Marching With Caesar: Conquest of Gaul (11 page)

“No Optio,” I answered, yet I made no move to change, instead just waiting for the chance to show off to him, sure that he would desist from this lunacy.

“You’re right, that’s the way the majority of the Legions are taught to hold the weapon, but that’s not the way I teach it,” he explained.

Unsure what to do, I stood there but still did not change the grip.

Sighing, he simply said, “All right, I can see you need some convincing. So, turn and face me and assume the first position.”

This was the position that makes us ready to strike, with the blade held parallel to the ground, the arm pulled back, ready to strike and with the hips twisted slightly. That was the position he had told us to get in originally, so I dropped back into it, facing him.

“Now, strike me. As hard as you can. Give me a killing blow.”

I was confused and very apprehensive. Confident as I was in my strength and ability, I was sure that even with the wooden sword I would impale the man, or at the very least break his ribs when I struck. If he was worried, he certainly did not seem to be, and he repeated, a little impatiently, “I said, strike me. Give me all that you’ve got.”

As if sensing my concern, he added, “And don’t worry, if you land the blow, I’ll absolve you with my dying breath.”

He said this last with enough sarcasm that it made me angry, so I immediately struck my blow, punching the wooden sword forward hard as I twisted my hips with as much force and speed as I could. To this day, I am sure that if he were any other man, I would have killed him, wooden blade or no. Instead, with a speed that I had never seen before he lashed out with his bare left hand, using a sweeping motion across his body to make contact with the wooden blade before it touched him, sending the wooden sword flying from my hand. Even as my eyes tried to comprehend what was happening, he made his own move, stepping forward to strike me hard in the stomach with the end of his
vitus
, which he held in his right hand. Now I was the one who was sure that I was going to die, despite wearing my armor, and I dropped to the ground as if I had been ordered to fling myself down, so violently did I hit the ground. I am not sure how long I was out; it could not have been that long because everyone was still clustered around me, leaning over with a combination of worry and malicious glee. Vibius looked worried, while Didius grinned like it was the happiest day of his life. Optio Vinicius was the only one not bent over. Instead, he stared down at me impassively, hands behind his back, watching as I slowly crawled to my feet.

“I thought for sure you were dead,” Vibius exclaimed, thumping me on the back in relief.

“So did I,” I answered honestly, slowly pulling myself erect, my pride fighting to overcome the searing pain in the pit of my stomach where he had hit me. That night, when I removed my armor and pulled up my tunic, I sported a huge bruise as big around as my fist on my stomach, which stayed with me for several weeks, turning all sorts of interesting colors.

“Do you know why I was able to do that?” Optio Vinicius asked politely.

I considered the question. To me the answer was obvious; he was simply quicker than I had been, yet I knew that was not the answer he was looking for, so I thought carefully. Slowly, the answer came to me, and as the look of understanding came to my face, he smiled slightly.

“Because my thumb was exposed,” I answered, and he rewarded me with a nod.

And therein lay the secret. The thumb is the weakest part of the hand. The normal method of holding the sword is by wrapping the hand around the hilt, with the thumb on the outside of the fingers. When pressure is applied in the right direction by a sudden violent force, against the base of the thumb, it is too weak to maintain its position. By wrapping the fingers over the thumb, the thumb is supported and protected. While it is true that if one were to fight barehanded in this manner it would break your thumb, the pommel and guard of the sword provide enough protection to prevent this from happening on those occasions you use that end of the sword in a fight. Despite the obvious evidence I was still not convinced, because there was one disadvantage that I could see. I debated opening my mouth, yet to this point he was almost gentle with us, despite the ache in my stomach, which I had asked for, after all.

“But…” I started, unsure of how to continue, and again I was rewarded with that slight smile.

“But,” he finished for me, “the problem with that grip is that it restricts your blade from moving laterally, so that you don’t have the same freedom of movement. Is that what you were about to say?”

“Yes, Optio,” I answered excitedly, although to be honest I was not sure that was what I was going to say until he did it for me.

He nodded again, and replied, “You're correct,
tiro
…..?”

“Pullus, Optio. Titus Pullus.”

“You're correct,
tiro
Pullus that at first your movement is more restricted. But,” he said this with the quiet confidence of a man who knew what he was about, “you’ll regain that with practice. By the time I’m finished with you, nobody will be able to tell how you grip your weapon.”

He turned to the others and finished, “Except that you’ll be alive, and your enemy dead.”

Of course he was right. And it did not take nearly as long as I thought it would. By the end of the second day, I felt almost as comfortable using the new grip as I had the old. The only men who experienced difficulty with it were the men with smaller hands who did not have as much length in their fingers to wrap around their thumb sufficiently. To compensate for this, Optio Vinicius prescribed special exercises for them to strengthen their hands, exercises that once I saw them performing, I began as well. Vinicius had them thrust their hands into a bucket of sand, with their fingers splayed out. Once their hand was buried in the sand, they drew their fingers in as if they were grabbing a handful of sand. It is an extremely effective exercise, and my hands are still strong because of those exercises. Once we became accustomed to the new grip, Vibius and I started demonstrating that we were indeed more skilled than our comrades, a fact that did not escape the notice of Pilus Prior Crastinus. It was toward the end of the third day working on the stakes that I became aware of the Pilus Prior standing nearby, watching me with narrowed eyes. Unnerved, I struggled to concentrate on my work, the sweat running freely off of me while my arms, having been hardened and conditioned to such labor, still contained a great deal of energy, reflected in my thrusts.

