Wallace Breem: Eagle in the Snow

My hand shook. I said, “He thought I was being too strict.”

She said, “You are a good soldier. Even I can see that. But I think Saturninus is right. You can be very hard.”

“I try to be just.”

“It is sometimes better to be kind.”

She was silent then and went on staring into the fire. I stopped writing and looked at her. I loved her so much, but I did not know what she was thinking.

We had been there two winters when, on a warm spring day, I rode out to the second mile castle east of the camp, where some of our men were repairing the road. After my inspection was over I sat on a boulder, not far from the gate, and chatted with the post commander. As I did so I could see a man walking up the track towards us. I finished my conversation and mounted my horse. There was something in his walk that disturbed me, so I sat still and waited till he came up. I knew that kind of walk well, and when he stopped ten paces away and stared at me with that terrible tight look they always have, and the eyes that watch every flicker of a shadow and yet have no feel in them, no warmth of any kind, I knew who it was.

“Julian,” I said. “It is Julian.” And I waited.

“The noble commander knows everything,” he replied.

“What are you doing here?”

“I am a free man.” The words were spoken tonelessly. He fumbled inside his cloak and produced a square of parchment. “If the commander does not believe me I have this for proof.”

“So they gave you your wooden foil.”

“Yes. They gave me my wooden foil. We killed each other as you predicted, though some died more quickly than others. They were the lucky ones.”

I watched him in silence. Then I said, quietly, “But you lived.”

“Yes. I lived, if you can call it living?”

“And so?”

“In the end there were two of us left, myself and—but you would have forgotten his name, no doubt.”

I shook my head. “No,” I said. “I would not have forgotten his name. I remember them all to this day.”

“As I remember yours, noble commander. They matched us to fight at Eburacum. We were the spectacle for which everyone waited, and the commander of the Sixth Legion sat in the seat of honour. It was a holiday, and his daughter newly married, and he wished to celebrate by showing his—mercy. He gave me my freedom while the blood of my companion dried on my sword.”

“I see. Where do you go now?”

“Beyond the Wall to where Rome does not rule.”

I leaned forward then. “Are you mad? What will you do up there, even supposing they don’t kill you first? What kind of a life will you live?”

“That is my concern.”

I said, harshly, “Julian, I have a villa and land in Gaul which I have never seen since we—since I was a boy. You can go to it; you can live on it; you can own it if you wish. I offer that much for the sake of a dead friendship. But don’t, I beg of you, go north of the Wall.”

He looked at me then, and there was still nothing in the eyes of any warmth or human feeling. “I go north,” he said. “And no-one shall stop me.” The spear, that I had thought at first to be a staff, was balanced lightly in his hand, but he was standing carefully on the balls of his feet, and I knew then that he would kill me if I moved. Any other man I could have run down with a fair chance of success. But he was different. He had been a gladiator. They were trained to move with a speed that no soldier could emulate. They could pick flies off the wall with their bare hands. I knew. I had watched them do it.

I turned my horse to let him pass. “You are a freed man under the law, as you said, and you may go where you will.”

“I shall indeed.”

“A word of warning, Julian.”

He turned at that, and for a moment I thought I detected something in his eyes that was almost human. “Well?”

“Go north by all means. But, if you do, then never come south again within spear range of my wall.”

He said, tonelessly, “I will remember that. When I do come you may be certain I shall not come alone.”

I watched him go up the track, saw him show his papers to the sentry and disappear from sight into the heather beyond. He had changed out of all recognition and perhaps I had too. I wondered what the Picts would make of him—a man with no hair.

SOMETIME in the middle of winter, on a stormy night, two men and a woman, mounted on ponies and riding for their lives, came in out of the heather and clamoured for shelter. They were allowed through and in the morning I interviewed them. By their dress and by the way they did their hair Saturninus thought they might be Vacomagi from the great mountains in central Caledonia—a tribe untouched by Rome since the days of Agricola. But we did not ask them. All were young. The woman was dark, with long black hair and skin the colour of warm milk. She was very beautiful. The two men were her brothers. I heard a confused tale of a tyrannical uncle, of the young lover slain in jealousy by this man, of the brothers killing him in his turn, and of a blood feud that had split the tribe.

“There was a meeting of the elders, excellency,” said the younger brother in a tired voice. “We were proscribed and fled to avoid our deaths.”

“Very well,” I said. “You may stay under the protection of Rome, provided that you are obedient to our laws. But what will you do now?”

The elder brother said, nervously, “We can shift for ourselves. But our sister is another matter. Does your excellency, perhaps, need a woman to manage his house? She is a good cook and obedient and would give no trouble.”

It did not seem to me an accurate description of her at all, but I understood what he was trying to say. “Thank you, no,” I said. “I have a wife and my household is full. I have no need of any servants.” The woman stiffened at that and put up her chin. There was, for a moment, an expression in her eyes that I could not read, and then she dropped her head and stared sullenly at the floor.

They stayed in the civilian settlement for a while, and then the woman was taken up by my second-in-command and he asked my permission to marry her. The brothers were agreeable and the woman too, and I said yes without hesitation. She was a woman to turn men’s heads and already there had been fights in the settlement over her. Married she would cause less trouble.

I could not have been more wrong.

Quintus became a regular visitor to our fort, and did much to cheer up Aelia during the cold months of rain and snow. Spring came early that year, and then summer burst upon us in a blaze of heat. Aelia was very pale at this time and a little unhappy, I think, but I put it down to her remorse at having lost one of the ear-drops I had given her, though I had told her a dozen times that it did not matter. To give her a change I arranged for her to spend some months in Eburacum and, after much argument, she agreed to go. At the last moment she changed her mind and wanted to stay, but Quintus, who had ridden over to try our new wine and who was lounging on the steps, agreed with me, so she gave in to our persuasion. I missed her badly but I was soon to be glad that she had gone.

The trouble began in July on the night of the full moon. I was in the office, working late, when my adjutant, Vitalius, came in. There were beads of sweat on his face and he had the look of a man who has talked with demons.

“What is it?” I said. “What’s the matter, man?”

“We have been betrayed, sir.”

“Sit down. You look ill. Tell me about it.”

He licked his lips. “It’s that woman, the wife of Gaius. She knew I was married. She’s been on at me for weeks, pestering me, asking me—she wouldn’t leave me alone.”