Knight of Rome Part I

by Malcolm Davies

  “Good, provide them with basic equipment and the legion training officer can decide if he wants them when we get to Lugdunum.”

  “I’ll need you to sign for their kit, sir.”

  Lucius sighed, remembering the saga of Otto’s boots but scratched his name on the docket before making his way home.

  There were five optios and seven corporals among the returning troops. Massus gathered them out of the hearing of the men.

  “This tribune is a decent bloke, not one of your posh timewasters. A fortnight ago he got himself split open in a fight outside a city tavern. It’s only his stitches holding him together so, what I’m saying to you is don’t make his life harder than it is. You all know what I mean. And if you piss him about he’ll set Otto on you.”

  “Who’s this Otto, centurion?” a corporal asked.

  “He’s the German lad who stuck a stylus in that slave’s face and chased him through the camp with Boxer’s sword,” one of the group replied on Massus’ behalf.

  “And he cut off Tubby’s ear for pushing him into the shithouse pit,” another said.

  “They never proved that,” one of the optios added.

  “Well,” said Massus, “you learn something new every day, lads. Doesn’t surprise me, though; he’s bloody huge and a real hard case. He only killed two of the scum who went for the tribune with his pugio and the other one by smashing him into a wall.”

  On their last night at home everyone’s mood was sombre with the exception of Passer who was bursting with excitement. He had packed and repacked the mule cart a dozen times. The mules themselves were resplendent; teeth and hooves polished and their coats gleaming. He had displayed his new clothes and boots to the slaves and his mother. She was torn between dread that she would never see her son again and ecstatic dreams of what his future might be now he was free.

  As Otto was sorting out his few possessions in his room after dinner, Aelia came in. She was carrying a scroll case which she handed over. The case was copper, covered in leather and designed to protect the contents against the worst of weather.

  “Inside this case is a distillation of wisdom,” she said. “On the scroll it contains are written fifty quotations from the works of great thinkers; Zeno, Diogenes, Lucretius, Cicero and many more. They spent their lives trying to understand what it means to be a human being and live wisely in this world. I selected them and a scribe has written them out on best Egyptian paper for you. Do not read the whole thing at once. Select just one, study it with care and then think about it before going on to the next. And while you are turning it over in your mind, look at the people around you and how they behave, consider your own actions with honesty. Only then will you be able to judge the value of what you have read. I hope that some of these words will strike a chord in your soul and bring you enlightenment.”

  “I will treasure it, thank you,” Otto told her, holding the gift reverently on both hands. “But why have you taken such pains to be my friend and teacher, lady?”

  “The Fates sent you. I wish to be their servant in helping you on your way...and I like you.”

  As daylight broke, they rose from the breakfast table. The mule cart was already hitched up in the street. Otto said his farewells and stood by the horses. Lucius saluted the death masks of each of his illustrious ancestors, received his parents’ blessings and strode out. Otto cupped his hands for his foot and eased him into the saddle. The incense burned low in front of the altar of the household gods as the family prayed together for the safety of Lucius to which they added the names of Otto and Passer.

  At the city gate, the legionaries were waiting in a column four abreast bent around the square with the wagons taking up the rear. Passer pulled up behind the last of them. Massus handed up a satchel of receipts dockets and muster rolls. He saluted.

  “All in order sir and I wish you a safe journey. Remember me to Titus Attius if you will with my good wishes.”

  “I shall, Centurion Decimus Massus. Please accept my grateful thanks for your unwavering support.”

  The hinges of the gates squealed as they were opened and the troops marched off in the growing light.

  “I told those lazy bastards to oil those gates,” Massus thought to himself. “I’ll have their guts for embarrassing me like that.”

  Chapter 20

  For the first hour, the column trudged on the level past ploughed fields waiting for their spring planting. Lucius rode easily. He complacently congratulated himself. Doctors were always too pessimistic; it kept their patients calling them back and increased their fees. But the ground rose. Subtly at first, the road started to climb towards the low foothills and the farther Apuan Alps they must cross to come to the Via Antonia and Gaul.

  Behind his mules, Passer was grinning from ear to ear. Otto dropped back to check on him.

  “What are you so pleased about?” he asked.

  “I’ve never been so far from home before, Master Otto. It’s exciting isn’t it?”

  They had covered five miles.

  Lucius’ horse had to work harder uphill. His pace became less regular and sometimes a hoof slid on a wet stone and he had to adjust his balance. Lucius was forced to lean forward in the saddle. At first, he began to feel a series of pinpricks across his chest. Each one was the result of his stitches pulling under the play of the muscles moving under his skin. They merged together into a throbbing harmony and then a line of hot pain. Three hours out of Luca the column stopped on a plateau so that the men could rest and have something to eat.

  “Otto,” Lucius said quietly so no one else could hear, “I don’t think I can get off.”

  Otto dismounted without replying, stood by Lucius’ horse and held out his arms. Lucius slumped sideways lifting his thighs free of the saddle horns and letting himself fall. Otto took his weight effortlessly and gently deposited the wounded man on his feet.

  “Well done Boxer; I didn’t think you’d get that far.”

