by Alan Smale
Unfortunately, the primus pilus of the Sixth, First Centurion Appius Gallus, could scarcely conceal his disdain for and distrust of Marcellinus. Marcellinus could not guess which of his many transgressions might have triggered such a response and did not care. The rank and file respected Marcellinus for his impromptu seizing of command during the battle, and the tribunes all treated him as an equal for the time being; besides, once they were safely back in Cahokia, Marcellinus would never have to see Gallus again. Once the masters and tribunes had accepted that Marcellinus’s was a voice to be listened to, Gallus had to take his orders just as everyone else did. Every primus pilus Marcellinus had known would honor the chain of command even if he believed every officer above him was a chicken or a buffoon, and Appius Gallus was no different.
The Sixth had a small military harbor five miles up the Oyo River, established when they had moved their operations after withdrawing from Ocatan, but it was not sufficient to berth four quinqueremes, a trireme, and the other associated vessels. Besides, the Sixth needed to report to the Imperator posthaste. Thus, the flotilla would proceed straight to Cahokia and fall on the mercy of the other legions for accommodation or assistance in building its own fortress.
If they were even capable of such exertion. Rarely in his life had Marcellinus seen a group of men so chronically dog-tired.
As was he. There was a limit to what any man could reasonably endure, and Marcellinus felt about as close to his as he had ever been.
—
The smoke of Cahokia hung in the air. The Great City was just around the next bend in the river. The mood of the men was lightening.
“I should like to apologize to you, sir,” came a voice from behind him on the poop deck of the Providentia. Marcellinus turned, half expecting Sextus Bassus, but it was First Tribune Aurelius Dizala, in full uniform and standing to attention.
Marcellinus had not seen Dizala for days, had not even known the tribune had come aboard the Providentia. “Good grief, Dizala, you outrank me. Congratulations on bringing your legion through hell.”
Dizala grunted uncomfortably. “Other men will be the judge of that, sir. Their verdict may not be as gracious.”
Marcellinus studied him. “At ease, then, Tribune. What can I do for you?”
Dizala stood easy and walked forward to stand next to him. “You know, sir, I’ve never been this far north in Nova Hesperia. I’ve heard good things about Cahokia.”
Marcellinus had no idea whom Dizala might have heard them from, but he appreciated the effort. “It’s a fine place.” Perhaps that was a little too glib and the waste of a good opportunity besides. He tried again. “Some from Roma see only barbarians. But if you can open your eyes, you’ll see a grandeur about the city, and a people of fine quality. Look hard and try to understand them, if for no other reason than that understanding them may help Roma win this war.”
Dizala shuffled his feet. “I wanted to apologize to you for my behavior and actions during the battle. I would like to think them uncharacteristic.” He turned to face Marcellinus. “I have never before lost a commanding officer. Not once. I shall not pretend that I liked Praetor Calidius Verus or agreed with all his decisions. But it was…” He faced forward again. “Battle can be an awful thing.”
“It can,” Marcellinus said. “And I do not accept your apology, for you have no need to make it.”
“Be that as it may…” Dizala held out his hand. “I cannot predict how the Imperator Hadrianus will judge our actions over the past months, either yours or mine. But I declare that I shall speak highly of you to him, whatever comes of it.”
Marcellinus clasped the tribune’s arm. “As will I when recounting your actions, for whatever that may be worth to the Imperator.”
“Very good, sir.” Dizala stepped back and came to attention. “With your permission, I will instruct Otho and the men to ready the ship for berthing.”
Marcellinus grinned. “Please proceed, Aurelius Dizala. And if you see Enopay, please send him forward to me. Oh, and if I might ask a favor?”
“Name it.”
“When we arrive in Cahokia, Bassus will report to the Imperator on the expedition’s behalf and you will report on behalf of the Sixth. Yes?”
“I suppose so. Along with yourself, I presume.”
“That is the favor. I would prefer not to go straight to Hadrianus.”
Dizala looked perturbed. “It may be unwise to delay.”
“Indeed. But I have been away from home a long time, and there are people I must see just as soon as possible.”
