Eagles and Dragons Tribune Box Set

II - Trimontium-2

The Dragon was a part of him as much as he a part of it. It used to frighten and confuse him, as it did his friends long ago. But now, he had come to accept the gift of ancient power and skill, and the curse of loneliness it gave in return. He looked down at the tattooed dragons that now coiled about the muscles of his forearms, a long scroll in the left claw and a red-tipped spear clutched in the right. He smiled fleetingly, remembered when Dagon, himself a king, had given him the tattoo after their first, crushing victory under Lucius’ command. The men had been awed by their praefectus’ skill and power.

Every Sarmatian warrior had images of animals upon his person; wolves, bears, horses, falcons, centaurs, griffins, sphinxes and dragons. Lucius had not protested when Dagon insisted upon this singular honour for a Roman commander. Even Lucius’ dapple-grey stallion, Lunaris, had been branded with a similar image on his rear hind quarter to further bind him to his master, his friend. For the Sarmatians, horses were most sacred, honoured as family members, even to the extent that upon their death, they were burned upon pyres next to their riders.

Perhaps, Lucius thought, that is why Epona had taken notice of him. The goddess had entered into his dreams, or as flashes in his waking hours. From the time he arrived in Britannia, he had felt her presence, seen the white birds in a nearby tree, specks on a hillside boulder, or winging through the sky before an engagement. He thought he might have been going mad, but a few times between wakefulness and sleep did he spy her, smiling, laughter in flashes of white and red-gold. But she had never spoken in words, only feelings and reassurances. Lucius would wake with a remnant sense of extreme beauty laced with terrible possibilities. She was to be honoured, not lightly, and so was now one of his personal triad of deities.

When Lucius finished polishing his armour, and a sense of peace had come back to him, he stood up, running a hand through his dark hair and sighed. His hand caught in the grime matting his hair. He took the sword his wife had given him, for it never left his side, and stood. He made his way to the baths of the commander’s house to clean and soak in the caldarium where the furnaces had been stoked since their return.

After washing with strigil and oil, Lucius sat in the hot water pool, allowing the steam to envelop him for a spell. He leaned back, rolling his neck and shoulders, raised a hand to touch the dragon-hilted sword. He had promised Adara he would always keep it with him.

I miss you, my love, he thought. Venus, goddess, bring her to me soon.

Since arriving in Britannia, he often struggled out of the violence of his everyday existence to wrangle some memory of his family, of happiness, before it faded again. His wife, her black curling locks, the green of her eyes, all of her. He could not imagine how much his children had changed. The last time he had seen any children was when the ala had stopped at the Wall to re-supply for the journey at Coriospitum. Some of the Wall officers and troops had had families, wives with babes in arms and older children toddling about their mothers’ and fathers’ legs as they had all gathered to watch the Sarmatians ride into the settlement. Seeing those families had only served to make Lucius angry at not being able to see, to hold, his own. Children had waved to him, and cheered, but he had lowered his iron mask and ignored them.

The door to the baths creaked and Lucius’ arm slipped out of the water, silent, to take the handle of his sword. Nobody spoke. The blade’s tip scratched the stone floor as Lucius stood up naked in the misty pool and pointed the blade at the shadowy figure coming through the steam. The dragon on his arm strained then settled.

“Anguis?”

“I’m here, Dagon.” Lucius lowered the blade.

“I can barely see you for all this heat.” Dagon waved the steam in front of him away momentarily. He always skipped the hot pool, opting only for the tepidarium and frigidarium when he visited the baths. He was not bathing, however. He was dressed. Dagon looked down at his friend’s thigh where the water about was darkening. “Your wound is bleeding again.”

Lucius looked down and wiped away the clotting about his old wound. “I’ll have the surgeon put some new staples on it. He looked back at Dagon. “Is something wrong?”

“No. Nothing’s wrong. The Selgovan chieftain has been asking to speak with you.”

Lucius stepped out of the pool, past Dagon, to the cold room. “Not yet,” he said before splashing into the cold water in the next room.

