Roma Eterna

by Robert Silverberg

  The hour was still short of noon when they reached the city. Marcus Junianus had not exaggerated its splendor. If anything he had underestimated its grandeur, not having the command of language that would allow him to describe the place in all its majesty. Drusus had grown up in Urbs Roma, and that was his standard of greatness in a city, eternal Roma, than which there was no city greater, not even, so he had heard, Constantinopolis of the East. But this city seemed just as imposing as Roma, in its very different way. And, he realized, it might not even be the capital city of these people. Once more Drusus began to wonder just how simple the conquest of this New World was going to be.

  He was in a plaza of titanic size. It was bordered on each side by vast stone buildings, some rectangular, some pyramidal, all of them alien in style but undeniably grand. There was something strange about them, and after a moment he realized what it was: there were no arches anywhere. These people did not seem to make use of the arch in their construction. And yet their buildings were very large, very solid-looking. Their façades were elaborately carved with geometric designs and painted in brilliant colors. Long rows of stone columns stood before them, engraved with savage, barbaric figures that looked like warriors in full regalia, no two alike. The columns too were painted: red, blue, green, yellow, brown. In the very center of the plaza was a stone altar with the statue of a double-headed tiger on it; to each side of it were curious figures of a reclining man with his knees drawn up and his head turned to one side. Some god, no doubt, for each figure’s upturned belly bore a flat stone disk that was covered with offerings of fruit and grain.

  Throngs of people were everywhere about, just as Marcus had said, commoners in their skimpy tunics, nobles in their flamboyant headdresses and robes, all of them on foot, as though neither the cart nor the litter was known here. Nor was there a single horse in sight. Whatever had to be carried was being carried by men, even the heaviest of burdens. The creatures must not be found in this New World, Drusus thought.

  Nobody seemed to take notice of Drusus as he passed among them.

  His guardians marched him to the flat-topped pyramid on the far side of the plaza and up an interminable stone staircase to the colonnaded shrine at the top.

  Olaus the Norseman was waiting for him there, enthroned in regal majesty with the scepter of green stone in his hand. Two richly costumed natives, high priests, perhaps, stood beside him. He rose as Drusus appeared and extended the scepter toward him in a gesture of the greatest solemnity.

  He was so startling a sight that Drusus felt a sudden momentary weakness of his knees. Not even the Emperor of Roma, the Augustus Saturninus Caesar Imperator himself, had ever stirred any such awe in him. Saturninus, with whom Drusus had had personal audience on more than one occasion, was a tall, commanding-looking figure, majestic, unmistakably royal. For all that, though, you knew he was only a man in a purple robe. But this Olaus, this Norse king of Yucatan, seemed like—what?—a god?—a demon? Something prodigious and frightening, a fantastic, almost unreal being.

  His costume itself was terrifying: the tiger pelt around his waist, the necklace and pendant of bear’s teeth and massive green stones lying over his bare chest, the long golden armlets, the heavy earrings, the intricate crown of gaudy feathers and blazing gems. But this outlandish garb, nightmarish though it was, formed only a part of the demonic effect. The man himself provided the rest. Olaus was as tall as anyone Drusus ever had seen, better than half a head taller than Drusus himself, and Drusus was a tall man. His body was a massive column, broad through the shoulders, deep through the chest. And his face—

  Oh, that face! Square-jawed, with a great outthrust chin, and dark blazing eyes set wide apart in deep, brooding sockets, and a ferocious snarling maw of a mouth. Though most of his countrymen were blond and ruddy, Olaus’s hair was black, a wild mane above and a dense, bristling beard covering his cheeks and much of his throat. It was the face of a beast, a beast in human form, cruel, implacable, remorseless, enduring. But the intelligence of a man shone out of those eyes.

  Marcus’s description had not even begun to prepare him for this man. Drusus wondered if he was expected to salute him by some sort of abasement, kneeling, genuflecting, something like that. No matter: he would not do it. But it seemed almost to be the appropriate thing to do before a man of this sort.

  Olaus came forward until he was disturbingly close and said, in bad but comprehensible Latin, “You are the general? What is your name? Your rank?”

