The two men dismounted.
“Take your pilum and feel around for any holes.” Valerius removed his sandals and sword and dagger belt and stepped into the water.
Diocles did likewise and thought he would die of shock, the water was so cold. Yet he dared not protest and soil his newly won reputation. Then he smiled to himself and wondered if that was precisely what Valerius had in mind.
“Invigorating, isn’t it?” the optio said and waded through the icy water.
“I don’t know. I’m too numb to be able to appreciate it.’
“Now don’t go Greek on me.”
Diocles poked around with the butt of his spear, and all seemed smooth and solid beneath his feet.
“This looks like a good spot to turn men into fish,” Valerius said after a thorough sounding. Then he returned to the bank.
Diocles gratefully followed. They stuck their javelins into the ground and dried themselves with their woolen cloaks.
“The fort is an amazing place,” Valerius said. “But sometimes it’s good to be free of it.” He stretched his arms and sucked in as much air as his lungs could hold.
Diocles threw his cloak over his shoulder and scanned the wilderness. Suddenly he tensed and squinted into the distance.
“What is it?” Valerius asked, buckling on his dagger belt.
Diocles pointed south over the trees.
Buzzards were circling in the blue sky.
“More Roman traders?” Diocles asked.
“Maybe.” He put on his sword belt. “Maybe dead Gauls. The Suebi might have crossed the river during the night and raided again.” He grabbed his horse’s mane and leaped into the saddle.
“Shall we tell Rufio?”
“We’ll see for ourselves first,” he answered and pulled his javelin out of the ground and galloped off.
Diocles jumped onto his horse and followed, gripping his javelin in his left hand. His heart pounded and his mouth was as dry as leather as he raced after Valerius. The palms of his hands were sweating on this chill morning.
He saw Valerius pull up and he slowed his horse and came up beside him.
“By the gods,” Diocles said and stared at the carnage before him.
Three men lay riddled with arrows around a smoldering campfire. A single stout shaft had felled Priscus, three had cut down Longus, and five Celtic arrows had been needed to drive Sido to the earth.
The slaves were gone, as were the horses. The cart sat off to the side of the camp.
“The Gauls are a terrible race,” Diocles said. “They could’ve simply overpowered these men and freed their people.”
“Mercy is not to their liking.” Valerius slid from his horse. “We have to make a report to Sabinus.”
“Wait.” Diocles dismounted. “Impress him with a good one. Let an old animal tracker see if he can figure out what happened here. Stand off to the side.”
Diocles examined the ground. The grass was still damp and retained the impression of several feet. He circled the camp and observed the flattened blades of grass and eyed angles and distances. After he had made a complete circuit, he studied the bare ground near the fire and returned to a spot on the grass he had already examined. He sank to his knees and lowered his face to within a few inches of the grass. When he stood up he was drawn and pale, like a child who has been compelled to witness some obscene act.
“This . . . This is the act of a single man.”
Valerius looked at the bloody men and then back at Diocles. “How? Can you say?”
“We can go closer now.”
They stepped nearer to the contorted men.
“A single trail of footprints leads across the grass from that group of trees,” Diocles said, pointing. “There are no horse tracks, so he must have come on foot. Apparently he was walking quickly—the footprints in the grass are far apart and—”
“Or he could have been tall—like Adiatorix.”
“Yes. He stopped right there, where you saw me on my knees. It looks to me as if Priscus was on guard while Longus and Sido were sleeping. Priscus was sitting by the fire and might have heard something. He seems to have turned around while still sitting. You can see the marks where his heels scraped the dirt as he turned. He took one shot straight through the heart. He probably made some kind of noise as he died, because Longus and Sido jumped up. They both grabbed their swords and charged. Longus was closest to the attacker and he was shot first. He took three arrows in quick succession—his footprints in the dirt are clear and regular and then they stop where he fell.” Diocles paused for a breath. “And then there was Sido. That man was a titan. The attacker fired one or two arrows as Sido charged him—probably the two arrows in his stomach. That staggered him. Look at the prints. But he continued coming. Then the attacker fired two more arrows into his chest. That knocked him down. But by some miracle he pushed himself up—you can see his handmarks in the dirt. He was shot full of arrows but still he charged, probably screaming in rage. He was almost within arm’s length of his attacker when the final blow struck.”
Diocles looked down at the fallen Sido. An arrow had been driven with terrific force straight through his left eye, the iron head protruding now from the back of his skull. His mouth gaped and his tongue lay slack within it. His sword was still in his hand.
“And then there is one final incredible thing,” Diocles said. “The slayer stood here as solid as a marble column and never wavered. One clean set of footprints in the grass, no blurring. No hesitation or retreat. He stood here and drew and fired and drew and fired. They charged him and he never moved. Sido closed within inches and still he did not move. He faced them all and struck them down. What kind of man could do that? Is he greater than a man?”
Diocles dropped to the ground on his haunches and pressed his head forward against his knees.
“It’s a pitiless world we live in, my friend.” Valerius placed a hand on one of Diocles’ shoulders.
“But must it be?”
“I don’t know. And the gods refuse to tell us.”
