Princes of the Universe

[CCRunner]

Chapter Eleven: Noble Men

Part 12 – Anarchy

Unfortunately for Lucius, he was not dismissed from his duties immediately. He had plenty of time for his self-doubt and his self-recrimination to re-emerge. So he still did not write to Claudia. After all the time that had passed, he wondered if a letter from him would be welcome; and as more time passed, the task became harder to accomplish and easier to delay. He’d been told since he’d first met Claudia that he wasn’t good enough for her, and a lifetime of hearing that message was not easily set aside.



Caesar, meanwhile, busied himself returning order to the former Aztec Empire, but also found the time to send a series of proposed laws back to Rome. There, they would be discussed first in the Senate, then in the main legislative body of the Roman Republic, the Plebeian Assembly. In the latter body, the proposed laws would be promulgated by one of the newly-elected Tribunes of the Plebs, one Septimus Scaurus Rufus, a Caesar adherent to his very bones. In his previous positions, Septimus Scaurus had proved himself an able administrator. a masterful politician and orator, however, he was not, and this was no doubt partly to blame for what happened.

The first measure Septimus Scaurus introduced, to invest half of the war booty into rebuilding Aztec cities, gained ratification with relative ease. There was, inevitably, some grousing, but most of the businessmen that comprised the top three of Rome’s five classes could see the sense in it. With Aztecia open to them, they anticipated a new, large market for their goods. The sooner the people there had the money to buy them, the better. The men who ran the treasury saw the sense of it as well. Besides, all concerned expected the remainder of the war booty to come home to the treasury.

When Scaurus introduced Caesar’s next law, which distributed the remaining war proceeds among Rome’s troops, the grumbling was louder. Outside of the higher classes, however, the proposition was extremely popular; support for the troops was running high among the people after a very successful war that had been fought, it seemed, with no small amount of moral justification. Catullus Senior’s prediction proved correct; neither of Rome’s representative bodies were willing to oppose a motion with such popular support, and it passed into law with the reluctant blessing of both the Plebeian Assembly and the Senate.

However, this put the men in both government bodies into a recalcitrant frame of mind. Those not completely within Caesar’s camp quietly decided amongst themselves that whatever his next proposition might be, they would present stiff and formidable opposition. Therefore, when the lex Fides Libertas was introduced a veritable political storm erupted. This law, which would allow all religions equal footing within the Empire, would have been controversial enough on its own; but with the political forces in Rome in a resistant mood, the opposition was fierce. Meetings in the Well of the Comitia—the open-air meeting place in the Forum Romanum for the people’s assemblies—degenerated into shouting matches, and the following meetings to discuss the proposed law in the Senate followed suit, with Caesar’s adherents fighting a pitched rhetorical battle against his opponents.



To make a rapidly-deteriorating situation even worse, one ambitious Tribune of the Plebs saw the unrest as an opportunity to rise to prominence. With Caesar and most of the other prominent political leaders absent from Rome, Lucius Appuleius Saturninus seized his chance. Speaking from the rostra in the Well of the Comitia, he spoke to the crowd and appealed to their worst instincts.

“People of Rome, listen to me!” he shouted indignantly, and people obeyed; Saturninus was tall, dark-featured, and handsome, and was an excellent orator, having earned several years’ experience in Rome’s law courts before embarking on his political career.

“For centuries we have tolerated the heresies of other faiths!” Saturninus said. “For generations we have defended Confucianism against the threat of infidels! For years we have fought a holy war to defend our brothers and sisters of the faith! And now look at what Caesar and his patrician henchmen propose! All faiths are equal! Confucianism—the one true faith, the one Roman faith—is but one among many, no better than the others! Are we to tolerate this debasement of our beliefs, of our culture, of what makes us Roman?”

The stirring and rumbling of the crowd in and around the Comitia spurred Saturninus on. That some of the patricians in the Senate were opposing the measure was immaterial. Saturninus intended to wed whatever resentment of the new law he could stir up to the underlying resentment that many plebeians harboured towards Rome’s most privileged class. As for the fact that Confucianism had been founded by a man of Chinese descent, not a Roman, of course Saturninus deliberately avoided mentioning it. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Septimus Scaurus watching him, his face livid in response to Saturninus’ demagoguery, but without the oratorical skill to oppose him. Saturninus suppressed a grin and turned on the man.

“Look at this man, a fellow Tribune of the Plebs!” He said, pointing an accusing finger at Scaurus. “A plebeian? Ha! He’s a patrician puppet if ever there was one! They want to shove this new law down your throats, like bitter medicine, with him as the doctor. Well, it’s not medicine, it’s poison, and Septimus Scaurus is a quack! Make no mistake, my friends—all we hold precious, all we hold dear, is threatened! This will be the end of Rome as we know it!”

All it would take for the full fury of the crowd to be unleashed, Saturninus knew, was for one person to cross the line from talk to action. Thus he had arranged for one of his adherents to be within the Well of the Comitia with a good-sized rock hidden within the folds of his toga. That last phrase was the signal; as soon as the words left Saturninus’ mouth, his confederate threw his rock. It struck Septimus Scaurus right between the eyes; he dropped to the ground like a puppet whose strings were suddenly cut.

Saturninus was taking no chances. He wanted a revolution, and he got it. Scaurus’ fall was the signal to the other men he’d arranged to have planted in the crowd, most of them ex-gladiators, enforcers from the various crossroads colleges, and other ruffians drawn from the stews of Rome and the waterfronts of Antium and Ostia. They rushed the rostra, attacking the other Tribunes of the Plebs. Carried away by the ugly emotions Saturninus’ rhetoric had inspired, many others in the crowd joined in. Of the ten Tribunes of the Plebs, eight managed to escape only with severe beatings and considered themselves lucky; poor Septimus Scaurus, however, was beaten to death by the crowd. Saturninus, the hero of the hour, emerged unscathed, and was carried triumphantly out of the Well of the Comitia on the shoulders of his hired thugs. They carried him home, where he met with the two other ringleaders of his rebellion.



“I’ve already received word from Antium that an uprising is underway there,” Gaius Servilius Glaucia, his friend and chief confederate, informed him. “We’ll hear news from the other cities over the next few days, but we have agents stirring up the people everywhere.”

“Excellent!” Saturninus said from his dining couch, draining his wine cup and signalling to a servant for more. “First thing we do is wipe out the Senate and all patricians—with one notable exception,” he said with a nod to his other guest. “Without their traditional leadership, the people will be looking for someone to guide them. That role, of course, will fall to me.”

“What about Caesar?” Glaucia said, his face folding into a frown. “He still has his legions up in the north.”

The third member of their party spoke up at this point, shaking his head while a confident smile played upon his face.

“Caesar is a spent force,” Marcus Phillippus Cinna said, brushing the long lock of dark hair that fell from his forehead out of his eyes.

Cinna had largely lain dormant since his disgraceful dismissal from the battlefield a few short years before. His father had threatened to disown him. A bribed servant and the administration of some untraceable poison into the senior Cinna’s dinner one night, however, ensured that he never got a chance to change his will. Cinna, an only child, received his full inheritance of money and estates.

His wealth, however, was not enough to overcome the shame of his military disgrace. The story had spread throughout the empire, it seemed. He couldn’t walk anywhere in public without hearing people sniggering behind his back, or looking down their noses at him. So Cinna had retreated into his mansion and brooded, dreaming of a day when he could exact his revenge on all those who had wronged him. As time passed, that list grew very long indeed.

Thus, when Lucius Appuleius Saturninus had appeared in his study and offered his services to Cinna, the disgraced patrician had taken him up on his offer. Saturninus’ political career had been floundering because of a lack of funds, which Cinna now provided. In return, Cinna worked behind the scenes, but pulled all the strings. The lex Fides Libertas had presented them with the perfect opportunity to make their move, and they had seized it with a vengeance.

“He’s served his purpose; he’s united the continent under Roman rule.” Cinna said to his two companions. “Now his time is done. Even an immortal cannot resist the will of the people.” Cinna paused. “The people… are sovereign,” he intoned solemnly, then laughed.

“Yes, the whole ill-bred, uncouth lot of them!” Saturninus added, laughing derisively with Cinna. “Trust me, Glaucia; by the time Caesar and his legions are finished tidying up Aztecia and complete the long march home, our goals will be accomplished. We will be installed as the new leaders of the Roman Empire. Caesar will have no choice but to stand down, and the legions no choice but to obey the orders of their new leaders.”

“Exactly,” Cinna said. “You forget, Glaucia, that Caesar has great respect for the will of the people, and for the law.” Cinna chuckled and swirled his wine within his cup. “The sentimentality of a foolish old man.”

Glauica nodded, but held his tongue. He wasn’t so certain that a 5000-year-old immortal could be dealt with so easily.

***



Two days later, Lucius Rutullus found himself summoned to the command tent yet again, which was located on a wind-swept plain just south of Calixtlahuaca. Once inside, he was greeted by several grim faces.

“You’ve heard?” Ceasar asked him curtly when he walked in, waving the junior legate to a chair on the other side of a table from his own. Beside him sat Catullus Senior, looking equally grim, his lips pressed together in a hard line.

“About the riots?” Lucius replied. “The camp is buzzing about it, Caesar.”

“What’s the mood of the men? How do they feel about all this?” Caesar asked.

“They’re with you as always sir,” Lucius informed him confidently; he’d spent most of the morning making the rounds, gauging the legionaries’ opinions of the unrest in the Empire’s main cities. “They’re soldiers. They’re used to action. And everyone has loved ones back home. They want to do something about it,” Lucius added, his voice fervent, indicating he shared their feelings on the matter.

“So they shall,” Caesar said, his voice hard and decisive. “The garrisons in the Aztec cities can maintain the peace here. The remaining Legions will return to Roman territory and re-establish order. You are to take the Fourteenth and return to Rome to do just that. Try to do it with minimal bloodshed; these are fellow Romans, Lucius. They’re being misled by a demagogue. This storm will pass. It’s our job to minimize its effects.”

“The entire Senate has gone into hiding,” Catullus Senior rumbled from beside Caesar. The general’s hands were shaking. “The mobs were dragging patricians out of their homes, into the streets—killing the men, raping the women…” his voice trailed off.

Sitting in front of him, Lucius’ face went pale as a single word, a name, flashed into his mind.

Claudia...

“I would not trust Rome to anyone else, Lucius Rutullus Lepidus,” Caesar said to him. “Take the Fourteenth and march to Calixtlahuaca’s dock on the double. The galleon Minerva will bear you and your men back to Rome. I’ll be right behind you as soon as I’m able to get away.”

“Sir!” Lucius said, already on his feet and heading out.

***



Claudia Pulchra sat in her study, trying to go over her household accounts, but found herself unable to concentrate. Frustrated, she stood up from her desk and took to pacing. She was impatient with this debilitating agitation she was suffering from, but she couldn’t help it. She felt like an animal in a cage.

When the riots in Rome had begun several days ago, most of the senators and other patrician nobility had decided that discretion was the better part of valour and had promptly left the city. Most of them had country estates outside of Rome where they hoped to safely wait out the unrest until order was re-established. A few patricians, however, refused to budge, to be forced from their city, the city their ancestors had founded and guided to greatness, because of common rabble led by a demagogue. They would not be intimidated; they would remain and make a stand, for better or for worse. Claudia was among them.

Nonetheless, those who remained weren’t so arrogant that they didn’t take precautions. Several patricians had, as Catullus Senior had heard, been subject to the full wrath of the mobs wandering Rome when the riots had first started. Noblemen had indeed been dragged from their homes and torn apart by the crowds, their wives and daughters passed around by the ruffians and subjected to their lust. So the few patricians who had remained had boarded up their windows and doors, had armed their servants, and had hired ex-gladiators and retired soldiers for protection. Some of their new guardians had been among the rioters not long before taking on their new duties, but at times like this, one couldn’t be fussy.

Claudia’s father had urged her to leave Rome for their family estate on the coast, south of Ostia.

“You’re a woman and you’re by yourself,” Marcus Claudius Pulcher had pleaded with his eldest daughter. “You’re not safe here!”

“No one is safe here,” Claudia had countered. “Even so, I’m not alone. I have the servants, and the house is secure.”

Her father had shaken his head. “You should leave,” he insisted.

“Are you leaving?” she’d asked him pointedly.

Of course Marcus Claudius Pulcher, twice Consul, would not quit Rome, and realized that he would therefore lose this argument with his daughter. Not for the first time, he regretted that she was so well-versed in rhetoric. He couldn’t even persuade her to leave her own home for the added security of his.

“And leave my house to be looted by the mob?” she’d responded to the suggestion. “I think not!”

So she had remained in her home, though she was nervous and, yes, afraid. She had been careful not to let on to her father or to her anxious servants that she felt that way. Thus far, the mobs had avoided the highest, wealthiest homes on the Palatine Hill, as though they were somehow sacrosanct because of their grandness, or because the oldest and most prestigious of Rome’s founding families lived in them. Or maybe the ruffians were just too lazy to climb all the way up the hill, Claudia reflected ruefully. Still, she knew better than to expect this state of affairs to last.

And what will you do, she asked herself, when they batter down your door? When they drag you from your home, out into the street, tear your dress from your body and pass you around like a common whore? She shuddered, then forced the unpleasant image from her mind. It won’t happen. It can’t happen!

“Domina!” her steward, Titus, was calling to her from the hallway. “Domina!” he came bursting into her study without knocking, that simple act telling her something was very wrong indeed.

Claudia forced a calm expression onto her face. “What is it, Titus?” she asked, proud that her voice was even.

“A group of men, Domina! Heading up the Palatine! Up our street!”

The middle-aged man seemed on the verge of tears. He wasn’t even carrying one of the few spears or swords she’d managed to obtain to arm her staff. He was a house servant, not a warrior. Not for the first time, Claudia questioned the wisdom of her decision to stay in the city, especially when she now realized that her servants would suffer as much as she if the mob chose to ransack her home.

You’re a proud, foolhardy, stupid woman, she chastised herself silently, then pushed the thought aside; the decision had been made, and it was now too late to take it back. She would have to live—or die—with the consequences.

“They may pass us by, Titus,” she said. The man only shook his head, wrung his hands, and blinked away tears. Sympathetic to his fear, for she felt no small part of it herself, she reached out and placed what she hoped was a steadying hand on his shoulder. “Whatever may come, we will face it together. Remember that you are Roman, Titus. Remember that above all else.”

Taking some courage from her words and from her show of strength, Titus took a deep breath, steadied himself, and nodded.

“Alert the rest of the staff. Have everyone take up the arms that have been provided.”

She paused a moment, considering. She suddenly recalled something she’d read in Caesar’s account of the Spanish campaign. A good general always ensures that his troops have a course for retreat, should it prove necessary.

“Have one of the maids stationed by the back door,” she said. “And another one by the rear windows. If necessary, we can escape through them, and make our way to my father’s home.”

Titus actually favoured her with a smile, so impressed was he by her clear thinking and grace under pressure. Not for the first time, he considered how lucky he was to be the chief steward of this beautiful patrician widow.

“I will, Domina,” he said, then turned to head for the door. There, he paused. “Your husband, I think, would have been very proud of you at this moment.”

The compliment did little to comfort Claudia, however; it just made her wish that her husband was alive and present so that he could take command of the situation, not her. What did she know of fighting? She’d read about it in a book, that was the sum total of her experience of conflict. She blinked away tears as she wished that one of the two men she had loved were present—preferably both of them. For she had come to love her husband in the short time she’d known him—a love of affection, if not passion. But Catullus was dead, and Lucius was away in the north, and she hadn’t heard from him in years.

And yet, the thought of both men stirred something in her mind. She had arranged to have her servants armed, yes—but what about herself? Her hazel eyes suddenly blazed. She would not be hauled off by the mob and made their whore; she would go down fighting! She left her own study and marched across the courtyard garden to that of her late husband. There, there was what she needed, hanging upon the study’s walls.

Outside in the street, Saturninus was leading a throng of men over two hundred strong right up to the top of the Palatine Hill. Prior to this, he had steered away the rioters from this exclusive district to ensure that the home of his patron, Marcus Phillippus Cinna, remained safe. But now he and Cinna were confident that they had the mob firmly under their control; it was time to demonstrate to all patricians that none of them were safe.

He reached the top of the hill and picked out the house which Cinna had told him would be his first target. His eyes settled upon the home of the late Quintus Lutatius Catullus Junior, now home to his widow: Claudia Pulchra Primia, one of the most beautiful women in Rome, if not the most beautiful. He smiled wolfishly.

Don’t worry, Claudia Pulchra, he thought to himself, you won’t get raped by my men like those other patrician women we caught. Cinna wants you for himself. He felt his blood stirring as he thought of taking her, bound and tearful, to Cinna’s house, there to watch whatever his patron had in store for the beautiful widow. For Saturninus liked to watch.

Cinna had personal reasons for choosing Claudia as his target. She was the beloved of the two men who had shown him up: Lucius Rutullus Publius by taking command of the Fourteenth Legion—his Legion!—during the battle of Tlatelolco, and Quintus Lutatius Catullus Junior by taking command of the Fourteenth after his disgrace. Cinna was eagerly looking forward to meting out his revenge on her. He had several things he planned to do to her—things that even the prostitutes he regularly hired had balked at.

“This one, my friends!” Saturninus shouted, pointing at Claudia’s house. “We sack this one first! But remember what I told you—its mistress is an enemy of the people! She must be captured and taken unharmed so that she may be tried in a court of the people! I’ll have any man who disobeys this order flogged, is that clear?”

His men nodded knowingly. So Saturninus wanted the woman for himself, they figured. Well, that was fair enough; as their leader, he was certainly entitled to his pickings of the spoils. They were sure there’d be plenty of comely serving maids to be passed around amongst themselves.

The mob formed up in front of Claudia’s door, shouting and cheering, while a battering ram was carried forward by the strongest men in the crowd. They lined up the heavy wooden ram with the door and slammed it forward. The heavy oak door of the house withstood this first assault; it shuddered and bore an ugly mark, but it held.

“Again!” Saturninus shouted, and the men wielding the battering ram drew it back.

But they never brought it forward, for to their surprise, the maimed door suddenly opened. And out of it stepped a goddess.

She was clad in a gleaming helmet with a high crest and held a long spear in her right hand, its blunt end resting on the pavement. A belt with a dagger and a sword in a scabbard was girdled about her slender waist. Her left arm carried a legionary’s large, convex rectangular shield. Her long woolen dress was immaculately white, her skin glowing, her hazel eyes blazing with righteous fury. She was the living embodiment of Minerva, the ancient Roman goddess of wisdom and war.

She lowered her shield and let its bottom edge rap loudly upon the pavement, a sound that made every man in the suddenly shocked and silent crowd jump.

Ecastor, that thing is heavy! Claudia thought as she set the shield down with a relief she was careful not to display to the mob before her. Instead, she maintained her look of dignified rage, took a deep breath, and roared in a stage voice, just as Lucius Rutullus had taught her how to do when they were children.

“WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!?” she demanded of the men standing before her. Her voice, high and clear, reverberated off the stone walls around and behind her. “LEAVE THIS PLACE AT ONCE! RETURN TO YOUR HOMES!”

For several long moments, the crowd did and said nothing. The ancient beliefs in the old gods had been supplanted by new faiths, yes; but Romans were by nature a superstitious lot, and in their habits and customs they paid obeisance to the old gods every day. They had never thought to be confronted by one of them in person!

Behind her, in her house, Claudia’s servants watched the confrontation nervously through peepholes in the heavy shutters they’d nailed into place over the windows only a few days earlier. She had given them a simple order: if she fell before the mob, they were not to fight, but to flee, out the back door to her father’s home.

“This house and its contents don’t matter as much as your lives,” she’d told her weeping servants, “and neither do I.” She wished she’d realized that several days ago. But it was too late for self-recrimination now.