“People who outrank the Imperator?”
Marcellinus looked again at the smoke from the hearth fires rising above Cahokia and said nothing.
“Never mind,” Dizala said. “Of course, I’ll cover as best I can. You’ll come soon?”
“Soon enough, First Tribune. You may depend on it. Please impress upon Hadrianus that I am not attempting to run off, evade his judgment, or anything of that nature. I merely have obligations elsewhere for a few hours. I hope he will understand.”
“Run away?” Dizala grinned. “If that were your goal, you’d have done it long before now.”
They came around the slow turn, and Marcellinus’s heart lurched as the view of the great mounds of Cahokia opened up before them. Two Sky Lanterns floated in the air above the Master Mound, and at a much greater altitude a half dozen Catanwakuwa flitted back and forth, looping around a stately Wakinyan in some complicated aerial maneuver. His breath caught in his throat.
“Well, you’re in luck, sir. Looks like Himself is not at home and you get a breather after all.”
The imago of the Imperator was at half mast over the fortress of the Legio III Parthica. Hadrianus was not there. Out on exercise, perhaps. “It appears that at last my luck is changing.”
“Perhaps,” Dizala said. “Have a good homecoming, sir.” The tribune saluted and went back to talk to Titus Otho.
—
Yet again, Marcellinus returned to Cahokia battered, bruised, and war-weary.
This time he walked in alone and almost unregarded in a Cahokian tunic and moccasins, with a cloth draped over his head against the sun. It was the middle of the day, and many people were sheltering in their huts from the heat. On the streets he saw no one he recognized, and nobody seemed to recognize him.
Somewhere behind him were Hanska and Enopay, the only other Cahokians left alive. In the last week of the journey they both had become increasingly taciturn; the closer they got to Cahokia, the more they felt the intense grief of losing Mikasi and Kanuna. For each, the return to Cahokia would be bittersweet. Marcellinus would have been by their sides if they had asked, but they seemed to take more solace in their shared bereavement.
The tall statuesque Hanska and the small but shrewd Enopay made an odd pair, but Marcellinus had grown accustomed to unlikely friendships over the last few years. They had their pain in common, and he was content to leave them to reconnect with Cahokia in their own time. As for Taianita and the Chitimachan, Marcellinus did not even know which quinquereme they were traveling on, and despite his increased respect for them would not have chosen either as a companion for his return to the Great City.
It was the first time he had been truly alone for months. All in all, it was an oddly contemplative walk. Hardly a hero’s welcome and all the better for that. He made it all the way to the Great Plaza before meeting someone he knew, and even then he did not recognize her right away. “Chumanee?”
He was mortified for startling her when she backed away, wide-eyed. “Chumanee, is everything all right?”
“Wanageeska…” Already she was scanning his arms and legs, looking for damage. “You are not hurt?”
A legionary medicus aboard the Clementia had long since treated Marcellinus’s burn injury and the arrow hole in his shoulder. The wound in his calf was the only one visible. That was healing now, and it was anyway on the site of a previous wound, and so even Chumanee had not noticed it right away.
For once Marcellinus had no need of her services. “I am well. And you?”
“But how?” Chumanee asked, apparently mystified. And then a movement caught their eyes, and they both turned to look up the Great Mound.
A slender figure was hurtling down the mound. A girl, running like the wind with her hair flaring out behind her.
“Kimimela,” Chumanee said. Marcellinus squinted. Was it really? The girl seemed too tall, and different in other ways he could not quite place.
How old was Kimimela now, anyway? Sixteen winters?
Kimimela slipped and tumbled, rolled, and came springing back up onto her feet in what seemed like an impossible single motion. Kept running as if nothing had happened, down onto level ground. She disappeared briefly behind the palisade at the foot of the mound, then came sprinting out of the big gates toward them.
At the last moment Marcellinus had the presence of mind to brace and lean forward. Kimimela launched herself and flew into his arms. He staggered back under the impact, Chumanee stepping smartly aside to avoid them.
