"The ten thousand" - читать интересную книгу автора (Kearney Paul)

FIVE

For Jason of Ferai, the morning clatter of the Marshalling Grounds was a piercing agony he could as well have done without. Rasping his tongue across the roof of his mouth he sent one hand out to find the water jug and the other down to his waist, where his money-pouch still hung, as flaccid as an old man’s prick. He poured the contents of the jug over his head in the bed, getting some down his rancid throat and causing his bed-mate to squeal and dart upright in outrage.

“It’s only water, my dear. You had worse over you last night.”

The girl rubbed her eyes, a pretty little thing whose name he had not bothered to learn. “It’s dark out yet. You’ve the bed for another turn of the jar if you want it.”

Jason rose and kissed the nape of her neck. “Consider it a bonus. A turn alone.”

She threw his scarlet rag of chiton at him, and stood up, stretching. “Have it your way.”

Jason stood up also, the room doing its morn-ing-after lurch in his eyes. The girl was striking flint on tinder and making a hash of it. He took the stones from her and blew on the spark he clicked out, first time, then lit the olive-lamp from it. The grey almost-light of the pre-dawn receded. It was night in the room again. He pinched the girl’s round white buttock. “Any wine left?”

“There’s the dregs of the skin, bought and paid for.”

“Like you.”

“Like me.”

“Join me in a snort.”

They sat back down on the bed, naked and companionable, and squirted the black wine into one another’s mouths.

“So when is it to happen?” the girl asked. Her fingers eased the bronze slave-ring about her throat.

“What’s to happen?”

“This war of yours.”

“I wish I knew. What’s the word in the stews?”

The girl yawned. She had good teeth, white as a pup’s. “Oh, Machran is to be attacked by all your companies, and sacked for every obol.”

“Ah, that war. It may wait a long time yet.”

Suddenly earnest, the girl grasped Jason’s nut-brown, corded forearm. “When it comes, I will hide and wait for you, if you like. I would have you as a master.”

Jason smiled and stood up again. “You would, would you? Well, don’t be hiding on my account.” He dug into his pouch and levered out a bronze half-obol, flicked it at her. She caught it in one small, white fist.

“Don’t you know what war is like, little girl?”

She lowered her head, a greasy, raven mane. “It cannot be worse than this.”

Jason lifted her face up, one forefinger under her chin. All humour had fled his face.

“Do not wish to see war. It is the worst of all things, and once seen, it can never be forgotten.”

Buridan was waiting for him, faithful as a hound, and they fell into step together as they made their way to the Mithannon amid gathering groups of red-clad mercenaries who were staggering in streams to the roster-calls. There was a floating mizzle in the air, but it was passing, and Phobos was galloping out of the sky on his black horse, his brother long gone before him.

“Gods, it’s enough to make you wish you were on the march again,” Jason groaned, splashing through unnameable filth in his thick iron-shod sandals and shoving the more incapable of the drunks out of his way. “After this morning, there will be no more city-liberty. I’ll confine them to camp; Pasion’s orders. The citizens are becoming upset.”

“Can’t have that,” Buridan said, face impassive. He was a broad, russet-haired man with a thick beard, known as Bear to his friends. Jason had seen him break a man’s forearm with his hands, as one might snap a stick for kindling. Under the beard, at his collarbone, there was the gall of a long-vanished slave-ring. Not even Jason had ever dared ask him how he had come by his freedom. He was decurion of the centon, Jason’s second. The pair had fought shoulder to shoulder now for going on ten years, and had killed at each other’s side times beyond count. One did not need to share blood to have a brother, Jason knew. Life’s bitterness brought men together in ways not mapped out by the accidents of their birth. And even the blackest-hearted mercenary was nothing if he had no one to look to his back.

They passed through the echoing, dank tunnel of the Mithannon, the gate guards eyeing them with a mixture of hostility and respect, and as they came out from under that vault of stone the sun broke out in the sky above them, clearing the mountains in a white stab of light. At the same moment the roster-drums began to beat, sonorous boomings which seemed to pick up the glowing pulse of last night’s wine in Jason’s temples. One thing to be said for Pasion: once he stopped talking, he was free with his drink. Most of the twenty centurions would be too wretched to lead their centons out of the encampment today. Their hangovers would keep them under the walls. Perhaps that was Pasion’s policy, the canny bastard.

