by Alan Smale
All Marcellinus could do was nod. “Yes, sir.”
“Besides, I have had quite enough of you for one day, and there are other matters I must attend to. In the meantime, I daresay we will have to find quarters for you.”
“We must talk of the Mongol War,” said Imperator Hadrianus III. By his side Praetor Flavius Agrippa smiled, an almost predatory expression.
“By all means,” Marcellinus said.
He was back in the peristylium of Hadrianus’s Praetorium building on a cool and breezy morning. Lucius Flavius Agrippa of the 27th Augustan lolled on a couch wearing his usual unadorned tunic, sagum cloak, leggings, and sandals like any common soldier. He and Marcellinus had been ordered to be civil to each other; thus commanded, Agrippa had immediately begun to behave as if the fights and other acrimony between them had never occurred. While they waited for Sabinus, the two of them had even exchanged some rather stilted small talk about their careers and Asian commands.
Agrippa was in his late twenties and by his speech and demeanor a member of the senatorial class. It turned out that he was a young general of the smart set who had been the Imperator’s right-hand man in planning and executing the campaigns against the Mongol Khan.
Marcellinus had never come across him in the east. While Agrippa had been making his name repelling the Mongol Horde in Kara Khitai, Marcellinus had been a couple of thousand miles away on the other side of the Himalaya. There, having secured the Delhi Sultanates, he had received orders to pack up and prepare for deployment in the far west with a brand-new legion specifically formed and named for the task. Ironically, back then Marcellinus had not had a clear idea of where Nova Hesperia was and at first had thought the Imperator was inexplicably relegating him to Hispania.
“Ah, Sabinus. Good of you to join us.”
Praetor Quintus Decinius Sabinus had arrived in full military dress, his greaves and helmet polished to a shine. The Praetor looked starched, a senior career officer not so different in age from Marcellinus. It was a long time indeed since Marcellinus had talked with such a man.
Presumably Sabinus had walked across from the fortress on the opposite hill occupied by the Third Parthica. He doffed his helmet as he entered the courtyard, of course, and set it on the table, where it glinted accusingly. Marcellinus felt distinctly rumpled by comparison.
He assessed Marcellinus. “Good day, sir.”
“Good day, Praetor Sabinus.”
The Imperator waved his hand. “Agrippa, if you would describe matters on our eastern front.”
Agrippa scratched and sat back. “Very well. To cut a long tale short, the Mongols ran ragged across the southern steppes clear across to Samarkand till three years ago, and there I stopped ’em. Jochi has made his attempts to break out and ride farther west into the Imperium, but we’ve shut him down every time. Must be a tad embarrassing when he has to tell his dad. Don’t worry, Marcellinus: we still hold the Delhis and other sultanates that you fought so hard for, but we’re getting push from the other brothers in the lowlands.”
Marcellinus shook his head, already lost.
“Lord’s sake, take pity on the poor man,” said Sabinus, perching stiffly on one of the other couches. “He’s been trapped out here in the sticks for over half a decade.”
Hadrianus paced, hands behind his back. “Yes, yes. Marcellinus, the Mongol Khan has many sons, and each leads an army. His most important sons are Jochi, Chagatai, Ogodei, and…” Hadrianus thought for a moment. “Tolui. He also has daughters, who serve as administrators and wield considerable power in their own right.”
Marcellinus struggled to remember. “The Mongol Khan must be getting on in years by now.”
“We’ve heard several reported birth dates for Chinggis Khan, Temujinus as was. The most reasonable one makes him sixty-two this year. Early sixties, anyway, but still strong as an ox. Vital enough to rule his sons, and that’s saying something. Still leading armies in the field.”
Fifteen years older than Marcellinus and still leading campaigns. Marcellinus nodded.
“Jochi, his eldest, is the one I have bottled up in Samarkand,” said Agrippa. “At least, that’s how I left him. I don’t doubt they could get around us by heading in a big loop to the north if they felt like it, but it’s a long haul without much plunder on the way. Meanwhile—”
“Meanwhile,” said Hadrianus, “since they couldn’t break out farther west, they headed east.”
Marcellinus nodded. “The Khan already held the Jin Empire clear down to Kaifeng when I left the field. He’d set up one of his sons in the capital?”
