Legionary, page 2
Putting the tunic on felt like wrestling with snakes; the simple act of raising his left arm sent waves of fire down the long pink scar that ran from shoulder to belly. Bending over to fasten his sandals was equally as delightful, causing his right thigh to blaze with pain. But soon it was done.
He noticed that Izodora had moved into the hearth room, and was stirring wheat, salt and water in a pot over the low flames, while keeping Marcus amused with a lilting song. As he watched them, he felt something soften in his chest, a lump in his throat. I would die for you both, he spoke inwardly, fond tears gathering in each eye. This was love; the feeling he had blocked from his heart for so long, having loved before and lost it all in the most brutal fashion. Izodora’s head swung round, catching him off-guard like that.
‘I won’t be long,’ he said, instantly straightening and blinking the emotion away. ‘I’ll bring cream in from the barn and honey from the hives to mix with our porridge.’
‘You will be an hour and no more. After that, I will work the fields for the rest of the day.’
To Pavo, these words felt like thrown stones. Yet it was the truth. He had known thirty summers, and – thanks to his injuries – he felt every single one of them. He could not manage more than a little light farm work each day. Once, it had been so different. He looked at the old wooden chest in the corner of the hearth room. It always seemed to draw his attentions, as if a voice was whispering from within. A thousand voices, speaking of a lost past. Then one voice that almost crippled him: My mother is waiting for me…
For a moment, his left eye began to twitch, and his right hand shook like a leaf. He wrenched his gaze away from the chest... then stepped outside into the morning light.
Dawn was soaring now, throwing pink and violet ribbons across the golden fields and green hills, sparkling on the clear waters of the River Tonsus – a bend of which wrapped around and defined one edge of the estate. Singing goldfinches lined the branches of the flowering ash tree near the door, and the air smelt of grass, wheat and gentle warmth. The drove of pigs squealed in excitement as he passed, and Pavo did his best to placate them by tipping a sack of cabbages and carrots into their sty. Chickens clucked and warbled in their coop, and so he tossed them a handful of grain from a sack tied to a post.
He came to the goat pen and swung the gate open. The small herd bleated and skipped, their bells tinkling as he led them to the nearby grazing meadow. As they set to work munching away on the grass, he sat on a felled hazel trunk and took it all in, cicadas trilling and bees humming all around him in the growing heat. This was it – the serenity that he had for so long thought impossible. His days were quiet, the evenings – dreams apart – peaceful. It was why they had chosen this place, buying it outright with his military pension. Utter calmness lay in every direction. Not another farm or village in sight. Indeed, it was an hour’s ride to the nearest Roman town. The Via Militaris – the Eastern Empire’s arterial marching road – was a good day’s trek to the north, and the closest of the six Gothic Haims lay another three days distant in that same direction.
He plucked a grass stalk and began knotting it into a loop. It was odd how slack his senses had become since he had left the legions. For years he had the eyes of a fox and the ears of a bat – essential in the cut and thrust world of warfare in unfamiliar lands. Here? Here there was nothing to be wary of.
Unconsciously, he pinched the folded skin and fat of his belly, and sighed. It wasn’t just his senses that had gone to seed since he had left the eagles. Every day, Izodora and he would prepare a hearty evening meal – spiced sausages and baked mullet hooked from the Tonsus were his favourites – accompanied by fresh pillowy loaves and a cup of strong, red wine. A bowl of blackberries and cream was the usual way to round it all off. It was a far cry from the days of hardtack biscuit and brackish water. He had never thought he would miss the daily slog of marching and digging camp, but at least, he mused, it had kept him trim.
A braying sound nearby reminded him of his next job. Rising, he took a handful of hay from a bucket and fed the mule, then hooked four water bags onto its back. Finally, he untethered the beast and led it across the small estate towards the wheat meadow. The river meandered past the lower edge of the field, irrigating the crop there. In contrast, the raised part at the far end was always dry and in need of attention. One day, he mused as he unloaded the first water bag and began manually sprinkling the dry area, he would get round to levelling the field and digging irrigation ditches to cover the whole meadow.
