The Man With Two Names

by Vincent B Davis II

  A man approached us: Lucius Reginus. Apparently Quintus had found a way to bring his companion with him. I spied the tribune’s crest on his breastplate.

  “The consul has been anxious to speak with you both.” The distaste was prevalent in Reginus’s voice. “When he addresses you, do not utter a word unless you are directed to do so.” His lip curled, as if we were a cheap wine he desired to spit out. “Remain at attention until the consul is ready to speak with you.” And that is what we did. Quintus Caepio continued to converse for some time with the Gaul, a translator standing by.

  Before long, another man arrived before us. He removed his helmet and handed it to his aide. He turned and greeted me with a impish grin. I couldn’t place him at first, but eventually recognized Sextus Caesar.

  “If it isn’t Marius’s old friend!” he said, patting my shoulder abrasively.

  “Sir.” I nodded, but avoided eye contact.

  “Don’t remember me?”

  “I do.”

  “Just don’t like me, then?” He scoffed.

  “So it was you?”

  “Yes, it was I.” He bowed as if at the end of a play. “I betrayed Marius and almost had your little friend killed.”

  “Marius is your brother-in-law. How could you betray him?” Titus, beside me, looked bewildered.

  Sextus shrugged. “I saw an opportunity and I took it. My brother married into a senatorial family, my brother-in-law rules the world, and yet I was left with nothing. So, I decided to forge my own path.”

  “And what did Caepio promise you?”

  “Now, now.” He wagged his finger as if scolding children. “You best call him by his title these days. He brought me here, didn’t he?” He stepped closer and leaned in as if telling me a secret. “Caepio needed a senator outside of his party to propose the bill that appointed him special commander here in the north. As a most gracious thank you, I was made legate, under the divine auspices of our great consul.”

  “How could you do that?” I demanded, unable to hide my disgust.

  He smiled and shrugged again. “It wasn’t very difficult. This is Rome, after all, not Plato’s Republic.” He came so close to me that I could smell his breath. “It’s a shame those scoundrels didn’t finish the job, isn’t it? Then maybe I could have been consul.” He patted my face and stepped away. I did all I could to restrain myself.

  “Marius will kill you if he finds out.”

  “Then I must silence any little rats who might tell him.” He pretended to turn and lunge at me before bellowing and walking away.

  I thought I’d escaped Roman politics when I left for the north. But it had followed me. Its reach was inescapable.

  After some time, Caepio waved off the Gallic man. He then spoke with Reginus and some other officers before he finally turned to us.

  “Well,” he chuckled and looked us up and down, “the gods truly do have a sense of humor.” He moved in front of us with the arrogance I imagined he had on the day of his Triumph. He took his time before continuing, clearly basking in what he believed to be his final victory over us. “Now your lives are in my hands. I have the legal authority to do with you as I wish. I can have you flogged. I can have you demoted… .” He stopped and looked at my rank. “Really? A centurion? I thought Marius and his puppy dog would have taken better care of you.” He shook his head and smiled triumphantly. “I have the legal right to kill you, if I so desire.” He savored the sweetness of every word.

  “You have the legal right, but not the moral right,” Titus spoke up. “Sir.” He remained at attention and kept his eyes forward. “The gods would bring death and dishonor to you and your house.”

  Caepio’s face distorted. “Your brother made similar threats to me and my family before he left our care. And besides, haven’t the gods brought you here, so that you may receive the punishment that I see fit?”

  “Your political maneuverings brought us here. Along with the entire Fourth Legion,” I said. This time Caepio did not reply.

  “I have the right to kill you, but I do not intend to. Despite the indecency you have shown me and my family—even after all the generosity we showed to the both of you—I will show you clemency still. I need able-bodied men, even if they are treacherous, cowardly, and disloyal.” I bit my tongue. If I’d lashed out, Caepio surely wouldn’t have hesitated to change his mind. “We will be in battle within three days. That man just informed me of the largest treasury in Gaul, so we will be attacking Tolosa to capture it.”

