The Legions of the Mist

by Damion Hunter

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The centurion signaled to those who were standing nearby, and silently they took up the body of Martius and bore it away.

  Only Licinius and Favonius remained, watching the blood sink into the snow. Justin turned to Favonius. ‘He was your friend. I am sorry.’

  Favonius’s face was haggard and his eyes were a little wild. ‘It is judgement,’ he said. ‘On us, on this Legion… the gods turn their backs…’ He trailed off, looking in the direction they had borne Martius’s body. ‘I wish you joy of your new command, Corvus,’ he said bitterly, and turned to follow them, a stumbling, pathetic figure, enveloped in his grief.

  ‘Dear gods, what are we come to?’ Licinius spoke for the first time, still rubbing his hands with snow, as if to rid them of the mark of a dead commander.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Justin said. ‘We’re at the edge of the cliff, I think. I wonder if we can draw back in time. Here, you!’ he called to one of the crowd still standing, wide-eyed with curiosity, some ten paces away. ‘Bring some dirt and cover the blood.’ He looked at Licinius. ‘I must go and talk to Tullius. Will you come?’

  Licinius nodded, and together they followed the recently trampled path already partially obscured by new snow.

  They found Tullius sitting on the cot in his cell, staring blankly at the floor. Justin questioned him gently, then angrily, and finally with something akin to despair, but elicited only a stuttering plea to the shade of Pertinax to accept the vengeance he had bought him. As for Justin and Licinius, he seemed not even to see them, although he moaned in terror when Justin told him, as gently as he could, what was going to happen. Finally they left him, and he roused himself at their parting to spit in their path.

  It was in no good frame of mind that Justin turned out for parade that afternoon. He had found Lepidus, briefed him, and left him to handle things as well as he might. It was a lousy way to get your first cohort.

  Now Justin faced his own new command, the promotion back to Sixth that he had been wanting ever since he’d made an ass of himself in the arena at Hippo Regius. It was a lousy way to get that, too.

  The men were sullen and untidy, and they watched him suspiciously, wary that the hand of punishment might reach out for more than Tullius. But they were all there, as ordered, even a few from sick parade, nursing colds or strained tendons. Justin kept his voice dispassionate as he called them all the names he could think of, apparently including one or two they hadn’t heard before. When that was done, he informed them that the next time he saw them they were to be clean, polished, and nothing short of reverent in their attitude toward their officers.

  ‘I agree with the Legate. If we had the men to spare, I would break this cohort and start again from the ground, rather than try to repair a rotten thing. And it can still be done if you push me too far. Perhaps you might find you like that less than you like the Eagles. But I will not command a disgrace. I will command a cohort of the Eagles or nothing. You will do well to remember it.

  ‘I have made exchange with the other cohorts to pull you off duty for this parade. It was not to reward you with a day’s leave, so you will use the rest of the afternoon to make sacrifice to the shade of the man you murdered, for you are all guilty of that, though it was Tullius who held the knife. Be glad you will not pay the price he is going to,’ he added grimly, and fought down a sick feeling in his stomach.

  With that he dismissed them, holding back only the centurions of the cohort. With them he was somewhat gentler, knowing that their jobs could not have been easy under Martius’s command. Some of them seemed good men, if worn down with fighting uphill against their men and their cohort commander both. Others were of the same breed as their dead commander… careless of discipline, but with no great care for the men under them, weaker of spirit than was normal for the Centuriate. It had been a long time since Rome had sent her best men to Britain, Justin thought. The recruiting standards of the Ninth had fallen also, with the difficulty of finding men willing to serve in a Legion considered unlucky since first Boudicca had shamed and slaughtered it, and then Agricola had barely saved it from a second loss. And now this. Justin began to feel as if he was standing on the heaving edge of a bog.

  * * *

  They executed Tullius in the morning, with every man of the Ninth Hispana paraded to watch. Death by stoning, the ancient punishment for mutiny. Tullius, clad only in his white undertunic, came docilely between an eight-man guard to be chained to the post in the center of the execution ground, but his eyes stared in terror at the death that waited.

  The sky was nearly as dark as night, the sun obscured by rolling banks of black cloud broken only by the jagged lines of lightning that spat within them. The grim, impersonal orders of the Primus Pilus were covered by the heavy boom of thunder, and the air was thick and oppressive.

