MAXENTIUS RUFUS - CENTURION
Procurator of New Jersey

Copyright 2024 by Thomas G. Hedberg and ESPN Books. 

All rights reserved.

 

I.

I did not want to take the responsibility, but it was clear the man had to die. 

 

We had come in sight of the Pillars of Hercules.  Huge, desolate, brooding.  A black ocean yawned before us.  Tiny against the menacing vastness, the man cowered on the deck.  Silanus, drunk, incontinent, had cursed the gods.  His long beak-like nose, blood-veined, was now speckled with drops of sweat as sobriety painfully returned.  I watched dim consciousness dawn on the stupid face.  He began to perceive, to finally see. The dozens of hostile eyes focused on him.  He tried to stand on wobbling legs; damp, lank black hair curtaining his face, making him look more stupid.  He put up a feeble hand, pleading.  Then, tottered and fell.

 

The man had to die if we were to be saved.  A fierce wind had come from the east, popping the sails. Each snap resounded like a blast of thunder.  The ship heeled over.  Neptune, imperious, a favored son of Jove, needed blood as oil upon these, his jealous waters.  Silanus regained his feet, slobbered, leaned forward, slipped on the deck and caught his fall with a dirty hand.  None stooped to help him.  He rose then, casting about feebly, searching for a friend...fiinding danger everywhere.  He looked like an animal caught in a trap.  A weasel.  He had fouled his only nest and now this long-nosed weasel must atone.  He slipped again; and then he ran.  Cubis was a small ship but Silanus put wet distance between himself and us.  In a moment, I saw his foolish face peeping fearfully from behind the forward mast.

 

Not wanting to, but needing to, albeit half-heartedly, we moved together toward him, Briseus holding a spear. The stinging of the wind-driven rain peppered the back of my neck with fire.  A cry came from somewhere behind me, then the sound of wood splintering.  The wind rose to a howl, shrieking at an unearthly pitch, the wailing of the Sirenidae.  It had begun.

 

Silanus was gone.  The deck where he had stood scoured by silver ribbons of gale-driven rain. They seemed to cut into the boards, water with the force of steel.  I felt it would cleave the solid planking at any moment.  Silanus was forgotten now as imminent death rose up, bellowing insanely, shadowing every man.  Cubis heeled over until it seemed certain she must capsize, wind-driven rain now filling my mouth and nose and lungs.  The captain, and what there was of crew, were gone, nowhere to be seen.

 

I grabbed Decius.  I knew little of seamanship but what must be done was to me crystalline. 

 

“Cut the sails or we’ll be driven over!”

 

I shouted to him again, “Cut the sails or there will be no righting next time!”

 

The fool just looked at me, wide horror-stricken eyes, uncomprehending. The others were now dispersing, their quarry forgotten.  They seemed rats desperately grasping anything as the ship continued rolling onto its side, the topmast heading in an arc down to the ocean’s surface.

 

Each passing moment beat like a hammer on my breast.   Hesitation was death.  I took my knife in my teeth and sprang onto the shrouds as best I could and cut the sails.  They flew wetly from my knife like a white animal in mortal terror.  The ship kept heeling.

 

Green-black seawater now lapped over the side. Screams came from below as the ocean poured in.  The Fourth Legion Narbonensis had spent its entire life in land-locked Dacia.  Many had never seen the ocean; few had ever embarked on it.  And now, when it seemed they would soon be swallowed by it, their terror was bottomless.  From brave men I heard wailing prayers in Greek, Latin, and the heathen dialects of the East.

 

Neptune would not be calmed.  The ship’s deck sprang to brilliant light.  Blue followed white, and shadow followed flash as the lightning rent a rapidly blackening sky.  We would be taken into the Jaws of Hell.  Hades was, after all, Neptune’s brother.  We would be received in blackness.  We would meet Charon below and Cerberus of the three heads.

