Field of Mars (The Complete Novel) (16 page)

It was late in the afternoon, the desert sun disappearing behind a towering bank of purple and gray clouds, dry lightning bolts flickering through them, taunting the desert with the unfulfilled promise of rain. Rufinius watched unseeing as his feet kicked up the dust with each step, adding to the thick cloud of it streaming from the column trudging across the sand. He reflected on how much more difficult it was to endure the heat and penury when the heart was beaten. The march had continued for three days now, from sunrise to sunset, the captured resting only at night. How much farther must they go? The dust again caught in Rufinius’s throat and he coughed painfully, his mouth raw and dry, his discomfort matched in equal measure by all those around him.

Some of the men had started drinking their own urine, pissing into their cupped hands, believing the conservation of fluid would also preserve their lives. Rufinius had tried it once, but the taste induced a fit of vomiting that had left him exhausted and thirstier than ever, so he had not repeated it.

“It’s yous!” exclaimed a man who shuffled into the line beside Dentianus. He pointed at Rufinius. “Yous the Alexandrian!”

Rufinius ignored the statement as if he hadn’t heard it said.

“One of the men in your century once pointed you out to me, said yous was the best swordsman in the army.”

“Shut your mouth, landica face, if you can’t talk proper,” Libo advised the man who then broke into a coughing fit, the dust overcoming his exuberance.

“Crawl back to into your mother’s cunnus,” suggested Carbo.

A rag wrapped around the man’s head dislodged to reveal a shallow crusty scalp wound teeming with flies where his ear used to be. When he had recovered from the fit sufficiently he said, in an accent Rufinius couldn’t place, “My name is Marcus Lepidus. Third Legion, Fifth Century, and decanus of the third contubernium.” He rearranged the bandage over his wound. “Maybe yous haven’t noticed, but we are unguarded and yet we all march as if chained beneath a yoke. I have ten men. All are good fighters but our centurion, optio, and tesserarius have paid the Ferryman. We need a leader. More would join us if yous would step forward.”

Rufinius finally turned to look at him. “Join you to what? Escape? Or are your plans grander still?”

“Of course escape. At night, when the Parthians hide away in their tents.”

“Decanus Lepidus, look around. It’s not the Parthians who keep us in line, or the occasional legionary half buried in the sand who greets our lines in the morning with a black carrion bird perched on his head. The desert itself is a better guard than all the squadrons of mounted Parthians. As for my so-called ability with a gladius, what could even a cohort of the Republic’s mightiest swordsmen do for you when there is no water to drink? And while we talk of swordsmanship, what weapons are you placing in your legionaries’ hands? Tell me. I see no steel anywhere.”

“You surprise me, Centurion Rufinius. Listening to the rumors I expected more from yous. Who knows what opportunities lie beyond the next dune? In this column we do one thing only – mooch toward certain slavery.”

“We’re worth something alive. That’s why they give us water, sphincter lips,” Libo interjected. “Or haven’t you worked that out?”

“Just enough to keep us moving,” Rufinius said, “but not enough to give us strength. Leave the column and the little water they give us to keep us breathing will dry up completely. And out on the desert there is nowhere to hide from their archers. You will die, as will the men who follow you, and we will see you buried up to your necks for the birds’ morning feast. You forget, Decanus – we walk in this dust a defeated army because someone forgot that a legionary’s greatest weapon is his wits, not the edge on his sword.”

“Like so many heroes, Centurion, the reality is disappointing,” the one-eared man said bitterly. “When I reach freedom, I will be sure to spread your fame.” An instant later he was gone into the dust.

The man’s rebuke cut Rufinius, but he knew he was in the right. Only a few of the more foolhardy legionaries had considered escape seriously enough to attempt it. Perhaps some had made it to freedom, but Rufinius doubted it. No one in the column knew where they were in relation to any known landmarks. The only thing they knew for certain was that they moved generally south and east, the water rationed in a miserly fashion, and the food almost non-existent. But somewhere ahead, surely, must be the Euphrates.

