“Thanks. And you do this for a living? You have my admiration.”
“It’s none so bad when you’re used to it,” the seaman said. He pulled one foot up on the oar bench and braced it comfortably against an upright beam. “This is just a sightseeing excursion, mind you. The real work comes when you’re trying to outmaneuver another ship, or keep your head above water in a storm.”
“Thank you, this trip will do me very well,” Correus said. He could feel the blisters swelling on his palms and winced as one burst.
The seaman leaned comfortably against the back brace. “Nice to have a bit of a holiday, though,” he said.
They made it from the port of Rome to Ostia harbor with only two broken oars, which the Tyche’s commander said with some resignation was better than he had expected. As they neared Ostia harbor he pulled the novices off the oar benches, and they slunk wearily up on deck to drop in their tracks. There was a great deal of traffic in the harbor, including ships too large for convenient docking at Rome, and he wanted no accidents resulting from a Centuriate candidate’s mistake.
They stood out well into the harbor and dropped anchor while the naval commander and an officer of marines eyed their blistered charges thoughtfully. Riding on the swell in the harbor, those who hadn’t been seasick at the oars promptly made up for lost time.
“Damn you, Julianus,” one of them said, lowering himself to the deck beside Correus and putting his head to the cool metal of a catapult brace. “You knew, didn’t you? How did you find out?” He had bright dark eyes and a sleek cap of black hair like a seal; he was Vindex, the one who had toasted the Centuriate the night before from the top of his clothes chest.
Correus leaned his back against the deck railing. “Believe it or not, Mucius told me. I think he was just being evil-minded because the parade had gone so well and he thought he looked smug. And that way we couldn’t say he hadn’t warned us about the wine.”
The dark boy laughed weakly. “Marcus is as sick as a pig and serves him right. But why didn’t you tell the rest of us?”
“I should have,” Correus said. “I meant to. I got mad.”
Vindex nodded. “I can’t say as I blame you. We should have stifled Marcus right off, and not left it to Flavius.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered,” Correus said. “It was Flavius I was mad at.”
Vindex regarded Correus’s angular face and grim mouth thoughtfully.
“I’m sorry,” Correus added.
“Well, we won’t die of it,” Vindex said. “And I’m not going to tell that you knew. But the sooner you’re posted apart from your brother, the better, I think.”
Correus didn’t answer, and he let it go, turning to watch a Greek merchantman come into port, her great banks of oars rising and falling to the hammer beat. She was a big ship and slid by close enough to hear the overseer’s voice below deck and the crack of a whip, followed by a cry of pain from one of the rowers chained to his bench. The seaman who had sat on Correus’s bench stopped beside them.
“I wouldn’t have the life of those poor bastards for anything,” he said with pity. “It’s a filthy way to move a ship, with no pride left to you.”
Correus turned to watch the merchantman move past. The barbarity of a leg shackle had never touched his own life, but his slave days had marked him strongly enough that he winced and turned back again. Vindex was right. He would never outrun those days with Flavius like a shadow on his heels.
* * *
With the seamen at their accustomed benches, the Tyche put out to sea the next day. The Centuriate candidates were chased ruthlessly up and down the rigging by the mate, learning to let out the black-and-crimson sail and sheet it home, and then to furl it again.
“Tyche grant us she keeps an eye on her namesake!” Flavius shouted over the wind and the flapping of the sail as they clung side by side in the rigging, struggling to secure the crimson canvas; and Correus knew Flavius wanted to make peace.
He smiled and Flavius smiled back, but it did little to dispel the uncertainty in Correus’s mind. He had seen Flavius’s tight-faced look as they climbed the rigging and knew that Flavius was terrified. Flavius did well enough with Correus beside him – he would have followed his half-brother through the gates of Tartarus just to prove he wouldn’t back down. Alone, Correus wasn’t so sure what Flavius would do. And if he did back down, he would carry the mark with him for life, if only in his mind. Damn the promise Appius had made him give!
