Gordon Doherty - Legionary

A withered crone stood in the senator’s path. Sixty years, if not more, her face was puckered like a prune, her eyes milky, yet piercing. Her razor-like nose was within a hair’s-breadth from the senator’s.

‘See that the boy comes to no harm from your hand,’ she rasped.

‘Out of my way, hag!’ Tarquitius protested, sweeping her to one side, but she gripped his chubby wrist with her talon-like fingers. Tarquitius yelped. Fronto jostled, hand on his sword-hilt, awaiting the order of his master.

Pavo’s tears suddenly dried and his interest keened. The crone held Tarquitius’ arm fast, and stretched up on her bare and gnarled tiptoes to put her furrowed lips to the senator’s ear. She whispered to him for only a few moments, and then calmly she walked over to Pavo, her eyes unblinking, and fixed on his. She pressed something into his hand. With that, she wandered off into the crowd, her tousled and patchy grey locks dissolving into the melee of market goers.

The senator turned, slowly, his face milky pale, eyes wide, the fat rolls under his chin quivering. He stared at Pavo. Pavo stared back.

‘Back to the villa,’ he muttered quietly, his gaze drifting off into the distance.

Pavo frowned, stepping onto the slave-cart gingerly and sitting without a word next to the filthy and cowering slaves already in there. As the cart shuddered into life, he turned over the crone’s words. Then he looked at his clenched fist, uncurling his fingers slowly as the cart jostled. A battered bronze legionary phalera — a thin bronze disc issued as a military reward, smaller than a follis — stared up at him. The text was chewed and battered, but he screwed up his eyes to read it in the flitting light from the slatted cart roof.

Legio II Parthica , it read — his father’s legion. Pavo’s skin rippled.

His eyes hung on the text as intrigue gripped his thudding heart. What did it mean? Confusion danced through his thoughts.

But one thing was certain.

The fight would never leave him.

Late winter, 376 AD

The prow of the Aquila roared and shuddered as it carved a path out of the ocean and through the sandbank, before finally settling to a halt. The old Kingdom of Bosporus greeted her, hurling the bitter rains of the storm across her deck. Under the murky late afternoon sky, a grimacing row of legionaries clung to the sides of the ship. The howling wind filled the air as they peered across the shadowy texture of the hinterland, the long grass writhing in the gale. They gripped their shields, flexed their sword hands, all the while judging the shadows of the forested inland.

Standing at the prow was the tall and lean figure of Manius Atius Gallus, Chief Centurion , primus pilus, of the first cohort of the XI Claudia legion, dressed in leather boots, a ruby tunic under a mail vest, and a plumed intercisa helmet tucked under his arm. As he gazed upon the land, he squeezed the incessant rainwater from his peak of hair, charcoal, flecked with grey at the temples. His gaunt features, wolf-like in the gloom, betrayed nothing but a thin-lipped iron glare, yet behind the ice-blue eyes, he wondered what this dark corner of the world might think of the lone bireme on its shores. It had been fortunate to say the least that they had slipped into this bay without encountering any Gothic war ships, but from here on in, anything could happen.

‘Park the oars!’ He roared, remaining at the stern, eyes fixed on the land, ears trained on the goings-on behind him. First, there were the scuttling footsteps as the beneficiarius worked his way along the deck, and then the rhythmic clatter as the remiges lifted their oars clear of the water, sighing as they rested their weary arms. Not perfect , Gallus mused, comparing it to the drill back in the docks, but acceptable .

Once more, he gazed inland. The peninsula had fallen into darkness more than one hundred years ago. The invading Gothic tribes, the Greuthingi, as they were known, had declared their sovereignty over the peninsula with the delivery of the Roman ambassador’s head to the emperor’s palace. Since that day, the empire had seen the rise and fall of scores of emperors, her territory sliced like an apple into eastern and western halves and her mighty legions evolve almost beyond recognition. Nobody was quite sure how much this place had changed in that time, but reports indicated that the old Roman frontier fortification system still stood, lying dotted like decaying teeth across the eighty miles or so of the peninsula neck. Yes, there had been trade and diplomacy in the many years since this place had last been under direct Roman influence, but the Goths of Bosporus had fallen silent some time ago, and a hundred years could breed many ills. Gallus could only wonder what the shadows held.

He held his back straight and his face expressionless, burying the gnawing excitement and fear deep within. How would this group of men behind him handle the sortie, far from the XI Claudia fort on the banks of the Danubius ? While the rest of the legion, some two thousand men, remained stretched out over the great river’s borders protected by walls and reinforcements, here with him were the double strength first century of the first cohort — the one hundred and sixty considered most able, thrust out into the wilderness. Discounting the smattering of calloused veterans though, the numbers counted for little. Gallus turned and ran his eyes over them; barely one in ten were over twenty years of age, such was the fatality rate on the frontiers, and dressed only in filthy, sodden tunics and boots the youngsters looked every bit the farmers and labourers they were. He bit back his doubts; this was a brave new dawn for the empire, and Gallus was all too proud to lead it. In this day and age, for a vexillatio of limitanei border troops to be given a mission deep into foreign lands…well, that was quite something. Quickly, he tempered the urge to smile, keeping his lips quill-thin, maintaining the iron stare instead. Then, he placed the intercisa helmet on his head, with the shark fin of iron and the plume adding another foot to his towering frame.

‘That’s the stuff,’ he encouraged the men as they set about tying down the rigging, thumping his hands together. But there was no cheering, no banter. He clenched his jaw at the silence.

He had been a late starter in the army, joining when he turned thirty. The post of primus pilus had fallen to him after a rapid succession of deaths of the previous incumbents. Practically every Gothic raid over the Danubius had propelled him further up the ladder; from legionary to optio , to centurion and now here, the role of the primus pilus. In just four years, he had risen to be the man whom all in the legion should look to for inspiration. He saw one young legionary grapple with the supply cart, his hands trembling. They were anything but inspired. It’s not you, Gallus, they’re just scared , he repeated in his head, thinking of the last words his predecessor had offered him; you can lead them . The old nerves that he had felt in his first officer posting as a junior optio had returned; parched mouth, self-doubt and paranoia. Regardless of this, his iron features stayed cold as ever.

His ears pricked up at a nervous cough — the rigging and deck space of the ship was in order and the men were ready, standing in formation, staring dead ahead. ‘Good work! Now unload the ship,’ he barked with a nod to the supply sacks and crates, ‘then form up for the march.’

The men shuffled across the deck. The ropes for the gangplank were hurled over the rim of the vessel and onto the shore. The century split in two, half thumping down onto the shingle and half unloading supplies to them. The odd roar of encouragement split the air from the handful of veterans in the century, but apart from that, the silence was painful.