Джерейнт Джонс - Legion

‘Fair point,’ Varo acknowledged with a sly grin. ‘I look forward to using you as a human shield.’

‘My pleasure, big man.’

Conversation was easy then. My comrades spoke of old patrols, young women and drunken brawls. I drifted in and out of the discussion, thinking of what was to come. I didn’t expect that I would live through it. I didn’t expect that I cared.

I looked at my comrades. I loved them. They were worth dying for.

But Marcus… It pained me that I would never see my brother again. That I would never experience the energy of his being, or the bright comfort of his presence. I knew that he would relish the coming battle. I knew that in these moments he would deliver great oratory about how we had been blessed to die gloriously to protect Italy from barbaric invaders.

I didn’t give a fuck about all that. I just wanted to kill, and I wanted to kill with Marcus.

‘Wishing Marcus was here?’ Brutus guessed. Even after years apart, my old section commander knew me well. Such things happened when you lived, ate, slept and shat with your section. At least, they did when you were a good commander like Brutus, and not one who simultaneously ignored and intimidated his troops as I did.

‘I am,’ I confessed. ‘He’d love this. Death or glory for Rome.’

‘You can have death and glory,’ Octavius suggested.

Varo grinned. ‘I’ll ask you how you feel about that when there’s a spear-shaft sticking out of your arse.’

‘Oh, you big tease.’

We laughed; then Brutus looked back at me. I felt his scrutiny. It was uncomfortable, as if we were really meeting for the first time.

‘You know, Corvus,’ the older man began, ‘I feel like I know you well, and yet I don’t.’

I saw smiles play on the lips of my other comrades. We’d had this same conversation more than once.

‘If it wasn’t for Marcus,’ Brutus went on, ‘I wouldn’t even know where you came from.’

‘What’s it matter?’ I shrugged defensively. ‘I’m here.’

Brutus turned to the others, and pointed at me. ‘You see what I mean?’

Varo laughed. ‘It’s like trying to open a whore’s legs with an empty purse.’

I bristled. ‘If you want to play campfire stories, then tell some of your own.’

Brutus recognized the hostility in my tone. Older and wiser, he also recognized that it was not directed at him.

‘All right, brother.’ He smiled. ‘I’ll tell you a story. It’s a story about a boy who became a soldier, who became a nobody, and who then became a soldier again.’

‘I think I’ve heard this one,’ Varo piped up. ‘It’s one of those Greek romances with the boys, yeah?’

The others laughed. I sulked.

Brutus clapped his friend on the shoulder. ‘Ever since I was a child I’ve dreamed of what’s coming tomorrow. I mean it, Varo. If I die – when I die – then it will be with a smile on my face, and a heart full of pride.’

‘You forgot a head full of shit.’

This time, even I laughed a little. I knew that I should apologize for my earlier stubbornness.

‘I don’t mean to be an arsehole,’ I said to Brutus. ‘I just don’t want to talk about the past. I don’t know why it’s important.’

Brutus met my pain-filled eyes, and spoke to me as a father to a son. A mentor to a student. A surgeon to a patient. He taught me something that I would see, hear and recognize for the rest of my war-filled life.

‘Corvus,’ he told me, ‘no man should die amongst strangers.’

We formed up across the valley floor, spread between its steep sides in an ugly smile of steel. Our shields were flame red, our armour polished. In our hands we gripped javelins; by our sides hung sheathed swords. We were the greatest infantry in the world. The makers of an empire. Rome’s blade. And now we stood, proud and waiting in the growing light of a spring dawn. We were a challenge. We were a threat. We were a vulgar display of power, every one of us trained, drilled and indoctrinated into the cult of the warrior.

To kill, or be killed.

I stood in the front rank of our century. Behind and beside me, the press of men and shield and weapons was as claustrophobic as it was comforting. Our files were one limb of the same creature. Above I could see a buzzard on the wind, and wondered at what it saw, picturing how the blocked forms of our centuries must look like the serrated shell of some armoured insect, a centipede that had crawled forth from its home inside the fort, and stretched with intent across the narrowest point of a fertile valley. A valley through which ran the road to Italy. A valley through which an army wished to pass to bring death and madness and sorrow to the places that many of us called home.

Not I.

This was my home.

I knew it with the same certainty I had felt when I first saw her .

I belonged here, surrounded by comrades and approached by death. The moment was drawing close where my mind would be given over to slaughter, and screams. If they were to be my own, then better they came from a spear-point than sleep. Better death than dreams.

I turned and looked over my shoulder. Octavius’s section was in formation behind mine. He was the only one of my close comrades that I could see. Priscus and Varo were obscured by men and armour. Brutus was waiting behind the formation. I met Octavius’s green eyes, and smiled. He didn’t smile back. That made my own grow.

I was happy .

The day hadn’t started that way. When I woke, my head had been throbbing. It still ached from the fall I had taken from the burning building, but wine had done the rest. Our armour polished as though we were about to take part in one of the Emperor’s triumphs, we had found ourselves a set of benches close by the barracks, and done what comrades do when it is likely their last night on earth – we told stories, we made jokes and we made promises.

Brutus made us promise that we’d take care of Lulmire if he died.

Priscus asked that we send word to his brother in the First Legion, and to impress upon him that he had died happily, amongst comrades.

Octavius ask that he not be buried next to Varo.

Varo asked that Octavius be fed to pigs.

‘And what about you?’ Varo had asked me.

My answer was simple. ‘Tell Marcus I said goodbye.’

We drank after that, and tried to pretend that should one of us die, then the others would be alive to see to the wish of their fallen comrade, but deep down, I think we all recognized the same – our small force would be overrun, and wiped out to the last man. We would all die fighting. Looking at my comrades, I was at peace with that prospect. No one cheats death. What better way to die than with these men? My brothers.

And so we had drank.

In the pre-dawn, goodbyes had been swift. A casual pat on the shoulder. A light-hearted remark. ‘See you later.’ ‘Have fun.’ ‘Try not to get me killed.’

Beneath the light of a gloating moon we had formed up on the parade square. There was no oration save for the swearing of tired centurions. At times, when a soldier was too slow in his step, or sloppy in their drill, their vine canes did the talking.

‘Get sharp, you fuckers,’ Justus had growled after administering one such lick, ‘this is the eve of glorious battle, not a back-alley abortion.’

Glorious battle.

I didn’t reflect too much on those words as we waited for the order to march to the ground chosen for us to make our stand. Rather, I watched what was around me. I saw men laugh and joke. I saw chins jutted out with pride. I saw trembling hands. I saw prayer. We were dressed the same, armoured the same, and armed the same, but no one man was identical in his preparation for what was to come.