Rufinius watched on as General Saikan rode with his retinue and the colorful banners of his house, along with numerous others captured from the Han caravan. On the far side of the river, a larger squadron of riders carrying the dragon banners rode out from the bank and onto the bridge to join the horsemen already waiting there. Once on the bridge, Saikan dismounted and walked forward to the center of the span. A single rider representing the Chanyu came forward, but this man stayed in his saddle, securing the high ground.
Rufinius could see clearly that the meeting of the two men was not a joyous occasion. The Chanyu’s envoy appeared to be shouting at Saikan and, indeed, the wind carried fragments of his angry displeasure to the tribune’s ears.
After several minutes of this unhappy assemblage, General Saikan returned to his horse and regained his saddle. He rode at a gallop back to the legion’s front lines. Saikan reined in his horse beside Rufinius and gazed back across the river at the squadrons of horse riders drawn up in formation, facing the Roman lines. Rufinius examined the general’s face but could see no hint of consternation, despite the embarrassing rebuke witnessed by the army and Saikan’s own close followers. For what seemed an uncomfortable eternity, the general sat on his horse beside Rufinius, saying nothing. Rufinius himself had learned enough of the general’s manner to know that asking questions would not lead to answers. Saikan would speak only when ready.
Eventually he moved in his saddle and said, “Much displeasure comes with the Chanyu’s men.”
Rufinius looked at the general and waited for him to explain.
“Mena read the bones correctly.”
“Mena?” Rufinius answered, no less perplexed. “How is she involved?”
“You doubt her; I do not. She warned me of this … In the time I have journeyed to Parthia and back, Chanyu Zhizhi has been busy attempting to secure the borders of Xiongnu ahead of his younger brother, Chanyu Huhanye. The Dragon King hoped to sign a new treaty with Emperor Xian of Han and, in so doing, relegate his brother to a lesser status. The treaty would guarantee the sovereignty of Xiongnu and Chanyu Zhizhi’s place as first among equals in the pantheon of princes vying for favors in the court of the Everlasting Joy Palace. In return, the tribes of Xiongnu would no longer intercept or bring harm to Han caravans on the silk road.”
The general turned to face Rufinius. “Alexandricus, purely because of our actions against the caravan, we are again at war with the great Empire of the Han. So let us get the men across, for though it is doubtful my Chanyu will have further need of me, he will most certainly now have need of them.”
XXXVII
As had become her regular habit, Lucia looked in on the prostrate body of the historian and camp prefect, his breathing shallow. Wu’s assistant, whom she now knew to be named Feiyan, tamped the sweat from his forehead and rubbed the tips of fine needles that were stuck in his skin all over his body.
Feiyan glanced up from her duties and gave Lucia a smile of reassurance, the light of numerous candles holding back the shadows. The air was sweet with other aromas, emanating from several intricately patterned brass holders that contained the smoldering embers of various plants and barks. But there was also something malodorous and corrupt in the air.
Lucia gestured to Feiyan that she wanted to check Appias’s fever, and received a nod. Lucia pressed her fingertips to his damp forehead and felt the poison burning within him. Appias had not regained full consciousness since being brought from the battlefield, but his limbs had been seen to twitch and his lips had whispered conversations no one had caught.
Mena entered and joined Lucia’s side. “Feiyan … she sleeps beside him on the floor,” the hag said, “and has not left his side once.”
“Is the doctor afraid of the threat made by Rufinius?”
“I doubt he’s given it a moment’s thought. Feiyan is attentive because it is in her nature.”
“What are the pins?” asked Lucia. “That seems most strange.”
“It is Han medicine. The name they give it is ‘Zhenjiu’.”
“Zhenjiu,” Lucia repeated. “How does it work?”
“My understanding of it is thin, but the Han believe a force flows through the body, which can heal it. The needles stimulate the force and make it stronger,” Mena said. “I am told the secrets of Zhenjiu take a lifetime to learn.”
