In the Wilderness
I: Song and Dance
Rutillian felt something cold and rough cut into his left foot and cursed. His sandal had been cut through by the hard rocks lacing the mountain-path they were taking, and he saw his blood on the dirt behind him. He sat down and cast away the useless leather, reaching for his sack to find new wrappings for his foot, and for his other sandals. The sandals were gone, and little of his linen wrappings remained.. Wonderful, he wouldn’t be able change his leg-wrappings until that night when they would unpack the mule. Rutillian thought this strange: he clearly recalled putting another pair of sandals in his sack. He took another look at the cord he tossed aside while opening the bag, and it was not his purple, silk, Tuscan cord: this was a woolen cord, laced in green and black, and a talisman hung from it, a spiral charm-symbol upon it. “Cu-Coleen!” he heard a call behind him and turned. On a white, jagged rock, he saw one of Barinas’ men, his face twisted in mockery, one leg stretched straight to the side in obscene dance, shouting:
“Cu-Coleen! He lived in ages Both virtuous and lean! His manner was ever clean, With skill to deceive the Romon! Badon! Zadon! Romon he deceived, And from their choicest stock, A red-headed flock did breed!”
Rutillian had heard this tune before. He and every other Roman officer at camp pretended not to understand the half-Latinate jargon in which the Hibernians mocked them for the sake of politics. Well, he was no longer an officer and couldn’t have cared less about politics. He stepped up to the rock, grasped the auxiliary by his left leg, and pulled hard. The man was tall, black-haired, and heavy muscled. In his fall, the chalk-rock splintered and jagged at his back and neck, his weight made his fall the worse. Rutillian knew. Good, he thought, that should give me a fighting chance. The chalk covered the soldier’s face, the blood turned it into a red, white, and black mask of blind rage. His opponent tried to raise himself on his left hand and winced. ‘’The arm must be broken’’, thought the surgeon. ‘’And it must have been his good one, since he tried to use it first’’. He was greatly impressed when the suffering warrior used his right arm to rise and charge at him, fists in the air, bellowing like a bull. Rutillian braced himself for the pain. The punch fell on his left cheek, Rutillian tasted blood, and something hard fell into his throat. He coughed, spitting out a tooth. He needed a weapon, and then he saw one: in the grass, there lay the sandal. He took it by one of its long straps, and whipped at his enemy in a long arch. The first strike missed his face entirely. “No matter”, thought Rutillian. His foe was so hurt that it could have not done much to pain him more. He lashed again, this time aiming for the man’s loins. The scream the big man let out was quite remarkable in both pitch and volume. Rutillian steadied himself on his feet, taking advantage of his rival's shock. This time he would not let him recover. “Fair combat is the luxury of giant barbarians, or of girly Greeks for whom losing is just part of the game”, the words of his old instructor, Labienus, echoed in his mind. “We Romans are too small to win in a fair fight and for us, battle is not a game, so we cheat.” Rutillian plunged and threw himself at his confused opponent. Biting, punching, shattering bones and tearing flesh with his bare fists and teeth. He aimed for the left arm, the broken one. He struck him with both fists once… then twice… and thrice where he hoped the break was, shattering the bones further and further. When he saw tears forming in the eyes of his opponent, he rose and looked at his handywork. Not bad. Three ribs broken, good arm shattered, jaw dislocated… this man would receive some help, or become a cripple. He looked around him and saw the Hibernian auxiliaries surrounding him. There were at least a hundred of them, the chosen men Barrinas brough over with him from the Green Isle before being given command on the larger auxiliary wing assigned to him. Rutillian stepped away from the wounded man and picked up his satchel, never taking his eyes off the men encircling him. He turned to the side, spat on the ground, and in the largest, hoarsest voice he could muster, shouted: “Listen, you maggots! You think I wasn’t listening? I know what you are thinking under your little red mopes. You think I am weak; that WE are weak. You think that you just need to wait a little-bit more and we’ll fall down on our own and then it will be your turn – well you are wrong. “We do not rule you by chance, by treachery, or by bribes. We rule you by true power… skill… and true manliness. “The softest Roman is sevenfold the man you overgrown ninnies are. Look how you hang your eyes at your princeling here- like so many dogs begging their master to let them jump on his mistress’ cat, but dare not do anything without his say-so. “If you had had a sliver of Roman courage in you- by Pluto I would have settled for a proper Italian courage! - you would have cut both our