by R. W. Peake
“Well, like I said, one of my boys was scouting the area around the battle, trying to pick up some sort of signs that would tell us where we could find these bastards. That was when he found your man, off by himself.”
“I know,” Porcinus sighed. “He and Philo were ambushed on their way back from the First the other day. It’s a shame he died because he could have cleared up exactly what Barbatus did or didn’t say.”
Porcinus wasn’t looking at Silva when he said this, so Porcinus only became aware that he had uttered something Silva considered important when there was a long silence. Finally, he glanced up at Silva to see him staring down at Porcinus intently.
“Tell me exactly what you know about your man being killed,” Silva said, and Porcinus relayed the story he had been told by Philo.
When he was finished, Silva shook his head slowly.
“That’s not very likely,” he began. “First, my man only found him by accident. When he was riding by a bunch of thick underbrush surrounding a tree, his horse suddenly shied. He thinks his horse smelled your man Paperius’ body, and I think he’s right. It was when he was getting the horse back under him that he saw his legs sticking out from under the brush. When he described it to me, I also agree with him that he wasn’t likely to have fallen into that bush after being killed. It’s probable that whoever killed him dragged him there to hide him.”
Although his heart wasn’t in it, Porcinus felt compelled to point out, “That could have been the work of the Varciani.”
“Why would they do that?” Silva made no attempt to hide his skepticism. “They have no reason to try and hide a body of one of ours. In fact, they’re more likely to make a spectacle of it than hide it.”
Although it wasn’t Silva’s intent, Porcinus’ mind immediately recalled the sight of the Varciani dancing about, holding the grisly trophy of a Roman head aloft. Silva had made his point and Porcinus said as much.
Nodding to Silva to continue, he listened as the Decurion said, “But not only did the location of where the body was found look strange, the nature of the wound that killed him is even more…troubling.” Now he made sure to make eye contact with Porcinus as he finished quietly, “His throat was cut from ear to ear. The way that only someone who’s up close to you can do it.”
Porcinus felt a sudden sickness in the pit of his stomach, and it was only through willpower that he didn’t actually expel its contents. Part of this feeling came from the recognition that he had suspected this to be the case, that Philo had murdered Paperius. Nevertheless, having it confirmed was still a shock. Suddenly, Porcinus was struck by a thought.
“When did this happen? I mean, when did your man bring Paperius in?”
Silva looked away guiltily and replied, “Yesterday. I would have told you sooner, but we didn’t know at first, and when we did find out who it was, I already had orders to go out on patrol.”
Porcinus motioned with a wave, assuring Silva that there was no need to apologize. An idea had begun forming in his mind, but he needed to be sure.
“Were you there when your man came in?”
“No,” Silva said, seemingly dashing Porcinus’ hopes, but continued, “at least not when he first entered the camp. But he knew I was in the praetorium, and he came to get me and show me the body. He had slung it behind the saddle. At least,” Silva grimaced, “as much as he could. The poor bastard was stiff as a board, so you can imagine it was difficult.” Seeing Porcinus’ expression and recognizing that this wasn’t just any man they were talking about, but one from Porcinus’ own Cohort, he hurried on, “I didn’t recognize him, so we asked some of the men walking around to come take a look at him. That was how he was identified. A Gregarius who said he was from the First Cohort said he recognized him.”
“Did any of them…” Porcinus began, but cut his question off as the import of what Silva had just offered sunk in. “Wait, you said a Gregarius from the First Cohort?”
Silva nodded.
“Yes, and from the way he acted, I guessed they might have been friends. He looks the way a man does when it’s someone he knows by more than just sight.”
Porcinus’ heart started beating harder, and he asked quickly, “What did he look like?”
Silva shrugged, then seeing Porcinus’ intent look, tried to think.
“Actually, if I had to describe him, I’d say he looked like one of those bully boys that you see running around Rome. His nose had clearly been broken, more times than just once, if you know what I’m saying. And he had one of those complexions where he always looks like he needs a shave.”
The description Silva had just provided perfectly matched a man who Porcinus had only seen briefly, but had cause to remember. Philo had been the man who correctly identified Paperius, there was no doubt in Porcinus’ mind.
It wasn’t until the first break that Porcinus had the opportunity to call all of his Centurions aside and let them know what Silva had told him. He was most worried about Corvinus, whose Century Paperius had belonged to, and it was clear that his friend was enraged by what he heard.
“That cocksucking son of a whore,” he spat to emphasize his anger. “That’s why he ran. Barbatus probably didn’t have anything to do with it. He knew that we would be able to add everything up and know that Paperius was murdered by one of our own, not by these barbarian cunni.”
Porcinus glanced around and saw that every other man accepted Corvinus’ reasoning.
Then Urso added, “This may actually turn out to be a good thing.”
