by James Gawley
The simple porridge sat like sawdust in Primus’ mouth. Across their modest campfire–the first Lucan had allowed them since the mine–he watched Gracchus try futilely to spoon porridge into Sextus’ mouth. There had been no tearful reunion when Sextus awakened from the blow to his head. The extrordinarii had moved him from the black tree where they found him to the eastern edge of the ruined city, where a highway emerged from the snow. It was treacherous with ruts and scattered cobblestones, but the scouts promised it would lead them to the coast.
Where the highway began, they found modest shelter in the corner where two walls of a ruined building leaned together. The horses crowded close to the walls. Primus wrapped Sextus in a blanket from his saddle-bags while Furio ripped a scrub-pine tree out of the rotted mortar where it had twined its roots. The gnarled, resinous wood made a small, bright fire and for a time Sextus lay unnaturally still beside it.
Primus sat beside him, staring at the desolation of his body. He had been a big man, if not a tall one, broad across the shoulders and heavy around the waist. Now his skin sagged from his face and his hands were withered to claws. His bony shoulders gave him a shrunken, crabbed look. His armor was gone, and his weapons. There was no sign of the plain gray cloak he’d worn when Primus last saw him. In its place was a worm-eaten robe of black wool.
Sextus’ eyelids fluttered, and Primus leaned over him. He came awake with a groan, and glanced wildly around. Primus began to speak, to tell him he was among friends, but Sextus scrambled to his feet and began to shuffle toward the stone doorway that still protruded from the sagging wall.
“Stop. You need to sit down,” Primus said. It was painful to see Sextus walk on frostbitten feet, for his boots had largely rotted away and his toes were black and nailless. He came around in front of Sextus, a hand on his shoulder to ease him back down to the ground.
Without warning, Sextus leapt at him.
Primus stumbled backward, shocked by the savagery of the attack. Sextus clawed at the skin of his throat with black fingernails, leaning forward in an attempt to bite him. Primus gave a shout and shoved him backward.
Sextus collapsed. As frenzied as he’d been before, now he was just as still. He was so frail from his privation that for an instant Primus was sure he’d killed him. He watched, frozen, while Sextus lay crumpled on the paving stones beside the fire. The others were silent. It had happened so fast that they still held their tasks in hand–Gracchus, seeing to the horses, looked heartsick at the sight of the Sextus’ rib bones showing through his ragged black robe. Furio was kindling his fire. He looked revolted. Lucan stared at Primus, and anger tightened the line of his jaw. Finally Sextus moved, rolling himself onto knees and elbows. Primus came to his side and knelt, but the poor wretch began worming past Primus’ feet. His eyes were fixated on the highway outside–the road that led back toward the terrible black tree.
In the end they had little choice but to restrain him, binding hands and feet to keep him still. Gracchus tied him and Primus gave over his blanket; no one else was willing to touch him. Furio kept the fire between Sextus and himself, as if he thought the poor man was diseased. Lucan stood with arms folded just outside the tumbledown wall, staring out at the snow that blew down from the treetops in the wind.
Sextus had subsided the moment he was restrained. All the strength leaked out of him, and he slumped against the wall, eyes wide and unseeing. When the stirabout was heated, Gracchus took a bowl and tried to spoon some into his slack mouth. The grey porridge dripped down his pallid skin, sticking in his beard. Primus looked away. It was as though his friend were not there at all.
“We camp here,” Lucan announced brusquely. “Gracchus takes the first watch. Primus is second, then Furio. I’m fourth.”
“What about him?” Gracchus asked. He had wiped the mess from Sextus’ chin.
Lucan scowled at their prisoner. “We’ll carry him as long as he lasts.” It was plain the legate did not expect that would be long.
Primus made up his pallet beside the dying embers of the fire. He slept with armor on, despite the discomfort, for the sake of warmth. His cloak he draped over himself; his blanket still covered Sextus’ shoulders. He looked up at the shadows of the treetops framed by the building’s ruined walls. Wind siffled loose powder off of the bricks to hiss across the bare stone floor. Outside the walls, Gracchus’ slow steps crunched down snow. Primus thought back to the day the tree had come down on Lepus. At the end, Lepus would not let himself be touched. Whenever Primus came close, he snarled and spit and fought like a demon. Primus had known that he was mad with fear and pain and blood-loss. It hurt him anyway, to be so hated by his friend. Tonight, Primus knew he should feel pity for Sextus. Instead he felt betrayed. Sextus should have recognized him. Lepus should have been grateful to him. He’d been trying to help.
