Marching With Caesar-Pax Romana

by R. W. Peake

  "Let's go," I told him, although I did not wait, stepping out to meet the rest of my comrades who were just then moving past the building, allowing me to fall in with them.

  My hope of escaping either censure or notice from Asinius was short-lived, but not because of the reason I expected. Suddenly, I felt a hardened hand grab my upper arm, and my progress was halted as I was spun around to face my Optio. Yet, rather than a look of anger, he was staring down at the lower portion of my right arm.

  "Pullus," he said sharply, "have you gone fucking mad? You're wounded! Give me your neckerchief, quick!"

  At first, I thought he was referring to my face, then I understood the significance of him staring downward at my arm. Only then did I actually look down myself, and it was with some surprise that I saw why he was sure I had been injured; my hand and arm halfway up to the elbow were covered in blood, except as I really examined myself, I saw it was more than that. Caught in the indentations between my knuckles were what I supposed were bits of flesh from the man I had just beaten to death, and as soon as my mind understood this, I felt an almost overwhelming urge to retch.

  "It's not my blood," I tried to assure him, although he was having no part of it, reaching for my arm to examine it, but before he could, Avitus called to him.

  "He's right, Optio, it's not his blood." I glanced over at Avitus as he jerked a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the door. "Pullus just caved some poor bastard's face in." He gave a laugh that, to my ears, sounded a bit strained. "That fucker's head is like a smashed gourd."

  I sensed Asinius look up at me; that was when he noticed the scratches.

  "So it's not your arm," he commented, releasing his grasp, "but you look like you've been clawed by a fucking lion."

  "I feel like it," I admitted, somewhat put out that his mention of the scratches made me remember them myself as I suddenly felt the burning lines that ran from just under my eye all the way down to my jaw.

  If I had known this was the best I would be feeling before the next dawn, I am not sure how I would have behaved during the course of the coming watches.

  "Well, I don't think you'll bleed to death from that," he said dryly. "Now let's catch up."

  Avitus had already begun trotting down the street, and we followed after him, catching up to the rest of our Century as we pushed deeper into the town.

  This town, whose name I never learned, nor do I believe any of my comrades did either, was a maze of streets that even in Siscia we would call alleys, while their alleys were so narrow I could not pass down them without turning my body sideways. The fact that several of these alleys already had bodies in them, most likely thrown out of the way by the Legionaries ahead of us, actually reduced our alternatives when it came to navigating through the town. On his own initiative, Asinius stopped us from following right behind the men of the Seventh, taking us to the right at an intersection of streets instead of to the left as they had a few moments before.

  "We're going to clear out this section of the town, from here to the outer wall." He pointed down to the end of one of the few streets that actually seemed to cross at least a good part of the town, and in what I suppose to a barbarian is a straight line.

  Just beyond the last row of houses, we could see a stretch of open ground, then the wall, and we caught fleeting glimpses of townspeople fleeing as they ran parallel to the wall across our field of vision. Why they were heading deeper into the town, I did not know, but my suspicion was that, since we now were in control of the southern part, they were fleeing for the gate on the far side, where the other tower overlooked it. It would not help, I knew, because I felt certain that Urso himself had led the Third by the most direct route he could find in order to get to the northern gate and block it off. There were probably other places where people could slip outside the walls, but then they would be forced to climb up the slope of the hills that formed the bowl in which the town was located, although once they climbed past the swath of cleared ground that extended a few hundred paces from the wall, the trees on the flanks of the hill would give them cover. Neither I nor any of my comrades were informed then why this town had been located in a place that, while it had some advantages, was so hard to defend; it was only later when we thought about it that we came up with the most likely reason.

  "We're going to go one block deep, on either side of this street," Asinius continued, "and search the houses." He grinned, and added, "And if any of you light-fingered bastards happen to find something worth taking that's just lying out in plain sight, well," he gave an elaborate shrug, "all I can say is I want a cut!"

  As I am sure he hoped, we laughed at this, then he divided us by section.

  "Odd numbers take the left hand side, evens the right," he commanded. "Start here and work towards the wall."

