Legionary: Viper of the North (12 page)

‘Well it’s my job to talk with them; debates, negotiations, disputes. Their voices are like war horns and their eyes scrape at my soul as they try to shout me down. My mind screams at me;
I’m wrong
, and I just want to be out of their gaze, away from the conflict
.
I feel that noose around my neck, just as you do. But you know what I do? I simply hold their gaze and find silence in my mind, allow myself to think back over my decisions, see the strength of my reasoning. With that, my confidence always returns.’

‘Aye,’ Pavo shrugged, thinking of the pounding heart, the shaking hands and the dry mouth he had felt when Crito and his cronies had all been staring at him in derision, ‘but you need composure for that. When Crito is glaring at me it is all I can do to remember my name, let alone revisit my reasoning.’

Salvian nodded. ‘True, the nerves come into play when we least want them. It’s easily dealt with too,’ the ambassador shrugged. ‘I learned this from an old senator, right before my first public debate: just breathe in through your nose, slowly,’ he spoke, carrying out the action, ‘let the air fill your lungs . . . until your belly expands, then hold it . . . then exhale through your mouth,’ he whooshed as he breathed out. ‘Your heart will steady and your mind will clear of chatter in moments.’

Pavo smiled again. ‘So calmness is the key?’

‘More often than not. I’ve lost count of the number of times I have outmanoeuvred a red-faced, ranting opponent in the debating chamber. But don’t get me wrong – there are occasions when brute force is the order of the day,’ Salvian continued, ‘just use it sparingly, when the time is right.’

Pavo frowned.

Salvian chuckled, clasping a hand to his shoulder. ‘Ah, me and my advice. Words are all too cheap! Time and experience will bring all this to you. Suffice to say, lad, that I can see in you the makings of a fine leader.’

With this, the ambassador sighed and sat his lithe frame by the brazier, then reached into his hemp satchel and pulled out a crusty round of bread. He tore a piece off and offered it to Pavo.

Pavo took the piece and munched as they chatted. As they talked, he found the biting cold lessening ever so slightly. They discussed their homes and their times in Constantinople. Salvian talked of his old grandmother who lived by the Great Aqueduct and of his adolescent days in the city’s academies. Then he spoke of his trips to the West and the East where he had parleyed with the Franks and the Persians alike – and brought back a selection of those collared eastern tunics as well.

In return, Pavo talked of his time with the legion, his tone light as he remembered some of the good times that had spiced the bloodier ones. Then, he talked of his years of slavery. He spoke edgily at first, but quickly opened up after it became clear that Salvian had already guessed his history with Senator Tarquitius. To his surprise, Pavo found his words flowing as he recounted some of his memories from Tarquitius’ slave cellar.

Salvian had frowned as he summarised his feelings on the matter. ‘No man should be a slave of any other; the very idea is abhorrent. Sometimes I think the empire sees herself as the slavemaster of the world she has conquered, a writhing entity that can control lives and end them as she sees fit.’ Then he looked up to Pavo, his eyes narrowed. ‘Going by what you’ve told me of his treatment of you and his other slaves, Tarquitius is the embodiment of such an ethos?’

Pavo nodded and then they fell silent. There was one topic he had not broached, the topic that would surely deprive him of sleep tonight and for many nights to come.

‘Now, tell me of your family,’ Salvian said, as if reading his thoughts. ‘Before those days you spent as a slave.’

‘My mother died giving birth to me,’ he said, his eyes growing distant. ‘My father was a legionary. Lived as one, died as one. I miss him every day,’ he said, flatly. He thumbed at the bronze phalera, then looked the ambassador in the eye. They were only to journey together for a handful of days, so perhaps revealing a little more of his past could be cathartic, he reasoned. ‘This piece is all I have to remind me of him . . . ’ he paused, took a deep breath and told Salvian of that day in the slave market; the crone, the phalera.

Everything.

‘By the gods,’ Salvian blinked when Pavo finished. ‘No wonder you treasure that piece so.’ Then he narrowed his eyes. ‘But tell me about him,’ the ambassador nodded. ‘Your father.’

Pavo was hesitant.

But Salvian’s expression was keen and sincere. ‘You know they say that to speak of the dead is to let them live again?’

Pavo smiled at this, then stooped a little to toast a piece of bread on the brazier. ‘Well, there’s not much I can say about him, really. He is only a memory now. But when I was a boy . . . ’ Pavo sighed as his throat seemed to contract a little ‘ . . . I used to live for the days when he would come home on leave. We lived in Constantinople, you see, just down from the
Gate of Saint Aemilianus
. A room in the tenements was our home; the usual crumbling collection of bricks and timber; to me it was just the place I waited until he returned from campaign. Then we would go out every day, at the crack of dawn. I loved to paddle in the warm waters of the
Propontus
, just by the southern shore outside the walls. Then we’d eat, and not just a little,’ he realised he was grinning. ‘Father would insist that we spend some of his wage on the best grub on offer. I remember one time well: pheasant, lamb, garum dates, honeyed yoghurt and blueberries, washed down with a jug of watered wine.’ He looked down at the morsel of bread in the flames, brown and crisp around the edges, and chuckled. ‘I can almost smell it and taste it right now.’

He turned to Salvian and was surprised to see the ambassador still regarded him earnestly, hanging on every word.

‘I can hear in your voice how much you miss him,’ Salvian spoke gently. ‘So you are alone in this world?’

