The Swabian Affair

by Ray Gleason

  Felix’s hand went up to the scar on his face. “You mean this? Some hairbag mentul’ stuck me with a stabbing spear when we were going over the Helvetian wagons . . . Your face is still pretty . . . You’re with headquarters now, right? One of Caesar’s boys.”

  “Pretty much,” I answered. “During the fight I was on the left, under Labienus with the third battle line and the Sequani cavalry, holding off the Grunni . . . Never got up over the ridge where you guys were.”

  “You didn’t miss much,” Felix started. “Damned bastards wouldn’t give up . . . Just stood behind their wagons and made us go in after them . . . Lot of good guys wound up on the pyre because of that fight . . . Then Caesar just let them go.”

  At that moment, Felix seemed to remember who he was talking to and fell silent. Then, he said, “Hey! You got some time? I’m meeting some of our mates at the enlisted-men’s caupona just outside the porta sinistra.”

  I thought for a second. Since I had discharged my cheese, I didn’t have anything until horse stables at the tenth hour. “Yeah . . . that would be great to see the guys . . . Let me run by my tent and get some silver.”

  Felix went on his way, while I went back to my tent and dropped my kit. The area around Bibracte was considered “secure,” so we were allowed out of camp, in the vicus at least, without arms. Like most muli, I still carried my pugio on my soldier’s belt.

  As I went through the left gate, I gave the daily password to the sentry. The tesserarius of the guard demanded my name, rank, and organization. He seemed to lose some of his self-importance when I announced I was a decurio in the praetorian cavalry. I imagined he was one of our newly minted junior officers, still getting used to his newly found grandeur. He advised me to reenter camp at this gate so he could cross my name off his list.

  Decurio is an odd rank in the Roman army. Granted, it does designate an officer, but a junior officer of the cavalry, in an army whose strength lies in its infantry. A decurio certainly is not equal in authority and prestige to a centurion. It hovers somewhere slightly below an optio and somewhere above a decanus or even a tesserarius. But, as far as the muli were concerned, it was a cavalry rank; so, it smelled of horse shit. Being a praetorian, though, was a knucklebone throw that always showed Venus, a winner. No junior officer was going to harass a member of the chief’s inner circle.

  The caupona was easy to find. The first thing that gave it away was the noise. For reasons I have never understood, when men get drunk, they get loud. They shout instead of talk, laugh as if they were watching Pseudolus in a wind storm, pound tables to get a server’s attention, and get into strident, and sometimes violent, arguments over the wind direction.

  The caupona itself was in a large leather tent, which in its former life was probably a legionary supply room or a hospital bay. How the tent got “discharged” from the army and into the hands of a caupo is anyone’s guess. Since the afternoon was warm, the sides were rolled up, and the joint was overflowing with muli in red tunics. At twenty paces, the aromas of rancid lamp oil, frying sausage, and cheap wine assailed me. It was like every other soldiers’ caupona in the imperium.

  No sooner had I spotted the joint when I heard Felix’s voice yelling, “Pagane! Pagane! Over here!” I looked over and saw him waving from a table with about ten other muli. The table was well positioned—close enough to the bar to get decent service and right on the edge of the tent to escape the worst of the reek of the place. They must have gotten there early, before the place filled up and all the choice tables were taken.

  I skipped around the tent ropes and squeezed onto the bench opposite Felix. The soldier to my left put his giant arm around me and said, “Hey, lil’ buddy, stayin’ out of trouble?” and I realized it was Minutus, “Tiny.”

  Felix filled a cup and shoved it across to me. I took an experimental sip. It was not sweet enough to be wine and not sour enough to be posca. In other words, fit for consumption by the enlisted grunts.

  Minutus yelled in my ear, “You remember Rufus over there. . . Lentulus said he’d be here, but he hasn’t shown up yet.”

  A couple of the guys laughed at that crack. During our basic training, Lentulus seemed to show up late for everything, hence the name, “Slowpoke.”

  “There’s Loquax down the end there, talking the ear off our signifer . . . And where the hell did Tulli go?”

  “He’s out in the back, takin’ a leak,” a voice answered.

  “In the latrine . . . a fitting fate for a newly minted optio! And, do you recognize that ugly kisser across from you?” Minutus asked.

