Rome 3: The Eagle of the Twelfth (12 page)

The plan was to find him before the IVth realized their mistake and came back from the wild hunt on which they had been lured. A dozen of our men joined us and more were pouring in through the gate, sent by Lupus who was
holding
guard outside against a renewed attack. I gestured two of the incomers to tie the men we had disabled and then waved the rest on; they fanned out and approached each hut in pairs.

Syrion and I took the first hut on the wall side of the compound. It was empty, although a brazier glowing in the centre showed two rows of four beds with hides and furs atop them, still crumpled as if newly vacated. The air smelled of harness oil and newly honed blades and the sweat of men waiting for war; I had come to know what that smelled like now, having been amongst it all day.

We left that hut and found the next as empty, and the next. Approaching the fourth, I heard the sound of a man’s muffled grunt, through wool, or linen, or another man’s clamped hand.

Syrion heard it too. He flung his hand up for caution, and we took more care to enter this hut together, hard, low, crouching down against the possibility of men with blades at the door.

They were not at the door. A half-unit of four stood in a line across the hut, with their beds pushed behind them, making a wall. And behind that, Polydeuces was stuck head first into a ruck of furs and hides, like a rabbit seeking its hole.

‘Here! Fourth hut, wall line. Reds to me!’ I called aloud over my shoulder; no point in secrecy now. The men of the IVth heard the same running feet as we did and knew what was coming.

Their leader was a small, wiry man with his lower face unshaved, which made him look like a haggard weasel. He spat an order in Latin and I, used to Greek, was slow to understand it, so that when they came at us, bunched in a boar’s snout formation, two in front, two a little behind at the wings, I might have fallen to them but that my body acted
faster
than my mind, and I rolled sideways and down, below the level of their barely padded blades, and flung myself in a lengthways roll along the floor.

I had seen Pantera do something similar one night when we … never mind, it was in Hyrcania and we were in no real danger. Not as now, when these men had murder in their eyes and were not remotely afraid of dying under their centurion’s lash if they killed us.

Rolling, I toppled them. They fell in a clutter of stamping, cursing limbs. I bunched my legs under me and thrust upright, slamming my padded blade randomly at a calf, a heel, an elbow, as they came within reach. I felt a blow slice past my head and ducked under and slashed back, and struck out at the same time with my left hand at a shadow on that side and by the gods’ luck it wasn’t Syrion but one of the IVth who went down, choking, for I had caught his larynx and robbed him of breath. I saw another to my right and kicked at his groin, then brought my blade round in a full circular swing, straight for the great vessels of his neck.

‘Stop!’

My gladius stopped, a hand’s breadth from his throat. Even padded, it would have killed him. He stared up at me in mortal terror, and then looked past me with gratitude to Syrion, who had grabbed my arm, and was pulling me back.

‘We’re taking our man,’ he said. ‘If you let us go, we’ll leave you here. Try to stop us, and we’ll take you with us. You know what that means.’

They did, but still they did not stand and spread their arms and wave us past. ‘Our centurion will flog us if we let you go and we are not injured,’ said the leader, the unshaved weasel.

‘Tie them,’ I said. ‘Cut the bed hides for ropes. They can’t stop us if they’re bound. We don’t have to take them with us. Just do it now, while there’s time. We have more to do here.’

‘But …’ Syrion caught my eye, puzzled, and then with slow comprehension. His smile grew like the rising sun, warm on his face. ‘The Fox has nursed his plan to life?’

I grinned back. I was feeling more alive than I had for years, drunk on danger and the promise of success. ‘Get the rabbit out of his hole and safely on his way and I’ll tell you.’

The rabbit – Polydeuces – was warm and uninjured, if you forget the breaking of his pride. I sent him with the tenth unit who had waited outside to cover our retreat. They were men I knew by sight and hearing, but not by the colour of their souls; I had no idea if I could rely on them to guard my back in a tight corner. I told them to get him back to our camp if they could, or, if not, to stop with Cadus and ask for shelter there.

Outside, with Syrion at my side, I gathered the rest of our men.

‘Our orders are to return now with the rabbit,’ I said. ‘But I have a different idea. Anyone who wishes not to be a party to it may leave now.’

‘What idea?’ someone asked from the back.

