The Gods of War

CHAPTER SEVEN

Claudia leant over her new husband, her hands on his shoulders and her eyes scanning the papers before him. She could smell his body, or more truthfully the faint odour of the perfumed oils he used to cover it. His silver hair, carefully brushed, gleamed by the side of her eyes.

‘Does my presence annoy you?’ she asked.

‘Never, never, never,’ he said, quickly and sincerely, his head lifting and turning while one hand patted hers. His nose was in profile — imposing, hooked and patrician. Claudia thought that for all Quintus’s subterfuge and downright lying, he had managed to find her the perfect husband. Sextius knew nothing of Quintus’s machinations, but he heartily shared Claudia’s sentiments. Being handsome and vain, and quite possibly the richest man in the Senate, he had always feared that if he married, it would be because he had been targeted for his considerable wealth.

The idea had never appealed to him; Sextius wanted to be loved for himself, the one person he cared for most in the world. Claudia had been a godsend, rich in her own right, from a famous noble family. He could forgive the touch of Sabine in her bloodline, for she was also a beautiful woman, who fortunately did not make excessive demands on him. The consummation of their union had not been a resounding success, yet Claudia had not chastised him; instead she assured him, while taking all the blame on herself, that she valued his companionship. So Sextius was spared the trial of the marriage bed and he took most of his pleasure elsewhere, discreetly, of course.

‘To be utterly and completely truthful with you, Claudia,’ he said, as usual, using ten words where two would do, ‘I am frankly amazed that you show the slightest degree of interest.’

‘It must be the Sabine in me, Husband, that’s caused this interest in agriculture.’

Sextius frowned; that reference to her lineage disturbed him, it being something he could forgive only as long as it was not alluded to. ‘I must take issue with you. I would describe what you have just said as actually very Roman.’

‘I never realised that one man could own so much land, and all of it so close to Rome.’ Her finger moved across the map. ‘North, south, east and west, it’s wonderful.’

‘My dear, Claudia, one does not wish to be too far away from the city. Life outside Rome can be exceedingly dreary, unless you go far to the south. Even then, you know…’

It was rare for him not to finish a sentence, but he could not utter the words that would conclude it. Sextius liked the south; the Greek cities were so much more accommodating and pleasant for him than Rome, though things had improved in the north since he had been young. But it was part of his fiction, as the upright Roman, to visit places like Neapolis only very occasionally: too many visits and malicious tongues could wag.

‘When you visit the farms, may I accompany you?’

His silver eyebrows twitched. ‘Whoever heard of such a thing, Claudia?’

Her voice was low and urgent. ‘I know it’s unusual, Husband, and people might then make jokes, saying we are inseparable.’

Sextius scarcely paused for breath; for all his lack of intellectual weight, he had a fair degree of guile and the idea clearly appealed to him, as Claudia intended that it should. He, of course, considered himself to be very clever, adept at discerning the deeper motives behind the simple words of others. He also held himself capable of deep subterfuge, an opinion that was totally at odds with the truth.

‘So they would, Claudia. Let them do so, I say. By the way, have you ever visited the Greek cities of the south?’

Aquila, once more standing guard outside Marcellus’s tent, pulled his spear to his chest in salute as the young tribune approached. The officer could look him up and down without trouble, while Aquila had to try to examine Marcellus while maintaining his stiff sentry pose. They were both taller than most of their contemporaries, but there the similarity ended, with the officer’s dark skin and black hair contrasting sharply with his own colouring. Marcellus nodded to him as he came to attention, adding a smile. Natural and unaffected, it failed its purpose, being perceived by the sentry as a deliberate attempt to underscore the gulf between them. Then the tribune stopped and looked him up and down and his eyes took in the gold chain round Aquila’s neck and that was when the man being inspected recognised him.

Suddenly, he was back outside the Barbinus villa, close to the woods, on the other side of which he lived with Fulmina, the day the leopards came. Occupied with guarding the senator’s sheep, he had seen the cage arrive and had spoken to the man who had brought these beasts to the villa, sleek spotted animals that moved with a grace he admired, their dark eyes never still. This bastard had been present, and even then he had got Aquila’s goat with his perfumed perfection: carefully barbered hair, clean oiled body and neat clothes. Had it been this shit or Barbinus who had set the leopards on the sheep? It made no odds — it ended in blood. It was also a time etched in his memory for another reason; the next day, when he had gone looking for Sosia, the Barbinus overseer had taken a savage delight in telling him she was gone.

