by Alan Smale
Takoda eyed him calmly. “Do I appear such a fool as that?”
“Well…” Nahimana cackled.
Takoda gave her a brief look of irritation. “If we are to fight the Romans, we will choose the time. Today?” He shook his head. “Today was a poor time.”
“I agree,” Marcellinus said.
“Then we will have to pick a very good time.” Nahimana was serious now, her eyes narrowed. “Those are hard men, bad men, in the Roman Twenty-Seven. They are not Gaius’s Romans, who we could burn and bury with little loss to ourselves.”
Now it was Marcellinus’s turn to glare. “Never say that to my face!” Nahimana shrank back from him, perhaps the first time she had ever done so, and instantly he felt ashamed.
Takoda spoke again. “As for me, I mourn for our dead. And I rage that Roma treats us thus.”
For Takoda to stand so calmly while speaking of rage sent a shiver down Marcellinus’s spine. He inclined his head, his own flash of temper calming. “I understand, Takoda. I will speak to the Imperator on his return.”
“He will speak to the Imperator.” Kangee’s voice was icy, laden with the scorn that rimmed her eyes.
For a moment Marcellinus thought she would spit again. He was still staring at her in frustration when a voice behind him broke the brittle silence. “Hotah. Come.”
Only Tahtay and Mahkah called him Hotah. Marcellinus turned, and both of them stood there, with Chenoa by their side. The three of them stared at him with a seriousness almost as acidic as Kangee’s.
“Come,” Tahtay repeated.
“Where to?”
Tahtay eyed him coldly. “You will not question me, Hotah. When I tell you to come, you will come.”
Marcellinus bit off a retort. His nerves were frayed, but this was hardly the time to get into an argument with Cahokia’s war chief. “Yes, sir.”
—
Marcellinus had rarely been invited into the fortress of Legio XXVII Augusta Martia Victrix, and he wasn’t invited today. He bulled his way in past soldiers leery of disobeying a man who once had worn the white crest of a Praetor, even one with no legion to command.
He and Chenoa strode up the Cardo in Tahtay’s wake in the late afternoon, the streets around them uncannily clear. The cohorts of the 27th Augustan were confined to barracks while tempers cooled, wounds were patched up, and centurions reimposed discipline on their men. For once there were no sounds of marching feet in the streets of the fort, no shouted orders or babble of camaraderie. They heard only the hammering of the Roman carpenters as they repaired the broken gates.
Marcellinus wished Kimimela were with them. Tahtay was in a fury, and at such times only Kimimela could make him breathe and think clearly.
He glanced at the warrior woman at his side. When the ancient Ojinjintka had passed away in her sleep the previous winter, the chiefdom of the Thunderbird clan had passed smoothly to her sister’s daughter, Chenoa, who had been doing most of the work of organizing the clan anyway during her aunt’s infirmity. Chenoa was a strong no-nonsense woman as robust as Ojinjintka had been frail, and she had stamped her authority on her clan immediately. She and Sintikala had put their heads together and then come to Marcellinus, and by springtime the Great Mound had two new launching rails, one dedicated to Wakinyan and the other to the smaller Catanwakuwa and Eagle craft, in addition to the original dual-use steel launching rail that Marcellinus had engineered for them five years earlier. Now all of Cahokia’s different types of aerial craft could be hurled into the air at once and almost continuously.
After a brief commotion at the Praetorium door, Tahtay and Chenoa swept inside. Passing through to the inner sanctum, flanked by guards, Tahtay came to a halt practically nose to nose with Agrippa. “How dare you! You and your vile men! We should slay every one of you!”
Marcellinus took a step closer, fearing that Tahtay might physically attack the Praetor. Agrippa stood his ground and gazed calmly at the war chief. “Good afternoon, Tahtay of Cahokia. How might I be of assistance?”
“How? You can keep your filthy Roman hands off my people!”
“Believe me, I try my hardest never to touch even one of you. I do, however, express my apologies for today’s escalation.”
“What?” Exasperated, Tahtay spun on his heel and snapped at Marcellinus. “Hotah, what?”
“Escalation: increasing use of force.” Marcellinus looked balefully at Agrippa. “Matters getting out of hand.”
