Empire Of The Eagle Page 5

  Quintus shivered. From the soles of his feet, he could sense the hot hate of other Romans in the tent. Outside the tent, the Parthians might be relaying this conversation to the survivors of the Legions: Asiatics loved to boast and gloat. He tensed, waiting for the first man to leap forward. The tiny statue in his breast warmed, as if the two torches it had held aloft all these centuries suddenly kindled.

  Outside the tent came a clamor that made the Romans start. Better coached, the Parthians, Saka, and Persians did not move from their seats around the table. The Yueh-chih reached for weapons, but subsided at a glare from their master.

  Warriors unlike any Quintus had ever seen entered the Prince's tent, led by a man who was too young to be a general, but whose manner clearly proclaimed that he had a right to take a place at least the equal of those who sat at their ease in judgment upon Rome. His armor, like that of his guard, was scaled, his garments quilted, and his boots high, adapted for riding. He was stocky, foursquare; and if his eyes were slanted like those of the Yueh-chih, he was not bandy-legged like them. Despite the season, he wore a leopard's skin over his armor, as if the heat that would soon rise from the earth was nothing to him. Oddest of all was his skin, which was the color of gold.

  Placing himself well away from the Yueh-chih, who muttered but gave place to him, he seated himself near The Surena with the air of one taking a throne by right.

  Now he was actually looking at a warrior of the Land of Gold, from beyond the eastern deserts, Quintus realized. It was said—by those eager for riches—that this land was so wealthy that the dust of gold had sunk into the skins of its inhabitants. And enough Romans had believed that legend to bring them to this place where they might die. Parthia, he had heard rumors, paid tribute to that realm in return for trade. At the time he found it hard to believe. Now, seeing the man's imperial composure even though he was too young to hold rank equal to that of The Surena or Crassus before his downfall, Quintus wondered. It would be a great thing to control access to such a realm—great enough to make the downfall of Rome even more worthwhile than hatred could account for.

  He stared at the cause of an army's death, meeting for a sharp second the eastern warrior's gaze. The eyes of that one flicked over the assembled princes as a dog-breeder might regard an unsatisfactory litter, then fastened completely on the Romans.

  A small wave brought to his side a man with the quick, mobile features of a Sogdian, who—oddly enough—wore the same livery of scales and quilted fabric. He spoke.

  "My lord says your men fought well. But they lost. And your son died. Now my lord asks you—" he jerked his chin at Crassus, "—why you yet live."

  "I still have an army to protect. They are all my sons," said the proconsul. He drew himself up as proudly as he might.

  If they all survived this day. Lucilius might laugh at Crassus's words. But for the first time, Quintus saw the old man as one who could have been followed had Fortune not turned the scale.

  Quintus felt his eyes sting, and another sting besides. Moving very slowly, mindful always of the watchful Saka guard beside him, he raised one hand to where the little bronze statue danced above his heart. A warmth, pervasive but not unpleasant, radiated from it as a promise of comfort. He felt, if not rested, fit to march or fight. Or, likelier than either, to endure what must be.

  The Sogdian eyed Crassus, skepticism writ large on his mobile features. He glanced at The Surena as if for permission to smile. But the Parthian lord's face was as impassive as that of the man from the Land of Gold.

  The noble from the East nodded gravely, accepting the words as if they came from a victor and general, not a beaten man. "You said, Prince of An'Hsi, that this was the Prince of Ta'Tsien... that land to the west... who would turn his land to gold and count it? Who would venture to trade with us of the Han? Is he a noble, or is he a merchant?"

  Again, the Sogdian spoke. Had the auxilia Quintus saw in the marsh survived? He would have been glad of an interpreter of his own. Some of the princes were shifting, impatient, in their seats. It was always dangerous when barbarians became restive. Apparently, the man from the Land of Gold—the Han, he called it—thought so too.

  The Surena laughed now, a sound echoed by his Persian nobles, whose pride it was to live off their lands and never soil their fingers with trade. These patricians, these patricians, Quintus thought. They would be the death of him as they had been of his family's hopes. The statue over his heart pricked at his flesh. Pay attention, fool. He all but heard his grandfather's voice exhort him.

  "How can this be?"

  Abruptly, one of the deadly steppe riders broke into a tumult of words that sounded much like the speech of the man of the Han—and that young lordly officer listened, then spoke,

  "Their gods, you say," the interpreter repeated. "Their gods travel with their armies? Careless of them, should they lose. My most excellent Lord Surena, this insignificant one would see these gods of the West."

  The Surena clapped his hands.

  And, carried any which way, as slaves would drag bodies out of a prison, Parthians brought the Eagles of Crassus's slain Legions into the tent and hurled them onto the table.

  The clash of the metal made everyone start. The Yueh-chih muttered as if they expected the Eagles to leap from their standards, mantle, and strike with beaks and claws. Several men, and those not the least in rank, muttered, gestured, and fumbled at amulets.

  The captive Eagles of the Legions lay there on the table: no gods, but tarnished metal, hacked with sword-thrusts, stained with the blood of their Roman bearers.

