“I understand.”
“That status is a chest of denarii to them. It’s all they have. They cannot afford to let it slip away. And how do you make sure that never happens?”
“You never take chances.”
“Exactly. Why should they do that? They have no power in their kingdom and their kingdom has little power in the world. So they take no pride in Herod’s achievements. What would it profit them if they did?”
“Very little, I suppose.”
“There’s no payoff. The stipendium never comes. So they don’t think about the glories of Judaea or even about their own future. They live only in the present. And that’s shackled to the past. I mentioned this back in Gaul. So they turn inward. Their families and their villages are the only places they have power. Status.”
“And risk taking endangers that.”
“It has to. We’re Romans, so it’s hard for us to grasp. We live for risk. Audacity parades across our annals like a marching legion. But not here. Not for these people. Success is defined very simply. And very narrowly. Success isn’t the achievement of something. It’s the absence of failure.”
“You’re right. This is incomprehensible to me.”
“Daring isn’t rewarded here. Caution is. Learning is, too, because that gives them status. Above all, loyalty is. Loyalty to the family and village. But not loyalty to a kingdom that’s always changing hands. For all they care, Herod can choke on his own vomit.”
“What happens if someone tries to break out of one of these little groups?” Crus asked.
“Leaving is seen as defection. Even betrayal. So he’s lashed back in or permanently thrown out. There’s no middle ground.”
“How joyous.”
“If you travel around the Empire, you’ll see that there are people who never imagine anything beyond their own country. Who never look past their own borders. The Judaeans never look past their own street. Every gaze is inward, so it’s all the more intense. Their constant anxiety about honor and shame and status. Their weird food laws. The obsession with rituals and rules and sin. Their taste for lunatic prophets.”
Crus drained the rest of his wine. “How can anyone live that way? Their inner selves must be prisons.”
“It’s all they know. Even their god has given up on them. I’ve read some of their holy writings. He never exhorts them to do good. Never. He simply tells them to avoid being bad. I guess at this point he realizes that’s all he can hope for.”
Crus could not help laughing. “When your god has to resign himself, I think you’ve reached the end of line.”
“Hold onto what you have. Don’t worry about adding to it. Just keep a tight grip. That’s why you can live your whole life here and never meet a Judaean who made a mistake. Ever. It’s not that they’re arrogant. It’s that they cannot admit error. Not risk what they think is the loss of status that goes with it.”
“But Matthias admitted his lack of skills to me.”
“He’s an exceptional young man. Most Judaeans would rather go to their deaths than confess to incompetence.”
“But that would be the ultimate incompetence.”
“They’d be dead, so it wouldn’t matter.”
Crus sighed. “It’s all so strange.”
“Suppose I sent Valerius and the century out to build a road and they came across a sinkhole. They’d bridge it or build the road around it and keep moving. Do you know what Matthias would do? He’d sit down and discuss it for a day. Maybe send for an engineer. Argue about it some more. Even consult his father if the old man was nearby. Better to take your time than be thought a fool by your men and the local elders and the farmers and the shepherds and the birds in the trees and the grubs under the rocks. And when they were done, they’d have the finest road you ever saw, while an invading horde was gathering on the horizon. And the beautiful paving stones would soon run with the blood of young dead Jews.”
“What a waste.”
“Like trying to carry ice in a bucket of fire.”
“Madness.”
“Thank the gods we’re different. It’s why we span the world and they lord over the scorpions.” Rufio finished his wine and stared into the fire. “Because they’re so tough and so learned, there’s a floor below which they’ll never fall. But because they’ve chained themselves to it, it’s a level above which they’ll never rise. That’s the tragedy of Judaea.”
Rufio helped Arrianus distribute the blankets among several wagons. Few techniques of command were simpler and yet more effective than for an officer occasionally to allow his soldiers to hear his grunts of exertion alongside their own.
Rufio had made a crude brushwood torch for illumination.
“Did you know my father raises horses near Venusia?” Arrianus asked.
Rufio hefted a heavy bundle of blankets onto the wagon. “No, I didn’t know that.”
“I think that’s why Valerius sent me to the village. And why your strator hired me.”
“Morlana?” Rufio said in surprise.
“She told me she’d share her pay with me if I helped her with the horses.”
Rufio shook his head and laughed to himself.
“I took her to the village with me,” Arrianus said. “A lively little filly, that one. I named her Twitchy. She loved that.”
“It fits.”
“She talks about you constantly.”
“All young girls talk constantly.” He continued tying up bundles of blankets.
“Not like that. If she had a statue of you, she’d burn incense in front of it every night. She thinks you’re a mixture of Apollo and Hercules.”
“And did you correct that folly?”
“Who am I to take an axe to a young girl’s dreams?”
Rufio laughed and tossed a heavy bundle into Arrianus’s arms.
“Mallius is a sensible old soldier,” Arrianus said and threw the blankets into the wagon. “But I don’t see much of him in her.”
“I suspect she’s really the mare’s filly.”
“Who is she?” Arrianus asked.
“She’s dead. She was a Suebi.”
“And her daughter worships my centurion,” Arrianus said with a sly smile barely visible in the torchlight. “The gods are wicked, don’t you think?”
