The Centurions

by The Centurions (retail) (epub)

  “You’d have made a good officer yourself,” Correus said idly.

  Paulinus looked horrified. “I’d sooner dig latrines in Tartarus. Go and fight your Germans and leave me out of it.”

  “I haven’t fought a German yet,” Correus pointed out. “Between them and building road, I’d sooner have the Germans.”

  “Oh you’ll get them,” Paulinus said, “but you’ll get another chunk of road first. Did you know the legate’s pulling the legion off the eastward road and putting it to work on the hookup with Vindonissa?”

  Correus blinked. It made sense. The Vindonissa hookup was more important, with Nyall’s armies massing for a spring assault, and the legion short-manned. But it hadn’t been announced, even to the officers. “And just how did you find that out, O Eyes-and-Ears?” he asked suspiciously.

  “It just, uh, occurred to me,” Paulinus said, and Correus laughed.

  “I take it back,” he said. “You should have been a spy.”

  Paulinus gave him back a blank, pleasant smile and drifted off, leaving Correus wondering if he hadn’t hit rather closer to the mark than he had intended. Just what had Paulinus been doing, the night he met Tullius in a dive in Judaea at the start of a rebellion? The Emperor Vespasian seemed inclined to let him wander where he would these days, with an Imperial Post permit at that, and Vespasian had been governor of Judaea at the time. Correus didn’t doubt that his friend’s literary efforts were genuine, but still, it had been the old German legions that had first declared for Vitellius. Vespasian would keep a sharp eye on legions serving in Germany for some time to come.

  * * *

  Appius Julianus sat staring at two letters. They had been presented to him by a much-amused Gentilius Paulinus, uncle of the man whose signature was scrawled on the outside of each sealed papyrus sheet.

  “They came along with a letter to me from Lucius,” the senator said, drawing up a chair in Appius’s study. He was an ample man, well-fed and unassuming.

  “Ah yes, the aspiring author.” Appius raised an eyebrow.

  “And don’t ask me how he got a permit to use the Imperial Post,” Gentilius said. “I don’t know and I don’t think I want to.”

  “Probably did some favor for our Emperor.” Appius shrugged. He would have bet his whole house that Gentilius did know, but he wasn’t going to ask. He and the senator went a long way back – long enough to know when to keep quiet. “An enterprising young man, your nephew,” he said in bland tones. “How is his history progressing?”

  “Very well, I think,” Gentilius said. “He writes with a flair, and certainly no one can say he gets his material at second hand.”

  “No,” Appius said. “I gather from my son’s last letter that he is more than underfoot in Germany at the moment. That one arrived by regular channels, I might add. Will you forgive me if I find out why both my sons have now seen fit to abuse the privileges of the Imperial Post? I assume that is who these letters are from. I can’t imagine why your nephew would write me a letter, much less two.”

  Gentilius nodded and Appius slit open one of the purple seals. His face clouded as he scanned it, and he opened the second letter without comment. Gentilius watched him with patient curiosity, and when he had finished the second letter Appius felt obliged to speak.

  “A hunting accident, it seems. They both write to assure me that the other is still in one piece.” He stared at the letters thoughtfully.

  It was the senator’s turn to raise an eyebrow. “By Imperial Post?”

  “They are… very close.” Appius’s saturnine face had become guarded, and he rubbed his thumb along the old helmet-strap callus under his chin.

  There was more than that, Gentilius thought, but it didn’t concern him. He had hoped for more than a family problem, something to confirm or deny his nephew’s hints of trouble brewing on the frontier. “If the greatest excitement on the Rhenus is a day’s hunting, things must be quiet with the Germans,” he murmured.

  Appius’s eyes snapped open. As long as he had known him, his companion had never pursued a subject without a reason. “No… I did have another letter from Correus yesterday, but written some time before this one… the civilian post being what it is.” He dangled the bait gently.

  The Senator bit – carefully. “There has been some talk of a pitched war,” he suggested.

