Proculus called the column to a halt as the newly liberated slave stumbled towards them. A nearby legionary dropped his pack and javelins, turned and belted the young man hard across the face with the bottom edge of his shield. The lad fell to the ground, stunned and unable to regain his bearing. Proculus rode over to where the lad lay as the slaver came running up to him. The centurion’s senses were assailed by the sight and stench of the man. He was overweight and scraggly in appearance; his body odor was strong, and Proculus wondered if the man had ever had a bath.
“Nice one,” the slaver remarked as he stooped with his hands on his knees, his breath coming in heaving gasps. “Thought this one was going to get away before I could have my way with him.”
Proculus dismounted his horse and walked over to the man. As the slaver started to rise up, Proculus punched him hard in the mouth, sending him sprawling.
“Idiot!” the centurion shouted. “You almost let a prisoner of war escape just so you could satisfy your sick carnal lust!”
The slaver started to push himself up to his feet when Proculus stomped him on the side of the face with his hobnailed sandals. The young prisoner was now lying on his stomach, his face filled with joy and hope. The scowl on the centurion’s face diminished any hopes he may have had.
Just then a pair of auxiliary cavalrymen galloped up to them, one of whom saluted Proculus.
“And where in the hell were you when this piss-ant lost his prisoners?” the centurion barked, the scowl never leaving his face.
“Beg your pardon, sir,” one of the troopers replied. “We’ve been chasing down the others that this jackal let out. He and his partner up there decide they want to play with a couple of the young nobles. So they go and open the cage, and sure enough three more manage to escape into the woods! We’ve spent the last hour hunting them down.”
“Any get away from you?” Vitruvius asked as he rode up on his horse.
“No, sir,” the cavalryman replied with a shake of his head. “Unfortunately, we had to slay the lot of them. A mercy, really; these are all headed for the sulfur mines.”
“Yes, we know,” Proculus replied with a dismissive wave. He then glared at the slaver, who was now cowering with his hands over his face. The centurion smashed his foot into the man’s face once again, eliciting a chuckle from Vitruvius, as well as the auxiliary troopers.
“I want this scum and his companion lashed for their gross incompetence,” Proculus continued. “Take the prisoner back with you and see to it that he makes it to the mines alive and unspoiled.”
“Right away, sir,” the trooper acknowledged as the prisoner let out a series of despairing cries.
“No! Please do not make me go back! I am a nobleman; I can pay whatever you want! Please, I beg you!” He came at Proculus, his arms outstretched piteously.
Proculus swallowed hard and remembered why the young man had been sentenced to the mines of Mauretania. The centurion punched him in the mouth, sending him tumbling over the slaver. The lad lay their weeping in sorrow.
“Lost, I am lost,” he sobbed, his face buried in the grass.
“Yes, you are,” Proculus replied as he stood over him. “Perhaps you will make sounder decisions in the next life.” With that he gruffly pulled the young man up by the hair and threw him towards the cavalrymen, one of whom prodded the lad with his lance back towards the caravan. Proculus then kicked the slaver in the small of his back, forcing him to scamper to his feet.
The other auxiliary trooper saluted once again before following his quarry back to the slave caravan.
“Well, that was something I could have done without seeing,” Magnus muttered under his breath, as the column continued its march.
“Those sick fucks must be desperate for some really good sport,” Valens observed.
“And to think we thought you had low standards!” Carbo snorted.
“At least my standards never involved young boys,” Valens retorted.
“A few days in the mines and he will wish he was back to being that slaver’s little play thing,” Artorius observed, watching as the prisoner limped along, the lance of the cavalryman never far from his back.
“Are the mines really that bad?” Gavius asked.
Most of the section grunted in reply.
“From what Flaccus said, they are far worse,” Artorius said. “The sulfur burns your eyes until you go blind from it. Not that it matters because once you’re down there you’ve seen the last of the sun. The very air you breathe is a poisonous fume. You are given just enough food and water to be kept alive. Three months is about the longest most survive, although I’m sure there are exceptions.”
“Such as?” Gavius persisted.
The other legionaries were gazing intently on their decanus, curious as to what else he may have heard.
“There are a few cases where a slave will show the intestinal fortitude to survive for years down there. Sometimes their masters will take pity upon them and retire them to lesser duties on a farm; though more often than not they are blind and completely mad by then.”
The Gallic countryside continued to roll past them as the column made its way towards Lugdunum. The scenes of activity from the villages they marched through would have made one forget that the province had recently been in the grips of rebellion. The peoples encountered were mostly indifferent to the legionaries; neither fearful like the barbarians across the Rhine, nor openly friendly like the Batavians. Few of the Gauls were old enough to remember the conquest of Caesar; indeed, most regarded being a Roman province as beneficial. Roman architecture influenced even the smallest of Gallic villages. Artorius found it odd to see a bathhouse or rudimentary aqueduct amongst the thatched huts. There were even shrines dedicated to the Roman gods dispersed throughout the region.
As the cohort marched into Lugdunum, they noticed a number of tents erected just on the outskirts. The outgoing cohort had already vacated their billets and were living in tents for the few days it would take for them to relinquish control. They found a sign posted outside of a renovated tavern that read:
Cohort VIII, Legio VIII Augusta
Acilius Aviola, Centurion Pilus Prior
“Here we are then,” Proculus announced, as he dismounted his horse. He and the centurions entered the tavern to find it had been modified into a type of Principia. Stairs led to rooms upstairs, and the entire bottom floor had been partitioned off into a series of offices and other rooms. There was a flurry of activity going on, seeing as the cohort was getting ready to leave and return to their fortress at Poetovio in Pannonia.
“Ah, good you have arrived!” a boisterous voice said behind them.
They turned to see an older centurion walk in the main door. He had just removed his helmet, revealing a head that was sparse in hair, and that which he had was completely gray.
“I am Centurion Aviola, Commander of the Eighth Cohort, Eighth Augusta,” he said as he stuck out his hand.
“Valerius Proculus, Third Cohort, Twentieth Valeria,” Proculus replied, accepting the man’s hand. “This is quite the setup you fellas have here.”
Aviola shrugged at the observation.
“We’ve had a pretty good run here,” he replied. “Things got a little anxious when we had to rush north to help you guys put down Sacrovir’s rebellion, though. That was the first action any of us had seen in years.”
“We were damn glad to have your boys with us,” Vitruvius observed. “Helped to even the odds a bit.”
Aviola shook his hand dismissively. “It helped us bang off some of the battle rust. Come, I’ll show you around. All principal officers stay over here in the rooms upstairs, legionaries stay over at the flats. It’s a pretty good setup all around.”
After much confusion, Artorius and the section found their flat. It was actually a pair of flats, with an interior door added. Similar to the setup in a legionary barracks, one room had four pairs of bunks, a table, cooking stove, and other personal effects; the other room was for storing armor, weapons, and equipment.