Rome 3: The Eagle of the Twelfth by M C Scott

Author:M C Scott [Scott, M C]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Historical Fiction
ISBN: 9781409043188
Amazon: B0082GC3DG
Publisher: Transworld Digital
Published: 2012-05-23T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

‘LORD, THEY ARE taking everything, everything. We can’t let them do it.’

So said Crescens of the IVth, first to speak after me in the commanders’ meeting that Paetus had called on my return to hear the Parthians’ demands.

Paetus stared him down. ‘You misunderstand. They are not taking everything. We may keep the Eagles, and so retain the honour of the legions.’

‘Honour?’ Crescens’ voice cracked. ‘After a surrender! Lord, you cannot mean—’

‘Centurion Crescens, you forget yourself!’ Paetus seemed to have aged overnight. His shoulders fell round a concave chest; his hair, I swear, was whiter; his hands were skin and bone with no strength in the sinews. He held them together, blanching his knuckles, as if he they might betray him did he only let them go.

‘I mean that I am not prepared to see the men of my command crucified before my eyes when by my actions I can prevent it. Corbulo may arrive, but not in time to save the lives of First Centurion Cadus and his men. They are my priority.’

He turned to me and I found his gaze surprisingly sharp. This was a man who had survived two Caesars, who had kept in good odour with Nero when so many others had fallen from grace and paid for it with their lives. He was not a soldier, but he was a politician. ‘As I understand it,’ he said, ‘we will be allowed to keep the standards. Is that true?’

‘Yes, lord; all of them. We must march away leaving everything else behind, the food, the wine, the armour, the weapons, the horses … But first we must build them a bridge, to replace the one that was destroyed.’

‘If we keep the standards, we have not fully surrendered.’ Paetus’ gaze had grown distant, seeing himself back in Rome, speaking to the emperor, setting the record straight, so that he, Paetus, came out of it shining.

He dragged his grey eyes back to mine. ‘You destroyed the bridge?’

‘I did, lord. At your order.’

‘And with my help,’ Crescens said. For a man of the IVth, he was remarkably decent.

Paetus’ smile was thin as a lizard’s. ‘Then by my order and with your help, he shall replace it as the Parthians have requested.’ He stepped in front of me. ‘Clearly you will have to ford the river once more in order to give our agreement to the terms of surrender. But I wish you to return here afterwards, unless it is impossible to do so.’

Unless Vologases has had your head struck from your shoulders, is what he meant.

I swam back across the river, aided by a rope that the Parthians had already strung across. I delivered our acceptance. My head was not struck off.

As I was heading for the river again, the narrow-eyed general of the Parthians came up to me and caught my arm, turning me back to face him.

He had laid his hand on his heart and stared into my eyes. ‘Amongst our people,’ he said, ‘that is, amongst the

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