 

The screams became a continuous wail.  Terror stretched beyond comprehension.  One man, a powerful centurion of Pannonia, who I had seen expertly handling a Quadriga amidst the fiercest fighting; he wheeling stallions in perfect order and laughing in the face of bared steel now emitted a curdling and strangled scream, covered his face in his hands and ran headlong over the side of the pitching ship directly into the ocean.  I saw the brilliance of his bronze cuirass gleam momentarily beneath the black waters, and then he sank down and was gone. 

 

Others seemed ready to follow, but the ship swung and slewed around, and as it did so, seemed briefly to straighten.  It did not right fully, but the mast slowed in its arc to meet the ocean’s surface, and I could imagine it move an iota higher into the sky. The deck acquired weight beneath my feet.  Briefly, the wind seemed to drop behind me.

 

The captain now appeared.  He had untied himself from the hinder mast and began straining at the rudder.  I saw he was trying to put the wind behind us, even if this meant we were driven further from the Lachesis and sight of land.  But it was clear that land did not matter.  Land could be so close that clods of dirt might be smelled but all was blackness.  I saw Marcus rise and run to the captain’s side, I rose to my knees, chafed on the rough planks and sought to join them. 

 

Perhaps another hour passed before the rain began to slacken.  The lightning was less frequent, the pealings of the thunder farther away.  But the wind!   The wind did not end.  It grew teeth and bit into our bodies and our ship.   The rudder could not be released.  If we slackened our grip to rest, muscles stretched nearly to snapping, the ship slewed again and pursued its insane desire to lie on its side in the black ocean.  I know not how long we held that position fighting wind and lessening rain.  Through a haze of pain I saw Briseus appear. Once a gladiator, always proving himself.

 

“Centurion, you have been ill, I will take your place”.  He smiled with a mouth full of teeth that could bite a dog in half.  I retreated thankfully to an awning where the lashing rain was less and was soon wrapped in sleep.

 

II.

The sun rose like a great golden blister on the horizon as waves of heat roiled across the deck.  The air was filled with silence.  Having survived the worst the gods could hurl at us, Cubis and its sick and worried human cargo now wallowed in a silent, motionless and oily sea.  I saw the captain still holding fast to the rudder, our course steady, and felt some relief.  Although the sails hung limply, the ship still moved, its passage marked by the steady sternward passage of the weird and gigantic pink jellyfish which pulsed slowly just off each gunwale.

 

My men lolled aimlessly across the deck, some still terrified and murmuring, some fallen into a hot sleep of consuming exhaustion.  Many glad only to be alive, no matter the circumstance.  The clicking of knucklebones on the deck. Some played a listless game of dice.  That, and an occasional moan, were the only sounds.  I leaned back against a spar and glanced up again at the shimmering sky.  After a while Hypnos ensnared me again.  While I slept, currents flowed beneath the waters.  Great submarine rivers rushed on icy slippers past watery banks.  The ship was carried on strange waters.

 

As the sun rose that day a slight breeze sprang up.   It was not much, but enough to kick up a slight and occasional spray which roused me.   It was indeed the wet saltiness on my eyelids and lips which jarred me awake.  The spray wet me anew and the wind cooled those places it wet and gave a sense of nervous peace.

 

I looked toward the stern.   The captain had kept his lonely vigil at the rudder.  I had done well to engage this man in Trebondium. He had been recommended and despite all, his ship had proved seaworthy, a right and fit vessel for the homebound veterans of the IV Legion Narbonensis.

 

Now I saw the men sought to relieve him, first with expressions of great thanks, then joking and feigning attack, they clustered about, sought to drive him from the tiller, human kindness prevailing.  I got up, walked toward the stern, the sky seemed bursting with the purest blue, the sunlight casting razor-sharp shadows on every part of the ship.  I crossed to where the men now stepped back, my rank still privilege despite the near death I had led them into.

 

“Captain, we have passed under the bear’s claw, you have done enough, my men will assist you now”. 

 

“Captain?”  I shook a rigid shoulder.  Something seemed wrong.

 

“Captain?” 

 

I lowered my hand.  There would be no thanks or praise the man would hear in this world.  The captain was dead.

