The Wall at the Edge of the World

by Damion Hunter

  Eburacum was a beautifully kept up fort, obviously a legion’s pride. All the streets were swept and the plaster freshly whitened. But the fortress had a hollow feel to it and the orderly streets were nearly deserted.

  Postumus stopped outside the Principia, the legionary headquarters, to salute the standards. The Eagle of the Sixth Victrix loomed over him, its great gilded wings outstretched. It perched on crossed thunderbolts with the legion’s honors hung on the staff below it. There were only three other standards, he noted—the personal banner of Aelius Silanus, Legate of the Sixth, and two cohort standards. A cavalry wing banner flapped beside them.

  Inside he saluted again and handed his orders to the optio who passed him on to the legate, a spare brisk man with a brush of graying hair mashed sideways by the helmet he had apparently just removed. He inspected them and said, “I hear you are British-born. That makes this a home posting. Most men don’t make that privilege so young. Or Legionary Surgeon either. Well, Corvus, I hope you live up to your reputation.”

  “So do I, sir.” Aelius Silanus looked like someone who would let you know, painfully, if you didn’t.

  “In that case,” Silanus said, “please present yourself to the surgery and see what state your predecessor has left it in. You’ve a pair of junior surgeons here, but one of them needs to be posted to the wall camps, whichever you think, and you will be too, shortly.” The legate nodded his dismissal and Postumus saluted, fist to breastplate, and left.

  The hospital sat to the left of the Principia, and by the time Postumus arrived at its imposing columned entrance, nearly as grand as the Principia’s, the hospital optio was waiting for him. “I’m glad to see you, sir. We’re having a bit of trouble.”

  “Oh?” And of course, on his first day.

  “Nothing young Lucian can’t handle, I expect, but a senior hand would be welcome.”

  The optio led him down the interior corridor to the sounds of voices. A harassed young man with a thin, intelligent face and the insignia of a junior surgeon stood facing a belligerent legionary across an examining table, while a trio of soldiers in the corridor were apparently making book on the outcome.

  “Is there some difficulty?” Postumus inquired. “I’m the new senior surgeon,” he added as the legionary fixed him with an irritable stare. “I’ve just arrived.”

  “Well, Typhon take you and the donkey that got you here,” the legionary said and returned to his confrontation.

  Lucian cast an exasperated glance at Postumus. “He passed out on the parade ground in the middle of drill. I wish you’d listen to his chest, sir. I’ve checked him three times at three-day intervals, and I hear the same thing every time.”

  “You couldn’t check your own ass with both hands!” the legionary exploded.

  “You shut up,” Postumus said. “I’ll deal with you in a minute.” He turned to Lucian. “What are you hearing? Heart flutter?”

  Lucian nodded.

  “This bastard wants to certify me Unfit for Service. With ten years behind me! It was the heat, that’s all. Or something I ate, maybe.”

  Postumus was sympathetic. The pension for a solider invalided out was only a fraction of what he would receive as a time-expired man. But someone who passed out at drill had no place in a cohort. Too many other lives depended on it. “What’s your name?”

  “Tertius.” The legionary glared at him. He was a wiry man, and battle scarred, with mouse-colored hair and a missing front tooth.

  “That’s ‘Tertius, sir,’” Postumus said. “Very well, Tertius, have you been having any chest pains? Sweating?”

  “Course I been sweating. We’ve been drilling, haven’t we?”

  “Chest pains?”

  “Something I ate, I told you.”

  “Right. Now do me a dozen fast push-ups and then stand still and behave yourself.” Postumus could hear the odds being adjusted in the doorway behind him.

  When Tertius stood up, panting, Postumus sat him on the examining table and pressed his ear against the man’s chest. The skin felt wet and clammy. And yes, there it was: a wildly erratic beat intruding itself every few seconds, and the lungs rattled with edema. Postumus sighed. No one knew what caused that, or exactly what it did, but when a patient had it, the results weren’t good. He wished once again for a magical window through the chest wall.

