Exiles of Arcadia: Legionnaire

by James Gawley

  Varro held the knife out, its edge red. Sextus’ arm was bleeding freely, and his tunic was growing wetter by the second. “Let it end here.” Titus spoke quietly. The others were crowding toward the back of the barracks, filling up the aisles between the bunks. Varro pointed the tip of his knife at Sextus’ eye. The old man’s grip was steady, and his stance was loose, relaxed.

  “You and I will finish this one day. Depend on that.” He lowered his weapon.

  Titus stepped aside to let him pass. Primus tried to pull Sextus out of the way, but it was like tugging on a boulder. Finally he moved, stepping aside and pulling free of Primus at the same time. Varro brushed past them all as if they weren’t even there. The others parted for him, then drifted back to their bunks.

  When he was gone, Titus spoke loud enough for everyone to hear. “Sextus Fulvio has cut himself sharpening his weapon. I’m going to take him to the infirmary.” He took Sextus by the arm, steadying him as they moved up the aisles toward the entrance of the hall.

  “I’m sorry,” Primus called after them. But they continued on, neither one glancing back, and Primus was left standing alone in the aisle. After a time he sat down on the edge of his bunk, and then lay back. He threw one arm across his eyes, and prayed fervently that none of the others could see him trembling.

  Pray all you like. You cannot command the gods.

  –Anonymous graffito,

  Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus

  TESTS

  The snow stood ankle deep between the ragged tree stumps, silencing the world. Primus’ boots shuffed through the loose powder as he wove his way along the edge of the forest, his clay lantern held high between himself and the trees. The oil flame spilled a meager pool of light onto the snow around his feet. Beyond that, shadows ruled.

  Primus used his spear butt to find his way, prodding for gnarled roots hidden beneath the snow. His eyes stayed on the forest, looking for movement in the shadows between the greatwood trunks. It was a moonless night, the kind favored by wolves and Woade.

  So focused was he on the forest, Primus heard no one behind him until it was too late. A hand fell on his shoulder and his heart leapt into his throat. He jerked away and spun, leveling his spear as he’d been trained. He jabbed at his attacker’s belly. A cloaked figure lurched back from his spear point. Primus stepped forward while his enemy was off balance, intending to swing his lantern overhand and smash it over his head, setting him ablaze.

  “Hold!” A familiar voice whispered. “It’s only Sextus!”

  Primus hesitated, the lantern raised high. “Sextus? What are you doing here? Where is your uniform?” Sextus gestured for him to lower his voice. He was dressed, not in the red cloak and armor of a soldier on patrol, but in simple un-dyed wool. A traveler’s bag hung from his shoulder. Yet when he turned, Primus saw that he wore a legionnaire’s gladius beneath his cloak.

  “I’m leaving.”

  Primus gaped at him for a moment. Then he gripped his lantern and his spear together in one hand, and with the other he grabbed Sextus’ arm and tried to turn him. “You need to go back to camp, right now. How did you even get past the sentries? Never mind. Just go, before they see you.”

  Sextus shrugged him off. “I’m not going back.”

  “Sextus, they will crucify you.”

  “I don’t have a choice. I can’t stay here another day.”

  “What are you talking about?” Primus tugged again at his arm, but Sextus didn’t move.

  “Lepus is dead.”

  Primus stopped. For a moment he said nothing. Sextus’ face looked somber. Not angry. Just very, very tired. “I’m sorry.”

  Sextus nodded. “So am I.”

  Primus thought of the last time he’d seen Lepus. He had been feverish, delirious. He had not recognized Primus. His legs had infected after the surgery, and weeks of sickness had wasted the flesh off of him. When he clutched Primus’ hand, his fingers had been like claws. “I made a sacrifice for him,” Primus said. “A white rabbit. I caught it myself and brought it to the hierophant, when his fever worsened. We sacrificed it to Asclepius.” He remembered the rabbit’s blood, steaming hot on the cold stone altar. It had been such a beautiful animal, snowy white and graceful. The hierophant had held it upside-down by its legs until all the life pumped out of it. Primus shuddered. “I really thought it would help.”

  Sextus sighed. “I don’t know if the gods can even hear us, in this place.”

