Field of Mars (The Complete Novel) (27 page)

Days and nights passed. The march through mountain passes was hard on feet used to the forgiveness of sand. But game was prevalent here and Parthian hunting parties began adding the meat of wild goat and fox to the legionaries’ diet of beans and hard bread. The skins of these animals were also distributed among the men, for as the hills steepened, temperatures began dropping.

The Xiongnu seemed more at home in this wilderness and dressed in expertly sewn skins that covered them from head to toe. And, though their feet were sore, the hearts of the legionaries lifted with the flat desert seemingly behind them at last.

Steep gorges and rugged hillsides hid local brigands. The more adventurous among these occasionally attacked the column, only to be driven off by the arrows of the Parthian archers. Attacks soon decreased and then stopped altogether as the toll of death among them proved a discouragement.

“If we’d made it to these hills,” observed Libo as he watched a couple of Parthians on horseback galloping after men running across a distant ridge line, “it would have been a different story with these sand-loving cunni. They would be sucking
my
cock rather than the other way around.”

“Is there something you would care to tell us, Libo?” Appias inquired, by now almost considered a legionary by the men at either shoulder. “Have you a favorite cock among our captors?”

The men carried on in this vein, discussing in typical fashion about what might have been the result of the battle in other circumstances. Rufinius, though, kept to himself, his mind on a divergent engagement, which, so far, seemed to have stalled.

*

The moon was a sliver in the heavens, its light weak. Perhaps it was that which emboldened Nonus to approach Lucia’s wagon once again, or the sight of two guards sleeping noisily at their posts. The overseer checked the area and found it oddly deserted. The night, though, was closer to sunrise than to sunset. Doubling back, he soon found the wagon with its erotic signage. And here again the guards were asleep.

With some trepidation, Nonus went to the bars and whispered, “Andica …”

Nothing.

“Andica …”

Still no answer. Concerned about discovery, he turned to leave.

“Who is it?” the woman known as Andica to all but the most intimate of her friendships replied.

“Nonus.”

Silence greeted him.

“You said nothing about my visit, keeping it secret. I have wondered why? I believed you would shout it all about.”

“Why do you think I’ve said nothing?”

“I have no thoughts on it,” the overseer admitted.

“You men are foolish,” Andica whispered, coming to the bars. “I have had thoughts of your hands on me, holding me down, hurting me. They keep me awake.”

“I … I do not believe it,” he stammered.

“Do you not think a woman such as I, who has been lying with men of all kinds from a young age, might enjoy rough treatment? How else might I feel excitement?”

Nonus felt his mentula grow beneath his skins like an animal awakening. “What of the scratching, the goring from your comb? The wounds you left on me fester.”

“Have you not seen lions at their rutting? I watch it all day. Do you think there are no wounds passed between male and female as they seek solace within each other’s thorny embrace? Give me a man who loves taking pain as much as he enjoys giving it.”

Nonus took hold of his phallus. “And Alexandricus?”

“He cares too much for his precious men and will not risk as you have risked … Nonus, if I go another night without a cock inside me, I will perish.”

“I cannot open the door without a key.”

“Landica!” she hissed. “There is a guard with it here somewhere …”

“No, I looked.”

“Then you must come back. In two nights time the moon will not rise and the darkness will be complete. I will see to the guards. Bring rope to tie me down. I like that. With the sentries drugged we can fuck until dawn.”

“Give me your hand and prove your devotion,” Nonus said.

Andica reached out through the bars and the overseer gave her his shaft. Taking hold of it, she cooed, “You are bigger than I remember.” She moved her hand on him, finding rhythm, and he grasped the bars and clenched his teeth with the pleasure of her efforts. His breath rose sharply as Andica worked to a quickening pace and then hot semen shot across her wrist and Nonus sucked in his breath. Releasing him and turning to her divan, Andica whispered, “A fine memory to keep me wet.”

A noise close by startled Nonus and he stumbled away from the wagon, seeking the shadows.

Mena, the source of the noise, which she had made with good purpose, hobbled into the starlight and went over to the wagon. “He will return?” she asked.

“No promise of it, but I hope so,” Lucia replied, washing her hands in a basin.

