The Wald

by Born, Jason

  Septimus smiled at his friend. Marcus would be equally horrified if he had seen the meager existence that had produced Septimus – a few thin sheep grazing with nearly as many thin children running around the rocky Cisalpine foothills, bleating for food or clothing as the case may have been. His older brothers had all found themselves local girls who were pretty enough to marry. The women, from families no better off than his, would ensure that Septimus would be the uncle to countless nieces and nephews, all of whom would be thin, dirty, and poor like the previous generations. “I’d like to take the Parthians too,” he answered enthusiastically. “They seem to constantly threaten the easternmost outposts of our Syria. I don’t know why Augustus doesn’t dispatch us there first. If left alone, these Germans would likely embark only on the occasional raid into Gaul – something a single legion could subdue. Besides, there’s not much wealth here – unless wealth grows on trees.”

  “Be careful friend, in your questioning of the emperor in front of the men,” Marcus warned. “I’d never say a word to anyone, but you never know who may be looking up to your position as one they see for themselves someday.”

  Septimus looked over his shoulder to the first line of men stepping smartly some twenty feet behind them. “They didn’t hear. Besides, they say the same things.”

  “They do say the same things. And they receive whippings for it. Let’s keep the skin of your back secure for at least a little while longer – until you anger Manilius again.”

  “Oh, Manilius!” said Septimus. “He’s angry like every frustrated man I’ve ever met. He dreams of retirement which will bring him even less happiness. He thinks he will find a woman to take care of him. Have you seen his scars? He’ll find a woman, alright, but she’ll be little more than the ugly daughter of some Gaul noble.”

  Up ahead they saw that the sky seemed to grow bigger and lighter through the trees, signifying a break in the forest. They marched on, each scanning the forest for signs of ambush. In the distance they could hear the echoing hoof beats of the Batavians. Their cadence had not changed, indicating nothing unusual was occurring. “But now that we’re here in Germania, I think we’re in for a tougher fight than you believe. We’ve done more than a little provoking. Poke a man in the eye enough and he’ll get angry.”

  “Ha, and you worry about provoking a kitten?”

  “No. Our legions will be successful. They always have won. They beat Hannibal, despite some of his earlier successes. We’ll beat this Adalbern and whoever else stands in our way because we have not allowed ourselves to get fat and lazy. We train more than any force, ever. The tribes will be beaten on the battlefield.”

  “So what is it you worry about?” asked Marcus as the path crossed through the thick underbrush that grew on the edge of a clearing. They laid eyes on a few well-tended fields followed by no more than five long homes. Several cows could be heard mooing from the working end of the houses where the Sugambrians kept their cattle penned. Past the tiny hamlet, several more fields showed green shoots growing in neat rows on the opposite hillside. Plunging into the wald on the far side were seven women, some young, some old, and nine small children looking frantically over their shoulders at the approaching Romans. “Do you see who we face? We face rodents skittering back into the woods for protection.”

  Septimus stopped. “I do see who we face. We’ll beat them on the battlefield as I said. But here in the hidden places of the wald it may be generations before we win their hearts. Look at this defiant woman down the lane.” Septimus pointed with his nose along the curving path to where a woman aged perhaps thirty years strode toward them. Her face was held in an angry clench. One hand clutched a spear, the other an eating knife.

  . . .

  “You three disarm the silly woman and put her with the other slaves,” ordered Marcus while the rest of the cohort fanned out into the clearing to do their nasty work. It looked like the village would produce one stubborn slave and at least enough meat for a single meal for several contubernia worth of men. Soon smoke would signal the end to their toils.

  The three soldiers dropped the baggage they carried on their backs to the side of the path and strode toward the woman with the business ends of their spears ready. The woman, the centurions saw, kept up her unflinching walk.

  The legionaries surrounded her in a semi-circle, finally halting her progress. In their native Latin they told her to throw down her arms. With their universal gestures they said the same thing. The woman began shouting at them in an angry diatribe that none of them understood. Septimus picked up an occasional “wald” or “volk.” The latter, he had ascertained over his time in Germania, meant people. The rest of her words were so rapid he could not begin to comprehend when one ended and another began.

  Septimus saw that she was attractive enough under her simple coarse dress dyed green with yellow threadwork at the edges. The woman would no doubt go to a lonely Roman administrator posted in the frontier. She would serve among his household staff and when the isolation from his wife back in civilization grew too intense, she would serve his needs in bed. The legionaries laughed and commented to one another about the fire that came with the attractive countenance.

  In a single stroke, the woman lunged forward between two of their spears. Her own spear’s head found a home in the left-most soldier’s neck. His shout was immediately silenced. His blood leapt from the wound as his head tilted awkwardly to one side. As that man’s body began shrinking down to the earth, the woman slammed the slender eating knife into the neck of another soldier. This one dropped his spear and staggered into the third legionary, hopelessly trying to clasp the bone handle that stood out above his shoulder while his hot blood filled the spaces between his skin and mail.