throats before I had made one step. “Now, you think I am wrong. You think I was lucky, and that this big puddle of cow-shit was drunk. Well, come down here and I will send your bullocks to your widows!” He looked at the Celtic men, whose stature would be the wonder of his small Etruscan town, whose hands gripped weapons so heavy, that no one south of the Alps would have seen them outside of a strongman-show in the circus. He looked at them, with nothing but his hilariously short sword – little more than a dagger for his adversaries – yet he knew they feared him. No, it was not fear- it was confusion. Like rams who hear a distant howling but cannot decide if a pack of wolves is abroad to devour their lambs, or some harmless stray dogs just hungry for scraps from the fishmonger’s rubbish-heap. The man most to the right was a head taller than the others. He was carrying a huge sapper’s axe and he was stirring. He proceeded as an oak might walk down a hill, with lumbering paces and in danger of collapsing in his gait. He raised his axe from its sheath and balanced it in his hands. The blade was angrily pointing forward as though he was an executioner approaching the gallows. Rutillian dared not move, dared not draw a breath. He prayed silently to Helios that his brow would not sweat . ‘’Die as a Roman, die as a Roman, die as a Roman…’’ he chanted silently. The sapper drew close and raised his axe. He turned the blade down and buried it in the soft ground. As he fell on his knees, the Sapper opened a long oration in his own language of which Rutillian knew enough to decipher the following: “Of Neil and all his kin, I know not. Neither my blood for them shall I shed nor another’s. Neither bread, nor meat nor ale portion shall I from them receive. Thou art Lord alone and I am the servant. Thou are the war chief and I am thy bandsman. So be it by the Dagda, the Morrigan, and all the dire Fates!” Rutillian put his right hand over the man’s forearm and asked: “Good man, what is your name?” The giant raised his eyes at him and said: “Edgar son of Colum, oh Lord.” Soon after, Rutillian heard shouts from the hills above . Edgar rose and shouted back. He brandished his axe and was flailing about. At times he pointed to Rutillian. At times to Barinas. He motioned to the man moaning in pain on the ground, suddenly the pattern of the shouts changed. Ten gunmen unshouldered their weapons and levelled them at Barinas. Rutillian was stunned. They slowly stepped back, watching the crest of the hill. Slowly but oh so surely they descended. They were fearful, yet they ran towards Rutillian. He accepted their oaths and their names. Others followed. Soon there were as many at the bottom of the hill as were upon its crest.
II: The Mountain and the Sea
“You snake!” He shouted at Barinas who stood among his remaining men. “You absolute traitor!” “How can I be a traitor?” Asked Barinas with a look like the Gorgon's on his face. “Treason is to harm the sovereign and among my men, I am sovereign prince. But you..” he said in the voice of a man imagining the sounds of fire consuming flesh, of branded flesh and innards pulled out for divining, “you have just lost your precious Rome an ally, and have given her and enemy. Keep Edgar and his friends. Treason and weakness love one another's company.”
Rutillian snickered “Oh I know your great art in writing reports. You, sovereign? Your father is yet alive, princeling. Go, go cry to the Senate and the Assembly. I know who wrote to yhem of poor Varro,” he paused, “You lousy drunk, you toy-soldier, a little worm who fancies herself the Hesperian Dragon, you never fought like a man in your life. You never used your sword to cut anything but paper for your little reports.”
“And what,” laughed Barrinas, “what oh my noble brave friend does it say about a country in which a single letter, from a foreigner, can stir such a storm as to blow off a great general, a skilled orator and the most sensible counsel in the Senate to infamy and prosecution?”
“A few things,” said Rutillian, “but no more than what is said of a prince and a commander that half of his household troops are willing to abandon on the road due to a simple boxing match”.
Barrinas’ faced turned red and a strange stiffness gripped his body. In exact, well cut words he said “ I am a Celt, a Hibernian and the prince of the Declessians. I owe no loyalty to Rome. Yet, I have mastered her powers and laid low her magistrates with nothing but my guile. You are a citizen of Rome, an equestrian and a great man in the most useful of all arts. Yet, if I shall accuse you of treason not one man shall argue for your wretched body in the Forum. We are leaving these shores to seek our way back home. Remember this - the Sea-Road is the path to your grave. For the sake of our old friendship, I’ll allow you to avoid it and save yourself. Go west, old friend,” he paused, and a great sadness appeared in his eyes, “go west, and live. This country is so full of life, even those who raised the wrath of the Serpent of Eriu may find some in the depth of her womb".