Eagle and Empire

by Alan Smale

  And as his friendship with Aelfric appeared strained and Isleifur Bjarnason was off drinking illicit Hesperian beer with the other Norse scouts—a fact Marcellinus decided not to notice—that left him alone again.

  The day on the battlefield had been hot and muggy, and if anything it was even hotter now. Marcellinus decided that perhaps he could be forgiven for going back to his tent to lie down.

  —

  They expected to fight the Mongols again the very next day. But it was not to be. That night they experienced at first hand the volatility of weather conditions on the Great Plains of Nova Hesperia.

  Although they had paid it little attention in the thick of battle, the heat and humidity had been building through the afternoon. The light breeze of the morning and noontime had dropped completely by midafternoon, and that had made their trek home a chore. The evening was sweltering and unpleasant, broken at midnight by an intense thunderstorm that for a few nightmare moments convinced half of Forward Camp that they were again under attack from Mongol black powder bombs. After what seemed like an hour of almost continuous lightning the storm settled down into a steady downpour that lasted most of the night.

  The next day dawned clear and much cooler with a fresh blue sky overhead, but the ground underfoot was a morass. They would not fight today, and probably not the next day or even the day after that.

  The rain had damped down the dust in the air and presumably helped wash the blood into the ground, but those were its only virtues. The tents of the men and the heavy canvas tarpaulins that had provided cover for the horses were soaked through where they had not blown away during the night. Some of the fences around the camp had subsided. One of the Wakinyan towers had been struck by lightning, sending a tremor of superstitious fear through some of the Hesperians, though not those of the Thunderbird and Hawk clans, who were more pragmatic about weather than their earthbound fellows.

  The aggressive energy the men had built up the previous day suddenly found itself with no outlet. The atmosphere in the camp quickly turned dark and bloody. By noon, Forward Camp was simmering like a pressure cooker. Fights broke out. A squabble between some Onondaga and Wolf Warriors turned into a vicious running battle. To avoid inflaming the situation any further Marcellinus ordered his legionaries of the Sixth out of the way; Tahtay, Wahchintonka, and the Tadodaho waded in with the First and Third Cahokian Cohorts and some handpicked Oneida to break it up, but by the time it was over three hundred warriors were dead.

  As the other two Praetors largely washed their hands of what happened outside the central castra area where their own men were billeted, this naturally became Marcellinus’s problem. Enopay might have approved of his solution. In principle such battles between allies within camp were punishable with death, but at the moment good warriors were at a premium. Instead, Marcellinus chose to seize the opportunity to help fix a persistent problem. The ringleaders and their accomplices literally got to shovel shit for the rest of the week.

  “Seems the Mongols have found an easy way to defeat us,” Isleifur Bjarnason said gloomily. “Just stick us in a swamp.”

  Marcellinus looked around him for eavesdroppers. The Viking was not the most tactful man in the camp. “The Mongols are wading in the same swamp.”

  “D’you think they’re doing us the favor of killing one another as well?”

  “Without doubt,” Marcellinus said. “We’ll march over tomorrow and pick up a few keepsakes off their corpses, then it’s off home to Cahokia.”

  “Tomorrow?” Bjarnason poked the toe of his boot into the mud. “Right.”

  Ironically, that day had seen no casualties in the field. At dawn Hadrianus had sent out his scouts and skirmishers, but few got their horses any faster than a walk, and most of the scouts dismounted and walked beside their mounts to reduce the chances of injury. They met parties of enemy skirmishers patrolling the same ground, but under such tricky conditions not even the Mongols wanted to fight. There was some posturing, some incomprehensible verbal mockery combined with insulting gestures, but nowhere did the two sides come to blows.

  “At least the rain put paid to the infernal dust around here.”

  “Well, hooray,” Bjarnason said. “No dust.”

  Marcellinus studied his scout for a moment.

  “Uh, sorry, sir.”

  “No, I…” Marcellinus took a deep breath and looked around him. “I don’t suppose you’d have any of that beer left and be willing to part with a cup or two?”

