LEGION

by William Altimari

  “I have a wife.”

  “Here?”

  “In Rome.”

  The hint of cynicism in Rufio’s eyes annoyed Diocles.

  “She’s there—your needs are here. But do as you wish. In all other matters, you’ll do as I wish. And you’ll not take the sacramentum. There’s no point in oaths if you’re not going to be a permanent soldier.”

  “Whatever you think is proper.”

  “And of course you’ll be paid. Deductions will be made—as they are for everyone else. For food, clothing, weapons, and armor.”

  “What’s the rate of pay?”

  “Two hundred and twenty-five denarii a year.” He smiled. “You seem surprised.”

  “That’s not an insignificant sum.”

  “Soldiers of Rome are not insignificant men.”

  That I never doubted. He gazed at the grooves in Rufio’s cheeks. Those scored depths told of more hard-won silver than any man could hope to hold.

  “You seem in fair condition,” Rufio said and ran his eyes over the meat on Diocles’ bones.

  “An agile brain is useless in a flaccid body.”

  “A bit thin, though. How old are you?”

  “Thirty.”

  “For a recruit, you’re an antique. But you’ll have to deal with that in your own way.”

  “I’m no idle scholar, centurion. I’ve tracked and hunted boar and wolves on horseback and on foot.”

  “With what weapons?”

  “Bow and spear. My father taught me when I was young—before I became an antique. With a javelin I can drop a charging boar at fifty feet.”

  “Perhaps we can revive those fading skills.”

  Footsteps on the portico diverted their attention.

  Rufio looked beyond Diocles’ shoulder, and Diocles noticed the humor in his eyes vanish like the sun behind a fog bank.

  Ulpius Crus strode into the room, and anger snapped against the tiles with every step.

  “Do you mock me, centurion?”

  The tribune was in his twenties but he seemed older. His long face was an inverted pyramid, the lower part pinched and hungry for something nature had not given him.

  “Mockery is the tool of weaklings,” Rufio said. “Therefore, the tribune is mistaken.”

  “Am I?” Crus paused to catch his breath. “An example was to be made of the slave. That was why I agreed to give him to you.”

  “You agreed because you had no choice.”

  “I? No choice?”

  “Your careless handling of the slave almost led to the death of a loyal Gaul. You stumbled into a bog, tribune, and I reached down and pulled you out.”

  Crus gave a scoffing laugh. “You did not—”

  “But I expect no gratitude. That’s the rarest of virtues. I’ve fought in many lands and haven’t found it. I don’t expect it here.”

  Crus hesitated, clearly stunned by this insubordination.

  Diocles suddenly feared for Rufio.

  “You walk on fire, centurion. Prepare to be consumed by it. I’m a powerful enemy.”

  “When the tiny asshole of the baby Crus was still squirting yellow, I was pulling arrows from my body on savage frontiers.”

  He stared in disbelief. “Mark this day with a black stone.”

  Crus turned and darted from the room like a thrown spear.

  9 MANLY EXCELLENCE FLOURISHES IN TRIAL.

  Roman proverb

  ______

  My judgment is already in question. Centurion Rufio does not seem as cold as I first thought. Neither is he a benign uncle. I do not know what he is. This disappoints me. I thought that here at last was a circumstance without ambiguity. For once there would have been no uncertainties, an absence of those shadings that make life such an effort to comprehend. Here, of all places, one would have expected to find it. A society of warriors—what could be simpler? Are not fighting men the least complex of men? Men strong or weak, brave or cowardly, born under good birds or bad. What a relief it would have been to find oneself in a world where judgments were made with ease. Perhaps we all long for a place where we can decide at a glance what is good or foul. Once in our lives if we could find that secret land. The gods are not so kind. They make everything a struggle, for reasons of their own. I thought that here, in this wilderness, life could be shed of its complexity like the sloughed skin of a serpent. But I fear I have foolishly neglected a basic truth. The army of Rome is, in one respect, like every other gathering on earth—it, too, must recruit from the human race.

