Field of Mars (The Complete Novel) (21 page)

“And if the Roman loses?” Bataar inquired, scratching his nose with the forefinger on his remaining hand. “Shall we strike the price per man for all five thousand at fifteen hundred drachma instead of two thousand and two hundred?”

The slave master hesitated.

“You cannot have it all your own way,” said the Xiongnu horseman.

Farnavindah could barely contain his annoyance. “Agreed,” he said curtly. “Captain Ishmah?”

The King’s relation flicked his hand in careless consent.

The barbarian translator conversed with his superior, who also nodded in agreement, grinning broadly.

“Then,” said Farnavindah, “it is done.” He bowed respectfully low at the brute sitting atop his uncouth nag, while his mind tallied up the generous bonus and commissions he stood to make if this went well. “Do you have four swordsmen in mind, Captain?”

“I have my champions,” said Ishmah.

“And I too have just the Roman for the task.”

The rations had been late in coming, which served to confirm Optio Fabianus’s news that something was afoot beyond the walls. The overseers said nothing and refused to speak, threatening violence if pushed. The meal of beans and grains and a chunk of hard, unleavened bread consumed, the men returned to their precious shade and whiled away the time in consternation, the unknown a greater source of worry than certainty.

“What will they do with us today?” wondered Dentianus aloud.

“I don’t know about you, but I am hoping to again meet with half a dozen camp whores,” Libo offered, “and introduce them to the joys of my cock.”

“The rains last night will have caused some damage to building works,” Appias opined. “Those issues will doubtless top their list ahead of fucking.”

Libo shrugged. “I prefer my day to yours, historian. What say you, primor?”

Rufinius was lying on his back, hands behind his head, thinking of the food in his belly and smell of Lucia, which was female and far from rank. “I’m with Libo,” he said, opening one eye.

“Look …” Carbo nudged Libo and motioned toward the pen’s gate, which was swinging open. Over a hundred Parthian archers swaggered in on foot, backed by a phalanx of cataphracts on armored horseback. Accompanying them was a number of hooded overseers, their lashes swinging. Several carried swords. One of them drew his blade and used it as a pointer to indicate Rufinius to the other overseers, who surged forward, grabbed the centurion, and dragged him to his feet.

The legionaries protested, jumping up, which caused the Parthian archers to draw back on their bowstrings.

“No!” Rufinius shouted to the legionaries. “Stand down!”

The overseer with his sword drawn reached up and removed his hood. It was Nonus, the shade seller and former legionary, and on his face was a grin of cruel purpose. “Time to pay a debt, Alexandricus.”

The overseers bound Rufinius’s hands tight behind him and dragged him from the pen. “Where do you take me?” he demanded.

One of the hooded men spoke up. “Bound for the pleasure of the slave master, Centurion.”

“I hear your Latin. It is from Rome itself,” said Rufinius. “Why do you join in the enemy’s abuse of your own people?”

“On this side there is more food, more water, less adversity.”

“You’ll still be sold like the rest of us and you’ll look back on your actions with shame.”

Rufinius felt an elbow jammed into his back so that his insides hurt. “Shut up, slave,” growled Nonus. “And you,” he continued at his fellow overseer, “if you talk to this man again I’ll see you returned to the pens.”

“Your time will come, Nonus,” said Rufinius.

“Not before yours, cunnus,” the overseer replied with a sneer.

The many Parthians and overseers marched Rufinius through the encampment. All work appeared to have ceased and now there were many more mounted archers and cataphracts on patrol than on previous days.

Patrolling what? Rufinius wondered. Libo had been right. Something had happened overnight.

The centurion was escorted to the door of another pen, which opened wide, a large number of Parthians manning the tops. The bindings were cut from Rufinius and then he was shoved, causing him to fall forward into the pen. Behind him, the entrance closed. Rufinius recognized the pen he had been brought to the night before, the familiar box atop the wall’s wooden posts occupied again by the slave master. This morning, though, several colorfully clothed Parthians joined him in the box, along with a number of barbarians. Spectators. One thing was clear to Rufinius – he was here to provide the audience with entertainment and it was unlikely to be something to do with camp women. Confirming this, the slave master stood and in his outstretched hand was a sword. He leaned forward and dropped it into the heavy black sand at the base of the wall and then gestured at Rufinius to pick it up.