Dagon knew it was still too soon to have brought the message, realized he should have waited until after Lucius had finished. He would bring it up again later.

Night had fallen and the rain continued to drench the fort, sluicing along the buildings’ roof tiles to splash on the paving slabs. The commander’s house was alight with conversation and permeated with the scent of roasted meat as Lucius shared a meal with several of his decurions. He had converted one of the larger rooms into a triclinium with rough benches and couches where he and the men under his command could talk and eat in peace. They drank only beer, for wine was more difficult to come by, and they all wanted their wits about them with the constant threat of attack. The Sarmatians rarely lost control of themselves the way Romans tended to do.

Lucius listened to a friendly argument between Brencis and Vaclar about the merits of the Selgovae in battle. He ate sparingly of some roasted boar that some of the hunters had brought back out of the hills that evening.

“Vaclar, you listen here.” Brencis, who was Dagon’s younger royal cousin, sat up and faced the other decurion who mimicked large ears the better to hear. Brencis, jovial as ever, shook his sandy head of hair, grey eyes dancing as he smiled and pulled at the long moustache he had recently grown. “You look ridiculous!” The others laughed. “You say the Selgovae were so easy to beat, that they are bad fighters. But I tell you that that battle could easily have gone the other way, for they are a fierce tribe.” Several of the others nodded in agreement. Though Brencis was all of twenty-four years, even younger than Dagon, he was a fierce fighter, astute observer, and strategist. He had the respect of his people, his cousin, and Lucius. “No. They outnumbered us greatly. The reason we won that battle with seemingly so little effort is because our praefectus, our Anguis, planned his strategy carefully and did not lead us into danger without being fully prepared. Not like some of the puffball commanders my men and I served under in Germania. If we won that battle easily, it was because Anguis knows how to win battles and has the ears of the Gods.” Brencis raised his cup, and Dagon, Vaclar and the others followed, all of them in agreement as they looked to Lucius who now sat upright. “We drink to you, Anguis, our commander, our friend, our lord of war.”

“Anguis!” they toasted in unison.

Lucius put up his hands, humbled by their devotion, awkward. “And I drink to you all, my defenders,” he glanced at Barta who towered next to the door, “my brothers. Every victory we have been granted in this land since we arrived has been because of your discipline, your skill, our fleet-footed mounts, and the inspiration that your ancestors whisper to you with every breath. I drink in turn, to you, Ala Sarmatiana!”

“Ala Sarmatiana!” they echoed. Only Dagon, did not echo the call, for he was too busy looking at his friend and wondering at the personal darkness behind the bright words.

“Praefectus, I wonder if we might question the captive chieftain to find out what kind of training in war his people undergo? It might help us in future battles.” This was asked by Hippogriff, the Greco-Sarmatian decurion. His braided blond locks were tied back from his bearded face. The others always teased him that it was the Greek in him that always wanted to gather information which he then wrote down on papyrus scrolls he thought would be useful in war planning. “We could try and get as much information out of the Boar as possible.”

Lucius stood up then and went to the window. He wore his black cuirass, pteruges, high boots and his long black, wool cloak. He held the sword in his hand, a part of his arm. The others all watched him, curious.

Lucius remembered his dream the night before the battle. It was of the Boar, before all his people, holding out his sword for Lucius to take, no complaint in his eyes. Even as he bowed his head to Lucius, a massive stallion had appeared behind him. The chieftain had done everything but give up his sword in the battle, so Lucius had taken the dream to be a sign from the Gods, from Epona, that his cavalry was to be victorious. It had seemed the Selgovae’s gods were not with them. So, he had relayed the order of battle that morning when it had come to him. The signs were not to be ignored.

