“I am here, Andica,” he hissed and fumbled with the keys in breathless excitement. Finding one that fit, he inserted it, and with a half turn the lock sprang open. Removing it and placing it on the ladder’s step, he opened the door silently, slipped inside, and then closed the door behind him. Within the wagon, it was even darker than the night beyond. But there was something different about this wagon, something at odds with his memory of it.
“Andica,” he said quietly. “I have rope, as you asked.”
It was then that his mind grasped the difference at first denied. The smell. It was that of an anim –
A black shadow hit Nonus with the force of a charging cataphract. The shadow knocked him off his feet and then turned on him. He could not cry out or even utter a sound, for jaws had closed around his head. Teeth punctured his skull with an audible crack and something shook him violently. Bones in his neck were crushed against each other and everything in his body went numb. And then the shadow changed its grip of steel, snapping teeth around throat.
The animal paused for a moment, listening to the night for sounds to be wary of, but heard nothing unfamiliar. Still cautious, it dragged the limp but still living body back into the darkest recesses of its wagon and began to eat its face.
A short time later, baggage handlers who were indebted to Mena for speaking with the gods on their behalf, silently washed down the sides of the black leopard’s wagon, removing images of a woman sitting on a man’s face recently painted there.
*
Rufinius stood beside General Saikan and his translators after being summoned to the baggage train shortly after dawn.
“What would have caused Nonus to climb into the animal’s wagon?” the general asked Rufinius.
“How could I know, primor?” Rufinius said. “Why do you ask this of me?”
From within the shadows on the other side of the bars, the leopard’s large yellow eyes glared at them with a challenge as it licked undeterred what was left of a human leg. Other remains were scattered around, the animal having eaten the softer parts of its catch. A shoulder covered in black flies lay in a small triangle of sunlight. When the flies were disturbed, tattoos of the man’s legion and the inked picture of a dog fucking a cat could be seen on what was left of the arm still attached. There was no doubt whose remains were being consumed.
The guards that had been on duty that night were questioned. They had been drugged and no one could remember anything. Could it be, they ventured, that the man inside the leopard’s wagon had drugged them?
General Saikan walked around in the bright sunshine, taking in the scene: the wagons parked in careless lines with those of the pleasure whores and the exotic animals sheltered from the sun by canvas awnings. He bent down and felt the sand beside a wheel. It was damp and discolored.
“How am I to know that Overseer Nonus was not killed elsewhere and brought here to this cage?” Saikan inquired of Rufinius as he stood up, troubled by the sand. What did its unusual condition mean?
“I do not know, General. That could indeed be what happened, for surely no one would willingly volunteer to lie down with a leopard …”
General Saikan stared hard at the centurion standing at attention. “Swear this was not done by your hand.”
“I swear it,” Rufinius replied easily. “I slept in my tent, nowhere near the baggage train. Ask around. It’s impossible to walk about this so zealously guarded column and not be seen by someone.”
“The animosity between you and Nonus was well known,” said Saikan.
“General, someone who lords over former comrades with a whip in order to lessen his own privations is a man with many enemies. Surely that is known to all – Roman and Parthian. And Nonus warmed to the whip more than most. There’s not a single legionary who did not bear him a grudge.”
“You know something about this,” Saikan said. “Of that I am certain. For, as you say, no one would climb willingly into the leopard’s den.”
Rufinius remained at attention.
“Triple the guards on the merchant wagons and also the gifts for King Zhizhi,” Saikan announced. “Sleeping on duty – whether drugged or otherwise – will henceforth be punishable by death.”
Saikan and his followers climbed onto their horses. “See that the overseer is buried in the Roman way,” the general said as he wheeled his horse around and rode off.
“How is it to be done?” inquired Bataar, whose Latin exceeded Rufinius’s command of the Xiongnu language.
“He should be buried as a Roman criminal, for that is what he was,” Rufinius replied, watching the leopard gnaw on a foot. “As such, his body would be left for animals to pick over at the place of his execution. I would therefore consider that, in this instance, the correct rites have already been observed.”
Rufinius leaped up on the horse and rode it in the direction of the painted wagons. Lucia came to the bars of her perfumed prison to watch him and a smile passed between them.
XXIX
A whoosh like a rush of air from a blacksmith’s bellows and the legionary marching beside Carbo, one of the twins from Antioch, fell dead without uttering so much as a cry. An arrow was buried deep in his skull. The lines were strung out with enough room between each for the dead man to be picked up without halting the movement of the column, but the hit and run tactics of the brigands were beginning to weigh heavily on the unarmed legionaries.
The territory they now marched through was far from friendly – being on the fringes of the Parthian empire – the ridges often occupied by groups of horsemen and camel riders. The Parthian archers escorting the Romans would launch forays to chase them off, but more often than not these would themselves return with wounded men or would suffer fatalities, so the counter-attacks grew more reluctant and were only occasional. This, in turn, gave the brigands confidence and they became bolder and more and more legionaries were picked off.
