The Gabinian Affair Read online

  “Twooper Cuwa?” he asks in that thin-lipped, upper-class Roman lisp all them toga-boys from Roma use.

  I comes to attention, like I should, and says, “That’s what I’m called, sir!”

  “Twooper Cuwa, Gaius Mawius, Consul of the Woman People, Impewator, Savior of the Nation”—them Romans lay it on thick, makes ’em feel good about themselves—“Commands you to weport to the Pwefect, Quintus Antonius, Commander of the Pwaetorian Cohort, at the Pwincipia immediately.”

  With that, the purple-striped fuzz-face turns about, dances back through the piles of horseshit, and heads off in the direction of the Roman camps.

  Well, I’m all covered in shit from horse stables, and I smells so good that some of the stallions are starting to give me the eye, but the little gob-shite said immediately. So, I throws me lorica and helmet on, throws me sword belt over me shoulders, washes most of the big clods of shit off me boots with a bucket of water, and heads over to where the legions are set up.

  Now them legion boys is somethin’ in the field. There’s an old joke about this mulus, a legionary grunt, who’s marching across a field—sixty paces a minute, three feet a pace—when he runs into this beautiful shepherdess. Well, she invites him for a go and takes off her clothes. The Roman halts, pulls out his entrenching tool, digs a trench and a parapet around her, pops her, fills in the trench, and continues the march. The camps them boys build are better than most towns I’ve seen: ditches, parapets, and streets laid out in straight lines; tents all in neat rows; a place for everything, and everything in its place.

  I goes through the main gate of the camp like I owns the place. I knows the sergeant of the guard’s thinkin’ about busting me balls a bit, but after he gets a whiff of me, he just waves me through after I gives him the password. I walks down the street to the Principia, the headquarters. It’s in a big tent where the two main streets of the camp cross, like it always is. I asks the sentry where the boss of the Praetorians is, il’ capu’, “the boss,” they calls him. The grunt points to a smaller tent next to the Principia. I walks into the tent and sees this Roman officer chewing on some poor snuffy.

  “And, if you ever show up for one of my goddamn inspections with your kit looking like shit again, I’ll slice off your balls with a rusty knife and hang them around your goddamned neck! Do you understand me, Soldier?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “What was that, Soldier?”

  “YES! SIR!”

  “Two weeks latrine duty! Now get your sorry ass out of my sight!”

  The legionary shoots out of the tent like he’s launched from a ballista.

  Then the officer notices me. “What in the stinking latrines of Hades do you want, Trooper?”

  I snap to.

  “Sir! Trooper Cura reporting as ordered, sir!”

  “Cura? Cura? Let’s see here . . .” The officer shuffles through some tabulae, wax slates, on his desk. “Oh, right! You’re the Gaul the old man wants … By Hercules’ balls, Cura! What in the name of Hecate did you do? Crawl through a stable on your way here?”

  “Sir! The tribune said report immediately, sir!”

  “Cacat! Shit! Next time, take some time to at least throw yourself in a stream. You a Gaul, Cura?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “What’s your real name?”

  “My real name, sir?”

  “Come on, Cura. No Gallic father’s going to name his kid Trouble! What’s your real name?”

  “Uh, back home, I’m called Cunorud, sir!”

  “Cunorud, eh? Red Dog … Canis Ruber … I like that. A red dog that smells like a mare in heat! You live long enough, you see everything in this army. Bene, Trooper Red Dog, effective immediately, you are assigned to the old man’s praetorian cohort. What is it, Trooper?”

  “Sir! I’m not a Roman citizen.”

  “Really? You want to march over to the Praetorium and tell the old man his mind is defututa … totally clapped out?”

  “Uh, no, sir!”

  “Me neither. Now—with your permission, of course—let me get through this: You are assigned to the third cavalry wing of the praetorian cohort with the rank of trooper. You will turn in your kit to your old unit … let’s see … the First Gallic, and you will draw a new kit with us. Bring your mount with you. By the way you smell, I think you already did. While in the praetorian cohort, you will have immune status from all fatigues and work details. Your rate of pay is six hundred seventy-five denarii a year—that’s triple the standard legionary rate. Get your pay records from your standardbearer and turn them into the standardbearer of the praetorian ala. Any questions, Trooper Red Dog?”

