Chapter IX

 

 

 

Caesar disbanded the entire Ninth Legion with ignominy at Placentia, although Pompey was still in arms. Caesar would not receive them again into his service, until they had not only made repeated, humble entreaties, but until the ringleaders in the mutiny were punished. – Suetonius, Lives of the Twelve Caesars

 

Caesarea

 

The first stage is marked by chills and fever, then vomiting and dysentery. After Malorix has thrown up everything in his stomach, and perhaps part of that, the heaving persists. Lucian administers small amounts of water or herbal tea to relieve the symptoms, but beyond keeping the man alive these palliatives have little discernible effect.

As the days pass, Malorix rides prostrate in the back of their wagon, sometimes raving, or moaning, or mumbling about "dark ones." More often he lies limp and glassy-eyed in a sweat-filled reverie. When they reach Caesarea his condition is so severe Lucian decides the mission cannot go further without risk to his life. Lodging at an unprepossessing hotel called the Mount Argeaus, he locates an equally uninspiring physician who recommends bread, spring water, rest, and sacrifice to Asclepius. Setting aside the last item, it seems to Lucian a wise enough course of treatment. In any case, he has seen this sort of illness often enough to know that there is no other.

Duris and Gelanor take advantage of the layover to explore the taverns and brothels, while Maecius and Crethon make daily sacrifices to Apollo, Asclepius, the Great Mother, and any other deity they think might take an interest in the case. Covering the important temples and quite a few of the more obscure, they offer an animal here and a sweet cake there financed by a raid on the Sarmatian’s enormous supply of gold coins, he being in no position to argue the matter. By Lucian’s reckoning the local priesthood does a pretty fair custom, and he notes his own servants look rather well-fed.

After about a week, Malorix seems through the worst. It cannot be soon enough. With Malorix flat on his back, Gelanor has resumed the ill-tempered pestering Lucian had believed to have been put to rest with the arrival of the stranger from the Danube. His latest foray comes as Lucian is comfortably ensconced at a nearby tavern. The table is nicely situated, open to the street. A light breeze serves to discourage flies and mitigate the lingering heat of day. Lucian is attempting to enjoy a pleasant meal of stuffed partridge and greens wrapped in vine leaves.

"The Sarmatian lies half dead in there." An uninvited Gelanor looms over his table and jerks a thumb in the direction of the hotel. "It’s time to turn this mission over to me. You’re not a field man, and there’s nothing in Elegia that I can’t get for you. Malorix is done. The war will be over before he can function again. Leave it to Duris and me."

"I’ve told you," Lucian mumbles through a mouthful of partridge, "it’s not up to me. Claudius wants him here. I’m just following orders."

"Things have changed. You can’t follow the orders, so you must change them."

"Must?" He gives Gelanor a steely look. "Besides, Malorix looks better today."

"He looks like shit."

Lucian must concede the truth of this statement. "There are things he knows. He and Silo are old friends. He’ll know what to look for"

"And I wouldn’t?" Gelanor’s voice carries an annoying whine when he’s thwarted.

"Maybe you would, but if Malorix can help we should have him along."

"Let him come then. He can follow me."

To Lucian’s relief the serving girl brings more wine, then spills some on the table. He and Gelanor eye one another as they witness the roll of her cleavage during the mopping up. "If he lives," Lucian says, upon her departure, "it’s him. If not, then we can speak of this again."

Gelanor’s face flushes dangerously and Lucian realizes the significance of what he has just said. "Gelanor, if someone were to attempt to hasten that day …" He sets down the half-eaten bird carcass on his plate. "I would know and so would Claudius." He leans forward. "Claudius would not be forgiving."

"I am not afraid of Rome."

"Perhaps it's time you were." He manufactures a sympathetic face. "There will be other missions."

"This is my time," Gelanor insists. "I have earned the right to lead!"

Lucian watches as he stalks in the direction of the old town. "Go and get drunk," he says irritably, wiggling his greasy fingers in the Armenian’s direction like an enchanter. "Perhaps the hangover will shut you up." Turning back to his partridge, he finds it has lost its flavour. He takes a long pull at his wine and makes a face in the direction of his glass. Why do people always annoy me at mealtimes?

