“I’ll still be able to tell Nyall to go take a dip in the Styx when he comes back,” he said lightly. “I’ve rather a fancy for that.”
“It’ll be One-Eye more likely,” Flavius said. “Nyall wouldn’t trust his hide within a mile of us with the answer he’s going to give.”
“You may be right,” Correus said. “What a pity. I would have liked to meet him again,” he added seriously.
“What the hell for?”
“He impresses me.” Correus put down the greave and picked up the other one.
“What?”
“He impresses me.”
“The snow’s got in your brain,” Flavius said. “He’s a dirty half-naked barbarian who thinks he can order Rome around, and you liked him?”
“Not exactly liked. I thought he was intelligent, devious, and about as trustworthy as a hungry wolf.”
“I fail to see the distinction.”
Correus sighed. “No. You wouldn’t.” He passed Flavius the polished greave. “Here, take this and hand me my lorica – it’s right beside you.” Flavius did so, looking irritable, and Correus resumed his work. He was not, if he could help it, going to pick a quarrel with Flavius tonight.
Paulinus nearly did it for him, arriving a few minutes later to offer loud congratulations on Correus’s promotion until Correus changed the subject in exasperation.
“If you want to chase old Broken Hoof anymore this winter, we’d better do it soon,” he said to Paulinus. They had taken to spending his off-duty hours hunting in the forests west of the camp, and there was a wild boar – old Broken Hoof – they had tracked and lost twice. Paulinus regarded the failure as a personal insult. “It’ll be cold enough to freeze a gorgon in a couple of weeks.” Correus looked down at the gray woolen trousers and fur-lined boots that they all wore beneath their tunics. “Jupiter, but I hate these things. I have the feeling that they look a lot better on Nyall than they do on us.”
“Where’s your national pride?” Paulinus said.
“With my sandals. I’ll thaw it out in the spring.”
“Be glad we’ve got this gear,” Flavius said. “I damn near froze at that council meeting, in parade kit. My shins were turning blue. And then my commander gets a flea in his ear because I couldn’t tell him verbatim what the German was saying,” he added angrily. “I had warned him I probably couldn’t, but no, he has to make a fool of me, trying to one-up Cominius, who was showing him up with my own damn—” He bit the words back in his mouth and stared at the tent wall. Then he turned back again and said carefully, “Why don’t we go after this famous boar of yours, the three of us, the next time we both have leave?”
You could almost see him gritting his teeth and being nice, Correus thought dismally. He wished Flavius wouldn’t bother. “I thought you hunted with Silvanus?”
“Silvanus, like half the people in this damn, sopping fort, has a cold. The surgeon confined him to quarters with a poultice around his neck that smells like a Tiber dock.”
“Actually, I’d thought of passing up my leave day,” Correus said. “I’m a little dubious about leaving my century to their own devices this soon.”
“But you brought the idea up yourself!”
Correus had grabbed at the first topic that came to hand, to shut Paulinus up, but he couldn’t say that. He began to feel cornered.
“Of course, if you’d rather not—” Flavius’s voice was flat.
“No, no—”
“For the gods’ sake, your precious century isn’t going to mutiny if you stop watching it for one day!” Flavius snapped.
Correus knew that leaving them for a day without his eye on them would compound the neglect of which their former centurion had been guilty. Still, making his peace with Flavius was more important. He could put the fear of the gods in the fourth century later on.
“Judging by their past performance, they’re probably capable of just about anything short of mutiny,” he said lightly, “but I doubt they can get organized in one day. All right, then, let’s do it.” He hung his lorica on its stand and tossed the polishing rag into his cleaning kit.
“Good.” Flavius smiled. “Antaeus will be glad you changed your mind. He needs some of the oats run out of him.”
Their horses had finally arrived, in the charge of Bericus, Flavius’s body servant, and they had gratefully returned their borrowed nags to a decurion of cavalry who had given a hoot of mirth and informed them that those two were kept by the legion’s horsemaster for the express purpose of annoying officers.
