Avenging Varus Part II

by R. W. Peake

  With a sigh, Pullus dropped down onto the ground, gasping as he recognized that it was his sagum that was spread out on the ground, identifiable because of the double layer and fur lining, and he asked with surprise, “Where did you find this?”

  Alex gave him a thin smile, but one that gave nothing away, saying only, “I found it.”

  While Pullus was certainly interested, he was also ravenous, but when he accepted the hunk of bread, his hand touched something sticky, and he asked cautiously, “What’s on this bread?”

  “You probably should peel off the crust,” Alex answered readily enough, but there was an evasive quality that made Pullus lift the hunk high enough so that the distant light from the Century fire shined on it, and he saw a sheen that was not something that would be associated with a loaf of bread.

  “Is this…?” he began, but Alex cut him off by asking quietly, “Do you really want to know? Or,” he gave Pullus a smile that was impossible to interpret, “do you want to starve to death?”

  Understanding the reality of the moment, Pullus took a deep breath, then muttered, “No, I don’t want to know.” He began peeling off the crust and continued, “And no, I don’t want to starve to death.” Suddenly, he looked at Alex sharply, asking, “What about you? Do you have anything to eat?”

  Alex looked away, then shrugged, saying only, “I’m not hungry.”

  “You need to eat something,” Pullus argued, then tore the bread in half, although he was honest with himself in admitting that he was not happy about it. Nevertheless, he thrust it at Alex, and commanded, “Eat. As your Centurion, I’m ordering you to eat.”

  Alex reluctantly accepted the bread, but the manner in which he shoved it into his mouth told Pullus everything he needed to know. For a span of moments, they were content to sit and consume their meager meal, listening to the blatting sounds of the cornu being played by some Cherusci who had no idea of what he was doing, along with the drunken shouts and other sounds of revelry by their foes as they celebrated the bounty provided them by a Roman baggage train.

  Finally, Pullus asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “No,” Alex replied instantly. Then, after a moment’s silence, he said, “Yes.”

  He went on to describe the events that led to the moment when Gnaeus Pullus saw him, ready to make his final dash for freedom after alternately carrying and dragging Gaesorix up the baggage train, moving from one wagon to the next, before bursting from cover. Pullus said nothing, only listening as Alex described, in the same kind of flat, matter-of-fact tone that he himself used when giving a report to his Pilus Prior, how he had made the decision to disobey not only Pullus, but Gaesorix, hiding under the wagon until the moment came when he was forced to move. His description of killing a Cherusci who had turned to be a youth still in his teens ostensibly got the same treatment, but Pullus was not fooled, hearing the quaver in his clerk’s voice as he related the bare facts of killing his first man. Once he was finished, Alex returned to gnawing the last of his bread, leaving Pullus to muse on what he had just heard.

  Finally, he said, “I can’t lie and tell you that I’m not angry, Alex. I gave you explicit orders, and you disobeyed them. No,” he held up a hand, “you’re not a ranker. Not technically. But,” his voice hardened, “I’m still your Centurion, and you’re bound by the same regulations as any Gregarius.”

  “I know,” Alex replied miserably, his head hanging, but then he looked up at Pullus and pleaded, “but how could I leave one of Uncle Titus’ best friends behind? How could I let him be butchered like Considius and Macula?”

  “Macula?” Pullus asked, unfamiliar with the name, and Alex explained who he was.

  There was a silence, then Pullus said, somewhat grudgingly, “I suppose you did the right thing.” Before Alex could say anything, Pullus pointed at him and glowered. “But that doesn’t mean I agree with it.”

  “But,” Alex insisted, “if it was the right thing to do, why don’t you agree with it?”

  Faced with this, Pullus realized that, as usual with Alex, he was outmaneuvered, so rather than answer, he chose to look off at the faint glow where the celebration was occurring.