“Yes, Ogodei, in Zhongdu,” said Sabinus.
“And so now he has the whole of the Southern Song Empire to go with it?”
“Led the campaign himself,” Hadrianus said. “Chinggis Khan, with Chagatai Khan by his side, and Subutei, his greatest general. Swept down like a dose of salts through one of the mightiest nations of the east. What d’you think of that? Gives you pause, doesn’t it?”
“It certainly does.” If the Mongol Khan had added the Song Empire to his takings, he now controlled territories equivalent in area to the entire Roman Imperium. Marcellinus supposed it might be tactless to point this out.
“And they’ve allied with the Khmers and others clear across to Pagan, which is why they’re knocking on our eastern door there.”
“Bengal?” Marcellinus asked, momentarily chilled.
“Just so,” Sabinus said. “But we’ll hold them back, never fear. It’s a narrow enough strip of land between the Bay of Bengal and the Himalaya to keep the beggars cordoned off.”
“Except that they now own the entire Song navy,” Marcellinus said.
Hadrianus and Sabinus looked at each other. “Not a complete yokel, then,” said Agrippa, and smiled to take the sting out of his words. Marcellinus forced himself to smile back.
“Yes, indeed,” Hadrianus said. “The Song navy.”
“The Mongols swept down the coast,” Sabinus told him. “While you were marching the 33rd into Nova Hesperia, Chinggis Khan was storming along the Yangtze and down through the Song. They besieged Hangzhou for half a year, but once those walls fell to the Mongol trebuchets and the Ningzong Imperial family fled, the rest caved quickly. Quanzhou, Guangzhou. All the great seaports, all the ships, all the shipyards.”
The Song had been a significant maritime nation, plying its trade along the coast as far as Arabia. Marcellinus knew little of ships, but clearly those of the Song were substantial.
They were waiting to see what he would say next. “Well, how exciting for you all.”
“Counting on your fingers, Gaius Marcellinus?” Agrippa asked.
“Counting years.”
Marcellinus had arrived in Nova Hesperia in A.D. 1218, but the plans for his invasion had been put in motion over two years earlier. Plenty of time for the Mongol Khan to have gotten wind of it. Even during wartime the Silk Road was still a two-way street, carrying information as well as spices.
Marcellinus nodded slowly. His suspicions had been correct.
“Yes,” Hadrianus said. “Was Chinggis Khan going to sit quietly while I took the riches of Nova Hesperia? No, he was not. And so Nova Hesperia has become the newest front in the war with the Mongol Khan.”
After a long pause to let this sink in, Marcellinus shook his head. “Well, if there were any riches here in the first place…”
“Oh, there’s gold here,” said Agrippa. “Or silver. Or gems. Or something. We just haven’t found it yet. It’s not possible for a land this vast to have nothing worth taking, even if it’s only the people.”
Marcellinus was momentarily stunned. Hadrianus stepped into the frosty silence. “The first Mongol ships sailed from Hangzhou three years ago. More from Guangzhou a little later. At first we expected they might sail west to attack the Imperium. They did not. We waited. And then our spies brought the word, and our captives, and all said the same. The ships went east, Gaius Marcellinus. And they were huge ships.”
&n
bsp; Marcellinus nodded. “And that is why you brought three legions and excellent cavalry, why you are here in person, Caesar, why you’re consolidating every step, why you’re sending out small expeditionary forces in the south seeking information rather than attacking the People of the Sun for their gold.”
“And that is why I simply do not have time to mess around. I do not wish to share another continent with Chinggis Khan. Cahokia must surrender and feed our legions. It must keep the Iroqua in check and stop them from harassing our supply lines. It must provide us men for our armies. And it must provide us with flight.”
“The Mongols are great horsemen,” Agrippa said. “In truth, their cavalry runs rings around ours. It is only our infantry that keeps us solid. But Cahokia has the air.”
Hadrianus stood crisply, hands behind his back. “We have two choices before us. Cahokia can capitulate, the lands east of the Mizipi will become a Roman province forthwith, and we will continue westward with their support, annexing territory as we go. Or I will march right over the city and lay waste to it with fire and the sword, and the shackled survivors will grow corn and fly their wings for us anyway. Hesperians will become either our warriors or our slaves.”
