Marching With Caesar-Pax Romana

by R. W. Peake

  "No!" The chieftain shook his head, spitting out the word in his own tongue, but although I knew enough of their tongue to know the word, no translator was necessary.

  The palpable anger that erupted from the chieftain caused a corresponding reaction, as I heard muttered curses behind me.

  "I knew this was going to happen," a voice came from behind me, but to the right, which was surprising enough that I momentarily forgot my discipline and glanced over my shoulder to see Optio Cossus standing there.

  Curiosity overwhelmed my desire not to draw the ire of either Cossus or Urso, although Urso was too occupied to notice, and I asked, "You knew what was going to happen?"

  Cossus actually jerked in surprise; my guess is that he was not aware he had spoken aloud. He opened his mouth as if to answer me, then caught himself.

  "Nothing," he finally muttered. "You're at intente!"

  Turning about, I was just in time to see Urso point his finger, right in the chieftain's face, a huge and mortal insult to barbarians; being truthful, we Romans do not like it much either. But this act elicited a collective gasp from the watching crowd, immediately followed by what I can only describe as a low, growling sound. Torn between wanting to watch Urso and the chieftain or keeping an eye on the crowd, before I could turn back to see where things stood with Urso, I saw a flash of silvery-gray as one of the warriors actually drew his sword. Cossus clearly saw it as well, because I heard him curse as he moved from his spot, walking towards Urso, presumably to warn him that matters were getting out of control. Unfortunately, the crowd saw it as well, except they interpreted the Optio's actions differently, sure that he was coming to aid Urso in whatever the Primus Pilus had planned. There was a sudden movement, and no less than four barbarian warriors pushed their way out of the crowd, hurrying to reach the chieftain, but approaching from an oblique angle to the pair's flank. Urso clearly saw the movement out of the corner of his eye, except instead of retreating back in our direction to the skimpy safety of the formation, with clear deliberation, he turned back to face the chieftain. This time, he did not point or gesticulate in any way, and there was no way to hear him because the crowd had started shouting all manner of imprecations and threats at us; frankly, I was as scared as I had been in my admittedly brief time under the standard to that point. Despite being at intente, I surreptitiously reached down to make sure my blade was loose in the scabbard. Then, what appeared to be a miracle occurred. The chieftain, who in that instant, was radiating defiance suddenly just…collapsed. I do not mean physically, but whereas he had been standing with his chest thrust out and fists clenched, his shoulders suddenly slumped as he seemed to let out a long breath. Then he turned towards the four warriors, now just a few paces away and held up a hand. Showing a discipline worthy of the Legions, the quartet stopped immediately, telling me these were probably members of his household guard, which made sense. Meanwhile, Urso beckoned to Cossus, who had moved to just a couple paces away, whereupon the Primus Pilus turned to the Optio, exposing his unprotected back to the chieftain and the crowd. Despite my feelings of antipathy towards the Primus Pilus, I have never faulted his courage, and it was on clear display that day. Turning his back to the chieftain after so much tension sent as much of a message to us as it did to the barbarians. Giving Cossus orders, the Optio saluted, then turned about and marched up to the formation.

  "Front rank, fall out and follow me."

  If I had thought the day could not have been any stranger, or stressful than it had already been, I was quickly proven wrong. Following Cossus, who in turn was led by one of the barbarian warriors—I recognized him as one of the four who had come to the aid of the chieftain —we left the town common area, heading down one of the muddy streets that led from it. The hostility of the crowd had not abated, yet they did make way for us, stepping aside only grudgingly; in fact, our escort had to shove more than one reluctant townsperson aside. Not lost on me, or any of us, I am sure was that all of those who resisted allowing us to pass were warriors themselves, and considering the circumstances, I actually felt some sympathy, understanding how lacerating it would be to my pride if the situation was reversed. Nevertheless, we were unmolested as we continued down the path that served as a street. Reaching one dwelling, the escorting warrior stopped, turning to Cossus.

  "Wait here," the warrior said in Latin, which surprised me, although I do not know why.

  Without waiting for the Optio to acknowledge him, the warrior pushed open the door without knocking. From within, we could hear a shout of surprise, followed by an exchange between what I assumed was our escort, first with a man, then a woman, who sounded anything but happy. In fact, there was a shriek from inside that caused Philo and I to exchange an uneasy glance, our mutual hatred put aside for the moment. There was some more shouting, but then the door opened and the escort emerged, except he was not alone. Another man was with him; I say "man," although he was probably only a year or two younger than I was at that point. Held by one arm by the escort whose face was a grim mask, clinging to the other arm of the boy was a woman who was obviously his mother, who was sobbing hysterically. There ensued what, under other circumstances, would have been a comical, albeit one-sided tug of war between the escort and the mother, although it looked very much from where I was standing like the boy was surreptitiously trying to augment his mother's strength. Finally, the boy's arm was jerked from her gasp, yet she was not through fighting to keep her son from being led away, and for what purpose, I still had no idea. The escort gave the boy a push in our direction, giving him instructions as he did, and the boy sullenly approached us. Although I had no idea what we were supposed to do, Cossus clearly did, pointing to a spot in the middle of the formation.

