Legionary

Chapter 7

‘Oi, you couple of fairies! This is as far as I’m goin’,’ the cart driver grumbled as the rickety heap of wood and wheels slowed at the crossroads.

Pavo squinted at the dawn sunshine as he woke. His second morning of freedom. He shivered at the early chill and made it half way through a yawn before he noticed the snoring blonde-mopped young man resting on his shoulder. Shrugging him away, Pavo stood to stretch his spindly legs and ran his palms over his freshly cropped dark bristles. The bed of hay and grain sacks hadn’t been the most comfortable, but he had slept like a baby since leaving the port of Tomis — especially after the stomach churning boat journey to get there from Constantinople. He touched a hand to the black bruise on his ribs as he slid towards the cart edge; Fronto had indulged in one last session of pummelling him. But it was the last one, and that at least warmed his heart.

‘Much appreciated,’ Pavo croaked to the driver, leaping to the ground. The driver glared at him and held out a hand. Still unused to holding money that he alone owned, Pavo rummaged in his purse and dug out two follis of the ten Tarquitius had bitterly handed over to him before he left the villa. He tossed the coins to the driver. Oddly, the driver nodded back to him, as he would to any citizen or freedman.

The cart set off without delay. His travelling companion, still dismounting, stumbled onto the road in his filthy tunic, with a ragged satchel over his shoulder.

‘Oh for…what was his problem?’ The blonde lad cursed.

Pavo shrugged, smiling, rummaging in his satchel to pull out two boiled eggs that he had bought at the docks in Tomis. He peeled the shell from one and munched into the white, eyeing the lad; probably a similar age to himself, with a tumble of blonde curls hanging on his forehead, framing emerald eyes and rosy, chubby cheeks like a cherub bust. But it was the inherently cheeky grin that caught the eye

‘Ah well, I hope he gets as far away as possible before he realises the coin I gave him last night was fake,’ the youth snorted. ‘Sura, Decimus Lunius Sura, unofficial King of Adrianople — here to hinder the legions,’ he grinned, stretching out his hand. ‘Didn’t mean to pass out on you like that, but you were sound asleep when I hitched a ride. So what name do you go by?’

‘Numerius Vitellius Pavo — here because…er…because the streets of Constantinople couldn’t handle my greatness,’ he replied, cursing his poor show of wit as he clasped Sura’s hand. He didn’t really have a proud history to share.

‘Okay,’ Sura nodded uncertainly, wrinkling his forehead and plucking the other egg from Pavo’s hand. Before Pavo could protest, Sura had cracked off the top of the shell and sunk his teeth into the white. ‘Well, I hope you’re up to the walk?’ He mumbled through a full mouth, jabbing a thumb over his shoulder to the plain stretching out ahead.

Pavo turned away, unable to suppress a chuckle at this lad’s swagger, then he hopped up onto the verge at the roadside to take in their surroundings. The River Danubius snaked across the land from the west until its rapids poured into the shimmering waters of the Pontus Euxinus. The silhouetted bulk of the town of Durostorum hugged the banks of the river; the squat stone bulwark of the XI Claudia fort lay dead centre of the plain between the crossroads and the town, a rocky island in the sea of cornfields about twelve stadia ahead of them. He traced his eyes over the train of merchant carts along the road to the fort; a constant flow in both directions — headed in with wine and food and back out laden with legionary wages.

When you fall at the end of a sword, then my hands are clean. He shivered at Tarquitius’ words.

They walked, they bantered then they ate some more when Sura pulled a chunk of bread from his satchel — dry but welcome, and washed down with a skin of chill water. Then as the shadow of the fort loomed closer, both fell quiet. The fort, weatherworn and half-clad in spidering green moss, dominated the landscape for him. He cast an envious glance at Sura by his side; the Thracian’s face didn’t betray any hint of the fear Pavo felt gnawing at his insides again. The legions were sold as a glorious career path, but the truth of military life was brutally summarised by the sight of young men mutilating themselves on the city streets to avoid conscription. It was hard to believe the texts he had read telling of a time when the army was the most sought after vocation in the empire. Sure he was free, but survival was a transient concept in the legions.

‘Watch out!’ Sura yelled, shoving him to the roadside. A trade cart hurtled between them, its rider standing tall — taller than any Roman, with his blonde topknot billowing in his own slipstream. A spray of grit and dust whipped up and over their faces.