  Primus glanced at him, then looked over the field of stumps to the road, where a group of guards was waiting to relay messages from the patrolmen. “We should walk, so that they see my lantern moving.”

  After a moment, Sextus nodded. He kept pace with Primus and they moved slowly along the edge of the forest. Primus started to speak, then stopped. He’d tried to talk to Sextus several times since the accident... but Sextus had avoided him. Now he was here, and Primus wasn’t sure what to say. What he’d done to Lepus, he did to help. No matter how cruel it had looked. But he remembered the way Lepus had squirmed beneath his knee... and the way Sextus had begged them to stop. He drew a breath.

  “Sextus... about that day. I was Lepus’ partner, I should have got him out before–”

  “You did your best. The gods sent the gale that brought that tree down. You can’t blame yourself.”

  Primus frowned. For some reason he couldn’t name, he didn’t want to be absolved so easily. “You said the gods were beyond our reach.” Sextus did not answer immediately, but gazed past Primus to the shadowed trunks that rose overhead, their heights disappearing into the gloom.

  “Not our gods. I think there’s something in this place that’s even older. Something that doesn’t want us here. I feel it, sometimes. Can’t you?” Primus followed his gaze into the dark forest, and shivered.

  “You’re imagining things.”

  “Am I?” Sextus looked directly at him, and Primus looked away. He resumed picking his way along the edge of the field, where the pine-stumps ended and the greatwoods began.

  “You can’t leave. We’re legionnaires, remember? You can’t desert your brothers.”

  Sextus spoke quietly, almost sadly. “We’re not legionnaires. We’re just a band of killers. You heard Varro, that day in the barracks.”

  Primus remembered the red edge of Varro’s knife, pointed at Sextus’ eye. You and I will finish this one day. “Varro is a thug. They’ll realize that, and then he’ll be gone. You don’t have to fear him.”

  “Will they? Then why haven’t they got rid of him yet? You know, if I went after Varro myself, they’d hang me for it. But if I stay, I’ll always be waiting for the knife in my back.” He raised a hand before Primus could speak. “He is not the reason I’m leaving. I don’t fear Varro–it’s what’s underneath it all that I can’t take.”

  Primus looked at him from the corner of his eye. “I’ve never heard you talk like this before.” Sextus was usually taciturn. When he spoke, it was to boast or to jest... usually with Lepus.

  Sextus was silent for a time. Then he sighed. “Lepus and I used to talk about it, sometimes. Mostly I tried not to think about it. But ever since... the accident... I can’t think of anything else.” He seemed to be groping for words. “It’s the lie of it all. Everyone sees, but no one says. I think you know what I’m talking about. I’ve seen you asking questions. You’re smart. You must know there’s something wrong here. That’s why I came this way tonight; I had to talk to you before I left. You’ve got to look around you, Primus. You seem to believe it all so fiercely, sometimes.”

  It was the longest speech Primus had ever heard from him. He thought of Black Titus, who left his wife behind in Arcadia. He thought of the men who joked about the rape and pillage they would do. Sextus had been one of them, just a few weeks ago.

  “Come with me,” Sextus said.

  Primus stopped short, and turned to stare at the older man. “I can’t leave.”

  “Yes, you can. I’ve got enough provisions to take us all the
way to the coast, if we’re careful. And there’s game in the forest. We’ll stay off the roads, so they can’t find us. It can’t be as dangerous as they say.”

  “No, I mean I can’t. I won’t abandon my brothers. I took a vow–we took a vow. If you walk away from that, you’ll be cursed for the rest of your life.”

  Sextus gazed levelly at him. “Primus. I know the real reason for your loyalty. But your father is not the man you think he is. Maybe he was once, before the war. But living as an outlaw–wait!”

  But Primus was already walking away. He spoke over his shoulder. “Go. Run away, if you’re going. Don’t worry, I won’t betray your secret. I’m not the one who breaks his promises.”

  Sextus did not try to follow him, and Primus did not look back. By the time he reached the edge of his patrol and turned around, a storm had begun. All that remained of Sextus was a set of footprints leading into the forest, rapidly filling up with snow.

