The Noise of War

by Vincent B Davis II

  “And he did?”

  “He did much more than that. He made them Roman citizens, paid for their passage to Rome, and arranged for tutors to give them a proper education.”

  “Jupiter’s beard,” I said. That was quite a shocking tale. It would explain why Volsenio was so devoted to his master.

  “It is true what they say about the consul.” Volsenio took a torch from the wall and helped lead me to the back of the building. “He is a great man. And I thank the gods that he has a man like you to serve him.” He led the way further. “Here we are,” he said, pointing to a door barred with iron.

  “Does he let you see your family?” I asked.

  “Whenever we’re in Rome, yes. Marius demands that I write them often and visit when I can. But unfortunately we aren’t in Rome very often. There are many battles to fight.” Volsenio looked down. “But I won’t leave Marius, not for the rest of my life. I hope that you won’t either.”

  He met my gaze with all the dignity of a free man, and in a way, he was. He nodded as he handed me the iron key, and stepped off.

  As I entered, I strained my eye to see the figure of the man in iron shackles before me. For a moment, I thought him dead, as I could hear nothing but the scurrying of mice and the drip of melting ice.

  His eyes were closed, his head resting on his chest. His long hair and beard were matted with something thick and sticky, and I could see unwashed blood on his face and chest. His shirt and trousers were covered in holes, as if moths had already gotten ahold of them.

  “Roman?” he said, to my surprise, without looking up.

  “I am. Your name?” I stepped in a bit farther but made sure to keep my distance until I was sure he was properly restrained. He was.

  “Barrus.” He sat up and laid his head against the wall.

  “That’s an odd name for a Gaul.”

  “Well, from what I gather, every Roman is named either Quintus, Gaius, Lucius, or Marcus. We Gauls have more freedom with what we call ourselves,” he said, already irritated with me.

  “That is true.” I already found his honesty refreshing. “I meant no offense. My name is… Would you like to guess?”

  “Quintus, Gaius, Lucius, or Marcus? Right?” he said with furrowed brows, finally meeting my eye.

  “Quintus. You are correct.” He smiled in victory. “I am a tribune of the Roman Republic. I was told that you can help me.”

  “You can help me too, Roman. I need bread and water, or my mind doesn’t work right.”

  I shrugged. A reasonable request.

  “Guard. Bring us some bread and water,” I said, calling down the corridor. “Can we begin talking while we wait?” I asked.

  He thought for a moment and then nodded. He was a prisoner, sure, but he hadn’t been one for long. I wouldn’t be able to get two words out of him if I tried to force his hand. No man can allow his pride to be damaged for too long, even one living among the rats in a Roman military prison. “Why don’t you tell me about yourself?”

  “And that will help you destroy the Cimbri?” he said, scoffing at me.

  “I need to know the nature of your relation with the Cimbri, and how you can help me.”

  He exhaled and deliberated for a moment. “I’m a man of the Tigurini tribe. An ally of the Cimbri. I served in their cavalry at Arausio.”

  “And this is where you were taken prisoner?” I asked, recollecting the proper words in Gallic.

  “Yes. And you better not laugh either.”

  “I had no intentions of laughing.”

  “You are a fool, then. What kind of man gets captured in a battle where his army slaughters thousands of the enemy?” His face contorted with disgust.

  “I’m sure it could have happened to any of you.”

  “An arrow caught my horse, and down it went. Landed on top of me leg, and here we are. Some fleeing Romans took the time to graciously free me before they scurried off. I’m a crippled prisoner now.”

  He stared at the dark earth beneath him and shook his head, reliving the memory in his head.

  “I’m sorry for your lot.”

  “Sorry? Ha! I’m sorry for yours. It was all your men who died.”

  I took a moment to calm myself before speaking again. I didn’t want to end deliberations before they began.

  The guard arrived at the door with a cup of freezing water and some stale bread. The Gaul reached out for it, but the guard looked him in the eyes as he passed the cup and loaf to me. After the guard departed, I handed it to the prisoner. Now, perhaps, he would be more prepared to talk.

  “If you still call yourself Tigurini, why are you willing to help me?” I asked in as pleasing a tone as I could muster.

  He looked up at me, a mouthful of bread still wedged in his gums. He lunged forward, but the shackles restrained him.

  “Because I hate the Cimbri more than any man. That I swear,” he said, returning to his feast.

  “But you were willing to fight with them?” I asked.

  He stared at me in disbelief of my ignorance.

  “I’m just a man. I herd cattle. What say do you think I have in the war meetings of our elders?”

  “I understand. Why do you hate the Cimbri, then?”

  His aggressive nature faded, and his shoulders slumped. He took another bite of bread before replying.

  “Do not ask me that again, Roman.”

  “Fine. I won’t ask you again. Your willingness to help me is all that truly matters,” I said. My eye now adjusted to the darkness of the room, I spotted a wooden stool and sat on it across from him.

  “I’ll help you. Oh, I’ll help you,” he said.

  “What do I need to do?” I leaned in closer.

