The Centurions

by The Centurions (retail) (epub)

  * * *

  On the day of the council, it snowed – a light flutter of white that drifted artistically from the iron-colored sky and mostly melted as it hit the ground, turning the dirt streets of the camp to mud. The sentries and the honor guard posted half a mile out along the log road regarded the weather gloomily. Boots and trousers patterned after the native garb were their usual cold-climate uniform. But now they wore parade dress, and its only concession to the northern climate was a pair of short cavalry trousers under the tunic; it left a lot of shin exposed.

  “Jupiter Thunderer! Will you look at it?” a legionary muttered, stamping his feet. His breath hung in a cloud in the cold air.

  “Wouldn’t you know it?” his companion said. “If that heathen king of the Germans doesn’t show soon, we’ll freeze to the road like milestones and they can chip us out in the spring.”

  “Heads up!”

  A trumpet sang out from the guard tower ahead and the soldiers could feel the faint shiver of hoofbeats in the roadbed. The trumpets sounded again as a cavalcade of horsemen swung around a curve and the hoofbeats clattered on the wooden planks. The Germans rode at full gallop, two abreast, and the legionaries stiffened instinctively.

  The centurion of the honor guard flung up his hand as they approached, wondering what he would do if they didn’t stop, but the horsemen obediently slowed to a walk, allowing the honor guard to fall in ahead and behind them. The legate had specified no more than twenty in Nyall’s escort, and the centurion, eying them with respect, found himself wishing that he had seen fit to cut the number down still further.

  They were tall, heavy-boned men with grim, set mouths half hidden by mustache and beard; and their flaxen hair was as long as a woman’s, pulled up and knotted at the side of the head with bright bronze pins. Their cloaks and trousers were a jumble of color beside the orderly bronze and scarlet of the legion.

  The one-eyed envoy of earlier meetings rode at the center of the horsemen, and beside him on a roan sat a flame-haired warrior with the gold arm rings and collar of a chieftain. This was Nyall Sigmundson, chief of the Semnones and effective overlord of the Agri Decumates.

  Nyall’s red hair was braided into a long plait and knotted like the others. Though he wore a drooping mustache, his square jaw was beardless. He wore a wolfskin cloak, green woolen trousers the color of the forest, and short boots of supple dyed leather. Like some of his hardy followers, he was bare-chested despite the chill, his pale skin crossed with healed scars.

  And he was young – so young that Correus stared in surprise as the German strode into the command tent with two of his fair-haired warriors behind him. Nyall was no more than twenty. Correus felt a growing respect for any man who could hold the quarrelsome tribes of Germany under his hand at that age.

  Polite introductions were made between Nyall and the legate and the eagle-crested commanders of the other two legions who were present to lend weight to Rome’s bargaining power. The cohort commanders and the tribunes of the legion stood at attention behind them, with Correus, Flavius, and such other officers as had been included in the council. At the end of the table were the legate’s interpreters, German tribesmen from the Roman province who twitched uncomfortably in their seats while Nyall studied them and found them insignificant. He sat down and returned his attention to the legate.

  “Look you, Commander of the Eagles,” he said, his voice steady and with some bite in it, “I have come here because I am weary of talking to this messenger and to that one, none of whom can speak of what Rome will do but only badger me with talk of what I should do. Therefore if you have something to say to me about why you build your wooden roads in the Free Lands, say it now.” Calpurnius Rufinus gestured to his interpreters and listened thoughtfully as one of them translated. The tribesman didn’t change the meaning of the speech, but Nyall in translation was much more polite than Nyall in his own tongue.

  The legate folded his hands across his gilded breastplate and toyed with the purple silk of his sash of office. “Very well,” he said. “Into those roads Rome builds the peace of her frontier. It is as simple as that.”

  “Your frontier lies back along the river,” Nyall said, “at the fort of the Eagles there.”

  “That was Rome’s first decision,” the legate said flatly, “but it changed somewhat when that fort was burned.”

  Nyall’s gray eyes narrowed. “All this I have heard, and seen the peace that travels your roads. It is your peace that burned your fort, Commander of the Eagles.”

  “I fail to understand your meaning,” said the legate. His wry expression said that he understood quite clearly.

  Nyall stood up and put his hands on the council table, leaning forward with a swift movement that made the row of centurions rest their hands lightly on their sword hilts. “Then I will make it plain: you come with your Eagles and make a peace of thrall collars and burned huts. You dishonor the groves of the Mother and build forts with her trees. And when she grows angry and calls her children to rise up and fight you, I don’t think you are really very surprised at all.”

  “I would be very surprised,” the legate said, “if the Mother-of-All, whom we also worship in our fashion, had anything to do with a provincial rebellion, Nyall of the Semnones. I doubt that the Goddess has much to do with your actions. And in any case, the Semnones don’t hunt in the Agri Decumates. Why have you come to meddle in Rome’s business?”

  Nyall sat back down in his chair, spreading his wolfskin cloak out beneath him, and rested his arms on the low chair back. He stretched his legs out before him, tipped his head back, and regarded the legate from beneath half-closed lids. “I have come here because I don’t like having Roman soldiers in my back garden,” he said sweetly. “You might decide to make a peace with the Semnones while you were at it.”