The cold made Primus cheek throb. Gracchus had made him a poultice to draw out infection. “I think it will heal,” he’d said as he worked. “But it’ll scar. Won’t be any disguising it, either. Someone took a bite out of you.” Lying beside the dying fire, Primus shuddered. He did not want to think about his fight with Varro. His eye still watered, but he could see through it if he squinted. He wondered if all men turned into animals when they fought. My father died with honor, he reminded himself. He died like a man. Suddenly pride touched Primus where the pain could not, and he wept. The others lay still, pretending to sleep through his grief.
He was still awake when Gracchus came to wake him for his watch. He rose silently, shaking the crystals of snow off of his cloak. Across the fire-pit, Sextus looked to be sleeping. Primus wrapped his cloak around his shoulders as Gracchus helped himself to the warm pallet he had left behind.
Primus paced slowly in Gracchus’ footprints, staring out at the gloom. The clouds had blown away, revealing a crescent moon. There was little to see outside except the deeper shadows of the greatwoods. He tried not to think about what might be watching him from the darkness. Halfway through his watch, a sound made Primus freeze where he stood. The hairs on the back of his neck rose, and he stretched out with all his senses, waiting. It came again. It was the sound of something scraping against the wall of the ruined building.
Primus hesitated an instant before he crept back to the intact doorway and peered inside. Sextus was awake. Hands and feet bound, he was inching his way upright, his face pressed against the stone wall. Primus stepped fully inside and Sextus froze. For a moment they stared at each other.
“Primus?” The voice was dry as old bones, but it was Sextus. For all that his body and face and even his clothes had changed, the voice was still the same. Relief rushed through Primus; he fairly dove for his saddlebags and dug out his water-skin. His hands shook as he fumbled the cork out and tipped it into Sextus’ mouth. When he coughed, Primus lowered the water-skin and lifted the edge of the blanket to wipe his mouth.
“Where...?” Sextus tried to look around, but leaning against the wall of the building he could only move so far.
“I’m not sure, exactly. A very old city. We found you...” Primus realized that he did not want to remind Sextus of the black tree. It had some hold over his friend that he did not want to refresh. “We found you yesterday. You were sick. We feared you would hurt yourself. Can you eat?”
Sextus hesitated. “I’m so thirsty...”
Primus lifted the skin again for him. As he drank, Sextus seemed to come slowly back to himself. Primus thought of waking Lucan, but he knew that the legate would immediately interrogate the poor man. Let Sextus recover some piece of his strength first.
“Can you untie me?”
Primus knew how Lucan would react to that. Releasing a prisoner, no matter how weak, in the midst of three sleeping men was gross negligence. And he remembered the frenzied way Sextus had tried to bite him, and the sudden calm that came over him after being bound. “Do you remember attacking me?” Sextus shook his head. Even in the darkness, Primus could sense his fear. “Sextus. You need to tell me what has ha
ppened. Why are you here? Why didn’t you make for the coast?”
Sextus fidgeted in his bonds. Primus helped him settle himself against the wall, but he did not untie him. “I tried to head east,” he finally admitted. “It was harder than I expected. I didn’t have enough food. I saw tracks, but I’m no hunter. I wasted days tracking deer. Stupid.” Primus held the water-skin again, and Sextus drank. “Food got low. I stopped chasing deer and headed east. Wolves found me.” He coughed, a rattling, phlegmatic sound. “I lost track of where I was. The wolves started following me in daylight. Watching. I found a building. Old, but it had a second floor. No staircase. I climbed up. That’s where they came for me.” Sextus leaned his head against the wall and shut his eyes as if resting.
“Who came for you? Sextus?” Primus gripped his shoulder. The bones beneath were sharp despite the blanket and robe that covered them.