Every man looked at him in surprise, but he was unruffled at the attention.
“How so?” Porcinus finally asked.
“Because if Barbatus isn’t the one who sent him running, that means it’s pretty likely Barbatus isn’t going to like the idea of him being on the loose somewhere. What if he’s caught and we somehow get wind of it before Barbatus does?” Urso shook his head. “No, he’d be feeling a lot safer than he is right now if he actually knew where Philo was. As it stands right now, there is just as much chance of Philo getting caught and us learning about it, and he’s no fool. You can count on the fact that he knows we’ve figured out that Paperius was murdered.”
Corvinus had been listening to all of this, but he couldn’t contain his outburst.
“You sound like you hope they catch this bastard and bring him back alive!” he exclaimed, clearly angry. “I know he wasn’t in your Century, but Pluto’s cock, man, he was one of the Fourth! Why aren’t you angrier than this?”
Urso actually did seem very calm and dispassionate, but his response was simple.
“I don’t get mad at the sword because the man who wielded it stuck it in me.” Urso shrugged. “Philo was just following orders. Just like we have in the past.”
“Not to kill our own men,” Corvinus blazed back.
“True,” Urso granted. “Oh, don’t mistake me. I want to see him punished, but I don’t feel like he deserves to have done to him what you want to do. In fact,” he said, “I think he feels badly about it.”
“Badly about it?” Corvinus gasped, but Porcinus had the same thought pass through his mind that Urso now voiced.
“Why else would he be the man who stepped forward to identify Paperius?” the Pilus Posterior pointed out. “If he didn’t feel anything about it, he wouldn’t have lifted a finger to help them find out. In fact, he made his own life more dangerous by helping speed up the process of trying to determine who Paperius was and where he belonged.”
Corvinus didn’t immediately respond, yet while he was still fuming, Porcinus could see that Urso’s argument hadn’t been completely in vain.
“Well, I still plan on gutting the bastard if I find him,” he finally said.
Then the break was over, and the men returned to their Centuries. Little by little, pieces were coming together that at least gave Porcinus a better idea of what he was facing, and this was what occupied his thoughts as the march continued.
It was shortly before the
midday break that there was a flurry of motion at the front of the column, followed shortly by the blast of the cornu signaling the senior Centurions to come to meet with Tiberius. Porcinus made sure that he was at the back of the seven men as they came from their respective spots to gather in front of where Tiberius had dismounted. Even with his attempt, the crowd was too small for him to escape the notice of Barbatus, and Porcinus could feel the man’s poisonous stare, but he ignored it and concentrated on what Tiberius had to say.
“Silva’s men have come across fresh tracks, just two miles from here.” Tiberius made no attempt to hide his excitement. “And his scouts say that it looks to be a mixed force of about three thousand men. In all likelihood, that’s the main body. It looks like they’re trying to escape to the west and squeeze in between us and the 15th.” He pounded a fist into his palm as he finished. “But we’re going to run them down. Prepare the men for a hard, fast march until we catch up and crush them. The estimate is that they’re no more than a third of a watch ahead of us. That’s all.”
He turned away, but then Barbatus once more cleared his throat.
“Excuse me…sir,” he began as Tiberius spun on his heel to glare at the Primus Pilus. “But if I might suggest…”
He got no farther, as Tiberius held up a hand and made a chopping motion in a clear command to stop.
“No, you may not suggest anything,” Tiberius said, his tone and expression matching in coldness. “You’ve been given your orders. Now, let’s not waste any more time.”
“But, sir,” Barbatus protested, “I wanted to…”
“Do not say another word.”
The words weren’t yelled, yet, at least to Porcinus, that made them even more menacing. Tiberius stared at Barbatus, but unlike the last time, Barbatus was either unable or unwilling to stand up to the scrutiny of those eyes. In front of the other Centurions, the carefully coiffed Primus Pilus seemed to wilt in front of them.
“Yes, sir,” he finally managed in a small voice.
However, if he expected that to be the end of it, he was quickly shown this wasn’t the case. Barbatus and the others began to turn to head back to their respective Cohorts, but again, Tiberius held up a hand.
“I believe I gave an order, Primus Pilus,” he said in the same quiet voice.
Now Barbatus looked confused, and his eyes began to shift from one face to the next. He found no friendliness anywhere as the other Centurions gazed at him with expressions that ranged from indifference to outright hostility. Despite knowing that he should be cautious, Porcinus was one of the latter, returning the malevolent look Barbatus had given him in kind.
“Sir? I’m not sure what you mean.”
“You don’t? That’s interesting. You seem to know everything else.” Tiberius now made no attempt to stop a sneer from taking over his face. “But since we don’t have time to educate you in how the Legions, the real Legions, do things, I’ll remind you. When a superior gives an order, the standard response is…what?”
