Cato 01 - Under the Eagle (20 page)

'Yes, sir what?'

'Yes, I am something of a war hero, sir,' Cato replied in a low voice.

'I do beg your fucking pardon, son!' Bestia shouted. 'But I must be deaf. I can't hear you. Again! Louder!'

'Yes, I am something of a war hero, sir!'

'Oh really? Young lad like you must have really scared the shit out of the Germans. I mean, just looking at you right now is making me bloody nervous. Next thing you know they'll be chucking fucking foetuses into the front line.'

A ripple of laughter spread across the other recruits.

'SHUT UP!' Bestia bellowed. 'I did not give the rest of you ladies permission to laugh, did I? Well, did I?'

'NO, SIR!' the recruits chorused.

'Well then, war hero, now you've really got something to live up to.' Bestia leaned in very close to Cato's face, so that the latter could see every wrinkle and scar of the veteran's face, as well as the red rim of his nostrils. Cato almost smiled with relief as the centurion stepped back a pace, drew out a dirty piece of linen and sneezed into it.

'What you smiling at, boy? Haven't seen a man with a cold before?'

'Yes, sir.'

'I'll be keeping an eye on you, Optio. Make any mistakes from now on and I'll show you no mercy,' Bestia snarled, and then abruptly strode away.

'So what's new?' Cato muttered once the centurion was out of earshot. The drill optio chuckled as he went by and Cato blanched. But the man just winked and hurried to catch up with Bestia.

That morning Bestia changed the routine. Instead of the scheduled weapons-training the recruits were introduced to the rudiments of camp construction, and were marched outside the walls of the fortress to a prepared area where lines of coloured flags marked out a large square with numerous subdivisions. A supply wagon waited at the side of the track; a brace of oxen grazed with dull expressions as they watched the recruits assemble around Bestia. The centurion had taken a pick and shovel from the back of the wagon and was holding them aloft.

'Any of you ladies care to tell me what I'm holding in my hands?'

The recruits remained silent, not willing to risk the obvious.

'Just as I thought, dumb as ever. Well, these may look like horticultural tools but they're the army's secret weapon. In fact, they are the most important weapon you are ever likely to handle. With these, you can build the most formidable fortifications in the known world. Roman armies get defeated from time to time, Roman fortifications — never! Some of you may have heard on the grapevine that the Legion is about to be relocated.'

A low key buzz of excitement greeted the announcement — the first official confirmation of what had been doing the rounds of the Legion's mess rooms for the last ten days. Bestia let it run its course before continuing.

'Now, you ladies will of course be ignorant of our final destination, unlike senior officers such as myself. Suffice to say we're in for an interesting time. But before you can be let loose outside the base, you're going to need to know how to build everything from a marching camp right up to bicircumvallations.'

Now he had really lost them, only the handful who were familiar with Caesar's account of the siege of Alesia had the remotest idea what he was talking about.

'Ladies, we're going to start small, since you — barring our war hero there — will have problems grasping the tactical defensive potential of anything larger than a ditch. So we begin with the marching camp.

'When the Legion manoeuvres through non-hostile territory it excavates a defensive ditch and turf-mounted palisade. Each legionary, and you ladies, will be issued with one pick and one spade. The yellow flags over there need not concern you — they mark out the tent lines for each century. These red flags mark out the boundary defences. You will dig from that line inwards. You will dig a ditch six feet wide and three feet deep — that's two spades wide by one spade deep — the spoil of which is to be heaped on the inner side of the ditch and then compacted down. Each man digs six feet of ditch, starting with the war hero at the first marker flag. You ladies understand? Then get the equipment issue and get to work.'

