Chapter Five
It is because the first object of the Romans in the matter of encampment is facility, that they seem to me to differ diametrically from Greek military men in this respect. Greeks, in choosing a place for a camp, think primarily of security from the natural strength of the position: first, because they are averse from the toil of digging a foss, and, secondly, because they think that no artificial defenses are comparable to those afforded by the nature of the ground. Accordingly, they not only have to vary the whole configuration of the camp to suit the nature of the ground, but to change the arrangement of details in all kinds of irregular ways; so that neither soldier nor company has a fixed place in it. The Romans, on the other hand, prefer to undergo the fatigue of digging, and of the other labors of circumvallation, for the sake of the facility in arrangement, and to secure a plan of encampment which shall be one and the same and familiar to all.
—Polybius, Histories, 6.42
In camp, somewhere in the land of the Argippaeans, date unknown
When the last of the wagons had been repaired, when the last of the refugees from Seventeenth and Nineteenth legions had their furcae replaced, and when the dead horses, mules, and oxen had provided leather for new sarcinae to attach to the furcae, there was still a good deal of leather and wood to work on other key projects.
There was nothing required to tan those hides that the camp and the dead animals could not provide. Urine there was in plenty to soak the hides in to loosen the hair. Neither was there a shortage of animal dung and brains to mix with water and soak the hides to soften them. Sufficient, if only that, tannin came from the bark of the trees that had been sent with them to…
“Wherever the hell this place is,” said Marcus Caelius, “and however the hell we and they got here.”
The first replacement shields issued to the refugees came from the men the Eighteenth had lost. These were not quite sufficient, so more were being manufactured. It took time to split wood into strips between a sixteenth and an eighth of an inch thick. More time was required to glue them together in such a way as to create a solid whole, a quarter of an inch thick and curved. Of bronze to create a boss for each shield there just wasn’t anything like enough. What there was of bronze was hammered out into strips to wrap around the edges of the scuta, to protect the wood from slashes.
Glue came from the same dead animals that had provided the hides.
The scuta should have been covered with a hide, over and above the outer protected hide that was tied on, to protect them from the rain and morning damp, but there just weren’t enough hides for the job, not with every other need for leather. Instead, where there wasn’t enough hide, they were heavily coated with dyed wax. It would have to do.
“A shield is better than no shield,” the first spear had insisted.
One new source of food had been found in the legionary stocks. This was the barley normally fed to draft animals to supplement their foraging. With all the grass around, and with no really hard work being required of them, the animals were doing well enough on a nearly pure grass diet.
The horses, which were in hard use, still required grain. But even after enough was set aside for them, there were still a couple of hundred tons that could be fed to the legionaries, albeit amidst much grumbling.
There were, besides the draft animals and horses, about eight hundred sheep and lambs, more or less evenly divided, which were enough for about eight or ten days’ worth of slightly short meat rations from the lambs alone.
Marcus Caelius, not so much filling in for the old praefectus castrorum, Ceionius, as supervising the equestrian class optio, hastily promoted and put into his place, felt a little more comfortable about the legion’s ration status. And, for the little nagging doubts, he was quite sure there was nothing he could do.
Meanwhile, there was training, about which he definitely could do something.
* * *
Marcus Caelius escorted the legate around the open area east, southeast, and northeast of the camp where the men—half of them—were engaged in weapons drills. These involved repetitive movements of thrusting, parrying, and slashing with their gladii, as well as riposting, blocking, and striking with the scuta, plus forward lunges and rearward recoveries.
Individually, for their own centuries, the centurions or their optios, called out the commands: “Second. Thrust. Recover. Fourth. Riposte. Advance. Strike. Strike down…”
These commands were different in the details from later forms of swordplay, largely because the scuta covered half the possible lines of attack against the individual legionaries.
“I don’t really get it, Top,” said Gaius Pompeius. “None of those movements strike me as very realistic or practical. Especially since they’re fighting ghosts.”
“Well, sir,” said the first spear, “they’re more practical than you might think. For one thing, they’ve quite good at keeping a man from stabbing or slashing his neighbor. Under the eyes of their centurions, too, they’re good for drilling people in economy of motion. But the real reason is that they’re the best way we have of keeping the muscles associated with fighting in good condition.”
“Ah…so it’s more about exercise than about exercise.”
“Precisely, sir. Also note that we don’t have more of the double-weight scuta and gladii than about for a century at a time. If we ever settle down long term, I’ll try to get it up to enough for a cohort. For now, this is what we have for most men, most of the time.”