“ARE YOU DEAF?” Claudia shouted at the crowd. She took a step forward, lifting the heavy shield and setting it down with a loud thump, and was pleased to see the crowd flinch yet again at the sound. This just might work…

Saturninus, though, suddenly saw his entire revolution slipping away as a result of the actions of this one woman. He knew enough about how the mob’s mind worked to understand that if they retreated now, news of this incident would spread, and would grow from story to legend in short order. Who could stand against the old order, the men he was leading would say, when the ancient gods themselves spoke through them? He knew he had to do something, had to regain control of the crowd, of his crowd.

“Claudia Pulchra!” he said, stepping forward. “Dressing up in your late husband’s armour doesn’t fool us! You are a patrician and an enemy of the people! Your property is forfeit! It belongs to the people!” he shouted, his face reddening as he yelled at her.

“The people?!?” Claudia shouted back, her dignified voice rich with contempt. “You do not represent the people, you jumped-up worm! The good people of Rome, patrician and plebeian alike, are locked away in their homes, afraid of you and your cut-throat mobs! And if the rest of you had an ounce of good sense, you’d leave here at once and go emulate them! Do any of you want to face Caesar’s wrath when he returns? For return he will, and a reckoning shall surely follow!” She was pleased to see many of the men in the mob shudder at that unwelcome but very likely possibility.

Saturninus turned several different shades of purple. How dare she! How dare she oppose him in this manner, assuming the mantle of a goddess, speaking to them as eloquently as he could himself! A mere woman! He turned to the crowd.

“You there! Take hold of this harpy while rest of us enter…”

He was unable to complete relaying his orders, however. Claudia knew that she could not kill a man, even one as odious as this rabble-rousing demagogue. But she wasn’t above hurting him. Thus, she had raised the spear she held and brought the flat side of its iron tip down sharply upon the top of Saturninus’ head.

“OW!!” the erstwhile leader of the people exclaimed, clutching his head and turning to face his nemesis.

“You will not enter this home!” she told him, and the crowd.

“You rotten, stinking, cunnus!”

Claudia’s eyes opened wide at the coarse insult. She brought the spear down again, even more heavily, so much so that this time it broke when it struck Saturninus’ skull. His eyes rolled up into his head, and he unceremoniously fell to the pavement like a dropped sack of grain.

The men standing around him glanced down at their fallen leader uncertainly, then cast equally confused glances at the woman opposing them. A critical moment had come; Claudia knew it down to her very bones. The crowd wavered, hesitated. Then, as her stomach lurched, she saw the fear vanish from the coarse features of its roughest-looking members and knew that in spite of her valiant effort, she had lost.

“She’s just a woman,” a tall man with an unshaven face and long, unruly hair snarled. His narrow eyes looked her up and down, and a lecherous grin appeared on his face. An angry murmur swept through the crowd.

Claudia swallowed hard. She threw the ruined shaft of the spear aside and drew her late husband’s gladius from its scabbard and held it forward. She grunted as she lifted the heavy shield and did her best to assume a defensive stance, her left arm trembling from the weight of the shield and, she knew, from fear as well. As a youngster, she and her girlfriends had watched the young men drilling on the Campus Martius, and she now struggled to remember what she’d seen. At the time, she’d never considered the possibility of emulating the young men. No proper Roman woman would! She had been more concerned, like her girlfriends, with watching their favourites go through their military exercises.

And Lucius was always my favourite, she reflected as the mob of angry, lustful men shifted before her, collectively moving like a cat about to pounce on its hapless prey. Not for the first time in the past few minutes, she wished that her childhood sweetheart was there at her side. But he was not; she was utterly and terribly alone.

“Very well then,” she said, quite proud that she maintained an even tone quite devoid of the terror she felt. “I suppose I’ll only be able to kill—what, two? Three? Maybe four of you before you overwhelm me. So, who among you is ready to die?” she asked as she forced an eager smile onto her face.

She realized then that the cowardly, hesitant looks on their coarse faces at that moment would likely be the last thing that she ever enjoyed in this life. She hunkered down behind her dead husband’s heavy shield and waited for them to make their move.

[CCRunner]

Chapter Eleven: Noble Men

Part 13 – Order

Roman soldiers wore sandals called caligae. They had heavy soles, into which were hammered over two dozen iron hobnails that held the multiple layers of leather together. This distinctive footwear made an unmistakeable sound when several hundred men wearing them marched in unison upon pavement. This was the sound that now reached Claudia and the mob, the sound of a legion on the march, making double-time and drawing nearer.

The mob paused and grew silent, suddenly fearful, turning towards the sound, which echoed off of the walls of the houses on the upper Palatine Hill. The legionaries’ polished helmets appeared first, over the top of a low rise just a few dozen yards away. Then the soldiers came into view, helmets and armour gleaming in the sun, their shields held at their sides, swords slapping in scabbards against their muscular thighs. A century—no, two—no, more, an entire cohort, it had to be, six centuries strong!

Leading them was a tall, dark-featured man with one eye covered by a patch and the hard, determined look of a stone-cold killer upon his face. He took in the scene before him—of the woman he loved confronted by a crowd of ruffians—and his face took on a look of such fury that every man in the mob who was watching him gasped. For if Minerva had confronted them first, here, now, was Mars, the ancient god of war. In the flesh. And looking very angry indeed.

To Claudia Pulchra, however, he had never looked more magnificent.

Lucius Rutullus pulled his sword from its scabbard. “PRESENT… ARMS!” he yelled.

In one smooth motion and in complete unison, the entire cohort, veterans to a man, drew their swords with their right arms and swung their shields in front of their bodies with their left.



“For-WARD!!” Lucius commanded, his sword pointing at the cowering mob.

Roman legions never charged. For centuries they had consistently conquered enemy armies who attacked them in a disorganized rush. Their strength lay in unity; they disdained individual heroism if it came at the cost of the unit’s cohesion. So the legions did not rush into battle. Instead, they marched forward, inexorable, unstoppable. Throughout their continent, the sight of an approaching Roman wall of shields, spears, and swords inspired fear and respect.

Mostly the former, in the current case of the mob standing in shocked silence before Claudia Pulchra’s front door. Confronted by such fearsome opposition, the mob’s puffed-up courage vanished in an instant. They tossed down the obviously-inadequate weapons they carried and ran for their lives. Claudia, watching the legionaries marching towards her, instinctively retreated into her own doorframe.

“Lucius!” she called out as he passed by her. He came to a stop, forcing his men to sidestep around him. He turned and walked back to her, but once he got close enough and fully realized how she was dressed, he stopped short, his one eye opened wide in shock.

How many times, in all the years that he’d known her, had he thought of her as a goddess? Too many to count. It was a mere figure of speech, of course. But here, standing before him, was a veritable goddess: Minerva herself, in the flesh, wearing the armour and weaponry of his dead friend and the face of the only woman he’d ever loved. His mouth dropped open. He was utterly incapable of speech, let alone thought. She was too magnificent for either.

Claudia suddenly blushed as she watched his reaction. They had not seen one another in years. She cursed silently. Why did their first meeting after so long have to be when she was so… unwomanly? She wanted to throw the shield and sword to the pavement, tear the helmet and weapons belt from her body, so suddenly ashamed was she.

“Claudia…” he said in a reverent whisper.

“I…” Claudia said hesitantly. Oh, how to explain her scandalous appearance? “The mob… they were…” she stammered, gesturing with the sword in the direction that the ruffians had run. She then became embarrassed by the fact that she was holding a weapon in her hand. Utterly unused to the maneuver, she struggled to shove the unwieldy thing back into its scabbard.

“Right, yes,” muttered Lucius, still taken aback by her mere presence, let alone by her extraordinary appearance. He suddenly recalled how she’d been holding off an entire mob of determined men by herself. “Er… I’m… here to rescue you,” he said awkwardly.

“Really?” she said, looking up from the stubborn scabbard she was struggling with. “Well… thank you,” she said, nodding.

Lucius coughed, then his attention was drawn by a groaning sound emanating from the ground behind him. He turned and looked down at a man lying upon the pavement, blood slowly oozing from a gash in his scalp.

“Oh,” Claudia said, noticing where his gaze had wandered. “That’s Saturninus.”

“Huh. Looks like his own men turned on him,” Lucius remarked, his voice heavy with contempt.

“No, I, um… knocked him on the head. With a spear,” Claudia admitted. Lucius turned to her, gaping. “Twice,” she added, and shrugged. “It, uh, broke. The spear, that is.”

Oh, what must he think of me? Claudia despaired silently. Dressed like a man, fighting off a mob of ruffians, engaging in acts of violence! I, a patrician noblewoman!

Lucius could not believe what he was hearing. Claudia Pluchra, the finest example of Roman womanhood he had ever known, had single-handedly taken down the leader of the riots plaguing the Roman Empire’s cities with her own hand. His awe regarding her grew to a measure he hadn’t thought possible. He felt small in her presence—and useless. Why had he and his men rushed back to Rome and then up the Palatine Hill? It appeared that she’d had the situation well in hand without him.

The Fourteenth Legion’s primus pilus, Gnaeus Decumius, came jogging back up the hill towards them.

“They’ve scattered sir,” he reported to Lucius. “Bolted back to their holes like the rats they are. Didn’t have to kill any, Caesar’ll be happy to hear, though the boys wouldn’t have minded. Scum, the lot of them! Oh. Ma’am,” he said, with a quick nod towards Claudia, then did a double-take as he saw how she was dressed. Claudia wished she could crawl under a rock and die.

“Well,” she said. “I should go back inside and get out of… all this.”

“Of course,” Lucius said, nodding. But neither of them moved. They held one another’s gaze for a long, uncomfortable moment. Then Claudia turned, opened her door, and disappeared inside her house.

“What… who… was that?!?” Gnaeus Decumius asked, still staring in awe at Claudia’s closed door.

“Claudia. Pulchra. Primia,” Lucius said reverently.

“Really?” Gnaeus Decumius said, suddenly remembering all the rumours that had long swirled around his commander and this woman, rumours he usually disregarded and had often disputed. But the way they’d looked at each other just now made him wonder. “Well,” Decumius said, “that’s a relief. For a moment I thought Minerva herself was among us!” He shuddered then, battle-hardened centurion that he was, at the thought of one of the old, inscrutable gods taking human form.

“You and me both,” Lucius murmured, then he and his primus pilus knelt down to drag the groaning form of Lucius Appuleius Saturninus off to the Lautumiae Prison.

***



Marcus Phillippus Cinna sat in his study in his mansion on the Palatine Hill and sighed heavily. Things had been going so well, and then Caesar’s legions had shown up in every city, put down the insurrections, and spoiled everything. He took some consolation from the fact that no one could connect him to anything; he had never exhorted the crowds to riot and had not participated in any attacks. How could he? He was a patrician, part of the community that Saturninus had targeted! That mere fact also gave him a considerable amount of deniability, in the unlikely event that any accusations should be levelled at him.

There was only one thing to do: lie low and wait for another opportunity. Apparently Caesar and his supporters had more drastic changes to the fabric of Roman society planned—the removal of protectionist barriers to trade being one. Cinna was certain that the changes, though sensible to anyone with a little foresight, could be used to foment dissent and lead to more anarchy. Yes, his day would come, he was sure of it.

There was a knock at his study door. Frowning, he turned towards it; he wasn’t expecting any visitors.

“Yes?” Cinna said impatiently. “What is it?”

The door opened and his steward, Cythegus, walked in quickly; his face was ashen.

“Domine,” the man said, “you have a visitor…”

But the servant never got the chance to announce the visitor’s name, for just then, he strode into the room as if he owned it. And once present, the man needed no introduction. There was no mistaking the short, thinning hair, the hard, shrewd face, and especially those piercing ice-blue eyes.

Caesar.

He was still wearing his leather riding cuirass and kilt, and the glow of perspiration on his skin indicated that he had come to Cinna’s home straight from a long ride. Caesar walked into the room and sat down in the chair on the other side of Cinna’s desk. Behind him entered two more men, both in full legionary armour: Lucius Rutullus Lepidus, commander of the Fourteenth Legion, and his primus pilus, Gnaeus Decumius. Behind them, outside the door, Cinna could discern several formidable-looking lictors, clad in scarlet tunics and bearing the fasces, the long, bundle of wooden rods that were symbols of imperial power. The fasces, ominously, had axes within the bundle, signifying the magistrate presiding over these lictors—obviously Caesar himself—had the ultimate power over life and death. The looks on the faces of all the men were hard and determined.

Lucius Rutullus in particular was glaring at him with his one remaining eye. Cinna realized that it had been several years since he had last set eyes upon Lucius, and the changes were readily apparent. The man standing behind Caesar was now a battle-hardened veteran, a man who had no hesitation about killing an enemy, and had grown quite proficient in that work.

“Well, this is an unexpected pleasure, Caesar,” Cinna said smoothly even as his guts churned. “May I enquire as to the purpose of this visit?”

“This is not a social occasion, Marcus Phillippus Cinna,” Caesar said plainly. “You are under arrest. You’ll be taken to the Lautumiae Prison, there to await trial.”

Cinna’s eyes widened. “On what charge?”

“Sedition and treason,” Caesar told him, his face grim. “Murder, as well—patricide, specifically. The penalty for these crimes, as you well know, is death.” Cinna stared at Caesar blankly for a moment. Then he smiled and laughed. Caesar’s severe expression did not change. “I do not recall making a jest, Marcus Phillippus Cinna,” he said.

“Of course not,” Cinna replied. “Are you really going to try to connect me to Saturninus and the rioting? Come now! Where is your proof?”

“Your friends Saturninus and Glauica are singing like canaries,” Caesar informed him.

“Lies,” Cinna said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“Since it’s obvious that they will be executed as well, they have no reason to lie,” Caesar said. “We also have testimony from servants and neighbours regarding your meetings with them prior to and during the riots. And a very disturbing story from your father’s steward.”

Cinna’s lips pressed together into a grim line. “You’ll never make the charges stick,” he said, then smiled confidently. “I’ll hire the best advocate in Rome to defend me!”

“No you will not,” a clear voice announced from outside the study door.

In walked a smallish middle-aged man with a slender body and a slightly over-sized head. No one made fun of Marcus Tillius Cicero’s physical appearance, however. He may not have had an illustrious military career, but he had proven the sharpness of his mind and his tongue in Rome’s legal courts far too many times for anyone to take him lightly. He looked down his nose at Cinna as though the younger man were something foul he had just scraped off the bottom of his shoe.

“You will not be defended by the best legal advocate in Rome,” Cicero told Cinna. “I will be prosecuting you, not defending you, Marcus Phillippus Cinna! And I plan on making this case one of the highlights of my career!”
Caesar began to smile a little as he watched the smug self-confidence fade from Cinna’s face. “He insisted on handling your prosecution himself,” the Roman leader told Cinna quietly. “Cicero and I may disagree about a great many things, but we are both patriots.”

“Oh, thank you for that, Gaius Julius!” Cicero said, brows rising on his high forehead. “I shall be reminding you of that remarkable admission for years to come!”

“I would be disappointed if you did not, Marcus Tillius,” Caesar said, grinning.

Cinna was speechless. The colour had vanished from his face. Watching him, Lucius could not resist getting in at least one verbal shot. He was certain, after all, that it was Cinna who had sent Saturninus and his mob after Claudia.

“I understand the view from the Tarpeian Rock is quite spectacular,” Lucius remarked.

The Tarpeian Rock was the summit of a high, steep cliff at one end of the Capitoline Hill in the centre of Rome. It overlooked the Forum Romanum--and several needle-sharp rocks directly below the precipice. Being flung from the Tarpeian Rock down to those rocks was a common form of execution, especially for patricians who were convicted of some grievous offence that entailed a sentence of death.

“So I hear,” Caesar said, a grim smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Though no one gets to enjoy it for very long.”

Cinna listened to these verbal exchanges among his adversaries silently and with growing despair. His hands were shaking. He took several heaving breaths; then suddenly his face folded and he broke down in tears. His shaking hands rose to cover his face.

Every other man in the room regarded him in disgust. Caesar rose to go.

“Oh, Jupiter!” the leader of Rome declared as he stood. “Pull yourself together, man! In spite of how repugnant you are, you are still a Roman and a patrician!” But these words only made Cinna’s weeping increase in volume. Caesar raised his hands in resignation. “Gnaeus Decumius, escort this mentula to the Lautumiae.” Then he left the room, Cicero and Lucius following at his heels.

“Now, now, dry those tears, precious,” Decumius said, a nasty grin on his face as he and the lictors advanced upon Cinna. “Do us a favour and try not to soil yourself again.”

[CCRunner]

Chapter Eleven: Noble Men

Part 14 – First Business



As the legions appeared in the empire’s cities, the riots ended. The people re-emerged from their homes where they’d hidden, and the normal routine of daily life resumed. Caesar and Catullus Senior were hailed both for the victory in the Aztec war and for restoring order. Once the Plebeian Assembly and the Senate resumed meeting, they both passed the lex Fides Libertas. All religions were now equal before the law; and once they saw that the world did not end, nor open up and swallow them whole, people began to realize that this was a good thing.

The Fourteenth Legion de-mobilized, the bulk of its members retiring from the service, including Lucius Rutullus Lepidus. Now that he was nearly thirty years of age and had the means to do so, it was time for him to begin a different type of public service than that in Rome’s armed forces. In a few short months he would be entering the Senate, the first step in what he intended to be a long and illustrious political career. That meant he had several matters demanding his attention.

Taking Caesar’s hint, he’d hired Quintus Servilius Caepio the moment the clerk had been released from service himself and had put him in charge of his accounts, especially his new gold mine. With Caepio in charge of his new fortune, Lucius was certain that the books would be kept in proper order, right down to the last denarius. After combing through the records of the formerly Aztec gold mine, Caepio had informed his new employer that he would, within a few years, be one of the richest men in Rome. In fact, the gold mine was already turning a profit before Lucius finished his last military duities.

This was good news for Lucius in many respects. An aspiring politician had to keep up appearances, so some of his newfound wealth had to be spent—or, as Caepio put it, invested—to accrue social and political capital rather than the economic variety. Lucius had therefore purchased a fashionable house on Rome’s Palatine Hill. He also bought a home nearby for his mother, and invested his two younger sisters with handsome dowries, so he knew he’d be needing his new house’s study to not only meet with his clients, but also with his sisters’ suitors.

In addition, his house required servants. Cuicatl had come back to Rome with him, refusing to part ways with the Roman soldier who had saved her from selling her body on the war-torn streets of her home town. He installed her as the maid in his new household. But a maid, reflected Lucius Rutullus, needed a male counterpart, and he had someone in mind.

“Me, sir?” Gnaeus Decumius said, astonished. “But I don’t know the first thing about being a… a… butler!”

“You can learn,” Lucius told him confidently. “How hard can it be, compared to fighting for your life on a battlefield? And I know you’ll run the household with military precision. Right, centurion?”

The former legionary straightened to attention, his gut in, his chest out. “SIR!” He’d been given an order by his commanding officer—for he’d always think of Lucius in that way—and he would do his utmost to carry it out.
Gnaeus Decumius knew, as well, what his first duty had to be. For though Lucius Rutullus had thrown himself full-force into his new life, there was one crucial part of it that he was neglecting.

Thus, on the very first day of his new job, right after Lucius finished breakfast, Gnaeus Decumius greeted him bearing a gleaming white tunic and a toga that Cuicatl had whitened even further by infusing it with chalk. The tunic bore the broad purple stripe of a senator on its right-hand side.

“Time for you to get dressed, sir!” Decumius announced. “Big day today!”

Lucius stared at the toga and especially the tunic in surprise. “I don’t officially become a senator until next month…” he objected.

“Tish! A mere formality, and you need to look your best,” Decumius said as he helped Lucius out of his ordinary tunic and into the white one, then wrapped the toga around his new employer’s tall, muscular form, settling its folds into the crook of his left arm.

Decumius stepped back to admire his handiwork. To look good in a toga, a man had to be tall, lean of hip, and broad of shoulder. Fortunately, Lucius was all three.

“Very distinguished, sir!” the former Centurion said.

