Your Caius Aquilla

by Fredrick, John Andrew;

  X Mars

  Dear Friend:

  Hail and thank Jove and Hera—I am vindicated. Vini, vidi, vinci—or however it goes. Or maybe vini, vidi, venia. There: that’s better. I came, I saw, I…pardon. It’s not proper Latin but it’ll do, alliteratively at least. It didn’t take too long, a bit of time, I suppose, but I’m back in the pack, your very bouncing boy, in the pink and also in the good graces of almost every mother’s son in the mighty Seventh. Here’s how. But before I tell you all my news, let me ask you how you are? How are you? I love and miss you so unspeakably much. I’m sorry if I’ve been preoccupied with my own issues and stuff, but as you’ve no doubt twigged from my few last—if you’ve even received them, that is; it’s positively maddening not knowing whether these poor epistles get through or not—things have been pretty iffy round here, in terms of me. Pretty darn touch-and-go. Here’s what happened. Oh, I can’t wait for you to hear this, Lora—it’s smashing, it’s cracking good news! So: after yesterday’s fray, one of the generals (one Caius Maximus), trotting his scary black horse back after the day’s early show, happened upon a grove or glade where there was a giant wasp’s nest—a really quite formidable one, with hundreds of the nasty fuckers, pardon my etc.—and it seems that, in raising his right hand to hail some other soldiers or halt his own party or scratch the back of his neck, he knocked the humongous wasp’s nest loose, and it bounced twice then burst open. Crazy! I know! Oh-oh! It must’ve been his right hand on account of you must always keep your left on the reigns, they say; the left’s the hand you use to guide your “mount” or “ride;” as you know, being terrified of the brute quadrupeds, I’ve never ridden—maybe one day, who knows? Part of our/my cohort (my little wing of it, that is), coincidentally, was trundling tiredly back down a dusty path that crisscrossed with his leafy one, and we converged just then—right when he swatted the blasted, humming, nasty thing. As I was out front, running “point,” as we say, walking along, on me lonesome, friendlessly ambling (as is my sad wont these me-qua-pariah days), I spotted him first, poor sod, his horse bucking furiously and winching out of mad control and him being stung like mad as well, his eqqus describing a frenzied, crazy-eight kind of tortuous circle, with the general thrashing round and waving and looking like he was dancing or slap-fighting with an aggressive ghost or something, batting the air in front of him like he was trying to best Aeolus himself. Then he goes a-slapping himself quite violently, left and right and up and down as the wasps did their angry, buzzing worst, biting (stinging, I mean) the poor fellow again and again and again and again. Pure Pandemonium, it was. A look, I shouldn’t wonder, of sheer terror on his face. Very eerie the way they only seemed to concentrate on getting him, the general, him and him alone. Maybe once, one would think, they’d hone in on someone else in the immediate vicinity? Get their target in their collective monomaniac little insecty sights and put their hairy little backs into it. But no. None of that. Quite strange, the world of nature, innit? So much we don’t know about…things. Creatures and creation. Different beings and their doings, motivations. Tell you what: there was a murder of crows nearby (again!) and they sure did wing the Hades away in a hurry. Like someone had blasted right next to them a bolus of fire from a pussiant black-and-yellow catapult: the sky went fairly thick/black with them, their furious flapping. Of course the general’s lieutenants, his adjutants, aides-de-camp and other hangers-on in a sort of I suppose reflex way just took themselves off, bolted, fearful of being wasp-assailed themselves. And who could blame them? Brutish, horrid, swarming, darting things. The sound they made was like a concert of hundreds of Eastern instruments all playing the same “off” note. ’Twas truly instantaneously very spectacular in a sort of horrifying way. Well perhaps I exaggerate a touch but there were many many of them, the wasps, a flying sea. Or maybe they were hornets. I’ve never known what the difference is. They weren’t bees—I will say that. I know what bees are. As you well know, I hate bees. Bees are the worst. Can’t stand the blasted things. They don’t like me, either. I know they don’t. Had they little bee-voices, and could understand and speak Latin, I could ask them: “Bees, do you like Caius?” And they would in a rather arch manner go: “Caius who?” And of course I would say: “Caius Aquilla.” And they’d go: “Ye gods, no. We can’t stand that fuck!” I know that that’s exactly what they’d say. They wouldn’t even have to give it a moment’s thought. Hmmm. Rotters every one of them. It gives you pause, doesn’t it, though, does it not?