“I have a lot to learn.”
“Wagonloads, sir, if you don’t mind my saying, but you are learning fairly quickly. Let’s go have a look at our new Eleventh Cohort, shall we? They’re working on their pila techniques. Hmmm…come to think of it, you could use some training, too, so that you look good in front of the men. Let’s get back inside the camp where the legionaries can’t see you and we’ll work on that; what say you, sir?”
“I’ve already got at least some skill with a pilum, Top.”
“Hmmm, ‘skill,’ eh? Sir, look at the men of that cohort.”
Whether by luck or just that Quintus Silvanus’ men were that good, the next legionary to throw hit the center mark of the target perfectly and drove the point of the pilum through an inch and a half of wood.
“Let’s go work on my pilum technique, Top. And thanks.”
* * *
Bacchus, my arm is sore, thought the legate, that night at the staff meeting. When the first spear puts you through your paces, you are going to feel it later on. And, for all my pain, I still have a long way to go to get to be as good as the legionaries.
The staff meeting consisted of the legate, Gaius Pompeius, himself; all five centurions of the first cohort, including the first spear; the senior centurions of each of the other eleven, including the two new ones; all seven of the equestrian class optios, the senior decurion of the legionary cavalry, and the chiefs of the Gallic and Palmyrene cavalry; the two prefects of the auxiliaries; and the senior doctor. Normally, the haruspex would be included, but…
“He’s still mostly…well, there’s no word in Hippocrates to describe it,” reported the doctor, Samuel Josephus. “Mostly he does nothing but stare off into space. He screams sometimes, weeps sometimes, and frequently talks to people who are not there. Well, maybe it’s talking, nobody can recognize the languages. Not Latin or Greek. Nor even Hebrew. And while some of it sounds a bit like the German spoken by our Germans, it is emphatically not that German. Some of it sounds like Latin, too, but not your Latin.”
“If he’s that much dispossessed of his mind,” asked Gaius Pompeius, “how are you feeding him?”
“By hand, with difficulty,” answered Josephus. “You really don’t want to know the details. He is losing weight, but then again, he could afford to lose a few minae…or librae…or maybe a few dozen.”
“How are the others coming along?” asked the legate.
“Shockingly well,” answered Josephus. “I’ve never seen anything like it. You know about the ones who were surely going to die whom the first spear booted out of the valitudinarium and back to duty, yes? Well, all of our sick and injured have displayed a resistance to infection I’ve never seen before. It’s like the finger of the One God—or one of your gods, which don’t exist—touched each of them and gave them some kind of inner strength.”
Only the new optios grumbled at that, along with the centurions from cohorts Eleven and Twelve; the rest of the Eighteenth was used to and tolerant enough of Josephus’ heresies so long as he continued to be a first-class physician.
“That’s really a fine thing, too, since I didn’t have anything like enough opos, juice of the poppy, for all the wounded I had. Note, though,” the Jewish medicus continued, “that this is true only for the ones who were already hurt when we came here. I’ve had several more injured since—one from an axe, for example, who laid open his leg cutting wood. These are healing, or not, as we’d expect.
“In any case, my men are underemployed at the moment, so I’ve put them to practicing arrow removal, using the Spoon of Diocles, from chunks of meat and offal, wound cleaning, suturing, that kind of thing. Tonight they get a lecture on triage and tomorrow another lecture on field sanitation. If all that goes well I’m going to teach a couple of them trepanning.”
“Right,” agreed the legate, who had a limited idea of what about half of that meant.
Marcus Caelius then ran down the strength of each cohort, plus the attachments. In all, strength was six thousand, three hundred and sixty-three men, no brats, no sutlers, and no tarts. He didn’t bother reporting on the few hundred publicly owned slaves with the legion though, privately, he wondered if he ought to have the legate manumit them and enroll them in the legion, to make up for losses to a limited extent. He also listed Gisco, Pullo, and Vorenus as accounted for, which presumed they were still alive.
One by one, Caelius called upon the centurions of the First Cohort to give their status on bringing the legion back into form. He gave each one to the count of one hundred to get their report out, answer any questions from the legate, and then shut up.
The cohort centurions got less time. The auxilia and cavalry got no more.