  “Titus Livius Drusus is my name, son of the Senator Lucius Livius Drusus. I hold the appointment of legionary legate by the hand of Saturninus Augustus.”

  The Norseman made a low rumbling sound, a kind of bland growl, as though to indicate that he had heard, but was not impressed. “I am Olaus the Dane, who has become king of this land.” Indicating the man on his left, a scowling, hawk-nosed individual dressed nearly as richly as he was himself, the Norseman said, “He is Na Poot Uuc, the priest of the god Chac-Mool. This other is Hunac Ceel Cauich, who is the master of the holy fire.”

  Drusus acknowledged them with nods. Na Poot Uuc, he thought. Hunac Ceel Cauich. The god Chac-Mool. These are not names. These are mere noises.

  At another signal from the Norseman, the priest of Chac-Mool produced a bowl of that polished green stone that they seemed to admire so much here, and the master of the holy fire filled it with the same sweet liquor that Marcus had told him of receiving. Drusus sipped it cautiously. It was both sweet and spicy at the same time, and he suspected that it would turn his head if he had very much of it. A few politic sips and he looked up, as though sated. The priest of Chac-Mool indicated that he should drink more. Drusus pretended to do so, and handed the bowl back.

  Now the Norseman returned to his throne. He beckoned for some of the honey-wine himself, drank a bowlful of it at a single draught, and, transfixing Drusus with those fiery, fearsome eyes of his, launched abruptly into a rambling tale of his adventures in the New World. The story was difficult to follow, for Olaus’s command of Latin had probably never been strong to begin with, and plainly he had not spoken it at all for many years. His grammar was largely guesswork and his sentences were liberally interspersed with phrases from his own thick-sounding northern tongue and, for all Drusus knew, the local lingo as well. But it was possible for Drusus to piece together at least the gist of the story.

  Which was that Olaus, after Haraldus and his friends had left him here in Yucatan and sailed off toward Europa to bring the news of the New World to the Emperor, had very quickly established himself as a man of consequence and power among the people of this place, whom he referred to as the Maia. Whether that was their own name for themselves or some invention of Olaus’s, Drusus could not tell. He doubted that the word had any relationship to the Roman month of the same name. Nor did he get any clear notion of what had become of the other Norsemen who had stayed behind in the New World with Olaus, and he was shrewd enough not to ask: he knew well enough what a brawling, murderous bunch this race was. Put seven of them in a room and there will be four left alive by morning, and one of those will set fire to the building and leave the other three to burn as he slips away. Surely Olaus’s companions all were dead by now.

  Olaus, though, through his size and strength and unshakable self-assurance, had managed to make himself first the war leader of these people, and then their king, and, by now, virtually their god. It had all happened because a neighboring city, not long after Olaus’s arrival, had chosen to make war against this one. There was no sovereign authority in this land, Drusus gathered: each city was independent, though sometimes they allied themselves in loose confederacies against their enemies. These Maia all were fierce fighters; but when war broke out, Olaus trained the warriors of this city where he was living in military methods of a kind they had never imagined, a combination of Roman discipline and Norse brutality. Under his leadership they became invincible. City after city fell to Olaus’s armies. For the first time in Maian history a kind of empire was
formed here in Yucatan.

  It seemed to Drusus that Olaus claimed also to have made contact with the other kingdoms of the New World, the one to the west in Mexico and the one to the south that was called Peru. Had he gone to those distant places himself, or simply sent envoys? Hard to tell: the narrative swept along too quickly, and the Norseman’s way of speaking was too muddled for Drusus to be certain of what he was saying. But it did appear that the peoples of all these lands had been made aware of the white-skinned, black-bearded stranger from afar who had brought the warring cities of Yucatan together in an empire.

  It was the troops of that empire that met the three legions of Saturninus’s first expedition, and wiped them out with ease.

  The Maian armies had used the knowledge of Roman methods of warfare that Olaus had instilled in them to defend themselves against the legions’ attack. And when they made their own response, it was to strike from ambush in a way that Roman military techniques, magnificently effective though they had proven everywhere else, were entirely unsuited to handle.

