The Centurions

by The Centurions (retail) (epub)

  Gallus counted mentally, and a dream of retirement in the sunny East, with a nice little harem and a house with marble floors, rose up before him, superimposed on hay bales and bridle bits. He had already put by a good sum, acquired one way and another, and this could make all the difference. He couldn’t resist the temptation to try to pry another five hundred out of this windfall sitting before him. When, after a bit of haggling, he got it, he increased the horizon of his dreams a little further. It was fortunate, he thought, as they shook hands on the bargain, that it had been the slave and not the master who had happened by as the horse was being groomed. He might not have got as good a price from the master.

  The slave departed to fetch the money, and Gallus sat down to concoct a story for the centurion who would appear in a few days to find his horse gone. He would have to give him back his nine hundred sesterces, he thought sadly. But after giving the army the three hundred he had listed on the duplicate sale ticket, he would have twenty-two hundred left. A house with marble floors… and maybe a little pool to sit by in the evenings.… He told the stablehand to put the Lyxian horse in a loose box and gave the dun flanks a fond pat. He settled himself in his office again to await the return of the man who had so fortunately traveled in far-off Lyxia.

  “Ah, Horsemaster.” A tall, angular form poked its head around the door and Gallus awoke from his dream in a hurry. The centurion! He wasn’t supposed to be back for two days.

  “I’ve come for my horse,” Correus said pleasantly.

  Gallus thought fast, congratulating himself on having had the good sense to have the horse put out of sight. He launched into the explanation apologetically, and with much bemoaning of the stupidity of the under-horsemaster who had sold the beast off without asking – Gallus had only just found out, but it had been bought for a riding horse and would have a good master, and that was what the centurion had wanted after all, was it not? And here was his nine hundred sesterces back, of course.

  The centurion proved unexpectedly stubborn. “That’s my horse,” he said flatly. “I bought him.”

  “Indeed, sir, and I am most dreadfully sorry. The man has been disciplined, of course.” Gallus saluted several times and pushed the stack of coins at Correus.

  Correus pushed them back. “I want my horse.” He waved the bill of sale under Gallus’s nose.

  “But, sir, as I have explained—”

  “Perhaps he hasn’t been taken off yet,” Correus said. “I’ll just have a look.”

  “No, wait! I assure you, sir – last night, it was.” Gallus pushed the sesterces at him again.

  “I want my horse,” Correus repeated stubbornly. “He’s my horse. I bought him.” Obviously a man with a one-track mind. “You’ll have to get him back.”

  “But I can’t, sir.” Gallus peered anxiously past his shoulder, hoping the sandy-haired slave would take his time returning. “He’s… uh, he’s been sent out of the Province already. Most unfortunate. Now, sir—”

  Correus appeared to have grown roots. “I want my horse,” he said again, peering down at Gallus from under his helmet with a threatening eye.

  “Perhaps… a hundred sesterces more… for your trouble, sir?” Gallus could hear voices outside now.

  “I wrote my sister, telling her I was sending her a special horse,” Correus said. “Am I supposed to send her a hundred sesterces instead?”

  “Two hundred,” Gallus said. He rummaged in his own purse. “You could buy her a fine horse for eleven hundred, sir.” ’

  “I want that horse,” the centurion said stolidly. He stood in the doorway, blocking Gallus’s view.

  Gallus frantically worked sums in his mind. Twenty-two hundred profit from the second buyer, as opposed to six hundred from this one. That left… sixteen hundred, in difference. Minus the two hundred he had already offered. Fourteen hundred… he could afford a little more to get rid of this ass before the second buyer came back. “Why don’t we sit down and talk, sir?” He tried to edge him away from the door.

  “I want my horse,” the centurion said again, maddeningly. He leaned against the doorpost and seemed inclined to stay there.

  Gallus could hear voices clearly now. Inquiring voices, one of them familiar: the young slave’s. He fished in his purse again. “Four hundred, sir,” he said desperately. “Because of all the trouble. Please, sir, it wasn’t my fault, truly. And four hundred’s all the fool got for him. I can’t give you more. And I don’t know how I’ll square it with the commander. Come out of my pay, I expect,” he added dismally.