Marcus Caelius hated long meetings and hated equally the kind of commander who liked them, as well as the kind of staff officer who wasted time making himself seem important with endless jabber-jabber. Thus, he’d pulled the small plug on the legate’s clepsydra, or water clock, at the start of this one, to limit the meeting to no more than a mid-spring or -fall hour, using his own count to divide it up. The legate, being so new, hadn’t realized that this was unusual and so had gone along. The optios of the staff were equally ignorant, and badly outranked, so couldn’t complain. And the centurions, decurions, and praefecti were, to a man, grateful to keep the silly thing so short.
Finally, it was the legate’s turn and he, again being so new, had little to say. Thus it was with vast relief and immense satisfaction that Marcus Caelius departed the tent with, by his estimate, a good tenth of an hour still remaining on the clock.
And the meeting mercifully over.
En route to the Camp of the Argippaeans, somewhere west of the Sunrise Mountains
By the time they caught up to the roving camp of Bat-Erdene’s people, Vorenus’ bite wounds had begun to fester, leaving him with a fever and a strong penchant for raving.
“Is it rabies, do you think?” Pullo enquired of Gisco. He prayed to all the gods he knew of, and any whose names might have been skipped over, that it wasn’t. Titus was his best friend, his cousin, genetically about a half brother and emotionally a full one. Just as important, he was a comrade in arms within the legion. No one survived rabies; this was common knowledge. And it was a shitty death, almost as shitty as crucifixion, and took even longer to die from. If Vorenus had rabies it would be up to Pullo to put him out of his misery.
“Likely not rabies,” said Gisco, in a tone of near absolute certainty. “With rabies people are terrified of liquids. Mind, it can take a while to show up, so he’s not yet out of the woods.”
Pullo didn’t answer, just chewed his lower lip and shook his head.
“No,” Gisco continued, “he’s not out of the woods, but the part that worries me are the bite wounds on his leg. They stink and that’s never a good sign.
“There is one thing in his favor: wolves are pretty ruthless and particular where the good of the pack in concerned. I think if all of them had been rabid they’d never have been able to mount such a strong attack, on the one hand, and, on the other, if one of them had been rabid they’d have driven it out of the pack and so it never would have been part of the attack.”
Maeonius’ Palmyrenes were in better shape, all but the one who, as predicted, had died from his wounds and been buried by the side of the broad and bare trail. This had cost the party almost an entire day.
The wounded Palmyrenes, at least, could ride on their own. With Titus Vorenus, he not only depended on the horns gripping his thighs but had to have his torso tied to the horse’s bridle and the saddle as well. Even at that, his head flopped from side to side most alarmingly, like a cork at sea in strong waves.
Though the area was, in general, amazingly flat, there were some areas of rolling terrain. They rode up one such and stopped dead, in amazement.
Before them stretched several miles to their right and left and into the distance farther than they could see for all the dust, a moving sea of animals. Some were horses, like Bat-Erdene’s, and, like his, bearing riders. Others were sheep and goats. For still others…
“Those are the biggest fucking cows I have ever seen,” announced Lucius Pullo.
“Ngekud,” Bat-Erdene said, once again making horns on his head with his fingers.
Indeed, the cattle were monstrous, taller than the horses at the shoulder, taller at the shoulders than men, for that matter, solid as the pyramids of Egypt, and with horns stretching, in some cases, as wide as a man was tall. Pullo whistled as realized the sheer enormity of the beasts.
Though many of them pulled great wagons, others grazed freely or grazed while carrying some substantial wrapped-up loads on their backs.
Dogs, likewise huge though nothing like the ngekud, trotted among the animals, keeping them in line and keying off the humans for their general direction. The whole procession moved very slowly, at the speed of grazing sheep and goats.
Admiringly, Pullo said, “Like to get a matched pair of those dogs for the legion, or at least one stud to breed on our bitches.”
“They are very fierce but also very loyal,” said Bat-Erdene. “Smart, too. We go now?”
“Yes,” agreed Gisco, “we go.”
Accompanied by the Palmyrene horse, the party trotted down toward the rear of the moving tribe. Very shortly after they’d crested the rise and begun their descent, riders from the rear of the tribe peeled off to intercept. They carried spears but with crosspieces that indicated they were intended for dealing with animal enemies, not human ones. Their bows were encased and hung from their saddles. Quivers of arrows hung across their backs, with the fletching rising a foot above their shoulders.
Upon seeing that the Romans were not disarmed but wore metal armor and carried any number of deadly weapons, and a goodly variety of those, the tribesmen reined their horses to a stop.
“They are frightened,” said Bat-Erdene. “May I go to them and calm their fears, Gisco?”
“Do.”
