Geraint Jones - Blood Forest

On my third day in the section I was at last able to prop myself up on my elbows, the aches still present, but subsiding. The swelling around my eye had reached its climax, and though it was still shut from the puffy skin, the weeping had begun to slow.

The veterans were playing dice when Titus entered. He cast me a desultory look before turning to the sweats, his open face betraying conflicting emotions: excitement and angst.

‘Oh, shit,’ Chickenhead murmured, reading the signs.

‘What is it?’ Stumps pressed, before groaning when he got his answer.

‘War,’ Titus told them flatly. He seemed unsure of how he should react to the news. ‘It’s going to be war.’

Where Titus had come by that information he did not share with or in front of me, but it seemed as though there was something to it, as for the next two days Pavo had the century brought together for drill.

Still invalided out from my beating, I was excused the first day’s manoeuvres, but on the second, Pavo put his head inside the tent to see me.

‘Can you walk?’ he asked with a little delicacy, still unsure of my relationship with the evidently powerful Arminius.

Despite the ache, I got to my feet to show that I could. It wasn’t out of bravado that I did so, but because I knew my best chance of slipping away from army life was in the field. To get there, I would have to show that I was fit for duty.

‘I can walk, sir.’

He made a noise that didn’t sound at all convinced. ‘Just your tunic. No armour. We’ll see how you go.’

I got on well enough. The purpose of drill is that the movements of battle become as ingrained in your mind and body as breathing, and battered and bruised though my muscles were, they remembered the moves as well as those of the other soldiers. We practised as a century only, simple manoeuvres such as going from column to extended line, or facing attacks to our flanks.

Half of the eighty men of the century seemed to be seasoned veterans, men in their early thirties with ten years’ or more service under their belts. Now clad in their war gear, many of these sweats displayed decorations on their armour, Titus, Chickenhead and Rufus amongst them. The Gallic redhead had been awarded the Gold Crown, which explained his status as a duplicarius , and the subsequent double pay.

Perhaps two dozen of the faces in the ranks had barely begun shaving, and it was these soldiers that caused Pavo and his second in command, the optio Cato, to go red-faced in rage.

The usual subject of their ire was Micon, of my own section. The spotty, gormless youth seemed unable to tell his left from his right, his wrong-footed actions causing the same chaos in the ranks as Hannibal’s elephants had inflicted on our forebears.

‘Micon, you little prick!’ Pavo roared. ‘The next time you fuck up my formation, I will track down the whore who gave birth to you and shove you back inside that mess between her legs!’

During breaks from the drill I sat by myself, but I was not forgotten. Titus was clearly as popular in the century as he was in the section, other veterans looking my way as they asked the big man the inevitable questions. They didn’t know how to take me, but I was happy enough to be left alone. The beating I’d endured had been worth it, and they knew I wasn’t one who could be walked over. Easier for them to save themselves the trouble and forget about me, unwanted though I was.

I listened casually as they swapped stories of past conquests, both military and sexual. Beautiful women were described in intimate detail. Former comrades were discussed with hilarity. Combat was spoken of with narrow, faraway eyes. Throughout the army, and throughout every legion of the Empire, this ritual would be repeated daily. It was more than simply a way to pass the time – it was the mortar that bound the troops together. I recognized it. I missed it.

At the conclusion of the second day of drill, Pavo had us formed into two ranks, forty in each, with the front rank kneeling. He liked to see the faces of his men when he addressed them, whether because he enjoyed talking man to man, or because he did not trust his men to listen, I did not know.

‘Is it going to be war?’ Chickenhead blurted out before Pavo could begin. The centurion bit back irritation. Clearly, here was a man who commanded on sufferance of the veterans in his ranks.

‘Not as you’d know it, Chicken,’ Pavo told him, attempting to take back the initiative. ‘We’re going back to the Rhine forts, and—’ He stopped at the loud chorus of groans and raised his hands for quiet. ‘We’re going back to the Rhine forts! From the march, raiding parties will be dispatched against the tribes that haven’t paid tribute this summer.’

‘And what about us?’ a veteran called. From overheard tales, I knew that the man had campaigned against the German tribes before. ‘Are we in these parties?’

Pavo shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

‘So there’s no bloody loot?’ Stumps grumbled, the sentiment echoed by several other voices.

‘I told you, I don’t bloody know,’ Pavo protested.

‘So what do you know, boss?’ Titus asked him with dripping sarcasm.

Pavo visibly bit back a retort.

‘Tomorrow, as a century, we march out to the River Lippe. We’re to join a detachment of auxiliaries already there, and hold a bridge on the river. Repair it, if necessary, so that the army can use it on its move back to the Rhine.’

‘If we’re holding a crossing on the river’ – Titus spoke again – ‘then we’re not going to be in any raiding party, are we?’

Pavo was forced to shake his head. ‘It doesn’t look like it, no.’

And at this, the veterans in the ranks let loose a hail of abuse at the army, Germany and the goddess Fortune. With no prospect of pillage and plunder from a whole summer’s campaigning season, the men’s patience was at an end.

This was the true face of Rome’s glorious legions.

I was alone again, sitting on the dirt of a track that ran through open countryside, the fields grazed low by cattle. At this time of year the beasts were as fat as they were going to get. Most would be slaughtered and salted before the lean season of winter began to eat into their meat, with a few held back by the tribesman for breeding.

We’d left camp at dawn, marching out as a century, and now I yearned to rub at shoulders pinched by armour, but I refused to show weakness to those who sat apart from me, no matter how blistered and raw my skin. It was down to their indifference that the armour had become a burden. Without a second man to help me dress in the protective steel, it sat loose and awkward on my shoulders, the edges of the plate rubbing at the skin beneath my tunic. My campaign kit, a burden far heavier than my banishment, was piled alongside me, shield held upwards by my heavy javelin. A javelin that I dreamed of ramming into the guts of my ‘comrade’ Titus.

Somehow, the other troops were able to ignore me, while simultaneously using me as the subject of many a debate, the soldiers armed with an endless supply of suspicion and scorn. They talked as if I weren’t there, and in my mind, I was not. I was a continent away, but the men of my section did not need to know that.

That morning had shaken loose memories that I had hoped forgotten: the tramp of hobnails; the dirt kicked into the air and into my throat; the jingle of equipment; and the bump of shield on javelin. It had brought it all back. I don’t know what I had begun to mutter to myself, but it was enough to convince the more superstitious of my companions that I was somehow possessed by spirits. By now, they had all surely heard how I had joined the legions – the bloody apparition from the grove of the gods – and some were active in their quest to be rid of me.