Nonus approached the wagons within the ring of guards, the hood covering his head, his own breathing harsh in his ears. As Chief Overseer he had freedom of movement, but this was forbidden territory. He passed by the wagon of the Red Pleasure Whore, images painted on its side of a woman with hair the color of fire being fucked by a man from behind. Her name was Koulm, said to be from the island of Britannia. Other painted images showed her sucking and fucking in a range of athletic positions. If the woman was capable of such acts, Nonus thought, the Xiongnu king would indeed prize her as much as his wife would despise her.
A little further along he passed the wagon of Jaha, the black pleasure whore, the erotica on her wagon advertising the fact that she had breasts, vulva, and cock, which she used to good effect taking a woman while a man took her.
Though the parade of images excited him, his own cock making its presence known, Nonus gave the wagon a wide berth. A tribune, who had perished early on Crassus’s ill-fated march through the desert, had owned Jaha. A string of officers had subsequently bought her but each had died within days of the purchase and the legionaries now thought of the woman as the embodiment of ill fortune.
Venturing a little farther into the shadows, Nonus found the guards asleep and lifted the keys soundlessly from the cord around the neck of the chief among them. A minute later, he stood before the image he sought on the wagon of the golden whore. It showed her astride a man’s face as he lay on his back, her body arching in ecstasy. Another image showed her sucking a man’s cock while the fingers of her free hand probed his anus.
Nonus gulped air as he approached the steps to the wagon’s door, his heart pounding with lust and fear. The key slipped into the lock with barely a sound. Turning it released the mechanism and he removed the lock carefully, placing it on the ladder’s top rung. Lifting the latch, the door opened and out swirled air perfumed with fragrances and spices and he heard the breathing of the woman laid out on her bed.
In two steps he was upon her, a hand over her mouth, another on her breast, his cock questing for her cleft and his body pressed down on her, forcing her legs apart. The woman’s eyes shot open wide, and then wider still when he brought his face inches from her own.
“Do not cry out,” he rasped. “Fuck without a fight and I shall leave you and not come back. Make a sound and I will make your body a scabbard for a gladius of steel.”
Nonus felt the woman’s muscles relax beneath him.
“You are wise, Andica. Yes, I know your name. I also know that you favor Rufinius Alexandricus.”
Lucia shook her head.
“I take my hand from your mouth. If you care not to die, the only sound you can make is one of pleasure.” Lucia nodded and Nonus released his hold on her. “There is no need to lie about Alexandricus. I tell you now, you need a new diversion. He will soon be a dead man.” Nonus reached between her legs, tore a rent in her garments and thrust his cock between the lips of her vulva. “You are dry, but I have a remedy.” He spat on his hand, returned it between her legs and lubricated her.
“Nonus,” Lucia whispered and reached down to hold him in her hand. “The overseer of overseers. I am honored to have you inside me.” She rubbed his cock, moved her hips and gasped in his ear.
“You are shrewd enough to be generous with your body, woman,” Nonus hissed, wrapping an arm beneath her waist and lifting himself roughly inside her.
His guard down, it was only then that Lucia struck out, raking his face with her fingernails and stabbing him in the leg with an ivory comb placed beside her bed, its tines snapping off deep beneath his skin. She kicked at him and slashed out with her nails again so that, overwhelmed by her ferocity, he fell away from the cot.
Nearby, the large black leopard growled noisily at the disturbance.
Knowing he was for the moment beaten and his life depended on rapid escape, Nonus found his feet and raced to the door.
“If a word is spoken I will kill you,” he snarled before leaving.
“Return and it will be me who fucks you with a steel gladius, Overseer,” said Lucia, her limbs quaking with fear and anger the instant he closed the door.
*
On this morning, Libo woke before the sunrise, his stomach an empty yawning cave and a biting wind blowing sand in his face through a flap in the tent.
Beside him Appias groaned.
