“One!”
It is the duty of the Legate to announce the count of the punishment lashes and Labienus did so with an impassive face that showed neither pleasure nor distaste at what was taking place. The punisher recovered, returning to his original position, then brought his arm up and over again, striking Atilius another time, the sound of the lashes striking his back, blood now freely flowing as it was, even more pronounced. Again, Atilius let out a muffled scream, his legs beginning to collapse out from under him as he cringed in pain. The knot in my stomach now threatened to burst and I could taste the bile rising up in my throat, yet I was determined not to show any sign of weakness.
“Two.”
Eight more to go. There is no way that Atilius will survive this, I thought, he’s going to die and there’s nothing we can do about it. The blood now dripped off his back, making bright red splotches in the white snow, and I focused my gaze on the ground instead of on Atilius.
Somehow, Atilius did survive the punishment, though just barely. Once he was cut down, we were ordered to drag him off to the quaestorium. He lost consciousness about the fifth or sixth lash, and Calienus quietly told us that Labienus had actually done Atilius a favor, because some commanders would have insisted on reviving him before finishing the punishment.
“At least this way he didn’t feel those last few,” he told us as we walked along.
We were carrying Atilius by the arms and legs, facedown so that we could not avoid seeing the damage done to his back. Dull white of bone along his ribs where the skin and muscle had been flayed from his skeleton were clearly visible, and while I was not sure what purpose the muscles along one’s back performs, frankly I did not see how he would be able to get any use out of them whatsoever, as shredded as they were. Nearing the tent, he began to moan, his head moving slowly as he regained consciousness.
“Easy there Atilius,” Romulus said in what for him passed as a soothing tone. “You survived and we’re taking you to the hospital.”
I do not know whether Atilius heard or understood Romulus, for he made no intelligible sounds, just moaning over and over. Getting him into the tent, we placed him on his stomach on the table that the doctor indicated, then he ran us out when we tried to stay and watch the doctor work on him.
Before we left, Scribonius asked the doctor quietly, “Will he live?”
The doctor shrugged. “Only the gods know right now. If he survives the next day, then he has a good chance, but only about half of the men who are scourged do.”
“Couldn’t you be a little more optimistic?” snapped Vibius.
The doctor’s face reddened, and he was clearly about to make a sharp reply, but then he saw our faces and his look softened. “He’s your comrade, then?”
“He’s our friend,” Vibius replied firmly, making sure that the doctor knew that just because Atilius was guilty of a crime did not mean we were willing to minimize our relationship with him. The doctor stifled a smile before continuing, “Well at least he has that going for him. Most of the men who receive this kind of punishment are dragged in here and dumped by their so-called friends, then they get out of here as quick as they can. It’s good to see men stick by their friends.”
His kind words mollified our anger at him for his earlier callousness, and we left it that we would be back to visit the moment the doctor sent word it was possible, which he promised to do. Walking back to our tent, the formation had since been dismissed, but the rack still remained in place, and it would for the rest of the day as a reminder to all of us what awaited those who fell afoul of the rules. Atilius’ blood was spattered in a semicircle around the rack, extending a good two or three feet away, yet despite our best efforts, we found our gaze pulled to stare at the rack and its gore as we walked by.
Atilius did make it through the next day, but only just, and he was weak as a newborn babe for several weeks. His back would carry the hideous scars for the rest of his life, a symbol that he had broken the laws of the Roman army and been punished, a fact that he did whatever he could to hide, only very reluctantly taking off his tunic, and only in front of us. As far as his behavior, he was not allowed to leave camp for the rest of the winter, since there were still hard feelings with the townspeople who did not think that his punishment was harsh enough. There were other incidents after that, until Vesontio was made off-limits to all Legionaries, who were then forced restrict themselves to the shacks of the camp followers located outside the walls of the town, a fact that suited the pimps, whores and purveyors of swill that they called wine perfectly well. Of course, the army has many men like Atilius who just seem to have a problem following some of the simplest rules, something that I could never understand. If I was told to stay out of a town or city, I stayed out, yet for some men the lure of the forbidden was just too strong, and it became a regular occurrence for us to be trooped out to witness a punishment almost once a week. What puzzled me was why this was happening so often, when the two years we were at Narbo men obeyed the rules much more readily and we had a punishment formation perhaps once a month, if that.
“You’re no longer tiros,” explained Calienus, and he saw by my expression that I did not understand. “When you first joined as a tiro you were scared to death of all the rules and regulations, right?”
I nodded that I understood this.
“But now you know all the rules, and you’ve seen most of the punishment that the army will dish out to someone who fucks up,” he continued. “Add to that now you’ve faced death dozens of times, so that you’ve lost your fear of most things, including being punished.”
Despite not feeling that way personally, I could see how others might, and I nodded again as I thought about this. Perhaps that was true; after all, we knew death in a way that very few people do, and it had visited men we knew, so that we recognized in a way that most people cannot that death visits us all. Once the fear of death is gone, it removes a major obstacle in one’s path, and in some cases, the path that these men were following meant that being caught in town was not of major importance to them.
One person it did impact in a way that surprised us was Didius who, while not changing into a new man exactly, did become much more circumspect in his attempts to find new victims to fleece, even going through a fairly substantial losing streak for a few weeks. That part of his behavior may have changed, but not his hatred of me and the rest of his tentmates, his surliness driving the rest of us to the point where he became an outcast in our hut. I do not know how it started, but I do know that there was no plot; suddenly one night, everyone had enough of his mouth, and while I was at the Praetorium turning in some paperwork, the rest of the men bodily dragged him away from our hut to dump him in the Cohort street. When he tried to return, such dire threats were made that he ended up seeking shelter in another hut for several nights, not showing his face for anything other than official duties. Once he returned, he was careful to remain silent and not say anything that would draw our ire, but his silent hatred permeated the hut whenever he was in it, and we just learned to tolerate it.