“I’m going to strangle that bastard when we get back to Argentoratum,” Flavius said.
Correus nodded, but was privately planning a subtle and more elaborate revenge on the horsemaster. He hadn’t quite worked out all the details yet.
* * *
For the next few days Correus had scant attention to spare either for putting the horsemaster in his place or for his dubious relationship with Flavius. Messala Cominius had somewhat understated all the things that were wrong with the fourth century. They were undertrained and underdisciplined, and showed a marked disinclination for physical labor. They also had more budding barracks lawyers than Correus was willing to put up with.
Mentally cursing his predecessor (and the man had been rewarded with a promotion for creating this rabble!), he set about shaking them into shape. He spent a frustrating day making heavy use of the vine staff, a necessity that set his teeth on edge, and ended by sending four of the worst offenders to the guardhouse to meditate on their sins. The next morning he paraded them in a snowstorm and made them stand there shivering while he gave them a tongue-lashing that would have done credit to Centurion Mucius. Then he drilled them mercilessly for the rest of the day, informing them curtly that he had no intention of facing the Germans with a century that was as likely as not to stick a pilum in his back out of sheer ineptness.
By the third day they had begun to have second thoughts about the new centurion, and by the fourth they were beginning to come into line. So far it was all on the surface, he knew, but the rest would come with time, and he thought he could now let them out of his sight for a day without inviting disaster.
He heaved a sigh of relief as they trooped off the drill field for an icy splash in the austere bathhouse that the camp afforded, and pulled his helmet off wearily. The fourth century gave him a headache.
Messala Cominius, watching him from the far end of the field, gave a little chuckle of satisfaction and resumed his progress to the east rampart. He had sentries of his own century, the first, on duty on the walls, and they kept a sharper eye out when they knew that his eye was on them. He pulled the scarlet folds of his cloak closer around him and tipped his helmet forward. It was going to snow again soon, he thought, looking at the leaden sky. The recent snowfalls were nothing compared to what a winter on the Rhenus frontier was like when it really got going. The light was beginning to fade, and from the hills across the cleared land came the long-drawn-out howl of a wolf on the hunt.
Paulinus heard it too and felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. It was the sound of winter hunger to come, he thought. The brindle hound beside him raised his head and gave a low growl. The dog had been acquired by Tullius from a native headman in exchange for two of the army’s blankets, which hadn’t been missed yet. Paulinus put his hand on the animal’s head to quiet him and lit the oil lamp on the folding table that served as his desk, before picking up his pen again. His private journal, a bound book of blank pages, was opened before him; and, thinking perhaps of the wolf, he began a new paragraph.
* * *
A hungry land, the Rhenus. Metal-hungry, cattle-hungry, hungry for something to give a shape to their lives. Warriors who die well in battle are taken to Valhalla – Paradise – by Wuotan’s daughters for an eternal life of free-flowing beer and other pleasures. Small wonder they fight each other for amusement. Now they make ready to fight us. We come with the orderly precision of a well-oiled machine and roll over their world, e
xchanging this barbaric way of life for the benefits of civilization. Do they wish to be civilized? I do, but I’m not a German. They won’t be either after a few decades under our rule. If we can hold them. The Rhenus has been trouble from the start.
Do we need the Agri Decumates? Yes, if we are to hold the Rhenus. Do we need the Rhenus? Augustus thought so. Claudius thought so. Now Vespasian thinks so. Myself, I am not so sure. Nor am I an emperor.
Young Julianus has no such doubts, but he is a soldier, and the army is the heart and soul of his life. Also I suspect that, like the Germans, he rather likes to fight. Maybe that’s the Gaul in him – they were kin to the Germans before we made them like us. Although I remember hearing the same said of his Roman father. I am speaking of Julianus Minor, Correus Appius Julianus, not his half-brother Flavius Appius – who doesn’t love the army, doesn’t love his brother, and feels guilty about both. Flavius should be in Rome, taking in the games and living off his income. Instead he is here, grimly preparing to fight the Germans because he wasn’t given a choice. He is trying desperately to become a good soldier, and he probably will, but it seems hard on them both that he has to try.