‘One that might get us flogged, but will set the Fourth back for ever. Your choice. Go or stay. I won’t say it until you’ve decided.’

Those that stayed did so, I think, for Syrion. We stood in darkness, with a nearby brazier glowing red. The tinted light caught him from behind, casting him in liquid bronze. He had thrown his cloak back and was standing square with his arms folded, so that he was the very image of a Gaulish chieftain, ready for the ultimate battle. It was a sight to strengthen the weakest heart, but even so, we lost two units. We watched them go, and did not mourn their loss.

I turned in a circle on one heel, thinking.

‘Demalion?’ Syrion was at my side. ‘What are we doing?’

‘The first century of the first cohort has charge of the legion’s Eagle. We’re going to find it and take it,’ I said. ‘It’s the equivalent of taking a man, but nobody will be flogged for it.’

‘They’ll be flogged for losing it,’ Syrion said cheerfully, ‘all of them.’

And someone else, from the back, ‘We can’t steal their
Eagle
!’

‘Can’t we?’ I felt their eyes on me, and saw their startled looks, and knew that, in that moment, I looked like Lupus. Just then, it was a compliment.

I walked past them all. ‘We only need to hold it hostage, and see what they’ll offer for its return. But we have to find it first. Shall we look and see?’

There was only one place a legion would keep its Eagle. We broke down the wooden door – they had built a wooden door, and barred it! – to the centurion’s hut on the far side of the compound. Inside, a brazier was glowing orange, the colour a smith would use to harden a blade. It had not long been abandoned; its heat thickened our breath after the biting cold outside, and wrought the scent of cedar from the wooden walls.

A glance showed us the contents of the hut. The bed was lifted off the floor, with the legs planted in bowls of water to keep vermin away, and set beside it on the wall was a shelf for the small things a man might take on campaign: a small hand knife with a bronze handle shaped in the likeness of a wren; a pouch of gemstones, still rough from the ground; a ring set with turquoise, and a dolphin etched on it; a scroll, half read: Xenophon,
On Hunting
.

In the corner was a cupboard, also bolted. I broke open the lock with the hilt of my gladius, and found inside a small shrine to Jupiter Best and Greatest, and another to the bull god, beloved of the Sassanids, and behind both, propped
against
the back wall, the flag-standard of the century with the open hand and medallions, and to the other side the Eagle of the IVth.

So much power in so small a thing. My heart tripped over. I had never seen a god, nor thought I might see one. I had never seen the emperor, to whom we renewed our oath each January. I had never even seen the governor of Syria, except at a distance from the parade ground. But daily I gave homage to our Eagle, watched its gilded wings glimmer in the rising sun as we said our prayers and renewed our oaths.

So, now, did this Eagle glimmer; its eyes gazed at us, and held us frozen. To see it was to feel the pride of our legion take hold of my heart and squeeze it tight, and I realized then how proud I was to be with the men around me, all of them, men with red armbands, men of the XIIth: my brothers.

I reached for the oakwood shaft, and stopped. Only the bravest of men carried the Eagle, for to them was drawn every enemy eye; every enemy archer and spearman tried to kill them. They were foremost in battle, and had to fight and yet keep the Eagle upright. To do such a thing was the epitome of honour. And to steal it was its opposite.

‘They took Polydeuces,’ Syrion said softly, from my side. ‘There was no honour in that, either.’

I took a breath, tasted the cedarwood and incense of the shrines, felt the touch of the gods; both Jupiter and Mithras were martial, both valued valour above all else, neither was inclined to weakness.

‘Take the furs from his bed,’ I said tightly. ‘Cover the Eagle. We’ll take only that, and leave the standard. They’ll know why.’

A bulge-eyed youth of the sixth unit looked at me and opened his mouth. ‘Don’t ask,’ I said, but Syrion, who had
more
pity and patience than I had at that moment, said, ‘It shows we didn’t care enough about their century to take their standard; we only needed to dishonour their legion.’

It was done. I carried the Eagle; I could not ask it of another man, even Syrion, particularly Syrion, who carried the sixth century’s standard with such honour. With a swathe of bear fur warming my chest, and the shaft pressed hard on my shoulder, we ran from the centurion’s house.