“Yes, historian, you’re right. It’s not a dream,” Libo said. “You really are marching across an eternal cock-sucking desert with a slave torc tight around your learned throat.”
“No, it’s not that. I feel like you put me in my grave twice over,” the historian complained, opening his eyes. “Yesterday’s practice with the rudes was hard and I am bruised all over.”
Leaning in through the open end of the tent, Rufinius said, “A thrust with a real sword will leave more than a bruise. Libo does you a favor. Let’s move it, legionaries.”
The men filed out of their sleeping quarters and stepped into a stiff breeze laden with grit as Libo said, “Before you learn to kill you need to learn how to stay alive, Appias. Later we will practice the parry.” He demonstrated the movements with an imaginary sword in hand.
“Ah, but if he learns to kill and kill quickly,” suggested Carbo, “does not the parry then become a useless skill never used?”
“Wise words from the greatest sword arm in the whole of his own dim mind,” Libo said playfully.
“Lick my ass,” Carbo replied, grinning as Parthian camels approached, part of the usual morning ritual on this march. “Does anyone smell pork stew with leavened bread and honey cakes for dessert, because if my nose doesn’t deceive me …”
The legionaries joined the lines forming for the service of the meal that would have to sustain them till the evening. When it was Carbo’s turn, a fellow slave handed him a battered tin bowl, ladled a limp stew of beans into it, and another slave passed him a square of the hard, tasteless Parthian biscuit. Carbo brought his face close to the bowl and breathed deep. “Ah, see? My nose never lies. Is this not a feast worth rising for?”
Rufinius was about to join the lines with the last of the men, but the arrival at a gallop of General Saikan along with Translator Bataar and others, including Nonus, prevented him.
“Tribune! Get your horse and come!” Saikan ordered with somewhat less than his usual calm demeanor.
“What has happened?” Rufinius sensed a problem. A groom hurriedly brought the mount and handed him the reins.
“Do not waste breath on words,” said Saikan.
A short while later, the riders approached an area of desert where a squadron of Parthian archers had tethered their horses for the night. Strewn about on the sand were the flyblown corpses of many young grooms and Parthian archers, crows and other carrion birds feasting on their eyes.
“What has happened here?” Rufinius asked.
“You know nothing of this?” Nonus asked.
“Why would I?”
Nonus looked at Saikan. “A question answered with a question, Lord. He scarcely denies it.”
Rufinius was pleased to see the overseer’s face torn by ragged gouges. “Do you also bed lions, Nonus?”
The general held up his hand. “Enough.”
“Why are men lying here dead?” Rufinius asked. “Is the answer known?”
“The attackers came here before sunrise, needing horses,” the general said through Bataar. “Before they could steal them, they had to kill all those who would sound the alarm.”
“Who did this?”
“Fabianus,” Nonus replied.
“Fabianus?”
“Him and a party of legionaries. One of the guards survived long enough to tell us what happened.”
“And you’re sure it was Fabianus?”
“The guard recognized him,” Nonus continued. “Fabianus chose the night with sound foresight. If they ride on the sand ridges, the wind that is with us will quickly hide the tracks of their horses. And they have a long head start.”
>
“A troop of archers has already left in pursuit,” Saikan revealed.
Rufinius was at a loss. “Fabianus did not share his intentions with me.”
“Yet he was once your optio,” Nonus countered.
Rufinius brought his horse alongside the overseer’s. “I believe you’re enjoying this.”
“Not a single bit … Tribune,” Nonus replied, his back to the Xiongnu and a smirk on his lips.
“Most of those killed are boys. All are slaves,” Saikan said looking down on the stiff body of a Parthian who had barely reached puberty, birds hopping about on his face. “The killing of a man’s property is a most detestable crime.”
The dead all had severe head wounds and Rufinius noted several blood-and-brain-slicked rocks strewn around, the weapons used to bludgeon life from them. “What now?”