“Why is today a big day?” Lucius asked, eyeing his new butler suspiciously.

“Today is a big day,” Decumius said, “because you’re going to see her today. No more putting it off, which is what you’ve been doing. Besides, this place needs a woman’s touch, if I do say so myself. No offense to Cuicatl, mind; the girl’s a lovely singer and an excellent maid, but she can’t decorate worth spit.”

“You should marry that girl when she’s of age,” Lucius said with a grin. The former centurion’s uncharacteristic blush told Lucius that he’d been thinking the same thing.

“Here now, don’t you go changing the subject!” Decumius said. “It’s not about my marriage today, it’s about yours!”

“Gnaeus Decumius…” Lucius started to say, shaking his head.

“No! No more excuses!” Decumius said angrily, walking behind Lucius and giving him a gentle shove between the shoulder blades. “Get moving, soldier! Up and at ‘em!”

Lucius soon found himself being pushed and hectored down his hallway towards his front door. Cuicatl was there, holding the door open and looking at Lucius sternly as Decumius gave him a friendly but firm shove out into the street.

“And don’t come back here until you’ve been to see her!” he said, then closed the door.

Lucius stood in the street, looking around in amused bewilderment. He had, after all, just been kicked out of his own home by his servants—as though he were a hapless character in one of the comedic plays he’d enjoyed as a youth.

“Plautus would have loved this,” he muttered.

Decumius leaned out of one of the front windows. “Come on now sir, get going,” he pleaded. “The worst she can do is say no!” Then he popped back inside.

Lucius took a deep breath, shook his head while smiling ruefully, and set off in the direction of Claudia’s house, which was further up the Palatine Hill than his own. Gnaeus Decumius, he thought, you have several outstanding qualities, but an imagination is not one of them! There are many things far worse that Claudia can do to me than merely saying ‘no’!

As he had a long walk up to her front door, he had time to consider them all. She could slam that same door in his face, accusing him of letting her husband die. Or she could laugh in his face, his miserable wreck of a face, asking why she’d ever hitch her wagon to a battle-scarred, used-up warhorse like him. Or, worst of all, she could simply turn away and quietly but firmly tell him that she never wanted to see him again.

More than once he considered abandoning what he thought must surely be a fool’s errand. She hadn’t remarried. And why should she? A Roman widow, especially a wealthy one such as she, enjoyed a certain amount of freedom and independence that no mere wife or daughter could ever know. Her paterfamilias could suggest that she remarry, but custom dictated that he could no longer force her, not that Claudia’s father, that most Roman of Romans, ever would, or would need to.

They’d been in love when they were mere children, Lucius reflected as he climbed the Palatine. That was years ago. He’d been through a war. She’d been through a marriage, and widowhood. He acknowledged that his feelings hadn’t changed, but had to allow that perhaps hers had.

He passed several people on the street, and their reaction to him didn’t help his mood. He saw them looking at him, heard them whisper behind him as he passed on. It was the eye patch, he thought. That, and the other many scars visible on the few parts of his body not hidden by the tunic and toga—and those, of course, concealed still more.

Even after all he had accomplished, he was still too humble to realize that the people on the street recognized him, and were staring in awe at the greatest hero of the Aztec war; he didn’t realize that they regarded his battle scars as marks of honour, especially that lost eye, for the story of the gallant way in which it had been sacrificed was fast becoming legend. As Catullus Senior had told Caesar, people were adding the cognomen ‘Aztecus’ to his name.

But he knew none of this, would not know it for several days, would not understand it for several months and, as another sign of his humility, would never get used to it. Instead, his thoughts grew darker. What was he, except a malformed monster? And here he was, climbing up a hill to the dwelling of a goddess. For that vision of Claudia as Minerva, so brave and resplendent in her late husband’s helmet, shield, and weaponry as she faced down an angry mob single-handed, had not left him. It had been seared in to his consciousness, and it only served to remind him how high above her he was—and how out of his reach.

Thus, by the time he reached Claudia’s door, he was in an utterly dejected state, having reviewed the principal reasons she had to reject him as a suitor, and knowing there were more besides. So he stood before her door, intimidated once again by the grandness of her house. Even though this was not the one where she had grown up and where her father had so gently broken his heart all those years ago, it was just as grand. The Pulchurii and the Catullii did not lack money, unlike his own family. At least until just recently.

Unexpectedly, at that moment, an aphorism from Confucius entered his mind: The man of virtue makes the difficulty to be overcome his first business, and success only a subsequent consideration. And how difficult, he chided himself, was it to simply knock on a door? Which he promptly raised his hand and did.

The middle-aged manservant who answered a moment later glanced at him, blinked, and bowed respectfully.

“I am…” Lucius began to say.

“Yes, I know,” the man assured him. “This way, sir,” he said, and led Lucius into the atrium, then into a study, which was empty save for an orderly desk and several well-stocked bookshelves.

The servant turned and whispered to a maid, who scurried off after a wide-eyed glance at Lucius. Then the man lit a lamp, bowed, and left him alone in the study.

Lucius glanced at the desk, and noticed the ink in a small bottle upon it, and several quills with freshly-cut nubs; he read the titles of the books, and immediately noticed works by Plautus and Seneca among them. He took a deep breath as memories flooded his mind, of lazy afternoons spent on the shore of a lake, sunlight sparkling on the water, a boy and a girl chatting and laughing without a single care in the world as they read plays to one another. It seemed a lifetime ago, now—more like a dream than something he’d lived through.

He stirred himself from his reverie and looked at some of the other books, recognizing titles by Confucius and his esteemed friend Mencius. He then smiled as he realized that this was her study. It was unusual for a proper Roman woman to have a study of her own, but the fact that Claudia had one did not surprise or scandalize him at all; in fact, he found the idea pleasing, for he had always admired her keen mind as much as her beauty.
He’d lost an eye in the war, but his ears had lost none of their sharpness. He was snooping about in the study for any clue he could glean as to how welcome he would be in her house—and in her heart; at the same time, he kept his ears perked for any audible clues of the same nature. Thus, from across the courtyard, he heard the maid open a door and say nothing more than, ‘He’s here.’

So he was expected. Was that a good thing or a bad thing? He couldn’t decide. He stopped looking around and stood stock still, facing the study door at full attention as though he was still a legionary, standing on a parade ground. He resisted the urge to fidget. A toga did not tolerate fidgeting very well, after all.

A few moments later, the door of the study opened, and the manservant walked in, followed by Claudia. At the sight of her, all his breath left his body. When he’d seen her for the first time in years a few weeks before, looking for all the world like the ancient Roman goddess of war and wisdom, he’d been too distracted—not to mention awed—to see her for who she was. Now she stood before him clad not in armour and weaponry, but in a long, simple dress of bleached wool. He felt no less awestruck than he had before, however.

Gone was the girl he had known; she was a full-grown woman now, and all the more beautiful for it. Her complexion was as unblemished as ever, her skin still creamy and glowing as if lit from within, her auburn hair lustrous. She had not borne any children and her long white dress did not do much to hide the benefit of that to her figure, which was just a little fuller than he remembered, but in all the right places.

“That will be all, Titus,” she said evenly to the servant, her face impassive, every inch the patrician. No hint as to her feelings were betrayed by her placid countenance. The door closed behind her. They were alone.

Their eyes met, but they said nothing. Lucius swallowed hard and fought off a sudden urge to retreat—to mumble some apology and vanish out the door. But he stood his ground. He had to see it through. He drew a breath, urged himself to speak the words he’d rehearsed so often on the voyage home, words that were suddenly so difficult to remember.

Then he saw her eyes shimmer, saw the slightest tremble of her lower lip. A single tear spilled from her right eye. And Lucius, suddenly horrified that he should be the cause of any sorrow on her part, was struck dumb. He could not speak, could not move.

But she moved. In a flash, Claudia threw herself at him, her Roman reserve disappearing in an instant as more tears spilled from those hazel eyes he loved so much. Suddenly she was pressed against him, her arms around his broad shoulders, her face pressed against his, her breasts crushed against his chest. Her body heaved with sobs, and she clung to him as though she were drowning and only he could save her. Instinctively he wrapped his strong arms around her slender body, offering what comfort he could, before he, too, succumbed and was sobbing as well.

They wept for the loss of a good man they had both loved. They wept for the loss of so many years when they were not and could not be together. They wept for the experiences they had been through, for the tender innocence they could never regain. And they wept because they were, finally, united, and because it was so good and so sweet to simply be alive.

Then her lips found his, and the flow of tears began to ebb as they gave in to a passion born so many years before and so long denied. Without being fully aware that they had done so, they left the study and found themselves in her bedroom. She closed the door behind them, and in an instant his toga and tunic were on the floor, her dress next to them. Over the course of the next hour, she kissed every scar that his many battles had left upon his body—even beneath that eye patch, just to prove to him that it didn’t bother her one bit. Then she kissed the parts of his body that weren’t scarred. He returned the favour soon afterwards.

As they lay together some time later, their ardour cooling, naked bodies entwined, she raised her head, propping it up with her hand, and shot him a look of cool patrician anger.

“You’re a fool, Lucius Rutullus,” she said. His good eye opened wide as he looked back at her in shock. It wasn’t the sort of thing a man expected to hear at a moment like that. “Do you honestly think me so naïve that I am unaware of the simple fact that people die in a war?” she said, the subtlest of tremors in her voice. Suddenly ashamed, he turned away from her. She reached out, took gentle but firm hold of his chin, and forced him to look into her eyes again. “And explain to me how, after eight years of active service in Rome’s legions, that you could be ignorant of that fact? Did you really think I’d blame you for his death?”

He didn’t answer her. She sighed. “Well, I didn’t,” she said. “But you blamed yourself. More fool you. I can forgive that foolishness on your part, though. What I find harder to forgive is nearly four years passing without a single word from you! Do you know how many nights I laid in this bed, sleepless, worrying about you, having to rely on others for news about you, to know if you were dead or alive?” Though her voice shook with the frustration and the anger she had felt, her hand caressed his cheek tenderly as she spoke.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “I wanted to write to you… I picked up paper and quill so often, but…” He sighed heavily. “People think I’m a brave man, but I can be a great coward sometimes.”

“You’re no coward,” she said, shaking her head as she stroked his cheek. “You’re just too damned hard on yourself.” A rueful smile appeared on her lovely face. “I wrote you letters, you know. Dozens… no, hundreds of them.”

He frowned at her in surprise. “I never got them!” he said, bewildered.

“Because I never sent them,” she explained. The fingers of her right hand began to idly toy with the dark curls of his hair, twirling them about with her nails and fingertips. “I know you, Lucius. I knew what you were going through. And I knew you had to work it out on your own. I just didn’t think it would take you so long.” Her fingers stopped moving, and she raised her head slightly as she favoured him with a look he could only think to describe as regal. “Beyond that, I am a patrician noblewoman. I do not beg, Lucius Rutullus. Not even for you. You would do well to remember that.”

He stared at her for some time before he recovered the ability to speak. “You take my breath away, Claudia Pulchra.” He paused a moment, then smiled. “My Minerva,” he said.

She blinked in surprise. “Minerva?”

“That how you looked, that day,” he said, grinning. “During the riots. Holding off those curs all by yourself.”

She gasped and then buried her face in the crook of his arm. “Oh, I wish you’d never seen me like that!” she said miserably.

“Why not?” he asked, incredulous. “You looked like a goddess—like Minerva herself. You were magnificent!”

She raised her head. “I was?” she asked. He nodded his head enthusiastically. Still, she frowned, uncharacteristically uncertain of herself. “You didn’t think me… unwomanly?”

His eye opened wide, then gazed down at her naked body. “I could never, in a million years, ever make such an egregious error regarding your gender,” he said with a grin.

She smiled. “I was rather magnificent that day, wasn’t I?” she said brightly, giving her bed-tousled auburn locks a shake.

“You’re magnificent every day,” he said lovingly.

She pecked him on the cheek, the noblewoman retreating, the girl he’d known coming to the fore. “Compliments are good. I’ll have you know that I expect to have a lifetime filled with them.”

“You’ll get that,” he said, with a laugh, then laughed louder still.

“What’s so funny, you fool?” she asked him, smiling broadly.

“With, er, everything else that’s happened,” he said, one eyebrow raised, “I’ve nearly forgotten to fulfill the purpose of my visit.”

Moving with a speed and agility that told Claudia how formidable he must have been on the battlefield, Lucius shifted his body from beneath hers, rose from his reclining position, and then nimbly jumped over her, eliciting a squeal of surprise and a girlish giggle from her in the process. He came to rest on the floor on her side of the bed, where he dropped to one knee and took hold of both her hands in his own as she sat up.

“I love you, Claudia Pulchra,” he said, suddenly very serious. “I love you with all my heart. Will you marry me?”

She tortured him by taking a deep breath, frowning and pursing her lips thoughtfully, and rolling her eyes to look up towards the ceiling. After a moment that seemed like an eternity, she sighed and shrugged her shoulders.

“Well, all right,” she answered in a resigned tone. When she looked down and saw the shocked expression on his face, she broke out into peals of laughter and fell back on the bed.

“Why you little…” he growled. He rose and was on top of her in a flash, reaching for the places where he knew she was ticklish, making her writhe and squeal beneath him.

“I can see you know,” she said breathlessly once he’d relented in his attack, “that you’re in the presence of your new commanding officer.”

He frowned. “How so?”

“Certain parts of you are standing at attention,” she said, moving her hips beneath his.

He smiled hungrily while a low growl rumbled in his chest. He lowered his head, and their lips met yet again.

They were married a month later, the day after he entered the Senate, and it seemed as though all of Rome turned out to watch the ceremony uniting one of the city’s greatest war heroes with one of its greatest beauties. A crowd of thousands followed them to his home, cheering as he carried her over the threshold in the age-old Roman tradition. The crowd stood outside, crooning a few well-worn love songs—including a couple of bawdy, explicit ones, another Roman tradition—before respectfully leaving the couple alone in their new home and in one another’s arms.

He rested there in his marriage bed later that night, with the woman he’d always loved laying upon his chest, a son, unbeknownst to them yet, freshly conceived within her womb. His future assured, his family’s honour and position restored, and his place in the world at long last resolved, Lucius Rutullus Lepidus newly-cognominated Aztecus, for the first time in his life, finally experienced a lingering moment of genuine peace.

[CCRunner]

Chapter Eleven: Noble Men

Epilogue – On Nobility

At nearly that same moment, in the High Priest’s residence at the Kong Miao in Antium, Mencius was pressing quill to paper, putting the finishing touches on what he regarded as his life’s work: a dissertation on the nature of nobility.

The Buddhists have an expression which has always puzzled me. ‘If you meet the Buddha in the road, kill him.” Long have I strained to understand such a strange, even odious notion. But now, after many long years, I believe I finally grasp what they mean.

The Master wrote about the Noble Man, a man who lives up to the term through his deeds, not merely through an accident of birth. But the Noble Man does not exist. He is an ideal to which we should all aspire. But he does not exist in this realm, and for that, we should all be thankful. For the Noble Man, so assured of his nobility as the Master described him, would be worse than his opposite, the petty man; the Noble Man, if he actually existed, would be a monster. And we would be entirely justified in killing him, as the Buddhists urge us.

Fortunately, as I said, the Noble Man does not exist. And yet, it has been my very great honour to meet noble men. Very few, mind you, and I wish their numbers were greater.

What sets them apart, you may ask, from the Noble Man? How are these noble men who do exist among us different from the ideal?

They differ in that they do not think themselves noble. They subject all their actions, even their thoughts and motivations, to unwavering scrutiny. They take particular note of where they fall short of the ideal. But they do not despair, or at least not for long; they resolve to do better, to try harder, to live up to the ideal at the next opportunity, and the one after that. In this regard, their reach forever exceeds their grasp.

The Noble Man gives us an ideal to which we can aspire. The noble man gives us something more precious by far: he gives us the hope that we can achieve that ideal.

Mencius sat back, satisfied. He then turned back to the beginning of the work, and wrote just a few lines more.

Dedicated

to Lucius Rutullus Lepidus Aztecus,

noble man.

[CCRunner]

Chapter Twelve: The Merchant

Part 1: The Pitch

“Next!” Caesar said, with a sigh and more than just a hint of impatience in his voice. Before him, a clerk bowed and scurried out through the door.

“Getting tired, old man?” an amused voice next to him asked.

“You’re one to talk, you old buzzard,” he said, glancing at his Consular colleague, who was seated on his left so that Caesar could look into his colleague’s right eye rather than the dark patch that covered the absent left one.

Lucius Rutullus Lepidus Aztecus grinned. Doing so shifted the lines on his weathered but still-handsome face, which was framed by his steel-grey hair, cut short in tight curls that lay close to his head. “I, for one, find these audiences most rejuvenating,” remarked the aged but still-vital senator. He was consul for an unprecedented fourth time at the distinguished age of seventy. “Not to mention entertaining. Better than a night at the theatre, sometimes!” he said with a laugh.

Caesar grimaced. He reminded himself that this custom, of opening the Consuls’ offices to any and all petitioners on each Friday morning, had been his idea. And while most of those who sought a rare audience with him and whichever senator was his partner on the curule chairs that year either had hare-brained schemes or trumped-up accusations on their minds, every now and then, a worthwhile idea came out of it. Rome’s beautiful and inspiring Hagia Sophia, or at least the basic concept for it, had been one of the results of these meetings with common Romans, so Caesar continued the tradition.

“You know, Caesar,” Lucius continued as they waited for the next petitioner to arrive, “I actually think of all the consular duties, I missed this one the most when I was out of office. Hearing the concerns of common Romans—though I should say that since they have to possess the courage to face the immortal Caesar, they’re somewhat uncommon—is always most instructive.”

“Is that why you keep running for Consul, Princeps Senatus?” Caesar asked, referring to Lucius by another one of the many titles he had acquired, that of the leader of the house; implying, in a teasing tone, that he should be happy to rest on his laurels. But he knew, and was glad, that this man would never think of doing such a thing.

“I do so mainly because Claudia is glad to get me out of the house every now and then,” he said, turning to cast a meaningful glance at Caesar. “She complains that I exhaust her otherwise,” he murmured in a low, confidential tone, a proud smile upon his lined face, and a twinkle gleaming in his solitary eye beneath a waggling brow.

“That’s far more information than I really needed to know, you old lecher!” Caesar said, grinning, making his friend and colleague toss his head back and laugh.

Thus, when the next petitioner walked in, he found two Consuls who were also old friends sharing a joke and evidently in a good—and, he hoped, a receptive—mood.

The consuls sobered quickly and turned their attention to him. The man standing before them looked as though he could have successfully sought a private audience with Rome’s Consuls on his own. He was richly dressed in flowing, brightly dyed robes of mauve and purple. The robes were silk, which was difficult to obtain now that Greece’s war with England had cut off Rome’s supply of the fabric. Even more remarkable were the rich, varied colours of the cloth, since they must have been made using dyes from Greece, and Rome had never had a steady supply of that luxury item from the truculent Greeks. It took money, and a lot of it, to obtain clothing like this.

His hair was dark brown and neatly trimmed, his face clean-shaven, as was the Roman fashion. He was of average height and build. The man’s eyes, however, caught Caesar’s attention even more than his flashy clothing: his blue eyes were shrewd, yet bright and lively, as if lit from some internal fire.



“Greetings, Caesar, Princeps Senatus” the man said, bowing low to each of the Consuls, his arm sweeping out wide, then downwards with more than just a touch of theatricality. “I… am Hanno.”

“Just… Hanno?” Caesar said, his lips beginning to curl back into a grin. If nothing else, the man’s dress and manner promised that the meeting would at least be entertaining.

“Just as all the world knows you as Caesar, though you possess other names,” the man said, straightening, “soon the world will know me by that one name, and it will be enough.”

“I see false modesty is not one of your character flaws,” Lucius remarked, amused. “Please, have a seat… Hanno,” he said, waving to one of two chairs in front of the meeting table, “and tell us what brings you before us today.”