  “Well, what do you think, Paki?” Rufio said and reached down and ran his hand through the cat’s fur. “Is it time to throw raw steel into the forge again and hammer out something that cuts deep?”

  When his hand neared her neck, she tilted her head as an invitation to scratch behind her ear.

  “No answer today?” he said and stopped rubbing.

  She turned and looked at him with wondrous emerald eyes that angled upward at their outer edges. She stood up and extended her head toward him. He lowered his face, and with her raspy tongue she licked him several times on the end of his nose. Then she lay down again and rested her body against his forearm on the desk and purred loudly.

  Though she might not have understood every word he said, Rufio was certain she knew at all times precisely how he felt. And his gratitude to this ten-pound beast was boundless. He stroked her and it soothed him as much as it pleased her.

  Finally he stood and, after one more caress along her back, he stepped around the desk and crossed the room to the doorway.

  Though it was only midday, the men of the First Century of the Second Cohort had been relieved of their duties and had been ordered to assemble in the open area next to the barracks.

  They were arriving now. All wore off-white tunics, some dirty from road repair or ditch cleaning. None of the men had a sword belt, though a few wore their daggers.

  They had not yet met their new centurion. Curiosity on the faces of the veterans contrasted with the anxiety in the eyes of the recruits. No doubt the new men had already been battered with horrifying tales of centurion brutality. Soldiers had few pleasures, and torturing recruits was one delight they treasured. Rufio remembered well the time many years before when, as a young soldier, he had asked a recruit if he had reported to his centurion to pick up his masturbation papers. The poor farm boy had had no idea what that meant, but the word sounded important and he did as he was told. The cuffing he got from his centurion was a quick dispenser of wisdom. And Rufio, too, had derived from it some distinction. The congenial lad eventually made many friends, but there was only one man about whom he thought long into the night and despised.

  Rufio picked up the three-foot vinewood cane leaning against the doorway and stepped out into the sun. The humor in his eyes seeped back into him as quickly as water spilled on sand.

  The soldiers became quiet, and all stood straight and alert.

  Rufio stopped before the middle of the line of some six dozen men and looked to right and left.

  “I’m Quintus Flavius Rufio,” he said in his penetrating voice. “I’ve served in the army of Rome longer than some of you have been alive. I plan to continue serving until all of you have learned enough to stay alive long after I’m gone.”

  He knew that statement would rankle the veterans. Experienced soldiers—especially those who had been bloodied in war—were always cocky with a new centurion. That had to be countered. Some centurions, especially the brutal or unsure, went right at the veterans’ testicles with some crushing verbal smash. He knew better. A quick flash of the gelding knife was usually enough.

  “A centurion’s record of service is important to his men,” he went on. “If you wish to know mine, come and ask me or catch me in a tavern in the settlement. It might cost you a cup of wine or a sweet cake, but I’m easily bribed.”

  “Like all centurions,” came a grumble from one of the veterans.

  Rufio acted as if he hadn’t heard it. “Arrange yourselves in
order of seniority. Then count off and remember that number. If I shout your number in battle and don’t hear an answer, you’d better be dead.”

  He could distinguish veterans at a glance, but he wanted a precise idea of each man’s relative experience within the century. The men broke up and shifted until the most senior stood to the left and the recruits finished the rank off to the right. Then they counted down.

  “Those of you with the thickest calluses have heard a centurion tell you to forget everything you’ve learned because now you were going to be remade in his image. That’s the counsel of an idiot. Forget nothing. But there’s always more to learn.”

  “Is that true of centurions, too?” one of the veterans asked, probing for some hint of the centurion’s mettle.

  “Of course. That’s why a centurion is the wisest man on earth.”

  The soldier smiled.