Indeed, on this morning, Petronius and his bodyguard were at the rear of the column, riding with Xiongnu bowmen in an attempt to discourage these attacks.
“Why would anyone want to own this filthy cophragious landscape?” asked Carbo, holding his hand toward the dun-colored land stretching endlessly before them. “It’s either dry desert plain, or dry desert mountain. No trees, no rivers, no farmland. Dust, camels, biting flies, arrows falling from the sky, and marching – that’s all it is. What was on the mind of Crassus? Maybe he was mad? The Parthian cunni can keep this excrementum. I’ve had enough.”
“Off you go then,” Libo told him. “I’m sure there’s an arrow with your name on it waiting to be fired.”
“What I’m sick of,” Dentianus snapped, “is listening to you – the both of you.”
Rufinius had sympathy for all sides. He too was fed up with the dust, a returned enemy that engaged them all day long, as well as the eternal heat, the cold of night, Parthian beans – his own list of hates was lengthening. And he was also tired of hearing the men complain about everything, especially when nothing could be done to improve any of it.
“What’s that merda up ahead?” said Carbo, shielding his eyes from the power of the sun.
As they marched closer, Rufinius could make out black shapes propped up on the desert sand. “Pass the word for a halt,” Rufinius told the man behind him.
The word was duly passed back and a cornicen blasted the order. Scarcely a minute later, General Saikan arrived with his usual retinue. “Why do we stop, Alexandricus? There is an hour’s marching to be done. Did you give the order?”
“Yes. Up ahead, General,” said Rufinius with a tilt of his head.
*
The bodies of forty-three men had been impaled on stakes set in a line. All faced toward the west, each of the victims disemboweled and scalped. Birds had long ago removed the parts they most favored and other ground-living carnivores had gnawed on toes, calves, thighs, and genitals.
“The remaining deserters,” Rufinius observed to Saikan.
The general nodded.
“They were left here to die.”
“How do you know?”
“That is what Sogdians do.”
“Who?”
“Sogdiana is a nation. This line drawn by the placement of the absconders marks the border between Parthia and Sogdiana.”
“They don’t much care for visitors, these Sogdians.”
Saikan’s eyes held a smile. He combed the dust from his red beard with his fingers. “This is their official welcome.” He turned to the tribune. “The Parthians accompanying us will soon leave. Once they have gone, weapons will be distributed among your men as promised. You will then be soldiers defending yourselves and my cargo.”
The implications occurred to Rufinius immediately.
“Yes, you will outnumber us,” Saikan said, searched Rufinius’s face. “What will be your response to this?”
Rufinius considered the question. “There is nothing for us in the west, General.”
“That is what I hoped, Alexandricus.”
*
That night forty-three men were cremated in the Roman way with full rites observed, their ashes joining those of Optio Fabianus and the others in the wagons for future burial with cenotaphs. Chickens were sacrificed and their entrails read by Mena and the auguries were favorable. The following day, it was the Parthians’ turn to have their god addressed and, after both Mithra and Ahura Mazda gave their blessings, some 500 mounted archers rode away to the west, their call of duty answered.
With this departure, General Saikan wasted no time having the wagons containing swords, helmets, chainmail armor, heavy javelins, and shields drawn up. The items of war were distributed among the legionaries, beginning with the primipilus Petronius Araxo and his senior officers. Soon the air rang with the men engaged in practice drills, battering at scuta with their gladii.
“It is as if they have received a gift,” Saikan observed to Rufinius, as the men set on each other with much enjoyment.
Rufinius hopped off his horse and went to a wagon dispensing shields – a motley selection harvested from the battle of Carrhae. He chose one with the symbol of a red bull painted on it and propped it against the wagon beside another scutum that had hurriedly been covered with interlocking steel fish scales. The tribune then jogged back to Saikan and said to one of the general’s attendants, “Your bow, horse warrior.”
The man hesitated long enough to be snapped at by Saikan.
Rufinius accepted the man’s weapon with a polite nod and received an arrow in reply. Smoothing its flights with a lick before notching it, Rufinius drew back the string in the crook of his thumb in the Xiongnu manner, took aim and released. The arrow flew true on a gentle arc, hit the shield on the bull’s hoof and passed clean through. The tribune took a second arrow, aimed, and let fly. This one struck the shield with the scaled armor and bounced harmlessly off.
Rufinius held the bow toward Saikan. “This is what defeated Rome’s legions.”
The general relieved him of the weapon.
“Every shield must be armored.”
“It will be done.” Saikan turned and spoke to one of his men, who then galloped some distance away before wheeling his horse around and charging back. Releasing the reins, he reached behind for an arrow, notched it, and fired, all in one fluid movement. The arrow’s flight was true, passing through the bull’s eye with a puff of splintered wood. He notched a second arrow immediately and fired, and this disappeared through the hole made by the first.
“It is not only the bow,” Saikan said to Rufinius, “but also the man who wields it.”
*
“Feels good to have the weight of steel in hand again, doesn’t it?” said Libo, swinging a gladius. He turned and slashed at Appias, who caught the blade with a deft parry.