  The execution squad, drawn by lots from the condemned man’s own century, flinched like wild things pursued by shadows and looked, Justin thought, as if they would like to turn the stones on him instead. It was a grisly business and Justin, sick at his stomach, could only be glad when the Primus Pilus gave the order to the spear men, releasing the broken body of Tullius from its agony.

  In the end, one man of the execution squad knelt down and was sick in the snow, and Justin quelled the writhing in his own stomach as he and Licinius certified the death and Tullius’s name was stricken from the legionary rolls with a single grim notation. At Justin’s signal, they rolled the stones from the feet of the mangled form and bore it to a shallow grave at the corner of the field while the black clouds rolled and swelled like a living thing above them.

  * * *

  The rest of the day continued in the same nightmare fashion, with one half of Justin’s new cohort demoralized and trembling and the other plainly blaming him for the death of their comrade.

  It was evening before he could drag himself, bone-weary, to the house in the town. Gwytha, seeing his face, silently handed him a cold dinner and kept her questions to herself. She could imagine what the past two days had been like with very little trouble, anyway. She herself had spent them repeating over and over to herself, why Justin? why Justin? Why not anyone but Justin to have that accursed cohort? But to Justin she said nothing, merely offering him the solace of her arms, and then trying to sleep while she knew he lay awake staring at the ceiling.

  The next morning he had a visitor, a sallow-faced man of his new command. He sidled in under Januaria’s disapproving glance, but she obeyed Justin’s standing order that his men were always to be admitted and presented him to her master in the atrium.

  ‘Yes? What do you wish?’

  The man laid a parcel on the desk at Justin’s elbow. ‘My woman bade me bring you this,’ he said. ‘As a welcome to the new commander, like. We had a lamb die newly born, a big lamb that was late in the coming, and the meat was more than enough for us, with me usually up to the fort. We thought maybe you and your lady would do us the honor to accept it.’

  ‘That was kind of you and your woman.’ Justin handed the parcel to Januaria. Judging by the looks of him, Justin doubted that he owned any sheep or that, having managed to buy – or more likely to steal – a lamb, he would offer a part of it to his centurion without an excellent reason. ‘How goes it with the cohort this morning?’ he inquired.

  ‘It goes as well as it might,’ the man said. Phaedrus, that was his name, Justin remembered. ‘What with the commander, and – and yesterday morning and all, and…’

  ‘And, Phaedrus? Tell me.’

  ‘Well, with the Brigantes last summer, and now the Picts, they say, talking rebellion, and maybe even the little dark people too, unless they’re just a fairy tale, like some men say – myself, I haven’t seen them – but a lot of the men don’t like it, sir, thinking we would better leave the north to them as seems to want it so bad, ’stead of lose the men in trying to stop what maybe can’t be stopped.’

  ‘That,’ said Justin sharply, ‘is not for the men to decide.’

&
nbsp; ‘Aye, true enough, sir.’ The legionary watched him, taking stock, from under a shock of matted hair. ‘But they do say in camp as how maybe some of the officers might think the same way, given the choice.’

  ‘Well, they had better not say it around those officers, or they might get an unpleasant surprise,’ Justin snapped. Phaedrus didn’t look overly surprised, he noted, merely as if he had got the information he was seeking. ‘You may go,’ he continued, before the man could say anything else. ‘And see that you wash that tunic before you report back for duty. It looks as if you’d rubbed down a horse with it.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ The man backed toward the door.

  ‘And, Phaedrus…’

  He halted, looking nervously at Justin.

  ‘My thanks to you and your woman for the lamb.’

  Phaedrus departed hastily. Justin sat looking after him. He wondered just how far Martius had let things go. Too far for him, at any rate, poor man.

  ‘Gwytha,’ he said, as she appeared and settled herself at her loom, ‘if Phaedrus should show his face again, and I rather think he won’t, tell him he had best lose himself in the ranks before I notice him.’

  ‘What did he want?’

  ‘To tell me a tale about a gift of some lamb and to sound out my views on certain matters.’

  ‘Oh. And did he find out what he wanted to know?’ Her face was worried, but she kept her eyes on the flying shuttles of the loom.

