LEGION

by William Altimari

  “All right. Two things more. First, in case you’re blind to it, Crus is no admirer of yours, so—”

  “Do you mean my affection is unrequited?”

  “So,” Sabinus continued, “be more tactful. You may not care for him—frankly, I don’t care for him very much myself—but he is the laticlavian tribune.”

  “Yes, commander.”

  “Second, Varacinda, the wife of Adiatorix, is here to see you. We don’t need an augur to tell us why.”

  “The slaves.”

  “Apparently Adiatorix thinks your intercession might be gotten by a more tender approach.”

  “Is this really necessary, commander?”

  “I thought it politic to agree to it. It’s your own fault. The incident with the slave now annoys you as much as it annoys me.”

  “Yes, I—”

  “They see you as their spokesman now,” Sabinus said and rose and walked across the room.

  Rufio stared after him.

  “Such a simple people,” he thought he heard Sabinus say as he disappeared through the doorway.

  Varacinda stepped into the room. She took long strides, as though even walking were for her an aggressive gesture. Again her reddish gold hair was swept to the side, as if she had just stepped out of the wind. This day, though, her eyes seemed less bold than they had before.

  “Thank you for seeing me, Centurion Rufio,” she said and stopped in the center of the room.

  Rufio placed a stool in front of her.

  “Thank you. I’ll stand.”

  She moistened her lips as she gathered her thoughts—or her courage. She wore a black leather jerkin over a bright green tunic. Her leather trousers were tied at the ankles in typical Gallic fashion, and Rufio could see her toes bunching nervously in her soft leather shoes.

  “Speak to me, Varacinda.” Rufio leaned back against the desk and folded his arms. “I have other responsibilities to attend to.”

  “I don’t know how to begin,” she said with a fear that was baffling.

  “Then let me. You want me to try to arrange for the release of the slaves.”

  “Yes,” she answered in a near-whisper.

  He hesitated, a sudden thought flashing across his mind. “Adiatorix doesn’t know you’re here, does he?”

  “No.”

  “Why are you here?”

  She wet her lips again. “To plead with you to get me back my sister.”

  He dropped his arms. “Are you sure?”

  “I saw her in the cart on the road. Surely there must be people you love. You must know how I suffer for her suffering. I want my baby sister! I want her! I want her!” The words rushed out of her now. “Don’t tell me about slaves and property. About rules and laws. This is my sister! She’s beautiful and fragile and she’ll be violated. You know that. You saw those gladiators. She’ll be pinned and rammed by some foul Roman bull. By all the gods you believe in—”

  “Woman, what do you expect from me?”

  Then Rufio, the man of war who had trod the wildest edges of the earth, was stunned by the simple words of a Gallic woman.

  “I want you to ask the slave dealer to take me in her place.”

  At last he understood what he saw in her eyes.

  “I cannot do that,” he answered, masking his awe at this woman. “You’re the wife of a chieftain of the Sequani.”

  “I’m a desperate woman who would rather be the toy of a brute than see a tear on her sister’s cheek.”

  “Get out of here.”

  She did not move. Fury and fear and desperation shot from her eyes.

  “Get out!” Rufio heard himself shout.

  By a titanic force of will, she held her emotions taut. “I thought you were different. After what you did for my cousin, I thought you were more than a Roman.”

  “Woman, no one is more than a Roman.”

  She stepped closer, the hard-boned beauty of her face inches from the creased face of the warrior.

  “You’re not special,” she said as she fought to stop the tears from spilling out of her eyes. “I thought you were, but you’re a wolf like other wolves. You tear and you eat and you toss aside. I hope you die slowly and in agony.”

  It was a horrifying curse, and it seemed to shock even the woman who cast it. She spun around and vanished before Rufio could take another breath.

  13 THE ASS RUBS THE ASS.

  Roman saying

  ______

  The bathhouse was one of the few stone buildings in the fort. Sited near the intervallum, that space between the rampart and the camp proper, it had been built on a grade that fell away toward the wall, so the continual streams of flushing water could be dumped. The effluvia rushed off in closed channels and ran out under the side gate.

