Eagle and Empire

by Alan Smale

  “Correct, sir!”

  “If you have a problem, you must speak it aloud, and if not, you must shut up and do your job. Well?”

  Gallus frowned and breathed deeply. “Permission to speak freely, sir?”

  Marcellinus kept him waiting. Finally, he said: “Permission granted. But tread carefully, Appius Gallus. Especially if you intend to slander the good name of the 33rd Legion.”

  “Ain’t your loss of the 33rd that concerns me. Having seen ’em, I don’t doubt the Cahokians were a formidable foe. Relieved we didn’t have to fight ’em by the Oyo last year, truth be told. We’d have thrashed ’em right enough, but we’d have lost men. It would have weakened us for the fray with Chinggis.”

  “Right,” Marcellinus said.

  “Those Thunderbirds? War from the air, out of the blue with no time to prepare for it, after marching halfway across Nova Hesperia? I’m not surprised the 33rd came off worse, and that’s no disrespect.”

  Gallus surveyed him. “We heard tell of you in Asia, long back. I was serving with the Eighteenth Legion back then, battling the Sindhs in hill country for all we was worth. At one point we was in castra just twenty miles away from your boys. And there’s talk of all the Praetors in the legions, you know. Who’s solid in battle. Who’s an ass who gets his men killed. Fewer of those nowadays, luckily.”

  Marcellinus nodded and waited. This was a longer response than he had expected of Gallus, but it behooved him to let the man speak.

  “You had a reputation, sir. A good one. Not one of your flashy hotshots—no Lucius Agrippa, say—and all the better for that. Solid commander. Puts his men and his duty first. And that’s why the Ironclads have taken to you, sir, despite the loss of the 33rd and the Damnatio that Caesar decreed.” Gallus paused. “With all due respect to the Imperator, sir, that Damnatio wasn’t popular. No soldier wants to think he could be eternally damned just for being on the wrong battlefield.”

  “Quite.”

  “The men feel you’ve been up against it good and proper ever since you arrived here. And to those who haven’t, I’ve gone out of my way to make it plain. So my feelings are my own and not shared with the men. In front of the men I’ll support you all the way. No question.”

  “Then what, Appius Gallus?”

  Gallus looked momentarily exasperated. “It’s the going native, sir. Living with the redskins and all. Fighting their battles for ’em, and with Roman swords, Roman tactics.” The centurion shook his head. “That doesn’t sit right with me. Have me flogged for saying so if you must. But it just doesn’t.”

  Marcellinus nodded. “Come the day you find yourself in such a position, Appius Gallus, by all means make your own decisions about what’s best for Roma, yourself, and the people around you. I made mine. I’ll live with them.”

  “Yes, sir. But there is also the…fraternization. Sir.”

  “Ah,” said Marcellinus. “I am, of course, the first Roman soldier ever to take a local wife?”

  A local wife. Even as he spoke, he was grateful Sintikala was not present to hear their rocky and complex relationship reduced to such an unfortunate phrase. Marcellinus was not sure he yet understood the full depth of what Sintikala meant to him, but he was certain that “wife” did not cover it.

  “Sir, no, sir.”

  “Yes, I fraternize with…redskins, as you call them, Centurion,” Marcellinus said slowly and deliberately. “And I will not pretend to you that I do it solely for Roma’s benefit. I do it for my own interests. And, I like to think, in Cahokia’s interests, too.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But our war is not with the Cahokians. It’s with the Mongol Khan, and I am dedicated to his destruction. I will do everything in my power to eradicate the Mongol threat. Whatever must be done, I will do. Do I make myself clear?”

  “You do indeed, sir.” Appius Gallus bowed his head and stepped back.

  “You are not yet dismissed,” Marcellinus said.

  “Sir, no, sir.” Gallus stood to attention again. His expression was stalwart, but the lines by his eyes made it clear he would rather be fighting Mongols in a muddy ditch than standing where he stood right now.

  Marcellinus paced back and forth, choosing his words with care. “First Centurion, I thank you for your candor. You’ll think of me what you will, and I cannot alter that. But you and I have a legion to command and a war to win. Do we not?”

  Gallus nodded. “We do, sir.”

