by James Gawley
Only five of them rode on the river road, though there were twenty in their company. The others ranged out into the forest all around, alert for signs of Woade. Primus sometimes glimpsed them through the trees, their mounts kicking up snow. They wore cloaks of white, lined with snow-fox fur about the collars. Simple caps of iron sat upon their heads. Primus felt strange in his blood-red cloak and heavy helmet, greaves on his shins and shield strapped to his back. Even their leader wore no crest upon his head, but a simple iron cap like all the others. Lucan Venator was the general’s son, and a legate, but he wore no insignia to show it. Sometime after midday, Lucan turned in his saddle to look back at Primus, and beckoned him forward.
“You ride well enough,” the legate observed when he drew close. Lucan Venator had some of his father’s size, but his coloring was Arcadian, as was his hooked nose. His eyes were pure Woade, and it was strange to see blue eyes in an Arcadian face.
“Thank you, sir. I learned to ride on my father’s farm. At Campagna, before the war.”
Lucan nodded to that. “My mother’s people had peach orchards. I haven’t had a peach in ten years now.” He glanced at Primus. “I wasn’t sure you’d be able to travel at all this morning.”
Primus said nothing.
“Your quartermaster tells me you left your barracks last night in order to visit the latrine. We decided that you must have seen the smoke from the temple and rushed to help.” Primus managed a nod. There was little chance that Lucan did not know the truth, he realized. The legate was covering for him. Lucan frowned. “You’re not going to be sick again, are you?”
“No, sir.”
He shook his head. “She hit you with the rod of Jupiter himself. My sister.” His smile faded. “Do you understand why she did it?”
“I... don’t remember much.” Primus knew that lying would only make things worse, but he did not want to discuss the night’s events. He remembered the sweat that stood on the hierophant’s forehead, and the crazed look in his eyes. No one to save you from what’s coming.
Lucan glanced behind them. The others rode well back, giving them their privacy. Still he urged his horse a little closer to Primus and spoke quietly. “She was trying to save your life. Chyurda is a dangerous herb. To my sister and I, it’s no more potent than incense. To the hierophant it is a powerful tool. But it can cause a man to do himself harm, if he hasn’t been taught to handle its effects.” The legate watched as Primus absorbed this. His face must have betrayed his skepticism, because Lucan sighed. “I don’t approve of it, you know.”
“Sir?”
“The way my father baits the priest with that drug. Barbarian holy men use it for their most important rituals, but we don’t know how often. I suspect it is a very rare occurrence. My father lets the hierophant indulge his habit almost daily, and each time he becomes more erratic, and harder to control.”
Should you be trying to control a priest of Jupiter? Primus wanted to ask. Was it not the holy man’s place to interpret the god’s will, and to plead with him for favor? How merciful would the god be toward men who drugged his high priest and kept him on a leash? But Primus only bowed his head. “I’m sorry for my part in what happened.”
Lucan accepted that with a nod. “The sibylline oracles will be difficult to replace. Nearly all of them were burned while my sister dragged you out of the temple. Right now Somnia is attempting to reconstruct them from memory.”
“Is that possible?” Primus was awestruck. There had been at least forty scrolls in the hierophant’s leather case.
“You would be surprised.”
The conversation lapsed as forward scouts rode up to confer with their commander. The legate did not dismiss him, so Primus rode at his side the rest of the day. As scouts came and went with their reports, no one acknowledged Primus’ existence, so that he felt increasingly out of place.
As they rode, Primus let his mind wander. Last night had been his first conversation with Somnia in nearly three years. It was hard to imagine a way in which it could have gone worse. Yet there was that kiss... despite the throbbing in his head, when he thought of it Primus could still feel her lips against his cheek. He found himself recalling the day when Somnia had come to live in the children’s quarters.
For their first few years at the citadel, Somnia had lived with her parents. Her mother was Auria Venator, the general’s wife–and technically, his adoptive sister. The general had been a slave captured by the elder Marius during the conquest of the Woade; when he earned his freedom he took on his master’s name, as was the custom. Eventually he was adopted in the old man’s will, but by then Auria Venator was already the general’s wife. Then came the war, and she came north with him when he fled Tiberius.
When they were children, Somnia sometimes visited the children’s quarters to play ‘legions-and-heathens’ and ‘shipwrecked’ in the yard. She always played the legion general or the stranded ship’s captain, and Primus always found himself leading the barbarian army or the hostile natives against her. Then one day Somnia’s mother left the citadel. The adults said that Marius was sending his wife and daughter to more comfortable quarters in the South. Even at ten years old, Primus knew it was strange that only the general’s family was leaving; the other officers’ families stayed at the citadel.
Somnia departed with her mother, and Primus was upset that she never said goodbye. But a few days later she appeared suddenly at the gates, hungry and alone. The entire camp went mad. Eventually they learned that Somnia had snuck away from her guards and set out through the woods to return to her father. When her guards appeared empty-handed at the citadel the next morning, Marius very nearly crucified them, until Somnia pleaded for their lives. He sent them to the mines instead.