  The late afternoon sun heightened the rich color of the building’s red roof tiles as the two soldiers approached the entrance. Diocles longed to purge himself of the dirt and aches of the march. Valerius seemed unaffected by the exertions of the day.

  They entered the building and went into the changing room. Here the discipline and rigor of life in the legions was forgotten. Talking and shouting rocked the walls of the big rectangular room. Some soldiers were dressing or undressing, but others were lounging around and swapping lies about wars or women. Several sat on benches and played board games. Off to the right, four men squatted on the flagstone floor and played dice. The spot they had chosen was very appropriate. In the wall next to them, seven arched niches housed statues of favored deities. Occupying the central niche was that most elusive of goddesses, Fortuna, whom they now tried to woo or whom a few cursed as a whore.

  Valerius and Diocles stripped and hung their clothes on a rack and entered the latrine to the left. Capable of accommodating at least fifty men, the room was noisy with the flush of flowing water. Large stone benches with holes lined three walls. Beneath the seated soldiers, bent forward now in silent contemplation, a vigorous flow of water flushed away the sewage. In front of each seat was a small hole in the stone floor where one could set his personal stick and sponge. Also cut into the floor in front were a pair of deep channels which flushed with a constant flow of fresh water. Here the men could wash their sponges after they had cleaned themselves.

  Valerius picked up an iron stylus that was lying on one of the benches. Into the plaster wall he etched the date. Then beneath it he scratched: L VALERIUS OPTIO.

  “Now I’m immortal,” he said with a smile.

  The two men relieved themselves and went back through the changing room and into the coolness of the frigidarium. They washed their hands and face and took a quick cold plunge bath.

  Refreshed, they entered the pleasant warmth of the tepidarium. Flues beneath the floor and within the walls carried in heated air from the perpetually stoked furnaces.

  “Did you hear what happened when we got back this afternoon?” Valerius asked and sat on one of the benches.

  “No.”

  “The wife of Adiatorix went to Rufio about those slaves.”

  “The ones we saw on the road?”

  “Yes, they’re here now. The slave dealer and his men were almost caught near the woods by some Gauls and barely escaped with their lives.”

  “How do you learn these things so quickly?” Diocles asked in amazement.

  He laughed. “I have friends in every cohort. And Titinius and I have shared a meal or two.”

  “So what did Rufio do?”

  “What could he do? He sent her on her way with a slap on her sweet ass—and that’s a sweet one. Have you seen her? Give your eyes a treat sometime.”

  “Do soldiers ever think about anything but carnal pleasures?”

  “Not often.”

  After producing a couple of mild sweats, Diocles and Valerius went into the next tepidarium, this one warmed not with dry air but with steam. The lounging soldiers in here were quieter than those outside. Valerius stretched out on a bench, and Diocles sat and rubbed his blistered feet.

  “
Will we march again tomorrow?” he asked.

  The new optio shrugged.

  “Well, if we do, I think I’ll choose to fall on my sword.”

  “That would be a clever trick. You don’t have a sword.”

  “Then I’ll fall on my head,” he said and sprawled on the bench with a groan.

  He dozed off and was roused after a time by Valerius pulling on a toe. They moved off toward the hot room.

  “Dry or steam?” Valerius asked.

  “You sound like a cook,” Diocles said and led the way to the steam.

  The caldarium was tiled with black and white mosaics of leaping fish, no doubt to distract one from the steam’s stifling tyranny. Diocles lay down and felt his pores open and expand in luscious agony. As the grime was drawn from him, he thanked the gods he had been born in Rome. All his life he had felt pulled between his ancestry and his upbringing. But at this moment he reveled in being a Roman. Other peoples simply did not bathe enough. No one else on earth—not even his blessed Greeks—understood these matters. Only the Italians grasped the supreme virtues of cleanliness. And only they were brave enough to endure this purging which was both savage and sublime.

