Chapter VI
"I hate and love - wherefore I cannot tell, but by my tortures know the fact too well” - Catullus
In the morning, I awoke before either of my companions. The farmer's wife had baked flat unleavened bread and she offered me some, hot from the oven. The smell and taste of it became a memory that I carried with me for the rest of my days. On that clear cool morning, the taste and smell of the bread took me home, to the bakeries where I had stolen food to survive. I went outside with the bread in my hand and looked across the valley that we had traversed the night before. A mist was layered across the bottom and birds circled in the air currents. Green hills rolled away to my right and the sea to my left was a flat clear mirror. The contrast with Rome and its polluted, stinking streets and crowded thoroughfares and markets pierced my thoughts.
It struck me that it was a beautiful place, where I could understand people wanting to settle and raise families. I had never had such thoughts before and I wondered what had happened to me to make me think such domestic and banal thoughts. I rubbed my neck; it was stiff and sore after lying against the cold stone wall all night.
I felt the amulet. It belonged to a different world to the one I was looking at here. It was as much a part of me as an arm or leg. I had always touched it when I had serious or secret thoughts and my memories seemed entwined in its little ridges and grooves. I was at last beginning to put something into my life and it was all through the Legion. It occurred to me that for me to move on in the Legion, would require more battles, more killing and more risk. I was ready for it. Ready for anything that would take me to the top.
A soft tread behind me interrupted my musings and I looked over my shoulder at the Pontic Queen.
'It's beautiful isn't it? It is farming country.'
'Yes but I am a city dweller. I wouldn't know one end of a plough from another!'
'If you end your life in a place like this you would learn how to make the land give you what you need. It is a natural way of life for men, even Romans. Do not all your soldiers talk about getting land and becoming farmers when they retire?'
'Yes that's true. Mostly they get settled on land that belongs to someone else, but their General has fixed to evict the existing tenants.'
'It must be hard on the tenants. It is not a just way to rule.'
'Justice? That is a word for senators and lawmakers. It has no place in the lives of us ordinary people. Someone who wanted to steal from my parents murdered them. That very justice that you speak of eluded them and me in the end. The crime as yet remains unpunished.'
'Surely even the Roman law will help to bring such people to justice?'
'No. The villains of the piece were rich and powerful and there is nothing that a poor soldier can do. I had some gold but the corsairs took it. It would have been enough for me to return to Rome and start a legal inquiry as a rich man. All that is gone. No one said life was fair after all. Why did you not give us away last night? I thought you would have.'
'Because I gave you my word. The word of a Queen is inviolable.'
'Thank you,'
'It is I who must thank you for rescuing me from that bear. You were both very brave. Not many men would tackle a bear with a sword'
‘We just reacted I suppose. You seem young to be a Queen.’
‘Yes, I was only a girl when I first met Mithradates. If he had not come along I would have married a merchant I expect.’
‘A merchant? So you weren’t born a princess or anything?’
‘No, but at least I wasn’t mixing with soldiers.’
‘We aren’t so bad you know.’
‘Sorry, I did not mean to insult you.’
‘No offence taken. To be honest we aren’t the best company you know.’
‘Good enough for me in a place like this.’
I thought her eyes softened as she spoke and I took a step closer to her. I felt then, that she was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. We stood like that for a moment, our eyes staring into each other's. Her full lips slightly parted, her breathing slightly faster. She tilted her head back a fraction and I could resist the impulse no longer. I pulled her towards me.
Her arms flexed then straightened with all the force she could muster, as she pushed me away. She caught me unbalanced and I fell backwards ending undignified, sitting on the ground looking up at her. The only injury was my pride.
'Excuse me, but I think you're interfering with our trading goods,' Junius said with a broad smile on his half-awake face, 'or do you normally sit down that quickly on the ground?'
My face must have screwed up with anger. Hypsicratea frowning turned on her heel and went back inside.
'I thought you were going to sleep for all eternity. We had better be off soon,' was all I managed to say as I got to my feet.
'Look, I don’t want to be in your way all the way back to Sinope, but you will have to curb your appetites. That was a Queen and you my friend are just a grunt in the Roman legions. In the sex and marriage stakes with her you are a total no-hoper.'
'I could say it isn't any of your business.'
'Yes but there again we may just be thinking about survival and I don't want to threaten it by pissing off our package.'
Hypsicratea emerged with a bundle of bread wrapped in a cloth, and began walking westwards as if nothing had happened. We followed, bickering as only two close friends can.
We spent that day at a relatively slow walk across a rocky countryside of low hills and crags often overlooking the sea. The weather was hot and made the going difficult for we had to stop often to rest and drink water, which fortunately, we were able to get from a multitude of small clear streams that ran towards the sea across the rocky terrain. When the sun finally began to set, it left the three of us alone, tired and hungry. We ate some of the bread baked by the farmer's wife and we had enough for another meal in the morning.
We lit a fire in a sheltered area in a small vale. There was forest to the east and a high cliff face to the west, which we would have to skirt in the morning. Junius, restless as ever, went to scout the area and Hypsicratea and I were left alone. I looked at her with the embarrassment that only a rejected suitor could feel.
'I'm sorry for what happened this morning.'
'You should be. I am your prisoner and to lay hands upon an unwilling woman, let alone a Queen, is an offence punishable by death in my country.'
'I'm sorry, what more can I say? I would not offend you for the world.'
'Do you expect me to just say it's all right and forget it?'
'No, I suppose not, but it won't happen again.'
'I accept your apology, I suppose. What is your name?'
'Aulus Veridius Scapula.'
'You Romans have so many complicated names. I find them all hard to pronounce, let alone remember. What should I call you?'
'”Hey, you!” might be appropriate under the circumstances I suppose.'