“This isn’t the first time you’ve held a wooden sword is it Pullus?”

The question, posed in what passed for a conversational tone by the Pilus Prior, completely flustered me. Unsure what to do, I stopped, snapped to
intente
and replied, “No, Pilus Prior.”

“Who trained you?” he asked with some interest.

“Quintus Ausonius, Pilus Prior,” I answered, which was immediately met with a roar of laughter.

“
Edepol
! You were trained by old Cyclops himself? He swore that he’d never pick up a weapon for the rest of his life, the bastard.”

I was so shocked that you could have knocked me over with the lightest touch, although I should not have been. Back then, the Legions were still relatively few and small; men such as Cyclops who gained renown were known throughout the Legions. The fact that he was my brother-in-law meant that it never occurred to me to think of him in this manner.

And then he did something that amazed me even more. Stepping up to me, he slapped me on the back as if I were a comrade and finished, “Well Pullus. You couldn’t have had a better teacher. I’m going to keep an eye on you.”

And with that, he turned and walked over to Optio Vinicius, who was standing there looking as bemused as I felt. The Pilus Prior whispered something in his ear that I could not catch, but Vibius did. Later that night, Vibius relayed to me excitedly, “You know what that old knob Crastinus said to Vinicius?” Without waiting for me to answer, he continued, “’Watch out for Pullus, Vinicius’, he said, ‘he may take your job.’”

I felt like I was ten feet tall. Those words, however, had the opposite effect than I expected, though looking back, perhaps the Pilus Prior understood me better than I thought. From that day, I was pushed much harder by Optio Vinicius than any of the other
tiros
, and was subject to scathing critique of everything I did. The night of the incident, Vibius and I discussed the idea that Vibius should point out that he too was trained by the legendary Cyclops but luckily, for him anyway, before he got a chance to open his mouth the next day he saw the lay of the land. Indeed, not only did he keep his mouth shut, he also endeavored to hold back a bit so that he would not be singled out for special attention in the same manner that I was. It seemed I could not do anything right; my thrusts were sloppy, my slashes were weak, my recoveries were atrocious. Indeed, if Vinicius were to be believed, I would be lucky to survive the first contact of the first battle I was in. If the goal were to take me down a peg, it had the opposite effect. Instead, it just spurred me to work harder and prove him wrong, and I looked forward to the day where we would be finally allowed to pair off.

After a week, we began working with the shield as well, and we were beginning to pick up on the rhythm of training. Everything appeared to work in cycles of a week, with a new skill being added to the training each cycle. That did not hold for everyone, however. It was after the first week of work on the stakes that Artorius was held back a couple of extra days because he was not considered adept enough with just the wooden sword to move forward with the more advanced work. This was when Vibius first started showing signs of being more than just the average Legionary, because he stepped in and offered to work with Artorius in the evenings, after our meal. It would have been perfect if Artorius showed any enthusiasm, but after the first few days, it became apparent to all of us that Artorius’ heart was not in learning to become a Legionary. The fight with his father seemed a long-past event; he even admitted to us one night that he could no longer remember what it was about. It is not that he was necessarily a bad Legionary; I just believe that some of us are born to be one thing, others are born to be another, and Artorius was clearly not born to be a Legionary. He did make an effort, so that he was not quite bad enough to be one of the
tiros
dismissed as unfit for duty, yet not only was he clearly the weakest in our tent section, he was the weakest in our Century and may have been the weakest in the Cohort. However, that discovery was still in the future, so Vibius spent his spare time with Artorius, working with him tirelessly. I marveled that Vibius had the energy, because I was still exhausted at the end of every day, but my friend had always been blessed with more vitality, much to my dismay at times.

While the rest of us would sit and take care of the myriad little things that occupy a Legionary’s free time while watching Vibius and Artorius, it was during those periods that we got to know each other. For some reason I found that I spent more time with Scribonius than the others, at least during those times I was not with Vibius. He was somewhat quiet, with a thoughtful manner about him, yet I discovered that his placid exterior masked a razor-sharp wit and a sense of the absurd that I enjoyed immensely. Meanwhile, Didius introduced the other boys to dice, and he had to be the luckiest man I have ever seen, or he was an extremely good cheater. Either way, most of the others, with the exception of Scribonius, Vibius and I ended up owing him things like their next day’s rations, something that was expressly forbidden for Legionaries to wager. It is also one of the more flouted rules in the Legions my entire time in the ranks. However, Didius was smart, I will give him that. He did not actually take the others’ rations; instead, he traded them back for favors, things like mending his gear or standing watches for him. I do not know that the three of us were smarter than the others. I think it was more our mutual dislike of Didius than anything, which meant that of our tent section we were the only ones who never owed Didius anything. Something that he did not like at all.

Also by this point, we had been integrated into our Century in terms of marching and drill, on which we still spent a portion of the day working. Since we were the last to join the Century, we were the very back rank, a fact that bothered me to no end. That meant that the battles would all be over before I got to have my turn, I fumed to myself, and where would the glory be for me? Being the tallest and the biggest in my Century, and one of the largest in the Cohort, I was sure that I would be placed in the front rank. However, the system that has operated in the Roman army for hundreds of years by that point did not allow for the vanity of a young man. That is how I thought of myself, a young man, despite easily being the youngest in the Legion because of my deception. Later I was to learn that there were several others who were sixteen; they were just older than me by months and in a couple of cases weeks. Even so, I was still sure that I was bound for glory, and I was eager to show what I was made of.