“I have a proposition,” Hanno said once seated, wasting no time, “that will fill Rome’s Treasury to overflowing for generations to come.”

Caesar’s arched brows rose. “Indeed?” he said, cautiously, glancing sideways at Lucius, whom he could see was sceptical but intrigued, like himself. It wasn’t the first time they’d heard such a proposition on a Friday morning. Still, something about the man told them that here might be the one person who could actually pull it off. “Go on,” he said.

“What I propose to do,” Hanno said, his blue eyes alight with enthusiasm, “is to put together a trade mission. Take a few ships loaded with the finest goods Rome has to offer—wine, sugar, furs, spices, wool, leather, even dried bananas and salted beef and pork—and take these goods to the distant continent for trade.”

Lucius blinked in surprise. “Are you sure that’s wise?” he asked, frowning. “There’s a war going on over there, you know.”

“All the more reason to make the trip!” Hanno said, spreading his arms as though this was the most obvious conclusion in the world. “Wars produce shortages, of luxury goods in particular—while their availability reinvigorates the fighting spirit, as I’m sure such formidable military commanders such as yourselves would know.”

Caesar ignored the flattery, but was intrigued by the idea. “Aren’t you worried about winding up in the crossfire?”

Hanno drew himself up proudly. “I am a citizen of Rome!” he declared proudly. “That simple fact, and its declaration, is protection enough in every corner of the globe, thanks to you, Caesar, and to men such as your distinguished colleague here. No one would dare earn the enmity of mighty Rome.”

The two Consuls were warming to the man, as outrageous as his plan sounded. Caesar was silently realizing that in Hanno, he may have found a man who matched his own audaciousness, but in business rather than in war or politics.

“Even so,” Hanno went on, as if sensing a need to tender that impression, “some precautions would be wise. That is why I have come to you. Ships capable of making the ocean crossing—not to mention their crews—are expensive. The government of Rome has several at its disposal.”

“Ah,” Caesar said, now understanding why Hanno had come to him. “So you want, what, one galleon, two? Or more?”

Hanno shook his head and waved his hand dismissively. “Not galleons, Caesar. Caravels.”

“Caravels?” Caesar responded, mildly surprised. “Are you certain?”

“They are the precaution of which I spoke. A mighty galleon, to the Mongols or the Greeks, would be perceived as a ship of war, would it not? And since they are well aware of our bonds of friendship with beleaguered England…”

“Ah, I see the man’s point, Caesar,” Lucius said. “We currently have an open borders agreement with Mongolia…”

“…but they have cancelled just such an agreement in the past, and may do so at any time,” Hanno finished the thought for him. “Capricious, those Mongolians,” Hanno said with a grin and a raised eyebrow. “Without an open borders agreement, entering Mongolian or Greek waters in a heavily-armed ship also capable of carrying troops, such as a galleon, would be perceived as an act of war. A much smaller and lightly-armed caravel, on the other hand, can come and go as it pleases.”

“Indeed,” Caesar said, nodding. He was sharp, this Hanno—he understood not just business, it seemed, but international relations as well. “Just how much gold do you think such a trade mission could generate?”

For the first time during their meeting, Hanno looked somewhat uncomfortable. He glanced about nervously. “No offence, Caesar, but in my experience, the walls have ears.” He took a slip of paper and a quill from the table before him, wrote a figure upon it, and handed the paper to Caesar.

The Roman leader glanced at the figure. His fair brows rose, and he gave a low whistle, then passed it to Lucius, who had a similar reaction. And given the vast wealth of Lucius Rutullus Lepidus Aztecus, owner of most of the gold mines on the continent, that spoke volumes.

“Less my own modest profit, of course,” Hanno hastened to add. “It may take several years to accomplish,” the merchant then cautioned the two men sitting before him. “I may have to travel the length and breadth of the far continent, seeking the best deals for our goods.”

These words put the senses of the two Consuls, both old military men, on full alert. For the first time during their meeting, the full force of Caesar’s shrewd, perceptive stare fell upon Hanno. It took all the will-power the merchant possessed not to wither under that fierce yet icy-cold gaze. After subjecting Hanno to several moments of close, uncomfortable scrutiny, Caesar spoke.

“I insist that you do so,” Caesar said.

“Especially if you gain access to Greece,” Lucius added, his lone eye intense, his voice heavy with meaning.

Hanno nodded, well aware that Roman travellers had never been granted access to Greek lands. Their mercurial ruler, Alexander, had granted an open borders agreement when he first met Rome’s envoys. But before any Romans could explore the foreign nation, Alexander had cancelled the agreement shortly thereafter as Rome pursued closer relations with his northern enemy, England. Thus, the country was shrouded in mystery, just as the Aztec Empire had once been. And here, sitting before Hanno, were the two men most responsible for bringing that former empire into the Roman fold. The implications of what he was being asked to do were obvious, though he knew no mention of that must be uttered outside this room.

“I will, of course, send regular dispatches back to Rome, reporting on my progress,” Hanno assured them.

“Yes, you will,” Caesar said, smiling wolfishly now. “And some of my scribes will show you how to write them so that your messages to me are not understood by prying eyes—Greek, Mongolian, or otherwise.”

“So we have a deal?” Hanno said eagerly.

“No,” Caesar said, rising from his chair and smiling broadly. “You’re going to go get us one. And much more besides.”

[CCRunner]

Chapter Twelve: The Merchant

Part 2: A Passage to Mongolia



A few weeks later, Hanno stood upon the deck of the Mercury, the lead caravel in his trade mission’s convoy. He took a deep breath, and the clean, salty air of the great western ocean—the Mare Occasus—filled his nostrils. He was quite proud of the fact that it had only taken him a couple of days to get his “sea legs”.

That was not true, unfortunately, of everyone in his party.

Hanno turned when he heard light but unsteady footfalls behind him upon the wooden deck boards. A small, delicate figure joined him at the railing, weaving unsteadily as the ship rocked in the waves.

“How did you talk me into this again?” Yukio said tiredly.

Her raven-black hair was pulled back into a severe bun to keep it out of her face. Her skin, which was normally the colour of pale gold, had taken on a greenish hue. Her dark, narrow eyes were sunken and tired, having rapidly lost their usual liveliness within the first few hours at sea.

Hanno gently placed his arm around her slender shoulders and laughed softly. “I believe it started when I asked you to marry me,” he said.

“Maybe I should have listened to my father,” his wife said grumpily. “And married a nice Japanese boy.”

“And miss all this?” Hanno said, waving at the broad expanse of empty ocean before them.

“A whole bunch of water?” Yukio remarked, glancing contemptuously at the source of her torment.

“Exactly,” Hanno countered, “that’s all it is, which is why you shouldn’t let it bother you,” he said with a chuckle and an affectionate squeeze of his wife’s shoulders.

The small, delicate Japanese woman looked up at him and smiled. Even though she’d been suffering from sea-sickness ever since they left Rome several weeks before, she still looked radiantly beautiful to Hanno—never more so than when she smiled.

“You always make me feel better,” she said, beaming at him. “Is there anything that dampens your enthusiasm?”

“Just one thing,” Hanno replied, his handsome features growing quite serious. “The thought of losing you,” he said quietly.

“That will never happen,” his wife replied, turning her face towards his.

They kissed just as the ship hit a rogue wave. They broke their kiss and both had to grasp the railing to keep on their feet. Yukio’s complexion turned a shade greener than it had been a moment before.

“Oh, Ecastor,” she muttered. “I think I’m going to…”

“Use the head?” Hanno said, not unsympathetically. “There’s one over there…” he added, pointing, but his wife was already running in that direction.

[CCRunner]

Chapter Twelve: The Merchant

Part 3: Bearing Gifts for the Greeks

“How long do you think this will take?” Yukio asked.

“As long as it takes,” Hanno replied in that calm, reasonable, cheerful tone that often made her want to scream at him.

“Do you ever get upset?” she asked instead.

“The way Genghis Khan looked at you upset me,” he muttered.

Yukio shivered. “I’d rather you didn’t mention that again,” she said, and her husband tenderly put an arm around her shoulder and squeezed her close to him.

The Greek longbowmen guarding the border with Mongolia didn’t seem to know what to do with them, and the language barrier didn’t help. The lack of on-going contact between Greece and Rome meant that few people of either nation spoke the other’s language. So Hanno and his caravan were held up in a ramshackle inn at the border, waiting to see if they could cross it. They’d been waiting there for three days. They’d had to unpack every single camel, and there were dozens of the huge beasts, and open every box and crate for inspection—twice. And still they waited.

Hanno and Yukio walked out of the inn and proceeded to the Greek fort, really little more than a roadside hut housing a half-dozen guards. The caravan had caused the usually-bored guards no end of initial excitement, but now the novelty had worn off and the men had gone back to their dice game while they awaited word from Athens.

As the Roman couple approached the guard house, they noticed a horse trotting down the road that led to Athens. As the horse came closer, they could see a short, squat man sitting atop it. His face was covered by a full black beard with grey streaks, and a long, stained aquamarine robe covered his rotund body. He drew his horse up beside Hanno and Yukio, and as they watched, he dismounted and bowed to them in greeting.

“Hola!” he cried, and his face broke into a huge smile. “You Roman, yes?” he asked in broken Latin.

“Yes,” Hanno replied. “I am Hanno, of Rome.”

“Ah! Is wonderful!” the Greek responded, his smile broadening. “I Zorba. Welcome to Hellas, or Greece, you call it.”

Zorba suddenly stepped forward, threw his arms around Hanno in an affectionate bear-hug, and stood on tip-toe in order to kiss the surprised merchant on both cheeks. He then turned to Yukio and glanced at Hanno expectedly.

“Ah, this is my wife, Yukio…”

“Ah! Wife! Wonderful wonderful. Very pretty!” He said, and Yukio, giggling like a schoolgirl, received the same hug and kisses of greeting, though Zorba did not have to stand on his toes to reach the cheeks of the diminutive Japanese woman. He stepped back from her, eyeing her with admiration, but in a pleasant way that was utterly unlike the leer that Genghis Khan had subjected her to. “Very pretty!” Zorba said again, nodding. He turned to Hanno. “You lucky man! Me? Not lucky. My wife… AHAHAHAH!!” He exclaimed, his eyes widening and body trembling to indicate that his wife was a fearsome creature indeed.

Hanno and Yukio were both smiling broadly. They were warming to this effusive Greek quickly.

“Are you an official of Alexander’s court?” Hanno asked him.

Zorba frowned and shook his head. “Me? Me no official anything. I am… how you say… I buy, I sell…”

“You’re a merchant, like me?” Hanno said.

“Yes! Merchant! Yes yes yes! Merchant. Merchant merchant merchant…” Zorba exclaimed, delighted with his new Latin word. “You come with me. I talk guards, then we cross border. Go Athens. Alexander want to meet you!”
“Really?” Yukio asked. “Alexander sent you?”

“Oh yes, pretty lady!” Zorba said. “Alexander send me here, send me there, Alexander send poor Zorba everywhere.” And the short, rotund Greek mockingly wiped the sweat off of his supposedly-beleaguered brow, making Yukio giggle again.

“But you’re not a court official,” Hanno said.

Zorba smiled at him and winked. “Is no fun being official, no? Is more fun to be getting things you not supposed to get. Hard if you official. Easy if you not.”

“Lucrative as well,” Hanno said, smiling. Zorba frowned, clearly not understanding the word. Hanno raised one hand and rubbed his thumb and forefinger together.

At this gesture, Zorba pointed, then smiled and laughed. He reached up and slapped Hanno’s shoulder. “Yes yes yes!” he declared. “You and me, we brothers!” Again, he threw his arms around Hanno and kissed each of the Roman’s cheeks. “Now you come, we talk to stupid guards, then we go.”
Still smiling, Hanno and Yukio followed their new Greek friend to the guard house.

***



“Welcome to Athens,” Alexander said, smiling, greeting Hanno and his wife with a broad smile and a warm handshake.

The immortal leader of Greece was a small man; Yukio found herself able to look directly into his eyes without tilting her head, an unusual experience for the diminutive Japanese woman. He was, nevertheless, powerfully built, with broad shoulders, a barrel-like chest, and strong legs, visible beneath his tunic, his dress very similar to a Roman’s, save for the lack of a toga. His thick, medium brown hair framed a handsome but hardened face; here, Hanno realized, was a man more comfortable on a training ground or battlefield than in a palace.

Yet a palace is where they found themselves, a handsome building of marble columns and floors. Alexander sat down behind a large oak desk, gesturing for the merchant and his wife to chairs on the opposite side.

“It is a rare delight for us to greet Romans here in our kingdom,” Alexander commented.

“In sincerely hope, your majesty, that our visit will signify a change to the historic estrangement of our two peoples,” Hanno said smoothly.

“Well,” Alexander said, “if Rome was to shift away from its unwise alliance with the English, that would be possible.”

“Unfortunately, your highness, I am not in a position to change or comment on diplomatic policy,” Hanno said. “I am merely a humble merchant, selling my wares where I can.”

Alexander laughed. “You may be humble, but as I understand it, what you carry is anything but! Wine, sugar, wool, furs… a most intriguing collection of goods.”

“I am glad you think so, your highness.”

Alexander waved his hand. “Please. I may be an immortal and the ruler of a great civilization, but in my heart, I am a simple soldier. My men call me Alexander. I insist you do the same.”

“If you insist… Alexander.”

The ruler of Greece smiled. “I do. And, also like a simple soldier, I do not like beating around the bush. You have goods to sell; you’re interested in my price. Ptolemy?” he said, looking over his shoulder at one of his chief advisors, an older man, stocky but still vital, obviously a former soldier himself.

“Our offer,” Ptolemy said, and handed Hanno a scroll.



The merchant unravelled it and glanced at the figure. One of his brows raised. It was the exact same amount that Genghis Khan had offered. Had they collaborated? Or was it purely a coincidence? In many ways, it didn’t matter.

“A handsome sum,” he said. “Once I have all the offers, it will definitely be considered.”

Alexander frowned. “What do you mean, ‘all the offers’?” he asked.

“I still have yet to visit your neighbour to the north.” Hanno replied.

Alexander suddenly looked as if he’d bitten into something sour. For a very tense moment, he glowered at Hanno, but the merchant held steadily beneath that withering gaze. Finally, Alexander smiled and laughed softly.

“Do you really think you’ll get a better deal from the wicked witch of the north?” he asked, an amused tone in his voice that sounded forced.

Hanno shrugged. “That is the deal I made with Caesar in exchange for the loan of Rome’s ships: seek the best price from all the potential customers on the continent.”

“Our border with England is closed because of recent hostilities,” Alexander said flatly.

“I understand,” Hanno responded. “However, my party is neither Greek nor English. Surely we could be allowed passage…?”

“That could be difficult,” Alexander said.

Hanno shrugged yet again and decided to call Alexander’s bluff. “Very well. I’ll just send to Ning-Hsia for the caravels…”

Alexander raised one hand. “I said difficult”, he interjected, “not impossible.”

“I am sure Rome will appreciate any assistance you can offer,” Hanno said as he watched the Greek leader’s jaw flexing. “In fact, Caesar may have anticipated this. In any case, he wanted me to offer you this gift from the Senate and the People of Rome.”

Hanno waved a beckoning hand above his shoulder. One of his assistants carried forward three large, leather-bound books which he placed upon Alexander’s desk. The Greek leader eyed the books curiously, then drew one towards him and opened it, reading the title in Latin.

“The Conquest of the Aztec Empire, by Gaius Julius Caesar,” he read aloud, then inhaled deeply. A quick glance at the other two volumes’ spines indicated that they dealt with the Japanese and Spanish campaigns. He flipped through several pages of prose and several maps. “I came, I saw, I conquered,” Alexander read, his voice barely more audible than a whisper. He was then silent for a very long time.

“Your majesty…?” Hanno prompted him.

“Hmmm?” Alexander said, raising his eyes from the book. “Ah, yes. I suppose you’ll want to head north to that accursed excuse for a civilization as soon as possible. Very well then. Zorba will escort you to the border. I hope you’ll keep our offer in mind.”

“Of course, your majesty.”

“And do thank Caesar for the books, when next you see him.”

“I shall,” Hanno said. He bowed as he rose to leave, his wife curtseying.

Once they had gone, every muscle in Alexander’s body tensed, and his face grew livid. He lifted the three heavy books and appeared ready to throw them across the room. Then he seemed to think better of it and dropped them to his desk. He turned and roared in anger and frustration.

“IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ME!!” he yelled to the men around him. He slammed his fists down hard upon the top of his desk several times. “CAESAR SHOULD BE THE ONE JEALOUS OF ME!!” This was followed by several blasphemous oaths and more fist-slamming.

His lieutenants watched him, impassive, apparently used to these occasional outbursts of temper. They patiently waited for the storm to pass.
After several minutes, it seemed to do so. Alexander stood, his chest heaving, his hands flat on his desk as he leaned over it.

“Why?” he said quietly. “Why are we so afraid of them?”

His closest friend, a handsome young man named Hephaestion, stepped forward and gently placed a hand on his shoulder.

“Two reasons, Alexander,” he said. “Galleons and Legions.”

Alexander nodded. He gestured towards the books.

“He’s rubbing my nose in it,” he said, his voice quavering. “He’s conquered his continent. He’ll be coming for ours.”

“When he does,” Hephaestion assured him, “we’ll be ready. You’ll be ready. Read his books, Alexander. Study him. It’s the only way you’ll be prepared to face him.” Hephaestion laughed and shook his head. “The fool. In sending you these accounts of his campaigns, he’s given you the very means you need to destroy him!”

Alexander shook his head sadly. “No, my friend. You do not understand. Men like Caesar and I… we measure ourselves against those who oppose us. He wants me to be ready for him. He believes that if he then defeats me, the glory will be all the greater.” Hephaestion’s eyes opened wide as he stared at his friend and leader in shock. Alexander turned and smiled at him. “But don’t worry, my friend. We have time. We’ll be ready. I will read his damn books. I will be ready for him. But first…”

Alexander was then silent and still for several moments.

“But first…?” Hephaestion prompted him.

“But first…” Alexander said thoughtfully, then paused. “But first, send a message to Mongolia. I wish to seek an audience with Khan…”

[CCRunner]

Princes 15 - Scipio's Spy

Part 8 (Conclusion)




“Remind me again,” General Gaius Rutullus Lepidus said in a gruff undertone, “why I’m not having this man court martialed, flogged, and hung? And not necessarily in that order?”

Beside him, Major Scaurus shrugged and idly stroked one of his drooping moustaches with one finger.

“Less paperwork, sir,” the Major said quietly, “and fewer, ah, inconvenient questions raised back home.”

“He disobeyed an order,” Lepidus growled.

“Strictly speaking, sir, and begging your pardon, he didn’t,” Scaurus responded, causing his General to suddenly turn and bestow a baleful glare upon him. Scaurus didn’t even flinch; he was used to the General’s moods. “You never expressly forbade him from attempting a rescue. I was there, if you recall. Sir.”

Lepidus saw the corners of the Major’s lips twitch upwards, just for a moment. “And you would have testified as much at his trial, I suppose,” he said acidly.

“I’d be honour-bound, as an officer and a gentleman, to tell the truth, sir!” Major Scaurus said with no small amount of feigned innocence.

He didn’t say, of course, that he was quite capable of lying convincingly when it suited his or the General’s purposes, and had done so too many times in the past to keep count. He didn’t have to. Nor did he have to say the unspoken message he was sending his General: This man may be useful; let’s keep him around, shall we?

General Lepidus made a noise that sounded like a resigned grunt, then gave a curt nod. “Let’s get this damned nonsense over with, then,” he said.

Major Scaurus nodded to a tall Sergeant-Major standing nearby; the man nodded back and looked out across the Roman troops who were assembled and standing at parade rest on the makeshift assembly field just outside of Mycenian’s city walls. A few hundred yards away to the north, the breach in those walls that the Roman’s cannon had opened was plainly visible. Rubble still littered the glacis at the base of the wall, but the dead bodies and body parts of Mongolians and Romans alike had been removed. Blood stains were still visible on the stone and the trampled ground, but a rain last night had shown that those would eventually be washed away. The memories would take longer to fade.

