SPQR VI: Nobody Loves a Centurion Read online

  The First Citizen has granted Caesar apotheosis, elevating him (and himself by family connection) to godhead. Caesar was no god, but the gods played some extraordinary tricks with him. How a man who could barely read or write could create the most beautiful, flawless Latin prose ever written is a mystery that plagues me to this day. I had seen some of his juvenilia, and those scribblings were as wretched as the works of most beginners. His mature style might have been the creation of a different man entirely.

  I was musing upon these matters when a shadow fell across the table. I looked up and there stood the German slave girl, proud and self-possessed as a princess. I was huddled into my woolen cloak, nearly freezing, yet she stood in her scanty tunic and the cold breeze didn’t even raise goosebumps on her bare limbs.

  “Ah. Freda, is it not?”

  “Freda,” she said, correcting my pronunciation. Actually, this simple name sounds almost the same in German as it is written in Latin letters. The first consonant is given a little more voice as it comes out between the upper teeth and the lower lip, and the second has a bit of buzz to it as it is made with the tip of the tongue between the upper and lower front teeth instead of touching the front of the palate.

  “For Caesar from Titus Vinius,” she said. Her voice was low and husky and aroused uncomfortable sensations.

  “You mean for the Proconsul from your master?” I said, pretending to be annoyed by her casual, disrespectful tone. Actually, I just wanted to hear her speak again, barbaric accent and all.

  “For His Worship from Himself, if it makes you feel better.” She wielded the old-fashioned slave jargon with a sarcasm Hermes would have envied.

  “Why does the First Spear send a personal slave to deliver a message? It is customary to use soldiers as runners.” It was a stupid question, but I did not want her to go just yet.

  “I do not care, and neither do you,” she said, radiating equal parts contempt and seductive musk.

  “I don’t care for your tone, girl.”

  “So? You are just another Roman. If you want to punish me, you will have to buy me from Titus Vinius. I doubt that you have the money.”

  “I have never heard such insolence!” What a liar I was in those days.

  “Decius Caecilius,” said Caesar from behind me, “if you will let Freda complete her errand, she can go to pursue her duties and we can continue with ours.”

  Embarrassments always seem to come in batches. She walked past me so close that I could tell she wore no artificial scent. No mare in heat ever smelled better to a stallion. I did not turn around as she handed her message to Caesar, and she did not glance at me as she walked away. She was as beautiful from behind as she was from in front, especially in motion.

  Caesar walked over to me and looked down. “I never knew a man could look so much like a statue of Priapus while sitting down. Right through armor and a heavy cloak, too.”

  “If Titus Vinius is such a jealous man,” I said, “why does he allow her to parade all over the camp half-naked?”

  “It is customary to display extraordinary possessions, Decius. If you own a splendid work of art, you place it where people can admire it and envy you its possession. Many men enjoy being envied.” He turned and walked back into his tent.

  “Freda,” I said to myself, practicing the sounds. I learned later that the name comes from their word for “peace”; an oddity considering how little interest the Germans have in the subject. It must result from their custom of sealing an alliance between tribes by marrying the women of one tribe to the warriors of the other.

  With an effort, I forced myself back to the task of making Caesar’s scrolls readable.

  That evening Hermes was of very little use to me. Both his arms hung limply at his sides and his face was a mask of pain. I could sympathize, almost. My father had sent me to the lndus when I was sixteen to learn swordwork and that first day was among the most memorably painful of my life. Of course, I gave him no hint of any such tender feelings.

  “I have officer of the guard duty tonight,” I informed him. “That means that I will not be sleeping. Neither will you. Because of my duty I can’t touch wine. Neither shall you. Do you understand?”

  “You must be joking,” he groaned. “I couldn’t lift a cup if I was dying of thirst in Libya.”

  “Excellent. I want a lamp lit inside the tent and one before the tent all night long. Surely that is not beyond your capacities?”