“A head-count of the men will be conducted. You will be escorted back to the legion and I will deliberate with my Parthian allies on what is to be done. Meanwhile the march will continue.”
*
“Is there something wrong, primor?” Dentianus asked when Rufinius returned and dismounted. “We’ve heard rumors.”
“What about?”
“Desertions,” said Appias. “Fabianus and some others.”
Rufinius grunted.
“It’s true, then. Perhaps Fabianus didn’t consider himself a slave, but rather a captured legionary,” Appias said. “In which case he neither deserted nor ran away, but in fact escaped, as is every captured soldier’s duty.”
“You mince words – and I have no doubt that is how Fabianus would view it,” said Rufinius. “But any slant he might care to give his actions will be disregarded by the Xiongnu, who paid handsomely to put these torcs on us.”
“The cunnus wasn’t happy about this turn of fate from the beginning,” observed Dentianus.
“He didn’t pick a white pebble in the lottery,” Rufinius recalled. “He was chosen by the men of his contubernium. Perhaps they were all of one mind from the beginning and were selected for this reason. An unknown number of legionaries are said to have run with Fabianus. Conceivably he is their leader. Appias, walk with me.”
Rufinius and Appias made their way through the men, down to where Fabianus’s contubernium would have been, but were met only by an empty tent and disturbed sand around it. “All eight men have gone,” said Rufinius.
“There will be retribution,” Appias said.
“Yes,” Rufinius agreed, acknowledging the simple fact.
Several legionaries saluted Rufinius, their faces fearful. “Hail, primor.”
The tribune returned the salutation. “Fabianus and his contubernium. Was there indication they were to desert?”
“No primor, none at all. They did not fraternize with us but kept to themselves.”
“Did Fabianus neglect his duty as optio?”
“There was little to do, primor, until the practice swords were distributed and drills commenced and then he worked us hard. It was good to have sword in hand, even a wooden one.”
“The goddess Atë makes mischief for idle hands,” Appias observed.
Cornicens blew the standard order at this time of day for the centuries to begin forming up.
As they returned to the lead century’s front line, Appias suggested: “Those men would never admit to prior knowledge of desertion, as they would be held partly responsible for not reporting it.”
“I am sure Nonus is saying the same thing to Saikan about me. By my reckoning, if those men knew about a plan to desert but chose instead to remain with the legion, I would count that in their favor.”
“But you are not the person who will sit in judgement of them.”
Rufinius exhaled heavily. Appias was right.
*
The army marched its miles, but after the halt at the end of this day, no rudes were distributed among the men. As darkness fell, a band of overseers arrived at the head of the column, come for Rufinius.
“Military Tribune Tullus Bassus Rufinius, known as Alexandricus,” said their leader. “You are summoned to council.”
“What’s all the officious excrementum?” Carbo wondered.
“If anything happens to the Alexandrian, you know this army will not take kindly to it. Or to you, merda,” Libo warned them.
“Are you threatening the envoy of General Saikan, grub?” the overseer said darkly.
“Say nothing more, legionary,” Rufinius warned Libo as he climbed onto his horse.
“Well, it’s not an invitation to drink wine or beer at the baths, faggot,” Carbo taunted the overseer. “But nor is it a threat, is it Libo? We’re just telling it like it is.”
“Carbo!” Rufinius shook his head, entreating the man to desist.
Other legionaries in the contubernia behind began throwing rocks at the overseers’ horses, which startled their leader’s mount to sudden flight.
“Just telling it like it is!” Carbo shouted again after him as Rufinius rode away with the remaining overseers.
*
The council occupied the tent erected nightly for General Saikan by his Parthian hosts, a voluminous palace compared to the canvas and hide boxes used by Rufinius and his legionaries. The general reclined on cushions on the floor, along with his usual retinue of officers. Also present were a number of Parthian officers, none of whom Rufinius knew by sight. Nonus was present, the scratches on his face beginning to fester. It was far from pleasing to see him becoming part of Saikan’s suite. Translator Bataar and the Syrian overseer were also attending.
