Gods and Legions

by Michael Curtis Ford

  And so it happened that just in the darkest hour before sunrise, when the only souls awake and abroad were sentries or other men bound by duty, inclination, or suffering; in the hour when a man feels most abandoned to the loneliness of night and the forces of evil and temptation; when God Himself seems to disappear in that dreadful, seemingly unending hour before sunrise; just before saffron-robed Dawn hastened from Oceanus' streams to bring light to immortals and mortals alike, there came a knock at my door.

  For a physician, a knock at the door in the dead of night is not something to be taken lightly, particularly if his only patients are the Caesar and his wife, though even these were merely half-patients, if you will: Julian was still undecided as to the relative effectiveness of Oribasius' ancient Asclepian healing techniques, as compared with my more scientific, Hippocratic approach. Though I was dismayed at being roused from my warm bed at such an hour, I was nevertheless gratified that he had seen the sense of relying on my own practices, rather than on the superstitious nonsense of my friendly rival. I hurriedly dressed and followed the messenger through the deserted streets, sweeping past the sleepy palace guards with a quick nod and a whispered password, down the silent, darkened corridors to the small room that Julian had taken for his office.

  The space glowed almost with the brightness of day, by the light of thirty or forty candles and small oil lamps set on every available shelf and sill, forming long stalactites, as in a cave, from the drippings over the past several months. An unshaved, pasty-faced scribe sat slumped on a small stool in a corner, his quill dropped from his hand to the floor beneath him, his head fallen onto his breast, exposing a pink, round bald spot in the midst of a thick shock of unkempt black hair. Julian paced back and forth, muttering to himself as if composing a letter in his mind, ignoring the snorting and snoring scribe in the corner.

  'Good morning, Julian,' I greeted him, unsure whether it was his health I was to inquire about, or Helena's.

  He paused in his pacing and looked at me, his own face drawn and pale, his hair mussed, as if he had just awakened from one of his thrice-daily naps. Without a word of greeting in return, he stalked up to me.

  'Caesarius, do you believe in spirits?'

  The question was so strange I could not help but burst out laughing, which annoyed him. He resumed his restless pacing. I composed my face and sat heavily on a bench in the corner, opposite the scribe, hearkening back in my mind to the children's stories I had heard long ago.

  'Spirits, Julian?' I asked, still chuckling. 'Ghosts and vampires of fable, werewolves that wander the roads at night? I'm going back to bed.'

  'Yes, yes…' he muttered in some embarrassment. 'No, that's not exactly what I meant.' At this, Julian stopped and looked at me meaningfully for a long moment. I paused, not knowing precisely what to say. This was why he had awakened me?

  'I had a vision,' he said, and paused again.

  'Perhaps your irregular sleeping habits are distressing you?' I inquired, puzzled.

  'No, no, no. I called you, Caesarius, because this evening I had a dream, from which I have just awakened. A beautiful woman approached me, a smile on her lips and love in her eyes, in a diaphanous gown that trailed behind her. Her hair was in a style that I have seen only in the sculptures of the wives of the ancient founders of Rome. I watched as she came close, bearing in her arms a burden, which I took to be a baby.'

  I stifled a yawn, for dawn was just beginning to redden the sky.

  'It was merely anticipation at your prospects of becoming a father, Julian,' I said reassuringly. 'There is nothing to be concerned about.'

  He shook his head at me in exasperation.

  'No, Caesarius, you didn't let me finish. She came close and as I stood there she held the burden out to me, smiling. When I took it, I noticed it was uncommonly heavy, and I found it was a cornucopia — a horn of plenty, bursting with ripe fruit, figs and melons, wheat and corn, the empty gaps filled with gold coins, dried fish, fragrant herbs, spices from all corners of the earth — everything needed to sustain life.'

  I stared at him, still puzzled but increasingly disquieted. 'Julian,' I said calmly, 'such dreams are unholy, unworthy of your concern. All men have them, but only naive pagans, seers and oracles and the like, would place any stock in them at all. If you read the Scriptures before you sleep, you dream of Christ's works. If you read fables — you dream of ghosts.'

