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  HORSES

  ON

  THE STORM

  WILLIAM ALTIMARI

  IMPERIUM BOOKS

  “Horses on the Storm,” by William Altimari.

  ©2012, William Altimari. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of William Altimari.

  FOR MY BARBARIAN QUEEN

  WHO CHANGED MY LIFE

  AND FOR

  CAROL BROCK—

  SPECIAL FRIEND, WISE MENTOR,

  HORSEWOMAN EXTRAORDINARY

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

  I thank my niece Veronica Altimari for employing her editorial skills in the preparation of the manuscript.

  MALO TE SAPIENS HOSTIS METUAT

  QUAM STULTI CIVES LAUDENT

  CHOOSE THAT A WISE ENEMY

  FEARS YOU

  RATHER THAN THAT FOOLISH COMPATRIOTS PRAISE.

  FABIUS MAXIMUS CUNCTATOR

  1

  THEY DO NOT FEAR THE WHEEL OF FORTUNE.

  CICERO

  Judaea?

  The tribune’s gaze raced down the letter, and then he lowered the sheet and stared off into the falling snow.

  Judaea—searing wasteland crawling with scorpions and vipers and half-mad prophets. Ulpius Crus brushed the snowflakes off his head and pulled up the hood of his red cloak. He felt as anxious as he had last year when he had galloped across a German battlefield, even though he was now walking down the Via Praetoria. The icy air sliced his nose and throat. Yet the spring storm’s assault he ignored as a trivial pain.

  All around him, the five thousand men of the Twenty-fifth Legion carried on as if the snow did not exist. The horses, too, many of them Sequani mounts, were impervious to the Gallic blast. A spontaneous snowball fight had erupted among a few younger soldiers at the edge of one of the barracks blocks. A stray missile sailed by the ear of a passing cavalryman. His steed reared and a barrage of curses pelted the snowballers. Yet a centurion nearby waved off the angry horseman. The centurion’s smile showed that he was recalling his own carefree youth, before he had been battered into calluses by the toughest job on earth.

  Crus relished the snow. Odd for a man whose ancestors hailed from Neapolis, where palm trees grew. Yet it soothed him like a mandrake elixir. The purity of the white and the hush of its muffling blanket—a sacred mantle in a world scarred by the profane.

  He stopped in the road that bisected the fort and absorbed it all in one great vision. He wanted to freeze the legion in his mind precisely at this moment, for he feared that Fortuna had decreed he would never see it this way again.

  He strode back up the Via Praetoria. Two men in this fort he trusted more than any others in the world. To one of them he knew he now had to go for guidance.

  Guards at the door of the Principia acknowledged their tribune as he passed and went inside. The flagstones of the open-air forehall were still crunchy with snow as he crossed to the rooms beyond. Three Sequani elders were coming out of the Legate’s office. They greeted the tribune and went on their way.

  “Sit down,” the commander said when he looked into his tribune’s eyes.

  Is it that obvious? Crus pushed a wicker chair closer to the warmth of one of the glowing braziers.

  “Give me a moment,” Marcus Aemilius Sabinus said and made some notations on a document.

  The war with the Suebi had aged the handsome Legate, but in an attractive way. Seasoning more than aging, like a marble bust with a hint of darkening or a bronze graced with the trace of patina.

  “What’s the matter?” Sabinus asked, pushing aside the papers.

  Crus stood and pulled off his cloak and handed Sabinus the letter.

  Crus sat back down and watched him read it with that deceptively casual focus the commander brought to everything.

  “This is deep,” Sabinus said as he read.

  “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t the senator write to me first?”

  “I don’t know, commander.”

  “We should know soon enough. He’s probably been held up by the storm.”

  Crus leaned forward and rested his forearms across his knees. “I need your advice, commander.”

  “It’s a daunting task. Do you want to go?”

  “No, I want to stay here and learn more from you.”

  “Well, I don’t know how valuable that is,” he said with a smile.

  “You’re ten years older than I and a thousand years wiser.” Crus smiled back. “And you know I’m no flatterer.”

  “I suspect there’s more to it than that.”

  Crus could feel Sabinus’s gaze piercing his mind like a blade.

  “Yes. These men. When I first arrived, they looked at me as if I were a skinny wastrel—which I was. Now they honor me. I try not to get soggy about it, but it means a great deal.”

  “You distinguished yourself in battle. They don’t expect you to be a soldier—they know you’re not. But they expect you to act like a soldier, because they know you can. And you have.”

  Crus stared down at his hands. “I don’t want to leave them.”

  “You must eventually.”

  “I know, but not now.”

  “Then don’t.”

  “But how can I turn down a commission like this and retain my honor?”

  Sabinus eased back and placed his fingertips on the edge of his desk. “An interesting dilemma.”

  Crus shook his head hopelessly and stared off at nothing.

  “If you took it, how would you go about it?”

  “That’s another question entirely.” He hated the exasperation he could hear in his own voice. “I don’t even speak the language out there.”

  “You speak Greek. That would be enough. At least for a while.”

  “Are you encouraging me to go?” he asked in surprise.

  “I’m encouraging you to serve Rome—and yourself.”

