by Ben Kane
‘Pinarius has sent word to Marcellus, asking for reinforcements.’ Corax paused, and let his words sink in. ‘This maniple is to be part of the force sent to answer Pinarius’ request. Our duty will be to reinforce the garrison of Enna and to follow Pinarius’ orders in all things.’
‘Until when, sir?’ called a voice.
‘Until Pinarius judges that we are no longer needed.’
The soldiers glanced at one another, uncertain what to feel. The duty could either be soft beyond compare – being quartered in a town offered far more luxuries than in a siege camp, women being foremost among them – or dangerous in the extreme. If Himilco arrived to take Enna, they could be trapped, killed even.
‘How many other soldiers, sir?’ shouted Urceus.
‘One other maniple will march with us, that of Centurion Pera.’ Corax’s voice gave away nothing, but his eyes were flat and angry.
‘The same cocksucker whom Crespo beat in the horse race, sir?’ called a voice from the very back of the maniple. Titters of laughter met the comment, and Quintus thought he saw the corner of Vitruvius’ lips twitch.
‘Just this once, I’ll pretend that I didn’t hear that,’ snapped Corax, but with less iron than might have been expected. ‘Pera is known to you, clearly. He’s an experienced centurion, and I will not tolerate any disrespect towards him. Is that fucking clear?’
‘YES, SIR!’ they shouted.
Quintus could not believe his bad luck. Of all the centurions in the damn army, why did Pera have to be picked to accompany them on their mission? He shot a look at Urceus and mouthed the word ‘Bastard’, but there was nothing else he could do.
Corax nodded in satisfaction. ‘We leave within the hour. Enna is just over eighty miles from here, and I want us there in four days. Travel light. Take only enough food for the march. Dismissed!’
The hastati scrambled to obey.
Quintus’ comrades were already dreaming out loud of the inns and whorehouses that they would frequent in Enna, but his mind was filled with the image of Pera’s grinning face. He would have to be on constant lookout for trouble.
‘Not quite what we imagined, is it?’ asked Quintus, catching the eye of a local Enna man. His friendly nod was ignored; Quintus was sure that the man made an obscene gesture as he turned abruptly down an alleyway rather than walking past him and Urceus.
‘No, it’s fucking not,’ growled Urceus, kicking out at a scrawny mongrel, which had bared its teeth at him. It yelped and ran before his sandal could connect with its flesh. ‘Even the dogs dislike us.’
Quintus grinned sourly. Barely a week had passed, yet from the innkeepers to the shop owners, the whores to the wine merchants, no one in Enna seemed well disposed towards the Romans. They did not refuse them business – that would have been downright foolish given the legionaries’ own angry mood – but it was done with a surly, discontented air. ‘They didn’t want Pinarius’ men here, so it’s no surprise really that they don’t like us either.’
Hearing a noise above, Urceus looked up. A respectable-looking matron was staring at them with clear disapproval from the second floor of a large house. ‘Want to suck my cock?’ he shouted in awful Greek. Shocked, the matron withdrew and slammed the shutters. ‘They can all go to Hades,’ said Urceus, spitting. ‘They pledged their allegiance to Rome, and that’s that, whether they like it or not.’
Quintus found himself in agreement as he was forced to walk around a particularly large pool of human urine and faeces. Every street was the same. Usually only the poorest townsfolk disposed of their waste in this fashion, and even they tended to use the dungheaps situated in the tiny lanes between buildings. Not so in Enna. The inhabitants didn’t dare to show their dislike openly to the Roman garrison, so they did it like this.
There were other ways too. Quintus wasn’t alone in having smelt the whiff of urine from a jug of wine in the dingy inns that lined the back streets. These occurrences had resulted in a number of innkeepers having their premises ransacked by irate legionaries. This in turn had seen vociferous complaints to Pinarius from the town’s leaders, and that had resulted in an order not to frequent such establishments on pain of a whipping, or worse. Of course this had not stopped the soldiers from doing so – Quintus and his comrades thought that Pinarius had merely issued the order for appearances’ sake – but it had seen the number of violent incidents decrease. The innkeepers knew that if they served wine that had not been tampered with, their establishments wouldn’t be smashed up beyond repair.