  He glanced at me quizzically and, I thought, somewhat disdainfully, and his eyes lingered on me for just a moment before he continued with his story, ignoring me as if I had not interrupted him.

  'I looked at her more closely,' he said, 'and she smiled sweetly, and I knew inside that she was the genius publicus, the guardian deity of Rome itself, in the form of a goddess; Caesarius, I saw her so clearly, so vividly I could describe her to you in every detail, every hair, every eyelash — you would think she was in this very room with us! This was no dream, I assure you. It was truly a vision. And then after leaving in my arms all the riches of the Empire, she slowly turned away and vanished.'

  At this my drowsiness, too, had vanished, and I looked at him with sharp rebuke.

  'Nonsense. You're asking me to interpret a dream which I believe is simply the product of an overheated imagination and a dyspeptic stomach. I'm not a soothsayer, Julian, I'm a physician. We are Christians, not worshipers of the old gods. Eat some meat, get some strength into your muscles, and stay away from silly tales before bedtime.' I saw that my lecture was having little success, for still he stared at me, his face as white as when I had first arrived this evening. 'What could you possibly be frightened of?' I continued. 'At worst, it was only a dream.'

  Ruefully he turned and renewed his silent pacing, as the white plastered walls of the room gradually turned a rosy pink with the light now slanting through the small ogive window. A tiny cross, seemingly placed on the wall for the specific purpose of catching the sun's earliest morning rays, gleamed from a polished stone set in the middle. The gathering brightness and airiness of the room was in stark contrast to the dark circles forming under Julian's eyes, and the pained expression on his face.

  'I'm not frightened,' he said in a calm voice, as he waved his hand at me in dismissal. 'I simply wished to tell you of my vision. I see that was a waste of time.'

  V

  'Oh, sweet Jesus,' he moaned.

  'Don't take the Lord's name in vain.'

  'I'm not, Caesarius — I'm praying.'

  I rolled my eyes and continued massaging the mint oil into the growing goose egg on the back of his head, which I had already shaved and stitched up with cat gut.

  'Praying. That's a bit of a novelty for you, isn't it?'

  He turned his head slightly to eye me balefully, one eyebrow raised. 'And that's a rather impertinent manner you have of speaking, especially to your Caesar.' He chuckled and tried to turn his head farther, but winced.

  I remained silent for a moment, concentrating on cleaning up the dressing, then began straightening my instruments. 'Where else are you injured?'

  He sighed ruefully. 'Every muscle in my body. Caesarius, I've spent more time in these past few weeks looking up from the ground at a horse's pizzle than I have riding.'

  This, at least, was true, for Sallustius had embarked Julian on an intensive training stage in horsemanship, at an isolated farm outside the city that afforded us privacy from spectators curious to watch the Caesar's progress. Frankly, however, little progress was being made. Even worse, in my own training alongside Julian, I was turning into a rather talented student, magnifying his own ineptitude. Our boyhood bareback riding on horses in the neighbor's paddock, Brother, was bearing fruit! The problem was that Julian had never actually ridden a warhouse. Oh, naturally, he had traveled sedately on mild transport animals, usually supervised carefully by a watching colleague or groom, and even then rarely accelerating beyond a calm trot. But a true warhorse, under battle conditions? Never, and at his age, the ripe, old, out-of-shape age of twenty-four, it was like
trying to learn a new language after reaching puberty — seemingly impossible.

  Merely mounting the beast was a skill he was having difficulty mastering, and any confidence he had had before embarking on this venture was now severely shaken. He stood only head-high to the shoulders of the Frankish chargers that Roman officers in Gaul ride, and Persian-style mounting, using a slave known as a strator to hoist the rider up onto the horse's back, did not meet Sallustius' standards. You've probably watched soldiers in the field, Brother — the trick is to approach the animal on its left side, and seize the reins loosely along with a good handful of mane from near the horse's ears. Then with your right hand on the middle of its back, you pull yourself up high enough to flop across on your belly and swing your leg over into a sitting position. It can be a daunting task even for a skilled rider, though my own height made it relatively easy for me. While Julian was at first given the gentlest old nags on which to practice, he consistently overshot his flop; or inadvertently kneed the animal in the ribs, causing it to start; or slipped his grip and ended up jerking the mane out by its roots, with predictable results. Sallustius grimaced and shook his head in disgust, forcing Julian to mount again and again, disdaining even to help him up and dust him off after he fell beneath the animal's feet — 'You'll have no one in battle to do that for you,' he stated matter-of-factly.

