by James Gawley
Then the wind picked up and the tree began to groan.
For a moment Primus stood very still, listening to the sound of the creaking wood. Lepus froze where he was crouched, one hand touching a chunk of greatwood, the other arm cradling a stack of chips. The wind grew stronger and the tree groaned louder, a sound that seemed to come from all around them. Primus felt the trunk vibrate beneath his feet.
Lepus whispered “Look!” His eyes were fixed on the pale green wood a few inches from his face. A long, thin crack was forming there, growing before their eyes.
“GET OUT!” the foreman shouted. But Lepus squatted, frozen in place, staring wide-eyed at the growing fissure. Primus dropped the axe. He grabbed Lepus by the shoulders, intending to haul him to his feet. The world shrank as the greatwood bent over in the sudden gale. The wedge began to close above their heads. The other axe team had already scrambled out. Primus could hear them shouting from the scaffold. He tugged hard on Lepus’ shoulders.
Lepus finally awakened from his reverie and clutched at Primus’ arm. “Go!” he shouted, and they crawled together toward the edge of the trunk for it was already impossible to stand. Too late, thought Primus. A terrible, slow CRAAACK filled their ears, and the old man of the forest shuddered, and then came crashing down.
Nothing binds men together in common cause, through hardship and infamy, better than the sure knowledge that their hopes are the very will of the gods.
–Gaius Marius Venator,
Collected Letters
BLAME
Primus stood against the infirmary wall, his back brushing against shelves of potted unguent and bright steel instruments. He watched with wide eyes as Lepus lay on his back on the doctor’s table, pulling feebly at the ropes that held him down. Just hours before, Lepus had boasted and teased him. Already it seemed a lifetime ago.
Lepus had frozen up when the gale began to blow, and he watched as if turned to stone as the cracks in the trunk grew wider before his eyes. Primus shook him as the tree bent over on top of them. When the trunk began to snap Lepus roused and they crawled desperately for the edge. Primus felt hands gripping his arms, and they hauled him bodily out of the gap and onto the scaffold that encircled the trunk. Before he could put his feet beneath him, his rescuers flung him off the platform. The world spun brown and green as Primus fell, and the wind rushed out of his lungs as he slammed into the earth.
Primus lay on his back, coughing and clutching his wrist to his chest. For a mad instant he saw the wheat of his father’s plantation rising over him in place of tree trunks, golden stalks bending double as a gale rushed across the fields. Father, I’ve fallen off my horse. Then the roar of the wind grew louder, and the tree gave way with a final crack that echoed off the greatwood trunks across the river. The earth leapt beneath Primus’ back as the trunk slammed down, and dirt sprayed his cheek. He blinked to clear the grit from his eyes and rolled onto his side. After a moment of dumb awe, Primus reached up and touched his fingers to the rough, rust-colored bark. He had been spared.
After a few moments, Primus struggled to his feet and looked around. The greatwood had twisted as it fell, coming down at an unintended angle—along the riverbank instead of across the water. At its base, the trunk had splintered, and tremendous cracks ran along its length. The scaffold had been shattered. The planks now jutted up from beneath the trunk like the legs of a giant insect beneath a man’s boot. One of the men was pinned beneath the wreckage. Two others were prying the splintered boards away from the trunk, working the nails loose in order to free their comrade. The foreman paced around them, guiding their efforts. Primus began to limp toward them, leaning on the tree-trunk with one hand. Then his eyes fell upon Lepus and for a moment he simply stared.
Lepus was pinned to the earth by the trunk of the greatwood. The others must have thrown him clear, just as they had Primus, but the tree had come down across his legs, and Lepus was trapped belly-down against the earth. Horribly, he was awake. He was pulling feebly at the ground, grabbing fistfuls of dirt as he tried to drag himself free. But one leg was buried to the thigh, the other to the shin. He whimpered as he tried to crawl. Primus could see that Sextus, crouched over him, was weeping.
Primus made his way over to them. He crouched on Lepus’ other side. He could smell blood and fresh earth, coppery and cloying. "What do we do?" he asked, and his voice cracked.