“Libo, please,” said Appias. “I know your thoughts a week before you have them.”
“You think too much, historian,” said Libo. “That’s your trouble.”
Dentianus grinned, regarding the gladius in his hand like the return of an old friend. “He knew you were going to say that too. Didn’t you, Appias?”
“Who didn’t?” added Carbo.
“Futue te ipsum,” Libo muttered.
“No, you fuck yourself, Libo. I think I could take you now,” said Carbo, dancing around his comrade, stabbing at the air in front of him with his blade. “You’ve lost weight on the march. You’re not so big anymore.”
“Can anyone hear the whine of a mosquito?” Libo sheathed his weapon and adjusted the helmet on his head to improve the fit.
*
That night, the moon still absent from the sky, Mena traveled through the darkness in an open camel-drawn wagon. She ignored Xiongnu and Roman sentries alike, none of whom challenged her, fearing the woman known to speak with gods both fair and foul. With the familiar ragged shawls wrapped around her head and a cape of fox pelts to keep the warmth of her body close, the witch moved around the encampment with a freedom given only to General Saikan himself.
Working slowly through the ranks of the legionaries, Mena came eventually to the tent housing Alexandricus. Climbing down with the care of an ancient woman whose bones were brittle, she hobbled slowly to the tent, her back bent with age. None of the men slept beneath the stars on this night, the air having turned chill with the changed season and frost settling on the ground.
Beyond the leading ranks of the encampment, Roman sentries posted to discourage attacks from bandits saw her pass, but turned away from her lest she make eye contact and some evil befall them. Had they seen her open the tent flap and go inside, perhaps they might have wondered what business brought her hence at this frigid midnight hour. But they saw nothing.
Mena stood inside the tent, adjusting her eyes to the dark and her nose to the concentrated smell of men who had worked hard for a long time without bathing. But that was a smell ever-present in the air, along with the scents of camel and burning dung and cooking fires.
One of the men in a nearby tent called out in his sleep, rolled over and didn’t wake. Rufinius, who slept close to the flap, stirred. He opened his eyes, startled at first, but the familiar rags and skins quickly identified the intruder. “Mena …”
The witch bent down onto her knees, lifted back her shawl, and revealed herself to him as Lucia. She placed her sweet-smelling fingers on Rufinius’s lips to silence questions. Slipping off the cape and lifting Mena’s shawls and tunic from her body, Lucia climbed beneath the skins and pressed herself against Rufinius, adding her own heat to chase cold from night.
“Is this Mena’s witchcraft?” whispered Rufinius, the fog of sleep still heavy on him.
“I am no specter,” Lucia replied. Her lips brushed his chest and her hands sought what she desired within her. “See?”
“Lucia!”
“Hush, Tribune …”
“What of Mena?”
“She lies in my wagon where the shadows are darkest, posing as a pleasure whore.”
“These shadows will have to be inky black …”
The legionaries around them stirred, but the sound of men and women fucking was a familiar ode in every contubernium’s tent, where camp whores were regular visitors.
Lucia returned the following two nights without interruption or incident, but on the morning of the next day Appias, Dentianus, Libo and Carbo confronted the tribune.
“Primor, as men of your contubernium, rather than us as legionaries and you as a tribune, can we speak freely?” Appias asked.
“What?” replied Rufinius, wary.
“If the general should catch you and a certain pleasure whore together, we fear the consequences you will be made to face,” said Dentianus.
“Can’t you lie between other legs, primor?” Libo suggested.
Carbo added his own blunt edge. “The gods know there’s plenty of cunni in the train to choose from that won’t get you crucified.”
“I will take her to wife,” said Rufinius, exposing a thought barely identified to himself.
Lib
o was aghast. “Primor! You can’t!”
“Rufinius, being married to her is even more unattainable than having a casual dalliance with a king’s concubine,” Appias pointed out. “Surely you know that.”
“I will find a way.”
“With respect, what you will find is yourself buried in a desert hole with a garrote around your neck,” hissed Dentianus.
“We beg you, primor, stop before it is too late,” Libo implored.
Rufinius looked at each face in turn and knew there was only one response they would be happy with. He gave it to them. “I will stop.”
The men were relieved, as if they themselves had been given a reprieve.
“At least for now,” the tribune added.
XXX
This day arrived like any other, the sun arriving unaccompanied by cloud on a horizon so broad it seemed not to be flat but to have a curve on it, an impression as deceiving as the distant pools of false silver.
The legion marched ever onward, as it had marched every day for what seemed an eternity. But in the mind of Rufinius, and on this day more than others, the rancor the tribune felt at being kept from Lucia festered until action of any kind seemed his only release.
“Dentianus,” Rufinius called out as he rode toward the men marching in front of the first century.
“Primor!” Dentianus replied, saluting.
“Find me a cornicen.” Rufinius dismounted, held his horse by the reins and watched the legion pass by.
Field of Mars (The Complete Novel) Page 29