“News?” his companion echoed. Then he placed a stubby tongue between badly chapped lips and blew a sound that never issued from the wolf’s-head bell of any bucina. “Sweet sodding Saturn, Junie, how the blazes would I have any more news from the friggin’ south than you, stuck up here freezin’ me cobblers off, waitin’ on the relief—see if them buggers ever show up, bleedin’ arse-lickers the lot of ‘em, and everyone knows Tullius Cato’s old lady’s been slippin’ into the commander’s bedroll, so he never pulls the shit-shift, wish my girl’d show half as much support for me career, but that’s women for you—only women ain’t so much to your taste, now as I remember the barrack-room gab, are they, no offense taken, I hope?”
His Latin was somewhat less pure than that of his hawk-faced comrade-in-arms.
Junius Claudius Maro regarded the balding, podgy little man with a look fit to petrify absolutely that fellow’s already chilled cobblers. “You presume too much upon our training days, Caius Lucius Piso. Were I to report the half of what you have just said, our beloved commander could order the flesh flayed from your bones.” He settled the drape of his thick wool mantle more comfortably on his shoulders, then suffered a happy afterthought: “With a steel-tipped knout. However, for the love that is between us, I will say nothing.” He looked inordinately pleased with himself.
“Right, then,” said Caius Lucius Piso. His own afterthought bid him add: “Ta.” He uprooted the Imperial eagle, hoisted it fishpole-wise over one shoulder, and casually commenced a westerly ramble. “I’ll just be toddling on down the wall, eh? Have a bit of a lookabout? Keep one peeper peeled for this hero fella you say’s coming, maybe kindle a light, start a little summat boiling on the guardroom fire, hot wine, the cup that cheers, just the thing what with a winter like we’re like to have, judging by the misery as’s crept into me bones. Bring you back a cuppa, Junie?” This last comment was flung back from a goodly distance down the wall, went unheard, and received no reply.
The nearest guardroom along that section of the wall where the ill-matched pair patrolled had once been a thing of pride, to judge by its size. It was large enough to have housed sheep for whatever purpose. Years and neglect had done their damnedest to bring pride to a fall. Hares and foxes took it in turn to nest in the tumbledown sections of the derelict structure, but there was still a portion of the building with a make-do roof of old blankets and sod. In the lee of the October winds, surrounded by shadows, Caius Lucius Piso knelt to poke up the small peat fire in the pit.
The flame caught and flared, banishing darkness. Caius gasped as his small fire leaped in reflection on the iron helmet and drawn sword of the man hunkered on his hams in the dingy guardroom. The image of a slavering wild boar cresting his helmet seemed to leap out at the trembling Roman. Beneath the brim, two small, red, and nasty orbs glared. From porcine eyes to bristly snout, there was a striking family resemblance between boar crest and crest-wearer.
There was also the matter of the man’s sword. Caius Lucius Piso’s initial impression of that weapon had not been wrong. It was indeed as large, keen, and unsheathed as it had seemed at first glance. It was also leveled at the crouching Roman. The man snarled foreign words and raised the sword several degrees, sending ripples through his thickly-corded forearm muscles. Many of his teeth were broken, all were yellow as autumn crocus, and the stench emanating from him, body and bearskin, was enough to strike an unsuspecting passer-by senseless. He looked like a man to whom filth was not just a way of life, but a religious calling.
Caius Lucius Piso knew a hero when he saw one.
“Oh, shit” he said.
“That’s him?” Goewin knotted her fists on her hips and studied the new arrival. “That’s our precious hero?”
“Hush now, dear, he’ll hear you.” Caius Lucius Piso made small dampening motions with his hands, but the lady of his hearth and heart was undaunted. She had been the one who’d taught him how to make that obnoxious tongue-and-lips blatting sound, after all.
“Hush yerself, you great cowpat. Who cares does he hear me? Stupid clod don’t speak a flyspeck of honest Gaelic.” She smiled sweetly at the visitor, who stood beside the oxhide-hung doorway, arms crossed. He appeared to disapprove of everything he saw within the humble hut, and, without a word, somehow conveyed the message that he had sheathed his fearsome sword under protest.
