Eventually there was no further excuse for doubting his mathematical competence, and he neatly rolled up the scrolls and carefully placed them back into the records chest. He was just finishing when a shadow fell across the camp desk.
'Hello, Optio,' said Nisus. 'I see that slave-driver centurion of yours is keeping you at it.'
'No, my choice.'
Nisus tilted his head to one side, resting it against a long, thin spear with three prongs. 'Your choice? Think I must have missed a touch of concussion when I examined you. That or some fever is getting a grip on you. Either way, you could do with a break. And, as it happens, so could I.'
'You?'
'Don't look so surprised. Some of our wounded survive my treatment for as much as several days. I just can't get them to die quickly enough. So what's needed is a little diversion. In my case that's fishing. And since we're camped by a river I don't want to waste the opportunity. Want to come along?'
'Fishing? I don't know. I've never tried it.'
'Never tried fishing?' Nisus recoiled in mock horror. 'What's wrong with you, man? The ancient practice of separating our scaly cousins from the water is a man's birthright. Where did you go wrong?'
'I've lived in Rome almost all my life. It didn't occur to me to go fishing.'
'Even with the mighty Tiber roaring through the heart of your city?'
'The only thing anyone ever caught from the Tiber was a nasty dose of Remus' Revenge.'
'Ha!' Nisus clapped his huge hands. 'No chance of that here, so come on, let's get going. They'll be feeding at dusk and we might actually catch something.'
After only a brief hesitation Cato nodded, closed the lid of the chest and slipped the bolt back in the catch. Then the pair of them made their way towards the gate in the east wall.
Macro lifted his tent flap back to watch them and smiled. He had been deeply worried about the lad's dark mood over the past few days. More than once he had looked in on Cato and seen the blank eyes and faintly shifting frown that spoke of a silent distress he had seen in all too many other legionaries after intense fighting. Most men coped with it soon enough but Cato was not yet a man, and Macro had enough sensitivity to realise that Cato did not have the soul of a soldier. An optio of the crack Second Legion he might be, but underneath the armour and army-issue tunic lived a person of quite a different quality. And that person was suffering and needed to talk about it to someone outside the close-knit world of the Sixth Century.
Much as he disliked the casual irreverence of Nisus, Macro was aware that the surgeon and Cato shared a similar sensibility, and that the lad might find some comfort in talking to him. He certainly hoped so.
Chapter Thirty
'Good,' mumbled Macro as he chewed the fish loaf. 'Bloody good!' He beamed happily at the Carthaginian beside him. They were sitting outside his tent. A dying fire glowed amid grey ashes and still cast its warmth out, while luring midges and mosquitoes to their doom. Any doubts Cato might have had about Nisus' recipe for the trout had been quelled, and now he helped himself to another fish loaf in the warm basket Nisus had brought along to the tent.
The fishing trip had been a new experience and Cato had enjoyed it more than he'd thought he might. It was strange to sit and watch the sunlight shimmer across the stream, to surrender to the pleasant music of nature. The rustle of the leaves in the soft breeze had mingled with the lapping of the water – and the strain of every moment spent on this campaign had begun to lift. Cato's admiration of Nisus had increased as the Carthaginian had combined skilful fishing with occasional bouts of softly spoken conversation.
'An African delicacy,' explained Nisus. 'I learned it from our cook when I was a child. Almost any fish will do. The secret is in the choice of herbs and spices.'
'And where would you keep those on campaign?' asked Macro. 'With the medical supplies. Most of the ingredients can be used in a variety of poultices.'
'How convenient.'
'Yes, isn't it?'
Cato watched the Carthaginian as he ate from his mess tin. There seemed a good deal of pride in his heritage, yet he served in the ranks of the army that had laid that heritage low. It was interesting, he reflected, how people adapted. He set his mess tin down beside him.
'Nisus,' he said, 'how does it feel to be a Carthaginian serving with the Roman army, given our mutual history.'
Nisus stopped chewing for a moment. 'Someone else asked me the same question just a few days ago. How does it feel? Most of the time I'm too busy to think about it. After all, it's far in the past. Doesn't seem to have a lot to do with me. Anyway, we're part of the empire now, and that's the world I live in. Take the Roman army. Not really a Roman army as such any more. Look how many races serve with the eagles now. Gauls, Spaniards, Illyrians, Syrians and even some Germans. Then there's the auxiliaries. Nearly every race in the empire is represented in their ranks. We've all got a vested interest in Rome. And yet there are times when I wonder… ' Nisus' voice trailed off for a moment and he gazed into the glowing embers. 'I wonder whether we've surrendered rather too much of ourselves to Rome.'
'How do you mean?' asked Macro between munches.
'I'm not really sure. It's just that everywhere you travel in the empire, and even beyond it, there's Roman architecture, Roman soldiers and administrators, Roman plays in new Roman theatres, Roman histories and poetry in the libraries, Roman clothing in the streets, Roman words in the mouths of people who will never see Rome.'
'So what?' Macro shrugged. 'Is there anything better than Rome?'
'I don't know,' Nisus responded honestly. 'Not better perhaps, just different. And it's the differences that count in the long run.'
'It's differences that lead to war,' suggested Cato.
'Not usually. More often it's the similarities between our rulers.
They're all after the same things: domestic political advantage, personal aggrandisement – in short, power, wealth and a niche in history. It's always the same whether you're talking about Julius Caesar, Hannibal, Alexander, Xerxes or any of them. It's men like that who make wars, not the rest of us. We're too busy worrying about the next crop, how to guarantee the town's water supplies, whether our wives are being faithful, whether our children will survive into adulthood. That's what concerns the small people all over the empire. War does not serve our ends. We're forced into it.'
'Bollocks!' Macro spat out. 'War serves my ends. I chose to join the army, no one made me. If it wasn't for the army I'd still be in a piss-poor little squat helping my father catch fish for a living. A few good campaigns under my belt and have saved enough to retire in style. Same goes for Cato.' He glared at Nisus a moment; then, satisfied that he'd made his point, he went back to devouring his fish loaf.
Cato nodded once, with embarrassment, and tried to steer the conversation back to safer ground. 'But surely Rome's wars are justified in terms of what follows. Just think about how Gaul has been changed by being part of the empire. Where there were just loose confederations of warring tribes now we have order. That has to serve the Gauls' interests as much as ours. It's Rome's destiny to extend the bounds of civilisation.'
Nisus shook his head sadly. 'That's maybe what most Romans would like to think. But other nations might be brash enough to believe that they were already civilised, albeit by a different standard of civilisation.'