Eagle in Exile

by Alan Smale

“Can you persuade them to see reason?”

  Agrippa laughed shortly. “Of course he cannot. They are too proud to realize they are already beaten.”

  “Gaius Marcellinus?”

  “Truly, they will die first. Caesar, I beg you—”

  The Imperator’s hand was already raised. Marcellinus backed off. “I will talk to them.”

  Hadrianus nodded. “Go. Speak to your barbarian friends. Persuade Cahokia to surrender and you have saved your worthless life. Fail and I will put your head on a pole myself.” The Imperator turned to Agrippa. “In the meantime, perhaps we might send for some lunch.”

  —

  Leaning heavily on his stick, Marcellinus limped out to meet the Cahokian delegation.

  The five Cahokians stood exactly where he had left them. Around the walls the Praetorians, too, stood in the same places. The Praetorian centurion had returned from taking the Aquila to safety and now stood ramrod-straight just to the right of the door, the vine stick of his office clamped under his arm.

  Tahtay looked past Marcellinus for the Imperator. His face clouded with irritation once he saw that Marcellinus was coming alone.

  For the first time Marcellinus realized how incongruous the Cahokians looked with their Hesperian tunics and tattoos in a Roman Praetorium while soldiers in gleaming steel lined the walls, ignoring them.

  Tahtay frowned. “Hadrianus has sent you to persuade us to surrender?”

  “Yes,” Marcellinus said.

  “Is he bluffing?”

  “No.”

  “Gaius, are you all right?” Kimimela asked.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “You were in Ocatan when…?”

  He nodded.

  Kimimela glanced at Tahtay, who still stood tight-lipped and angry. “And what of Hurit?”

  Marcellinus felt the pain of it almost as another wound. “Hurit is dead.”

  “You saw it?”

  “Yes. She was north of the walls, leading townsfolk to safety. She died bravely and well, defending Ocatani from Roman cavalry.”

  Tahtay looked desolate, but at the same time his fists closed. Kimimela glanced sideways at him in alarm.

  “Anapetu is dead, too. She died in my arms.”

  “Merda,” Kimimela muttered, and, suddenly bereft, Kanuna turned away and squatted down on the floor, hands up to his face.

  “Hurit dead, Anapetu dead, but you alive,” Tahtay said venomously. “Here in the heart of Roma, the Wanageeska lives on. Am I surprised? I am not. Why would that surprise any of us?”

  “I’m sorry about Hurit, Tahtay. She—”

  Tahtay cut him off with an abrupt and abusive hand-talk gesture. “Shut up! Go back to your Romans and die with them when we fall upon them and drown them in their own blood!”

  Kimimela was still staring at Marcellinus. “Tahtay, Gaius is doing his best.”

  Tahtay snorted. “You still defend him?”

  Kanuna looked up. “Wanageeska, if we give your Romans all they want, we might as well be dead.”

  For the first time Wahchintonka spoke. “This is simple. We die with honor or we die without.”

  Sintikala had been staring at Marcellinus since he had reentered the room. Now she said, “There is something you are not telling us. What is it?”

  Marcellinus dropped his gaze. “I cannot say.”

  Her tone became brittle. “You have sworn another oath?”

  Marcellinus shook his head.

  There was no more he could say. Someone would be watching, listening. Hadrianus had never asked Marcellinus for his assistance in translating, and the Imperator must surely have other word slaves, collaborators from the native population.

  Indeed, Marcellinus had seen Cherokee and other Hesperians walking the streets of the fortress. One of those men surely would be eavesdropping from behind the Praetorium walls.

  Besides, it would take too long to explain the dark, creeping suspicions that lurked in Marcellinus’s mind.

  “And now you are Roman again,” Wahchintonka said. “I always knew it, and many others knew it, too.”

  Marcellinus shook his head and looked at Tahtay. “War chief, might you consider some concessions? Corn is what the Imperator desires most to ease the strain on his supply chain. If you were to offer—”

  Tahtay met his eyes. “Praetor, I will not surrender to Roma, nor will I starve my own people.”

  Sintikala nodded gravely. “If you cannot persuade your Roman chieftain to make trade, we must fight. Cahokia will not bow to Roma. Tahtay has spoken.”

