Clash of Eagles (18 page)

“Thank Juno,” Marcellinus said.

“Hand-talk, hand-talk, hand-talk,” Tahtay panted, and Marcellinus began it all again. Every few sentences Tahtay would stop him and babble away to the tall Cahokian, then beckon impatiently for Marcellinus to continue. To his frustration, it was at this late stage that Marcellinus discovered that Cahokians and Romans used different methods for counting on their fingers and that his numbers were being misunderstood, so he drew lines in the dirt to indicate the number of Iroqua instead.

“Question, two Iroqua, dead,” Tahtay said once they’d struggled through to the end of the story together. “Where?”

Marcellinus pointed into the night. Tahtay gestured
No
and pointed at the ground.

“Really?” said Marcellinus. Would the Cahokians understand a map?

Apparently so. He sketched it out in the sand of the plaza; a pebble became the Great Mound, a small square he scratched out with his finger became the plaza where they sat. He thought a little, then drew in the features he had run past. “Trees here. Trees. Corn. Trees. More corn. Four houses, men of Cahokia, all dead. Women, that.” He pointed at the woman who, as it happened, was pointing at him at the same moment in her own much more coherent retelling of the tale. “Trees. The Iroqua-Iroqua I killed, dead, here. Here.”

“Question, dead?” Tahtay pointed vaguely at his body.

Marcellinus touched his gut and the back of his head. “Iroqua One.” Then he touched his chest and mimed a spear point going into it. “Iroqua Two.”

The tall man grunted and went to talk to the woman.

“Hotah?” Tahtay said. Marcellinus was holding his stomach, probing at his damaged rib. It hurt like hell, and he was having trouble taking a full breath. He knocked twice and taught Tahtay the Latin for “pain,” “cut,” and “wound,” learning the hand-talk in return. These were the words they needed right now.

Having heard the woman’s story, the tall warrior returned and spoke again. Tahtay said, “Question. Gaius fight Iroqua?” He gestured,
shrugged, hand-talked the gesture for
Question
again, and shook his head.

Well, why
had
he done it? It was a fair question. Marcellinus stared out into the night, at the milling braves, feeling the pain of every one of his wounds.

“Hotah? Gaius?” Tahtay poked his shoulder.

“For gods’ sakes, Tahtay …”

“Why Gaius fight Iroqua?”

“Because … Because I did not want any more Cahokians to die. All right?”

Marcellinus paused. He hadn’t done the hand-talk, and Tahtay generally relied on the combination of both, but the boy had understood and was already explaining it to the tall brave.

The brave stared at the Roman for a long moment, then spoke an order. The man carrying the pugio placed it at Marcellinus’s feet, and two of his guards jogged away into the night while the remaining men stood at ease, looking around them at the mob of their fellow Cahokians.

“Good,” Tahtay said. “Finish. All done. Gaius sleep.”

Gratefully, Marcellinus lay down on the hard-packed dirt and sand. His mind still buzzed and his body was a single living mass of pain, so he knew he would not really be able to sleep, but the rest was welcome.

Yet when he opened his eyes, the dawn light was already coloring the plaza pink and gold, the men and Tahtay had gone, and a young woman he had never seen before had cut away his bloody tunic and was dressing his wounds.

Marcellinus stirred, but the woman pushed him back down. Would nobody in this town let him be? Irritated, Marcellinus hand-talked
I, See, Cut,
and reluctantly she let him twist his head up to look.

His stomach wound was several inches long. The Iroqua’s chert blade had not scored him deeply, but the edges of the cut were ragged. “The dangers of a blunt instrument,” said Marcellinus, relieved.

The woman gestured
No
in incomprehension, and Marcellinus lay
back down and let her wash and bind it and apply the thick white salve from a pot.
Wound,
he signed, pointing at the rib so she would know about that, too, though no salve she could apply would help it heal. Then, in the growing light of morning, she saw the bite mark in his calf and grimaced, raising her hand up to her mouth.

Being alone with her made Marcellinus uneasy. She was slim, strong-featured, and attractive, and he was unable to meet her eye. A few other Cahokians were coming out of their houses to fetch water and firewood, but none were anywhere near them.

She said something, pointed at his leg, made a slashing motion.

“Really?”

She pointed again and grimaced.