  ‘Not precisely what he wanted to know, no, but I trust his own views have been somewhat clarified. Martius was a bigger fool than I thought, I’m afraid, though I’d swear he wasn’t mixed up in treason. Still, we may as well use the lamb, for the expenditure of which I imagine Phaedrus is now cursing himself.’

  ‘Well, at least he will think twice before he tries that trick again,’ she commented. ‘Lambs can’t be that easy to come by.’

  ‘That was what I thought. I thanked him very nicely for it when he left.’

  She fetched the parcel from the kitchen and started to laugh. ‘And see, he has given us the best part.’

  ‘Well, I hope it gives him to think,’ Justin said, ‘but I doubt it. I may have put the fear of the gods into Phaedrus at least, but it’s no more than on the surface. Meanwhile they put the fear of the gods in me, with their quarreling and their laziness, while the Brigantes lay in a stock of good Gaulish blades and wait.’

  He pulled his breastplate on over the harness skirt of leather and bronze and stood for her to buckle it for him. He hefted his centurion’s vine staff. ‘I may have to start knocking some better sense into their heads, but I’d as soon not. I’ve had my fill of that.’

  * * *

  … Dark clouds and the crack of lightning, and he and Licinius standing over the mangled body of Tullius…

  ‘My job is to mend bodies, not break them!’ Licinius had said savagely, gouging his signature across the official death certificate.

  That scene was still uppermost in the surgeon’s mind the next morning, and while Justin was entertaining Phaedrus, Licinius was bitterly polishing his instruments for the third time, sick and ashamed, of himself and his Legion.

  He didn’t hear the light step on the hospital floor until she was beside him, and he looked up, startled, at the Legate’s daughter.

  ‘I would like you to look at Theodore’s hand.’ She gestured to the slave standing a deferent four paces behind her. ‘He has poured boiling fat on it, and it looks bad to me. He refused to come and see you, so I have brought him myself.’

  ‘I have assured my mistress that the matter is negligible,’ Theodore said.

  ‘Hmmm.’ Licinius put his instruments away. ‘Let me have a look.’ The slave stretched out a scarlet left hand with obvious reluctance. ‘Well, you won’t die of it, but it’s as well to be careful of infection with burns. I’ll give you some salve for it.’ He produced a small clay pot sealed with wax. ‘Rub it with this twice a day, and make very sure you keep it clean.’

  ‘Indeed, sir.’ Theodore looked with distaste at the unguent pot.

  ‘Theodore is a Greek. I’m afraid he has no very great opinion of the state of Roman medicine,’ Felicia murmured.

  ‘The Army Medical Corps does a damn sight more good than most!’ Licinius snapped. ‘If you don’t believe me, neglect that hand. If you see any red streaks running up toward the shoulder, let me know, and I’ll come and take the arm off.’

  Theodore eyed the surgeon with new respect, and Felicia started laughing. ‘Very well, Theodore, you may go. And see that you do as the surgeon bids you.

  ‘I think,’ she added when he had gone, ‘that you are one of the few people ever to make an impression on Theodore.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ Licinius reached for his instrument case again.

  ‘Do you know, those look quite clean to me. Would you be willing to put them up long enough to show me your hospital?’

  His black brows flew up in eloquent surprise, but after a moment he laid the case down again. ‘Very well, if you like.’

  She paced silently beside him, her soft boots whispering on the stone floor, but after they had toured the operating room and the dispensary, she turned to him. ‘You are troubled, I think. Would it be better if we did this another time?’

  Licinius ran his hand through his black hair and looked at her apologetically. ‘No. I am being a clot, and I am sorry. Yesterday’s business has been much on my mind, and it has made me vile company.’

  ‘Yes, I expect it would. My father also.’ She laid a hand on his arm and kept it there a moment. ‘I am sorry. You had to attest the death, I expect. Was it very bad?’

  ‘Have you ever seen one?’

  ‘No. I saw a man flogged once. My father felt that if I was going to follow the Army I should know that such things happen. It was bad enough.’ She read the bitter pain in his face and knew that this had been worse yet. And because she could think of no other way to soothe the pain, she put her arms around him, and he bowed his dark head to her shoulder.

