But it was only the beginning. She could not be sated. Each intense caress of him was more demanding than the last. Each of her cries louder than before. Every shudder more convulsive as she almost threw his body from her. Like the flame of Vesta, she was a fire that could not be quenched. One could only blissfully submit and be consumed within her.
They lay at rest, warmly wrapped in the soft coils of the carpet. The fire still blazed beside them.
“How did you get a name like Rufio,” Flavia teased and playfully ran her fingers through his silver hair.
He tilted his head forward and kissed her on the bridge of her nose. “I’m told a red-haired Thracian enchantress lurks somewhere in my lineage.”
“I’m sure she was a beauty.”
He took a deep breath as he pulled her to him.
“I won’t escape from you. And you mustn’t escape from me. I command it.”
He knew he could never make that promise.
“There’s a rumor you’re going to retire and return to Rome. I forbid it.”
She nestled her head into the hollow of his shoulder and sighed with pleasure.
He could feel her warm breath along his chest.
“Before tonight, I was half a man. I never knew that. All my skills and talents—all incomplete.”
“You’re more man than any ten men.”
“Now I feel whole.” He shook his head in wonder. “I always thought I was so wise.”
She turned and gazed at him. “The love of a woman makes a wise man wiser.”
He smiled and leaned forward and kissed her on each of her dark eyebrows.
“You do know I love you, don’t you?” he asked. “That your breath is my life?”
“Of course I know. How could I not? I’m a woman and I’m Sequani.” She laughed. “I know all.”
He laughed with her.
She laid her head back on his chest and rested a hand on him. “You must stay with me forever.”
36 THE HIGHEST SEAT DOES NOT HOLD TWO.
Roman saying
______
At Rufio’s command, I took his horse and raced up a nearby ridge. From this vantage I could take in a long section of the road below. I stared in awe at the most extraordinary animal I had ever seen. Four thousand men, fused into a single being and looking like some enormous mythical beast, bored through the Gallic countryside. Their hobnails snapped against the stone, and the pink early morning sun made the road beneath their feet seem to be paved with blocks of coral.
About half of our cavalry and the Second Cohort formed the vanguard. Behind them came soldiers with tools for smoothing out breaks in the road or for hacking through any obstructions that might lie in our path. Then came the surveyors to lay out the camp. The baggage train of Sabinus and the tribunes followed with a small cavalry escort. Just behind this came the train of pack mules hauling the partly dismantled Scorpions. The tribunes followed, surrounded by a bodyguard of specially selected men. The bearers of the silver eagle and of the capricorn of the legion marched directly behind, accompanied by the signifers and their individual standards. The signifers wore wolf skins draped over their helmets and hanging down their backs, and they carried small round shields instead of the big shields of the infantrymen.
The cornicens with their curved bronze horns and the tubicens with their straight trumpets followed the signifers. Then at last came the cohorts. Marching six in a rank, they split the Gallic wilderness, as unstoppable as one of the iron chisels Rufio had driven between those fractures in the stone so long ago.
The mule train of the legion followed the infantry and carried the rolled leather tents and other paraphernalia of a marching camp. Trailing the animals were the servants.
Because we have so few cavalry to form a rear guard, Rufio had placed one cohort between the baggage train and our remaining few horsemen at the rear.
According to Rufio, poor commanders often ride in the middle of the column to feel safe. This was not to Sabinus’s liking. He rode up and down the right edge of the column, encouraging the troops, joking with them, helping the centurions keep the files straight. The men joked back. I have stopped being surprised at the freedom commanders allow their troops in talking back to their officers, even to the point of tossing caustic barbs at the Legate. I am told even Caesar permitted this, so it has a hallowed tradition. I suspect the wisest commanders know that it is like tilting the lid on a boiling pot. It vents excess steam but allows the pot to keep boiling. Crus, too, did the same along the left edge of the column, riding up and down and joking with the men and laughing as they joked back.
At that moment, as I sat on Rufio’s stallion, I could have dropped dead and died as a man fulfilled. That is how proud I felt to belong to this unique assemblage of men.
“Rufio,” Sabinus said from his horse. “What do you make of that?”
Rufio turned and looked back the way they had come. He stood along the road edge, outside the marching column, and could see far to the west. Riders were coming fast. From their height in the saddles and the way they sat their horses, he could see in an instant who they were.
“Sequani.”
A cheer began at the back of the column and gathered force and rippled forward through the Romans.
Adiatorix rode at the head of about a hundred horsemen. He carried a carnyx, a high vertical trumpet with the mouth in the shape of a boar.
“Hail, Chief,” Sabinus said.
“Hail, Sabinus. These are the best. As many as I could gather. We will face the Suebi together.”
“You’re a loyal ally, Chief. Divide your men and send half out to each wing. You ride with my decurions at the front.”
Adiatorix nodded and divided his men as ordered.
Rufio watched the big Gaul take a place near the head of the column.
“No battle will turn on a few dozen horsemen,” Sabinus said to his favorite centurion. “But it’s good to have them here.”
Rufio smiled. The veteran of countless battlefields knew better. The spirit of the Sequani could not be measured that way.