  Marcellinus briefly remembered the last days of the 33rd. He did not think Gallus was the mutinying type, but the point had to be made. “Now it is my turn to be candid. I have spent long enough looking back over my shoulder. When we go to war with the Mongol Khan, I need to know that the Sixth is behind me to the last man. That I have their trust and that they can trust me. To the last man. You understand?”

  “Sir, yes, sir.”

  “You will support me in the name of the Imperium and of the Imperator. You may not like me, but you will support me. We will not tolerate gossip in the camp. We will maintain military discipline.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Calidius Verus…” Marcellinus considered briefly if this was the wise course but then plowed ahead. “I regret speaking ill of the dead, but Verus ran a slack ship. Right now the Third Parthian and 27th Augustan could run rings around the Sixth Ferrata. This is not acceptable. Verus let matters slide. I shall not. The Legio VI Ferrata is more than twelve hundred years old. It has a fine name and a noble reputation. And so, by the time the Ironclads take the field against the Mongol Khan, we will be second to none. Am I understood?”

  By then Appius Gallus was regarding him with frank astonishment. “Yes, sir. You are very much understood, sir.”

  Marcellinus stepped forward, holding Gallus’s gaze. “We are clear, then, Appius Gallus?”

  “Perfectly clear, sir.”

  Marcellinus nodded curtly. “Very well, Centurion. Dismissed.”

  As the unfortunate Gallus marched away, Marcellinus could have sworn the centurion’s neck was glowing bright red in shame and embarrassment.

  Well, so much for that. Next on Marcellinus’s list: his first meeting with his adjutants.

  —

  Marcellinus’s choice of adjutants had turned out to be relatively straightforward. He needed six, and so he chose three Romans and three Cahokians.

  Enopay had been Marcellinus’s obvious first choice, as the only person who was equally fluent in Latin and Cahokian, a skilled record keeper, and already conversant with Roman military terminology. His second and third choices had turned out to be equally simple. Takoda and Napayshni could also read and write, having been students in Marcellinus’s original finger-talk classes in the winter of his first arrival in Cahokia. Napayshni had sustained a severe thigh wound in their desperate battle with the Panther clan on the banks of the Mizipi five years before. He walked quickly enough, but with a pronounced limp, and he would never run again and sometimes had difficulties with his balance. Marcellinus was keen to let the serious young brave play a valuable role rather than having him languish in shame in Cahokia, and Napayshni had jumped at the opportunity.

  As for Takoda, he had long ago recovered from the injuries he had sustained keeping Marcellinus alive in the battle for Cahokia against the Iroqua, but Marcellinus felt the young warrior and his family had suffered enough on his account. Takoda was Nahimana’s son, Kangee’s husband, and a father to three strapping boys, and although to this day Kangee was no friend to Marcellinus, he felt an obligation to keep the brave out of harm’s way. Takoda was courageous enough in battle but had clearly welcomed the appointment.

  His Roman adjutants had been assigned by Aurelius Dizala; the terrible trio of Aulus, Furnius, and Sollonius were experienced, smart, and more or less interchangeable. They had already gained a rudimentary grasp of Cahokian and Cherokee, and Marcellinus was happy to see that they immediately treated their Cahokian colleagues as equals, even the ones who looked young enough to be their sons.r />
  In addition, Furnius was Verus’s former adjutant, the man who had almost died belowdecks fetching wine and had been rescued by Marcellinus and Enopay. He had not forgotten it and in all likelihood would throw himself between Marcellinus and danger should the moment call for it.

  One thing all six had in common was the tendency to coddle Marcellinus like hens, a tendency he often cheerfully told them he would need to beat out of them by the time they went into battle.

  —

  “Wake up,” Kimimela said. “Father? Now.”

  He came awake all at once and looked around, confused. Beside him in the bed Sintikala stirred and squinted up at her daughter. “Everyone is all right?”

  “Yes, but you will want to see this with your own eyes.”

  Moments later they were out of the hut and running together in the early-morning light: Kimimela, Marcellinus, Sintikala. A two-horse cart awaited them at the foot of the Mound of the Hawk, carrying Sextus Bassus, Taianita, and two of Marcellinus’s adjutants, Enopay and Aulus.