  “But, Consul, we’ve never had any quarrel with Tolosa,” Titus said. We were prisoners, as sure as if irons had been strapped to our ankles.

  “I don’t care.” Caepio shook his head. “They have gold and we need it to fund our campaign.” He approached me, so close I could hear the whistle of his nose as he breathed. “You will be ready for battle and your legion will be in first order of march.”

  “Consul, Quintus is not well. He isn’t ready for battle,” Titus interjected, pleading.

  “Again, I do not care. If you are unwell, I will have you stripped of rank, discharged from the army, and sent back to whatever pig-spawn village you people hail from. And believe me, I would like nothing more than to send you packing with your tail between your legs.” I met his venomous eyes.

  “I am fine. I’m prepared for movement and for battle.”

  “Just as well.” He shrugged. “Perhaps the Gauls will finish what they started and sever your leg clean off.” He nodded to my wound. “Tell your men to be ready. First and Second Century, Fourth Legion will be the first to enter Tolosa’s walls.” I saluted, despite the disgust I felt in doing so. We turned to leave. “And make your peace with the gods now. Who knows if you will have time to do so later?”

  SCROLL XXI

  This march was different. Everything about it was different. Something in the air, maybe. For the first time I stood out from the century, beside my contubernium, as a centurion. We didn’t talk much. It didn’t seem like there was much that needed to be said; we already knew how everyone felt.

  I’ll admit the march was hard. I struggled just to keep the pace count, to keep my legs moving in rhythm. Ax, who was closest to me, nudged me once and asked how I was doing. I nodded and continued without saying anything more. I wanted to fall out and travel at a slower pace with the other injured soldiers at the back of the formation. But I had signed myself up to go on, and therefore I was determined to do so without complaining or wavering.

  When we’d marched under Maximus, he’d treated us to his presence occasionally. He would lead his horse to the front of the line and work his way back, speaking with the Mules and the centurions, inspiring us and ensuring that morale was high.

  We enjoyed no such pleasantries under Caepio.

  He didn’t even travel on horse. Perhaps it was too cold for him, or perhaps the strain of horseback was too much for him to bear. He was carried in a litter, toward the back of the formation and heavily guarded. Sextus Caesar would occasionally ride up beside us on his giant steed, but would only wink at me before gallivanting off to find other Mules to taunt.

  Perhaps this was Caepio’s greatest flaw. That he did not expose himself to Gaul. He did not see what we saw. For, like I said, this march was different. Why? Because the Reds had been there. Their scouting force seemed to have arrived at every point along our journey but disappeared like ghosts, leaving no evidence of their presence except for the carnage and destruction they left in their wake.

  The first time we saw it was on patrol. While marching under Caepio, it seemed that every guard duty, patrol, and mess duty was given to the Fourth.

  “How come it always falls to us to do these damn things?” Grumble asked, echoing our irritation. These details always came at the end of a long day’s march, so we still had to walk around Gaul in full kit while the rest of the men relaxed.

  “Because we’re still Maximus’s legion to Caepio and our lives are expendable.” Though I never mentioned it, I was always s
uspicious that Caepio had made certain that most of these tasks trickled down to my century in particular.

  The patrols were certainly a nuisance, but I didn’t mind them. It was nice to get away with just my men. It made me feel like a real centurion. And it gave us some time to move without keeping in step and to enjoy the wind on our faces. We usually spent the time talking about the other legions or listening to Terence’s impressions of Sextus Caesar and General Caepio.

  While we entertained ourselves in this way, paying only minimal attention to our surroundings, one of the men in my century yelled for me.

  “Centurion, there is a billow of smoke coming from over there.” He pointed across the distance. A light gray smoke was indeed pouring into the sky behind a grassy knoll.

  “Good eye, soldier. Let’s move.” I turned the men about and we double-timed to the hill. As the hundred of us reached it, we saw before us a small Roman garrison, all its buildings burned and its soldiers slaughtered.