“I would not humiliate the Boar by asking him to betray the people for whom he fought such a battle.” Hippogriff looked humbled. Lucius turned from the window and put his hand on Hippogriff’s shoulder. “It’s a good idea, and worthy intelligence. But I believe these people are born to war, sword in hand, and that they train as they fight, all-out, no order, no discipline.” Lucius went to the door. “The Gods were with us, and not with them. Sometimes, it’s that simple. I go now, to see Lunaris, for without him, I might not have come this far.” The Sarmatians all nodded for each of them carried out the same act every night, of feeding and brushing down their own brave mounts in thanks for their service and undying loyalty. Barta followed Lucius out as the others fell back into conversation.

The Sarmatian stable block was situated at the northern end of the base. It was quiet inside, all sound muffled by thick carpets of fresh straw and rain on the roof tiles. The gentle huffing of hundreds of horses was broken only by the occasional neighing. Lucius and Barta entered the southern end which was closest to Lunaris’ stable on the left. Immediately to the right was a wooden image of Epona surrounded by horses, dragons, gryphons and other creatures.

The scent of the place gave pause and comfort, the mixed smells of horse dung and sweet smelling hay combined with the silence of the place. Lucius inhaled and looked to the image of the mother of their camp and then went to Lunaris’ stable. The stallion had been waiting and stretched his muscular neck over the stable wall to meet Lucius as he approached. As always, Barta moved slowly the length of the stable block to look for intruders. Lucius pulled back the heavy hood of his cloak and smiled as Lunaris searched for the hand that always bore some kind of vegetable or fruit. As the horse picked up the apple, his teeth clicking on Lucius’ ring of entwined dragons, the Roman ruffled his jet mane and chuckled lightly.

“My friend,” Lucius whispered, entering the stable to stand beside the big Iberian. He picked up a horse brush and began running it over the stallion’s flanks in long downward strokes. Lunaris’ dappled coat twitched with each sweep. The trooper that had taken Lunaris to the stable earlier had already brushed down the praefectus’ mount thoroughly, but Lucius always wanted to do so himself. In a sense the Iberian was his best friend. In Africa, friends had betrayed him and the memory of it still haunted him in some ways, walled him against new, close and uninhibited ties with others. He placed his hand over the dragon brand on Lunaris’ flank that mirrored the tattoo on his arm. The stallion’s tale whisked in a circle; he had not liked it when they pressed the custom iron into his skin. It had taken Lucius some time to calm him afterward, to win back his trust, but he had. Lucius sometimes thought that he would be better off if he was able to be as forgiving as his horse.

Barta’s footsteps were returning from the other end of the stable block, but stopped some distance away so as not to disturb Lucius. The Sarmatian had no idea what troubled the praefectus so, but he respected him and honoured him as a man and warrior-commander. He knew these moments of solitude were needed, and stayed back as far as his conscience would safely allow.

Lucius leaned on the worn oak rail and gripped it until his knuckles whitened, not letting go. His war-torn self longed for the past, the enveloping embrace of his love-filled wife, the two smiling suns of his children’s faces. Like a tortured winter sea, he was crashing in on himself and just when his surface would begin to settle, another surge of anger would break.

“I miss them, Lunaris.” His grip on the rail weakened. “I feel adrift without them. They are my purpose.” Lucius struggled not to allow his sad frustration and self-pity to overtake his rage. He knew that if he allowed himself these moments of weakness, he would be dead. It was that simple, that terrifying. “What am I doing here?” his voice was a hoarse croak. Lunaris nudged him and leaned his thick neck over Lucius’ shoulder. “At least I have you…and the Dragons.”

He stopped abruptly as the outside door opened and closed, noise invading the space for a few, brief seconds. Barta was approaching from the opposite direction.

“Anguis. Barta.” Dagon nodded to both men. “Thought I would find you still here.” The young king looked at the tall Sarmatian for something, but Barta shook his head slightly, looked down. Dagon turned back to Lucius. “Anguis, an Imperial dispatch rider has just arrived from Eburacum. Orders from the emperor.”

“Where is he now?” Lucius pet Lunaris one more time and stepped out of the stable.

“I’ve left him with some of the men at the drill hall office. He’s a Praetorian.”

“Then we shouldn’t keep him waiting.” Lucius pulled his hood back over his head and the three men strode out into the rain.