  Correus appeared to relent. “Well, it’s your own fault, you know, Horsemaster. Let it be a lesson to you to keep better watch on your men in future. An officer is responsible for his men’s actions as well as his own,” he added pompously.

  “Yes, sir,” Gallus said. “You’re quite right.” He pushed the nine hundred sesterces at Correus again and breathed a sigh of relief when he accepted them.

  Correus tucked the money in a pouch and stood expectantly. Gallus counted out another four hundred from his own purse, hardly feeling a pang at the parting so long as he could also part with this pigheaded fool before someone brought the Lyxian horse out again.

  Correus accepted the money gravely and made much business of stowing it away in his pouch, while Gallus danced with impatience. Finally Correus allowed himself to be hustled out into the stableyard. He strolled leisurely to the end of the stable row with the horsemaster beside him.

  “Remember, Horsemaster,” he said gravely in parting, “a good soldier always takes responsibility for his… mistakes.”

  Wiping his brow, Gallus watched Correus amble away. The voices could be heard from behind the stable row, quite loudly now, and he hurried in their direction, cutting through a side passage into the rear courtyard.

  The Lyxian temple horse stood apparently asleep in the sunny courtyard, the dun hide twitching only enough to shake off the cloud of flies that buzzed around it. The sandy-haired slave stood beside it, while a tall, blond centurion leaned against the open door of the loose box and howled with laughter.

  “Lyxian temple horse!” he spluttered. He clutched his helmet to his stomach and bent over it.

  Gallus felt a horrible suspicion creep over him. “It’s… not a Lyxian temple horse?”

  “Hell, no!” The centurion wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “That’s a nag!”

  Gallus turned on the slave with an awful eye, and the slave backed away.

  “But the half-moon brand,” he protested, and prudently put the centurion between himself and the horsemaster.

  The centurion looked at the horse again. It was still asleep. It swayed slightly, appeared about to fall over, and opened its eyes with a snort. The centurion let out another whoop of laughter. “Not a waxing moon,” he said to the abashed slave. “A waning moon! Like the horsemaster’s fortunes, I fear!”

  * * *

  Correus took Paulinus and Silvanus to dinner at the best inn in Argentoratum with the horsemaster’s money. They took Freita with them, and her green eyes were wide and dancing as they regaled her with the tale of the horsemaster’s downfall.

  “Oh, Lord! I wish you could have seen his face!” Silvanus said. “And the poor man who had that nag on parade spotted Gallus this morning and yelled, ‘Hey Gallus, you want to sell a horse?’ and a whole cavalry troop practically fell off their horses laughing. We won’t have any trouble with Gallus for a while!”

  Freita chuckled, but her face developed a thoughtful look as she bit into a pastry with spiced meat folded inside it. “This is good,” she announced. “I will learn to make this. But you three are like it – most unexpected inside.”

  “How do you mean?” Silvanus asked.

  “I think she means our operation on poor Gallus,” Correus said. “It gives you a new view on Rome, perhaps?”

  “Mmm,” Freita said through a mouthful of pastry. It never ceased to amaze Correus how much she could eat and still stay slim. A Roman girl would hav
e been as fat as a pretty pig on half of what Freita ate. But she rode Aeshma every day, and when she wasn’t riding, he had learned from Julius, she walked – a restless prowling that was half sightseeing, he thought, and half the pacing of a caged cat. She seemed cheerful enough tonight, however, as she washed her pastry down with sweet watered wine, and tried to explain. “It puzzles me… surprises me? I am not sure of the word I want. One day you are putting much time and thought into a boy’s prank, and the next you are a… a fighting machine, marching your men back and forth, and all the rest has gone away inside that helmet as if it had never been there.”

  Correus said, “Well, I’m not a fighting machine. No one here is.”

  “I always thought that Rome was.”

