Eagle and Empire

by Alan Smale

Aelfric looked concerned. “The Ninth Syrian are solid horsemen, but there aren’t many of ’em. Since Sabinus also has the cataphracts of the First Gallorum and two alae of Polovtsians under his command, I’d think he could spare you a few more nags than that. I’ll have a word with him. And, um, since we’re talking about Sabinus…?”

  “Yes, he’s reluctantly agreed to me stealing you for the Sixth. Oh, and I’m prepared to let you spend three nights a week in Cahokia, too, provided it doesn’t interfere with your duties. I’m anxious for the Sixth to pursue closer ties with Cahokia.”

  “Well, I like the sound of that.” Aelfric looked at him sideways. “That’s what you’re doing? You and Sintikala are overnighting it now?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “You are, then.” Aelfric whistled and shook his head. “I’m amazed you’re still alive, you old dog.”

  Marcellinus grinned. “A little more deference, Tribune, if you would be so kind.”

  —

  The next day, the sounds of hammering and swearing could be heard clear across the Mizipi. The Sixth had started before dawn: marched in formation by their various tribunes out of the fortresses of III Parthica and XXVII Augusta Martia Victrix, they were hard at work digging trenches, building ramparts, hauling earth, and hammering together barracks and stable blocks. As the Ironclads were short on engineers, Marcellinus had borrowed some from Sabinus to help lay out the fortress site. That aside, the construction would be performed entirely by the Ironclads. Marcellinus had even sent work squads from the cohorts of Statius Paulinus north with drekars and knarrs to haul the wood that would be needed.

  The tribunes of the Sixth Ferrata had welcomed Marcellinus with some relief. If the rank and file had any reservations about their new Praetor, they were shrewd enough to conceal it. If anything, they seemed grateful to have someone competent in command again, a clear line of authority, a new direction. As well as happy to be kept busy with activities that were normal and familiar and, for the most part, did not involve oars.

  Primus Pilus Appius Gallus was another story.

  —

  From where he and Sintikala stood on the crest of the Great Mound, Marcellinus saw Taianita enter the Great Plaza garbed in leather armor and with a gladius hanging from her belt. He could not see her face from that distance, but her walk was unmistakable, and Cahokian women who fought with the gladius were rare enough. The boys from the Raven clan playing chunkey against their fellows from the Chipmunk clan paused respectfully to let her pass between them.

  Sintikala turned her head to see where he was looking. “Taianita did well on the journey?”

  “She did,” Marcellinus admitted. “Thought quickly. Worked hard. She got a bit wild during the battle, though.”

  “Sometimes a little wildness helps.”

  “Perhaps.” Marcellinus cast his gaze back in the other direction, toward the crest of the adjacent Mound of the Sun, where Tahtay was sparring with gladius and spear with Kimimela and Enopay.

  Marcellinus had originally trained Tahtay in the use of the gladius. But since then Tahtay had trained extensively on a variety of weapons with the Blackfoot and the Romans, and the result was a curious mix of unorthodox weapon handling and swift footwork that was neither Cahokian, Roman, nor Blackfoot but an odd combination of all of them. Tahtay was a match for anyone now, and Marcellinus was glad that the war chief had not challenged him to a sparring match.

  Certainly Tahtay was more than enough for Kimimela and Enopay. Kimi was fast with a short spear and club but not as adept with a blade. Enopay hacked away gamely and was a dirty fighter but gave away his every move in advance through his body language. From this distance they could just hear the tone of Tahtay’s voice as he shouted instructions at Enopay while easily parrying his blows and pushing him back.

  But over and above the training, Marcellinus was happy that they were a tight team. They were his original band of translators, appointed by Great Sun Man, without whom Marcellinus would have been dead several times over by now. He was glad they were important to one another, too.

  Now Sintikala looked west. “Is your fortress large enough?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “I can’t decide.”

  Sintikala was joking with him. Out of both pride and practicality Marcellinus had insisted that the Sixth construct a fortress even bigger than that of the Third Parthica. The Ironclads would fill only half such a fortress, but the Cahokians needed to become used to living in castra side by side with Roma. When they marched out into the prairie to do battle with the Mongol Khan, they would have to build a night camp and occupy it together. Romans and Hesperians needed to view one another as brothers in arms.