  We began moving immediately, but Caecina wasted no time the instant we were out of Asinius' easy hearing range; the Optio was standing in the middle of the street so he could move quickly in either direction if we called for him.

  "Why, Pullus." He laughed, pointing at my face. "It looks like you found a she-devil Varciani! I hope she gave you a good ride!"

  As I expected, the others laughed, yet while I knew better, I could not stop myself from protesting.

  "It wasn't from a woman," I told him, but the instant it came out, I knew I had made a huge blunder.

  We were just about to enter the first building, which was actually fairly well built, and although still made of wood, was of a decent size, but he suddenly paused.

  "Well, well," he leered at me, yet while he was smiling, I saw the malicious glee in his good eye, "I didn't know you were one of those! Maybe you'd be more comfortable with one of the Legions down in Greece!"

  Whereas there had been laughter before, now my comrades roared in delight, while Mela slapped our Sergeant on the back, congratulating him on his wit. The four burning lines on my face actually seemed to go away, but only because the rest of my face was on fire, or at least so it felt. I opened my mouth to try and defend myself, then realized I was more likely to make things worse, so I remained silent as the others continued laughing for a moment. Caecina seemed disappointed I did not respond, then Avitus stepped between us, sweeping his hand at the rough-hewn door as if inviting the Sergeant inside. Turning away from me, Caecina lifted his foot and kicked the door in, although it took two tries, which made me feel better. I decided to stay outside, but the rest of the section went in, and instantly, the crashing sounds of whatever furniture was in the house being turned over began. For the next few moments, I heard my comrades mumbling as they searched each room, while making sure to smash every breakable object in the process. Someone laughed – it sounded like Lutatius – then after a few moments, they all came out, with several of them holding a variety of objects.

  "Nobody's in there," Caecina announced, then held up a glittering gold necklace, the links finely wrought and catching the light. "But I did find this…just lying there," he joked.

  This amused the others, yet I was already moving on to the next house. This one had clearly been a smithy, meaning that it had two stories. Of course, the forge was cold, but there was an anvil, along with a number of implements we could clearly see from the street because one side of the building was open. I entered through the open side, and just as I did, I heard a scraping sound like something heavy was being dragged across the floor; suddenly, nobody was laughing. The door leading into the rest of the premises was closed but it had a heavy iron latch, while the door itself looked fairly substantial. Which made sense as I thought about it; this place belonged to a man of property, and men without property are always keen to acquire some for themselves. Men, I reminded myself, like us. Since I had entered the smithy first, I was nearest to the door but kicked it only once, the more substantial sound and the fact the door did not budge at all explaining the sound we had heard.

  "What do we do?" Ventidius asked, but when we all looked at Caecina, he just shook his head.


  Looking about, I noticed something that might be useful. Sunk in the dirt was a substantial pole that I was sure had once been a tree trunk before being stripped and sanded. Nails protruded from it, on which bits of tack and a couple of tools hung.

  "Let's use that," I said, and the idea was met with approval, so using brute force, we pushed and pulled the pole until it loosened in the dirt.

  Finally extracting it, someone found some leather straps, which we wrapped around the pole as makeshift handles and, very quickly, we were swinging it against the door. The sound of the solid wood pole crashing into the door was like a thunderclap, and although at first the only thing we seemed to be doing was shaking the whole building so that a fine sifting of dust rained down on us from the upper floor, finally, we heard a sharp cracking sound. Four blows later, two of the vertical timbers of the door buckled; from there, it was short work to knock the door off its hinges so we could drag it out of the way. A wooden box had been pushed against the door, and once we examined the contents, we understood why it was so heavy, because it contained ingots of iron that I supposed the smith used to make tools and weapons for his fellow tribesmen. Drawing my sword, I stepped over the box and into the room adjoining the smithy, except this time, I waited for some of the others, although this room was too small for all of us. It was clearly a storeroom for the smithy, but at the far end, we could see a set of stairs, and I glanced over at Sido, who happened to be next to me.

  "Ready?" I asked him, and he nodded.