Bat-Erdene spurred his horse and trotted up to the locals. They went through a series of greetings, verbal and physical touching, and then several minutes of conversation before he returned to the Roman party. As he did, a pair of the tribesmen galloped off.
“They go inform chiefs prepare welcome.”
“Let’s hope,” said Pullo, “that the welcome is friendly.”
* * *
It was fully a two-hour ride to get from where the tribe’s animals began to where their wagons had been circled for the evening. At that, it wasn’t one circle but dozens, some smaller and others very large, indeed. Enormous herds rested in between but, the Romans noticed, the horses and wagon- and load-bearing cattle stayed inside the wagon laagers.
“Can afford to lose a sheep to the wolves, or to the tigers and brown bears that sometimes come off sunrise mountains. Sheep, yes, goats, even, and even untrained ngek, though them pretty much defend selves. Cannot lose horse or trained ngek.”
At what seemed to Gisco to be the largest circle of wagons, Bat-Erdene led the party, to include the Palmyrenes, through a gap which had been opened. People stopped what they were doing and looked on curiously, but no one evinced any hostility.
“Do they know we’re the ones who…mmm…invited you to be our guests?” asked Gisco.
“Them know. Ankhbatar, one who escape, tell them.”
“They seem remarkably friendly for people who’ve had some of their own kidnapped,” Gisco observed.
“Tell before, no one hurt us. If you take, they figure you got reason other than hurt. And me, I tell you treat us as honored guests. Want talk chiefs.”
Titus Vorenus’ horse was being led by Pullo. He swayed, senseless and tormented by fever in the saddle.
They approached a group of seven rather distinguished-looking men and three women, all of basically the same build and face as Bat-Erdene. None were fat.
Gisco asked Bat-Erdene to do the introductions. Except for Vorenus, who was incapable of dismounting on his own, and the Palmyrene horse archers who stayed in the saddle for now, the other three dismounted. Gisco bowed and, after a moment’s hesitation, Pullo followed suit.
The center man—also the most distinguished looking—asked Bat-Erdene a question, pointing at Vorenus. Following the answer, he barked some orders and a group of men, plus one of the women in the group of dignitaries, came and gently untied Vorenus from his saddle and lowered him down. Then they picked him up and carried him to one of the gerud, their wagon-mounted tents.
“That our chief healer woman,” Bat-Erdene said, his voice sounding as if he were very impressed. “She take good care Titus; fix up good as new. That, or he die.”
Following introductions—which even Gisco forgot immediately—the central figure in the group of dignitaries beckoned for the Romans to follow him to where a fair-sized fire of sheep dung burned inside a pit. It was surrounded on three sides by cushions. Once there, he clapped and servants or slaves, or maybe even free tribesmen—Gisco and Pullo couldn’t guess—came out with more cushions, which they placed on the fourth side. The chief gestured for the Romans and Bat-Erdene to sit, then followed suit himself.
“Your chief,” Gisco asked, “what is his name again?”
“Him Qadan.”
Gisco smiled warmly in the direction of the chief. “Ah, yes, Qadan. Please tell noble Qadan that we’re sorry for several things. One is arriving in your lands unannounced and without so much as a by-your-leave. The other is taking you and the other four back at camp. You were following us stealthily and we thought you might be hostile. Please remind him that neither you nor the others were hurt or robbed.”
Bat-Erdene translated both the opening statement and Qadan’s response. “Him say, ‘No harm, no foul.’ Him also say, ‘You came here through will of some god or gods. We no contest with gods.’ Finally, him ask, ‘What you want?’”
“First and foremost, noble Qadan, we desire your good will,” said Gisco, still smiling as sincerely as he was capable of, while Bat-Erdene translated. “Toward that end we have brought some gifts, samples of what we can trade with…Our needs? We need food, both in the form of grain and in the form of meat animals. We eat cheese, too, but Bat-Erdene tells us you don’t make that. Olives are probably not in your area but some kind of oil for cooking.…Fish; you may not have enough of to spare any. Leather. We could use horses, too, up to several hundred of them, and maybe some of your great cattle. Dogs or puppies, a few, if you have any to spare.
“Maybe most importantly, we need information. Where to find wood, for example…We’ve found a place to make a better camp than we have now; we’d like your permission to settle there.… Oh, and if any of your young men want to join up with the legion, a place could be found for them, with good pay, food, and adventure.”