  It took Julian days to master the technique, practicing from both sides of the horse, mind you — and then Sallustius threw him another one.

  'On the run!' he shouted. 'Go!'

  Julian just stood and looked at him blankly. 'Mount the horse while it's running?' he asked, astonished.

  Sallustius paused, as if unable to comprehend the difficulty. Finally he spoke, slowly, as if to a dense child. 'Not the horse,' he said. 'You. Chonodomarius is within your sight, there, in front of you. You've been caught off your animal, but so has he, and you can catch him if you can mount quickly. Now run and vault onto that horse!'

  Julian tried gamely, every way he could — leapfrogging from behind over the horse's haunches, side-vaulting as if scaling a rail fence — and I can't help but say that for many days the results were pitiful, Brother, for Julian simply did not have the quickness or strength to make up for his lack of height, and would invariably slam painfully into the horse's side or rear, and end by clawing and scrambling his way up a by now thoroughly flustered animal. Sallustius shrunk from even watching him, as did I–I merely concentrated all the more fiercely on my own animal. Only Paul the Chain, who often slunk out of his quarters to observe the training sessions, continued to observe attentively and cluck his tongue after each fall, until Sallustius, in exasperation, ordered him to leave the premises. After several days of wincing at Julian's failure to mount, Sallustius admitted defeat, at least for the time being.

  'We'll go back to mounting later,' he grumbled, to Julian's infinite relief. 'In the meantime, we'll work on actual riding. As far as mounting goes, for now you're a Persian,' and he called over a hulking Gallic slave from the stables who bent his back for Julian to step on and more gracefully mount his horse.

  When riding in battle, Brother, good form is of the utmost importance, from the carriage of one's head to the hang of one's foot. I have seen inexperienced riders in battle who grip their horses' sides not merely with the thighs, as they should, but with their calves and ankles as well, keeping their feet rigid against the animals' ribs rather than letting them dangle loosely from the knee. If their stiff leg strikes against anything hard, like a stump or a rock, or even the armored knee of an onrushing enemy rider brushing close by, it will snap like a twig just at the joint. This is an injury which, despite all the miracles that modern medical science is capable of offering, rarely heals properly and usually leaves the victim a cripple. If the leg hangs easily from the knee down, however, it will yield when struck, without moving the thigh or its rider from position.

  Just so, there are proper ways of carrying one's weapons, of wielding one's shield, even of draping one's mantle over the shoulders and dropping one's visor over the eyes, so as to most effectively ease one's own efforts while increasing the threat to the enemy. For weeks Julian was trained intensively in hurling the javelin from horseback, two of which he carried in his left hand behind his shield, while Sallustius cantered alongside on his own mount, shouting out instructions step by step and handing him replacement weapons.

  'Left shoulder forward, right one back — good! Eye your target — eye your target, damn it, Caesar, not your horse! Now, grip with your thighs and rise up for leverage… No, not too high… NO!'

  Thank goodness, Brother, for the back padding and safety helmet he wore in training, for he took a tremendous beating learning to stand erect on his thighs and hurl the javelin forward without allowing the horse to run straight out from under him — I lost count of the bruises and scrapes he received, though one corner of the farm's stable I had converted into a regular infirmary, where I spent a great deal of time treating him after his mishaps.

  As Julian slowly progressed, Sallustius moved on to more dangerous techniques as well — stringing and firing a bow while riding, like the dark-faced Huns; rearing the horse into the air to allow it to kick out at enemies with its sharpened forehooves; and slashing Persian-style with a curved scimitar, a much more effective weapon for a mounted horseman than a straight stabbing sword. With this weapon, Julian practiced on a man-sized oaken post Sallustius had driven into the middle of the arena, which was later dressed up in Germanic clothing and armor, using a melon mounted on the top as a head. Scimitar practice on horseback was far too dangerous to practice with living opponents, as there is no practical way to shield the blows; but not so for lance practice. By placing a hard clay ball on the lance tip, these weapons can be rendered somewhat less deadly to one's sparring partner, though by no means painless when contact is made.