 

How long he had been dead could not be told, but his rigid stare, head bent forward, arms locked around the tiller was no longer either devotion or skill. Now it was rigor mortis.  This soon became frighteningly clear to the little knot of men who now stepped back from the steering mechanism.

 

The captain’s eyes were closed, he seemed to be praying. I gently but with a great deal of necessary force pried his fingers away from the rudder pole.  Decius stepped forward to assist me and once free a few of the men carried the body to the rear.

 

Then, the realization.  We are lost. We have no captain.  

 

Murmurs arose: “A dead man has been steering this ship.  Where are we going?”

 

The sun shone directly overhead.  In a great arc around the ship there was only the glistening sea stretching to a far and limitless horizon. Again, fear appeared in the eyes of these brave men.  It had been comforting to them, even though we were far at sea, to know a skilled captain was guiding us again home.   But that had not been so.  Instead, a dead man had been piloting the ship for nearly 12 hours. We could be approaching the lights of Carthage, or we could be approaching the maw of Hell. 

 

I looked around me at the tense faces; some hopeful, trusting; some fearful, most resigned.  The worrisome few, malevolent.

 

“Are there any here who may know how to pilot this ship?   If so, please come forward” I called out.   There was silence, and the sound of the sea and the creaking of wooden boards.

 

The captain had been assisted when we first boarded by only two sailors.  One, a bent simian-looking creature who appeared not to have enough intelligence to draw breath without instruction, the other a crafty, shadowed fellow I had not seen since the ship left port.

 

I called out again, “Are there any here who can pilot this ship?”   Silence again, and then, unexpectedly, the voice of a young archer from Pannonia:  “Centurion, excuse me, but what I was a boy, my brother and I ran a skiff on the Danubium”. 

 

I knew the man, and knew his worth.  He, scarred, finished with war, more than most wanted to see home again.

 

“Is Petronius alone here?” I asked once more.  Men shuffled their feet, looked away, adjusted sword belts.  Then turning to the fellow, I asked him to step forward. He could be no more than 30.  Perhaps the youngest of the old men here.  I asked him, “Truthfully, have you any idea how to navigate this vessel?  Be honest.”

 

His eyes grew wider, he swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbled up and down.  Perhaps he should have kept silent.

 

“I, I am not sure.  But I can, will, try.”

 

I looked at him and saw only intelligence and earnestness.  I nodded, smiled, clapped my arm around his shoulder, turned again to the men.   “Petroneus may be able to guide us home.”   You are to give him every help you can.   You may think of him as your captain.  You may assist him, but you may not badger him.  We will all do our best to find our way back to shore.”

 

I nodded toward the stern and the man moved as if in sleep toward the tiller and took hold of it firmly.

 

“The captain had kept us in this direction before his death.  We must assume he was taking us back toward what he knew was safety.  The position of the rudder has not changed since.  The wind has slacked.  I feel we should hold the ship to this direction.  Captain Petronius do you agree?”

 

All eyes now turned toward the boy, who swallowed hard again, color still draining from his face, even as he turned toward me.

 

“I will do as you ask Centurion.”  He still seemed doubtful, but had assumed a stance at the tiller, remarkably like that of the dead captain.

 

In fact, as we all learned later, the bow of Cubis pointed Northwest.   The wind came from the east blowing west, and Gibraltar lay far, far behind.  In a short while another vigorous breeze arose and the rags and shreds of sails we had salvaged were again snapping from the remaining spars.  The ship moved with the wind and the current, and the boy held his post at the rudder.

 

But here I fear I speak too much without introduction or rank.

 

I am Maxentius Rufus Galba, twice Duovir and Governor of Near Dacia.  I have served under Hadrian for 12 years and turned a blind eye to a good emperors’ badness.  Before him I served the noble Trajanus.  I was tutored by the gnarled little Greek, Aristobolus who taught me Geometry, Rhetoric and to speak 4 languages.   This record is being kept in our fortress here in Novo Eboracum lest the heroism of these men and the story of the great trials they have passed be lost.