“Thank you.” Tahtay turned back to Agrippa. “Well, if this happens again, the next escalation will be your castra burning down around your ears from our liquid fire. Where is the Imperator?”
“Out in the Grass,” said Agrippa. “Which is where we’ll drive your redskins after we destroy your stinking town if you don’t keep your young thieves out of our barracks.”
Tahtay threw up his hands. “Now I am responsible for every boy in Cahokia?”
Chenoa stepped forward. “Lucius Agrippa, Gaius Wanageeska, Tahtay, sirs. I beg, sit and talk. We can send for pipe. Must be calm here between us.”
Marcellinus raised his eyebrows. Chenoa’s Latin was improving rapidly.
Agrippa grunted. “At least one of you savages talks sense.”
“Huh,” Tahtay said. “I will not smoke a pipe with this man.”
Tahtay barely smoked tabaco at all, even in the sweat lodge. He claimed it hurt his chest and made him too short of breath to run well. But that was beside the point.
Agrippa considered for a moment and then raised his hands for calm. “Come now, war chief. You are responsible for every Cahokian, just as I am responsible for each soldier under my command. And I lost men today, just as you did, over a stupid incident that should never have occurred. I take the breakdown of discipline in my legion very seriously, and I assure you the contubernium ultimately responsible will be punished.”
“Punished how?” Tahtay demanded. “Made to clean latrines? Slapped on the backs of their delicate hands?”
“You do not choose how my men are punished,” Agrippa said. “Any more than my legionaries should have chosen how your thieving boy was punished. I am surprised we do not agree on this.”
Tahtay opened his mouth and closed it again.
“So let us sit down with wine and water like grown-ups and discuss how we may avoid such events in the future.”
“Just like we did last time?” Tahtay jeered.
Agrippa’s eyes narrowed; he was clearly losing patience. Marcellinus stepped in and rapped his knuckles on the table. “War chief, heed Chenoa. Sit. Let us talk.”
Tahtay hardly spared him a glance. “Eighty-five Cahokians dead and many more with broken heads and arms? I shall not sit. I shall not drink. I shall speak to Hadrianus of this. Send for me immediately when he returns.”
“Certainly, Your Excellency,” Agrippa said sardonically.
Tahtay blinked, unfamiliar with the word but recognizing the mockery in Agrippa’s tone. He leaned closer to the Praetor, once again almost nose to nose with the man. “And Lucius Agrippa? This castra must be gone by the next full moon, and your men with it, moved across the Great River to its western shore as you swore. Until then, if any man of the 27th enters Cahokia or lays a hand on one of my Cahokians, we will tie him to a frame and cut into his skin and keep him alive for a very long time. I have spoken.”
Tahtay turned and stamped out of the room. Looking worried, Chenoa bowed and hurried after him.
“Well,” Agrippa said lightly. “Your young Fire Heart put me in my place and no mistake. Some wine, Gaius Marcellinus?”
Marcellinus stared him down. “Perhaps later. For now, speaking of fire, I must go and ensure the flames of Cahokian rebellion are out.”
Agrippa nodded. “Make sure you do. Keep your redskins in check. Make no mistake; your precious barbarian tribe is scarcely a hairbreadth away from wholesale slaughter. And I am not the only man who thinks so.”
Marcellinus steamed internally at the Praetor’s language but managed to nod curtly.
“Oh, and Gaius Marcellinus? I was told you attempted to give orders to my men today. Centurions? Cornicens? Rankers? A tribune, even? My men.”
“To restore the peace and save lives, Roman as well as Cahokian, I may have made some suggestions. I saw no one else in authority.”
Agrippa shook his head. “Every centurion in my legion outranks you, Gaius Marcellinus. You’re barely a step above the natives, and some of us think even that is debatable.”
Marcellinus did not blink. “A good job, then, that I was in the middle of a riot and not an authorized military action. If you had ordered such a thing, I would naturally never have attempted to contain it.”
“Of course I did not order it. Do you think me mad?”
“Not for a moment.”
“Not for a moment, sir.” Agrippa studied him. “We clapped you in irons once before, Gaius Marcellinus. We could certainly put you in them again.”
Marcellinus inclined his head a fraction of an inch. “You could try. Sir.”
Agrippa shook his head again. He poured himself some wine and regarded Marcellinus contemplatively. “You’re an odd bird, Gaius. The spare Praetor, the man nobody wants. Barking his orders to men he does not command.”