For a moment, the feelings of peace and serenity slid a little bit. So much work in this farm – not just the animals and the wheat but the small vineyard too. That had all been the golden plan… but not with him in this state. He slid his tunic hem up a fraction and scowled at the whorl-shaped scar on his thigh, the evil brother of that fiery old sword lesion running from shoulder to belly.
One passing postal rider had seemed bemused that he and Izodora had not purchased slaves to do the work. The truth was that neither had wanted to own slaves – both having been subjected to and sickened by the very principle in their respective childhoods. Nor indeed did either want to hire farm labourers, for that would rob the place of its blissful isolation. Thus, Izodora had taken most of the work on her shoulders. To Pavo, it just didn’t feel… right. And then there was that old wooden chest in the hearth room. Why, when he had spent his years in the army craving this peaceful rural life, did that chest – or more specifically its contents – continue to whisper to him? Why did things feel wrong, out of place… unfinished? The sun slipped clear of the horizon and the cicadas rose in song, as if demanding to know.
‘Nothing is ever perfect,’ he answered his own question as he brushed through the wheat stalks, splashes of water pleasantly cold on his toes. ‘A man should always be grateful for those things that make him happy, and tolerant of the things that do not.’
The still air rose then in the gentlest of breezes. It tickled oddly on the back of his neck – an echo of those old primal senses. He twisted to look to the far edge of the wheat field: bare and sun-washed, golden wheat meeting deep blue sky. It was the strangest feeling – as if he had expected to see somebody there.
His right thigh began to quiver, and he sighed, well-used to this bodily signal of surrender. His pitiful contribution to the day’s farm labour was over. He collected a pot of honey and a small copper urn of cream from the cold pit in the storehouse, then trudged back to the farmhouse, tiring further with each step.
Izodora and Marcus were seated at the hearth room table, the fresh porridge steaming in its pot and waiting to be eaten. As Pavo set down the honey and cream, he noticed the rings of weariness under his wife’s eyes. Equally, Marcus seemed particularly irritable, smashing away the piled wooden blocks Izodora was trying to amuse him with. Guilty, knowing that his chaotic dreams had interrupted his wife’s sleep yet again, he stepped over to the hearth, and picked up a small ox-hide container resting on the mantelpiece.
Noticing this, Izodora’s expression changed. It was as if she had been woken from a trance.
Pavo opened the box and produced from it a toy wooden soldier. He planted it before Marcus, who became instantly mesmerised. Cooing and laughing, he took and began ‘marching’ the soldier up and down the table.
‘I always thought we were forbidden from touching that box?’ Izodora said.
‘If you thought that, I apologise,’ replied Pavo. ‘It is a toy, after all – not an idol.’
‘Gallus meant a lot to you, didn’t he?’
Pavo almost blushed. For a moment he felt like a whip-thin recruit walking into the legionary fort at Durostorum, an equally ill-prepared Sura by his side, all those years ago – before the Goths came, before the great wars and far-flung adventures. Gallus had seemed like a monster at first, mean and icy-cold. Only after years of serving under him, of seeing the things Gallus had seen too much of, did he begin to understand. In the end, Pavo realised, he had become a man under Gallus’ tutelage. ‘Everything,’ he replied quietly.
So much so that they had named Marcus after Gallus’ son, to whom the toy soldier had once belonged.
Izodora planted a warm hand on his, breaking the sombre spell. ‘Eat,’ she said, shoving a bowl in front of him.
He mixed thick honey and pale-yellow cream into the porridge. The warmth and silky sweetness of the first spoonful was Elysian. It unexpectedly conjured an old memory of Quadratus – a veteran in his early times with the Claudia – making porridge from turnips and rye, and claiming that this questionable mixture was ‘a food of the Gods’. The big man had already possessed a reputation for extreme wind, but that night, the farting had been… legendary.
‘What’s that strange thing on your face?’ Izodora asked between mouthfuls of porridge.
‘Hmm?’
‘You’re smiling,’ she grinned cheekily. She took her last spoonful then rose, handing over Marcus. ‘I’ll be back at noon. We’ll have bread and cheese… and a lie down?’ she suggested.
Pavo, spoon hovering at his mouth, cocked an eyebrow. ‘A lie down?’
