LEGION

by William Altimari

  Rufio felt nothing so crude as animal arousal now. He was stunned by something he had not felt in more years than he could count—he was strangling on a lump in his throat. Decades of erosive guilt had not prepared him for this. He lowered his head and closed his eyes. The sound of a musical voice caused him to look up.

  Flavia was speaking to the others. She seemed to be the natural focus of the group. All had gathered on the grass and were talking in that uniquely animated way that young women do. One of them leaned forward in a conspiratorial fashion and said something in a mock whisper. They all laughed and as they did they looked eagerly to Flavia, as though deferring to her even in laughter. Her head was back and she was laughing with them.

  Rufio turned to Varacinda. His throat was as tight as a fist.

  “They each know how special she is,” Varacinda said. “No one can say why. She simply is.”

  “Yes,” he managed to whisper.

  “Come to the village and speak with her.”

  “Thank you for showing her to me,” he said and turned away.

  “Don’t you see?” she said, hurrying after him. “I’ve shown her to you in this way to show you the glory of what you did. The gods must favor you for giving so beautiful a life—”

  “No,” he said and left her standing behind him. “They’ve marked me as food for Acheron.”

  20 WOE TO THE SOLITARY MAN.

  Roman saying

  ______

  How different is this army from all those that have gone before. One consults the histories and finds mad hordes cutting swaths through virgin lands or else kicking down the walls of dying empires.

  The Roman army is not one of these. This army builds—builds as much as it trains, and far more than it fights. Today I learned the quarrying of stone for road repair. It sounds boring. It was fascinating! These men are startlingly competent craftsman who can cut stone as neatly as a cook cuts cheese. Rufio led the entire century out to the quarry a few miles above the fort. Even the men normally excused from fatigues—the artisans and clerks as well as Valerius and Metellus—were ordered out. I was surprised to hear no complaints, but it may have been fear of Rufio that encouraged this restraint. When we reached the quarry, Rufio removed his weapons and peeled off his tunic. He stood before us near-naked in the hot sun and said he wanted neat stones, not torn tunics. He ordered us to take them off and get to work. Of course, he would never admit that he ordered it so we could also be more comfortable.

  Rufio himself showed me how to quarry stone. He looked for a natural crack and with an iron mallet and chisel he made several holes along it about a foot apart. Then he took a heavy long-handled hammer and drove wooden wedges into the holes. We then doused the wedges with water. They slowly swelled and split the rock like magic. We trimmed the stones and slid them down the rock face toward the ox-carts by a wooden chute earlier soldiers had put in place. While we were doing this, I sneaked a few glances at Rufio. He has a magnificent body, superbly contoured. He is not the biggest man in the legion, but none is more nobly assembled. He glistened in the sun as his muscles rolled smoothly in the heavy labor. His skin seems too small for him and gives his body the appearance of a fierce tightness about to burst its confines. Clear, too, are the relics of his life, for everywhere he is adorned by savage scars. Not one does he have on his back. At no blow had he turned and fled. Every sword strike he had faced as it came.

  When the sun began to die and we finished for the day, I looked myself over. I was filthy, scraped, and bruised. My hands were blistered and my back was stiff and aching. And I felt absolutely wonderful. As I picked up my tunic, I saw Metellus using one of the chisels to carve something into the vertical rock face. I walked across the rocks and saw that it was a huge phallus with an enormous set of bloated testicles. A good luck symbol. When I asked him what sort of good fortune he hoped for, he scowled and said, “The good luck never to come here again.”

  Ah, these indolent officers.

  “What do our spies tell us?” Sabinus asked. “Sit down and give me the details.”

  Crus took a stool and set it in front of the desk. “There are definitely large-scale movements of Germans in the hinterland. The different Suebian tribes—we call them pagi—are moving together. They could be preparing for war.”

  “Carbo believes Priscus was in the pay of the Germans and that they’re planning war.”

  “Priscus? That’s absurd.”

  “He has his reasons for believing it. But never mind that now. Tell me about our sources of information.”

