Your Caius Aquilla
P.S. I love you.
P.P.S. So much.
III Mars
Dear Friend:
Worst fears realized: I am a curse. Imperishably glum just the now, my gloom coming in washy waves washing over me. Feeling like someone trudging through miles of mud, his life a muddy farce, rain raining down on him, making him slog even more muddily, horribly. In pain. Much pain. Hurting, hating self. Thinking: must have been born under an evil star, me. Or at the very least an evil/wicked/very bad comet or meteor. This is the thing: last night gentle, lisping Domitus was partially eaten by a pack of wolves or bears or something. And now he’s bloody dead. I feel so terrible about it, Lora. Wracked with remorse. He’d moved his cot quite far away from our tent, it seems—very near the tree line of the thick dark and eerie-scary super gloomy woods near where our base camp is. The first night his kip was plonked right outside the tent as planned, but apparently I snore like the dickens because that morning, rubbing deep sleep from red eyes, he lisped: “Blast, Caiuth, you’re a great guy and a capital tholdier and everything, real thwell, & thertainly one of the most handthome fellowth in the Legion, but I darethay I’ll tell you thomething for nothing: did nobody never tell you you’re a wegular woof-waither?” “A what?’ said I. “A woof-waither—you know,” he said and pointed at the sky. “Oh, a roof-raiser,” I said. “Got it. I snore, I take it.” Continuing, he goes: “More than that, Caiuth: you weally weally weally weally do thnore like a wounded wildebeest in your thleep. You were unaware? Nobody’th ever mentioned it before? How curiouth!” “No,” said I. “Oh my godth, I like didn’t get half a wink last night, for Thomnus’ thake! What do you thuggest we do about this thituation?” “Thomnus?” I says. “You know, the god of thleep,” says he. “Oh—Somnus,” I says. “Got it.” Then I asked him if he really thought so. “Thought what?” Domitus said. “That I was…you know…” “Handthome? Thirtenly. But still, Caiuth—you weally ought to try and do thomething about the thnoring!” Sheepishly, then, I told him I was “thorry” (that part slipped out, and he gave me a look like “weally?” and, feeling doubly terrible, I had to apologize all over again; it’s just that it’s too easy for me to imitate or mimic people—I can’t help it, I’m a natural, it seems. I really have a gift, I think; it’s kind of amazing, this gift of mine). Well, then I intimated to him that my precious missus’d never mentioned it or anything, my snoring. It really came as something of a shock for me to find I’m a snorer. (“My lovely missus,” I said.) Do I? Snore, that is? I wonder why you’ve never heard me? I mean our bedrooms are right next door to each other. Were you, have you been, that is, too sweet and polite to tell me, love? How kind you are. How nice of you to keep that sad gross fact from me all this time. Or maybe you’re too passed-out pissed drunk each night to hear or care, or a heavy sleeper or something—dead to the world! Ha! Anyway, we found him, mauled as all get-out, in the morning—what was left of him. A truly gruesome sight. They (the wolves or bears) must’ve bitten his throat first so he couldn’t cry out. Very canny, those things. Wily. Cunning. Or maybe he did cry out, but nobody heard him on account of we are all just so dead tired after a long, hard day of slaughtering “barbs” and we sleep the sleep of the just. Or sleep like you do, Lora. Hahaha. So sad. Such a tragedy. Though is it really? The violent, gruesome, unthinkably ignoble death of just one rather dull legionnaire with a quite severe and obnoxious speech impediment? I do wonder. That term gets flung round too lightly these days, don’t you think? Our good old Roman papers and town criers cry “tragic!” at the news of just about any old slag getting crushed by way of something falling from a workers’ scaffold, a house boy mistaking arsenic for salt or sugar, or the death of a kitten falling from wall or tree. So what are plagues and earthquakes, then? Bigger tragedies? It gives one pause. So sensational, these our modern times, it seems! Everything gets blown so far out of proportion. Anyway, Domitus—I just can’t believe it. Though everybody else can, it seems; half the chaps who saw Dom’s corpse just walked away, shaking their heads and