“But Feiyan is perhaps my age, though it is hard to tell,” said Lucia. “See her skin? It is as smooth as a child’s. Is she not too young for such work?”
“She may work the needles as you see her do here, but only Wu may place them.”
“But he is not old, either.”
“He has been schooled in the art by no less than the Han Emperor’s father, who is said to be a witch of some kind.”
Lucia could not help but be impressed. “I can smell the wound. It festers. Does Appias improve or grow worse?”
“Whether magic has been employed or not I cannot say, but I believe he hovers between the two.”
The two women watched Feiyan tend to Appias, moving around his body again from needle to needle. When this task was completed, she withdrew the pad covering the entry wound forced by the arrow and smeared the festering hole with a sticky substance from a bowl.
“Honey,” Mena whispered. “I watched Wu prepare the poultice. It’s mixed with garlic and the dried parts of foreign plants and insects I am not familiar with.”
Feiyan placed a clean pad on the wound. And suddenly Appias was awake, terror on his face and he snatched Feiyan’s wrist. She screamed and struggled to break free and, in the brief tussle, Appias crashed to the ground.
Lucia and Mena rushed to help Feiyan, who was crying out. Wu came in and between the four out them, they returned the unconscious historian to his cot, the wound oozing black blood and pus.
“Appias is strong,” Mena told Lucia. “But perhaps he is not strong enough.”
*
When the historian opened his eyes days later, Feiyan was leaning over him. The unexpected movement startled her and she drew back.
Appias’s head pounded. “Water,” he said, and the Han woman withdrew from sight and retuned with a bowl containing a liquid. She held it to his lips and he drank the foul broth thick with plant roots and it caused him to gag.
He lay back on the cot, his breathing heavy and bubbling in his throat. The woman set about changing the pad on his chest. Lifting it off his skin, she leaned in close to him, sniffed at the wound and walked quickly from the tent.
Moments later she returned with one of the Han, a young man of slight build. He snapped commands at the woman as a master speaks to a slave. He, too, smelled the wound and frowned, placed his hand under Appias’s armpit for a short while and then left the tent muttering aloud to himself.
The woman returned and moved around the tent, attending to various medicines. She came to Appias and saw him staring at her. Placing a hand lightly on his chest she said, “Appias.” And then with a hand against her own chest: “Feiyan.”
Appias looked at her, his vision blurry and unseeing, before closing his eyes.
*
The days for Appias were a wild dream only partly remembered. He was conveyed in a covered wagon, his body freezing cold or burning hot, and every rut in the snow-covered landscape sending a jolt of searing pain through his chest and shoulder. The nights were little better and punctuated with servings of the ghastly familiar broth. Whether day or night, reality and dreams mixed, and the visions that came to him were comprehensively violent – of men hacking at each other, of plains scattered with corpses and the parts of men. There were images of debauchery, too, that invariably turned to bloody slaughter, as the fever battled within him for supremacy.
But then, one day, Appias opened his eyes and they were free from dreams and the heaviness of fever. The air, too, smelled clean and sweet, the corruption gone that had taken root in his chest.
By his feet slept a woman, who was in equal measure both familiar and a stranger to him. Her f
ace was fine of feature and utterly unlined and unblemished. But it was her hands that he recognized and associated with gentleness and concern – small hands that were adult in strength and yet childlike in size.
Appias noticed the old blood-stained pad on his breast. He raised it and the movement caused a sharp pain in his shoulder and back that caught in his lungs. He rested momentarily, braced for the discomfort, and raised the pad once more. The ugly wound beneath was scabbed over but completely absent of rot.
Seeing the wound triggered Appias’s memory, and he recalled the moment when he was punched hard in the chest so that all the breath rushed from his mouth and left him starved of air. He remembered the sight of animals on fire, running and screaming through the earthworks, legionaries chasing them and stabbing them with javelins or attacking them with pila and gladii. He remembered lying on the ground, the hole in his chest sucking and then blowing pink bubbles, and then the world fading to black. And from there his memory failed him, being populated thereafter by dreams of armies being cut to pieces by his own sword, the sole light in the darkness a pair of small hands protecting him from hordes of the dead come to carry him to Hades, the hands belonging to the Han woman lying by his feet.