“Ten-SHUN!” the Sergeant-Major shouted, and the distinct sound of several hundred men moving their feet in unison echoed off of the high stone wall.

Major Scaurus then turned his head slightly and nodded at the tall, sandy-haired rifleman standing at attention a few feet in front of himself and the General. Scipio looked quite splendid, as he well should, Scaurus thought, since he and his other adventurers had all been issued new uniforms. The old ones… Scaurus couldn’t help shuddering at the thought. He’d made the mistake of ordering Scipio and his men report to the General as soon as they reappeared. Some unlucky privates, who’d been caught sleeping while on picket duty, were, at this very moment, scrubbing away at the hardwood floor in the General’s office to try to remove the stench.

Scipio marched forward and came to stand at attention directly in front of the General. He respectfully did not make eye contact, instead staring at an indiscriminate stone in the city wall behind and above Lepidus’ head.

“Lieutenant Marcus Scipio,” General Lepidus said, not bothering to disguise his distaste, “for outstanding gallantry and… initiative in enemy territory, and for inflicting debilitating wounds upon the enemy, the Senate and the People of Rome hereby award you the hasta pura.”

The hasta pura had, in ancient times, taken the form of a ceremonial spear, made out of silver. Now it took the form of a small silver shield, a stylized version of the rectangular convex ones that the Legions used to carry, with two crossed spears in front of it, hanging from a purple and gold ribbon—a medal to be worn on the chest of its recipient’s dress uniform.

“You still reek of the sewer, Scipio,” Lepidus muttered pointedly as he pinned the medal upon Scipio’s uniform, directly above his heart.

“That’s the gutter, sir,” Scipio replied. “I was born there. No amount of washing will get rid of it.”

General Lepidus glanced at Scipio’s impassive face, then made a noise that Scipio generously supposed was an amused grunt. The commander of Rome’s army in Mongolia then took a step back and saluted; a heartbeat later, as custom dictated, Scipio followed suit. Normally the lower-ranking man saluted first, but Roman tradition held that the recipient of a military decoration received, just this once, the additional honour of having his commanding officer salute him first.

“Dismissed,” the General said, and the order was passed along.

A few moments later, most of the soldiers were heading back to their barracks or assigned posts. Many paused to give Scipio their congratulations, though not without the odd pointed remark about how he’d won his decoration; the story of his escape through the sewers was becoming legendary, and as a result, the usual scatological humour of soldiers everywhere was on full display.

“First they made you an officer, now they’re pinning medals on your chest—and for what? Crawling through a sewer! What is this army coming to, sir?” Sergeant Necalli remarked as he walked alongside Scipio, heading back into Mycenian and their billet.

“Damned if I know,” Scipio said with a shrug. “I could have sworn the lot of us were going to be up on charges.”

They were heading back to pack their kits; word had come down, they were on the march tomorrow. Officially, it was a secret, but one of the worst-kept ones in the history of the Roman army. The Mongolian city of New Serai was already being bombarded by Roman frigates. The army would march the few hundred miles that separated the city from Mycenian and tear the place open like a rotten piece of fruit.




“There are two things in this world that will drive a man insane if he attempts to figure out their logic: the army, and women,” Necalli said. He stopped walking to look to his right, over Scipio’s shoulder. “Speaking of the latter…”

Scipio glanced curiously at his Sergeant, then turned to follow his gaze. There, standing just inside the city gate, was Larentia. She looked much improved, Scipio was pleased to note, from when he’d seen her last. Her black eye was healing, as was her split lip. Her raven-black hair was cleaned and combed, framing her face. She wore a long blue woollen dress, belted at the waist, with a white shirt beneath it, a plain, traditional Mongolian ensemble that nevertheless looked good on her slender frame.

“I’ll…” Scipio began to say.

“Catch up with me at our billet?” Necalli said with a knowing grin. The big Aztec gave his commanding officer a friendly pat on the back and marched off.

“Hello, Larentia,” Scipio said as he approached her. Roman soldiers and Mongolians continued to walk past them, out of and in through the city gate.

She shook her head. “My name is Nara,” she told him. “Larentia is a Greek name. Part of the code,” she said with a shrug.

“Nara,” Scipio said. “It’s pretty,” he told her, speaking softly so only she could hear.

“I didn’t thank you properly,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone. “For rescuing me.”

Scipio shrugged and then grinned. “It wasn’t much of a rescue,” he said. “You said so yourself.”

Nara’s grin reflected his own. “True. But here I am. So, thank you.”

Scipio nodded. “It was my pleasure, lass.”

Nara frowned then, and regarded him intently. “I also wanted to ask you… why? You risked so much. Why did you do it?”

Scipio returned her gaze and his mind whirled with thoughts and memories. He thought of his mother, struggling to raise him without a husband to help, taking any odd job she could while trying to instil some sense of right and wrong in the young hellion who was her only child. He thought of the first neighbourhood girl he’d loved, a small, frail creature who’d taken her own life rather than continue to suffer the perverse attentions forced upon her by her own father.

And he remembered the girl who had worked at the tavern, a place so small and dingy it didn’t even rate a name, but she’d made the place worth visiting, with her hair that was gold like summer barley and her eyes as blue as cornflowers. She worked there because she’d married the tavern’s owner, a surly man who’d inherited the tavern from his father but thought he deserved better in life. He took his frustrations out on her; every time Scipio came in, she was sporting a new bruise somewhere. So he’d confronted the man, who’d told him to mind his own business, and things went downhill from there. It all ended with a knife being drawn and a man dead and the girl with the gold hair and the blue eyes screaming because even if he’d been a brutal thug, the dead man had been her husband.

The magistrate had given Scipio a choice: hang or sign up with the army, to fight and probably die for Rome half a world away. Scipio had decided to take his chances with the Mongolians rather than the hangman.

He thought about all these things, but he did not speak of them, because he never did. Life in the stews of Rome had taught him that one lesson better than all the others: never, ever show vulnerability. Not to anyone.

So instead, he shrugged again, and simply said, “I don’t know.” He shook his head. Nara was still watching him expectantly. Scipio sighed. “I don’t… I don’t like to see women suffer, is all. Life’s hard enough, isn’t it?”

Nara watched him silently a moment longer, then nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, it is.”

An awkward but nevertheless enjoyable silence settled over them, just for a moment.

“I’m leaving tonight,” Nara said abruptly, then said nothing more.

“Where are you going?” Scipio asked when she did not elaborate.

A pitying smile appeared on Nara’s lips. “You know I can’t tell you that,” she said.

Scipio’s jaw clenched, and his lips pressed together into a grim line. Her answer spoke volumes. So she was heading off, deeper into Mongolia and into danger, spying for Rome again. They were at war, after all, and that took precedence over everything.

“Right, so this is goodbye, then,” Scipio said evenly. “Take care of yourself, will you, lass?”

“You too,” Nara said.

Scipio favoured her with a grim smile and a curt nod. He turned to go, but then stopped when he felt her hand upon his arm.

“Scipio,” she said.

“Marcus,” he corrected her.

She nodded. “You’re a good man, Marcus,” she told him, then went up on her tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. It was the first time Scipio had seen her do anything that resembled a girlish gesture, and it shocked him to silence. “Promise me something?” she said.

“Anything,” Scipio replied, and he meant it.

“When this is all over,” Nara said, “come and find me, will you?”

Scipio smiled. “I just might do that,” he said. “If I’m still alive,” he added with a soldier’s typically dismissive fatalism.

“You will be,” Nara told him with a smile. “You’re a survivor.”

“Am I now?” Scipio said, still smiling.

“It takes one to know one,” Nara said. She was grinning at him, and despite her cut lip and her swollen right eye, Scipio thought he’d never seen a more beautiful woman in his life.

She reached out and caressed his arm by lightly running her fingertips down his sleeve, then she squeezed his hand for the briefest of moments, far too brief for Scipio’s liking, but he’d resigned himself, long ago, to taking what he could get. Then she released his hand and turned away. Without a look back, she walked off into the crowd. He watched her go until she vanished into the multitude, then watched where he’d last seen her a moment longer. And he promised himself that he would survive, and that he would find her again, one day when her homeland was at peace, even if was an enforced peace beneath a Roman flag. It would not happen for some time, and he had a long way to march and many battles to fight before then, but he made himself the promise nonetheless. Because he’d rescued her, he’d given her life back to her, and she was his.

She was Scipio’s spy.

[CCRunner]

Chapter 16 – Scipio's Sabre

Part 2

Colonel Subotai stood on the parapet of New Serai’s high stone walls and glanced up at the sky. It was still the rainy season, but it was merely overcast today; the heavy grey clouds were only slightly less dark than the steel of the heavy Roman cannon that were just visible in the distance as they slowly rolled into position.



The city was doomed, that much he knew; the Great Khan had refused to be distracted from his efforts to conquer England to reassign troops to defend the homeland. The Romans would take the city with their usual ruthless efficiency, aided by those horrific, booming cannon they used to such great and deadly effect.

But he would give them a fight. He’d already blooded them; the Mongolian cavalry commander took some small satisfaction from that. Not much satisfaction though, and not as much as he’d hoped for when he’d led his best cavalry troops out of the city four days before. He’d found a perfect place to ambush the Roman column, where the road from Ning-Hsia to New Serai passed directly beneath a hill with a long, smooth slope, perfect for a cavalry charge. He hadn’t possessed sufficient numbers to smash the column completely, of course, but he’d expected to wipe out at least one Legion, possibly more. By rights, he should have. The ambush had worked perfectly. The Romans had been caught by surprise and unprepared; their usually-formidable infantry squares had been smashed asunder.

But they’d rallied. Some had fled, but most had stood and fought. They were accomplished soldiers, Subotai had to admit. He particularly remembered that tall, sandy-haired rifleman he should have, by rights, decapitated with a single blow from his sabre. He’d targeted the man because he’d been rallying the Roman troops, and they had, in turn, inflicted an unexpected and surprising number of casualties on his horses and men.

Subotai grunted in irritation at the memory. It was the first sound he’d made since he’d climbed to the top of the wall. His aides, standing nearby, knew better than to disturb the Colonel, however.

Infantry were supposed to quail at the very sight of cavalry; if their defensive formations broke apart, they were supposed to run like rabbits. Instead, the Romans had stood their ground, firing their rifles, attacking the horses and riders with their bayonets, even dragging the men out of their saddles!

Yes, he admired them; no wonder they’d conquered their own continent and now seemed destined to conquer another. But he hated them too. He was, of course, a Mongolian—and a patriot.

Now they’d come to his city, the city where he’d been born and raised, the city whose streets had been his playground, and whose surrounding fields had been his training ground. To the Romans, it was just another city, just another siege, just another stepping stone on their path to world conquest; to him, it was home. They’d take her, his city, but not without a price. He expected to die in the process, but he’d take many, many Romans to hell with him—that big, sandy-haired, hard-faced rifleman among them. They’d meet again; Subotai knew it in his bones, and this time it would end as it should when cavalry and infantry clash.

A sound like a single clap of thunder, but lower and sharper, echoed off the walls of the city and the buildings behind them. Subotai watched as a cannonball bounced harmlessly off the grass-covered glacis below the high stone walls.

“That didn’t take them long,” one of his aides remarked grimly.

Subotai nodded. “They’ll find the range before too long. For all the good it will do them.”

His aides laughed softly at that. New Serai’s walls were high and thick and solid, made of solid granite. Though they’d been built centuries before, they were kept in excellent condition; a coastal city on a continent shared with the Greeks and the English couldn’t take chances. It would take the Romans days, maybe even weeks to carve out a breach in the high, thick walls. The city gates were huge, made of solid oak faced with thick sheets of cast iron, and looked out over the lowest-lying terrain around the city, where the cannons would have the hardest time shooting at them. And New Serai’s seaward-facing walls were just as formidable. The Romans would be sitting outside in the cold and wet for some time. They’d shiver on the cold ground or in makeshift tents while the Mongolians were comfortable in their homes, warmed by burning the massive amounts of wood that had been chopped out of the nearest forests in anticipation of this siege.

Subotai frowned and grunted, reminding himself that it was not wise to underestimate one’s enemy. Would waiting in the rain make the Romans weary and demoralized, or would it make them angry and determined? He couldn’t allow his own men to get soft, especially since they might not have to fight the Romans for weeks.

“Order an assembly,” he said to one of his aides. “The entire garrison. Infantry, cavalry, artillery—everyone in the square in one hour. Tell the men to be ready for full drills.”

“Yes, Colonel,” the aide responded sharply, then turned and left. Subotai noticed the subtle grin on the man’s face. He clung to hope, as many in the city did, that the Romans could be stymied, that they’d turn away. Subotai knew better, but if the illusion meant that his men fought harder and killed more Romans, so much the better. Perhaps if the Romans won enough pyrrhic victories, they’d decide that the price of conquering Mongolia was too high, and they’d return home in their frigates and galleons and stay on their own continent where they belonged.

Yes, the Romans would pay dearly for New Serai, Subotai told himself; they’d curse the name of this place down through the ages. As for the Mongolians, songs would be sung about Colonel Subotai’s last stand. He was certainly doing everything in his power to ensure it. The Great Khan would be proud.

* * *

Nara waited in the shadow of a recessed doorway and silently cursed her own efficiency.

It hadn’t been that hard to obtain employment in the home of Major Hakuho, Colonel Subotai’s quartermaster. Many people, women in particular, had fled the city when Ning-Hsia fell. Domestics were, therefore, hard to come by. Then she had made herself indispensible to the fat old man, segueing from mopping floors to demonstrating a talent for numbers that meant she was, before long, putting the regimental books in order (probably for the first time ever). Hakuho blessed her and congratulated himself on finding such a jewel, even if he sometimes regretted that his age and girth meant he could no longer take advantage of all the qualities that the attractive young woman had to offer. Nara tolerated the occasional leer or pinch in exchange for ready access to detailed information regarding the city, its supplies, and its defenders. And she had to admit, she had a talent for organization and numbers.

But maybe if she didn’t, the city wouldn’t now be so well-supplied, and then maybe the sentry strolling down the street wouldn’t be so intolerably fat and slow. She silently urged him to move along, trying to add the power of her own mind to whatever kept the man’s chubby legs moving. She had an appointment to keep, after all.

Eventually, the rotund guard managed to amble past her and around the corner of a low stone building—without noticing her in the doorway, even though it was still daylight, leaving her both critical of yet thankful for his unsuitability to his assigned task. The narrow, cobble-stoned street was now abandoned, save for Nara. She silently strode across the lane, then past several doors until she came to the one she was after. She eased it open and stepped inside.

The doorway opened into a stairwell, which she started to climb. The building itself had the desirable features, for her purposes, of being little-used, relatively tall—six storeys in total—and also being right next to New Serai’s wall. Nara reached the stop of the stairs then settled in next to a window to wait.

She didn’t have to wait long; she heard a bell pealing in the distance at the nearest Hindu shrine, tolling the hour to the faithful. Nara had the small lamp she’d carried in a cloth bundle under her arm lit before the echo died away. The lamp was unusual in that its light could be completely concealed by brass shades; each one could be easily lifted to reveal the light and thereby point it in a particular direction. Hide and reveal the light in a predetermined sequence, and one could use it to communicate. As Nara was now doing.

If she was caught, of course, she’d be killed as a traitor and a spy. Well, that was what she was, so she had girded herself mentally and emotionally for that possibility. The Khan had taken the life of her mother and father; perhaps it would be appropriate, she thought, if he took hers as well. But not before she hurt him back as much, if not more, than he’d hurt her. Nara took every precaution to avoid capture, yet she was resigned to the likelihood that sooner or later, her luck would run out.

Or at least she had been. Before Mycenian.

It had seemed then that her luck had indeed run out early, just after that Mongolian city had fallen to the invading Romans, the first to do so. One of the local resistance cells had discovered and captured her, then had tortured her to discover what information she’d conveyed to the enemy. Day by day, hour by hour, they had sapped what little strength she had left. It was a waiting game, with her merciless captors holding all the cards. Sooner or later she would break and tell them everything. Then she would be disposed of.

But before that happened, against all sense, reason, and expectation, she’d been rescued.

As she descended the stairs, her mission for today accomplished, she smiled at the memory, shaking her head as she remembered her unlikely saviour. Lieutenant Marcus Scipio. Sometimes it bothered her, how often she found herself thinking about him. Sometimes she hated him; here she’s been prepared to die, and he’d gone and given her something to live for. Damn him. She didn’t think she could fall for a soldier, and a soldier he was, to the core: simple, tactless, uncouth; reckless and foolhardy to boot. But he had a good heart... and he was all man. What more could a girl want?

To live to see him again, for one thing, she silently answered her unspoken query.

So as she opened the door to go back out into the street, she reminded herself to focus on the task at hand. She reflected, as she made her way down the quiet street, that she might have her wish soon. She might have a chance to see Marcus, assuming that he was indeed camped outside the city walls with the other Romans, and sooner than anyone else supposed. Provided the Romans were able to properly use the information that she’d just sent them.

Because Nara knew there was another way into the city. And now the Romans did as well.

* * *

“Thank you, Captain,” Major Scaurus said pleasantly as he was handed the note, which was sealed with wax. He placed it upon his desk as if it was of no great import and waited until the Captain left the tent.

Once the Captain had gone, Scaurus picked up the letter and tore off the seal. The Captain himself had been the only one to witness and transcribe the message. Even then, it was in a code only the Major understood, because he had created it. No, that wasn’t entirely accurate: one other person understood it, the young Mongolian woman whom Scaurus had taught the cipher.

“Now then, my dear Nara,” Scaurus muttered to himself as he decoded the message. “What bright news do you bring me on such a dreary day?”

A moment later, a grin appeared on the Major’s lips, beneath his long moustaches. Shortly after that, the grin broadened into a smile.

Scaurus lit the sheet of paper in the flame of the lamp that illuminated his desk, then left it to burn on a plate while he sat back, lips pursed as he thought and planned. At last, he rose from his chair and went to see General Rutullus.

“Sir,” Scaurus said once he was alone in the command tent with his General.

“Major,” the General said with a curt nod, setting down a supply report to give his chief intelligence officer his full attention. Scaurus noticed that the close-shorn auburn locks appeared shot through with a little more grey of late.

Neither man flinched as a nearby cannon went off, followed by a distant, muffled thud as its payload impacted—rather ineffectually—against the thick city walls. After the sound faded, however, the General sighed heavily.

“We’ll be here until doomsday at the rate my esteemed engineers and artillery commanders are proceeding,” General Rutullus said gloomily. “If you’ve come to tell me how low morale is, save your breath. I’ve been told as much several times over.”

“Well, speaking for myself, sir, my own morale is excellent—markedly improved, in fact,” Scaurus said as his General cocked one sardonic brow in response. “You see, sir, I just received the most interesting little message from a young lady-friend of mine.”

“Why would I be interested in your peccadilloes, Major?” the General asked gruffly.

“Because you’re acquainted with the young lady as well, sir,” Scaurus replied good-naturedly. “You may recall being formally introduced to her at Mycenian?”

Rutullus blinked. “Nara?”

“None other, sir,”

Rutullus’s eyes narrowed shrewdly. “You have something, Major. Tell me what it is.”

Scaurus told him.

The General propped his elbow upon his table and rested his chin in his hand. “It’s risky,” he said.

“My father, God rest his soul, sir, always said, if war wasn’t risky, we’d let the women and children fight it, wouldn’t we?”

“You’ll need the right man to run such an operation,” Rutullus said. “Someone who’s… what’s the word… hungry. And, dare I say it, reckless. Not to mention…”

“…expendable?” Scaurus prompted him. Rutullus eyed him sharply; Scaurus pretended not to notice. “I think I have just the man, sir.”

“Very well,” the General said. “I leave it in your capable hands, Major.”

“I’m honoured by your faith and trust, sir,” Scaurus said.