  Wood was cheap, and Marcellinus had a point to make.

  “Whoa.” On the Mound of the Sun, Enopay had grabbed a spear and swung it around in a ruthless and unexpected attack on Tahtay’s legs. At the same time Kimimela whirled her club at his head, and it seemed that neither of them was pulling punches. Tahtay tripped over backward, and the sound of laughter radiated from the mound.

  “I’m glad he laughs.” In light of the leg wound that had threatened to cripple Tahtay for life, Marcellinus was relieved that he had taken Enopay’s attack so well.

  “Only with them. His mood is never so light with anyone else.”

  “He has a lot to think about.”

  Below them, Taianita was jogging up the cedar stairs of the Great Mound. Sintikala sighed, and her hand slipped out of Marcellinus’s.

  “So we do not fight the Khan this year?” Not at all out of breath, Taianita climbed the final steps and came to stand on Marcellinus’s other side.

  “No. By the scouts’ accounts, his army is still divided. Chagatai’s half has crossed the Great Mountains in the north and is camped on the Wemissori. Chinggis’s army is camped on the Braided River. They train, they fatten their horses.”

  “Good,” she said. “More time for me to train to fight them.”

  Over on the Mound of the Sun, Tahtay had jumped up again and taken his revenge. Enopay was sprawled flat on his back, and Tahtay was raining blows onto Kimimela, who was parrying and shrieking in a good-natured way. When Tahtay ran her right off the edge of the mound, she rolled backward and somersaulted to a halt fifteen feet below. Everyone was laughing. Enopay sat up and shouted what was presumably an insult, and Tahtay whirled around and cast his spear, which stuck into the ground safely several feet to the right of the boy.

  “You are already strong,” Marcellinus pointed out to Taianita. “Capable. You wear war tattoos from three battles. If you could work with Kimimela on gladius, it would help her a great deal.”

  “Perhaps, if she asks me.” Taianita turned to Marcellinus. “Somehow you are still allowed on our Sacred Mound even though you are again a big Roman Praetor?”

  “Apparently,” Marcellinus said.

  “Tahtay is not angry with you?”

  “Relieved. Tahtay immediately saw the advantage of me having influence over the Imperator and the plan for battle. He would rather the warriors of the Hesperian League work with me than with Hadrianus or Decinius Sabinus, let alone Agrippa.”

  Enopay had also welcomed the news. Kimimela had been a harder sell but had come around once Sintikala pointed out that since Marcellinus had to be a Roman, he would be much safer when surrounded by a mass of other Romans who were pledged to protect him.

  It had, of course, been Sintikala’s reaction that Marcellinus had been most concerned about. In an ideal world he would not have scheduled his first night of passion with Sintikala and his reappointment to a Roman generalship within the same few short hours. But Sintikala had taken the development with the same calm acceptance as Tahtay, and now it was Marcellinus who had whiplash.

  Taianita seemed to come to a decision. “Good. Then let me help you, Gaius.”

  “Me? How?”

  “Work with you. With the legion. Let me serve you, as your adj…?”

  “Adjutant.”

/>   “I can translate. Work with Roma and Cahokia. Fight the Khan. And Son of the Sun, if he ever shows his bastard face again. I will be there, at the front of the battle, with you.”

  Marcellinus could only imagine the reaction of his tribunes, let alone Appius Gallus, if he appointed an attractive Cahokian woman to his staff as well as a child. For earlier that day he had solicited Enopay to assist him with record keeping and logistics for the Sixth Ferrata, and the boy had accepted with alacrity. Sometimes Marcellinus suspected that Enopay might end up the most Roman of all of them.

  He stalled. “Let me think about it. Consider how best it might be done.”

  Taianita saw through him right away. “No, then.”

  “It would be difficult,” he admitted.

  “Difficult?” She leaned forward, pugnacious now. “I want to help Cahokia. I want to help Roma. Against the Mongols. Do you not hear me?”