The charm was hidden beneath his uniform and it was evident that Marcellus Falerius was wondering what the chain held. Aquila’s blood boiled again at this close and, to his mind, unfeeling examination. He was still smarting from the thoughts he had had the night before and the flash of real anger he felt now was because he had to wait upon this officer. This man, whose father had issued the orders that had killed Gadoric, could have him flogged at a whim, order him towards a certain death, and there was nothing he could do about it. Fabius, marching alongside him the following day, and listening to his complaints, did not see what he was driving at.

‘It’s the way of the world, Aquila. There’s them that’s born rich, and then there’s us. Nothing will ever change it.’

‘So I stay a legionary all my life, while he will one day command the army.’

Fabius handed him a fig. ‘He’s been bred to it.’

‘We don’t even know if he can fight,’ snapped his ‘uncle’, his eyes glaring at the decorated armour on Marcellus’s back.

‘He’ll do me, Aquila.’

Aquila was thinking that riding a horse must be easier than marching on foot. ‘You like him, don’t you?’

Fabius eased his shield up his back to keep the sun off his neck. ‘’Course I do. He’s polite, always greets the men with a smile, and doesn’t go poking his nose in places that don’t concern him.’

‘That’s because he doesn’t know they exist and that smile could mean he’s a dimwit. He leaves everything to Tullius.’

Marcellus hauled his horse over to the side of the road, dismounted and stood, rubbing the animal’s neck, as the men marched by. He could not miss the face that stared at him, nor feel comfortable with the look, a mixture of dislike and contempt almost designed to challenge him to react. He was saved from the need to do so by the soldier marching abreast, who shoved the blue-eyed legionary so hard he had to respond sharply to avoid a collision.

‘Eyes front,’ said Fabius in whisper. They were past the tribune before he spoke again. ‘What are you trying to do, earn a flogging?’

‘I’m trying to see what he’s made of.’

‘He’s made of flesh and blood, Aquila, same as you an’ me, and we’ll find out the quality of that the first time we get into a proper fight.’

Marcellus fell in beside Tullius, pulling his horse along behind him. ‘Tell me, Centurion, what do you think of these men?’

The centurion paused a while before replying, having been a soldier long enough to suspect a trick question. His motto was to tell his betters what they wanted to hear, without exaggerating too much and making them suspicious, but something in this young tribune’s eye told him that would never do. Still, a little bragging would not harm him, a reminder that, in this group of soldiers, he was one of the few men who had been in a battle.

‘Hard to tell, your honour, not many of them have seen combat before. And since they’re new to campaigning, I daresay they’re still a bit soft.’

Marcellus smiled. ‘You don’t seem the type to be easy on them.’

‘I ain’t, sir, but you can never tell what a legion’s like in Italy. Life’s too easy there.’

‘We’re not in Italy now, we’re in Gaul.’

Tullius looked first at the sea, blue and sparkling, then at the hills, criss-crossed with fields and terraces. ‘But it’s still gentle country, sir, easy pickings. I’ll wait till they have to kill, just to eat, before I trust their mettle.’

That made Marcellus frown, recalling that his father’s greatest attribute, as a soldier, was his ability as a quartermaster. ‘If we supply them properly, they won’t have to.’

Tullius nodded but said nothing. He was not about to tell the tribune that he, too, was a mite soft, nor that he thought him a smug young bastard, who knew little or nothing about life in the army.

The primus pilus, Spurius Labenius, was on the rampart, looking north, when Aquila walked up behind him. The older man did not turn round, so Aquila joined him, gazing at the distant, moonlit mountains. He wanted to speak, to ask this wel-decorated soldier about his past and it was not just their differing rank that stopped him. It was almost as if Labenius was lost in some silent prayer, holding himself rigid, his breath forcibly contained. Eventually the shoulders eased and the rush of air through his nostrils indicated that he had relaxed. He spoke, his voice deep and sad.

