Paul Kearney - The ten thousand

Jason looked the two boys-for that is what they were-up and down. He wanted the Iscan. He liked the pride and pain in the boy’s eyes. How to phrase it-they were friends, obviously. The big smiler could go cry to the goddess for all he cared. He might make a good soldier, but the odds were against it.

Ah, he thought, rubbing his aching temples again, let Phobos sort it out.

“All right; I’ll take you both. You, Gasca, report to Buridan the decurion. He’ll set you a file to join. Iscan, you cannot take a place in line of battle, not without a panoply. I’ll rate you camp servant and skirmisher, but as soon as you get some bronze on your back you’ll join your friend. His pay is twelve obols a month. Yours is half that. Do you find this acceptable?”

Rictus nodded without a word, as Jason had known he would.

“Buridan will give you your scarlet. Once you join the Dogsheads you may wear no other colour, and you will be ostrakr, cityless. We swear no oaths, and draw no blood, but if you lay down the colour without my permission, your lives are forfeit. We flog for stealing from comrades. For cowardice, we execute on the field. All other crimes are between you and the gods. Any questions?”

“Yes,” Gasca said. “When do we eat?”

They drilled first, or at least Gasca did, whilst Rictus watched from the eaves of the encampment. All the centons had taken on fresh recruits that morning, and these unfortunates were marked out by the vivid colour of their new red chitons. They drilled in full armour, bearing spear and shield, and before an hour had gone by the new men had red dye running down in the sweat of their thighs. While they stamped and strode their comrades in the long files shouted abuse at them, called them women, and offered them rags to staunch their monthly flow.

Centon by centon, the gathered companies came together on the wide, blasted plain to the north of the Mithannon. There, between the Marshalling Yards and the Mithos River, the numbers of the assembled mercenaries finally became clear. Twenty companies, all under strength but still within nine-tenths of their full complement. Jason was out there with the Curse of God on his back, barking orders and clubbing with the bowl of his shield those slow to obey. Perhaps a third of the centurions wore the black armour, and as many as fifty of the rank and file. Possession of Antimone’s Gift was not a prerequisite of command. It was worn by fools as well as heroes.

The companies and files came together one by one, evolving from discrete bodies into one long, unbroken snake of bronze and scarlet. All their shields, except for those of a few newcomers, were without device; when their employer made himself known they would paint his sigil on the shield’s metal facings. The phalanx that evolved from their marching and counter-marching was eight men deep and two hundred and fifty paces long. In battle the line would shorten, as each man sought the protection of his neighbour’s shield. As the formation was called to a halt the file leaders and closers, hardened veterans all, were haranguing some of the new recruits in low hisses. Nevertheless, as drill went, it was a good show, better than any city levy could provide. It was, Rictus had reluctantly to admit, almost as good as the Iscan phalanx had been. His heart burned and thumped in his chest. More than anything else in this life, he wanted to be out there in those profane, murderous ranks, to be part of that machine. His mind could imagine no other destiny, not here, not now.

“The Bull is drunk yet,” one of the other skirmishers said beside him. There was a long cloud of them, hard faced youngsters with slings in their belts and the scars of old beatings on their bare arms. Many had peltas strapped to their backs, the leather and wood shields of the high mountains. These fellows were the light troops of the company, as well as servants to the spearmen.

“Drunk or sober, he’ll keep them in the line, the cocksucker,” said another, old, old eyes in a small face not too high off the ground.

“Who’s the new fish?” a third asked, and the attention of a stunted crowd left the assembled spearmen to settle on Rictus. He was the tallest there, though by no means the oldest. Now that they had all turned to face him he saw that amid the boys there were small, hard-bitten men with grey in their beards, but they, too, had a wary, hungry look, like that of a mistreated dog. Too small for the phalanx, he supposed, but still dangerous. There were as many of these ragged soldier-servants milling about the encampment as there were men in armour on the drill field.

“He’s too pretty to fight,” one of them said with a leering grin.

“Let’s us find out where his talents lie then.”

They edged towards him, some half-dozen of them, old and young. The rest of the throng looked on without much interest. In addition to their own wargear, most were bearing wineskins for when the spearmen came off the drill field, leather covers for their masters’ shields, linen towels for the sweat.

“Back in line!” a voice snapped. “Face your front and shut your mouths. He’s wearing scarlet now, one of us. Save it for the stews.”

The knot broke up magically and dissolved into the waiting line of skirmishers as though it had never been. Pasion stepped forward, black cuirass gleaming. He was unarmed, picking the seeds out of a pomegranate with reddened fingers. He raised one eyebrow, gaze fixed on the line of spearmen.

“Welcome to our merry band, Iscan.”

Around noon the centurions gathered together as the weary centons trooped off the field. A clot of black and red, they collected about Pasion like a scab. Rictus had been looking for Gasca in the crowd, but lingered nearby, listening. It was cold, and from that great throng of sweating men the steam of their exertions rose thick as a morning fog. The rank cloud enveloped Rictus, and for a moment he was back on the drill fields of Isca with the rest of his lochos, his father’s spear in his fist. The sensation, the memory staggered him, and for a moment he was blinded by it, and stood blinking, grimacing. Armed men walked past him, and he was jostled by armoured torsos, shoved out of the way and cursed for a half-witted strawhead, but he stood on oblivious. In the time it takes a famished man to eat an apple, his short life flickered past him. Boyhood in the hills about the farm. Beating the olives off the trees with long sticks. Gathering in the grape harvest, the round black fruit as big as walnuts, a broken ecstasy in the mouth on hot, dust-filled days. That scent of thyme on the slopes, and the wild garlic down by the river. And the river itself-plunging into its clean bite at the end of the grimy day with his father wiping wine from his mouth on the bank, talking of oil-pressing with old Vasio. The way Zori fed the fire in the evenings, twig by twig, the barley-cakes hardening on the griddle above it and the smell filling the house.

Rictus closed his eyes for a second and gave thanks to Antimone for the memories, the sight and smell of them. He put them away in a new corner of his mind that he had found, and when his eyes opened again they were dry and cold as those of a man just back from war.

They were fed late in the afternoon. Hidden away in the ramshackle lines of the camp were four great stone-built kitchens attended to by gangs of surly men and boys whose sole purpose in life was the tending of the black company cauldrons, the centoi. These were cast in solid iron, and of great antiquity. Each company might march under its banner on the battlefield, but off it, the men gathered about these immense pots at every meal. Traditionally it was around the centoi that the centurions addressed their men, and votes were taken on any new contracts. The pots had given their name to the companies that used them, for traditionally a centon numbered as many soldiers as could be fed from one centos.