest again.’ Montanus raised his voice as Alexios tried to cut in. ‘These people forget who is master all too quickly. They need to be taught the lesson afresh from time to time.’

‘I doubt you’ll teach it them by putting the Chief’s brother up as a live target for javelin practice!’

‘It is a usual enough form of execution – and quicker than the old style crucifixion used to be, if your heart is so tender toward these people – I presume your men are trained to cast a javelin at a target?’

‘When they can see it,’ Alexios said desperately. ‘But the light is almost gone.’

‘Have torches brought out onto the place you call the Dancing Ground. That will give them light enough.’

‘Not in this wind, and with the rain driving. At least, Sir, wait till morning.’

Montanus leaned forward across the table. His face was a narrow-eyed reddish mask in the lamplight, and his shadow ran up to engulf half the Sacellum behind him. ‘And give your friends the chance to rescue him?’

Alexios was silent. He was thinking more that it might give the Praepositus’s temper time to cool; but that was a slim chance, and he knew it. It was a cool anger already, which was what made it so deadly. It was beyond mercy or reason.

‘No, Sir, I ask only to wait for better light, that the work may be done cleanly and quickly; my men are not butchers.

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