“You must attract stares here. There cannot be many blondes in Judaea.”
“And not many Suebi either!”
Stunned, Flavia was speechless for a moment. “You’re Suebian?”
“My mother was born near the Rhenus. I even know her language.” She smiled and said in Sequani, “And I can speak your language, too!”
Impulsively, Flavia hugged her. “We’ll have great fun together.” She pulled up the hood on Morlana’s brown cloak. “The sun is getting high.”
Flavia pulled up her own red hood.
“Why are you staring?” Morlana asked.
“Am I?” Flavia knew she was, but how could she tell her why? How could she explain to her the gods’ own irony of a man who had slain countless Suebi and yet who was now held in thrall by a little Suebi girl who had done absolutely nothing except smile into his eyes?
“What would you like to do today while your father is doing man things?”
“Just see the city. I don’t have any money, though.”
Flavia smiled. “We have the purse of Caesar at our command. Today whatever you like is yours.”
Morlana threw her arms around Flavia and squeezed.
Flavia knew gratitude was one of the sweetest emotions in children, but the expression of it was rare. She hugged back this uncommon little girl.
As Neko had toured Flavia around Ostia and Alexandria, now she and Morlana explored Caesarea together. Much newer than Ostia, Caesarea had not yet developed the texture of a seasoned port. Yet it was trying. Awash in colorful characters whose nationalities could barely even be guessed, Caesarea promised to become one of the most dynamic ports in the East.
After several hours of strolling and eating and drinking, during which Morlana talked endlessly about every topic imaginable, they came to rest at a small forum at the eastern side of the city.
“My feet hurt,” Flavia said, and the wanderers sat on the steps of a basilica near the edge of the forum.
“Flavia . . . ?”
For the first time all day, Morlana seemed hesitant.
“Yes?”
“Does Rufio not like me?”
“What?” Flavia said in surprise. “Why would you believe such a thing?”
“When I came out of my tent this morning, Rufio was near. He was talking to one of his men. He barely looked at me.”
Flavia reached out and took both of Morlana’s hands in hers.
“He likes you very much. More than he can express. But those feelings are new to him. He’s never had children of his own.”
“But why wouldn’t he look at me?”
“You touch him in a special way. It makes him uneasy. Even a soldier can be frightened by something he doesn't understand.”
“But I’m just a girl.”
“He’s confused by feelings he’s never had.”
“I cannot stop thinking about him,” she said with a look that begged for understanding. “I talk about him to my father all the time.”
“How does your father feel about that?”
“He’s happy for me.”
Flavia smiled.
“I love my father, but Rufio is different. He’s like . . . I don’t know . . . an uncle . . . no, I don’t know.”
“Don’t try to describe him. I gave up long ago.”
“He never criticized me. We spent all day together that first day. He never told me I had to act like a sweet little girl.”
“I think he’s likes you just as you are.”
“Then I’ll never change!” she said with a smile. “I know I talk too much, but he never stopped me. He was so nice to me for no reason.”
“What do you mean no reason?”
“I’m a foreigner here. The Judaeans are never friendly to me.”
“Well, he’s an Italian and Italians are different.”
Flavia took the hem of her cloak and wiped some fruit from the edge of Morlana’s mouth. She had to be the sloppiest eater in the world. Before Flavia dropped her cloak, Morlana spotted her dagger. She looked as if she were about to speak, but then said nothing.
“Shall we go soon?” Flavia asked. “Are you rested?”
“Yes. Will you come with us to Hezrail?”
“Where is that?”
“Our village. Near the Salt Sea.”
“We’re headed in that direction. We’re going to build a fort down there. Maybe we can spend time together.”
“That will be fun!”
“I know you can ride, but have you ever shot a bow?”
“You’re teasing. Girls don’t shoot bows.”
“Sequani girls do. I’ll teach you. And then when you’re good enough, I’ll show you how to shoot from horseback.”
“Oh, Flavia!”
“I wasn’t much older than you when I learned. But you have to promise me something first.”
“I will.”
“You must promise never to say I did it for no reason—because you are the reason.”
“I promise!”
“Now let’s go see those men who are special to us.”
The crowds in the forum had started thinning out as the sun had begun its descent. Even the loungers and vice peddlers decided to move on. Yet the three young men in the street ahead stopped when they saw Flavia and Morlana. The popina behind them had probably just fortified them with the courage of Bacchus.
“Flavia,” Morlana said, and touched her sleeve.
“I see them,” she said but did not slow down.
One of them, evidently the leader, swaggered toward them. The other two followed.
Flavia pulled back her hood to improve her field of vision.
“Look at that black mane!” the one up front said.
Bare-headed women were rare in a culture where repression and shame were enshrined as virtues.
“They think you’re a . . . that you’re a bad woman,” Morlana whispered.
“No they don’t. They’re just treating me like one.”
Many of the men leaving the forum had paused. They smiled now with the prospect of a bit of excitement.
The three men, only a few years older than Flavia, strolled forward with the arrogance of half-drunks the world over.
