The Roman sotk-2

by Mika Waltari

  I began to laugh, cut the rope around her wrists and told her to go and wash her face and plait her hair. She rubbed her swollen wrists and stared at me mistrustfully. Finally I went and fetched the engineer, who could speak a few words of the Iceni’s language. He laughed at my dilemma but remarked that the girl was at least healthy and had straight limbs. When she heard her own language, the girl seemed to gain courage. They talked animatedly for a while.

  “She doesn’t want to wash, or comb her hair J explained the engineer, “because she suspects your intentions. If you touch her, she’ll kill you. She swears this in the name of the hare-goddess.”

  I assured him that I had not the slightest intention of touching the girl. The engineer said that the most sensible thing to do would be to give her wine to drink because the uncivilized Britons were not used to wine and she would soon be drunk. Then I could do what I liked with her as long as I made sure that I did not get too drunk myself. Otherwise the girl might cut my throat when she sobered up. That was what happened to one of the legion’s tanners who had made the mistake of drinking together with an untamed British woman.

  I repeated impatiently that I did not want to touch the girl. But the engineer insisted that it would be wisest if I kept the girl bound. Otherwise she would run away at the first opportunity.

  “Nothing could be better,” I said. “Tell her that tonight I’ll go with her past the guards and set her free.”

  The engineer shook his head and said that he had thought I was mad before, voluntarily joining in the work with the men, but he had not thought I was that mad. He spoke to the girl and then turned back to me.

  “The girl doesn’t trust you,” he said. “She thinks that you’re taking her into the forest to get your own way. Even if she did escape from you, Britons from other tribes would capture her and hold her as a hostage as she doesn’t belong here. Her name is Lugunda.”

  Then the engineer’s eyes began to glisten and he licked his lips as he looked at the girl.

  “Look,” he said. “I’ll give you two silver pieces for the girl and then you’ll be rid of her.”

  The girl saw the look and rushed up to me, grasping my arm as if I were the only security she had in the world. But at the same time she uttered a stream of her sibilant language. The engineer laughed loudly.

  “She says, if you touch her without permission you will be reborn as a frog. Before then her tribesmen will come and cut out your stomach, pull out your intestines and stick a red-hot spear up your backside. It’d be wiser, I should think, if you sold her at a reasonable price to a more experienced man,”

  For a moment I felt like giving the girl to the engineer for nothing, but then I again patiently assured her that I did not want to touch her. In fact I thought of treating her like a colt. They had their fringes combed and were given a blanket on their backs on cold nights. Old veterans used to relieve their boredom by keeping pets. The girl would be better than a dog because she could teach me the Britons’ language.

  I do not know how the engineer interpreted my words, or if in fact he knew enough of the language to convey what I had said to the girl. I suspect that he told the girl that I was as unwilling to touch her as I would be to mate with a dog or a horse. Anyhow, she drew quickly away from me and began to splash her face with water from my wooden pail, to show she was neither a horse nor a dog.

  I asked the engineer to leave and gave the girl some soap. She had never seen such a thing before, and to tell the truth, neither had I until I stayed the night in the Gallic town of Lutetia on the way to Britain and visited the wretched bathhouse there. It was on the anniversary of the day of my mother’s death and thus also my birthday. I was seventeen in Lutetia and no one congratulated me.

  The thin slave in the bathhouse surprised me with the mild and cleansing soap he was using. It was quite a different feeling from being scoured with pumice. I remembered the money Tullia had given me and bought both the slave his freedom and his soap for three gold pieces. On the morning I left Lutetia, I gave him permission to call himself Minutius. The few pieces of soap I received in return, I kept well hidden when I realized that this new invention roused the contempt of the legionaries.

  When I showed the girl how the soap should be used, she forgot her fear, washed herself and began to untangle her hair. I rubbed her swollen wrists with good ointment, and when I saw how badly her clothes had been torn by the thorns, I went to the trader for underclothes and a woolen cloak for her. After that she followed me everywhere like a faithful dog.

  I soon noticed that it was easier for me to teach her Latin than for me to learn the barbarians’ language. During the long dark evenings by the fire, I also tried to teach her to read. But I did it just for my own amusement, by writing the letters in the sand and letting her copy them. The only books in the garrison were the centurion’s almanac and the trader’s Egyptian-Chaldaean book of dreams, so I very much regretted not bringing anything with me to read. Teaching Lugunda made up for some of this.

  I endured with a laugh the stream of obscenities from the veterans regarding the girl in my hut, for they meant no harm. More likely they wondered what kind of witchcraft I had used to tame the girl so quickly. Of course, they thought I slept with her,” but in fact I did not touch the girl, although she was over thirteen years of age.

  As the icy rain poured down and the even normally wretched roads were transformed into bottomless mud, and the puddles every morning were covered with a crisp layer of ice, life in the garrison became more and more static and monotonous. A couple of young Gauls who had enlisted in the legion to become Roman citizens by serving for thirty years, made a habit of slipping into my wooden hut when I was teaching Lugunda and watching with their mouths open and repeating aloud the Latin words. Before I knew what was happening, I was teaching them both Latin and how to write. Some knowledge of reading and writing is necessary for promotion in the legion, for no war can be waged without wax tablets.

