*
The whistle of the Dacian flag is heard before the cavalry arrives. The flag is a wolf’s head stuck in a golden spear, with open mouth. In the back of the head are sort of strings. When the wind blows thru the beast’s mouth, the flag howls like alive. The Daci follow that flag and die for it as one. No human law can hold them aback, and sometimes no God’s will.
“Centurion,” they’re coming.
The howl is closing in the thick mist. The Decurion’s hand is groping for sword.
“Relax, Agrippa. If they wanted to kill you, you were ashes already.”
As any good Roman, Agrippa doesn’t trust the Barbarians. They are brave, but villainous and superstitious. So far, the Daci saved their lives many times, and kept them alive by hunting. The Romans fed into the Daci horses, until half of a dozen left.
The mist is blown by the wind in waves, and is thick like incense smoke. They can hear the jingle of the weapons, but not the horses. Barba ordered his men to wrap the hoofs in pelts. They were slower, but silent as the forest’s spirits. Another sound accompanies the weapons’ jingle. The Centurion cannot estimate what that could be. Six silhouettes protrude from the mists and then the seventh and the eighth one. As close as ten paces, the Roman can see. Daci bring with them a bull. There are three hundred soldiers to feed. And there is another rider: a woman.
“Centurion, the Queen.” It’s Barba’s voice.
The woman is quite an apparition. She wears a lynx fur over her shoulders. The belt is as thick as a Decurion’s. A short skirt stops over her knees. She’s bare feet in the snow. On her head she wears a simple diadem, like a silver circle, embedded in her cranium. Under the ring’s pressure, the skull had grown elongated like a pear. The thick reddish hair is arranged in a sophisticated tail, long on her back. She has a white owl on the left shoulder and in the right hand she carries a scepter made of a large cat skull. It must be a lynx’s. She sports no weapons.
The Queen steps forwards and stands two paces in front of the Centurion. She spits at his feet. The Decurion drags the sword. She shows no fear.
“She comes in peace, Agrippa,” says Barba. “She greets the Centurion.”
“She spat his sandals!”
“You see the owl? It’s sign for wisdom. She’s here to negotiate.”
“She has to knee.”
“But she’s a Queen!”
“Nobody’s king or queen in front of a Roman! We are the law!”
“Enough! Let her speak.”
She speaks in hisses and interjections. She’s ululating and she’s dancing. She spits again at the Centurion’s feet.
“What was that?”
“The Queen is asking us to leave her lands. Her tribe will give us food and horses. They will provide us a scout. The Romans have to swear not to cross the river again,” translates Barba.
“That is an insult!”
“That’s a hand for help, Centurion. We’re starving. From three hundred soldiers we have left, maybe one hundred can hold the shields. She gives us food in the middle of the winter. Her tribe will starve after that: they aren’t rich. And horses. This is a generous offer.”
“We cannot promise we never return. The Roman Empire is the master of the world.”
“Consider it, Centurion.”
“Centurion, if we have to perish, we’ll die with glory.”
“There’s no glory in starvation.”
“Silence! Barba, ask her to pay tribute every year. And we shall go.”
Barba hisses and interjects. The Queen listens and watches the ground, the sky and the surrounding forest. Everything is draped in thick mist. And then she answers.
“The Queen says they’re hunters. They cannot put tribute over the beasts, because the beasts are free. No bear had ever brought its clubs to feed the Roxolans. And so they are.”
“So, they refuse!”
The Queen propped her feet on the snow, arms crossed over breast. The eyes of the owl were closed.
“Ask her for a gesture of submission and we’ll leave.”
Barba hisses to the Queen. She doesn’t move. She stands.
“I’ll kill the witch!”
“No blood is needed, Decurion.”
“We built our power with blood. Every single brick of Rome’s walls is splattered with enemy blood.”
“Barba, make her understand we have our laws. We cannot obey and we cannot accept an unfair peace.”
“Unfair, you say?”
“This land is Roman!”
“This land has to be conquered first, Centurion.”
Barba had joined the Roman army on request and he was proud to be Ala commander in the mightiest army the world had ever seen. But a good general has to know when to sound the retreat as well as when to call the attack. And he understands this Queen. He was a Principe of his kin too, before the nobles stole his father’s scepter. This land is not Roman yet. They have to die for it first. And much more many after.
“Ask her!”
“I can’t. She’s a Queen. You don’t ask eagles to be chickens.”
“I am the Legatus of Roman Senate. There is no shame in kneeling in front of me.”
“The fox is rather eating her trapped foot than to fall to the hunter.”
