Field of Mars (The Complete Novel) (23 page)

“You give me a grandmother’s wisdom?”

“It has the kernel of sound advice buried within. As an individual slave parceled off from your men, working in the service of some unknown master or enterprise, the opportunities that come along will be few,” Appias said. “But as the leader of a legion, who knows what might swim along and swallow the hook? Already you seem to have won for five thousand men the opportunity of freedom in exchange for fifteen short years of service, as well as permission to take a wife
and
the promise of land as payment. What legionary fighting in the service of the Republic can lay claim to all that?”

“So if you were me, you’d agree to the foreigner’s terms?”

“I am not you, so I don’t know what I’d do.”

“You are a slippery cunnus, historian,” said Rufinius.

Appias grinned. “One thing on which we have agreed previously is certain. The legionaries of Marcus Licinius Crassus would receive no triumphant homecoming. We would be objects of shame and derision. Perhaps our path truly appears to lie to the east rather than to the west.”

“What of your wife? You will be marching ever farther from her embrace. Do you not miss her?”

“Every moment of every day, but I can see no road back. We have been apart now for almost a year and my yearning for her has faded enough to make it bearable. News of Crassus’s defeat and the carnage wrought on his army will have reached her ears. My unknown fate will be difficult for her and knowing that gives me pain, but my life and yours have been fairly won by the Parthians to do with as they choose. All we can do now is have some faith in the gods.”

“And keep the hook well baited,” said Rufinius.

“Indeed. How might you select legionaries from among the men captured?”

Rufinius breathed deep and exhaled. “I would ask for volunteers.”

“I think you will have problems turning men away.”

“I have a role for you, Appias. Camp prefect.”

The request took Appias by surprise. “Rufinius – I have not the experience to manage a legion!”

“You have the learning. You also spent more than a year and a half as part of the proconsul’s staff. You know how the system works.”

“But I – ”

“Appias, someone has to keep an eye on equipment and administration. I need you to do this.”

Fabianus, who had been waiting on the outskirts of the deliberation between centurion and historian, came forward. “Primor, can your own optio have a private word with you?”

“Of course,” said Rufinius, and Appias excused himself. “What is the feeling among the men, Fabianus?”

“You must know yourself that the men would readily choose to stay together, shoulder to shoulder.” The optio could not keep his hands or his eyes still.

“I sense a problem,” said Rufinius, noting the officer’s agitation.

“You consult with a historian. These are weighty issues, primor.
Military
issues. Since you became a centurion, you have been removed from the men. I hear what they are saying and many are scared at what lies ahead.”

“Scared?”

“Perhaps I choose my words wrongly, primor, but I am a legionary, not a wordsmith like your chief confidant.” He motioned with distaste toward Appias who was settling into a sliver of remaining shade.

“You’re talking in circles like an unloved wife, Fabianus. Speak your mind.”

The optio stiffened to attention at the censure. “The men fear many things about the offer made by the foreigner.”

“Such as?”

“They do not trust him. He can so easily lie about all the guarantees of service. We will only know in fifteen years.”

Rufinius nodded. There was truth in this.

“And not every man can take a companion from the baggage train, for there are more men than women. Will the daughters of the lands we venture toward look like these foreigners? Their faces are different. What else is different? Perhaps they don’t even fuck like us.”

“What else concerns the men?”

“When we marched under the aquilas, we marched for Rome. That meant something – strength, order, a blessed rightness. Out there, to the east, what will we be fighting for? With the aquilas gone, what beast will sit atop the aquilifer’s pole that we are made to follow?”

“We’ll fight for what we’ve always fought for,” answered Rufinius. “Each other.” The optio’s agitation wasn’t yet dwindling and the centurion knew that the boil was yet to be lanced. “You have long been troubled,” said Rufinius.

“No, primor,” said Fabianus stiffly.

Rufinius shrugged. “Well, Optio, the alternative to the offer presented by the foreigner is a journey to the slave market at Babylon, where it’s likely that you will be sold as an individual, cut off from all camaraderie,” Rufinius told him. “You are strong and young. Perhaps if you are fortunate you will be sold to a rich old hag as her bedroom plaything. Perhaps you will find yourself sold and sold again until you are chained to an oar. Roll the dice, Optio. Wouldn’t you rather be with your brothers, sword in hand?”

