“You may call yourself that if you like, but I told you before that you are not my slave. I am a Stoic, and we do not believe in slavery. My father taught me that the man who owns a slave forgets that justice should rule the world. So you can come and go as you—”
“I will stay.”
“Why?”
“Because you are the best man I’ve met since I became a slave. And I have nowhere to go.” Suddenly I understood how very bad her captors must have been.
Arrea lifted her eyes and smiled at me. I couldn’t help but admire her beauty. Her skin was soft and spotless, as fair as the snow of the Alps—although her face was lined with years of worry. She caught my eyes resting on the dimples in her cheeks and her smile vanished. She seemed anxious now, even scared.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“No …” Her voice was soft and reluctant. “You can have me tonight, if you’d like.” She averted her eyes, looking at her feet.
“You don’t have to do that, Arrea.” She stood there for a long moment, as if she expected me to say something else. Finally, she turned and walked to the corner of the tent, where a small cot had been placed for her.
I tried to close my eyes and go to sleep. I had no desire to remain awake with my thoughts. But unfortunately, as many men of war know, that is easier said than done the night of your first battle.
I kept picturing his face. Not the first man I killed, not the ones after that, but the young man I had dueled in the road.
A few times that night, his wide, dying eyes appeared clearly before me, jolting me with fear. As the fever began to take me, my strained thoughts became more fleshed out, more detailed. I suddenly found myself giving him a story: at one point, he was a carpenter by trade, then a shopkeeper, another time a hunter. I imagined his parents and the joy they’d experienced upon ushering a baby boy into the world. I imagined his first steps and the first word he spoke. I imagined the first sign of laughter in his eyes when his friends made a good joke. I saw the tears he cried when he learned that his grandfather had died.
Soon I believed that I knew the man intimately. I saw the face of a woman, clear as day, before me. The woman that loved him, the woman he loved. She kissed him goodbye before he left to fight the Romans, and the next time she would see his body, he would be cold, stiff, colorless.
The fever continued to grow, and I fell into a sleep-like haze, completely removed from the pain of my body. I found myself in the streets of Burdigala, propped up against the mud-thatched houses, the Man I Had Killed at my side. All of his wounds were still there, and fresh, but he appeared undisturbed. We talked almost like friends.
“Don’t even bother trying to go to sleep,” he said. “You’re not going to be able to sleep for months.” His words were in Latin, and his voice was piercingly familiar.
“But I need rest.”
“And I wouldn’t get caught alone, either. Because whenever you are, believe me, I’ll be there with you. Every time you close your eyes, you’re going to see mine.” His voice was a forewarning prophecy, but he said it with concern. He seemed to care for me.
“But why you? I killed other men today—why won’t you go away?”
“Because you could have lost. Because it could have been you.” I looked down to find that I now bore his wounds. The same dagger was wedged in my gut, the same violent wound on the head. “Frightening, isn’t it? Especially when you know that if you had died today, it wouldn’t have been you to suffer. It would have been all the people that need you.” I began to weep, and he comforted me.
“I don’t know how to come back from this. I don’t think I’ll ever be the same.” I could tell I’d upset him.
“Stop. If you are going to be this weak than it should have been you to die. Stop thinking about me. I’m just another dead Burdigalan. If it hadn’t been you, someone else would have killed me. Did you think it was going to be easy to steal a man’s life? And you stole a few Burdigalan lives today. But they don’t matter now, because they’re dead. Their corpses are nothing but a single tile in the larger mosaic of war’s destruction. Stop thinking about dead Burdigalans when you can do something for the one that is still alive.”
“What do you mean? Who?” I pleaded for an answer. I wanted to know.
“The girl. The girl! Take care of the damned girl.” Then he died all over again, leaving his body the same as when I’d left it earlier that day.
I shot up in bed like a catapult let loose. I was drenched in sweat, my body burning hot and yet somehow cold as ice. In the corner, I saw the gently shaking body of Arrea. I grabbed my blanket and hobbled to her.