  “No, sir!”

  “Bene!” He shoves one of them slates toward me. “You have to be enlisted into the Roman army. Can you write, Trooper?”

  “Write, sir? No, sir!”

  “It bloody-well figures. Scriba!”

  A Roman soldier armed with a slate and stylus comes from the back of the tent.

  “Sir!”

  “Witness this, Soldier! Trooper, you have a clan mark?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Mark the slate there! Now stand at attention, raise your right hand. That’s the one your sword goes in, not your prick. Raise your palm toward the sky, and repeat after me.”

  I assumes the position.

  “I … state your real name.”

  “I, Cunorud mab Cunomaro, of the Glasso clan, of the Anderica band, of the Insubreci tribe, do solemnly swear by Father Iove, greatest and all-powerful, whose eagle I now follow, and by all the gods, that I will defend and serve the Roman nation. I will obey the will of the senate, the people of Rome, and the officers empowered by the senate over me and my general, Gaius Marius. I swear that I am a free man, able to take this oath, and obligated by bond or debt to no Roman. I will remain faithful to the senate and the Roman nation, to the officers empowered over me, and to the army of Rome until I am legally discharged by my time of service, by the will of the senate and People of Rome, or by my death. I offer my life as the surety of my oath.”

  “Bene, Trooper! First, the good news! You are now privileged to be a Roman soldier for the next three years. Now the other news: I am Prefect Quintus Antonius, commander of Gaius Marius’ praetorian cohort, and until the crows come to chew on your rotting carcass or the army sees fit to discharge you, your sorry ass belongs to me. If I ever see you in this horse-shit condition again, I will personally skin you down to the bone and feed your fat to the camp dogs! Do you understand me, Trooper?”

  “Sir! Yes, sir!”

  “Not only are you now a Roman soldier, the sight of which alone makes Parthians drop their perfume bottles and long-haired Gauls soil their plaid trousers, you are a praetorian. On the battlefield, you will be the baddest pedicor who ever sucked his mother’s teat and swung a sword. In garrison, you will shine so bright that when you show up, everyone will think the heavens have opened and Mars himself has come down to pay some nymph a visit! I want your shit so tight that I couldn’t drive a greased dagger up your ass with a sledge hammer. Am I clear to you, soldier?”

  “Sir! Yes, sir!”

  “The first thing you’re going to do is get your sorry ass over to the bathhouse and scrape the dirt and horse shit off your sorry carcass. Then find the barber and get that bush on top of your head cut down to regulation. And make sure he gets rid of those Gallic horse tails growing under your nose. You following me, Trooper?”

  “Sir! Yes, sir!”

  “Miss’ est!”

  I just stands there.

  “I said, ‘miss’ est,’ Trooper, post! That’s army talk for ‘get your horse-shit-smelling ass out of my sight’!”

  I shoots out of the tent like I’m launched out of a ballista.

  So begins my grand and glorious career in the Roman army.

  In wartime, the army tries to kill you with steel. In peacetime, it tries to kill you with chicken shit. When the fighting’s done, the army spends most of its time at war wi
th its own equipment.

  Now, as far as fighting goes, the Roman kit is a lot better than the shit they stick us with in the auxiliary units. The Roman lorica is made of chainmail with extra armor over the shoulders, instead of the boiled leather crap I wore in the First Gallic. The stuff’s great when you get slashed at, but won’t do much for you when some podex tries to put the point to you. The Roman helmets are steel, not bronze, so they turn a slashing blow, instead of adding shards of bronze to the iron sword that splits your skull open.

  But, that Roman iron crap rusts if you as much as look at it.

  In peacetime, the primary job of the praetorian cavalry is prancing around a parade field, looking fierce and shiny when the chief wants to be entertained. So our horses’ rigs are covered with shiny bronze and iron gewgaws that catch the sun when we ride. All of that shit—all of it—loves to rust and mold.