She smiled then and her whole face shone with a childish charm.
'How should I address you? Seriously.'
'My friends call me Aulus. I have no family to speak of.'
'No family? Everyone has some kind of family. Why don't you?'
I told her the story of my early life and losses. I left out nothing, not even the thefts in the Subura. There was silence after I had finished. She looked at me with those dark eyes and I was sure for a moment I detected empathy, but wondered immediately if it was my imagination. I had already misjudged her once and I was disinclined to be tempted into another possible rejection.
As I looked at her, I realised how much I wanted her. It was of course, hopeless. I was a nothing. A grunt in the legion as Junius had so aptly put it and not a particularly experienced one at that. Once we returned to Sinope, I knew I would never see her again. This was the only time in the whole future of the entire world that I would have the sole attention of the Queen of Pontus, and I knew it. It hurt. It should of course not have been painful, for it was so ob
vious that even I should have known it. I still hoped.
Unfortunately for me, such feelings are strange creatures. Once they you prod them, they awaken and tear away at you until there is no rest, no solace.
The sound of footsteps broke the silence, interrupting us.
'Junius, where have you been?' I said as I turned towards the sound.
I stiffened when I realised. It was not Junius. The whole point of my staying in the makeshift camp was to protect the Queen. I had been too busy thinking of adolescent romance to do my job.
'Who goes there?' I said uncertainly. The military challenge was probably inappropriate but it was the best that my startled mind could come up
I saw two men, dishevelled but armed. One had a sword like the one the corsairs carried and the other had a double-edged axe. They looked at me but said nothing.
I heard Hypsicratea say something in a low voice and one of the men sneered as he replied. I could not understand the language for it was not Greek. I wondered what had happened to Junius. Had these men or their comrades waylaid him? I took them to be brigands, for many outlawed men wandered the hills and preyed upon the likes of us in these unsettled times. Some were from defeated armies and some were thieves and killers roaming the hills in groups.
Moments passed and I asked Hypsicratea who they were.
'Be careful, they are brigands. They want me and any valuables. Can you protect us?' the Queen said in a low and husky voice.
I stepped forward. I knew exactly what to do but was concerned that there might be more of them and half expected others to attack me from behind. I cursed myself for not paying more attention earlier.
They were inching forwards with an apparent lack of concern for my drawn sword. They split and one went to my left and one to my right. They moved slowly, so slowly. Most untrained people deal with this situation by backing away to one side so that both assailants could not attack at the same time. Meridius had shown me precisely how to deal with this situation but it required incredible speed. He had always said I was fast enough to do it, if I found myself in that situation.
Without worrying about their motives, for they were surely not here to pass the time of day, I decided to act. I stepped forward fast. I feigned a cut at the left hand man. It made him step back. I carried the stroke through to my right. A horizontal slash at shoulder height. I was fast. I knew I had done it correctly. My blade contacted the right hand man and he yelped with pain.
I hoped I had disabled him or at least slowed him down for I was looking at the other. He was the one with the axe. He had raised it to strike. Two handed, above his head. I stepped forward onto my left foot. I was inside his stroke before he could land it. My blade followed. I half turned, shifting my right foot forwards, but keeping my weight on my left. The sword followed. He still had his hands above his head as I killed him.
I felt the blade go home. It went all the way through his midriff to his spine, where it stuck fast. He took my blade with him to the ground as he fell back and it slipped from my grasp. The whole fight had taken seconds and words seem cumbersome and slow in the telling.
As the axe man fell, I surveyed what I had done. The first man I had hit was still twitching, his hands to his throat and a pool of blood accumulating around him. The axe man was limp and pale. I hastily loosened my sword with brute force from his body, uncertain if there were more of them. I was sweating and breathing fast.
I looked at the Queen. She had her mouth half open and she stared at me.
'I am so sorry you had to witness that,' I said.
'What?' her raised eyebrows quizzed me.
'The blood and that,' I said.
'I…. I have never seen anything like it,' Hypsicratea said.
'I‘m sorry if we Romans seem barbarous to you but I really was just defending us.'
'No, that's not what I mean. I have never seen such a heroic thing even in the combats displayed in the Royal court of Mithradates. It was so brave!'
I realised then that she was not criticizing me - she was praising me. I felt breathless but pleased, like a puppy stroked and praised by its master for the first time. I was quite pathetic in those days with women.
With an absurd smile on my face I said, 'We must get out of the light. There may be more of them and it will be safer if they don't see us.'
I put my arm around her as I escorted her to a clump of trees nearby, where we sat on a rock.
'You are no ordinary soldier,' she said, 'If all Romans fought like that, they would walk in triumph all over the known world.'
'Well I am an ordinary soldier, but I have been trained with the sword for a year now, by the legion's champion. He has a skill so far ahead of mine, that it's incomparable.'
'I am so glad you are near, she said, 'I was frightened.'
'Don't be scared,' I said and dared put my arm around her shoulder, 'I will protect you.'
Although it makes me squirm to think of this, I was young enough to see myself as her protector, a hero, not her captor. I know not what role she slotted me into, but I liked it.
I saw Junius before I heard him. He must have approached stealthily and as he entered the firelight, I called to him. I could see the relief on his face as he approached us.
'I saw the bodies and feared the worst.'
'Don't worry, I managed to get them both, but I don't know if there are more. It isn't safe here.'
'No, maybe we should move out now. We will have to rest somewhere else with no fire. It attracts people like moths to a candle.'
Reluctantly, we began our journey again. After we had distanced ourselves by an hour's walk, we slept in a small cave with no fire. I went to sleep, excited like a schoolboy. I thought of Hypsicratea and despite my tiredness, I found it hard to sleep.