Джерейнт Джонс - Legion

We both knew the answer. ‘Yes, for Rome.’

‘Rome is a light in the world.’ As Arminius spoke, I could feel his love for that place, and its principles. ‘But the torch is carried by the wrong people.’

My fingers were trembling with fear from speaking with such open disloyalty, but like the first hole in a dam, the pressure was building, and there was no holding back my torrent of seditious thoughts now.

‘How do we change that?’ I asked suddenly, needing to know the answer, certain that this man possessed it, and anxious to play my part.

Arminius turned to look at me. His blue eyes burned into mine. ‘What are you willing to do?’

I could find no words, and so I placed my hand on the pommel of my sword.

Slowly, the German nodded; then he placed his hand on my arm. ‘You are a brave man, Corvus,’ he told me, and in that instant I feared I had been betrayed, and that he would kill me, or condemn me so that others could carry out the sentence.

Instead, as the screams of Roman justice echoed beneath us, Arminius told me how we would defeat an empire.

In the wake of the small town’s falling and my conspiracy with Arminius, I did not seek out Marcus. He would have blood on his hands and fire in his eyes, so instead I rode to the valley.

My target was the legion commander.

I found him in his campaign tent. He was alone, and surprised to see me.

He was more surprised still when I drew my sword.

‘Standard-bearer?’

I took a step forwards. The legate was defenceless, and I made my move.

I placed the blade on a campaign chest.

‘We can’t win with the sword, sir,’ I told him simply. I had come here to save blood, not to shed it.

The legate looked back at me over his curved nose, his eyes narrowed in question.

‘Sir,’ I began the argument that I had rehearsed with Arminius, ‘how are we going to pacify this region by killing everyone we come across? It’s like trying to calm a bull by whipping it, sir.’

The aristocrat considered me for a moment, and then folded his arms. ‘We put a ring in a bull’s nose for good reason, standard-bearer.’

‘A ring so that we can lead it , sir, not butcher it,’ I replied, conveniently forgetting that often the animal was being led to slaughter. ‘What use is the province if it is just an empty husk, sir?’

I saw distaste pass over his gaunt features. Rome’s patriarchy was as much a part of him as his liver. ‘That’s no concern of mine, and it’s certainly no concern of yours, standard-bearer. We are the instruments of Rome’s will. The Emperor and the Senate decree, and we execute.’

I had seen the literal evidence of that all too clearly. ‘But we can achieve Rome’s aims without prolonging the suffering of this war, sir. If we get the locals on our side then the enemy will have nowhere to hide. They will have nowhere to draw stores. They will have —’

‘Enough!’ the legate shouted, slamming his hand down on to a table. ‘Enough, standard-bearer! You forget your place!’ He glowered. ‘You forget mine !’

He looked at me as though I was an unruly child. I had been used to that look from my own father.

At last, a long breath escaped him. ‘Our orders come from General Tiberius, heir to the Emperor himself.’ He was trying to drill his words into my skull. ‘Who are we to question him?’

‘We are his soldiers, sir. We—’

‘Exactly!’ Hook-nose cut me off, but not viciously. ‘We are his soldiers , Corvus. Not his diplomats, not his tax collectors, and certainly not his wet-nurses. We are here to kill and conquer, not hold hands with those who would shelter our enemies. ‘Tell me. have you lost friends to this uprising?’

He knew that I had. Who hadn’t?

‘Yes, sir.’

‘The closest of friends? Brothers?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Then it astounds me that you have an ounce of compassion for these criminals and savages, standard-bearer. They are our enemy, nothing more, nothing less.’

They were my enemy, yes, but the headless children? The raped women? Was I to believe that they had overpowered Varo? That they were the ones who had driven a spear into Priscus? I wanted to say that – to say it all – but one look into the commander’s eyes told me that I had lost this battle. My tongue had failed me. It had seemed so simple when Arminius had suggested I counsel the legate on strategy, but why would a Roman-born aristocrat ever listen to a soldier like me? I had been prized for my bravery, not my intellect, and even that was a fallacy. Regardless, the only insight I was supposed to offer was that of my enemy’s spilled guts.

‘I’m sorry for speaking out of turn, sir,’ I said, recognizing that I needed to retreat, and conserve my energy for another assault, some other day. ‘I just want victory, and for this campaign to be over.’ A half-truth.

Hook-nose didn’t deny it. He looked at me with affection. ‘We are being slow-bled here,’ he acknowledged. ‘It’s not the glory you deserve, standard-bearer. You and all of my legion. But it’s what we have, and it is our duty to see it through.’

‘Yes, sir.’

He smiled, then. He really liked me, this senator. This aristocrat. He thought he saw in me the noble merits of Rome. Not even my outburst could tarnish the virtue of saving an eagle.

‘I have some good news for you,’ he said, the skin wrinkling about his hooded eyes.

‘Sir?’ Good news was a forgotten visitor.

‘There are supplies coming in from Italy. I need you to go to the port and meet them. Account for it all, and then pass back through the areas we’ve cleared, and take it to Siscia.’

I was surprised by his order. ‘Isn’t that a task for the quartermaster, sir?’

The legate shook his head. ‘The pay chests are coming.’ He smiled, knowing how such a revelation usually buoyed up the men under his command. ‘And those chests are your responsibility, standard-bearer.’

It was true. There was no escaping this duty, and in that moment, realization crept up on me like an assassin…

‘You said they were coming into a port, sir?’ I asked numbly.

The officer nodded. I knew the name of the place before he said it.

‘Iader.’

I was going home.

I walked out of the tent in a daze. All about me was the bustle of a legion on campaign, but I saw none of it. I staggered through the industry like a drunk, not even breaking to snarl at the occasional soldier I bumped into with my unguided shoulders.

Iader?

I hadn’t returned to that place since I had beaten my father, and run with Marcus. My closest friend had returned there on leave several years later, and he’d told me that my father yet lived, though he was sickly. Likely now he was dead. Had my crime died with him?

Perhaps it didn’t matter. Who would identify me? I was not the bright-eyed, good-looking boy who had run away. Now my nose was crooked, my skin was near black, and my eyes were darker still. For every ounce of innocence that I’d lost I had gained corded muscle. The boy who’d run was unrecognizable from the one who would return.

And if I was identified? It would take someone with great gall to level a charge at the honoured Standard-Bearer of the Eighth Legion. Even if my father did so himself, what was one more death in the night when the whole region was ablaze? His was the first blood I had ever had on my angry hands. I had soaked the soil with much since. That I did not want to see other families butchered did not mean that I would not gut my own. His life had become forfeit many years ago, when he found me on the pier, ache in my heart and loss in my eyes.