The Centurions

by The Centurions (retail) (epub)

  “Better hurry up with that cloak you’re making if you want it to be a surprise,” he said, and she opened her mouth to answer that it wasn’t a cloak, but he was gone, catching up the water bucket that hung on a peg by the door.

  Freita pushed her stool back from the loom and stood up, eying the red cloth on it. Originally, it was to be a saddle blanket for Aeshma, a bright one to set off his gray hide, but somehow it had kept getting bigger. She supposed it really was a cloak for Correus.

  War… war with her people. Or at any rate war with Nyall and such of her tribe as had not drowned or burned or been sold, she corrected herself with an acid taste in her mouth. War with Nyall, who would have learned from last year’s losses… who might win this time. She opened the door and stood leaning against the post, looking out across the dusty street to the scrubby wood that lay at the edge of the civilian town. Beyond it lay the ploughed land of the settlement, grain and vineyards, and the cabbage patches that Nyall Sigmundson had spoken of so scathingly. War… war to take her out of this strange place with strange straight streets and stone houses that were blind and windowless outside and full of unexpected gardens inside, with pictures of gods on the walls. Away from the great gray fort that loomed above her, and the red-uniformed sentries that paced its walls. Away from the Roman-kind, leaving them dead behind her as they once had left her kin dead at Jorunnshold. Dead. A picture of Correus, dead in that fortress with blood on his face, rose up, and she brushed her hand across her eyes to push the vision away.

  The picture stayed with her, stubbornly… Correus, eyes open and sightless, with a broken helmet beside him and blood in his hair.

  No! Freita backed away and closed the door, and other memories came crowding in instead. Correus bringing Julius home, another stray to make a set with her and Aeshma… Correus dozing by the fire with the cat in his lap, or just watching her brush her hair… sitting up half the night inventing a breed of horse that didn’t exist… his lips against hers, and the feel of his body shaking because he wanted her and wouldn’t take her because of what he had nearly done before…

  Julius came back with the water and a queer look on his street-urchin face. “I hadn’t thought,” he said. “It’s not our side you’ll be cheering for, is it? If your Nyall wins this one, you can be shed of us, me and the centurion… He dumped the water in the kettle on the hearth. “You can go home to your people, like you’ve been wanting to.”

  Freita turned slowly to look at him. If Nyall won she could go back to her own kind and leave this half-year dead behind her, but not as if it had never been… not with Correus also dead behind her. “No,” she said. “No… it’s too late now.” She lay down on the bed in her curtained corner of the room and began to cry.

  * * *

  The men on leave were streaming back into Argentoratum, mixed with yet more reinforcements that somebody had miraculously sent from somewhere. In thanks for the troops, Calpurnius Rufinus prayed for a long life for the Emperor and for whoever had given the Emperor an opinion that echoed his own endless dispatches.

  Rufinus smiled a wolfish smile and settled his eagle-crested helmet on his head. “I’ll give Vespasian his money’s worth.”

  Paulinus had other business and went his own way with Tullius when they reached Augusta Raurica. Correus and Flavius reluctantly left their horses there with Bericus and caught a ride downriver with a patrol ship. They were in familiar territory now, and they spent much of the trip pumping the galley’s master for news rather than watching the still-leafless vineyards of the Rhenus slide by.

  “There’s more traffic on this damn river than at the Forum in Rome,” the captain said disgustedly, as the galley backed its oars and slowed to avoid ramming an overloaded supply ship wallowing its way downriver ahead of them. The Rhenus was beginning to rise with the melting snow from the mountains, and the current was swift and tricky.

  Correus leaned on the bow rail, listening to the changing hammer strokes from the rowing deck below as the galley maneuvered carefully and then shot past the supply ship in a clear stretch. The Rhenus road running along the bank on his left was also thick with traffic. To the right, the hills of the Black Forest rose dark and misty, but less ominous now, crisscrossed with log roads and heavily patrolled. As they neared Argentoratum Bridge, a cavalry patrol clattered across and into the wood, their fish-scale armor rippling in the cold sun. Correus had an uncanny sense of homecoming.