  The army settled down for the night, with the men of the 5th and 21st forced to devote more men to standing post on a dirt wall that was once again lower than it should have been, which meant that the ditch was correspondingly shallow. It was a decidedly odd sight, Pullus mused as he made his last round before retiring himself, seeing how men of each section stretched out in the exact same manner and order, as they would if there were a tent above their heads, and it served as a reminder of how important a regular routine was to most of these men. And, he acknowledged to himself, he supposed he was no different. Nor, he saw, was Alex, who was curled up a short distance away from Pullus’ sagum, in almost the exact manner and distance as if his two-room tent was above their heads. Pulling off his helmet, Pullus only briefly considered removing his armor before discarding it, thinking it was only prudent to keep it on, nor did he remove his greaves, although he shed his baltea. Dropping onto the sagum, Pullus did place his gladius next to where his right hand would be lying, but he had only been stretched out a matter of a few heartbeats before he sighed, then sat up.

  “Alex,” he called out, and he sensed more than saw the clerk stir.

  “Yes, Centurion?”

  “Get over here,” Pullus said gruffly. “There’s no point in you lying on the ground like that. As wet as it is, you’ll be soaked quicker than Pan.”

  He heard Alex rising, then come to Pullus, who saw him as little more than a dark shape now that the order had come to extinguish the fires, but without thinking, he indicated the unoccupied portion of his sagum.

  “Lie down there,” he said, making sure that his tone made it clear this was not a request.

  Alex complied, tripping over Pullus’ feet in the process, eliciting a curse from the Centurion, but he dropped down next to Pullus, then whispered, “Thank you, Gnaeus.”

  “By the Furies,” Pullus answered, “if you snore or thrash about, I’m kicking you off to go sleep in the dirt.”

  Despite the words, he heard Alex chuckle, then retort, “I’m not the one who snores.”

  This surprised Pullus, and he peered at Alex closely, trying to see his face in the dark to determine if this was a case where his clerk was taking advantage of the chance to have some fun at his expense.

  “Gerrae!” he exclaimed. “I don’t snore!”

  Alex had already rolled onto his side, his face away from Pullus, slightly muffling his answer. “As you say, Centurion. You don’t snore.”

  Grumbling, Pullus reclined back onto the ground, using his hands to pillow his head as he stared up at the sky to see that the stars were partially obscured by clouds, and he suddenly realized that at some point that day, he had glanced up and seen those clouds, thinking that rain was coming. Which, he thought miserably, is just what we need.

  More to occupy his mind with something else, he asked Alex, “Do I really snore?”

  Alex’s only reply was another barely audible chuckle, and Pullus realized that his clerk was going to leave him wondering; this was the last thing he remembered before he fell asleep.

  “To arms! To arms! We’re under attack!”

  Pullus naturally jerked awake, his heart hammering, but he did not hesitate, leaping to his feet with his baltea in his hand, hastily strapping it on, although he did have to fumble a bit for his helmet before he found it. Next, he tried to find his vitus, but while it seemed much longer, within a heartbeat, he remembered he had discarded it earlier that day. He did not immediately move; instead, he stood, listening to the shouting all around him as his men and the rest of the Fourth scrambled to their feet, urging their comrades to hurry. As Pullus listened, he sensed Alex standing behind him, but after another couple of heartbeats, it seemed to the Centurion that the largest concentration of noise was coming from the opposite side of the camp, where the Porta Decumana was lo
cated. What he could not hear, he realized, was noise from anywhere else, particularly from outside the camp.

  Recognizing that he needed to make his presence felt if not seen, he strode the few paces to where the Cohort street would be before he bellowed, “Second of the Fourth! Rally on your Centurion!”

  He repeated this several times, Tetarfenus reaching his side first, and while it was certainly not as quickly as if it was daylight, he could not fault the speed with which his Century assembled. Saloninus appeared out of the gloom, but when he asked for orders, Pullus realized that he had no idea what was happening.

  “Keep them here for now while I go find the Pilus Prior,” Pullus ordered. “Maybe he knows something.”

  Because of the size of the camp, neither Pullus nor any of the lower number Cohorts were in a position to actually see what had caused what would turn out to be a false alarm, although by the time Pullus found Vespillo, the Pilus Prior knew that much.