When the mate had run them through their paces, they were given a brief course in the use of signal flags and then turned over to the decurion of marines. They spent the rest of their cruise in full armor, being drilled on deck and learning the fine points of disabling an enemy ship. They also learned how to swing out the “raven,” a wicked little boarding ramp with a long iron spike like a bird’s beak at the end that could punch through the decking of an enemy vessel and hold it alongside the galley to be boarded.
“Don’t get to thinking you know it all now,” the marine decurion told them as the Tyche made her way back up the Tiber three days later, “because you damn well don’t. But you know enough not to fall overboard the first time you find yourself at sea, and to know what the crew’s doing. The legions are a dry-land army – if you’re shipped somewhere, you won’t need much more than you know. And good luck to you; I’m sure your drillmaster’s eager to have you back.”
Vindex groaned. “I’d almost rather stay on board.”
* * *
They had only three months left in their training, and time passed with surprising speed – two new classes of candidates had come in behind them, and Correus’s group watched with hardened amusement as the newcomers were put through their paces. As senior candidates, they were allowed a little leave time in the City, and once in a wineshop Correus encountered the German guardsman he had insulted on his first day in camp. The man came forward belligerently, ready to fight, but he had waited too long – Correus had begun to think like a centurion. He fixed the German with a blazing eye and ordered him back to quarters, and the guardsman went, while Centurion Mucius, unnoticed in the far corner, bent over his wine cup in laughter.
At the start of their last month, Correus was named commander of his group and from then on led them at drill and parade. Flavius offered tight-lipped congratulations, and Marcus kept up a snide commentary on his lack of qualifications. Finally Vindex angrily took Marcus by the collar and told him to stow it.
“He can’t punch your face in now because he’s the commander, but if you don’t shut up, Marcus, I’ll do it for him!”
This was seconded by most of the group and Marcus retired in silence. Thereafter he simply ignored Correus’s existence except to obey a direct order, and Correus breathed a sigh of relief and let him. There wasn’t much use in trying to change Marcus’s mind, and Correus saw no reason to try.
Mucius, on the other hand, startled Correus considerably. From his first day in camp, Mucius had run him harder than all the rest. Now he had handed him command of the group. The old crocodile had even smiled. It was highly unnerving, and Correus adjusted with difficulty to the idea that Centurion Mucius, whom he had learned to loathe in the first week, actually had decent moments after all.
For Mucius, of course, it was quite simple. He knew a good commander when he saw one and he didn’t care if his mother had been a baboon.
* * *
With two weeks to go, Pertinax Aquila began to summon the candidates to his office in the Principia, the camp headquarters, for private interviews. They went with considerable trepidation, which was not lessened when he sat each one down and proceeded to go over his record. (This appeared to contain every rusty pilum point and wrong turn on the drill field; Centurion Mucius was thorough.) They were then allowed to request the posting of their choice. There was no guarantee that they would get it, of course, but the army graciously allowed them to request.
Correus went for his interview with a reluctance in no way
connected with his performance as a candidate. He assumed reasonably enough that if there was much wrong with that he would not have been given the command. Rather, it had to do with the dark shadow of Flavius, recently returned from his own session with the prefect.
It was evening, warm and slightly humid, and the wind was in the west, bringing with it the fishy and decaying odor of the Tiber dockyards. The cooking smells of the City lingered in the air, and it made for a heady mixture. The cohort standards had been taken down for the night, but the windows of the Principia glowed with lamplight. Correus caught a faint whiff of incense in the air.
“The City is particularly ripe tonight,” the prefect said, adjusting the incense burner. “The older I get the more attractive the frontier becomes again.” He was of provincial birth, a Spaniard, with light hair going gray at the temples and a lean, lined face tanned from years in the field. He sat idly rubbing his thumb over the roughened spot under his chin, the callus of a legionary helmet strap that was as good as a brand.
“Sit down, Centurion Julianus, please.” He took a records folder from his desk and thumbed it through. “You have an admirable record, except for a tendency to squabble with your mates, which Centurion Mucius is more inclined to lay at their door than yours. All in all, it’s obvious your father was right to send you to us. You have justified his faith in you admirably.”