Appias took one of the skins that had slipped from the woman’s shoulder and replaced it across her. And then he closed his eyes and slept.
*
Lucia pulled up in a covered wagon and saw Dentianus and Carbo drilling in the flickering light of the small cooking fire. They were at a friendly and altogether stupid game of thrust and parry with double-edged gladii that cut skin and bone as easily as air.
“Dentianus,” Lucia called out. “Have you seen the tribune anywhere?”
The legionaries took a break from their foolery. “Lucia! It is a fair night when you pay us a visit. Rufinius was here moments ago. You seem flustered. Is there a problem that needs dealing with? Can we assist?”
“It’s Appias. The fever has broken at last. I would take Rufinius to him.”
“The cunnus will live?” asked Carbo.
“He’s weak but he knows who he is at last.”
“Wife!” Rufinius called playfully as he strolled into the firelight. “Would you dine with your favorite contubernium tonight?” He went to the wagon, pulled her toward him, and stole a kiss from her.
“No, you’re coming with me. Someone wishes to see you.”
*
Rufinius and Lucia arrived at the doctor’s tent. Mena was already in attendance, as was Feiyan, who kneeled on a mat on the floor and pulverized ingredients in a heavy stone mortarium and pistillum. A couple of braziers burned wood cleanly with no smoke, warming the air, snow and frost thick on the ground outside. Appias lay propped up on a board, covered mostly in fox and wolf pelts to keep the chill from him, his breast exposed. Fine needles ringed the skin around the wound, turned purple with healing.
“Rufinius!” Appias exclaimed. “What gives in the land of the living?”
The tribune went to his comrade’s side and took his arm. “You shake hands like a man used to wielding a stylus, historian. Only three weeks and already they have weaned the legionary out of you.”
Appias smiled. “And you, Rufinius, heavily bearded now and wearing wolf, I see. Are you becoming a barbarian? Is a sturdy legionary's sagum no longer fitting attire for a tribune?”
“When in Rome …” Rufinius grinned. “We all thought you would be dining with the heroes of Troy by now. Perhaps you are tougher than you look and, speaking for Dentianus, Carbo, and Libo, all are relieved that your tiresome recounting of times past and eternal questioning is still with us. When do you rise from your sick bed and rejoin the contubernium?”
“Two weeks,” said Mena interrupting. “I have asked the Han doctor.”
“That is an age!” replied Rufinius.
“As you said, he is lucky to be with us. You can see how much weight he has lost.”
Rufinius nodded and regarded his comrade anew. His muscles had wasted and there were black circles around his eyes. “You look well enough to me,” he said. “But if you desire to travel feet up like a potentate for a while, so be it.” He leaned forward in the dim light and regarded the fine needles stuck in Appias’s skin and went to touch one of them. But then the Han woman was suddenly beside him, her small white hand gently drawing his soldier’s rough and dirt-ingrained fingers away, shaking her head. Rufinius nodded at her and drew back. In this moment he saw her as if for the first time. Her skin was as fine Han silk, her black eyes the shape of the Greek nut, an impossibly small nose and a rosebud for a mouth. Was she beautiful? It was difficult for Rufinius to say. Certainly the woman called Feiyan was exotic, but her beauty was too foreign for him to properly judge. She bowed at him respectfully and returned to the shadows.
“I hear that we are now in the lands of the Xiongnu,” said Appias, breaking the spell that had come over Rufinius.
“Um … yes. Yes, we are, but there will be no hero’s welcome. General Saikan is now accompanied by Chanyu Zhizhi’s men, and afforded almost the status of the detained.”
“Why? What has happened?”
“The Han caravan we captured. It was traveling under the protection of Chanyu Zhizhi, who hoped to convince the Han Emperor of his peaceful intentions. Unfortunately no one told Saikan. Much displeasure awaits us in the court of this Xiongnu monarch.”