  “I understand,” said Marcellinus. “But—”

  “Be careful,” Kimimela said suddenly. “Be safe, Gaius. I do not want to lose another…friend.”

  She nodded very slightly. Marcellinus stared, helpless, and then returned the nod.

  It would take more than care to keep Marcellinus alive now. Once the Cahokian delegation left, Marcellinus would be of no further use to the Romans. Clearly, Kimimela did not realize this.

  Tahtay raised his eyes to the ceiling of the Praetorium, obviously swallowing his disgust, and then turned and strode toward the door. He looked up at the Praetorians and in Latin said, “Open it, please.”

  “Tahtay…” Marcellinus took a step forward. “Stay. Talk again with the Imperator. Consider—”

  “No. We will go. If these men will allow it.”

  Sintikala looked at the Praetorians and at Marcellinus. “Let us go, Gaius,” she said softly.

  Their eyes met. For an instant he saw the sorrow in her heart. Kimimela might not understand, but Sisika certainly did. In the moment of an eye blink she was saying good-bye.

  The Praetorian centurion looked stolidly at Marcellinus, who eventually turned with reluctance and said, “Officer, what are your orders? Did the Imperator instruct you to detain the Cahokians?”

  The centurion came to attention. “The redskins are here under a flag of truce. They are free to go if they want to. And if you say they can. Sir.”

  “Then open the door, centurion. Give them safe conduct to the gate. Let them leave in peace.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Come with us, Gaius,” Kimimela pleaded.

  “No,” the centurion said in Cahokian. “Wanageeska stay here.”

  Everyone’s head turned. Kimimela’s jaw dropped.

  “You speak Cahokian?” Kanuna asked.

  Tahtay nodded as if he’d known all along. The officer grinned nastily and said in Cahokian: “Go now. Hurry. Before Imperator changes his mind.”

  At his nod, the Praetorians swung open the heavy wooden door.

  They walked away from Marcellinus then, Tahtay and Kimimela, Sintikala, Kanuna, and Wahchintonka, out of the Praetorium building and into the streets of the Roman fortress with their Praetorian escort, and only Kimimela looked back.

  —

  Four Praetorians took Marcellinus back to the peristylium area. The Imperator looked up from his plate. “And?”

  “The Cahokians will not capitulate to Roma. They will not gift their corn and leave their own people to starve. They have left.”

  Agrippa grinned tightly and said to the Imperator, “As I predicted, he has proved to be quite useless, and so we will have war.”

  Marcellinus nodded. “I feel fortunate I will not live to see it. I did not expect to change their minds, Caesar. Their resolve was clear. I just wanted to talk with them one last time before Lucius Agrippa demands that you put a blade to my throat.”

  Hadrianus eyed him. “Defiance in the face of death, Gaius Marcellinus?”

  “Yes, Caesar. If I may?” Marcellinus hobbled to the table and, without being invited, poured himself some wine and water.

  The Imperator shook his head. “Guards, seize him. Lucius?”

  Two Praetorians stepped forward to seize Marcellinus’s arms. Knocked from his grasp, the beaker spun across the wooden floor, spraying wine.

  Marcellinus would not be chained up and taken back to Roma or made an example of in fron
t of the massed legions. All he warranted was a quick death in the lunchroom.

  Marcellinus gritted his teeth. Even with his time so short, he could not appear to be begging for his life. He must show calm, confidence. Dignitas.

  Lucius Agrippa stood. “Put the traitor on his knees and hand me a sword.”

  Marcellinus rocked back as best he could as two Praetorians thrust him down, but still the impact of his kneecaps against the floor sent twin stabs of pain up his legs and into his pelvis.

  The third Praetorian stepped forward, gladius in hand, its point reversed. Agrippa seized the hilt, looked at the blade, slashed it experimentally in the air.

  Marcellinus said: “You will at least be gratified to learn that I did not tell the Cahokians my suspicions about the real reason you are in Nova Hesperia.”

  “By all the gods, traitor, accept your death in silence,” Agrippa said.

  Marcellinus laughed shortly. “I do not take orders from you, Lucius Agrippa. Although I might have served Roma better had you not both kept me in the dark.”

  Agrippa raised the gladius.