“You’re freezing. Here.” I wrapped it around her shoulders.
“You don’t hav—”
“No, I don’t, but you need it. You can have the bed if you want.” She looked up at me, sleepy, but full of disbelief.
“You need to keep your leg elevated.” She watched me with the strangest look in her eyes.
I returned to my bed and shimmied my way onto it. When I found a comfortable spot, I closed my eyes and tried to rest. Before long, I became aware of movement in the tent. I opened my eyes to find Arrea standing beside the bed, the blankets draped over her shoulders. She stared at me for some time, and I stared back. It seemed to me that neither of us knew what was happening.
She fell into me, tenderly. She wrapped the blankets around me and laid her head on my chest. I wrapped my arm around her and placed my hand on her shoulder. She nestled into me and fit like a glove.
Breath returned to my lungs. I was warm. A kind of warmth that doesn’t come from a fever but from somewhere in the chest.
Thoughts of Reds, Mules, Nursia, the Senate, my injury … I forgot it all.
There was nothing but her.
She was the only thing real, tangible. The touch of her dainty hand on my arm, the smell of her hair. Every move she made echoed in my mind. I didn’t know if it was permissible for a Roman conqueror and a Gallic slave to hold each other. I didn’t know how long we lay there. My only judge of time was the swift beating of her heart against mine, the breaths that seemed to periodically slow and quicken. The only thing I did know was that I didn’t want to let her go.
SCROLL XVIII
She never left me. For several days, she remained at my side. She fed me when I was too weak to do so myself. She tilted my head up so that I could drink. She held my hands in her own and taught me common Gallic phrases. “You are handsome when you speak my language,” she would say and smile.
“You are beautiful all the time,” I would reply, or so I remember—but I did dream a lot about her during those days.
At length, she nursed me back to health. My wounds wouldn’t fully heal for some time, and I will always bear the scars, but I lived. Eventually the fever dissipated and my mind returned to me.
When I woke on the seventh day it delighted me to see her, and I said as much, my voice hoarse from so much sleep and so little talking.
“Why? Did you think I would go somewhere?” She cooled my forehead with a damp towel.
“There have been moments over the past week when I thought I’d only imagined you.” She laughed at this.
“Perhaps you have.” She warmed her hands on her tunic and placed them on my forehead. For the first time in days they didn’t feel like ice on my burning face. “Your fever is leaving you. Your friends will be delighted.”
“My friends? Have they been here to see me?”
“Oh yes. Quite often. You are a popular man, Sertorius. Many different Romans have come to visit you. One said he was your brother.”
“Was there a blond man? Built like a bull?” I was thinking of Lucius. She nodded.
“That man has hardly left the tent.” She brought me some wine, allowing me to drink independently for the first time in a while. “They say you are a centurion now. That you’re an important man.”
“Important is a relative term. Do you know what’s happening in camp today? Perhap
s I should go see my men.”
“I have hardly left the tent, but I am sure they would be happy to see you up and walking … if you are able.”
“Yes, yes. I think so. Will you help me don my gear?” She did. My helmet especially felt heavier than it had before the battle and the rest of my armor fit me awkwardly. I’d lost weight. “I’ll be back soon,” I said as I turned to leave.
“I will be here.” She smiled. I felt myself do the same.
I MADE my way through camp, finding it unfamiliar, as things had changed over the course of the week. I nodded to the men I saw, and they all greeted me by name. For the first time, the Mules who passed by offered the traditional salute and I returned it.
“Stallion!” I heard shouting from across the field. It was Bear’s voice, impossible to miss, and quickly echoed by the other men in my contubernium. They stood and rushed to greet me. Bear embraced me firmly, unwittingly causing my body to surge with pain, but I didn’t care.
“Grumble, you owe me two days’ ration. I told you he’d live,” Terence said with a big grin as he took my hand. Grumble punched him in the arm and shook his head.
