by Alan Smale
“Daughter,” Marcellinus said.
Chumanee raised her eyebrows. “Oh! We should try to find her. I would like to meet her.”
How would Vestilia or Julia react to this tall, slender barbarian woman married to a lowly Roman tribune, and a Briton at that? Somehow, Marcellinus had difficulty picturing such a meeting. “Only if you wish it. You will not miss Cahokia?”
Her eyes sparkled. “Always. But I will see the world!”
“Well,” Aelfric amended, “a cold and windy part of it, anyway.”
Longships and knarrs had been passing back and forth across the Mizipi all morning, between the west bank and the small gate in the Cahokian palisade on the eastern shore. The Norse vessels could carry several tons of cargo and were much less unwieldy than the quinqueremes for short journeys. Now, however, the stream of matériel seemed to be abating.
There was still a flurry of activity around the quinqueremes. The Minerva had finished loading men, and the Fides was almost done. Some of their oars were already set. Soldiers were still filing onto the Providentia, Clementia, and Annona, but it would not be long now.
“Almost time,” Marcellinus said, and turned to his tribune. “Well, good-bye, Aelfric. I’m glad you lived.”
The Briton reached out and grasped his arm, met his eye, nodded. “And I, you. You’ve made life interesting. And…I thank you, Gaius. For more than we have time to discuss.”
Marcellinus nodded, smiled, and clapped the man on the back, and Chumanee stepped forward to throw her arms around them both.
—
Just after noon, the quinqueremes of Roma put out into the Mizipi. Drums beat, martial flutes sounded a cheery tune, and strong oars pulled the warships into the current. The Imperator’s flagship, Providentia, took the lead, and the other ships fell in behind it: Minerva, Fides, Clementia, and the cargo vessel Annona. The Norse knarr, the trireme, and two of the drekars had left already to get a head start; the quinqueremes would easily catch up.
Cheering Cahokians lined the shores. Supposedly they were honoring Roma, but there was unquestionably a strong streak of simple joy at their departure.
Tahtay, Sintikala, and many of the elders stood atop the Mound of the Flowers alongside Marcellinus and Enopay. In the air above them Kimimela chased the buzzards as they spiraled in an updraft to gain height. Marcellinus almost wished he was up there, too, for the view.
“And just like that, they go.”
Marcellinus rubbed his eyes. He felt like he might never get the smoke out of them. Weeks after the last battle, he still felt exhausted and punchy. “Yes, Enopay. Just like that.”
Enopay looked wry. “It was so hard to get rid the Romans for so long. All those years we wished they would go and knew they never would. And now they are running away so quickly that there are many men I never got to bid farewell.”
The boy was in mourning, Marcellinus realized. Best not to say anything flippant. Yet it was hard: all Marcellinus felt was a light-headed relief. Though even now it was difficult not to keep checking behind him for enemies.
“And so now you are Roma’s ambassador in Cahokia. I trust that your dealings with us will be firm but fair.”
Marcellinus looked at him sideways.
“And that you will bring us aqueducts and basilicas and a forum.”
“Well, of course,” Marcellinus said. “There is nothing Cahokia needs more than a forum with marbled columns.”
“No, there isn’t.” Enopay said wistfully. “Nothing at all.”
It was the day of the Midsummer Feast in Cahokia, almost a year later. For the last two weeks Youtin had been at the Circle of the Cedars every dawn and dusk, making his observations of the sun. The old shaman now walked slowly with sticks, and it was widely accepted that his young acolyte Kiche did much of the real work, but it was Youtin who took responsibility and who made the pronouncement that morning from the top of the Great Mound. Tahtay listened carefully, showing the old man deep respect and thus helping to heal the last fracture in Cahokian society. As soon as Youtin had finished, Tahtay repeated the announcement with greater volume and followed it by asking the women to commence the preparation of food in the huge jars. Today, Cahokia would feast.
The previous weeks had seen long discussions in the smoke lodge of the elders and even more extensive debate in a full council of clan chiefs. As a result, on the evening of the Midsummer Feast, Tahtay came to the crest of the Great Mound in the full regalia of a war chief of Cahokia: the feathered cloak, the kilt, and the ear spools of the Long-Nosed God. He lacked only the chert mace that went with the title of Great Sun Man, which would not be his for a little longer.