Diocles rubbed his temples with the heels of his hands. “Where do you think the slaves are now?”
“With their families. Adiatorix will claim he has no knowledge of how their owner died. Gallic bandits he could say. And who could prove him wrong?”
Diocles pushed himself up. As he did, he felt something hard against the palm of his right hand. He dropped back down and ran his fingers through the grass inside the slayer’s footprint. Something shiny caught his eye. He pulled it from the grass and suddenly he felt sick.
“What is it?” Valerius asked.
Diocles stood, his hand clenched.
“What is it?”
He opened his hand. In the center of his palm lay a dome-headed hobnail from a Roman military sandal.
The two men stared at each other in silence.
Valerius reached out and took it. The small bit of metal spoke volumes. Then he tossed it away.
“Neko said—”
“Yes.” Valerius gazed at the corpses. “Gallic bandits must’ve done this. At least ten of them.”
Then he gave Diocles a look that needed no words, and the two men turned away from the dead.
16 THE LANGUAGE OF TRUTH IS SIMPLE.
Roman saying
______
I fear that my account of life with the Twenty-fifth Legion will turn out to be a failure. I am becoming increasingly fond of these men. As anyone with sense knows, fondness is the slayer of honesty.
Rufio is another matter. The feelings he arouses in me are such an unsettling mixture of uneasiness and admiration and horror that I dare not set them down further.
Rufio sat astride his black horse and gazed with satisfaction at his men around the lake. The new swimmers appeared to be making a fair measure of progress. The mid-afternoon sun had warmed the water, and the recruits—once reluctant to enter the cold lake—could not now be kept out of it. Even more remarkable was their trust in allowing Diocles to tak
e them to a depth where they could no longer stand. The Greek instilled a quiet confidence in them that could not be bought for any amount of silver. Rufio, specialist in war, was always impressed by a man whose talents were not all of one kind. Diocles possessed a wider range of shadings than he seemed inclined to expose to the flinty-eyed gaze of centurions. His slight build and ordinary face concealed the unselfconscious authority with which he now calmed the nervousness of these young men. And he seemed always as ready as a conjurer to surprise with some unsuspected talent or perception. But wasn’t that always so with Greeks?
The veterans of the First Century swam or lolled about in the sun. Ordinarily they would have been assigned to other duties while the recruits were being taught something new. Carbo had insisted that they be sent to the Third Century of the Fifth Cohort to help repair part of the north rampart. However, Rufio had objected and, despite Carbo’s growls, had gotten his way. What he was constructing here was just as important as walls. He was building comradeship and cohesion in a shattered century. In ordinary circumstances, new men were most effectively trained in isolation from the arrogance of veterans. Now, however, matters were different. Even the old hands had been frightened by the apparent displeasure of the gods toward their century. It had far to go before it was again a fighting force worthy of its legion. So, despite Carbo’s snorts and grunts about idle soldiers, Rufio had prevailed.
Hoofbeats from the south caught Rufio’s ear. Because of the uncertain movements of the Germans, Rufio had placed pickets around his men. Now Metellus came riding in from the south sentry line. The smile on his face showed that the matter was not a pressing one.
“The wife of Adiatorix is in the glade beyond the lake,” Metellus said. “She wants to speak with you.”
“With me or with any centurion?”
“With Centurion Rufio,” he said with a smile. “And she’s alone,” he added with a raised eyebrow.
“Go take a swim.” Rufio turned his stallion about. “I’ll have someone relieve you.”
“Not for me. I never let cold water touch my skin. Only warm water and warm women.”
Rufio galloped off.
Varacinda was sitting on a white horse in the half-light of the glade. She was dressed as she had been the first time he had seen her, with blue and red checked tunic and brown leather jerkin and trousers. A mix of sunlight and shadow dappled her face as she watched Rufio approach.
“Hello,” she said hoarsely and then cleared her throat. She seemed as taut as stretched leather. She dismounted and approached him.
He slid from his horse and took a few steps toward her.
She stopped several feet in front of him and stared into his eyes in silence. She seemed shaken by some unbearable emotion. Yet the force of her character steeled her. She would not relent for anyone.
“I came to tell you that my sister is back with me.”
“Yes, I know. Gallic bandits, I hear. Sabinus wasn’t pleased by that, but he has more pressing concerns.”
“He won’t seek to reclaim the slaves?”
She seemed afraid to take another breath.
“Why should he? The owner is dead. And if there are heirs, they couldn’t easily prove their claim.” He folded his arms across his chest. “The slaves now belong to themselves.”
Her blue eyes blurred with moisture and she blinked several times to clear them.
“My sister told me only a god could have slain those awful men.”
“And did she see a god?”
“It was dark and she could see no face, but she saw those evil men fall. And when a voice told my people they were free, they rushed forward to thank him but he vanished—as only a god can.”
“The gods of the Celts are indeed great.”
“Yes, they are, but this was a far more wonderful god than ours. It could only have been Mars, your terrible god of war.”
“Why should a god of Rome free Celtic slaves?”
“Yes . . . why? Yet when he spoke to my people in their own tongue, he spoke in the accent for Rome.”