  So, my main job is to scrub and scrape the rust off Roman steel. Me hands are as red and raw as a housewife’s. And il’ capu’, our prefect, may the Furies drag his boney ass off to Tartarus, can find a speck of rust in a steel forest. So, when I’m not scraping and shining, I’m double-timing around the outside of the camp ditch, holding me kit over me head, apologizing to it for not taking care of it proper—much to the amusement of the muli on guard duty.

  The guys in me ala turn out to be okay. I’m a little nervous at first, being a Gah’el, but most of the guys in the unit aren’t real Romans either. We have guys from both Gauls, even a few who grew up among the long-haired Gah’ela north of the Rodonu, the river the Romans call Rhodanus.

  I’m surprised to find out the guys from Hispania are Gah’el too, but I can hardly understand what they’re saying, especially when they get excited about something and start flappin’ their hands around.

  Even the Italian and Roman boys are okay. The Italians are mostly hicks, pagani, farm boys. But, they’re good riders and know a lot about takin’ care of the horses. The guys from Rome are funny. Most of them grew up in the slums, the subura they calls it. Most of them never even seen a horse except on a dinner plate or had their own boots until they joined the army. They got into the cavalry because they hated all the humping and digging the infantry did, but they still gets a bit nervous around the horses. We Gah’el and the Spani—that’s what we calls the guys from Hispania—take bets on which of them Roman guttersnipes is going to screw up and fall off his horse during parade first.

  We all get along pretty good, probably because we all hate il’ capu’ and his surprise inspections worse than we can ever hate each other.

  The guys from Rome don’t speak Latin like the officers do. When an officer talks, it’s all this “Oh-twooper-faw-bawbawian-weally-vell-you-wide” sounding shit. They like to mix the words around when they talk, so half the time you got no idea what they’re talking about—and you got to wonder if they do. Our Roman slum boys’ Latin comes out pretty straight.

  Among us, we have our own way of talking—mostly gutter Latin with some Gallic, and even a few Kraut words mixed in. Like, mentul is a prick, and bas me’ cul is kiss me arse! And, of course, there’s always the universal and well-used cunne!

  One day, the chief moves the army down into Italy to Rome for his big victory parade. The Romans call it a triumphus, but I got no idea why. The Roman boys say it has something to do with the time Rome had kings, and they were the only ones who could lead the armies and thank the gods for victory.

  Once we cross into Italy, every place we march, people are cheering us and givin’ us stuff. Village babes run up to us to throw flowers, give us a drink from skins full of wine, a little kiss or two, and from up on me horse, I get a great view of their talents. I don’t see what these Italians see in wine—it’s sweetish, watery shit. Give me a mugful of good, brown Gallic beer anytime. But, every night, I goes into camp half in the bag and with a hard-on for some village babe who stroked my horse.

  When we get down to Rome, we set up in a big field outside the town called Campus Martis, The Field of Mars. One of our Roman guys tells me this is where the toga-boys come out to play soldier, when things are safe. Seems the chief can’t go into the city while he’s in charge of the army—another one of them Roman rules. So, we have to set up out in the field.

  Just like the Roman army! We’re in the middle of Italy, close enough to Rome to piss on the walls—which we do regularly—everybody just lovin’ us, but out come the picks and shovels and the muli build a complete fortified camp for every legion. It’s a great show for the city Romans who’re fascinated by work. They come out every day and watch us. On a good day, they bring us bread, cheese, and something to drink. On a really good day, the local talent takes us down to the river and perfututi, screws our brains out, for a few copper asses.

  On the day of the chief’s big parade, they roll us out at the end of the third watch to get ready, while even the birds are still snorin’. Il’ capu’ goes through our stuff like he owns it hisself. My helmet’s so shiny I can stand ten feet away and still use it to shave.

  They get us all formed up when I sees some staff officer raising hell with il’ capu’, pointing back to where we’re formed up. Then il’ capu’ tells us we got to go back to camp and dump the armor we spent all night shinin’ and form up in clean tunics, belts, and swords. The Roman boys tell me this is because a Roman army can’t cross the pomerium, the sacred boundary of the city, under arms. It’s accursed—malefactum the Roman boys call it.

  So, back we go to camp, dump the kit we spent all night shining, find clean tunics, and re-assemble. It’s a classic, Roman army goat rope.