On two mornings of this march so far, recaptured legionaries that had attempted escape were found buried in the sand up to their necks, their heads left exposed for the large black desert carrion birds that flapped their black wings as they gouged at eyes, tongues, and cheeks. On the desert plain, as all had learned the hard way, there was nowhere to hide. And so the defeated legionaries of Proconsul Crassus shuffled on, mad with thirst, but compliant. The guards that oversaw them were few. The mounted Parthians interacted with the captured men not at all, standing far off from the column, their bows around their backs, their anonymous faces kept hidden by the darkened shadows beneath their helmets.

“He made a good point,” said a man walking ahead of Rufinius. “There are few if any officers of the army left alive. Perhaps you are the only one.”

“What does it matter?” Rufinius replied.

“What you told the man about Roman wits – it’s true.”

“How would you know, ass face?” said Carbo, walking beside the man. “You don’t even wear the uniform of a legionary. For all we know you’re a dancing girl.”

“A dog-ugly dancing girl with a beard,” corrected Dentianus.

“Enough talk, worms,” Fabianus commanded. “Save your breath.”

“Let ’em go,” Rufinius said between coughs. “Passes the time.”

The optio shook his head, displeasure weighing heavy on his features. He slowed his step so that he fell back through the lines of shambling men.

“There a problem with Fabianus?” Rufinius asked, noting the man’s anger.

“Yes,” Dentianus replied, his voice low. “The problem is that he’s older than you, and has just as much experience as you and yet the primipilus passed over him when looking to promote optios to the centurion ranks,” Libo told him.

Rufinius grunted. Given their current situation, a man’s station within the legion seemed less than important.

“So who are you anyway, cunnus?” Carbo prompted the man beside him. “You don’t wear the tunic of a legionary and your accent places you from Rome herself.”

“I’m a historian,” the man in rags informed them.

“A historian? What in Persephone’s vagina is a school master doing marching in the ranks?” Carbo rasped.

“These are hardly ranks and we’re not marching,” the historian corrected him.

“It’s a fair question,” said Rufinius. “What
are
you doing here?”

“I was brought to Syria, and then subsequently on this campaign, by Marcus Licinius Crassus.”

“By the very cunnus who led us into this fly-blown Arab’s armpit?” Libo asked.

Rufinius was intrigued despite himself. “Why were you brought here?”

“To record the proconsul’s greatness for the unborn generations to come.”

Several men roared with laughter before succumbing to the dust.

“What’s your name, historian?” Rufinius asked when he had sufficiently recovered his breath.

“Appias Cominius Maro.”

“Look around you. Not much greatness here.”

“For a historian, a specific outcome matters little. All that matters is that an outcome, whatever it is, gets recorded.”

“Then let’s hope you stay alive long enough to put stylus to tablet.”

And on they shuffled.

*

With the coming of night arrived a desert wind. Rufinius glanced skyward and silently cursed the gods taunting them with the promise of rain that never came. Ahead, the column halted and men dropped to the sand where they stood, overcome by exhaustion and thirst. A troop of Parthians on fine horses, their steel armor fired golden orange by the low sun, their flapping tunics a blaze of bright reds, brilliant whites, royal purples and sky blues, trotted by Rufinius’s place in the lines. All Rufinius could think of was that these men must be well watered. Several legionaries crawled into the path of the horsemen and begged for water, but the troop deftly skirted around them and continued on its way.

Soon after, camels carrying firkins of water roped to their flanks began to arrive, striding long legged and lazy over the dunes. The camels were accompanied by Parthian archers, arrows notched to their bowstrings, wary of trouble. From past experience, the legionaries knew that if a riot around the camels ensued, men would be killed where they stood. So ordered lines formed and each man was given two ladles of the precious warm water.