The Centurion sighs:
“Decurion, make her leave. Men, prepare for dinner: we lift the camp in the morning.”
Two soldiers are sacrificing the bull. The Decurion approaches the Queen and he spits her.
“That’s for tarnishing the Roman uniform,” he says.
Perhaps she doesn’t know a word in Latin. The Queen stands, defiant. He pushes her. She stands. He hits her. She stands. He draws the sword. The Queen not even blinks. The cold breeze moves the tips of the owl’s wings. The Decurion smashes her cheek with the guard of the sword. Her head bumps backwards, but she keeps the stance.
“Enough, Decurion!”
“Barba, mind your business!”
“She is a Queen and a Priestess. You don’t know what are you doing, Agrippa.”
The Queen is singing now. An unheard, modulated howl. The Decurion steps back. He’s a little scared, but not enough to abandon the punishment.
“She’s talking to the wind.”
And the wind stops. The mist remains suspended in the air as a heavy curtain.
The Queen calls new sounds, as savage as the forest around.
“She’s talking to the trees.”
“She’s talking to my sword!” The Decurion trusts the gladius and open a huge wound in the woman’s belly. Her song doesn’t die. The owl moves with the torment but is not flying away, her claws firmly in its mistress lynx. The Decurion swing his sword once more. The queen’s body bends slightly under the blow, but she keeps standing. Her legs are covered in her own blood, and more blood soaks the snow, steaming, and then freezing. With a grunt, the Decurion hits again, aiming for heart. The owl opens its eyes like yellow embers, and flows on a tree. The queen collapses. Her crisped mouth is mumbling further.
“Witch!” the Decurion pants, wiping his sword on the priestess’s lynx. The owl watches, spinning its head.
“She cursed us.”
“Who cares? The Roman Gods are mightiest!”
“It could be so, Decurion, in Rome.”
The Decurion grunts again. He knows he’s right. There is no match for Jupiter and Mars. Mars can lead in fight hundreds of legions. What can do a cripple headed woman with a white owl? He spits.
The food is ready and is distributed by decuriae. The Centurion sits and eats his food in silence, among his men. Everybody is mute, gathered around small camp fires. They are exhausted and they are sick. Geta was right today. Barely can he summon one hundred worthy soldiers. And the fit ones are tired by caring the wounded. One has to work for three. The attrition is terrible in the frozen woods.
The Daci are sitting apart, whispering animatedly.
“They’re plotting, Centurion.”
“Maybe they’re respe
cting our silence.”
The Decurion grunts. The centurion must be naïve. Look at his beard: he doesn’t needs to shave yet.
“Barba!”
The ala commander approaches, slowly, his silhouette massive against the dark sky.
“Centurion?”
“Decurion, we need some privacy.”
Agrippa grunts again, and sits away, but not too far.
“Barba, if your men want to go, they must. I understand their fears. The Decurion has killed a high rank Priestess of your kin. He had to do it, for Roman law. So, I’m freeing you of the bond to the Roman Empire. If you like to, you may go,” the Centurion whispers.
“Our word it’s not letter written on the water, Centurion. We have sworn loyalty or death. For what is good a man if he has no loyalty? Even a dog has it.”
“And your men? Free them!”
“They are free. They have chosen to fight along you, so they’ll do it. They’re talking of the curse. She laid a terrible curse over our heads.”
“What did she curse?”
“The ground will swallow you, Romans. And us, for obeying your rule.”
“That’s it?”
Barba stares at his Centurion warily.
“I mean, it that a lot for you?”
“That means all for us, Centurion. If we die fighting, we are happy. We meet our ancestors in the sky and we drink wine in endless cups and we eat game meat in endless skews. And we have pure women every time.”
The Centurion remains silent. Supertition. There is no life after death. When your body dies, so does the soul. And your ashes flow in the wind: end.
“If the ground eats you, you will remain with the worms. No fighting man of my kin wants to be a sightless worm.”
“They will not!”
Barba is shaking his head in disbelief. He looks resigned to his fate. The Centurion cannot understand: this man was throwing arrows against his God a week ago. And now he’s concerned by a howling woman’s curse. And he really thinks the ground will open and will swallow them.
“Men, sleep!” the Decurion’s order resounds in the cold night. “Vigila prima!”
The legionnaires spread to their tents. Twenty eight tents, the Centurion counts. We’re not even three hundred. Daci are sleeping outside, with their horses, wrapped in wolf furs. Only Barba has a huge bear pelt. The legends around are saying he had killed the bear by breaking its jaw in a bare hands clash. No man can do that, the Centurion thinks.