The ceremonial clothing of a Cahokian paramount chief no longer looked outlandish to Marcellinus. On Tahtay this evening it looked just right, and well earned.
The Great Plaza was packed, and so were the streets beyond in all directions, out to the east and west and as far back as the Mound of the Women. Cahokia had never been so crowded. Tahtay made his speech not only to his own people, the residents of Cahokia and Ocatan, but also to extensive contingents from the Haudenosaunee, Blackfoot, Cherokee, Ojibwa, Huron, Powhatani, and People of the Hand. After the Midsummer Feast the sachems and headmen of the other tribes would stay another moon for a powwow, the first massed gathering of the Hesperian League in peacetime.
As Tahtay made clear during his long oration, Cahokia did not rule the other members of the League. He carefully claimed no precedence over the chiefs of the other tribes. When decisions of great import were needed, all would speak, all would listen, all would decide, and all would have to agree. The Hesperian League would largely follow the precedents set by the Haudenosaunee League.
However, Cahokia’s preeminence was clear to everyone there. It was the biggest city and close to being centrally located in the great continent of Hesperia, the Mizipi and its tributaries made it the hub of the river network that provided the major Hesperian thoroughfares, and Cahokia had the best wings and pilots. If envoys came from Roma seeking trade, it would be Cahokia’s leaders and Marcellinus whom they would negotiate with first. And so, if Cahokia was the first among equals, it was first by a considerable margin.
Sintikala stood by Tahtay’s side on the crest of the Great Mound. Their eminence and association were also clear to all. At such moments the city bowed to them. Behind Tahtay stood his wife, Taianita, and his leading advisers, Enopay and Dustu, and behind them the array of other clan chiefs and elders, with Chenoa, Pahin, Matoshka, Howahkan, Wahchintonka, and Hanska among them. There, too, stood the Tadodaho of the Haudenosaunee, a craggy elder of the Blackfoot, and the young, bronzed leader of the People of the Hand.
Marcellinus listened to the speech from the left edge of the Great Plaza. He stood next to Takoda, Nahimana, and their family, with his arms wrapped around Kimimela. The parts of the speech he could not hear, he read from the hand-talkers on the first plateau and out to the side on the Mound of the Sun, or just ignored. He still did not understand all the allusions to Red Horn and the other figures of Cahokian mythology.
He ought to do something about that. After all, his arms and back were now etched with Cahokian war tattoos. He owed his hosts the courtesy of trying to understand them.
Takoda’s hair was streaked with early gray. His oldest child, a mere babe in arms when Marcellinus had first arrived, was a stout young man of twelve winters. His second child, nine winters old, Marcellinus still only knew as Ciqala, even though that just meant “baby” in Cahokian, and Ciqala had a baby brother of his own. And at long last Kangee appeared to be mellowing toward Marcellinus. Just a little. On good days.
Nahimana was even older and more acerbic than ever, but she had recovered completely from her stroke, and if her hip was no better than it had been when Marcellinus first arrived, at least it was no worse. It seemed entirely likely that she would outlive him.
So many Cahokians had not. Friends who had died in battles or in their catastrophic aftermath, who would remai
n in his thoughts and his heart forever. The beautiful, skillful, and cheeky Hurit. His wise and clever Raven clan chief, Anapetu. Too many braves, among them the courageous and funny Mahkah, Yahto, and Mikasi. His wise old friend Kanuna. And hundreds of other men and women he had known by sight or reputation who had fallen in the battles of Cahokia, Yupkoyvi, Shappa Ta’atan, and the Grass. Even longer ago, his comrades in arms from across the Atlanticus: Pollius Scapax, Thorkell Sigurdsson, even Corbulo. And Great Sun Man, whose steady presence Marcellinus missed to this day.
So much war. So much blood.
The shadows lengthened, and the rays of the sun shone even more golden on the thatched roofs of Cahokia. The summer humidity had respectfully taken two steps back; by the standards of the bottomlands it was a dry evening, and tonight’s feasting would be comfortable. Around the plaza’s edges a host of women stood next to tall jars of food. Feeding this immense crowd would be impossible, but just as Enopay had advised Great Sun Man many years before, many people had contributed food of their own.
Over the smells of people, smoke, and cooking meat the most prevalent was that of the terrible mash beer the Cahokians favored, laced with fermented tree sap. Marcellinus, of course, had made his own arrangements. Brewing the kind of beer he liked could be done only in small batches, and if he had subverted the attention of the artisans in Cahokia’s steelworks to ensure there would be enough tonight to slake their thirsts and those of his other close friends, that would be their secret.
