The Centurions

by The Centurions (retail) (epub)

  He saw Arni pull a girl with a fall of red-gold hair into his arms. Astrid, Steinvar’s daughter – if that went well it would be a good match, he thought with half his mind, while the other half made him lay his hand on his wife’s arm with a new urgency.

  Fiorgyn set down the mead pot she had been drinking from, and before she rose she whispered something in Kari’s ear as his song ended.

  Kari blinked, looked down at Hallgerd cuddled close against his knee, and opened his eyes wide in surprise, while the chieftain and his wife laughed and made their way with arms entwined through the revelers in the hall.

  XV The Lyxian Horse

  “When I hired this house,” Correus said, looking at Freita across the hearth, “it was not with the intention of providing an inn for my layabout friends.”

  He had come to have her mend a torn tunic for him and had found the hut (now transformed into three rooms, for Freita had curtained off a second cubicle at the far end for young Julius) full to overflowing. Paulinus and Silvanus were both lounging by the fire on a couch Correus had never seen before, while Tullius sat cross-legged on the floor teaching Julius to cheat at dice.

  Even Flavius was there, in a folding camp chair, with his slim legs stretched out to the fire. Freita, with all the airs of a gracious hostess, was plying them with honeycakes and sweet spiced wine from a pot that steamed aromatically in the hot ash at the edge of the hearth.

  Paulinus and Silvanus looked up from the couch and moved to make room for him.

  “Where did this couch come from?” Correus asked suspiciously.

  “I brought it,” Paulinus said, seeming a little embarrassed. “Thought the place, uh… looked a little bare.”

  “My thanks,” Correus said. He looked at Flavius. “Greetings to you, brother.” And what in the name of Hades was he doing here?

  “And I have brought wine,” Flavius said. “My contribution to domestic felicity.” Correus and Freita shot him a simultaneous glance of irritation, and he rose to go, lazily. “My thanks for the hospitality… lady.” He gave the title a slight emphasis. “It has been most… interesting to make your acquaintance.”

  Flavius picked up his helmet and strolled off, leaving Correus restraining his temper. Flavius had been patently curious ever since Correus had brought his oddly assorted household back to Argentoratum, but the constraint between the two brothers had left his curiosity little scope. Correus wasn’t sure now whether Flavius was trying to make friends, or had come merely to annoy him. Or possibly he was there to gather enough information for a really inflammatory letter to their father. Well, Flavius had better keep his curious hands off Freita, Correus found himself thinking. Then, seeing the look Freita was giving Flavius as he went out the door, he decided that Freita would see to that herself.

  “Sorry about that,” Silvanus said. “He, uh… attached himself.”

  “Limpetlike,” Paulinus agreed. “Sit down, Correus, and stop scowling. We came to see how Freita was, and there wasn’t any way to discourage Flavius without being rude.”

  Freita spoke for the first time, and Correus saw now that she had put on one of her new gowns for the occasion. “I thought perhaps you wouldn’t have minded if I was rude,” she said, “but I don’t know the right Latin words. Centurion Silvanus has promised to teach me,” she added with such a demure expression that Correus laughed and took the chair vacated by his brother. “Julius took him to see Aeshma,” she added. “I think he was hoping he’d get kicked, but the wretched beast liked him.”

  “Flavius has what you Germans call horse magic,” Correus said. “He always has. Why didn’t you like him?”

  “I am not a horse,” Freita said. “And he doesn’t like you.”

  Correus blinked at her in surprise. “I would have thought that would be a recommendation,” he murmured.

  Silvanus seemed to feel that a change of subject was in order. “It’s a pity you can’t turn that beast loose on Gallus,” he said idly, referring to the legion’s horsemaster. “The old devil palmed off those two nags he gave you and Flavius on another pair of babes in the wood this morning. One of them’s posted to my cohort, and his beast stopped dead still in the middle of parade and refused to move. The poor man did everything but get down and kick it in the ass, and the damn horse just stood there like a dairy cow chewing its cud. His men were practically rolling on the ground. He cried on my shoulder about it afterward.”

  Correus’s ears pricked up. “Is the beast back in the stables now?”

