CONSUL:
Tinnitus, Tinnitus
TINNITUS:
Yes Consul
CONSUL:
What in Jupiter is that dreadful noise?
TINNITUS:
So you can hear it too? Thank the gods for that!
CONSUL:
Of course I can hear it! Why is a man screaming?
TINNITUS:
Oh that? It's a Brigante we're questioning
CONSUL:
Questioning about what?
TINNITUS:
The Lost legion sir
CONSUL:
Tinnitus how many times do I have to tell you, we have not lost a Legion!
TINNITUS:
I'm sorry sir, he's being questioned in relation to the ten cohorts we haven't spoken to in a While. But he's blind drunk so it's really hard hurt him, but we're getting there.
CONSUL:
Has he mentioned seeing them?
TINNITUS:
I'm afraid so sir
CONSUL:
Is he telling the same tale as the others?.
TINNITUS:
I'm afraid so sir
CONSUL:
So it's as we suspected the entire Legion has deserted?
TINNITUS:
It's looking likely sir
CONSUL:
The bastartds!.
TINNITUS:
They've been selling their equipment for beer, the one we have was wearing one of 9ths helmets when we arrested him he also claims he bought it in a pub from a drunken roman soldier just like the last lot we questioned.
CONSUL:
I knew we should never have put together a legion from those bloody Londinium Tribes
TINNITUS:
He also claims that his chief has bought six ballista's and four catapults off them in the last three weeks.
CONSUL:
We need to find ring leaders
TINNITUS:
Well according to the prisoner their leader is due into camp to sell the Legions Gold Eagle apparently they need horses so they can head back to Londinium before the snows gets any heavier.
CONSUL:
So we grab him at the Brigantes camp eh is that you're plan.
TINNITUS:
Not in the slightest they're better armed than us now we'd get murdered!
CONSUL
We have two Legions in reserve!
TINNITUS
All we have is half a legion of Spanish troops Consul and they're not coping well with the weather at all.
CONSUL
What of the 8th
TINNITUS
That's down to six cohorts Consul and they're Gauls and they can't abide the food and haven't ate a thing since they landed, with the state that they're in, they couldn't fight their way past a vestal Virgin to get into a brothel.
CONSUL:
What are we to do Tinnitus?
TINNITUS:
Why not let the Chief buy the Eagle? Within a week he'll have melted it down those bracelets they go mad for. Then if we set off right now we could catch what's left of the disloyal sods on Watling Street They won't have a sword left between them so even with the shower we have, we can still easily kill the lot of them.
CONSUL:
But then I am the Consul who murdered his own Legion
TINNITUS:
It's either that or be the man that tooled up half of the country and had an Eagle melted into a bloody charm bracelet. No all we do is butcher them on the QT, better to have a mystery than a scandal sir
CONSUL:
I see your point Tinnitus get my horse. By the time I've finished with them they're won't be any 9th Legion so no one will ever know for sure what happened to them and we can all go back to Rome with our reputation intact.
TINNITUS:
Exactly sir and I can finally get a physician who knows what he's talking about to have a look at my ears!