  Sallustius himself charged at Julian repeatedly with the blunted lance, as Julian alternately attempted to defend himself against the attack with his shield, and took the offensive with his own blunted weapon. Again and again Sallustius' lance tip slammed into Julian's padded practice armor, though the skilled instructor was sufficiently deft as to divert the weapon at the last moment so that it would generally glance off Julian's side without knocking him from his horse, leaving him unharmed but for a weltering bruise or a cracked rib. One day, however, after Sallustius carefully glanced around to see if I was nearby, he rode down on Julian full bore, lance tip tracing tight, maddening circles in the air as it feinted and dodged Julian's wavering shield, and then slammed full into the middle of Julian's chest, lifting him clear off the horse into the air and throwing him hard onto his back on the packed ground. He lay still as his riderless horse cantered to the far end of the paddock, as if attempting to evade any blame for the mishap.

  I rushed from where I had been preparing for my own sparring session with Sallustius, and knelt beside Julian. To my relief he soon began sputtering and gasping for air. The wind had been knocked out of him, and he was badly shaken, but was otherwise unhurt. He was still dizzy, however, and barely able to talk, when Sallustius rode up calmly on his horse. The man didn't even bother to dismount, and I glared up at him accusingly.

  'Look at him! Were you trying to kill him?'

  Sallustius glanced down at Julian impassively. 'Yes,' he said simply.

  I bristled. 'You had better be joking.'

  'Do you see me smiling?'

  'You never smile.'

  'Nor do I joke,' he replied.

  Julian struggled to sit up. 'I–I could have you arrested for that…' he gasped.

  Sallustius looked down with an expression of mock puzzlement on his face. 'For failing to joke?'

  Julian's face turned red in anger as the breath rushed back into his lungs. 'For trying to kill me!'

  'So arrest me.'

  Now it was Julian's turn to look puzzled.

  'You should thank me for trying to kill you,' Sallustius continued coldly, 'for if I don't
try to do so now, and fail, someone else will surely try in the future and succeed. And you fault me?'

  'Damn you, Sallustius,' Julian muttered, staggering to his feet. 'Where's my horse?'

  In private, Sallustius shook his head in admiration as the young Caesar continued to make the long ride out to the farm every morning for further drilling, never complaining of his aching muscles and the knots on his head. To Sallustius' great satisfaction, once Julian finally developed a basic level of strength and dexterity, his military skills improved amazingly, and what he lacked in pure physical ability, he more than made up for in wit and cunning. His major frustration, however, continued to be mounting; here his skills continued to fall embarrassingly short, and this failure was having an effect on his confidence in all other areas of horsemanship and weaponry. After several weeks, however, the camp's head blacksmith arrived, bearing with him a stout cavalry lance with a curious supplement to it — a thick iron hook attached to the shaft by a sturdy band, about four feet from the butt end.

  'This,' Sallustius said, 'is your strator.'

  The next day, as Julian prepared to ride out to the farm to resume his lessons, he asked with a wry smile that I not accompany him for a time. Though surprised, I presumed that it was to spare his dignity when learning yet another impossible technique, and so I agreed without protest. His uncommon cheerfulness upon his return from the paddock each day, however, kept me wondering, and when next I was allowed to accompany him several weeks later, I was astonished at the sight that met my eyes. There stood Julian calmly, in full cavalry regalia, stiff mailed tunic descending to his hips, thigh plates, mailed knee joints and greaves, crowned by a tight-fitting, open-faced bronze cavalry helmet, all of which weighed near sixty pounds. He had been fitted with a gilt-plated, full-sized Roman cavalry shield, a richly decorated scimitar, and a gleaming officer's lance, twelve feet long, its painted wood sanded smooth and enameled to a polished, ivory gleam. These weapons lay neatly against a fencepost, as they would be positioned while in camp, except for his scimitar, which he hung in a scabbard against his left leg. His horse pawed the dirt nervously at the far end of the paddock.