Flavia stopped and Morlana drew close to her. The forum crowd, neither more nor less vulgar than any crowd anywhere, had boxed them in, by accident rather than by design.
The three men were closing the distance.
Morlana squeezed Flavia’s right wrist. “Flavia, we have to leave.”
Flavia turned and looked down at her. She pushed back Morlana’s hood and ran a hand over her hair.
“You wouldn’t have me run, would you, Morlana?” she said gently.
The fearlessness in Flavia’s eyes banished Morlana’s terror in an instant. She reached up and squeezed Flavia’s fingers.
“Let’s show them that Sequani and Suebi women run from no one,” Flavia said. “Least of all these gutter dogs.”
“Yes,” Morlana whispered.
“Stand aside!” Flavia shouted to the leader.
Not an unattractive young man, he stopped and laughed almost pleasantly. “Only for someone better.”
“They stand before you.”
“Where?” he said mockingly. “I see only undraped women unattached to men. Give us some fun and we’ll give you some coin.”
“We’re not unclean women,” Morlana said.
“A spirited one, that little blonde,” he answered with a laugh and approached Flavia.
With the force of an iron ram, Flavia’s fist smashed into the center of his face. He dropped like a collapsed roof. His head hit a paving stone with a crack. He groaned, and blood gushed from his crushed nose.
The second man charged with more valor than wisdom. Flavia’s right foot slammed into his testicles. So sharp was the sound of the impact that several men in the crowd yelped as loudly as the victim. Gasping, he pawed at Flavia as he fell on top of her. She pushed him aside and jumped to her feet.
The third man had grabbed Morlana and dragged her off, perhaps as a hostage against Flavia’s wrath. Morlana’s fists pounded his face. He struck her across the cheek but still she flailed at him. He wrenched her right arm behind her back and she wailed in pain.
And then something in Flavia snapped. The little girl’s cry of agony obliterated everything—all but the predator and her prey. It was no mate of a Roman soldier who stood in the midst of a crowd in a half-Greek city. Untouched by the hand of civilization, here was a feral creature, implacable in the fury of the forest gods flooding her soul. The forum had vanished. It was now a darkened wood empty of sound. Flavia pulled off her cloak and flung it aside. She began her run slowly, almost casually, the terrible daughter of a barbarous race glaring at the object of her rage. Not a man present dared to warn the unsuspecting victim. And then she was upon him. Like a forest cat, she leaped onto his back and brought him down. Her left arm hooking around his throat, she felt nothing and heard nothing as he fell backward atop her. He reached back and tried to claw her face, but her dagger was in her hand. She slashed upward and flicked his right ear from his head as if it were a leaf. She heard him shriek, but from far off, as though in a valley on the other side of the world. Still he struggled to tear her face with his fingers, and then his other ear flew off to join the first, never to return. Flavia thrust the point of her dagger against his throat.
“Beg for mercy, you stinking dog!” she whistled through her teeth. “Beg now or I’ll kill you where you lie!”
“Please, no more!” he screamed.
She slid out from under him and sprang to her feet.
He turned over onto his hands and knees, blood pouring from both sides of his head.
She raised her right foot and, in the ultimate gesture of contempt, pushed it against the side of his face until he toppled to the stones in the final pathetic humiliation.
Flavia swept around and searched the forum. She smiled as Morlana bounded toward her and leaped into her arms.
29
WHO ASKS TIMIDLY COURTS DENIAL.
SENECA
Rufio raced through the mob. The crowd scattered like dry leaves as his horse burst into the forum. Valerius dashed in behind and swept the perimeter like the good soldier he was. Crus galloped in at the rear and covered Rufio’s back.
The three maimed men still moaned on the paving stones, and Rufio snatched up the scene in a single glance.
“Look!” Morlana yelled, pointing toward Rufio and pulling Flavia along with her.
Flavia smiled and released the little girl’s hand.
Morlana sprinted toward the centurion.
Rufio reached down and scooped her up behind him onto his horse. He gazed again at the stricken men and then at Flavia. She was a windstorm loosed by inscrutable gods and sweeping across the land. One could stand off and admire the beauty of this natural wonder, but only madmen would attempt to bar her path.
Valerius called to her and she gripped his left hand and glided up onto the back of his mount.
Then the three horsemen wheeled and quit the forum at a gallop, leaving the dazed crowd to nurse the follies of drunken man.
“They gave me no quarter, so I —.”
Rufio held up his hand, and Flavia stopped.
“I asked for no explanation last night, and I need none now. Just keep it in that Sequani mind that this is a difficult charge we have from Caesar.” He crossed the tent to his table and picked up a cup of wine and handed it to her. “So while we’re in Caesarea, no more lopped appendages falling to the ground.”
“He deserved it.”
“What drunks deserve is not the concern of Rome.”
“Morlana adores you.”
“Adoration doesn’t suit me,” he said, sitting down at his table and looking through some documents that Paki was reluctant to relinquish as a bed.
