The Ten Thousand (9 page)

There was a pause,
and then Jason nodded. “You did the right thing.” And he saw the surprise on
the boy’s face—and something else—gratitude?

Jason looked the
two boys—for that is what they were—up and down. He wanted the Iscan. He liked
the pride and pain in the boy’s eyes. How to phrase it—they were friends,
obviously. The big smiler could go cry to the goddess for all he cared. He
might make a good soldier, but the odds were against it.

Ah, he thought,
rubbing his aching temples again, let Phobos sort it out.

“All right; I’ll
take you both. You, Gasca, report to Buridan the decurion. He’ll set you a file
to join. Iscan, you cannot take a place in line of battle, not without a
panoply. I’ll rate you camp servant and skirmisher, but as soon as you get some
bronze on your back you’ll join your friend. His pay is twelve obols a month.
Yours is half that. Do you find this acceptable?”

Rictus nodded
without a word, as Jason had known he would.

“Buridan will give
you your scarlet. Once you join the Dogsheads you may wear no other colour, and
you will be
ostrakr,
cityless. We swear no oaths, and draw no blood, but
if you lay down the colour without my permission, your lives are forfeit. We
flog for stealing from comrades. For cowardice, we execute on the field. All
other crimes are between you and the gods. Any questions?”

“Yes,” Gasca said.
“When do we eat?”

They drilled
first, or at least Gasca did, whilst Rictus watched from the eaves of the
encampment. All the centons had taken on fresh recruits that morning, and these
unfortunates were marked out by the vivid colour of their new red chitons. They
drilled in full armour, bearing spear and shield, and before an hour had gone
by the new men had red dye running down in the sweat of their thighs. While
they stamped and strode their comrades in the long files shouted abuse at them,
called them women, and offered them rags to staunch their monthly flow.

Centon by centon,
the gathered companies came together on the wide, blasted plain to the north of
the Mithannon. There, between the Marshalling Yards and the Mithos River, the
numbers of the assembled mercenaries finally became clear. Twenty companies,
all under strength but still within nine-tenths of their full complement. Jason
was out there with the Curse of God on his back, barking orders and clubbing
with the bowl of his shield those slow to obey. Perhaps a third of the
centurions wore the black armour, and as many as fifty of the rank and file.
Possession of Antimone’s Gift was not a prerequisite of command. It was worn by
fools as well as heroes.

The companies and
files came together one by one, evolving from discrete bodies into one long,
unbroken snake of bronze and scarlet. All their shields, except for those of a
few newcomers, were without device; when their employer made himself known they
would paint his sigil on the shield’s metal facings. The phalanx that evolved
from their marching and counter-marching was eight men deep and two hundred and
fifty paces long. In battle the line would shorten, as each man sought the
protection of his neighbour’s shield. As the formation was called to a halt the
file leaders and closers, hardened veterans all, were haranguing some of the
new recruits in low hisses. Nevertheless, as drill went, it was a good show,
better than any city levy could provide. It was, Rictus had reluctantly to
admit, almost as good as the Iscan phalanx had been. His heart burned and
thumped in his chest. More than anything else in this life, he wanted to be out
there in those profane, murderous ranks, to be part of that machine. His mind
could imagine no other destiny, not here, not now.

“The Bull is drunk
yet,” one of the other skirmishers said beside him. There was a long cloud of
them, hard faced youngsters with slings in their belts and the scars of old
beatings on their bare arms. Many had peltas strapped to their backs, the
leather and wood shields of the high mountains. These fellows were the light
troops of the company, as well as servants to the spearmen.

“Drunk or sober,
he’ll keep them in the line, the cocksucker,” said another, old, old eyes in a
small face not too high off the ground.

“Who’s the new
fish?” a third asked, and the attention of a stunted crowd left the assembled
spearmen to settle on Rictus. He was the tallest there, though by no means the
oldest. Now that they had all turned to face him he saw that amid the boys
there were small, hard-bitten men with grey in their beards, but they, too, had
a wary, hungry look, like that of a mistreated dog. Too small for the phalanx,
he supposed, but still dangerous. There were as many of these ragged
soldier-servants milling about the encampment as there were men in armour on
the drill field.