  “You’ll have to dress like a Gaul, talk like a Gaul, act like a Gaul. Following? You’ll have to be one of us. You’ll have to go to the Tigurini camp, join our army, and meet with the Cimbri. From there you can collect your information.”

  “Can I not go directly to the Cimbri?”

  He laughed. “No. By the gods, no. You’re half their height and a third of their weight. They’d pick you out as an imposter from a league away.”

  He washed down some of the stale bread with a huge gulp of water.

  “Can you teach me their language?”

  He shook his head. “It would take a few dozen years and a team of experts to explain their mongrel tongue. I spent six months in their camp and can still barely understand it.”

  “So, I must infiltrate the Tigurini. And they’ll take me to the Cimbri?”

  He nodded. “They’ll take you to them. Don’t take any womenfolk or valuables with you. As soon as you enter their camp, it belongs to the Cimbri.” His jaw flexed as if he were tasting something putrid. I did not think it was the bread.

  We deliberated for some time. He explained to me the ways of the Tigurini, and what I would need to know to blend in with them, and how I should conduct myself. As with many barbaric languages, there were many different dialects, so he helped refine my Gallic vocabulary and instructed me on the words I should and should not use. It was a productive meeting, but I’ll admit my head was pounding by the time we concluded. The more I learned about my mission, the more I realized how foolhardy it really was.

  I wasn’t a coward after all. Or perhaps I was just stupid.

  10

  Scroll X

  Four days before the ides of February 651 ab urbe condita

  Life as a tribune was nothing if not repetitive. The ten days following my first meeting with the prisoner were followed by the same procedure. The other tribunes and I rose before the buccina’s call and convened at Marius’s praetorium for our daily orders. Marius told us what he wanted our men drilled on and Sulla informed us of that day’s watchwords, making it clear that anyone who left the gates would be expected to deliver them upon reentry or there would be consequences.

  We then disseminated and delivered the orders to the centurions under our command. Afterward, I would depart for the
prisoner’s cell and submit myself to more of his scrutiny about the way I phrased certain things, or the manner in which I carried myself.

  What made the fourth day from the ides unique was that I was ordered to reconvene with Marius at the tribunal by the end of second watch.

  From a distance, I could hear the snap of a whip. As I turned off the via principalis to the tribunal, I saw a shirtless soldier tied to a post, blood already seeping over his trousers and purple welts stretching across his back.

  Marius was standing a few feet in front of him, his chin in his hand, shaking his head sardonically.

  “What did he do?” I asked as I approached his side.

  “He was leading his men on a road march and allowed some of them to steal a local’s chickens,” Marius said without looking away.

  “How sinister,” I said with a grin, but I quickly retired it when Marius didn’t return the gesture.

  “I have no intention of making enemies of our friends or friends of our enemies. So this won’t happen again, will it, Centurion Opimius?” Marius said, addressing the soldier.

  “No, General,” the centurion replied with labored breaths. The whip cracked again and he grimaced.

  It seemed a bit foolish to worry about a few chickens when we were waging a war in which thousands of lives hung in the balance, but Marius was nothing if not a man of discipline.

  Marius took a step forward to pat the centurion’s face, as if to say there would be no more problems when the punishment had concluded. Then he stepped away and bade me to follow him.

  “How many meetings have you had with our prisoner?” he asked.

  “Once a day since the first, maybe around ten?”

  “And how are they going?” He clasped his hands behind his back as he walked, and nodded at the mules we passed by.

  “I’m learning a great deal, General. I have a good grasp of the Gallic language as a whole, but the Tigurini have formalities all their own. He’s helped—” Marius raised a hand to cut me off.

  “I’ve had several officers come to me lately and say ‘why is that Tribune Sertorius of yours so morose?’”

  “Is that so?” I asked, a bit stunned.

  “It is. I can’t recall how many times, actually.”

  “And what did you tell them?” I asked. I was hoping he would have replied something to the effect of, “because his brother and all of his friends died,” but I didn’t dare say it.

  “I told them it’s just your way.” Marius shrugged. “But I think we both know that isn’t true.” He shaded his eyes with the back of his hand and looked deeply into mine. “I’m afraid it will affect morale, Tribune.”

  I exhaled and nodded. “I’ll work on it, General. I didn’t realize I was being perceived that way.”

  “I want you to go talk to Martha.”

  “Who?” He spoke as if I should already know, but I couldn’t place the name.

  “My prophetess,” he said with a grin, knowing that there were already several camp jokes about her. I recalled hearing of her now.

  “You want me to speak with her?”

  “I think she’ll be able to be of some value to you. She has a tent near the sacrificial altars. Go and see her.”

  I scratched at some flesh beneath the crest of my helm.

  “I haven’t spent much time communing with the gods in some time. Is that a suggestion or an order?”

  He tilted his head and placed a hand on my shoulder. “I never make suggestions, Tribune.”

  I took my time getting there, sulking over being forced to talk to the witch Marius had found sometime during his campaign in Africa. I passed by the priests and the sacrificial altars, as well as the frightened or homesick mules who were praying there.

  It was easy to differentiate the tent of Marius’s priestess from the rest. It was black rather than maroon, and the curtain barring the entrance was made of beads and tiny seashells.