 

* * * * *

 

Every few days Lucian calls on the Frumentarii unit attached to the governor’s office in Caesarea. With Gelanor sulking around the hotel, it is as good an excuse as any to get away. This day’s visit is timely, as two dispatches have arrived from Rome. One from Claudius advises Lucian that, as expected, the Emperor Lucius Verus is leading Rome’s expeditionary forces and will establish a headquarters in the city of Antioch. Lucian is to proceed to that city, contact the Governor, and prepare for the Emperor’s arrival.

The second dispatch is addressed to Rapax, but as his wits are still too addled for decryption, Lucian does it for him. The message, as it turns out, is not a harbinger of good news.

The Sarmatian stares vacantly from his bed, his pale flesh shining as though newly bathed in oil. "Someone by the name of Axel is dead," Lucian reports. "And an agent named Vadomar. Shall I read you the account?" Malorix gives no sign of recognition. Lucian carries his decryption to the window to get better light. "It reads, ‘Sad tidings. Axel and Vadomar killed in ambush near Rome. Attacked by Praetorians in guise of Celts. Prisoner Cocconas escaped. Traced to Ostia where he boarded ship for Rhodes."

Malorix licks his cracked lips while Lucian helps him with a drink of water. "These men were friends of yours?" Lucian asks gently.

"Not particularly."

"Is that so? I thought you were teamed with them on the frontier?"

"Briefly."

Lucian crumples the message in his hand and places it by the bedside. "Remind me to strike you from the list of people I would like to write my obituary should my own service to the Emperor finish tragically."

With some difficulty, Malorix swings his feet off the bed and on to the rough wooden floor, fumbles for a bucket next to the bed and retches into it. Lucian looks away as Malorix wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and says weakly, "I’m feeling better. We should resume our journey."

Lucian studies him doubtfully. His hair is greasy, body gleaming with sweat. Clothing askew, he stinks of vomit. "You look disgusting. A few more days, I think." He wrinkles his nose. "This dysentery, I’ve seen it many times. You will remain weak far longer than you think."

"Tomorrow. I will be well enough tomorrow."

The Sarmatian’s eyes are set with such determination that Lucian can see there is little point in debating the issue. "What about your dreams at least? Better now you’ve rested a while?" Malorix makes no reply. "Tomorrow then, if you are better. First thing we will see if we can get you to the baths, and then if you can hold down something other than water ..."

Malorix lies back on the bed and silence envelopes the room. As Lucian makes to leave Malorix says quietly, "They died in service to the Emperor. They knew the risks."

 

* * * * *

 

The legion IX^th Hispana has a reputation, and a story. Caesarea is the right place to make enquiries about it, as the city teems with soldiers on leave from units throughout the east. The local honey mead is renowned, as is the city’s standing as a centre for legionary debauchery at its several baths, gaming houses, and brothels.

Lucian activates the Frumentarii network to seek out veterans connected to the now defunct IX^th legion. A veteran legionary named Lupus emerges, reputed to have a vast knowledge of legionary lore. Armed with this information, Lucian calls upon Piso, the secretary of the Frumentarii detachment in the Governor’s office "You’re in luck!" Piso exclaims after sifting through a pile of odd bits of papyrus. "Sort of … Servius Collina Lupus, son of Tiberius. A ranker with a reputation."

"For what?"

"Drink. Up on charges a few weeks ago. Nothing much came of it,” he rolls his eyes. “The Mithraic brethren came to the rescue. Anyway, he’s still in lockup, due for release in a couple of days. After that, bound for Syria. Part of a vexillation going to plug holes in depleted units."

"What’s his crime?"

"Broke a table over the head of a citizen."

