Paul Kearney - The ten thousand

Greed warmed the air of the room a little. The men leaned forward or back as the mood took them, chairs creaking under a bulk of scarred muscle. From below, the raucous slatternly din of the wine-shop rose up through the floorboards.

“Quite a little army your Phiron is digging up, Pasion,” another of the men said. This fellow was lean as whipcord, with one long brow of black across his forehead, and eyes under it that made a blackbird’s seem dull. He had a trimmed goat’s-beard, and a moist lip. No father would trust his daughter to that face.

“I hear that this is only the tip of the spear, this host of ours gathered here. There’s more down in Idrios, and others in Hal Goshen. We’ve near two thousand men in the colour, here in Machran, and that’s the biggest crowd of hired spears I’ve ever heard tell of. What employer is this that can hire such myriads and keep them kicking their heels for weeks as though money were barley-grain to him?”

“Our employer’s name is not to be spoken,” Pasion snapped. “Not yet. That is one of the terms of the contract. You took the retainer, Mynon, so you will abide by it.”

“If you do not mean to take Machran itself I would do something to reassure the Kerusia of it,” another man said, a dark-skinned, hazel-eyed fellow with the voice of a singer. “They’re more jittery than a bride on her wedding night, and wonder if we have designs on their virtue. There’s talk of a League being gathered of the hinterland cities: Ponds, Avennos and the like. They don’t like to see so many of our kind gathered together for so long in one place.”

“Agreed, Jason,” Pasion said. “I will talk to them. Brothers, you must keep your men outside the walls, and in camp. We cannot afford friction with the Kerusia, or any others of the city councils.”

A rumble went down the table. Discontent, impatience. The room crackled with pent-up irritability.

“I’ve had my centon here the better part of a month,” an older man said, his beard white as pissed-upon snow and his eyes as cold as those of a dead fish. This was Castus of Goron, perhaps the wickedest of them all. “I’ve lost eleven men: two maimed in brawls, one who’s gotten himself hung by the magistrates, and eight who took off out of boredom. Most of us here can say the same to some degree. It’s not lambs we lead, Pasion. My spears are losing their temper. Where in Phobos’s Face are you taking us anyway, if we’re not to annoy Machran itself? The capital can muster some eight thousand aichme, given time. If we’re to strike, it must be very soon, before these farmers get themselves together.” There was a murmur of agreement.

Pasion smashed his fist down on the planks of the table.

“Machran is not our goal,” he said with quiet vehemence. “Nor are any of the other hinterland cities. Hammer that into your heads and those of your men. You’ve taken money from my hand- that makes me your employer as much as anyone else. If you cannot hold to your half of the contract, then refund me your retainers and be off. Go pit your wits in some skirmish up north. I hear Isca has been sacked at last, so there’s not a decent soldier up there to stand in line. Rape some goatherder women if you will, and boast of killing farmers’ sons. Those who stay with me will find real flesh for their spears, a true fight such as we’ve not seen in the Harukush in man’s memory. Brothers, stay to the colour here and I promise you, we shall all become forgers of history.”

The centurions looked at the wine-ringed table-top, frowning. At last Mynon said; “Fine words. Eloquent. I put them in my head and admire them. You always had a way with words, Pasion, even as far back as Ebsus. You could make men believe their own shit didn’t stink, if you had a mind to, but we’ve all grey in our beards here, and rhetoric to us is like a middle-aged wife. You can admire it, flirt with it, but you’re not going to let it fuck with you. Take my advice and speak plain now, or you’re going to start bleeding spears.”

Someone guffawed, and there was a chorus of assent. As Pasion looked down the table he realised that Mynon was right. Mercenaries would put up with many things and, contrary to popular myth, they would not desert the first time their pay was late. Stubborn bastards, proud as princes, and sentimental as women, they could be held to the colour by many things beyond money. Sometimes they would believe in promises, if those promises were grand enough, and if they flattered their own vanity. Mercenaries had their own kind of honour, and a fierce pride in their calling. It was only to be expected. Once a man donned scarlet, he became ostrakr, and abandoned whatever city had spawned him. It had to be so, or else allegiances to different warring cities would tear every centon apart. To replace that allegiance, the mercenary committed himself to his centon and his comrades. They became his city. The centurion was their leader, but could not commit his men to any contract until they had voted for it among themselves. It was the law of the Assembly writ small, and it gave each mercenary company the cohesion and brotherhood that all men craved in their hearts. To become a sellspear, a man might forsake his ancestors, his memories, the very place that gave him birth, but in return he was admitted to this brutal brotherhood and given a new thing to fight for. A city in miniature, clad in bronze, and dedicated to the art of warfare.

“Very well,” Pasion said at last. “You scorn rhetoric, so I will give you fact. More words, but these are set in iron. I will tell you this now, and it will never leave these walls.” He looked the table up and down, checking that he had each of their attentions. Had he been a less restless man, he would have loved the stage, the faces hanging on each word he chose to give and withhold.

“We are not gathered here for some city fight. We are making an army, a full-sized army, and all of it composed of mercenaries. Brothers, we have a journey before us, and its destination lies far, far outside the Harukush.”

There was a pause as this sank in.

“Brothers, we are-”

“Phobos,” Orsos swore loudly. “You mean to take us into the Empire.”

For Jason of Ferai, the morning clatter of the Marshalling Grounds was a piercing agony he could as well have done without. Rasping his tongue across the roof of his mouth he sent one hand out to find the water jug and the other down to his waist, where his money-pouch still hung, as flaccid as an old man’s prick. He poured the contents of the jug over his head in the bed, getting some down his rancid throat and causing his bed-mate to squeal and dart upright in outrage.

“It’s only water, my dear. You had worse over you last night.”

The girl rubbed her eyes, a pretty little thing whose name he had not bothered to learn. “It’s dark out yet. You’ve the bed for another turn of the jar if you want it.”

Jason rose and kissed the nape of her neck. “Consider it a bonus. A turn alone.”

She threw his scarlet rag of chiton at him, and stood up, stretching. “Have it your way.”

Jason stood up also, the room doing its morn-ing-after lurch in his eyes. The girl was striking flint on tinder and making a hash of it. He took the stones from her and blew on the spark he clicked out, first time, then lit the olive-lamp from it. The grey almost-light of the pre-dawn receded. It was night in the room again. He pinched the girl’s round white buttock. “Any wine left?”

“There’s the dregs of the skin, bought and paid for.”

“Like you.”

“Like me.”

“Join me in a snort.”

They sat back down on the bed, naked and companionable, and squirted the black wine into one another’s mouths.