Patrick (38 page)

I caught an undercurrent of relief in his tone and wondered why this should be. “We leave tomorrow,” I said.

“How long do you plan to be gone?”

“I cannot say. All summer at least. Perhaps longer.”

“Then do not fail to bid Bishop Cornelius farewell. We are returning to Britain before autumn. We may not see you again before we leave.”

And that was that.

I do not know what I expected, but I left feeling vaguely disappointed that he had not made more of an effort to talk me out of my decision. He would not have succeeded, mind, but I would like to have seen him try all the same—if only to reveal some hint of the real reason for having talked me into coming to Gaul in the first place. He had said it was for my own good, and perhaps it was. Still, I could not help thinking that some deeper purpose lay behind his insistence. But nothing more was said, and we concluded our farewells shortly after that. Although I spoke briefly to Bishop Cornelius, I did not see Julian again, and the next morning I joined the soldiers to begin the long walk north.

O
N A GOLDEN,
sun-washed morning, eight mercenaries left Turonum—the original five, myself, and two others returning to the borders after wintering in the south. At Senonum five more joined us. By the time we reached Augusta Treverorum, our ranks had swelled to over thirty—nearly all veterans and survivors of numerous conflicts, most of whom had served in one Gaulish garrison or another, some in Britain as well. Several were fresh recruits, young men like myself, burning to fight barbarians and eager to begin amassing wealth through spoils on the battlefield.

I did not care about the wealth. Well, not so much. My own reasons for going were less straightforward—or perhaps merely more desperate. If anyone had asked me why I wanted to become a soldier, I would have answered with a simple question:
What else?

I had no skills, no trade, nothing with which to make my way in the world. I still had a little gold in my bag, but, frugal as I was, it would not last beyond the summer. My prospects were decidedly bleak. In truth all I was fit for was to hire myself out as a day laborer—or worse still a shepherd!—and that, I knew only too well, would be to exchange one form of slavery for another.

Thus I had no other choice but to seek refuge in the only place likely to welcome me at all: the Roman army. I fixed my hope on the Legio XX Valeria Victrix—my last best hope for a future.

After a lengthy march through pine-covered hills, we descended to a broad valley divided by a wide, slow river. There, on a high mound above the riverbank stood a garrison unlike any I had ever seen. By that I mean it was fully manned and bristling with military might.

A plain carved out from the surrounding forest formed a boundary many hectares wide around the perimeter of thick outer walls. Although the expanse had been cleared of every last tree and plowed for cornfields, gardens, and pastureland, there were no estates, no villas, no farming settlements. Nor was there a town, save for a mean assortment of dwellings, granaries, and cattle enclosures huddled in the shadow of the walls.

The walls themselves were timber raised up on a foundation of uncut stone ten courses high, and they enclosed a space large enough to contain a parade field. The compound consisted of twenty
castra,
or barracks, for two hundred cohorts; an armory, forge, and tannery; six or eight granaries and a dozen kitchens, each with ten or more ovens; a
balneum,
or bathhouse; four bakeries and a mill; stables for three hundred horses; nine barns, a pottery, a lime kiln, and a score of workshops and storehouses. There was a grand
domus
for the legionary legate and a slightly smaller one for the garrison commander.

We approached on the southern road, marching in a long, straggling, knotted line through freshly tilled fields. “Most of the dwellings you see belong to soldiers and their families,” Quintus told me as we neared the large double gate. To call them dwellings was, it seemed to me, extremely generous on his part; they had more in common with cow byres than with houses. “There is also a tavern.”

“The Gladius,” offered Pallio, a tall, fair-haired soldier who had joined us a few days earlier. “Watery beer, bad wine, and food you wouldn't give a pig.” He grinned cheerfully. “I have heard there is also a brothel.”

“You have
heard
this?” His companion, a swarthy Roman named Varro, laughed. I had yet to see either one outside the
other's company. “Pallio, my friend, without your custom the owner would have starved and his rumored brothel become a kennel long ago.”

The garrison was, as I say, manned to full fighting strength. Soldiers drawn from all over Gaul and Britain had been posted to the hostile borderland in anticipation of the summer raiding campaigns of the barbarians. Swelling the ranks of legionaries were many hundreds of mercenaries, mostly veterans, willing to sell their services for a chance at battlefield wealth. Nor was our group of veterans the only mercenary band to choose Treverorum; there were already a number of such groups encamped on the flats of the riverbank below the garrison.

