‘Oh, shit yourself! The courier was late. I wrapped up affairs and left five days after he came! It was past the season for sailing. You think I wanted to be on this road? Find him and ask questions. Titaticus, or something. An idiot with a red nose. Kill him with your helmet. How is Vargos?’
Carullus looked back over his shoulder. ‘He’s on a horse.’
‘What? Riding?’
The tribune sighed. ‘Tied across the back of one. He was… worked over a little. He struck me after you fell. He can’t do that!’
Crispin tried to sit up, and failed, miserably. He closed his eyes and opened them again when this seemed practical. ‘Listen to me carefully. If that man has been seriously injured, I will have your rank and your pension revoked, if not your life. This is an oath. Get him in a litter and have him tended to. Where s the nearest physician who doesn’t kill people?’
‘At camp. He struck me,’ Carullus repeated, plaintively. But he turned, after a moment, and gestured again, behind him. When another soldier trotted up on his horse, Carullus murmured a rapid volley of instructions, too softly for Crispin to hear. The cavalryman muttered unhappily but turned to obey.
‘It is done,’ Carullus said, turning back to Crispin. ‘They say he’s had nothing broken. Won’t walk or piss easy for a while, but nothing that won’t pass. Are we friends?’
‘Fuck yourself with your sword. How far to your camp?’
Tomorrow night. He’s all right, I’m telling you. I don’t lie.’
‘No, you just shit all over your uniform when you realize you’ve made the mistake of your life.’
‘Jad’s blood! You swear more than I do! Martiman, there is fault here both ways. I am being reasonable.’
‘Only because a holy man saw what happened, you bloated fart, you pantomime buffoon.’
Carullus laughed suddenly. ‘True enough. Number it among the great blessings of your life. Give money to the Sleepless Ones until the day you die. Bloated fart is also good, by the way. I like it. I’ll use it. Do you want a drink?’
The situation was outrageous, and he was only moderately reassured about Vargos’s condition, but it did begin to appear that Carullus of the Fourth Sauradian was not entirely a lout, and he did want a drink
Crispin nodded his head, carefully.
They brought him a flask, and later an aide to the tribune cleaned Crispin’s bloodied cheek and jaw line with decent care when they halted for a brief rest. He saw Vargos then. They had indeed worked him over, and more than a little, but had evidently chosen to reserve more substantial chastisement until such time as everyone at their camp could watch the fun. Vargos was awake by then. His face was puffy from the blows and there was an ugly gash on his forehead, but he was in a litter now. Kasia was led up, apparently untouched, though with that furtive, doe-like look in her eyes again, as if caught in torchlight by night hunters and frozen in place with apprehension. He remembered his first sight of her. Yesterday at about this time in the front room of Morax’s inn. Yesterday? That was astonishing. It would give him another headache if he dwelled on it. He was an idiot. An imbecile.
Linon was gone, to her god, into silence in the Aldwood.
‘We have an escort to the military camp,’ Crispin said to both of them, still moving his jaw as little as possible. ‘I have achieved an understanding with the tribune. We will not be harmed further. In return I will allow him to continue functioning as a man and a soldier. I am sorry if you were hurt, or frightened. It seems I am now to be accompanied to Sarantium the rest of the way. There was more urgency to my summons than was evident in the documents themselves or their delivery. Vargos, they have promised a physician at their camp tomorrow night to tend to you, and I will release you from my service then. The tribune swears you will come to no harm and I believe he is honest. A gross pig, but honest.’