Rufinius approached a camel with Fabianus, Carbo, Libo and Dentianus and other remnants of their century. The historian Appias also joined them.

“More camels and more water this evening than last,” Rufinius observed. “There’s a river nearby.”

The legionaries took their rations, returned to the column, and dropped to the ground, huddled against the sand-laden wind that stung their bodies, the sleep of exhaustion overtaking them quickly.

*

Rufinius woke from a dreamless slumber as dawn painted the rim of cloudless sky with a streak of yellow. His belly was a yawning, crawling pit of hunger and there was sand through his hair and in his mouth. A feeling of desperation lay heavily on him. He peeled off the sand coating his swollen tongue, using his teeth as a strigil, and spat the damp ball onto the ground. Other men around him began to stir. Several legionaries greeted the dawn with muttered curses, another day of unrewarded exertion ahead with no apparent chance of respite or redemption.

It wasn’t long before the Parthian cornicens sounded their instruments. The men responded slowly, rising to their feet, some urinating thin dull-orange-colored streams onto the sand in front of them, too noxious to drink. None had the energy to resist as the cornicens again blew their commands and men merely shuffled forward as if pushed by invisible hands. Several legionaries tripped over comrades who could not rise from the sand, their muscles cold and stiff in death and their open eyes coated in dust. Rufinius was relieved that at least none were men he knew by name.

Just ahead, the historian stumbled and fell and had not the energy to get to his feet a second time, but then Rufinius gathered him up. “Leave me here,” Appias gagged, sand clogging his nostrils, his muscles refusing to work.

“You’ll ride the Ferryboat one day, scholar, but not today.” Rufinius hooked the man’s arm around his shoulders and dragged him to his feet. “Start walking!” he commanded. “If you’re going to die with legionaries at least try to behave like one.”

Appias had no choice but to get his legs moving. The historian soon fell into the rhythm of the column, mesmerized by the weary rocking shoulders of the men ambling in front.

Though sitting just above the edge of the world, the sun’s heat was already cruel. Ahead in the dust, Rufinius saw a collection of dancing black shadows on the sand. Or perhaps his eyes were deceiving him, he thought, waking dreams brought on by the madness of thirst. As his section of the column drew nearer to the shadows, the centurion realized they were buzzards dancing on the sand, their wings outstretched. He had seen this before. Men paused briefly beside the birds to ogle, causing the column to bunch up, which made the men behind swear at those ahead to keep moving. Soon it was Rufinius’s turn to see what had lured the birds from the sky and he recognized the man with no ear – the decanus. Like others who had attempted escape, he was buried up to his neck in the sand, his eyes, lips, and tongue already ripped out by the dancing, flapping, squawking birds. Ten other men were buried alongside him. All were still alive, lolling in pain, unable to make a sound except to grunt and shake their heads away from the marauding beaks tormenting them.

Rufinius and his men were soon pushed past the scene by the men behind them who then slowed to take in the lesson buried in the desert by their Parthian captors – that it was better to walk in line than to run from it.

The dust seemed at its worst when the sun was directly overhead, scorching the legionaries’ bare heads and blistering their shoulders. But this day would be different to the ones preceding it. The sand underneath the legionaries’ feet was partially giving way to baked river silt. And in the air ahead, the shimmering pools of false water could not hide the occasional tree

Fabianus sniffed the air. “Water.”

“I smell tree sap and rotting things,” Libo added, perplexed.

The arrival of additional security, Parthian archers and their bows, confirmed the day’s promise of a drink. A ripple of excitement pulsed through the ranks, reminding Rufinius of when the legions arrived at the river prior to the battle. Several legionaries broke in the direction of the treeline, but the Parthian horsemen galloped ahead of them and threatened to fill them with arrows if they did not return to the column.

“They didn’t kill them,” observed Dentianus, puzzled by the demonstration of mercy.

Rufinius observed a simple fact: “Each is worth silver denarii alive. Nothing dead.”