Tahtay reached the end of his long speech. At just that moment, the sun set. The crowd roared so loudly that Marcellinus thought his ears might burst. Kimimela hugged him all the more.
Up on the crest of the Great Mound, Tahtay turned to his advisers and elders. The applause from the masses died down, replaced with a babble of conversation and a determined movement toward the vats of food.
“Tahtay did not mention the west,” Kimimela said, her eyes serious.
Marcellinus grunted. “You expected him to?”
“Perhaps.”
Predictably, Isleifur had faded into the trees rather than climb aboard a Roman quinquereme. He and the scouts of the Hand had been busy that winter and spring and had brought back their reports not long since. The Mongol army under Subodei Badahur had completed its long trek back to the western coast and set sail back to Asia with the body of their deceased Khan. But they had left a sizable contingent of Mongol warriors to hold the lands west of the Great Mountain range. The traders and refugees out of the west confirmed that Yesulun Khatun, Chagatai’s wife, had indeed remained behind to administer the region.
Hesperians from the tribes up and down the western coast were still in forced servitude to the invaders. Even now they were sluicing gold out of the rivers and breaking it out of the mountains to give to their Mongol overlords. The continent of Nova Hesperia was not yet free from the Mongol curse, and sometime in the coming weeks the Hesperian League would have to decide what to do about that.
Marcellinus shook his head. “That’s a topic for powwow. Tonight should be a happy occasion. Gods know we’ve earned one.”
“Well, in that case,” Kimimela said, eyes twinkling, “is it perhaps time for you to go back and see your lady wife?”
Kimimela had used an expression in patrician Latin that described her mother about as badly as any phrase possibly could. Marcellinus grinned and pinched her. “Gods, yes. I’ve certainly spent enough time enduring your company.”
Kimimela back-kicked him, which he leaned into and blocked with his forearm, and they set off to thread their way through the crowd to the blankets at the front of the Great Plaza where Tahtay and his chiefs and elders would eventually come down to sprawl and eat. As they walked, Marcellinus nodded to men and women he had fought alongside and flown with, smiled at the members of the perennially young brickworks gang, even bowed and stopped to exchange a few words with an Onondaga warrior. Really, he knew a lot of people in this city now.
“Great Juno. Everyone you know is in between us and where we want to be.” Kimimela slid between two families whose members were cheerfully shouting at one another, having already sampled the mash beer, and grumbled, “If we’d been up on the mound with Tahtay and the others, this would be much easier.”
“I’m an outlander,” Marcellinus reminded her. “A private citizen. Not appropriate for me to be up there.”
She blew a cheerful raspberry. “Futete. Merda, that, and you know it.”
“Bad words, Kimi…” He shoved her before she could poke him again.
A dragon ship had arrived back at Vinlandia just weeks beforehand with the news that the Imperator had survived his journey across the Atlanticus. The longship had also brought a parchment decree from the Senate confirming Marcellinus’s elevation as ambassador to Nova Hesperia, a second decree confirming the annulment of the Damnatio Memoriae on the 33rd Hesperian Legion, and a handwritten letter from Hadrianus to Marcellinus.
As expected, the Imperator had arrived back in Roma to be greeted by jubilation at his great military victory. The Senate had rejoiced to hear how his legions had killed the Khan and smashed the Mongol army. Once all the arrangements were made, Hadrianus and Agrippa would enjoy a great triumph, parading through the streets of Roma. Several weeks of gladiatorial games would follow.
By adding Nova Hesperia to the Roman map as an ally and protected state, the Imperator had achieved part of his original ambition. The sun now set a good deal farther west on the Imperium than it had just a few years before. And if Hadrianus’s influence over his new ally was looser than normal and communications with his ambassador were rather limited, that was surely just a function of Cahokia’s immense distance from Urbs Roma.
It was true enough that Marcellinus went to the smoke lodge with the elders three times out of four. True enough that he could be included in any clan chief discussion that interested him. Doubly true that on Roma’s inevitable return he would again step up to adopt a central role. But it was also true that these days Marcellinus wanted nothing more than to tinker in his workshops in the afternoons, chatter with his friends in the evenings, and enjoy his nights and mornings with Sintikala. If he ever felt in need of a little gratuitous terror, he could get himself launched under an Eagle craft with Kimimela and Sintikala with a Falling Leaf on his back for safety. There he would wobble around a thousand feet above the city and eventually fumble his way back down to earth again, sweating and exhilarated.