  It was while I was teaching like this that Vespasian surprised me in my turf-roofed hut when he came to inspect the garrison. As was his habit, he came unexpectedly and did not allow the duty guards to sound the alarm, for he liked to go around and see the camp as it was each day. He considered that in this way a commantler had a better picture of the morale of the legion than by a previously arranged tour.

  I was reading aloud from the tattered Egyptian-Chaldaean book of dreams what it meant if one dreamed about hippopotamus, and I was pointing out each word in turn while Lugunda and the young Gauls put their heads together and stared at the book, repeating the Latin words after me. Vespasian laughed so much that he bent double and slapped his knees as the tears poured down his cheeks. We all nearly fainted with fright when he appeared so suddenly behind us. We sprang to attention and Lugunda hid herself behind my back. But from his laughter, I realized that Vespasian was not at all angry.

  When he had at last collected himself, he looked sternly at us with a heavy frown. The upright posture and clean faces of the youngsters showed him that they were irreproachable soldiers. He said that he was pleased they wanted to learn Latin and to read rather than getting drunk in their spare time. Vespasian even lowered himself to tell us that he had seen a hippopotamus with his own eyes in the amphitheater in Rome at the time of Emperor Gaius, and he described how enormous the animal is. The Gauls naturally thought he was making it up and laughed shyly, but he was not offended and merely ordered them to get their equipment in readiness for inspection.

  I respectfully asked him to step inside my hut and begged permission to offer him some wine. He assured me he would very much like to rest for a while, for he had finished his inspection and had set people to work everywhere. I found my father’s wooden goblet, which I thought my best drinking vessel, and Vespasian turned it around in his hand curiously.

  “You’ve the right to wear the gold ring, you know,” he remarked.

  I explained that I did indeed own a silver goblet, but that I prized the wooden
goblet much more highly as I had inherited it from my mother. Vespasian nodded in approval.

  “You are right to honor the memory of your mother,” he said. “I myself have inherited a battered old silver goblet from my grandmother and I drink from it on all feast days without caring what people think.”

  He drank the wine thirstily and I willingly gave him more, although I was already so used to the poor life in the legion that I calculated how much he was saving by drinking my wine. This was not out of meanness. I had simply learned that a legionary, on ten copper pieces or two and a half sesterces a day, had to provide food for himself, keep his clothes in order and put something by in the legion’s fund toward the day when he was ill or wounded.

  Vespasian slowly shook his large head.

  “Soon the spring sun will be here,” he said, “and it will dissolve the mists of Britain. Then we may well have a hard time. Aulus Plautius is preparing to go to Rome to celebrate his triumph and he is taking his most experienced soldiers with the longest service with him. Wise veterans would rather accept gratuities than trek the long way back to Rome for a few days’ feasting and drinking. Among the legion commantlers, I was the one whose length of service entitled me to the first chance to go with him, because of my conquest of the Isle of Wight. But someone must see to Britain until the Emperor appoints a new commantler-in-chief in place of Aulus Plautius. Aulus has promised me a triumph insignia anyhow, if I agree to stay here.”

  He rubbed his forehead over and over again.

  “As long as I am in charge,” he went on, “there will be no more plundering and we shall pursue a policy of peace. But that means we’ll have to extract even higher taxes from our allies and subjects to maintain the legions. That’ll make them rebellious again. Admittedly, it will take some time to do, for Aulus Plautius will take the kings, commantlers and other important hostages to Rome. There they’ll get used to the comforts of a civilized life and their children will be brought up in the Palatine school, but the only result will be that their own tribes will desert them. On our part, we shall gain a breathing space while the tribes competing for power here setde their differences. But if the Britons move swiftly enough, they’ll have time to get a rebellion going by midsummer day. That’s their main religious feast day. They usually sacrifice their prisoners on the communal stone altar. It is strange, when otherwise they worship the gods of the underworld and the Goddess of Darkness with the face of an owl. The owl is also the bird of Minerva.”

  He thought for a moment about this.

  “In fact we know much too little about Britain and its different tribes and languages and customs and gods,” he went on. “We know something about the roads, the rivers, the fords, the mountains, forests, grazing lands and drinking places, for a good soldier’s first task is to find out about that sort of thing somehow or other. There are successful merchants who travel freely among hostile people, while other merchants are robbed as soon as they set foot outside legion territory. There are civilized Britons who have traveled to Gaul and all the way to Rome and who talk broken Latin, but we’ve not been able to meet them as their rank demands. At a time like this, if someone were to collect the most necessary information on the Britons, their customs and gods, and write a reliable book on Britain, it would be of much more use to Rome than the subjection of a whole people. The god Julius Caesar didn’t know much about the Britons but believed all kinds of loose talk, just as he exaggerated his victories and forgot his mistakes when he wrote his propaganda book on the war in Gaul.”

  He drank again from my wooden goblet and became even more animated.

