Hard to argue with such a choice. Hard to argue with fighting against the men that had enslaved or killed your fathers, uncles, cousins and brothers, rather than serving them.
I was near alone in that opinion, of course. The few times I had ventured it I had been beaten down with pompous assertions about the glory of Rome, and the brazen cheek of the rebels for not appreciating what they were being given. I did not blame my comrades for this. Many of them were from Italy. I was not. I had been born and raised in Iader, on the Dalmatian coast. Yes, it was a Roman settlement, but no island is immune from the sea that washes around it. Many native Dalmatians had come from the hills and coastal villages to take advantage of what the town had to offer – a bustling forum and market. A harbour. Security, and order. I had many friends there, and had been raised speaking both Latin and the local tongue. There was no doubt in my mind now that the boys I had grown up playing soldiers with were now my enemy. They were my age, and so would have been the most likely to be pressed or volunteered into service. Then, at the marshalling grounds, willing or not, they would have been informed that their enemy was now Rome. The rumour was that Bato had offered the Dalmatians a choice, but in reality, I doubt the men holding spear and shield had any more say in the decision-making of their leaders than we did with ours. It was the lot of most men to obey and die. Very few got to make the choice over what those deaths would stand for.
I looked at the eagle again. Those hooded eyes. How many deaths had it witnessed? How many battles? How many triumphs? How many failures? Little of the latter, I supposed, or else she would be adorning a king’s hall now, and not my solitary companion.
‘I should give you a name,’ I thought out loud. ‘How about Gallus?’
Chicken.
The eagle looked back sternly but said nothing. I took that as approval.
I turned to my other companion, then. Hee held my left flank – the small wooden horse that had belonged to one of my section. I tried not to think about how its former owner had died, and instead wondered at what happiness this child’s toy had given him. It was a joyful mystery to me.
‘You can be Xanthus.’ One of the horses that drew the chariot of Achilles, a story that Marcus had repeated to me as a child until it was pouring out of my ears. So vivid was the memory that, for a moment, I thought I heard him speak.
‘Corvus!’ he shouted, running to me. ‘Corvus!’
No dream! My friend. My oldest, greatest friend. I sprang to my feet to embrace him, but I was too slow…
His face wide with awe, Marcus dropped to his knees in front of the eagle.
Before I could help myself, I began to laugh.
28
It was a long time before I was done suggesting the crude acts that Marcus could perform with the staff of Gallus, the legion’s eagle. As a child and a young man I was always trying to be a comedian, but those days had died when I had tramped on my father’s skull. Only Marcus could pull the jokes from me now. He was a window to my past. The parts that I wanted to remember, even with the pain that they caused me.
I hugged him so tightly that I thought his back would snap. ‘Gods, I have missed you.’
Marcus stood back from me. There were tears in his eyes. Tears on his cheeks. ‘I’m so proud of you, Corvus. Standard-bearer? Corvus, I’m so proud!’
‘Did you bring wine?’ I asked, uncomfortable with the adulation, even from him.
‘Forget the wine, brother, give me the stories!’
‘Wine,’ I insisted.
‘I’m taking a walk,’ I called to the sentries who were posted nearby – I wasn’t the only one charged with her protection. After all, I could hardly turn up in the latrines with the legion’s standard in my hand, could I?
‘These men are your friends?’ Marcus asked me as we walked away.
I shook my head. ‘I get different ones every day depending on which cohort has the camp guard, and I can’t talk to them. Legate would have their heads if they seemed distracted.’
‘But he’ll be all right with you drinking?’ Marcus smirked.
‘He loves me,’ I said honestly. ‘Calls me the hero of the Eighth.’
Marcus grinned. ‘Fear the Eighth.’
‘You heard about that?’
‘The whole army’s heard about that! The battle is growing famous, brother.’
‘What are they calling it?’
When Marcus smiled with pride, I could tell that the name was going to be a pompous one. ‘The battle of the night and day,’ he said with adulation in his tone.
Gods. Worse than I thought. ‘It was day, then night,’ I corrected.
‘Well, that’s what they’re calling it.’
‘Great.’
My friend looked at me sideways. ‘Shouldn’t you be wearing your bearskin?’ he asked, referring to the thick fur that draped from helmet over shoulders, a symbol of my rank.
‘Slaves are still cleaning it,’ I said. The previous man in my position had left his mark with pints of blood.
‘There’s nothing more important than the appearance of a soldier,’ Marcus replied. ‘It’s the four Ds, Corvus. Dress. Discipline. And dealing death.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘I missed you, brother.’
I found a quiet inn with Marcus. After a few drinks, I relented under his barrage of questions about the battle, and began to answer. The memories were not pleasant for me, but neither were they painful. I suppose I was numb. I don’t know how much of that had to do with the wine. It certainly became easier to talk once the first jug was empty.
Marcus hung on every word. At times there was pride on his face, at other times, envy. Never was there disgust or fear that he would likely face such horrors, and soon. ‘I can’t wait for battle,’ he told me honestly.
I didn’t hold his naivety against him. The truth was that I had been eager to spill blood, and now it seemed I was still anxious to spill more. ‘You lose yourself in it,’ I explained. ‘There’s no past or future, brother, there’s just that breath. That stab, or parry.’
‘You loved it?’
I shook my head. ‘No.’
Marcus frowned. ‘But you want more?’
I did.
‘I don’t understand.’
Neither did I.
‘Tell me about the eagle.’
I told him about Priscus instead. Marcus took a deep breath of pride. ‘He died for Rome.’
No. ‘He died for Brutus.’ I’m not sure if that was true. At times, Priscus had displayed flashes of the same devotion to a faraway city as my oldest friend.
Marcus shrugged his shoulders. ‘Brutus is a soldier of Rome, and so if Priscus died for Brutus, then he died for Rome.’
There was no getting away from it, and so I drank. ‘Well, here’s to Rome then.’ Here’s to the city neither of us has ever seen. Here’s to the city that controls our lives, and our deaths.
Marcus grinned. The toast had probably got him hard. ‘To Rome!’ He saluted.
The next day, he’d get his chance to die for her.
29
By virtue of my new position I attended the fort’s headquarters building to hear the legate’s orders for the coming campaign against the rebels. As well as Hook-nose, the briefing was attended by the legion’s tribunes, cohort commanders and senior centurions. My friend Varo was not amongst the mass, which was just as well – the courtyard at the centre of the building was tightly packed, and Varo would have likely crushed someone with his bulk. I had been required to bring Gallus with me, and I stood with the eagle at the front of the assembly. In such a position, I could see the faces of the men whose orders breathed disciplined life into the legion. Their faces were hard, and eager. They wanted after the enemy. They wanted blood.