  “There’s some truth in that,” Paulinus murmured. “Let us say that Rome strives to appear so, in her provinces.” He picked up an apple and began to peel it with his knife.

  Freita watched the spiral of red peel uncoiling. “I seem to be thinking in terms of food tonight. Maybe because this also is new to me.” She waved a hand at the array of dishes – pastries and iced cakes, olives, pickled eggs, and a plate of sliced beef in garum, the fish sauce the Romans seemed to pour over everything. She nodded at the apple. “I’ve never seen Rome without its skin on before. And mostly it’s been a skin of iron plates.”

  “We sound like lobsters,” Silvanus said. “We’re not so different underneath.”

  “Different enough,” Freita said.

  “We’re a standing army,” Correus said. “We have no farms and herds to go back to after a battle. We go to winter quarters instead and twitch with boredom till spring.”

  “And when you get too bored, you set snares for the horsemaster?”

  “That was a debt to pay,” Correus said. “I rode that plug for two months and got blisters on my behind with every step. Besides, if Gallus hadn’t been greedy and tried to cheat me, it wouldn’t have worked.”

  Freita pushed a tendril of hair back from her face. Correus noticed for the first time she had piled it on top of her head, Roman-fashion. It gave her an odd look. She also appeared to be watching him, he thought, as if he also had suddenly changed form.

  “Did you ever find your sister her blond wig?” he asked Silvanus, beginning to feel uncomfortable under Freita’s scrutiny.

  “Yes, but I didn’t tell her where I got it,” Silvanus said with a laugh. “Rhodope had one – Leza had bought it, and Rhodope took one look and said that not even her hair looked that ridiculous, and took it away from her. She had to give the girl two new gowns to make her shut up about it.”

  “What do Roman women look like?” Freita asked suddenly.

  “Well, not like Rhodope, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Silvanus said. “Not respectable ladies. They look like… oh, like the legate’s wife.” Calpurnius Rufinus had recently brought his family out to the frontier to be with him. His wife was army-bred herself, and took better than most to the Spartan conditions. She was a brisk, practical woman with a fondness for jewelry, which was, as she said, the only luxury that was really portable.

  Freita recalled the legate’s lady as she had seen her in the market square. “She paints her face,” she said.

  “Roman ladies believe in giving their faces as much help as possible,” Paulinus said.

  “Would I be prettier if I painted my face?” Freita asked.

  Correus couldn’t think of a safe answer to that, but Silvanus had no such qualms. He studied her carefully, wide cheekbones narrowing to a small chin, white skin, and grass-green eyes, darker now in the lamplight. It was a cat’s face, and not a house cat either; a mountain panther.

  “Well,” he said, apparently giving the matter some thought, “you’re a big woman – tall, and your shoulders are broad. You wouldn’t want to overdo it. Your skin’s too good to powder. Our ladies put white stuff on theirs to make it look like yours. But your lashes are too pale – they get lost. You might darken them, and put some red on your mouth. A rose color, nothing too dark. And a little green on your eyelids would bring out the color of your eyes.”

  Freita burst out laughing. “Thank you, Centurion. I believe I will. How do you know so much about ladies’ paints?”

  “He has a sister,” Correus and Paulinus said together.

  “Three sisters,” Silvanus said. “And a mother who was the reigning beauty of Neapolis. I was the youngest. I think my father encouraged an army career because he was afraid I’d grow up to be a hairdresser.”

  Correus suspected that Silvanus’s knowledge of feminine adornment also stemmed from the fact that he generally kept a mistress somewhere. His love life was uncomplicated, and revolving. Correus hinted as much, and Silvanus grinned at him.

  “Yes, but I don’t generally tell ’em how to dress. I find they don’t much care for that.”

  “Well, you may tell me,” Freita said. “If I am going to live here – and it seems I must—” She shot a glance at Correus. “I won’t go about looking like a freak. A—a barbarian.” She took another drink of her wine, and Correus remembered uneasily that Germans didn’t drink much wine. She wouldn’t be used to it. He tipped some water from the pitcher into her wine cup. Unobtrusively, he hoped.