Sextus shook his head, still uselessly patting Lepus’ back. His fingers were grey with mud, and there was blood matting his hair. Tears had left clean tracks on his cheeks. He reached out a hand to stop his friend’s feeble clawing at the dirt, but Lepus shook him off.
“Step away from him.” At the sound of a voice, Primus looked up to see the foreman standing over them, a wood-axe in his hand. It was fresh from the grindstone, its edge a fine silver line on the black iron head. “Get back from him. Now.”
Primus looked across at Sextus, who had gone white. He got up slowly, and stepped back from Lepus’ side. The foreman came around, pushing Primus back, and knelt to inspect the leg. “Get ready to move him,” he commanded. Primus crouched once more, this time gripping Lepus beneath the armpits. Sextus watched them both mutely. The whites of his eyes looked strangely clean against his dirt-streaked cheeks.
The foreman stood with his feet braced wide, and swung the axe high. It made a wet sound as it crunched into Lepus’ leg. Lepus screamed, and began to thrash. He struck wildly at Primus, his weak hands battering at his arms and face. Primus tried to find words to calm him, but he could not speak through a dry throat. He tried to catch his hands, but Lepus would not be still. “Hold him down!” The foreman barked. Primus looked up at Sextus for help, but he shook his head.
“Don’t.” Sextus’ voice was a whisper.
“Hold him,” the foreman ordered, and Primus pressed his hands to his friend’s shoulders. Still Lepus thrashed. “HOLD HIM.”
The foreman’s voice was like a thunderclap. Before he could think, Primus found himself kneeling on Lepus’ back, gripping both his arms. Beneath him, Lepus squirmed. He croaked out half formed curses, muffled by the dirt in his mouth. His eyes rolled back at Primus like a maddened horse trying to throw its rider.
There was a crunch as the foreman’s second blow cleaved through the bone. He stepped across Lepus’ body, and took his stance over the other leg. Sextus was weeping. Beneath Primus’ knee, Lepus twitched feebly. His breath was a shallow rattle. Still he gazed up at Primus with one mad eye, his face pressed into the dirt. He convulsed again as the foreman’s axe chopped through his left leg.
They pulled him clear of the tree, and the foreman tied off his legs with Primus’ belt and his own. They made a hasty stretcher with planks from the scaffold and someone’s cloak, and two men came forward to carry Lepus home. Primus wanted to be one of them, but when he came close, Lepus began to spit and thrash, and nearly rolled out of the stretcher in his frenzy. The foreman put a hand to Primus’ shoulder, and led him away. Lepus followed him with eyes that were red and filled with hate. Sextus stood and watched them both go, his face as pale as milk beneath the dirt.
After the foreman left him, Primus stood for a time on the riverbank. The greatwood had come down at an angle, rather than straight across the river as intended. Its trunk rested partly on the sand, and partly in the current. The branches of its canopy reached down into the depths of the water like curling fingers. Green leaves raced away downstream. Primus watched as they spun in tiny whirlpools that churned beneath the surface, until they were pulled down one by one into the darkness.
He thought of Somnia, the general’s daughter who had liked to tease him when they both were young. When we’re married, Primus, you’ll have to retire and become a farmer. Mother says a soldier makes a poor husband. He was ten when she said that, and Somnia was thirteen. Primus had pushed her away, and vowed that he would become a great soldier, just like his father. But that’s the point, she said. When you and I are married, father will know he can always trust you. So i
t’s already been decided. He had recalled that conversation often in the years since; it had the feel of something she had overheard from her parents. But nothing had ever come of it, and Primus wondered if Somnia still thought of him at all anymore. She was priestess now, and she could hardly fraternize with a freshly made legionnaire. He wondered if she ever wished things were different. He wondered what she would say to him now, if she saw what he had done to Lepus.
It took him some time to walk back to the citadel. An ugly purple bruise ran the length of his leg, and he could not keep up with the others as they marched. It was just as well. The sight of him put Lepus–still, somehow, wide awake–into a thrashing rage. Primus remembered the feel of him, squirming. He could still smell the blood on the ground, like a penny in his mouth.