“Serving Roma and the Imperator,” Marcellinus said doggedly. “Preventing a massacre. Because Roma is not at war with Cahokia. Roma has a bigger enemy.”
“Do not lecture me, Gaius Marcellinus.”
“No, sir. May I withdraw?”
“Please do. And Gaius Marcellinus? Don’t think you can run off now and recruit Decinius Sabinus to gang up on me. That trick has run its course.”
“I understand, sir,” said Marcellinus, thin-lipped, and left.
—
“Aha,” said Aelfric, arriving alongside Marcellinus as he walked into Cahokia that evening. “I’m quite sure I know where you’re going.” To add insult to injury, the Briton winked at him.
“I’m quite sure you don’t.” He looked his erstwhile tribune up and down. “And you? Cahokian dress? Decinius Sabinus knows you fraternize with barbarians?”
“Information gathering,” Aelfric said. “Soothing the population with my relaxing presence. You think I’d do something this dodgy without my commanding officer’s nod?”
Marcellinus snorted.
“Makes for good relations with the nefarious natives,” Aelfric said. “At least one of Hadrianus’s Praetors has a keen head on his shoulders.” He looked sideways at Marcellinus. “I told him about me and Chumanee straight away, the first meeting we had.”
Marcellinus nodded. “Sabinus wants to wield our influence. Use our connections. You with Chumanee and the Wolf Warriors. Me with Tahtay, Sintikala, and the Ravens.”
“I see you’ve had that conversation, too.”
The sun was setting behind the trees. “Does Tahtay know? By the treaty you’re supposed to be out of town by nightfall.”
“By the treaty, five thousand Romans aren’t supposed to be parked a short walk from the Great Mound.”
Marcellinus refused to be sidetracked. “Does Tahtay know or doesn’t he?”
“I don’t have your access to Tahtay. But Taianita knows.”
“Well, that will help.” Marcellinus glanced around them.
Aelfric was studying him in some amusement. “You don’t know, do you?”
Marcellinus sighed and stopped walking. “All right. What don’t I know this time?”
“Of course, you being a big pal of Tahtay’s, I assumed you’d have picked up that he and Taianita…?”
“You’re kidding.” Marcellinus stared at him. “Lovers?”
“Couldn’t speak to that, but certainly close companions. Jesus, where have you been this winter? Hibernating?”
“Building throwing engines. Designing grain mills. Making launching rails. Teaching the First Cahokian to ride horses.” Marcellinus looked around again, but nobody who spoke Latin was anywhere near. “Stopping the Sixth Ferrata and the Ocatani from killing one another while we rebuilt Ocatan. Stopping the 27th Augustan and the Cahokians from killing one another here. Usually, anyway. Eating interminable dinners with the Imperator and his Praetors. Spending interminable nights in the sweat lodge smoking with the elders. Exhorting Matoshka and the Wolf Warriors not to slit Roman throats in the night.”
“Well, yes, of course. But apart from that.”
“Apart from that?” Marcellinus warmed to his theme. “Bickering with the quartermasters and Enopay about grain shares. Coaxing Roman blacksmiths and Cahokian steelworkers to work together. Bribing legion engineers to build irrigation canals so we can grow even more corn to feed everyone. Negotiating with the Raven clan about Roman use of Sky Lanterns. Helping Chenoa with wire and other bits and pieces for the new Wakinyan Sevens.” He grimaced. “Persuading Sintikala and the Hawks to scout far and wide without telling them why. Stopping Enopay from stowing away on a quinquereme and disappearing altogether. Trying to persuade my daughter to talk to me. Teaching Cahokians Latin—”
“Still no luck there?”
“Kimimela? None whatsoever.”
The Briton looked at his face. “So you’re not going to them now, Kimimela and…?”
“No,” Marcellinus said dolefully. “Off to dinner with Pahin and the Ravens.”
After he had returned from the rebuilding of Ocatan, Marcellinus had slept in the fortress of Legio III Parthica for most of the winter, trying to build trust with Hadrianus and Decinius Sabinus. After the Midwinter Feast, once everyone was another year older and both leaders were in a good mood, he had negotiated with Hadrianus and Tahtay to spend three nights a week in Cahokia.