*

For two days and a night, Nonus wondered if he had dreamed the encounter, but the angry wound in his leg from which he had removed ivory comb tines was no dream. Was it possible he had found someone who loved as he did, a grown woman for whom pain was the perfect accompaniment to arousal? She was far older than he liked but there was no doubt about her charms …

There were no rumors connecting Rufinius Alexandricus and Andica, at least nothing fresh being whispered, other than the stories Nonus himself had circulated. Were her words about him true? Every time he thought of her lying beneath him, day or night, his mentula stirred.

Nonus counted footsteps as he marched, and then the hours themselves. He watched the sun as it rose, reached its zenith, and then slowly descended. Next he endured the dusk and waited impatiently for night. The delicious torment of time dragging its feet kept him awake until dawn. The following day inched by no different to the last. But then the night arrived thick and black, the stars obscured by cloud.

Before the appointed hour, Nonus ate the greasy hindquarter of a fox while he thought about trussing Andica with the rope she asked for, and bruising her golden skin. Finally, with fires dying and the men either drifting away to sleep by embers or finding shelter within their tents, the overseer began his approach. But first he walked the entire length of the column, the night shadows becoming blacker as the cloud cover grew more dense.

With the night half over and his patience at an end, Nonus arrived at the baggage train. Carefully, he slipped past tired guards and went around the wagons of the baggage whores. He avoided the treasure wagons, guarded by diligent men hand-picked by General Saikan. Skirting around the cooking wagons and stopping only to steal a coil of rope from the saddle of a Parthian baggage camel, Nonus heard the familiar growl of a lion in the darkness and knew his destination was near.

Here the night was at its most complete. Canvas awnings had been slung earlier to provide late afternoon shade and now harbored shadows of complete blackness. The overseer made his way from one wagon to another, coming upon a guard obviously drugged, the man lying face down in the dirt. Nonus hunted for the lead watchman, the keeper of the key, and was thrilled to see that he too had been taken to the poppy’s breast. Lifting the items he was hoping to find from around the man’s neck, Nonus soon came upon the wagon of Koulm, the Red Whore. Several wagons further on he found the one housing the manwoman, the Black Whore Jaha. Andica’s wagon had to be nearby. Moving stealthily through the night, he soon saw the painted images that he could not shake from his memory, that of the golden whore fucking the face of a man lying on his back …

“I am here, Andica,” he hissed and fumbled with the keys in breathless excitement. Finding one that fit, he inserted it, and with a half turn the lock sprang open. Removing it and placing it on the ladder’s step, he opened the door silently, slipped inside, and then closed the door behind him. Within the wagon, it was even darker than the night beyond. But there was something different about this wagon, something at odds with his memory of it.

“Andica,” he said quietly. “I have rope, as you asked.”

It was then that his mind grasped the difference at first denied. The smell. It was that of an anim –

A black shadow hit Nonus with the force of a charging cataphract. The shadow knocked him off his feet and then turned on him. He could not cry out or even utter a sound, for jaws had closed around his head. Teeth punctured his skull with an audible
crack
and something shook him violently. Bones in his neck were crushed against each other and everything in his body went numb. And then the shadow changed its grip of steel, snapping teeth around throat.

The animal paused for a moment, listening to the night for sounds to be wary of, but heard nothing unfamiliar. Still cautious, it dragged the limp but still living body back into the darkest recesses of its wagon and began to eat its face.

A short time later, baggage handlers who were indebted to Mena for speaking with the gods on their behalf, silently washed down the sides of the black leopard’s wagon, removing images of a woman sitting on a man’s face recently painted there.

*

Rufinius stood beside General Saikan and his translators after being summoned to the baggage train shortly after dawn.

“What would have caused Nonus to climb into the animal’s wagon?” the general asked Rufinius.

“How could I know, primor?” Rufinius said. “Why do you ask this of me?”

From within the shadows on the other side of the bars, the leopard’s large yellow eyes glared at them with a challenge as it licked undeterred what was left of a human leg. Other remains were scattered around, the animal having eaten the softer parts of its catch. A shoulder covered in black flies lay in a small triangle of sunlight. When the flies were disturbed, tattoos of the man’s legion and the inked picture of a dog fucking a cat could be seen on what was left of the arm still attached. There was no doubt whose remains were being consumed.