 

I will return to the ship.  On our 11th day on the bosom of this immense sea the darkness of the sky showed signs of fading.  The rain began to slacken, the lightning visited us less frequently, the pealing of the thunder remained farther away.

 

But let me not forget the wind!   It still did not permanently cease but now and again grew greater and bit into our bodies and our ship.   The rudder could not be released.  The moment Petronius lessened his grip to rest muscles stretched nearly to snapping, the ship slewed again and pursued its insane desire to lie on its side in the black ocean.

 

It was not until the fourteenth day that Aristobolus’ “rosy-fingered dawn” began to push away the back clouds and show that we still lived on the surface of earth and that perhaps Hades would not claim us.

 

The sound of gulls overhead came raucously.  I saw their fluttering white bodies above us, riding the winds with skill.  Fighting the giant storm as we had, they now settled on our masts and tattered booms, rag hung, and laughed.  Silanus had reappeared eyes bloodshot, holding tight to the railing.  A truce of sorts having been attained, we laughed too.  Silanus.  We could not kill him now.

 

III

Minewa would put herself into a trance.  She, tribal shaman since childhood, was now able to do this with little effort, the fumes of the burning herbs and moulded grain opening a door in her mind through which she passed into the Spirit World.  The smoke arose, wreathing her lustrous black hair, tingeing it with white.   She would be entering into a land where the spirits spoke with her, where Manitou joked with wise fox and foretold things that were to be, and had been long before. She conversed with gods easily. The dialogue had been engaged for millennia.

 

The girl was 17 years old, tall and slender for a Pequot.  Her light copper-colored skin glowed in the setting sun as she had followed the ancient path to the sacred place.  Her breasts bounced beneath a simple shell necklace as she slipped over rough ground, moving down the path, nut-brown nipples now and again poking through the beadwork.  She moved with a felid grace, swinging her arms, dancelike.  Her moccasins made soft susurrations on the pine needles below.  Otherwise, but for the eternal crash of the surf out in the cool semi-darkness the twilight was soundless.  The wikiup stood beneath deeply shaded pine boughs on a long dark beach before a long dark forest.  An endless black sea lapped at the shore of the beach, playing with shells, jingling them together, sand grains minutely polishing and repolishing.  Now within, Minewa traveled among the spirits.

 

It seemed she was within the bole of a great hollow tree.  Emptiness stretched far away upward.  Where heartwood should have been, there were passageways.  She travelled within tubelike branches each emerging in one of many villages.  Here, she saw the Algonkians, there the Cherokee, there the dreaded Iroquois, they always laughing and preparing for war.  Strange shining villages also emerged from the darkness, but like a bird, she passed swiftly over them and then sped back the way she had come.   At last, she saw a great village made of white stone, clear blue skies overhead. Sundrenched, it seemed vast, limitless.

 

Now she saw figures.  A plumed man, covered with gold, was emerging from deep waters.  He knew her!  Seemed to be peering at her from a distance.  With him were warriors, also dressed in gold.  They were thin, ill and haggard.  They had known little but fear and homesickness and anger.

 

Wise fox had entered her dream.  He seemed to be speaking with the warriors.  They gestured, waved their arms, shouted their confusion.  They showed him rolled fabrics, covered with symbols.  They proffered strange objects, glistening, gleaming, crystal, gold.  They jabbered in strange tongues.  Minewa drew back from the vision, afraid. 

 

Strangers among the spirits meant only trouble. She knew the Iroquois had sent war scouting parties into Quonnekiquot lately.  Everyone knew there would be an attack soon.  Minewa knew from long experience there was nothing in the spirit world but truth.

 

Then she shook her head as in a daze and the world seemed to jumble, pleasantly.  She was adrift among shapes and figures, stars and worlds unknown.  Fear still clung to her like a wet cloth, but Minewa was yet a playful girl and she shook and wriggled until, like a snake, she had shed that constricting skin.  Now, pure loveliness followed, happiness flowed over her, warmth glowed down the length of her leg and she felt a joyful tightness in her woman’s place, and then a strong hand gripped her shoulder.

