Eagle's Honour (9 page)

And we cheered him until our cheering echoed back from the dark woods and the mountain corries.

Well then, our battle line was drawn up, the lightly armed foot-soldiers of the auxiliary cohorts in the centre, the cavalry on the wings, and the heavy troops of the Legions drawn up behind, along the line of last night’s banks and ditches. The Ninth was held in reserve, and we
didn’t think much of that, but it’s a job somebody has to do.

That was my first full-pitched battle, and I’ll not be forgetting it in a hurry. I’ll not be forgetting the great wave of the Caledonian chariot charge thundering down upon our battle line; and the way our line swayed and bulged a bit, but held firm, and the charge broke, like a wave breaking on rocks, and curled back on itself. Our lads charged forward after them; and it was then that Calgacus sent in a second charge, sweeping down from the hills and circling wide to take our battle-mass from the rear. It was red and ancient chaos after that, though the cavalry did their job finely, and the banks and ditches of the camp itself played a useful part in throwing the Caledonian chariots into confusion. Aye, a bad patch, and they all but crumpled up our left wing, and for a while the battle could have gone either way. It was six cohorts of the Ninth, pushed up from the reserve to thicken the battle line, that saved the situation and held it, steady as a rock, while the Fourteenth had a chance to re-form and rally to their own Eagle. The old Ninth has come on evil days since then, but I shan’t forget that, either; the spread wings of our Eagle bright in sunlight, and the Roman
battle-mass staggering and then growing steady again, and thrusting forward.…

The fighting began a little after sun-up; and before the sun stood at noon the Caledonian war-host was a broken rabble, being hunted through their forests and across their heather moors by us victorious Romans. At nightfall the hunt was called off, for it is not good to hunt even a broken enemy through strange country in the dark. And when the moon rose, it shone down – have you ever noticed how coldly uncaring the moon can seem? – on smashed chariots and dead horses, and dead men among the blood-sodden heather.

That was when I saw Calgacus; the only time. I saw him by the cold moonlight, lying at the foot of the slope where the fighting had been heaviest, with the finest of his warriors about him, and his long hair tangled into the roots of a pale flowered bramble bush.

Our losses were officially put at three hundred and sixty, including Valarius, a Centurion of the Ninth, and one young fool of a Tribune who rode right into a rear-guard fight at the edge of the woods. The Caledonians lost thousands; more than half their war-host, besides those that were taken captive.

Calgacus had staked everything, the whole fighting strength of Caledonia, on that last battle; and when it was over the war in Caledonia was over too.

Three days later the Senior Centurion sent for me to his tent. He was rubbing his chin with a piece of pumice when I went in. – He was one of the few soldiers I have known who always contrived to keep a smooth chin even on campaign. – And he laid down the pumice and felt his jaw enquiringly for traces of a beard.

‘I am promoting Centurion Gaurus to Centurion Valarius’s place. You will take over Gaurus’s century,’ he said. Just like that!

‘Sir,’ I said. I felt a bit winded. And yet truth to tell, I wasn’t altogether surprised. Somebody was due for promotion, with Valarius having got himself killed, and I knew I’d done well in the battle. I suppose I puffed my chest out a bit.

And suddenly he laughed, ‘And you can take that smirk off your face. You carried out your duties extremely well when the Painted Men nearly crumpled up our left wing; in fact one might say with courage and devotion; but Roma Dea! What else do you think the Legions expect of their standard-bearers? That business about the Eagle and the egg, now, I’m not at all sure
it wasn’t disrespect to the Gods, but it ended a very nasty situation, and showed that you have the trick of handling men. Go and take over from Gaurus. – Oh, wait—’ and he picked up a roughly trimmed hazel stick, – we’d hacked down a bit of hazel and thorn scrub when we were clearing the ground for the camp – and tossed it to me. ‘This will serve you for your vine-staff until we get back to Eburacum and it can be changed for the proper thing. Your promotion will have to be confirmed then, too, but I think you need not worry about that. Lucius will take over from you as Eagle-bearer.’

And he picked up his bit of pumice again and got back to work on his chin.

CHAPTER SIX

Return to Eburacum

It was late into the autumn when the Ninth came marching back into Eburacum, and the crowds gathered to watch us in as they had gathered to watch us march out, more than three years ago; but I could see no sign of Cordaella among them. Not that you can look about you overmuch when you’re on the march. I told myself that was why I had missed her, and there was no need to be anxious. But of course I was anxious all the same; and the first instant that I could get town leave, I was off to look for her.

But passing the Camp Commandant’s house on the way to the Main Gate, I was pulled up short by a familiar sound; the small sharp ‘Tip-tip-tap’ of a light hammer and chisel cutting the tiny squares for a picture-floor. I knew that sound too well to be mistaken in it. At any rate Vedrix had not gone back to Lindum.

I doubled round a corner and through a side
door, following my ears, as you might say, and across a small courtyard beyond, and finally ran Vedrix himself to ground, squatting amid his little cubes of chalk and sandstone and brick and shale, in what looked like a new bath-house sticking out from the Camp Commandant’s quarters.

He looked up, grinning that foxy grin of his, when I appeared.

‘Good morning to you, Centurion.’

‘You know then,’ I said, stopping in my tracks.

‘One hears these things.’

I sketched him a kind of mock salute. ‘Centurion, Sixth Century, Ninth Cohort. That’s about the lowest form of life in the Centurions’ Mess.’ And then my anxiety caught up with me, and I burst out in a rush, ‘But it does mean that I can marry now, if – if – ’ and I couldn’t bring out the last bit at all.

‘If Cordaella hasn’t changed her mind?’ said Vedrix.

‘How is it with Cordaella? Three years is a long time.’

‘It was all well with her less than an hour ago. But three years is a long time, even as you say; and maybe you had best go and ask her herself, before it gets any longer.’

‘I’ll be doing that!’ I said, and departed without waiting to take my leave.

I had to pass quite close to the well where I had first spoken to her, to reach her house; but I think I would have gone that way even if it had been a round about journey. I had a feeling….

And there she was, her red hair lighting up the grey little street, just as I remembered. She had filled the pail and set it on the well curb beside her. And she was just sitting there, half-turned to gaze down into the water. She looked somehow as though she had been sitting there quite a while.

But she did not look up when I came along the street; not till I was standing right beside her.

‘That pail is much too heavy for a little bird like you,’ I said. ‘Let me carry it home for you.’

She looked up then, as I reached for the pail; and next instant it wasn’t the pail that I had hold of, it was Cordaella, and she had her arms round my neck and was half laughing and half crying and clinging on to me as though she never wanted to let go. And I – well I won’t say I wasn’t doing my share of the hugging, too.

‘I didn’t see you when we marched in
yesterday,’ I said. ‘Why did you not come out with everybody else to see us marching back?’

‘I was so afraid,’ she said.

‘Afraid?’

She nodded against my shoulder. ‘That when the Eagle came up the street, I would not see you there.’

‘Well I’d not have been carrying the Eagle, but you would have seen me at the head of my Cohort,’ I said. ‘Cordaella, I have my vine staff now.’

‘I know,’ she said. ‘We heard later. Quintus, I am so proud of you!’

I wanted to boast a bit, seem big in her eyes; but I’ve never been a very good liar. ‘I didn’t get it for being a hero,’ I told her. ‘I got it for making a bad joke at the right moment.’