Reaching a fork in the street, he came to a halt. ‘Which way to the agora?’
Urceus peered left and right, scowling. ‘I don’t think it matters. Both of them will get us there, won’t they?’
‘True.’ Enna’s strong position on a hilltop, contained within walls, meant that the city was quite small. The buildings sprawled beyond the fortifications, along the sides of the road that wound its way up from the fertile valley below, but the beating heart of it – the central agora, the temples, the rulers’ palatial houses and offices and the best shops – lay within the protective circle of its imposing ramparts. ‘It’s not hard to find one’s way around, even when you’re pissed.’ He headed left.
Urceus chuckled. ‘We’ll have to find that inn we were in last night. What was it called again?’
‘It’s down this way, I think. The Harvest Moon.’
‘That’s the one. The owner was far less sour than the other arseholes here, wasn’t he? And that barmaid with the big tits definitely liked me.’
‘Ever the optimist, Urceus. She smiled at you once!’
‘That’s enough to give a man hope. Better that than the reception we’ve had in most places.’
‘True, but I still wouldn’t trust a single one of them. I’m glad that Pinarius ordered us to remain armed at all times.’
‘Aye. I wouldn’t want to walk around here alone.’
Fifty paces further on, a small wooden sign had been nailed to the wall of a house on the corner of an alley. It depicted a crudely daubed sheaf of wheat beneath a full moon; below it were the Greek words ‘INN’ and ‘GOOD WINE. PRICES REASONABLE’.
‘There it is!’ cried Urceus. ‘Fancy a quick cup?’
‘We’re on duty.’
‘So what? I can’t see an officer, can you?’
Quintus walked past the sign.
Urceus grumbled a little, but he did the same.
Quintus had gone perhaps a dozen steps when a short cry – of pain – reached his ears. It was followed by a burst of laughter. He glanced at Urceus.
‘That came from the direction of the Harvest Moon,’ said Urceus.
The sound was repeated, and again the laughter rang out.
‘It might be some of our lads in trouble,’ Urceus began.
‘Come on,’ said Quintus. ‘If it’s just locals, we can always leave them to it.’
Even though it was the middle of the day, little light penetrated into the narrow alleyway, which lay between a pair of three-storey buildings. Broken pottery, animal bones and other refuse crunched beneath their sandals. ‘Gods, I don’t remember it being this filthy,’ said Quintus. He sniffed. ‘Or smelly.’
Urceus winked. ‘It’s amazing how a man’s thirst before he has a drink and the glow of happiness around him afterwards make him unaware of everything else around him.’
‘Please! Leave her alone!’
The anguished plea sent them pounding towards the entrance of the Harvest Moon. A group of locals, tradesmen from the look of their calloused hands and stained tunics, stood outside. They didn’t seem happy. ‘More fucking Romans,’ Quintus thought he heard one say.
‘What’s going on here?’ he demanded in Greek.
The locals were surprised to be addressed in their own language. ‘Some of your lot are getting fresh with the barmaid. We protested, so they told us to leave or they’d gut us,’ replied the man who’d muttered the insult. ‘No doubt you’ve come to join in.’
�
�Watch your damn mouth!’ Quintus snapped. ‘How many of them are there?’
‘Five,’ came the answer.
Quickly, Quintus translated for Urceus. ‘Can they be our men, do you think?’
‘There’s only one way to find out,’ said Urceus, as a scream reached them.
They barged in through the doorway, shields at the ready, Quintus in the lead. It was much as he’d remembered it. The room was rectangular, and poorly lit by small oil lamps set in alcoves. A mixture of sand and reeds covered the dirt floor. Simple tables and benches served as its furniture. A bar made of planks stood at the back; on the wall behind, the prices of various wines had been scrawled. There was no sign of the proprietor; Quintus decided he was probably hiding in the back.
Five legionaries were gathered around a table off to one side; their backs were to Quintus and Urceus. Laughs and lewd jokes passed to and fro between them; under the banter, a woman’s moaning could be heard. Quintus peered. Between the soldiers, he could make out the barmaid spreadeagled on the table. Her dress had been shredded from her body, and her arms and legs were tied with lengths of rope. One of the legionaries put a hand to her crotch and set her to fresh wailing. ‘Shut up, bitch!’ snapped another of her tormentors, cuffing her across the head.