  “As long as they’re small lamps,” he said.

  Not being utterly heartless, I rubbed his shoulders with liniment before I left for guard mount. After all, his torment would start all over again the next morning.

  Officer of the guard was a duty traditionally delegated to the cavalry, I suppose because infantry officers were more important and needed their sleep. It was a duty I always hated, but not only because it meant that I went without sleep. I was always afraid that I would come upon a man who had fallen asleep at his post. Then I would have to report him. Even in peacetime in the middle of Italy the punishment for that infraction was brutal. In the presence of the enemy, it was worse than brutal. Before the whole legion, the men of his own section beat him to death with rods, a process that could take a long time even when the sticks were wielded by strong men.

  As with so many other virtues, I failed to match our ancestors in the hardheartedness so highly esteemed in military men. Our old tales are full of commanders who condemned their own sons to death for disobeying orders, even when the disobedience brought victory. This was supposed to prove something about Roman justice and martial sternness. It never proved anything to me except that Roman fathers are a bad lot.

  I mounted the wall surrounding the legionary camp at the main gate and began to walk the circuit, making more noise than absolutely necessary. To my relief, the increased guard Caesar had ordered meant that the sentries stood in pairs. That way they could help keep each other awake. There were watchfires inside the camp, but none along the rampart, lest the night vision of the guards be ruined.

  As I made my way west along the southern wall, then north along the eastern wall, I found the men commendably alert, whipping around with leveled weapons the instant they heard me, giving the challenge and not lowering their points until I replied with the watchword. Everyone knew that negotiations with the Helvetii had broken off and the barbarians could be upon us at any moment.

  When I got to the northern wall, I found the guards even more nervous. They were closest to the Gauls.

  “You’ll have plenty of warning before they come,” I said to the first set of sentries I encountered on that wall. “There’s still the great rampart between the camp and the enemy.”

  One of the soldiers spat eloquently. “Maybe. But it’s just manned by auxilia. Those buggers are worthless!”

  “Most of ’em would as soon kill us as the barbarians. Not a citizen in the lot. And the cavalry are all Gauls themselves. How can we trust that pack of savages?”

  I knew better than to argue with prejudice like that.

  “What cohort is this?” I asked.

  “First,” said one of them. “The First Cohort always has the honor of guarding the wall nearest the enemy, and the right end of the battle line.”

  Being on the right end presented their unshielded sides to a flanking movement by the enemy. Naturally, the last place any sane man would want to be on a battlefield is considered the post of honor. Not that any sane man would want to be on a battlefield at all. It is by means of these spurious distinctions that men are duped into behavior contrary to their best interests.

  “Any activity from the barbarians?” I asked.

  “Not a sound yet, sir. But they’re out there, you can be sure of that. We’ll be dodging arrows and javelins and stones before long. That rampart’s too thinly guarded, even if the auxilia were good for anything. The savages can make it across by ones and twos. Can’t do any real damage that way, but they can harass us.”

  “Keeps us on our toes,�
�� said the other phlegmatically.

  About the middle of the north wall I found a pair of sentries muttering in low-voiced conversation.

  “You’ll never hear the barbarians coming if you keep that up,” I said when I was ten feet away. They turned around rather stiffly and raised their weapons.

  “Watchword!” one of them challenged, barely above a whisper.

  “Hercules unconquered,” I replied as quietly. No sense making the enemy a gift of the watchword.

  “Patron!” said the challenger. “I didn’t know you had officer of the guard tonight.”

  “Burrus? Is this the First Century’s section?”

  “It is tonight. Each man is supposed to pull sentry duty every third night. Nobody will get much sleep now that the guard’s doubled.” He jerked his head toward the other man. A pilum in one hand and a massive scutum on the other arm limit the possibilities for gesticulation. “This is Marcus Quadratus. He’s in my contubernium.”

  The other man’s helmet bobbed. “Good evening, Senator. Burrus never tires of telling us that his family are clients of the Metelli.”