“Who’d like a bit of the old nip-and-tuck with any ewe he fancies, then?” Goewin asked him, still smiling. “Whose Mum did it for kippers?”
“Goewin, for Mithra’s sake, the man’s a guest. And a hero! He’s only biding under our roof until they’re ready to receive him formally at headquarters.”
“Hindquarters, you mean, if it’s the Commander yer speaking of.”
“Epona’s east tit, woman, mind your tongue! If word gets back to the commander that you’ve been rude to his chosen hero …” Caius Lucius turned chalky at the thought.
“A hero?” Goewin cocked her head at the impassive presence guarding her doorway. “Him?” She clicked her tongue. “If that’s the sort of labor we’re down to bringing into Britain, just to take care of a piddling beast you lot could handle, weren’t you such hermaphros, well—”
“That’s not fair and you know it, Goewin. You can’t call a monster big enough to carry off five legionaries any sort of piddler.”
“Oh, pooh. Tisn’t as if it carried all five off in one go. I’ve not seen it anymore than you have, but I know different. You Romans always exaggerate, as many a poor girl’s learned to her sorrow on the wedding night or ‘round the Beltaine fires. Probably no more’n a newt with glanders, but straightaway you lot bawl ‘Dragon!’ and off for help you run. Bunch of babes. And if that piece propping up the doorpost’s the best you could drum up on the Continent—” She shrugged expressively. “This country’s just going to ruin, Cai, that’s all.” She slouched over to grasp the stranger’s impressive left bicep. “Look ‘ee here. Shoddy goods, that is. Scrawnier than—”
There was a flicker of cold steel. The man’s dagger was smaller than his sword, lighter, far handier, with a clean line that would never go out of style. It was almost the size of a Roman legionary’s shortsword, but he handled it with more address. Presently it addressed Goewin’s windpipe.
“Ave, all,” said Junius, pulling back the oxhide and stepping unwittingly into the midst of this small domestic drama. “The commander is now prepared to greet our noble visitor with all due—”
The noble visitor growled something unintelligible and dropped his dagger point from Goewin’s throat. Caius Lucius rather supposed that his guest disliked interruptions. Junius stared as the blade turned its attention to him.
“Now just a moment—” Junius objected in his flawless Latin.
A moment was all Caius Lucius wished. His wife was safe, but now his messmate was in danger. Dragon or no, and never mind that Junie Maro was the biggest prig the Glorious Ninth had ever spawned, the bonds of the legion still stood for something. While trying to remember precisely what, he picked up a small wine jug and belted the noble visitor smack on top of his iron boar.
Junius Claudius Maro looked down at the crumpled heap of clay shards, fur, and badly-tanned leather at his feet, then gave Caius Lucius a filthy glare by way of thanks for his life. “You idiot,” he said.
“You’re welcome, I’m sure,” Caius replied. Sullen and bitter, he added, “Didn’t kill ‘im. Didn’t even snuff his wick.”
That much was true. The man was not unconscious, just badly dazed and grinning like a squirrel. Caius Lucius watched, astounded, as old Junie knelt beside the stunned barbarian and spoke to him in a strange, harsh tongue. Still half loopy, the man responded haltingly in kind, and before long the two of them were deep in earnest conversation punctuated by bellowing laughter.
“You—you speak that gibberish, Junie?” Caius Lucius ventured to ask when his comrade finally stood up.
“Geatish, not gibberish,” Junius replied, wiping tears of hilarity from his eyes. “God
s, and to think I never believed the pater when he told me it’s the only tongue on earth fit for telling a really elegant latrine joke! Later on, you must remind me to tell you the one about—but no. The pun won’t translate, and, in any case, Ursus here says he’s going to kill you in a bit. If our commander doesn’t have you crucified first, for nearly doing in our dragon-slayer.”