 

“Terra questa, scio quaeve hunc?”

 

The voice was not unkind.  It was deep, manly, she turned unafraid and placed her hand over the one that gripped her shoulder.

 

“Domina, desculpio, Terra questa, scio quaeve hunc?”

 

She ran her hand now up the arm, feeling the strongly curled hairs, her fingers glancing over the scars, so many!  The skin could not be unkind.  The man was full of power, but the effects of the herbs were wearing off, she was leaving the spirit world now, felt the door closing, felt herself falling backward into a world of solids and shapes and smells.

 

She turned to the man as reality dawned.

 

“What are you?”  She now shrank back, her hand clutched to her breast.

 

“Are you of earth?”  Sly fox seemed to giggle in the periphery of her sight.

 

“Are you of gold?”  The polished bronze cuirass caught and held her attention as her hand drifted toward is sculpted surface.  “Where are men made that are made of gold?”

 

Minewa saw that the golden man did not understand, and that he was not alone.  She looked beyond him, into the semi-darkness.  There were several like him, here in the wikiup, their faces covered with hair. They smiled, laughed, turned to each other, spoke some language that sounded like stones falling onto gravel.

 

Are you real”?  Her hand reached out again, grasped a 6-pointed starlike pendant.  It seemed lambent, fluid in her grasp, the men laughed again.  This had never happened before.  The spirits had never emerged laughing, gesturing into the living world.

 

The first man peered at her quizzically and then spoke again, more gently.  

 

“Me synhoríte, parakalo.  Borite na me voitheisete?”

 

These words were fluid, melodious, she had never heard this before.  Abruptly, one man proffered a metal device, “sistrum” he called it. It tinkled musically, he smiled as he showed it to her, tinkled it again, she looked around at the first man, who wrinkled his brow in puzzlement and then spoke once more:

 

“Esme shoma chist?  Shomâ fârsi harf mizanid?  Be komaketân niyâz dâram…”

 

Was this the same language or another? It sounded like water running over rocks, yet all of it meaningless.  Wrong.  Should not be here.  She felt the world start to lose its mooring.  It spun beneath her feet, she felt carried with it, losing her grip on time, on place, on reality. Her eyes rolled upward, and her legs buckled.  The man leaned forward, caught her in his arms as she fell limp and lost.

 

IV

I had only asked her simply: “Madame, can you understand me?   What is this place?”  Could it be possible she knew no Latin, no Greek, no Persian?  How far from our civilized world were we?  The air was heavy with what I took to be some form of fragrant narcotic smoke.  An atmosphere of unreality pervaded.

 

I tried to rouse the girl, but she had fallen into a deep swoon.  I carried her to a soft heap of furs piled in a corner of this house and laid her upon them.  Her face was rounded, her hair a dark black, her closed eyes almond-shaped and large.  She breathed deeply and peacefully.  She was utterly asleep.  Whoever these people were, they lived strangely and seemed to commune with their gods much more than we.

 

Cubis had grounded on this beach less than an hour before with a shuddering roar that had roused all of us from an ill and uneasy sleep.  As we swarmed up upon the deck I silenced the cheers.  The land was dark and unknown.  We all saw the rude house glowing with light within.

 

The beach.  The beach was studded with idols carved onto tall poles.  Covered with bright paint, they frowned down upon us as we leapt into the shallows and kissed the sweet land.    They were monstrous.   Bright red lips surrounded dead-white fangs   Giant eyes, set deep into demonic circlets threated death were we to proceed further.  I saw the few Jesusites among us cross their arms and mumble a prayer to their Christus god.

 

But after nearly three weeks adrift on this sea, the sight of a house, any house with warm yellow light within drew us like a nibbling mouse draws a hungry cat.  Still, I feared a massacre by hidden warriors.

 

I called for Decius to stand near.  We surveyed the long beach for many minutes.  A roebuck trotted by, undisturbed - and bats swooped through the dark skies in and out of our vision.  The waves lapped the beach, wind whirred through the dark pine boughs.  Nothing seemed threatening.  Finally, I motioned to Petronius to collect some men to lay hold of the lines.  In a few moments 17 men, straining at the ropes, pulled Cubis up onto the beach, temporary respite from the sea which had held her for so long. 

