ante diem quartum Kalendas Ivnivs
481 Ab Urbe Conditia
Year of Consuls Spurius Maximus and Lucius Cursor
(272 BCE)
Venusia, Apulia
Italia
*****
“Attack!” Sabucius shouted, rapping his bronze rod against the stool sitting before him loudly as Cale watched from a recess nearby, leaning against a stone column and studying the soldiers’ moves with intrest.
About the tall chamber, the soldiers responded. Wicker shields were pressed forward, wooden gladii lunged from above them, stabbing downward toward their sparring partners who caught the blades on their own heavy scutum, twice the weight of a regular one, and stepped backward, responding with counter-thrusts of their own, the maple gladii also heavier than their real life counterparts. It was a dance, complete with the complicated movements that came with such an engagement. Each soldier had to master both foot-work and reflexes, and be conscious both of his sword arm and his shield, and that of the men beside him. The Roman way of warfare was precise and ordered, not the chaotic cacophony of combat idealized by the tribes of Gaul or Hispania, or even Carthage, to a lesser extent. The consular armies made killing a job, nothing more, their weapons simply a tool to accomplish the work like a laborer's mallet or saw-blade. Each soldier knew his position in the battle-line, which in the consular armies was made up of three primary ranks of troops, augmented by auxiliaries and misslers who filled the gaps and guarded the wings.
The gladius was short, wide, and sharpened to a precise edge, around two feet in length from pommel to tip. It had been lifted from the swords used by the Celtiberians, and widely adopted by the Republican military for its easy production from the soft, carbonated iron that was plentiful, its ease of use, and the deadly wounds it produced with minimal effort. Their scuta were heavy and ovalar, made of strips of overlapping bentwood and leather, and reinforced with iron strips with a bronze or copper boss in the center, most covered in a simple coat of dun-colored paint with no decoration or ornament.
“Good! Faster now. Attack!” the duplicarius repeated, and so they did, running through the movements again, for the tenth time so far. It was tedious work, but far easier to bare than the lashes if you were to fall out of training before Sabucius said you were finished—he remembered that from his own training with the man. Men drenched with sweat despite the relative coolness of the early spring morning began to respond sluggishly after hours of hard thrusts and parries, but none would quit, for they were Roman soldiers, and the Republic was sacred.
The auxiliaries were trained on their own, with their own leaders, in the courtyard of the estate every morning. The Samnitii and Lucanii were spearmen primarily, and made second-rate swordsmen if the need arose. But these, the men in the center chamber of the Roman compound with heavy arms and sweaty brows, were the core of the Republic’s mission here, veteran soldiers, the heavy infantry of the republican legions, some of whom had fought the myriad tribes of Italia, others against Gauls, and more recently against the armies of the Graeci.
Cale was one such who had fought in more than one campaign. There were only two others he knew of, and Sabucius was one. It had been three years since Cale had returned from the wars in southern Italia and the last campaign of Beneventum, and nearly seven since the hard fighting that culminated in the battle at Asculum, yet the scars still remained. When he closed his eyes at night, he could still see the faces of the men who had died with him that day, trampled by the elephants or pierced by a lance. He was following orders, he had always believed, or at least until a few months ago...
"Valens!"
Waking abruptly from his remorseful reverie, he saw the scoundrel Sabucius approaching, thumbs hooked into his bronze plated balteus, the soldiers who had been training behind him now stretching their arms and watching the coming confrontation with poorly disguised curiosity.
"Your men look strong, duplicarius, but they look slow as well, I think." Cale said.
"Quick enough to kill a scoundrel like yourself, if they were ordered to," he responded, the threat openly spoken.
“I doubt it,” Cale replied, a confident smile on his lips.
“What brings you to my training hall?”
“I want to speak with you. About Asculum.”
“I have no desire to speak of it. Especially to you.” The look on the aging man’s face was grim, the color seeming drained from his face as he recalled those events.
“There are matters to be settled, and—“
“I will have nothing to do with it anymore, nor you. Now be gone, or I swear by Jupiter’s balls I’ll have you flogged for disrespect!” He bristled.
Another flogging was the last thing he wanted, so, Cale sighed in defeat and started to turn away.
“Wait,” Sabucius said. “Meet me at the tavern in the Greek quarter tonight. I’ll speak to you.”
“Very well then,” Cale said, and walked away, his mind racing with questions that had to be answered for peace of mind, and perhaps his very soul.