By the time he reached the gates of the citadel, the camp was a kicked anthill. The guards atop the gatehouse towers barely glanced out over the walls, they were so focused on what was happening inside. Primus was waved through with the most cursory challenge. More than a few men tried to talk to him as he walked through camp. One took his arm and tried to lead him back to the barracks. Primus pulled himself free and kept on toward the infirmary, eyes on the ground in front of his feet.
The infirmary door was closed. It was a squat stone building: grey slate roof, brown wooden door, and green lichen on the mortar from the constant mist that drifted down the river from the falls. Primus raised his fist and pounded on the door until someone cracked it open. The foreman looked out at him with a closed face, but Primus stood his ground without a word. After a moment the foreman swung the door wide and let him in.
The air was close in the infirmary. Bundled herbs hung from the rafters, but still a putrid smell hung in the air. The foreman remained near the door, but three of the others from the worksite surrounded a flat stone slab at the center of the room, about the size of an altar. Lepus was on his back on the slab, and the men were holding him still while the doctor's assistant lashed him down with cords of hemp. Primus slipped in quietly and stayed close to the wall. Lepus rolled his head from side to side, seeing nothing.
The doctor stood in the corner, his back turned partly to the room. His beard was white and cropped close; his hair was not much longer. He was Razadin, Primus knew, and when he spoke his accent was thick. He wore the white half-cloak of his trade clasped about his shoulders, and a red tunic beneath that, belted with soft leather. He was bent over a tripod-brazier, intent upon a bronze basin that rested atop the coals. Steam rose from the basin and bathed his face.
“Ready here, Doctor” the assistant said. He and the others had finished restraining Lepus. The doctor looked up from his brazier. He took in the state of his patient at a glance; his gaze lingered longer on Primus standing against the wall. Then he reached into his basin with iron forceps to withdraw a scalpel of shining bronze, which he placed atop a piece of folded wool on his workbench. He reached in once more, and withdrew a black iron saw. He replaced the forceps on their hook against the wall, and bent over the patient to examine his tourniquets.
The doctor prodded the swollen flesh of Lepus' leg with long, delicate fingers. Lepus moaned, and tried to move the stump away, but the doctor's grip was sure. He picked at the belt, checking its tightness. "This is your belt, I think?" He peered up at Primus, whose his tunic hung loose about his waist. Primus nodded, his throat too tight to speak. "If you stay, you will have this belt again. But you will not like to stay, I think." His tone was matter-of-fact. Where he prodded Lepus’ bare leg, his fingertips left white spots on the purple flesh.
The doctor straightened up, and addressed the foreman. "Bleeding has to stop or he will die. There are two ways: one is the hot iron. This stops the bleeding fast, but there are loose pieces of bone in his flesh. These will mortify and make his blood putrid. Another way, I cut again the legs, this time doing clean cut. Then I sew him up. Probably he has lost too much blood, but if I do nothing...” the doctor shrugged. “With your permission, I will cut." The foreman looked at him for a long moment. He did not glance down at Lepus on the slab.
"Do it.”
Primus stayed until the doctor began to work his saw. Then he fled.
Outside, Sextus was sitting on a lichen-covered stone, watching the infirmary door. Primus saw him in passing as he burst out, gasping clean air into his lungs. For a moment he stood, his hands on his knees, looking only at the ground between his feet. Then a waft of air from the infirmary reached his nostrils, and Primus could control himself no longer. He retched, spilling grey porridge onto the dirt between his boots. He heard the infirmary door pulled shut behind him; the sound of wailing diminished. When Primus finally wiped his mouth and looked up, Sextus was watching him.
“What are they doing to him?” he asked weakly. Primus could only shake his head. He didn’t have the words to explain. “I wanted to go in… but…”
Primus straightened up and cleaned himself. “He wouldn’t know you were there. I shouldn’t have gone in myself.” He considered the older man. Sextus was short but he was broad, thick about the waist even on short rations. He was probably ten years older than Primus, but he hadn’t come north as a soldier. His father was one of the officers—Fulvio, that was his name. He had been second in command of the cavalry, under Seneca. He had died of an ague last year. “We should go. There’s nothing we can do here.” He reached out to touch Sextus’ shoulder, but the older man jerked away, his eyes still locked on the infirmary door. After a moment, Primus kicked dirt over his sickness and headed back down the path alone.