  “I’m sorry, Tertius, but I’m going to have to certify. I agree with Lucian. You must have known something was wrong.”

  “The gods damn you both,” Tertius said bitterly. “What does that leave me now?”

  “Have you thought of applying for non-combat status? The Medical Corps has always needed more orderlies than it can get,” Postumus added, with some reluctance because Tertius would undoubtedly be a pain in the ass. He might fall down dead tomorrow or he might live for years, but either way he wouldn’t endanger a whole cohort.

  Tertius looked as if he was about to spit. “I’m a soldier! What do orderlies do—slop about with a bucket, washing things!”

  “They knock people like you down and sit on them when I tell them to,” Postumus said, and an orderly across the room nodded appreciatively.

  “I’m not that desperate yet.” Tertius glared around the room. “I didn’t sign on as a nursemaid. There’s the arena, isn’t there? The frontier towns aren’t choosy. I ought to be good for a few turns, and a present now and then from the ladies.”

  “Don’t be a fool. If you’re careful with yourself, you’ll do much better.”

  “I was a fool when I joined up,” Tertius said, and strode out.

  Postumus whirled on the three bookmakers in the doorway. “Get yourselves out!” he snapped.

  Lucian dropped into a chair. “Thank you, sir,” he said wearily. “I’ve never been so glad to see anyone. I just didn’t seem to make any headway with him. It was like talking to a bad-tempered rock. And I did feel for him.”

  Postumus sighed. “That sort of thing never comes easy. Don’t blame yourself. We’ll just hope he doesn’t do anything stupid.”

  “What else is there that he can do?” Lucian inquired.

  Postumus was silent. The invalid’s pension had always been criminally low—even for Licinius, and he’d had senior surgeon’s rank. For a rank-and-file man it wouldn’t even be subsistence level. “The patients that die aren’t the only ones you lose,” he said. They contemplated that morosely, listening to Tertius shouting furiously in the street, until Postumus said, “Well, you may as well show me the place.”

  With Lucian he inspected the wards and well-stocked dispensary, the surgery, the smaller examining rooms, the sunny inner courtyard, and the office that would be his. Lucian hastily swept his possessions off the desk into the corner of his cloak.

  “We weren’t quite sure when you’d arrive, sir,” he apologized. “The old surgeon left two months ago. He was retiring and felt no great need to hang about, since Gemellus and I were here. Gemellus is your other junior.”

  “You seem rather short of patients at the moment anyway.”

  “Most of the legion’s in the north with Governor Urbicus,” Lucian said. “You’ve two apprentices and another junior surgeon up there with Urbicus’s field hospital. I expect they’ll send you on up too, with the legate. He’s only here for a few days to let the local tribes know he still has his eye on them.”

  Postumus supposed that Appius Paulinus had been sent on his way north to the Seventh Cohort already. He would wait until he had met Gemellus before deciding which of the juniors to take with him. When Lucian had gone, he leaned back in the chair and propped his legs up on the desk. He might as well enjoy Eburacum’s comforts while he could. The legionary hospital of the Sixth Victrix was impressive. The walls were spotless and each room displayed the legion’s badge, a charging bull, over its door, presumably to encourage the patients to get up and get going again. The dispensary was organized, the medicines were fresh, and there were bunches of herbs hanging in the drying room that could only have been gathered ye
sterday and argued for the presence of an excellent hospital garden somewhere. The little shrine to Aesculapius in the courtyard had been well kept. Lucian was evidently a conscientious sort, with an inquiring mind—there had been a jumble of notes on native plants and their possible uses among the clutter he had removed from the desk.

  The surgeon’s office walls were whitewashed and the desk had been freshly sanded and oiled, but along the edge Postumus noticed a series of small nicks such as might have been made by a fingernail—a habit of Licinius’s when he was thinking some problem out. So this had been his desk. There was still a ghost or two in the shining modern fortress that the Sixth had made of Eburacum.