Cale and Folco walked down the muddy street oblivious to the cacophony of noise about them. It was a dreary evening which hinted at rain, and the brothels and taverns were bustling with noise and light. The sea was in the air, and the tides crashed against the rocks of the cliffs that dropped below the plateau upon which Venusia was built. Having just completed a shift of guard duty for the Tribune, Cale had enlisted the companionship of the Samnitii to accompany him to the meeting with Sabucius. He did not trust the duplicarius, not a bit. He had seen before what depths of vileness that one would sink to. The tavern their meeting was to be at had a seedy reputation anyway, not a place to be visited alone at night in the first place. Deep within the crowded slums of the Greek quarter of the city, the place had a character of drag-out brawls and gambling matches turned to knife-fights amongst the sell-swords and cutthroats who frequented it.
Candles burning luridly from within clay bowls lit open archway whose dusty steps led down into the taproom, and a large Coriscan peddler pushed past them as they came down the stairwell, his breath reeking of sour wine. The bar was an old wine cellar, its cool cobblestone walls slick with moisture and not a little mold, with rough-hewn tables scattered about the common room and several shelves of alcohol on the far. The owner kept rooms for rent upstairs, though few of them had doors and none bore locks, it was a dangerous place to stay and only the most desperate did so. It was not crowded that night, many people had left the city over the brewing troubles with Epirus again.
He found Sabucius drinking alone at a knife-scarred table near one corner of the sordid tavern, the duplicarius still wearing his coat of hamata over his grey tunica, with a brown paenula traveler’s cloak draped about his shoulders. That he had been drinking was obvious, and he began chuckling to himself as they approached, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and then taking another long draw of wine.
“Cale Valens,” Sabucius laughed. “I didn’t think you would come. You’ve got more balls than I gave you credit for.”
“I have many faults but cowardice is not one.” Cale replied, pulling out a stool and squatting over it across from the grizzled veteran. Folco drifted away to buy drinks, leaving the two alone to their issues.
“You said you wanted to talk about the battle,” Sabucius said grimly. The battle. As if it were the only battle fought by the two men who had in truth partaken in a dozen.
“Asculum, yes.”
Taking a long drink, the older man reflected, then said, “A day I’d rather forget about. And thought that I had, until you came here.”
“I’ve tried forgetting, I can’t.” The brooding in the Etruscan’s eyes was like a thunderstorm on the horizon. “I must know what happened.”
“War happened boy. War!” He was angry now, and sat the cup down forcefully, sloshing some of its contents out upon the table.
“That wasn’t war, and you know--” Cale stopped in mid-sentence, feeling a presence behind him. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw a tall Numidian standing behind him, wrapped in cured leathers and a thick hide, his skin leathery and tanned, his beard braided. “Go away,” he said, calmly.
The Numidian grunted out something in his native tongue, which Cale didn’t understand.
“He says he wants to fight,” Sabucius groaned.
“What for?” Cale asked, unintimidated but annoyed by the interruption.
“Who knows. He probably heard you’re a war hero.”
“Tell him no.”
Sabucius did so, and the Numidian only grunted and pulled out a long knife from his belt.
“He still wants to fight,” the old legionary said, almost amused by now.
Cale groaned, then ran his hand over his face. “First blood?” He asked, Sabucius, not the Numidian.
After a moment’s translation, the Roman responded “Aye.”
Cale reached back, his wrist moving like a rattle-snake striking fast as you please, and before the Numidian knew it, he no longer possessed the knife that had been in his hand a moment before. Cale gripped the blade and ran it across the palm of his left hand quickly, drawing a bright sheen of blood along the cut.
“He wins,” he said.
The few men who had crowded near to watch the coming fight laughed, and the Numidian growled in indignation. He snatched at the knife, and Cale let him take it back easily.
“He says you mock him,” Sabucius grinned drunkenly, though he could hardly contain his own amusement.
With a look of frustration the tribesman turned and skulked off to the other side of the tavern, where his companions were looking at him with disapproval. Cale watched him sit back down at their table, and then turned back to the old legionary as the crowd too went back to their respective tables and drinks, the excitement over for the time being.
“Telamon,” the Etruscan said, getting back to the subject at hand.
“Yes,” Sabucius mulled. “A dreary place. It was years ago, son.”
“I was the only survivor of two conterburnia, except for you,” Cale said levelly, referring to the ten-man squads of soldiers, legionaries or auxilaries, that formed the smallest tactical units of the Roman centuriae. “All because of what we did.”
“We did what we were told…” Sabucius began, his thoughts heavy and his brow furrowed in dark remembrance…
*****
The moon had long since set beyond the western mountains when they made to leave the musty cellar of a tavern. Outside, stray dogs were scavenging the alleyways of the city and a light rain had fallen earlier that night, making the few cobbles in the road slick and the rest a soupy mess of mud that clung to their sandles like gum. There was no light, and the only noise that of night birds and the dogs occasionally barking from somewhere several streets over. Folco had left long before, as his duty began early that morning, and it was the Etruscan and the veteran legionary who made an odd pair leaving the place that night. They had spent the past three hours drinking, reflecting on their dark memories of the battle that had left them scarred as much on the inside as it did out. Quintus Sabucius found himself developing a grudging respect for the Etruscan mercenary-made-citizen, and Cale likewise, dispite his dislike of the man.