Bat-Erdene and Qadan, who had answered none of the requests, had a brief conversation. This, Bat-Erdene translated in sum as, “Qadan and the others need to discuss this. He says, ‘In the interim, a small camp has been prepared for you next to this one. Go and rest. Women, drink, and food, also fuel, will be sent to you while we here talk. Your injured friend is already there. We will meet again tomorrow.’ Come, I will lead you and the Palmyrenes to your encampment.”
* * *
“Did we put anyone out to make all this?” Gisco asked, being the first to mount the ladder into the tented wagon.
Bat-Erdene shook his head. “No, we have plenty. Plenty wagons. Plenty cushions and blankets. Plenty food. Had sickness come through two year ago. Not super bad; kill maybe one in fifteen. So have extra wagons and plenty food.
“Some year hard; lose people and animals. Last winter pretty mild or we have lot more wagons though less food.”
“I’d like to check on Titus,” said Pullo. “He’s here?”
“Yes, I take you.”
“How will you know which wagon he’s in?”
“Sick one always in wagon downwind so not stink up camp. Plus…well, you see women over there?”
“Sure,” answered Pullo.
“Them little…ummm…priestesses. ‘Little’ right word, Gisco?”
“‘Minor’ would be better.”
“Right. Minor priestesses. Make chants drive away fester demons while main priestess do serious work inside.”
“Ohhh…hey, when we first captured you, you stank like a week-old dead sheep. But everyone here is pretty clean. How’d that happen?”
Bat-Erdene shrugged. “When out scouting or hunting, do best to smell like animal rather than people. When not, prefer be clean. There’s water here, so everybody be clean as can. Come, we go see Titus.”
Lucius Pullo followed Bat-Erdene to the easternmost of the seven wagons of the encampment. He nodded at the two women by the base of the ladder, but they paid no attention, keeping up their chanting. Bat-Erdene led the way up, then sat by a cushion a couple of feet across from the ladder, on the wagon’s floor. He made a gesture for Lucius to do likewise. The senior priestess paid them no mind, beyond a quick glance, busy as she was with Vorenus’ wounds. He lay on what appeared to be a clean set of furs, on his side, propped up by further furs that had been rolled into cylinders.
The cleaning was done by cloths that didn’t seem remotely dirty, insofar as they lay in a ceramic bowl filled with something Pullo was pretty sure from the smell was some kind of vinegar, although…” That’s made from honey, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Bat-Erdene said, “make drink from honey, kind of like you wine, then ferment again to turn into vinegar. Use some from apple drink turned vinegar to start it.”
“Bet the boys would like some of that,” mused Pullo. “We drink watered-down vinegar more or less routinely.
“Can you ask her how he’s doing?”
“Try,” said Bat-Erdene, then proceeded to converse with the priestess.
“She say it pretty bad. But she clean wound, scrape away dead stuff, and give him something for pain and to help fight fester demons. All else fail, she use fly babies to eat away dead stuff.”
“Fly babies? Fly babies? Maggots! That’s disgusting!”
“Maybe so,” Bat-Erdene agreed, “but work pretty good. They get cleaned first with same stuff in bowl.”
The healing woman’s eyes narrowed. She gestured for Bat-Erdene to show her the burns on his hands. Reluctantly, he did.
She said something that sounded very cross, which Bat-Erdene semi-translated as, “She call me big idiot. Now must let treat my hands, too.”
* * *
When Pullo returned to his own wagon, the one he’d share with Bat-Erdene and Gisco, he found two women—short, somewhat sallow, and almond-eyed but really quite well built and pretty—tidying things up, in the case of one, and cooking over a sheep-shit fire, in the case of the other. There were other women outside each of the other wagons, likewise cooking.
“They take care of you,” Bat-Erdene announced. “See to all needs.”
“Ummm…please define ‘all needs,’ my young friend?” Gisco asked.
“What can say more than ‘all’? You need food; they cook. You need clothes mend; they mend. You need water for washing or drinking; they get. You need fuck; they fuck. They expect fuck. Now me, have own girl here. She cut throat if fuck. But you? You can.”
Gisco asked, with a sinking feeling, “What about the other women at the other wagons?”
“Them, too.”
“I foresee problems,” said Gisco. “There is only one woman per wagon, except for ours and Maeonius’, but more than one man per wagon. Are they expected to provide for more than one man?”
“Not sure. Maybe. Maybe not in same day.”
“Pullo, would you be so kind as to fetch Maeonius. He and I need to have a little chat.”
“Sure thing.”
“Yes, yes, I already know about the women,” Maeonius said, when he’d walked across the little circle of wagons to the one shared by Gisco and Pullo. “And, yes, given how sex-starved my boys are going to be, I foresaw no end of knife fights over them. Already have a solution.”