  “All right, Gentilius. I see no reason not to tell you – it’s hardly a military secret. There’s going to be trouble when they start to consolidate the Agri Decumates. One of the tribes from beyond the projected frontier is showing every sign of trouble, and it’s thought that they were also the force behind the attacks three years ago. Attacks which would never have been made if Romans hadn’t been busy fighting each other. Now, you tell me why you want to know.”

  Gentilius smiled, a bland, deceptively innocent smile that Appius would have recognized if he had ever met Gentilius’s nephew. “I… uh, like to keep my hand in. The Senate can vote more troops to Upper Germany or… not. One likes to know if they’re needed.”

  “Uh huh. In a pig’s silk dressing gown. No matter what the Senate says, the Emperor will still do what he wants to do. Don’t try that on me, Gentilius.”

  “The Emperor would like it if the Senate did it without his prodding,” Gentilius said. “Looks better, you know. And Upper Germany… touchy province.”

  Appius clapped his hands for a slave, ordered a tray of wine and cakes, and used the interval while he waited to think. Upper Germany was the closest military province to Rome – the closest concentration of troops – and it had been the staging ground for so many bids for power by its commanders that Appius couldn’t remember them all. Except for the one that burned the clearest in his memory, of course – Vitellius, the short-lived emperor overthrown by Vespasian. Vespasian would want to be very sure of a number of things before he ordered more troops into Upper Germany. Sure of its commanders, for instance, and sure there was a genuine threat by the Germans. And the Senate, remembering the executions and horrors of civil war, would be even more uneasy than the Emperor about reinforcing legions in Germany.

  The slave padded back in, his bare feet politely noiseless on the marble floor. He poured two goblets full of wine and splashed a dollop of water on the top, as befitted a morning refreshment. Appius took a long drink and tapped his fingers on the desk.

  “Now listen to me, Gentilius. I am through with all this. Through with the army and the making of emperors, and through with spies and passwords. I did my best for Claudius, poor old man, and I supported Vespasian, but he’s going to have to hold the purple without me. I am going to raise horses, and I said so when I retired.”

  Gentilius studied his goblet, black potteryware with a thin thread design in red – Hercules wrestling a bull. “I presume you want a peaceful retirement?”

  “I do. As far as I can tell, the threat from the Germans is genuine. I know there’s been talk of cutting our Upper German army down even more, and I would advise against it. I’d be more inclined to step up its strength. But I can’t answer for the generals’ loyalties other than that I think Calpurnius Rufinus is sound enough. If I didn’t, I would have pulled in some favors to keep my sons from being posted to him.” He gave Gentilius a sharp look. “Why don’t you ask your nephew?”

  Gentilius gave a low chuckle. “Now what makes you think he would know?”

  Because you think so, Appius thought. And you won’t admit it because our Emperor never trusted his men enough to tell one what the other was doing – not even to tell you what your precious nephew is doing. “Pure speculation,” he said, with a look that gave his words the lie.

  Gentilius stood up. He had known Appius Julianus well enough in the old days to know that when Appius had spoken all he was willing to, no amount of wine, women, or camaraderie would ever drag another syllable out of him. Gentilius had once even tried himself, in the days when he was thin and handsome, and Appius Julianus, who had a reputation for taking his pleasures as he found t
hem, had taken that one also and volunteered not a single helpful word. But Appius was honest when he could afford to be. When Appius said he had retired, his old comrade could believe him. It was plain enough, as he saw Appius’s troubled gaze hark back to the letters on his desk, that affairs of state had taken second place to the affairs of his sons – and that something was wrong there. The only question was, was that all that was wrong in Upper Germany? Or merely all that Appius could see?

  When Gentilius had gone, Appius sat quietly, staring first at the letters with their purple Imperial Seal and then at a brown spider inching her way up the bookshelf. She let out her line a little every few inches and secured it as she went – Arachne’s daughter, hunting flies for breakfast. Appius knew he should call a slave and chew someone out for the presence of spiders in his study, but he didn’t bother. It was pleasant to watch a little innocent web-spinning for a change. He looked at the letters again and thought that he had spun a mistake into his own: a burden he should never have placed on Correus.