  Sintikala was nodding slowly. Marcellinus tried not to look exasperated. “I hear you, Taianita, but—”

  “I want to fight Mongols. What they did to Yupkoyvi…What happened to Kanuna, to Mikasi. What happened to Pezi. And what almost happened to us.” Fierceness burned in Taianita’s eyes. “Gaius, we must drive them from the land. I will do anything, everything to destroy them. As much as I can. If I do not, then I may as well have died a beaten word slave in Shappa Ta’atan—”

  “Fly Wakinyan,” Sintikala said suddenly.

  Taianita turned to look at her. “What?”

  “You are strong, smart, agile. Willing to learn. And light. Chenoa would welcome you.”

  Taianita looked at Sintikala and Marcellinus and then up into the sky. It was clear that the idea had never occurred to her, and she was not sure what to make of it. “Thunderbirds? Not Hawks, with you?”

  “Wakinyan first. You cannot learn to be a Catanwakuwa pilot by the spring, when the war will come. Hawk flight is not learned so quickly, and you are starting older than most. If…if we are all here two years from now and you have done well in the Thunderbird clan, then you and I will talk of Catanwakuwa again. For now, Wakinyan. If you learn fast and show promise, perhaps Eagles. Yes?”

  Taianita looked thoughtful. “Perhaps I do not have the courage.”

  “You do not lack courage.” Sintikala jerked her thumb at Marcellinus. “And if he can do it, you certainly can.”

  “Thanks,” Marcellinus said.

  Taianita looked again into the empty sky, and then down at the Great Plaza as if imagining how it might look from many times as high. She shivered suddenly. “Thank you. Let me think. And you, Gaius, you will think too about other ways I can help? I can speak languages. Work hard. You know this.”

  “I will. And I do.”

  She stood, still looking almost suspiciously up into the sky. Once she was gone, Marcellinus said, “Phew. Thank you for that.”

  “For what? Taianita would be good under a Wakinyan. And perhaps she could burn hundreds of Mongol warriors all at once, and it would make her feel better.”

  Even now, Sintikala’s matter-of-factness about human devastation sometimes chilled him. “Maybe so.”

  On the Mound of the Sun, Tahtay, Kimimela, and Enopay had finished their mock battles and were sitting in a close circle, talking intently. “And what are those three plotting now?”

  “If I knew, would I tell you?”

  “Weren’t there supposed to be no secrets between us anymore?” he demanded.

  Sintikala shrugged and grinned. Her hand crept into his again. “Come into the Longhouse of the Wings with me, then, and I will show you some more secrets.”

  He blinked. “Must I?”

  Sintikala turned and looked into his eyes.

  “Oh, yes,” Marcellinus said. “I must.”

  Two Wakinyan thundered side by side over the massed ranks of the Seventh, Eighth, and Ninth Cohorts at a height of some four hundred feet. They discharged nothing—no water or mud, let alone Hesperian liquid flame—but Aelfric’s cavalry of the Seventh was on the verge of breaking, and the foot soldiers of the Ninth under Vibius Caecina had broken formation already, milling around hopelessly while their centurions bellowed at them, on the verge of apoplexy.

  Marcellinus was seriously considering taking the Ninth Cohort away from the tribune Vibius Caecina and reassigning it to Manius Ifer. He had no doubt of Ifer’s ability to manage the Ninth and Tenth at the same time. He had trouble imagining that Caecina would ever be able to manage just the Eighth without tripping over his own feet. However, he could not afford to make enemies in his new legion just yet and did not wish to be thought to be acting precipitously. And though inexperienced, Caecina was personally popular with his men.

  Marcellinus and the Sixth Ferrata were forty miles to the west of Cahokia. Featureless prairie extended to the horizon. Although the land around them was quite flat, Marcellinus was suffering under the odd optical illusion that they were executing their maneuvers at the base of a huge bowl-like indentation. He had already spent far too much time in terrain like this and would obviously be spending many more weeks in the great Hesperian Plains before this was all over.

  It was barely a week since the Legio VI Ferrata had finished constructing its fortress. Its streets still smelled almost unbearably of freshly cut wood, and the mud was not yet dry on the wattle and daub. The fortress included a rather extensive hospital block in addition to the regular barracks units, and a full third of the legion had stayed behind to rest up.

  It was premature for the Sixth Legion to go into an exercise this complex alongside allies they were unfamiliar with, but as far as Marcellinus was concerned, that was the point. It was now late in the Falling Leaf Moon. Autumn was well advanced, and the rains and snows of winter could start at any time. Before that happened, Marcellinus needed to know what he was dealing with.