muttering things, unkind things, most probably—critical-of-Caius-Aquilla things; and the other half looked at me like they full well expected something like this to happen, their harsh-looking lips curling and/or pursing in contempt or spite. Someone clucked. Another one tutted. Then I heard a snorty sound like a rutting pig, then an high hyena laugh, then another sort of prolonged snort—a horse one, I think—followed by a kind of raspberry sound like a great wet flatus. A zoo of sounds. The Circus Maximus come campaigning. What in the world? Not a Legion but a barmy barnyard, no less. Most unamusing. Plus mortifying. Plus I-don’t-know-what. Awful, certainly. For yours truly. Gravely, Lt. Optio took me aside and asked me if I wouldn’t mind too terribly if I bunked on my lonesome for a while. “You know,” he said, “the men are kind of…you know…” “No, what, sir?” says I. “You know,” he hemmed. “I mean…soldiers are superstitious to begin with, Legionnaire Caius Aquilla. And the more I can allay any in-the-ranks sorts of fears, the more…you know.” “But I don’t know, sir?” I said. “No?” he says. “No,” I go. “Oh,” says he. “Huh.” I mean, did no one think to stand up for me and say: “Hey, let’s not put II and II and come up with V here, all right? We’re at war, after all, campaigning and everything, remember? Horrid things happen when there’s battles and quicksand and arrows and hungry and vicious legionary-eating bears or wolves leaping from thickets in the black of night, all right? And damned lisping fools who prop their cots on the edge of a lair or cave or den.” No, the answer is. No one said any such thing. Not a peep from any of these people. Not one valiant brother-soldier to come bravely forward and say “Hey, old Caius seems to be getting the raw end of the short stick” or something like that. I feel so down in the dumps or the mouth. Sure: Beefy was stinky, Marcellus kind of callous (plus a diabolical wise guy), this timorous Domitus something of a scaredy-cat fraidy-cat, milquetoast, milksop, pansy, wuss, gaylord, gay fag, faggot, flibbertigibbet, foofy poofter, dandy, nancy boy, shirtlifter, pantywaist, pole smoker, queerbait, “bear,” “bottom,” bum bandit, bum chum, rent boy, fruit loop, Peter Puffer, young queen, ass bandit, “dirt road” ranger, legionfairy, Greek freak, yellowbelly mamma’s boy, drag king, and bloody flaming unbelievable homo and whatnot, but they didn’t deserve such freakish fatal fates, no matter the circumstances, I don’t think. Life isn’t fair, Lora. Nor is war. Though all’s fair in love and war, they say. Nobody sits with me at mess now. Absolutely no one. Zilcheroo for you know who. I get grunts instead of hails at brekky, I tell you. It’s ridiculous. I’m amazed. Lonelier than ever am I, dear friend; so sad. Oh well, I suppose now that I’m something of an outcast and pariah, a real live persona non grata, I’ll have more time to write to you. About what, though—I’ve no idea. Describing battles, blow by blow? The shining armor and buffed leather; orders shouted, the terrifying thud of an advance, weapons clanking, javelins whirring, pennants streaming in tremendous fiery sky; ribbons of honor depending from the bobbing banners and the splendid, shining Eagles; the crisp crunch of the march before combat contact; gaping wounds and bloodcurdling war cries; the unmistakable sound of a thousand arrows zinging through terrorized air; the snap and report of the catapults, the wrenching noise of the fell cranks; the thick thwack of bodies falling like so many trees after the desperate enemy comes at us pell mell, cut and thrust; the mad ululations of our reckless foes; the neighing of countless horses—more like screams, really (esp. to me who lives in mortal fear of the horrid creatures); blood gushing everywhere, spurting, fountaining from so many manmade holes like so many human Vesuviuses? The mortally wounded moaning, groaning, crying, blubbering, screaming, pleading for water, for their mothers, for a merciful coup de grace, etc. The not-so severely gored or nicked hobbling away, dragging themselves summarily away fra’ the fray’s vortex, sobbing in pain? Never really my thing and anyways the apothecaries and soothsayers and sages often counsel us not to recount our experiences (even in our heads) l