  Bjarnason grinned. “Aelfric is safeguarding it. I mean…aye, I do believe some might be found.”

  Marcellinus looked at the skies. It was entirely possible that it might rain again this evening. “Then please lead on.”

  Isleifur’s eyes twinkled. “That’s an order, sir, is it?”

  If Marcellinus had to sit through one more stilted dinner in Hadrianus’s Praetorium tent, he might start picking fights himself. “Yes, Norseman. It is.”

  “And you’ll tell the Imperator…?”

  “That I’m keeping the peace. And restoring morale. My own.”

  “And mine,” Isleifur said. “Well, then. Off we go.”

  The delay was not all bad. The hiatus gave the wounded time to heal. Marcellinus led small groups of his infantry on limited but useful exercises. He tried to apologize to Tahtay, who curtly pushed the matter aside and refused to discuss it. Either the war chief was embarrassed at his failure of nerve or Kimimela and Enopay had helped smooth things over behind the scenes. They had not returned to their former friendship, though. Tahtay continued to be brusque with him, and their conversations did not stray beyond logistical issues.

  While waiting for the mud to dry, both sides continued to send out patrols and skirmishing forces to guard against the twin possibilities of deception and surprise. Both kept the size of those patrols down to a few troopers. The opposing patrols largely passed one another in silence and did not engage. The Cahokian Hawks were permitted to approach almost to the edge of the Mongol camp before being chased away by Firebirds, and the Romans allowed the Mongol aerial craft almost the same latitude. There must be order in war, there must be scouting and careful surveillance, and the leaders of both sides understood that.

  Chinggis Khan had a reputation for deception, cunning ambushes, and surprise assaults, but even with meticulous patrolling the Romans detected none. The continuing concern, of course, was that the Mongols would send a covert force to attack them from the rear. But with Sintikala’s Hawks constantly in the air and additional surveillance from Eagles and Sky Lanterns, the chances of such a surprise succeeding were greatly reduced.

  Instead, the Mongols devoted their energies to merging their camps. Both aerial and ground reconnaissance revealed that mingghans from Chagatai’s camp were being steadily transferred to swell the ranks at Chinggis’s. By nightfall on the third day Chagatai’s campsite was abandoned, leaving only a large discolored scar on the prairie.

  That night the Mongols held quite the celebration in their newly merged camp. The roar was audible at Forward Camp. Roma’s rank and file had come to war without wine, but their enemies had clearly made the time to distill airag. From the din and the drumming, it appeared that the Mongols were quite happy with how their war against Roma was proceeding.

  The Horde did not, however, let down its guard. Sintikala reported that a fourth of the Khan’s army kept a steady and presumably sober guard, day and night. Just like the Romans, the Mongols were taking all due care to avoid surprise attacks.

  —

  “And so, gentlemen, we face battle again on the morrow. Your thoughts?”

  They lay on couches in the Imperator’s Praetorium tent, each propped up on his elbow in the Roman style: Hadrianus, who had just spoken, still nibbling on a leg of roasted duck; Decinius Sabinus, who lay as stiff as if he were made of wood but who had put away much more food and drink than Marcellinus might have expected; Lucius Agrippa, lolling more like an aesthete than a soldier in his tunic and sagum cloak;
and finally Marcellinus and Tahtay, both visibly awkward and uncomfortable. Tahtay wore a Cahokian tunic but Roman military sandals, which fit his feet better and allowed him to run a great deal faster. His clothes and long hair emphasized his difference from the men around him.

  “Kill them all,” Agrippa said. “Let them come. Let them be bombed by liquid fire. Once we can persuade the Cahokians to risk their precious Thunderbirds, that is.”

  Decinius Sabinus reached for the bowl of askutasquash, then changed his mind and plucked out another of what might have been honeyed stuffed dormice if they had been in Roma but here was presumably some kind of vole. Tahtay had reacted with subdued horror on first seeing the dish, and Marcellinus was happy to follow the war chief’s lead and stick to more recognizable fare, but Sabinus seemed quite the connoisseur of the small rodents. It had to be said that the Imperator’s chefs were doing their best with the limited resources available.