Marcellinus nodded and handed her the pugio. She washed the blade thoroughly, gave him an apologetic look, and began to cut into his calf.

Even though he knew her intention, he had not expected it to hurt so much. He cried out and grabbed at her, almost knocking her over.

She put her hands on her hips and lectured him in Cahokian, braids bobbing on her shoulders.

Marcellinus sucked in a deep breath, trying to fill his lungs despite the pressure from his damaged rib. He wasn’t a child; he understood that bite wounds could easily get infected. He wasn’t going to get any better medical attention than this. He should be grateful someone was even trying.

He ducked his head and hand-talked,
Sorry. Thank you. Yes. Sit, Leg. Cut,
and she understood. Resting all her weight on his thigh to stop him from flinching away from the blade, she bent to her task again.

The pain was awful, but Marcellinus withstood it without embarrassing himself any further. Once she had removed an Iroqua tooth and cleaned up the wound to her satisfaction, she painted it with a dark liquid from one of her pots that stung like Hades and then sewed it with five stitches of a bone needle and thin sinew and bound it with the white salve.

In the meantime the bright sun of Nova Hesperia had risen to bathe the Cahokian plaza. People were watching. Marcellinus felt embarrassed.

The woman stood and reached down to him. He tried to get up without her help, but the pain was excruciating. She had to put all her weight into it to haul him onto his feet, and then he had to lean on her for the long walk back to his hut. She was dusty and sweaty and smelled very female, and Marcellinus was humiliated to realize that this was the closest he had been to a woman in many years.

In his hut she lowered him gently onto the mattress, lifting his legs as if he were a geriatric. Marcellinus tried to shake off his shame.

“Gaius,” he said.

She looked at him thoughtfully. He said it again, pointing at himself, and gestured
Thank you.

Unexpectedly she grabbed his chin with her thumb and forefinger and looked deep into his eyes. Marcellinus cringed at her unblinking gaze. She turned his face to right and left, studying him in a wordless interrogation. Again Marcellinus felt uncomfortable at being alone with her and deeply saddened. “Stop,” he said, and hand-talked,
No, Please, Stop. Please.

Sniffing, she looked instead at the dressing over his stomach and probed the wound on his calf. Poked briefly at his older leg and shoulder wounds, shaking her head again at the mess he was in. She gestured,
No Walk. Sleep.

As she stood, Marcellinus found there were tears in his eyes.

She half turned in the doorway and gave him another long stare. Again he avoided her eyes, staring at the ground.

She waved to attract his attention. Pointing to herself, she said: “Chumanee.”

He hand-talked,
Thank you,
but she was already gone.

Chumanee woke him again when the sun was high. Wiping the salve off his leg, she washed the bite wound even more thoroughly, daubed more of the dark liquid on it, and bound it again with the salve and a length of woven cloth. Marcellinus kept his eyes closed throughout.

When she was done, she did not leave but stood and waited.

“She say, ‘Why you fight us?’ ”

Marcellinus opened his eyes. Chumanee stood before him, mute. Behind her stood Tahtay.

“Uh,” said Marcellinus.

“You, big army. Why fight us, Cahokia?”

Marcellinus did not reply. He had no answer for her.

“We do nothing. No blood between you and us peoples.”

Marcellinus struggled to sit up. Chumanee did not help. The hut quivered around him.

“The Iroqua killed many of my men,” he said, and even now felt a brief surge of anger at the cowardly sneak attacks his legion had suffered.

Chumanee spoke. Tahtay said, “We are not Iroqua.”

“I know.”

“Why fight—”

“I had orders to take your land. Uh, my chief, say, fight …” Hesitantly Tahtay began to translate, but Marcellinus held up his hand. “Wait. No. That’s not a reason. Or an excuse.”

“Huh?” Tahtay said. “What say?” He knocked on his arm.

Marcellinus did not want to speak. The truth of it was that he had needed Cahokian corn to feed his army over the winter. He had needed to take what these people had so he could give it to his own troops. The military equation had been brutally simple.

And it shamed him that he had allowed it to come to that. Here in the wilderness of Nova Hesperia he had found a city. Considered barbarians by his superiors in Rome, clearly, but nonetheless a people proud and well organized enough to face his Legion in battle on equal terms. Perhaps “barbarian” was an uncharitable term, after all.