est we become morbid and slack. It’s very bad, they say, for soldiers to do too much thinking about what they’ve been through. Very bad for the psyche, the spirit, and for the appetite—which we must at all costs keep up. One gets admonished if, after warring, one sits on rock or stump with head in hand. Someone’s likely to come round and say, “Buck up, there!” or, “Stop thinking and start drinking, brave soldier!” or, “Oi! You there! Stop that blubbering, you great babby and fool!” Just last year, this one guy, Octavian, was slumped on a log after a particularly bloody fray; weeping, he was—I imagine for having gotten so many kills because he was really good, you know? A right ace fellow, fightingwise, and ruthless as could be. Lt. Optio spotted him chuntering and went over and put his hand on his (Ocatavian’s) shoulder and asked him what the matter was, then stepped back, whipped him with a little whip or a kind of a riding crop: caught him smack on the back. No, lachrymose behavior is not tolerated in the mighty Seventh in any way, shape, or form. So anyway, I won’t be writing up battles here, I daresay. And furthermore, that sort of stuff, recalling and recording the action—that’s a job best left to the lugubrious historians in their pristine white togas and white cloaks and gold hoods, those stern, unsmiling men who stand there watching like human hawks or falcons, who hang back from the action. Which of course is only meet and right that they do so, that they are wont to do; I mean, they’re not getting their hands dirty; there’s not a chance of that. All they do is take dictation and admonishments and quotations from the majestic purple-cloaked generals as they the lot of them watch the show(s) frowningly from the misty or sun-kissed heights and safety, which is customary and as it should be, by all the gods and goddesses, on account of our ruddy well-being’s in the capable hands of their battle plans, so to speak. If anything goes awry in the midst of combat, it’s up to them to make momentous decisions, on the spot, and set things to rights, retreat or flank or attack straight up—or else! So no: I won’t be writing about battles. Oh, I know what I could write about and what you might find interesting! I could tell you a few of the funny names we have for the savage and godsforsaken enemy. Those might amuse you for a minute or two. Let’s see: any Mesopotamians or Egyptians or other dirty-swarthy peoples like that we call “Hadjis” or “Messies;” Germans are “Germs” or “Germies;” Franckts (sp?) are (you guessed it) “Frankies”or “Froggies;” Spaniards are “Spaniards” or “Spannies” or “Espaniards;” Jews are “Izzies” (for “Israelite”—get it?); Picts are “Pixies.” Who else? Hmm. Saxons are “Saxos;” Greeks are “Geeks” or “Gay Homosexuals” or “Bumsquirters;” Black Africans are “Affies;” not-Black Africans are “Towelies;” Goths are simply “Gothies” or “The Gothies.” I’m leaving some out, surely. Oh! Persians are “Pussies”—that’s a good one, even though they’re not pussies at all; I mean, those hairless pretty boys with their long hair and sleek olive backs and well-defined thighs and stuff—they know how to fight, all right! Pretty funny, though, huh—them names. Think I’ll take a break and go to the bog for a bit. Be right back, okay, Lora? Okay. Here I am. Steady as lead. All right, what else can I tell you? As for the grim generals, I have great respect for them and their hallowed reputations, notwithstanding their generally diminutive statures. I do. You would not believe how short some of them are, Lora. In mufti, just standing about or something, you’d think they were jockeys at the Circus Maximus or whatnot, not commanding officers of the Royal Imperial! Funny! They say that good old Alexander the Great was only five feet tall in his stocking feet, so I suppose there is something of a precedent operant and all of that. Still. Pretty shrimpy, some of them. Ha! Five foot nothing! “Not so great there, Alex!” Haha! The higher higher-ups? I don’t know about them, really. I sincerely wonder if anybody does. If even the generals do, you know. Who are they, anyway? What do they do with their time, their prodigiously mysterious lives? You never see them anywhere. Ghostlike, they are.Sooner encounter a god in the clouds in the sky: they really are very rather