  “Gods help us,” some of us said.

  “Everything down there looks halfway to Hades,” Terence said. “No sense in going closer.”

  I shook my head. “Our orders are to clear the area and report any activity. I think this constitutes as activity, don’t you?” I patted him on the shoulder and led the men down the hill.

  Even from a distance, the smell warned us to come no further. Rotting or roasting flesh, burning foundations, loosened bowels.

  I gave the order. “Spread out by contubernium.”

  Everywhere we looked, the ground was covered with bodies of dead Romans. The tops of the aged pines surrounding the small camp shook with the ascending—perhaps lingering—souls.

  We searched and searched but found not a single enemy among the bodies. It was as if a violent spirit of the gods had come down and extinguished these lives in a single, violent motion.

  “How is this possible?” someone asked.

  “It’s the Cimbri,” replied another.

  “It can’t be the Cimbri. We would have known if they were here.”

  “That is where you are wrong,” Basilus said. “It is their scouting party. They move in great numbers but are as silent as ghosts. No Gallic tribe could have done this.”

  Though they continued to debate, I couldn’t take my focus away from the bodies before me. Many of them had had their stomachs opened and their entrails spread out like grotesque works of art. The mangled, headless corpses of others were nailed to trees or hoisted in the air with pikes.

  “There is no one here, Centurion. Let’s head back,” one of the Mules said.

  “We have to bury them,” Bear said with resolve.

  “We don’t have the time. Or the space. There are too many,” Pilate replied, but not without sympathy.

  “The gods will be angry with us if we don’t,” Flamen insisted.

  “Yeah, well, I think the gods will be angrier with the Reds. And that’s all that matters,” Grumble said, sighing.

  I decided to gather the bodies and place them together.

  It is surprising how heavy a dead body can be. These men had been lost to the world for some time, and they were bloated, stiff, and cold. It was almost as if they struggled against us to stay on the earth where they’d been slain.

  “Place a coin in their mouths for the ferryman,” I instructed, and some of the men hastened to gather denarii from their belts, while others shook their heads at the waste of good coin. “If you feel you’ve been cheated, see me after we return. I will compensate you. But while you are here, show some damned respect.”

  When all the bodies were gathered, we covered them with oil and burned them. It is Roman custom to mix the ashes with wine after cremation, and some of the men fell to arguing about it.

  “That’s a waste.”

  “It is the proper thing to do.”

  “All of you be quiet,” I said firmly, but in a hushed tone. “Let us show our respect with silence now. We have plenty of that to spare.”

  The chatter was replaced by the crackling of the fires. For some time we watched, unsure how those lifeless things could have ever really lived at all. Our eyes became strained, both from the brightness of the flames and the horror of what we witnessed.

  UPON RETURNING TO CAMP, we reported all that we had seen but said nothing of it to each other. I don’t believe I’ve ever mentioned it since. I could give no real response to such atrocity. “All for the glory of Rome” seemed to fall short in the face of such meaningless slaughter.

  The further we marched, the more such sights we encountered. Far from seeing the Cimbri scouts, we saw only the destruction they left. We kept our eyes forward, away from the carnage, trying to focus on the cadence and the movements of our feet.

  But we all saw it.

  We now understood the kind of enemy we were up against.

  But before that, we had to survive Tolosa. Before we could fight the Reds, we had to “fund our campaign.”

  The morning of the battle, the military tribunes woke us early, shouting that we had better be in proper form. There would be an inspection in a few hours, and the tribunes had noticed that some of us hadn’t been shaving regularly.

  Still half-asleep, we wandered between our tents, or else attempted to shave with our daggers and the water from our wineskins.

  I looked at Terence and noticed the hilarity lighting up his face. Before we knew it, he tilted his head back and let a bellow roll from deep in his chest. We all grinned and waited impatiently to hear what was so funny, and I found myself chuckling beforehand.

