But nothing, he thought, nothing could have been worse than what had befallen his family—his father killed, his family driven from the comfortable farm that had been theirs since the Tarquins were expelled, and with only him, the only grandson who survived life in a Roman insula with its fevers and fires, to try to win it back.
"What's that?"
He started. Requests for orders. Plans. He took it on his own initiative to order that those men who had extra food share with those who had none. Rufus caught his eye and nodded, bleak comfort where he had never expected to find it.
Bowing and saluting and waiting on the family's shrewd patron: He remembered that too. The gifts that meant a week of scant food. The snubs that meant setbacks; the rebukes that almost put paid to his hopes of a place following the Eagles. Jupiter Optimus Maximus knew he did not wish to follow the Eagles. He was a farmer, not a fighter. But they had snatched his farm, and there would be nothing at all for his family unless he earned it back.
If he shut his eyes and forced himself not to hear the prayers and imprecations of his centurion, the marsh sounds made him almost happy. He remembered the light upon the Tiber, the way it shone through the leaves of the twisted olive trees and heated the vines before harvest. He remembered how every clod of earth felt as he ran to his favorite places in the gnarled roots of trees by the river, when the heat hummed and the sun burned almost white. There, he would fling himself down and sleep or watch the blue haze fill the river valley as the afternoon drowsed away.
Voices murmured in the marshes outside the accursed walls of Carrhae. Treachery lay in their whispers. Had the city not been there, perhaps Crassus might have summoned the courage to let them die like Romans, but with a way of escape, the old thief had craft, if not honor.
"Buys his Legions like cupbearers..." muttered Rufus, too furious to be prudent. "And pours them out like vinegar before that ... that ... Persian with his catamite eyes." Persian, Parthian—Rufus would hardly care. The Surena wore kohl beneath his eyes to cut the glare. Who knew, if they had a chance, how many else might do so if it helped them fight in this land? Maybe, they could make do with mud. Enough of that lying around here.
"He's going to get himself killed talking like that," Lucilius whispered to one of his ten dearest friends.
"Small loss. But hush, you'll wake our graybeard."
The other patrician officer meant Quintus, he knew. And he knew enough to control himself. Don't antagonize anyone, least of all a patrician, even ones as worthless as those two. It was not safe.
A hand on his shoulder brought him back to the stinks of marsh and frightened men. Pain in his ribs, right over the earlier bum, jolted him to full alertness.
The centurion, with at least thirty more years on him to weaken back, ears, and eyes, heard the rustle in the marshes about the time that the guards stirred. Quintus nodded that he had heard it too, glad he had not started, much less cried out. The you'll do in Rufus's eyes, squinting even now as if unused to the comfort of darkness, was praise enough.
A moment later, both he and Quintus had risen to their knees, hands snatching at the well-worn hilts of the gladius that each of them carried. Their swords drawn, the guards that Rufus and Quintus had posted when they entered the marshes were coming in. Without orders and with...
With Parthians under escort. But judging from the assurance of their walk, these were not prisoners.
Quintus hunkered down in the wet and the mud. Despite the chill that had long since crept into his bones, he went suddenly hot, ashamed that the Parthians looked upon Romans defeated yet still alive.
They walked like princes. Or executioners. Their harness held a somber glitter that the marshes reflected, a gleam like rotten wood. One of them turned to rake his eyes across the marsh.
Quintus had seen that one last on horseback, with a long banner like a tongue of flame overhead and the sun glinting on the heavy scales of his armor and his horse's trappings. Then, too, his eyes, the pits darkened against the ferocious desert glare, had stared at his enemies, who had fallen and failed.
Once again. The Surena had come to view the vanquished.
All that was missing was the sound of the drums and bronze bells.
No swords were drawn. That might have been discipline. It was likelier to have been exhaustion. Of course, it was called safe-conduct.
None of the Romans were safe. Or were likely to live much longer.
2
Past Quintus and his men the Parthians marched, almost at parade pace, toward the front of the ragged column, where Crassus's staff would no doubt try to prop their commander up into a semblance of decent bearing. Rustles and faint splashes told Quintus that officers were turning their troops over to centurions and slipping forward, to be in on whatever council their commander might hold.
Quintus saw no reason to believe that his equestrian face would be any more welcome in defeat than it had been in prosperity. And the men...
Even the auxiliaries had drawn close, seeking the protection of an officer of Rome. Such protection as it was. Persians, this knot of them. Horsemen condemned to walk, like Rome's own mules. Traitors, perhaps, did Rome not war with Parthia. But loyal thus far.
"Forget you outrank a centurion." Quintus had had it drummed into him in training. "When you don't know what to do, forget your fancy armor—" not that Quintus's harness was anything to boast of, "—and ask him what is to be done."
Pride and honor had died under The Surena's arrows, but not good counsel. He found Rufus and hunkered down beside him.
"They've brought The Surena in," he muttered. It did not seem at all strange to be reporting to the older man. Rufus.
The older man shrugged, then turned thumbs down. "Morituri te salutamus," he remarked, then spat. "Doesn't look as if I'll get that wooden sword now, let alone my twenty acres and my mule. Damn. Mule would have been easier to train than some of these boys."
"You think too, then, that this is surrender." Quintus didn't even bother making it a question.
"I think our guide was bought cheaper than a Tiburtine whore," muttered the centurion. "And I think that we're about to see a bargain struck."
"You think they'll offer terms?" The younger man kept his question low-voiced.
Rufus nodded once, curtly. "Unless they want us all dead. And they could have had that a time before if they'd had the mind to. We pass under the slaves' yoke probably," he spat. "Better off dead—all of us."
Voices rose from the direction that the proconsul had taken, angry, threatening. Crassus had called his officers about him. Predictably enough, Quintus had not been included. He could imagine Lucilius, as he had several times before, telling him, "We couldn't find you," as if tending to his soldiers were somehow a dereliction of duty and reason enough for excluding the man who was not of their inner circle.
"What do you think's going on?"
The centurion grimaced as if he wanted to spit again. "You saw. The Parthians have offered terms. Now we'll have to have the noble talk about honor. Nobles' talk. It'll probably take all night. In the end. Crassus will deal." Not "the proconsul." Not any one of a number of titles that a centurion should use for his commander. "It's his way."
Quintus could not help but look up sharply.
"Pardon, sir. Strange words for the likes of me. But they'd be the first to tell you. I haven't got honor like..." He jerked his chin toward the sound of the conflict.
"You want to know about my honor? It's all about you. Sleeping or talking, or it's—you there, I warned you not to drink! And as long as any of that looks to me and obeys me, I have my honor. When they're gone, I can think about dying. But not till then. Meanwhile, we wait."