As for Nyall of the Semnones, I have never talked to Nyall, but I have talked to those who have and mostly they have come away from the experience gibbering. Physically he is tall with a head of hair that’s as red as a fox – that’s the Gaul in him. The Germans are flaxen-haired mostly. He’s extremely young, and I suspect that Calpurnius Rufinus is banking on that youth rather too much. If the gods are with Rufinus, the shade of General Varus should be fluttering around his head with a timely warning about now. Varus lost three Eagles to the Germans, and for years the deified Augustus frothed at the mouth and chewed the cushions every time he thought about it – and Augustus was a man of some restraint.
There is war coming. It’s in the air, like the feeling you get before an earthquake. A sensation of something brooding in the forest that won’t go away. We lost a centurion and two men out of a patrol today – another ambush, just to unsettle us, I think. Nyall sent in his reply just afterward – a masterly stroke of reverse diplomacy – and now everyone’s nerves are stretched tighter than a catapult. Mine included. And, I suppose, those of the tribes in these parts. We haven’t stopped to ask them if they would like a war, and I don’t expect Nyall has, either. They’ll get what we and the Semnones give them. As for Nyall, he won’t be able to launch a full-scale attack until the spring, but he’ll make a wonderful nuisance of himself all winter. If my boar has decided to forage eastward of our current camp, I shall leave him to his own devices.
Calpurnius Rufinus, I feel sure, wishes that I would do the same for him. If he ever got his hands on this journal, he would pack me out of here in a mule cart and no number of imperial passes or senatorial uncles would save me. My History will content me for now, but I would like to see the unexpurgated version published eventually, for the enlightenment of future governments.
He thought a moment and then added with a smile:
Pompous ass. Still, perhaps I shall will it to my first great-grandchild when everyone who might take exception will be too dead to care.
The brindle hound growled and Paulinus laid down his pen and cocked his head, listening. The wolf howled again. The cavalry horses were having hysterics. Suddenly Paulinus felt the need for lighter company than his own thoughts. He laid the journal back in its chest and locked it as the wolfs mate answered across the valley and the quavering howl dipped and rose.
He would find Correus and drink some appalling beer with him. Perhaps that would chase away the uncomfortable feeling that the hungriest of the wolves were those hunting on two legs.
VII The Boar
“I used to have a plow,
Two oxen and a cow—”
The singer sounded depressed about it.
“And it didn’t seem too grand to leave behind
When I signed on with the legions
For a tour of other regions—
But now I rather think I’ve changed my mind!”
The song issued from the latrine, accompanied by the slap and splash of a mop, as the hunting party trotted by in the dawn light. Behind them the voice of a member of the “on report” list continued its lament:
“I’ve done a tour of Libya,
Of Britain and Iberia,
And I know ’em best by barracks and by roads,
And the aqueducts that fill ’em,
’Cause I’m the chump that built ’em
With the thousand tons of granite that we towed!
“From the east to Rhenus Gate
We’ve been occupied of late
With catapults and countin’ of our dead;
And when the fightin’s done,
And a fellow wants some fun,
There’s another flamin’ road to build instead!”
The voice rose in a wail of indignation, and Tullius smiled reminiscently as the singer’s mates joined in the last chorus with enthusiastic harmony.
“That’s the truth of it all right,” he said. “I saw the Sphinx by moonlight once. Some silly ass had written ‘Glaucus cheats at dice’ across the foot, and the centurion turfed us out of bed at midnight to clean it. But I’ve built more road in my day than I’ve looked at monuments, that’s for sure. And mopped out more latrines. Makes you think, like, doesn’t it, sir?”