With Crethon in tow, Lucian proceeds to the administrative quarter of the city to an undistinguished building that serves as jail and drunk-tank for the army. A pile of brick and peeling plaster, but as jails go, the accommodation isn't bad. The smell is just tolerable. Lucian is led to the cells and gives a coin to a beetle-browed guard to hand over his keys and disappear. In the last cell he finds Lupus asleep in a pile of straw. Lucian sits on a well-worn bench chained to the wall and rattles the jailor’s keys. "Hungry?" Crethon pulls an amphora of wine, some sausage, coarse bread, and a few onions from a woven basket and spreads a cloth over a small camp table.

Lupus opens a bleary eye. "Who the hell are you?"

"The man who brought you lunch." Crethon pours wine into two wooden cups. Lucian offers one to Lupus, and then withdraws it as the veteran’s hand rises from the floor to take it. "To partake of this meal, you must sing a little."

Lupus sits up and rubs his face with both palms. By slow stages he stands, as though being raised by some invisible block and tackle. He is thickly-sinuous, stubble-headed, and reeks of stale posca. Fully erect, he looks down on Lucian the way a hungry veteran appraises a side of meat, or a whore at closing time. "I always like to know a man’s name before I break him in half, rip off his head, and piss down his throat."

Lucian shakes his head impassively. "First of all, I am Frumentarii, so you daren’t touch me if you have expectations of long life. I seek only information. You talk, you get this tasty meal and walk out of here with me. The alternative is you go hungry and you get out in two days with a few dozen stripes across your back. You will also be stripped of your immunis rank and be back digging latrines and pig slop with the new recruits. Your choice, legionary."

"Talk about what?"

"The Spanish Legion."

Lupus considers his options and shrugs. "I’m well out of that now. Ask away." He reaches for the cup, takes a deep draught, and smacks his lips in satisfaction. “That’s fine,” he says breathily. Pulling over the only other furniture in the cell, a small crate, he sits heavily.

"You served with the IX^th.”

"Like my old man," he says as he shakes his head like a dog just in from a heavy rain, then leans close to the food and inhales deeply. "Tiberius Collina Lupus, neckbands, armbands, rampart crowns, the works. I’ve followed in his footsteps, except for the Dacian war. But I served in three of the same legions, the V^th, the XX^th, and now the IX^th, may the soil lay lightly upon every last whoring one of 'em." He tears off a chunk of bread and raises his cup to the sky in silent toast.

"In a couple of days," he says through a mouthful, "I’m on my way to Syria, and finally get my own Dacian war.” A satisfied smile. “We go to kill Parthians."

"Tell me about the IX^th."

"What do you know?"

"Some."

"The curse?"

"What everyone knows."

Lupus gives Lucian long, appraising look. "Then you don’t know shit."

"I know the legion was special. Enlighten me."

"Special? As sure as you is a skinny Greek, when the boys in the Eagles talked about the Spanish IX^th they kept their voices down real low like."

Lucian bites his tongue. Lupus is typical of the legionary breed, full of superstitions about what order to don his equipment, how to tie his sandals, secret handshakes, and other Mithraic twaddle. But he is also right, for Lucian has interviewed others. He sees it in the way they lick their lips, the little glances to the corners of a room, the way they play with their hands. To all of them, the IX^th means fear.

Lout he may be, but Lupus turns out to be a trove of legionary lore. The Spanish Legion, he explains, was formed under the republic. It followed Julius Caesar into Gaul over two hundred years ago, took the field against Pompey in the civil war, and fought with distinction in Spain. When it was transferred to Italy, “the trouble began.”

Lucian already knows a lot of this, having read an account written by the celebrated historian Appian of Alexandria. According to Appian, the IX^th were stationed at a town called Placentia in Italy when they mutinied. Some of them had served their terms and wanted their discharges, others were holding out for a bounty of five hundred denarii they had been promised. When he arrived to deal with the situation, Julius Caesar was scandalized by their display of disloyalty and ordered the legion decimated.

A terrible punishment. One in every ten men selected by lot and beaten to death by the others. The story goes that the legionaries relented and begged for mercy. After some time Caesar forgave them, but not before he punished the ringleaders.