  “The troops who collect the tolls on the Rhenus bridges hear about everything that goes on in the eastern forests. They’ve heard from merchants and from friendly Germans that the Suebi are on the move.”

  “What about spies closer by?”

  “I have two traders in the civil settlement I’m paying for information. They travel across the river and barter with the Germans. They say German passions seem to be boiling over a high flame.”

  “Are these men reliable?”

  “I believe so. One is a former soldier and one is a German.”

  “Tell me more about the Germans themselves.”

  “A crude and brutal people. They’re not a people I’d care to spend an evening with. They—”

  “Spare me the moral commentary. Give me the facts.”

  “Yes, commander. They’re mostly stock raisers, though they do some farming as well. It may be that they hunger for these fertile Gallic fields.”

  “What’s wrong with their own soil?”

  “Nothing, but this land is already cleared and planted. Their technology is very primitive. They make no iron themselves. They’d prefer to take this land rather than have to clear their own. They cannot read and write, and any appeal to moral or spiritual values will be lost on them.”

  “Crus,” Sabinus warned.

  “They have little government,” he went on quickly. “Just a council of leading men—nobles of a sort—and an assembly of warriors. They also have a war chief, but only during wartime or when war is imminent.”

  “And what do we sell them in peacetime?”

  “We don’t sell, we barter. The Germans have no use for money. They see no point in it. They cannot grasp—”

  “All right, what do we barter?”

  “Luxury goods and iron.”

  “And in return we get what?”

  “Cattle and slaves.”

  Sabinus leaned forward and rubbed his eyes with the tips of his fingers. “Well, we should—”

  “But there’s no such thing as peacetime, commander. There are only lulls between wars. Pillaging is their way of life. The greater the booty, the greater the prestige. To the Germans, there’s no merit in restraint. There’s glory only in the savage prosecution of war.”

  Sabinus stood and Crus did likewise. Sabinus massaged the muscles in the back of his neck as he walked around the room. “Then how do we deal with them?”

  “Carbo could tell us how, commander. It’s the wisdom of those who are in a position to know that diplomacy with the Germans is a contradiction in terms.”

  “And what’s your opinion?”

  “If they reach for their spears, we cannot deflect them with words.”

  Sabinus sat on the edge of his desk. “Has anyone asked Adiatorix his views?”

  “I did. He agrees with our spies.” Crus looked uncomfortable. “He was rather hostile to me—over the slave incident, I suppose. And he seems to have befriended that arrogant ass Rufio.”

  “Ah yes, your favorite centurion.”

  “That pompous Adonis. I don’t care how many battles he’s fought. The bloated pustule—I’d like to squeeze him until he pops.”

  “Not an action I’d advise, tribune.”

  “My two spies know him. One of them served with him in another legion years ago. He says Rufio always thought he was superior—as if he were some sort of eagle compared to the rest of us crawling worms.”

  “Perhaps
he is superior, tribune.”

  “Only in arrogance. Someday I’ll drain him like a boil and the legion will be the better for it.”

  “Ah, Crus,” Sabinus said and turned back to his desk to retrieve some papers. “What a world it would be were it not for your charm.”

  The civilian settlement near the fort had grown up haphazardly over the years, and now it spread out in an amorphous fashion northeast of the fort. A military center has many needs, mostly of the flesh, and a town had arisen to sate those cravings. Food shops of various kinds lined the stone-paved streets. Stores selling textiles or metal goods competed with them for space among the jumble of wooden buildings. Taverns and bakeshops were common and often sat adjacent to small inns catering to merchants traveling around Gaul or headed for Suebian lands. And there were brothels, the number of which never seemed to be sufficient to meet the need. Even a few Italian women were to be found here, but most were Gauls. And though they were hardly the dew-dappled flower of Celtic youth, to most bored soldiers they were preferable to solitary release in darkness.

  Diocles explored the town in the late afternoon. He noticed there were as many Romans here as Gauls. Many of them, he had been told, were retired soldiers. Upon leaving the army, they had at last been able to marry their common-law wives, usually local women. Then they had settled down near the fort in the area in which they had served and where they felt more at home than among the alien byways of Rome.