“Don’t get used to it,” Rutullus muttered as Scaurus turned and left, well aware that the Major had heard him.

* * *

As the light of day—such as it was under the gloomy skies—faded, Scipio and his men watched desultorily as the last few cannonballs fired that day bounced harmlessly off of New Serai’s thick stone walls.

“Bloody hell,” Silo remarked, unknowingly echoing his own General’s sentiments not long before, “we’ll all be in our graves of old age before they get us in there!”

“I thought that last shot caused a little damage,” Corporal Lallena said brightly.

“Aye, to the cannonball,” Sergeant Necalli remarked with a grin.

Scipio and the others laughed quietly at the remark. The hard-featured Lieutenant reflected that it was good to hear a little laughter from the men, even if it was subdued. After the news of the fall of London, the long, soggy march to New Serai, the loss of several of their comrades in the cavalry attack—Private Li especially—and now what appeared would be a long, drawn out siege of New Serai, the spirit of his unit was lower than he’d ever seen it.

There were rumblings among the men, as they wondered just what they hell they were doing on Mongolia anyway. The Mongolians certainly didn’t want them there, and it didn’t appear they were doing the English any good, so what was the point? It wasn’t much more than the usual grumbling soldiers indulge in—yet. But standing around watching their cannon ineffectually attempting to open a breach in the city’s formidable walls wasn’t exactly helping.

“Well, well, now here’s a fine sight,” a cultured voice said from behind them. “Some of Rome’s finest, enjoying the night air and the local scenery.”

The riflemen turned around and, upon seeing the silk sash of a senior officer and the silver epaulettes of a major, brought themselves to attention.

“At ease, lads,” Major Scaurus said with a good-natured wave of his hand. “Marcus, my boy,” he said, smiling as he glanced at Scipio, “A word, if you please?”

Scipio did not return the Major’s smile, nor echo his friendly manner in any way. He cast a wary glance at Necalli, then followed Scaurus away from his men.

“Uh-oh,” Silo remarked under his breath.

“This means trouble, doesn’t it?” Lallena said.

“Count on it,” Necalli replied.

“What do you want?” Scipio asked insolently once they were out of earshot of the men. “Sir,” he added when Scaurus cast him a warning glance.

“That’s one of many things I like about you, Marcus—you’re all business,” Scaurus remarked. He nodded towards the city walls. “What do you think of our progress thus far?”

Scipio barked a laugh. “What progress? Slapping the walls with a wet noodle would have as much effect!”

Scaurus frowned. “The cannon will open a breach, Lieutenant. Eventually. The thing is, the General, see, he shares the sentiment of his men.”

“What sentiment is that, sir?” Scipio asked.

“He’s impatient,” Scaurus said. “He doesn’t relish the prospect of standing it out here in the rain for weeks, waiting for the artillery to eventually do their job, anymore than the rest of you do.” Scaurus smiled wolfishly. “Fortunately, thanks in no small part to his utterly brilliant, if I do say so myself, chief of intelligence, the General has a plan to crack this particular nut open much, much sooner.”

Scipio caught the drift of the conversation immediately. He laughed ruefully.

“Why do I get the feeling this will involve me and my men doing something foolhardy and dangerous?” he said.

“Now, don’t be petulant, Marcus,” Scaurus mildly remonstrated him. “Last time you did something foolhardy and dangerous, it was your own idea.”

“A woman’s life was at stake,” Scipio replied quietly, his gaze cast down at the ground.

“So it was. And so it is again.” Scipio looked up suddenly, directly at Scaurus. “She’s there, Marcus. In New Serai.”

“Nara?” Scipio asked. Scaurus nodded, and Scipio looked over his shoulder at the city, as if he could see her there, or sense her somehow.

Scaurus looked at Scipio with an appraising eye, then frowned. “What happened to your sword, Lieutenant?”

“Huh?” Scipio said, tearing his thoughts away from the comely Mongolian spy he’d rescued in Mycenian. “Oh. That. Cheap bloody thing. Broke in that cavalry ambush.”

“Hmmm. Can’t afford another?” Scaurus asked shrewdly.

Scipio’s lips pressed together and he glared at the Major. No, of course he couldn’t afford another sword, he’d barely been able to afford the cheap weapon he’d purchased when he’d been unexpectedly promoted to the officers’ ranks.

If he’d been pressed, Scipio would have admitted that the Roman army had its priorities straight: it provided its riflemen with their guns and ammunition, the artillery with their gunpowder and shot, the cavalry with their horses. Officers, however, were expected to purchase their own swords. Some bureaucrat back home had classified them as a fashion accessory, a relic of a bygone age; and yet, any officer worth his salt was expected to carry a sword. (They were also expected not to wield firearms—though Scipio did, another thing that set him apart from his fellow officers and earned their disdain.) Most officers came from Rome’s wealthy patrician class—a fact of which Scipio was constantly reminded—and could easily afford to buy a decent sword. But Scipio had risen from the ranks based upon merit, and without a sestertius to his name.

“You know,” Scaurus said matter-of-factly, ignoring Scipio’s resentful glare, “a Captaincy carries with it a substantial pay raise.”

Scipio laughed derisively. “Is that what you’re offering me if I do whatever this thing is and succeed? You’ll make me a Captain?” In response, Scaurus nodded. “And what if I fail?” Scipio asked.

Scaurus smiled. “Ah, Marcus,” he said smoothly, “if you fail, you’ll be beyond all such worldly concerns.” He put a fatherly hand on the dubious rifleman's shoulder and began walking toward the outskirts of the Roman camp, just as the first of the evening’s cooking fires were lit. “Let me tell you about this little hole in the Mongolians’ armour that your young lady friend has discovered and shared with us…”

[CCRunner]

Chapter 16 – Scipio's Sabre

Marcus Scipio and the Battle of New Serai, 1770 AD

Part 4

Scipio didn’t believe the situation could get any worse. He and nearly a dozen other Roman riflemen were cowering in an alley in the Mongolian city of New Serai, awaiting discovery by two squads of cavalry clearly visible at each end of the narrow passageway. When they were discovered, a quick charge by each squad would cut the trapped riflemen to ribbons.

The tall Roman lieutenant grunted quietly in resignation. He pulled his rifle from where it was slung over his shoulder. Several of his comrades emulated him.

“We’ll give them a hell of a fight, lads,” he muttered. “We’ll take more than a few of them to hell with us.”

Around him, his men softly murmured their assent—and their resignation to their fate. He heard them quietly checking the breeches of their rifles, ensuring they were loaded. Then Scipio felt a hand on his forearm and frowned, wondering who among his riflemen would indulge in such a gesture. Then he heard a voice whispering from directly behind him.

“This way! Hurry!”

It was a woman’s voice, which made him notice that the hand on his arm was small and delicate, though a sudden, anxious squeeze bespoke of a strength that belied the size of that hand. His eyes widened in surprise, then in recognition.

“Nara?” Scipio whispered.

“This way, you Roman numbskulls!” she hissed urgently.

In the dark, she didn’t see Scipio’s mouth twist into a lopsided grin, which was just as well. As he looked in her direction, he could just make out her silhouette, outlined by an extremely dim light emanating from a doorway behind her.

“You heard the lady,” he whispered to his men, “this way, quick now! And stay quiet!”

With the odds stacked against them as they were, the Romans didn’t need to be told twice. Quickly and quietly, they shuffled after the petite Mongolian spy into the dimly-lit doorway. She eased the door closed behind them, then Scipio helped her bar it with a wooden brace. She’d left a candle on the floor a few paces back, which was the only source of light in the low, dingy hallway where the Romans now found themselves. One rifleman raised it, trying to increase the meagre illumination it provided, but Nara turned quickly and blew the candle out, plunging them all into darkness. A moment later, they heard the sound of hoofs clattering upon the cobblestones of the alley right outside the door.

The Romans and their Mongolian saviour held themselves as still as possible. Scipio, Necalli, and several others aimed their loaded rifles at the doorway, expecting it to burst open at any moment. They could hear voices in Mongolian on the other side. Sweat trickled down Scipio’s face and into his eyes, but he was so tense he didn’t notice its sting.

Then they heard horses’ hooves clopping away down the alley and off into the distance, and every man there let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding until that moment. A couple of them laughed softly and nervously as they reflected on the close call they’d just survived.

“Good timing, love,” Scipio murmured to Nara in the darkness.

He heard a match scraping against flint, then saw it ignite. She re-lit her candle. As always, Scipio was struck by her beauty. Her long dark hair was pulled back from her face, which only emphasized her high cheekbones and dark, almond-shaped eyes.

But her delicate features were drawn into an angry frown as she looked at him. She hissed something in Mongolian; with his limited understanding of the language, Scipio could only discern some sort of reference to his head, and to a very foul substance with which she was asserting it must be filled.

“Good to see you too,” he responded.

Nara sniffed at him derisively, then her nose wrinkled. “You really need to change your cologne,” she remarked in Latin, one slender brow raised.

“You didn’t mind it so much last time,” Scipio replied, reminding them both of their previous adventure, when she’d crawled through a sewer with him and his comrades to escape a horde of Mongolian rebels.

“I hate to interrupt this tender reunion,” Sergeant Necalli said pointedly, “but what do we do now? Stay here all night? Those patrols have probably cut us off from the storehouse.”

Nara turned her contemptuous gaze upon the big Aztec. Necalli was fearless on a battlefield, but Scipio noted with a smirk that this small, fine-feature Mongolian woman made the big man wince.

“Thank you for pointing out the obvious, Sergeant,” she said, her voice positively oozing sarcasm. “Fortunately for you, I took account of your typical Roman inability to go anywhere without calling attention to yourselves.”

Scipio ignored the insult and smiled at her. “You have a backup plan,” he said.

“Of course I do,” she said impatiently, “but that doesn’t make our task tonight any easier, or less risky. Quite the opposite, in fact. So follow me, do what I say, and try not to alert any more sentries to your presence, will you?”

With that, she turned and began marching down the hall. She stopped a few paces onwards and looked back over her shoulder. “Coming?” she said expectantly.

Scipio gave his head a shake, then set off after her while beckoning over his shoulder for his men to follow.

“Women,” Silo muttered as they walked deeper into the dimly-lit building. “Can’t live with them...”

“...can’t shoot them,” Lallena added, before a stern glare from his Sergeant urged him to silence.

* * *

Colonel Subotai sat behind his desk and glared at his subordinate. He desperately needed sleep and was irritated that he’d been roused from his bed in the middle of the night. But he stifled a yawn and sat up straight, unwilling to betray a sign of weakness in front of his men. Especially not now, just as the siege of the city was beginning.

“You lost him,” Subotai said accusingly.

The Captain of New Serai’s guard dropped his head to acknowledge his superior’s conclusion, and his own shame. The Colonel’s teeth ground in irritation; his officers should know better than to indulge in unwarranted displays of emotion. Was he in command of a garrison of warriors or of women?

“So find him, Captain,” Subotai snarled. “And do not report back to me until you do!”

“Sir!” the Captain responded, snapping to attention and saluting quickly before he turned on his heel and marched out of the office to obey the order.

Subotai watched him go. Once he was alone, the Mongolian Colonel slumped in his chair and sighed. He rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. As if being surrounded by the Roman army wasn’t bad enough, now he had something else to worry about. One sentry was dead, choked on his own whistle of all things; an ignoble end, albeit gruesomely amusing to those with a black sense of humour. His partner was in the infirmary. The injured man had recovered his senses long enough to relate that he’d been attacked not by a Mongolian, but by a Roman.

The Colonel rose angrily from his desk. A Roman! Here, inside his city already! How could he have gotten in? Subotai shook his head and shrugged. There was always a way in; he’d sent men to sneak inside English cities on more than a few occasions a few years ago, when he’d been fighting with the Khan against the enemy in the north.

Now the shoe was on the other foot. Colonel Subotai experienced a brief moment of sympathy for those English city governors he’d been facing. He dismissed the feeling quickly, regarding it as an unwelcome sign of weakness—no doubt another product of his fatigue.

His emotions and his weariness did not matter; the situation did. Subotai focused on that. What was this man up to? Was he a spy? A saboteur? Was he alone? Did he have help inside the city from traitors? These questions and many others plagued him and ensured that he would not be getting any more sleep tonight, since answers would not be forthcoming until the man was caught.

Subotai walked over to the window of his office. Over the top of the lower building next door, he could see the dark outline of New Serai’s city walls. Beyond that, spreading out in all directions, he could see hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of small, twinkling fires that betrayed the location and size of the enemy camp.

A shiver ran down his spine. New Serai’s walls were high and thick; the city had an underground source of fresh water, stores of food and ammunition, and hundreds of soldiers and ordinary citizens determine to resist the foreign invader. Yet he knew it wouldn’t be enough. The Romans, he had to admit, reminded him of his own people in some respects: they were relentless and determined, and were convinced it was their destiny to rule the world. But they were a practical people as well. He tried to put himself in the shoes—no, into the mind of his nemesis, the Roman General, Rutullus. Could he bargain with the man, he wondered?

With a derisive snort, Subotai turned away from the window and abandoned that idea. He remembered the response of his Khan when he’d once suggested negotiating with the mayor of an English city for its surrender: “Wolves do not bargain with sheep,” the Khan had said contemptuously.

“And wolves do not bargain with other wolves, either,” Subotai muttered, glancing out of his window at the enemy campfires again. He nodded, and his upper lip curled back into a sneer. “So be it.”

This Roman who’d snuck into his city like a rat from the sewers did not matter. He was as good as dead. In a Greek city, he might have passed for a local; but in a Mongolian city, he would stick out like a faulty nail in a board of wood—and like a nail, he would be hammered down. His fate would be shared by any other Romans who might be with him, along with any traitors who might be helping him. The city was not so large, and searching for the intruder gave the Colonel’s bored yet eager troops something to do. It was only a matter of time before he was found.

A grim smile appeared on the Colonel’s thin lips. He had decided to take a personal interest in the intruder once he was caught. Withstanding a siege was proving to be tedious; overseeing the Roman’s torture would provide the Colonel with several hours of much-needed amusement.

Suddenly he felt energized. If you want a job done right, he reflected, you had to do it yourself. He marched to the door of this office and opened it. As usual, a servant was waiting outside.

“Have my horse prepared, and my uniform readied,” he said to the man. “I’m going to take charge of the search for the intruder myself.”

[CCRunner]

Chapter 16 – Scipio's Sabre

Marcus Scipio and the Battle of New Serai, 1770 AD

Part 1

The heavy rain pelted down on the marching Roman column like a subtle form of artillery, whose intent was not to maim and kill but to sicken and demoralize. It drummed upon the tops of their shakos, dripped down their necks, ran down their backs, and had by now soaked them to the skin. The deluge did nothing to help the mood of the men, whose spirits were already low.

By rights, the Roman army should have been elated. They had now captured two Mongolian cities, Mycenian and Ning-Hsia, and were marching on a third, some place called New Serai. Taking it would cut off the Mongolians from the Mycenian peninsula and would completely secure the Roman beachhead in this land, ensuring the Romans of relatively easy and secure resupply and reinforcement from their home continent.

News from elsewhere, however, had significantly dampened their spirits. Rather than rushing home to defend Mongolia’s main territory, as everyone had expected him to do, Genghis Khan had instead continued pushing his forces against England, Rome’s ally. He’d travelling unimpeded through supposedly-neutral Greece, and just after the Roman triumph at Ning-Hsia, word had come from the north that Khan’s forces had captured the English capital, London itself. Queen Elizabeth had barely escaped—the sole consolation from the debacle.



The dispiriting news had turned the taste of victory to ashes in the Romans’ mouths. The whole point of the Mongolian campaign had been to relieve pressure on Rome’s traditional ally, England. It obviously wasn’t working, which was shocking. How could Khan simply ignore the loss of two of his cities, and the approaching loss of a third? What was he thinking and planning? Was he simply stubborn, or did he have something more up his sleeve? The unanswered question which bothered the troops most of all was nearly unthinkable: could it be that Genghis Khan was a better strategist than the immortal Caesar?

None of these doubts helped boost the morale of the Roman troops as they marched towards New Serai. Nor did the weather. Nor did the state of their footwear.

“Bloody hell!” Lieutenant Marcus Scipio cursed as he paused to shake another stone out of his boot.

The front part of the sole had separated from the boot a few days prior; that and the holes worn in them ensured that Scipio’s feet were soaked with cold rainwater and mud, and that every few paces a small stone could find its way inside his footwear to torment his aching feet even more. The boots of the rest of his Legion, the 14th, weren’t in much better shape.

“We would have to do all of this bloody marching during Mongolia’s rainy season, wouldn’t we, sir?” Sergeant Necalli muttered from beside him. The hulking Aztec rifleman was stumbling through the mud like his officer, his feet similarly soaked and sore.

“The bloody supply ship was supposed to be here weeks ago!” Scipio snarled.

“Word is there was a storm off the coast of Antium…” Necalli replied.

“Bollocks!” Scipio growled his opinion of that official excuse. “Stupid bloody useless navy pansies won’t leave port if there’s so much as a stiff breeze to lift their skirts.”

Despite their discomfort, Necalli smiled. There was something about seeing his commanding officer in a foul mood that inexplicably cheered him up. Maybe it was some small form of revenge for Rome having conquered the Aztec empire centuries before.

“If you say so, sir,” was all he said, and managed to make the grin disappear from his face before Scipio turned to glare at him. Necalli’s gaze wandered upwards, towards the top of the hill on the right hand side of the road. “Think the rain’s bothering the Mongos as much as us, sir?” he said, nodding with his head.

Scipio turned to look where Necalli was indicating. He could barely see anything through the rain, but the Aztec had sharp eyes. Scipio blinked some water out of his eyes, then squinted. Yes, there, at the top of the hill, he could just see them—a group of men on horseback. Cavalry, about a dozen of them. Though they were little more than silhouettes, Scipio knew they were the enemy; Roman troops wouldn’t be watching their own column from a distance with such interest.

“Scouts?” Necalli said.

“Let’s hope that’s all they are,” Scipio replied.

Despite how rain-soaked they were, the hairs on the back of Scipio’s neck were standing up. It was hard to count the shadowy figures through the heavy rain, to tell if the group of Mongolian cavalry were merely a small force or a harbinger of something much larger. They’d be insane to attack the entire Roman column. But they had the rain for cover, the Roman army was on the move and out of its usual protective fortifications, and if they knew how low the troops’ spirits were…

In a heartbeat, Scipio was on the move, running. Through the rain, a few paces ahead of him, thankfully conspicuous because he was on horseback, rode Colonel Gracchus, commander of the 14th Legion.

“Sir! Sir!” Scipio called out as he approached his commanding officer.

Gracchus looked down at Scipio with no small measure of distaste. He came from a long line of Roman patricians, and found the idea of a plebeian like Scipio—let alone one so obviously low-born—holding an officer’s rank to be anathema. Scipio was used to the attitude and did his best to ignore it—most of the time. At the moment, he had no time or concern for the Colonel’s elitist sensibilities.

“Mongolian Cavalry, sir!” Scipio said, pointing up the hill.

Colonel Gracchus squinted up through the rain as Scipio had done only a moment before.

“Cavalry? Hardly, Scipio,” Gracchus said dismissively. “Looks like no more than a motley group of scouts. Or a few of the locals out for a ride.”

“In this weather, sir?” Scipio asked pointedly.

Gracchus glared down at the junior officer, his dark eyes glaring beneath heavy black brows that were just beginning to be grizzled with silver.

“Scouts, then,” he said sharply, then waved his hand and turned away.

Scipio ground his teeth and looked back up the hill, squinting through the driving rain. “There’s more of them than there were a moment ago, sir,” he said.

“What if there are, Scipio?” Gracchus replied impatiently, turning in his saddle to glare at his subordinate.

“There’s a lot more of them,” Necalli, silent and unnoticed until now, despite his size, said ominously from beside Scipio.
Scipio and Gracchus both looked up at the top of the hill, and both quietly gasped. Even through the heavy rain, they could now see the silhouettes of at least a hundred horsemen there, where before only a dozen or so silhouettes had been visible.