The reputation of the IX^th as the unlucky legion dates from these events. "That bitch goddess, Fortuna. She cursed them for their betrayal of Caesar, her favourite," Lupus claims. “The price was that they were doomed to wander the earth from battle to bloody battle until the debt was paid.

"But I don’t scare worth a damn," Lupus sticks out his chest. "And I know somethin’ about the Eagles. I know the stories about all the great ones, learned ’em from me dad. The X^th, XIV Gemina, all brave bastards. But the IX^th, they were the toughest of ’em all. They never stopped fighting. Ever.

"After old Jules died they fought for Augustus against Antony. They was at Actium. Then back in Spain they done a dozen hard years killin’ Cantabrians. That’s where they got the honour of the name Hispana, you know? Later, more blood spillin’ in Pannonia. Then they fought on the Rhine and held it after Varus and his lot went to Elysium. Then Africa. Some kind of rebellion there. Should have been easy-peasy for the legion in place, but it got out of hand. Who did they send in to clean up the bloody mess? The IX^th. Legion of the damned."

Lucian knows the story from here. They become the hard luck legion. Decade after decade wherever bloodshed raises its standard, the IX^th are there. They fight for their lives as part of Emperor Claudius’ invasion force in Britannia. A decade later they are nearly destroyed during the carnage of the revolt of the Celtic Queen Boudicca. They remain in Britannia for another sixty years or so, but are never allowed to rest for long, fighting skirmish after skirmish against a recalcitrant population. A long, arduous history brought fittingly to a close when the IX^th is nearly annihilated by the Picts during the reign of Hadrian.

After that, Rome begins the construction of the great wall, but IX^th Hispana isn’t disbanded. They are reconstituted for a time in Germany, then transferred east where they fight and are savaged again in the relentless cycle of Jewish wars. When the legion is moved to Cappadocia, its reputation is firmly established. Transfers in from other legions have long since dried up. Replacements have to be dragooned or hired locally.

"I don’t much credit no curses," Lupus says through an enormous mouthful of sausage. "But I got to tell you, if there ever was a unit that qualified to be cursed, it was us."

"How so?"

"Well, it makes sense, don’t it?" He shakes his cup threateningly at Crethon for a refill. "In the army they used …" he looks cautiously around the room. "They used the Spanish Legion as penal colony. Sent all the misfits and screw-ups there. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that there were a lot of screw-ups for the IX^th. When I was a young’n my dad used to threaten me when I did something wrong. He’d say, ‘One more like that and I’ll see you sent to the Spanish Legion.’ I was with ’em for five years. I asked to go. Wanted to see what it was all about."

"Why?’

"I love a fight. In the IX^th I could fight a lot."

"And the curse?"

"We were a brotherhood. We had our own code and our own rules."

"I heard that the army had begun to practice a kind of damnatio memoriae on the IX^th."

"That’s right. Our stuff got lost all the time cause wherever the name of the IX^th Legion appeared, some stupid clerk would blot it from the records. Assholes."

"Did you know Severianus?"

"Good rep. Bit of a religious nut though, if you know what I mean." He twirls a finger in the vicinity of his temple.

"And Elegia?"

"Dunno ‘bout that. Wouldn’t be the first time the Roman army walked into an ambush, curse or no curse. Greatest soldiers under Jupiter’s broad sky, but the officers is twats." He raises his cup once more in salute. "Messoris be damned!"

This name is new to Lucian. "Messoris?"

Lupus hesitates. "That's what we call it. Him. The Reaper. Messoris.”

"You’ve lost me."

"The one who reaps souls," he says in a low voice. "I thought you said you knew some?"

He tears off another hunk of sausage with quite unnecessary violence. "The story weren’t much talked about outside o’ the IX^th," he continues. "Goes like this. Jules decides to cashier the IX^th because of the mutiny. But why did they mutiny?"

"The history says for pay. For their donative."

"Yeah? Well, the real story’s been handed down in the IX^th for a couple hundred years."

"Do tell."

"They come back from Spain beat up and hurtin’, you know?"