  ***

  They cremated Lepus at dawn. Primus came in from his patrol just in time to join his unit on its way to the parade ground. He fell in with them in silence, and they marched in silence to honor their friend. The snowstorm had cleared overnight, and the stars were still visible against the reddening sky when the cohort tramped into formation on the freshly blanketed martial field. The Dead Men were not the only cohort present; Primus saw the Wolves, the Red Harpies, and the Widowers. Lepus had been well liked.

  Primus frowned to see two pyres built up before the stage. One was laid with the body of Lepus, his face washed and his body swaddled in white linen. Copper pennies covered his eyes. The other pyre was empty, but a single sheet of linen lay across it. Before Primus could ask who it was meant for, the hierophant lifted his arms. He stood on the stage behind the pyres, wrapped in a white cloak fringed with gold. “We invoke Dispater, ruler of the lands below. We invoke Ceres, and Persephone. Hear us, you somber ones, and accept the shades of the departed and let them join the watchful dead.”

  “May the dead be merciful upon the living,” Primus murmured along with the rest.

  “We offer you a sacrifice, to seal our bargain,” the hierophant intoned, and his assistants led forward a small spotted pig, who snuffled at the boards of the stage as it came. “This creature’s flesh will feed the dead, and no mortal man will taste of it. Its blood will quench the gods below, and no living thing will drink of it. We offer its tongue, its hooves, its eyes, its life: a willing sacrifice.”

  The hierophant raised a silver knife on high, and its blade shone milky white. “Dispater, accept this offering and be bound as I have instructed!” The knife came down, and the pig squealed as its throat was cut. The hierophant’s assistants flicked the pig’s blood onto both pyres, and when its struggling stopped, they carried it down from the stage and laid its small body atop the empty sheet of linen. Primus recognized the mourning ceremony for comrades whose bodies could not be recovered. He’d seen it before, as a boy, when the legion mourned those who fell before they fled north. He frowned, wondering who they were mourning in absentia. He suspected that he already knew.

  The Dead Men held themselves to attention as General Marius ascended the stage. He was preceded by his legate and attended by his personal guard, who dragged between them a man in chains, his face covered by loose cloth sacking. When he reached the speaker’s platform, Marius turned his head slowly to cast his eye over the assembled men. The hierophant looked like a child beside him, standing only a little taller than the general’s elbow. Marius wore his full dress uniform, blood-red cloak fixed to the shoulders of his tooled leather armor. The brass head of Medusa on his chest was polished to a brilliant shine, and the crest of his helm added still more inches to his height. Though he wore his hair cropped close and his chin smooth, there was no disguising his blood. Marius was Woade.

  The general spoke simply, plainly, and his voice carried over the silent field. “I am here to tell you what you already know. Sextus Fulvio, our brother, was killed last night by one of our own.” Primus felt a tightness in his gut. He could not imagine how Sextus had fooled them into thinking he was dead, but he was sure he would not like the answer. He glanced around himself, trying to gauge the reaction to this impossible news. Every face was impassive.

  On stage, the general raised his arm and indicated the man in chains. “During the third watch of the night, Gaius Porsidius Varro was stopped by one of our sentries in the act of dumping a corpse into the river.” One of the guards yanked the sack from the chained man’s head, and Varro glared out at them, squinting in the morning sunlight. His face was bruised and bloody, his lips cracked. One eye was swollen shut.

  “Men were sent to pull Sextus from the water. It grieves me to admit that the river runs too swiftly here; our brother’s body will never be recovered. Nevertheless, he will receive full funerary honors. Be sure of this: Sextus’ spirit will find its place in the afterlife.” Marius paused, and looked out over their faces. Primus’ mind was racing. Someone was lying, setting Varro up in order to protect Sextus. Or perhaps just to get at Varro.

  The general beckoned Varro forward; the guard propelled him to the edge of the stage. The general spoke up, louder than before. “Two weeks ago, Varro threatened young Sextus before three hundred witnesses. Last night, he was caught in the act of disposing of the body. This morning, he has admitted to his crime. You all know the law.

