Read Online Roma Mater by Poul Anderson - Free Book Online

of the knife and each other’s throats.
    ‘Stop!’ Gratillonius roared. ‘Eppillus, break that up! Nobody else move!’
    The legionaries who were standing froze. The captain grabbed a belaying pin and bloodied a head or two among his tars. They retreated in confusion, babbling excuses and pleas for mercy. Eppillus gave the combatants a couple of efficient kicks. They separated and crawled to their feet, gasping, spitting, and shuddering.
    ‘Attention!’ Gratillonius barked. He lifted his vinestaff of authority, which seldom left him. ‘Captain, I want that man of yours whipped.’
    ‘Five lashes,’ the skipper agreed. ‘The rest of you bless whatever saints you know about. Hop to it!’ The redhead was immediately seized. He didn’t resist, doubtless realizing he was lucky to escape with nothing worse. Thecaptain turned to Gratillonius. ‘We’ll make the same example of your fellow, eh?’
    The centurion shook his head. ‘No. He must be in shape to march. But we can’t have this kind of conduct, true. Keep still, Cynan.’ The vinestaff cut a crimson line over the youth’s cheek. ‘Go to the horses and stay there till we land. The rest of you who were involved, except the deputy, hold out your right arms.’ He gave each wrist a blow that raised a welt but would not be disabling. Eppillus possibly deserved punishment too, but not enough to make it worthwhile compromising his dignity.
    Fingers plucked at Gratillonius’s ankle. He glanced down and saw that his follower Budic had crawled to him. The youngster’s ash-pale hair fluttered around eyes hollowed by misery. He lifted a hand. ‘Here, sir,’ he mumbled.
    ‘What?’ asked Gratillonius.
    ‘Strike me, sir.’
    ‘Why, you didn’t do anything.’ Gratillonius smiled. ‘You were too upchucking sick.’
    The blue gaze adored him. ‘But … I might have … when that … that sailor said what he did … about our legion. And surely I failed my centurion, me, useless when he needed his men. Please, sir. Make it right.’
    Gratillonius quelled an impulse to rumple those locks, as if this were one of his small nephews. ‘It is already right, soldier. Just remember and learn.’ He paused. ‘Oh, and be sure you shave before we march tomorrow. I want this outfit smart.’
    Adminius snickered at his comrade’s discomfiture. ‘Spruce,’ he said, ‘not peach-fuzzy. I’ll guide yer ‘and if it’s been so long you’ve forgotten ‘ow.’ He was from Londinium, given to teasing country boys like the Coritanian Budic.
    Stripped and triced to the stays, the deckhand chokedoff screams as the lead-weighted cords of the whip reddened his back. Cynan slunk down the hatch. Gratillonius gave the captain a discreet grin and muttered, ‘Fresh air’s the best medicine against seasickness. He’ll be where it’s warm and stale.’
    ‘You’re sharper than you look to be,’ the captain said. ‘Uh, best we absent ourselves for a while, you and I.’
    ‘Right. Let them regain control on their own. It takes hold firmer, that way.’
    The commanders sought the captain’s room within the cabin. There he lifted a flagon from its rack and offered wine, thin sour stuff that didn’t call for watering. ‘Military honour isn’t high in the fleet,’ he admitted, ‘and it drops year by year. I can’t blame the men too much. Time was, you may know, when Rome had a navy in these parts. Now there’s just some tubs like this one, that the Saxon galleys can sail or row rings around. They land anywhere they will, the heathen do, and when next we pass by, all we find is ashes and corpses. That wears the spirit away, I can tell you. How do the inland legionaries feel?’
    ‘Not so badly,’ Gratillonius replied. ‘We did win our war last year, and afterwards my particular detachment had fun getting a new chief installed among the Ordovices. No one objected to him, so we’d nothing more to do than hike around in the hills showing the eagle and proclaiming the news