  “What of the war counsel?” Diocles said with an almost unbearable effort.

  “I don’t know the details, but I hear that Carbo told Sabinus to wait for a major breach.” Valerius rolled over on his bench and peered through the steam. “One thing you’ll learn is that the best soldiers are cautious about drawing their swords. And they come no better than Sextus Carbo.”

  “Why the caution? I’d have thought the opposite.”

  “Good soldiers know that an army about to go to war is like a boulder on the edge of a slope. It’s slow to get moving, but once it starts rolling, there’s no way to turn it around—at least not without people getting crushed.”

  Diocles pushed himself up on one elbow. “And . . . ?”

  “And Carbo won’t urge war until the Germans draw so much blood that Sabinus has no choice but to fight to a conclusion. Carbo won’t risk his men in a weak effort.”

  “And how is someone as young as you so wise in these matters?”

  “Young? Life out here ages us quickly. Look at Rufio.”

  Valerius rose and Diocles followed him into the adjoining room, a combination unctuarium and hot plunge bath. The two men lay face down on tables as the attending slaves hurried over.

  “Gently,” Diocles ordered.

  One of the slaves, a young man of Eastern origin, took his curved bronze strigil by its wooden handle and scraped the dirt and sweat from the yielding flesh. When he had finished one side, Diocles rolled over on his back and the slave continued his ministrations on the front.

  “You have a delicate touch,” Diocles said.

  The young man smiled with pride.

  When the thorough scraping was finished, Diocles slid off the table and crossed the semi-circular room to the bath. He eased himself into the steaming water with a sigh and allowed it to carry off the rest of those impurities that so foul the noble body of man.

  In the meantime, the slave had cleaned the table. When Diocles reluctantly emerged from the water, the slave dried him with a towel and then told him to stretch out again.

  He curled his forearm under his head as the slave massaged him with mint-scented oil. He moaned with the deep and relentless kneading of the muscles. Occasionally the slave would add more oil from a round bronze vessel hanging from a chain at his hip. Diocles groaned as the massage became even more vigorous, and he was convinced that this was almost as glorious as sexual love.

  When at last the slave had finished, he left and returned with a dark salve with which he treated Diocles’ blistered feet. Moved by this thoughtfulness, he promised the slave a sestertius on his next visit.

  When the two soldiers returned to the changing room, they felt as grand as gods and fully as beautiful.

  “Do it, Sido!” a soldier yelled.

  The blonde former gladiator, stripped to his linen underwear, stood in the center of the room. Legs wide and braced, he gripped a large steel billet from the armory and focused all the strength of his upper body on the hopeless task of bending it double.

  Soldiers cheered or hooted as wagers were tossed about. Sido stopped his exertions and asked for a rag. He tore it in half and wrapped a piece around each end of the slab and began again. A sheet of sweat made his skin shine like alabaster. He grinned as he warred against the steel. Clearly he gloried in the glistening magnificence of his own body.

  A groan shot up from the doubters as the steel started to give. Like human resolve, once it began to yield, it failed quickly. A roar from the winners rocked the room as Sido flung away the vanquished metal.

  “If you think that’s power,” Sido said after he caught his breath, “look at Longus.”

  The other gladiator was hanging up his tunic as the eyes of the soldiers sought him out. He turned around as they stared.

  “Show them, Longus,” Sido said. “Show them true greatness.”

  “Why fill them with envy?”

  “Show us what?” one of the soldiers asked.

  With fake reluctance, Longus stepped toward the center of the room. He clearly felt he had much to be proud of. He peeled off his undergarment and posed grandly with hands on hips.

  “That’s not possible,” Valerius said as gasps escaped from the men. “Is it?” He looked at Diocles.

  The Greek just shook his head in wonder.

  “In the name of Mars,” Valerius said. “It hangs halfway to his knees.”

  “That’s no man,” Diocles said. “That’s one vast penis with a dwarf dangling from the back of it.”