The captured army continued to move forward, following the course of the river. The legionaries were maddened by the proximity of water, its scent carried on the shifting breeze. Eventually the weary Romans arrived at a bustling but crude port still under construction, gangs of slaves chopping at virgin logs with adzes, which explained the pungent richness of tree sap and other aromas lacing the air.

The slaves toiling on this port were mostly dark-skinned Arabs – teams of them also built new barges while others unloaded lumber and supplies from barges newly arrived. Men wearing slave collars and little else put the finishing touches to holding pens which were staked out with freshly hewn timber, ringed by sharpened palisade sticks angled in toward the walls of wood, obviously to dampen thoughts of escape.

Overseers picked from the ranks of the Romans began to make themselves known to the greater mass of the column. These men wore hoods to hide their identity and carried whips, swords, and other forms of encouragement for the slaves in their charge. The air was alive with the sound of men shouting, of wood being chopped and the ringing of metal on metal from numerous forges, the thrash of the lash on bare skin and the occasional cry from a man’s throat.

Rufinius looked upon the port they were approaching with a neutral heart, assessing realities. Along with the slaves that were laboring, there were also Parthian freemen with their own slaves seated at shaded tables, hunched over clay tablets as they performed head-counts on the incoming multitude. The activity was feverish all around.

“They’re building barges to float us down the Euphrates to Babylon or Ctesiphon,” the historian Appias said, thinking aloud.

“Ctesiphon?” Rufinius inquired.

“Capital city of the Parthians.”

It was while ruminating on this that Rufinius at last saw the river itself – a dark green ribbon moving languidly through a confusion of barges, woodchips, slaves and overseers. Thoughts of falling into its cool embrace caused his knees to tremble beneath him.

Dentianus nudged him. “Primor …”

Through the dust came another column of captured souls.

“They took our baggage train,” Rufinius deduced, seeing a rag-tag column of shuffling men and women who had not the carriage nor fortitude of soldiers. The dust cleared for a moment and Rufinius laid eyes on a collection of women, 200 or more, winnowed from the ranks of the captured. All were young and strong and Parthian officers stood around leering and pointing at them. Rufinius knew the prettiest of these women would fetch ten times that of a man, sold as playthings to wealthy Parthians. It was then that the centurion felt the eyes of one of the women on him. She was dressed in a loose desert-colored tunic over breeches that hid her features. A further attempt at disguise had seen her chop her hair roughly back to the scalp. But these designs failed to hide her considerable height, the strength of her limbs, or the fact that her eyes, which stared at Rufinius across the expanse, were a cold and piercing blue.

“Her name is Andica,” said Fabianus, observing the women.

Carbo winked. “Which is very close to
landica
.”

“Who asked you?” Fabianus snapped at him.

Rufinius was taken with the woman. “You know her?”

“She warmed the bed of the Primus Pilus,” said Fabianus. “Do you remember how Hadrianus mentioned you reminded him of someone?”

Rufinius nodded. “A woman?”

“Look at her. The blue eyes. She is German, same as you.”

One of the Parthians came up to her and placed his hand between her legs and a hand on her breast. The woman turned to look at him and, without flinching, head-butted him so hard that he fell backwards onto the ground, dazed. His friends laughed and jeered as the man came unsteadily to his feet. He shook his head a few times to clear it, grabbed an overseer’s lash and began striking the woman with it. But the slave master’s men quickly regained the ascendancy by disarming the man, and he strode away angrily to the jibes of his friends.

Rufinius lost sight of the woman as the few Parthian archers guarding the legionaries were then joined by fresh teams of slave overseers – men of unknown race and origin who wore no hoods to hide behind, and whose sole affection seemed to lie with administering the lash. They began laying into the legionaries, who were too weak to resist, breaking up the column and herding the men into pens, many hundreds of them in each. The Romans went into their new abodes willingly enough, once word was passed that in the center of the circular wooded cages were firkins with enough water for all.