mythological, somehow. Anyway, I have more close-to-home and understandably pressing concerns that have to do with me and me alone. To wit: I sort of went round to everyone, circumambulating-like, inexhaustibly bemoaning my fate, how unfair it is that I’ve been tarred, as it were, with the brush of unluckiness and cursedness and what-you-will. But not a lot of sympathy have I gotten. Disinterested nods, sundry shrugs, a grunt of “whatever” here or there, several “eh’s,” various “uh’s,” etc. Plus a lot of looks like “what can you do?” and “forgetaboutit.” Little comfort, no relief. Plus one or two sardonic if not malicious winks from the saturnine or clownish types, the kinds of guys who spare no one, have nary a nice thing to say, i.e. grumpy in the morning, surly during the day, downright churlish after evening mess. Quite a number of blokes like that about. Irascible, cantankerous, rancorous, curmudgeonly, negative, naysaying, miserable, discontent, mean-spirited. Oh well, not everybody can have as sunny and happy a disposition and demeanor as I have. My first name does mean “happy,” after all. I think it apt. My last? Not sure if it’s fitting, really. Aquilla means “eagle,” as everybody knows. I wonder if eagles have wives? Ones they love above all others. In that respect, I reckon, dear friend, I would be eagle-like. But right now no happy eagle am I, poor me, poor C.A. I was thinking, you know, the other day about how I used to be so popular, a likely lad, the quintessential golden boy. Or if not golden perhaps silver. Bronze at least. Solid as pyrite. Looked up to by several, known by many, smiled at occasionally, nodded toward. Now, no. No medals or metal for me. Now, if boy of any sort, am boy-to-be-avoided, boy to be avoided like plague and made crude and awkward sport of at mess times. This change of boy very upsetting. Very distressing. Not a lot of fun. What to do? Must do something. Can’t stand this—camaraderie gone. Don’t like. All jests, were I even in mood to make them, fall flat, on deaf ears. “Friends, Romans, Countrymen—lend me your ears,” the old adage goes, as everyone knows. But no lending of such will much come my way now, alas. No lending of any sort. Were I to need a razor to cut my throat with I doubt anyone around here would even give it me! They’d wonder what the repercussions might be, how they might be adversely affected. Yes, it’s that bad. I am very much in ill odor here. Is that the term? Ill favor—that’s it. Malodor. That, too, probably. Oh well. So much for reputation. As for my former stature as pretty high, well, Sic transit Gloria, as they say. Ain’t that the truth. Easy come, easy go. Therefore, home-and-lovesick more than ever is
Your Caius Aquilla
P.S. Feeling a bit better. Tell a lie, I’m great, actually. Have a sort of imbecile smile, in fact, plastered on my face right now. Can’t seem to be quit of it, get rid of it. Too happy. Well chuffed. Why? Well, this: had a pretty bally terrific and enormously satisfying repast of piping hot goat and onion stew with capers and peppers and new potatoes and turmeric and just a rumor of cinnamon tonight as the sun went down, the smoke from my goat-breath, as it were, coming in great, piping plumes, billowing forth from my eudaemonic gob. For afters, I had just-picked strawberries and cream. The cream foamed over my bowl, I tell you, Lora. Delectable. Despite it’s being goat’s cream, most like. I took my usual constitutional, just a wee walk round campgrounds, nothing major, skipped a bit to keep in shape, waved my arms around and around, ran in place, jumped a bit, shadow boxed with an imaginary Etruscan, whistled a tune I thought I might try and replicate on my lute later on, tripped on a axe or pick someone’d left just lying there, dead on the ground, said hello to some fellows who were walloping their lambent togas on some thick rocks in order to dry them, a few others who were slurping cider and laughing at something, a foursome arm-wrestling for money, presumably (since cards and dice are strictly forbidden), and two chaps roasting a fat rabbit on a crackling spit. Someone just the other day observed interestingly that the Germies consider the rabbit a very filthy animal and won’t touch it—like Jews and their deal with pigs. While the Frankies have it that it’s a great delicacy and dress it up with all manner of sauces and spices and t