Flavius, who had never cleaned a latrine in his life, and certainly couldn’t imagine doing so, ignored this, but Correus laughed.
“Join the army and see the world by log road,” he said. “Freeze your ass off,” he added as they rode on, head down into an icy wind.
It had snowed again in the night, and the road was thickly covered, only the line of ditches on either side marking its course. The cleared land was flat and desolate and the forested mountains inky black around it. They were bundled in woolen cloaks and trousers, with fleece-lined leggings, and they carried heavy hunting spears. The brindle hound trotted ahead, sniffing at the forest edge. They turned off where a game trail ran uphill into the wood, and after a moment the hound began to snuffle excitedly at the base of a clump of wild berry canes. The ground around them was trampled, and Tullius dismounted to look.
“That’s pig all right, sir. He’s been rooting around here.”
“Do you think it’s the same one?” Paulinus asked.
“It looks like him. He’s got that funny bit to his right front hoof, like it had been damaged. I remember that.”
The others, including Flavius’s servant, Bericus, gathered around him to look while the brindle hound sat happily fanning his tail in the snow and looking pleased with himself.
It was easy enough to track in the new snow, but after a while the trail dived into a thicket of underbrush and fallen trees. The hound circled the thicket, disappeared into it, and in a moment emerged yelping triumphantly on the far side.
They followed him, the horses dancing skittishly in the cold air. The wind had died down and Correus took a deep breath, looking about with satisfaction. It was good to have Antaeus’s broad golden back between his legs again; Flavius was laughing and happy, and this was the freshest trail their quarry had left for them yet. It had not been such a bad idea after all, to go hunting with his brother.
A squirrel, perched on a low branch with a nut in his mouth, retreated into a hole in a tree trunk and then popped his head out again to curse them indignantly. The forest grew thicker and shafts of cold sunlight splintered through the branches overhead. In spring, with the trees in full leaf, there would be no sun at all in the heavier stands of forest. The boar’s track was crossed again and again with the marks of other forest wayfarers – the small sharp hooves of deer, and the marks of hare and mice. Once they came on the tracks of a pair of wolves, overlying the deer trail, and the hound growled and bristled at the scent.
Tullius called him away sharply, and then, at the hill-crest, they came out of the forest into a stretch of open moor, studded here and there
with rocky outcroppings and a few stands of windblown trees. Here the snow had melted into the sodden ground and the boar had stopped to wallow in the mud of a small stream that had its mouth in a spring beneath the rocks. They paused to let the horses drink of the cold, swift-running stream, while the hound cast up and down the far bank for the scent.
From here the water ran westward, winding down among the moors and forest to the Rhenus Valley, where it joined the river in its northward course to the great delta on the edge of the German Ocean. Just a little to the east, every stream became instead a tributary of the Danuvius, running the length of the Roman frontier to empty into the Pontus Euxinus far to the east.
Correus mentioned this to Paulinus and the historian nodded. “I know,” he said. “It’s like we’re standing at the crest of the world.” A look of dreamy speculation came over his plain face, and he looked eastward over his shoulder where a still higher hill rose up from the cloud bank. “They say there’s a spot where you can stand and actually see the Danuvius rise up from a hole in the ground. I should like to see that.”
“Certainly,” Flavius said. “We’ll just apply to Nyall to send you over as a scientific expedition. Then you can put a cork in the hole and cut off his water supply.” He pulled his horse’s head up from the stream. “No, you, that is enough.”
Paulinus, unruffled, appeared to be considering a search for the source of the Danuvius until, in exasperation, Correus smacked Paulinus’s horse on the rump and sent it trotting across the streambed. On the far side, the brindle hound (Tullius said that his name meant Big Gray Dog in German, but he couldn’t pronounce it so he simply called him Dog) had picked up the trail in the brown winter grass and was casting back and forth along it, whining in excitement. At a word from Tullius, he set off at a lope, and they put their horses to the gallop to follow.
The Centurions Page 13