“He’s too pretty
to fight,” one of them said with a leering grin.

“Let’s us find out
where his talents lie then.”

They edged towards
him, some half-dozen of them, old and young. The rest of the throng looked on
without much interest. In addition to their own wargear, most were bearing
wineskins for when the spearmen came off the drill field, leather covers for
their masters’ shields, linen towels for the sweat.

“Back in line!” a
voice snapped. “Face your front and shut your mouths. He’s wearing scarlet now,
one of us. Save it for the stews.”

The knot broke up
magically and dissolved into the waiting line of skirmishers as though it had
never been. Pasion stepped forward, black cuirass gleaming. He was unarmed,
picking the seeds out of a pomegranate with reddened fingers. He raised one
eyebrow, gaze fixed on the line of spearmen.

“Welcome to our
merry band, Iscan.”

Around noon the
centurions gathered together as the weary centons trooped off the field. A clot
of black and red, they collected about Pasion like a scab. Rictus had been
looking for Gasca in the crowd, but lingered nearby, listening. It was cold,
and from that great throng of sweating men the steam of their exertions rose
thick as a morning fog. The rank cloud enveloped Rictus, and for a moment he
was back on the drill fields of Isca with the rest of his
lochos,
his
father’s spear in his fist. The sensation, the memory staggered him, and for a
moment he was blinded by it, and stood blinking, grimacing. Armed men walked
past him, and he was jostled by armoured torsos, shoved out of the way and
cursed for a half-witted strawhead, but he stood on oblivious. In the time it
takes a famished man to eat an apple, his short life flickered past him.
Boyhood in the hills about the farm. Beating the olives off the trees with long
sticks. Gathering in the grape harvest, the round black fruit as big as
walnuts, a broken ecstasy in the mouth on hot, dust-filled days. That scent of
thyme on the slopes, and the wild garlic down by the river. And the river
itself—plunging into its clean bite at the end of the grimy day with his father
wiping wine from his mouth on the bank, talking of oil-pressing with old Vasio.
The way Zori fed the fire in the evenings, twig by twig, the barley-cakes
hardening on the griddle above it and the smell filling the house.

Rictus closed his
eyes for a second and gave thanks to Antimone for the memories, the sight and
smell of them. He put them away in a new corner of his mind that he had found,
and when his eyes opened again they were dry and cold as those of a man just
back from war.

They were fed late
in the afternoon. Hidden away in the ramshackle lines of the camp were four
great stone-built kitchens attended to by gangs of surly men and boys whose
sole purpose in life was the tending of the black company cauldrons, the
centoi.
These were cast in solid iron, and of great antiquity. Each company
might march under its banner on the battlefield, but off it, the men gathered
about these immense pots at every meal. Traditionally it was around the centoi
that the centurions addressed their men, and votes were taken on any new
contracts. The pots had given their name to the companies that used them, for
traditionally a centon numbered as many soldiers as could be fed from one
centos.

All this Gasca and
Rictus found out within minutes of joining the food-queue, for their fellow
mercenaries became more congenial with the toothsome smell of the day’s main
meal eddying about them. They were handed square wooden plates and had a
nameless stew ladled within, then grasped the butt of hard bread shoved into
their free hand. Spearmen and skirmishers mingled indiscriminately as the meal
was distributed, rank set aside. Last to be fed was the centurion himself. This
was to make sure that there had been enough for every man. If the cooks ran
short, it would be Jason standing there with an empty plate, and there was no
excuse acceptable for that, short of an act of Cod.

But Jason was
late. The evening of the short day had begun to swoop in before he appeared in
their midst, and the wind had begun flapping at the dying flames under the
centos. Men gathered around that ruddy wind-bitten light, and when Rictus felt
a soft touch on his face he looked up to see that snow was falling, fat flakes
spinning out of the dark in the grip of the wind.

Jason stood at the
centos scooping cold stew out of his trencher. His second, Buridan, handed him
a wineskin and he squirted the black army wine down his throat. He wiped his
mouth, looking round at the assembled soldiers. There must have been seven
score of them squatting about him, cloaks pulled up against the snow, buttocks
stone-cold from the bare ground beneath them. They watched him without a word,
spearman and skirmisher alike. The crackling firelight played on the faces of
the nearest, but outside it dozens more were standing in darkness. Up and down
the Marshalling Yards other centons were gathering in like fashion, like winter
moths drawn to the flame-light of the cooking fires.