hings. Cassarole du lapin, they call it. And put it in a pan. Haha! Never had it, meself. Tastes like chicken, they say. Why not just go on and et chicken, then, is what I say to that. Hmm. Anyway, ’twas sundown, so the pink-and-gold-and-pale red sky gave way to melting-beautiful pink-and-blue, then went tar black. As I’ve told you, we’re camped by a forest, of course, and the piles of leaves in the mornings, burnished yellow ones from immense magnolias and purple jacaranda petals blanketing the ground with color like fresh-poured paint, with glistening dewdrops stippling, silvering the long green grass, make for a pretty picture. Mists drift in, then lift, most midmornings—the sort of eerie, unsettling, wraith-like weather none of us like as it’s perfect for a surprise attack, should the enemy be so bold and reckless and sneaky. Tonight I was on watch, a night of countless stars, fields of them, beautiful as blue snow, dotting the cold black air. I’m writing this to you, love, in the smack middle of the dead of drear night—quite romantic, no? Plus I’m up on account of I am replete with worry, angst, anxiety, and restive restlessness, plus major indigestion and heartburn—I’m not quite sure why. Incrementally they blinked on, an immensity of stars, as I lay on my back like a schoolboy ditching an Astronomy lecture. What is it about stargazing that makes us wonder about our respective existences, why we’re here, where we’re going, and where we’ve been. Little triumphs and major tribulations. What we’ve drunk and eaten, too. I reckon I mention food and beverage on account of I can’t stop thinking about that stew. What a godsend, the cooks sending over a plate of the smoking savory, how buoyant to the spirit, how chummy a gesture, a really lovely one. And just delicious—loaded with salt bits, the goat tender as anything, as you, as my affection for you, Lora Caecillia. They, the cooks, had some fresh kid meat they’d had simmering for a couple of days’ mess, apparently, for the generals’ mouths only, but they served me some on the sly it seems, a delicious treat and most rare. Most savory. I think they feel a bit bad for me, sorry for me. I’m with them. I feel bad for me and sorry for me, too. I really do. If I weren’t me, I’d have given me a plate of goat and a second helping, too. ’Tis hard, ’tis been hard, ’twill be hard for some time to come, I should wager. Pray for me, my love, dear dear friend, and sacrifice something dear and meaningful, perhaps, if you’ve half a chance. Try and see if anyone about can scare up a gila monster or something like that: just doing an obligatory chicken or pot-bellied pig’s just not going to do the trick here, I fear. The jaded gods’ll probably go (sarcastically): “So what—a rooster and a house cat? How imaginative!” I can just hear Jove in the sky saying: “Big deal. Set ablaze something different if you want my full and complete attention. Nobody puts any thought into their pyres these decadent days! Ridiculous!” Honestly now, chance’d be a fine thing for (feeling) old young Caius Aquilla. Chance’d be a fine thing indeed indeed indeed. Agrippa, a centurian, finding me lying down on the job on watch, catching me with my hands stitched behind my dreamy head and mouth agape, gave me a stern warning, then poked me, hard, in the tummy, with the butt end of his spear, then again in the groin, but only playfully. It really really smarted, the first thrust. The second not so very much. Nevertheless, I got off easy: he could have had me crucified, he could. But he said he wouldn’t tattle if I promised it wouldn’t happen again. “And what else?” I says and eyes him suspiciously. “Nowt,” says he. Everybody wants something for something these dark cynical days, Lora. “You quite sure?” asks I. “I mean, there’s just the two of us out here, under the sky so pretty and swarmed with stars, with nobody round for half a mile,” I says and sort of licked my lips wet on account of my mouth right then was very dry; and I think I kind of put one or two fingers into me mouth, involuntarily-like. “No thanks,” he says a bit nervous-like. “Right,” says I. “Of course. No worries! Nice night, though, innit?” “Uh-huh,” Agrippa said, though somewhat coldly. Hard