  Finally, the whole army’s formed up on the field. Since we’re the praetorian cohort, the cavalry is supposed to stick to the chief’s chariot like dried shit to a horse’s tail. The muli are guarding the prisoners and the trophies.

  When I sees the chief, I almost falls off me horse—which the Roman boys would really get a kick out of. The chief is dressed up in a purple outfit, and his face is painted red. The Roman boys tell me the chief gets to dress like a king today. His face is painted red so when he gets to Iove’s big temple on Capitol Hill, the god will know who he is.

  The chief runs up and down the column a couple of times, waving to the army, and the muli are going nuts shouting back at him. I thinks most of them are already half in the bag. When he passes us at the head of the column, he pulls up and shouts over, “Trooper Cura!”

  “Yes, sir!” I says.

  “Trooper! When this dog-and-pony show is over, before you go off with your mates and get shit-faced, come and report to me in the big temple on the hill!”

  “Yes, sir,” I says, wondering what kind of shit I’ve gotten myself into this time.

  The chief takes up his position at the head of the column, and the army settles down. Then we just stand there staring at the city walls and a closed gate. This is still the Roman army, so we hurry up to wait.

  The city Romans start to gather along the walls above us. Most of them are ogling the army, screaming insults at the rows of Kraut prisoners, and pointing at the trophies and painted battle scenes on the carts waiting to go through the gate. A few of the city babes lean way over the parapets to get a good look. We troopers get a good look too and show our appreciation with whistles, cat calls, and invitations. This, of course, encourages them fair Roman maidens to lean farther over the parapets and give ’em a good shake. We’re cheerin’ ’em on when il’ capu’ decides he’s had enough and tells us to shut our shaggin’ gobs.

  Some dumb-shit civilians start flinging rocks, clods of mud, and horse apples at the prisoners. Of course, being civilians, they more than not miss the prisoners and hit us and the horses. If this goes on much longer, we’ll lose more men and horses to the Roman mob than we did to the Krauts.

  Then, the crowd quiets down, and they seem to be looking at something going on over on their side of the wall. The closed city gate slowly groans open, and a large group of old men in white togas with broad purple stripes come
out. The dog-and-pony show is about to get going.

  The chief gets down out of his chariot, marches up to them and salutes. “Conscript Fathers, Gaius Marius, Senior Consul of the Roman Nation and Imperator of the army, surrenders his authority of command to you from whom all authority derives.”

  The chief is wearing platformed, red boots! If the Krauts saw him made up like this at Vercellae, they’d of laughed themselves to death and saved us a lot of work.

  A tall, thin toga with white eyebrows as bushy as the tail of a mare in heat steps out from the crowd of togas.

  “Imperator! The senate and the Roman people welcome you! We congratulate you on your victory! We accept back the imperium, the power given you to command our armies. For your victory, we decree you Vir Triumphalis—”

  At that, some drunken wit behind me sniggers, “‘Guy with three pricks.’ The chief’s going to need every one of ’em today!”

  Il’ capu’ hisses, “Shut ya shaggin’ gob!”

  “—and invite you to enter the city and to process with us along the route laid out and made sacred by our founder, Romulus, to give thanks to Father Iove, fount of all victory.”

  “Princeps! Leader of the senate! Conscript fathers! Gaius Marius, Consul and Vir Triumphalis—”

  “Three pricks.”

  Sniggering.

  “Shut ya shaggin’ gobs!”

  “—accepts!”

  The chief inclines his head, and Eyebrows places a crown of golden leaves on it.

  The chief hops back up on his chariot without breaking a leg in his sissyboots. The togas turn around and walk back into the city, and the grand goat rope begins.

  The buglers from the grunt units follow the togas through the gate, making a racket loud enough to wake up the gods, and over the noise of the horns we can hear the roar of the city mob. Next go the carts, guarded by a couple of centuries of our muli so the mob don’t help itself to a few torques, some gilded helmets, or the other crap we took off the battlefield after Aquae Sextiae and Vercellae. The Romans in our wing say that all the captured junk is to be dumped in the Temple of Mars.