The guards that had been on duty that night were questioned. They had been drugged and no one could remember anything. Could it be, they ventured, that the man inside the leopard’s wagon had drugged them?

General Saikan walked around in the bright sunshine, taking in the scene: the wagons parked in careless lines with those of the pleasure whores and the exotic animals sheltered from the sun by canvas awnings. He bent down and felt the sand beside a wheel. It was damp and discolored.

“How am I to know that Overseer Nonus was not killed elsewhere and brought here to this cage?” Saikan inquired of Rufinius as he stood up, troubled by the sand. What did its unusual condition mean?

“I do not know, General. That could indeed be what happened, for surely no one would willingly volunteer to lie down with a leopard …”

General Saikan stared hard at the centurion standing at attention. “Swear this was not done by your hand.”

“I swear it,” Rufinius replied easily. “I slept in my tent, nowhere near the baggage train. Ask around. It’s impossible to walk about this so zealously guarded column and not be seen by someone.”

“The animosity between you and Nonus was well known,” said Saikan.

“General, someone who lords over former comrades with a whip in order to lessen his own privations is a man with
many
enemies. Surely that is known to all – Roman
and
Parthian. And Nonus warmed to the whip more than most. There’s not a single legionary who did not bear him a grudge.”

“You know something about this,” Saikan said. “Of that I am certain. For, as you say, no one would climb willingly into the leopard’s den.”

Rufinius remained at attention.

“Triple the guards on the merchant wagons and also the gifts for King Zhizhi,” Saikan announced. “Sleeping on duty – whether drugged or otherwise – will henceforth be punishable by death.”

Saikan and his followers climbed onto their horses. “See that the overseer is buried in the Roman way,” the general said as he wheeled his horse around and rode off.

“How is it to be done?” inquired Bataar, whose Latin exceeded Rufinius’s command of the Xiongnu language.

“He should be buried as a Roman criminal, for that is what he was,” Rufinius replied, watching the leopard gnaw on a foot. “As such, his body would be left for animals to pick over at the place of his execution. I would therefore consider that, in this instance, the correct rites have already been observed.”

Rufinius leaped up on the horse and rode it in the direction of the painted wagons. Lucia came to the bars of her perfumed prison to watch him and a smile passed between them.

A
whoosh
like a rush of air from a blacksmith’s bellows and the legionary marching beside Carbo, one of the twins from Antioch, fell dead without uttering so much as a cry. An arrow was buried deep in his skull. The lines were strung out with enough room between each for the dead man to be picked up without halting the movement of the column, but the hit and run tactics of the brigands were beginning to weigh heavily on the unarmed legionaries.

The territory they now marched through was far from friendly – being on the fringes of the Parthian empire – the ridges often occupied by groups of horsemen and camel riders. The Parthian archers escorting the Romans would launch forays to chase them off, but more often than not these would themselves return with wounded men or would suffer fatalities, so the counter-attacks grew more reluctant and were only occasional. This, in turn, gave the brigands confidence and they became bolder and more and more legionaries were picked off.

Indeed, on this morning, Petronius and his bodyguard were at the rear of the column, riding with Xiongnu bowmen in an attempt to discourage these attacks.

“Why would anyone want to own this filthy cophragious landscape?” asked Carbo, holding his hand toward the dun-colored land stretching endlessly before them. “It’s either dry desert plain, or dry desert mountain. No trees, no rivers, no farmland. Dust, camels, biting flies, arrows falling from the sky, and marching – that’s all it is. What was on the mind of Crassus? Maybe he was mad? The Parthian cunni can keep this excrementum. I’ve had enough.”

“Off you go then,” Libo told him. “I’m sure there’s an arrow with your name on it waiting to be fired.”

“What I’m sick of,” Dentianus snapped, “is listening to you – the both of you.”

Rufinius had sympathy for all sides. He too was fed up with the dust, a returned enemy that engaged them all day long, as well as the eternal heat, the cold of night, Parthian beans – his own list of hates was lengthening. And he was also tired of hearing the men complain about everything, especially when nothing could be done to improve any of it.