Kimimela’s eyes were wide. Her hair hung loose. She kissed his cheek experimentally and then seemed to freeze in place. “Huh.”
“Kimimela,” he said, lowering her to the ground. She had grown while he was away, was over an inch taller.
“You’re alive.” She prodded him, shaking her head as if trying to will herself to believe it. “How, how…?”
“You didn’t think I’d—ow!” Quick as an eel, she had punched him on the arm. Hard. “Gods, Kimi, you have muscles now.”
Kimimela shook her head, staring, and started to cry.
His mouth went dry as he realized the other thing that was different about her. “Your hair? You’re in mourning?”
“Of course I am, you idiot…”
“Sintikala?” He looked from Kimimela to Chumanee and back again, and a chill surrounded his heart. “What has happened?”
“Sintikala lives,” Chumanee said.
“My mother lives; of course she does.”
“Who, then? Tahtay?”
“You verpa.” Kimimela lashed out, hitting him again on the shoulder, perilously close to his jaw. “Gah! Merda!”
“You, Wanageeska,” Chumanee said. “Kimi wears her hair in mourning for you. Mahkah came home several moons ago. His horse was so lame that the Romans wanted to put it out of its pain, but he would not let them. Still he cares for it, although it will never bear him again. He told us you were all dead, your expedition wiped out by Mongols in the desert by Yupkoyvi.”
“Dead,” Kimimela said, suddenly very still and serious. “But you are not.”
Almost overwhelmed by the strength of her emotion, Marcellinus reached out. He wanted to wipe away the tears that still trickled down her cheeks, but that seemed an impertinence out here in the plaza. He clutched her arm instead, squeezed. “It must have seemed that way to Mahkah once he crossed the canyon, climbed one of the great stairways, and looked back.”
“Two months later Isleifur Bjarnason came back with no horse but the same story—”
Kimimela suddenly looked up. Above them, a Catanwakuwa lurched sideways in the air and tumbled out of formation. Marcellinus flinched. A broken wing? The Hawk was diving in a steep bank, curving around. “Shit…”
It was coming too fast. Marcellinus dropped to one knee and pulled Kimimela down with him. Chumanee crouched on the girl’s other side.
The Catanwakuwa shot just a few feet over their heads. It was Sintikala, her hair streaming out behind her.
She seemed barely in control of her Hawk. Once past, she flipped it into a near stall, spilling air, and arced around once more, grazing the top of the palisade around the Great Mound. She landed hard, bounced, and skidded, almost dragged over backward.
She turned.
From thirty feet away, suddenly stock-still, the masked Sintikala regarded him. Marcellinus could see her unblinking eyes behind the mask. Kimimela had filled out while Marcellinus was away; conversely, the Hawk chief seemed gaunt.
Sintikala walked toward them, the huge span of her wing still resting across her shoulders. As she approached, she tugged off her mask and dropped it onto the sand of the Great Plaza. Her hair, too, hung loose in mourning.
Sintikala walked right up to him. She raised her hands and placed them one on each side of his face. Her palms stroked his cheekbones, and her fingertips pushed hard into the flesh behind his ears. She regarded him for five long breaths. Stared into his eyes and read them.
“Alive,” she said.
He swallowed. “Yes. Barely. And at great cost. The others—”
She turned and grabbed him. He smelled sweat and leather. She pulled his head down to hers and kissed him. Her hands slipped down onto his shoulders and arms.
“Yes,” she said, as if to herself. “Alive.”
Then she turned and strode away around the right-hand side of the Great Mound, abandoning her wing on the plaza behind her.
“Great Jove,” Marcellinus said inadequately.
“She mourned you,” Kimimela said. “Without ever quite giving up hope. You must understand, when my father died—”
“I know. She was not there. Nor when…” Marcellinus stopped. Even now he could not mention Great Sun Man by name.
Kimimela nodded. “And when you died, she was not there either.”
Sintikala turned the corner and was gone.
“But I did not die.”
Kimimela reached out to touch him on the arm again. “That will take us a little longer to believe. Come.”
“Where?”
“To follow my mother.”