  “Prosodies Varro will hang. Our brother’s shade demands no less. But. We face hard times here. Winter is coming, and we must be prepared. If we kill this man now, we are two hands weaker than we were and we cannot spare a single man. Come the spring, Varro will hang for his crime. But during the winter, he will labor to help his brothers survive, and perhaps he will erase some of the stain upon his honor. So. We ask the shade of our brother to go peacefully to the next world, and trust us to mete out justice on his behalf.”

  Primus looked at Varro teetering on the edge of the stage. The way he stood, it was obvious that his bruises were not confined to his face. Maybe he’d been injured when they arrested him... or maybe he’d been forced into his confession.

  Primus knew that he should step forward. He could clear Varro’s name, and save his life... but if he revealed what he knew, they would track down Sextus and crucify him for desertion. And they’d probably nail Primus up as his accomplice. Maybe Varro deserved his punishment, even if he wasn’t guilty; after all, he had threatened to murder one of his brothers. He probably would have done it, if Sextus had not fled. Then they would’ve hanged him, just the same as they were doing now–the only difference was that this way, Sextus got to live. Primus squeezed his eyes shut. I am a coward, he told himself. But he did not move.

  They lit the funeral pyres, and the smell of lamp oil wafted across the field. Black smoke stained the morning sky, and the general stood to attention with the rest of them as the flames consumed the flesh of one comrade and the effigy of another. When the sun stood high overhead and the fires had burned down to little more than embers, the general turned away, and climbed down from the platform. His escort followed, dragging Varro between them. The hierophant’s assistants fetched pitchers of wine to bathe the ashes and the cohort fell out, dispersing slowly to barracks or breakfast or duties. Primus lingered with a few of the others, watching the last flames. Some of the men were talking in low voices about the murder.

  “Who was it that caught Varro in the river? Do you know?” Primus looked into the embers as he spoke, and tried to sound numb rather than curious. One of the others glanced at him.

  “It was Black Titus. Pity the old man couldn’t catch him before he’d done the deed.”

  Primus nodded, and listened to them talk a while longer. As he turned from the ashes and began to climb the hill toward the barracks, he started to piece it all together. In order for the story about Varro to work, Titus had to be sure that Sextus wouldn’t suddenly turn up at the gates in a day or two. So he knew Sextus had deserted, and believed he stood a good chance of success. Earl
ier, Primus had wondered how Sextus slipped past the camp sentries. Now he knew: he’d had help.

  He found Black Titus at his bunk, packing up his kit.

  He unfastened each strap of his armor before stacking it, and unsheathed his sword to check the edge before stowing it in his chest. He grunted when he saw Primus. “Hail, little Seneca. Sad business, eh.”

  Primus clasped wrists with him briefly. “Lepus I was expecting,” he said simply. “Sextus I was not.”

  Titus looked at him sideways as he rolled up his neck guard and pushed it into his helmet. “Well. Varro will suffer for it, before he hangs. Word is he’ll go to the mines.”

  “Is it bad there?”

  “It’s bad,” Titus agreed. “They bring in more slaves from the coast every year. To keep up with mortality.” He finished putting away his kit, and closed the chest.

  Primus drew a breath. “Titus, I need... I mean, are you going to the kitchens?”

  Titus looked at him. “Change out of your armor, if you’re coming with me.”

  The wind was blowing from the falls as they climbed the hill. Primus pulled his cloak closed against the icy mist. Winter came early to the citadel; soon the hearths that warmed the barracks would be lit. The engineers had not been able to move the greatwood from where it had fallen along the bank. Their plan to float the tree downriver had failed; now teams of workers were laboriously hacking off sections of the trunk and dragging them overland down to the citadel. Many wondered if they could put by a sufficient store before snow and ice made the river road impassable.

  Primus and Titus got hard rolls from the kitchen, and water from the well. Titus led them past the officer’s quarters and the latrines, all the way around the side of the hill to the rocky slope that faced the falls, and chose a slab of wet grey rock for their bench. It was far colder on this side of the hill, but at least no one would bother them. Primus broke his loaf, pinching out a bite of the soft interior. It was coarse, and heavily salted. He tipped his water skin to his lips and drank. From their perch, they could see over the top of the wooden palisade. Upriver, sheets of green water thundered over the falls, bearded by foam.