  “It’s as thick as my forearm,” Valerius went on. “What must it be like when it’s hard? What could a woman do but scream in terror?”

  Several soldiers stepped closer to get a better book. Longus laughed as he held his penis in front of them and flopped it around, as big and limp as a dead weasel.

  When Diocles had hunted wolves in his youth, his father had told him of the sixth sense a hunter has. The glare of unseen eyes exudes a force a hunter senses in his soul. Suddenly he felt again that strange discomfort. He snapped around.

  Against a wall, Rufio stood with his arms folded and stared at Longus with eyes empty of love.

  14 THOUGH THEY ARE SILENT, THEY CRY ALOUD.

  Cicero

  ______

  The slanting rays of the sun made Rufio squint as he walked toward the middle of the fort. The stables were situated in the central range of buildings, parallel to some of the barracks blocks.

  In front of one of the wooden structures a soldier armed with a sword stood alone, eyes glazed by guard duty. He revived and straightened at the approach of the centurion.

  “Easy duty tonight, soldier?” Rufio said.

  “Yes, centurion.”

  “You look tired.”

  “Road repair today. The stones get heavy after a while. Even for me.”

  “They certainly do. Cohort and century.”

  “Third Cohort, First Century.”

  Rufio frowned. “Probus should know better than to post a tired man to a boring duty. I’ll have you relieved.”

  “Thank you, centurion,” the soldier said in surprise and gratitude.

  “How are the slaves?”

  “Quiet. No trouble.” He hesitated. “I feel sorry for them. Their homes and families are so close. . . .”

  “Where’s the owner?”

  “Here,” a voice said from the shadows.

  Rufio looked beyond the soldier.

  “I’m Priscus,” the man said and came out of the stable.

  “I remember you. We met on the road.”

  “Ah, yes.”

  “I’m here to make a purchase.”

  That lit the fire in his heavy-lidded eyes.

  “I want to buy the girl. Give me a price.”

  “That’s rich,” he answered and pulled on his chin. “Perhaps too ric
h for a simple soldier of Rome.”

  “You’re boring me. . . .”

  “The rugged palate of a rough man might not appreciate—”

  “Two thousand sestertii.”

  “She’s worth rather more. You saw her. You know what I mean.”

  “Three thousand.”

  Priscus shook his head with a smile and held up his hand. “I’m teasing you, centurion. I’m planning to give her to Longus, one of my men. Not permanently, of course. But he wouldn’t want her forever anyway. And he’s a loyal servant and I’m feeling generous.”

  “Four thousand sestertii. And she’s worth more to me as a virgin.”

  “Perhaps. But there are some men who’d prefer her after she’s had a good stretching. I’ll sell her later in Rome. And the men will bring a good price on the farms. There are no herdsmen better than the Gauls.”

  Rufio stepped toward one of the stable doors. “Stay here,” he said when Priscus tried to follow him.

  “They’re my property.”

  Rufio looked at the soldier. “If he moves, break one of his legs.”

  “I’d be happy to break them both.”

  Rufio went inside. A long central corridor was flanked on each side by a row of stables. He walked along the stone-flagged corridor toward the sound of muffled voices. When the Gauls heard the hobnails of his boots scrape the stone, they became quiet.

  He found them in a stall about halfway down the building. The seven men were tied together, but the girl was fastened separately to a tethering post. The stone floor of the stall was clean but bare.

  He went to the end of the building and got some fresh hay and threw it onto the stall floor.

  “This will make it more comfortable,” he said in Celtic.

  The Gauls seemed bewildered.

  “Have you eaten?”

  “Yes,” one of them answered.

  The girl huddled by the post, her long blonde hair half-covering her face, as if that might somehow shield her.

  Rufio knelt next to her. She trembled like a twig in a winter wind.

  “I won’t harm you.” He drew his dagger and cut the thongs from her swollen wrists.

  She peered at him from behind her veil of hair.