Sextus opened his eyes slowly and lifted his head, waking from a dream. He looked around. “Are there only four of you? Are you on horseback?”
Primus wondered uncomfortably if it were wise to answer that. “Tell me who came for you.”
Sextus shuddered. “You shouldn’t stay here.”
“We’re leaving at first light,”
Sextus shook his head. Some of the frenzy returned to his eyes. “No. You have to get away. Untie me, and go.”
“I can’t do that.”
Sextus looked at him, and seemed to master himself. He drew a shaky breath. “There are men in these ruins, Primus.”
“We saw no one.”
“They are here. You must not let them find you.” When Primus said nothing, Sextus began to fidget again. He seemed to struggle to remain calm. “They wear black, and their voices are terrible. They belong here the way the trees do.”
Primus’ face must have betrayed his thoughts.
“I’m not mad. Listen: I once told you that our gods can’t hear us in this place. Do you remember? I know better now: our gods are not real. We invented them to comfort ourselves. Real divinity cares nothing for us. Oh, gods, it hates us!” Sextus began to rock back and forth, whispering beneath his breath. Primus watched in horror, and remembered the strange chant of the hierophant at the citadel, and the voices at the edge of hearing. A shiver ran up his spine.
Primus shook himself. He gripped Sextus tight by the shoulders and held him still. “Listen to me. You are not well. I am going to take you out of this place, and...” and you’ll be crucified for desertion, Primus finished the thought to himself. “And you’ll get better. Just be still.”
Gradually, Sextus subsided. In time he opened his eyes and looked at Primus. “Why did you come here?”
Primus shook his head. Then, perhaps because he hoped it would bring his friend back to reality: “I killed Varro,” he said.
Sextus’ rocking eased. His eyes were pits of shadow in his face. “You killed him?”
“He went mad, Sextus. He tried to take revenge against us... against me, and my father. I thought at first that he wanted gold, but he only wanted to make us suffer.”
“I don’t understand.”
Sextus had stopped rocking entirely. Primus had his full attention. “General Marius sent Varro to the mine as punishment for your murder–with a sentence of death tacked on, come the spring. I guess they must have beat a confession out of him.” As he spoke, Sextus watched his face. The other men were silent lumps beneath their blankets. Primus did not care whether they slept or listened; he found suddenly that he could not carry it alone any longer. He talked about his days training with Titus, and the way he’d left things with the old man when he joined the scouts. He stumbled when he spoke of visiting Somnia in the temple, and did not describe the strange feeling of emptiness he had sensed when he looked at the statue of Jupiter.
Instead, Primus told about the Woade outside the mining camp, crucified where they could see their dead comrades, stacked beside the road. He told of the mine collapse, and of his disobedience. His voice was steady as he admitted his cowardice in facing Varro outside the mine. He did not keep their mission secret, but revealed the truth about the shipment of silver and gold. He told it all, hoping that it could bring his friend back to sanity. When he tried to describe his father’s death, he spoke past a lump in his throat. “I’ll never be that brave, Sextus. I could never face a thing like that and still do my duty. If that’s what it takes, then I can never be what my father was.” But even as he said those words, Primus remembered lying supine on the earth, frightened and hurt, while his father watched and did nothing.
“What happened?” Sextus prompted after a time.
“The Woade returned to sack the camp. I guess they came back for their crucified brothers. That’s what saved me–I got free while Varro was distracted. He... hurt me.” Primus touched the bandage on his face. “I killed him. But it was already too late. It’s my fault, Sextus. I’m not a real soldier. I pretended to be, just so I could see my father. But I failed him. He knew I would fail. When he saw me, he took one look at me... and... he knew.”
Primus stopped. Sextus shifted as though he would put an arm around him, but his hands were still bound tight behind him. After a time, Primus controlled himself. He drew a shaky breath. “Can you eat?”
Sextus nodded. Primus went to his saddlebags and found a hard biscuit. He hesitated a moment, then helped Sextus lean forward away from the wall. He untied his skeletal wrists, but tied them again in front. Sextus took the biscuit in both hands, and allowed Primus to soak it from his water-skin.