Some of the other huts were burning; our men had tipped the braziers on to the beds as they left. Greasy flames peeped from doorways and smoke slewed after, rising sluggishly to hover in a thick wad less than an arm’s breadth above the rooftops.

We cleared the gate in a dozen strides. The path lay ahead of us, and safety with Cadus, or the long march home. To our right, the mule stockade was empty, the wall of mule scent gone, and in its place the reek of smoke, and some blood. The entrance was churned snow, but inside men still fought. I heard a cry, just one, high and hoarse, like a gull on the sea shore, and knew the throat that made it.

‘That’s Lupus! The Fourth have come back and found him.’ I had thought him gone ahead of us, and cursed myself for not knowing better.

I thrust the Eagle at the goggle-eyed youth. His name was Kalendinus, but I learned that only later. At the time, I simply took his arms and folded them around the Eagle, with the shaft angled back over his shoulder. ‘Get this to the first of our camps along the path,’ I said. ‘Guard it with your life and tell Centurion Cadus that I said you were to do so.’ I gave him more orders, secretly, that the others didn’t hear, then said, aloud, ‘The rest of you go with him, except Syrion, who comes with me.’

I was a clerk and a courier, not even the flag-bearer that Syrion was; I was the conscript who most hated being in the
legion.
But in spite of these things, or perhaps because of them, they listened as if I were the camp prefect, and left, running along the trail of our departing mules like a pack of schoolboys let loose from a lesson.

C
HAPTER
T
WELVE

SYRION AND I
ran back into the maelstrom of the stockade. The smoke was finer here, the fire nearly burned out. A clot of men battled in the left hand corner nearest the gate. Lupus was at their centre alone, set about by a full unit of the IVth. Their backs were to us; we had the advantage of surprise.

I flicked a glance at Syrion, saw him nod and raise his arm, and then, ‘
For the Twelfth!
’

We bellowed it with all the force of a full unit. I ran close by the wall and let my padded blade – the padding was less than it had been, I will own that, now – rattle along the wood so that we sounded like an incoming army.

Syrion simply bunched his Olympian shoulders and hurled himself bodily at the backs of the nearest men. Two went down with him, bowled flat and winded. I picked one and swung the flat of my blade at his back just below the shoulder blades, with a force that would have cut him in half had I used the naked edge.

He dropped as if dead. I did not stop to see if it were true. We were three and they were five and they knew now how few we were. They rallied and came at us shoulder to shoulder,
big
men with hate in their eyes, weaving their uncovered blades back and forth.

Their leader grinned, showing gaps in his teeth where earlier violence had taken them out. There was blood on his lips. In a moment’s terror, I prayed it was his own, and that he did not feed on other men’s death. He saw me and his grin widened. In northern Latin, with a Germanic taint, he said, ‘Three prisoners for the loss of one. A good bargain.’

Lupus was on my left, Syrion beyond him. I felt him tense. In fast southern Greek, he said, ‘Break to the left of Blood-mouth on my count. Three, two, one,
go
!’

As if our lives depended on it, we hurled ourselves at the hair’s breadth space Lupus had divined between the blood-mouthed brute and the barely less terrifying man to his left.

I closed my eyes and made a missile of my body. I felt blows rain on my shoulders, my back, my hips as I rolled, but felt no pain. ‘Don’t fight – run!’ How Lupus had breath to shout was beyond me, and in any case I needed no orders. I had seen the flame-lit gap where was the gate and nothing short of death would have stopped me going through it.

We broke out into cold, free air. Syrion was with me, Lupus a little behind, but catching up. I ran until my lungs burned, until I could taste blood in my spit, and still I kept running until the pounding of my blood in my ears began to echo and I listened through the spaces between the beats and heard footsteps, and a name; mine.

Blood-mouth did not know my name. I slowed and turned and felt myself sway with the sudden halt. I bent forward with my palms braced above my knees and dragged in air, hiccoughing and sobbing and swearing until all three came together and I was laughing, loosely, out of control.

Lupus was barely more sane. He crouched down and took a handful of snow and held it to a bruise on his cheek. Under the clean white moonlight, it was a black shape with no
colour,
but I could imagine it red-purple with greening edges when the sun fell on it in the morning.