Patrick (43 page)

That they should know my name astonished me. That they should hail me so amazed me even more.

“Stand aside,” said Rufus, stepping in quickly. “Drink up, Succat,” he said, “and follow me. I have commandeered some of Cassius' excellent roast pork.” To the others he said,
“You'll hear all about it, never fear. Just give the man a chance to draw breath.”

I drank the offered beer; Rufus pushed through the crowd to a table in the center of the room. The others gathered around, jostling for places on the benches and around the
board. “Get back,” Rufus said, trying to fend off the encroaching throng. “Give him room.”

Bowls and cups appeared, and the beer flowed dark and frothy from numerous jars. “They're saying you're to be awarded the laurel for valor,” said the man who had given me his cup. “How many barbarians in the attack?” asked another. Before I could reply to either of them, a third soldier asked, “How many kills did you get?”

Cassius pushed through the crowd bearing plates of bread and chunks of meat, which he banged down on the board before me and, fists on hips, commanded, “Eat up, soldier, and tell me that isn't the best you've ever had.”

I took up a fat, dripping gobbet, bit into it, and, truth to tell, had never tasted anything half so good in all my life. Now, it might have been merely the fact that I had eaten nothing for several days and was on the point of swooning from hunger, but at that moment I do believe that roast pork was the finest thing I had ever tasted. “Magnificent,” I declared.

“You heard him, men: magnificent!” crowed Cassius. He tapped the bowl with a greasy finger. “Caesar himself never ate pig to compare. Finish that, and I'll bring more.” To the men gathered around he shouted, “Clear off! Let a man eat in peace.”

No one moved away, of course; if anything, they only crowded in closer. In between bites of meat and bowls of beer, I began to relate the disastrous events of the last three days—the fighting, the hiding, the marching though the night, the falling-tree ambush—all of it. Incidents and details came thick and fast; the words tumbling out in a rush. The soldiers called questions, and I answered as I could; those at the front relayed what I said to those behind. Discussions ensued, arguments broke out; men coming late to the inn clamored to know what had happened; others, having heard, repeated the tale I had told for the benefit of their companions. More plates of meat were served, more beer drunk, and the evening sped by in a garrulous tumult.

When Rufus, the last few soldiers standing, and myself finally tumbled out of the inn, a cockerel in Cassius' yard crowed to proclaim the coming dawn. We staggered back to the garrison; once inside the gates, Rufus led me to one of the barracks—now mostly empty—where I was given a bed. I collapsed gratefully and closed my eyes. Sleep gathered me in and folded me under.

I slept long and could have slept far longer—but for Rufus shaking me awake with the news that Vicarius Columella demanded to see me at once.

R
UFUS LED ME
to the cohorts' small bathhouse so I could wash and revive myself. To make me look more like a soldier, he gave me the red
pallium,
or short cloak, of a legionary, and showed me how to fold it over my shoulder. He fastened a spatha to my belt and then, satisfied with my appearance, marched me to the legion commander's house, where the vicarius was waiting.

“Rufus,” I asked as we walked across the parade ground, “why weren't you in the battle?”

“I would have been,” he replied, “but I had just led a patrol of six cohorts the day before the legion marched. My division was left behind to guard the garrison.”

“What will happen now?”

“Here?” He shrugged. “Nothing much. Troops will be pulled from surrounding garrisons to make up the rosters on the border. There will be recruitment in Gaul and elsewhere. And the barbarians will try to kill as many of us as we kill of them.”

“Is that all?”

Rufus shrugged again and looked at me. “But you,” he said, “things will change for you—and very quickly.”

“Me?”

“You're famous, Succat.”

“Famous!” I scoffed.

“Truly. Everyone is talking about your triumph and deeds of high valor.”

“What triumph? It was a disaster.”

“Ah, but you rescued the vicarius, and you survived. Soldiers like that. We shall all have to call you Magonus from now on and bow when we speak your name.”

“You make far too much of it,” I told him. “It is over and best forgotten.”

“It is just beginning. You'll see.”

A servant was waiting outside the commander's house. The moment we arrived, he conducted us inside, calling my name loudly as we went. The vicarius, two of his assistants, the garrison second-in-command, and several servants were waiting for us in the commander's dining room.

“Welcome! Hail and welcome!” cried Vicarius Columella, leaping to his feet as we appeared in the doorway. “Come! Come! Join us, my friends. Wine?” He clicked his fingers at a servant standing behind a table spread with dishes of food and jars of drink. “Wake up, Opidus! Bring wine!”

The vicarius, bathed and shaved and immaculate in his purple-edged white toga and red legionary's tunic, took me by the arm and steered me to a chair beside his own. “Sit with us, friends. We have much to discuss. Here, Succat, I want you to meet Tribune Tullius, garrison commander in Duces Faustio's absence.”

