Rufio smiled to himself.
“Did not even your Caesar say that it was not the custom of Rome to negotiate with an armed enemy?”
“Caesar is dead,” Rufio answered. “He died unarmed.”
“Shall we dismount?” Durena slid from his sleek Turanian bay without waiting for a reply.
The Parthian leader was the first to sit, and Aridates sat after him.
Rufio and Crus dismounted and pushed their scabbards out of the way and sat on the ground beside their horses.
“Yahlavi?” Durena asked.
“Probably in the bath house by now,” Crus said. “Waiting for our return.”
“You Romans and your hostages. . . .” Durena said.
“A practice forced on us,” Crus answered.
Rufio was not certain, but Durena might have been the handsomest man he had ever seen in his life. Darker than the few Parthians Rufio had known, Durena would have commanded attention anywhere. He was taller than most Romans and wore an off-white belted tunic and trousers. His neat black hair came down over his ears and was secured by a camel hair headband. He wore no helmet but a simple red cloth cap on the back of his head that came to a soft point at the crown. It gave little protection, but Rufio suspected it was there so his men could see him easily on the battlefield. His moustache and pointed black beard were carefully trimmed. Dark eyes, of indeterminate color in the half-light, missed nothing. Rufio guessed that Durena was about thirty years old. Later Rufio would learn that he was forty-two.
“Feel free to speak,” Crus said with an expansive gesture. “I am Crus of the Twenty-fifth Legion.”
“Legion?” Durena said. “I was told there was only a cohort.”
“Rome spans the world.”
“We want—.” Aridates began but was silenced by a look from Durena.
Aridates appeared to be about twenty-five and wore the pinched and starved look that so often seemed to adorn the envious and the weak. To Rufio, he had the aspect of a man who would cheerfully throw a sack of kittens into an icy river.
“How may we induce you to go?” Durena asked.
“Go where?” Crus said.
“Back to Rome.”
“Rome is anywhere the soldiers of Caesar lay their heads.”
“Then how may we rouse you from your slumber?”
Crus smiled. “You have. That’s why we’re here.”
“And this one?” Durena said, looking at Rufio.
Crus turned to Rufio and nodded.
“Rufio,” the centurion said.
“The commander. . . .” Durena said.
“The tribune is the commander,” Rufio answered.
“I see,” Durena said with a knowing look. He turned back to Crus. “Will gold induce you?”
“Don’t be foolish.”
“Tribune, may I speak?” Rufio said.
Crus nodded. “I’m already growing weary of this.”
“We’re on a commission from Caesar himself,” Rufio said. “You’ll have to kill us all—or yield.”
“I cannot yield,” Durena whispered in a dust-choked voice heavy with the weariness of one who had ridden many hard miles only to end up nowhere.
“There is no glory here,” Rufio said, and suddenly he felt an odd compassion for the Parthian warrior.
“Here?” Durena said. “There is no glory anywhere.”
“Then why . . . ?”
“To regain some of what I’ve lost.”
“Surely a great commander knows that along that road lies madness.”
Durena stared into Rufio’s eyes and then turned to Crus. “The heart of a poet lurks in this soldier’s soul.”
Durena rose and took a water flask from his saddle and removed the top and offered the flask to Rufio.
The Roman took it from him and drank.
“Nabataean water,” Durena said.
Rufio had a second sip and handed back the flask. “No doubt that’s why it’s so sweet.”
Durena offered it to Crus, who declined, and then then the Parthian sat back down. “What if we simply ride around you? Sweep past your petty cohort and shake this rotten hovel they call Judaea?”
“You’d never do that,” Rufio said.
“Why wouldn’t we?” Aridates asked.
Rufio ignored him.
“I would like to know,” Durena said.
“Because you cannot afford to,” Rufio answered. “We can disregard you if we choose, by you cannot close your eyes to us.”
“You sound very confident of that.”