They had turned onto a side-street as they were making their way back to the Roman villa in the center of town, when several dark silhouettes emerged from one end of the alleyway, and then behind them as well, blocking both exits. One man in each group carried a flaming torch, its light casting dancing shadows upon the buildings that hemmed them in and making their own shapes dark and sinister in the night.
“What’s all this?” Sabucius shouted angrily, his voice only a little tinged with drunkenness. “Be gone!”
“I don’t like this,” Cale said quietly, his hand drifting to the hilt of his sword.
The groups began creeping closer from each side, and they saw it was the big Numidian from earlier who wanted to fight Cale, along with at least a dozen companions, all surly looking sorts with scarred faces and broad shoulders, bearing an assortment of implements ranging from knobby clubs to short falcata swords that had been greased black to conceal the light off their blades. The big Numidian stepped forward with a gap-toothed grin, wielding the same knife from earlier.
Sabucius was wroth. “You wish to fight, then? You really think you can fight the two of us, you flea-infested dock scum! I spit on you!” And so he did, then drew his own sword.
The Numidian growled as he wiped the spit from his face, and lunged forward with the knife. The old duplicarius, drunk though he was, stepped aside and brought his own sword in a backwards arc that slashed across the brute’s back, opening it from shoulder to hip in a bloody slit, then turned as he stumbled past and thrust his gladius twice into the man’s back, each sound like that of a knife punching into a melon.
Cale’s sword was out in a start, and he had deflected a lunge from another of the thugs and then brought the sword in a high thrusting arc over the man’s head, plunging the sword into his face with a sickening crunch as nose and skull were pierced and blood gouted out in a red flash. He turned to receive the charge of a third, and let the Numidian impale himself on the sword he had just extracted from his dead companion’s face. The thug made a weak whistling sound as the air escaped his lungs and Cale used his foot to push his body off the blade.
Sabucius was engaged with two opponents, blocking and thrusting with a red-stained sword, sweat on his forehead. Cale moved to assist him, and with a hand motion to alert the legionary, he swept in to take up a position behind Sabucius, so they fought now back-to-back. Cale kicked a man in the torso and then stabbed into his chest three times in quick succession, and Sabucius slashed out across another fiercely, missing his chest but opening the muscle on the man’s arms who crumpled in pain against the wall of the nearest building.
The others were running away in both directions now, terrified by the sheer ferocity of their intended prey’s response. Sabucius shouted something behind them that Cale couldn’t quite make out with his heightened adrenaline, and when he finally lowered his wet sword he saw one of the attackers cowering up against the wall, his face covered in sweat and his teeth clenched, a pool of blood beneath him where he was holding the opened flesh of his arm.
“Please, don’t kill me, I beg you,” he said, in garbled Latin, heavily accented.
Sabucius stepped to him and grabbed a fistful of the man’s ratty hair, and put the tip of his gladius to his face angrily.
“Please no!” he begged.
“He’ll likely bleed to death anyway,” Cale said calmly, wiping his sword off with a dead man’s dirty tunic, then placing it carefully back in its scabbard.
“Please,” he gasped, his teeth chattering. “If you save me, I’ll give you information…” He groaned in pain.
Sabucius harrumphed, snorting in disbelief, and chuckled quietly as he pulled on the man’s hair, putting the tip of the sword on his lips and forcing his mouth open. “What sort of information would a dog like you have, that a gentleman like myself would be interested in?”
“The city is in danger!” he gasped, the cold iron on his teeth. He could taste the coppery blood of his slain companions on the blade.
“What sort of danger?” Cale asked, interested now.
“I can’t say much…” He was weeping, his pain intense.
Cale lunged forward, moving Sabucius and his sword aside. He put a hand on the man’s head to hold him still, and then issued a sharp kick fiercely to the man’s wounded arm, sending racks of pain throughout the Iberian’s body. His scream was terrible, and he sobbed, moaning on the edge of coherentness. “What sort of danger?” Cale repeated.
“A plot…a plot, to open the gates for the Greeks.”
“Let’s take him back. He’s telling the truth,” the Etruscan said to Sabucius.
“Perhaps. Maybe he just wants to save his life.” Looking down at the man, Sabucius grabbed him by his jaw and looked into his eyes. “I swear, son, if you are lying I will personally see you on a cross before noon-time.”
*****