‘They’re not from our maniple,’ Quintus whispered to Urceus. ‘Are they Pinarius’ or Pera’s men?’
‘They’ve got to be Pera’s. Pinarius’ soldiers wouldn’t ignore his orders so blatantly, would they?’
‘I don’t fucking know. Do we leave, or get involved?’ Quintus wanted to help the girl, but he didn’t want Pinarius on his back, nor to give Pera another reason to hate him.
The decision was taken from him by Urceus. ‘What’s going on?’ he shouted in a good imitation of Corax.
A stunned silence fell. The legionaries turned. Their shock didn’t last more than two heartbeats, however. ‘What does it look like, idiot?’ demanded one, a fat-lipped man with a deep tan. ‘We’re each going to take a turn with this whore.’
‘She’s no whore,’ snarled Urceus. ‘As you’d know if you had even asked her.’
Fat Lips glanced at his comrades. ‘Do you hear this prick? We should have asked this slut if she’d let us fuck her!’
They all laughed, but their eyes weren’t a bit friendly.
‘This is against orders. Your commanding officer will hear of this,’ said Quintus in a loud voice. He had already noticed that the legionaries’ shields and javelins were stacked together by the door – behind him and Urceus. That was a small blessing.
‘Centurion Pera told us to do as we wished, as long as no one complains,’ drawled another of the legionaries, a slight man with a cast in one eye. ‘We was planning to cut her throat afterwards. She won’t say a word then, will she?’
His companions chortled. The barmaid must have spoken some Latin, because she began to cry.
‘You can either join us, or piss off and leave us to it,’ said Fat Lips. ‘The choice is yours.’
‘I see,’ said Quintus nonchalantly, although his heart was thumping so hard he wondered if the legionaries could hear it. ‘What shall we do, brother?’ he asked Urceus.
‘I’m not leaving her to be raped and murdered,’ muttered Urceus. ‘Are you?’
Trouble beckoned whatever they did, thought Quintus. But he couldn’t stand by and let an unfortunate woman be killed like this – especially as these were Pera’s men. ‘No.’
‘Javelins first?’
‘Aye. I’ll aim at Fat Lips. You take Squint Eye. We can deal with the others once they’re down.’
The ceiling was just high enough for the pair to raise their pila overarm as they would in battle. ‘Back away from the girl,’ ordered Quintus.
‘You want her all for yourselves? Greedy bastards!’ said Fat Lips, but his fingers were straying to his sword hilt.
‘I reckon we can take these whoresons,’ said Squint Eye, leering. Fat Lips sniggered; their companions began to sidle away from the table.
The tension in the room rose several notches, and Quintus readied himself to fight. ‘Take another step and my pilum will end up in your chest,’ he shouted at Fat Lips. ‘My comrade will take your cross-eyed friend, and we can sort out the rest with swords. It shouldn’t be too hard, given that none of you fools have shields.’
No one moved for a heartbeat. Two. Three. In the background, the barmaid sobbed. From outside came the murmur of angry voices – the customers who’d been evicted by the legionaries.
Fat Lips glowered, but moved his hand away from his gladius. His companions looked similarly pissed off, but none reached for their weapons, which relieved Quintus. It was one thing to threaten one’s own men and entirely another to injure or kill them.
‘You’re being sensible. Good. I want you to walk past us, one by one, nice and slow. Anyone who does something stupid will get a javelin point in the eye. When you’re in the alley, you can piss off.’
Fat Lips’ gaze flickered to Squint Eye. ‘What about our shields and pila?’
‘Do you think we’re stupid, you arse-humping mollis?’ retorted Urceus. ‘Come back and get them later.’
With filthy looks, the five legionaries shuffled past the friends. Quintus didn’t relax when they’d left the inn. Leaving Urceus to tend to the barmaid, he moved to the door and watched them walk up the alley, talking angrily between themselves and throwing frequent glances over their shoulders. The group of locals watched with evident surprise. Quintus hoped that they spread the news of what he and Urceus had done, that some good came of this.