“Gods,” said Marcellinus, appalled.
“Gaius Marcellinus, your precious Cahokians need us. They just don’t know it yet. What do you suppose will happen when the Mongol Horde sweeps across the plains? Will you hold them back? Will Tahtay? What happens to your darling Mizipian backwater then? And after that, when the Mongols steal the secret of flight and take it home to Asia? Can the Imperium resist a Mongol army of horsemen and birdmen?”
“Maybe. The Cahokians make flight look easy, but it isn’t. The Mongols aren’t going to be able to churn out flying craft and pilots by the hundreds.”
“And you’re quite sure of that?”
Marcellinus was mute.
The Imperator paced. “It has taken me five years and fifteen legions to hold off the Mongols in Europa and Asia—no, no, one-quarter of the Mongols, commanded by Chinggis’s sons Jochi and Ogodei. The new ships of the Mongols are big five-masted freighters that dwarf even our troop carriers. And they whipped up a fleet of them and got all set to sail for the west coast of Nova Hesperia in next to no time. You underestimate the Mongols at your peril.”
“Fifteen legions?” Marcellinus said. “And here you have just three?”
“I have a fourth and a fifth preparing in Tarraco. If I could spare more, I would have brought them. I cannot. If I show weakness in Europa, then Chinggis’s other sons will break out and attack me there.
“These are desperate times, Gaius Marcellinus. The inhabitants of Nova Hesperia are primitive, but the size of the land is on their side…for now. But I need their support. I believe this is something you can achieve for me. So please do so. Deliver me Cahokia and deliver it now.”
Sabinus cleared his throat. “Perhaps it would be even more persuasive if we raised the topic of…fire?”
Hadrianus looked at each of the three Praetors in turn, considering it. Finally he said, “Very well.”
Sabinus nodded. “Unfortunately, as a result of the Mongols’ invasion of the Jin and Song, the sophistication of their warfare is accelerating in leaps and bounds. You are already aware of Song ships and naval power. Perhaps you have also heard of Jin salt?”
“Salt? No.”
“It is an incendiary, an explosive. It comes as a black powder. The Song and Jin empires have used it against each other for a hundred years in their endless duel for territory.”
“Bombs, baskets, and buffalo,” Agrippa said.
Marcellinus shook his head. “Sorry?”
Sabinus ignored Agrippa, which made Marcellinus like him all the more. “First is the thunderclap bomb: Jin salt and smashed porcelain, all wrapped in stiff parchment. Sometimes with lime added to make a fog that will burn the eyes of men and horses. Worse is the thunder crash bomb, similar but encased in iron, which explodes into even more lethal fragments. With these the Song tried to resist Mongol sieges of their cities, but to no avail. Sometimes they launched the exploding salt in baskets, and yes, Lucius, the Song even attached Jin salt bombs to armored oxen, on a long fuse, and then drove the poor animals against their enemies. That, at least, is a trick the Mongols have not yet acquired.”
Marcellinus shook his head, trying to remove the bizarre mental image. “How is Jin salt made? What does it smell like?”
“Saltpeter, charcoal, sulfur. The best charcoal is made from alder or willow, and the best saltpeter from dung heaps and privies—”
The Imperator leaned forward, cutting him off. “It does not smell of privies. It smells bitter. What is it, Gaius Marcellinus?”
“Could it be delivered using an iron tube, perhaps six feet long?”
Suddenly he had their rapt attention. Agrippa swung his legs off the couch. “And where could you have seen such a thing?”
“At the Market of the Mud. The smell was distinctive, and the scorch marks. And it was on sale alongside a complex bow of some considerable—”
The Imperator slapped the table with his palm, making them jump, then leaped to his feet and paced again. “I should just have Calidius Verus flogged and have done with it!”
“You did not purchase them?” Sabinus asked Marcellinus.
“The tube, yes. It is in Cahokia. What is it?”
“A fire lance,” Hadrianus exclaimed. “Damn them!”
Decinius Sabinus gestured in the air, defining a long tube and then gripping his fist at the near end of it. “A large packet of Jin salt at the near end, ignited from a tinderbox. Concentrated flame shoots out the tip as far as ten or fifteen paces for ten minutes or more.” He glanced at Hadrianus. “Our troops fear them quite considerably at close quarters. And they are most effective at breaking up infantry formations.”