—
Kimimela walked with Marcellinus to the crest of the Mound of the Hawk Chief. The doorskin of Sintikala’s house was closed. No smoke came from the roof.
Kimimela halted and threw her arms around him, hugging him until his breath almost stopped. “You must go in.”
“She did not invite me.”
“I believe she did.”
Marcellinus wanted nothing more in the whole world, yet he hesitated. Kimimela poked him, and now there was a glint in her eye. “You are afraid?”
“Apprehensive. It is not the same.”
“I will be at Chenoa’s house.” Kimi pointed to the next mound. “The one that used to be Howahkan’s, then was yours. Don’t forget about me, Gaius. I want to talk with you, too. Remember that you are my father.”
“Kimi—”
She was staring at him with a fixed intensity. “And I am so very, very glad that you did not die.”
He reached for her shoulder, touched her face. “I’m so happy I got to see you again. There were times when I…” He swallowed.
Kimimela gave him a little shove. “Not now. Go, idiot. Go to my mother.”
—
“It’s me,” he said. Hearing no response, he pulled the doorskin aside anyway, stepped in, tugged it closed behind him.
Sintikala’s hut had no windows, but light spilled in through the smoke hole in the ceiling and filtered through cracks in the walls. It was nowhere near as dark as night in the Longhouse of the Wings, but after the brightness of the Cahokian day he could see her only in outline as she walked to him and put her arms around him.
He wished he could see her eyes, but perhaps it was just as well that he could not.
He put his hands tentatively on her shoulders, and then slipped his arms around her. She still wore the leather flying tunic, but it was loose on her, the front untied. She buried her face in his chest and inhaled deeply, and he felt her ribs and chest swell against him.
Those ribs were closer to the surface now. She truly was gaunt. Yet when he stroked her shoulders and arms and felt around her back, she was still as muscular as ever, still a panther in a woman’s skin, hard and strong. “Sisika…”
Her fingers found his lips. He kissed them, and they slipped inside his mouth, grazed his teeth. He tasted dirt and leather and Sintikala.
Her other hand
slipped up under his tunic. It roved across his back and down his side, and he realized she was searching him for new scars or wounds, checking for damage. She leaned back, using both hands to explore his stomach and his chest, his shoulders. She found the new wound in his side, which was still covered with a Roman bandage, and probed it carefully. She lingered over the new scar on his shoulder, now mostly healed, then moved on, her fingertips grazing his nipples as they went on their way. He shivered a little at her touch, at the intentness of her study, but leaned back against the wall and let her do it.
“Gaius Publius Marcellinus,” she whispered.
“Sisika. Sintikala.” He smiled his joy. “Mighty Hawk chief.”
Her hands clasped his upper arms, her fingers sinking into the skin and muscle to grip him tightly. She kissed his chest. He nuzzled her loose hair, found her ear, bent to kiss her neck. She sighed, her breath hot on his skin.
He could be patient no longer. He pushed her tunic off her shoulders and shoved it back, and now it was he who explored, searching her, discovering her. His eyes were adjusting, and he could see her now.
She wore only a brief linen chemise under the tunic. With true Sintikala-like directness she put her hand up to the neck of the chemise and tore it away, dropping it onto the ground at their feet.
The feel of her, the smell of her, began to madden him. He realized he was being too rough, almost mauling her in his urgency, and forced himself to ease up.
Sintikala clearly felt no such restraint. If he had not known it for passion, he might have thought himself under attack. Her hands pummeled him, her fingertips scored his arms and back. Her fingernails were always short, bitten back; if they had been long, she would have drawn blood. She was panting, almost growling, and Marcellinus became aware that he was as well. He had wanted this for so long…
She shoved him back against the wall, and he felt the wooden staves flex behind him. For a moment he had a vision of the house falling down around them and their bodies being found joined in the wreckage, and he gave a low, almost crazed laugh at the thought of it.
Marcellinus pulled his tunic up over his head and threw it aside. And now he was naked, his moccasins kicked off and his breechcloth pulled away while he had been distracted with attacking her in his turn.