  “Rome does not make war on tribes which offer no provocation.”

  “That, no doubt, is how Rome acquired her empire.”

  “I can tell you this in all honesty,” the legate said. “The Emperor wishes no further frontier than the Agri Decumates. I will swear to that if you like.”

  “Great kings have often changed their minds,” Nyall said. “I would prefer to see to it that yours doesn’t have the chance to change his. Pull back to your forts along the river, and I will guarantee you a peace. Try to take the Free Lands and it may be that you have taken too large a bite.”

  The legate leaned forward on the council table, his face amused. “You are very young to come and spit in the eye of the Empire.”

  Nyall also looked amused as his mouth twitched under his red mustache. “I have been a warrior and a chief of my people since I was younger than your beardless babes yonder.” He nodded at the purple-uniformed tribunes of the legion, young patricians marked for senatorial careers, putting in their obligatory year in the army.

  The head interpreter, who was not overly fond of the tribunes’ lordly ways among the villagers, translated this last remark with ruthless exactness, and the tribunes bristled, while there was a ripple of laughter from the cohort commanders.

  The legate fixed his officers with a steely eye and they subsided, assuming an expressionless military stare. Nyall watched the interchange with a small smile. So the Commander of the Eagles also had his troubles hunting his dogs in one pack.

  “It may be that the legate is forgetting one thing,” he said. “We know the Black Forest, the lands you call the Agri Decumates. You do not. Already it begins to snow and your men stamp their feet and curse the weather and wish themselves warm in their fort on the river.

  “In two months, the Black Forest will be as cold as the halls of Hell. Your men will begin to freeze and die of the lung disease, for your warriors were not born to this land and they do not know how to survive in it. How long do you think you can hold them here?”

  “My men are not warriors, they are soldiers,” the legate said with quiet pride. “They serve loyally where they are posted.”

  “So. You have mu
ch faith.”

  “I do. And that, since you asked, is how Rome made her empire. As to your Black Forest, we have withstood many winters on the Rhenus, and I do not see that this land differs greatly.”

  “You will when the forest itself begins to fight you,” Nyall said. He was still leaning back in his chair, his cloak thrown off his shoulders, apparently impervious to the chill that clung about them even in the command tent. “When the ice cracks under your feet or the snow falls away and the ground opens up beneath you; when the black mold eats away at your stores and the wolves howl up and down your log roads: when the Old Ones of the Forest come out of their caves to hunt you with the flung spear you cannot see. We make our first prayers to the Sun Lord, my kindred and I, but we have great respect for the Dark Mother, and the forest is hers. If you stay here, her people will hunt you down.”

  The interpreters translated nervously, and one of them made the Sign of Horns behind his back as he did so. But this time the legate smiled outright at Nyall.

  “Those are tales to frighten children,” he said. “I know perfectly well that someone has been fouling the water and setting man traps on the trails and harassing my patrols; and I rather doubt that it’s the Little Folk, whatever you’d like my men to think. Keep it up, Nyall of the Semnones, and we will hunt you down with a cold iron pilum point – one that you can see quite clearly.”

  At that, Nyall leaned forward, his eyes glinting dangerously. “The head of the last chieftain who thought to war with the Semnones ended on a post in the sacred grove. Look you that your head does not come there also.”

  The legate snapped his fingers at an optio who handed him a piece of parchment with an Imperial Seal. “I have had enough of this,” he said, “and I am beginning to be annoyed. These are the terms which the Emperor offers: the tribes of these lands will behave themselves and they will pay the taxes for the upkeep of the patrol roads. For our part, we will establish civil colonies here and guarantee the protection of the native tribes from any invader. Such as yourself,” he added drily. “The Semnones will return to their homes and Rome will push her frontier no farther than the Agri Decumates. That is our offer.”

  “These are not your lands,” Nyall said. His voice was soft and cold, like the snowfall.

  “Nor are they yours,” the legate replied. “We each claim them and it is plain enough that the lands have little choice in the matter. I fail to see the difference between you and us.”

  Nyall stood up. The legate bared his teeth a little, and they stared at each other, red wolf and black. A cold wind whistled through the tent flap and snapped at the parchment in the legate’s hand. Nyall said, “I am not a Roman tyrant to force my will on my people without council. I will tell your terms to the chiefs of my allies. You will have our answer in a seven-day.” He turned on his heel and the sentries at the tent flap drew the leather curtains back. Nyall and his companions strode through to the knot of warriors outside who sat waiting, still mounted, under the watchful gaze of the honor guard. Nyall, the one-eyed envoy, and a third, younger man whose blond hair was braided into its warrior’s knot in the same fashion as Nyall’s, swung into their saddles. Nyall barked an order, and the warriors fell in behind him, swiftly riding down the muddy track of the Via Praetoria, with the honor guard beside them, trotting to keep up.

  They kept their silence until the honor guard left them some distance outside the gate on the log road, and then the one-eyed man turned to Nyall with a fierce, sideways grin.