“And that would be…?” Gisco asked.
“My first thought was to have a sort of duty roster, matched to the guard roster. Would have worked like this: There’s twenty-one of us left. After taking out myself, my exec, and my senior squad leader, there are eighteen in four wagons, but only four girls. That doesn’t work out mathematically for shit, on the face of it. But with one of us in the headquarters wagon on guard duty, and six of them, that’s still two or three in the tent at any given time. That’s fine for the two but awkward for the three. So I explained to them, in my own gentle and genial manner, that it would be one man per girl per night, it would run on a separate roster than the one for guard, and if there was any fighting over it I’d simplify matters by castrating the fighters, personally, and would continue to do so until there were only four men left who even could perform with the girls.”
“That would still leave you with a problem,” said Pullo. “The three men in your wagon?”
“No problem, the senior decurion only likes boys.”
“Oh, no,” said Bat-Erdene, “no boys. We bury alive people here for that. Nonononono; no boys. Scythians do that. Call ‘Anarya.’ Mean ‘unmanly.’ Remember one, came to our camp, name…seem to recall was ‘Athene.’ Dress like woman. Act like woman on period, too. Bitchy-prissy-obnoxious-arrogant. Stupid, too. Want do things with boys. Scythians bury alive for us. Give better deal on barley for that.”
“I shall let him know,” said Maeonius. “Note that he’s always been pretty restrained about it. Nobody in the ala. Nobody in the camp. Makes do with that kind of brothel when he can and just suffers in silence the rest of the time.”
* * *
Pullo left just before sunset to have a look in on Vorenus. The women who had been chanting had left off their duties for the night and set themselves up to sleep farther forward in the medical wagon. The priestess busied herself with keeping fresh wet cloths on Vorenus’ forehead, to keep the fever from killing him. The wounds were bandaged with fresh clean wool. They gave off a scent of corruption, still, but now mixed with the scents of honey and vinegar.
Pullo gave the woman a smile, then left for his own tented wagon, which now glowed faintly from the inside. When there, when he’d climbed up the ladder, he found the area illuminated by lamps not much different from what he was used to at home. From the smell, he thought they used butter for fuel. The Germans did that, too, as did some Gauls.
Glancing forward, he saw a covering fur rise and fall, rhythmically. Aha, so Bat-Erdene wasn’t lying. He looked a little more carefully and found the other girl watching him, lying on her back with a rolled-up fur behind her for a pillow, propped up on her elbows and with the covering fur successfully failing to cover her breasts. Not lying at all.
* * *
My, that was nice, was Lucius Pullo’s first thought, the next morning. He awakened alone, not because the girl had run off, but because she’d arisen early to prepare breakfast outside.
The girl? “Zaya,” she’d indicated her name was, during the inevitable cross-cultural, post-coital language and culture session. Pullo had no idea what it meant.
Probably something mundane like water-bearer, though to my ear it sounds a good deal more exotic than that. Let’s hope we stay here for a while.
“Up, Pullo,” said Gisco, from outside the ger—Oh, yes, that was another word she taught me. “We need to go meet with the elders as soon as we’ve eaten.”
“Right,” the junior centurion agreed. “Just let me grab something and check on Titus and we can go.”
* * *
At what he thought of as the medical wagon, Pullo found the priestess busily but gently scraping away at Vorenus’ wounds. He sniffed a bit, and, though no expert, thought the wounds smelled less foul than the day before.
Hmmm…maybe this old bitch knows more than I thought.
Pullo looked at the scraper she was using, a narrow bronze handle ending in a silver spoon. He’d been wounded in action before, more than once, and so he’d seen something like that scraper used before. A fairly standard thing, some places, he thought. Some places…some places. Pullo, you’re an idiot; our places.
He fairly threw himself into the tent, grabbing the priestess’ wooden medical chest and pulling it toward him. She arose to stop him and then stopped herself once it was obvious that he just wanted to see, not to steal. She did slap his hand when he went to pick something up, but the words she uttered conveyed the meaning to Pullo of “Hands off, filthy beast.”
Pullo turned his head, shouting for Bat-Erdene, who trotted up briskly. His hands were still bandaged and would be for some days.
“What is, friend Lucius?” Bat-Erdene asked.
“I need to look at these things and I may need to know where they came from.”
A brief conversation between the young herder and the priestess ensued. She then passed over an open jug smelling strongly of vinegar and a little of honey. A clean cloth followed.