to believe, really. His magnanimity, that is. Perhaps the beauty of the night sky mollified him, the fine canopy (cliché, I know, but that’s perhaps the mot juste here) of big bright pink stars above that we both stood gazing up at maybe shifted his attitude somewhat to the more lenient-tolerant). I stood to attention, snapped to attention, I should say, you see, soon as he barked out “Caius Aquilla, you idiot! What are you doing lying down out here on watch, you stupid bloody fucking fool!” Boy could I ever have been in real trouble, taking a break like that and going stargazing, plus lying down on the job, literally and whatnot. The fine meal made me so sleepy, is/was all I can/could think of in way of an excuse. It was only later that night that it occurred to me that I might have mentioned my gammy knee or my chronic toothache; or I might have said I’d come over queer as a result of such a rich repast. But then I’d have to explain why I (no favorite of anyone’s) had warranted such favor. Such a conundrum. Thank Jove I don’t have to present one, an impromptu rationalization, before Lt. Optio, in front of whom I surely would have been hauled had Agrippa not felt particularly forgiving. The thing about that, about standing before the man, as they say, is that the man in this case (Lt. Optio) has a sort of unfortunate frog face, one that gets all the more frogged-out when he’s miffed about something or someone. It’s really quite distressing. It’s hard enough to look at him when things are hunky-dory without wanting to blurt out a croak right to his froggy frog face or go “frog face!” right to it, his face, when he’s right there in front of you. The impulses one suppresses in the Imperial, sometimes! Whew! The myriad ways in which one represses oneself. Lt. Optio’s neck sort of bullfrogs out and his already rather bulbous & wide eyes go very Orientalish when he’s cheesed off. You half expect him to go hopping round (hopping mad) like he’s leaping from lily pad to lily pad, poor guy. Fortunately, he’s pretty even-tempered, and a fairly nice guy, to boot. I reckon he sort of has to be: can’t imagine he’s too much of a hit back home in Rome with the lovely young ladies, despite the fact that he’s quite popular with the chaps, the troops. He’ll even come over and mess with us once in a while—not often, but occasionally—and bring us some extra bread and olive oil. He’s quite nice that way. Quite pally and everything. Nevertheless, I’m surprised he doesn’t get into a wax more often, the way things go inevitably balls-up during wartime and with all the arseness he has to endure and witness and correct and chastise. Notwithstanding his palpably anuran physiognomy and even-keeled demeanor, I’d better not let that happen again (sleeping/sloughing off on duty)—or at get caught literally mooning about, napping like that! Trouble does seem to find me, my dear, whithersoever I roam; it really does seem to seek me out—and find me! It fair stalks me, trouble does, and a foul fiend it verily is! It’s like a dread, fell, prodigious knock on the door: “’ello,” it says, trouble does. “Caius Aquilla in? Been lookin’ for ’im all day, I have.” Bloody nonsense. Bloody nuisance. “’e’s not ’ere, mate,” is what I should answer, but never ever or hardly ever do. Why, when I know that that’s trouble itself a-knocking, do I go ahead and answer? Riddle me that, won’t you? Why don’t I hide or yelp “Go away—there’s no one here by that name!” Here’s me instead, every bally time: “Ah, come on in, old sport: kick your dusty-dirty sandy sandals off and stay awhile, won’t you now? Make yourself comfortable. Want a snack or somefink to drink? How’ve you been, anyway?” That’s me all over. I, Cauis—non-village idiot. I can just hear you telling me: “Don’t let yourself get so down on yourself, Caius, you unmitigated moron.” I have that precise voice in my head. Thank you for that, Lora. I mean it. You’ve never beshrewed me, really. Well, not so very much, you haven’t. And you’re incredibly supportive and kind and sweet and nice and I don’t know what I would do without you, you know. Top myself, probably. Yes, probably just that. Deliver my own coup de grace. Fall upon my sword like the noble Roman I am. Goodnight, Lora. Sweet dreams, dear friend.
Your Caius Aquilla Page 4