  I looked and saw the only guy at our table in the dirty-white tunic of a civilian. His face looked familiar, but for a few heartbeats, I couldn’t place it. Then, I said, “Mollis! So, your flat feet didn’t keep you out of the army after all!”

  Mollis raised his cup in my direction. “I’m now the journeyman smith for the Eighth. . . You got anything needs repair, bring it over. . . nul’ donatum, no “gift” required for a former contubernalis, Pagane!” Mollis drained half his cup to seal the deal.

  I turned to Minutus. “We’re missing a few?”

  Minutus took a long drink from his cup. “Pustula didn’t make it. He and his geminus bought it when those hairbag cunni charged down the ridge at us . . . Some of them cut all the way through to the second battle line . . . Bantus took an arrow in the shoulder . . . The wound festered . . . Those Kraut podices shit on their arrowheads before they send ‘em our way . . . He almost lost the arm . . . He’s still touch and go . . . To tell the truth about Lentulus, he took a spear in the thigh at the wagons . . . Now he’s got an excuse for being slow . . . Leg’ll never be the same . . . They’d have mustered him out, but he took up with a new detail they’re calling the ‘grain snatchers’ . . . something to do with foraging . . . He gets to ride a wagon now and steal chickens from the hairbags . . . Strabo got kicked up to the first line . . . Third Cohort, I think . . . Now that he’s got that extra silver burning a hole in his purse, he drinks at the officers’ caupona outside the main gate.”

  “How you doin’?” I asked Minutus.

  “Me?” he answered. “Decanus! Third contubernus, Third Century, Second Cohort.”

  “Congratulations,” I started.

  Minutus continued, “That lowlife sitting next to you is my tesserarius, Manius Bruttius . . . His lordship’s a castro . . . second generation grunt . . . A real celebrity . . . ain’t ya, Mani?”

  The hulk sitting to my right just grunted and gestured toward me with his cup.

  “Hey! That’s a proper oration from our Mani Castro,” Minutus laughed. “Pagane, your cup’s dry. Hey! Pass that pitcher down this way! Don’t be shy! Help yourself to some food . . . The sausage’s first rate . . . The caupo, the landlord, must have got to the Helvetian horses before the maggots got all the prime cuts.”

  While Minutus filled my cup, I examined the “first-rate” sausage, which looked like lumps of gray, gristly meat with a slightly greenish tint, swimming in a lake of congealing fat. Since I didn’t want to spend the next few hours of my life bent over the latrine pit, I passed on these delicacies. I did grab a few wrinkled olives; you can’t go wrong with olives, I assumed.

  Minutus grabbed one of the lumps of meat and popped it into his mouth and asked, “So, Pagane, what do you hear in the cave of winds?”

  “The ‘cave of winds’?” I questioned.

  “Yeah, the cave of winds . . . the headshed . . . the mound of muddle, the land where bosses plan and gods piss themselves laughing . . . Whatta you hearing? . . . We’re all ready to head south for the winter, and now we’re hearin’ about pullin’ up stakes and marching east. What in the name of Mar’s coleones is going on?”

  I was on dangerous ground here. Back then, I wasn’t sure whether my loyalty to my mates outweighed my responsibility to Caesar. I figured they’d find out soon enough; the warning order had already been issued. But, even back then, I understood army rule number one: protect your own ass. “
Hey . . . my job’s grooming my horse and keeping my metal bits shiney so the old man feels important . . . I’m hearing much of the same crap . . . It’ll be a cold day in Hades when those lisping broadstripers can make up their minds.”

  “And a blizzard in Tararus when it works out for us muli,” Manius Castro grunted on my right. “It’s half-rations and the Rhenus for sure! And, after we beat some sense into those pelosi, Caesar’ll have us build bridges over the Rhenus so’s they don’t get their feet wet skulking back into their forests.”

  Minutus laughed again. “And, that’s why we call Manius here Risulus . . . ‘Chuckles’ . . . If he found a wagon full of silver, he’d complain about the tarnish. He’s still pissed off about Caesar releasing the Helvetii.”