  “Could I return to the Twenty-fifth?”

  “Certainly.”

  The wind moaned as Crus gazed at the waves of heat rising from the iron brazier. “I’ve never been east of Brundisium. I don’t even know anyone who has.”

  “Of course you do.”

  Crus looked back at his commander.

  “Rufio,” Sabinus said.

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “He served several years in one of the Syrian legions. Though I don’t know if he’s ever been to Judaea.”

  Sabinus called to one of the guards to bring some heated wine.

  “But what does it matter?” Crus asked. “You’d never let him go.”

  “I might. Temporarily.”

  Crus was stunned. “Why?”

  “For you. As a friend. And for Rome.”

  “I owe you so much, Marcus.”

  “Give thanks to the gods who favor you, not to me.”

  “But would he go?”

  “Difficult to say. An enigma, that man. And I’d certainly never order it.”

  “That baffling man has done so much for me. I’d have no idea how to ask another favor of him.”

  “Do it the Roman way. Lay it out, put the question, accept the result.”

  “How do you always make everything sound so simple?”

  “I’m a simple man.”

  “Oh, yes. Simple as a sorcerer.”

  2

  GRAVE MATTERS ARE NEVER MANAGED BY FORCE OR HOPE BUT BY WISE COUNSEL.

  ROMAN SAYING

  Though the storm had intensified, Crus mounted his horse and rode through the heavy snow near the eastern edge of the fort. Even the flakes clogging the air could not dull the smell of bread coming
from the outdoor ovens by the turf rampart wall. He inhaled the aroma, the soothing flavor of home and hearth.

  “Tribune!” a soldier shouted.

  Crus looked to his left. One of the bakers, his brown cloak covered with snow, smiled and tossed him a hot round loaf. It almost burned his fingers, but cooled quickly in the air.

  “Thank you, soldier. The civic crown for you!”

  Crus heard the soldier laughing as he rode out of the fort.

  He passed through the gate over the pair of ditches that surrounded the fort like the arms of Mars. Yet there could be no enemies in this soundless world. There seemed to be no one else on earth.

  He made for the woods in the distance and was quickly surrounded by the great frosty pines. Soon he had come to the edge of the lake near the Sequani village. With the loaf of bread still under his left arm, he dismounted and spread his cloak beneath him and sat under the trees near the bank.

  The gray horizon appeared to end at the far edge of the lake. Heavy flakes fell with eerie silence and disappeared like melting honey on the surface of the water. Crus was certain that the absolute purity of this scene could have made even a cynic shed a tear.

  Motion at the edge of his vision distracted him. A rabbit was digging through the snow for some surviving scrap of green. Crus broke off a piece of the crusty bread and tossed it to him. He scurried toward Crus and snatched it and began devouring, always keeping a big eye on the tribune. Apparently even rabbits respected their superiors. When he finished, he scooted forward about half the remaining distance from the man. Crus smiled as the rabbit gazed at him with the surety of a Sequani maiden behind lowering lashes. He had obviously worked the hearts of gruff old soldiers before. Crus tossed him another piece, but the little fur ball was only partly done when crunching hoofbeats startled him. He hurried off with his prize.

  Crus stood up. A cloaked Roman came toward him on a black Numidian stallion.

  “Still riding that little African stud?” Crus asked.

  The creases in the man’s cheeks deepened in a smile. “Best horse in the legion.”

  “I’ve heard the Arab’s horse is even finer.”

  “Not true,” he answered as he dismounted.

  “Rufio,” Crus said simply and reached out.

  They gripped each other’s right forearms.

  “Thank you for meeting me,” Crus said.

  “A word from you is an order.”

  “It wasn’t an order. A request.”

  “You’re my superior.”

  “Oh, yes,” Crus laughed. “As if I ever could be.”

  “You’re a tribune”—he made a mock bow—“and I a lowly centurion.”

  “Lowly centurion? That’s a self-contradiction. The centurions are the spine of Rome.”

  “Never say that in the Senate.”

  “The Senate be damned. Sit with me.”

  Though Romans considered trousers distastefully effeminate, suited only for eunuchs in eastern harems, most soldiers in these northern fastnesses had long since smothered their pride. Beneath their short tunics they sometimes wore bracae, snug Celtic pants of wool or leather that went halfway down their shins.

  But not so with Quintus Flavius Rufio. Crus noticed his legs were bare as the centurion spread his red cloak beneath him and pushed his sword out of the way and sat down. Only his cloak and bright blue tunic shielded him from the harshness of a Gallic winter. No feminine pants for him. And yet he wore a Sequani woman’s bronze torque on his left wrist. As always, Sabinus had been right. An enigma.

  “I wanted to meet you here because this isn’t a legionary matter. It’s personal. Between men.”

  “I can think of warmer places to meet.”

  “As if the cold could ever bother you.”

  Rufio pushed back the hood of his cloak. “What is it?”

  “Is it true that silver hair of yours came from the cares of war?”

  “I tell people that to see if they’re silly enough to believe it,” he said with smile. “My father had hair like this by the time he was thirty.”

  “But he was a great soldier, too, wasn’t he?”

  “Greater than I. Stop dallying and tell me what you need.”