  The galley backed around and bumped gently against the mossy bulwarks of the jetty; her passengers trotted down the boarding plank, among them Correus, Flavius, and two young tribunes newly posted to the Eighth Augusta. The brothers threaded their way through the crowd – on the other side a ship was unloading quarried stone for road repairs – and the mountain of baggage that the tribunes seemed to have brought with them.

  “Nice present for old Rufinus,” Flavius said as he and his brother, carrying most of their kits on their backs, turned at the river gate to lift a hand in farewell to the galley’s captain. He waved back and cast an irritated glance at the tribunes, who stood with lordly indifference in the middle of the jetty while seamen wrestled a succession of trunks and boxes up from the hold.

  “They’ll be needin’ a whole mule cart just to get around,” the sentry at the river gate said, watching the tribunes. “I’d best send someone to help with that or them sailors’ll leave it sittin’ on the jetty just to spite ’em. Ah well, they’ll tone down when they’ve been out here a bit,” he added, not unkindly, and Correus and Flavius chuckled with the indulgence of career men with a heavy year’s campaign behind them.

  When they had reported their presence in the Principia, the optio checked their names off and told Correus to report back in the morning because the legate wanted to see him. “Something to do with that tame German of his,” the optio added, “so don’t keep him waiting, mind.” Junior centurions, even veteran ones, rated very low on a headquarters optio’s list of those in power.

  “I shall sleep on the doorstep,” Correus assured him solemnly. He went off to look for a bath and his commander, Messala Cominius – in that order. He was putting off telling Julius and Freita that he was back. This new war, although not unexpected, put a new perspective on things regarding Freita. He was going to go out and kill her tribesmen, and that was not going to cast him, or the army, in any favorable light in her eyes.

  He spent as much time as he could soaking and getting the news from the other bathers. The news was mostly rumor and speculation, but there was a heady excitement in the air, which Correus could sense even in Messala Cominius when he tracked him down at catapult practice. The catapults were still tricky after a wet winter, and Cominius had two centuries, one of them Correus’s, at work adjusting the skeins and lobbing stones into the open ground to the south of the fort. An eight-man patrol stood on the edges of the target to keep any traffic well clear. A group of small boys from the town stood behind them, wide-eyed as the stones came hurtling down.

  Correus took over his own century, mostly to have something to do, and was pleased to discover that his second-in-command had kept them in good order over the winter.

  “They’re shaping up very well,” Correus said as the catapult was drawn back in and the canvas covering lashed down. “Any problems?”

  “Well, not to speak of, sir. Except for Quintus.”

  “Quintus?” Correus remembered Quintus plainly. A barracks lawyer and a drunk, when he could find anything to get drunk on. A parade-ground nuisance. And an excellent soldier in the field, once he had something to fight besides the army. “What’s he done now?” he asked.

  “Three days unlawful absence, sir,” the second officer said. “With extra punishment for slugging a sentry on his way back into camp. He’s in the guardhouse now.”

  “Typhon take him,” Correus said. “Did he have a reason to go, or did he just get bored?”

  “Well, he’s got a woman in the town, sir. She was pregnant and overdue, and having a hard time of it,
and he took off to stay with her.”

  “Well, why didn’t he just ask for leave? We aren’t on campaign – he’d have got it.”

  “He did, sir,” the second said, “but he was already on report for missing parade, so they turned him down.”

  “So the damn fool just took off?” Correus tried to think of the best way to tackle Cominius on this. Unlawful absence was serious, but he wanted Quintus back in the ranks before they marched.

  “He forged a pass,” the second said, and laughed suddenly. “With your name on it, so of course he had to wait for someone on sentry duty who wouldn’t know you were on leave. I asked him why you, and he said, real patient-like, as if I was a fool kid, that your hand was the easiest to copy.”

  “Thank you,” Correus said. “I shall remember that. I suppose I had better go and talk to him. Did he come back of his own accord?”

  “Yes, but by that time they were looking for him, and the sentry grabbed him, so Quintus punched his nose for him.”