Primus remembered how quietly everyone talked during that time. The adults even seemed to walk carefully, as if the slightest noise might draw down the general’s attention. Eventually Somnia showed up in the children’s quarters, red-eyed but defiant. Her mother had come back for her, but Somnia had refused to leave. She swore on Jupiter’s stone that she would escape again and return, as many times as it took. Eventually her mother gave up, and headed for the coast alone, never to return.
Somnia became the little queen of the children’s quarters, dictating who took what bunk and what games they could play in the afternoons. She decided that Primus would be her friend, since he was the only child with almost as much rank as herself. Once, she confided that the general had not sent her mother away for safety. His wife had simply left him.
“He won’t let her divorce him, you know,” Somnia told him knowledgeably. “The law says she can, but he won’t let her.”
“Why not?”
She looked at him as though he were stupid. “Because he loves her, obviously. He’s loved her since they were children. She was cruel to leave him all alone up here. That’s why I came back.” She nodded to herself. “He needs my help.”
Primus had been skeptical. The general’s reputation was anything but needy. It was hard to imagine him going to pieces without his wife. Years later, riding along the river road with aching head and sour belly, Primus finally realized that the general’s wife was what made him an Arcadian.
Marius was Woade by birth. He may have been raised in the white city, but he could not outgrow the stigma of his parentage. One only had to look at him to be reminded. On the other hand, the Venators were an old family. Their roots went deep. By marrying the daughter of Marius the Elder, the general made himself a part of that family. He made himself Arcadian. Primus wondered if Somnia saw that too, or if she was still convinced that her father had married for love.
“You look like you want to vomit again.” A deep voice shook Primus out of his reverie. He twisted in the saddle, a movement made awkward by the shield on his back. The man who addressed him was dark, with black hair and thick eyebrows, and his chin was shadowed by two day’s beard. He rode his horse easily, back effortlessly straight, one hand resting on his thigh.
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“I’ll be fine,” Primus assured him. “I’m feeling stronger now.” It was true. With every hour, Primus felt a little less sick. He did not know if it was the after-effects of chyurda wearing off, or if the swelling in his head was finally going down. His stomach no longer gurgled periodically, and his dizzy spells were further in between.
The dark man shook his head. “You want to throw up again. Soon. Before the sun goes behind the mountains.”
Primus frowned. He glanced at the legate, but Lucan was ignoring them both. He’d moved ahead to confer with his forward scouts. “I promise I’m all right.”
“No, you’re not. I bet thirty denarii that you’d get down to vomit one more time before the sun disappeared. So that’s what you’re going to do. You can stick your finger down your throat, if you have to.”
Primus half-smiled, unsure whether the man was joking. He was fairly certain there wasn’t a single Dead Man with thirty silver pieces in his purse–except Varro, maybe. He couldn’t imagine that the scouts were that much richer than the legionnaires. But the other man did not smile back.
“I’ll give you five denarii to get off your horse and throw up right now.”
Primus shook his head. “I’m not going to vomit.”
The scout scowled at him. “So, you’re useless and expensive. Good to know.” He fell silent, and stared past Primus as if he weren’t there.
Primus looked at him a moment longer before turning to face forward in the saddle. He tried not to be offended. He’d taken a lot of ribbing when he first joined the Dead Men... but somehow this felt different. In the legion there was a strange kind of pride beneath the insults; there were three jokes about the softness of other cohorts for every one at Primus’ expense, and the Dead Men never allowed an outsider to mock one of their own. But the scout’s jokes had made him feel like an outsider. For the first time, Primus wondered if it had been a mistake to leave the infantry.
That evening Primus gathered firewood while the others set the watch and made their camp. There were no pines in this part of the forest; the greatwoods alone stood sentinel over the silent white world and their shade choked out all other growth. Primus slogged through the deep snow between their roots to find discarded branches and peel away the red bark with his knife. As he trudged back to camp with his first armload, he passed the same scout who had mocked him earlier. Primus had heard the others call him Furio when he paid up on his bet.
“You look tired, Legionnaire. You should sit down and rest a while.” Furio was perched on a tree root almost as tall as Primus, his back leaning against the trunk.
“I’m not tired.”
“Are you sure you don’t want one of us to do that for you?”
Primus did not answer. His head was throbbing again and his legs felt wooden. Talking was a waste of energy. He left Furio to his post and trudged on.
When he reached the road, he had to scrabble up the inclined bank, almost dropping the fuel. Once he reached the top he straightened up and paused, breathing deeply. The scouts had picketed their horses in a line along the far side of the road. Their bedrolls were already arranged around five makeshift fire pits in the middle of the highway. Primus sighed. Four more trips.
He put his back into the work, ignoring his painful head and moving as quickly as he could. Still it was full dark before he deposited the last armload, and by then a sixth fire pit had been arranged a little way down the road from the others. Lucan Venator was arranging his pallet alongside it. Primus sighed and turned back to the woods for one last trip.