Rufio said nothing.
“So you see, he must have been the great warrior god of Rome. I don’t know how to speak to a Roman god, so I’ve come to ask you to speak to him for me. Please tell him”—she hesitated as she pulled her shaking body under control—“please tell him that what I owe him is beyond measuring. Tell him that if he were a mortal I’d give him the breath from my body if it could help him to live forever. Tell him”—her voice began to crack—“tell him that on the day of her last breath, Varacinda of the Sequani will still speak his name with honor.”
She turned and Rufio stared after her. Tall and taut, she strode away, her reddish gold hair falling carelessly down her back. She took the reins and curled her fingers around one of the corner pommels, then paused. She turned her head and looked back at him. The reins slipped from her fingers and her chin quivered like a young girl’s. Suddenly she bolted toward him. She fell to her knees at his feet and seized his right hand and pressed it to her face. Out of her throat shot a feline wail, and she wept deeply and uncaringly, soaking his fingers with her tears.
Rufio touched the back of her head as she kissed his other hand again and again.
“Do not kneel, Varacinda.”
He reached down and grasped her beneath her armpits. The palms and heels of his hands pressed against her ribs and the sides of her breasts as he pulled her up.
Her chest heaved as she tried to stifle the sobs. This was not a woman who cried easily, and she seemed unaccustomed to the violence of weeping.
Rufio smiled in reassurance.
With all the tears, her blue eyes seemed like gems lying at the bottom of a lake.
“I want to repay you for what you’ve done,” she said with sudden coolness as she tried to reclaim her role as the wife of a Celtic chief.
Rufio gazed at her in fascination. Retreating now was the passionate woman who had allowed a Roman to touch her near her nurturing core.
“You owe me nothing.”
She turned away and walked off a few paces. Then she sat on the grass and held her hand out toward him. “Come sit with me for a moment.”
Rufio ignored her hand and sat across from her.
“My husband told me what happened those many years ago,” she said with surprising gentleness.
Rufio had nothing to say to that.
“She’d want to see you,” Varacinda went on. “I know it.”
“To curse me?”
“She’d never do that. She’s a woman now. Come to the village with me.”
“No!” Rufio shouted and looked away.
“Her parents died about a year ago. They were very old. Adiatorix and I now look after her. Until she takes a husband.”
“Is she well then?”
“Oh yes, very well.” She smiled. “And so beautiful she makes other women cry.”
“What’s her name?”
“Flavia.”
“A Roman name?!”
“Her parents named her after the clan of the Flavii. You needn’t ask why.”
“To haunt me,” he said bitterly.
“No, no, you see everything the wrong way.”
He stood up and walked toward his horse.
“Wait!” she said and ran after him.
He stopped by the side of his mount.
“Do you want to see her? Tell me the truth.”
He stared at the side of his saddle for a long time. Finally he turned and looked over his shoulder. “Yes, but I’m far too much of a coward to speak to her.”
Varacinda hesitated, and then seemed to reach a decision. “I know how you can see her. But you must keep a secret. You must promise me.”
“All right, I will.”
“There’s a cove at the edge of the lake near the village. Sheltered by many trees. The women from the village go there to swim and bathe. I’ll send you word when she’s about to go down there. You may see her there. And you must promise never to
tell any of the soldiers of that spot.” She smiled, her white teeth catching a ray of sun that slipped through the trees. “Or else we could never use it again.”
Rufio stared back at her. Even when she smiled, the half-wild look remained. The high cheekbones, the taut, tight beauty—a rare creature, this Varacinda of the Sequani.
“I promise my silence.” He paused for a moment. “I know a merchant in Cremona who’s rich beyond counting. He speaks Greek like an Athenian, he has a beautiful wife who loves him deeply and three handsome sons who honor him. I’ve always considered him the most fortunate man I know. But no longer.” He jumped into his saddle and reined about. “Adiatorix is.”
With that, he galloped off, leaving the startled figure of Varacinda standing alone in the shady grove.
The roaring half-circle of campfires lit the clearing near the lake. The soldiers had finished their meal of smoked venison, hard cheese, and bread. They were weary from swimming all day, but refreshed by the food and the blazes. Alert but mellow, they could absorb anything that made sense, and they were inclined to resist nothing unless it proved painful. They were precisely as Rufio wanted them.
Valerius had told the century Rufio was going to address them. They now looked at the centurion expectantly as he stepped out of the darkness and into the arc of fires.
The century rose as one man, but Rufio waved them back down. His gaze glided across their faces. Scarred veterans stared back, men who had suffered great wounds and trials. Other veterans faced him, too—soldiers who by odd casts of fortune had never known war. Sweating through the peaceful toil of army life, they had built bridges and roads and aqueducts—and even an occasional city. And there were the recruits—fresh-faced and fearful, awe-struck by tales of centurions who crushed failed soldiers like grubs beneath their feet.
These were Rufio’s men. To their centurion they looked to preserve their lives until they had served their twenty years. In a wild land and among barbarous men, they must trust him to be their guiding brain, their leading sword, their final shield. It was a sobering responsibility—even for a god of war.
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