“What’s that merda up ahead?” said Carbo, shielding his eyes from the power of the sun.

As they marched closer, Rufinius could make out black shapes propped up on the desert sand. “Pass the word for a halt,” Rufinius told the man behind him.

The word was duly passed back and a cornicen blasted the order. Scarcely a minute later, General Saikan arrived with his usual retinue. “Why do we stop, Alexandricus? There is an hour’s marching to be done. Did you give the order?”

“Yes. Up ahead, General,” said Rufinius with a tilt of his head.

*

The bodies of forty-three men had been impaled on stakes set in a line. All faced toward the west, each of the victims disemboweled and scalped. Birds had long ago removed the parts they most favored and other ground-living carnivores had gnawed on toes, calves, thighs, and genitals.

“The remaining deserters,” Rufinius observed to Saikan.

The general nodded. “They were left here to die.”

“How do you know?”

“That is what Sogdians do.”

“Who?”

“Sogdiana is a nation. This line drawn by the placement of the absconders marks the border between Parthia and Sogdiana.”

“They don’t much care for visitors, these Sogdians.”

Saikan’s eyes held a smile. He combed the dust from his red beard with his fingers. “This is their official welcome.” He turned to the tribune. “The Parthians accompanying us will soon leave. Once they have gone, weapons will be distributed among your men as promised. You will then be soldiers defending yourselves and my cargo.”

The implications occurred to Rufinius immediately.

“Yes, you will outnumber us,” Saikan said, searched Rufinius’s face. “What will be your response to this?”

Rufinius considered the question. “There is nothing for us in the west, General.”

“That is what I hoped, Alexandricus.”

*

That night forty-three men were cremated in the Roman way with full rites observed, their ashes joining those of Optio Fabianus and the others in the wagons for future burial with cenotaphs. Chickens were sacrificed and their entrails read by Mena and the auguries were favorable. The following day, it was the Parthians’ turn to have their god addressed and, after both Mithra and Ahura Mazda gave their blessings, some 500 mounted archers rode away to the west, their call of duty answered.

With this departure, General Saikan wasted no time having the wagons containing swords, helmets, chainmail armor, heavy javelins, and shields drawn up. The items of war were distributed among the legionaries, beginning with the primipilus Petronius Araxo and his senior officers. Soon the air rang with the men engaged in practice drills, battering at scuta with their gladii.

“It is as if they have received a gift,” Saikan observed to Rufinius, as the men set on each other with much enjoyment.

Rufinius hopped off his horse and went to a wagon dispensing shields – a motley selection harvested from the battle of Carrhae. He chose one with the symbol of a red bull painted on it and propped it against the wagon beside another scutum that had hurriedly been covered with interlocking steel fish scales. The tribune then jogged back to Saikan and said to one of the general’s attendants, “Your bow, horse warrior.”

The man hesitated long enough to be snapped at by Saikan.

Rufinius accepted the man’s weapon with a polite nod and received an arrow in reply. Smoothing its flights with a lick before notching it, Rufinius drew back the string in the crook of his thumb in the Xiongnu manner, took aim and released. The arrow flew true on a gentle arc, hit the shield on the bull’s hoof and passed clean through. The tribune took a second arrow, aimed, and let fly. This one struck the shield with the scaled armor and bounced harmlessly off.

Rufinius held the bow toward Saikan. “This is what defeated Rome’s legions.”

The general relieved him of the weapon.

“Every shield must be armored.”

“It will be done.” Saikan turned and spoke to one of his men, who then galloped some distance away before wheeling his horse around and charging back. Releasing the reins, he reached behind for an arrow, notched it, and fired, all in one fluid movement. The arrow’s flight was true, passing through the bull’s eye with a puff of splintered wood. He notched a second arrow immediately and fired, and this disappeared through the hole made by the first.

“It is not only the bow,” Saikan said to Rufinius, “but also the man who wields it.”

*

“Feels good to have the weight of steel in hand again, doesn’t it?” said Libo, swinging a gladius. He turned and slashed at Appias, who caught the blade with a deft parry.

“Libo, please,” said Appias. “I know your thoughts a week before you have them.”