"I can imagine."

Lupus makes a face suggesting this is doubtful. "It don’t matter. There was this centurion, a high ranker, first cohort. A piece of work. What you’ve heard about centurions being cruel, greedy, vicious? Well, with him they threw away the casting. He was behind the mutiny. Him and his cronies.

"When Caesar told the legion they’d be decimated, the rankers gave in and begged forgiveness. Old Jules gave it to ’em, for a price. Instead of five hundred lots to be drawn, there was only one hundred twenty. That’s ’cause Jules was a clever old sod who found out there was twelve ringleaders. So, he rigged the draw and snagged eleven of the guilty ones."

"And number twelve?"

"Set up by that centurion. An innocent, put there to suffer the centurion’s fate."

"What happened?"

"The men rose up with one voice. They told Caesar that he was gonna execute an innocent. Caesar lets the ranker go and puts our centurion in his rightful place."

"He was executed with the others?"

"What do ya think? Treated him pretty rough they say. He died screamin’ and howlin’ and cursin’ the IX^th. He swore he’d come back and take ’em all with him. Not too long after that, they say, them in the IX^th started to see their centurion in the dead of night. Up an’ walkin’ about like."

One of the lemures?"

"That like a ghost?”

“An angry one.”

“Well he were some pissed. And it’s been that way since. There’s a lot o’ stories. Like the guy drivin’ the supply wagon gets a signal from a centurion to turn his rig down a fork in the road and goes over a cliff. Or the fellow on guard duty that seen him one night and falls back, getting hisself impaled on a pilum. They say he even showed in battle, always a sure sign they was about to get their sorry asses kicked. Oh yeah, there’s lots o’ stories."

"I’m sure," Lucian agrees, mastering his sarcasm. "What motives do the men of the IX^th ascribe to this spectral visitor … this Reaper?"

Lupus looks at him blankly.

"Why does he do it?" Lucian translates.

"Cause he figgers they betrayed him. So now he wants ’em to come with him."

"Luring them to their deaths?"

"Yeah, like that. That’s the story anyway."

"You believe it."

"Sure ... Well, not really." Lupus looks down at his hands, then grabs the knife from the camp table and helps himself to a slab of cheese from the basket. "Good, this."

"Have you seen this Reaper?"

"Nope."

"You are not afraid?"

"Me? Naw …" He signals with his palm for Lucian to wait, as he screws up his face to choke down an overlarge chunk of bread. A few more gyrations and a swig of wine, he exhales, grins at Lucian and then farts impressively. "But it makes a damn good story, don’t it?" He laughs as he takes more wine. "I’m well out of that now."

Lucian watches him with disgust tempered by veiled amusement. He is lying about not being afraid. He covers it well, but it is there all the same. "What happens when you leave the legion? Does this Reaper leave you alone?"

Lupus leers like his namesake the wolf. "Lifetime decision, mate. Once with the IX^th, you never leave."

"Yet you are not afraid?"

"If he’s fer real, he’ll come for me in his time. But I got my own thinkin’ on that."

"Which is?"

"If ya don’t believe in him," Lupus speaks overloud, as though to the walls, "he can’t touch ya. Every one of them saps was a believer. Not me. I don’t believe in nothing but the short sword an' the whores of Caesarea."

Lucian laughs aloud despite himself. "Out of the mouths of legionaries," he says. Lupus is a human irony. A brawler and a creature of the crudest carnal appetites, and yet he understands one of the great fundamental truths that only a very few philosophers are willing to comprehend. That is, if you don’t believe in the gods they cannot harm you. So it is, it seems, with spectres.

"Why weren’t you with them, at Elegia?"

"Got my transfer, didn’t I?” Lupus says as he scratches his stubble-covered chin and reaches once again for the wine. “None too soon, as it turned out.”

Lucian parts company with Lupus near the entrance to a dubious-looking tavern, the legionary primed for one great final debauch. In a day or so he will muster, bound for Syria and the war. There he will outdo the deeds of his father Tiberius Collina Lupus, or die in the attempt.