Jason’s troop lines were fifty spearlengths of hand-me-down lean-tos from which the fine fragrance of burning charcoal was already wandering. Before them was a beaten patch of earth, muddy in places, cordoned off from similar spaces by a line of olive-wood posts which had hemp ropes strung between them. Over all there flapped his centon’s banner, a stylised dog’s head embroidered on linen, with further layers of linen glued to the first to stiffen it out. Where the embroidery of the symbol had worn away, the pattern had been completed with the addition of paint. It was an old standard. Dunon of Arkadios had given it to Jason on retiring, and with it a few greybeards who had fought under it time out of mind. They were all gone now, but the Dogsheads were still here under that rag; different faces, same game.

Below the banner there now stood ten files of yawning, belching, scratching, glowering men, all clad in chitons that had once been bright scarlet, but which now had faded to every shade north of pink. They were a sodden, debauched, sunken-eyed crew, and Jason looked at them with distaste.

“How many?” he asked Buridan.

“Eighty-three by my count. One or two more may still wander in.”

“That’s four down on yesterday.”

“Like I said, they may yet wander in.”

“Another month of this, and we’ll be hard put to it to get together a single file.”

“There’s fresh fish coming in all the time,” Buridan rumbled, and he gestured to where a small knot of men stood unsure to one side, looking around them with eyes wide one second, narrowed the next. Though they bore weapons, none wore scarlet. The red-clad mercenaries filed past them without so much as a glance, though with the inevitable epithets flung out.

“Shitpickers.”

“Goatfuckers.”

“Strawheads.”

“Too damn fresh. I like my fish stinking,” Jason said.

“Like your women,” Buridan said mildly.

“And your mother,” Jason added. The two men grinned at one another.

“You call the roll,” Jason said. “I believe I’ll go check on the fish.”

“We’re short an armourer,” Buridan reminded him.

“Fat chance we’ll get one of those.”

Would-be mercenaries. They came in two distinct categories. There were those with dreams and ideas of their own place in the world. These saw themselves as men amongst men. They craved adventure, the sight of far cities, the clash and clamour of war as the poets sang of it, and that bright panoply the playwrights made of phalanx warfare. Of these hopeful souls, perhaps one in four would last past his first battle. In the othismos there was no room for dreamers. Those who stayed to the colour soon put aside their illusions.

The second category was more useful; and more dangerous. These were those men who had nothing to lose. Men running from the things they had seen and done in their past, or running from those who wished to bring them to account for it. Such fellows made good soldiers, and were generally fatalistic enough to be brave. That, or they no longer valued their own lives. Either way, they were useful to any commander.

One of each, Jason thought, as he approached the two foremost of the fresh fish. Mountain lads, one with the bright, hopeful gaze of the ignorant, the other with old pain etched about his eyes. The bigger one, he of the broad, half-smiling face, had an old-fashioned panoply: cuirass, shield, close-faced helm at his hip, and spear. The other had a torn chiton and not much else.

“Names,” Jason said, rubbing his forehead and cursing Pasion’s cheap wine.

“Gasca of Gosthere.”

“Rictus of-I was of Isca.”

Damn. Iscan training too. What a waste. But without proper gear he was of no use to the centon-no fighting use.

“Famed Isca, breeder of warriors. I hear they’ve levelled the walls now, and all the women are being fucked six ways from yesterday. And what did you do when they were burning your city?” This Jason asked Rictus, sliming the question with a fine-tuned sneer. “Were you herding goats, or clinging to your mother’s knees?”

The boy’s eyes widened, grey as old iron. “I was in the second rank,” he said, his voice quiet, at odds with the anger blazing on his face. “When we were hit in flank and rear I threw down my shield and ran.”

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.

Finally Gasca levered himself to his feet, spurning Rictus’s hand but offering a smile. “This is life now, I suppose. Best to get used to it.”

He looked around himself at the squalid hut, at the crowd of profane, battle-scarred, foul-smelling men that filled it.

“This is life,” Rictus agreed, “and tomorrow we march out to see a little more of it.”