The Wald (34 page)

“We must see the general,” the brothers told Paterculus
, who placidly guarded the entrance flap to Drusus’ tent.  The old servant mended a tear in one of the general’s garments.

“I’ll tell him you came by.  He’ll send for you if he wishes to see you.”  Paterculus had become quite rehearsed at dismissing the many officers who came to the commander’s tent petitioning for action or supplies.

“Who are you to tell us when we may see our governor?” asked Chumstintus.  “We are doing his will at the river and must speak with him.”

The old man had been whipped enough over the years to know to avoid a terse remark to a pair of tribunes.  Drusus, if he were in better condition, would have come to his servant’s aid, but Paterculus felt that he could not take such a risk.  “Since you insist
, young officer, I’ll inquire of him soon.”

“Inquire now.  How do we even know if the general lives?  Perhaps you and the augur have killed him and now try to cover your tracks,” barked Chumstintus.

The servant wanted to give a great sigh at having to constantly bend to the will of young, less proven men.  With each passing year it seemed that the men he marched with grew younger and less proven, though through gritted teeth he had to admit that the Gallic brothers had fought well for the general.  Paterculus straightened himself as best he could, given his age, and set his mending down on his stool.  “Very well, please wait here.”  He ducked into the tent.

The brothers heard two distinct voices
speaking in hushed tones.  One, the creaking notes struck by the servant, who tried to offer his master words in a soothing manner.  Two, Drusus’ voice, but altered from his typical confident tenor into a distant whine.  The two leaned in with their ears.

Paterculus slapped open the tent flap and it caught Avectius on the cheek, pleasing the servant.  “He’ll see you both, but,” he snatched onto an arm of each of them with his talon-like hands, “you’ll speak softly and kindly.  You’ll do as he says without question.”

The two tribunes were confused by the old man’s commands, but nodded.  They jerked free from his grip and bent into the commander’s tent.

Drusus wore the same uniform he had on the last time they had seen him.  B
ut somehow it seemed ill-fitting, almost as if it had been made for an adult and he was a child.  The general didn’t look any thinner as he sat up on his cot, feet on the ground.  It seemed that the world around him grew and he remained the same.

“Lord,” whispered Chumstintus.  “May we sit?”

“Of course,” answered their general quietly.  He hadn’t yet looked directly at them.

The brothers settled onto two small stools pulled from a corner and waited for the general to speak.  When he didn’t, Avectius said, “Lord, we’ve tried to cross the river several times.  We will need a little more time to do so.”

“Oh, the river?” asked Drusus.  “But what of the memorial?  How does it fare?”

The brothers looked at each other, both thinking that the general seemed to ha
ve retained his wits despite whatever illness befell him.  “The memorial will be completed in the coming week – I would guess anyway.  But we’ll be able to put a matching memorial on the right bank of the Albis this year or next.  Together, they will prove your successes here in the wilderness.”

“No, this memorial will be enough for me.  It is as far as I will ever come.”  The general looked up at them with heavy, sunken eyes.  He looked sick, but nothing a few days in the sun
and several hearty meals could not repair.  “I must get the men westward to the forts before my end comes.  We move as soon as the marker is complete.  I leave it to you both to see that it is finished in the coming days.  Abandon all attempts at crossing the river.”

. . .

A pall was cast over the expedition as it returned to the more fortified west, leaving the earthen and stone memorial in its wake.  Men are wont to gossip, and it did not take long for news of the general’s mortal illness to spread to every man in the army, from the tribunes and centurions down to the servants and slaves who performed the most menial of duties.  No one knew for certain what this malady was that would end his life, but men speculated.  Some said he had breathed in an evil spirit during their trek in the Hercynian Forest.  Others said they had heard he mated with a succubus who leached his life from him as well as his seed.  Another group insisted that some of the Germanic scouts had hatched a plot and poisoned the man who had zealously conquered them.  There was no end to the theories.