Only then did Barbatus seem to understand what Tiberius was demanding, and it was his turn not to hide his feelings as his face twisted into a bitter grimace.
“Yes, sir. I understand…and I will obey.”
Only then were all the men dismissed, and immediately, the air was filled with the sounds of Centurions warning their men that they were about to earn their pay for once.
Piecing it together later, the Centurions came to the conclusion that this attempt on the part of the Varciani to escape from what had been their stronghold was born out of desperation. Either the game was becoming scarce, or more likely, the men of the Varciani army themselves had begun agitating to take some sort of action. Whatever the cause, it put the Varciani in the perfect position to be brought to battle, and on ground that favored the Roman way of fighting. Tiberius and the 8th followed the churned ground made by thousands of feet to the west, and it wasn’t long before the men at the front of the column spotted the telltale sign that they were closing the gap, in the form of a low, hovering cloud of dust that was on the horizon just ahead, looking like a dirty smudge. They were following the course of one of the larger streams that ended in the Savus to the south, but then they turned away from that to scale a low pass leading to the more open country beyond. For the first time, there was a buzz of conversation in the ranks, although it was in the form of short, terse statements or questions, snatched between the rapid breathing caused by the pace. They weren’t trotting, yet, although Porcinus was sure the order would be coming at any moment. When the Varciani hit the slope of the pass they intended to use, there was a natural slowing of their pace, allowing the lead elements of Tiberius’ force to come within a half-mile of the straggling end of what was little more than a mob, at least to a Roman eye. There were no ordered ranks, no neat division between clans or between types of fighting men; spear warriors were jostling with archers and other skirmish troops, all of whom were being shoved aside by the larger bodies of the horses, ridden by Varciani nobles and their retainers. Even from the distance they currently were, the Legionaries in the vanguard could see that the Varciani were close to panic in their haste, scrambling up the narrow track that led over the shoulder between two steep hills. Just on the other side, after they descended the slope, was the widest expanse of what passed for open ground. Perhaps two miles farther west of that was a solid line of green, representing a forest that screened the view of the country immediately beyond, but off in the distance, perhaps ten miles away, was another series of hills and ridges similar in composition in size to the area the Varciani were fleeing. This was clearly their goal, but as every man in Tiberius’ part of the army knew, the 15th Legion was somewhere on the other side of this forest, waiting to fall on the remnants of the rebel army. Despite the fact that, to a Roman eye especially, the sight before them of the Varciani was little more than a disorganized mess, as Porcinus and every veteran of Pannonia knew, there was a hidden advantage that the barbarian tribes exhibited at certain moments, particularly in those just before battle. Perhaps their best weapon was the rapidity with which they could engage their enemy, as there was no need for excessive maneuvering or movements to bring warriors to bear. In fact, it was more about who was the swiftest among them in throwing themselves at their enemy, rather than having to issue and listen for a series of commands that brought the right troops into position. What this meant was that Porcinus and his counterparts weren’t necessarily fooled at this sign of impending panic, knowing how quickly that could change. Hitting the slope, Porcinus felt the burning in his thighs start, but being a Centurion meant that one could never show they were under the same kind of strain as the rankers, that they were just as tired as the men puffing alongside. And it was at moments like this when Porcinus felt his age, thinking that he was just a couple years short of forty; not as old as most Pili Priores, yet still old enough to feel this pace more acutely than most of his boys. When he was laboring in this manner, he found it useful to think of other things, and he supposed it was natural that he would reflect on how many different faces there were around him. He tried to calculate how many men were missing from among the ranks compared to his first day as Pilus Prior. Just in the little more than three years since he first took command, he estimated that at least a third of his Century, and perhaps a quarter of the entire Cohort were different. Almost immediately, he regretted that train of thought, since the next natural step was to wonder if that meant that in another six years, none of the originals from his Century would be there. Following that was the worst thought; what if he weren’t there? What would his family do if he fell? Like every Centurion, and indeed every man with a family, he was acutely aware of the possibility, but he usually managed to put that aside, stuffed and locked away in some deeply buried box in his mind. Unfortunately, sometimes that thought managed to trick the rest of his mind into unlocking the box, and it would come roaring out, almost paralyzing him with the fear it brought. Ironically enough, the only time it was never lurkin
g there, creeping around the corners of his consciousness, reminding him of its presence and instead was safely secure, was in battle. And Porcinus had learned that, for him at least, once he had been made Optio, and then Centurion, nothing helped goad that snarling beast of fear back into its box better than actually thinking about the upcoming fight. He had often wondered about why this was so, and had come to the conclusion that since his mind was so occupied with all the myriad details that came with the job, there was no room for the beast. Not lost on him was that this was based in his love for his boys, and his desire that they see another day, and the best thing he could do to ensure that was to be as prepared as possible. Porcinus didn’t know the word for it, but it was this symbiotic relationship, where he as Centurion, and his men as his other half, fed the other’s desire to live, and as they all knew, the best way to survive was to win. Just as his Cohort crested the pass, Porcinus felt the moment of nerves pass, and despite the fact that he felt as if he were breathing pure fire, and his legs were screaming for relief, he felt a smile form on his lips as he realized there was nowhere he would rather be than right here, at this moment.