‘Are they gone?’ called Urceus.
‘I think so. We’d best go too, in case they come back with some of their friends.’
Together they moved the legionaries’ shields and javelins. As he left with the last ones, Quintus saw the proprietor, a sallow-faced, middle-aged man, emerge from the shadows behind the bar. ‘Lock your door until tomorrow morning at the earliest,’ he said. ‘If those soldiers come back, I couldn’t vouch for your safety.’
The innkeeper nodded. ‘Thank you, sir. She’s my daughter.’
‘It’d be best if she didn’t show her face in here for a while. Male servers are less likely to be molested.’
‘I understand.’
Quintus turned to go.
‘Sir?’
He turned.
‘I can never repay you for what you just did, but should you and your comrade ever visit this inn again, the wine will flow all night.’
Urceus smacked his lips, and Quintus grinned. ‘One day, we hope to take you up on that.’ He beckoned to Urceus, and they ducked out of the door.
‘Gods, but her tits are fantastic,’ said Urceus the instant that they were outside. ‘And as for her—’
‘Hades below, do you think of nothing else?’ asked Quintus, laughing. ‘We could have ended up dead.’
‘What better thing to think of then than a body like hers? A man could die happy having seen that.’
‘Come on, Priapus! We’d best get back, or Corax will start wondering where we are.’ They kept their shields raised as they emerged on to the larger street, but there was no sign of the legionaries. ‘Do you think they’ll go to Pera?’
‘I doubt it. Rats like that go to ground when they’re exposed.’
‘All the same, it’d be wise to tell Corax,’ said Quintus, thinking of the dressing down he’d received after the horse race. ‘We want him on our side in case those pieces of shit do bend Pera’s ear.’
Urceus grimaced. ‘Aye, I suppose.’
For all that they had done as Pinarius had ordered, Quintus felt the same reluctance to confess their actions to Corax. Their centurion valued them as good soldiers, but that didn’t mean that he would refrain from punishing them if he deemed it appropriate. It was a shame that they hadn’t had a quick drink before leaving the inn, he thought. An extra bit of courage would have done no harm.
In the event, Corax did not really punish them. He called
them fools: busybodies who couldn’t ignore business that wasn’t theirs. He also banned the entire maniple from visiting drinking establishments of any kind for the foreseeable future, but he left it at that.
To the friends’ relief, Pera did not make an appearance in the two days that followed. Tensions in Enna remained high. Rotten fruit and vegetables were hurled at patrols by assailants hidden on the rooftops. The sewers serving the houses requisitioned for the garrison mysteriously blocked. Much of the grain that had been set aside for the legionaries had to be replaced after unidentified individuals broke into the warehouse where it was stored and spoiled it with a mixture of cheap wine and rancid olive oil. Each morning, building after building had fresh graffiti cursing the Romans, or depicting them being defeated by the Carthaginians. Deputations of the town’s rulers went daily to Pinarius’ quarters to make complaints about his men’s heavy-handed behaviour and his continued refusal to hand over the keys to the city gates, which they had requested.
Corax told his men that Pinarius had had enough of trying to please Enna’s rulers. ‘We’re not to do anything stupid, like smashing up taverns or killing without reason, but neither are we to take any shit from the inhabitants. Anyone who is caught engaging in criminal acts against the garrison is to be dragged before Pinarius. Suitable punishments will include flogging, amputations and, if necessary, crucifixion.’
Despite this tough stance, the legionaries’ morale was affected by the hostile atmosphere. It was hard to live in a place where the normal rules of war did not fully apply, and where everyone wanted them gone. Gossip ran riot between the maniples that Himilco and his army were about to arrive at the gates, that the priests of the Palikoi, twin local gods, had been preaching against them, that the strong winds and heavy rain one night was a sign from Jupiter that they were to be punished.
By the time that he and Urceus came off duty the day after the storm, Quintus was feeling thirsty. The stock of wine he’d had was gone – donated to his comrades to placate them for Corax’s ban on visiting taverns. He paced up and down the small room that had been allocated to his contubernium, part of an apartment in a cenacula-like building close to Pinarius’ headquarters and the agora.