Caius Lucius gaped. “Crucified?”
His wife sighed. “Didn’t me Mum just warn me you’d come to a bad end. Now I’ll have to listen to the old girl’s bloody I-told-you-so’s ‘til Imbolc. Honestly, Cai—!”
“Caius Lucius Piso, you are accused of damaging legion property.” The Commander of the Ninth slurped an oyster and gave the accused the fish-eye. “This man has been brought into our service at great personal expense to deal with our—ah—little problem, and you make free with his cranial integrity.” The commander grinned, never loath to let his audience know when he’d come up with an especially elegant turn of phrase. Marcus Septimus, the commander’s secretary, toady, and emergency catamite, applauded dutifully and made a note of it.
“Bashed him one on the conk, he did,” Goewin piped up from the doorway. “I saw ‘im!”
Caius could not turn to give his wife the killing look she deserved. He was compelled to stand facing his commander, head bowed, and hear Goewin condemn him with one breath, then, with the second, titter, “Oooh, Maxentius, you keep your hands to yourself, you horrid goat! And me not even a widow yet!” Her pleased tone of voice belied her harsh words. Obviously, Goewin did not believe in waiting until the last minute to provide for her future.
Caius scuffed his already worn perones in the packed earthen floor of the commander’s hut, and tried to think of something besides death. It didn’t help to dwell on the thought of killing old Junie, for that specific fantasy always veered over to the general theme of thanatos, which by turns yanked his musings back to his own imminent fate.
The commander was not happy, and all the way back to the first generation, the Commanders of the Ninth had had a simple way of dealing with their discontent.
“Right. Guilty. Crucify him,” said the commander.
Junius looked smug. He stood at the commander’s left hand while the man he had dubbed Ursus sprawled on a bench to the right. He still wore the boar’s head helm, but now the eyes beneath the brim no longer showed murderous rage. Instead they roved slowly around the hut, silently weighing the worth and transportability of every even vaguely valuable item they spied. They only paused in their mercantile circuit when Junius leaned around the back of the commander’s chair to whisper a translation of Caius’ sentence in the barbarian’s shaggy ear.
Something like a flint-struck spark kindled in the depth of those tiny eyes. “NEVER!” Ursus bawled—and then all Hades broke loose.
Afterwards, Caius could not say whether he was more shocked by the barbarian’s reaction, or by the fact that he had understood the man’s exclamation precisely.
He quickly shelved linguistic musings in favor of survival. It really was an impressive tantrum the barbarian was throwing; he also threw the bench. Everyone in the commander’s hut who could reach an exit, did so, in short order. The commander and all members of the makeshift tribunal held their ground, but only because they were cut off from the sole escape route by the rampaging dragon-slayer himself.
Ursus was on his feet, each clenched fist the size of a toddler’s skull. He gave a fierce kick, knocking over a little tabouret bearing a bowl of windfalls and a silver wine jug with matched goblets. He picked up the fallen objects one by one and flung them at the hut’s curved walls. Though his sword and dagger had perforce been laid aside before coming into the commander’s presence, he still looked able to reduce the population barehanded ad libitum. Throughout this demonstration, he continued to chant, “Never, never, never!”
The commander’s face resembled an adolescent cheese. His jowls shuddered as much as his voice when he inquired so very delicately of his guest, “What? Never?”
When Junius went to translate this into Geatish, the hero seized him by the throat and shook him until his kneecaps rattled. He pitched the Roman javelin-fashion at the open doorway of the commander’s house. Unfortunately, he missed his aim by a handspan. Junius came up face-first against a doorpost and knocked one of the severed heads out of its niche. The commander’s woman, a hutproud lady, fussed loudly as she dusted it off and tucked it back where it belonged.
Junius received no such attentions.
Ursus glowered at the fallen foe.
“Far though my fate has flung roe,
Weary the whale-road wandering,
Still shall I no stupidity stomach,
Butt and baited of boobies!”