“And what of the gods, primor?” The optio wrung his hands.

“What about them?”

“Almost a year’s march to the east, into the rising sun? These are lands far from the oversight of the gods of Rome. There will be other gods we know nothing about and who know nothing about us. What would we sacrifice? Will there be animals familiar to us and to the gods? And should we die, will we even go to Hades? How will our souls know how to find Charon’s boat? Will they just wander the desert forever?”

This, Rufinius could see, was the optio’s major burden, at least for the moment. The thought hadn’t occurred to the centurion but the concern was valid. He put a hand on his lieutenant’s shoulder to reassure him. “The gods will not lose sight of us, Fabianus, for we will take them with us on the march.”

With the heat of the day already upon them, Rufinius was brought before General Saikan, Translator Bataar and a number of Xiongnu officers.

“What is your answer, Alexandricus?” the general asked, mopping his brow with a rag.

Rufinius drew himself to attention as if being questioned by a Roman legate. “I could accept your offer on behalf of the men, General. But on the singular proviso that the legion is structured in the proper fashion and according to regulation.”

“You do not order me, slave.”

“Those are my terms, primor.”

“And if I do not accept them?”

“I do not see why you wouldn’t.”

“And why not?” inquired Saikan, vaguely amused.

“Properly organized, the legion will be better able to look after itself. You will have far fewer losses on a march that will, as you say, take us from one side of the world to another. The men will belong to a structure they know and understand and, though they venture into unknown lands, they will take with them some comfort of familiarity. That will enhance morale and lead to fewer desertions.”

“Is that all, Roman?”

“No. We are infantrymen. You are horsemen. We fight differently and our tactics will be unknown to you. Do you know how to use a legion in battle, General? Do you know how to cut orders that the legion understands, let alone best maneuver it to achieve your tactical goals?”

“I believe you already know the answers.”

“And that is why my terms are inflexible.”

“What is this structure? And what might be your role within it?”

Rufinius charged ahead. “You need a military tribune, General, well versed in our manner of waging war. There is no other way. Instruct the tribune on your objectives in battle and he will wield the legion to best affect them. But whether it is myself or someone else in this role, that is up to you. There are others beside me that you can select.”

“That’s all?”

“No, General. To function properly, the legion requires a unit of cavalry and archers or slingers, as well as engineers, surveyors, artillerymen, signifers, and cornicens. Also, there will be losses through injury, disease and – unavoidably – desertions. You will need an additional cohort of reserves.”

Saikan wrestled with the word. “Cohort?”

“Four hundred and eighty men.”

Saikan appeared to consider the numbers, stroking his beard. Eventually he said, “What is a signifer?”

“A standard bearer.”

“Are they necessary?”

“It is the signifer who conveys the commander’s orders to his century. Without them, the army is uncoordinated at best and blind at worst. Also, in the confusion of battle, a century’s standard wielded by the signifer provides men who get separated with a visible rallying point. Yes, they are necessary.”

Saikan grunted. “My mounted archers will provide your cavalry …”

“We would have to school them in our communications and maneuvers,” Rufinius pointed out.

The general brushed Rufinius’s concern aside. “How many men altogether are in a Roman legion?”

“Not many more than your original five thousand. Around five thousand, three hundred.”

“Anything else?”

A thought had occurred to Rufinius, an opportunity that he had scarcely admitted to himself let alone discussed with others. It concerned Lucia and a possible means of keeping her close by. “The men must have servants so that they can focus on being legionaries.”

“How many servants?”

“A legion of sixty centuries will require a thousand servants and more.”

“Providing I can purchase them at an acceptable rate – agreed.”

Rufinius felt a thrill of relief.

“Anything else?”

“I require the freedom to move among the men, to fight with them, eat with them and use the same ground to sleep on, as I choose.”

“You will require a bodyguard.”

Rufinius shook his head. “But I have an entire legion.”

“You will take a personal guard with you when the occasion requires it.” Saikan was not altogether happy about allowing what would be his second-in-command to fight in the lines, sword in hand, but this Roman was a true warrior and there would be little stopping the man. “Nothing else?”

“No, primor.”