‘Those mountains hold the bones of a lot of legionaries.’ He turned and looked at Aquila, his eyes resting on the young man’s hair, growing again after the shaving he had endured when he enlisted. ‘Not just there, mind. I’ve been in the legions for over twenty years. Sometimes I think I’ve buried more men than I’ve led in battle.’

Aquila was reminded of Didius Flaccus; the man who took him to Sicily had, too, been a centurion, hard and battle-scarred, yet forced to beg for work from Cassius Barbinus when his service was complete. Twenty years of service to Rome had earned Didius Flaccus only enough for a constrained life; no luxuries or a young wife to warm his bed, just more toil. Yet fate had taken him past Dabo’s place on his journey south, and having had command of Clodius, it was he who had told Aquila of his adopted father’s death at Thralaxas.

For all his rough nature, Flaccus had been good to Aquila, though it was painful now to recall the way he ignored the truth, shutting his eyes to the cruelty visited upon the slaves the older man was working to death. Such blindness had made it a happy time; the spearing of Toger meant the others Flaccus had recruited from the gutters of Rome respected him. He had become a man rather than a boy, and had even had in the girl Phoebe his own Greek concubine. What would have happened to him if, on the day he and Flaccus rode to Messina to meet with Cassius Barbinus, he had not seen Gadoric near-dead on a crucifix? What he had seen was the way Flaccus had died, a victim of the very slaves he had previously tyrannised.

‘And still only a centurion?’ said Aquila, unsure of who he was referring to, the ex-soldier who had seen him grow to manhood, or this serving one standing next to him. ‘Not much for such a dedicated life.’

Labenius, when he replied, seemed resigned rather than angry, which he was entitled to be considering what this youngster had said severely breached the bounds of discipline. ‘Was a time I would have flogged any man who addressed me like that.’

Aquila turned and looked at the older man, the moonlight catching the decorations that covered the front of his breastplate, plus the gold torque on his arm. Labenius had won six civic crowns, the second highest honour in the legions, given only to a soldier who saved the life of a Roman citizen in battle and held his ground all day. The light also picked up the gleam of tears in his old eyes.

‘Why not now?’

‘Who knows, perhaps it’s the presence of those mountains and the souls of the departed.’

‘Would that make you answer my question about your rank, too?’

Labenius looked him up and down, his eyes taking in the charm at his neck, glinting in the moonlight against the background of his dark red tunic. He wondered if the boy knew how much his trinket had been a subject of discussion amongst the junior officers.

‘I’ve watched you, Aquila Terentius.’

‘I’m surprised you know my name.’

‘Don’t be!’ replied Labenius with a touch of asperity. ‘I marked you out the day you joined up.’

‘Why?’

Labenius looked north again. ‘We fought Celts all the time when I was your age, took the whole of the northern plain off them and made the tribes subject to Rome.’

‘But not the mountains?’

‘There are tribes to the north that see those mountains as their defence. They’re different men, taller and stronger, who believe that the way to happiness is to die in battle, so they come south, through the passes, helped by the mountain men, to burn and destroy. I fought against them with the general’s father, Aulus Cornelius, before he was consul.’

‘Did you win?’

‘We took back the mountain passes, but I don’t think we won, not against those men from the north. I think when they’d had enough they just went home.’

‘And I remind you of them?’

‘I don’t suppose that I’m the first to remark on it,’ replied Labenius, looking at him again. ‘And that thing at your throat isn’t Roman.’ His voice took on a different, more serious tone. ‘But it’s not just that. Young as you are, you’re a fighter. You’ve got scars that only a man who’s soldiered carries, yet you’re just old enough to be in the legions. Where did someone like you fight, Aquila? You say you’re from round Aprilium. Not with hair like that, you’re not. Was it up in the north, among the bones of dead Romans?’

‘No.’

His voice grew angry, but it had a hurt tone as well. ‘My two sons are buried up there, Aquila Terentius, killed by men who looked just like you.’

‘I was wondering why, with all your decorations, you’re not in command of an army?’