“Sometimes. But kind, too. Sometimes very kind.” Rufio threw the last bundle into the wagon and turned to Arrianus. “Watch her for me when I’m not nearby. Mallius lost his edge long ago. I won’t command you. I ask it as a favor.”
“I will.”
“No one is safe in this land. Not even a child.”
37
REMEMBER THAT YOU ARE AN ACTOR IN A PLAY, THE CHARACTER OF WHICH IS DETERMINED BY THE PLAYWRIGHT. . . . THIS IS YOUR BUSINESS, TO PLAY ADMIRABLY THE ROLE ASSIGNED TO YOU. HOWEVER, THE SELECTION OF THAT ROLE IS ANOTHER’S.
EPICTETUS
Hezrail lies before us. About fifty houses of mud brick with roofs piled with soil in conical mounds. Walls of field stones without mortar divide the patches of land. Sheep are everywhere on the low hillsides. It is amazing that they can thrive on so little. Half-wild dogs wander about but seem not to bother the sheep, at least not in daylight. Bellator told me that the Jews do not keep dogs as pets the way Romans do. So these animals just search for scraps and carrion. They are white and black or white and brown and less than half the size of a wolf. Bellator said that they are called the Dogs of the Canaanites, after the people who lived here before the Jews. We are now at the edge of the great Judaean Desert. Yet people and their beasts survive. It is astounding. A magnificent desolation extends beyond Hezrail. There is nothing more than scrub there. Shade for serpents and scorpions. Golden hills and enormous flats all bare of life stretch seemingly to the limits of the earth. Bellator calls it an endless and terrifying nothingness. He says that south of here is a vast toxic sea. Nothing grows in it, nothing swims in it. I cannot imagine such a thing. No living creature can withstand its depths. Mallius refers to it as the pitiless stom
ach of Hell.
Yet Hezrail has been spared that. There is actually some green here. Haritat told me that several springs quench the thirst of these people and their sheep and goats, with enough water left for them to grow olives and grapes and a few other things. He said that springs like that are rare in this region, which is probably why the Romans built their fort here. But we are near the bounds of human endurance, according to my Nabataean friend. Only nomads venture further, and they are always careful to follow the path of the seasonal rains.
Everything is different here, even one’s scent. I rubbed my face with my arm and noticed my skin smelled strange. I looked up and saw Haritat smiling at me. He said that outlanders are always surprised at the magic played on their bodies by the desert air. He then pointed to my arm. There was blood on it from my nose. He told me to smear a little bit of sheep butter onto my nostrils until I got accustomed to the dry air. The thought of that gagged me, so I used olive oil instead and it worked very well.
I am writing this during a pause for rest. We are about to leave now. We will go around the village and ride straight to the fort.
Crus raised a hand to stop the mounted column atop a low rise.
Rufio smiled. The fort stood as silent and strong as the year it had been built decades ago. It was a miniature of the fort at Aquabona but, instead of turf, limestone rose here with shameless Roman arrogance in the middle of oblivion. Sand had blown up against the outer walls, and all was still.
Crus waved the column forward. Matthias rode next to Rufio.
“It’s bigger than I expected,” Crus said.
“It looks like it can hold two full cohorts,” Rufio answered. “We’ll have plenty of space.”
“But none for the horses,” Matthias said.
Rufio looked down the Via Praetoria, but there was no trace of paddocks or stables. “We’ll build pens in the shade of the northern wall and buy some homespun from the villagers to make awnings.” He turned and gestured to Bellator, who rode up with Haritat and Mallius beside him. “I want a pair of trenches around the fort, except for the north wall,” he told the engineer. “Typical fashion. No flourishes.”
“We’ll begin tomorrow,” Bellator said.
“Centurion.” Haritat pointed through the open gateway.
Rufio saw some wild greenery deep in the fort along the Via Praetoria.
“They built around a spring,” Haritat said. “Smart men, those Romans.”
“As I recall, there’s another spring just east of the fort,” Mallius said.
Crus turned to Matthias. “Tomorrow go back to Hezrail and talk with the village elders. Tell them why we’re here. Feel free to say you’re in command if it’ll make matters easier. Hire some laborers at a good wage to help us clean up.” He looked over at Rufio.
“About fifty,” Rufio said.
“You have your charge,” Crus said to the Judaean.
“Yes, tribune.”
Crus deferred to his centurion.
“We’ll build a marching camp near the other spring,” Rufio said. “We’ll live under leather as briefly as possible. I want the men inside within a week.”
“We can do it,” Bellator said.
“And you?” Rufio asked, looking at Haritat.
“I return to my people. A village east of here.”
“Will you come back to help us with the training?” Crus asked.
“Will Romans be trained by a Nabataean?” Haritat said in surprise.
“My men obey the will of Caesar,” Rufio answered. “And the tribune embodies that will in this place.”
“Then I will return.”
Early morning in the desert was always like the birth of a new earth. Rufio loved the beginning of the day in a marching camp. Though he preferred fort life to camp life, the first hours of the day in a camp were always fresh and crisp and bracing, like the first frost on an alpine slope. The smell of hot porridge and wheat cakes hung over the rows of tents, and the men were already going about their business.
