Джерейнт Джонс - Siege

‘He’s fine about us,’ I told her honestly. ‘He’s my oldest friend,’ I added after a moment to give her confidence – I needed that smile. I did not want a single slip.

‘I love you,’ she said again, and in those words were captured our strongest desires.

‘I love you too.’

I kissed her. Another wave ran over my feet; it was hot. I looked down.

Blood.

Panic overcame me in an instant. I looked at her face for comfort, but found only terror – her skin was grey, eyes sunken. Flies danced on what had been her smile.

I backed away.

‘Marcus!’ I screamed, helpless. ‘Marcus!’

I looked up the beach, to where my friend had stood.

‘Marcus?’ I pleaded when there was no sight of him.

‘Look at what you’ve done,’ he hissed, appearing suddenly by my side, the carnage of his jaw flapping beside his lolling tongue. ‘Look at what you’ve done,’ he challenged me again, and I followed his pointed finger to the ocean, seeing blood-red waves crashing, hundreds of bodies churning in the red foam. I saw faces amongst the ruin: Varo, Priscus, Octavius, Chickenhead, Rufus, Cnaeus, Folcher, Statius.

The tide of death was endless.

‘Do you see what you’ve done?’ Marcus asked me.

I turned my tear-filled gaze back towards the man who had been my greatest friend.

He was not alone, now. Stumps stood beside him.

‘How many dead is your life worth?’ he asked, nose twisted and bloodied from the beating I had delivered.

‘Let it go,’ Stumps urged, ‘before you take more of us with you.’

His words were calm. Without hesitation, I followed his outstretched arm – and his forgiveness. I began to wade into the bloodied waters that churned about me, amid the bodies of my comrades carried by the tide to bump against my legs like ghost ships in a dead harbour. Soon, chest deep, I was surrounded by the carnage of my own creation.

‘Let go, Felix,’ Stumps told me from the shore.

‘Let go, Corvus,’ Marcus rasped.

I put my head beneath the waters.

My eyes blurred open. I saw Linza. Her face was as tight as hide on a shield, lips drawn and eyes narrow. In her hand was a wet cloth, and she used it to wipe at the cuts on my face.

‘I should choke you with it,’ she said, and though I could see that she wanted to be angry, there was something that held her back from reproaching me.

It was pity, I realized.

‘You scream a lot,’ she told me quietly, sensing that I recognized her true feelings. ‘Last night I wanted you to die. Now I think I love you.’

There was no warmth in the words. She knew as well as I did that love was a curse.

‘I know why you did what you did. It wasn’t you. It was war.’ Linza looked at her hands as she wrung out the wet cloth. ‘Your eyes, even, were not the same.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I croaked, exhausted from the night, my nightmare and her revelation. ‘It would be better if I wasn’t here,’ I murmured. ‘I should have died in the forest.’

The wet cloth came back to my face with force. Her words stung as much as the cuts to my face. ‘Don’t talk like that,’ she snapped. ‘It’s pathetic.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘You feel sorry too much,’ she snapped, on the offensive now, her cheeks flushing. ‘You are so lucky , Felix. Fuck, you are making me so angry! This pity for yourself. What is wrong with you? Be a man!’

‘You have no idea—’ I began quietly.

She cut me off, blue eyes wild as her anger began to bubble over. ‘I have no idea? My husband is dead, Felix! I will never see him again! My friends? Gone. My family in Batavia has war coming to them. My brothers will fight, and maybe die. My cousins. Don’t tell me I have no idea! You think because you hold a sword you are the only one who can speak about war? Fuck you! You see one side of it. One part. War is not all about you .’

‘I didn’t mean—’

‘Shut up. Shut up . You make so angry!’ She threw the cloth at me then. It slapped pathetically against my face as she crashed from the room.

‘ Fuck! ’ I screamed after a moment, sinking down. ‘Fuck…’ I groaned through hands clapped tight on to my face.

Depression washed over me like the waves of my nightmare. Linza had called my self-pity pathetic, but she was wrong. I was pathetic. How else could a man go from having a woman admit her love of him, no matter how grudgingly, to her spitting oaths and storming from his company a few seconds later?

She loved me , I then cursed myself. Loved not loves. I had that chance to take hold of her feelings, and I had let it fall through my grasp through my own self-loathing. Loathing that only grew stronger and heavier now that I looked back at my weakness. I cursed myself for a fool. I cursed myself for a coward. In my dream, Stumps had been right; how many people needed to die for me? Had I earned their sacrifice? Had I earned the right to live when they had died?

Of course not.

I wanted to lie in my bed, then. I wanted to lie there, and to forget about walls, and sieges, and soldiers, and enemies. I wanted to lie and sleep, forever. I didn’t want to wake up. I just wanted it to be over. I couldn’t take care of the love who had been everything to me when I had everything. How was I supposed to protect Linza, and be a man for her, when I had nothing but a head full of nightmares?

‘Enough!’ I shouted through clenched teeth, desperate for it to be over. ‘ Enough! ’ I screamed again, before lapsing into silent misery.

‘Felix?’ A timid voice broke through. ‘Can I come in?’

I opened my eyes. Moved the fingers that were pressing with hatred into my skin.

Micon.

‘Is it all right if I come in?’ the boy asked again. ‘Stumps asked me to come and get some of his things.’

Stumps. My friend. What had I done to the man? When I had left Malchus, there had been nothing before my eyes but rage. Seeing Linza threatened, I had known that I loved her, just as I loved my friend. A friend that I had beaten without mercy for putting Linza’s life at risk.

‘How is he?’ I forced myself to ask.

Micon shrugged, eyeing me nervously. I had protected him in the forest and fort, but now the young soldier looked at me with respectful fear, as if I were a snake on a path.

‘Where is he?’ I asked.

‘With Titus.’

‘And Brando?’

‘With Titus.’

‘I suppose you’re with Titus, too?’ I asked, hatred for myself redoubling.

‘He said we should give you some space,’ Micon explained. ‘So you could sort things out. With her.’

‘Titus said that?’

The boy shook his head. ‘Stumps.’

My chin sagged to my chest. Even after what I had done to him, my comrade was selflessly looking to my own interests.

‘Wait,’ I urged the young soldier as he moved to the doorway. ‘Can you help me put my mail on? I’m coming with you.’

‘So you saved his life, then tried to kill him?’ Titus greeted me as I entered the building that served as the centre of his black-market racket. It was quiet, a few groups of off-duty soldiers and archers playing dice or talking over watered-down wine.

‘I don’t really remember,’ I answered honestly.

The man let out a snort, taking in the injuries I had sustained myself, my century having had to beat me into unconsciousness to put an end to my swinging fists and gnashing teeth.

‘Do you think he’ll see me?’

‘Doesn’t have a choice. He’s not running fast in the state he’s in.’ Titus smiled darkly. He then offered a shrug of his huge shoulders. ‘Girls make us do daft things.’