“The number of men I buy is less important than their ability to fight. If Romans need structure to fight at their best, then that is what I have bought. How you organize my legion so that my aims and those of my Chanyu are achieved, that is up to you … Tribune.” Saikan held out his arm to shake and Rufinius took it.

*

A white bull was found and sacrificed in the correct Roman manner: with gilded horns before an altar on which honey, grains and wine were offered. Parthian devotees of Mithra – a more acceptable god to the Romans than Ahura Mazda – conducted the ceremony. The animal’s exta was read by an ancient haruspex brought up from Babylon. When the beast’s liver was held high for all to see, it was large and healthy, with generous lobes. The intestines also glowed with vitality. The priests had received their answer: the gods of Rome approved the enterprise.

Once this was concluded, Rufinius immediately set to the formation and organization of the legion. All captured legionaries, regardless of age, had volunteered for service in the slave army, so a process of acceptance was conducted. Lots were drawn among the legionaries under the age of thirty-five from each of the contuberniums. A man who picked a white pebble from among the many black could then choose the remainder of his contubernium from known comrades, so that they would bond as a unit more quickly. Each century was populated by ten of these contuberniums, as was the normal practice. Once a century was formed, the legionaries then nominated five candidates for officer roles. From among these men Rufinius selected the centurion who in turn chose his officers and lesser ranks from the remainder. With the sixty centuries filled in this manner, each was placed in the legion according to the seniority of its centurion – the most experienced toward the lead, and the least experienced occupying the tail end.

Suitable men left over with artillery, medical, and other valuable skills were given places in the reserve cohort. A cavalry of 120 Xiongnu horsemen was also mustered and assigned to the legion for training.

The First Cohort, the legion’s shock troops made up of five double-strength centuries, was handpicked from among the bravest men. The appointment of primipilus, the man who would lead the First from the front, went to a centurion named Petronius Araxo, a native of the African city of Leptis Magna. Petronius was one of the few senior centurions who had survived the slaughter outside the walls of Carrhae. He was a large black man reputed to have single-handedly brought down five cataphracts in skirmishes against the Parthians, and on another occasion dragged several of his own wounded men to safety, though both his own legs were pierced through with arrows. It was his sheer ferocity that had enabled him to survive the carnage that followed Proconsul Crassus’s capture, when Petronius had hacked into the Parthians and their horses, creating so much panic and confusion around himself that the Parthians had let him alone. Numerous eyewitnesses came forward to attest to his achievements with sword in hand and Rufinius was relieved to have this role ably filled.

Amid consternation and hand wringing from those who would instead be going to the Babylon slave markets, the new legion assembled with men rushing to their centuries and conturbernia. It was then that General Saikan surprised by providing tunics, sent up from Babylon, to be distributed among the rank and file. Shortly after, Rufinius accompanied the Xiongnu general on an inspection of the legion.

“Though I can see military bearing, they still look like slaves,” Saikan remarked as he took in row after row of contubernia, the legionaries in each standing at attention, their eyes rigidly and uniformly forward.

“Put swords in their hands,” Rufinius replied, “and show them your enemies.”

*

The column finally marched from Slave Master Farnavindah’s encampment in the early hours of morning.

With the river behind them, Tribune Rufinius was provided with one of the fat, short-legged Xiongnu horses, so that he could more easily review the progress of the march. General Saikan, along with an overseer from Syria who spoke Latin and Aramaic, and Translator Bataar, rode with him.

“You must hurry to learn our mother tongue, Alexandricus, if you are to fight alongside us,” said Saikan. “And your lessons start now. Faithful servant Bataar, the man who speaks my words to you now, will accompany you often until you and I can converse freely.”

Rufinius and Saikan watched on as the column of legionaries marched. The men saluted the tribune and the general in the Roman style, their spirits having lifted with the end of incarceration.

“The men admire their leader,” Saikan observed.

Rufinius replied, “I have done nothing to earn it.”

“You are one of them who has climbed higher. That in itself is admirable.”

Though they were unarmed and carried no baggage poles, the men appeared to Rufinius not as slaves but as Roman legionaries and a feeling of pride filled his chest and tightened his throat.