“I’m happy to see you,” Basilus said, patting me on the shoulder.
“That woman taking care of you must be some sort of witch doctor. You looked like you were half in Hades.” Ax gave his unique chuckle.
“It was the gods that did this. We’ve all been sacrificing for you, Stallion,” Flamen said.
“I appreciate the support, friends. I’m doing just fine now.”
“Ready to get back to the battlefield, huh?” Pilate asked.
“What in Gaia’s earth are we doing, boys? Where is our military courtesy? This man is an officer now after all,” Grumble said. They snapped to attention and saluted me. I halfheartedly returned it, laughing.
“Quit that! I won’t have you men treating me like some crusty old tribune. I’m still one of you.” They led me back to their cluster of tents, where we talked for several hours. They caught me up on the legion gossip and the recent blunders of various officers and legates. We talked of the Battle of Burdigala and forthcoming battles.
“Stallion, we should introduce you to someone,” Ax said, pointing to a Mule sitting behind the men. He stood and saluted, his gaze diverted. He was barely older than a child.
“He is replacing you in the contubernium!” Bear added. “We call him ‘Lefty,’ because he marches like he has two left feet. He can’t keep step.”
“I can’t imagine he is any worse than you when we first left Rome, Bear.” I slapped him on the arm and stepped forward to shake the young man’s hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Lefty.”
“My pleasure, sir.” I could tell he was nervous, as new as they come.
“Here.” I reached up for my helmet and unbuckled the chinstrap. “Take this.” I handed it to him, and he received it as reluctantly as I gave it. “It will treat you well. Saved my life a time or two in Burdigala. I have a new helmet to wear now.”
“One with a great big plume atop it,” Grumble jested. “He’s an important man now, after all.”
As we continued on like this, I realized something about life in the Colors.
The men were afraid. Everyone was.
We were afraid of dying. We were afraid of killing. But perhaps more than anything, we were afraid to let anyone know. So we pushed our fears and our misgivings aside and instead told amusing anecdotes about our first conflict. Like you might expect, Basilus was the only one who didn’t talk much. He laughed and nodded occasionally with the understanding of a veteran.
“What do we have here?” came a voice from behind me, interrupting a story. It was Centurion Scrofa, the newest first-spear centurion in the Fourth Legion. We all stood and saluted. He patted me on the shoulder and looked me up and down. “You look like a skeleton, Centurion.” He laughed. “I’m happy to see you up and moving, though. We need healthy men.”
“I’m happy to be here, Centurion. I’m ready to get back to the line.” I’d intended to say that I was ready to be back with my men, but I believe he knew my meaning.
“Good. Well, I’m going to clue you in on something, men.” He stepped into the center of our circle and nudged us closer. “I’m under orders to keep this information to myself until things become clearer, but I’ll be damned if my old century doesn’t know what’s happening when some fat senator’s son sits in his tent on all this information …” His voice fell to a whisper. “The Reds are on the move. They’ve left Spain and are headed this way.”
Silence.
Some men blinked away disbelief, others looked at their feet and tried to make sense of what we’d heard. We’d known of the Reds as this foreign menace for so long, that in truth they’d become myth to us. Somehow, it shocked us to hear that they were indeed real. And we were surprised at our own shock.
But it didn’t take long for the excitement to begin. All of us gave different stamps of approval and motions of enthusiasm, some more obviously feigned than others.
“Think they heard about Burdigala and are returning for revenge?” Bear asked naïvely.
“The Reds don’t give a damn about the Burdigalans. Or anyone else. They’ve simply had their entertainment in Spain, and now they need new women to rape and new cities to plunder. We’ll see about that, though, won’t we?” Scrofa said. We all nodded in agreement. “I wanted you to know that real battle is ahead. The Reds will make these Gauls look like little boys with wooden swords. Isn’t that right, Basilus?” Bass nodded with closed eyes. “So prepare yourselves accordingly. But don’t worry. We’re ready.” He held up his fist. “Mars and Bellona keep you.” We returned it, and he stepped off to warn the others.