Pavo nodded. ‘No, there is Felicia, the woman from the bridge. She and I are close . . . at times.’

‘Ah, women,’ Salvian chuckled, ‘it is a struggle to see things as they do at the best of times, Pavo, but that one certainly seemed fierier than most.’

Pavo smirked, then felt a stab of guilt as he glanced back at one of the tents. ‘And Sura has been like a brother to me since I enlisted. Then there are the other lads in the legion, the core that have been part of the Claudia since before my time. Then there is Tribunus Gallus,’ he started, ‘you may take some time to get used to him when you meet him. Despite that iron mask he seems to wear, has guided me well, and I know he has a heart somewhere in there, but . . . ’

‘But nobody can compare to your father?’ Salvian finished for him.

Pavo could only nod, unable to meet the ambassador’s eyes, instead scouring the fog.

‘When someone is lost to you, sometimes their memory can drive you on through times of adversity,’ Salvian spoke, his voice even. ‘Sometimes it can shape your entire life.’

Pavo glanced up at him; the ambassador gazed into the dying flames of the brazier, lost in some memory. Pavo frowned.
Every man has a story
, he mused. Then he thought of Tarquitius and this truth he held.

‘There is something more, though,’ he started, then became suddenly anxious that he would bore the ambassador with the aside.

‘Yes?’ Salvian urged him.

Pavo shook his head. ‘It is late and it is only going to get colder. You should get into your tent and get wrapped up before the worst of it comes.’

At just that moment, a triple volley of thundering farts sounded from the tent nearest them. Pavo winced as he realised it was the tent Salvian was supposed to be sharing.

Salvian half-grinned. ‘I think I’d be in more danger in there than out here, thank you. I’ve never been one for much sleep anyway. Now come on, tell me what is on your mind. We are to part in a few days when we reach Wodinscomba, so what harm is there in sharing our problems?’

Pavo shrugged. ‘It’s nothing really, well that’s just the problem – I don’t know if it’s nothing. It’s Senator Tarquitius,’ he nodded to Salvian.

‘Ah, yes, my
mentor
,’ Salvian rolled his eyes. ‘I should have guessed he was still troubling you. Tell me, what has he done?’

‘The man has no shame, it would seem, in any of his dealings. But now he is dangling some notion that he knows something, something about my father.’

‘How could that be?’ Salvian frowned, thinking back over their chat. Then he clicked his fingers, his eyes sparkling. ‘Ah! The crone, from the market?’

Pavo nodded his head and shrugged.

‘And he hasn’t told you what he knows?’ Salvian asked.

Pavo looked up with a sardonic expression.

Salvian nodded in embarrassment. ‘Of course he hasn’t. Sorry, carry on.’

‘He wants me to betray my legion. If it was for some small embezzlement or the like, I would not be so troubled by it – but he has a dubious track record; whenever he dabbles, blood is spilled. So I have a choice; to betray my legion and discover a truth that has evaded me since I was a boy, or to uphold my honour and deny myself that precious knowledge.’

They sat in silence for a moment, then Salvian sighed. ‘I do not envy you, Pavo. But know this; men face difficult decisions every day, and the merit of their choices only becomes clear once the consequences unfold. You cannot see what lies ahead, so do not agonise over what might come of your actions. If you choose well, you are blessed; if you choose poorly, you will be stronger for it. Consider this, though; you have spent your life serving first a slavemaster and then the empire. Perhaps it is time to serve yourself?’

Pavo latched onto the suggestion. With this hint of encouragement he felt none of the guilt that he had previously when contemplating the senator’s proposal. Then he noticed that Salvian was lost in thought, nodding as he mulled over his own words. Pavo sighed, smiling. ‘Bet you thought you would get some light-hearted legionary banter out of me?’

Salvian snapped out of his trance, turning to Pavo with a half-grin. ‘Aye, lad. Athanaric may prove to be a pussycat in comparison!’

Pavo chuckled at this.

Then, with a crunching of boots on frosted ground, Crito marched up behind them and affixed Pavo with a scowl. ‘Right, that’s my watch over,
sir!
’ The last word was spat rather than spoken.

Salvian and Pavo spun round to see the gruff legionary pull back a tent flap then hiss inside to the two recruits nearest the entrance. ‘Right, shift’s up, rise and shine.’ Then he swung a boot into the tent, prompting a high-pitched yelp from the young soldier on the end of it. With a chorus of swearing and muffled apologies, two recruits stumbled out into the night, shivering.

‘Until the morning,
sir!
’ Crito barked, gazing over Pavo’s shoulder.

Pavo nodded sternly to Crito, considered giving him a word of encouragement, then saw the sneer frozen across the man’s face. ‘Fall out, soldier!’ He barked.

Pavo walked with Salvian to the tents.

‘We’ll talk again tomorrow,’ Salvian nodded with a half-grin, ‘sir!’

‘Until tomorrow,’ Pavo smiled.

Noon on the eighth day of their march saw Pavo’s column break free of the silver-shrouded forest and onto the grasslands of Gutthiuda. The fog had lifted, the sky was cornflower blue and unblemished and a fresh winter chill hung on the still air. The tall grass stretched for miles ahead, coated in frost and punctuated only by thatch-roofed Gothic farms loyal to Fritigern, smoke puffing from their chimneys. Wodinscomba was only a short march from here, and then the Gothic village of Istrita was another half a days’ march to the north, around the mountains.