  He picked up a stylus and a sheet of wax in a wooden holder. He didn’t know what he could do about the stiff and almost resentful way in which Flavius had informed him that his brother had saved his life and been hurt in the process; or about the equally stilted tones in which Correus had simply said that Flavius would be fine and he wasn’t to worry. But he could do what Gentilius had asked, as long as Gentilius didn’t know about it and come seeking his alliance in other political matters. When Appius Julianus discussed troop strength, even the Emperor Vespasian knew enough to pay attention.

  A light patter of footsteps went by on the colonnade outside as Appius bent his head to the wax tablet. He had claimed to be busy all morning, but in truth he had been playing latrunculi with himself, and allowing his left hand to cheat, until Gentilius had arrived. Aemelius and his brood were coming to dinner, and that had raised the old vexing question of Flavius’s marriage. Antonia and Helva had got an early start on their machinations, and Appius had finally fled to his study where they couldn’t get at him.

  Aemelia showed no signs of weakening in her refusal to agree to the marriage and seemed to regard her father’s pursuit of the subject as a persecution to be gloried in. She went about looking pale and brave, and Helva, he knew, was egging her on. There was a tap at the door that opened onto the colonnade, and Appius looked up to see that the footsteps had been Helva’s. It was raining outside and she was wrapped in a pale blue cloak, looking as damp and pretty as a sea siren.

  “May I come in? Truly you do not look all that busy to me, and I hardly see you these days.”

  “You would see me if you would keep your fingers out of family business,” Appius said.

  Helva smiled. “Not a word.” She had decided to try another tack anyway, and slipped up to run her fingers through his dark hair.

  Appius sighed. “You’re a she-cat,” he said, “and it’s a pity you aren’t ugly.”

  Helva giggled and kissed him.

  Antonia, curled with a book on a couch in her sitting room where the heat from the hypocaust ran the warmest in the channels under the floor, heard their voices and slammed the scroll down hard enough to crack the wooden pin it was wound on. She knew Helva wasn’t going to change Appius’s mind, but it tore at her that Helva could tease him back to a good mood after she had infuriated him.

  Antonia picked up a silver-backed mirror from her dressing table and studied her face. She was good-looking enough, but a respectable Roman matron didn’t wiggle her behind when she walked and try to seduce her own husband in broad daylight. Helva was troubled by no such reservations.

  Antonia laid her mirror down and sighed. Appius was a hot-blooded man and he lay with her more often than she really wanted him to, if she were to be truthful. Let Helva have him this time. There were more important things to think about. She picked up her mantle and called Julia to come and help in the kitchens, where the slaves were cooking and putting up the fall harvest.

  * * *

  Appius slipped out of Helva’s room feeling a little silly at his age, but grinning nonetheless. She had kept her promise and stayed off the subject of Correus, and he had promised her a new bracelet after extracting a promise to continue to stay off it. Helva’s promises didn’t generally last all that long, but it would buy him a few days’ peace. A pity the same technique didn’t work with his wife…

  He had the wax tablet in a fold of his tunic, and seeing Forst turning into the slaves’ wing, he called out to him.

  “Yes, lord?” Forst inclined his head and stood waiting.

  Forst looked much improved, Appius thought; comfortable in a tunic now, and with the gall marks on his neck healed. But there was still a blank, shuttered look in his eyes, and that would never go away.

  “Take this to Philippos, and tell him I want it taken into the City. It is to go to the Emperor, and no one else, so he had better take it himself.”

  “Yes, lord,” Forst hesitated. “Lord, your sons – they are serving in my country, are they not?”

  “Yes,” Appius said. “They are.”

  “May I ask – how is it with my people?”

  “You are of the Semnones, aren’t you?” Appius asked.

  “Yes, lord.”

  “Well, Forst, I am afraid that your people are going to bring much trouble on themselves,” Appius said, his voice not unkind. “The man who led you into this” – he gestured at the garden and the estate, an alien land – “will come to it himself if he makes a war on the legions.”

  “Nyall Sigmundson, you mean?” Forst asked quietly.