  He swung his legs off the desk and began to prowl, looking for… well, looking for what? For some trace of the old inhabitants, of a dead legion? He stopped. Well, maybe he’d better not find it, if it was there. He turned instead for the main surgery, collected his kit, and set off for the housing block that Lucian told him held the senior surgeon’s quarters.

  Outside, he could hear the sounds of an armorer’s hammer, a distant cavalry drill, and a centurion barking orders to what few troops were left on the parade ground. A wagon full of grain was coming in through the Praetorian Gate, unloaded from the supply ships that came upriver from the corn country of the Iceni to the south.

  Like most of the native-born, Postumus was multilingual, and the voices of the unloading crew on the dock floated over the fortress walls. He realized with a small shock that this was the dialect that his mother had spoken to him in his earliest memories. On impulse, he mounted the steps to the south tower and stood, arms crossed, on the parapet, face-to-face with yet another unknown side of himself. The cadence of her speech had never matched that of West Britain and now he knew why. These were her people, the other half of him.

  He leaned on the parapet, absorbed in the prospect below him, until the last of the ship’s hold had been unloaded of grain and clay amphorae of wine and oil and olives, and the cut brush that cushioned them. The members of the crew who had leave scattered into the town in pursuit of amusement while the remainder, under the hawklike eye of the captain, marched sullenly back on board to take up their posts. A flock of gulls squabbled over their leavings. The captain was most likely an ex-officer of the Fleet and knew better than to leave any ship of his small flotilla unguarded so close to a town, or worse yet, an Army post. On deck, the watch crew began to sing. It was in his mother’s dialect and Postumus tried to follow the words, something about a sailor and a mermaid.

  He jumped as he discovered that a dark man in the scale armor of the cavalry, who apparently moved exceedingly quietly, now leaned on the parapet beside him, and followed along a scant half-beat behind the singer in the ship. A half dozen decorations were strung on a leather strap across his chest, including the golden oak leaves of the Corona Civica, awarded for saving the life of a fellow citizen. A commander’s helmet was tucked under his arm.

  “Don’t mind me, young Aesculapius,” he said to Postumus. “Although I’ll take myself to the other side of the gate if it gets on your nerves. It’s a way to learn a tune when you happen on a good one.”

  “I don’t mind,” Postumus said. “I was just wondering how you did it.”

  “It’s easy enough once you have the hang of it,” the cavalry commander said unhelpfully. He resumed his song almost in mid-beat. When the melody ended, he turned to Postumus and sketched a half-salute. “Thank you for putting up with me. That’s a fine song. Something to keeps the lads amused of a night, and out of trouble.”

  Postumus laughed. “If you can keep a cavalryman out of trouble with a song, you have godlike powers.”

  “Well, the Dacians are a cocky lot and like to make a noise. One way or the other.” He smiled and settled himself on the edge of the wall, tossing his cloak back from his shoulders. “My name’s Valerian. Third Wing, Dacian Horse. And you’ll be the new surgeon, I’m thinking.” He eyed the twin snakes of Aesculapius on the surgeon’s belt buckle. “Bit young, aren’t you?”

  “Getting older all the time,” Postumus said.

  “Well, you’ll be an improvement on old Fabius. Could barely see his hands in front of his face at the end, I thought. Made the lads a bit nervous in surgery. Now he’s off to Aquae Sulis to spend his declining years and give learned advice and pot up skin cream for the magistrates’ wives.”

  Postumus, mentally shuddering, thought that Licinius had made the better choice, and he would keep that in mind himself. “Retirement comes to us all. Or do you still plan to be leading a cavalry wing in, what, ten years?”

  “Me, I plan on being emperor by then.” Valerian hopped down from the wall. “Have you seen the place yet? It’s impressive. Come along and I’ll take you round. Only five sesterces for a tour of the famous monuments.”