‘Bloody Goths!’ Sura spat. ‘Seems they can’t make up their mind whether to trade with us or make war. Those big buggers are exactly the types we’ll be up against after we’ve signed up. They’re everywhere, I hear.’ Sura turned to Pavo with a manic sparkle in his eyes. ‘You scared?’

‘No!’ Pavo started.

Sura grew a wry smile and nodded slowly. ‘I’ll make you a deal,’ he said, looking Pavo up and down, then nodding towards the legionary fort. ‘Let’s face it, neither of us is built like a legionary…you’re more like a baby deer with those legs,’ he prodded a finger at Pavo’s slender knock-knees, scuffed and bruised. ‘So if we’re going to get through life in the legions, we can’t let the veterans mess with us. You watch my back, and I’ll watch yours, eh? Deal?’

Pavo noticed an unfamiliar feeling in the pit of his stomach — this was the first time someone had spoken to him as a friend for over a year. Back at the slave quarters under Tarquitius’ villa, Kyros the Cretan, maybe ten years Pavo’s senior, had played dice with him at night and shared food. Together they had suppressed the bitterness of slavery and kept each other’s spirits up for many seasons. Then Tarquitius had bludgeoned him for stealing stale bread from the pantry until blood haemorrhaged from his eyes and ears.

He bit back the cold memory, accepting Sura’s outstretched hand. ‘They aren’t too complimentary about the legions from where I come from. They say the soldiers are either local farmer boys, too young even to shave, or scum scraped from the city gutters; beggars, brigands and cutthroats — the scummier, the better.’

‘Didn’t put you off though, eh?’ Sura chirped, slapping Pavo on the back.

‘Look, I didn’t choose this…’

‘Aye, aye. And as I said; I’m King of Adrianople,’ Sura mocked.

‘Adrianople? I heard that lot couldn’t hold a torch to the street gangs of the capital,’ Pavo sighed dismissively, hitching up his pack. ‘The Blues and the Greens; vicious buggers — and I had to deal with them on a daily basis.’

‘Course you did,’ Sura picked up a piece of slate and hurled it. He was already in flight by the time it skated off the back of Pavo’s head.

‘You dirty camel’s arse!’ Pavo roared, bounding for his attacker.

Pavo launched himself forward as Sura stumbled down the rough banking at the side of the road. They crunched together, head over heels down into the parched roadside ditch. Pavo swung for Sura’s gut, only brushing knuckles against tunic, and falling face-first in the dust. Sura roared with laughter. Enraged, Pavo shot out an arm, grasping Sura’s ankle, wrenching him from his feet and onto his back. Triumphantly, he scooped up a handful of dust, cramming it into Sura’s mouth.

‘Breakfast on me, and there’s a nice portion of donkey turd in there for you,’ he yelped. Suddenly, the neighing of a horse and a gruff voice boomed over the pair of them.

‘Names and ranks?’

Both of them sprang up to face the voice. Squinting through the sunlight, Pavo made out the bull-like form of a mounted officer in full dress centurion armour; a bronzed cuirass over a dark-red tunic and a horsehair crest billowing across his helmet.

‘Names and ranks? Don’t make me ask again!’ The centurion barked through his tombstone teeth. Pavo noted his heavy brow seemed set in a permanent frown.

Sura spluttered the clods of dirt from his mouth, to which the centurion cocked an eyebrow.

‘We’re on our way to enlist in the XI Claudia legion, sir!’ Pavo jumped in. ‘I’m Numerius Vitellius Pavo.’

‘Decimus Lunius Sura,’ Sura croaked.

‘Couple of skinny runts coming to enlist, eh? Dunno what the army is coming to,’ he muttered. ‘Centurion Brutus, chief centurion of the second cohort,’ the officer grunted, rubbing his stubbled anvil of a chin, ‘and I can only beg Mithras that you don’t end up in my ranks. Out of the ditch and follow me in.’ He nodded to the gatehouse of the fort, the ruby-red bull banners flapping in the breeze from the flanking watchtowers, where a set of six grim-faced legionaries glared down on them. ‘Or would you rather stay out here to roll about in the donkey shit by the roadside?’

Pavo and Sura swapped a nervous glance and then scrambled up the banking. Sura followed Pavo’s lead, standing straight as a flagpole, chin up and chest out.

‘Ready, sir!’ Pavo chirped, but his grin dropped as the centurion’s steely glare remained.

‘We’ll see about that,’ he said, calmly turning his mount towards the legionary fort at a gentle trot.