  Crus turned and stared out across the lake. “An uncle of mine is a senator. He’s also a longtime friend of Agrippa. The old soldier told my uncle that the Nabataeans are causing trouble at Judaea’s southern gate. Bandits and raids. Herod is feeling shaky so—.”

  “Herod is always feeling shaky.”

  Crus looked at him in surprise. “How do you know that?”

  “Go on.”

  “Herod wants to smash the Nabataeans. Augustus won’t have any of this. He doesn’t want that kind of upheaval out there. So he told his right hand man to get a rope around Herod. But the king wasn’t pleased with being choked, even by an old friend like Agrippa. He asked Agrippa to have the Romans build and garrison a fort at the edge of the Judaean desert. That would keep the Nabataeans away from him. They’d never challenge Romans.”

  “True.”

  “My uncle got me the commission from Agrippa. To construct the fort. Good for my career, he says. Sabinus has approved, too.”

  “Take it. You’re young and vigorous. A desert adventure while still in your twenties. Never say no to life. More important, never say no to Rome.”

  “But to build a fort in that desolation? I have no talent for that.”

  “Some people think you’ll find the talent. Within yourself.”

  “Do you?”

  “I wouldn’t encourage you otherwise.”

  Crus sighed and picked up the loaf of bread from the snow. He broke off a piece and handed it to Rufio. It was a shocking act of deference to a social inferior that he would never have dared before others.

  “Centurion, I didn’t ask you here for advice. . . .”

  Rufio set down the bread and gazed into the tribune’s eyes. His stare made Crus uneasy.

  “You want me to go with you,” Rufio said.

  “Yes.”

  “I plan to finish my career in Gaul—not among a pack of squabbling Judaeans.”

  “It would only be temporary.”

  “Life is temporary.”

  The finality in Rufio’s voice closed the topic like a bronze door.

  “Very well,” Crus said with a nod. “Thank you for listening.”

  They sat together in silence.

  “This is the spot where I spared Demetrius,” Rufio said.

  “Is it? Seems like a hundred years ago. Whatever became of him?”

  “He tutors my nephew in Rome.”

  “Ah, Rome,” Crus said with the wistfulness of a dying man. “I want to tell you a story. I might not get another chance. Back in Rome, there’s a woman I love named Lucia. I think she loved me since we were ten. I have no idea why. Others far handsomer and nobler than I have fawned on her. She spurns them. When I left for Gaul, her eyes told me she’d wait for me. Yet I’d made no commitment. I was certain a better man would take her. I knew her love for me had its roots in ignorance—.”

  “Yet she knew you since you were ten.”

  “Yes. Then after the war with the Suebi, I went back. Remember last fall when I was gone for a few months?”

  “Were you? I didn’t notice.”

  “Nice to be missed,” he said, giving Rufio a sour look. “Lucia said I’d changed. I assumed she meant for the worse, because of the horrors I’d seen, but that wasn’t it. She said I was gentler, more reserved. More confident and more forgiving. She told me those were the qualities she’d always seen but which I’d scorned within myself. Do you understand what I mean?”

  “Yes.”

  “It took that terrible battle along the Rhenus to wipe out the pompous fool who’d left Rome. And to teach me to see the value of the love of this adorable woman. To show me how important it is to cherish her.”

  “I’ve seen things in war that could curdle a Spartan’s stomach. And acts so tender they’d put
a lump in the throat of Mars.”

  “No one who has never seen battle can have any idea,” Crus said.

  “War is a strange furnace. It can melt and destroy or temper and ennoble. Everything depends on the raw material that gets thrust into the forge.”

  “I know that now. But no forge is that powerful. That magical. If I’ve changed, it’s also because I’ve been touched by others.”

  “Don’t be absurd. We have no such power.”

  “You have power far greater.” Crus rose and mounted his horse. “Live and be well, my friend. And good fortune.”

  He tapped his heels against his horse and rode away through the forest.

  Out of the woods he went and up a low rise. Below him sprawled the magnificent turf and timber fort of the Twenty-fifth Legion. The heavy snow softened the edges, but beneath it lurked the iron will of Rome. Not simply buildings did he see, nor only the ten cohorts of men toiling in a strange land and sworn to the cause of Caesar. Here was the furnace of his great testing, the forge that had purified his soul.

  No lover ever left his beloved with the heartache he felt now.

  3

  EVERY LOVER IS A SOLDIER.

  OVID

  “I love afternoon love,” Flavia managed to say, breathless as a runner who had just raced to the top of the Palatinum.

  Rufio leaned down and kissed her damp forehead. The flush across her breasts had begun to fade, but she still cast the heat of a young woman in the full glory of her passion.

  “Where did you learn to love like that?” She curled a leg around him and pulled up the soft Egyptian blanket.

  “There was this dark Spanish temptress. . .”

  She pressed her lips quickly to his. “That’s enough,” she said with the half-girlish smile that was hers alone.

  Rufio luxuriated in the eyes of the forest spirit who had conquered more of him than had all the barbarian armies of Gaul. He thanked Victoria and unconsciously thumbed the image of his patron incised in the cornelian of his signet ring.