  “Naturally the Britons must in time adopt Roman customs and Roman culture,” he said, “but I’ve begun to wonder if we couldn’t civilize them more easily by knowing their own customs and prejudices, rather than by killing them. This would be just right at the moment, when we want peace because our own best troops are leaving Britain and we’re waiting for another experienced commantler-in-chief. But as you’ve killed a Briton yourself, I suppose you want to take part in Aulus Plautius’ triumph, as your descent and your red border give you the right to do. Naturally I’ll give you my recommendation, if you want to go. Then I’d know I had at least one friend in Rome.”

  The wine was making him melancholy.

  “I have my son Titus, of course,” he went on, “who is growing up and playing with Britannicus in Palatine and who is getting the same education as he is. I have guaranteed a better future for him than I myself can hope for. Perhaps he will finally give Britain peace.”

  I told him I had probably seen his son with Britannicus at the riding exercises before the centenary feast. Vespasian said that he had not seen his son for four years and would not be able to this time either. His other son, Domitian, he had not even held on his knee, for the boy was the result of Emperor Claudius’ triumph and Vespasian had had to return to Britain immediately after the celebrations.

  “A lot of noise and not much else,” he said bitterly, “the whole of that triumph. Nothing but a mad waste of money to please the mob in Rome. I don’t deny that I too would like to creep up the Capitoline steps with a laurel wreath on my head. There isn’t a legion commantler who hasn’t dreamed of doing so. But one can get drunk in Britain too, and much more cheaply.”

  I said that if he thought I could be of any use to him, I should be glad to stay in Britain under his command. I had no great desire to take a part in the triumph which I had not earned. Vespasian took this as a great sign of confidence and was obviously moved.

  “The more I drink from your wooden goblet, the more I like you,” he said with tears in his eyes. “I hope my own son Titus grows up like you. I’ll tell you a secret.”

  He confessed that he had taken a British sacrificial priest prisoner and was keeping him from Aulus Plautius, just when Aulus was collecting up prisoners for the triumph parade and the battles in the amphitheater. To give the people a special treat, Aulus especially wanted a genuine British priest who would sacrifice prisoners at a performance.

  “But a real Druid would never agree to do such a thing just to please the Romans,” said Vespasian. “It would be much easier for Aulus to dress up some suitable Briton as a priest. People in Rome would never know the difference. When Plautius had gone, I was going to set the priest free and send him back to his tribe as evidence of my good intentions. If you are brave enough, Minutus, you could go with him and make yourself familiar with the customs of the Britons. With his help you could make ties of friendship with their noble youths, for I have a secret suspicion that our successful merchants have been in the habit of buying safe-conducts at high prices from the Druids, even if they daren’t admit it.”

  I had no desire whatsoever to get involved in an alien and frightening religion. I wondered what sort of curse it was that seemed to follow me wherever I went, for in Rome I had been forced into an acquaintance with the Christian superstition. But one confidence for another, I thought, and I told Vespasian the real reason why I had ended up in Britain. He was very amused at the thought of the wife of a commantler who had gained a triumph being judged by her husband because of a shameful superstition.

  But to show he was aware of the gossip in Rome, he said, “I know Plautia Paulina personally. As far as I know she went wrong in the head after letting a young philosopher-Seneca, I think his name was-and Julia, Emperor Caesar’s sister, meet in secret at her house. They were exiled because of this and Julia finally lost her life. Plautia Paulina couldn’t stand a charge of procuring, became temporarily insane and, going into mourning, she withdrew into solitude. Naturally a woman like that gets strange ideas.”

  Lugunda had been sitting all this time crouched in a corner of the hut, watching us intently, smiling when I smiled and looking anxious when I was serious. Vespasian had absentmindedly looked at her occasionally and now surprisingly said, “Generally speaking, women do get funny ideas in their heads. A man can never be quite sure what they have in mind. The god Caesar had the wron
g idea about British women but he didn’t respect women particularly anyhow. I think that there are good women and bad women, whether barbarians or civilized. For a man there is no greater happiness than the friendship of a good woman. Your wild one here looks like a child, but she can be more useful to you than you think. You probably don’t know that the Iceni tribe has applied to me and offered to buy the girl back. The Britons don’t usually do such things. They usually reckon that members of their tribe who have fallen into the hands of the Romans are lost forever.”

  He spoke laboriously to the girl in the Iceni language and I understood little of what they said. But Lugunda looked confused and crept nearer to me as if seeking protection. She answered Vespasian shyly at first and then in a more animated way until he shook his head and turned again to me.

  “This is another hopeless thing about the Britons,” he said. “The people who live on the south coast talk a different language from the inland tribes, and the northern tribes don’t understand anything of the southerners’ dialect. But your Lugunda has been chosen since infancy by her priests to become a hare-priestess. As far as I can gather, the Druids think they can look at a child even in infancy if it suits their purposes and see whether it can be trained for the priesthood. This is necessary, for there are Druids of many different grades and ranks, so they have to study all their lives. With us, a priest’s office is almost a political honor, but with them the priests are physicians, judges and even poets, insofar as the barbarians can be said to have any poetry.”

  It seemed to me that Vespasian was by no means as crude and ignorant as he himself liked to make out. He seemed to have adopted this role in order to draw out other people’s self-assurance.