  "We might as well go ahead and form the box now," he announced, giving the command to do so with his next breath.

  Despite my bewilderment, I felt my body move before I gave any consideration to doing so, sidestepping to my right to widen the spacing. The box formation is one we use to escort prisoners, but while that is what it appeared we were doing, gathering prisoners, I suspected this was not strictly the case. Once the boy was in our midst, we resumed our progress down the same street, stopping twice more. While the reactions were similar, so were the results, although in the third house we stopped at the escort dragged out two youths, clearly twin brothers. Moving over to the next street, when Cossus paused for a moment and stepped to my side of the formation, I could not contain myself any longer.

  "Optio, what in Hades are we doing?"

  For a moment, I thought he was going to tell me to shut my mouth or give me the same kind of answer Philo had, yet nothing came from him, as he finally shrugged and relented.

  "It won't be a secret from you for much longer," he told me. Pointing over at the trio of barbarians in our midst, he said, "I suppose you've heard that the auxiliaries have been having trouble filling their quotas?"

  This was common knowledge, and I indicated that I had indeed heard about it, although I was beginning to have an idea what was happening.

  "Well," he gave me a sour grin, "our Primus Pilus has come up with a perfect solution."

  While I acknowledged to myself that it was a solution, I was having a hard time understanding how it was perfect.

  "But why does this Colapiani allow us to take men who could be warriors for him?"

  "Because our Primus Pilus is a fucking genius, that's why." This came from immediately behind me, reminding me that others could hear, and I took a quick glance to see that it was one of the men of the Second Section; Balbinus his name. "Draxo knows that if he doesn't give us a few of his boys now, he's going to lose a lot more than them later."

  Rather than enlightening me, I was even more confused.

  "How does that work?" I pointedly asked Cossus.

  The Optio smiled again, but with a gloating expression that told me he was one of Urso's men through and through if he took as much pleasure in the cleverness of our Primus Pilus. Or, I reminded my
self, he is just as much of an actor as I'm trying to be.

  "You said you heard that the auxiliaries are having problems. I suppose you've heard there's been talk for a long time about putting an outpost out here?"

  In fact, I had heard that as well, except I had been hearing that for quite some time, and one of my childhood friends, Gnaeus Figulus, who had never left Siscia and was now in the Fourth Cohort as well, had informed me when I arrived the year before this talk had been going on for some time. Yet, we never heard of any plans to move ahead with that project.

  Seeing my assent, he continued, "But, as you can see, there's no outpost here, because the Colapiani haven't given us any reason to do so. And if they're smart, and cooperative," he emphasized, "they'll continue to do so. Because if they do, then all this talk about putting an outpost out here will be just that…talk."

  It took a moment for my mind to process what he told me, but before I could stop myself, I gasped, "You mean Ur…the Primus Pilus is the reason there's no outpost out here? That he's…" I managed to keep from using the word "extorting," using instead, "…convincing this Draxo to cooperate by giving up men for the auxiliaries?"

  Before Cossus could answer, Balbinus, who struck me as a man who liked to be considered in on the details of plots like this, cut in cheerfully, "Oh no! There's a lot more than just bodies involved! You don't think we'd be doing this just so the fucking auxiliaries can have fresh meat, do you? Oh no, these barbarian bastards pay us as well. And they pay very…."

  "Shut your mouth, Balbinus," Cossus snarled; he clearly had not intended to let me know about this part of whatever one would call the arrangement between our Primus Pilus and the Colapiani chieftain, who I now knew was named Draxo.

  "I was just…" Balbinus' manner immediately turned into that of a whining cur that has just been whipped.

  "You were just running your fucking mouth when you shouldn't be, which is a bad habit of yours," Cossus snapped back. "It's clear I'm going to have to talk to the Primus Pilus about whether or not you should be involved anymore."

  This certainly shut Balbinus up, but then the Optio turned and pointed right at me.

  "And you…" He was not quite as surly, but only marginally less. "…You better keep your fucking mouth shut when you get back."

  "Don't worry." Philo, who had been remarkably silent chose this moment to speak up. "He will. I'll make sure of it."

  "See that you do," Cossus gave Philo a smile, "but take a fucking bath the instant we get back. You smell like cac."

  This, as I am sure the Optio intended, brought a laugh from everyone within earshot, but more importantly, ended the moment when he had been willing to let me know what we were doing. Unfortunately, while I had a better idea, there were still surprises in store, especially for me.