“Thank you, sir,” Correus said. He made it sound sincere, but apparently Pertinax Aquila was not deceived.
“That wasn’t very tactful of me, was it?” the prefect said. “Look you, young one, you’re going to have to get used to remarks about your birth, until it slides off your back and doesn’t bother you. The Centuriate is crammed with fools like young Marcus.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Very well. Now then, Centurion Mucius speaks very highly of you, and I’m inclined to give you your choice of posting – subject to availability, of course. Is there any legion you particularly want?”
Correus pulled at the leather fringes of his harness tunic and then his hand clenched tightly. He looked up. “Yes, sir. I understand that my brother has asked for the Rhenus frontier.”
“He has,” Pertinax Aquila said.
“May I ask, sir, if he’s going to get it?”
“I rather expect he will,” the prefect replied. “There’s no great surplus of officers wanting to serve on the Rhenus just now.” The cold climate made it an unpleasant posting, and the current upheaval one of the most dangerous. “Am I to infer that you also wish to be in on this campaign?”
“As to that, sir, yes,” Correus said slowly. “But – also, I would like a posting in the same legion as Flavius.”
Pertinax Aquila was silent a moment. “I know I said I’d give you what you wanted,” he said finally, “but are you quite sure of this?”
Correus looked back at him steadily. “Yes, sir.”
Pertinax Aquila regarded him narrowly, trying to read some answer in that dark, level gaze. Did Julianus realize what that posting could cost him? Seeing the grim line about the youth’s mouth, the prefect decided that he probably did. “Very well,” he said reluctantly. “I will try to arrange it.”
“Thank you, sir.” Correus stood up and saluted.
With sympathy, Pertinax Aquila watched him go. Young fool, to be throwing himself a fixed roll of the dice deliberately! And Aquila doubted if he was doing Flavius much of a favor, either. Of course, he could always claim the requested posting had proved impossible to arrange… He shook his head. No, he had given the boy his word. Let him have it.
* * *
Thirty-four fully commissioned centurions, of an entering class of forty-seven, stood on the parade ground in full dress kit. There was a wind blowing and the sky was pale blue behind light, scurrying clouds. The sunlight shifted constantly, dancing off bronze scale and scabbard tips, and turning scarlet helmet crests to fire. Prefect Aquila stood on the reviewing platform with the Praetorian Prefect Titus beside him, while the junior candidates were paraded behind them to receive inspiration.
Centurion Mucius growled at the newcomers: “All right, you slovenly babes, dress up that line and take a good look at what you’re shooting for!” There was an undignified ripple of laughter from the graduates.
One by one as their names were called, they marched in solitary glory to the reviewing stand to receive their posting and the vine staff of their office.
“Silvius Vindex,” the optio called. “Sixth century, Eighth Cohort, Sixth Legion Victrix.”
Vindex saluted and turned at parade quickstep back down the stairs of the reviewing platform, his vine staff tucked proudly under his arm and his eyes shining. The Sixth Victrix was a good legion, one of the Emperor’s pets.
“Sulpicius Silanus, sixth century, Tenth Cohort, Third Legion Cyrenaica.”
“Marcus Fulminatus, sixth century, Ninth Cohort, Seventh Legion Gemina.”
“Flavius Appius Julianus…” Flavius stood parade-straight on the platform, the bright, blood-red crest of his helmet a gaudy splash against the purple cloaks of the prefects. Correus watched with caught breath as Aquila handed him his staff and the wax tablet with his orders. “Sixth century, Ninth Cohort, Eighth Legion Augusta.”
The Eighth Augusta… a Rhenus legion and one of the best. The Emperor had brought the Eighth to Germany two years earlier to straighten out the mess left by rebellion and the Civil Wars when he had cashiered four of the seven existing frontier legions. So Flavius at least had gotten his wish. The Eighth had come from Moesia, and Pannonia before that, Correus remembered, and Prefect Aquila had served in it himself in the old days. Correus could almost feel Aquila’s eyes, shadowed by the gold leaves of the corona civica, watching him.