  “Do you know him?”

  “I… rode with him, lord,” Forst said. “Give me your letter and I will see that it reaches Rome for you, lord.” He turned away quickly so that Appius should not see the bleak look of longing that washed over his face, while the garden and the gentle rain seemed to waver around him and blur into a harsher land of dark woods and snow, with a cavalcade of riders flying down a hillside track with their spears lifted to a winter sun.

  Did the Companions remember him? he wondered. Or had they merely said a quick prayer to Wuotan Father that he had found his peace in Valhalla and then forgotten him among the other dead? He stopped and lifted his face to the rain, letting it wash away his visions. It did not matter. He was here on a Roman farm whether he was remembered among the Semnones or not. Forst tucked the tablet into his tunic and went to find Philippos.

  * * *

  It probably would not have eased Forst any if he had known that Nyall remembered every man, alive or dead, who had ever ridden with that tight-knit band. Nyall had prayed that Forst found peace – in Valhalla or wherever it was that the Romans had taken him – and knew that it was most likely the latter. They had not found his body, and the Germans searched carefully for their dead.

  Nyall watched the sunset burn down behind the trees to the west. So many men gone into that sunset with a Roman thrall ring around their throats. There must be no more. No more of the slow eating away at the Free Lands until a legion stood here on the Semnones’ doorstep with a “treaty” that translated as “thralldom” in their hands.

  “Nyall.” A woman came out of the hall, and Nyall turned and put an arm around her. She had red hair streaked through with gray at the temples, like bird’s wings, and a look of him in her face. “Can you not come and eat? They are all afraid to begin without you, and the men are growing drunk.”

  “They are bored.” He smiled. “They have nothing to do but sit in my hall and grow fat and pick feuds with each other. I am taking them back tomorrow.”

  “So soon?”

  “I only came here to make Council with the whole tribe. We’ll winter with the chieftains of the Black Forest. They convince more easily at close range.”

  “Not content with the mastery of your own folk, you must needs make yourself master of the Black Forest tribes also,” she said.

  Nyall turned her away from the timbered hall and the cook smoke rising above it, and f
aced her westward. “Look you, Mother, it is not for the land, or the chieftainship, it is because the Roman-kind are abroad in the Black Forest, and the tribes there haven’t the stomach to stop them unless I force them to do it.”

  She looked troubled, twisting her hands in the green-and-gold folds of her gown. “I followed too many war trails with your father. I am tired of wars and of men coming back broken.”

  Nyall bent down and kissed her. “I’ll bring you a Roman thrall to carry your cushions about for you, and you’ll be the envy of all,” he said lightly.

  “The Roman-kind make dangerous thralls,” his mother said, unamused. “And I won’t envy us this winter with no men in the holdings.”

  “I’m only taking the Companions. We’ll call up the rest in spring.”

  “The Companions are the best.”

  “You’ll have no trouble from raiding. The other tribes know we fight their battle for them. Come. We’ll eat before they get too full of beer to ride in the morning.”

  She pulled him back. “Nyall – the Companions. Not all of them? Not Lyting?”

  “Lyting has ridden with me all summer,” he said, surprised. “He is one of us.”

  “He’s too young. Too young for a hosting, Nyall.”

  “He came to manhood a full year ago. Lyting is old enough to have killed his man on his first raid. He wouldn’t let me leave him.”

  “You could make him! Nyall, he’s sister’s-son to you. Don’t take him, not this war.”

  “I can’t tell him to bide at home like a babe,” Nyall said. “He’s of the Kindred! He has the right!”

  She gave him an angry look. “My daughter died bearing him. You and Lyting are all I have. I won’t lose you both in one hosting!”

  “If you chain him to the hearth while we take the war trail, you’ll lose him more surely,” Nyall said. He put his arm around her and led her into the hall. She bit her lip and wouldn’t look at him. He watched her move sadly to her place at the table, gathering her women around her as the thralls began to move among the company with plates of hot meat and baskets of bread. The hounds crouched expectantly beneath their masters’ benches.