  But Hadrianus raised his hand. “Hold.”

  “It scarcely matters what a traitor thinks he knows,” Agrippa protested.

  Ignoring the blade over his head, Marcellinus held the Imperator’s gaze. “I have made many mistakes in my life. The worst were when I killed men who might have been of use to me. Even the Hesperians don’t make that error. How goes the war in Asia, Caesar?”

  Hadrianus looked simultaneously irritated and intrigued, Agrippa merely exasperated.

  Marcellinus continued. “When I discovered you had come to Nova Hesperia in person, I was convinced you must have defeated the Mongol Khan, that he was no longer a threat. How else would you have the leisure to lead an invasion on the other side of the world? Now I think otherwise. And although your original entry into the continent was slow and methodical, now you appear to be in quite a hurry.”

  “The Imperator only arrived in country a few weeks ago,” Agrippa said dourly. “His legions were preparing the way for him. Now he leads us into battle.”

  Hadrianus sat forward. “Go on. Please step back, Lucius, I would not want you to slip and accidentally slay Gaius Marcellinus before he has run out of ways to entertain me.”

  “Yes, Caesar.” The young Praetor lowered the gladius, turned on his heel, and went to the table, sloshing wine into a wooden beaker with bad grace.

  Once again Marcellinus wished he was not on his knees. It was hard to radiate confidence in such a submissive, painful position. He spoke bluntly. “Caesar, you have come to Nova Hesperia with two of the best legions in the world. You originally sent me here for gold, yet you seem to have little interest in it; the People of the Sun have it in abundance in the south, yet your thrust is westward. My mention of having knowledge of the plains intrigued you both, and after grain your principal interest in Cahokia is its air power.”

  “Oh, I have a considerable interest in gold, Gaius Marcellinus. This adventure is far from cheap.”

  Marcellinus inclined his head. “Just so, sir. But you are clearly playing a much bigger game than that.”

  “Haven’t you heard?” Hadrianus said lightly. “I would leave as my legacy a world where the sun never sets on the Roman Imperium. It is my most oft-quoted epigram.”

  “Caesar, I respectfully request a private audience. And to get up off my knees.”

  Agrippa drained his cup. “Caesar—”

  The Imperator gestured for silence. Marcellinus waited. Eventually Hadrianus said: “Are you merely stalling, or do you propose to be of some service to Roma at last?”

  “Caesar, if my suspicions are correct, I do believe I can help you.”

  Hadrianus smiled. “At last.”

  Agrippa looked from one man to the other. “I should go and meet with my tribunes soon, Caesar, if you will permit it.”

  The Imperator sat back and began eating again. “By all means, Lucius Agrippa, by all means. And Marcellinus, now you may drink. Your throat seems a little parched.”

  —

  “I take it you realize that I keep you alive largely to annoy Lucius Agrippa?”

  With this Imperator, that might be flippant or it might not. Standing at the table, still trying to rub the feeling back into his legs, Marcellinus nodded casually. “Then I shall be sure to keep irritating him. It should be easy enough. May I…be seated?”

  “By all means,” said Hadrianus. “I grow tired of your head being higher than mine.”

  Marcellinus blinked and sat hurriedly. Hadrianus laughed uproariously, rocking back on his couch and breaking the tension of the moment. “That was a joke, Gaius Marcellinus. From my youth in Aegyptus. I’m an Imperator, not an old-time pharaoh.”

  “Of course,” said Marcellinus. He sipped at his beaker of wine and water and waited.

  Still chewing, the Imperator studied him anew. Marcellinus endured it patiently. After all, he had trained for this. The scrutiny of the master of the Roman world was not more terrifying than having Sintikala stare through his eyes and read his soul.

  “Very well,” Hadrianus said at last. “Why, pray, am I in Nova Hesperia? I am quite dying to know.”

  Marcellinus nodded. “You did not come around the world merely to acquire territory. That, in Agrippa’s words, would be preposterous. You have already stated that you are too pragmatic a man to be driven by revenge at the loss of a single legion, so you are not here to claim the glory of rubbing the Cahokians’ noses in their own defeat. An ‘abject wilderness’ hardly requires your personal attention.”