Drusus had righted himself enough to ride at the army’s head.  He spoke to no one unless they asked him a direct question.  Otherwise, the general rode on qu
ietly.  The pace he set was sluggish so that even the men marching on foot grumbled about how the legions moved painstakingly slowly.

A
fter several days of reclaiming their steps back toward civilization, Drusus began to forget about his terrifying encounter.  The tribunes were correct, he thought, he had just needed some sun and exercise to right his mind.  After all, the Suebian vision was not an apparition at all.  She was merely a vivid part of a drink-induced dream that his mind was too willing to contort into a nightmare.  The “mare” part of the word, Drusus knew, was part of one of the Germanic words that meant, most broadly, evil female spirit.  But it was not a spirit.  She was a dream, encouraged by wine, and he was a consul of Rome.  Drusus was a senator of Rome.  His men called him Imperator.  He should know better than to think he was susceptible to some forest ghost.  Perhaps some of the common soldiers or the tribesmen and women themselves could fall under such a spell, but not him.  His positions, his Roman gods, could easily protect him.

He reflected on these things while they marched back westward, growing stronger by the day.  But the die had been cast.  The shadow had fallen across the men.  Their minds focused not on their triumph over the Cattans earlier in the campaign.  Nor did they focus on the new lands they had touched or the great eastern river they had seen.  The men concentrated on their inability to cross the
Albis.  They worried that the Cheruscans would launch another sneak attack, since they had done so two years earlier.  The legionaries began to focus on all manners of miniscule daily occurrences as signs of worse things to come.

Once ignited, the hysteria in the ranks grew.  By day, countless men reported seeing wolves prowling around the long train as if they circled wounded prey, preparing to latch their jaws about its neck.  By night, the soldiers and even Septimus heard the howling of a great pack or packs of wolves.  On multiple occasions
, two young boys were seen riding horses through the night’s camp.  This frightened the men since the youngest man on the march was fifteen and no officer had brought along a family.  And wailing women full of mourning were heard, even though everyone among them was a man.  Within the earthen walls of the night’s camp, talking ceased.  Men did not laugh or drink or gamble.  Instead, they sat staring into their cooking fires hoping to divine safety from the gods from whatever events these signs foretold.

But duty forced the men to act.  Each day, even though worried, Septimus drove his men as they stomped thei
r way out of the dark mysteries of the forest.  He encouraged them with blustering talk while marching in order with them.  Yet his confidence was lacking as evidenced by the fact that he did not volunteer his century for scouting, flanking, or any razing missions.  Though it may have helped morale had they gone and returned successfully, there is no way to overstate the terror that strikes an army once fear seizes its very heart.

These signs occurred and reoccurred for several weeks until one evening Drusus had called a halt on a hillside relatively clear of obstruction.  The Hercynian Forest sat dark to their southeast.  The lands once controlled by Mawrobodwos, the Roman educated traitor as he was called among the troo
ps, sat unoccupied to the west.

It had been a relatively peaceful march that day
, with only two reports of the lurking wolves, though once again, hunting parties sent to bring them down found no signs, no tracks.  The men eagerly dug the protective moat of the night’s camp, throwing shovelfuls of dirt inward to build a low protective wall on which the evening sentries could pace.

Servants struggled to strike fires for their masters inside the walls that sprang up around them. 
Not a servant here or there, but every servant.  The fires wouldn’t start.  Sparks shot from their stones, but the tinder, though dry, would not ignite – a new sign.

Cornelius, the famous augur of Drusus, was called again and again.  Instead of gaping in wide-eyed abandon like everyone else, he chastised the servants, “You bother me for damp kindling?”  As the darkness settled and it was clear there would be no fires, he stomped away in a huff to gather his own kindling from the nearby forest to prove to the men that they searched for omens where none existed.  “It is my life to find and interpret signs.  Leave it to me.  Servants ought to serve!”