  “Damned right I am!” Manius spat. “We chased those hair-faced mentul’ halfway across Gaul on half rations! I didn’t see any of those purple-striped verpae lose any weight while we were chewing leather for lunch . . . Then, it takes us all day and night to finish those hairbags off, round ‘em up, and put ‘em in a slave-pen where they belong, just to have old Calvus, ‘Baldy,’ kiss ‘em on both cheeks of their arses and send them back home. I’m surprised he didn’t make us apologize to those dog-eating bastards before they left!”

  “Cac’t!” Minutus countered. “We all got a nice bonus out of it! Right out of old Calvus’ purse.”

  Mani was about to answer when a commotion on the other side of the table interrupted us. Tulli, back from the jakes, was trying to squeeze on to the bench between Felix and Mollis. He was about to grab the pitcher when he noticed me. “Verpa Iovis! Do my tired old eyes deceive me? Is that Paganus I see?”

  “Guilty, Optio!” I said. “Everything shake out alright?”

  Tulli laughed. “When the gods have favored you as they have me, lad, you got to give it a few extra shakes to get it drained! Which reminds me . . . I got some news!”

  Tulli let us hang a few heartbeats while he filled his cup and gulped half of it down. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and began. “I ran into one of the corvi in the latrine . . . one of the field medics from the Tenth . . . The docs think Bantus is goin’ to make it . . . He may not recover the full use of his arm, so it looks like the frumentarii for him . . . the ‘grain snatchers’ with Lentulus . . . But it looks like he won’t be takin’ any one-way boat trips any time soon.”

  The guys around our table raised a toast or beat the tabletop with their fists at that one. Tulli continued, “I saw how you, Minutus, and Manius were goin’ at it. You guys may want to take a whiff of the herba, the weed. The serva just dropped a fresh pile on the coals. It’s in your best interest, Pagane, sittin’ there right between old Scylla and Charybdis.”

  “The weed?” I asked.

  Tulli gave me a strange look for half a heartbeat, then laughed. “I keep forgetting what a rube you still are, Pagane. Weed . . . herba Bacchi . . . Bacchus Weed . . . Those crazy Greek priestesses . . . the Sybils down in Italy . . . they use the stuff to talk to Apollo or whichever one of the gods is talkative when tourists show up with silver . . . It grows wild up here . . . If you know what you’re lookin’ for, all you gotta do is go out and pick it . . . The caupones burn it in their places . . . It keeps things mellow . . . fewer fights, less damage . . . They think it makes customers eat more . . . good for business!” Tulli laughed, raised his cup in my direction, and drained it.

  I looked back down at the greenish sausage. It would take a lot more than a few whiffs of Bacchus Weed to get me to eat that merda!

  Suddenly, our attention was drawn to a commotion, shouting and laughing from a bunch of muli across the room. They seemed to be trying to lift one of their drunken mates up onto a table.

  “The guys from the Seventh never could hold their wine,” Felix commented.

  “Most of them are Spani from the north,” our castro, Mani Chuckles, dismissed them. “They’re barbarians . . . peregrini . . . shouldn’t even be under the eagles.”

  I remembered my grandpa talking about “Spani,” men from Hispania in the east, from where Caesar had drawn his four veteran legions.

  “Peregrini?” I asked Mani. “Foreigners? Then, why are they in the army?”

  “Pah!” Manius spat, then took a long drink from his cup. “They’re all in fidem with Pompeius. He raised the Seventh out of his own pocket . . . stocked it with a horde of long-haired barbarians who lived along the river Durus, near Oceanus. If Pompeius farted, they’d line up to wipe his arse. They’d never get away with shit like that in my old man’s day . . . had to be a real Roman to raise your hand to the sacramentum . . . Now any hair-faced mentula can get into the army. Hey! Send that bloody pitcher down this way! I’m dry!”

  By the end of Mani’s second oration of the afternoon, the boys from the Seventh had one of their mates standing on a table. Then, they started a rhythmic clapping. The others in the caupona went silent.

  The soldier on the table began to sing:

  Vae, vae, vae, filo me

  Vae silente, vae rapide

  D’ar’ e foco, vae

  Shi t’exir, m’amate

  Fado, fado, troce fado

  The words sounded like Latin to me, but I could hardly make them out. Then, one of the guys at our table, one I didn’t recognize, said, “Ah! I know this one.”

  “What’s going on?” I asked him.

  The soldier looked over towards me, “He’s singing a ‘fado.’ It’s the way those people say fatus . . . fate. They believe that fate is inescapable . . . You can only accept it and endure it.”