  “And in three days, no one thought to search his woman’s house?”

  “Well, the town watch did. But like I said, the girl was in a bad way. It’s my belief the commander of the watch knew where he was, and let him bide until he was sure the girl and the baby were all right.”

  Correus sighed. “All right, I’ll see what I can do. Go and tell him to start behaving like a Vestal Virgin, and I’ll plead his case with the commander in the morning. I suppose they’ve stopped his pay for this. Has the girl got any money?”

  The second shook his head. “I doubt it, sir. Quintus gets his pay stopped a lot.”

  Correus fished in his tunic. “Here. Make sure she’s got enough to eat, and then go see Quintus. Maybe that’ll tone him down some.”

  A bugle call sang out through the dusk, and the usual unpalatable smell that signified dinner drifted on the evening air. Correus went and had a meal in the mess, and then a drink with Silvanus, whom he regaled with the tale of Paulinus’s unexpected courtship of Julia. And then, unable to come up with any other delays, he put on his cloak and went out through the landward gate to announce his return to Freita.

  It was full dark now, the night lit only by an occasional window or by the gold rectangle of an open doorway. The firefly lanterns of the watch making its rounds glittered in the distance. Correus could hear the click-click of their nailed sandals crossing the paved square of the town basilica, fading into a thudding tramp as they passed on into Argentoratum’s unpaved streets. Nearby, a door swung open to the sound of irate feminine voices, and a legionary stumbled out into the street. He picked up his helmet, dusted it off, and shouted something back.

  An indignant voice yelled after him, “You want it twice, you pay twice!”

  Correus recognized Rhodope’s scolding and drew back into the shadow of a silent house to watch.

  Charis stood in the doorway beside her employer, a blanket clutched around her and her hair disheveled. “It wasn’t my fault you couldn’t do anything!” she shouted. “Next time don’t come here drunk. I gave you plenty of time – I don’t have all night, you know!” There was a hoot of laughter from the house, and the legionary fled.

  Rhodope slammed the door behind him, and Correus doubled over in the dusty street, laughing silently. When he had recovered, he went on, ambling slowly and watching the moon bob up over the distant trees. Finally, and reluctantly, he came to the shabby little house on the outskirts of Argentoratum. He had asked Silvanus to keep an eye on Freita in his absence, and over wine in Silvanus’s quarters had inquired how she was, but the other centurion had merely shrugged and said that she did all right. But she was… well, quiet, lately.

  “Since there’s been talk of war?”

  “No, ever since you left.” Silvanus looked as if he might say something more, and then changed his mind. “Here, have some more wine. The Egyptian’s best.” If his friend were a little drunk, Silvanus thought, it might help.

  At his knock, Correus heard the bar being lifted from the door. It swung slowly open and Freita stood there, a kitchen knife in one hand and her green eyes open wide. “I hope that’s not for me,” Correus said mildly.

  “No.” She looked around for someplace to put the knife and set it on the edge of the hearth. “I… I wasn’t sure it was you… although I thought…” She looked unsettled and pushed stray tendrils of hair back from her face. Her hair never stayed pinned up very well.

  “Where’s Julius?”

  “I… I told him he might go night-fishing with some of the other boys. It is dull for him here with only me, and besides, he heard at the fort that you had come back, and told me… and I…” Her voice trailed off uncertainly.

  Correus stepped in and looked around. The house was lamplit, and somehow neater than he remembered. “Where did the loom come from?”

  “Julius and I built it,” Freita said proudly. “I saved enough of the money you left us to have the wood cut at the mill. I… I thought maybe you wouldn’t mind.”

  There was an almost-finished piece of cloth on it, he saw – of a bright military scarlet. He started to ask her what it was for, but something in her face told him that maybe he shouldn’t.

  “Freita—”

  “Yes, Centurion?”

  “Don’t call me that!” he said. It came out harsher than he intended, and she gave him a queer look.

  “What should I call you?”

  “You call Paulinus by his name,” he said. “And Silvanus even, sometimes.”

  “Lucius is a friend.”

  “And what am I?”