“She say you wash hands, can then touch.”
Pullo did as ordered, paying particular attention to the crud under his fingernails. He held them up for the priestess’ inspection. She nodded and gestured toward the chest. One by one Pullo took them out—knives and saws and scalpels, hooks and forceps and needles—and examined them. Some he knew the names for in Latin; others he did not.
That caused him to pick up something previously inspected and returned. No, no nomenclature on the thing. Did these people make this box, its hinges, and the instruments in it? Color me skeptical. They do fine with wood and bone, horn, hair, and sheep shit, but bronze instruments? I’ve seen nothing to suggest it. Even their arrow- and spearheads are flint and maybe some other stone. No, no, this all came from elsewhere.
Then he saw something he did know the use of, because it had been used on him. He picked up a bronze cupping vessel, then asked Bat-Erdene to ask the priestess what it was used for. As it turned out, she hadn’t a clue and had never tried to use it for anything.
“Ask her where the set came from. And how it got here.”
“‘A trader,’ she says, coming from the direction of the setting sun.”
“Are there many more?”
“Only this one set in our tribe.”
Which, yes, probably means it hasn’t been traded so much that it could have made the journey here by some random motion. Mercury—I know where home is!
“Give the noble priestess my thanks,” said Pullo, who bowed his head before departing the tent and crossing the short space at a run.
“Gisco! I know where home is!”
* * *
First came the reintroductions and the presentation of the gifts that had not been possible the afternoon before, due to lack of time. These were removed from the pack mule bearing them, one at a time, and personally given to Qadan by Gisco. The Phoenician, descendent of a very long line of clever traders, watched the chief’s eyes to measure what he valued most.
The knives he’d kept, with some enthusiasm. The swords, rather less so, though perhaps he saw some value in them for butchery of livestock. The previous legate had been something of a collector of amber, and those dozen pieces Qadan accepted with great enthusiasm. Qadan had fingered the bolt of white silk, likewise procured from the legate’s stores and said, “This come from direction of rising sun. Is valuable, must trade much animals and felt.”
But the thing that really excited the old chief’s attention was the bag of silver coins Gisco presented. These people are money poor.
“Noble Qadan,” said Gisco, after the rounds of reintroductions, pleasantries, and gift-giving were finished, “my friends and I are, more than anything, desirous of going to our own home. We have examined your healing priestess’s medical chest and determined that there is a fair chance it came from our home, or near it, and that our home is in the west, in the direction of the setting sun. But there are other explanations that also could be true. Do you have any other things that you traded for or were gifted that might help us figure out our locations?” Of course, you telling us that the silk comes from the East already helped us there a good bit.
Qadan rubbed his jaw, contemplatively, then called over an underling, into whose ear he whispered at considerably length. That man bowed and ran off toward an unusually large and ornate ger that Gisco took to be Qadan’s own or, perhaps, just one of his own.
The chieftain than spoke some more to Bat-Erdene, who translated, “While servant collecting things, we discuss what said yesterday.”
“Food? Food can help with, packloads barley, also sheep, goats, and cattle.” He held up a silver denarius and said, “One such, give one sheep, two goat, ten packloads grain.” Qadan’s finger gestured toward Bat-Erdene. “This one explain cheese. We don’t eat. No what you call ‘olives’; nothing like around here. Have butter, one coin per three skins. Fish: we catch and eat, big ugly fish, also eggs of fish, from winter lodge camp, but that camp far behind. No fish.
“Have other grain, one called ‘ruzh’; one called ‘arhaan.’ Ruzh not have much to grow on great circling but grow over winter near winter camp. Arhaan good crop for when not so cold. You want some? Same price as barley.”
“May I see some?” asked Gisco.
“Sure, send over both grain and bread later,” offered Qadan. “You like honey? Not have much to spare, maybe sixty skins. Three silvers a skin.
“Leather: have some but hard make. Can only make at winter camp, where trees for bark. Use up almost all on great circling. Use more felt and save leather. Mostly tan furs, but they are hard to get, except for sheep. But you buy enough sheep, no need any from us. Can trade felt, not leather. Can trade tree bark and skins so you make own.”
“Is felt rainproof?” Pullo interjected. “If so, we can make the tents the legion still needs from that instead of leather.”
“Felt three times same weight as silk,” Qadan continued, “one silver piece. Also have something we call ‘happy juice.’ Come from East, though not as far as silk. Can have one skin for twenty-five silvers up to dozen skins.”