  “Two things are unacceptable to me, and they won’t be endured in this century. The first is theft. If you don’t respect the property of your comrades, you don’t respect their dignity. A man without respect for his friends’ dignity is useless as a warrior and worthless as a man.” He paused for a moment. “The second thing I detest is a man who lies to conceal his mistakes. If a man fears to confront his own errors, how can he face a horde of charging Germans? Physical courage without moral courage is a hard scabbard with a weak sword. Violate either of these two principles and I’ll break you down to kindling and throw you into the flames.”

  He paused while that sank in. “There’s going to be one more soldier in this century. He’s a Greek writer and a scholar, but he’s also adept with a weapon or two. And he’s a citizen of Rome. He’ll write a history of life in the army of Augustus—as Polybius did for the army of Scipio. He’ll be a soldier in all ways, except he won’t take the sacramentum. Treat him as well or as badly as you’d treat anyone else.” He laid the vinewood cane across the palm of his left hand. “I see only a few of you are wearing daggers. Swords are not necessary within the fort, but I want that dagger nailed to your hip. We’re soldiers first. And even if you’re bed wrestling with a Gallic beauty, I want sword and dagger nearby.”

  “Question, centurion,” said one of the veterans.

  “Speak.”

  “I’m new to Gaul. Is it true that a hard Roman sword fits most snugly in a soft Gallic sheath?”

  A wave of laughter rippled through the line of men.

  Most of Rufio’s face remained immobile, but his eyes smiled. “Yes—and you might be lucky enough to find out. But with that face, I doubt it.”

  All laughed even more loudly than before.

  “Now,” he said to the entire century, “the day is young and the remainder of it is yours. You may go to the baths or relax in your own fashion. I enjoy being loathed only by well-rested men.”

  Even the veterans smiled at that, and the recruits were already at their ease.

  “One more thing,” Rufio said. “The soldier who made the remark about centurions and bribes step forward.”

  The century was suddenly as still as a dead man’s ashes.

  A soldier came out from the veterans’ end of the line. He was in his late twenties with curly black hair and a half-boyish, half-rakish face.

  “I made the remark, centurion.”

  “Name.”

  “Lucius Valerius.”

  Rufio placed his right hand around the young man’s throat. Without strain, apparently without any effort at all, he lifted him off the ground with one hand. It seemed an impossible feat, but there it was for all to see.

  “Mumbled remarks are the words of a coward,” Rufio said so only Valerius could hear. “There will be no cowards in this century.”

  Red in the face and hungry for air, Valerius pulled at Rufio’s fingers.

  “Drop your hands,” Rufio whispered. “I once crushed the windpipe of a Syrian bandit with one squeeze. Surely you can outlast a Syrian.”

  Valerius lowered his hands by a tremendous act of self-discipline.

  “Keep them down,” Rufio said.

  Valerius dug his fingers into his palms as the sweat popped from his face. He strained to maintain control.

  The whole century seemed to be holding its breath as well. Even the veterans moistened their lips and sucked in air as if they, too, were being squeezed.

  The eyes of Valerius were beginning to glaze when Rufio finally set him down.

  Gasping, he struggled to stay on his feet but fell to one knee.

  “If you wish to speak, speak with the full force of your voice. Century dismissed.”

  The legionary workshops were housed within a timber building in the central range of the fort east of the Principia. It was sited far from the fort hospital so the noise did not annoy the patients. Square in plan, it was a well-built structure arranged around a central courtyard. Rufio passed by the plank-covered rubbish pits out front and went through the courtyard. A rectangular wooden water tank filled the center of the yard. It was fed by a timber aqueduct and drained into a clay-lined ditch that carried fouled water beneath the building and under the Porta Principalis and so out of the fort.

  The rank smell from the tannery was thick enough to build a road on. Rufio sliced through the reek and passed the carpentry shop and entered the armory.

  Here the smell greeting him was much different. The sweet pungency of burning charcoal blended with the aroma of hot metal. Instantly it recalled to him his early days in the army when he had gone to pick up his first set of armor. Without thought, he inhaled deeply and savored the sharp smells that revived the fragrant hours of youth.