  “Pah,” Manius spat. “Shaggin’ barbarians!”

  My new acquaintance ignored the interruption, “This one’s about a mother sending her son off to war . . . He’s a young man and wants to join the warbands . . . She knows she can’t stop him . . . It’s her fate.”

  “What language is that?” I asked.

  My new friend laughed, “It’s Latin . . . at least it’s the Latin those pagani from the north of Spain speak . . . The chorus is ‘Go! Go! Go, my son! Go quietly; go quickly. From my hearth and home, go! I know you’re leaving, my darling. It’s fate, fate, horrible fate.’”

  By now, the whole room was clapping along with the singer. As he ended each chorus, dozens of drunken voices accompanied him, “Fado, fado, troce fado . . . It’s fate, fate, horrible fate.” I even heard Manius join in.

  The singer continued:

  Mi fil’ ab’ir par montes

  Para quer’ ei fortuna

  Para quer’ ei fama

  Proqua debe t’ir, m’amate

  Fado, fado, troce fado

  I was beginning to follow his Latin, “My child has gone to the mountains, to find his fortune, to find his name. Why must you go, my love?”

  Then, the entire room joined in, “Fado, fado, troce fado!”

  When the singer was done, the place went wild. Guys were standing on the benches, cheering; others were pounding the tables with fists, cups, and pitchers. Silver was flung at the servae to buy rounds for the boys from the Seventh.

  “Fado, fado, troce fado” was ringing in my head, a mother’s lament. Then, I remembered the letter I had left lying on my cot. I heard my mother’s voice, “Just come home to me, my son.”

  Fado, fado, troce fado.

  I filled my cup from our pitcher and drank.

  I can’t say I remember the walk back to my quarters that evening. Like a dream, I remember the assembly horns bellowing and a detail of muli going through the vicus policing up their mates and herding them back to camp. In my dream, I couldn’t remember the password, but the tesserarius at the gate said something like, “He’s alright. I remember him from before. Get him out of here before he pukes all over our post and we have to clean it up!” I remember him saying with a wink.

  I woke up the next morning at the horn signaling the end of the fourth watch of the night. My mouth felt like an entire legion had force-marched across my tongue. When I sat up, my head seemed to expload. The en
tire room went black, except for curious yellow spots dancing in the darkness. I barely got out of the tent before I lost whatever dregs of wine and pieces of wrinkled olive were still in my stomach.

  I arrived at the praetorium during the first hour. Ebrius took one look at me and fumbled for something behind his desk. He offered me a hunk of bread and a wine cup. “The bread’s for your stomach . . . Eat it first . . . The wine’ll take the edge off your head . . . Try not to breathe on the boss . . . or get too close to an open flame.” Then, he just shook his head and laughed.

  “Mille gratias,” I croaked as I ate the bread.

  I entered Caesar’s cubiculum and sat down behind my field desk. I was hoping no one would notice me in the dark corner, hunkered down behind piles of tabulae. No such luck.

  No sooner were my eyes closed than Caesar blew into the tent with a senior tribune, a laticlavus, in his wake. “Insubrece! Bene! You’re here. Come with me!”

  I rose as quickly as my muddled head would allow. Even at that, I almost lost whatever bile and debris was still sloshing around in my guts. As I rounded my desk, I almost collided with Labienus, who was also following Caesar.

  Labienus caught me by my shoulders and steadied me. After one look into my eyes, he chuckled, “So, it’s true! You and your mates did try to drain old Corvinus’ amphorae yesterday. Steady, boy. If a mulus can’t hold his wine, he’s got no future in the Roman army.”

  I followed Labienus slowly over to Caesar’s desk. Caesar was pointing something out to the broad striper on his campaign maps.

  “Ah, bene!” Caesar said as we approached. “This is Tertius Gellius Publicola. His father was consul a few years back with old Cnaeus Cornelius Lentulus Clodianus . . . Made his name in the senate by killing slaves and pirates—and by kissing Cicero’s arse. As a favor to my collegue Pompeius, we’re lucky enough to have him serving as the senior tribune of the Ninth Legion while his older brother, Lucius, sits in the senate and votes for anything Cato and the Optimates tell him to. Do I have your pedigrees right, Publicola?”