  “Arpinum?” I hazarded, guessing at his accent.

  He grinned. “That’s right. Home town of Cicero and Caius Marius.”

  “What was it Homer said of Ithaca?” I mused. “ ‘A small place, but a good breeder of men.’ “ The man moved as stiffly as Burrus and I presumed it was for the same reason. “You seem to have received the personal attention of your centurion just like Burrus.”

  Quadratus glanced sidelong at Burrus, who nodded.

  “He’s broken three vinestaffs over my back in the last five days. His option’s taken to carrying a bundle of them under his arm and passing him a new one when he breaks one over somebody.”

  “Is the whole century getting this treatment?” I asked. Even for a senior centurion this was extreme behavior.

  “He’s rough on everybody,” Burrus said, “but it’s just our contubernium that’s singled out for special punishment.”

  “But why? Is it always the woman? Is your tent closest to his, giving you more opportunity to appreciate her?”

  Quadratus managed a rueful smile. “No, she’s just an excuse. He’ll find a speck of rust on our mail at morning inspection, or somebody’s marching out of step. The woman’s the best reason to get flogged, though. At least then you’re getting something for the punishment you absorb.”

  “Why does he have it in for your contubernium?”

  “Don’t think we haven’t asked ourselves, sir,” Burrus said. “Some think he’s just insane, but I think he’s using us to make a point and cement his control of the Tenth.”

  “How is that?” I asked, mystified as always by legion politics, which can be every bit as complicated and cutthroat as the Forum kind. Burrus enlightened me.

  “He’s only been primus pilus since Caesar took over a little more than a month ago. That was when Caius Facilis, the old First Spear, retired. It always takes a while for the men to accept a new man as the one with the power of life and death. I think he’s trying to drive us to mutiny.”

  “Executing a whole contubernium would drive the point home pretty thoroughly,” Quadratus said. “I don’t think anyone would question his authority after that.”

  I had heard horror stories like this before, but it was disquieting to run across an example firsthand, if they were correct. The oddest thing was that they did not act as if this were anything especially atrocious: just one of the many hazards of soldiering, like wounds and inclement weather and being captured by barbarians for torture and human sacrifice.

  “It’s happened before,” Burrus said, reading my thoughts. “But never in the Tenth.”

  “Has Vinius always been here in the Tenth?” I asked. Some men spent their whole careers in a single legion, but senior officers were sometimes transferred.

  “No,” Burrus said. “He was with Caesar in Spain a few years ago, one of the first order centurions in the Seventh.” This meant he had been one of the centurions of the First, Second, and Third cohorts, who were senior to the other centurions of the legion. At least, this was how it was back then. I understand things have changed since the First Citizen’s military reforms. I hope the changes have been for the better, but I doubt it.

  “Why did Caesar want him in particular?”

  “You don’t make the first order without being good at your job,” Quadratus opined. “He’s a good soldier, at least on the march and in camp. We haven’t seen him in battle yet.”

  “And,” Burrus added, “he has a set of phalerae that he wears for ceremonial parades. They don’t award those for good behavior.”

  Phalerae are massive, circular medallions worn mounted on a strap harness and worn over the armor. They are decorations awarded for extraordinary valor, so awe-inspiring that men who won them actually wore them into battle, although they were nothing but an encumbrance and extra weight.

  Something whizzed past my head and I brushed at my ear, thinking it was some night-flying insect. Both sentries swung around to face the outer darkness and raised their shields to just below eye level. They did this so perfunctorily, seeming bored by yet another military chore, that at first its significance escaped me.

  “That was an arrow, Patron,” Burrus informed me. “You’d best duck below the palisade or get behind us, seeing as you’re not carrying a shield.” Even as he said it I heard an arrow thunk solidly into the chest-high wood of the palisade. From the gloom outside the camp came the sound of Gauls hooting and shouting.