Rufinius gazed around the tops of the wall. The Parthians were cheering and yelling and the more they cheered the more his gut churned. He ambled to the weapon speared into the soft ground, wrapped his hand around the smooth bone grip and pulled it from its earthen scabbard. The weight of it felt good, the balance familiar, like reconnecting with a close friend. The churning in his gut disappeared with the sword in his hand. The blade was pitted from use and the metal dull, but the weapon was most effective when thrust forward in a stabbing motion and the point was sharp enough for that. The pommel was wooden and unadorned. This was the sword of a legionary – a fighter – not a man of officer rank. A weapon well used to killing Rome’s enemies. The thought warmed him. Rufinius swung it through the air as the sun emerged over the wall, bathing him in light and heat.

The entrance opposite him opened and revealed four Parthians, each one a towering figure stripped to the waist with his black hair pulled back in tight plaits. The sword each carried was long and straight, the blade wide, a weapon for swinging and slashing.

The Parthians strode into the enclosure and the entrance behind them swung shut. Rufinius’s eyes bounced from one man to the next as they strode forward and surrounded him. “Is it sport you want?” he called out to the box and had his question met with a loud hiss from the spectators. “Am I now to be a gladiator?”

One of the Parthian swordsmen raised his weapon and presented it to the audience, turning slowly, and the hiss changed to loud cheering. The man was known to them.

Rufinius backed against the wall so that he could not be attacked from behind, his mind measuring angles and options. The familiar taste of battle came to his mouth and he welcomed it, for this was better than inaction. The four Parthian swordsmen maneuvered, watching each other as much as they watched the man they had been sent to kill. Rufinius wondered if they knew that four against one could be a harder battle for them than one rival against another, because four men could get in each other’s way.

The Parthian champion who had received the cheers was first to step forward, swinging his sword in a wide arc as if getting a feel for the weapon. And then he darted in for a strike. Rufinius ducked under the blade easily and thrust his own weapon forward, the tip of the gladius searching for the man’s belly. But his opponent was wary of the counter attack and danced lightly back from danger, his footwork deft and athletic. Rufinius stood up straight, grinned at the heavily bearded men arrayed around him and held the gladius above his head, stretching from side to side as if this opening confrontation was no more than light calisthenics.

Another of the swordsmen came at him. His teeth gritted in determination as he swung his blade powerfully, but the dull edge of Rufinius’s own sword caught it mid swing, half a hand’s width from his exposed ribs. Rufinius forced the blade up and over his head with an expert shift of his weight, but the shock of the two blades clashing together sang through his own hand and he swapped the grip from one hand to the other to release the jarring on his bones.

And then two Parthians attacked together, one slashing down from an overhead strike and the other swinging his blade, both aiming for Rufinius’s head. The centurion parried the swing and an instant later met the downward strike. Down on one knee, he had trapped the Parthian’s sword above him. Frustrated by this, the man pulled his blade back and swung it anew, but its tip accidentally gored the gut of his accomplice, the swordsman who had struck at Rufinius first. The skin on the man’s exposed belly tore open across a wide curved gash and his exta dropped onto the black sand at his feet with a wet
plop
.

The Parthian swordsmen all looked at the steaming intestines on the ground as if they had never seen such a sight. The wounded man sank to his knees and gazed speechless at his comrade before silently toppling forward in death.

An expression of horror emanated from the audience. They looked down at the battle from atop the walls, high above it, in imitation of the gods. Rufinius kept the wall at his back and moved to one side, out of the blood that had turned the ground into a soup of black sand.

The three remaining Parthians regarded their fallen comrade and then shifted their eyes to Rufinius. They charged him, their battle cry loud in their throats. The centurion saw the attack in their faces before it was launched, and easily ducked under the wild swing of one blade, but the swings that came after pressed him hard. Finally, moving sideways, he tripped and lost his footing and toppled onto the sand. One of the Parthians, bolder than his friends and believing an opportunity had presented itself, raced to the attack. But this adversary was unused to the fighting style of a Roman legionary and as his sword was raised high for a downward death strike, Rufinius simply stabbed upwards with the gladius and cut through the femoral artery in the man’s groin. Blood gushed from the wound, pumping rhythmically. The Parthian froze, the error of his footwork written on his face. Rufinius skittered sideways, keeping the wall behind him. The wounded man staggered and leaned against the wall, the fountain of blood streaming from his leg before he slipped into unconsciousness and sank to the sand.