As was her right, Chenoa had claimed the large house on the mound adjacent to Sintikala’s that once had belonged to Howahkan and then to Marcellinus. When in Cahokia, Marcellinus now stayed in a brand-new hut southeast of the Great Plaza built for him by his new Raven clan chief, Pahin, on a low mound near hers. To his embarrassment he had been welcomed into the new Raven chief’s family and was expected to eat with them most of the nights he spent in Cahokia.
Pahin was an earnest but rather bland woman who had inherited the chiefdom of one of Cahokia’s principal clans against anyone’s expectations, her own included. Everyone had assumed that the chiefdom would ultimately pass to Anapetu’s daughter, Nashota, and not for many more years, since Anapetu had been in the prime of her middle age when she had died at Ocatan. But Nashota had also died on that terrible day, along with Anapetu’s sisters, leaving her second cousin Pahin as the closest relative capable of assuming the chiefdom.
Pahin was pleasant enough, but she was not really Marcellinus’s kind of person. And dining with Pahin’s family just made him miss Anapetu all the more.
Sintikala he saw often enough, but mostly on business connected with the Hawk clan or in meetings with Tahtay. To Marcellinus’s great sorrow, Kimimela’s continuing animosity toward him was sufficient to keep him from eating dinner with them or relaxing with them in any social setting.
“Sorry.” The Briton clapped him on the arm. “Well, I go this way, I’m afraid.”
Forcing a grin, Marcellinus said, “Give my love to Chumanee.”
“That, I will certainly do.” Aelfric turned and walked into the neighborhood of the stone knappers. Marcellinus watched him on his way for a few moments, but the men and women Aelfric passed looked up and nodded at him companionably. He even stopped to exchange a few words here and there, or clasp arms in the Roman style with some of the men.
Aside from the First Cahokian, there were few in the Great City who would greet Marcellinus with such familiarity. He continued on his way, glancing up at the Mound of the Sun as he passed.
Tahtay and Taianita? Marcellinus was glad enough that Tahtay had company, having taken the death of Hurit so badly the previous year, but there were a hundred girls he might have chosen rather than the translator from Shappa Ta’atan.
Ah, well. The young made their own choices. As for Marcellinus, he was doomed t
o another evening of politeness with Pahin, diplomacy with the Sky Lantern crews, and the grudging respect of their leader, Chogan.
Marcellinus ducked down into his hut to prepare for dinner with his clan chief, but its stark emptiness drove him out in moments.
—
The heavy cavalry of the Ala I Gallorum et Pannoniorum Cataphractaria walked back out of the west in a long winding column, eight horses abreast and a hundred horsemen deep. The troopers and their horses all looked exhausted, and well they might. All the men wore their heavy scale armor and carried their long two-handed contus lances, and the horses were no less encumbered: leather chamfrons studded with steel protected their heads, and barding with metal scales shielded their necks and flanks. This was not easy equipment to wear at the height of a Hesperian summer.
Hadrianus, riding out in the lead with his master of horse and his adjutant on either side, also wore armor of stout plate but appeared as energetic and cheerful as if he’d mounted his horse just moments before. That good cheer faltered when he caught sight of his reception committee of Tahtay, Chenoa, Wahchintonka, Marcellinus, and Decinius Sabinus.
The First Gallorum Cataphractaria broke into double file and casual order as they threaded through the Westgate into the fortress of the Third Parthica. Many of the tired horsemen did at least manage to raise their heads or arms in brief salute to the crest of the blue bull that hung over the gate. Marcellinus had no doubt that most of them would be asleep in their barracks as soon as they’d unsaddled and brushed down their horses.
Tahtay watched the spectacle of the cataphracts with dour interest and waited for the Imperator to be ready.
Dismounting, Hadrianus took the initiative right away. “I am profoundly sorry, Tahtay. Agrippa has identified the contubernium that began this. They were too violent with the Cahokian boy, and we will make an example of them. But you know, your people overreacted, too.”
Tahtay nodded, not surprised. They all knew that the Imperator kept in close touch with Cahokia when he was away, using both mounted dispatch riders and Hawk messengers. “I heard it was your tame Cherokee who first objected to the mistreatment of the boy. Your own scouts, Hesperians from the eastern shores. My Cahokians jumped in to protect them.”