Rufinius, Fabianus, Dentianus, Libo, Carbo and Appias were dragged into one such holding pen by the press of legionaries around them running for a drink. With the gnawing, all-consuming distraction of thirst finally quenched, it was only then that the vexations of imprisonment set in. For some, the privations were only beginning.

From atop the walls of the pen, freemen began pointing out legionaries who were badly wounded and guards armed with curved steel blades, accompanied by overseers with lashes, entered the pen and separated these men from the rest. Rufinius was among those taken aside, the dried blood caked on his tunic and thigh impossible to hide.

Slaves with buckets of water washed down wounds. It was clear that the centurion’s cuts were not infected and had even begun to heal of their own accord, and so he was again set aside. Dentianus and Carbo joined him. But many of those inspected didn’t fare quite as well and were dragged away from the pens and their cries of death beyond the walls could be heard by the legionaries within. Seen as a burden rather than an asset to potential buyers, a wounded slave would not sell.

Sad resignation settled upon Rufinius and the others. They were as cattle and no more.

*

Accompanied by two of his own lieutenants, Volodates rode through the encampment. He was seeking out the ornate palanquin from where Farnavindah – the despot who ruled this kingdom of misery by virtue of distant family ties to one of the king’s uncles – issued his decrees. Weaving among the pens, Volodates found the man’s covered transport, carried aloft by a team of naked, pubescent boys, all of them black and all painted through fanciful artistry to resemble exotic animals extravagantly endowed.

Volodates rode into the path of the palanquin, forcing it to stop.

“Who told you to rest?” squawked Farnavindah from behind a silvered curtain. “Keep moving. I don’t have the time for you to stand around.”

Four huge men – the slave driver’s bodyguards – were walking at the four corners of the palanquin. Their smooth bald heads and hairless brown bellies gave them the appearance of walking boulders, except that on each belly was inked a large green eye to ward off evil. At the sound of Farnavindah’s characteristically high-pitched squeal, the men reached for the heavy battle-axes crossed behind their shoulder blades, taking steps toward the mounted Parthian officer blocking their way.

“A word, Farnavindah, if you please,” Volodates called out as his own lieutenants reacted to the threat and reached for arrows. “Before these ornaments of yours make a tragic mistake.”

Farnavindah peeked out from within the ivory and gold inlaid box and saw the famed captain of horse. In anticipation of the slave master stepping down from his portable throne, one of the boys placed purple cushions on the ground to prevent his chubby slippered feet coming into contact with the dust.

“Ah, Generalissimo! I see you have met the Mountains of Yuezhi,” Farnavindah said, staying his bodyguards with a gesture. “Allow me to introduce you to North, West, East, and South, mystical warriors with powers beyond the mere physical. They are known as the Eyes of the Moon. Their country is far to the east where men bigger even than these hold the sky aloft for Mithra himself. Have you heard of the Yuezhi, tribes who call themselves People of the Moon?”

Volodates, well used to excessive introductions, gave no reaction save for boredom tinged with irritation.

“No, I thought not,” said Farnavindah, apparently annoyed by Volodates’s lack of interest. “Then tell me, what is the word you have for me?” he asked, smoothing the folds of his tunic embroidered with colorful birds. “Can’t you see I am busy?” He seemed engorged with condescension, his natural demeanor.

“Busy, Slave Master?”

“Of course. Every moment you delay my work sees another death within your stock because of thirst, privation, and disease. This will have negligible effect on my commission, though it will hurt your master’s purse directly. And speaking of your magnificent master, all of Babylon is agog at his besting of the western barbarians. Will he be putting in an appearance here? Should I make arrangements? The mighty Spāhbed Surenas could have his cock sucked every inch of the way from here to Seleucia if he so wished.”

Several among Farnavindah’s zoo giggled.