  We moved to the edge of the stairs, yet when I peeked upward, something came flying out of the darkness again, forcing me to jerk my head out of the way as a cup smashed against the wall opposite the stairs.

  I groaned, but not because of the cup. "It's darker than Pluto's bunghole up there."

  "How about we burn them out?" Glabrio, I believe, suggested this, reminding me that he was one of those men who seemed to enjoy fire for its own sake.

  "Our orders are to clear the houses, not burn them down," Caecina replied, but then he called to me. "Pullus, I doubt a warrior would throw a cup. Or are you so afraid of the dark?"

  I was halfway up the stairs before I thought to chide myself for behaving this way, but although I was sure Caecina was right about no warriors being in the house, I kept my shield in front of me nonetheless. By the time I reached the top of the stairs, at least two plates had shattered against the wood of my shield, although I only caught a bare glimpse of a small body darting away around the corner from the top of the stairs. There was one thing bothering me; to this point, we were the ones making the most noise. Except for the crash of crockery, I had not heard anyone cry out or sobbing in fear, nothing to give me a hint about the identity and number of the occupants. Feeling someone's hand on my harness, I recognized my hesitating would not change anything, so I turned the corner into the open area of the room. The only light up here was from the crack between two shutters of the window directly ahead of me, except it was just enough for me to see not one but two figures dart into the only other room on this floor, slamming the door behind them. Before they could make use of any furniture, I crossed the first room, and this time when I kicked the door it burst open, slamming against the wall as I heard the first shriek of fear. Stepping into the room, I saw a pair of children huddled in a corner. In the dim light, it was almost impossible to tell their ages or genders. However, there was another window for this room, also shuttered and directly across from the doorway, so before I did anything else I used my shield to knock one of the shutters open. Then I turned, just as Caecina, Sido and Lutatius entered the room.

  "Look what we have here." Caecina laughed. "These will probably fetch a good price!"

  While he was talking, I walked over, sheathing my sword to reach down and pull one of the children up to their feet. There was a girl and a boy; the latter looked to be about six, the former perhaps nine. I grabbed the girl by the arm, but she did not resist, just stared up at me with frightened eyes. Lutatius had scooped the boy up while Caecina began rummaging in the one small cupboard. Glancing over at Lutatius, he gave me a shrug as if he did not really have any more idea what to do either. We had rounded up civilians before, but this time marked the first when it was just children.

  "Let's take them down for Asinius to watch," he suggested and I thought this was as good an idea as any.

  "Pullus," Caecina called to me, and when I turned to face him, I instantly saw he was staring at the girl. "Leave her with me. I'll bring her along."

  "No," I said without thinking. "She's my prisoner."

  "Prisoner?" He laughed, but I had learned to watch his eyes, so I could see he was anything but happy. "That's not a prisoner! That's just a wee bit! Hardly a taste. Besides," he tried to say it lightly, "you don't want to have your hands full with a squalling girl!"

  "She's hardly making a sound," I replied, my tone as cool as I could manage. "And she's no trouble." I turned to go, holding her awkwardly around the waist under my arm almost as if she were a loaf of bread, and I could feel her trembling violently.

  "Pullus." Caecina's voice hardened. "I think you're forgetting I outrank you." I turned to look back at him, and he was holding his hand out. "Give me the girl. Now."

  Lutatius had already disappeared with the boy, who, by this point, had begun crying in earnest; I suspect it was because he was separated from what I assumed to be his sister. That was when I noticed it was only Geta and Mela left in the room, and they had begun edging slowly but noticeably towards the door. Perhaps they were as uncomfortable as I was and wanted to leave, but I doubted it.

  "Fuck you," I said quietly. "I'm not giving you a girl who's probably not even ten years old to fuck."

  "What does it matter to you?" he shot back, and he laughed again, except this was a harsh, mocking one. And yet, I was sure I could hear a note of something else there as he insisted, "This is an enemy of Rome, boy! And we've been given orders to…"

  "I know what we're doing," I cut him off. "But you're not touching this girl." I gave a shrug as if I did not care and finished, "If you want to go to Asinius and write me up, go ahead. But you're still not touching this girl."