All this he spat at his retired translator. He used a sadly corrupt version of Latin, admixed higgledy-piggledy with a sprinkling of other tongues. Like most bastards, it had its charm, and was able to penetrate where purebreds could not follow. It took some concentration, but every man of the Ninth who heard Ursus speak so, understood him.
Caius took a tentative step towards his unexpected champion. “You haven’t half got a bad accent, mate. For a bloody foreigner, I mean. Pick up the tongue from a trader, then?”
Ursus’ eyes narrowed, making them nigh invisible. He motioned for Caius to approach, and when the little man complied, he grabbed him and hoisted him onto tip-toe by a knot of tunic.
“Hear me, O halfling half-blood,
Lees of the legion’s long lingering
Here hard by Hadrian’s human-reared hillock!
Your lowly life I love not.
Murder you might I meetly,
Yet you are young and useful.
Wise is the woman-born warrior
Dragons who dauntless dares;
Smarter the soul who sword-smites serpents
Carefully, in company of comrades.”
Caius was still puzzling this out when Marcus Septimus inched up behind him and whispered, “I think he wants a sword-bearer or something to stand by while he does in the dragon for us.”
“Want my opinion,” Caius growled out of the comer of his mouth, “the bugger’s just as scared as the rest of us. Sword-bearer, my arse! What he wants is bait!”
“We could still crucify you,” Marcus suggested.
Caius got his hands up and delicately disengaged the barbarian’s hold on his tunic. Once there was solid earth under his feet again, he said, “All right, Ursus. You’ve got me over the soddin’ barrel. I’ll go.”
Everyone left in the hut smiled, including Junius, who had just rejoined the sentient.
Ursus clapped the little legionary on the shoulder and declaimed: “Victory velcomes the valiant!”
Marcus raised one carefully-plucked brow and clucked. ” ‘Velcomes?’ Hmph. If they’re going to come over here and take our coin, they might at least learn to speak our language properly!”
“Silly Geat,” Junius agreed, rubbing his head.
Ursus was neither deaf nor amused, and his smattering of Latin was enough to parse personal remarks. He gathered up the two critics as lesser men might pick strawberries. Marcus cast an imploring glance at the commander, who was suddenly consumed by a passion to get to know his toenails better.
“Sagas they sing of swordsmen,” Ursus informed them.
“Hymn they the homicidal.
Geats, though for glory greedy,
Shame think it not to share.
Wily, the Worm awaits us.
Guides will I guard right gladly!
And, should the shambler slay you,
Sorrow shall I sincerely.”
Caius leered at the two wriggling captives. “In other words, gents, we’ve all been bloody drafted.”
“Oh, I hate this, hate this, hate this,” Marcus whined as they trudged along Hadrian’s Wall, fruitlessly trying to keep pace with Ursus.
“Put a caliga in it, you miserable cow! It’s not like he’d tapped you to be his weapons bearer.”
Caius gave Marcus an encouraging jab with the bundle of spears that had been wished on him by his new boss. “All you’ve got to do is lead him to the fen where the monster’s skulking and take off once the fun starts. Shouldn’t be too hard for you.”
“We’re all going to die,” Marcus moaned. “The dragon will be all stirred up, and it will slay that great brute before you can say hic ibat Simois, and then it will come after us. I can’t outrun a dragon! Not in these shoes.”
At the head of the line where he marched beside Ursus, a spare eagle standard jouncing along on his shoulder, Junius overheard and gave them a scornful backwards glance. He said something that Caius did not quite catch, but which caused Marcus to make an obscene gesture.
“Soddin’ ears going on me,” Caius complained. “What’d he say, then?”
“That—” Marcus pursed his ungenerous mouth “—was Greek”
“Greek to me, all right,” Caius agreed. “Junie always was a bloody show-off.”
“He said we were both slackers and cowards, and when we get back and he tells the Commander how badly we’ve disgraced the Glorious Ninth in front of the hired help, we’ll both be crucified.”
Smart Dragons, Foolish Elves Page 25
