athletic build, they were popular throughout the cohort.
There was nothing welcoming about their manner tonight.
‘What do you want?’ demanded one.
Piso glanced at Vitellius, who raised his hands, palm outward. ‘There’s a meeting on, or so we heard. Wondered if we could listen in.’
‘I thought there might be some dice to be played too,’ offered Piso.
The twin who’d asked the question looked a little less aggressive. ‘Whose century are you in?’
‘Tullus is our boss,’ replied Piso, adding for good measure, ‘and a bloody hard taskmaster he is too.’
‘Like ’em all. Bastards,’ snarled the first twin.
‘Cocksuckers,’ added his brother. ‘In you go, if you can find space. Keep your lips stitched about what you hear, mind.’
‘Aye, aye.’ Muttering their thanks, Piso and Vitellius ducked down into the tent.
The press within was so great that they had to wriggle and use their shoulders just to get inside. Piso estimated that there were more than a dozen men present, in a tent made for eight. A tiny space had been left in the middle of the tent for some oil lamps, which lent an orange glow to the interior. As Piso sat down, cheek by jowl with Vitellius, he spied three soldiers from their century. He returned their greeting nods.
Someone was talking – a bony-faced, sunken-cheeked legionary whom Piso recognised – and pausing at regular intervals so that his words could be disseminated to those outside. Piso pricked up his ears, already worrying about what he’d hear.
‘It can’t be a coincidence, I say,’ declared Bony Face. ‘These things don’t happen together unless there’s a good reason. The last time I heard of standards turning to face the wrong way, against the wind, was before Drusus died, the gods rest his soul. That was a bad time, wasn’t it?’
Rumbles of agreement and muttered prayers met his comment.
‘Men in the First Cohort were on patrol yesterday, and got hammered by a shower of hailstones that were blood-red in colour,’ said Bony Face. ‘These are frightening times.’
‘So it is. I heard some lads from the Rapax went swimming in the Rhenus and saw shadowy figures among the trees on the far bank,’ said a soldier near the door. ‘They wasn’t tribesmen either.’
Piso didn’t know if he believed such tall tales, but with so many others rubbing at their phallic amulets and asking for the gods’ favour, it was hard not to feel rattled. Even Vitellius, the calmest of sorts, was frowning.
‘I’m telling you, it’s time to do something,’ said Bony Face. ‘Augustus was never going to give us what we deserve – what is
owed
to us. He was too busy penning his own biography and thinking about turning into a god.’ The laughter that followed was a mixture of amused and nervous, but no one told Bony Face to stop. ‘Tiberius needs to know that we soldiers can’t be taken for granted. We have to be treated right, eh? We’re entitled to proper pay, officers who aren’t corrupt slave drivers, and discharge when our service is up. Is that too much to ask for? Is it?’
‘No!’ the legionaries muttered back at him.
Grinning, Bony Face gestured with his hands. ‘Easy now, brothers. Keep it down. We don’t want the centurion or any of those other bastard officers coming to investigate.’
‘What can we do?’ demanded a soldier with lank grey hair. ‘I’ve been reminding my centurion for five years that my time is up. Because the records have been lost, I can’t prove it, so he laughs in my face.’
‘I was conscripted after the Saltus Teutoburgiensis,’ said another. ‘I shouldn’t have to serve a day over the time I was signed up to, but, oddly, my documents can’t be found either. If my centurion has his way, I’ll be in uniform until I’m fifty.’
A wave of outrage and similar accusations rendered it impossible to be heard for some time. Bony Face watched and listened with evident satisfaction, and waited until it had died