  Lucius took two faltering steps then pulled himself upright and made his slow way to Passer and the cart. A short ladder was hinged to the tailgate up which he climbed and gratefully stretched his length on the mattress inside. At the end of the break, Lucius called the senior optio to him.

  “Get the men on their feet. We’ve got no palisade poles so we can’t make a standard marching camp but even though we’re close to home I want us secure overnight. We’ll get another three hours in before we have to call it a day so liaise with Otto here later on and he’ll go ahead and find us a good place to halt.” He noticed the man’s quick look of unease at Otto. “Don’t worry, optio, he knows what he’s doing.”

  Lucius spent the rest of the day in the cart. Even that was not without discomfort. If a wheel went into a rut, the shock sent a wave of pain across his chest. Some of the men had looked askance when he did not reappear, mounted at the head of the column.

  “Great for officers; lolling about in that thing while we slog up these bastard hills,” one muttered to his mate.

  “Well, that’s what they’re like aren’t they? Soft shits the lot of ‘em when it comes to the hard graft; too tired to ride his bloody horse while we march,” was the reply from the side of his comrade’s mouth.

  Otto found a flat area with a stream running icily through it and a solitary, enormous boulder in the centre. With the great rock at their backs and the wagons and cart in front of them, they were as safe as they could be. It was unlikely that such a strong force would be attacked but they needed to be on their guard. There was always the chance of a hit and run raid by a gang of robbers after weapons and equipment.

  Lucius sat stripped to the waist on the steps of the cart. Passer had removed his bandage and was busy smearing the garlic and honey paste on a clean one before binding him up again. Several of the legionaries caught a glimpse of the jagged red lips of the slash held together by a wandering line of black stitches that crossed his chest. Word quickly got around, with the usual exaggerations; “Poor old Boxer’s nearly cho
pped in half, saw it meself, ‘orrible to look at”.

  Once it sunk in with all the men that this tribune was the celebrated “Boxer”, of whom they had heard such entertaining gossip and that he was genuinely injured, their attitude changed. Next morning the senior optio and his second approached Lucius.

  “With your permission, tribune, it might be a good idea to put your cart in the centre of the column. Then we can find you quicker if there’s a problem…and you aren’t on your horse… it might be easier for you, sir,” he suggested nervously.

  Passer duly moved up with legionaries marching in front and behind him. They climbed for another day, the road steeper at every turn. Again, Lucius endured another three hours in the saddle. Otto found them an overnight halting place once more and the pattern of their days was set.

  On the fifth morning, it was discovered that one of the recruits had slipped away in the night. This led to a discussion among the officers; the case was not straightforward. Technically, he was not a legionary since he had not completed training and been assigned his number, so he was not a deserter in the usual meaning of the word. However, he was on the ration roll and had been given the basic kit that he had taken with him. He had definitely stolen legion stores. So, deserter or not, he was a condemned man. Lucius made a decision.

  “Go and find him, Otto,” he ordered.

  He returned just before the midday break, slowly riding the length of the column with a legionary’s equipment festooned around his horse and person. A pair of boots with the laces tied together was slung around his neck. He brought his mount up alongside Lucius and saluted. Lucius shouted for the senior optio to halt the men and come up to him, bringing the other officers.

  “This will be instructive,” he told them and turned to Otto. “Come on then, what’s your story?”

  “The runaway was quite a long way back. He must have heard my horse so he tried to hide behind some rocks but he left enough tracks for a child to follow. He cried and said he did not wish to be in the army and his feet hurt. So I left him there out of kindness. I did not want him to be executed, Boxer, sir.”

  “And what’s all this kit dangling off you and your horse?” Lucius asked.

  “Ah, as I explained to him, if he did not want to be a soldier, he had no right to any of it and must give it back. He refused at first but when I got off my horse he handed it all over.”

  “What did you leave him?”

  Otto knitted his brows together in a frown as if he did not understand the question.

  “Nothing…well his tunic for decency,” he said, finally.

  “So, to summarize, Otto, you left him wearing only a thin tunic, no cloak, barefoot, with no weapon and no food or means of making a fire, four days from home halfway up a mountain. And you did that out of kindness.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “And you do not think that is a death sentence?”

  Otto threw back his head and laughed.

  “A Suevi boy Passer’s age could handle that and he’s a grown man.”

  “Thank you Otto, my friend. Take the kit over to one of the supply wagons,” Lucius told him and waited until he was out of hearing before addressing the dumbstruck officers standing by. “The worse thing about that is he really believes he has done the poor sod a good turn, dismissed.”

  Eventually, the highest point of their route was reached and they began to descend. This was easier for the marching men and better for Lucius. Now he was using his back muscles to hold him upright in the saddle there was less stress and strain on his chest. Once they set out on the broad and well-paved Via Antonia, it was better again and by the time they branched onto the Via Agrippa, Lucius was riding all day. Although his health had visibly improved, he still exuded a miasma of faintly sweet, stale garlic. Passer re-bandaged him every evening. The inflamed edges of his wound looked less angry as they began to knit. The day arrived when he climbed into the saddle and dismounted completely unaided, to a cheer from the watching legionaries.