  “Some Tribune’s horse broke loose and went galloping off through the camp,” he told his Centurions, and they did not need any light to hear the disgust in his voice. “And it ran through those rabbits in the 21st who thought Arminius had swarmed over the walls.”

  “I thought they were on duty,” Cornutus protested. “So they should know whether that’s true or not!”

  “They’re rabbits,” Vespillo shot back, as if that were all the explanation necessary, but Pullus noticed something.

  “Pilus Prior,” he pointed out, “if we know that this was because of a horse, why is there so much noise going on over there?”

  He realized he had pointed, a superfluous gesture given the visibility, but he could see Vespillo turning in that direction; it was, after all, hard to miss the shouting of what had to be several hundred men, still in the direction of the Porta Decumana.

  “That,” Vespillo admitted, again without his usual sarcasm, “is a good question, Pilus Posterior.”

  “Do you think the Primus Pilus might know?”

  Pullus used the darkness to openly wince at Cornutus’ question, certain that Vespillo would feel like his subordinate was telling him what he should be doing, but he was doubly happy for the gloom because his jaw dropped in surprise when Vespillo answered absently, “That’s a thought, Cornutus. Let me go find him.”

  With that, he wandered off, heading towards the large open area of the forum and praetorium, leaving his Centurions to stand there, wondering what was wrong with their Pilus Prior.

  It was almost a full watch after whatever had been going on around the rear gate had subsided and Pullus and the rest of the Fourth learned more of not just what had transpired, but what had come of it.

  “The Legate had to throw himself in front of the Porta Decumana to stop men from running away,” Vespillo informed the others, sometime after midnight. “He told them they’d have to run him through to get around him.”

  There was a muttered response, and one of the Centurions and Optios who had gathered around their Pilus Prior whistled in admiration, Pullus recognizing Fabricius’ voice as he said, “That took some big balls.”

  “How did they react?” Licinius asked, and there was a trace of the old Pilus Prior when he snapped, “How do you fucking think they took it? They backed down, of course.”

  There was a brief silence at this, then Cornutus ventured, “Do we know any more about what the Legate has planned for when the sun comes up?”

  “Yes,” Vespillo answered immediately, “and here’s what we’re going to be doing.”

  For the next several moments, he laid out the plan that Caecina had essentially been forced to develop as a means to convince men who had reached the conclusion that their only chance to live another day was to flee to not do so. Like the others, Pullus listened attentively, and while he believed the plan was sound enough, it was also based on an assumption that Caecina was making, so that when Vespillo finished and asked for questions, he decided to risk his Pilus Prior’s scorn.

  “Pilus Prior, what if they don’t do what the Legate thinks? Did the Primus Pilus have anything to say about that?”

  This was met by silence, which made Pullus slightly nervous since he could not see Vespillo’s expression, and he braced himself for a verbal lashing.

  Instead, in a tone that told Pullus, and the others, as much as the words, Vespillo admitted, “No, Pullus. That never came up.” He paused, giving Pullus the sense that this had never occurred to Vespillo, and it sounded like it had not to at least Sacrovir as well, then Vespillo went on, “But if they don’t, then I think it’s safe to say that what happened tonight will happen again. Except,” his voice turned grim, “it will be a lot more than a few hundred men.”

  Deciding to change the subject, Pullus knew he was gambling since Vespillo was notorious for not liking his Centurions to ask multiple questions, “Do we know who it was that tried to bolt?”

  “We do,” Vespillo answered angrily, but it was not aimed at Pullus. “While most of them were from the 21st, since they’re over there on that side of the camp, the Primus Pilus told me that there were men of our Eighth that were involved as well. Apparently, that fucking horse ran through their area too.”