Yet all the camp knew the lack of light and heat was just more in the long line of warnings.  The worrisome signs had at last become routine. When the walls were finished, the legionaries shrugged as if to say, ‘It’s what we would expect at this point,’ when told of the news.  They plodded on their weary legs to set up their leather tents.  They had performed the same tasks thousands of times and so the heavy coverings were quick to be set upon their wooden frames.  The men gnawed on some old bread.

Septimus sat with his friend Marcus Caelius that night.
They both ate cold beans brought in from Gaul along the baggage route.  It was the tenth night in a row that they ate them so their enthusiasm had waned.  Each had to swallow hard to get the sustenance into their stomachs.  But the ration of wine used to wash it down tasted good.

It was eerily dark without any light from fires.  No moon shone in the sky.  Only the stars were there to illuminate the earth.  “What do you make of the latest omen?” asked Marcus.

“I don’t know,” answered Septimus.  “I thought they all meant ill, but Drusus seems well enough.  I think I saw him smile once today.”

“Aye, and we’re out of Cheruscan territory.  The only possible menace could come from the Cattans and they are shattered.  The Marcomannians are gone with their chief,” said Marcus
, only partly to encourage his own mind.  “I’ve prayed to Jupiter each night since we departed from the Albis River.  It seems that he means to protect us.  He favors Drusus, you know.”

Marcus’ mention reminded Septimus of
his vision at the Jupiter Column in Mogontiacum where he stood with Drusus.  Were these signs in the wilderness all confirmations that the giant serpent in the statue would rise up and fatally strike Jupiter?  Would the defeated Cattans mount an attack?

Marcus’ servant returned with new kindling and set it out, again striking his stones.  He did this a dozen or more times, took a break, and cursed before starting
the procedure over.  Marcus told him that they would be fine without a fire, but the servant respectfully insisted.  He sat down on his rear and struck at the straw and sticks between his outstretched legs.

“Perhaps the Sugambrians mean to drive south out of their territory and kill us.  Maybe that is what the signs tell us,” speculated Septimus.  A lone shooting star shone in the sky.  Both men turned to face its light as it swept downward until it was extinguished.

“Another good omen,” said Drusus, who was mounted on his horse behind them.  The centurions spun at his voice, rising to their feet.  “The star, I mean.  It’s another good sign from the gods.”

“Yes, lord.  We hope so,” answered Septimus.

“Sheep-herder’s son, I feel better than I have since I fell ill at the Albis.  I know the men think. . .  Oh, another shooting star!  The signs are in our favor tonight,” said Drusus.  He casually rested his hands on both front pommels of his saddle.  Drusus eased his horse between the centurions and the seated servant using only his feet to steer the beast.

“As I was saying, the men should take heart.  Cornelius and Paterculus have taken fine care of me since then.  I feel strong and confident.  The men should feel likewise since they are the finest of Rome’s legionaries.”

“Yes, lord.  What do you make of the signs that are reported each day and night?  They have the men frightened,” asked Septimus.

“Damn the signs!” he said with a smile
, the second of the day.  He was returning to normal, thought Septimus.  “Centurions, I believe we have another shooting star.  Look there.  I should think that three would be a wonderful sign of victory and prosperity to our men.  Shall we spread that rumor?  It would do good to get our minds on that rather than the rest of it.”

Both Marcus and Septimus nodded in the light given off by yet another shooting star.  The men in the camp had all noticed the shooting stars that night and turned their eyes to the dark heavens.  Only the diligent servant of Marcus continued mumbling and striking his jasper stones.

Drusus chuckled at the man.  “Another sign of wonder.  Had our fires blazed tonight, perhaps we would not have seen the wondrous cascade of stars Jupiter had in mind for us.  Positive signs abound!”

The camp was silent except for the occasional gasp from
someone struck with awe from the constant shower of shooting stars.  The conversation between the commander and his men faded while they, too, watched in wonder.  Many moments went by, the general and centurions at peace with the markers falling through the heavens.