“I can afford to be. You’d never risk having a Roman cohort at your rear in a hostile land when you knew that the legions from Syria might be coming down to smash into your front. Even this thing”—he pointed to Aridates—“would know that much. Let alone the Parthians’ finest commander.”
“Then what can we do?” Durena asked.
Rufio was shocked because Durena genuinely seemed to want to know.
“Commander,” Rufio said, “it’s not our task to tell you what you can do. It’s out duty to tell you what you cannot do.”
The silence seemed to last a week.
“Besides,” Crus said, “Rome has heard a rumor that if you’re successful, the toad on the Parthian throne plans to have you struck down and to seize your triumph.” He gestured to Aridates.
“Durena,” Rufio said, “if you win, you still lose—and if you lose on the battlefield, you lose even more. These Judaeans aren’t going to take captives. Herod is pitiless.”
“Ah, centurion,” he answered with a sigh, “don’t you think I know that?”
“Then why are you here?”
A mournful smile drifted across his face. “Where else can a fighting man go?”
“To Rome. Cross the Tiber of your own accord and you’ll be treated like a prince. Be dragged there in chains—that’s another matter.”
“And betray my country?”
“Your country has already betrayed you.” Rufio glanced at the glaring Aridates. “What about this reptile? Do you dare turn your back on him?”
“I never turn my back. But I must do what I was born to do.”
“To kill Judaean children in their beds?”
“I would never do that. But why is the pride of Rome here? You’ve tormented us for years beyond number. Crassus, Antonius. Anyone who wants to gild his glory by killing Parthians. What good is this wasteland to Rome?”
“We don’t want Judaea,” Rufio said. “Regardless of what these Judaeans think. Or what you think. Why would we want it? There’s nothing here.”
“Then why . . . ?”
“Judaea is a buffer. Or a doorway—depending on how one wants to use it. It’s always been that between East and West. Rome will tolerate no disturbance here.”
“And you care nothing for these Judaeans?”
“I didn’t say that. But that’s not your concern. Our steel is your concern.”
Nimbus shied suddenly and took two quick steps backward.
Rufio looked up and saw an archer standing on the ridge to his right at the top of the gorge.
“There,” Crus said.
Another bowman was poised on the opposite crest to the left.
Aridates stood.
“A man of honor?” Crus said with contempt to Durena.
“What is this?” Durena demanded of Aridates.
“If we cut off the head, the Roman beast dies,” Aridates answered.
“I gave my word.”
“To these?”
“To the world.”
Rufio began to stand.
“Stay where you are!” Aridates said.
Rufio started measuring distances between himself and the Parthians.
“What about Yahlavi?” Durena said to Aridates.
“Less than nothing.”
“They’ll kill him.”
Aridates smiled. “I’ll try not to weep too—.”
Rufio lunged at Aridates, but it was pointless. An arrow sheared in
to the side of Aridates’ skull. A pair of screams rocked the ravine, and the two archers from above plunged to the sand a few feet away.
Three men pierced with arrows in the time it took for Crus to leap to his feet beside his centurion.
Sword in hand, Rufio rushed over to Aridates, and Durena stared at him in disbelief.
“You brought archers to ambush us?” the Parthian said.
“No, that’s an Eastern ruse.” He sheathed his sword. “Ask this corpse.” Rufio placed a hob-nailed sandal on Aridates’ neck and pulled on the arrow. It slid out of his head with a horrible sucking sound. After examining it, he handed it to Durena. “This isn’t Roman.”
Durena wiped some of the blood and brain matter from the strange black arrowhead. “What is this?” he said, thumbing the edge.
“Obsidianus,” Rufio answered. “Glass from a volcano.”
Durena stared at Rufio for several moments. “Who uses missiles like this?”
“Only the gods can say. And they watch over Rome.”
Durena looked around at the three broken bodies.
“That is what awaits you,” Crus said. “All of you.”
Durena turned away from the dead men. “And Yahlavi? Will you kill him now?”
