Scipio by Ross Leckie

Author:Ross Leckie [Ross Leckie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781847676894
Publisher: Canongate Books
Published: 1998-04-02T05:00:00+00:00

‘Come closer, son. They cut out his eyes, and tongue.’

I didn’t. I couldn’t. From four, five paces back, I could see the blood, the sheet of red and brown that once had been the father of my friend.

Like a dog after water, my father shook himself. ‘Trumpeter, sound the advance to the rest of the army. You men, one maniple on sentry duty. The rest of you, dig.’

And that is what we did, dig great grave-pits just beyond the palisade and carry the dead there, through the evening and into the night. I helped. No one commented. The feeling from the men was of routine. Romans had been killed, ambushed and murdered since the day Rome began.

My father, I knew, had gone down to the river-mouth to talk to the admiral of the fleet, to make plans, he had told me, to embark. I just worked on.

At last, hungry, thirsty, aching, the many bodies buried, I lay down to sleep, on bloody ground, no doubt, but at least the blood was dry. All round the perimeter of the palisade, bonfires burned into the night, fuelled by the remains of many wagons, and sentries called out passwords and the hours.

It seemed I had hardly been asleep. I half opened my eyes. A soldier was standing at the feet of my father beside me. It was almost light.

‘Sorry to wake you, sir. Men coming, from the east.’

‘Men? How many?’

‘Six, sir, walking.’

‘Armed?’

‘No. Sir, I think they’re ours.’

So returned the survivors of the camp at the Rhodanus, two cooks, a smith, three muleteers. They were cold, hungry, confused. My father’s interrogation was gentle, almost distracted.

The attack had come in the middle of the previous night, fire-arrows first. They had been outside the camp, on sentry duty with the cattle, sheep and goats. When they saw the flames and heard the noise, they ran.

‘But, looking back, I see’d ’em, sir,’ said the smith, a thick barrel of a man, with almost no neck and stubby, bandy legs. ‘I see’d ’em, against the light of the fires.’

‘Yes, man,’ my father asked patiently, ‘but who did you see?’

‘Gauls, sir, they was. Almost naked, lots of hair and those strange painted shields. Just like those ones you was fighting around Placentia – the Hinsi, the Hinsibres.’

‘Insubres, Flaccus.’ The smith was startled to be called by name. ‘Yes, I know you.’ My father yawned. The bags under his bleary eyes were almost black in the unforgiving light.

‘How many, Flaccus? Did you see that?’

‘No, sir. Sorry. Just took one look and made for those far rocks.’

‘Thank you. That will be all.’ He sat with his chin in his hands, looking far away.

‘Will we pursue them, Father?’ I asked.

‘What?’

‘Will we chase these Insubres?’

‘No point. Never catch them.’ He stretched, got up. ‘I’m going to what’s left of the latrine. Scribonius, muster the men.’

‘For what, sir?’

‘For embarkation. We’re going back to barracks in Placentia. This hide-and-seek tomfoolery has already cost too much. See to it.’ With a curt nod to us, my father went.

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