  I hesitated at the threshold, hoping that I would hear her speaking with someone else and have an excuse to leave.

  “Come, then, warrior. Don’t be shy,” a raspy voice came from inside.

  I closed my eye and shook my head, but I did as she asked and entered.

  Stepping in, I was met with the overwhelming and distinct aroma of incense and burning hemp, a smog wafting past me to the exit. There were two candelabras in the corner containing fire-red coals and whatever Numidian spices she had brought with her.

  “Come closer.” She waved me forward.

  Once the smog had cleared, I made her out on the other end of the tent reclining on a dozen pillows.

  She looked up at me and tilted her head back. Martha’s skin was the color of aged papyrus, and she had dark eyes that shinned golden in the light of her incense. She gestured with a finger for me to step forward, the nails so long that they curled back and pointed to her. Her eyelashes were even longer, and the black that lined her eyelids was so dark and complete that she looked as wild as a Numidian lion.

  “I’m nearly blind now, I need you closer.” Her skin had been baked for decades in the African sun, and it was wrinkled at the forehead and atop her high cheekbones. Her lips were slim and pursed but colored purple, making them stand out from the rest of her face. “I need to touch you.”

  I was relieved that she was blind, as I was afraid I might have offended her by the look in my eye. At length, I unbuckled my helm and sat it by my feet. I stepped forward and stretched out my hand to meet hers.

  The moment she touched it, she recoiled. The breath seemed to catch in her lungs.

  “Such sadness,” she said, her voice hoarse and harsh, but not unsympathetic.

  When she had at last collected herself, she took hold of my palms again. “Such pain. Tell me, why have you come?” She analyzed my face with those sparkling eyes, which never seemed to settle on one particular place.

  “General Marius ordered me,” I said. I hadn’t realized until I spoke just how uncomfortable I was, even more than I had anticipated. I was used to the family gods and the altars at which my mother and I had once greeted each morning, but foreigners and their odd practices unnerved me.

  “Ah,” she said, “compelled or not, I have much to tell you.” She rolled my hands over in her own and patted them. “There will be a child, I think. Perhaps greater than his father.”

  I thought of Arrea for a moment before remembering that she was barren. And the thought of having a child with Volesa seemed as impossible as Arrea conceiving. It surprised me just how long it took me to remember Gavius, and that I already had a son by law.

  “Has he already been born?”

  She craned her head as if lending an ear to the gods.

  “And perhaps even greater than you. There is a wife too. One you’ll love until the day your body is interred.”

  I stopped believing the magician’s tricks as soon as she said that.

  “I am married, but not for love. I love another.” Even though I’d volunteered the information, I didn’t know why.

  “The next time you look upon your wife, you will love her more dearly than the fire of Neith’s sun. And you will love only her.”

  I balked and shook my head. I considered how angry Marius might become if I walked away now.

  “May I touch your face?” she asked. I didn’t reply but leaned in until she could do so.

  She ran her bone-thin fingers over every contour, lingering over every bump and crease. At last she made it to my eye patch.

  I recoiled immediately when she touched it, which didn’t seem to bother her. She kept her hand poised midair until I leaned back in.

  Much to my dislike, she removed the eye patch and ran her fingers over the scarred tissue beneath.

  “Does it hurt?” she asked.

  “Not anymore,” I said, my tone fringing on anger.

  “Yes, but that cloth covers more than just a scar, doesn’t it?”

  I didn’t reply. She closed her eyes, and underneath the lids, I could see that t
hey rolled back in her head. Something about this made my anger dissipate and my breath quicken.

  “Have you begun to see more, now that you’ve lost part of your vision?” she asked, her fingers still fixed there on the tissue of my eye socket.

  “Yes,” I said in a weak voice, although I didn’t know why.

  “Are you afraid?”

  “Yes,” I said, and again I didn’t know why. I wasn’t afraid of her, but I didn’t think that’s what she meant.

  “But of what? You’re afraid of many things.”

  “Afraid of some things,” I corrected.

  “You cannot truly know a man until you know what he is most afraid of. For this alone reveals the quality of his heart and the contents of his dreams.” She removed her hand from my face, sitting up erect for the first time. The burning incense shimmered in her eyes, and for the first time, I wondered if she truly could commune with the gods.

  She took hold of my hands again.

  “You aren’t afraid of being forgotten.”

  “No,” I replied.

  “You know that you won’t be. You played the simple man for a time but have since discovered that you’re destined for greater things.”

  “I liked being a simple man,” I said.

  She let out a raspy laugh then, something between the giggle of a girl and the chortle of a dying man.

  “You liked it, but you know it’s not what the gods created you for.”

  I did not reply.

  Her fingers fixated on my calluses then.

  “You were a shepherd once…no…a horseman!” she said with a tilt of the head, her thin eyebrows raised. I felt compromised, as if this prophetess truly did know more than I was comfortable with. “You once trained horses, but you’ll soon train men. And not just soldiers for battle but the hearts and minds of your countrymen. No, you will not be forgotten.”