‘I was born poor, lad, that’s why. Perhaps my sons, if they’d lived, would have had the luck to rise to a higher class.’

‘I’m told that if you win the civic crown, patrician senators stand up in your presence.’

‘It costs them nothing to do that, boy.’

‘So being brave gains you little. You still have to be voted in?’

‘Why are you asking?’ growled Labenius.

Aquila had been thinking about this for days, ever since the arrival of Marcellus Falerius. He had recalled seeing the primus pilus salute the new tribune with stiff formality. The image, added to the old centurion’s question, which he had to answer, finally crystallised his thoughts and made him realise the true source of his distemper.

‘I don’t want to end up as nothing.’

The word shocked Labenius. ‘Nothing!’

‘I look at a tribune like Marcellus Falerius, with his father’s wealth and his famous name. Why is he where he is, and I am just a legionary? Why will he command armies, while I will require his vote to command cohorts?’

‘Are you so sure you’ll command men at all?’

The question took him back to Sicily again, to the army he had helped Gadoric to build, to the runaway slaves he had led and the skirmishes he had fought against his own people. ‘I have already, Labenius. I won’t say where, but it’s not in those mountains, and I shall again. You have risen through your courage, yet that is still not enough. I was hoping that you could tell me what else I need?’

‘You’re an insolent pup, boy, and you don’t deserve an answer.’

Aquila pointed to the mountains. ‘What would you have said to your sons, Spurius Labenius, if they’d asked you the same question?’

The older man’s head dropped and his voice had tears in it again. ‘I would have said it’s no good just being brave, you have to be lucky too.’

‘In what way?’ asked Aquila, ignoring the pain he had engendered in the old man’s memory.

‘Money helps, that and someone powerful who holds you in such high regard he’ll adopt you.’

He put his hand on Labenius’s shoulder, which was shaking slightly. ‘I’ve been adopted once already. That is sufficient for any man.’

Aquila did not see the rope, but he heard it whistle past his ear and saw the effect as it slid over Labenius’s head. The old centurion jerked forward as the noose tightened, his breastplate pressed against the sharp spikes on the low rampart and Aquila had his sword out in a second. He could see the shadowy figures, each with a line hooked round the stakes, hauling themselves up to attack, but he ignored them. The huge shout, used to raise the alarm, seemed to add force to his sword arm as the weapon slashed down, parting the rope that held the centurion’s neck. The shout did alert the guards, but that would do these two precious little good. Their enemies, using animal hides to blunt the spikes, were pouring over the ramparts. Aquila hauled Labenius upright and spun him round, then turned himself, just in time to fend off a thrust by one of the Celts. He and the primus pilus stood back to back, holding the rampart for what seemed like an age, all on their own.

‘It was only luck that we were there,’ said Labenius.

His arm was in a sling since, dazed and winded, he had taken a spear in the left shoulder before he had managed to get his sword out. Quintus, who must have been curious about the centurion being alone on the ramparts with a young recruit, knew better than to pose that kind of question. He turned to Aquila, standing unmarked and to attention. He was, like the primus pilus, without his breastplate and the gold eagle flashed on the chest of his tunic.

‘You should have seen them!’ he snapped.

Aquila was not afraid or overawed, even if he had never been in the command tent, nor exchanged anything other than a salute with his general. Normally, in these surroundings, rankers, called upon to report, became tongue-tied but his voice was even as he replied. ‘We would have done, if they’d approached while we were standing there. The moon was full up.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m saying that they took advantage of the clouds, earlier in the night, to get into position. They covered themselves with animal skins and hid in the ditch until it was time to attack.’

‘How would they know when it was time?’

‘There are ways, General.’

Quintus did not like his insolent tone, that was clear. He looked Aquila up and down, his eyes drawn inexorably to the flashing eagle, with an expression that seemed to demand an explanation as to why this lad, a ranker, was wearing something so valuable. Yet by his action this young man had saved him a number of casualties, since those Celts would have caused havoc amongst his men, sound asleep in their tents. As it was, he had lost several of the lightly armed skirmishers who had been allotted the duty of guarding the walls.