  Freita gave him a look and put her hand over the top of her cup. She turned back to Silvanus. “Anything else, Centurion?”

  “Well,” Silvanus said seriously, “if you won’t be insulted… Don’t let Correus buy you any more gowns with all those drapes and flutters in front. Your breasts are too big.”

  Correus half-expected her to toss the cup, wine and all, at Silvanus, but she didn’t. She gazed down at her breasts thoughtfully, with an expression that made Correus bite his lip to keep from laughing. Then she looked up at Silvanus with a giggle and a small hiccup, and said, “I think you’re right, Centurion.”

  Oh, Lord, Correus thought, she is drunk. Then he decided to let well enough alone. She was having a good time. He just wished she were having a good time with him. It did occur to him, though, that her interest in Roman ladies and their fashions might stem from a chance remark that morning that he and Flavius were going home on leave while the army was idle, for the winter. If the frontier stayed quiet, of course. There was always that if. He wondered if she were drunk enough to talk about her people without being made unhappy.

  “What do German ladies wear?” he asked, edging into the subject carefully.

  Freita thought. “Bright colors. Roman clothes always look pale to me. Sometimes two or three colors together. A woman wears her hair loose until she marries. Then she braids it.” She put her hands to her Roman-style hair. “I am not used to this. It feels like it’s falling down. The Semnone men knot their hair this way,” she added. “But at the side. Our men only braid theirs.” She studied the three of them. “Your short hair still seems odd to me. Among my people it means a man is disgraced. Nyall Sigmundson had a man’s hair cut for going to sleep on guard.”

  “That’s right,” Paulinus said. “You were with Nyall, weren’t you?” His eyes grew interested.

  A little shadow flicked across her face, and Correus wished he had kept quiet, but she answered calmly enough. “I was at Jorunnshold, lord. Is that right? Lord? I don’t know what to call you.”

  “Lucius will do.”

  Correus called him Lucius, but his servant didn’t, and the servant was a free man, Freita had learned. “Is that proper?” she asked.

  Paulinus smiled at her. “No, not really. But call me that, anyway.”

  “Very well, Lucius.” She had trouble pronouncing it.

  “What is he like, this Nyall?” Paulinus asked.

  “He is… a very great man. If he were a Roman, he would be a Caesar, I think.”

  “What will he do, now?” Paulinus asked. “If he lives, of course.”

  Freita gave him a long look. “Oh, he lives, Lucius. He is too… ruthless not to live. What he will do, I suppose, depends on how many of my people also live.” She reached for her w
ine cup again, and Correus didn’t try to stop her. Damn Paulinus and his prying. And damn himself for starting it. He knew very well that he had had the same tactic in mind. A fine trio of Romans they were – they got a homesick girl drunk and tried to make her betray her people.

  Freita unnerved him by apparently reading his mind. “Don’t worry, Centurion,” she said drily. “I don’t know enough to help you. Or hurt Nyall.”

  Paulinus changed the subject adroitly. He had already heard what he wanted to. “It is the nature of the historian to be curious,” he said lightly. “Since you also are curious about us, I’ll send Tullius around with some of my sketches of Rome – drawings of the City, I mean. You can see what we have built. It might help to explain us a little.”

  “It is so different from this city?”

  “Roma Dea, Argentoratum’s not a city,” Silvanus said. “It’s a hovel.”

  Freita looked around the inn’s dining chamber – a tiled floor with a small mosaic of fish in a circle, walls painted in bright colors by a provincial artist, oil lamps suspended from bronze chains, a pool with a small fountain that gurgled from a stone conch shell… alien magnificence. And Rome was… what compared to this? Yet another side to the Roman-kind… another look under the skin. Builders of things… straight roads and great cities. She stared into her wine cup, as if something about the Romans might come up from its depths.

  “Frightening, aren’t we?” Correus said gently. “If it’s any comfort, the Germans frighten us.”

  She looked up and laughed at him gently. “You mean Nyall frightens you. He ought to, Centurion. He ought to.”