  And put simply, what he was dealing with was an army that had been serving as a navy for so long that they had almost forgotten how to handle themselves on land, alongside three double-sized cohorts of auxiliaries, many of whom had rarely adopted Roman formations before.

  Under the seasoned Akecheta, the First Cahokian Cohort was larger than before but as reliable as ever. The troops of the Second Cahokian, under Mahkah, were a mile away, still learning how to march in step and advance and retreat as a unit. Hanska’s Third Cahokian Cohort had unexpectedly mastered these skills rather quickly, perhaps because Hanska’s scorn when they failed was terrifying. The Third Cahokian had thus quickly graduated to mock fighting alongside Aelfric’s Roman Sixth and Seventh Cohorts, Romans and Hesperians fighting side by side, with the First and Third Cohorts facing them across the plains.

  Marcellinus’s war games would not pit Roman cohorts against Hesperian. He needed one army, not two. Auxiliaries and legionaries were different, certainly, but they had to learn to fight together and protect one another. Any lingering animosities would have no place on the battlefield when they went to confront the Mongols. The two peoples had to learn to fight as one, and quickly.

  At least, much more quickly than they were doing now. Marcellinus shook his head and sought out his First Centurion.

  “Well, Appius Gallus. It appears that we have a lot of work to do. Shall we get to it?”

  Gallus’s face was guarded. “I suppose so.”

  Marcellinus eyed him coolly. “I did not hear your answer, First Centurion.”

  “Yes, sir. Let’s get to it.”

  Gallus was hard-bitten, strong, and capable. He was a little older than Marcellinus’s last primus pilus, Pollius Scapax, had been, and shorter and more barrel-chested, too; if Gallus physically resembled anyone, it was Akecheta. Marcellinus studied him and even went so far as to walk around the man, examining him, as if his First Centurion were on parade.

  If nothing else, Appius Gallus’s clothing and armor were impeccable. He was turned out perfectly.

  Marcellinus arrived back in front of Gallus and was gratified to see that his primus pilus was looking disconcerted. “Are we goin
g to have a problem, Centurion, you and I?”

  “No, sir.”

  Eyeing him coldly, Marcellinus snapped out: “I did not hear your answer, Centurion.”

  “Sir! No, sir!”

  “Perhaps it has escaped your notice, but I am now your commanding officer. Who am I?”

  “My commanding officer, sir.”

  “Louder, Centurion. Who am I?”

  “Praetor Gaius Publius Marcellinus, commander of the Legio VI Ferrata, sir!”

  “That’s right. But you have a problem with that.”

  “Sir! No, sir!”

  “You believe the Imperator was wrong to give me this command, perhaps? You scorn his judgment?”

  “Sir! No, sir!”

  Marcellinus walked around him again, scrutinizing him even more carefully. Now Gallus looked truly alarmed. He stared straight forward at full attention, eyes staring unfocused into the middle distance.

  “And who are you, Centurion?”

  “First Centurion of the Sixth Ferrata, sir!”

  “Your name?”

  “Primus Pilus Appius Gallus, sir!”

  “And is the Sixth a disgrace to Roma?”

  “No, sir! No, sir!”

  “And if they were, would that reflect upon you?”

  A momentary silence. Gallus opened his mouth, obviously unclear how to respond.

  “I still can’t hear you, Centurion. Do you have a tongue?”

  “Sir, yes, sir!”

  “Do you have a brain?”

  “Sir, yes, sir!”

  “If the Legio VI Ferrata is a disgrace, does that reflect poorly upon you?”

  “It does, sir!”

  “Then we must ensure it is not a disgrace. We must work together to make it the best legion in Nova Hesperia. And from what I see today, this will be a hard uphill slog.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “That was not a question, Centurion.”

  Gallus caught himself on the verge of responding. He stayed mute.

  Marcellinus nodded. “And so, if you have any personal issue with me, Centurion, you must make it known now. As Praetor, I command the First Cohort of the Sixth Ferrata in battle. Unless I am called away elsewhere, in which case you command the First. Which means we must trust each other. Am I correct?”