  The smudge of brown smoke which lay over Lugdunum finally broke over the horizon. They arrived late in the afternoon and reported to the barracks where the usual, smooth Roman organisation swung into action. Lucius handed over his paperwork to the quartermaster who bustled away with the hauliers to pay them off. A centurion ordered the ranks of legionaries off to their billets at a quick march. Lucius sent Otto to the stables with the horses and was sitting on the tailgate of the cart wearing only his boots and a loin cloth, about to have his bandage renewed when two figures in dazzling breast plates and helmets came around the side and stopped in front of him. Legate Publius Quadratus looked at his tribune in frank amazement.

  “What in the name of Dis have you been playing at, Tribune Longius?” he asked.

  Lucius started to come to his feet but the legate told him to stay where he was.

  “There was an attempted robbery, sir. I was cut about as you can see.”

  The legate stepped closer and examined the damage for himself.

  “When did this happen?”

  “It was on the evening of the fifteenth of February.”

  “Two days after the Ides of February, so what are you doing here?”

  “Sir, your orders were perfectly clear. I was to leave Luca on the first day of March to make the rendezvous with you.”

  “That they were. And have you travelled all the way in this cart?”

  “No sir, I rode my horse for as long as I could each day. I am pleased to report that for the past few days I have mounted and dismounted unassisted and ridden for six hours.”

  “What is that appalling stench?”

  “Ah, that would be me. I have to smear garlic oil on my dressings and I cannot bathe until the stitches are removed.”

  “In which case, stay where you are and I’ll send the garrison surgeon over; come to my quarters when he has examined you and you’re sorted out.”

  He turned on his heel and strode off with the other officer who had not spoken.

  “Boxer, was that the Emperor?” Passer asked.

  “No, that’s the legate, the most important officer in the legion. And do not call me “Boxer” all the time.”

  “But Otto does and so do all the soldiers. They all call you Tribune Boxer or just Boxer. Is it because of your nose, sir? You look like a boxer.”

  “Shut up!” Lucius snapped.

  The surgeon was a middle-aged man with greying temples and big, red, hands that looked like they should belong to a ditch-digger. In his wake an orderly carried a wooden box of instruments and medicines.

  “Been travelling with a dead goat have you?” he demanded then gently stretched the skin either side of the line of stitches between finger and thumb.

  “When did you receive this injury?” he asked.

  Lucius told him.

  “When did you set out on your journey to Lugdunum?”

  Lucius told him that.

  The surgeon clucked his tongue and shook his head. “And I suppose everyone told you not to, but you just went ahead. In my opinion you are an idiot, sir. But a strong and very fortunate one: I see no reason to delay removing this first-rate stitching.”

  He clicked his fingers. His orderly produced a bottle of distilled wine vinegar and poured some out onto a piece of lint. The surgeon wiped the wound clean and then with a pair of scissors and forceps took every black, knotted horse-hair stitch out. A few small beads of blood welled up and were wiped away by the orderly.

  “There we are, sir. My professional advice to you is to take a bath as soon as possible for the benefit of the rest of us as much as your own; otherwise carry on as normal.”

  “When can I wear my armour?” Lucius asked.

  “Oh, right away I should have thought. Put a square of clean linen under your tunic every day for ten days and if you see the slightest sign of pus, leave off the subarmalis and breastplate and see a doctor who is as good as me as soon as possible.”

  Otto returned. “You are no long
er sewn together; that’s good. The horses are in the stables and the head groom says he will make room for our mules. We can park the cart outside. The optio in charge of officer accommodation has shown me our quarters. Do you want to go and look at them, Boxer?”

  Passer smirked so Lucius clipped him around the ear, but not too hard.

  Half an hour later, Otto and Lucius luxuriated in the baths. The attendant had baulked at admitting Otto but Lucius had a word in his ear.

  “He is the only son of a powerful German warlord. We don’t want to risk offending him, now do we?”

  Passer was on the veranda of the rooms they had been assigned polishing boots and armour under the watchful eye of the optio. He was there to ensure the security of all the officers’ property during their temporary stay but he decided to relieve his boredom by supervising Passer.

  “Not like that lad; whoever taught you to polish boots? Put some effort into it, the best thing to make ‘em shine is elbow grease…”

  Lucius and Otto were unrecognisable when they stepped outside their quarters bathed, shaved, hair neat and, in Lucius’ case, lightly perfumed. Shards of light sparkled off their mirror-bright kit. Lucius threw Passer a coin and told him to get himself something to eat and come straight back. The optio pointed out the legate’s rooms. The guard announced them and they walked into a combination office and reception room. It was sparsely but comfortably furnished, warm and well lit. They saluted.

  Publius Quadratus stood up with a wide smile on his face and ostentatiously sniffed the air.

  “Is that you Boxer?”

  Lucius laughed. “What a relief to feel clean and be able to wear my uniform again sir, thanks to the surgeon you sent me.”

  “And you are sure he has passed you fit for duty?”

  “Yes, sir, there is one minor precaution I must take and I’ll be sure to follow his advice.”