“Hmmm…” Pullo whispered to Gisco. “He’s going down the same list in the same order as you gave yesterday, only deviating to add something we might be interested in. He must have one hell of a memory. Also, if that ‘happy juice’ is opos, the hospital could surely use some.”
“No writing here,” Gisco whispered back. “I’ve asked. Only makes sense that a people who can’t keep records any other way would develop excellent memories. And, I agree: there is no limit to how much we should buy.”
Qadan harrumphed, then continued, “Can offer to number of five hundred horse. Five silver piece each. Two hundred big cattle, already docked, nine silver apiece. Also have new litter puppies. Those, no charge, gift to you. But must wait fifty days and nights until weaned. If want trade for mother to leave earlier, is possible, but she fine old girl and cost ten silver piece. Same for her mate. Probably want both; then make more puppies.
“You want find wood. Is pretty good forest near great river, sometimes called ‘Raha,’ south of where our winter camp is. Is maybe six days’ direction of rising sun from where Bat-Erdene say your camp sit. Nearest one. Too far for us; we never use. Can settle in that direction, too, if like. Scythians maybe object. Never really know with them; leave us alone but everybody else just sheep to thems wolves.”
At that time two men, one of them the original underling, came back carrying a thick rug. This they rolled out, showing multiple goods. Qadan invited the Romans to examine the pieces and see what might help.
Gisco picked up a bronze pot, about a foot high and heavily inscribed. “Parthian,” he said. “Since they mostly write in Greek, I never learned to read it, but I can recognize it.”
“Come from South,” Qadan said, after an inquiry from Bat-Erdene. “Trader, long beard, too much flower stink.
“As for young men join you, we no do war. But you can hire for scouts and guides if like. Pay two piece silver per moon, plus one to tribe. Per moon. For, say, six moons in advance.”
Gisco considered the weight of everything he intended to buy for the legion. “Can you lease us extra animals and maybe some wagons to carry what the animals we buy cannot? We’ll need them for perhaps half a moon, then can send them back.”
“Yes,” said Qadan. “We work out prices later, when you know for sure what you need.”
Are any of the girls for sale? Pullo wondered but was ashamed to ask.
* * *
“I’ve got sixty thousand denarii,” Gisco said to Pullo. “I can figure some of it myself, but military requirements—not ordering them, I can do that; but estimating them—are beyond me.”
“Well,” said Pullo, “there are about…mmmm…call it something under seven thousand men in camp, seven thousand plus if we include the state slaves. The couple of hundred young Argippaeans Bat-Erdene says want to sign on for pay for six months; call it seven thousand, five hundred to be on the safe side. That’s twenty-two thousand pounds a day for grain. No, wait, men lose weight on barley. Better call it about twenty-four thousand pounds per day. They’ve got to have oil, but I guess butter will have to do. Maybe twelve or thirteen hundred pounds per day. Meat? Looking at their sheep we might get forty pounds out of one of their lambs. That’s enough for one hundred and sixty men for one day. But the cavalry can hunt for about as much, so call it one sheep per one hundred and sixty men per two days. Twenty-five or, at the most, thirty for the entire legion, per day.”
Gisco did some figuring in his head. Let’s say we have to march for four months. It’s as good a guess as any. That means six thousand sheep or six thousand denarii. So for grain…a packload, based on what I’ve seen, is about one hundred, hundred and ten, pounds. So two hundred and forty packloads a day, times one hundred and twenty days, about twenty-eight or twenty-nine hundred denarii. Call it three thousand. Honey? Why not take what they’re offering? Another one hundred and eighty. Butter, yes, we’ll take it all, even if the men don’t like it. A skin, based on what the old man showed me, is about eight or nine pounds. So for one day we’ll need about a hundred and fifty skins. For four month’s we’ll need eighteen thousand skins or nine-thousand denarii. Eighteen hundred for the big cattle, twenty-five hundred for horses.
“We can do this,” he announced. “Couldn’t in Gaul and not even in Germany, but these people covet silver a good deal more and probably have very little of it.”
Overcoming his shyness on the matter, Pullo asked, “Think we could buy some of the girls?”
“I don’t know. We can ask Bat-Erdene about the prospects. Still, consider, Pullo, the jealousy of men without women toward one who has one.”
“Good point. Well, if I can’t buy, I’d like to get a salary advance to set up my girl, Zaya, in case she comes up pregnant.”
“Relax, Pullo, it will still be several weeks before Vorenus is healed, at best. And these girls use something—it might be related to silphium—to keep from getting pregnant.”