  Postumus followed him down the tower stairs while the cavalry commander chatted over his shoulder. “We’ll be off again next week. The governor’s had me pulling my lads out of most of the forts hereabouts for the better part of a month. I hope the Brigantes stay quiet—we’ve left half the forts in their hills naked. I’ve got a few days rest-and-repair in Eburacum to knock them together into a good wing again, and then we’re off north to keep the Picts out of the builders’ hair. It looks like we may winter there too, may the Shining One help us. Valentia has too much rain, bad inns, and goblins, or so I’m told. I don’t know what the governor wants with it.”

  “Peace?” Postumus suggested.

  “We’d have that if we’d stuck to the old wall. Probably political mostly, as most things are. He’s already declared himself Imperator and had the coin struck.”

  Postumus laughed. “Yes, my sister sent me one for good luck. I expect he needs a military credit with an imperial salutation to satisfy the Senate. I’ve heard he’s a bit of a homebody.”

  “I’d say that’s to the good if he leaves the campaign to the generals,” Valerian said.

  “The problem with that is that then the generals get to thinking they might be emperor. As you mentioned.”

  They paused at the foot of the stairs while a cavalry troop clattered past, stopping in some confusion to salute their commander.

  “Very nice,” Valerian commented. “Except for the fool in the rear rank with his helmet off.”

  The decurion of the troop whirled around with an awful eye and the offender hastily jammed his helmet on his head.

  “See that he wears it to bathe in for the next few days, Decurion,” Valerian said. “It will serve to fix the idea in his mind.” The troop saluted and moved on, the unfortunate cavalryman brick red under the offending helmet.

  Valerian turned back to Postumus. “I expect you’ll want to dump that kit first thing,” he said. “The surgeon’s quarters are quite luxurious, thanks to old Fabius.”

  The cavalry commander proved to be right. The senior surgeon’s quarters consisted of a pleasant suite of limewashed rooms with hunting scenes painted on the office walls, where Postumus found his luggage from Syria, miraculously delivered, along with another desk and a leather-covered records chest. An apple orchard and an enthusiastic gathering of nymphs and fauns adorned the bedroom. The southeast window cast a slanting light on a decent bed and a clothes chest.

  The third room Fabius had used as a study. He had apparently laid out a good sum of his own money to improve on the Spartan surroundings considered suitable by the Army. One wall here was painted with Europa in a thoroughly diaphanous gown, being carried off by Jupiter in the form of a bull, and a second had been fitted with shelves for scrolls and manuscripts. The study chair must have been the old surgeon’s personal property, as it was nowhere to be seen, but Valerian obligingly filched one from the unguarded room of a cohort centurion currently in the north. He settled himself in it while Postumus unpacked his belongings, and they made the interesting discovery that they were both native-born.

  Valerian, wiry and dark with flying black brows and the heavily muscled legs of a horseman, came f
rom the Silures and had partly grown up near Isca, the usual mixture of an Army father and a native mother.

  “I’ve been back about a year,” he said. “I spent most of my time holding up the emperor’s honor in Dacia with a couple of troops of Asturian Horse. When the troubles started up north, I called in a few favors and told them all what a prize I’d be to the Dacian Horse out here, being fluent in British and Dacian. I didn’t ask for a wing command, but my speech impressed them so much they gave me one anyway.” He grinned at Postumus. “Or they were just getting desperate.”

  Postumus, eyeing the Corona Civica, decided that the command must have been long overdue.

  “Turned out to be a good thing,” Valerian said. “The last Wing Commander hadn’t troubled himself to learn any Dacian, figuring he could leave that to the decurions. And of course the men had enough Latin between them to say ‘payday’ and ‘woman’. He must have had a bit of trouble rallying the troops and it showed by the time I got them. But they’re coming along nicely now. I scared the liver out of them when I chewed them out in Dacian.” He smiled reminiscently, and then fixed his curious gaze on Postumus. “What about you? To look at you, I’d say you had ‘Centuriate’ written on your forehead.”