She dreaded having him go. “You’re so kind. Might I call on you again someday? If I’m in need? Will you hear my voice?”
“Always will I listen for the musical rhythms of Gaul. You know where I can be found.”
She hesitated, suddenly feeling an almost pleasurable fear. “On Mount Pelion?”
“Yes.” Then he pointed to the heavens. “Or up there.”
Now he seemed to be waiting for her to speak.
“Farewell,” she said.
“For now,” he answered with that devastating smile, and in an explosion of hoofbeats he was gone.
Rufio always felt that evening in the desert was the gods’ apology. As he and Nimbus made their way down a narrow defile to the battlefield, the erosive air of the day was barely a memory. The Salt Sea helped, since it had no other outlet than to vaporize to the sky, and so it softened the air more than was common in such caustic wastes.
The white walls of the gorge were now washed with gold, and the faintest hints on the ground of grayish blue shadows had been transmuted into lavender and the deepest purple.
Rufio rode Nimbus into the chasm. All the blood on the battlefield had turned black, as had the bodies of the dead. If these dark Parthian corpses had once been soldiers, they did not seem so now. To Rufio, indifferent to the Parthian dead, far more monstrous were the carcasses of the horses, struck down for the petty follies of heartless men. All their lives these animals had desired but two things, ample nourishment and the security promised to them by their masters. And here they had fallen, in a lifeless abyss empty of sustenance and ridden to their deaths by men who could not save even themselves.
Nimbus stepped around the cadavers with the poise of a race of horses bred by warriors and so inured to the reek of death. Yet there was little stench here, unlike most battlefields Rufio had known. The nauseatingly sweet odor that always seemed so preposterous in these horrid landscapes was scarcely noticeable. Death in the desert had its own rituals. The drying air often mummified before it putrefied, discouraging even the flies from their usual fetid feasts. Most of these cadavers would not bloat and explode but would desiccate and endure with the tenacity of the natron-packed corpses of half-forgotten pharaohs.
Rufio rode along the edge of the field to take in the entire expanse. It seemed smaller than it had just a few days ago. Already his memory was attempting to deceive him, as it did every man who had ever fought. In a few years, his mind would imbue the killing ground with a vastness it never had. To a soldier challenging mortality, there were no minor battlegrounds.
So Rufio stopped and studied it now. He stroked Nimbus’s neck and spoke softly to him and fixed this place in his mind forever. Yet even those who thought they knew Rufio well would have been surprised to learn that his ultimate reason was not so he could absorb its lessons or write a chronicle or recall it in a mellow recounting around his fireside in years to come. He was attempting to preserve it accurately not so he could remember it, but so that now, once and for all, he could be done with it.
60
HAPPY THREE TIMES AND MORE ARE THOSE WHOM AN UNBROKEN BOND HOLDS, AND WHOSE LOVE, NOT TORN APART BY COMPLAINTS, WILL NOT DISSOLVE BEFORE THE FINAL DAY.
HORACE
The word of Salario is fine and true. His ship was already docked at Caesarea when the cohort arrived. One thing he did not expect, though, was the sight of more than eighty horses to be transported with the troops. However, after the battle with the pirates, his loyalty to Rufio, and perhaps even to Rome, is such that he raised no objection. Beakless, too, was there to greet us. This surprised me because I had gotten the feeling that there might have been some bad feeling between him and Rufio. Yet they greeted one another cheerfully as old comrades.
The tribune had allowed all of the centurions and optios and signifers to bring their horses, and then he had let Rufio decide how to deal with the other soldiers who did not want to bid farewell to their animals. Rufio held a lottery with every tent group and one man from each was permitted to bring his mount back to Gaul. Even the seven out of eight who lost the lottery seemed deeply affected by Rufio’s gift to the fortunate few. I am always fascinated by how the toughest soldiers can be moved by seemingly the smallest gesture. I think that not even a year’s worth of silver would have touched them half as deeply. For me, living these harsh and demanding months with these men has been wondrous.
Crus was standing before Herod on the marble dais and giving a sharp and lucid summary of the clash with the Parthians. Rufio stood behind the tribune and to his left.
Herod seemed more relaxed than he had before—more the confident lion in his lair. Rufio assumed this was due to the fact that it was much easier for him to be tranquil when Romans were marching out rather than marching in.
“We would speak with the centurion now,” Herod said when Crus had completed his account. “Our people thank you for your valor.”
The tribune stepped back and Rufio moved forward.
“The King of Judaea honors the fighting men of Rome,” Herod said with the sincerity of an old warrior.
“My men are grateful, my lord.”
“We presume our people treated you with kindness. They are thankful that you came.”
“And, my lord, we suspect they will be even more thankful when we sail.”