“Something I don’t understand,” Sextus said between tiny bites. He chewed as if his teeth pained him. “Why did Marius send Varro to the mine?”
“For your murder.” When Sextus only stared blankly at him, Primus thought he might have forgotten. He spoke quickly to keep his friend’s mind from wandering. “The story you and Titus came up with to explain your disappearance: Varro murdered you, and dumped your body in the river. Titus was a witness. We held a funeral for you in absentia.” He forced a laugh. “Furio over there was sure you were a ghost.” As he gestured to Furio’s indistinct form, Lucan stirred in his bedroll.
Sextus was shaking his head. “Titus gave me herbs to help me pretend I was ill. I told the commander I was in the infirmary, and I told the doctor that I felt better and was returning to the barracks. It was good enough to buy me a day or so.”
Lucan had risen from his blankets. Like Primus, he had slept in his armor. He stepped over the cold fireplace toward the prisoner. Sextus shrank back from him, and Primus stood. “Legionnaire. Why are you not on duty?”
“Sir.” Primus stood and saluted. There was nothing else to do but step outside. He had not made two circuits of the building when Lucan joined him.
“Report.”
“Sextus woke up,” Primus said simply. “I gave him bread and water.”
“Where has he been?”
Primus repeated everything that Sextus had said to him. The legate stared out at the night as he listened. Primus could not tell whether he had overheard it all before. “Perhaps we should take his advice and move on,” Primus said when he was finished. “He may be telling the truth. If there are enemies here...”
Lucan frowned. His arms were folded across his chest. “The road is too treacherous. I will not ride out in the dark unless I see these men of his with my own eyes.”
“You don’t believe him.”
The legate turned his glare upon Primus. “I think he’s stark raving mad.”
Primus did not give ground. “But we’ll take him with us.” After a moment, Lucan nodded.
“Your watch is ended, Legionnaire. Sleep while you can.”
Primus saluted again. Privately, he was glad that Sextus would have the night to rest. He went to check on the prisoner before seeking his pallet. Sextus was sound asleep. Primus settled into the warm spot that the legate had abandoned. He shivered as he looked up at the sky. The moon had set, and only a few stars shone through the clouds. It was as dark
a night as there had ever been. Primus gave in to his exhaustion.
***
When he awoke, Sextus was dead. It was obvious the moment Primus looked at him: Sextus lay on his side in a pool of blood, already beginning to freeze. Gracchus stood over him, looking grieved.
“What happened?” Primus threw aside his cloak and came to Sextus’ side. “Did you do this?” He glared at Lucan, who was already saddling his horse. When legate looked at back at him, Primus turned away in fear. He crouched over Sextus, and saw the manner of his death.
It had been a mistake to tie his wrists in front of him. Sextus had chewed his own veins open during the night. Primus closed his eyes, sickened. Gracchus put a hand on his shoulder. “He’s at peace now.”
Primus stood and stumbled out of the shelter. Snow surged around his boots as he walked away from the road toward the trees. No one pursued him. In the shadow of a greatwood tree he sank to his knees. Gone again. Sextus had appeared like a gift from the gods, his friend restored to him. Primus would have sheltered him until he was strong again, talked to him until he remembered fully who he was. Now he was snatched away again.
Primus knelt for a long time in the snow, until his knees were stiff and his back ached with the cold. When he finally rose, he walked away from the others, out into the forest. He did not watch for wolves or Woade or strange men in black robes, but searched out everything that could burn. A few hundred yards from camp he found a deadfall, a toppled grandfather of the forest. He stripped from it everything he could carry.
He piled the wood in the center of the ruined building. It was not a true pyre, but just the same he untied Sextus’ wrists and ankles and wrapped him in his blanket and placed him on the pile. Every scout carried a bottle of lamp oil in his bags; Primus used nearly their whole supply to douse the body. Furio protested, but Primus ignored him. He went to Lucan’s horse and opened one of the money chests and took out two golden aurei. They were stamped with Marius’ face. Primus turned them so that the Arcadian eagle faced upward and placed them over Sextus’ eyes. Lastly he opened his wineskin, and poured the last of it out over his friend. Then he struck a spark from his knife, and stood back to watch Sextus burn.