“All right, boys.” Despite his best effort, he knew he was panting some, although he noted with quiet satisfaction that none of the men were even able to talk. “There they are, just waiting for us to cut them down!”
The fact that the cheer was ragged was the best part for him as he began the descent down the slope, following the rest of the army in front of him, as eager for vengeance as any man there.
There was no pause to rest for Tiberius’ men, and it was this moment where the superior conditioning of the Legions saw the gap close down to a matter of a few hundred paces from the swirling knot of men that had been designated as the rearguard. The Romans were close enough to see that it was composed of a high number of missile troops, some cavalry, probably consisting of the lower ranking members of each nobleman’s mounted contingent, and perhaps two to three hundred infantry. It was the archers that Tiberius worried about, although it wasn’t enough of one for him to call a halt. He was young, but this campaign season had seen him grow with experience as a commander, and he knew that some casualties would be inevitable. Even so, the shields of his men would protect the vast majority of them, allowing them to close on the rearguard. What concerned him were two things; the enemy cavalry, which could prevent his men from forming testudo, and the length of the delay to his main body as they brushed the rearguard aside. If the enemy rearguard were led by a determined and capable man, they could prove effective enough to hold Tiberius’ men for the amount of time it would take to allow the rest of the Varciani to make it into the heavy forest, now a mile ahead of them. Although this wasn’t a huge problem in the grand design of his plan, since Quirinus and the 15th were waiting on the other side of that forest, he was determined that it would be the 8th who would exact vengeance. The fact that it was more than glory for its own sake was something he didn’t make any attempt to communicate to the Centurions, particularly to that cunnus Barbatus, but the more elemental reason and truth was that, in his own way, he loved these men as much as the Centurions did. Perhaps even more so, because this was the first time that Tiberius Claudius Nero felt like he belonged somewhere. For almost as long as he could remember, Tiberius had felt like an outsider, and although he wasn’t one to dwell on such things, he supposed it started from the day his mother Livia Drusilla had married the man then known as Gaius Octavianus Caesar. It was true that Tiberius had lacked for nothing, and his stepfather hadn’t been excessively harsh, at least for a Roman father. Nevertheless, Octavian had made it abundantly clear that neither Tiberius nor Drusus were his natural sons. And yet, Tiberius also knew that Augustus was much, much fonder of his younger brother Drusus. Despite this, for reasons that Tiberius himself didn’t really understand, he felt no malice towards his younger sibling because of his obvious favor with the man who was the sole power in Rome. It was probably because Drusus was so…likeable himself that it was impossible for Tiberius to hate him. The fact that Drusus so obviously adored his older brother had something to do with it, and in a life where he experienced very little of the kind of love among family members that was supposed to be there, it was no surprise that Tiberius returned that kind of affection with his own. He had resigned himself that, in all probability, it would be Drusus who would take the reins from Augustus, and if he were being honest, he was actually relieved that this was the case. Still, this command, his first real command, one where he was clearly in charge, without some older, more experienced crony of Augustus looking over his shoulder, was one he would never forget. And it was this bond he felt with the men marching at his back that drove him to be determined to let them exact their vengeance. Despite the excitement and apprehension of the moment, his internal musings had let his mind touch on the festering boil that was Barbatus. Again, he had known that Augustus didn’t view him with the same affection as he did Drusus, but having one of the Princeps’ creatures sent to spy on him, to find something with which he could exert some form of pressure on him that would ensure Tiberius would dance to the Princeps’ tune, no matter what it was; that was almost too much for him to bear. He longed to send a message, subtle and one that only Augustus would understand that, while he was loyal to the Princeps, he was still his own man and didn’t take such things as having eyes on him at all times lightly, nor would he tolerate it. Consequently, it was with some grim satisfaction that he allowed himself to savor what, hopefully, was in store for Barbatus. As pleasant a thought as that was, his attention needed to be elsewhere, and the sight of something out of the ordinary served to yank his thoughts back to the moment. Without any warning, he pulled his horse to a stop to stare ahead, but it wasn’t at the rearguard of the Varciani, or even the main body, which had separated itself by this point as they hurried on toward the relative safety of the forest. Instead, he was looking beyond at the forest itself, or just above it, and he swore bitterly, not caring who heard.