  For an instant, Mela stood in the doorway, looking as if he was going to block me, but rather than say anything, I just looked at him and, as all cowards do, he stepped aside, while Geta just looked like he would rather have been anywhere else. Oh, if looks could kill, I would have been dead, but that was all that happened. Descending the stairs, I had to do so sideways to fit because I was not about to relinquish my grip on the girl. She was docile enough, but I was fairly sure that just moments before she had been the one hurling cups and plates at me with great abandon, yet it was not because of that I held onto her tightly. I just did not want to risk her darting away from me, not realizing that, as harsh as it was, I was her better choice as a captor. I cannot say whether or not she sensed this, but I will say she did not struggle at all, and we emerged from the smithy, whereupon I went out into the street where Asinius was standing, but he, by this time, had more than just this girl's brother with him. The other sections had brought another half-dozen people; while four of them were also children, there were two women, one of them obviously the mother of at least two of the children, judging by their looks. With Asinius were a couple of glum Legionaries, Dento from the Sixth Section, and Battus from the Tenth. For a moment, I was afraid he would require me to stay to keep an eye on them as well. Fortunately, he said nothing as I deposited the girl, but not before giving her an indication I was going to let her go rather than just dropping her. When I did, I felt a pang of alarm because I thought she was wounded, which I had not noticed. The entire midsection of her shift was smeared red but when I mentioned to Asinius that she was hurt, he laughed and pointed at me.

  "It's from your arm, idiot," he chided. "You never cleaned it off, and now you've gotten some poor bastard's blood all over her."

  I had to admit it was amusing, at least at the time, although as I have learned, what
seems absolutely hilarious during moments like this suddenly are not nearly as funny later. Before I left to rejoin the others, however, I drew Asinius aside and told him of the dispute between Caecina and me over the girl.

  His lips thinned in disgust, but he assured me, "Don't worry. Nothing will come of it. He was bluffing. He knows better than to make an issue over something like that."

  Saluting, I trotted back to rejoin my comrades, happy that I had forced Caecina to back down. However, I held little illusion that before the night was through he would not satisfy his needs with another victim, yet for some reason, the fact it would not be that girl was important to me. Which, as I would learn, was something Caecina somehow understood very well.

  It took the better part of the rest of the day to root out every occupant of the town, using the method of going house by house, room by room. Of course, it was not just to snatch up prisoners; frankly, few of the men cared at all about the civilians since the Legate had informed us none of us would see a copper as from their sale. Because of this, it meant in the event one of the townspeople gave us any kind of trouble or resisted in any way, in more cases than not, the Legionary would opt to just run them through rather than be bothered. Consequently, screams of terror and pain echoed up and down the streets, many of them cut off abruptly, telling us that in fact someone had put up too much of a struggle. Despite the fact we would not be sharing in the sale of the slaves, few of us had any cause for complaint; this was the wealthiest, most prosperous town by far of all the Varciani villages we had plundered. Fairly quickly, the haul from their homes became substantial enough that the Centurions were forced to organize matters. Designating a man from each section from their Century is the most common method, with the loot sorted and put in piles on the ground. This was what Asinius did, acting in stead of Urso, who was still with the Third at the northern end of the town. When it came to picking the man we trusted the most, this was a moment when the division in our section was the easiest to see, as it came down to Caecina's insistence that it be Mela, while I suppose the faction of which I was a part declared Lutatius the most trustworthy. Not lost on me at the time was that if Domitius had been present, I do not believe it would have been nearly as closely contested as it was, if only because Caecina would have understood the futility of putting his man forward. Part of the complication came from our reduced numbers, meaning it ultimately came down to Bestia, who clearly did not want any part of such matters. However, his indifference was due more to his continued grief about Dentulus, but when the only thing both factions agreed on was he had to decide the dilemma, ultimately, he sided with us and Lutatius was designated. It is only with the clarity of hindsight that I can say this was yet another cause for what happened later, as Caecina did not take the defeat well, and just from the way he glared at me, it was clear who he believed responsible.