A wise smile narrowed Herod’s eyes. “And the fort on the southern border?”
“In Matthias’s loyal and prudent hands.”
“We neglected to question the tribune about captives.”
“There were just a few.”
“And were they executed?”
“They were not, my lord.”
“Mercy?”
“No, my lord. They were returned to the babbling Parthian king as battered mementoes of Herod’s wrath. The dead teach no lessons, but the bloody always do.”
Herod nodded. “Wisely spoken.”
“May Rome make a request?”
“Rome may.”
“A promotion for Matthias.”
“It has already been done.”
“Rome thanks the king.”
Rufio watched as Herod looked down the hall of his sycophants at the two men standing far off.
“And those?” Herod said.
“The younger is the personal servant of the tribune. The older is one of my horse trainers.”
“They look like Persians.” Herod’s eyes narrowed. “Are they Persians?”
“So I am led to believe, my lord.”
Herod’s gaze seemed to search Rufio’s soul. “This court has rarely seen such contented looking slaves.”
“The king is wise enough to know that some slaves are happier even than some freeborn citizens. Happier even than some great men.”
“Ah, yes,” Herod said, looking suddenly weary and sad. “Will the centurion ever return to Judaea?”
“If such is the will of Caesar. I’m sworn to his will.”
“Ah, the oath. The sacramentum.”
Rufio smiled. “Yes, my lord.”
“We would like you to return. Perhaps not with armor and blades but for rest and quiet talk. Can not Sebastos grant a small request to an old king?”
“He can, my lord.”
“Excellent. We leave it to you to make the petition for us.”
“At our next dinner together on the Palatinum, my lord, I’ll put him to the question.”
Herod smiled shrewdly. “And if you return, would it not be possible, perhaps just once, for the King of Judaea to hunt lions with a man who kills not for pleasure but for Rome?”
Stunned, Rufio just stared at Herod for a moment and then exploded in laughter.
The old tyrant roared with a laugh that drowned out Rufio and shook the throne room with as pure and unfettered a joy as that royal hall had not heard in years beyond number.
Tens of thousands of racing fanatics in the Circus Maximus created a sound that seemed eerily ominous when heard from the hidden spaces beyond the stands, like the mysterious
far-off roar rising from the depths of an ocean shell.
Other than doves of dubious virtue, women were rare in these secret enclaves of men and chariots. Yet women with Rufio would be another matter. He was well-known to the charioteers, and his martial fame also unlatched many doors, including the unspoken proscription against females in these masculine haunts.
The four dozen horses were twitchy and nervous now, for they knew what was coming. Men greased axles and checked tack and took a moment to pray to whatever gods they honored.
“Do you think maybe he’s not here today?” Flavia asked, looking around.
“Rufio!” boomed a voice from deep within the staging area.
Rufio smiled. “He’s such a quiet man.”
They made their way among sweating animals and toiling men to the blonde-bearded driver in a red tunic who had been making a few final adjustments to his horseless chariot.
“You look scorched, centurion,” the charioteer said. “I suspect a desert adventure.”
“This,” Rufio said with an expansive gesture, “is Crestus, the pride of Germania.”
Like all charioteers, Crestus was short, especially for a German, but he was massive in the shoulders. He made a slight bow to Flavia.
“And this woman I know,” Crestus said. “This must be Flavia of the Sequani.”
Flavia turned to Rufio in surprise.
“You can read?” Rufio said in mock amazement. “Diocles has a Suebi admirer! The forest gods will shake.”
Crestus looked suddenly humble. “One of the senator’s servants read it to me.”
“I’m honored to meet you,” Flavia said.
“Diocles was far too restrained in his description,” Crestus answered. “He deserves a stern rebuke.”
Flavia smiled.
“But one thing he did not explain,” Crestus went on. “Who on earth is this?”
He reached down and seized Morlana by the waist.
She shrieked and laughed simultaneously as he raised her high above his head. While she was still giggling, he set her down on the front edge of the chariot.
“A Suebi daughter?” he said, looking at Rufio.
Morlana turned toward Rufio. “Yes,” she said softly in her native language, but her eyes whispered far more.
Rufio wanted to answer Crestus, but for once he did not know what to say, and his throat was too tight to speak.
Crestus grinned at Morlana. “Can this be true?”
As if in answer, she smiled and jumped down from the chariot and slid her thin arms around Rufio’s waist.
Crestus put his hands on his hips and stared down at them. “A Roman centurion and a Sequani archer and a Suebi princess. What can this possibly mean?”
“Don’t you know?” Rufio said, reaching for Flavia’s hand and squeezing Morlana tightly against his side as she gazed up at him with love and awe. “It means,” he said, laughing, “that it’s not time to roll up the Empire just yet.”
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