  I edged behind them. “I’m going to have a few words with Carbo,” I said. “He was supposed to stop this sort of thing.” I was appalled at how badly my military instincts had eroded. In a Roman alley I could sense danger coming from any direction. Here, it seemed I was as helpless as a tribune on his first day of service.

  “Not much chance of that,” Quadratus said. “These Gauls get around in the dark like bats.” A slingstone smacked off the hide-sheathed wood of his shield with a crack that rang in my ears.

  “Shouldn’t we raise the alarm?” I asked, embarrassed that I, an officer, had to solicit advice from a couple of common legionaries.

  “It will have to get a lot worse than this,” Burrus told me. “We don’t wake the whole camp for a few arrows and stones. The barbarians aren’t even very close, or we’d have been catching javelins by now.”

  “It’s what the Gauls want, you see,” Quadratus added. “It’s to keep us on edge and wakeful. The less sleep we get, the worse shape we’ll be in on the day we fight them in force, in the open.” Another stone clanged loudly off the bronze-sheathed rim of his shield. He felt for damage. “Damn! Put a dent in it. No, Captain, we only raise the alarm if they make an assault on the camp, and they can’t get past the rampart in big enough numbers for that, so it’s just this petty harassment every night.”

  “At least it’s every third night for you two,” I said.

  “Don’t we wish,” Burrus said. “Vinius said he found leather mold on our tent this morning. We stand sentry every night until he tells us otherwise.”

  “After a full duty day?” A stone hurtled over my head, making a sound like a large bee hurrying to a distant flower. “I’ll speak to Caesar about this.”

  “Don’t bother,” Burrus advised. “He’ll just back his First Spear and you’ll only annoy both of them.”

  “He’s right, sir,” Quadratus affirmed. “Vinius can deal with just about any staff officer he doesn’t like. You’d best stay out of it.”

  “We’ll see. I have to finish my rounds. I’ll see you men again before daylight.”

  “Bring your shield next time, Patron,” Burrus said, chuckling. How a man in his position could see humor in anything was mystifying, but I was impressed enough to overlook his little insolence.

  An officer is never supposed to show fear before the ranks, so I waited until I was out of their sight before I ducked under the protection of the palisade and made my way to the ne
xt sentry post in a ludicrous, bent-kneed crouch. I straightened again only when I came in sight of the next pair and resumed my fearless swagger.

  All along the north wall the sentries were answering the Gauls’ windy war cries and challenges with the many rude noises of which Italians are the world’s masters. Darkness and their equipment deprived them of the eloquent gestures that everyone born south of the Po considers to be a part of the national arsenal.

  It was with great relief that I concluded my inspection of the north wall and worked my way down the west wall, where enemy action was far less intense, and then to the south wall where all was quiet once more. At the main gate I descended into the camp and walked up the Via Praetoria to its intersection with the Via Principalis where the main watchfire burned. It was there that the guard relief gathered and there that I found a slave tending the water clock that timed the reliefs.

  “How long until the next relief?” I asked the slave, a grayhaired man whose long service with the legion had earned him this cushy if somewhat sleep-deprived duty.

  “Two hours, sir. They stand four on, four off in this legion. First night watch goes on an hour before sunset, the last is relieved an hour after sunrise.”

  I looked at the water clock. It was a clever Greek contraption like an ornate bronze bucket filled with water. There was a hollow float in the water, which drained out through a small tube in the bottom. As it descended, the float tripped a lever at hourly intervals, and each time the lever would drop a bronze ball into a shallow dish of the same metal, producing a loud clang. I had seen the gigantic one in Alexandria, which produces a noise so loud you can hear it all over the city. I could never figure out why, since Alexandrians never pay any attention to what time it is.

  “What do you do in winter, when it freezes?” I asked.

  “Move it closer to the watchfire, so it doesn’t freeze. If the wind’s blowing hard and it freezes anyway, you watch the stars. If it’s cloudy, you just guess.”