  * * *

  Justin, strolling with his wife to shake off the horror which still hung on him, nudged her and pointed up the road where a light two-horse chariot came clip-clopping down a side street toward the livery stable. Guiding the team was Felicia, her black curls tangled by the breeze.

  ‘I think you’re too late. It appears that one of our local beaux has already offered his services.’ Then his brows rose as she leaned forward and the other dark head came into view. ‘Light of the Sun – Licinius!’

  In the chariot, Felicia, her cheeks flushed with the cold, was proudly showing off her mastery of the afternoon’s lesson while Licinius watched with a look Justin had never before seen on his friend’s face.

  When Januaria, whose spies were everywhere, reported that this outing was repeated the following day, Justin began to be worried. Licinius had never shown more than an occasional physical interest in girls, remaining seemingly wholly heart-free if perhaps a trifle lonely for it. If his heart was touched now, he was in for a rough crossing. Aurelius Rufus would look in no friendly fashion on a mere Army surgeon.

  This observation was not lost on Licinius either. Some two weeks later, he sat propped against a young birch tree, with the chariot ponies unbridled and tethered nearby, sourly watching Felicia threading a wreath of brown winter grasses reclaimed from the snow. ‘I suppose you realize my life was almost blissfully uncomplicated until you came along,’ he said at last.

  She looked at him from her perch on a dry rock. ‘You might as well come and sit by me,’ she said. ‘You’ll be soaking your backside to the skin sitting there in the wet like that.’

  He rose and sat down again beside her, drawing the folds of his cloak around them both. She reached up and placed the finished wreath on his head. ‘Not even the Emperor has a finer,’ she said, adjusting the angle until it tipped rakishly across one eyebrow. She drew a silver hand mirror from the folds of her own cloak and showed him his reflection.

  ‘My dear girl, I know
perfectly well what an ass I look in that thing. You needn’t exhibit the effect to me.’

  ‘Very well, I’ll put it away. You know, I’m afraid Papa isn’t going to care for this.’

  ‘Mithras! I suppose you think that hadn’t occurred to me. Well, there’s not a damned thing I can do about it except avoid you like the pit of Ahriman.’

  ‘Licinius, no!’

  ‘I can’t marry you, and I can’t bear it this way much longer. I can’t marry anyone while I’m in the Army, and I don’t suppose you want to wait another ten years for me.’

  ‘But Centurion Corvus—’

  ‘Justin didn’t marry a Legate’s daughter. You know perfectly well you wouldn’t be allowed to contract an Army marriage, and I wouldn’t let you if you could. In any case, your father wouldn’t have me. Use your head, Felicia!’

  She shook her head, and the pearl drops in her ears, and those that hung from the gold fillet in her hair, were set to jigging like snowdrops against her black curls. ‘Licinius, listen to me! I have followed my father’s Legion since I was a child, and I might have married long ago if I had a taste for the easy life. I’m not a ten-year-old in love with the bugler!’

  He chuckled. ‘Were you in love with the bugler?’

  ‘Oh, yes, when Papa was in Syria with the Third Gallica. He was very handsome, tall and blond with a lovely bristly mustache, and he used to let me play his bugle.’

  ‘Ah, true love!’

  ‘Now see here, you’re getting me off the track.’ She put her hands on either side of his face so that he could not turn away. ‘Since I have been grown, there has never been one man I wanted… save you. I am not going to say, “Ah, the Fates deny us!” and cry a little, and then go and think of something else.’

  Licinius pulled away from her, shuddering, and bowed his head in his hands. ‘Give me strength!’ Then he sat up again and gripped her hard by the shoulders, the gentle note gone from his voice. ‘Now you listen to me! I resigned myself long ago to an uneventful retirement raising horses somewhere to the south; alone, because I never met a woman I could love and I would not make some woman’s life a burden to her because I didn’t love her. Lonely because of that, maybe, but content. And now you come, all silk and pearls and laughter, and take me in your arms when I am hurt past bearing, and now I love you! And where do you fit on a British horse farm, and where do I fit in your world? And the gods help me, what am I going to do? I am sick with wanting you!’ He flung himself up off the rock and set about bridling the chariot ponies.