“We’ll see you on the field of battle in two days,” Crus said.
“Where?”
“A place of our choosing. Find it. We’ll be waiting."
52
WHY CHANGE OUR HOME FOR LANDS WARM WITH ANOTHER SUN? WHAT EXILE FROM HIS COUNTRY FINDS THAT HE HAS LEFT HIMSELF ALSO BEHIND?
HORACE
“I’m prepared to die,” Yahlavi said in a voice that sounded unprepared.
“Well, you might die,” Rufio said, not bothering to look up from his desk as he sorted through some documents. “But it won’t be at the tribune’s hand. We’re keeping you here to spare your life.”
Yahlavi seemed stunned.
“In two days, Durena will be dead. There’s no reason for you to share his folly.”
Yahlavi just stood there.
“I’m busy,” Rufio said, finally looking up. “Go!”
A few minutes after he left, Flavia rushed in as Rufio was getting ready to leave to confer with his tribune and the other centurions.
“I heard what happened,” she said and ran to him and threw her arms around him in a crushing hug.
“All is well.” He pointed to a strange arrow on the desk. “Thank you for your prayers.”
“My prayers?”
“Oh, yes,” he said with a smile. “Who but Flavia has the wiles to summon the Archer of the Night?”
He kissed her on the bridge of her nose and went off into the darkness. When he arrived at Crus’s office, the other five centurions were already there. On their behalf, Decius had asked for this meeting with the tribune.
Crus seemed upset. “Sit down, all of you.” He pointed to the camp chairs he had positioned in front of his desk.
“Rufio,” Decius said as he joined the half circle, “your father fought with Caesar, did he not?”
“He did.”
“And did Caesar ever command from the front rank?”
“Like the fool Alexander?”
Decius’s meaty face creased in a smile. “Like the fool Alexander.”
“No. Not if it wasn’t necessary.”
Decius turned to Crus with a triumphant look.
“Apparently these brutes fear for my safety,” Crus said to Rufio.
“The tribune should be on the high plain with Bellator,” Decius said. “From there he can command the entire battlefield with signals and riders.” He smiled. “Even troops as brilliant as the soldiers of the Second Cohort need their commander intact.”
“He’s right,” Rufio said to Crus.
The tribune gave him a skeptical glare. “Then why didn’t you tell me that?”
“I know my place. This battered old drunkard does not.”
Decius laughed.
“It looks unanimous to me,” Rufio said, and all the centurions laughed together.
“To command is to fight, tribune,” Decius said. “Whether one draws one’s sword or not.”
Crus remained silent.
“We cannot afford for you to be struck down by a stray arrow,” Decius said. “And besides that, after the battle who else can carry our glory to the halls of the Palatinum?”
The centurions rumbled their approval.
Crus stood up, and the soldiers stood as well.
“Thank you,” Crus said in a soft voice. “Know this, though—if you fall, I’ll fall with you.” He seemed to be trying to clear the emotion from his throat. “Now return to your troops. And let me offer a prayer to Minerva for all of you.”
The men turned and began leaving.
“You stay,” Crus said to Rufio.
When they had gone, Crus gazed at Rufio for a few moments.
“Did you encourage them to do this?”
“No, tribune.” He smiled. “But I expected it.”
“Then why didn’t you simply tell me?”
“I preferred to let these fine men show you what they truly are.”
A large fire crackled in the middle of the parade ground, and the centurions and Bellator had gathered on camp chairs on either side of a small table set up in front of it. Most of the century was seated on the ground before them. Crus suspected that only those on guard duty were missing. Off to the right, he could just barely make out Flavia sitting on the ground at the edge of the darkness. Morlana was sitting between her legs, and Flavia’s arms were wrapped around her protectively.
Crus stayed at the back in the half-light. Rufio rose from one of the chairs and walked to the center and leaned casually against the table.
“About a year ago, I had to give a talk to my century,” Rufio said, folding his arms. “They didn’t know me yet, although a few of them already wanted to kill me—Valerius will give you details. . . .”