  “This was all because of a horse?” Gillo broke in, though not in a doubtful manner as much as a sense of wonder that this could have been the cause. “We almost lost our Legate because of a panicked horse, that scared a bunch of…”

  “Cowards!” Vespillo was vehement. “That’s what they are, nothing but cowards. And,” he added menacingly, “none of your boys better cut and run in the morning, or I swear on the black stone, I’ll bust their Centurion and Optio right back down to the ranks! And take some skin off their back in the process! Is that understood?” Not surprisingly, there was no response to this, and Vespillo dismissed them to return to their men with the warning, “Get what rest you can. We’re going to have a busy morning.”

  It was the one thing that all of his officers agreed with, and when Pullus returned to his sagum, he dropped down immediately, only taking long enough to inform Alex of what the morning held, finishing it with, “And this time, you’re going to go with the other clerks and you’re going to stay there. Is that understood?”

  “Yes, Centurion,” Alex answered, but he felt Pullus glaring at him, and it was with a fair amount of irony he added, “I understand and will obey. There, is that better?”

  Pullus mumbled that it was, but he was already dropping off to sleep, leaving Alex to sit next to him, knees drawn up to his chest, deep in thought.

  It was Alex who roused him when the sky was turning gray, the sign that the dawn was rapidly approaching, and he came awake immediately, having managed to doze for just a few moments. Rising to his feet, he walked to the Cohort street, watching Alex roll up the sagum before he began rousing his men. This morning would be one where, shielded from view by the walls of the camp, men would be moving with as much stealth as they could manage to get into their assigned position before the Legate would release his Bucinator, appropriating the one such of this type from one of the Legions to replace the man slain in the attack, to sound the official call to start the day. From that moment on, the noises made would be of a nature that told their enemies that this was a normal day in camp, despite it being far from that. Leading his Century, Pullus in turn followed Vespillo and his First as they followed the First Cohort, in the direction of the Porta Decumana. Like every other officer, Pullus had been instructed to issue a warning to his men about saying anything to the 5th and 21st, who occupied that half of the camp, which he had done just before they began moving. Nevertheless, he was surprised that, when they walked, not marched, past, having been warned about marching in step because of Caecina’s worry that the rhythmic sound of thousands of men would be loud enough to be heard beyond the dirt wall, none of the men uttered as much as a single word while their comrades stood, equally silent because they had been similarly warned. It was eerily reminiscent of the tension between men during the mutiny, and i
t was not lost on Pullus that these were the four Legions who had participated in it. This was also the moment when he realized, with surprise bordering on shock, that it had been almost exactly a year before that all that had taken place, when his father, unknown to him as such, had been sent to find Germanicus and bring him back to the Rhenus, then returned to his old Legion in Pannonia on Germanicus’ orders. Reaching the spot next to the rear wall they were assigned, Pullus supervised his men dropping their packs, choosing to ignore their obvious reluctance at the thought of what meager belongings that remained in their packs being essentially left unguarded in the area belonging to another Legion. While he understood this, he was also thankful that they seemed to recognize there were more pressing issues facing them than the sanctity of their personal property from their light-fingered comrades, although he did have an amusing thought. If it was the other way around, my boys would steal those bastards blind and laugh all the way home about it. With the light baggage taken care of, Pullus and the other Centurions had their men strip the leather covers off their shields, but it was around that time something came up.

  “What about javelins?” Saloninus asked, reminding Pullus, “We dumped ours yesterday, remember?”

  “I do,” Pullus answered, then after a pause, added with a grin, “now that you reminded me. But,” he became serious, “that’s a good question. Let me go find out if we’re going to get any.”

  When he found Vespillo, he was informed that, in fact, this was what their Primus Pilus was addressing at the moment. This engendered a nervous wait, as Pullus eyed the eastern horizon that was just beginning to show pink, and as they stood there, the silence was broken by the bucina call, announcing the official start of a day in the Legions.

  “Now,” Vespillo muttered, “we see what that mentula Arminius has in mind.” Suddenly, he turned to Pullus, and the Centurion realized that he could see Vespillo’s features as the Pilus Prior said, “That was a good question earlier, Pullus. I won’t deny it.” As abruptly as he had turned towards him, Vespillo looked away as he said with undisguised bitterness, “It’s something that a competent Pilus Prior would have caught.”