And they had defeated him, using flying machines that a year ago would have been beyond his wildest imagining. For that, if for nothing else, they deserved Marcellinus’s respect.

That,
he realized at last, was why he had turned back. The Cahokians had slaughtered his Legion, but they had done it fairly, with military might, skill, and honor. The Iroqua had butchered his men in the trees and tortured and burned his scout.

It was because of Marcellinus that the Iroqua were testing the Cahokians’ inner defenses.
He
had potentially weakened the Cahokians and made them more vulnerable to Iroqua predation.

The Cahokians had his grudging respect. Enough of them had died already because of him.

He hand-talked:
I, Speak, Bad. Wrong words.

“What are right words?”

He thought about it. Eventually he said in Latin, “Sometimes, when two armies meet, big warriors, they must fight. We had come so far. Long way. Yes? Many moons.”

Tahtay did not translate. He just stared.

“What?” Marcellinus said.

“Those are right words? I say to Chumanee?”

“No. Those are the wrong words, too.” He turned to Chumanee. “Look. It just got away from me. The march, the heat, and the impossible distances, the constant hoping for gold. The need for supplies. The Iroqua attacks. Corbulo’s mutiny. By the time we got here to Cahokia … there were no choices left.”

Chumanee stared. Tahtay shook his head. “Hand-talk?”

“Tell her Gaius is sorry. But Gaius has no answer for her.”

Chumanee was standing very close. Her face was dark; he thought she might slap him. He did not move.

Once, not so very long ago, any native woman who struck him in anger would have died instantly. But Marcellinus was no longer a Praetor.

Instead she touched the back of his hand as if checking to make sure he was real, and at the delicacy of her touch Marcellinus did flinch away from her. She spoke now, very quietly. A chill of horror went up Marcellinus’s spine.
Gods,
he thought.
Please let her be vowing to slit my throat in the night. Don’t let her pity me. Please.

The boy coughed. “She say you are good man among bad men, Romans. She say that why you …” Tahtay waved his hand around his head.

“Confused? Crazy?” Marcellinus closed his eyes. “No. That’s not right. I’m not a good man, Tahtay. Tell her that.”

The Cahokians spoke again. Marcellinus felt the movement of the air as Chumanee stood, caught the aroma of her on the air, heard the rustle of the deerskin as she pulled back the door curtain and stepped up out of his hut.

He opened his eyes. Tahtay was looking at the floor, acutely embarrassed.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Marcellinus said.

“Chumanee say, ‘Maybe tomorrow you will be.’ ”

The room hazed up around him again.

“Go now, Tahtay,” he said quietly.

“More outside,” the boy told him.

Marcellinus shook his head. He neither understood nor cared. “I’m sure there are. Go now. I need to rest. Gaius sleep.”

Looking uncertain, Tahtay left.

Marcellinus tried to breathe deeply. His damaged rib curtailed the effort, and he gasped.

This was not the first cracked rib Marcellinus had ever suffered or even the third, and he knew it would take a month or more to heal. That was the worst of it, though. He might have white salve splattered all over him, but he would survive. Provided he could avoid getting himself into any more fights, that is.

The gloom of his hut oppressed him. Before he slept again, he needed to see the sunlight. Limping slowly to the door, Marcellinus pulled the deerskin aside and looked out into the early afternoon.

There he found a squad of Cahokian warriors waiting for him.

They sat patiently on the ground in the open space outside his hut, nine of them, all young and fit with the feathery shoulder tattoos. The seven men had their hair shorn at the sides and were naked to the waist to show their war tattoos. The two women wore tanned leather tunics and tightly braided hair and looked just as muscular and hard-bitten as the men. Off to one side was a small pile of burnished steel: Roman armor, Roman shields, Roman gladii and pila.

“Oh,” said Marcellinus.

The warriors appraised him. Two of them nodded, impressed at the severity of his wounds. The larger of the women smiled broadly. Marcellinus preferred not to guess why. He looked around, but his translator children were nowhere to be seen.

One of the warriors stood.
Teach,
he gestured in hand-talk:
Fight.
Picking a gladius from the pile, he shook it clumsily. He pointed at Marcellinus and then at the warrior group and bowed. The rest of the warriors bent at the waist from their sitting position.