He rode in through the porta praetoria, down the main street of the camp, accepting the salutes of the men on guard. He had taken only three cohorts north with him to mop up the Celtic remnant. Two cohorts remained to guard the camp, the others scattered along the river on guard duty. He rode past the camp shrine where the standards were kept, the manipular standards topped with a bronze hand, and the silver wolf that was the standard of the legion. The standard bearers stood before the shrine with wolf skins draped over their helmets and hanging down their backs, the paws knotted upon their breasts.
He crossed the via principalis, the road that crossed the via praetoria at right angles and separated the legionary camp from the section occupied by the extraordinarii: the long-service soldiers whose special skills and duties relieved them from regular duties, the small citizen cavalry force, the medical staff, the priests and the handlers of the sacrificial animals and the scores of other supernumerary personnel required by an army. It also contained the praetorium: the commander's tent. In this case, it was Marcus's quarters. Quintus Valgus, General of the North, had divided four of his six legions among his subordinate military tribunes, and Marcus had been assigned to the Fifth Legion, the Northern Wolves. He could not have asked for better.
Gallic mercenaries quartered among the extraordinarii guarded the big tent. In battle they ran barefoot alongside the Gallic cavalry. They were greatly favored as guards by Roman commanders, not only because of their great loyalty, but also for their exotic appearance. Their bodies and faces were painted and tattooed in bizarre patterns, their lime-washed hair standing in orange spikes, their necks encircled by twisted bronze torques, their legs encased in brightly checked trousers. Two were always on duty flanking the entrance, long, slashing swords naked in their hands.
Gauls never saluted, but the men called out a greeting as their commander passed between them, employing the traditionally extravagant Gallic praise: "Hail to thee, darling Tribune, crusher of rebels, who single-handed swipes the heads from enemies by the thousand!" Marcus managed to keep a straight face as he entered the tent. Rufus, his body servant, came from the rear to help him out of his armor.
"Looks like everything went well," said the old slave. His hair, once the red that had given him his name, had gone white in the service of the Scipios. He lifted the helmet from his master's head and placed it upon its stand, carefully so that the plumes would not be bent. He turned as Marcus bent over, and grasped the lower hem of his mail shirt. With some difficulty he tugged it over his master's head like an exceptionally heavy tunic, letting it turn inside out as it rolled over its wearer's arms. When it was off, he rolled it up and stowed it in its sealskin bag.
Marcus sighed and, as always when he disarmed, felt as if he could fly. A Roman soldier was not supposed to notice the weight of his arms, but Marcus knew this to be nonsense. Even an officer's forty-odd pounds of equipment were a burden. A common legionary's sixty or more could be a man-killing load on a hard campaign. Legionaries were simply instructed to ignore it. Hardship was beneath the notice of a Roman citizen. Supposed to be, anyway.
He was just getting comfortable, caligae off, feet propped on a table, cup of warmed, watered wine in his hand, when word was relayed from the porta praetoria: "Messenger coming! Yellow plumes!" The call was relayed down the via praetoria until it reached Marcus in his tent.
"What now?" he groaned. But he was intrigued. Yellow plumes in the messenger's helmet meant dispatches from the Senate. Maybe war had broken out somewhere else. Tired as he was, it was an exciting possibility. War was a citizen's work, and war was where advancement was to be found. He already had enough campaigning time to qualify to stand for the office of quaestor, but he'd need several more campaigns before he could hope to be elected aedile, much less praetor.
Some men of good family pursued their public careers piecemeaclass="underline" They put in a few years with the legions, then stood for quaestor, did a little more campaigning and stood for aedile, then more military service and a praetorship. Others entered the legions young and did all their required military service, then just took the offices in succession, assuming they could get elected and had the wealth to support the office. Marcus preferred the latter, although he hadn't yet convinced his family that it was the right way for him to proceed.
"Marcus," his father was fond of growling, "too many men spend their lives soldiering, and when they finally stand for office, they find that they have no friends, no contacts and no experience in government. So they don't get elected and they end up spending their whole lives in the legions."
"There's nothing dishonorable in that," Marcus pointed out, many times.
"Honor is a fine thing," his father had said, "but dignitas is better." He referred to the collective honors bestowed upon a public man by the Senate and People of Rome. Among these honors were the elective offices bestowed by the popular assemblies: the Centuriate Assembly, consisting of the citizenry arrayed in their military units regardless of class, which elected consuls, praetors and censors; the Plebeian Assembly, consisting only of that class, which elected the Tribunes of the People and the plebeian aediles; and the Popular Assembly, consisting of all classes arranged by tribe, which elected the curule aediles, the quaestors and the military tribunes.
"Most professional military men," Marcus had said upon most occasions, "are simply unable to support the expenses of office, unless plunder should bring them wealth. Lately, we've been fighting very poor barbarians. But I should be able to bear the expense when the time comes."
"Don't be so sure of that," his father had warned. "Without the right friends, public office can be very expensive indeed."
The argument had never been settled and Marcus did not expect that it would be any time soon. Just now he had more immediate concerns. For instance, what did this messenger portend? Already, he could hear the approaching hoofbeats. He got up, straightened his dingy, heavily used tunic and stepped out of the tent to wait beneath the broad awning. Curious officers were already making their way toward the praetorium. The messenger was pounding up the street, making legionaries and slaves jump from his path, intensely aware of the drama of his own arrival. A few feet from the awning he drew rein smartly, causing his handsome Gallic mount to rear on its hind legs. The instant it settled, he threw himself from the horse and presented his documents.
"Dispatches from the Senate for Tribune Marcus Cornelius Scipio!" he shouted, as if Marcus were deaf.
"Smartly done, messenger," Marcus commended. The self-importance of the messengers always annoyed him, but he was willing to allow them their little self-dramatizations, for their duty was one of the most extreme hazard and hardship. They were expected to behave as if mere terrain, weather and enemy action did not exist.
Marcus took the oilskin-wrapped parcel and stripped off its cover. Within was a document sandwiched between two wooden leaves. On the outside of the leaves were the gilded letters SPQR, the abbreviation for "senatus populusque romanus," the Senate and People of Rome. It was the formula that embodied the Roman state and was placed on official documents, monuments and public property.
He untied the ribbon that bound the case and opened the leaves to reveal a single piece of parchment. Egyptian papyrus was hard to come by, and this bit of parchment had been scraped and reused so many times that it was almost transparent. His eyebrows rose as he read.
"What is it?" asked Publius Rutilius, another tribune but lower ranking. Other tribunes and senior centurions came close to hear. Little formality was observed in the north while campaigning in the field, even though discipline was otherwise the strictest imaginable.