“Four sennights we’ve
been here, or a little more,” Jason said. He had raised his voice so that it
carried to those peering in at the rear. “We have waited, and grown soft in the
waiting. You’re all poor now, money squandered in the stews of Machran. You’ve
drunk each cup to its lees and grown to know the face and arse of every whore
in the city. That time is at an end. My brothers, at dawn tomorrow we march
out, every company of us. We make for Hal Goshen, on the coast, two hundred
pasangs by road. We will cover that distance in six days. At the Goshen there
will be ships waiting for us—”

A low murmur ran
through the centon, and died away just as quickly when Jason held up his hand. “There
will be ships waiting for us, and these ships will take us to our destination.”

“And where might
that be?” someone shouted out of the darkness of the rear ranks.

“I’ll tell you
when we get there,” Jason said, his voice mild, but his eyes flashing.

“We should vote on
this. I never volunteered for no sea voyage,” someone else said.

“We voted to take
up Pasion’s contract. We took his money, and we will see it through. Unless,
that is, you have the means to repay your retainer, and you wish to leave my
centon.” Jason left the last words hanging in the air. No one else spoke up.

“Very well.
Assembly is a turn earlier in the morning. You will all be packed and ready to
march out. Burn what you cannot take with you—only wargear will be carried on
the wagons. And brothers, anyone too drunk or poxed to march in the morning
will be dismissed from the company, on the spot.” He paused. The snow whirled
around his head, spotting his dark hair white. He looked up at the sky,
blinking as snowflakes settled on his eyes.

“I don’t care it
if it’s waist-deep. We march in the morning. File leaders, on me. All others
dismissed.”

The tight-packed
crowd of men broke apart. There was little talk. They walked back to the
company lines in the guttering glare of torchlight, spearmen and skirmishers
mingled. Buridan called away some two dozen of the light troops to the rear of
the lines, where the wagons stood like patient beasts. They hauled out harness
from the wagon-beds and filed off after him to the city itself, where all the
centon’s draught animals had been quartered this last month.

Gasca was limping
as he and Rictus regained the shelter of their shack. Inside, one of the other
spearmen had lit an oil lamp and the wick smoked busily, catching at their
throats. “How is the leg?” Rictus asked.

Gasca took off his
cloak, laid it on the earth floor, and sat gingerly down upon it, breath
hissing out through his teeth. “That drill today opened it up a little. I’ll be
fine. I’ll strap it up.”

“Let me have a
look at it.” Rictus lifted up Gasca’s chiton. The red dye had leached out of it
and streaked all his lower limbs. It was hard to tell what was blood and what
was not. He touched the black-stitched wound in Gasca’s thigh, feeling the heat
of it. Some of Zeno’s stitches had popped free and the whole purple line of it
was swollen. Rictus leaned close, sniffing.

“It smells all
right. Hold still. This’ll hurt.”

He made two fists
and pressed the knuckles in on either side of the wound, squeezing it. Gasca
uttered one strangled yelp, and then at the amused looks of the other spearmen
in the shack he clenched shut his teeth until they creaked.

The wound popped,
and out spat a yellow gush of pus. Rictus kept pressing until the pus ended and
clean blood began.

“Where’s your old
chiton? Give it here.” He ripped off a strip and bound it about Gasca’s leg,
knotting it loose enough that a man might slide two fingers underneath. His
father had taught him that, the day the boar had ducked under the aichme. One
had to let the blood keep flowing.

Rictus wiped his
sticky hands on his chiton and sat back. “Now you can march with the best of
them.”

Gasca did not meet
his eyes. His gaze flicked over the other men in the hut. More and more were
coming in, and the shadowed space was becoming crowded and raucous. The other
soldiers had leather bags into which they were stuffing their belongings with
careless enthusiasm, high-spirited and talkative, throwing memories back and
forth, insults, requests to borrow kit. No one spared a glance for the two
youths in the corner.