Morlana, dressed in a hooded brown caftan and with the curved dagger struggling to maintain its place on her little girl hip, splashed some water onto her face in front of Mallius’s tent. She had obviously been up very early and had already tended to the horses, perhaps with Arrianus helping her.
“Strator!”
She spun around, wide-eyed, like a startled fawn. It was an odd habit, and it bothered Rufio. It seemed as if she had been criticized or scolded so often that when someone called her she always expected the worst.
She smiled when she saw him and ran toward him and gave him a morning hug.
“We have to put some meat on you,” he said as he felt her ribs against the inside of his arms.
“I eat a lot,” she said, trying to reassure him.
“But maybe not the right foods. New soldiers always gain weight if they’re thin and lose weight if they’re fat. We’ll fill you out before you go home.”
That was the wrong thing to say. Her smile collapsed. “But I am home.”
“I mean in Hezrail.”
“No, I want to stay here.”
“But that’s your home.”
“It’s not a home. I’m an outsider. The girls are mean to me every day. I want to work for you. Forever.”
She was so plaintive, this little blonde stick figure staring up at him. Rufio refused for the moment to dash any more hopes.
“Go get our mounts. I have to inspect the fort.”
She smiled and ran off. When she returned very quickly, Rufio suspected she had already had the horses saddled.
They left the camp and rode the short distance to the fort.
Rufio had his horse enter at a slow walk, with Morlana following.
Small animals scurried like fugitives in the long morning shadows as the two riders made their way up the Via Praetoria. Three barracks blocks with tiled roofs flanked the street on each side. Beyond these the Via Principalis bisected the fort, and at the middle of it lay the Principia. The Praetorium sat just off to the right, a smaller and more modest home than many commanders would have preferred. Six more barracks flanked the Via Decumana coming up from the other side of the fort, and some store houses lay at that end as well.
“Rufio . . .” Morlana said in a hesitant voice.
“Speak up.”
“Why are there no stables?”
He looked around. “Probably they built some temporary pens outside the fort.”
The shrubs he had seen from outside clustered around a disused fountain near the Principia.
“Why is that there?” she asked, pointing to a clear space about fifty feet square just past the fountain.
“Looks like they were going to build a bathhouse but never got to it. We’ll unplug that spring and get the fountain working again.”
He dismounted and walked over to one of the barracks and peered through the open window. Except for the coating of windblown sand, the fully furnished rooms looked like the soldiers had left ten minutes ago. Nothing ever changed in the desert. The eeriness of it was unsettling. Rufio found it repellent. No advance. Not even decline. Just stasis. An inviolate rigidity locked everything down in a world that could not move. And this weird ossification touched more than solid objects. It was in the soul here, in the blighted yearnings and repressed longings of people as immobile as the pyramids. The baking silence of it had created strange races that defied his comprehension. To Rufio, this land was sealed with something more than dust.
“What are the buildings made of?” Morlana asked. “They’re beautiful.”
“Limestone. But that’s just the facing.”
She gave him a puzzled look.
“The cores are rubble and mortar. It’s easier and quicker than solid stone.”
“It’s prettier than mud brick.”
Rufio laughed. “Italians are obsessed with how things look. That’s why if you ever get to Rome, the boys will tremble when they see you.”
She blushed—but she sm
iled, too.
Rufio mounted his horse. “Time for action.”
They rode back. Just outside the camp, Bellator had assembled two centuries to begin the trenching around the fort.
“Have some of them work on the spring,” Rufio yelled to his engineer. “Get that fountain working.”
“Centurion!”
Rufio rode over to him. “And lay out some plans for a bathhouse. Brick and plaster will do.”
“You’ll have the plans by tonight.”
“How much time to build a small one?”
Bellator thought for a moment. “Forty to fifty thousand hours of work.”
“So if I assign three of our centuries and get Matthias to provide an equal amount . . . ?”
“A hundred hours, more or less.”
“We can afford that. I want three pipes running from the fountain. One to the bathhouse, one to the latrine, and one out of the fort to the horse pens. Have the men dig a cistern by the horses. We cannot afford to waste this water. Now get one of the optios to supervise these men. They don’t need you to teach them how to dig.”
“Yes, centurion.”
Rufio rode into the camp, with Morlana right behind him like a rear guard.
In front of Crus’s tent at the center of the camp, the tribune and Matthias sat talking with an elderly Judaean. Crus did not look happy, and Matthias appeared exasperated.
Rufio pulled up and let Morlana come up beside him.
“Morlana, go tend to the horses. Make sure Arrianus isn’t overfeeding them. He’s not familiar with Arabians.”
She just stared at him.
“What’s the matter?”
“I have a present I want to give you,” she said. “It’s in our house in Hezrail. I’ll get it soon.”
He reached across and curled a forefinger under her chin. She smiled, and he brushed her cheek with his thumb.
“Go check the horses now.”
She gazed at him with more love than he knew he could ever deserve, and then she rode off, the happiest girl in Judaea.
Rufio clicked to his horse and casually trotted over to the three men.
Horses on the Storm Page 21
