And someone else, from the back, ‘We can’t steal their Eagle!’
‘Can’t we?’ I felt their eyes on me, and saw their startled looks, and knew that, in that moment, I looked like Lupus. Just then, it was a compliment.
I walked past them all. ‘We only need to hold it hostage, and see what they’ll offer for its return. But we have to find it first. Shall we look and see?’
There was only one place a legion would keep its Eagle. We broke down the wooden door — they had built a wooden door, and barred it! — to the centurion’s hut on the far side of the compound. Inside, a brazier was glowing orange, the colour a smith would use to harden a blade. It had not long been abandoned; its heat thickened our breath after the biting cold outside, and wrought the scent of cedar from the wooden walls.
A glance showed us the contents of the hut. The bed was lifted off the floor, with the legs planted in bowls of water to keep vermin away, and set beside it on the wall was a shelf for the small things a man might take on campaign: a small hand knife with a bronze handle shaped in the likeness of a wren; a pouch of gemstones, still rough from the ground; a ring set with turquoise, and a dolphin etched on it; a scroll, half read: Xenophon, On Hunting.
In the corner was a cupboard, also bolted. I broke open the lock with the hilt of my gladius, and found inside a small shrine to Jupiter Best and Greatest, and another to the bull god, beloved of the Sassanids, and behind both, proppedagainst the back wall, the flag-standard of the century with the open hand and medallions, and to the other side the Eagle of the IVth.
So much power in so small a thing. My heart tripped over. I had never seen a god, nor thought I might see one. I had never seen the emperor, to whom we renewed our oath each January. I had never even seen the governor of Syria, except at a distance from the parade ground. But daily I gave homage to our Eagle, watched its gilded wings glimmer in the rising sun as we said our prayers and renewed our oaths.
So, now, did this Eagle glimmer; its eyes gazed at us, and held us frozen. To see it was to feel the pride of our legion take hold of my heart and squeeze it tight, and I realized then how proud I was to be with the men around me, all of them, men with red armbands, men of the XIIth: my brothers.
I reached for the oakwood shaft, and stopped. Only the bravest of men carried the Eagle, for to them was drawn every enemy eye; every enemy archer and spearman tried to kill them. They were foremost in battle, and had to fight and yet keep the Eagle upright. To do such a thing was the epitome of honour. And to steal it was its opposite.
‘They took Polydeuces,’ Syrion said softly, from my side. ‘There was no honour in that, either.’
I took a breath, tasted the cedarwood and incense of the shrines, felt the touch of the gods; both Jupiter and Mithras were martial, both valued valour above all else, neither was inclined to weakness.
‘Take the furs from his bed,’ I said tightly. ‘Cover the Eagle. We’ll take only that, and leave the standard. They’ll know why.’
A bulge-eyed youth of the sixth unit looked at me and opened his mouth. ‘Don’t ask,’ I said, but Syrion, who hadmore pity and patience than I had at that moment, said, ‘It shows we didn’t care enough about their century to take their standard; we only needed to dishonour their legion.’
It was done. I carried the Eagle; I could not ask it of another man, even Syrion, particularly Syrion, who carried the sixth century’s standard with such honour. With a swathe of bear fur warming my chest, and the shaft pressed hard on my shoulder, we ran from the centurion’s house.
Some of the other huts were burning; our men had tipped the braziers on to the beds as they left. Greasy flames peeped from doorways and smoke slewed after, rising sluggishly to hover in a thick wad less than an arm’s breadth above the rooftops.
We cleared the gate in a dozen strides. The path lay ahead of us, and safety with Cadus, or the long march home. To our right, the mule stockade was empty, the wall of mule scent gone, and in its place the reek of smoke, and some blood. The entrance was churned snow, but inside men still fought. I heard a cry, just one, high and hoarse, like a gull on the sea shore, and knew the throat that made it.
‘That’s Lupus! The Fourth have come back and found him.’ I had thought him gone ahead of us, and cursed myself for not knowing better.
I thrust the Eagle at the goggle-eyed youth. His name was Kalendinus, but I learned that only later. At the time, I simply took his arms and folded them around the Eagle, with the shaft angled back over his shoulder. ‘Get this to the first of our camps along the path,’ I said. ‘Guard it with your life and tell Centurion Cadus that I said you were to do so.’ I gave him more orders, secretly, that the others didn’t hear, then said, aloud, ‘The rest of you go with him, except Syrion, who comes with me.’
I was a clerk and a courier, not even the flag-bearer that Syrion was; I was the conscript who most hated being in thelegion. But in spite of these things, or perhaps because of them, they listened as if I were the camp prefect, and left, running along the trail of our departing mules like a pack of schoolboys let loose from a lesson.
Chapter Twelve
Syrion and I ran back into the maelstrom of the stockade. The smoke was finer here, the fire nearly burned out. A clot of men battled in the left hand corner nearest the gate. Lupus was at their centre alone, set about by a full unit of the IVth. Their backs were to us; we had the advantage of surprise.
I flicked a glance at Syrion, saw him nod and raise his arm, and then, ‘ For the Twelfth! ’
We bellowed it with all the force of a full unit. I ran close by the wall and let my padded blade — the padding was less than it had been, I will own that, now — rattle along the wood so that we sounded like an incoming army.
Syrion simply bunched his Olympian shoulders and hurled himself bodily at the backs of the nearest men. Two went down with him, bowled flat and winded. I picked one and swung the flat of my blade at his back just below the shoulder blades, with a force that would have cut him in half had I used the naked edge.
He dropped as if dead. I did not stop to see if it were true. We were three and they were five and they knew now how few we were. They rallied and came at us shoulder to shoulder, big men with hate in their eyes, weaving their uncovered blades back and forth.
Their leader grinned, showing gaps in his teeth where earlier violence had taken them out. There was blood on his lips. In a moment’s terror, I prayed it was his own, and that he did not feed on other men’s death. He saw me and his grin widened. In northern Latin, with a Germanic taint, he said, ‘Three prisoners for the loss of one. A good bargain.’
Lupus was on my left, Syrion beyond him. I felt him tense. In fast southern Greek, he said, ‘Break to the left of Blood-mouth on my count. Three, two, one, go!’
As if our lives depended on it, we hurled ourselves at the hair’s breadth space Lupus had divined between the blood-mouthed brute and the barely less terrifying man to his left.
I closed my eyes and made a missile of my body. I felt blows rain on my shoulders, my back, my hips as I rolled, but felt no pain. ‘Don’t fight — run!’ How Lupus had breath to shout was beyond me, and in any case I needed no orders. I had seen the flame-lit gap where was the gate and nothing short of death would have stopped me going through it.
We broke out into cold, free air. Syrion was with me, Lupus a little behind, but catching up. I ran until my lungs burned, until I could taste blood in my spit, and still I kept running until the pounding of my blood in my ears began to echo and I listened through the spaces between the beats and heard footsteps, and a name; mine.
Blood-mouth did not know my name. I slowed and turned and felt myself sway with the sudden halt. I bent forward with my palms braced above my knees and dragged in air, hiccoughing and sobbing and swearing until all three came together and I was laughing, loosely, out of control.