At this the gnarled soldier before me extended a callused hand. “Welcome, Centurion Succat. Columella has informed me of your courageous deeds.” Dressed in a legionary's red tunic and leather breastplate, he spoke with the voice of a croaking crow. “I am happy to meet a hero of the legion.”

“High praise, Tribune Tullius. I did what was before me, nothing more.” Glancing at the vicarius, I added, “I am only glad I could be of service.”

“Glad to be alive, I should think,” suggested the vicarius. “I have told the tribune of everything. Your quick thinking and bravery saved my life. It will be written up in my report, which will be read out in the senate and presented to the emperor.”

“There was more luck in it than valor, I assure you,” I replied, growing uncomfortable with the adulation heaped on me. “Anyone would have done the same.”

“Of course,” agreed the vicarius, dismissing my modesty with an airy wave of his hand, “of course. Sit now. Here is your wine. I drink to you, Succat.”

They all drank to me, and I drank, too, growing more and more uneasy as the moments passed.

“You and Centurion Rufus are friends, I understand,” said Tullius. “Both Britons, both noblemen—born in the same town. Extraordinary coincidence.”

“Not at all, tribune,” countered Rufus. “Succat learned I was at Treverorum and came north looking for me.”

“I did not know he had been assigned here,” I added.

“Ah!” said Columella. “I told you I would find him for you. But I must agree with Tribune Tullius. It is extraordinary nonetheless.” He stood abruptly. “Now, then, friends, the food is prepared. Let us dine together, and I will tell you of my plans.” He raised me to my feet and put his arm around my shoulders. “I have great plans for you, Succat, my friend. There is much to tell.”

We dined sumptuously and well on wild duck and peppered venison, quails' eggs, trout, wine, thick barley bread, and sweet butter—the best food, I am sure, the garrison could offer. While I ate, I listened as Columella explained his plans.

“Since the hiatus the senate has become increasingly concerned with the defense of Rome. I have long argued that the best way to defend Rome—indeed, the whole of the southern empire—is to build up the border garrisons, restore them to total fighting capacity.” He frowned. “The senators resist, of course.”

“Why?” I wondered. From the little I had seen, it seemed an eminently sensible strategy to me.

“It costs too much. To pay for it they would have to divert tax revenue from domestic projects—which they are loath to do.”

“Until the Vandals come beating down the gates,” said Tullius.

“Precisely,” affirmed Columella. “But now we have a chance to make them see sense at last. This most recent attack has provided me with just the lever I need to move a very stubborn senate.”

“Attack?” I said. “But it was a massacre.”

“Unfortunately, yes. And again unfortunately, the senate responds to catastrophe where they will not respond to triumph.”

I glanced at Rufus, who was chewing his food thoughtfully. “I am not sure I understand,” I said.

“It is perverse, I agree,” replied the vicarius blithely, “but true nonetheless.”

“Give them a victory,” Tullius said, “and they cut the levy, disband legions, make commanders into senators and swiftly force them to retire.”

“Ah, but give them a ripe disaster, an insufferable catastrophe—a massacre,” declared Columella, “and the senate will loosen the purse strings wonderfully.”

His merry, almost gleeful analysis produced a rotten taste in my mouth. I had seen good men slaughtered on the battlefield, and he made a low political game of their unfortunate sacrifice.

“The greater the disaster,” offered the tribune in a wry croak, “the more money flowing from the treasury.”

“I see.”

Vicarius Columella eyed me over the rim of his cup. “You disapprove.”

“I suppose the memory of the slaughter is still too fresh in my mind to allow me to credit it as anything but an utter tragedy for the men who paid for the blunder with their lives.”

Columella's smile narrowed, becoming sly. “You will most definitely do, Centurion,” he breathed softly.

Before I could ask what he meant, he turned to Tullius and said, “You see? I told you he was unimpressed with the
trappings of rank and authority.” To me he said, “You will be a most excellent advocate for the beleaguered legions.”

I glanced at Rufus, whose vacant expression confirmed that he knew less about this than I did. “How is that?” I asked.

“Succat,” said the vicarius, leaning over to pour more wine into my cup, “I want you to come to Rome with me. I want you to stand before the senate and tell them what happened here. I want you to speak up for the men who gave their lives on the battlefield.”

I stared at him. “You want me to convince the senate in Rome to give you money.”

“For the garrisons, yes. I want you to help me convince a selfish and skeptical senate of the very real need and of the cost their dithering extorts in the lives of soldiers, the continuous weakening of the army, and the defense of the empire.”

“Forgive me. I have not been a soldier very long, and there is much I do not understand,” I began, “but it seems to me the massacre was due not to lack of money but a mistake of the scouts—a dreadful, appalling mistake, but a mistake nonetheless. No amount of money would have made a difference.”

“That is a point,” conceded Columella, setting it aside even as he granted it. “But we must not lose sight of the greater purpose and the good that can be achieved. We have been given the opportunity to turn a terrible disaster into a long-term benefit for the very men to whom you demonstrate such admirable loyalty.”