“You don’t mind mine.”
No answer came.
“She’s hurt by your indifference.”
“Indifference?” Rufio said, looking around.
“That’s how she understands it.”
“She told you that?”
“The conversations of women are not for the ears of men.”
“To a woman with a dagger, even the ears of men are not for the ears of men.”
“Just trust my judgment.”
“Why should I do that?”
“Because I am Sequani.”
He extended his left arm.
She came over and sat on his lap, and he pulled her in tight.
“Some men think if they love younger women, they’ll retain their youth. They’re wrong.”
“What do you mean?”
“You age a man a decade in a day.”
She nestled her head against his shoulder. “Then we’ll age together.”
“Centurion!” Bellator’s voice boomed from outside the tent.
“He never rests,” Rufio said with a sigh.
“You’ve given him a new life.”
“No, I just opened the latch on the gate to it. He walked through on his own.” Rufio nudged her gently and she got up from his lap. “He’s like those horses he loves. You cannot force them to do anything, but if you encourage them they’ll do everything.”
Rufio crossed the tent and stepped out into the sunlight. Bellator was pacing, despite his limp. Rufio stepped past him. His men were tending to their soldierly tasks in a camp as neat and orderly as the fort along the Rhenus.
“This is where it pays,” Rufio said, folding his arms across his chest and smiling. “A year ago, many of them wanted to smash my face with a wicker shield. And now?”
“Such love,” Bellator said with a laugh.
“No, not love. This cuts deeper.”
“And do you have a name for it?”
“No one does. But it’s as piercing as light reflected from a rare stone. And as incorruptible as bindings of bronze.”
“Many would just call it training.”
“Then they’re fools. Hannibal’s men were trained. But his soldiers didn’t have it. They fought for pay. They were all mercenaries from foreign lands. It was Hannibal’s greatness that he could forge a mess like that into one of the most magnificent armies that every marched. But if you murder the paymaster, you murder the army.” Rufio wandered forward and watched two of his centuries grunting through their afternoon weapons drill. “I’ve fought in many lands beside many men. But no soldier—not one—ever stood by me in battle for a couple of hundred denarii a year.”
Bellator remained quiet.
“It’s something that impels a man to risk his life for men he didn’t know not so long ago. And to follow a leader into a hostile land full of ungrateful people to serve a Caesar most of them will never see. And there isn’t even a term for that.”
“You’re wrong.”
Rufio turned toward his old friend.
“There is a name for it.” Bellator had never looked more serious. “The spirit of Rome—and it has no equal.”
Rufio smiled and gazed back at his soldiers. “By all the gods at once, I’m proud of these men.”
“The little girl’s father is looking for you.”
Rufio turned, but Bellator was speaking to Flavia as she came out of the tent.
“Where is he?” she asked.
“Tending the horses.”
She hurried off.
“Speaking of horses . . . .” Bellator said.
“Yes?”
“We have training to do.”
“I know.”
Rufio strolled down a row of tents with his arms folded.
“Remember my bad hip,” Bellator said, struggling to keep up.
“You whine like a Greek.”
Rufio pulled two camp stools from the tent shared by Valerius and Metellus and set them near the triangles of pila and shields propped at the front.
“Rest your decaying carcass.”
“Did I miss the transfer of command?”
Bellator gave him a puzzled look.
“Has Crus abdicated his authority to you?” Rufio asked.
“You and I know horses and horsemen better than he does. We’ll save him the effort.”
“He’s a young man in his first command. Even if the decision is really ours, he has to make it. For his own good.”
“All right, but let’s discuss it here first. How skilled are your men on horseback?”
“All are adequate, and a few are excellent.”
“I should have known.”
“I trained my own century last year. My centurions did the same with the rest of the cohort.”
“We have to go beyond crude skills, but we cannot expect too much. We don’t have the time.”
“Agreed. Do you think it can be done?”
“I do,” Bellator said.
“And the horses?”
“The same problem. We have to train them, but nothing too complex. Time is our enemy.”
“Have you looked over the herd?”
“I have.”
“And the verdict?”
“Much better than average.”
“I’d expect no less from Arabians.”
“I culled twenty-three. Most for bad feet—some battered hoofs, a diseased ranula here and there. A few had capped hocks. Those will heal, but I don’t want to wait. Four I pulled for temperament. They seemed suitable for nothing so much as kicking jackals to death.”
“Hold onto all of them.”
“Why waste forage on horses we don’t want?”
“Indulge my whims.” Rufio stood and took a long, slow breath of the damp air blowing in from the sea. He folded his arms and walked down the tent line a dozen or so paces. “And the instructors?” he asked without turning around.
“A cavalry officer should train the men. For their own safety.”
Rufio looked back at Bellator. “And the horses?”
“They should be guided by a man who can interpret the mysteries of their souls—but since I’ll be busy, we’ll have to look elsewhere.”
Rufio laughed. “You broken down old manure shoveler.”
Horses on the Storm Page 16