  By the time Cossus deemed that we had fulfilled our portion of the job in the town, we surrounded no less than ten barbarian men, most of them around my age or even younger, but at least two that I saw were barely inside the upper age limit for auxiliaries. It was when we returned to the square to meet the Primus Pilus, who had remained with Draxo, that the townspeople, seeing our charges, began shouting again. Once more, Urso said something to Draxo that he clearly did not like; I assume it was a reminder of what would happen if he did not comply and calm the crowd. Nevertheless, he faced his people, and raised his hands for silence, but when this did not work, he gave a signal to one of his guardsmen. Without hesitation, the selected guard turned about, surveyed the crowd for a moment, then seemingly at random, walked to face a man who was clearly a warrior, wearing a sword that was thankfully still in its scabbard. Nothing was said as far as I could tell, but the royal guard's fist was a blur as it shot out, striking the warrior on the point of his chin, dropping him in much the same way as a pig struck between the eyes. The shouts and cries stopped immediately, as a shocked silence draped over all of us; I was no less surprised than the Colapiani.

  The chieftain Draxo broke the quiet then, uttering what sounded to me like a challenge in their guttural tongue, but if it was, none of his people accepted it. Instead, almost as one, they dropped their heads to break eye contact with their chieftain, whose head turned slowly to survey the crowd, stopping only to glare at individuals who I suppose might have challenged his authority in the past, or who seemed likely to as far as he was concerned. Seeing that he had made his point, he turned about to face Urso again, and I saw that, this time, he was not empty-handed, holding out a leather bag that was clearly bulging. It was not until I saw him extend his arm to drop the bag into Urso's waiting hand that I heard the distinctly soft clinking sound that told me there was gold in that bag, which makes a subtly different sound than silver. I could not suppress a gasp; that was a fortune being handed over! Yet, it was when I saw Draxo look over Urso's shoulder to where ten of his young men were standing, their shoulders slumped in misery, that I saw that the gold mattered little to the barbarian when compared to the humiliation of being forced to hand over some of his own. One thing I remember about this moment was realizing the cost that comes with leadership of any sort where you hold the power of life or death over others. Sometimes a leader has to sacrifice a few for the greater good of many, yet even knowing this to be the case, and now that I have experienced the same, albeit in a more definitive and horrible way, I can say that it makes the draught no less bitter going down. In the back of every leader's mind, at least so I believe, is the faint but insistent hope that somehow you will be able to make decisions that do not cost anyone their lives, that you can keep all of those under your care alive and well. Even as one part of the mind understands this is impossible, it does not extinguish that little spark of desire; at least it never has in my case. That is what I saw in the bitter expression of Draxo as, once more, the pair clasped hands. I was just beginning to relax, thinking that we would be allowed to march out of Topulcava with our skins still attached to us when, just as we had begun to march away, there was a shriek from the crowd. Darting out from the people lining the mud street, a woman came rushing towards us, one arm raised, my eye catching the flash of reflected metal, telling me it was a dagger in her hand. Even more disconcerting was that she had emerged from the crowd directly to my right, putting me the closest to her. Urso was still at the front of the formation, and I saw him turn, take in the sight, and bellow an order, all within a heartbeat.

  "Pullus! Stop that woman!"

  Leaping from my spot, while she was heading for Urso, she saw me moving out of the corner of her eye and tried to change her course to face me. She was quick, I must give her that, but she was still a woman, so when she brought her arm down, aiming the point of her dagger in my general direction, I easily blocked the thrust by raising my shield, still covered in all manner of filth. There was the thud as the point of the dagger struck the shield to stick in the wood, then I twisted my left wrist and wrenched the handle of the weapon from her grasp. With my right hand, I stopped her body as her momentum caused her to continue at me, feeling a flash of embarrassment when my hand inadvertently caught her by gripping one of her breasts. This caused a wave of laughter from my comrades, while I felt my face flush, but the woman, despite losing her dagger, was not through. Twisting, she wrenched the soft tissue of her breast out of my hand, and the ludicrous thought flashed through my mind that she would undoubtedly have a bruise. Dropping into a crouch, she tried to get past me again, except now her goal seemed to change from revenge to rescue, her eyes fastened on a spot past my left shoulder, where I assume her son was located. I think that was when I recognized her as the woman at the first house, yet even with her squirming, I managed to grab her, this time around the waist, picking her up off the ground as she kicked and flailed her arms about.

  "Pullus, quit fucking about! We need to leave!"

  I recognized Urso's voice; honestly, I was at a loss what to do with the woman, but when I asked for direction, I was certainly not expecting the answer he gave me.

  "Break her arm."


  I was so surprised that I lost my grip on the woman, although she was equally unprepared to be dropped, falling to the ground awkwardly and with enough force that it drove the wind from her.

  "Sir?"

  "You heard me! If she can't get the message with us being gentle, break her fucking arm!"