Rufinius called out to the remaining two rivals, beckoning them to him, the odds now closer to even.

*

No Parthian atop the wall enjoyed the slaying of their countrymen taking place below, not even Farnavindah, though the profits from the Alexandrian’s victory would underwrite his habits for a long time to come. Captain Ishmah was also far from content. The Romans had been soundly beaten in battle and yet here, one man’s victory against superior numbers somehow diminished what had been achieved at Carrhae. Had that battle been an accident, rather than proof of Parthian superiority?

Only the barbarians seemed pleased by the contest. Their leader, General Saikan, rolled one of the beads in his beard between thumb and forefinger and smirked as he spoke. Translator Bataar said, “Slave Master, the general thinks that perhaps his offer has been hasty. You will end up with all his pearls.”

Before Farnavindah could offer a reply, Captain Ishmah spoke. “Explain to the general that the contest is not yet decided. There still remain two warriors against one slave.”

*

The two men facing Rufinius were conflicted by their desire to exact revenge for their fallen comrades and their fear of succumbing to a similar fate. The opponent they faced, this tower of muscle and sinew with yellow hair, strange blue eyes and a short bloody sword, was unfamiliar to them. The two Parthians shared a quick word and then separated. Each approached Rufinius from an opposing side so that the Roman was between them and unable to follow the movements of both at the same instant.

Rufinius read the significance of their stratagem and it forced him to take the initiative. He chose one of the swordsmen and advanced against him, thrusting and jabbing his sword at the man’s face.

The Parthian was ready for the attack and parried each strike successfully. Once he had Rufinius’s timing in his head, he struck back, meeting the edge of the Roman’s sword with that of his own blade, and the Roman’s steel was suddenly cleaved in two.

Rufinius held the remains of his gladius before him, half of its blade sheared clean away, leaving no more than a stub in his sword hand. The walls above and around him erupted with a cheer. The Parthian swordsmen saw their advantage and began to press the legionary as one. Rufinius ducked under a slashing blow, but the blade caught him, peeling the skin on his forearm back to the muscle.

The Parthians pressed their attack, the advantage now theirs, forcing Rufinius to retreat as they rained blows on him that he barely managed to parry with stump of the gladius. It was after one such flurry that Rufinius slipped on intestines belonging to the dead Parthian, the exta tangling in his feet so that he came down on all fours.

The Parthian swordsmen exchanged a grin and came to finish the contest, both raising their swords high for an executioner’s blow against the Roman’s neck. They stood before him, tasting victory, their countrymen anticipating as much and showering appreciation down upon them in the form of drachma and joyous exhortations.

The blade of the eviscerated Parthian was hidden beneath the blood-soaked sand and as Rufinius moved backward, he felt its rough edge caress his fist. The centurion released his grip on the gladius and positioned himself to put both hands around the concealed grip.

Taking his movements for subjugation, one of the Parthians swung his blade down onto Rufinius. But suddenly it was blocked by a sword that seemed to have appeared miraculously in the Roman’s grasp. Rufinius then swung the steel in an arc with all force at the legs of his attacker. With nothing to check its passage, the blade struck a knee joint and passed clean through skin and bone so that the man had just one leg to stand on.

Rufinius swung a second time, changing the angle, and the blade caught the remaining Parthian under his jaw and hewed the side of his head clean away. This last man stood in a state of disarray, as if what had befallen him was a mystery to his senses. Though his jaw was shattered he still tried to speak, but his voice was only a bloody gargle in his throat. Rufinius quickly swung a last time, taking the man’s head off, there being no intention on his part to extend suffering a moment longer than necessary.

The centurion’s attention then turned to the fallen man, blood spurting from the severed stump at his knee. The Parthian looked at Rufinius and his eyes begged for a warrior’s mercy. The centurion knew he would want the same if their positions were reversed. Placing the tip of the sword against the prostrate man’s nipple, he bore his weight suddenly on the weapon’s grip. The steel crunched down between skin, bone, and gristle and found the beating heart, stilling it in an instant.

The spectators reacted with silence. Holding the loose flap of skin close against his arm, Rufinius gazed up at the walls around him, his mouth tasting the copper of blood spatter on his face. He saw the wall arrayed with archers, their bowstrings drawn, notched arrows aimed for his own heart.

“Bellona, hear my prayer,” Rufinius murmured, “that there be at least one man above possessing a true aim.”