  “Bassus.” Marcellinus hadn’t seen the decurion for weeks. “You are well?”

  “Well enough,” Sextus Bassus said. “I may never breathe as deeply as once I did, but at least I do still breathe. And that’s something.”

  “It’s everything.” Marcellinus looked at Taianita. Hugging herself against the chill in the air, she was smiling and excited. He had rarely seen such a gleam in her eyes. “What is happening?”

  “Wait,” she said.

  “None of you are going to tell me?”

  They climbed aboard. Bassus flicked the reins, and the cart set off, rumbling and bumping past the Great Mound. As they rode into the West Plaza, a woman turned to face them. It was the Chitimachan.

  With her were several dozen warriors wearing feathers of scarlet and green. Beyond them a Macaw rested on the ground, its color almost blinding in the early sun.

  “Holy gods,” Marcellinus said.

  Sextus Bassus nodded in satisfaction. “It appears our trip to the Hand bore fruit after all. We just did not know it until today.”

  Marcellinus eyed him, still bemused. Bassus added. “At a high cost, it is true.”

  “The highest…But these were certainly the people we were looking for.” The warriors of the Hand looked strong, hard-bitten, and very serious. “Are there more?”

  “Many,” said the Chitimachan. “Hundreds. Perhaps even a thousand warriors and twenty or thirty Macaw pilots. They await on the west bank. The warriors you see are their envoys, here to ensure that they will be welcomed by the Kachada and his silver men. And as well received by their many-brothers, of course, since there has been bad blood between the mound builders and the Hand in the past.”

  “Well received?” Marcellinus felt almost dazed. “Indeed they are, a thousand times so. Perhaps you would do me the honor of introducing us.”

  —

  “We would never have found them,” Marcellinus said. “Not in a hundred years of looking. And, once found, we might never have persuaded them to join us.”

  “But Jebei Noyon did your job for you,” Tahtay said, and even at the sound of the name Taianita shuddered.

  “Unfortunately, yes.”

  They stood on the Mound of the Sun, watching half a dozen Macaw Warriors jumping from the top of the Master Mound with Sintikala, Demothi, and others of the Hawk clan. Next to the bright red feathers that adorned the Macaws, the brown, green, and yellow wings of Cahokia’s Catanwakuwa looked unusually drab. Down in the Great Plaza scores of other warriors of the Hand mingled with the Wolf Warriors of Wahchintonka, doing their best to communicate with hand-talk and gesture. Some were even sparring already, joking with one another.

  Marcellinus continued. “The Mongols destroyed their ceremonial center. The most sacred place in their landscape. Massacred their people. We suspected all along that the true strength of the People of the Hand lay hidden in the mountains, in their cliff houses and caves and other places they could fortify.

  “Once they stopped receiving news and trade from Yupkoyvi, they went to investigate. Some Yupkoyvi who lived across the canyon from the Great House survived, and of course the sentries on top of the sentinel rock at the end of the canyon, but those who saw the devastation best were the Macaw Warriors on the cliff above. They told their brothers and sisters of the mountains the story of the Mongols’ terrible attack on Yupkoyvi. And now the People of the Hand want their revenge on the Mongols and will stand with us against them.”

  “And so our Hesperian League grows stronger,” Tahtay said.

  “Yet still not as strong as Roma,” Enopay added, which earned him a sharp look from the war chief.

  “There is more,” Marcellinus said, more to distract them than because it really mattered. “More even than the Mongols destroying their sacred center. For the People of the Hand know that the Shappa Ta’atani have joined with the Mongols against us once again, and that has only increased their resolve to join us. Many among their warriors have faced the Shappa Ta’atani before in battle and thirst to take their revenge.”

  Tahtay shook his head. “Why? Their lands are so far apart.”

  “I have no idea.” Marcellinus had not understood the feud between the Shappa Ta’atani and the People of the Hand when Son of the Sun had first told him of it, and he knew no more now. From Marcellinus’s own experiences of the Mourning War between Cahokia and the Haudenosaunee, he knew how hard it was to learn the roots of any generational blood feud. The origins of this one were not his concern.