  Marcus sent a host of men forward to meet her. She had already bent down to seize the legionaries’ dropped spears in order to again do battle. But the third man had sloughed off his faltering comrade and with a mighty kick from the bottom of his boot he shot the woman forward so that she sprawled face first into the dirt. She rolled onto her back to right herself shrieking in more of her tongue. The other men descended to her. One of them placed a heavy boot on her arm and raised his spear in rage, aiming to drive it into her chest. Septimus shouted, “Contine manum tuam!”

  The soldier stopped in mid air and looked back to Septimus, confused. He then turned to Marcus, his commander, with the same questioning look. Marcus held up his hand, nodding to his soldier, though he didn’t know why they shouldn’t just kill the woman and be rid of the obvious problems she would cause them all in the future.

  Septimus pushed his way through the men that surrounded the woman and knelt to her. She swiped a wild paw at him, but he caught it in time. “Did you say something about Adalbern? Did I hear you say Adalbern?”

  The fuming woman nodded and returned to her shouting, “Adalbern this,” or “Adalbern that.” Septimus could not be entirely clear of what she said.

  “Marcus, I think we’ve just caught our adversary’s wife or daughter,” called Septimus.

  “And if the man is half as spirited as the woman, we’ve got our hands full,” agreed Marcus.

  Septimus looked at the men around him. “Bind her tightly, but see that she is treated well enough. We must turn back and get her to Drusus and his interpreters.”

  . . .

  Ermin, like his Sugambrian counterpart, Berengar, rode a horse as good as any full grown man. He had years of experience around animals and the simple lack of fear that comes with being a child. Beneath him was a wide grey beast dappled with black spots that started dense at the feet and tapered off to being quite sparse under the blanket he used as a saddle. His horse looked like it would be more comfortable working in a field or pulling a cart heaped with boulders cleaved out of a Roman quarry. With each pounding step, its thick legs and shoulders tensed so that every bulging muscle looked capable of driving the warhorse without the aid of any other muscles. The boy’s feet jutted forward to help him balance as t
he creature galloped out of the thicket.

  His left hand controlled the reins while his right arm was already drawing back in order to launch the light javelin he had been given. Segimer, the boy’s father, rode next to him with his arm dancing backward to send death down on the surprised legionaries clearing a road for the advancing Roman army. The Cheruscan horsemen had evaded the Roman scouts earlier in the morning by standing their horses in the middle of a narrow creek between two boulders while the eyes and ears of Drusus completely passed them by. The noise from the shallow river water toppling over small rocks served to masquerade any stray snort from their beasts.

  Now they ran those obedient horses to the vulnerable workers. They had stacked their shields and spears nearby, but by the time the legionaries took even five steps to snatch up the weapons, the Cheruscans would have inflicted ample harm. Furthermore, by the time the survivors recoiled their arms to launch javelins at those attackers, the horsemen would nearly be out of range. Ermin understood these things and had no fear for his life. His light hair fluttered, his thin arm tensed.

  His father’s closest friend, Kolman, rode his horse on the other side of Ermin. Ever the cautious one, his pace was slower and within moments of springing from the bushes, Kolman’s mount was a half-length behind the boy’s. Kolman’s eyes darted about, trying to see if the easy attack they planned was something more. He prided himself by thinking in manners foreign to his own people. Were they riding into a trap?

  They were.

  He saw the glint from a Roman centurion’s helmet from behind some brush that had been stacked out of the way of the workers. The trap was expertly lain, for the brush looked as if it was chopped and discarded haphazardly along the road slowly being formed out of the forest. But the hedge was placed to hide at least seventy-five javelin-wielding legionaries. They loosed at a bark from the centurion before Kolman could even call a warning to his compatriots. While the projectiles were still in the air, he saw that the men from behind the barricade stepped out in tight order, each with his gladius drawn.

  Eight men or horses crashed to the earth, tumbling into trees or workers from their momentum. Kolman’s animal was hit and he shot as a sling stone over its head, landing on a small campfire. The pain from the burning logs was nothing compared to the jarring sensation that started in his elbows and ran into his spine. He rolled, scattering burning coals as he went.

  A road worker came upon him with his knife drawn. Kolman picked up the orange coals with his bare hand, suppressing the desire to scream, and heaved them at the man’s face. The attacker reeled back in agony which gave Kolman enough time to scramble to his feet and draw his sword. He panted while guarding his badly injured ribs.

  “Father,” called Ermin over the din of battle. The Cheruscans had cut down at least ten of the unfortunate workers who had been assigned the duty of decoy. “It’s Kolman!”

  The two peeled off from rest of their men and swung back. Kolman had just dispatched a Roman soldier with his blade when father and son skidded to his aid. Segimer put his horse between the approaching soldiers and his limping friend. Ermin flipped one leg over his horse and dismounted with a leap. Without awaiting a command from either grown man, he seized Kolman’s sword and helped him up to his own horse. The slight boy drove his shoulder into Kolman’s rear while the wounded noble clawed his way up. The man reached his hand down to help Ermin up, but the boy smacked his grey horse’s rump with the flat of the sword. The beast reacted with a start and galloped off after the other Cheruscans with Kolman struggling just to hang on.