Quintus took us directly to the commander's office to enlist us in one of the many auxiliary
numera,
or small divisions of irregular soldiers. We passed through the wide double gate beneath the watchful eyes of the guards in the towers and crossed the parade yard that was teeming full of soldiers, like ourselves, waiting to enlist. We joined the end of a long line stretching around the block-square building and passed the time talking to the others.

There is good pay for anyone joining the ala this year, they said. Fifty denarii a day in camp, eighty in the field…. Two raids already across the river this spring…. We are certain to see action before the month is out…. A shipment of new weapons arrived three days ago—good steel from Hispania…. If you get twenty men, they'll let you have a numerus of your own…. General Septimus is hard but fair…. General Septimus needs a great victory to grease his way into the senate…. General Septimus cares only for his ambitions and nothing for his men…. And so on and on. Rumor, speculation, and gossip were the staff of legionary life, I quickly learned.

I listened to all that was said and tried to sift the few good grains from the mountains of chaff. The day moved on, and then it was our turn to stand in the commander's office and swear the oath of allegiance to the emperor, administered by
a harried camp prefect to a roomful of men at a time. We dutifully repeated the set phrases, promising to defend the honor, dignity, and person of the emperor and the citizens of the empire wheresoever the need arose, to the last breath of our bodies. We were then summoned one by one to sign the
notitia,
the legion roster. When my turn came, I took the reed pen, dipped it in the inkpot, and added my name to a list that already stretched to more than four hundred soldiers. I was then given a small wooden tile to take to the armory and exchange for my weapons.

Again we waited in a long line of men, until at last we gained the wide bar where the armorer, a sturdy old veteran with short white hair and a belly lopping over his wide belt, took the wooden tile from my hand and asked,
“Pedes aut ala?”

“Ala,”
I replied.

The armorer regarded me with a dubious expression. Behind me Quintus said,
“Pedes,
tell him. We are infantrymen.”

“But I can ride.”

He shook his head. “Until you get yourself a horse, you are a foot soldier.”

“Which is it?” demanded the armorer impatiently. “Speak up!”

“Pedes,”
I said. The answer was relayed to the back of the long building with a shout that brought two young boys running. One boy carried a
spatha
—a long sword—and a round, slightly curved iron-banded leather shield, called a
parma.
The other boy brought a bundle of cloth upon which rested a new pair of boots.

We were then dismissed to the yard, where no fewer than ten barbers were busily shearing the new flock of recruits. Once more we were made to endure another lengthy wait before submitting to the razor. My own hair was not long, but no exceptions were made, and, newly shorn, we gathered our armor and bundle of clothes and followed Quintus to the bathhouse outside the walls. “There are baths within the garrison, to be sure,” he explained, “but this one is better.”

We traipsed dutifully through the bare-earth streets to a large, rough-hewn building of timber and stone, where we piled our belongings on the ground. Quintus gave a serving boy half a denarius to watch over them while we were inside. Then we went in, stripped off our filthy clothes, and proceeded directly to the
tepidarium,
where we plunged ourselves into the cool, clean, running water and washed away the dirt of the trail. Because the pool flowed with fresh water diverted from the river, we were allowed to use soap to clean ourselves. I scoured myself with the rough, grainy stuff until I fairly gleamed, then continued to the
caldarium
to immerse in the hot-water pool.

Oh, it was splendid. I lolled in steaming water to my chin and tried to remember the last time I had sat in a genuine balneum. The place was crowded, of course, but it was paradise nonetheless, and I made full use of the various hot and cold rooms until my skin glowed pink as a new rose.

I strode from the bathhouse a better man, for now I was soldier in the Roman army—albeit a lowly mercenary foot soldier. Nevertheless I belonged.

My clothing bundle consisted of a
paenula
—a rough, red-dyed woolen cloak with a hood large enough to cover a helmet; a linen loincloth; a wide leather belt with a hanger strap for a sword; and thick-soled, high-laced, hobnail boots. I wound the loincloth around me and pulled on my tunic; since no one else wore trousers, I did not bother with them, but I buckled the belt around my waist, laced up my shoes, and followed Quintus and the others to the barracks.