Shortly after midday, the first elements of the legion reached the Sequani village. It seemed as if every inhabitant had turned out to greet them. They rushed the column with food and drink and shouts of welcome. Several villagers recognized Rufio and converged on him with bulging wineskins and baskets of bread. Diocles had rejoined his century and now saw Calpurnia and Kalinda being jostled in the midst of the throng. Rufio pushed aside several men with his vinestick and pulled the woman and her little girl toward him.
“He’s farther back in the column with the other signifers,” Rufio said.
Kalinda grabbed her mother’s hand and tried to drag her along.
“No,” Calpurnia told her daughter. “We must not—”
“It’s all right. Tell them Rufio said to let you pass.”
Calpurnia smiled at him and raced down the column with Kalinda to find Metellus.
“I’d like to see that look in a woman’s eyes someday,” Valerius said and watched her run along.
“You will,” Diocles said. “You’ll grow old and wise and have fat babies on your knees.”
But Valerius looked pensive.
“What is it?” Rufio asked.
“It’s just that I’ve never been in love.”
“You mean you don’t love your centurion?” Rufio said in disbelief.
Valerius burst out laughing. “How can I answer that?”
The legion passed the village and continued marching to a large meadow about a mile beyond it. Crus rode ahead and placed a white flag in the spot where Sabinus’s tent would be pitched. The soldiers would construct the entire camp around that point, near the brook that supplied water to the village. Here the legion would entrench itself, between the Suebi and the Sequani.
Laid out by the surveyors with its own Via Praetoria and Via Principalis, the camp was a smaller copy of the legionary fort. The troops dug, mounded, and fortified with the spiked calt
rops in the same way Rufio’s century had done just before the clash with Racovir.
To Diocles, the hours consumed in the camp’s construction now seemed like nothing. Soon water carriers would be sent out under guard, as well as foraging parties for firewood and fodder.
By late afternoon the camp was nearing completion. Where, shortly before, the tender breast of Gaul had lain bare before the Suebi, now nine cohorts of the Twenty-fifth Legion interposed their defiance. Four thousand men, Italians armed with Spanish swords and Celtic mail, scoffing at the warrior’s ethos, cinching up now for the serious business of war.
38 GOOD LUCK IS THE COMPANION OF COURAGE.
Roman saying
______
“Come with me,” was all Rufio had said, and Diocles immediately obeyed.
Probus rode beside Rufio and Diocles followed, and they left the camp by the eastern clavicular gate. Behind them the noise of hundreds of animals and thousands of men faded away.
The meadow rolled on far beyond the camp, and across this they rode. Rufio and Probus scanned every feature of the countryside. Diocles knew this was a time for him to be silent.
Several hours of daylight remained, and a warm breeze blew across the meadow. Yet Diocles suspected that the niceties of weather were lost on Rufio.
After they had ridden about a mile, Rufio raised a hand and they pulled up. The plain continued indefinitely to the east and off to the north as well. To the south, though, about a quarter of a mile away, it ended. A ridge ran due east and rose about fifty feet, with a sizeable stand of trees at the summit. Rufio stared at it with that burning concentration Neko had described. Diocles was certain that if he held his hands near Rufio’s face, he would feel waves of heat.
Rufio looked to the north. The plain went on for miles.
“What do you think?” Probus asked.
“Not good. Anchoring the right is not enough. The left will die out there.”
Diocles could not take his eyes off Rufio. The intensity of his expression told of the nimble mind racing through countless battles. Rufio stared into the distance, but Diocles knew from that characteristic squint of his that he was really looking inward. All his reading and experience of war were being searched with the ferocious competence that so defined this man.
“Look. ” Probus jutted his chin toward the half moon in the afternoon sky.
“So?” Diocles said.
“We won’t have to worry about the Suebi refusing battle,” Rufio said. “They believe it’s bad luck to fight during the waning moon. They won’t wait. They’ll attack immediately.”
The three men rode on. The terrain became more uneven, but its open expanse still offered no shelter. To the casual wanderer, it was serene. To an outnumbered legion, it gaped like a deathtrap.
Five Roman scouts rode in from the east, and Rufio waved them down.
“Two days away,” the decurion said.
“Slower than I thought,” Rufio answered.
“They’ve brought their families,” the decurion said in disgust, and then he hurried off with his scouts back to the camp.
A string of obscenities burst from Rufio’s mouth before the hoofbeats of the cavalry had died away.
Diocles stared at him in surprise. Rufio was one of the few soldiers he knew who seemed to have little use for profanity, but now he defiled the air to the horizon.
“What is it?” Diocles looked at Probus. “What did he mean about families?”
“Sometimes the Germans bring all their people to cheer them. Wives, children, old men. They think it gives them added power.”
“What does it matter?” Diocles asked, but Probus’s silent glare suddenly made him realize what he had said.
“What’s wrong with you?” Rufio shouted, turning his anger on Diocles. “Are you a savage? I’ve killed a man before the eyes of his wife.”
Diocles was afraid to speak.
“And I slew her, too. Take that to bed with you the rest of your life.”
He jerked away and galloped ahead.