  “So. It is as I told you. The commander of the Eagles will not back off.”

  Nyall laughed. “It never occurred to me that he would, old friend. But I gave my word to Arngunn of the Nicretes that I would hear the Roman’s terms. So now I have kept my word.”

  The snow was coming down more thickly now, fat white flakes that clung to their beards and powdered the horses’ manes. Nyall dropped his reins, pulled his cloak around him, and pinned it. “I have shown off enough for one day,” he said, laughing. “Now I want a dry shirt and a warm place at Arngunn’s hearth. Also my dinner.”

  He kicked his horse into a gallop, and they dropped into single file behind him as the roan left the log road where it ended near a watchtower and plunged up a narrow track into the trees. The fallen leaves deadened their hoofbeats, and in a moment they were lost in the snow and the black, haunted woods.

  * * *

  In the Principia tent the three generals sat looking at each other grimly.

  “If I were you, I’d dig another ring of ditch-and-wall,” the legate of the Twenty-second Legion said. He stood up and shouted for his optio while Calpurnius Rufinus nodded in comprehension. Nyall might make a show of consulting with the chieftains of the Agri Decumates, but it was more than obvious that he would do as he damn well pleased afterward.

  The legate of the Twenty-second made his departure. He had several days’ ride before him and the weather was turning foul. Rufinus looked at the third general, whose own troops were pushing their road northward from Vindonissa.

  “How quickly can you hook up with our road?”

  “If the weather holds a little longer, we may just do it before the snows,” Vindonissa’s legate said. The Eighth Legion was catching the worst of the Germans’ attacks, and the hookup with Vindonissa was vital. The log roads would be passable long after the forest trails were closed. “We’ll do our damnedest,” he said, and sneezed. “The son of a bitch was right about these winters.”

  Rufinus nodded gloomily. “I can’t remember when it was that I didn’t have a cold. What I’d like now is a nice command in Judaea.”

  “They’ve settled their rebels,” the other man said. “Titus and Vespasian got a nice triumph out of it. What do you suppose they’ll give us here?”

  Rufinus snorted. “The thanks of a grateful nation. And another tribe of barbarians to cope with somewhere else.”

  * * *

  “Well, you have met the enemy,” Cominius said. “What did you think?” He swept a tangle of sword belt and spare harness straps off a chair near the camp desk and gestured to Correus to sit.

  “I think you were right, sir,” Correus said. “The interpreters are scared of us, and they’re scared of Nyall. They were toning everything down out of sheer nerves. Also, I suspect they don’t want a war because if Nyall wins he might remember them afterward.”

  “Mmm. That doesn’t make them overly reliable in emergencies. They could decide to change sides just to get in his good graces. What did Nyall actually say?”

  “Pretty much as translated. Just ruder.”

  “I’ll bet.” Cominius chuckled and then his face turned thoughtful. “Just how good is your German, Centurion Julianus? Could you have interpreted that meeting?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And your brother?”

  “His German is not nearly as good as mine, sir. I’d be surprised if he got half of it,” Correus said truthfully. There were limits to brotherly loyalty.

  Cominius nodded. “In that case, Centurion, I am going to offer your services to our legate, thus calling both you and myself to his favorable attention. A pleasant coincidence.”

  Correus’s mouth twitched as he rose and saluted. “Indeed, sir. Uh, what about Lucius Paulinus? If I know him he’ll be lying in wait outside my tent.”

  “Avoid him like a disease for the next three days,” Cominius said. “After that I doubt it will make much difference.”

  Correus nodded. Paulinus, he knew, sent the work he intended to publish to his senator uncle in Rome, for his critical appraisal. Things were brewing up fast and the legate would have to send his own dispatches soon, but he would be highly irritated if Paulinus’s messages to Rome preceded them. He wondered idly why Cominius had said three days, when Nyall had given seven as the term in which he would send his answer, but it was not his place to ask. And it went from his mind quickly enough when Cominius handed him command of the fourth century.

  In only two days he had the answer to his unv
oiced question, in the form of a newly erected shrine of smooth, sanded timber. Within its circle stood the cohort standards, and at their center the golden Eagle of the legion. It was a declaration of war. The legate had known what Nyall’s answer was going to be.

  Flavius had seen it too, and he came to Correus’s tent that evening when he had finished posting sentries, a task at which the Ninth Cohort was currently taking its turn. Flavius had also heard of his brother’s promotion.

  “It seems the legate may not need an interpreter after all, but you’ll have your new century to console you,” he said. “Congratulations!” Flavius managed a smile as he sat down on the bed. “You move up in the world.”

  Correus looked up from the greave he was polishing. “Thank you. Messala Cominius wasn’t overly flattering about the fourth century, so it may be a dubious blessing.” He wondered if Flavius had come purely to snipe at him about that, and decided that he hadn’t. There was a thin-drawn look to Flavius’s face. It occurred to Correus that although neither of them had as yet encountered a single German except across the council table, it was now inevitable that they soon would. Small wonder that everyone’s nerves were rubbed raw just now.