‘As in sleep,’ she corrected his wandering thoughts. ‘I feel an hour short, for some reason.’
‘Ah,’ said Pavo, hearing the sarcasm in her voice and remembering their early and sudden rise this morning. ‘Aye, sleep then.’
She left, and suddenly – apart from Marcus cooing with the toy soldier – the house felt utterly still. What to do now? His damned leg and shoulder meant he was no use with his body. Yet his mind was whirring. He glanced over at the shelves, laden with scrolls. The works of storytellers, historians, geographers, philosophers. All read, many times over. How long had it been since he handed the letter to the postal rider headed for Constantinople – a month? Yet no sign of him returning with a new batch of scrolls from the capital’s library.
He tipped a little more cream into his porridge. Shafts of sunlight slid across the room as he stirred the mixture and ate absently, watching Marcus. The lad seemed captivated by the detail of the toy soldier’s armour. Something struck him then: his son would grow up knowing him only as Pavo the farmer.
‘Pavo,’ Izodora snapped, right behind him.
Pavo jolted with fright, twisting to the doorway where she had appeared. ‘Excellent creeping-up skills, my love,’ he said testily, his wounds flaring from the sudden movement.
She didn’t even notice his irritation. Her face was lined with suspicion, half in the shadow of the doorway and half in the brightness of day. And her deep blue eyes were fixed on something outside. ‘There’s someone here.’
Pavo felt that feral tingle again. ‘Here? Who?’
She flicked her head, beckoning him.
With a stiff groan, he rose and joined her at the threshold.
Someone was here. A stranger, standing at that dry, raised end of the wheat field.
At this distance it was just a shape of a person. Still as stone… staring at the farmhouse. His eyes darted around, anticipating danger. Had this stranger come from the north… the territory given over to the Gothic Haims? Or the Roman south?
‘Go inside,’ he said quietly.
‘Please,’ Izodora scoffed, shooting a look at Pavo’s still-trembling right leg. ‘If this person is a threat, then it is you who should be going inside. I am more than capable of standing up to some lone brigand or nuisance.’
Indignance rose up through Pavo like a tongue of fire. ‘This is for me to do.’
‘For you? You can barely walk.’
‘He needs to see that a man guards this place. He needs to see me.’
Izodora’s face turned wolf-like, and she flung a finger in the direction of the stranger. ‘He needs…’ she paused, her face sagging, ‘he…he’s gone,’ she said, the wind falling from her argument.
Sure enough, the end of the wheat field was once again bare – a golden stripe of stalks combing the pure blue summer sky.
The next day was blisteringly hot. Pavo neglected his usual early morning duties, instead picking other ones that allowed him to patrol the edges of the small estate. Armed with a hoe, he limped around the boundaries, every now and then stopping and absently breaking up clumped soil, all the while watching the countryside nearby. Empty, in every direction. There were never unexpected passers-by here. Yes, the odd boat sometimes idled downstream on the Tonsus, but never anyone on foot.
Last night had been sleepless, with many checks on the door to be sure it was locked, many trips to the windows to look through the shutters for signs of movement outside, every rustle of grass sending spikes of alarm through him. The mystery of the stranger had grown like an itch.
After a full three hours of tilling and pacing, Izodora called on him to come in and rest. ‘I’ll come in soon – I just have this last bit of rocky earth to break up,’ he lied. He felt certain that the stranger would come again, and did not want her out in the grounds if that happened. On and on he limped around the boundary, until his right leg began to quiver under him. He felt his head swimming as he tried to ignore it. Yet the sun was climbing towards its zenith. So hot…
His right leg gave way under him, the knee hitting the ground with a thud. Moaning, he used the hoe to stand. Hobbling back inside the farmhouse, Izodora shot him and his bleeding knee a withering look. ‘You’ll be fit for nothing tomorrow.’
He caught her arm as she moved to leave and carry on the work. ‘The outer fields are all tended to – wheat, grapes, vegetables. Everything. You only need go to the barn and feed the animals.’
‘You could have just asked me to stay away from the edges of the estate,’ she said. ‘And I will.’
‘If you see that stranger…’
‘I will scream!’ she said, planting her hands theatrically at the sides of her face. ‘And I will await my saviour!’