***
In the barracks that night, Black Titus sat up with Sextus. Across from them, Primus lay on his cot with his hands behind his head. The others spoke quietly in little groups, their voices somber. The commander had come through the barracks earlier that night, confiscating every wine-skin. Primus hadn’t thought the commander even knew about their wine.
“He’ll live,” Titus said for the tenth time. “They saved his life, doing what they did.” For the tenth time, Sextus nodded, saying nothing.
“Aye, he might live. Maybe.” This was from Varro, a veteran who rarely ventured so far toward the back of the hall. He came to lean against the frame of Sextus’ bunk. “And maybe he’ll wish he hadn’t.”
Primus turned his head to look at Varro. He was an old, sour man, with thin lips and sparse stubble around the back of his head. His arms were wiry and white scars stood out against his tanned scalp. Titus looked murder at him, but Varro didn’t even glance his way. “Hard enough to lose your legs in Arcadia. There’s plenty of beggars there. Up here in the wild though… well, it’s a different story, isn’t it.” He sat down on Sextus’ other side, so that the bunk sagged beneath their triple weight.
“General Marius will take care of him,” Titus said. “We all will.”
“Oh, will the general take care of him? That’s good news. Never mind who sent him up there in the first place.” He put his hand on Sextus’ shoulder. “There’s nothing harder than losing a comrade, especially for no damn reason. Trust me, I know.”
Primus swung his feet off the cot and sat up. “It wasn’t for no reason. Lepus risked his life for the Republic.” That was the reason they were all there, so far from home. So the general said. It was why they were soldiers.
Varro snorted, and cast Primus a sidelong glance, but he spoke only to Sextus. “You and I know better than that. Don’t we.”
Titus cast a dark look at Primus and Varro both. “Lepus was working to make sure his brothers would survive the winter. That’s a good enough cause for any man. And he’s not lost. He’s still alive.”
Primus nodded. “Sextus doesn’t need your sympathy, Varro. And he doesn’t want it.” Varro had some friends in the cohort, men Primus was careful to stay clear of. The last thing Sextus needed now was to join them.
Varro turned his head every so slowly, and gazed at Primus as though he were a statue that had suddenly begun to speak. “Boy. You do not want to be giving m
e orders. I knew your shitheel of a father, and I’d had enough of you the day you signed on for infantry.”
Primus was on his feet before Varro had finished speaking. “Don’t you dare speak about my father. You know nothing about him.”
Varro laughed quietly, without humor. He took his arm off of Sextus and rose slowly from the bunk. “I know more about that hypocrite than you do, boy. And no one tells me what to say.” Varro stood very close to Primus. His breath was hot and rank. Around the barracks, conversations fell still. “Your father is a coward, and I’ll bet his son is too. I’ll bet you’re not so brave when your enemy isn’t pinned under a tree, begging you for help. Go and get your wood axe, little Seneca. Let’s see if you can chop my legs off.”
Primus’ blood was pounding in his ears. He struggled to think clearly. His sword lay across his bunk. He could draw it and kill Varro. They would hang him for it. Or Varro might kill him instead. He was old, but he was fast and he was vicious. The other men were all watching him. Varro’s thin lip curled into a sneer. Primus clenched his fist.
Sextus hit him before Primus ever could. He stood suddenly and grabbed the back of the old man’s neck in one meaty fist and threw him to the ground. Varro twisted like a snake, breaking his fall with one hand and one knee. A knife appeared in his other hand. Then Sextus was on top of him, his bulk pinning Varro to the floor. The knife flashed, and blood flicked across the room.
“NO!” Primus grabbed hold of Sextus’ arm. Titus grabbed him on the other side, and together they hauled him off of Varro. The old man was on his feet in an instant, ready to plunge his knife into Sextus’ exposed chest, but Black Titus stepped between them, his empty hands raised.