  One of the workers smiled with wide, wild eyes as he thought of how fortunate he was to be presented with a thin, fair boy as easy prey. He stabbed at Ermin. The boy gripped Kolman’s sword tightly with both hands and swung it down, lopping the road worker’s hand off mid-way up his arm. Segimer turned then, surprised to see that his boy was alone.

  “What are you doing?” his father shouted.

  “Saving your friend,” Ermin answered as he ran on his lean, frail-looking legs toward his father’s horse.

  Segimer blocked a strike from a soldier’s sword while Ermin climbed up his father’s leg on the opposite side of the horse as if he were a wild squirrel. The two didn’t wait to assess the situation, but squeezed their thighs tightly around the horse’s belly. Ermin used the sword to poke the rump of the beast to compel it ever faster until they had left the Romans far in their dust.

  Kolman sat propped up against a rock when Segimer and Ermin rumbled to the meeting place. He appeared to be in good health, just bruised and battered. Six of their number lay dead back at the ambush. Another man was able to remain on his horse and return to the rendezvous point. He had a javelin sticking from his thigh now as he reclined next to Kolman, awaiting someone to pull the weapon free.

  “Did we set that trap or did they set it for us?” asked Segimer as he knelt down to Kolman.

  The wary one answered. “I don’t believe they knew we were coming then, if that is what you ask. I don’t think their riders let us through intentionally. If they had, they would have been better prepared to pursue us. No, they are just getting used to our attacks and getting a little wiser to the ways of the wald.”

  “And how do you fare, old friend?” asked Segimer.

  More out of anger than in pain, he responded, “I’m doing better than him.” He pointed to the man next to him who had just passed out after another Cheruscan dislodged the javelin. Blood pumped slowly onto the earth while the leg was bandaged.

  “Ermin!” Kolman called. “Come here, boy!”

  Ermin, who had run to his big grey horse to hold her soft muzzle to his chest, walked back to where the injured man stretched out. “Yes, Kolman?” he asked, wondering if he would be shouted at or beaten for something he had done incorrectly.

  “Segimer, your boy saved me back there. I’d like to give him anything for which he asks – within reason, of course. How about my sword that still sits in your hand? How will that suit you, boy, as a sign of my appreciation?”

  Ermin firmly shook his head. “No, Kolman. You take your sword. I’ll take Thusnelda as my wife when the time is right.”

  Kolman was taken aback and initially wanted to cuff the boy’s head for being so presumptuous. Segimer settled him, though, with a laugh and smack on the boy’s rear. “You’ll take the sword, boy, or you’ll find yourself in the midst of a punishment you’d rather not endure. Now take your new blade and go tend to the animals before Kolman finds the strength to smack your ear.”

  “Yes, father,” the boy grumbled. He turned and walked back to the horses with his shoulders slumped forward and the tip of the sword dragging in the dirt.

  When he was out of earshot, Segimer said, “That was generous of you, friend. Even though the boy hasn’t yet learned how to react in these situations, I thank you.” Kolman nodded.

  “Forget it, Segimer. We harmed the Romans again today. Each time brings us another step closer to being able to negotiate with them on more level footing.”

  “You’re always thinking of the political aspect of life, Kolman. Speaking of that, your daughter, Thusnelda, will someday be ready to marry. She will be a fine match for our families.” He sniggered again, “It’s obvious the boy finds her fetching.”

  “One step at a time,” answered Kolman. Segimer nodded and stood to walk away, knowing that his ever-cautious friend would always need more time to make decisions that most men made in just a single heartbeat.

  . . .

  The defiant woman captured by Septimus stood as tall as she could on her knees in front of Drusus. The legate, who sat on his chair in his broad leather tent, leaned forward with his elbows resting on his knees, eyeing his subject. A Batavian interpreter stood ready at his side. The woman’s hands had been bound to her ankles by her guard before he left. Manilius, Marcus, and Septimus stood at attention behind her.

  Drusus studied her before he began interrogating the woman. He found it difficult to believe that a
woman so fair could have caused so much mayhem. Two men dead when she was captured. Another three wounded on the trip back to the main Roman column. Her green dress, which to Drusus looked shabby by urban standards, was exceptional when compared to the clothes he had seen covering other Sugambrian women. It was now torn and soiled. Her hair had a single braid on one side. The other braid was long gone and her hair stood out wild and frizzy. The woman’s lip had a cut that appeared to be a day old and was healing with black coagulated blood crusting atop it. A brown-green bruise that matched the size her guard’s hand encircled her left eye.

  “I’ve heard that Adalbern is quite old. Ask this woman if she is his daughter,” Drusus told the Batavian.

  “Lord Drusus,” Septimus interrupted before the interpreter could speak. Manilius shot him his typical glance, but the centurion continued on. “The woman is strong-willed. I’ve dealt with her for days now. Might I suggest that you offer your apologies for her treatment? Perhaps you could even ask her name.”

  “Who are you to believe you may make any proposals? You are standing here only because you were fortunate enough to fall upon this beastly woman! A Roman general owes no apologies to anyone,” answered Manilius. Marcus just looked on, happy to keep quiet.