“Ooh, ooh,” Kimimela said as they approached the blankets. “Wait, stop. Sinopa of the Blackfoot is here.”
As she halted him, Marcellinus peered between the dozen or so people who still stood between them and the blankets. Despite what Kimimela had said earlier, Tahtay had only just that moment arrived, talking in a relaxed way to the Tadodaho. Sintikala, Chenoa, and Enopay were laughing together over something, which in itself was a sight rare enough to be disconcerting. Akecheta and Hanska had shown up and were looking around, even more awkward than Marcellinus in social settings; fortunately, they soon saw Isleifur Bjarnason, hand in hand with Sooleawa of the Hidatsa, and hurried over to talk to them.
With Sooleawa and Isleifur stood three young men of the Blackfoot tribe. Marcellinus nodded. “Sinopa is the exceptionally ugly young brave with the tattoos? Don’t hit me again, Kimi, or I’ll sneak off to the longhouse and cut all the sinews on your Hawk.”
“What do I say to him?”
Marcellinus shook his head. “ ‘Hello’?”
“Oh, I’ve met him already…Help me?”
“Good grief.”
“What?”
“Sorry, I got distracted. Look, Wachiwi is sitting with Pezi and some Oneida braves. Laughing. And now I know the Hesperian League has a bright future.”
Kimimela almost stamped her foot. “Wanageeska! Hear me! You must assist me in greeting Sinopa of the Blackfoot!”
“Kimimela, you will be chief of the Hawk clan one day. Do you tell me now that you lack courage?”
Sintik
ala had seen Marcellinus. Touching Chenoa on the arm in farewell, she hurried forward. Kimimela sighed. “I see that once again I must do everything myself.”
“Perhaps not for long,” Marcellinus said, and the next moment Sintikala had grabbed him in an embrace that squeezed all the air from his lungs but was still exhilarating. The traditional Cahokian prudishness about public displays of affection be damned: Marcellinus kissed her.
“And so I go,” Kimimela said. “Quickly.”
Marcellinus thought of hugging Enopay as well but instead honored him with a deep Roman bow, which the young man blinked at and then returned with exactly the correct Roman level of formality. “Ambassador Eyanosa.”
“Enopay. You are well?”
Sintikala turned to talk to Sooleawa. Enopay’s eyes followed Kimimela regretfully. “Where is she going?”
“Merely an errand of diplomacy to the Blackfoot.” Kimimela had reached her target now, showing not a hint of hesitation, and by the look on Sinopa’s face he was delighted to see her. “You all grow up so fast.”
“Even me?” Enopay asked hopefully.
“You’re right. Never mind.” Marcellinus spotted Napayshni, who was waiting inconspicuously at the edge of the gathering, and beckoned him over. Eyes conspiratorial, Napayshni delivered him a pot of very good beer and withdrew.
Marcellinus drank deeply. “Ah, it’s good to have adjutants.”
“I, too, miss Roma,” Enopay said.
Marcellinus looked at him sideways. “Ha.”
“And you do not?”
He hesitated. After his flippancy with Kimimela he was inclined to duck the question with a jest and beckon for a second beer, but Enopay’s expression was serious. “I do not miss the legions. I do not miss Lucius Agrippa overmuch. And I do not miss war. But I think maybe you speak of the city of Roma across the big water and not the Roman Imperium that wishes to own the world.”
Enopay watched him with those alert eyes that missed nothing.
“I don’t know, Enopay. I don’t want to live in Roma, or anywhere other than right here in Cahokia. And so I would fear to even visit Roma, for if I did, I might never be able to get away to come back here again afterward.” He turned to face Enopay so that the boy could see his eyes. “But sometimes I do miss the grandeur of the Forum. I miss the Seven Hills, and the baths, and, yes, the great aqueducts. I do wonder how Vestilia lives now. I miss Greeks and Aegyptians and Africans and some of the men I met in Galicia-Volhynia, Khwarezmia, and Sindh. And there’s a Briton I wouldn’t mind seeing again. So yes, I do think about it. And you?”