“No room,” said the
tabularius,
the man in charge of the barracks, a fat Iberian with one hand. “Camp in the field.”

“Do you know who we are?” demanded Varro.

“No,” replied the barracker. “But I know a barbarian when I see one.”

“Barbarian!” cried Varro. “We have served this army for seven years, you blind dog!”

“The barracks are for legionaries,” the Iberian countered.

“If you want a bed, join the legion.”

Varro was just drawing himself up to challenge the tabularium's courage and parentage when Pallio pulled him away. “Come, Varro, my friend, it is mercy itself this fellow is dispensing. Only a lunatic would sleep in his flea-infested beds anyway.”

Quintus agreed. “This way, men. I know a place beside the river we can make camp.”

Thus began my life as a soldier.

The first few weeks were spent in weapons practice. Each day I joined the raw recruits in their training; I worked until my bones ached, mastering the moves I was taught. When I had learned all I could from the instructors, I extracted more from Quintus and other veterans who knew how to stay alive.

“I miss the old sword, I do,” Quintus told me one day. “But the spatha is better in many ways. See here, Succat”—he slashed the weapon through the air—“the blade is longer, narrower—better for striking at a distance.”

“With the gladius,” offered Varro, “you have to be right up face-to-face with the brute to thrust in sharp. You have his foul breath in your face and his greasy blood on your hands. Give me a spatha any day.”

“Now what we have to do is keep our eyes open for a good mail shirt and helmet,” said Quintus.

“Without them you'll be dead before the summer is run,” added Varro.

“Too true,” said Quintus. “A mail shirt will save your life; likewise a sturdy helmet.”

“Where do we get those?” I asked.

“From the barbari!” hooted Pallio. “Where else?”

At my disbelieving frown, Quintus explained, “Brutes they may be, but they make good mail shirts, and their helmets are almost as good as the legion's, which the numera can't get anyway.”

“You take it from them on the field,” I said, guessing his meaning. “You strip the dead.”

“How else?” said Quintus.

“The live ones won't let you have 'em,” Varro said.

“You've done this before,” I said.

“Many times,” replied Pallio.

“Then where are your mail shirts and helmets now?” I wondered.

“We sold them in Massilia,” replied Varro.

“They kept us in wine and women all winter long,” added Pallio.

“The wine of south Gaul is like no other,” affirmed Quintus sagely. “A good mail shirt and helmet can fetch a handsome price in the right place.”

I accepted that they were right and redoubled my efforts to find Rufus. I had tried from the first, of course, but none of the other soldiers seemed to know him. As the weeks passed, however, I found opportunity to ask most of the officers in the garrison as well. Again no one seemed to have heard of him. In the end I was forced to assume that my information was wrong. Probably he was stationed at some other garrison by now.

As soon as training finished, patrols commenced. Every other day or so, another company of men would leave the garrison to go out to walk the frontier boundary. The auxiliaries joined the regulars in this as our lot was drawn. Most often we completed our circuit and returned to the garrison having encountered nothing more ferocious than a wild pig or a deer. Twice, however, we surprised barbarian tribesmen skulking through the forest on our side of the river. Both times we engaged them at once and drove them back without undue difficulty. I fought in both skirmishes and acquitted myself well enough to begin thinking that my future as a soldier was assured.

Then, one fine warm day in the middle of summer, the army assembled on the parade ground to be addressed by the commanding officer: General Sentius Papinius Septimus, a twenty-year veteran and hero of countless conflicts. He had led the Valerians into battle successfully for more than ten years, the last three of which had been spent patrolling the
northern borders of Gaul and Germania, quelling barbarian incursions in brief, fierce encounters.

He was a short, stocky man with a thoughtful, almost melancholy aspect—until he mounted a horse or stepped before his troops. Then the true stature of the man became apparent. His troops revered him as a god.

At the long, piercing blast of the
bucina,
we all hastened to the parade ground and formed ourselves into rough ranks according to our cohorts—the legionaries first and the auxiliares after. We waited, standing easy, as a small delegation emerged from the commander's house. Before them went the
vexillium,
the revered golden-boar standard of the Valeria Victrix.

Foremost of this group, and shorter than the others, was General Septimus. He took his time, reviewing his soldiers, stopping here and there to speak to someone he recognized. One of those he knew was Quintus; I was standing close enough to hear.