  “And so they all perished,” Olaus concluded, “except for a few that I allowed to escape to tell the tale. The same will happen to you and your troops. Pack up now, Roman. Go home, while you still can.”

  Those eyes, those frightful eyes, were bright with contempt.

  “Save yourselves,” Olaus said. “Go.”

  “Impossible,” said Drusus. “We are Romans.”

  “Then it will be war. And you will be destroyed.”

  “I serve the Emperor Saturninus. He has laid claim to these lands.”

  Olaus let out a diabolical guffaw. “Let your Emperor claim the moon, my friend! He’ll have an easier time of conquering it, I promise you. This land is mine.”

  “Yours?”

  “Mine. Earned by my sweat and, yes, my blood. I am the master here. I am king, and I am their god, even. They look upon me as Odin and Thor and Frey taken all together.” And then, seeing Drusus’s uncomprehending look: “Jupiter and Mars and Apollo, I suppose you would say. They are all the same, these gods. I am Olaus. I reign here. Take your army and leave.” He spat. “Romans!”

  Lucius Aemilius Capito said, “What kind of an army do they have, then?”

  “I saw no army. I saw a city, peasants, stonemasons, weavers, goldsmiths, priests, nobles,” Drusus said. “And the Dane.”

  “The Dane, yes. A wild man, a barbarian. We’ll bring his pelt home and nail it up on a post in front of the Capitol the way one would nail up the pelt of a beast. But where is their army, do you think? You saw no barracks? You saw no drilling grounds?”

  “I was in the heart of a busy city,” Drusus told the Consul. “I saw temples and palaces, and what I think were shops. In Roma, does one see any barracks in the middle of the Forum?”

  “They are only naked savages who fight with bows and javelins,” said Capito. “They don’t even have a cavalry, it seems. Or crossbows, or catapults. We’ll wipe them out in three days.”

  “Yes. Perhaps we will.”

  Drusus saw nothing to gain by arguing the point. The older man bore the responsibility for conducting this invasion; he himself was only an auxiliary commander. And the armies of Roma had been marching forth upon the world for thirteen hundred years, now, without encountering a rival who could stand against them. Hannibal and his Carthaginians, the furious Gallic warriors, the wild Britons, the Goths, the Huns, the Vandals, the Persians, the bothersome Teutons—each had stepped forward to challenge Roma and each had been smashed in turn.

  Yes, there had been defeats along the way. Hannibal had made a great nuisance of himself, coming down out of the mountains with those elephants and causing all kinds of problems in the provinces. Varus had lost those three legions in the Teutonic woods. The invasion force under Valerius Gargilius Martius had been utterly destroyed right here in Yucatan only a little more than five years ago. But one had to expect to lose the occasional battle. In the long run, mastery of the world was Roma’s destiny. How had Virgil said it? “To Romans I set no boundary in space and time.”

  Virgil hadn’t looked into the eyes of Olaus the Dane, though, and neither had the Consul Lucius Aemilius Capito. Drusus, who had, found himself wondering how the seven legions of the second expedition would actually fare against the forces of the bearded white god of the Maia. Seven legions: what was that, forty thousand men? Against an unknown number of Maian warriors, millions of them, perhaps, fighting on their home grounds in defense of their farms, their wives, their gods. Romans had fought against such odds before and won, Drusus reflected. But not this far from home, and not against Olaus the Dane.

  Capito’s plans involved an immediate assault on the nearby city. The Roman catapults and battering rams would easily shatter its walls, which did not look nearly so strong as the walls of Roman cities. That was odd, that these people would not surround their cities with sturdy walls, when there were enemies on every side. But the enemies must not understand the use of the catapult and the ram.