  Diocles came to the corner of a busy street. To his left was a butcher shop selling salted beef and pork, as well as live and fresh-killed poultry. On the corner to his right sat a sizable tavern—a yellow amphora was painted on the wall outside.

  He wandered over. Several crude wooden tables with rough-hewn stools were set up outside the open door. Probus and several other centurions were sitting at one of these and talking and drinking. Diocles could see a small L-shaped counter inside abutting one wall. Wide-mouthed pots of wine and Celtic beer were sunken into the stone-tiled counter, and the tavern keeper used a ladle to draw the drinks. On the wall behind him were several shelves filled with tiny loaves of bread and some sweet cakes. A few tables smaller than those outside filled the rest of the tavern.

  A striking red-haired woman leaned over a balcony and called down to him. Her wide-necked tunic billowed open as she bent over and smiled. He had to admit to himself that there were some things in life, especially those that came in pairs, which were certainly worth hard coin.

  “Some other time,” he said good-naturedly. He went inside and bought a cup of beer and came back out and sat alone at one of the tables. He noticed Ulpius Crus sitting at another table and talking with two men.

  In front of the tavern, children played in the street, as they seemed to do in every street in every town on earth. Women came to the stone fountain to fill their jugs and chase the stray cats that sat on the edge to marvel at human labor.

  A string of stepping stones stretched across the street. In a rainstorm a pedestrian could avoid the water rushing down the street by walking across the high stones. Situated a foot apart, they allowed the passage of the wheels of the occasional cart or military wagon.

  He nursed his beer for a while and then went to the table where Probus sat.

  “Excuse me, centurion,” he said to Probus. “May I speak with you for a moment?”

  “Even the Greeks seek my wisdom,” Probus said to his fellow centurions and they laughed. He stood up and Diocles pointed to a table far away from all the others.

  They sat but Diocles could not find the proper words.

  “What is it?” Probus asked, clearly eager to rejoin his friends.

  “I need your advice. I want you to tell me what’s wrong with Rufio.”

  “I already explained to you what happened.”

  “No. No tales of Spanish treachery or wounds in the side. That’s not what I’m talking about. And you know it.”

  Probus stared at him over his drink.

  “Listen to me,” Diocles said. “Yesterday Rufio went off into the woods while the rest of us were drilling. I saw him go. When he came back, he seemed to be in a daze. Rufio!”

  Probus shrugged.

  “Then later I saw him in his quarters. He hadn’t heard me come in—this is the man who could hear a leaf fall. He was sitting on the edge of his bed. His face looked like it had been struck by lightning.”

  Probus pushed his drink away and stared down at his hands. He rubbed his thumbs back and forth over his thick knuckles. “If I knew, could you give me a reason why I should tell you?”

  Diocles stared off at the children playing in the street. “Rufio has hurt me. He’s laid into me with that vinestick again and again. He’s insulted me and berated me. Sometimes just the sound of his voice infuriates me. Yet when he’s absent from the century for a day I can hardly wait until he returns. When he’s gone, I feel so vulnerable I cannot bear it. It’s as if a shield has been pulled away and I’m standing there naked. Some of the other soldiers—even some veterans—have admitted the same thing.”

  The centurion gazed back at him with an expression deepened with much understanding. “Go on.”

  “I try to stay angry but I cannot. He hits me and abuses me during training and I want to kill him. Then I cannot resist helping him organize the book he’s writing. He smiles at me and it’s like a blessing from Caesar.”

  “He’s had that effect on many people.”

  “Do you remember when you were eight or nine years old and there was some boy a few years older whom you suddenly took an intense liking to? For reasons you couldn’t explain—even now—you found yourself liking this other boy so much that you’d be in ecstasy if he chose you as a friend. . . .”

  Probus remained silent.