“Correus Appius Julianus,” the optio called out. As commander, his was the last posting given, and all watched him curiously, knowing that he could have had his pick.
Correus touched fist to breast and accepted the vine staff and the congratulations of the prefects. It’s done, he thought. He had asked to have Flavius tied around his neck. If Aquila had given it to him, there was no taking the request back again.
Pertinax Aquila seemed to hesitate, and then he touched Correus lightly on the shoulder and handed him his orders. A post in the Legions, a post in the Centuriate. His heart’s desire, and yet… Correus studied the scarlet Imperial Seal, official and unchangeable, as the optio called out the posting: “Sixth century, Eighth Cohort, Eighth Legion Augusta.”
Correus saluted, the prefects saluted, and he strode back down the steps while Flavius watched with something unreadable in his eyes.
V The Agri Decumates
The gray stone river gate and jetties of Argentoratum came into view as the Melpomene, a patrol galley of the Rhenus fleet, nosed her way downriver past the fields and vineyards of the civil colony that clustered on the western bank in the shadow of the fort.
“Well, there you are, lads!” The captain gave a signal and the single bank of starboard oars backed in the water. The Melpomene swung around to the jetty. “The place is still being rebuilt so you may find it somewhat lacking in the soft touches,” he said as the sentries on the rampart above the gate called out to him for identification, “but the Emperor’s got a nice little war on to keep us all busy. Melpomene, you fools!” he shouted to the sentries. “Do I look like a German?”
The frontier fortress of Argentoratum, newly recommissioned, stood on an island finger of land between the Rhenus and a smaller tributary at the meeting of the old river road that ran north and south, and the new road that the army was pushing eastward into the mist-shrouded forests across the river.
The rebuilding of the fort was part of a campaign that sought to remedy an old mistake: three years earlier, in the grim days of the Civil Wars, the Batavian tribes of the northern Rhenus had been invited by one of the Emperor Vespasian’s adherents to make a little trouble that would keep the troops loyal to Vitellius too busy to march on Rome. Instead the Batavians had called in Gauli
sh allies from the Roman side of the frontier and begun a major rebellion that had set the whole Rhenus road in flames. It had taken the better part of a year for the avenging Roman army to hunt the rebels down. In the meantime, the tribes of the Agri Decumates, a triangle of German forestland bordered on its long edges by the Rhenus and Danuvius river frontiers, had poured across the undermanned southern border like a pack of hunting wolves. Argentoratum, staffed with only a small auxiliary garrison, had gone up in flames with the rest of the frontier.
It was not the first time the wolves had stalked through the Agri Decumates. An arrowhead jutting into the otherwise straight line of the frontier, it had been a trouble spot for years. Now Argentoratum, rebuilt and recommissioned, was a legionary base once more, serving as the stronghold of the campaign to clear the Agri Decumates permanently of Germans who would not accept the rule of Rome.
Correus and Flavius exchanged salutes with the captain, and the Melpomene came about into the river again, maneuvering cautiously past Argentoratum Bridge, which spanned the wide waters of the Rhenus upriver from the fort, joining the frontier road on the western bank. The bridge was high enough for patrol galleys to slip beneath it, and its upstream pilings were guarded by a series of buffers to catch any rams sent downstream by the enemy. On the far bank the land had been cleared and its timber incorporated into the bridge and the rebuilt fortress; a new, log-paved road, patrolled by detachments from Argentoratum, stretched into the darkness of the German forest.
At the river gate, built upon the stones of the old fortifications, the brothers stated their names and business to the sentries, who passed them in along the swept dirt track of the Via Principalis where it ran past the bathhouse, barracks, and tribunes’ quarters to the headquarters building in the Principia. Like the Empire’s camps the world over, Argentoratum was built to a standard pattern that deviated only as much as the local terrain required. It was mostly timberwork and plaster and some old stonework hastily repaired, and it was big – fifty acres at least, built to hold a garrison of five thousand.
The Centurions Page 9