Once each man had been issued a pick and spade, for which deductions would be made from their pay, as Cato now knew, and had taken up position along the red-flagged line, Bestia gave the order to dig. A short distance beneath the grass the soil was freezing, if not frozen, and the recruits used their picks to hammer into it with all their might, piling the cold lumps of clay soil immediately beside the ditch. As the morning wore on, the men became oblivious to the chill and sweat poured freely, woollen inner tunics sticking to their backs. Hardened by months of exercise, the recruits nevertheless found the entrenching exhausting, but Bestia allowed them no break from their toils, reminding them that while on the march the Legion would need to make such fortifications every day. Sore hands turned into blistered hands and, when the blisters burst, the palms were rubbed raw by the coarse wood of the wooden handles which would not become smooth through heavy use for some months yet. Cato suffered the agony in tight-lipped silence while those who had joined the Legion from a farming family barely noticed the wood in their calloused hands. As bad luck would have it, Cato was placed immediately next to Pulcher and, while they were out of earshot of the drill instructors, Pulcher resumed his campaign of intimidation.

'War hero? You?' he growled. 'Un-fucking-likely. Who'd you have to be buggered by to get the commendation?'

Cato did not answer, did not even look up from his digging.

'Hey, I'm talking to you!'

Cato ignored him.

'What's this? No manners? And I thought you were so well brought up. I suppose you're too good to speak to the likes of us.' He laughed to the recruit on his other side. 'Seems the war hero's got ideas above his station.'

'Quiet there!' an instructor called out. 'Silence when you work.'

Pulcher fell back to work with exaggerated effort until he was sure that he was no longer being paid any attention. Then he flicked a shovel full of soil at Cato's face.

'You fucking ignore me again, boy and I'll…'

'You'll what?' Cato turned angrily, with his pick half raised. 'You tell me what you'll do! C'mon, you bastard!'

Pulcher's hands tightened on his shovel, but some sixth sense warned him to turn back to his ditch just as Bestia strode up to them.

'What's this? Taking a break without orders are we, war hero?'

'No, sir.'

'And why are you covered in dirt, boy?'

'Sir, I…'

'Answer my fucking question!'

'I slipped, sir. While I was tossing the soil up into the camp.'

'You tired then, boy?' Bestia asked with an expression of feigned concern.

'Yes, sir, but I…'

'Well then, it seems you need a bit more fitness training. You're on latrine fatigues for the next five evenings.'

'But, sir. I'm to attend the legate's party after the investiture.'

'You'll have to shovel shit twice as quick then if you're going to be there on time.' Bestia smiled sweetly. 'And do make sure you're smartly turned out, or Vespasian'll have you on a charge.'

Bestia laughed as he allowed himself to imagine the scene. Then with a hearty clap on Cato's shoulder he wandered back down the line.

'And fuck you, sir,' Cato swore softly at the man's back and then started in horror as the centurion whipped round and pointed a finger at him accusingly.

'Did you say something?' Did you?'

'Just "thank you", sir.'

'You being sarky to me, son?'

'No, sir,' Cato replied, deadpan. 'I'm just grateful that you are offering me an opportunity to improve myself so I can be a legionary you can be proud of, sir.'

Bestia glared at him a moment then whirled round abruptly and strode away, leaving Cato to his digging. Next to him, Pulcher's shoulders rocked with silent laughter.

'I'll remember this,' Cato said quietly.

'Oooh, I'm so scared of you! I'm just pissing my pants,' Pulcher whispered.

Cato stared at him a moment, no longer as terrified of the man as he used to be, only worn down by the anxiety of looking out for Pulcher, wondering when and how the bastard would next find a way to get at him. With an angry sigh he swung the pick back into the ground as hard as possible, then grunted with effort to dislodge the clump of earth. Something had to be done about Pulcher, and soon.

At midday Bestia called for a halt and the men stood at attention as he examined their efforts. The abrupt halt to work allowed the sweat to run cold and clammy beneath their tunics and, in the enforced stillness, most of them were shivering as the drill team strode along tutting at their crude technique. The ditch ran unevenly along its inner side as a number of recruits had forgotten the two-spades-width rule. Others had not yet managed to dig the required amount out of the frozen ground and their sections did not match up to their neighbours. Only a few dozen had performed to Bestia's grudging satisfaction, Pulcher and Cato amongst them.