“Lieutenant...” Colonel Gracchus managed to choke out, but Scipio was already in motion.

“FORM SQUARE!” Scipio shouted, Sergeant Necalli on his heels, as he ran back towards the riflemen of the 14th, who were still marching in column. “FORM SQUARE, YOU BASTARDS!”

The riflemen were in a tired, dazed stupor from the long march and the rain, but the order was second nature to them. After the briefest of confused hesitations, they began a quick but orderly move into several adjacent defensive formations.

At that very moment, the Roman riflemen heard a shout from above and to their right, then a sound like thunder as the cavalry began their charge downhill. The hundred horsemen in front began to rapidly descend the hill, a hundred more behind them, and a hundred more after that. Their steeds were charging at a gallop almost as soon as they began their descent down the slope.

Fortunately, it wasn’t the first time the Roman infantry had faced off against cavalry, and they knew exactly how to do it. Each square was two ranks deep on each side, the front rank kneeling, the rear rank standing. The faced outwards; each man quickly attached his two-foot long, wickedly sharp bayonet to the end of his rifle and pointed it outwards at a raised angle, the butt of the rifle braced against the ground. It didn’t matter that cavalry horses were highly trained beasts of war; they were still animals with an innate sense of self-preservation, and would not charge into such an array of deadly sharp spikes.

Provided, of course, the horses could stop themselves in time. And could actually see the bayonets.

A cold, ugly feeling stirred in Scipio’s belly as he watched the Mongolian cavalry rushing down the hill towards him. Even though they were only a few dozen yards away, the heavy rain prevented him from seeing much more than huge, dark shadows in motion, the pull of gravity speeding their charge and making them look onstoppable. Despite the torrential downpour, Scipio’s throat suddenly felt dry.

“RIFLES!” he shouted. “PREPARE TO FIRE!”

Again, the Romans hesitated for the briefest of moments, but only for a moment. It was unusual to fire out of a square, but an order was an order, especially from their hard-featured lieutenant. The men in the two ranks facing the hill raised their weapons to their shoulders and took aim at the charging horses.

“FIRST RANK! FIRE!” Scipio yelled.

The loud, sharp crackle of rifle fire rang out in the rain, almost instantly followed by the horrific sounds of screaming horses and men. Mongolian horses fell, tumbling down the hillside, taking their riders with them, tripping other horses behind them. Some of the more skilled riders managed to jump their mounts over the new obstacles.

Without even pausing to think about it, the first rank began to reload, popping the spent cartridge from their weapons’ breaches, pulling another from their belts and sliding it home. They did so without even flinching as the second rank, on Scipio’s shouted order, fired over their heads. More horses and riders fell.

“It won’t stop them, sir!” Sergeant Necalli shouted.

Scipio knew it was true. The cavalry were relentlessly continuing their charge, only a few yards away now, so he could see them clearly through the rain; he could smell the wet loam being raised by their pounding hooves, he could see the foam forming at the corners of the horses’ mouths. The Romans lowered the butts of their rifles again, expecting the horses to shear away at the last moment like they always did.

But they did not. Blinded by the rain, unable to stop because of their downward momentum, the horses continued their charge straight towards the sides of the squares facing the hill. Only at the last moment did the horses see the forest of spikes in front of them; only then did they scream in fear and try to stop, but it was too late. They were practically on top of the hapless riflemen, who screamed and threw themselves to the wet ground as the huge, suddenly panicked horses lunged over them.

Scipio, standing behind the two hillside ranks, watched in horror as they horses crashed through the Roman line. Less than a heartbeat later, he instinctively threw himself aside as one horse charged towards him, the whites of its eyes visible in its sudden terror. The huge, heavy flank of the animal struck his shoulder, sending him spinning; Scipio narrowly avoided having his legs trampled beneath the beast’s rear hooves. Fortunately, the horse’s rider was preoccupied trying to control his panicked mount, otherwise Scipio might have been mercilessly chopped down by a cavalry sabre.

When Scipio managed to shakily push himself up from the cold, wet earth where he’d fallen, the scene around him had already descended into chaos. One side of each Roman infantry square was shattered. The first few horses had trampled the ranks of riflemen beneath their hooves, but had received mortal wounds from the raised bayonets in the process; the animals had gone mad in their pain and death throes and were thrashing about wildly, doing as much damage to their own riders and neighbouring beasts as they were to the few Romans who were still standing. Behind them, uninjured horses were riding into the middle of the square, their riders still in control and looking down from their saddles for enemy to kill.

Scipio cursed, then pushed himself to his feet. He could run, but he knew he’d only be cut down from behind by a Mongolian cavalryman. There was nothing for it but to join the carnage.

“RIFLES!” he shouted over the din of battle and the pounding rain. “TO ME! TO ME!”

Some of the men in the remaining three sides of the square, turning to see the formation hopelessly broken, obeyed their first instinct, which was to run. Many more, however, either heard Scipio’s order or heeded their own anger and launched themselves towards the invading cavalry.

Scipio looked about quickly and spotted a rider sporting epaulettes and sash. An officer; even now, the man was waving his sword and shouting orders to his men. He remembered that he’d loaded but had not fired his weapon. He raised the rifle to his shoulder, took aim, and pulled the trigger, then watched with satisfaction as the Mongolian officer fell from his horse, his brownish-grey deal suddenly sprouting a dark blossom of blood.

“KILL THEM!” Scipio shouted as he threw the leather strap of his rifle over his shoulder so the weapon hung over his back. He drew his sword and screamed incoherently as he ran forward. Other riflemen ran alongside him, shouting as well.

Private Lallena, the Spaniard, ran by him and plunged the blade of his bayonet into the side of a horse. The animal screamed in pain and reared up just as Lallena yanked the blade free. He ducked out from under the animal’s slashing hooves, then jabbed his bayonet upwards again, this time into the gut of the horse’s rider, who yelled and fell from the saddle.

Sergeant Necalli, a few yards to Scipio’s right, waited, poised on the balls of his feet as one cavalryman charged towards him. The huge Aztec deftly side-stepped the horse at the last moment, lashing out and striking the animal on its sensitive nose with a large, heavy fist as it passed by him. The beast screamed in pain, and Necalli took advantage of the rider’s loss of control to reach up and yank the man out of the saddle. He struck the Mongolian once, then stamped upon his face with his boot and turned to face his next challenge.

Rifles still crackled around Scipio. A few paces behind him, Corporal Ancus Silo was hunkered down on one knee, the old poacher calmly loading cartridge after cartridge into his weapon, taking careful aim, and dispatching horses and riders with deadly ease.

Despite their valiant efforts, however, the Roman infantry were being overwhelmed. Their square was broken, and the Mongolian cavalry were wading through them, the heavy beasts knocking the puny men aside while their riders used carbines and swords to finish them off.

Scipio was suddenly jostled and turned to see Private Li standing beside him, his usually-narrow eyes opened wide, unblinking. The young Chinese private stared at the carnage around him in barely-controlled terror; but he hadn’t run, Scipio briefly reflected. Li had held his own in a handful of battles now, and this one would be no different.

“Come on, Wei!” he said to the young private, flashing a feral grin at him. “Let’s you and me kill some of these Mongo bastards!” Li nodded, drawing encouragement from his commanding officer’s bravery and savagery.

Together, they rose and charged the nearest horse; the rider and his mount, confused by the two targets presented to them, each took a moment too long to decide which one to attack first. Scipio suffered from no such moment of indecision. He slashed the blade of his sword at the horse’s mouth, sending the animal rearing back out of control; he picked his moment carefully, ducked beneath the slashing hooves, and plunged his bayonet into the rider’s ribs. With a groan, the Mongolian fell to the ground, the horse reared and ran away, and Scipio gave Li an encouraging smile and nod, grateful for the distraction the young private had provided.

Yet even as Scipio watched the horse he and Li had attacked run off, he heard more hoof beats behind him, approaching rapidly. Scipio didn’t even pause to think, he just reacted, judging the approach of the horse from the sound. He threw himself to one side and felt his tall shako torn from his head as a heavy cavalry sabre struck it, barely missing striking his skull. Wet mud sprayed by the animal’s huge, heavy hooves soaked his uniform, informing him just how closely death had just passed him by.

He quickly pushed himself up from the mud, his sword held ready as the Mongolian quickly turned his mount. Scipio’s new opponent was a tall, sturdily-built man wearing the silver epaulettes of a Mongolian colonel and a black patch over one eye. That one eye was as black as midnight, as was the formidable war horse the man rode. His lips were curled into a contemptuous sneer as he eyed the Roman infantryman standing before him. He spurred his horse forward, renewing his attack.

Scipio waited as long as he dared, then lashed out with his sword, not at the rider, but once again at the sensitive mouth of his mount. The rider anticipated this tactic, however, and yanked on the reins to not only pull his horse’s head away from the attack, but to present his sword arm towards his opponent.

Scipio could see the long, heavy blade drawn back, then slashing down towards him. In an almost surreal moment of utter clarity, he could see rivulets of rain water flying from the blade as it descended. He shifted his own sword to parry the blow.

The impact of the sword hitting his own seemed to reverberate right through him, rattling his teeth and shooting white-hot pain through his arm. His own sword—a cheap weapon that he’d barely been able to afford once he’d earned his commission—shattered noisily. One large portion of the blade was flung over his head, while smaller shards of metal struck his uniform and cut his face and the back of his sword hand. The force of the blow threw Scipio backwards, the mud barely cushioning the blow. His rifle, slung across his back, cracked as its long barrel broke away from the stock. Instinctively, Scipio rolled away from the horse’s slashing hooves, his right arm useless, his eyes glancing about him for a weapon, any weapon at all, knowing that death was only seconds away.

Suddenly, the great black war horse reared up and screamed in pain. Scipio saw the Mongolian pull harshly on the reins, struggling for control even as he turned to search for the source of the attack on his mount. Through the animal’s powerful legs, Scipio could see the breeches of a Roman rifleman. The beast moved aside and Private Li was revealed, the blade of his bayonet dripping with the animal’s blood.

But Li had only cut the animal, and not deeply; the Mongolian quickly brought the horse back under his control and turned to face this new threat. Li stood his ground, his eyes open wide, as he looked desperately for another opening.

“Wei!” Scipio shouted weakly, knowing all too well the peril the young rifleman was now facing, “get out of there!”

Either Li didn’t hear him or was unwilling to abandon his commanding officer when he was in distress. He scuttled backwards, but kept thrusting his bayonet towards the Mongolian and his mount, attempting to keep them at bay, and apparently succeeding. But from his prone position, Scipio could see the man was toying with Li, awaiting the perfect moment to strike.

“SILO!” Scipio shouted to the Legion’s best marksman as he pushed himself up with his one good arm. “SILO!” he shouted again and turned to see that he’d caught the attention of the former poacher. “Kill that one-eyed bastard! HURRY!” Scipio yelled.

Silo sized up the situation in an instant as he saw the danger the young private was in. He quickly loaded his weapon and brought the rifle to his shoulder, one eye closed as he took aim. He squeezed the trigger.

At that very moment, the Mongolian colonel attacked. He and his horse moved as one, their wordless communication forged by years of training and practice. Horse and rider lunged forward, the tip of horseman’s heavy cavalry sword deftly slipping by Li’s bayonet. Silo’s bullet, aimed so perfectly only a split second before, now flew harmlessly over the head of the lunging Mongolian. The tip of the man’s sword pierced Li’s throat, then emerged with a bloody explosion from the back of his neck. Just as quickly as he’d thrust it forward, the Mongolian twisted his blade and withdrew it.

“NO!” Scipio shouted, running towards Li even though he now had now weapon and risked dying as well.

Li’s knees buckled and he dropped to the muddy ground, blood coursing from the wound in his neck, soaking the front of his dark blue uniform, staining it purple. His hands went limp and his rifle fell from his hands. He crumpled like a wad of paper thrown into a fire, and fell over onto his side.

The Mongolian turned to face Scipio again, his bloodied sword ready to finish him off. Just then, however, the Mongolians’ horses whinnied nervously, and the horsemen glanced nervously around them. Scipio felt the ground begin to shake beneath his feet. At that moment, the rain suddenly petered out, and in the sudden silence, the distant sound of trumpets, shouting men, and galloping horses could be heard.

The Mongolians had attacked only one portion of a vast, long column. As the battle raged, trumpets were sounding from both sides, summoning aid. Behind him, Scipio could now hear the pounding of thousands of horses’ hooves, and knew it wasn’t Mongolian cavalry approaching. The Mongolian colonel barked some quick orders at his horsemen, and the skilled riders quickly turned their mounts and fled back up the hill from which they’d attacked only moments before.

Scipio watched them go. He heard Silo fire another shot at the departing horsemen; unusually, it didn’t seem to strike a target. But Scipio wasn’t surprised. He knew why the marksman’s aim was suddenly off.

Scipio walked over to the crumpled body of Private Li Wei, then awkwardly fell to his knees beside the young man’s corpse. He sensed the large, looming presence of his Sergeant behind his shoulder.

“Buddha wept,” Necalli murmured, his voice tight.

“What?” Private Lallena asked as he walked up behind Scipio. “Who...?” Then he spotted Li, his body all too still, the blank stare in the young man’s eyes. “No. Oh no. Madre de Dios, no...”

Behind them, Silo stood in silence, remonstrating himself for that one missed shot. He knew he’d never had a chance, that by sheer luck the Mongolian’s lunge had been timed too perfectly. But he missed so rarely, and of all the shots to miss...

Scipio reached down and gently closed Li’s eyes with his fingertips. Several more riflemen were dead of course, their bodies laying on the cold, sodden ground around him. He’d mourn for them too, but Li... Li had been special. He’d been the youngest soldier in the Legion. He was the son of the man who had developed the very same weapon that they all carried. He’d received no end of good-natured ribbing for his youth and for his parentage, but every man in the 14th Legion had no small amount of admiration for him. As the son of a prominent, privileged family, he hadn’t needed to enlist—but he’d chosen to do so, to risk his life alongside the very men who carried his family’s legacy in their hands.

And now he lay dead in a foreign land, across a vast ocean from his home. It would be weeks at the earliest before his family knew of his death. But he had another family, the men of Rome’s 14th Legion, and every one of them would mourn his passing first.

But not Scipio. He ruthlessly set his sorrow over the young man’s death aside and cast an angry glare up the hillside to his right.

“I’ll find you,” Scipio murmured under his breath. “I’ll find you, you one-eyed bastard, I swear it to Mars himself...”

[CCRunner]

Chapter 16 – Scipio's Sabre

Marcus Scipio and the Battle of New Serai, 1770 AD

Part 3



The night surrounding the Roman war frigate Hercules was deceptively calm. The only sound audible after the sun set was the gentle splashing of the small waves that lapped against the great war ship’s wooden sides. By rights, the sailors and other men aboard should have been peacefully asleep, rocked to slumber by the gentle movement of the great ship as she nestled in calm waters. But instead, this night, every man on board was wide awake, and alert as well. For the waters in which their vessel rested at anchor were in enemy territory, and on a hill only a mile away lay a city under siege. Tonight, a dozen men on board would attempt to break the city wide open—or die in the attempt. The tension in the air was almost palpable.

Scipio and a small, select group of the 14th Legion’s Riflemen had rowed out to the Hercules earlier that day, two days after Scipio had reluctantly agreed to take part in Major Scaurus’ audacious plan to open the well-fortified city to the Roman invaders. Scaurus had insisted only on volunteers for the mission. Scipio had not been surprised when Sergeant Necalli, Corporal Silo, and Private Lallena had all stepped forward, along with eight others, but he’d been proud, and reassured as well. They’d fought together for months now, and could predict one another’s actions; and he was certain that a shared desire to avenge Li motivated them. Even so, though he was glad to have them along, he was worried for their safety. And his own.

But the time for sober second thought was long past. The Hercules’ captain gave a nod, and Scipio and the dozen riflemen from his company scrambled silently into a waiting longboat. Crewmen from the Hercules had the oars, and began to skilfully guide the boat toward the city’s high, formidable walls.

Scipio forced himself to be calm. The moon was new tonight, so only the dim lights of the stars and the nearby city were available to guide their way. Yet it seemed to Scipio that it was too much light by half; he felt terribly vulnerable in the rocking longboat. The small waves that slapped against the sides sounded like booming cannonades. Surely some alert sentry would spot their approach, or hear it, and raise the alarm? He tried to put such concerns out of his head, but he had little else to do but sit and brood upon everything that could go wrong with this risky endeavour. He could feel his heart pounding and sweat trickling down his back, the way it did before a battle.

The boats came in close to the city, the dark, foreboding walls towering above the tiny craft. With the high walls blocking the city light, Scipio could now barely see his hand in front of his face. He repressed the urge to curse. How could they find their target in such utter blackness? But then the unmistakable odour of human waste assaulted his nostrils, and he knew they were close.

“There,” one of the crewmen whispered to him.

Scipio squinted into the darkness, and slowly a shape vaguely made itself apparent: a large, circular hole in the wall, darker than the stone wall itself, covered by a metal grate. The hole was nearly the height of a man. The crewmen skilfully manoeuvred Scipio’s boat so it was right next to the sewer outflow pipe, which only appeared above the waterline at low tide. Just as Nara had told them.

“Right, Cal,” Scipio whispered to his hulking Aztec Sergeant, “we’re on.”

Carefully, Necalli and Scipio slipped over the gunwales of the longboat and found their footing next to the sewer grate. The two riflemen gripped the metal grate and could both smell and feel the powdery rust on the wet metal. They heaved, but the grate did not move. They paused a moment and exchanged a glance.

“Again,” Scipio muttered, “on three. One, two…”

They pulled again, harder, straining, and were rewarded by hearing the old, rusted metal groan. Their elation was smothered by their fear of being heard. They paused a moment, ears straining to hear a shout of alarm, but the night remained as still and as silent as the grave.

“One more time,” Scipio whispered.

This time, both the rusted iron and the aged cement in which it rested gave way. The tearing sound of metal and rock made Scipio wince, but nothing could be done about it. Another tug, and the grate gave way. Scipio could hear his men in the boats sighing out the exuberance they normally would have shouted. Gingerly, he and Necalli eased the heavy grate into the water behind them. Then they stared into the effluent tunnel.

“Not the first time you and I have crawled through a sewer hole,” Scipio muttered.

“You always take me to the finest places, sir,” Sergeant Necalli replied. He turned back towards the boats. “Right, lads,” he whispered, “in we go.”

The riflemen disembarked from the longboats and gathered inside the sewage pipe. The drain ran at an angle, so once they waded waist-deep through the water at its opening, they found themselves walking, stooped over, up the pipe, two abreast, with the effluent running down in a stinking stream between them.

“We’re not going to impress many of the local girls after walking through this stuff,” Lallena muttered.

“Quiet in the ranks!” Necalli whispered urgently.

The men remained mostly silent for the remainder of their trip through the dark, malodorous drain. Now and then a man would slip in the dark and curse softly, and Scipio would restrain a strong urge to reach out and cuff the party responsible. He was sure they’d been heard or spotted at some point and would find a troop of Mongolian regulars waiting for them with bayonets at the ready. Thus far, however, they’d encountered no resistance.

Eventually, Scipio paused. “This is it,” he said when his hands blindly encountered metal rungs embedded in the stone. Without another word, he began to climb.

Less than a minute later, he had to bite back a curse when his head thumped against a heavy metal manhole cover.

“Allow me, sir,” Necalli whispered.

The big Aztec deftly eased himself past his officer on the same set of ladder rungs. He braced his broad back against the cold concrete wall, then gingerly lifted the manhole cover, grunting softly as he exerted himself. Not for the first time in their shared history, Scipio was glad to have the big Sergeant along.

With the cover out of the way, the dozen Romans scrambled upwards, glad to leave the stinking sewer behind them. They found themselves in a dark, silent alley and did their best to remain silent. They were now deep inside enemy territory without any hope of support from their comrades. They were completely and utterly alone.