“It seems Chinggis Khan has so many that he’s already losing them,” the Imperator said vindictively. “And I have to hear this from you rather than the legion I specifically sent south to look for signs of the Mongol Horde?”
Marcellinus thought Sabinus gave him a small conspiratorial nod, but it was so brief that it might have been his imagination. “It could have arrived at the market from anywhere but probably came with a merchant down a river from the western—”
Hadrianus raised his hand. “And, Gaius Marcellinus, that is why we must also gain the Hesperian Greek fire. So that we can, quite literally, fight fire with fire. With luck, Greek fire from above can trump this Mongol black powder from trebuchets and fire lances on the battlefield.”
“Great Juno,” Marcellinus said, overwhelmed.
Agrippa put his feet back up on the couch. “I do believe our cunning deserter is finally beginning to understand the stakes.”
The Imperator calmed himself and sat. “And so, Marcellinus, you will now tell us everything you know about Hesperian liquid flame.”
—
It wasn’t much. Marcellinus described its composition and oily, gelatinous appearance before being detonated, its methods of delivery, and the gruesome details of its effects. He told them the Cahokians made it in a faraway village for reasons of safety and secrecy but not that this village was somewhere to the south and east of Cahokia.
The last thing he could have borne on his conscience was for the legions to acquire Greek fire and use it against the Mizipians.
As Sintikala had predicted so long ago, it was hard to both march with Roma and dance with Cahokia.
Once he had ground to a halt, shaking his head at the magnitude of what he had learned, the Imperator fixed him with a bleak gaze and said: “Gaius Marcellinus, you will agree to do all in your power to help us against Cahokia and the Mongol Horde or we will declare this meeting adjourned.”
And there it was. The choice was stark. Marcellinus could help Hadrianus bring Cahokia to heel or he could refuse.
If he refused, he was worse than useless to Hadrianus. Marcellinus was under no illusion about what “adjo
urned” meant. He could hardly expect to be kept alive out of kindness.
Besides, the Mongol threat to Nova Hesperia was massive and very real.
“Surely we must tell the Cahokians about the Mongol incursions. If Chinggis Khan has already landed an army on the western coast of Nova Hesperia and is spreading out into the continent, that changes everything. To the Mongols, the vast grasslands of the Hesperian plains will be much like home.”
“Of course not,” Agrippa said. “We simply cannot risk it. What if the Mizipians were to decide to align with the Mongols against us? What if they do not believe us about the Mongols anyway? Telling them of the Khan considerably weakens our position.”
“Agrippa is right.” Hadrianus spoke definitively. “The Mizipians and Haudenosaunee must be convinced of the overwhelming strength of Roma. They cannot know that another enemy of equal stature may face us across the plains. You must surely see that, Gaius Marcellinus.”
Marcellinus found himself nodding. From a Roman perspective, the logic was unassailable. “I do.”
Unfortunately, Cahokia did not take its orders from Marcellinus. Getting Cahokia to submit willingly to Roma was quite simply beyond Marcellinus’s capabilities. Even if he somehow could persuade Tahtay to capitulate and yield Cahokia’s unique military resources, another war chief would rise from within to depose him. The warriors of Cahokia had already murdered one war chief who would not stand up to the Iroqua; what price Tahtay if he did not stand up to Roma?
Marcellinus nodded. “I see the problem. It is not a simple matter. I must think on it.”
“Think quickly, Gaius Marcellinus,” the Imperator said. “Think quickly.”
The sun had set two hours earlier, but the soldiers of the 27th Augustan still thronged the streets of the fortress. Even in their casual dress—belted tunics and sagum cloaks against the evening breeze, leggings and caligae sandals—each man was smartly turned out and walked with his head held high. From their features and accents Marcellinus guessed these troops had been recruited from Italia, Macedonia, and Syria. However, it was in their demeanor that they were a different breed from the soldiers of the Legio XXXIII Hesperia. To a man the 27th were clear-eyed and respectful, well organized and efficient. Lucius Agrippa might be arrogant and sarcastic, but he was obviously doing things right when it came to instilling dignitas and discipline in his legionaries.