'Frankly, ladies, I don't think the barbarians out there have much to fear from Rome as long as useless shits like you are manning its legions. If you call this a defensive ditch then I'm a cheap Greek tart. The only thing this'll keep out is the cold. So, ladies, let's fill it in, stop for a quick bite, and then we'll have another go this afternoon.'

Chapter Sixteen

The entrance to the legate's house was brightly lit when Cato arrived, after a fast run from the barracks. He stopped for a moment to catch his breath and place the grass crown back on his head. For the moment, the phalera hung from a ribbon around his neck over the front of his tunic. Later it would be fixed to his harness where it would remain for the rest of his life and be buried with him. Composed, he strode up to the gate where a household steward sat at a desk in the porch behind the two guards. The guards crossed spears to indicate Cato was to halt.

'Name, please?' the steward asked.

'Quintus Licinius Cato.'

'Cato,' murmured the steward as he made a mark on a wax slate with his stylus. 'You're late, Cato, very late. Admit him.'

The spears parted and Cato passed through the gateway to the interior courtyard.

'Straight ahead.' The steward pointed to the main hall, wrinkling his nose and frowning as Cato went by. From the windows above the colonnade came the glow of a brightly lit interior, and the sounds of music and laughter spilled out above the hubbub of general conversation. It was bad form to arrive so late to a party but it would have been unthinkable to have ignored the invitation, just as it was impossible to disobey Bestia's orders to sluice and scrub the latrine channels. Tonight's fatigues had taken longer than usual due to a stomach bug that was going through the Legion at a ferocious rate. Cato had been left with little time to change into his best tunic and run through the fortress to arrive even at this late hour. With a bitter sense of dread for the inevitable interrogation about his tardiness, Cato walked over to the hall at a condemned man's pace. He rapped the door. Instantly the latch leapt up and the door swung inwards to reveal the household's majordomo, hardly able to conceal his irritation.

'There you are at last! You'd better have a good explanation for the legate.'

'I'll apologise as soon as there's a quiet moment,' Cato promised. 'Is there any way I can get to my place unobtrusively?'

'Hardly, young man. Follow me.'

The majordomo shut the door and led Cato through a heavy curtain into a large hall. Though minute by imperial palace standards, Cato mused, the room had been made as comfortable as it could possibly be this close to the ends of the Empire. The hall was brightly lit from scores of oil lamps suspended from the joists. Two long benches ran down each side of the hall, covered with cushions for the diners who ate off the low tables in front of them. Cato was surprised to see that all the tribunes and nearly every centurion was present, together with a number of wives. In the open space between the tables a pair of wrestlers were grunting and straining in a tight embrace as they groped for a decisive hand-hold. At one end of the hall a small group of pipe players strove to be heard above the din of the guests. Cato hurriedly looked for a gap on the nearest bench to quietly slip into, but the majordomo beckoned to him and slowly proceeded down the side of the hall to the head table where Vespasian and his most honoured guests reclined. With horror Cato saw a conspicuous gap between Macro and Vespasian. The legate frowned as they approached, but only for a moment before he forced a smile on to his lips and waved a greeting.

'Optio! I wondered where you had got to.'

'I'm sorry, sir,' Cato replied as he slipped forward on to the couch beside Macro. 'I had some duties I was ordered to complete first.'

'What duties?'

'I'd rather not say over dinner, sir.'

'Not much of that left, I'm afraid. Rufulus! See what you can find for the optio, must be some choice titbits left.'

'Yes, sir.' The majordomo bowed, darting a sharp glare at Cato.

'While you're waiting you might try some of the stuffed dormice.' Vespasian proffered a gold serving dish around which lay an arrangement of tiny baked mice. 'They're filled with some of the local herbs and cheese. Not quite what you're used to at the palace, I suspect, but it's a pleasant enough gastronomic reminder of home. Take one.'