“It’s all right,” Probus said. “Give him a few moments.”
When they caught up with him, his fire had banked.
“Do you hear that?” Rufio was facing northeast.
Probus turned in that direction. “Water?”
“By the gods!” Rufio said and raced on.
They followed him, and there ahead, hidden by a stand of trees, flowed a healthy stream, gurgling with spring rains.
“I told you our maps are useless.” Rufio slid from his horse. “They don’t show this.”
He dropped to his left knee by the stream, his right forearm resting across his thigh.
Diocles watched him stare at the flowing water. Then he saw Rufio’s right hand tighten into a fist.
“We’ve got them!” he whispered harshly and the knuckles of his fist whitened. “We’ve got them all.”
Rufio was standing at the base of the ridge and gazing at the summit as Crus rode up. The Numidian stallion grazed nearby.
Crus dismounted and approached him across the grass.
“We’ll fight here,” Rufio said. “This will be the killing ground.”
The tribune turned toward the north and the expanse of meadow.
“How?”
“This ridge will be our right anchor.” He pulled his dagger and gestured to the hill like a teacher with a pointer. “Along the top, fifty Scorpions just inside the trees. All aimed in front of our right wing. The Germans will hit an iron wall.”
Crus turned again to the left. “But what about there?”
“Follow me.”
He mounted his horse, and Crus rode after him to the stream about a quarter mile northeast of the proposed battlefield.
Rufio dismounted and let the animal go over to the stream for a drink.
“We’ll trench and divert water from this stream”—Rufio pointed to the ground near his feet—“from here to the northern edge of the battleground. Bring it down from here at about a forty-five degree angle. We’ll curl it around our left wing.”
Crus dismounted. “Can we do it?” he asked in amazement.
“Six feet wide, four feet deep—that’ll be enough. When it reaches the left wing of the battlefield, it’ll have sharp-angled sides. And a half-foot trench at the bottom—enough to twist an ankle. In the trench we’ll place lilies. That—”
“Lilies?”
“Bunches of wooden stakes, iron prongs—whatever Hetorix and his men can put together for us quickly. Clustered like flowers. The trench will be too wide for most of the Suebi to jump. They’ll try to wade across. It’ll be like slipping into the jaws of a wolf.”
“But can we dig it in time?”
“We start now. Dig all night with torches and all day tomorrow. The entire battle will turn on this.”
“We need the man here you trust most.” He smiled. “I’ll get Probus.”
“I want you.”
Crus just stared at him.
“You’d never let down your legion. I know that now.”
Crus turned away.
“Are you equal to that responsibility, tribune?”
He looked back at Rufio. “Why do you believe in me?”
“I know men.”
“I’ve treated you badly.”
“Only my enemies have done that. You’ve never been my enemy.”
“But I’ve been a fool.”
“No, you’ve been young. That’s easily cured. You’re a patrician. The future of Rome.”
“But what of you? You are—”
“Just a soldier in decline.”
“You’ll never convince me of that,” he said with a laugh.
Rufio did not respond.
Crus stared at him for a moment, then turned away and walked to the edge of the stream. He pulled his sword out of the way and sat on the bank.
Rufio joined him.
“We’re caught up in the sweep of history,” the centurion said.
“Yes, I know.
”
“And the Twenty-fifth Legion is the pivot.”
“I came out here to advance my career,” Crus said and gazed at the flowing water. “Now I’m staring down the throats of barbarians. The world is never what we think it will be.”
“You’ll make a fine career. You’ll be a senator soon. Maybe even consul someday. And many years from now, when you’re sitting in your villa in the Alban Hills with your grandchildren gathered around, you’ll remember none of that.”
Crus turned and looked at him.
“You’ll remember your days with the Twenty-fifth Legion. Rough men and crude humor and bravery beyond imagination. On a cold winter night at your fireside, you’ll remember a warm spring day in the green of Gaul. How you stood fast before those who would burn down all we cherish.”
“Above all,” Crus said in a low voice, “I’ll remember you.”
“The petty squabbling of politicians—the empty oaths—all will fade. But this”—he pounded the ground beside him—“this will remain. This will mark your life and define it forever.”
“You’ll be there with me. With my grandchildren. I want them to know you.”
“What remains of me will be in a funerary urn in a tomb on the Via Appia. Perhaps you can come to visit.”
“No, no. You must live to be an old man. I order it. Your wisdom cannot be wasted.”
“You can carry a fragment or two of it with you.”
Crus looked off toward the east, toward the unseen army approaching them.
“This is greater than we are, isn’t it?” he said.
“It’s greater than everything. It’s the fate of the world.”
39 THE MATTER IS ON A DOOR HINGE.
Roman saying
______
Cheers greeted Barovistus as he rode among his people. Campfires speckled the rising plain to the horizon, as if the stars had been plucked from the sky and scattered across the land.
Young warriors boasted to each other of how many Romans they would slay. With spears or stolen swords they fought mock battles, then shattered the night with Suebian victory cries. Older fighters entranced them with tales of war from long ago, though they ignored the fact that their foes had been other Germans, not the trained and armored troops now so very near.
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