  The blood was fresh on one.

  "We found this one just outside. He who carried it... fought us."

  Crassus half rose from his chair, then sank down at a glance from his staff officers.

  Quintus closed his eyes. That Eagle's bearer had been a brave man. Then he forced his eyes open again, condemning himself to watch every last instant of his country's disgrace.

  "It seems," said the man of the Han through his interpreter, "that even some gods can be overpowered. What shall you do with these?"

  "They go to our temples, especially the one at Merv," said The Surena. "To commemorate my victory."

  Behind him, several warriors on embassy from the King Orodes flickered glances at one another. Powerful The Surena was; had he become so powerful that the king would have to risk removing him or losing his own crown? Quintus knew he would never have time to learn.

  The Han officer rose. "Metal gods for which men die," he mused, putting out a well-kept hand to touch the nearest Eagle—Quintus's own.

  "My tu hu must see this. It will be for my commander to decide, but this foolish one should think that the Son of Heaven in Ch'ang-an must see these Eagles, and that the exalted one's learned men should unravel the mystery of the power that makes men die for them."

  He raised the Eagle as if it had been a standard of his own. SPQR, half covered by blood, shone in the firelight. Crassus stared at it as a drowning man stares at the faintest beam of light taunting him at a horizon of air and water that he is fated never to reach, struggle as he may.

  "I take this," the officer of Han announced. "As part of An'Hsi's tribute to the Son of Heaven."

  He bowed as courteously as if he had done no more than accept a cup of wine among his brothers, then strode from the tent, taking the Eagle with him.

  Two men strode forward to gather up the remaining standards.

  "No...." whispered Crassus, echoing Quintus's longing. "By all the gods of hell, no!"

  They were Crassus's son, Quintus's friends, Rufus's very lifeblood; and should they be borne in triumph to a barbarian shrine, witness of Rome's failure to protect them? They were Rome herself. Surely, great Romulus himself would turn his face away from the army that lost them.

  Vargontius and Cassius had their hands on the proconsul's shoulders, but he shook them off with the strength of a much younger man whom despair has made strong.

  "Give me back my. Eagles!" h
e howled and hurled himself forward.

  He crashed against a warrior and the table, one arm flung out to capture as many of the precious signa as he could, the other snatching a dagger from the nearest Parthian's belt. He could have struck in that moment when everyone stood shocked into stillness, avenged his son and his army and his Eagles with one stroke, deep in The Surena's throat.

  Instead, he whirled, the dagger out as if to defend the Eagles he held before him as shield and as standards. The torchlight gleamed off them, splintering the light so that the tent walls seemed patterned by a forest of shadows, oak, and pine, and piercing it, the standards of Rome.

  The old proconsul's eyes were alight, but not with battle madness.

  "Romans! he screamed. "Comites, to me! Finish what we should have ended! Roma!"

  His staff officers leapt, calculating as great cats: Help the proconsul or take their chances on escape?

  "Out!" cried Vargontius. "Someone bring them word!" His hand shoved Cassius from the tent, which seem to shrink inward, holding still the iron reek of blood and metal and sweat. Screams came from outside the tent as merchants fled from riot, and Romans and Parthians sought each other's throats.

  Pain thrust Quintus forward, his hand falling past his side to the blade of the nearest guard. How slowly the man moved. Seizing the sword was like taking a pine branch from a girl-child.

  "Roma!" shouted Crassus as if he had not tried, all his life, to turn Rome into sesterces and hoard them all. Quintus fought forward, struggling to reach the proconsul's side. Crassus had stolen his land, but he had called on Rome. Well, he should have what he could of it. This was a better death than Quintus had expected. It was even honorable. He could meet his grandfather's eyes on the other side of the Styx, assuming someone spared him the coin for passage.

  "Someone get the torches!" The heavy braziers toppled, and flames licked up blood and dirt before they, like so many within the tent, died.

  Crassus might be sane in his wish to die, but now Pan piped within the tent, and madness struck. Quintus slashed down with his stolen sword. As if in a dream, he saw the man before him spew blood and fall upon another. There must have been screams and groans but the pounding in his temples, harsher than the Parthians' drums, drowned out all other sounds as Romans and Parthians and Yueh-chih contended in what light the tent let in now that the torches had died. It was a mad dance, a fever in the blood, Quintus thought. He might as well be a woman, carrying a cone-tipped wand and screaming paeans to Bacchus and Bromius.

  He caught a glimpse of Lucilius, his fair hair smeared with blood, his eyes bright as if Fortuna drank to him and his dice. He had despised them all, but they were Romans.

  "Crassus!" Quintus screamed, trying to hack through to the old man. Weakened by age and defeat, the commander would not be able to defend himself and his Eagles for long. One more man—the tribune used the fine steel of the Parthian's sword as if it were a gladius to stab him in the throat. And then he reeled before the proconsul, gasping. His heart rose as Crassus's eyes brightened at the sight of him.

  "Behind you! Down!" the old man gasped at the same time that fire burned his chest—the bronze statue again? Quintus doubled over, then curved around, almost on his knees. He brought his blade up and around, spitting the man who had thought to slay him from behind.