  As Sabinus was obviously avoiding the question, Marcellinus grasped the nettle. “I for one do not think we should merely let them come.”

  Agrippa shook his head. Admonished by Hadrianus on one too many occasions for picking fights with Marcellinus over military topics, he had become more circumspect with his disdain.

  His mouth full, Hadrianus waved his beaker of wine at Marcellinus to continue.

  Marcellinus bowed his head respectfully. “Many years ago the Iroqua defeated Cahokia in battle. They did so by being more energetic, inventive, and innovative than we anticipated.”

  Tahtay eyed him, stony-faced. Marcellinus glanced back at him in mute apology. “Here again we face a resourceful enemy. One who adjusts his tactics according to the needs of the day. An enemy that does not fear to try new things.”

  Marcellinus took a gulp of his water. “And so, if the Mongols are innovative, we must be more so. If they are cunning, we must outwit them. If the Mongols throw caution to the winds, then Roma must already be…sailing on those winds.”

  “A poet as well as a sage,” said Agrippa.

  Marcellinus grinned. “One tries.” He turned serious again. “Caesar, we have already taken more losses on the battlefield than I am comfortable with. I am sure that you, too, are disconcerted by them.”

  Hadrianus inclined his head. “I regret the loss of every legionary under my command.”

  “Just so, just so.” Marcellinus paused. He was picking up the Imperator’s verbal tics. He should stop that lest he be accused of mockery. “Anyway. We have suffered losses because we expected the Khan that we met on the plains of Asia a decade ago. This is not that Khan. This is a Khan who has learned much from the Jin in the meantime and even more from the Tlingit and Haida of the northwest with their Fishing Eagle craft that he has turned into Firebirds. As a result he has flying machines, black powder bombs, fire lances, siege engines, rockets. He may have even more tricks up his sleeve. If you remain the same army he met in Asia, you risk even greater losses.”

  “ ‘We,’ ” Lucius Agrippa said pointedly.

  Marcellinus had switched from “we” to “you” in midstream. He quickly conceded the point. “We, indeed.”

  “We came to Cahokia for Greek fire,” the Imperator objected. “And for flight. And now we have them.”

  “And we will use those things, but the Mongol Khan will expect them. We must work harder to outsmart him. Much harder.”

  “And so you suggest what, exactly?” Agrippa demanded.

  Marcellinus smiled, refusing to be rattled. “Then you agree that the Mongol Khan has learned from the best? And that we must do the same?”

  He told them what he had in mind. Tahtay’s eyes widened. Marcellinus’s fellow Praetors frowned and bombarded him with questions and objections. Unable to lie almost supine under such interrogation, Marcellinus stood to answer them.

  Hadrianus remained aloof from the discussion. He appeared lost in thought, ignoring the debate, but Marcellinus knew he was listening to every word.

  Eventually Sabinus and Agrippa ran out of questions. Tahtay now sat upright with his knees up to his chest, a position that made him look less like an overburdened war chief and more like the spirited youth he used to be. His perpetual frown was gone, and his visage was clearer than it had been for many days.

  Sabinus looked at him dourly. “One of us, at least, finds virtue in your plan.”

  “Of course,” Tahtay said.

  “Then you’re as mad as he is.”

  “That’s a matter of degree, I think.” Marcellinus eased himself down.

  “We cannot possibly place the Imperator at such risk,” Sabinus said.

  Hadrianus grunted and spoke for the first time in a while. “I think the Imperator might be the person best placed to make that call.”

  Sabinus shook his head, but when Hadrianus skewered him with a look, he said, “Yes, Caesar.”

  “Lucius Agrippa,” the Imperator said, “in your early acquaintance with Gaius Marcellinus, you accused him of having few strategic skills.”

  Marcellinus remembered the moment vividly. He pursed his lips and did his best to mimic Agrippa’s sneering tone that day. “ ‘Strong on tactics. Weak on strategy. Not a general of long-term vision.’ Do you still hold this view?”