  The pounding of iron on anvils was loud but not unpleasantly so. He passed among oak tables covered with swords and iron tools, bronze and iron helmets and chain mail loricas. Horse bits and harness fittings filled wooden bins, and iron wagon tires lined one wall. The Roman armory officer in charge was not present, but a half-dozen Gauls worked at that superb metalworking that was one of their greatest talents.

  When the chief armorer saw Rufio, he set down his tongs and hammer and hurried over to him. It amazed Rufio that anyone could work among these flying sparks without a tunic. Perhaps all that hair protected him. His upper body, including his shoulders and back, was as woolly as the torso of an unsheared sheep.

  “Centurion Rufio!” the Gaul said with genuine pleasure.

  Rufio looked at him in surprise.

  “You saved the life of my son. Can I not show you the respect of knowing your name?”

  He was much more fluent in Latin now that an arrow was not pointed at his son’s head.

  “And you are . . . ?”

  “Hetorix, chief armorer.

  “Well, Hetorix, I need a new sword.”

  “Swords are my life.”

  Rufio had no way of knowing how good an ironworker Hetorix was, so he decided to test him. He reached over to his left hip and pulled his sword from its scabbard.

  “What do you think of this one?”

  Hetorix took it and examined it, then looked at Rufio in surprise. “This is a very old weapon.”

  He sat on the edge of a table and laid the sword across his lap. His hands ran over it with the comprehension of those of a Greek surgeon examining a diseased organ. The two-foot, double-edged blade was scored in countless places. The edge was nicked and gouged, and the flat of the blade had many pits where rust had begun to feast and then had been removed. The bronze and hardwood guard was battered, and the octagonal bone grip, with its four carved finger contours, was beginning to split. The round hardwood pommel was still serviceable, but it too bore the scars of years of hard use.

  “You’re not old enough to be the original owner of this weapon,” he said as he pulled at his chin. “The quality of the metal tells me that. It’s good, but we do better now. I’d say this is at least forty years old."” He looked at Rufio for confirmation.

  Rufio was always impressed by professionalism. He knew he had found his man.

  “You know your meta
l. It belonged to my father.”

  “Ah.”

  Rufio took the sword from the armorer’s lap. “He wielded it against the Nervii.”

  “He fought with the great Caesar?”

  “Yes. The blood of many Celts tempered that metal.”

  “And that’s why it’s survived so long,” Hetorix answered in solid rejoinder.

  The two men’s eyes took each other’s measure.

  “I want to retire this sword and get a new one. You’re the man to make it.”

  “Of course I am. It’ll be better than that one”—his marred and darkened face creased in a rough smile—“but perhaps not so heroic.”

  “Definitely not.”

  “Come, I’ll show you how we do it. Are you familiar with the working of iron?”

  “Only when it enters someone’s body.”

  They threaded their way among the tables and came up to one of the forges.

  “We heat the iron billet slowly with charcoal until it glows like a maiden’s blush,” Hetorix said and pointed at the hot red slabs. “We’ve learned that the charcoal is the secret. It mixes with the iron and hardens it and helps the blade keep its edge. When we’re done we have good Celtic steel. After we hammer out the blade we temper it by plunging it into cool water”—he pointed to several wooden tubs—“and then we have a blade that is hard and true. But it’s brittle. So we heat it again and let it cool slowly. The brittleness flees like a young girl’s sighs, but the hardness stays. And with this steel you Romans guard the edges of the Empire.”

  Rufio untied a leather sack hanging from his sword belt and took out a block of very dark wood.

  “Can you use this for the guard and the pommel?”

  Hetorix took the heavy piece of wood and hefted it, then examined the grain. “Beautiful. What is it?”

  “Ebony. I brought it back from Egypt.”

  “Ah—yes, I should have known it. But I haven’t seen much of this. I’ll dull many edges working this noble wood.”

  “How much for the whole business?”

  “Five denarii—not a small amount, I know, but—”