  “I… don’t know,” she said. “Slaves don’t call masters by their names.”

  “I didn’t buy you for a slave,” he said bluntly. “And don’t stiffen up on me like a plaster statue, again.”

  Freita sighed. She picked up a stick and poked at the fire. The stick was charred through at one end and broke off, sending up a little red shower of sparks. “This… isn’t turning out the way I meant it to.”

  Correus was growing more puzzled by the minute. Maybe it was Silvanus’s wine, but he didn’t think so. “Why did you send Julius away?” he asked.

  Freita fidgeted with the fire some more. “I didn’t want him here when you came home,” she said finally. The fire flared up under her prodding and settled back again with a red glow that turned her hair to an autumn-leaf color. She had on her best gown, he noticed suddenly, and a faint rosy wash on her cheeks and lips that must be paint, because the rest of her face was pale. There was a fine green shadow along her eyelids that gave her eyes a sea-mist translucence. She dropped the stick into the fire and turned to look him full in the face. “I am glad you are come home,” she whispered.

  She was plainly uncomfortable, and Correus wondered what was going on behind those sea-mist eyes.

  “You don’t trust me, do you?” she said, unnervingly.

  “Am I that transparent?”

  “I don’t need magic to read your thoughts. We have never trusted each other, have we?”

  “Should I now? With a war coming, my people against yours, and me in the middle of it, and you saying you’re glad to see me?” He wondered if perhaps that kitchen knife was for him, after all. “Have you suddenly come to care for Rome so much?”

  “Not Rome,” Freita said. “If Nyall Sigmundson wins this war, he will burn the Rhenus from one end to the other, and I could ride with him and take a fine, bloody revenge for my people. I thought about that. And then I dreamed about it,” she went on shakily. “And then I knew that the price for that is one that I can’t pay anymore.”

  He stood looking at her for a moment, beginning to understand, and was startled by the sharp stab of happiness that went through him. After another moment she lifted her hands and whispered his name, just once. And then she was in his arms, with her face against his shoulder. He held her, dazed, thinking that it had been for him – the painted face, the absence of Julius, the nervousness… all that for him, and with no knife at the end of it… o
nly for him.

  “Freita,” he whispered, brushing his mouth against her hair and the white curve of her neck. She stirred in his arms and the old longing washed over him, deeper, stronger than anything that Aemelia’s childish prettiness had ever stirred in him. He kissed her full on the lips, long and urgently, forcing his restless body to wait until hers should wake under his hands.

  He felt her grow tense, not with fear this time, and bent and scooped her up in his arms, staggering a little with her weight – she was as tall as he was, and big-boned. He ducked under the curtain that screened her end of the room and laid her on the bed, kicking off his sandals. The pins had slipped from her hair and it spread out about her in a pale cloud, washed to silver by the shadows. She rolled into his arms as he lay down beside her and they fumbled awkwardly with his tunic and the clasps of her gown, laughing one moment and kissing the next, while Correus hoped that Julius’s fish were biting well that night.

  He sat up and threw their clothes on the floor. The light that came in around the curtain, and the moonlight slipping through the shutters of the one high window dappled their skin like a zebra’s, and the blanket was warm and scratchy under him. He rolled over on his back, letting her hands explore his hard, scarred body, and saw that hers bore old scars too, as well as the slightly darker patch on throat and breast that was the healed burn. Jorunnshold was not the first time that Freita had fought for her tribe, he thought, tracing the flat white line that ran from thigh to knee. A cavalryman’s scar, that one. He reached out and cupped one breast, while his other hand slid up past the old scar and slipped between her thighs. She wriggled with pleasure and wrapped her arms around him. Strong arms. This was a woman like himself, a woman who faced reality with a knife in her hand. An army outpost would hold no terrors for Freita.

  He moved his hand experimentally, and she opened her legs willingly to let him in, but he hung above her for just a moment, catching her eyes with his. Nothing between them would ever be the same after this night, and he had to know with a certainty why she was doing this. The green eyes looked back at him, blazing up like fire in an emerald. She whispered his name as she pulled him down to her and arched her back as he entered her.