Over 500 Parthian mounted archers rode either side of the column, keeping a watchful eye, but there was nothing for them to see other than the ever-present clouds of dust. The thin line of greenery edging the Euphrates was now gone behind pools of shimmering desert quicksilver.

“What can you tell me of King Zhizhi?” Rufinius asked.

“What would you like to know?”

“Whatever you care to tell me.”

“The Chanyu understands the world he is born into. The Xiongnu Empire and the Han Empire have been engaged in hostilities for more than sixty years.”

“Over what do you fight?”

Saikan snorted. “Everything! Influence over lesser kingdoms, control of the routes that take silk and pearls to the west, survival.”

“You are losing the fight.”

“How do you know?”

“You buy sword arms in the hope of swaying the balance. Desperate times require desperate measures. You have already said the Han Empire is vast, which tells me it is larger than your own. With vastness comes more men, more swords, more wealth, more influence.”

“King Zhizhi is much beloved,” said Saikan.

“Why?”

“Because he is a true Xiongnu.”

“That sounds hollow, a statement dreamed up with no meaning.”

“You march at the head of an army, Alexandrian, but there is a slave torc around your neck. Forget it not.”

“Will you remind me of this every time I utter something you care not to hear?”

Saikan’s eyes crinkled with mirth. “Probably.” He breathed deep and then exhaled. “Chanyu Zhizhi has a plan, but it is complex and fraught with danger. You are right – the Han are powerful and their power grows as ours dims. They are now facing outwards where for hundreds of years they were content within their own lands. We fight to survive.”

“What is the plan?” asked Rufinius.

“For all its might, the Empire of the Han is slow. Every decision is discussed and picked over like a distasteful meal that must be eaten. And often the mandarins who manage the Empire on behalf of the Emperor residing in the Everlasting Joy Palace decide that the best decision is no decision at all. The Dragon King’s plan is simply to keep the Emperor guessing – an alliance forged here, another broken there, a new marriage … We Xiongnu are nomads. Movement – it suits our way.”

“What is … mandarin?”

“A mandarin is a member of any one of the nine ranks of public officials.”

Rufinius leaned forward in the saddle to bring fresh blood to his legs. He had not spent time on a horse’s back for a long while. The world he was entering was both strange, and yet also familiar. As in Rome, here in these new lands there were men who wanted to possess everything. Without this restlessness would there be no need for armies?

A number of legionaries cheered him as he passed. The interruption cut the bond to Rufinius’s private thoughts and they fled from his mind. He saluted the men and they returned it. For legionaries beginning a journey into the unknown, they were indeed in high spirits.

“The march is not enough activity for the men,” said Rufinius. “They will soon grow bored and restless.”

“What do you suggest?” asked Saikan.

“Let them build a camp with trench and rampart at the end of the day.”

Saikan considered the request. “The time taken from the day to make your fortifications would be better spent marching. The sooner we get to Xiongnu, the sooner my Chanyu’s investment can be put to good use. And we are on friendly ground. The answer is no.”

Rufinius was disappointed but he moved on. “The men also need weapons training. Like the blades they wield, legionaries must be kept sharp.”

“Our Parthian hosts will not allow the distribution of weapons while on their land.”

“Then allow us to make rudes – practice swords. At first opportunity, purchase lumber and keep your king’s investment sound.”

Saikan examined Rufinius’s face and finally nodded. “I will see to it. But these … rudes … will be removed after each evening’s exercise until we better know the minds of your men. In skilled hands, a wood sword is still a weapon.”

Rufinius nodded. “Agreed.” He then turned his attention to the column. The men marched in the way of Roman legions, numbered in their centuries and contuberniums, mostly as his father would have wanted it. In total, there were 5,281 fighting men answering the roll calls – 5,281 men split between the correct number of sixty centuries and the cohort of reserves and various specialists. However, there were no drummers or pipers in the ranks, so aside from occasional cheering such as the burst directed at Rufinius, the army marched in eerie silence, with only the sound of sandals shuffling through sand and the breathing and snorting of horses.

After forty centuries had passed by, the baggage train and replacement cohort came into view, along with the escort of Parthian archers. These men kept to themselves, choosing not to fraternize with the Romans, whom they considered defeated and therefore not worthy of any association, or the Xiongnu, who they thought of as barbarians.