  “Oh yes,” Silvanus said, chuckling. “He took him back after parade and threatened to beat Gallus to a bloody pulp unless he gave him another one. But the man’s a laughingstock now.”

  “Can’t have that,” Correus said. “It’ll ruin our reputation.” His dark eyes were bright, and a wicked little light had begun to dance in them. He couldn’t do much about Flavius, but there was one debt he could pay off. “Lucius, are you acquainted with Horsemaster Gallus?”

  “No, I’m not,” Paulinus said. He looked at Correus with suspicion.

  “How providential,” Correus said. He poured some of the hot spiced wine into Flavius’s empty cup and reached for the wooden tray of honeycakes balanced on the hearth edge beside it.

  * * *

  Horsemaster Gallus was taking his ease in the shed that was used as a cavalry tack room. He had come to regard this as his private office; here he was screened from any passing official eyes who might want him to do some work. He looked up in the manner of a man interrupted while thinking great thoughts when the tall centurion poked his aquiline face around the doorpost. The face was vaguely familiar, but he found himself unable to place it immediately. Gallus had the cavalryman’s dislike of the regular legions, overlaid by the professional malingerer’s dislike for officers in general. He avoided them where possible, and contented himself with annoying them where it was not.

  “Horsemaster Gallus?”

  “Yes, sir?” Gallus’s bowed legs were stretched comfortably out on a hay bale in front of him. He swung them off reluctantly and saluted, since the centurion seemed to be expecting it.

  “Oh, sit down, Horsemaster, by all means,” Correus said, making himself comfortable on the bale.

  “Thank you, sir.” Gallus’s bright eyes regarded him curiously. “What can I do for you, sir?”

  “I am told that you are in charge of acquiring remounts as necessary,” Correus said. “And of selling off the animals no longer fit for use?”

  “Yes, sir, that I am,” said Gallus, striving to figure out what was going on. There was also a matter of requisition slips and properly signed forms from the cavalry commandant’s office, but he saw no need to mention them.

  “Excellent,” Correus said. “I want to buy one of your mounts.”

  “Well, sir, it’s not that simple.” Gallus mentally ticked over his secret stock of signed sale permits.

  “Oh, I think you’d be willing to part with this one,” Correus said with a smile. “He wrecked a whole cohort parade this morning. And I’d be willing to give you – I mean give the army – a good price for him.”

  Gallus grew more perplexed. The centurion’s slight swagger and lazy speech fairly screamed of a good family, and money. Gallus knew him from somewhere, he was sure.

  “I had him for a personal mount for a month or so,” Correus said.

  Gallus gave him a wary look, the memory of his visit from the nag’s most recent rider still fresh in his mind.

  “He’s a bit of a plug,” Correus said in a friendly, soothing voice, “but the fact is, the beast saved my life – shied and took off into the brush like the Furies were after him. Turned out later there was a whacking great viper coiled up in the rocks, and the thing would have had me in the leg if it weren’t for that horse. After this morning, he’s sure to be sold off, and I’d like to return the favor if I can. Hate to see him go for dog’s meat.”

  Gallus began to relax, the scent of sesterces strong in the wind. “Well, sir, as I said,
it’s not all that easy. We don’t generally sell ’em off except in lots.”

  “I’m sure I could make it worth your while,” Correus said. “I want that horse. Made a thanks-vow to Poseidon after he saved my skin for me,” he added, his expression pleasant and not overly intelligent.

  “Well…” Gallus said dubiously.

  “Say five hundred sesterces?” Correus suggested.

  Gallus hesitated. The horse wasn’t worth three hundred, and the cavalry commandant would be on his tail to sell him as soon as he’d had his own tail chewed by the camp commander for that wrecked parade. “I dunno, sir. The commander mightn’t like it. Like I said, we sell ’em off in lots, and there’s a batch ready to go out now. I need that one to make up ten – that’s the smallest lot the dealers’ll bother with.”

  “Well, then, say eight hundred,” Correus said, with the air of a man to whom money is a small matter. “I’m going to send him back to my father’s farm,” he improvised, “as a present for my sister. So you won’t get in any trouble.”