Now Pavo shot her a withering look. Smiles broke both of their defences. They kissed and she left. Pavo sat at the hearth room table. Marcus was once again besotted with his new toy. ‘Papa, funny clothes,’ he said, tracing a finger over the toy’s torso – finely carved to make it look like the soldier was wearing iron scale.
‘It is armour.’ He clacked two spoons together, creating a metallic ring. ‘All soldiers wear armour.’
‘Why?’
‘So that they do not get hurt.’
‘Hurt? Who wants to hurt soldier?’
Pavo smiled sadly. Once, he might have answered the enemies outwith Rome. Until life in the legions had taught him that enemies lurked everywhere. ‘Bad people,’ he replied.
‘What if bad person wants to hurt you, Papa?’ Marcus said, looking rather fretfully at Pavo’s attire of grubby tunic and sandals. ‘You have no armour.’
‘Not anymore.’
‘But mama said you were a soldier.’
‘I used to be a legionary,’ Pavo smiled. ‘Armour or not, I know how to deal with bad people.’
Marcus’ face changed, his eyes moving to a spot behind Pavo, at the door. ‘Is the person standing behind you bad?’
Pavo laughed, sensing movement at his back. ‘Ah. Your mother is trying to scare me agai-’ the word died on his tongue as he saw, through the window ahead, Izodora out by the barn.
Time seemed to melt as he pivoted round on the bench, pain flaring in his thigh and shoulder wounds. His eyes almost burst at the sight of the man standing there: a cadaver-face shadowed by the brim of a dark felt cap; a black cloak hiding iron ringmail; the hilt of a sword poking from the mouth of a white baldric; A dagger in the belt...
Danger!
With a flurry of limbs, he tried to rise, to shoot up like a screen between the stranger and Marcus. Instead, his right leg gave way and he crumpled, hitting his head on the stone floor and knocking the bench over too. Dazed, he heard Marcus crying, saw the stranger lift the boy.
‘No,’ Pavo croaked. ‘No!’
‘Shhh,’ the stranger hushed Marcus, cradling him and letting him play with the tassels of his black cloak until he fell calm. The intruder set the lad down again on the bench, then stepped over to Pavo and offered him a hand to rise. Pavo held the stranger’s blue-eyed gaze, and at the same time measured the distance to the man’s sheathed dagger. Clasping the other’s hand, he began to stand, then swiped and stole the dagger, instantly turning it upon the stranger.
‘Your name, or death,’ he hissed, the blade’s edge at the man’s throat.
The man smiled in a way that made him look as if he had just tasted vinegar. ‘Used to be a legionary, eh? No… you were much more than that.’
‘Your next words will be your name, or they will be your last,’ Pavo growled, pressing the dagger blade tight to the man’s neck.
‘Frugilo,’ he answered quietly.
‘Give me your sword,’ Pavo hissed.
Carefully, Frugilo unclipped and set the sword in its white baldric down on the table.
Pavo glanced at the baldric, then did a double-take. Something about that pristine sword holder… something out of place. He pushed the weapon to the far end of the table, then gestured for the man to sit, while he remained standing and kept the dagger tip on the intruder’s neck.
‘I only came to deliver these,’ Frugilo said, sliding a leather bag from his shoulder and onto the table.
Pavo stared at the scrolls poking from the top. His defences crumbled. ‘You… you are a postal rider? By the hairs of Mithras’ ballsack – why didn’t you just say that?’
‘I saw the door was ajar, I came in… I didn’t think to announce myself.’
Pavo cocked his head a little to one side, keeping the dagger at the man’s throat. ‘What about yesterday, when you were watching from the edge of our estate?’
Frugilo pulled a face as if Pavo had just spoken backwards. ‘Yesterday?’
Pavo scrutinised the man’s eyes for sincerity. ‘You appear to know me… or at least who I used to be. Unusual for a postal rider who hasn’t stopped here before.’
Frugilo chuckled, a sound like a body being dragged across gravel. ‘Every rider in the Cursus Publicus knows the turn off to this farm. Pavo, once the Tribunus of the XI Claudia, lives there. Hero of the Gothic War. The one who slew Gratian, the Tyrant Emperor of the West.’