  “I do,” Agrippa said. “Although we might quibble about where strategy leaves off and tactics begin.”

  “A poet to the left of me, a philosopher to the right.” Hadrianus grinned. “We will proceed as Gaius suggests, with a few significant changes.”

  Agrippa and Sabinus both swiveled to stare at him. “Just like that?”

  “Yes, just like that.” Hadrianus continued to speak, laying out his version of Marcellinus’s original ideas.

  Marcellinus found himself nodding almost continuously. The Imperator had a keen tactical brain himself, and he knew his legions and alae well. “Yes, Caesar. Much better, your view of things.”

  “My thanks, Gaius Marcellinus,” said the ruler of the known world a little drily.

  “I still protest,” Sabinus said. “And I must have that known.”

  As well he might. On many previous occasions Marcellinus had aligned himself with Sabinus, and the two men had stood together. Today they did not, and the plan proposed by Marcellinus and his Imperator put the cream of Sabinus’s forces at risk.

  “So noted, Decinius Sabinus, but by all means, try to look a little cheerful.”

  “It is a plan with many merits,” said Agrippa, who had visibly begun warming to the ideas once they started to come out of his Imperator’s mouth rather than Marcellinus’s.

  Hadrianus drained his beaker and got to his feet. A new restless light shone in his eyes. At long last he appeared to be enjoying himself. “Well, well. You may be earning your keep at last, Gaius Marcellinus. Indeed, I am fast approaching the point where I will no longer regret staying your execution.”

  Marcellinus paused. Even now, his Imperator’s sense of humor could be alarming. “Thank you, Caesar.”

  “Perhaps you should wait to see how this turns out before reaching such a bold conclusion,” Sabinus said sourly.

  Hadrianus raised his eyebrows and threw his cloak over his shoulders. “So cautious all of a sudden, gentlemen. It does not suit you.”

  The meeting broke up, and the Praetors and Tahtay dispersed to brief their various tribunes, adjutants, elders, and lieutenants. Marcellinus found himself walking along the Cardo with Sabinus, who glanced back and then said: “One thing we can be sure of. One way or the other, at least this accursed war will be quickly over.”

  “Strength, Decinius Sabinus,” Marcellinus said.

  Sabinus did not smile. “The Imperator has an impetuous streak. So does Agrippa. You play to them both.”

  “That does not make the plan a poor one.”

  “It places the Imperator at risk.”

  “The men need to know that Hadrianus is with them, taking the same risks, advancing as far from safety as they do. When he commits himself to the endeavor, so will they. And he will
, of course, be surrounded by thousands of legionaries. He would be at worse risk here in camp if the Mongols were to flank us.”

  “But in addition, the plan also throws to the winds many of our key advantages.”

  “And in the process gains us other advantages that are even more critical. Including that of surprise.”

  “We shall see, sir.” Sabinus gave him a curt nod as they parted company. “Indeed, we shall see.”

  Marcellinus continued on his way toward the Southgate out of the inner castra, still mulling things over. For all his confidence in the war council, there was still much to coordinate and even more that could go wrong.

  And if Sabinus and Agrippa were so dubious about the plan, Marcellinus could hardly wait to hear how Sintikala, Chenoa, and Pahin would receive it. He might be in for a long night.

  —

  The armies of Roma and Cahokia took the field of battle very early the next morning. Rather than funnel out through the Westgate of Forward Camp as they had done before, they ripped apart the castra walls and dragged aside the fence around the wider encampment before dawn, then marched out across the earthworks and through the ditch. A full-strength legion marching six abreast created a column well over a mile long, and channeling men into such a column required laborious logistic control by the tribunes and centurions. Today they had no time for that.

  The legions were led from the camp by Imperator Hadrianus III himself, riding his splendid Nisaean horse and surrounded by gleaming Praetorian Guards. Hadrianus would not ride into combat at their head, of course—it had been more than a thousand years since a Roman Imperator had put himself in extremis like that—but it was a fine thing for his men to see him taking the lead. The cheers reverberated through the camp, and Marcellinus hoped they would be heard far across the plains.