  Once the walls were breached the cavalry would go plunging through the plaza to strike terror in the breasts of the citizenry, who had never seen horses before and would think of them as monsters of some sort. And then an infantry assault from all sides: sack the temples, slaughter the priests, above all capture and slay Olaus the Dane. No business about imprisoning him and bringing him back in triumph to Roma, Capito said: no, find him, kill him, decapitate the empire he had built among these Maia with a single stroke. Once he was gone, the whole political structure would dissolve. The league of cities would fall apart, and the Romans could deal with them one at a time. All military discipline among these people would dissolve, too, without Olaus, and they would become feckless savages again, fighting in their futile helter-skelter way against the formidably disciplined troops of the Roman legions.

  The dark fate of the first wave of the invasion indicated nothing that the second wave needed to take into account. Gargilius Martius hadn’t understood what sort of general he was facing in Olaus. Capito did, thanks to Drusus; and by making Olaus his prime target he would cut off the source of his enemy’s power in the earliest days of the campaign. So he declared: and who was Titus Livius Drusus, only twenty-three years old and nothing more than an auxiliary commander, to say that things would not happen that way?

  Intensive preparations for battle began at once in all three Roman camps. The siege machinery was hauled into position at the edge of the forest, and work began on cutting paths through the trees for them. The cavalrymen got their steeds ready for battle. The centurions drilled and redrilled the troops of the infantry. Scouts crept out under cover of night to probe the Maian city’s walls for their weakest points.

  It was hard work, getting everything ready in this terrible tropical heat, that clung to you like a damp woolen blanket. The stinging insects were unrelenting in their onslaught, night and day, not just mosquitoes and ants, but scorpions also, and other things to which the Romans could give no names. Serpents now were seen in the camps, quick, slender green ones with fiery yellow eyes; a good many men were bitten, and half a dozen died. But still the work went on. There were traditions of many centuries’ standing to uphold here. Julius Caesar himself was looking down on them, and the invincible Marcus Aurelius, and great Augustus, the founder of the Empire. Neither scorpions nor serpents could slow the advance of the Roman legions, and certainly not little humming mosquitoes.

  Early in the afternoon on the day before the attack was scheduled to begin the clouds suddenly thickened and the sky grew black. The wind, which had been strong all day, now became something extraordinary, furnace-hot, roaring down upon them out of the east, bringing with it such lightning and thunder that it seemed the world was splitting apart, and then, immediately afterward, the torrential rains of a raging storm, a storm such as no man of Roma had ever seen or heard of before, that threatened to scoop them up as though in the palm of a giant’s hand and hurl them far inland.

  The tents went almost immediatel
y, one after another ripping free of its pegs and whisking away. Drusus, taking refuge with his men under the wagons, watched in amazement as the first row of trees along the beach bent backward under the force of the gale so that their crowns almost touched the ground, and then began to topple as their roots lost their grip. Some did a crazy upside-down dance before they fell. The wagons themselves were shunted about, rising and tipping and crashing down again. The horses set up a weird screaming sound of terror. Someone cried out that the ships were capsizing, and, indeed, many of them had, Drusus saw, knocked over as though by a titan’s hand. And then a towering wave came up out of the sea and crashed with devastating strength against the western wall of the palisade, sweeping it away.

  The power of the storm seemed almost supernatural. Was Olaus the Dane in league with the gods of this land? It was as though he did not deign to expend his warriors against the invaders, but had sent this terrible tempest instead.

  Nor was there any way to hide from it. All they could do was to lie cowering in the midday darkness, pinned down along this narrow strip of beach, while the whirlwinds screamed above them. Lightning cut across the sky like the flash of mighty swords. The boom of thunder mingled with the horrifying wail of the rending winds.

  After some hours the rain seemed to slacken, and then it abruptly halted. An eerie stillness descended over the scene. There was something strange, almost crackling, about the quiet air. Drusus rose, stunned, and began to survey the devastation: the ruined walls, the vanished tents, the overturned wagons, the scattered weaponry. But then almost at once the wind and rain returned, sweeping back as if the storm had only been mocking them with that interlude of peace, and the renewed battering went on all night.

  When morning came the camp was a shambles. Nothing that they had built still stood. The walls were gone. So was a wide swathe of beachfront trees. There were deep pools all up and down the beach and hundreds of drowned men lay asprawl in them. Many of the ships had disappeared and others were lying on their sides in the water.