  Quintus turned, and the thanks died on his lips. He lunged but, even as his sword thrust home, the Parthian's blade fell on Crassus's hand as it clutched the Eagles, severing it at the wrist. It fell on Quintus's head in a macabre parody of the blessings his grandfather had once given him.

  His shout of horror and Crassus's scream rang out. He hurled himself forward to defend the man who had become—against all reason—his proconsul and general. The old man sagged, the Eagles dropping from his arm in a clatter of heavy bronze. He started to fall—too slowly. A Parthian's blade took him at the nape of the neck, and his head fell first.

  "No!" screamed Quintus. He fought as he did not know he could, until a space cleared between him and his dead and the Parthians. Sobbing for breath, he paused, his sword as steady as if it did not feel made of lead. The Parthians circled him. It was just a matter of time till they cut him down. Just a matter of time.

  But he would sell himself as dearly as he could. How many could he take with him? And where should he start? He eyed the warriors speculatively, and he could see that they knew it. Came a commotion and movement underfoot. He lashed out, but his blade hit the edge of the table and rebounded. He recovered his guard and struck again....

  To his horror, one of his enemies parried not with a sword but with the Eagle he had snatched up.

  If Quintus died for it, he could not strike that Eagle: as well as strike down his grandfather or Rome herself. They had struck down Crassus. He feinted, then attacked viciously. The Parthian dodged and laughed. Again, he tried; and again.

  They were laughing at him, teasing him as wanton boys tease a chained beast. With a scream, he threw himself forward, determined to take as many of his enemies with him as he could...

  ...and what felt like a bar of red-hot iron smashed across his neck. The roaring of the battlefield died away to the murmur of a river on a hazy day, and then into silence.

  4

  QUINTUS WAS BUND. He would have been terrified, but fear had been pounded out of him by the Parthian wardrums and bells proclaiming victory. Nearer and nearer they seemed to come. A few paces more, and they would trample him.

  And then he would join his comrades in death. He lowered his head like a beast before the altar of sacrifice. It was fated: Let it happen.

  Death might be worth it, if only the dryness in his throat went away. They had fought for hours outside Carrhae in the hot sun, with the stinks of blood and dead men and horses, and the flies buzzing as loud as drums and bells.

  "Damned if we're leaving him behind. I'm not losing one more." The voice was harsh. Your voice got that way when they kept you out fighting in the sun and wouldn't let you rest or drink.

  "What's the worst they can do? Kill me? I'd fall on my own sword if I had one."

  "Think it through, centurion! You'll have to get men to carry him. He'll slow us down. And he'll have no more wits than a babe if he lives...."

  The voice was cultured and persuasive. Quintus decided he didn't like it. One more word and he'd silence it, if he could only get up, but even the effort of raising his head...

  "Do you have to shout? He can hear every word you say, can't you, sir?"

  The voices subsided to a muttering. Footsteps pounded, moving blessedly in the direction of away.

  "Never fear, he'll live if he wants to. He's a countryman. His head's as hard as the rock that breaks your plow."

  Long pause while the drums and bells pounded in Quintus's head as he fought to overhear the argument that went on somewhere above him. Other voices entered—too many more. He was tired. He let himself drift.

  It was the heat and the thirst. They could strike you as dead as The Surena's arrows or a sword. He was dead, and they couldn't even let him lie in peace. He thought death meant stillness, rest—he had seen his grandfather and his mother laid out before the shrouds covered them up. Their faces had been strained and twisted during the ordeals of their last days, but death had smoothed the lines of care and anguish into the serenity of a country sculptor's tomb carving.

  "Well, then you bring your imperial whatever-it-calls-itself over here, and I'll tell him myself! I'm not leaving this man to die. And if you don't like it, you know where you can shove it. Die fast; die slow—it's no difference. They're not giving the men they're sending—Mars watch them—to Merv, honorable retirement, land, and a mule. Or..."

  Anger burst out of the voice in a sort of cough.... "Curse this sand to the pit! They're selling them. Selling free-born Romans, men of the Legions, as slaves. Do you really think those merchants—Persian merchants, mind you—are going to waste their time on a man they can't sell fast?"

  More mutters. The sound of
a language like horns and bells. Footsteps. Hoofbeats. A hand on his head. "Rest easy, lad, I mean, sir. I think Fortuna's going to let me pull this off...."

  "I may have found a horse...."A new voice, heavily accented with the tones of Persia. Quintus tensed.

  "How much... never mind... If you think it's sound enough."

  A snort of scorn, a chuckle, broken off.

  "Take my pouch.... Lad, the men need you.... Come on back to us."

  So easy to drift away. Just leave.

  Footsteps—the crunch of nailed boots on grit and sand, the quicker, softer stride of a horseman. He could even hear aging knees creak as someone settled massively by his side.

  "Tribune, in the name of all the gods, don't leave me to lead them alone...."

  The appeal was unfair; it drew him back to the world. He moaned, fighting its claim upon him.