  Gallus felt that the gods had finally smiled on him. “Well, sir, I’d have to pay the dealer some – to take a short lot, you know. Maybe for nine hundred…” He didn’t think even this idiot would go higher than that.

  Correus smiled. “You drive a hard bargain, Horsemaster. But of course I appreciate your position. Very well, nine hundred it is. I’ll just give it to you now, to seal the bargain, and I’ll send my boy around for him in a day or so, when I’ve made the arrangements.” He took a pouch from the front of his uniform tunic and counted out a stack of coins. “Have him cleaned up for me, will you? Girls like their beasts to look pretty. And you won’t mind giving me a bill of sale, of course, just to make it all legal.”

  Gallus delved into a chest and produced a sale permit, which he duly inscribed with the figure of nine hundred sesterces. Correus departed and Gallus sat down again, counting ecstatically on his fingers. If he turned in a duplicate sale permit for three hundred, the army would think itself overpaid.

  Gallus spent a pleasant evening listing the things a man could do with six hundred sesterces, and in the morning he had the nag trotted out and set a stable-hand to performing such beautification as was possible on so unprepossessing a beast. He wondered if the centurion would change his mind when he saw him again, but decided that it didn’t matter. He had the nine hundred sesterces, and the centurion had a silly vow to Poseidon Horse-father, who was probably laughing hard enough to flood Atlantis again.

  An exclamation and a pair of raised voices from the stables outside drew him from this pleasant reverie, and Gallus ambled out to see what was going on.

  The cavalry stablehand was brushing the dun nag’s coat and swearing at a sandy-haired youth in a plain civilian tunic, while the latter clambered about under the beast’s splayed feet, peering at the half-moon brand on the inside of one mud-colored haunch.

  “Here, now,” Gallus said, adjusting his uniform tunic, regrettably devoid of the cavalry scale he was supposed to be wearing over it. “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “Gettin’ in the way, sir,” the stableman said in aggrieved tones. “Bargin’ in like – here, what do you think you’re doin’?” The sandy-haired man was inspecting the dun nag’s ears and clucking to himself over the cavalry crop that had been given its straggling mane.

  “Let’s see your pass,” Gallus said.

  “Pass be damned,” the other man said. “Where’d you get this horse?”

  “He’s a cavalry horse,” Gallus said acidly, “as you’ve no doubt noticed by now.”

  “You mean you don’t know what—” The man broke off, and an expression of obvious guile passed over his freckled face.

  “Don’t know what?” Gallus shot out one callused hand, unexpectedly strong, and gripped him by the wrist. The young man wore a plain buff linen tunic of good cloth and a silver band pushed up high on his arm under the tunic sleeve. It was a warmish day for fall, and his thin, bony feet were bare of sandals. Someone’s slave, and a high-up one at that. Gallus narrowed his eyes, puzzled and alert. “Don’t know what?” he repeated.

  “Why, don’t you know where he came from?” the sandy-haired slave said. “Don’t you keep records?”

  “We aren’t a stud farm,” Gallus said. “He was bought in Nero’s day.” He nodded at the brand on the outer flank: N IMP[.]{.smallcaps} “I wasn’t around then to take his pedigree,” he added with elaborate sarcasm.

  “Couldn’t have if you’d wanted to,” the slave murmured. “Look here, will you sell him?”

  Gallus stared at the ungainly dun form, from heavy head to turned-in hocks. Two fools in two days, and both for the same horse. It was most unfair. “If you’re looking for a good mount, lad, I’ve got just the thing,” he said hopefully. “Prime stock, but just a bit past cavalry work.” Anyone who would want to buy this nag wouldn’t be too choosy.

  “No, you fool,” the slave said, exasperated. “This horse. And it’s not for me, it’s for my master.”

  Gallus started to protest that the horse was no longer his, and then thought better of it. “Well, you see, I’ve had an offer for him already, from an officer at the fort here. Couldn’t sell him out from under him, you know.”

  The slave blinked in surprise. “He couldn’t use him. Do you mean to tell me you really don’t know what you’ve got here?”

