01 Britain
Prologue
His eyes wandered across a group of boys that had just arrived from the main land.
Sarmatians.
Descendants of the most fearsomly skilled warriors that had ever fought for Rome. Young they were, most of them between sixteen and eighteen years of age. Each of these boys had been trained to fight since childhood. They would be a valuable addition to the Roman force in Britain.
"Junius!"
A young Roman officer approached him. "What do you think?" he asked skeptically.
Junius raised an eyebrow. "Do you have any reason to question Sarmatian skill?"
The young officer shook his head. "No. But did you not notice the little ones in this group?"
Junius scanned the group more carefully. There, now he saw it. Among the older boys were several younger ones, perhaps thirteen or fourteen summers old. He even spotted a few tiny ones of no more than twelve summers.
Junius gritted his teeth.
"They're too young!" he hissed.
The Roman officer nodded. "A pestilence raged though the Sarmatian population last year. Many tribes were not able to provide enough boys of military age. Therefore the convoy sent to collect them decided on taking a few younger ones as well."
"What use will these boys be to us?" Junius asked incredulously. "All we can do in the coming years is feed and train them! They'll have to grow and gain strength before they can hold their own in battle!"
"Exactly," said the officer. "Their families in Sarmatia could have taken care of that. Now we are stuck with them here."
It was an early morning, several days after the boys had arrived in Britain. A small military convoy followed the course of a river as they made their way to the forts in the north. Junius felt uncomfortable in his saddle. He was getting too old for this. His glory years as commander in the Roman army lay far behind him. Unwilling to leave his military life behind, he had prolonged his service and had become a guard to the never ceasing flow of recruits, delivering them to their posts in Britain. But even this was beginning to wear him out - more than he cared to admit.
He studied the soldiers riding ahead of him. Each of them was heavily armed and kept a close eye on the thirty Sarmatian boys they were guarding. The boys had been stripped of their weapons, although a carriage did bring their weapons along.
"Always allow a man to fight with his own weapons." It was a lesson his own mentor had attempted to drill into his mind. Junius had fought it, had insisted on teaching Gauls, Macedonians and Sarmatians alike to fight Roman style. Only after failing again and again had he accepted that his mentor had been right. He had finally seen the value of men wielding their trusted weapons in their own native style.
Now he, Junius, was the one hammering this knowledge into the minds of officers and commanders in charge of Sarmatian cavalry.
Tumult from the front of the caravan shook him out of his reverie. About a hundred yards ahead of the caravan three soldiers yanked a boy from his horse and started whipping him mercilessly. The boy's screams rang through the forest while the soldiers yelled at him for attempting to escape. The boy barely understood Latin, but the message was driven home nonetheless.
When the boy was seated on his horse again, tied between two Roman cavalrymen, the caravan continued its journey North.
Five days later they halted on the edge of a large forest. Junius watched the boys as they set up their tents and prepared their meals for the evening. There had been a lot of trouble with the boys during their journey, but it was gradually getting less.
His eyes lingered on the youngest of the group, one of the little ones he had first seen in Dubris (Dover). He was a silent one, this boy. He didn't make much trouble. He wordlessly followed any orders given to him by the Roman soldiers and thus far he had not rebelled. One could almost believe that he had accepted his fate. But Junius knew better. You had to take a closer look at the boy's deep brown eyes. His eyes were alive. He was very watchful, and from the way the boy attentively observed his surroundings, Junius could tell that he was probably quite intelligent. He had seen vivid flashes of livid anger in the eyes of the young boy whenever one of his Sarmatian brothers had been taunted or beaten. As a matter of fact, Junius was almost convinced that the boy understood Latin. There was something in the way the boy stared at the Romans which made Junius believe that he knew exactly what his guards were saying.
Junius leant back against a tree and closed his eyes. This boy reminded him strongly of another Sarmatian boy he had taken to the Wall, many years ago. What was his name again?
Tristan.