  Hadrianus looked at him coolly. “I believe that is for me to decide. And I believe you may have forgotten whom you are addressing.”

  “Perhaps,” Marcellinus said. “If so, Caesar, I apologize. May I continue?”

  Hadrianus gestured.

  “So, if not for territory, then what? You did not bring legions for annexation. You brought legions for combat, elite cavalry as well as infantry. Thus, here in Nova Hesperia there must be an opponent worthy of them.” Marcellinus slowed to choose his words carefully. “I confess that I do not know how such a thing could have happened. I have been out of the world for many years. They must have made great strides or acquired great allies. But somehow…”

  “Yes?”

  “Somehow your greatest enemy is here in Nova Hesperia. And so you have come to face him. And that is why you need Cahokian corn and Cahokian air power and why, if possible, you would seek to add Cahokian auxiliaries to your already extensive legionary force.”

  The Imperator looked at him thoughtfully and then appeared to make up his mind. “Gaius Marcellinus?”

  “Yes?”

  “We clearly approach the moment when we must speak of things your Cahokian friends have no knowledge of. Obviously, you have been in a difficult position these past years. Trying to do your duty to Roma the best you can without being cooked and eaten by these savages.”

  “The Cahokians are not cannibals,” said Marcellinus, taken aback.

  “Some tribes on this continent most assuredly are. No matter. I have an Imperium to run and a war to win, and I have given up the comforts of Roma to be here in this muddy field talking to you, so you may be sure that this is of the utmost importance.”

  “Very well,” Marcellinus said.

  “And so…I need to know where you stand.”

  “I stand before my Imperator,” Marcellinus said. “I am a Roman, and I can be nothing else. However, I believe—”

  “Yes, yes. Stop there. So what if I were to confide in you a great strategic secret and command you to never share it with your barbarian friends, in the unlikely event that you were ever again permitted to speak with them? If you were to give me your word, could I trust you to keep it?”

  Marcellinus’s mind whirled. He had not dared to imagine that there might come a situation in which he could speak to Tahtay and the others again.

  “The oath you would make to me to kee
p these matters confidential would override any other oaths you may have taken. Especially recently.”

  This Imperator was a very shrewd man.

  “I will answer your last question first,” Marcellinus said. “If I swear an oath, I keep it absolutely.”

  “Once you swore an oath to serve Roma.”

  Marcellinus did not even blink. “And serve Roma I have.”

  “So such an oath would not be hard for you? Then do you wish to swear it?” Hadrianus’s lips twitched. “You claim to have served the Imperium your whole life. This should be an easy question.”

  Marcellinus took a deep breath. “It is. I will swear the oath.”

  The Imperator stared at him intently. “And why?”

  “Because I need to know what is going on.”

  To be taken into the Imperator’s confidence was far more than Marcellinus could have hoped. It surely could only be in Cahokia’s interest as well as Roma’s.

  If he was to be the master of privileged information that he could not tell the Cahokians, that was the price he would have to pay.

  “Then so swear and shake my hand.”

  Marcellinus got to his feet and looked around the room. Still he was alone with the Imperator Hadrianus III and was about to enter into a compact that might pull him away from Sintikala, Kimimela, Tahtay.

  Was he betraying them? He did not know yet.

  “I swear that any…strategic information you may entrust to me, I will not divulge to any other person, unless and until you give me leave to do so.”

  “That I or any of my generals may entrust to you,” Hadrianus corrected him.

  “Very well. I will share no information you or your Praetors may reveal to me.”

  The Imperator reached out and grasped his hand.

  Suddenly the voice echoing in his mind was Sintikala’s, from their conversation on the Oyo after returning from powwow: And you still believe you can march with Roma and dance with Cahokia?

  Marcellinus had answered Yes. And now his confident declaration was about to be put to the test. He braced himself, ready for the ground to open and swallow him.

  “Very good,” Hadrianus said. “And so we will talk again tomorrow.”

  “What?”

  “Tomorrow, you and I and Agrippa, with Decinius Sabinus of the Legio III Parthica. I require Sabinus in this conversation, and he is currently out—” The Imperator waved his hand. “—marching his men around. I think you may find Sabinus a useful foil for Agrippa, and I will be curious to hear his opinion of you.”