M. Scott: The Eagle of the Twelfth

The crack of his landing spun me backwards. I turned to see him lying not five paces away on a flat shelf of rock with his eyes open to the blue, blue sky and peace still etched deep on his face.

I didn’t need to feel at his neck or his wrist for the hammer of his heartbeat to know he was dead, but my heart ruled my head and I had hope, even then. My seeking fingers rested on the great vein at his neck, waiting for a beat that did not come.

His skin was warm. His flesh was whole and solid. His smile had not yet faded, but the back of his head had crackedopen like a hen’s egg and yellow fluid was leaking out and his life had leaked out with it.

I wanted Hypatia there, suddenly; she knew how to send a man cleanly to the lands of death. But she was long gone, and I was his friend.

Standing, I took a step back, and sent him to the gods, mine and his, in the only way I knew how.

‘ Given of the god,

Given to the god,

Taken by the god in valour, honour and glory.

May you journey safely to your destination.’

I spoke it aloud, why should I not, here, where the gods were all around? Shouts came from the cave mouth above. I ignored them and fumbled in my belt pouch for two of the silver coins that were left from the sale of the mares. Speaking the last words, I placed one on each of Horgias’ eyelids, weighing them shut.

Truly, I don’t know if the ferryman requires payment for his services, but in that moment all that mattered was that Horgias travel whole across the Styx to greet the men who waited for him on the other side.

I wept as I placed them, slow tears that might have unmanned me then, but that a stone lumbered down past my shoulder and, looking up, I saw Nicodemus lowering another rope down from the heights.

Even at this distance, the hatred on his face was as pure and undiluted as I have seen on any battlefield. It shocked me to sense, and as I stood Horgias’ shade touched me, whispering in my ears. Go! The Eagle is all. Don’t let them take it a second time.

I bent and kissed the cooling skin of his brow, tasting his sweat, and then turned and ran for the path that had broughtus here, and on, and round and up to where the horses had been tethered.

Three dead men waited there, feasting-tables for a legion of fat flies. The blue roan filly was safe; with Horgias’ burnt-almond gelding and Pantera’s bay, she had moved into the shade of a rock and stood dozing, slack-hipped in the heat.

I looked around for Pantera and saw nothing but uneven rock, set about with potholes and scoured clean by sun and wind. I was set to cut the tethers when I caught sight of a particular mound of grey that was not exactly as it should have been. I reached it just as Pantera thrust himself to his feet.

He began to dust himself down and then stopped, his eyes searching my face. I wasn’t weeping by then, but the signs of it must have been clear. ‘Horgias?’ he asked.

‘Dead.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Would you go back for him if Nicodemus had him alive?’

‘If necessary.’ He meant it. I could read the truth on his face. Strange that he was so easy to read now, when I had least need of it.

The Eagle burned against my chest. I busied myself loosing the tethers from the horses. ‘There’s no need. He heard what you said as well as I did. He cut the rope after I climbed down it and then threw himself from the cave mouth. He landed at my feet. I left him silver for the ferryman.’

‘And Nicodemus?’

‘He’s coming for us. We need to ride.’ I mounted, and took Horgias’ horse by the reins. ‘I have an Eagle to deliver to Vespasian.’

Antioch, Syria, April, AD 67

In the high blue sky, an eagle, soaring.

Beneath it, closer to the ground, a gilded Eagle, radiant in the careful sunlight, spills its own light across the two hundred men gathered beneath.

They are not a legion yet, but the beginnings of one: on each shield, the crossed thunderbolts of the XIIth Fulminata, the Thunderbolt legion; on the helm of the standard-bearer, a wolfskin; on the arms of the men, bands in gold that tell of valour in battle, and on their faces a pride that catches the spilled light of the Eagle and spins it back up to the podium.

From their throats, two hundred voices, offering anew their oath to the emperor, to their general, to their legion, the XIIth, brought back from the dead.

And on the podium, Vespasian, governor of Syria, legate of the eastern legions; a ruddy-faced, wind-blown general who knows the value of his men.

He hears their oath in silence and lets the wind lift the banners and the eagle cry its response from the heavens before he steps forward and raises his battle-honed voice.

‘Men of the Twelfth! In blood and battle were you lost, but never bested. In courage and care was your heart recovered, here to stand. Now do we salute those who died in your defence, and honour those who brought your Eagle to safety. For ever shall their names be known, and always with honour shall they be spoken.’

A brisk step sideways, a sharp cutting motion with his palm, and a sheet of purple silk billows down from the wall behind him.

Two hundred men gasp at what they see; they did not expect this. But they see and they read and soon two hundred swords batter two hundred shields, for how could they not?

HORGIAS. LUPUS. SYRION. MACER. PROCLION. TAURUS. HERACLIDES, KNOWN AS T EARS…

The names are chiselled indelibly into the wall of Antioch, Syria’s greatest city, the third greatest in all the empire after Rome and Alexandria. And above them all, an Eagle flies for ever, and the number of their legion: XII: WITH HONOUR DID WE DIE FOR YOU.

I meet Pantera later, in the house that they have given us. He stands in the doorway, looking in at me.

‘Did you see it?’

‘I heard. It was a good speech.’

‘But you didn’t watch?’

‘No.’ I have a flask of wine in front of me. I have not drunk. I have not drunk at all since my return. I hold it out to him as he enters.

He shakes his head. ‘You could still join,’ he says. ‘He’dmake you camp prefect even now, if you asked for it. Or primus pilus. Legate of the horse. Anything you wanted.’

‘I don’t want anything.’

He comes into the room and sits down opposite me. We are on the third floor. The view from the window looks out over green and brown hills, but if I close my eyes I could be in a tavern in Hyrcania, watching him fletch an arrow with which to kill an upstart king. I have his Parthian bow. He has not asked for it back.

I say, ‘I’ve given to the Twelfth all that I can. Vespasian will let me go if I ask it. He will sign my manumission himself.’

‘Do you want that? Truly?’

‘I don’t know.’ I have water in my beaker. I dip my finger in it and draw a picture of a running horse; a thing I have not done since childhood. It is a child’s drawing, not at all lively. I smear it away with the heel of my hand.

I say, ‘Hypatia could tell me what I want. She sees into men’s souls better than they do themselves.’

‘You can see as well as anyone. You just need to accept what you see. You were born a horse-trader, but it’s not who you are now.’

‘No?’ I do look up then. Pantera is regarding me quizzically, his head on his arm and his arm propped against the wall just inside the door. He kicks the door shut with his heel, and it shudders on the door jamb.

‘What will you do?’ I ask.

‘What I am ordered to do. As ever.’ And then, because I am still looking at him, ‘I am ordered to Rome.’

‘By the emperor?’ I cannot keep the disdain from my voice.

Pantera shakes his head. ‘By the spymaster who serves the empire,’ he says, and I am reminded of the sick colour of his face, relaying the news of Corbulo’s death. Not Nero. The man who should have taken his place. And then, at another time, Who does he remind you of?