“Mind your tongue. I find its wagging offensive,” Volodates said. “The spāhbed has been called to King Orodes’s side and will not reward your camp with his presence.”

“Ah, a great pity. We have many entertainments here.”

“I, too, am busy and wish to know timings,” said Volodates, barely hiding his revulsion of the slave master and his menagerie. “When will the first barges make their way down river? Where will you corral the Romans prior to sale? And where will that be? Babylon or Ctesiphon?”

“Neither, for the moment, Generalissimo. Have you not taken note of the river’s level? Perhaps it has escaped your attention. In fact, we are marooned in this place until the rains come. They are late this year.”

“There is enough water to bring your business here, but not enough to float it downstream?”

“The level drops every day, every hour. There are whole stretches of the river now given over to mud, turtles, and eels. But when the rains come, as they surely will, commerce will commence.”

Weary, Volodates shifted in his saddle to find a more comfortable seat. “And what is your plan, Slave Master, when the rains come?”

“You should say those words with love, soldier, for I am to make you rich.”

Volodates’s impatience flared. “I am waiting on you to tell me how. Or am I to guess?”

Farnavindah grunted and the considerable rolls of sweating flesh beneath his neck quivered. “As you know, I have one of the oldest and largest establishments for the captivity of slaves in all of Parthia, but not even I have room enough to house and feed ten thousand. Therefore, around a thousand of the finest examples of male and female slaves will be separated from the rest, and then, once the river rises, carefully barged to Babylon.” He paused in his speech and snapped, “I am hot!” Immediately one of his painted boys raced to produce a fan and began waving it over the master’s head. “Upon arrival,” Farnavindah continued, “they will be housed and shown privately to potential buyers at my premises in the city. This will guarantee mighty Spāhbed Surenas the highest profits and help to spread the word that, again, Farnavindah has only the very best quality product. The lower grade specimens among the captured – those who are older, unhandsome or infirm – will be sold directly into the market. The balance, far and away the largest number, will be kept at my country estate, which is near enough to Babylon if the market’s appetite for Roman slaves should prove voracious. Advertisements have already been lodged in the usual places and I am reliably told that there is much anticipation in Babylon for the sales to begin. Are you satisfied? Now, if you will be so kind as to allow me to get on and do what I do, I shall make all haste with the arrangements as per the agreements with your master and mine, Spāhbed Surenas.” Farnavindah waved at Volodates to be gone, much as a man would wave at a fly.

Volodates kept his horse still. “Now that you have seen the quality of Spāhbed Surenas’s property, have you a view as to its worth?”

“Mithra’s twisted cock!” Farnavindah exclaimed, exasperated. “I have had but two hours since the first numbers straggled into my encampment, dying of mistreatment. I beg you, give me a little time in which to make proper assessments.”

“How much time?”

Farnavindah glanced at one of his Yuezhi mountains, who took steps in Volodates’s direction. The slave master then thought better of unleashing him and wisely raised a finger at the man, who retreated.

“How much time?” Volodates inquired again, his patience sapped.

Farnavindah glared at Volodates and sighed theatrically, “As much time as it takes, Generalissimo. There are ways and means to maximize profit, just as there are shortcuts to diminishing it. I am the pre-eminent man in my field, which is why your master entrusted these spoils of war to me. Now, if you don’t mind …”

Volodates smiled at the slave master and enjoyed the man’s discomfort, sweat pouring from the deep rolls of flesh in which his chin was buried, the oiled and perfumed braids of his hair coiled high on his head threatening to melt like the black tar that oozed from numerous wounds in the desert floor. With thoughts of his own two sons clouding his judgement, and what a man such as this might do with them, Volodates yearned to draw his sword and behead the disgusting individual in front of him, along with his four mountains, but then no doubt his own head would swiftly follow when news of such a deed spread. So the captain of horse continued to smile, and moved his mount and those of his lieutenants aside, the path of the palanquin now cleared.