When he dropped the wood and kindling beside the legate’s bags, he saw that his own kit had been moved to the other side of the fire pit. Lucan glanced up from sharpening his weapon and nodded to him. “Do you know how to build a fire?”
Primus hesitated. “I’ve seen it done...”
“Kindling in the center. Make a tent around it with the branches. Here: use a little oil to start it.” The legate handed him a small leather flask stoppered with a waxed cork, and Primus set to work.
It was not difficult, with the lamp oil to take the spark from Primus’ flint. Before long the larger branches were beginning to sizzle as the last traces of snow evaporated. “You can make up your pallet here, if you like,” the legate said. Primus thanked him carefully. Privately he wondered what the price would be for this honor; if the other scouts resented his presence already, seeing Primus camp alongside the commander was not likely to improve their mood.
When his bedroll was unfolded and a wool blanket stretched across it, Primus sat down and considered the legate across the fire. Lucan appeared to be ignoring him, intent on putting a razor’s edge on his gladius.
“Sir... may I ask you a question?”
“You may.”
“With all due respect, and gratitude... what am I doing here? I mean, why me, out of all the legionnaires?” The question had been nagging Primus all day. Try as he might, he could not get Titus’ doubts out of his mind.
“You’re here because I asked for you.”
“But why?”
Lucan took a moment to answer him. “Would you rather remain a legionnaire?”
“No... I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I just don’t know how I fit in here. The scouts seem to know the woods so well. All I’m good for is gathering firewood.”
“You’ll learn.”
“Black Titus says I’m not ready to join the extrordinarii. He says there must be another reason I was chosen.”
“And what do you think?”
Primus was embarrassed. “I guess maybe my father asked for me. Since we’re going to the mine...” he shrugged. “Maybe he wanted to see me.”
“You haven’t seen each other in quite a while,” the legate observed carefully.
“Six years.”
“I envy you. Sometimes I wish I saw my father a lot less.”
Primus stared at him, then dropped his eyes to look into fire. The flames curled the sheets of bark and licked at the thicker branches, blackening them.
“You don’t feel the same,” Lucan said.
“Every day would not be enough.”
“Well. Your father taught you to ride at least. After today, I’d say he taught you well.”
Primus was quiet while the legate put away his weapon and blew gently on the kindling. The red light limned his face as the flames leapt higher. Lucan handed Primus an iron cooking pot an sent him to the woods to fill it with snow. When he returned, they hung the cooking pot above the fire. “My father didn’t really teach me to ride,” Primus said.
“Oh no?” Lucan crunched down snow with a wooden spoon, stirring to make it melt faster.
“He gave me my first horse, though.
“How old were you?”
“I was six. I lived with my tutors on the farm. My father didn’t visit often, but one day he arrived with this horse... he wasn’t like the draft animals we had in the stables. He was a warhorse, one of my father’s old chargers. Mean as a snake. He bit me when I tried to pet him.” Primus touched the tip of his fourth finger, feeling the numb scar tissue that covered it.
“So who taught you to ride it?” Lucan measured out grain from a canvas bag and dropped it into the pot. From a little wooden box he measured out a pinch of salt.
“My father put me in the saddle at the edge of a field. He told me to ride around the edges and come back to him. The horse threw me after a hundred yards.”
“Spooked?”
Primus shrugged. “I guess it might have been. There were snakes in the fields; sometimes the slaves would get bitten at harvest time. But I think he just didn’t like having me on his back.” Primus remembered looking up at grain stalks that framed a blue sky, their tips bowing in the wind. “I couldn’t breathe for a while. I kept waiting for my father to come and pick me up... but he just stood at the edge of the field and watched. When I finally made my way back to him, he told me to go and fetch my horse. It was after dark when I got back to t
he house, and my father was already gone again.”
“So how did you learn to ride?”
“I took my horse out every morning while my father was away. I was determined that I would be able to ride when he came back.” Primus had been sure that his father would be proud of what he’d done. But the next time they saw each other the war had already begun and ended, and it was time to run. The general thundered up the road at the head of his cavalry, still bloody from the battlefield. Son, you’re going to be a soldier.
He didn’t even notice that Primus had ridden out to meet him.
Lucan stirred the pot in silence for a time. “My little brother was thrown from a horse, once.” He smiled. “He wasn’t as stubborn as you. He refused to ride ever again. For all I know, he still hasn’t.”
“I didn’t know your brother.” Lucius Venator had not lived in the children’s quarters, and he had left the Citadel with his mother before he was old enough to enlist and move into the barracks.
“You remind me of him, a little bit.”
They fell silent as Lucan spooned out the porridge into their bowls. Before he handed Primus his meal, he drew a clay jar from his saddlebag, handling it with great reverence. When he worked loose the leather cap, Primus could smell the contents from where he sat: honey. Lucan shared out a precious dollop for each of them. Primus took his bowl from the legate carefully, breathing in the fragrance that rose with the steam.
“You haven’t answered my question,” Primus said suddenly. “Why am I here? Did my father send for me?”
Lucan shook his head. “I’m sorry, Primus. I know it would have meant a lot to you.”