Scipio glanced around at the dark shapes of the buildings surrounding the alley where his riflemen now crouched. The buildings were nearly as dark as the night sky, save for the occasional glow of a candle or a lantern in some window that emulated the cold, twinkling lights of the stars above. Scipio felt his stomach twinge with anxiety. He pushed the vulnerable feeling away. He had a job to do.

It only took him a moment to get his bearings. Nara’s instructions had been detailed and precise; he silently blessed the young woman for it. He found the north star in the sky, then set off down the alley in its direction, silently signalling for his riflemen to follow. Every man in the unit was tense. One rifleman coughed, and every one of his comrades turned and cast a murderous glance in his direction.

Scipio exhaled in frustration, but said nothing. So far, everything had gone well; but rather than assuring him, this only heightened his sense that something was going to go horribly wrong. Wasn’t that always the way things went in his life? He shook his head as if he could force such distracting thoughts from it. He and his riflemen only had a few hours of darkness to accomplish their goal; it was best to ignore his superstitions and get on with it.

He reached the end of the alley. Cautiously, he peered out around the side of the building onto a secondary street lit by a few gas streetlights. The pale, yellowish light they cast flickered as they strove to illuminate the long, dark street. Directly across from him was the entrance to another alley; off to the right was a sign for a public house, decorated by a dragon. Scipio nodded and allowed himself to relax just a little. He was right where he was supposed to be. One more block over, across one more street, and they’d arrive at their first objective for the night.

Scipio looked down toward both ends of the street. Seeing it was abandoned, he patted Necalli on the shoulder and gestured with his head across the street. The big Aztec nodded and, without a moment’s hesitation, sprinted across the street and into the alleyway opposite. Once there, he pressed most of his bulk into the darkness the alley offered, holding out one hand with an upturned thumb back towards the rest of his unit.

Scipio sent Lallena across next. Then Silo. Then, one at a time, the remaining men of the unit. Half the men had safely made their way across the street when disaster struck.

The next rifleman was just about to sprint across the street when Scipio heard the sound of a low voice, speaking Mongolian, coming from down the street. He threw one arm out in front of the rifleman to hold him back, then carefully looked around the corner.

Two sentries were walking across the entrance to the street. Pass on by, Scipio silently willed them. But when they were halfway across, one of the sentries gestured down the street towards the two alleys where Scipio’s riflemen were hiding. The sentry’s partner was gesturing in the direction they’d originally been heading, and Scipio hoped he’d win the argument; perhaps he had a bottle or a woman he was anxious to get back to. But his partner, no doubt bucking for a promotion, won out, and with a resigned shrug, the reluctant sentry followed him down the street. Right towards Scipio and his men.

A silent string of curses ran through Scipio’s head. He leaned back into the alley so he was watching the two sentries approach with only one eye around the corner. The officious one was taking time to inspect every doorway on one side of the street, and gestured to his more slovenly comrade to do the same on the opposite side. Scipio’s teeth ground together; proceeding like that, of course they’d discover his men. He looked back. The alley wasn’t deep enough for them to retreat and hide, and ducking back into the sewer would take too long. Across the street, Scipio could see Necalli watching him anxiously from the darkness, the dark shapes of the other half of the unit huddled behind him.

Scipio’s lips pressed together into a grim line. He had only seconds to make a decision. He shook his head and shrugged. Action was always better than inaction, he told himself. He cast one glance at Necalli, hoping to convey a silent message of be ready to the big Aztec. He then stepped out of the alley and began to walk up the street.

To call it walking, though, would be generous. More accurately, he began to haltingly stumble up the street towards the dutiful Mongolian sentry, who now froze in his tracks to watch this sole figure lumbering towards him. Scipio had been taught the words to a particularly coarse, bawdy Mongolian drinking song in Ning-Hsia; he began to sing it, or, more accurately, mumble it, hoping that his accent would be buried in the slurred speech of a drunk. He leaned against the wall of the building next to him, sometimes with this hand, sometimes with his shoulder. Besides conveying the image of a drunk, this also kept him in the darkest part of the street. Scipio hoped the sentries would not be able to discern his light brown hair and Roman uniform until it was too late.

The dutiful sentry barked something at him. Scipio pretended not to hear. He kept shuffling forward, his head bent down so his shako hid his sandy hair. He giggled drunkenly after softly singing what he’d been told was a particularly crude verse. The sentry spoke to him again in curt, indignant Mongolian, then gestured to his comrade to join him.

Yes, Scipio thought, watching them from beneath the stubby peak of his shako. Come here, both of you, nice and close…

The two sentries were walking towards them, and Scipio pretended to suddenly notice them and stopped in his tracks—right in the darkest spot on the street, where he knew he wouldn’t be visible as much more than a shadow. They were close now, five paces away. Scipio bent over and made sounds as though he were about to retch. The reluctant sentry made a disgusted noise and slowed his approach. His more dutiful companion was not put off, however, and walked right up to Scipio. With his limited Mongolian, Scipio thought he heard the words “curfew”, “punish”, and “drunkard”.

Not that any of that mattered, because a heartbeat later, the Mongolian was unable to speak.

Scipio had straightened suddenly and unexpectedly, and his knee drove into the sentry’s groin with such force the man felt as though he’d been struck with a sledgehammer. Scipio took a step back, grabbed the sentry’s head, and pulled it down as he drove his knee up again. The man’s nose broke with a wet, sickening crunch and he collapsed to the pavement.

Scipio stepped over him towards the second sentry, who was back-pedalling in panic. He reached out and caught the front of the man’s overcoat, halting his backward progress. Scipio’s fist swung forward, aimed straight at the man’s chin.

Even as he struck home, however, Scipio sensed that this second sentry would be more formidable than his dutiful partner. He rolled with the punch, twisting his entire body, and managed to free his coat from Scipio’s grasp in the progress. He stumbled away from the big Roman rifleman, who was right on his heels. Scipio tackled the man and they both dropped to the cobblestoned street. Scipio grabbed the man’s head and pulled it back, preparing to smash it against the hard stones. Just before he could, however, he spotted the whistle in the man’s mouth. Then he heard it blow.

“Bloody hell!” Scipio cursed as he rammed the man’s forehead against the cobblestones. The sentry had stopped blowing on the whistle—in fact, he’d swallowed the thing—but the damage was done. Scipio smashed his opponent’s head against the ground twice more until he stopped moving, then one more time just to vent his anger.

“Come on!” Scipio hissed at the half-dozen riflemen still hiding in the alley near the sewer.

He then took off at a run towards the rest of his men, gratified to hear his soldiers’ worn boots slapping against the cobblestones. Once the two halves of the unit were reunited, they began to run down the alley, desperate to reach their destination before the whistle blast brought more Mongolian sentries to the scene.

This alley was long and dark; its far entrance looked like a narrow slit in a grimly-lit canyon. Scipio thought he heard voices in Mongolian far behind him. So other sentries, alerted by the whistle’s call, had discovered their fallen comrades. Maybe they’d just assume the men had been mugged? Then he heard more high-pitched whistles blowing. No, there was no way a soldier in a city under siege was going to shrug off an attack on one of their patrols.

Damn, damn, damn! Scipio cursed silently. Even if his men reached their destination, they’d have to hide there, maybe through the rest of the night and the next day. Even then, the inner city patrols would be increased and on the alert. And of course, there was a very good chance that they’d be discovered.

The next sound he heard made him realize that he needn’t worry about fulfilling the plan. He and his men would be lucky to live through the night. Because echoing through the narrow alley, from both ends, came the sharp, heavy sound of horse’s hooves clattering on cobblestones.

Cavalry.

Scipio dug his heels in and came to a stop; his men followed suit. Looking down to the end of the alley, he could see them now: Mongolian cavalry, reputedly the best in the world, cantering in the street, the riders determinedly glancing about for any sign of intruders. The Romans, to a man, then glanced over their shoulders to the entrance to the alley, from whence they’d come. The same bone-chilling sight of armed men on horseback appeared there as well.

Scipio swallowed hard. His mouth and throat felt bone-dry. He and his paltry force of a dozen riflemen were trapped, bottled up in a narrow alley, ready to be picked off like so many apples stuck in a barrel. They were as good as dead.

[CCRunner]

Chapter 16 – Scipio's Sabre

Marcus Scipio and the Battle of New Serai, 1770 AD

Part 5



“Put these on,” Nara said.

Each rifleman took one of the garments and eyed it dubiously. The deel was the traditional Mongolian outer garment; while similar in size and function to the great coats the Romans soldiers wore in inclement weather, the deel had flaps that wrapped around the body rather than being buttoned up the front. The deels Nara had acquired were made of cotton and were obviously, from their look and horse-like aroma, previously used.

“Go on,” the young Mongolian woman said when she saw the Romans hesitating. “They should fit over those Roman uniforms you were stupid enough to wear into enemy territory.”

“They kind of… smell,” Private Lallena remarked.

“And after crawling through a sewer, you don’t?” Nara retorted, her arms crossed and one slender eyebrow cocked. Lallena shrugged to concede the point, then pulled his mouse-coloured deel on over his uniform.

“Even with these on, we still won’t pass for Mongolians,” Scipio remarked.

“You will from a distance, in the dark,” Nara said, “which is why we have to work fast, before dawn. So hurry up and get dressed!”

A few minutes latter, all dozen riflemen were ready, their uniforms concealed beneath the plain, worn deels to provide a meagre disguise. Nara led Scipio to a dingy, yellowed window of the warehouse where they were currently hiding from the city’s disturbingly frequent patrols. The window looked out on an empty plaza, shaped like a trapezoid, which was dimly lit by a single gas lamp just outside the window. At the far side of the plaza, directly across from the warehouse entrance, two lengths of New Serai’s city walls met at a 120-degree angle.

“Fortunately, we don’t have far to go,” Nara said as she pointed to the corner where the walls met. “The clothing market is normally held here, but it’s been suspended during the siege, so the place should remain as abandoned as it is now.”

“Er, we were supposed to open one of the gates, love,” Scipio objected. “I don’t see one nearby…” he added as he turned his head to look down the side streets.

Nara sighed. “The gates are too well-guarded, especially after that stunt you pulled with the sentries,” she said. Seeing Scipio was about to object, she held up both her hands. “All right, I agree with you, you probably didn’t have much of a choice.” She turned her attention back to the corner of the city walls. “It’s a weak point,” Nara said as she tilted her chin in the direction of the corner. “According to the engineers’ reports, it’s strong enough on the outside, but the interior has structural weaknesses. You’ll see the cracks when we get close enough.”

“Even so, I don’t think we’re going to be able to dismantle the wall before sunrise,” Scipio said dubiously.

Nara turned and looked at him as though he’d suggested they build a bridge over the walls made out of toothpicks. She sighed, shook her head, and took a few steps back into the warehouse.

“Silly man,” she said. “We’re not going to dismantle the wall by hand. We’ll use this,” she said, and pulled a heavy canvas tarp off of a large mass of objects.
In so doing, she revealed over a dozen heavy barrels. Scipio’s eyes, and those of his men, widened as they recognized the markings on the side of the barrels, even though they were printed in Mongolian. They’d come to know those markings very well; according to the Mongolian script printed upon them, each barrel was filled with gunpowder. As they looked around, the Romans noticed similar tarps covering other collections of barrels in the dimly-lit warehouse.

“Now I know why she wouldn’t let us smoke,” Corporal Silo muttered.

Scipio could not repress a smirk. “Just like old times, eh, love?” he murmured to Nara.

“What can I say?” she murmured back. “The last time we were together... the earth moved.”

* * *

“Nothing to report, Colonel,” the cavalry captain reported after saluting sharply.

Colonel Subotai nodded. “Keep looking,” he said, then turned in his saddle to gaze down at the officer in charge of an infantry battalion that had been rouse from their beds. “Go door to door. Don’t take the residents’ word for anything; I want your men searching every nook and cranny in every building—homes, businesses… everything. Leave no stone unturned, Major.”

“Sir!” the officer responded with a salute, then turned to march off and fulfill his orders.

Subotai sat upon his horse and reminded himself to maintain his façade of calm command. Inwardly, his guts were in a knot. When he reviewed the facts from a coldly rational perspective, he had to admit that there seemed very little to worry about: a lone Roman loose in the city, and all of that based upon the report of a single, badly-injured sentry—who’d encountered the man in the dark. The sentry could have simply lost a fight with a drunk and wanted to cover his shame.

But Subotai’s instincts told him otherwise. Another sentry lay dead, and thousands of Romans were gathered outside the walls, eager to find a way in. At least one had done so; he knew it in his bones, the same way he knew that the man was not alone. When a single cockroach emerged into the light, inevitably there were dozens more of the filthy creatures lurking in a dark, dank crevice nearby. Subotai’s experience as a warrior was validating his gut instincts: were he in his opponent’s position, we would be sending men into the besieged city on extremely risky missions to try to crack the place open.

So the men could grumble about losing sleep and forgoing breakfast all they wanted, so long as none did it within earshot. Indeed, the men knew better than to cross the one-eyed veteran of innumerable campaigns who was now in charge of New Serai’s defenses. Subotai knew his latest command was very likely a suicide mission, but it wasn’t the first of those for which he’d volunteered. And hadn’t he survived all the previous ones?

Subotai grunted and shrugged. Death did not matter, not to a warrior. He’d lost his fear of it many years before, when he was still a child. What mattered was the mission, the objective. His was to defend the city from the invaders for as long as possible while inflicting as much damage as he could. Well, he would start with the Roman—Romans, he corrected himself silently, heeding, as he always did, his instincts—who had the temerity to trespass within his city.

“We’ll make another sweep along the walls,” he said over his shoulder to the cavalry officers accompanying him, then urged his horse forward.

Action was always better than inaction. Somewhere, inside the walls, was his quarry. A warrior like himself, he granted, who also had a mission to fulfill. The Roman could sit still no more than Subotai could; this particular cockroach could not avoid stepping out into the light, sooner or later. And when the Roman did inevitably emerge, Subotai thought as a grim smile played upon his lips, he would be there to crush him like an insect beneath his boot.

* * *

“How many is that?” Scipio asked as he straightened and wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

Despite the coolness of the night, moving the barrels was hot work; it turned out that the cobblestone-covered square was uneven, with the corner where the city walls met at the high end, so the heavy gunpowder barrels essentially had to be rolled uphill. That also meant the job had taken longer than Scipio had hoped. Playing hide-and-seek with the Mongolian patrols hadn’t help in that regard. The men had not only abandoned the Mongolian deels they’d been wearing, they also removed their Roman riflemen’s jackets and were working in rolled-up shirtsleeves.

“Thirty-seven barrels now, sir,” Sergeant Necalli said. The big Aztec was also sweating, and breathing heavily. Rather than looking at his officer, Necalli’s eyes kept darting back and forth between the two ends of the street. As did Scipio’s.

Silo was positioned as a lookout at the west end of the plaza, another rifleman on its eastern corner. Twice now, once from each side, they’d signalled the approach of patrols, and the Romans had scurried back into the warehouse to hide. They’d watched each time as a dozen cavalry trotted by in the dark, their eyes watchful and wary. But none of them had looked twice at the growing stack of barrels at the far corner of the plaza. With their markings turned towards the wall to conceal what they contained, the barrels looked innocent enough. When the patrols had moved on, the Riflemen had resumed moving the barrels into place.

“Right,” Scipio said quietly with a nod, “let’s make it an even forty, then we light the fuse and run like hell.”

“Yes, sir,” Necalli said. He looked towards the warehouse and noted with approval that the last three barrels were already being rolled across the square by two Riflemen apiece. He gestured towards the warehouse that the number of barrels was now sufficient.

“The fuse is in place, sir,” Private Lallena told Scipio as he handed him a box of matches. “I thought you’d like the honour.”

Scipio smiled wearily at the Spaniard and reached into his pocket for a box of matches. At that moment, a nearby Hindu church’s bells pealed. Scipio’s head rose and he looked to the east, where he could just see the first soft glow of the approaching dawn. He sighed softly in relief; they’d finished their work just in time, it seemed.

His relief was short-lived, however, as the bells stopped ringing and, in their place, he heard a sound that never failed to send a chill to any rifleman’s heart: the unmistakeable sound of horses’ hooves. The metal horseshoes were clattering on the cobblestones of the street to the east. Scipio’s head turned to look in that direction, from which he could see a company of Mongolian cavalry rapidly approaching. He angrily wondered why the sentry he’d posted there hadn’t sounded the alarm, but then he spotted the man, or rather, spotted his body lying on the pavement, blood pouring from a bullet wound in his neck. The Mongolians must have shot him while the church bells had been ringing, so no one had heard it.

“Bloody hell!” Scipio swore. He heard Nara gasp from beside him as she spotted the danger, then heard Necalli sharply sucking in his breath through clenched teeth.

He gauged the distance to the warehouse, and that of the cavalry, who had clearly spotted them and were closing in. They’d never make it, he realized. In the open space of the square, the cavalry would easily cut him and his men down before they reached the door. And Nara as well. Scipio clasped her arm and looked about him, trying to formulate a plan. There was really only one option.

“Take cover behind the barrels!” he said to his men, and started pushing Nara in that direction. “GO!”

The riflemen didn’t need much encouragement. The gunpowder barrels they’d spent the night stacking against the cracked corner in New Serai’s city walls were the only available cover.

“Hope the bastards don’t start shooting,” Necalli muttered as he knelt behind a barrel filled with gunpowder and took his rifle from where he’d slung it over his shoulder.

He’d voiced a sentiment that every rifleman present shared. “Hold your fire,” Scipio ordered urgently, and his men obeyed. Starting a firefight while using gunpowder barrels for cover would be a very explosive form of suicide.

Scipio was kneeling behind the barrels with his men and Nara and peeked out through a gap created by the curve of the wooden casing of the containers. The Mongolians had halted their horses at the other side of the square, right out in front of the warehouse. The horses were evenly spaced out, indicative of the skill of their riders. Their carbines were unslung and pointing at the cornered Romans.

“Damn!” Scipio swore, afraid that the Mongolians would start firing any second. The explosive result would achieve his mission objective, but at the cost of his men’s lives—and Nara’s as well. He glanced at the young Mongolian woman with concern, momentarily sorry she was there. She looked back at him, her dark eyes filled with concern, but very little fear. He smiled in appreciation of her bravery.

Then he spotted the white cloth of her underskirt which was peeking out from beneath her long, dark dress, and an idea occurred to him.

“Pardon me, love,” he said, then reached towards her ankles and tore some of the white fabric away. He then tied it around the bayonet of his rifle and raised it up from behind the barrel where he’d taken cover.

He heard and recognized the command to hold their fire given by whoever commanded these cavalry. Then the same man addressed him in Latin.

“You’re trapped, Romans,” the man said. “There is no escape. But if you want to parley, send your senior officer out.”

Scipio began to rise, but stopped when he felt Nara’s hand on his forearm. “Be careful,” she whispered. “I know this man—he’s a killer.”

Scipio nodded, then smiled wolfishly, showing more confidence than he felt. “So am I, love,” he said as he rose, still clutching his rifle with its strip of white cloth. He then stepped out from behind the barrels to face his adversary.

[CCRunner]

Any updates coming soon?

Unfortunately not--I'm trying my hand at writing a novel for publication (at long last), so that's been sucking in all my creative juices lately. Sorry!

And so rests the story of the Princes of the Universe, just waiting for it's author to pick it up again

Hope you enjoyed it like I did!

[CCRunner]

The original story can be found here and the second part here. Note that the first thread is locked. I'd like to give special thanks to Birdjaguar at CFC for helping me by temporarily unlocking that thread so I could quote the posts.

[Monk]

Moved to the TreasAARy, our resident forum for After Action Reports of this nature. I haven't read this yet, as with a mammoth of this size I may need a day or two (or seven). Thanks for the post CCRunner. I would assume the original author does not mind reposts of this work?

[CCRunner]

He doesn't mind, I specifically asked him for permission to repost it