  Kimimela stirred. “In fact, Shappa Ta’atan and the mountain strongholds of the People of the Hand are not much farther apart than Cahokia and the Great Lakes of the Haudenosaunee.”

  They all considered that for a moment. Eventually Tahtay shook his head. “Really?”

  Kimimela sighed. Enopay nodded. “I am the one with the numbers, and Kimimela is the one with the map, and both of us have seen the numbers and maps of the Roman scouts that Hadrianus holds.”

  “So yes,” Kimimela said. “Really.”

  “I wish their people had not needed to die so terribly in order to make them come here,” Taianita said. “Their sacred center, the core of everything that was special to them, gone. Will we, too…?”

  Marcellinus put his hand on her shoulder, afraid she was going to ask that most terrible of questions: Will we become like them? Could the city of Cahokia, the center of the mound-builder culture, be destroyed in this war? And that was a question that Marcellinus was not willing to hear spoken aloud.

  “We will defeat the Mongols,” he said. “This is a great day. Tahtay, Taianita? Less of the long faces. More of the hope. Come down and meet our new friends. With a smile.”

  The Second Cahokian galloped across the grass with Mahkah out in front and Gaius Marcellinus trying to stay alongside them without risking serious physical injury. He was sitting forward in the saddle as far as he dared, leaning into the movement, but such a gallop would always feel precarious to him, especially with snow still on the ground.

  Then the Wakinyan roared over them. His horse’s head jerked back, eyes wide, and for a terrifying moment Marcellinus thought his mount might lose its mind and bolt.

  Now Hanska and the Third galloped in, converging from the right to form a single column. As the lines came together, Hanska kicked her horse forward, and she, too, began to pull away from him.

  At this speed it was all Marcellinus could do to stay on his horse. It was galling to have to admit that Mahkah and Hanska were already better riders than he was.

  Ahead, Mahkah’s arm came up, and the two companies slowed to a canter and then a trot. As best he could, Marcellinus tried to line himself up with the Cahokian warriors on either side of him to form an organized rank.

  He was panting almost as much as his horse. Shit.

  Another Wakinyan came over and released Cahokian liquid flame in a long thin stream two hundred feet in front of them.

  In principle, the horses could tak
e this in stride. The mounted companies had spent weeks trying to accustom them to incendiaries. If the cavalry all went to hell at the first whiff of black powder and the first spark of flame, the war was already lost.

  In practice, the horses still spooked badly. Troopers split off to the right and left. Some horses bolted altogether, and others stopped dead. Horses bumped into other horses. To Marcellinus’s relief his own steed took the flame rather calmly, perhaps because this time its view was proscribed by its blinders and by the two horses in front.

  “Gods,” Marcellinus said at last to the brave riding next to him when they got all their mounts under control and Mahkah signaled a return to the Mizipi, some four miles away. “This is…hard work.”

  The warrior might have answered, but he was too busy quivering and trying to wipe the sweat out of his eyes.

  Enopay was right after all. These animals were a menace. Time to switch to something safer.

  —

  It had been another hard winter. The Mizipi had frozen again, all the way across, and the Polovtsian auxiliaries had exercised out on its icy surface with frost nails in their horses’ shoes to prevent them from slipping. Most Roman cavalry alae would exercise carefully in snow but drew the line at ice. But the peoples of central Asia habitually treated rivers as roads in the winter months and, if anything, seemed more comfortable exercising when the temperatures were below freezing than they did in the heat and haze of the summer.

  Marcellinus was perpetually cold, but the buffalo robe he had been gifted by the Hidatsa after the hunt helped. And often he was rushing from place to place with such vigor that he generated his own warmth.

  For half of his time he was a Cahokian, living with Sintikala and Kimimela on the Mound of the Hawk Chief, working with the Hesperian craftsmen who fabricated the flying machines, talking strategy with Tahtay and Enopay, or making love with Sintikala.

  For the other half he was the Praetor of the Sixth Ironclads, sleeping in his Praetorium house at the center of a Roman fortress on the west bank of the Mizipi, his days full of exercises, supplies, issues of discipline, and a thousand other details. Marcellinus’s two lives had converged in quite an astonishing way to somehow become the best parts of both.