‘I owe Aquila my life, General,’ said Labenius, who had seen the look in Quintus’s eye. He had known the general since he was a young tribune, so he felt free to talk out of turn. ‘And I’m not alone.’

The consul turned to the old centurion, effectively cutting Aquila out of the conversation. ‘How many were there?’

‘Ask the boy,’ replied Labenius calmly. ‘He saw more than me.’

Aquila did not volunteer, but waited till Quintus turned back to face him. ‘Well?’

‘More than ten, less than twenty.’

‘That’s not very precise.’

‘We have ten bodies, General. In my opinion more than twenty men could not have hidden in the time available.’

Quintus exploded. ‘In your opinion! What makes you think that’s worth anything?’

The reply Aquila gave him went the rounds, with much shaking of heads, and many a question as to how he had missed being broken at the wheel for such effrontery. ‘I am just the same as you, Quintus Cornelius. I give you an opinion, as a mere citizen of the Republic.’

Had he turned round, he would have seen the look on his tribune’s face, a mixture of shock and anger.

‘No civic crown for you, Uncle,’ said Fabius in a mocking tone. ‘You’re incapable of holding your tongue, that’s your trouble. Let this be a lesson. If you’re going to save a Roman’s life, do it in daylight.’

He had not seen Labenius approaching or he would have kept his mouth shut, but Aquila had, so he manufactured a frown that convinced Fabius he was wounded by his ribbing, which encouraged his ‘nephew’ to continue.

‘Never mind, Aquila. You can take me along the next time. What you need on these occasions is an honest witness. They’re all the same.’

‘Who?’ asked Aquila, maliciously.

Fabius put his hands on his hips and leant forward to emphasise his point. ‘Centurions. You saved old Labenius’s life and what did you get for your trouble? A wigging from the general, then not so much as a single sestertius from the old goat, and him festooned with gold.’

Labenius’s iron-shod boot hit Fabius square on the behind and Aquila dodged to the side, so that his ‘nephew’ fell flat on his face.

‘He was just telling me to mind my tongue,’ he said, grinning at the fallen Fabius, whose mouth was open in a silent scream.

Labenius, too, looked down at his victim without sympathy, but his words were clearly intended for Aquila. ‘The general wants you.’

That wiped the grin off the youngster’s face. ‘Why?’

‘Don’t worry, it’s not to flog you, which is what would have happened in my younger days. This lot aren’t a patch on their fathers. Don’t know the meaning of the word discipline.’

Fabius got slowly to his feet, rubbing his backside painfully. ‘I was only joking, Spurius Labenius.’

‘Were you?’ snapped the centurion, making it plain that he had found it far from funny. ‘It so happens, turd, that I’ve spent half the morning trying to convince our noble general to do his duty.’ He turned to Aquila. ‘And I’ve done myself no favours in the process, ’cause the last thing Quintus Cornelius likes is to be told what his papa would have done.’

If Quintus was still angry, he hid it well. Marcellus was present as the tribune who commanded his section of the army, but standing to one side, taking no part in the proceedings.

‘Aquila Terentius, I have listened to Spurius Labenius and there is no doubt, by your action, that you have saved the life of a Roman citizen.’ He emphasised the last two words, as if to point out that he had not forgotten the way Aquila had used them. ‘It is my intention to award you a hasta pura at morning parade. Please present yourself, with your tribune, outside my tent at the appointed hour. Dismiss.’

As they came out of the tent, Labenius cursed him. ‘A silver-tipped spear? You’d have had a civic crown if you’d kept your mouth shut.’

Aquila was pleased, despite his lack of regard for officers, but he kept his voice low, not wanting those in the tent to hear him. ‘Don’t worry, Labenius. Civic crowns can’t be that hard to come by. After all, you’ve got six of them.’

‘I’d box your ears if you hadn’t saved my life.’ There was no venom in those words, more a warmth that Aquila had not heard since Clodius left home. The old centurion put up his forearm. ‘Give me your arm.’

Aquila did so, putting his hand just below Labenius’s elbow. The centurion grasped him in the same way. ‘Six men have done this to me. I’m proud to acknowledge you in the same way, even if our general won’t. Aquila Terentius, I owe you my life. You have the right to demand anything of me you wish.’