“What of Saikan’s contract with the legionaries?”
Rufinius nodded. “With you now back from the dead, comrade, that is my deepest concern.”
“How far is left to march?” Appias asked.
“After so long, I almost don’t believe it. No more than two days, I am told.”
XXXVIII
Orders were issued that the legionaries were to present themselves to the Xiongnu monarch as if on parade review. Feverish activity ensued hours before dawn on the final day of the march. Whores were sent packing to the baggage train. Men washed, beards removed, holes in tunics mended, helmets and shields were polished till they gleamed, and animal pelts were worn only by those whose rank and station permitted it.
A couple of hours after sunrise, led by General Saikan and Rufinius on horseback, and accompanied by the numerous Xiongnu riders who might yet prove to be friend or foe, the 5,000 crossed through the last of the low mountain passes, beneath the watchful gaze of horse archers holding the high ground. They marched two centuries abreast onto a broad grassy plain spotted with red and purple wildflowers and light snow that stretched as far as the eye could see. Also scattered across their path as numerous as the wildflowers were herds of thick-haired cattle nosing around for grass. Beyond one such herd could be seen several squadrons of horsemen – flying banners of various colors – riding forth to meet the legion.
Many of the horse archers that had accompanied General Saikan, along with those who had met the legion at the Amu Darya, surged ahead of the column to meet up with their countrymen. Other Xiongnu riders came from every direction to get a closer look at the Roman legion.
“What are we to expect?” Rufinius asked Saikan somewhat pensively as more and more Xiongnu warriors were flying toward them, drawn by the unusual pageantry of an army marching uncontested at its very doorstep.
“I would ensure your men keep their swords sheathed,” he replied, a smile on his face that seemed at odds with his apprehensive demeanor.
“They will not reach for their weapons unless so ordered, General.”
“Good. I fear a misstep would end in tragedy.”
The movements of the Xiongnu were far from welcoming. Many small groups of riders flashed past the column at full gallop, their demeanor threatening, with their hands off the reins and bows at the ready. Along with Saikan, Rufinius also thought it best to smile and wave. “Cornicen Magnus,” he called out. “Play a tune on your cornu.”
“A tune, Tribune?”
“That’s what I said. Something joyous.”
Magnus tentatively lifted his instrument to his lips and blew a
simple well-known theme with a beat that matched the legionaries’ marching cadence. He repeated it several times until, from the ranks, rose the voices of the men chanting the well-known ribaldry:
Barabbus left his wife with slave
Barabbus left his wife with slave
And asked of them to please behave
And asked of them to please behave
No sooner was he gone from sight
No sooner was he gone from sight
Than slave and wife did fuck all night
Than slave and wife did fuck all night
“What do they sing?” asked Saikan over the legion in full cry.
“A simple love song,” Rufinius replied, waving at a number of riders with the look of an official delegation about them.
The sound of 5,000 men singing had done its job, changing the expressions on the Xiongnu faces whirling about the column from one of displeasure to that of puzzlement. Here and there riders had simply reined in their horses to better listen to the strange-looking men whose manner and dress were utterly foreign to them.
The squadrons of horsemen that had ridden across the plain to meet the Romans duly arrived and swarmed around the head of the column, wheeling their horses this way and that in a disciplined display of control. These horsemen were an impressive sight, thought Rufinius. Each warrior’s dress, though mostly animal pelts, had the look of a uniform being well stitched into a long coat over a thickly padded and quilted jacket. On each head was a cap of wool, topped with a steel crown, with flaps that flew loose around the ears that could be tied beneath the chin when the weather proved adverse. Bows were worn slung over backs and a hilted sword and a javelin, as well as a quiver thick with arrows, hung from each saddle.
Words were exchanged between Saikan and the leader of the escort that had met them at the river, who had remained behind to accompany the general and Rufinius. This man had a heavy black beard beneath deep-set black eyes and the constant look of displeasure on his face.
Field of Mars (The Complete Novel) Page 35