Saikan came to his feet. “A head-count reveals that fifty-three slave soldiers have run away. One was your optio, Fabianus,” he said to Rufinius. “Were his plans common knowledge among your men?”
“No, General, it appears not,” said Rufinius.
“I accept your word, though there are others here who reject your assurances on this.”
Rufinius nodded.
“The loss of fifty-three slaves, or eighty-one slaves and some archers if the slaughter wrought by them is taken into account, represents a sizeable cost to my Chanyu’s purse. While we concede that there are always losses on a march, especially one as long as ours, we cannot allow the crimes of these runaways to be encouraged among the men.”
“Desertion is not on their minds,” Rufinius replied.
“General?” said Nonus, asking for permission to speak. Saikan gestured at him to continue and returned to his cushions. The overseer came to his feet.
“Tribune, the man who was your own optio has run from the ranks and you say you knew not his intention to do so. It seems you have no idea what the men are thinking.”
Rufinius knew that he had just walked into a trap and he would walk into more ahead if he were not agile. “I repeat, I had no prior knowledge of Fabianus’s intent. Also, he was my former optio. As tribune, my role in the ranks has changed markedly.”
“Then you must agree that you know not how many more will desert?”
“Morale is good, given their privations. Men do not usually desert when spirits are high,” said Rufinius.
“Let us no longer use the word ‘desert’. That is a word reserved for legionaries and others in the military. We are slaves now, the property of another, and have lost all rights as well as claims to nationality, unless it is to the great nation of servitude.”
“Your Latin oratory has an audience of one, Nonus, and it does not impress. Get to the point.”
“The point, Tribune, is punishment.”
“The men who have not deserted have done nothing to deserve it.”
“As you yourself have admitted, you know not what is on the minds of the slaves you lead. Your owners simply desire to make an example of the runaways to discourage more of the same behavior.”
Rufinius glanced at the tattoo on Nonus’s upper arm, the official symbol of his legion and, beneath it, the unofficial one showing the ribald ink of a dog entering a surprised cat and the words, Fuck them all.
/> “And this is something you, once a legionary yourself, are advocating?”
“We have only begun this journey and there is a long march ahead. General Saikan is keen to arrive with his slave army intact. The men, my once fellow legionaries, will respond positively.”
“To punishment?” A sickening weight descended on Rufinius’s bowels.
“A few more than fifty slaves have run,” Nonus continued. “One tenth of that number will be chosen by lot across the sixty centuries to be made an example of.”
Nonus checked this with Saikan, who nodded imperceptibly, the decision made before Rufinius’s arrival.
“What will be their punishment?”
“Crucifixion.”
“No!” Rufinius turned his attention from Nonus, anxious for his men. “General Saikan, I do not know what this man has told you, but Roman citizens may not be crucified. That is Roman law.”
“As I said, Tribune, as slaves we have had our nationality bought from us,” Nonus continued. “We are slaves and slaves can indeed be crucified. That is Roman law.”
“You are the leader of the army and you will not be required to draw a lot with the men,” the General Saikan said.
Rufinius could see that argument was pointless but he was determined to try. “General, the best leaders share both the triumphs and the hardships of the men. If lots are to be drawn then I must also take a pebble. If I do not, the leadership you bought and paid for so handsomely will be undermined.”
The general took this to Nonus. “What think you of the tribune’s request?”
“The best leaders are not intimate with their men, either, General. There must be a separation, a gulf, so that the men who follow do so from the belief that their leaders come from different stock.” Nonus considered the question further and added, “If the men fear their leader more than they fear the enemy, that is as good as the lash.”
“Two different styles of leadership.” Saikan pondered his decision. “Rufinius, you speak as one who desires to lead from the front line.”
Field of Mars (The Complete Novel) Page 26