“You think too much, historian,” said Libo. “That’s your trouble.”

Dentianus grinned, regarding the gladius in his hand like the return of an old friend. “He knew you were going to say that too. Didn’t you, Appias?”

“Who didn’t?” added Carbo.

“Futue te ipsum,” Libo muttered.

“No,
you
fuck yourself, Libo. I think I could take you now,” said Carbo, dancing around his comrade, stabbing at the air in front of him with his blade. “You’ve lost weight on the march. You’re not so big anymore.”

“Can anyone hear the whine of a mosquito?” Libo sheathed his weapon and adjusted the helmet on his head to improve the fit.

*

That night, the moon still absent from the sky, Mena traveled through the darkness in an open camel-drawn wagon. She ignored Xiongnu and Roman sentries alike, none of whom challenged her, fearing the woman known to speak with gods both fair and foul. With the familiar ragged shawls wrapped around her head and a cape of fox pelts to keep the warmth of her body close, the witch moved around the encampment with a freedom given only to General Saikan himself.

Working slowly through the ranks of the legionaries, Mena came eventually to the tent housing Alexandricus. Climbing down with the care of an ancient woman whose bones were brittle, she hobbled slowly to the tent, her back bent with age. None of the men slept beneath the stars on this night, the air having turned chill with the changed season and frost settling on the ground.

Beyond the leading ranks of the encampment, Roman sentries posted to discourage attacks from bandits saw her pass, but turned away from her lest she make eye contact and some evil befall them. Had they seen her open the tent flap and go inside, perhaps they might have wondered what business brought her hence at this frigid midnight hour. But they saw nothing.

Mena stood inside the tent, adjusting her eyes to the dark and her nose to the concentrated smell of men who had worked hard for a long time without bathing. But that was a smell ever-present in the air, along with the scents of camel and burning dung and cooking fires.

One of the men in a nearby tent called out in his sleep, rolled over and didn’t wake. Rufinius, who slept close to the flap, stirred. He opened his eyes, startled at first, but the familiar rags and skins quickly identified the intruder. “Mena …”

The witch bent down onto her knees, lifted back her shawl, and revealed herself to him as Lucia. She placed her sweet-smelling fingers on Rufinius’s lips to silence questions. Slipping off the cape and lifting Mena’s shawls and tunic from her body, Lucia climbed beneath the skins and pressed herself against Rufinius, adding her own heat to chase cold from night.

“Is this Mena’s witchcraft?” whispered Rufinius, the fog of sleep still heavy on him.

“I am no specter,” Lucia replied. Her lips brushed his chest and her hands sought what she desired within her. “See?”

“Lucia!”

“Hush, Tribune …”

“What of Mena?”

“She lies in my wagon where the shadows are darkest, posing as a pleasure whore.”

“These shadows will have to be inky black …”

The legionaries around them stirred, but the sound of men and women fucking was a familiar ode in every contubernium’s tent, where camp whores were regular visitors.

Lucia returned the following two nights without interruption or incident, but on the morning of the next day Appias, Dentianus, Libo and Carbo confronted the tribune.

“Primor, as men of your contubernium, rather than us as legionaries and you as a tribune, can we speak freely?” Appias asked.

“What?” replied Rufinius, wary.

“If the general should catch you and a certain pleasure whore together, we fear the consequences you will be made to face,” said Dentianus.

“Can’t you lie between other legs, primor?” Libo suggested.

Carbo added his own blunt edge. “The gods know there’s plenty of cunni in the train to choose from that won’t get you crucified.”

“I will take her to wife,” said Rufinius, exposing a thought barely identified to himself.

Libo was aghast. “Primor! You can’t!”

“Rufinius, being married to her is even more unattainable than having a casual dalliance with a king’s concubine,” Appias pointed out. “Surely you know that.”

“I will find a way.”

“With respect, what you will find is yourself buried in a desert hole with a garrote around your neck,” hissed Dentianus.

“We beg you, primor, stop before it is too late,” Libo implored.

Rufinius looked at each face in turn and knew there was only one response they would be happy with. He gave it to them. “I will stop.”

The men were relieved, as if they themselves had been given a reprieve.

“At least for now,” the tribune added.