Hawk by George Green

Author:George Green
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canelo
Published: 2020-04-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Five

They went back to the barn.

One side of the building was piled high with hay for the winter. Sides of salted and cured meat hung from the rafters on metal hooks. The village cats sat waiting below while hundreds of rats ran along the beams. Every so often a venturesome rat would slide down a hook and feast on the meat. The cats ignored it until the bloated rat turned to climb back up again. More often than not it couldn’t get any purchase on the smooth metal, and either fell off or would still be there, gripping the carcass, when a villager next came in to check. Either way, the cats always won.

Serpicus and Brutus sat at the single table which, with two low benches, made up all the furniture in the building. Decius and Galba stood nearby. Severus and Scipio sat on the bench on the other side of the table, as spokesmen for the rest of the men who arranged themselves in a ragged but attentive clump behind them. Serpicus saw Cato with the men and wondered which way he would jump when the time came. He had nothing to gain by staying to fight; he’d surely leave.

Severus hadn’t wanted to have the conversation in front of their hosts, and Serpicus could see why. The centurion came straight to the point.

‘We signed on to come here, to Gelbheim, and escort an animal back to Rome. We knew there was a war going on, fair enough. We’re soldiers, if there’s fighting to be done then so be it.’ He looked at the men behind him, and they made noises of assent. ‘But we assumed that if there was any fighting to be done it would be against the locals or attacks by bandits. None of us expected to be sitting here listening to people talking about killing Romans as if it was the accepted local pastime.’

Serpicus tapped a finger on the table. ‘So you’re worried that you might have to fight Romans?’ Several men grunted agreement, and Severus looked quickly around the room before replying.

‘That’s most of it,’ he said. ‘I’m not too keen either about staying here and making friends with people who may very soon end up fighting Romans. Life is complicated enough. I don’t want to end up caught between them and having to choose sides.’

Brutus looked up. ‘Does Severus speak for all of you?’ There was some shuffling, and three men pushed through the front row of listening soldiers. One of them was Snake, the Cretan. As always, he was wearing the soft leather waistcoat that held his knives. He spoke for them.

‘l am a Cretan. Rome tells me I am no longer a Cretan or a Greek, that there is no Greece or Crete any more, that we are all Romans. If this can be done with the stroke of a pen, if it is so easy to make a man a Roman, then I say it is not worth much and it is as easily undone.

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