  “When you’re a child, these feelings fall away quickly. But when you’re an adult, they adhere like the robe of Nessus. I want to be his friend. I want to help him and I don’t know how.”

  “No one can help Rufio,” he said, and the certainty in his voice chilled Diocles.

  “Tell me why.”

  “Even Jupiter cannot change the past and it’s the past which cuts him. It doesn’t scar him, because the wound has never healed. It just cuts and cuts.”

  “Nothing could be that terrible,” Diocles said, but he realized he sounded very naïve.

  Probus took a deep breath, and when he began to speak, the voices of the children faded in Diocles’ ears. As he focused on Probus, his surroundings receded. Slowly he was transported to a time far removed from the present.

  “It was about twenty years ago and not far from here,” Probus began. “I was very young and hadn’t been in the army long. My centurion sent me as a messenger on a mission to another legion. On the way back I got lost. So they sent out someone to find me—a black-haired young soldier named Quintus Rufio. I guess you could say that everything that happened was because I was stupid enough to get lost. You cannot imagine how many times I’ve tried to rewrite that in my mind.”

  Diocles watched him as he paused to take a drink. He thought he saw the centurion’s hand tremble.

  “After a while Rufio did find me and we rode back toward our legion. What we didn’t know was that while we were out a local rebellion had broken out. Some Roman revenue farmers were bleeding the people white and the Gauls had had enough. They were killing every Roman on two feet. We were riding back near a village downriver from here when a flock of Gauls swooped on us. We had good mounts but the Gauls had us surrounded. There was nowhere to go but straight through the village. They were waiting for us there, too. A handful of Gauls lined up and blocked our way with spears. Even the women were out shooting arrows at us or throwing rocks. We had no choice but to ride straight toward the spearmen. Most of them backed off in the face or our charge, but at least one held his ground. He was braced to run Rufio through, when Rufio scooped up a spear that one of the Gauls had dropped. He let if fly at full gallop and with incredible force. It was an awesome throw. The head
drove straight through the Gaul and nailed him to the wall of a hut while he was still on his feet. He hung there as dead as a deerskin. Suddenly there was this horrible scream and a woman came running toward Rufio. We found out later she was the dead man’s wife. She was unbelievably beautiful and howling with the kind of anguish only a young widow can know. She must have been close to nine months pregnant and she waddled as she ran. She grabbed her dead husband’s spear and lunged at Rufio. She caught his horse in the withers. The terrified animal reared and when it came down its hoofs came down right on this hopeless woman.”

  What could only have been tears glazed Probus’s eyes. They seemed so out of place in this man that they frightened Diocles.

  “You cannot imagine. The woman seemed to explode. Her belly burst open and blood was everywhere.” He stared at Diocles in horror. “And she was still alive! Rufio had fallen off his horse when the animal reared and when he got to his hands and knees he was right beside her on the ground. I jumped down from my horse next to him. You could see the baby half hanging out of the woman’s torn body. The woman was shrieking in agony and the baby was flailing and twitching. Rufio whipped out his dagger and cut a strip of cloth from his tunic. He reached inside the woman and tied off the cord and cut it and pulled the baby out. It was a little girl and she was wailing and covered with blood. The woman was struggling to raise her head. Rufio held the baby toward her and she reached out and managed to touch the infant. It seemed to me that she smiled through her pain, and then she died.”

  Probus’s eyes flashed anger at Diocles for demanding from him this terrible tale.

  But Diocles still could not speak, even to console.

  “And all at once the war had stopped. There wasn’t a sound in the village. They stood around stunned and silent. Rufio got to his feet, and everyone shrank back from him. As if he was some demonic creature spat from the mouth of Hell. A middle-aged couple was standing near us and Rufio stepped toward them and handed the baby to the woman. He found out later they were childless and had long since despaired of having children. He went back a few times with money and goods for them and the baby. But he was posted to a different legion not long after that. As far as I know that was the last he saw of them.” Probus paused to moisten his dry lips. “The day it happened—and for three nights and days after that—I had to stay with Rufio constantly to stop him from throwing himself on his sword.”