I SHARED a skin of wine with the men. Now, no one said a word about the Reds, or about the Battle of Burdigala, or of future battles. We still laughed and told tales, but there was an ominous presence in the air. Everyone was thinking about the Reds, and everyone knew it.
As I entered my tent, I stopped to admire Arrea. She was sitting on a stool by my bed, humming softly and stitching up the tattered tunic I’d worn during battle. She looked up and met my eyes before returning to her work.
“Were they happy to see you?” Her voice was sweeter than honey-water.
“What? Oh, yes. They certainly were.” I stripped off my cuirass and plopped down on the bed. Arrea paused from her work and looked me up and down.
“What is wrong?” she asked after a while. “There is something in your eyes.”
“Not a thing.”
She said nothing in reply, but waited patiently until I added, “The Reds are moving toward us.”
Her brows furrowed inquisitively. “Who?”
“The Cimbri and Teutones and their army of allies. They’ve left Spain and it looks like they’re ready to fight Rome again.”
“I see.” She finally set my tunic aside and sat down on the bed beside me. “Let me look at your wound.” Delicately, she removed the dressing and began to dab the dried blood and pus from it.
“Arrea?”
“Hmm?”
“Why are you still here?” I asked. I didn’t know exactly what I meant, or what I was about to say.
“What do you mean?” She sounded almost offended.
“Why are you still here? With me? You finally have a chance at freedom, and yet you remain here, dressing my wounds and stitching my clothes. Why?”
She continued to work diligently, carefully. “Quintus, I’ve told you. I have nowhere to go.”
“Of course you do. You can go anywhere!” It occurred to me then that her servitude bothered me immensely. This girl was no slave.
“Quintus …”
“You can marry, you can have children!” Finally her composure broke. She pulled away from me and hid her face.
“I cannot have children.” Her lips trembled.
“Why?” I asked, perhaps more sheepish than I’d been just a moment ago.
“I am barren. My first master imp
regnated me, and when he found out, he beat me until I lost the child… .” She covered her eyes with her hands, the blood from my leg dressing her forehead. “After he sold me, my next master attempted to impregnate me, since he’d failed to do so with his own wife. But he was unable to.” She finally looked up at me, with wet, glistening eyes. “I am a barren woman who has known nothing but slavery and servitude, Quintus. I don’t know how to do anything but avert my eyes and wash a man’s feet. No man would have me.”
I reached for her hand and held it. I wanted to tell her that any man would want her. Barren, freed slave—nothing could tarnished her. I wanted to tell her that I would want her. But I couldn’t.
“Arrea, if you stay here … if you stay here, and the Cimbri defeat the Romans, as they have before, they will sack our baggage train and our camp, and they will take you. You will be enslaved by cruel men again.”
Finally she turned to me, her tears gone. Her eyes bore more strength than mine ever had. “Then defeat them.”
I pulled her in close, and she climbed into the bed beside me. I wrapped my arms around her. For some time, she ran her fingers over every scar along my neck and arms, inspecting me delicately. “I am staying.” And that was that. She was more sure of staying in Gaul that day than I was, and in the days to come I would truly need her reassurance.
SCROLL XIX
Titus and Lucius came to see me in my tent the next day. None of us could hide our delight. Titus pretended he always knew I would be fine, while Lucius didn’t was jubilant.
“You should have seen your face. You had no color,” Lucius said. “Let me see your wound.” I pulled up my tunic and revealed it to him, pointing out my lesser wounds as well. His reaction was indiscernible.
“You look jealous!” I laughed and slapped his back.
“I feel uncomfortable sitting on a horse while the men risk their necks.” Though I had joked, he did not.
“Ha! I’ll trade places with you anytime.”
“I have trouble believing that. The man who volunteers to scale the walls could hardly be so careful with his own safety,” Titus scoffed, though perhaps with a touch of pride.
The Man With Two Names Page 21