“Listen to him, soldier,” croaked Tullius.

“I am listening,” I replied. “Why do you want me?”

“Because you, Succat, have experienced the horrors which the lack of adequate defense can bring: first as a patrician youth carried off into slavery by the Irish and now as a soldier on the battlefield.” Columella nodded sagely. “Oh, they will listen to you,” he declared. “They will listen, and they will act. I have gone before them to argue this matter on
so many occasions that they no longer hear a word I say. Yet”—he held up a hand to prevent any objection I might make—“let a young man of your obvious character come before them to tell what it was like to live as a slave among barbarians, and how it feels to face screaming Goth and Saecsen warriors in battle, to fight for your life and survive—”

“Survivor of a massacre,” added Tullius, “savior of the vicarius. They will listen to you, son.”

“Let you stand before them and relate the fearful cost of keeping the barbarians at bay and they
will
listen. They will listen, and the money will flow.” Columella smiled, bending the full force of his persuasive powers upon me. “You see, my friend? I am placing in your hands the chance to help your fellow soldiers more than you can imagine. What do you say?”

“I am flattered that you think so highly of me, Vicarius,” I replied. “Even so, I cannot see what difference it makes what I think. I am a soldier, and yours to command.”

“Then it is done,” concluded Tullius bluntly.

We finished our meal, and as we prepared to leave, the tribune called Rufus to him and the two exchanged a brief word. “Well, it looks like I am going to Rome whether I like it or not,” I muttered as we stepped into the yard once more.

“What is so bad about going to Rome? We used to talk about it all the time! ‘One day we'll go and plunder the sights of Rome,' we said—remember? Well, here is our chance.”

“We?” I said. “You would come with me?”

“Try to keep me away.”

“Was that what the tribune told you before we left just now?”

“He said the vicarius would require a cohort to travel with him and asked if I would care to undertake that duty.”

“Well,” I replied tartly, “far be it from me to prevent you from realizing your great ambition to plunder the sights of Rome.”

“The vicarius honors you highly,” Rufus insisted. “Why
this reluctance? Is it stubbornness, or pride? What's wrong with you, Succat?”

“Call me stubborn and proud if you will,” I snapped, “but the thought of using the sacrifice of those dead men to further the political aims of an overambitious gadfly turns my stomach.”

“Is that what you think? Let me tell you something: Whether you go to Rome or not, those soldiers will still be dead. Nothing can change what happened in that forest. But, as Vicarius Columella has said, you have the power to make something good come of it.”

“So, it comes down to money.”

“Yes, Succat, sooner or later everything comes down to money. And yes, the vicarius is a crass, self-serving opportunist whose political ambition raises a stench you can smell a mile away. But he is also the principal benefactor and protector of the northern army. He has fought long and hard to secure the money we need—money for supplies and arms, money to pay the legions and recruit new soldiers, money to pay tribute to the tribes who can be bought off so we can spend important resources elsewhere. The army is a beast that thrives on money, Succat. Never forget it.”

He paused, glaring at me with exasperation, then added. “Besides, if we had had more money to pay the bribes, the scouts might have been better informed and the massacre might have been avoided.”

So this, I thought, must be what General Septimus meant when he told the vicarius to “fight for us in Rome.” Even as he stood facing annihilation by the barbarians, he appealed to the need. If the general recognized the supreme importance of the Vicarius Columella's mission, could I, who had sworn to obey my commander with my life, do less than give it my complete and unqualified support?

The realization shamed me. “Very well,” I said, “let us carry the battle to Rome and see if we can win a flood of wealth for the northern army.”

As we were to leave for Turonum the next day, Rufus set
about assembling a suitable bodyguard of soldiers to travel with us. Meanwhile, Tribune Tullius ordered the procurement horses and provisions, and I was given leave to see to my affairs. This occupied me for as long as it took to walk back to the barracks. I lay down for a nap and it was late in the day when I emerged once more. I was standing outside the door of the barracks when two legionaries approached and hailed me. “We heard you last night,” one of them said. “We would be honored if you would share a jar with us.”

As I had nothing else to do, I consented. Cassius was opening the door of the inn when we arrived. “Here now! Magonus Succat, hail and welcome! Come in, my friends. Sit down, and I will bring the wine.” We followed him in and sat at one of the tables.

“The first jar of the day,” called Cassius, reappearing a few moments later. “A good omen, I think, that the hero of the legion should be my first guest. Therefore, my friends, I shall bear the cost of this jar myself.” He filled the cups and handed one to me, saying, “Drink! Drink, and may the gods favor him who favors you!”

We drank and talked, and I recited again what I knew of the battle; after a while more soldiers came, we drank, and I told it all again. I was on the point of yet another recital when Rufus came looking for me. “We have a long journey ahead of us tomorrow,” he said, pulling me away from the table. “You should get some rest.”