  “The-these Tribunes! Do they—do they not know hair keeps growing when you’re dead?” He hunched over and clutched his belly in his laughter, while men from other tents gathered to join the fun. “They want us to die as dignified, clean-faced men, so we can rot in the ground as hairy beasts!” But by this time, all of the joy had evaporated from his voice. He looked down, his lips quivering. His breathing became heavy and he blinked rapidly. We all watched uncomfortably and shuffled closer to him.

  No one offered any comfort. We had none to give. It would have made our fear real; it would have drawn it to the surface. So, instead we only stepped closer, as a silent form of empathy, because we were all scared. We were all scared.

  I CAN STILL REMEMBER that sound. It was deafening. Each time our battering ram smashed against Tolosa’s gates, the sound echoing in our helmets, we would lose our hearing, and somehow even our vision was affected.

  Disoriented. That was our whole experience. Being disoriented.

  Most soldiers experience a siege like this, but only few know what it is like to be the first in line, just behind the siege unit.

  “Steady, men!” I tried to shout above the tumult, but I’m not sure a single Mule heard me. Our shields were joined and hoisted above us, trying to ward off the javelins, arrows, and stones hurled at us from the barricade.

  A booming sound canceled out all others. The gates came crashing down and orders were given to advance. We moved slowly, methodically, inside the foreign city, in the tightest defensive positions we had trained for. Still, the training was not enough to fully prepare us.

  I fell in line with my men, my old contubernium closest to me. One might assume it feels safe behind that wall of shields, but we were no more protected than the Tolosans behind their ramparts. Arrows and javelins began to pierce the shields and rip the flesh of my men. Crazed Tolosans flung themselves into us, doing whatever they could to open up our ranks. Men pounced on top of the formation and stabbed through whatever holes they could find.

  Screams began to lift up into the morning air. We were so disoriented it was impossible to know if we were among those poor wailing souls. In our desperation, men began to bunch closer together. “Get your intervals, men!” I shouted, an order that only some heeded.

  We pushed forward. We stumbled over the limp bodies of the comrades who fell before us and tried to keep our balance.

  We found ourselves in an open corridor, just be
hind the gates, and the orders were given for the centuries to spread out. Centurion whistles blew and flags waved with a variety of different orders, but it was so difficult to discern what we were supposed to do, what we could do. Even as a centurion, I found myself lost in the madness.

  Then it happened. I remember it clearly. Through a narrow gap in our defenses came whistling a javelin, and it struck one of the men to my right. Someone in my original contubernium. We tried to keep our eyes fixed forward and to our flanks, where the enemy assailed us. We tried to keep our positions and continue on with the mission. But we couldn’t help looking over our shoulders to see the victim.

  “Who was it? Who was it!” a cry came from one of the men.

  “It’s Terence!” came a harried grunt.

  “No, it’s Bear!” The breath left my lungs and my heart beat so hard that my chest swelled beneath my armor.

  “Push forward! Repel them!” I tried to shout. But my voice wavered and my tone was weak. It must have been the most pitiful command ever issued by a Roman centurion.

  A fresh wave of assailants met us, angry and violent. Clubs smashed against my shield and sent reverberations down my arm and spine. I felt that my wrist might snap. I tried to plant my feet, but my ankles threatened to lock and give way beneath me.

  And so we pushed on. We shoved our swords past our shields at whatever was before us, and shoved harder when met with resistance. If I killed in that battle, I’ll never know. In that frenzy it is impossible to keep up with anything—no time to pause or reflect, no stolen glances of dying faces that could haunt me in my dreams.

  SO THIS WAS how I experienced Tolosa. I don’t know what the history books will tell you, and I don’t really care. For me and my men, it was mayhem. Just bloodshed. Our only thoughts were of survival and our comrade who had fallen from the javelin.

  As the Tolosans fled back to the inner parts of the city for a final defense, we broke ranks and ran to our fallen friend. I shouldn’t have allowed it, but there was nothing I could do. My entire contubernium had to know who among us was lost. My men couldn’t march a single step without knowing, nor could I.