Читать книгу The Queen's Brooch - Henry Treece - Страница 5

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In the months that followed, Tigidius the centurion, the pilus prior, guided Marcus through all the hazards that might bring about the downfall of a newly appointed staff-officer and, in many ways, treated the young man like a son. It was Tigidius who taught him sword drill with the long spatha, the cavalryman’s weapon, on the parade ground facing a stout post as tall as a man. “No, no, lad,” the centurion said, “never slash! Consider, a slash-cut rarely kills, however hard you strike out, because your enemy’s vitals will be protected by his buckler, or if you can get so close, by his bones themselves. And a wounded Celt is even worse than a whole one! Once you wound one of these tribesmen he will go mad with fury and never let you be until he lies stark—or you do. Belgae and Germans are exactly the same. Hurt them and you are begging for trouble. There is only one way to do it—keep the hilt well down and push out at their faces. They hate that.”

Marcus said drily, “That is no surprise to me, Tigidius.”

The centurion glanced at him sharply, then said, “Very well, if I want to hear a comedy I go to the amphitheatre when there is a play. But now we are training, and that is never a joke. As I said, a sharp thrust at the face to bring his small shield or sword up, then with the hilt still low, a withdrawal and a quick push in lower down, below the shield. Now let me see you do it at the wooden post. And have the goodness to shout with each thrust.”

Marcus wiped the sweat from his forehead and said, “Centurion, this thrusting business I can understand well, and I will do my best to follow your instructions. But this shouting seems ridiculous in a grown man. I have heard the legionaries doing it and ...”

Tigidius said grimly, “And you think it undignified? Yes, yes, I know, lad. I have tried to train more young Tribunes that I have had warm dinners. Now let me tell you this—dignitas is a splendid thing for officers to have after the fighting is over, when they go forward to browbeat the defeated chieftain who, more often than not, poor devil, is half-dead on his feet. But dignitas goes unnoticed in the thick of the affray itself. What is needed then is a bit of play-acting. No, do not shake your head like that; if I had a bag of gold coin for every affair I’ve stood up in, I should own a gladiatorial school on the Tiber now, not be beating my brains out with a young pup like you! Mark my words, there are very few heroes in this world—among Romans or Germans or Celts or Greeks. Especially among Greeks, who say that it is Zeus who makes men what they are! Most men are timid at heart. Oh yes, they look brave enough once the game starts, but that’s because of many things—perhaps they are angry because their homes have been burned and their children hurt; perhaps they do not want their comrades to think they are cowards; or perhaps they have been at the wine-jar before the advance started. You can never tell. There is only one thing you can tell, and that is that most of the men in the battle would far rather be sitting quiet by the fireside. This applies to these British most of all. They are family men, farmers, great talkers, and so on. So, when you come against them, your first task is to make them think that you live only for the sword, only for fighting. Make them think that, and you’ve half-won the battle. So shout, you young hound, shout! Shout as though you are first cousin to Mars himself, as though you have wolf’s blood in your veins, and as though you cut your first tooth on an enemy’s shield-rim. Have you got that?”

Marcus smiled a little sadly, then said, “Yes, Tigidius. But I still think ...”

The centurion seemed to swell to twice his size. His eyes began to push out of their lids. The rough bristles on his cheeks rose. His colour changed from a gentle brown to something almost like purple. He choked a little then said, “Think? Think? By the Twelve Altars of Mithras, but when did the Senate employ a young Tribune for thinking? Do you know what Tribunes are? Do you know what the legionaries call them when they have ridden by? Do you? Well, do you?”

Marcus had never seen Tigidius like this before. He did not wait to hear what Tribunes were called; he dropped the hilt of his spatha, poked it out sharply at the post then, with lowered head, drew back the blade and dug it a thumb’s length into the seasoned oak.

Tigidius came behind him, smiling, and said, “Here, let me draw it out for you, son. It’s often easier to put them in than get them out.”

He struggled a while, withdrawing the keen blade without bending it, then he said, “I have not seen one go in that far before, I must say. Old Ostorius would have liked that. Yes, he would have been proud.”

After that Tigidius never mentioned Marcus’s father again. Nor did he ever taunt the young Tribune in training him. They would march with the men in the dust for twelve hours a day, chanting the old cadence: “Sky-earth-road-stone! Sharp-steel-cuts-to-bone!” Then they would eat a supper of oat-porridge or barley-meal—but never meat—washed down with a watered wine as tart as vinegar.

Marcus once said, “I have never understood the men’s taste for this sort of wine, Tigidius. I would rather drink water itself.”

The centurion said quietly, “You wouldn’t if you had ever campaigned in the deserts, lad. Take my word for it, an enemy on the run can do more damage with a poisoned water-well than he ever could with spear and sword. Besides, when you get the taste of it you will find this thin wine very thirst quenching. Why, if you drank a cup of the rich vintage that Cerialis keeps locked up in his cellar your tongue would be hanging down onto your chest after you’d marched ten miles.”

Tigidius also insisted that Marcus should always go out in the usual leather gear of the infantryman. “Yes, yes,” the centurion said, “I know that armour is heavier and more dignified, and so on; but when you march with the men you will get kitted out like the men. Heavy boots and all. I have known Tribunes who got their throats slit by their own legion behind haystacks in hard territory for not knowing that simple thing. If you want to lead men, then suffer with them. Caligula knew that; old Cato knew it too. They weren’t good men, but, by Mithras, they were good soldiers. And that is what we are out to make of you. If you want to be a good man as well, then no doubt the Greek Lysias has some formula for that. He has for most things.”

So Marcus sweated out his months of training in leather helmet, tunic and breeches. His feet grew callouses from the thick-soled marching boots that Tigidius made him put on.

And in the end he was not only a staff-officer; he was a soldier. And what was best, every man of the Ninth knew it, and every one of them called him by his name when they met privately—but never on the parade ground.