The troops burst out laughing, none more loudly than Valerius, whom Crus could see sitting in the front rank.
“Diocles made much of my talk in his book, all sorts of literary flourishes, but you know how writers are—always in love with bombast.”
“We want Diocles!” one of them yelled, laughing.
“But that was long ago,” Rufio went on. “After what we endured together at the Hill of Scorpions, I no longer have to explain to you our role in this life. So no rousing speeches tonight. But I do want to speak briefly about why we’re fighting here.”
He paused, as though gathering his thoughts, although Crus assumed it was more for effect than need.
“No vast army like the German horde is facing us, and we’re not an army either, just a cohort. So no book like Diocles’ great work will be written of this battle—although I’ve heard a rumor that some of you are keeping an ephemeris.” Rufio peered into the darkness. “If any of you scribes are out there, perhaps you can think about passing your thoughts on to Diocles. . . .”
Crus smiled to himself.
“But what we’re about to do is as vital as what we accomplished with blood and blades along the Rhenus. The back doorway of a man’s house is nothing. In fact, it’s less than nothing, just an empty space. Yet it’s the most important part of his home, because that’s where the robbers force their way in. Judaea is a worthless mound of rubble—except it’s not. It’s a doorway. And the door is weak and the hinge uncertain. So we’ve come here to show the robbers of the East that anyone who tries to smash the lock at the back of the Empire will bang his face against the might of Rome. The Parthian commander is an intelligent man, if I’m any judge of men, but even he doesn’t understand. Do we want Judaea? Of course not.” He held out his arms in a plaintive gesture. “What is there to want?”
The men laughed again, but a bit more softly than before.
“We’re here at this moment precisely because we don’t crave this wasteland. Rome wants only that Herod keep it. And that he keeps it safe. And makes sure his
troops can keep the door bolted—and we want them to do it without us.” He pushed himself away from the table and strode forward into the midst of his men. “Garrisoning Judaea has never been to Augustus’s liking and never will be. To him, it’s a bitter weed. But if Herod falls, or if his heirs are fools, the legions will have to march back in. And if they do, they might have to boil in this cauldron for another hundred years. It’s the fate of the Second Cohort of the Twenty-fifth Legion to make sure that’s never necessary. And to do it, we have to show the Parthian bowmen—and everyone else out here—that no matter how much Herod totters, he’s our ally. And that because of it, this gate is sealed with Roman steel.”
“And show them we will,” Valerius said.
“No troops on earth are better matched for this task,” Rufio went on. “Of course, the Parthians are more experienced horsemen than you—how could they not be?—but they’re lesser fighters.” He placed his hands on his hips and swept the men with his gaze. “And because they’re Parthians and you’re Romans, they’re also lesser men. May Victoria protect you all.”
Only a soft murmuring followed, rather than the raucous cheering that had ended his speech in Gaul the year before. Now there was just quiet and manly acceptance.
“And perhaps one more thing . . . ?” Metellus asked from the front rank.
Rufio smiled. “Yes, and one more thing—I am with you always.”
Crus drifted back into the darkness before the soldiers dispersed. He waited until Rufio had time to return to his quarters. Ten minutes later Crus found him sitting silently at his desk and staring at something only he could see.
“We’ll have the troughs finished and filled and brought out to the dry river bed tomorrow,” Rufio said abruptly, standing as Crus entered. “And I’m going to tell each of the centurions to take his century out tomorrow to show them the battleground. I don’t want them surprised by the sight of it the day they have to fight there.”
Crus gestured for Rufio to sit back down.
“What’s wrong?” Crus asked as he sat across from him.
Rufio looked puzzled. “Do you mean with the world?”
“With you.”
He gazed off at a corner of the room and took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I’m going to do something that I’ve never done before. Something I’ve dreaded my whole career.” He looked back at Crus. “I’m going to kill a man I don’t want to kill.”
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