Geraint Jones - Blood Forest

I let the sword drop to the dirt, the last of my feeble strength fleeing.

The act was over.

‘I don’t know.’

I passed out shortly after and woke up within the bleached confines of a campaign tent. Once a soldier, I’d slept under the waxed goat-hide before, but more than this I recognized the sounds outside the tent as belonging to an army in the field. The tramp of hobnailed sandals; the clink of metal on metal – tent stakes being hammered into the ground; the bark of orders, some in Latin, and some in a language I could not understand.

So, I was within the ranks of the German auxiliaries.

And now, from looking about the tent, I realized I was within the home of their commander, Arminius. It seemed as though he lived the simple life, which undoubtedly made him popular with his men, but his status as a leader was marked out by the presence of a campaign chest and table, over which was stretched a map.

A map! Where was I? My destination lay north, but skulking travel through thick forests had made navigation by the sun difficult at best, and I could only hope that I had not strayed south, and deeper into the Roman Empire.

I had to know. I had to see it.

Instead, my eyes were pulled to the tent’s flap, which swooped open, Arminius entering with a warm smile that seemed at odds with the intensity of his eyes.

‘Did I wake you?’ he asked me in a Latin far more pure than my own.

I decided silence was my ally, and slowly shook my head.

‘Good. Wine, then?’ He had begun to pour before asking, and now thrust a cup into my hand. I hastily moved back as I realized his intention of sitting beside me on the pallet bed.

‘To your recovery,’ he offered, and took a deep draught. ‘You’ve had a long road.’

I mumbled a thank you, and drank long myself. It was a good wine, and as it splashed down my throat I had the briefest glimpse of home: Mediterranean sunshine, warm hillsides, blue waters. How long?

‘Thank you,’ I said again, meaning it, but the words came out as a sadness. Arminius mistook it for confusion.

‘You passed out there. We thought you were dead, for a moment.’ He paused, a dark flicker across the eyes. ‘Those men you were with. Your comrades?’

I shrugged. Silence was my ally.

‘A detachment of battle casualty replacements from the Rhine garrisons,’ Arminius explained, and then paused, his intense eyes burrowing into my own. Fearing scrutiny, my instincts cried out, telling me to flee this man. It was obvious that my disguise would not fool him, and I would die, screaming. Always screaming. I felt the cup in my hand. I could hit him with it, then go for his throat. I could—

‘You’re a soldier, my friend,’ he told me, cutting short my murderous fantasy. ‘You were a naked one, but your sandals were legionary issue.’

I looked at my feet. New sandals of uncreased leather. Doubtless the metal hobnails below them would be shining. I felt a pang of loss for my old pair, great comrades, then cursed myself for not disposing of them sooner, and concealing my past.

I shrugged, unconsciously touching the tunic that had been pulled over my head as I slept. It was dyed a deep red – the ideal choice for hiding blood.

Arminius followed my eyes, and read my thoughts. ‘Can’t have you running around the camp naked. Not like the Britons.’

The Britons. As a child, I had known one of their kin well. He was a slave, and from him I had learned of his people – fierce tribes across a northern sea, free from the rule of Rome, its taxes and its retribution. Julius Caesar had crossed the waters some sixty years ago, establishing trade and alliances with the southern tribes, and I wanted only to follow in his footsteps. To place myself beneath the shadow of white cliffs, and out from under the hate-filled gaze of Rome’s eagles.

‘The detachment you were with,’ the German went on. ‘Some of them were veterans. Scars,’ he explained. ‘You have scars yourself, soldier.’

Soldier. It was impossible for me to lose that identity. Even if I had not been wearing the sandals, any veteran could read the story carved and nicked into my skin, and this German was well versed in war, I knew it.

‘I am a cavalryman. I’ve been in the saddle as long as I can walk. As a cavalryman, my friend, I like to move forward. You must do the same. There may be things in your mind that cannot, or do not, want to be found. So be it. Move forward.’

I nodded numbly at the words. Words that I knew to be folly.

Time has a way of wiping the slate of our memory clean. Given enough of it, even the face of our own mother becomes a blur. But the terrible things? The awful things? The things that we wish to forget? Those we can never overlook. Those are the things that haunt us whenever we close our eyes.

‘You need a name,’ he said abruptly. ‘How about Felix? The lucky one?’

I nodded, accepting it. Felix was as good a name as any other. Arminius seemed galvanized by my naming and got to his feet, pouring more wine and laying the half-empty skin down on the map. My heart beat faster as I thought of the answers that lay within its ink.

‘You have a name, and now you need an occupation. I’d be happy to take you in myself, Felix. My unit is made up of Germans from my own tribe, the Cherusci, but this I could overlook. From your legs, however, I take it that you are no cavalryman?’

I shook my head, and he either took that as a no , or I don’t know. It mattered not. He had a home for me.

‘The Seventeenth Legion,’ Arminius announced. ‘Your party was destined for the Eighteenth, but… I feel a fresh start is better for you.’

I didn’t understand the change. Wherever I ended up, as an individual I would arouse suspicion. People would want to know where I had come from and why I was alone. Battle casualty replacements rarely appeared on their own.

A head appeared through the tent’s flap. An ugly head, belonging to a German. He said something to his prince in their own tongue, and then the gnarled visage was gone.

‘Berengar says that your new commander has arrived,’ Arminius informed me. ‘But before you leave, I have some business with him myself. Please, Felix, relax here. Take some more wine. My home is your home.’ He put out his hand, an uncommon gesture from officer to soldier, but what was common about this prince? I accepted it, a little startled.

‘Until we meet again, my friend,’ he told me, departing, and leaving his words bouncing around my skull. Until we meet again – just a common farewell, or did it mean something deeper?

I had no time to ponder. Instead, I rushed to the map. It was brilliantly detailed, outlining rivers, roads, towns and forts. There was only one problem – I did not know where I was.

Still, at least from the area depicted I could deduce that I was in the province of Germania Magna, a collection of client kingdoms to the east of the Rhine. This gathering of German tribes paid taxes and tribute to Rome. Some, evidently including Arminius’s own people, even provided troops to serve in the Empire’s auxiliary cohorts, the soldiers who provided the bulk of the army, leaving the heavy infantry of the Roman legions to act as shock troops – both the spearheads of campaigning armies, and the lynchpins of the Empire’s frontier defence.

If I were in Germany, then I could dare hope that I was heading in the right direction – it was likely that the army was poised on the edges of the Empire’s control, and that lay to the east, and north. Perhaps it was the wine, but I felt a little light-headed at the thought.

Treading lightly, I stepped towards the tent flap. Holding my own, I could hear the breathing of two men outside: sentries. From the bellows-like exhalations, they were big men. Straining harder, I could hear two voices in conversation.