  “No, I don’t,” Gallus said, “and you’re going to tell me, or I’ll have you thrown out of here!” The stablehand had ceased work and was watching the exchange with curiosity. Gallus glanced at him and then jerked his head at the tack-room door. “Get in here.”

  The slave followed him obediently and sat down on the hay bale previously occupied by Correus. “Now,” Gallus said. “Start talking.”

  “My master will meet any price you’ve had offered,” the slave said abruptly.

  “You’re authorized to speak for him?” Gallus inquired with great irony.

  “Of course,” the slave replied. “I am steward of the household. Do I look like a vine tender? Now, how much have you been offered?”

  “Will you tell me why you want him!” Gallus looked as if he were ready to burst with irritation, and the slave sighed.

  “Very well. Have you ever been in Lyxia?”

  “Where in Hades is Lyxia?”

  “In Asia. Just a little bit of a country tucked in below Pergamum.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “You wouldn’t have.” The slave made it plain that this lack of education was only to be expected. “It’s not big enough to be worth anything. Everybody who comes along has conquered it, from the Greeks on, and the Lyxians go along as they always have. They aren’t interested in anything much except their temple, and as long as they get to worship their god the way they want to, they don’t care who they pay their taxes to.”

  “What about the horse?”

  “I’m getting there,” the slave said. He seemed prepared to run through the history and culture of Lyxia first, however. “They’ve got an odd religion. Really nothing else like it anywhere. They keep a special herd of horses, just for their god.”

  “That’s nothing new,” Gallus said. “So do the Germans and half the barbarians in Britain.”

  “Not to sacrifice.” The slave looked horrified. “They dance. Every year at midsummer, the horses dance for their god.”

  Gallus snorted. “That beast? He’s got the gait of an ox and a mouth like an iron ingot. He couldn’t dance if you put strings on him.”

  “Well, of course not,” the slave said patiently. “I don’t expect there’s anyone in the Empire trained to give the right commands, outside of Lyxia. Except for my master. But this one’s been trained, all right. They don’t give ’em that half-moon brand until they’ve passed their training.”

  “If these horses are so fabulous, how come we don’t import ’em?” Gallus asked suspiciously.

  “The Lyxians won’t teach anyone but their priests to ride ’em,” the
slave said. “And they don’t look like much to anyone who doesn’t know what he’s looking for. Lyxian ceremonies are secret.”

  “And I suppose your master’s one of these Lyxian horse priests?”

  “Oh no. They never leave their temple – it’s a city in itself, really. But we are very well traveled, and my master made friends there years ago, with one of their priests. He’ll pay anything you like for that horse.”

  Gallus found greed outweighing his good sense. “Well now, to tell the truth, that horse is promised. The centurion took quite a fancy to him. Offered a thousand sesterces.”

  “A thousand?” The slave looked appalled. He twitched the folds of his tunic into place primly. “A Lyxian temple horse is priceless.”

  “Priceless?”

  “Well… in Lyxia, of course.” The slave seemed to feel that he had said too much. “Here, of course… well, there’s no one but my master that he’d be any use to.” Gallus’s eyes were beady now, and he rubbed his hands together. “He was worth a thousand to the centurion. Of course, we hadn’t exactly struck a bargain yet. He might go higher.”

  The slave thought a moment. “My master will give you fifteen hundred.”

  “For a Lyxian temple horse?” It was Gallus’s turn to look appalled. “And in any case, I couldn’t sell him out from under the other gentleman. It wouldn’t be right.”

  “I thought you said no bargain had been struck?”

  “Well, we did have sort of an understanding…”

  “In that case, it’s not likely he’d go above a thousand, is it? Look here, my master will give you two thousand, and not a copper more. The horse is worth a lot to him, but you haven’t much market for it here, you know. No one else can ride him. The commands are all in Lyxian, and there’s a special way of sitting him to make him dance. That’s why they seem so awkward when anyone who’s not trained rides them. They’re bred for the temple dance, and it takes a different set of muscles. I can’t think how a Lyxian temple horse ended up in the cavalry,” he added. “He must have been stolen by some fool who didn’t know what he had. Two thousand, Horsemaster. Even my master won’t go higher than that.”