—the fleeing of the general’s staff, I mean. Think: that these supposedly fearless grim men of savage war and bloodlust could be so knee-knockingly lily-livered in the face of a mere swarm of possibly a thousand hundred angry, deadly, flying insects. Ah, but in a pack or squadron—the wasps or hornets, that is—one can imagine how painful their needles can/could be. I know this myself on account of I was stung many times, possibly fifty or so! Maybe twice that! Moreover, we know now that I am allergic to bees but not to wasps or hornets. What I did, without thinking, apparently, was this: seeing something was amiss with a riding-along someone in a purple cloak (“It’s one of the generals, perhaps,” I says to meself), I took off running like toward him; I threw down my arms and, um, waved my arms arms—as though that would disperse or vitiate the wasps. Silly notion, I know. “Allow me assist you [sic], Your Majesty,” I bellowed. I was so nervous and excited that I forgot to put “to” in there. I might put it down to the fact that the general, up close like that, really does have the most remarkable and charming-colored eyes: a very dreamy-crazy shade of lavender, melting-like and quite pretty. Still, that little grammatical lapse will haunt me for the rest of my very, don’t you know. Really quite noxiously irksome to me that I misspoke like that; normally I’m quite articulate, wouldn’t you say? I think so. D’you think that what I shouted was too grandiloquent, too much like bowing-and-scraping in a linguistic sort of way? I mean, if it had been grammatically correct? I’m mortified, Lora. Really I am. It just kinda slipped out, that phrase, and could not be called back for love or money. Perhaps it was pompous, or at least too presumptuous, but let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp, is what I say! And in the hot heat of battle—even against little flying stinging buzzing hovering horrible terrifying nuisances—one often finds one fumbling for le mot juste. A man of action (great action?) I do consider myself indeed, but a man of fine words am I as well; and proud of it. Well, to cut a long story short, I grabbed the little general’s horse’s reigns and then, reaching up, pulled him (the general) summarily to the ground and lay on top of him, covering him completely (wasn’t all that hard as he’s really quite tiny; you’d be astonished at him, believe me) with my person and my own crimson cloak (yesterday was freezing bloody cold—the weather in this territory’s incredibly capricious; the sky just doesn’t seem to want to make up its mind somehow) till the wasps were all stung out, as it were. Stung out on me, as it happened. Caius Maximus, I discovered, after I got up from lying or laying on him to safety, turns out, was covered in a coat of thick black mud, the ground under the tree where the wasps domiciled being very damp and mucky-murky. Well, that did for his stings, apparently, as mud’s good for staunching them (stings), they say. Sooth to say, your Caius Aquilla is something of an unintentional hero, true purple. Allow me, by your fair leave, to dilate a bit on my new-bestowed accolades. At mess—after the camp apothecaries stripped me and dipped me in a hot bath of cooked mud, honey (is that kind of ironic, or what?!—or it would be, were the stings bee stings), fresh horse droppings, and the blood of seven chickens—I was knighted. I’m joking, of course. Haha! Maybe you bought that one for a second, Lora. Gotcha, then! No, no, no, you aren’t made a knight just for lying on top of someone, more’s the pity, or you, my love, would have to call me Sir Caius every night! Hahaha! No, no, indeed: no one’s touched with the sacred sword of royalty and made a “sir” just for saving someone’s life. Not even if that someone is a) a general and 2) about to be stung or stinged to death. The key thing is, the lads certainly are a bit in
awe of me now: no one smirks or snorts when I strut by. Dear-oh-dear, what a nice reversal on the part of Dame Fortune. What a lovely turnaround. It’s like the fabled Wheel (of Fortune) has spun backward somehow, backed up and spun my way instead of its usual rolling straight toward me, then running-me-over. A reverse sort of Wheel is it now, I daresay, and that’s fine and dandy. The lads: yesterday afraid of—today backslappingly feting me. Yesterday glowering—today glowing. Yesterday pariahed—today invited. Yesterday marooned—today no Caius is an island. Yesterday… Yesterday…well, you get the idea. Plus, I’m out of them—ideas, that is. Plus tired as all I-don’t-know-what. Way fagged. Understandably so. It’s been a very long day, love. Just like the rest of them: tiring. In case you’re wondering, even though I wasn’t knighted almost all the generals came over to our smoky encampment last night (well, two of them did, at least) and, as I knelt and bowed, Caius Maximus said in a nice loud voice (and in front of all or at least half the Legion, it seems): “Let Legionnaire [here he looks down at his notes, squints a bit, then stifles a sneeze] Caius Aquilla no more be thought a curse and a dunderhead and oaf and dope and a bad-luck-charm-on-two-legs to the Legion, a [and here he turns and sort of stage-whispers into the ear of one of his adjutants: ‘What was that other term you used, Flavius?’ he said.]… Oh, yes, pardon me, a poltroon and miscreant. But let him be henceforth considered a good egg henceforth [sic] and a soldier valiant and true [he seems addicted to the use of hendiadys, him] and boon to the Imperial Roman Army. Let him—this fellow here—be considered a legionary of slight distinction and initiative and, uh, quickthinkingness. For however utterlyfatuous and inexpert, bumbling and incompetent, foolhardy, prolix, uxorious, useless, rubbish-at-most-things, dull, thick, gormless, clueless, useless (I think I said that), utterly sans self-consciousness and awareness; however much a lackwit, chump, a barber’s block, purveyor of platitudes, sententious, and rather a bit of a total pseudo-intellectual, one of the very worst and lowest and stupidest and irreversibly idiotic and most doltish in the very best Legion of all (The Seventh!), hath he not indeed and bravely—and may we all huzzah him for it!—saved my exalted arse and most necessary neck! From stinging! And stinging much much worse than a thousand Persian diseases of the most grossly venereal variety! [big laughs he got with that one] Let Caius Aurelius [he’s not very good with names, apparently] be acknowledged or rather dubbed or deemed a fool and an idiot and an horrid, nettlesome if rather beguiling burden no more [a few grumbles, some reluctant “here-here’s”], but rather an equal to all men of his lowly station and severely limited, minimal abilities. Let nor man nor boy shun nor slight him ceremoniously nevermore, nor in barrow nor on barricade or at base camp! Hark! As a reward and as an indubitable favor from myself and from the exalted and most high command, Caius Adonis [again!] is to have two pieces of barbarian gold, plundered in the last fray, several extra rations of good black bread, a fistful of olives, a bag of golden apples, fat drippings with liver sauce, treacle, a large lump of good goat meat, a nice bar of salt, and double wine tonight [see: we’re running low on provisions—so this was a great honor and my reward-repast made some of the lads, you could tell, drool with envy]. Let him accept with head-bowed gratitude and sincere humility this wonderful bouquet of fresh-picked flowers—peonies, actually, and red poppies, hyacinths, one orchid, and some lovely sprigs of baby’s breath and a couple of yellow roses and pink carnations for good measure—I plucked or harvested, pardee, myself in, er, gratitude for his unparalleled and unmitigated bravery!” [or something like that, he said—I may be embellishing somewhat, but you get the idea.] A momentous ceremony, this. All huzzah’d, some hurrah’d. “Huzzah!” the lads said. “Hurrah!” they (some) said. My love, the cheers were fairly deafening—at least three or five were, at least (ha!); I couldn’t stop smiling; a makeshift chorale of camp boys held prayerlike hands forth and sang an aria (the sentimental old ditty “Glory Be to Glorious Rome”); two or three of the fellows slapped me roundly on the back. One congratulating maniac (smiling idiotically and raffishly) punched me very much too enthusiastically in the most tender part of my left arm. Really nailed me one. Another crazed well-wisher gleefully-impishly mussed my hair then grabbed it on the crown of my head (I need a haircut badly; must remember to hie me to one of the camp barbers and soonly) and took a thick chunk out of it (my hair, that is, my wig, not my head), a fistful. There’s a lot of that sort of horseplay and carry-on going round these days. Some bad wag started a game called “Tonsured!” where you sneak up behind a helmetless someone and pull out a fistful or so from their hair and say “Tonsured!” in the loudest voice you can muster, then run away as the guy who’s been “Tonsured!” tries to catch you and beat you to a pulp. It’s a kind of craze. The only sorts who seem to be happy about such nonsense are the bald guys—they don’t seem to be bothered. I’m rather bothered by it, though; I’ve been “Tonsured!” three times this past week, and twice in one day two days ago. I’m tired enough of being guyed, you know, without this sort of superfluous silliness. It put me in mind of another game I don’t think I ever told you about, that was played two campaigns ago, after a wing of the chaps came back from Hinduland or whatever it’s dubbed. There, amidst the strangest of peoples, who rode elephants and magic carpets and camels like anything, there, I say, they’d learned a word—“shazam!” It means something like our “voila!” But much more talismanic-magical. Like what a conjuror—a real one, unlike so many of your provincial quacks down the marketplace or the Forum way of a Sunday morning—might cry as he made dove appear or a man’s nose fall off (I have heard of such things but never born witness to them). So some of the lads used this queer term to invent a game where you went up to some unsuspecting someone and said “shazam!” and cuffed or cupped or clapped or clamped them in the testicles as hard as you could. Very crude. “Been ‘shazamed!’ have you?” you might say to a chap who was writhing on the ground, moaning-groaning in abject agony. I never had the displeasure, I’ll tell you that much, thank Venus. How “ow” would that be? Well, you’ll never know, will you, Lora. A) not being a man; and B) not being in the Roman Imperial. ’Twas all the rage, really. For a while, at least. Blessed by the gods was I not to have ever… I shudder to think of it! Anyhow, how quickly, mark you, did the general’s moithering speech (about yours verily) drift from rhapsody to rodomontade to rhapsody again. Dizzying. Quite. It all went by so fast, so puzzlingly. Like something in a dream or nightmare. Rude clod or great hero—which am I? I used to think I was somedeal perspicacious, somewhat knowing-of-self in Socractic or Aristotlean fashion but now I’m not so sure. Lt. Optio reported that the venerable general told him to go a bit easy on me for a day or two and a half; also, I’m to have tomorrow off, get a bit of R and R. Isn’t that grand? Well, turns out it’s not all that special, in light of the fact that tomorrow’s not an attack day nor is it recon or whatnot and practically everyone gets it off—but it’s the thought that counts, don’t you think? I think so. I’m going to sleep in till dawn, or near dawn, at least; sleep the sleep of the just; I think I’ll spend the rest of the time plus this evening reading Cicero and Seneca or Herodotus, or perhaps a somewhat smudged book of straight up Oriental smut the lads are passing round. Then get in some lute practice and perhaps some poem writing. I’ve been taking copious notes, jotting down little lyrical phrases—but don’t really have a proper subject yet. I’ll do some letter-writing: to you, of course—my dear sweet darling lone correspondent, dozing luxuriously on my cot, etc. I suspect they make them, our camp beds, so uncomfortable so that we’ll wake up ornery and in a foul mood and want to kill more barbarians. Perhaps I’ll go throwing a bit of surreptitious dice with the fellows, hang out with the cooks, play a bit of bloody football (you know I’m not very keen on nor good at sport) with some pickled Visigoth heads (rolled up in sackcloth) we have for the express purpose, then maybe wander about, keep my distance from any centurians (they’re much meaner than any lieutenant or general), go a-picking strawberries or rasp
berries or blueberries or whortleberries or boysenberries, something much more suited to my gentle and imperishably poetic-dreamy temperament. They grow in such profusion, berries, where we are now. There’s a plethora of them; they’re everywhere. Their plump ripe bulging fruitiness bursts forth fairly straight at us as we trudge by any hedge you care to dip into to have a slash or a wank or an unmentionable (i.e. bowel movement). Anyway, “Thank you, sir!” I intoned boldly, in response to the wee general’s engrossing encomium and so forth, snapping to complete and total attention, very soldierly-looking, I was. Most smart. “You’d have done the same thing for me, sir!” I said. Oops. That one, sooth to say, didn’t go over so well. Lt. Optio, standing next to me, sort of deliberately coughed and gave me a stern warning kind of look as if to say, “Obviously you have no idea how to behave around the magnanimous leadership, you monstrous fool. Let’s all pretend that you did not just insinuate that the glorious general is in any fashion your equal, confrere, or counterpart, despite what he said about the men having henceforth to take you seriously, you unmitigated idiot.” I admit I was a bit befuddled. To smooth things over with a clever quip, I was about to add (on account of the general, as I said, is a pretty little guy, something of a munchkin, short-arse, shortcake, midget, toy-boy, vertical failure, etc., in fact) “Well, you and a couple of other guys, sir!” but fortunately for me and my big mouth my tongue stuck in my throat thickly—nervous, surely—and I thought better of it, or at least my tongue did for me, so to speak, and all’s well that end’s well.There’s a nice phrase! I think I’ll jot that one down as well. All’s well that ends well—has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it!