 

Then, silently, swords were drawn and bows made at the ready.  We moved up onto the land.  There was no sign of life or movement near the house.  All seemed peaceful.

 

The gritty sand crunched beneath our wet boots.  We saw the barnacles, the limpets, and jellyfish coating the bottom of Cubis.  More of these and she must have sunk under their weight alone.  Had it been this long since we sailed, dreaming of wives, children and home?

 

The house was empty but for a half-naked brown girl, dancing through a fog she had made from a crude brazier.   We had pushed open the door.  She had paid us almost no attention, seemingly welcoming us as if we were expected.  Emerging from her trance, she had spoken a strange fluid tongue, clutching my arm and then abruptly fainting.

 

We looked around the inside of the house, Briseus and Cato stood guard with a few men without. This must surely be some sort of ceremonial place.  There were grimacing masks and odd bundles of dried animal parts everywhere.  Primitive.  I wondered if we had fallen in among the people of Africa Inferior, those who drank blood and sacrificed their young to death gods.

 

I looked again at the slim girl.  She slept peacefully.  Was she their priestess?  If so, how vile could this religion be?  Absently, I stroked her hair.  I felt want rising within me, but here we were strangers in a strange land, and here was our first contact.  We must show Civilitas Romanum.  I must show restraint and discipline.  But how gentle she looked there…

 

Abruptly there was a noise from without.   Briseus and Cato entered with an incredibly old man, his eyes wide with terror.  Pointing at us again and again, he jabbered in the same liquid tongue the girl had used.   It seemed useless to try to calm him.  His skin was the same copper-brown color, but covered with strange tattoos.  His long whitish-grey hair was stuck with feathers.  He wore what looked like leggings of tanned skins.

 

I stared at the old man, his incredulity seemed endless. Should we hold him?   The cackling and finger-pointing had not stopped and I feared he would die from excitement.  Should we let him go…perchance to tell his people we had murdered their priestess and were invading their lands….?  I made a decision,

 

The men were sufficiently well-trained; and we had lived together long enough that they automatically knew I had something important to say.  “Fourth Narbonensis, my brothers, we are now known in this land and it is critical that we be known as friends.  Let us leave a gift for this Lady and then retreat onto Cubis where we have shelter and weapons.  We shall bring the old man with us.

 

“Centurion!  Why can we not fortify this house and meet them prepared from here.”  This was answered with a chorus of assenting murmurs.  Always soldiers, they expected the battle to come.

 

“No.  It would look to these people as though we had invaded and occupied one of their houses.  We are seventeen.  They may be thousands.  We must be seen as friends.  Strong and perhaps fierce friends, but friends come in peace nevertheless.”

 

Before long, the wisdom of this became apparent, even for a fool like Silanus. Leaving the girl covered with some blankets we took only a few handfuls of grain each and returned to the ship. Although canted on its side like a drunk friend, Cubis was much less alien than the world we occupied here.

 

We retreated.  Orderly, proudly, but we retreated.  The old man had quieted down, his interest drawn by the strange world of Cubis.   Perhaps 20 minutes later there was a quick and almost unseen movement on the shore.  The door of the small house opened outward and the girl’s head emerged for a moment.  She looked both ways rapidly and then withdrew.  A moment later she emerged, the Greek chtonic pterygoid brooch I had left with her swinging around her neck, and vanished silently into the dark sanctuary-like forest.

 

“She likes your gifts, Maxentius” This was Drusus Cunctator, never at a loss for a well-, or poorly-placed comment.

 

“Aye, just tell her to beware of the Greek bearing them.”

 

I looked sharply at Briseus and his embarrassing reference to my mother’s ancestry, but could not resist a chuckle at this ancient jibe.  The girl had been clutching the bauble close to her breast when she had emerged.

 

As we expected, it was not another hour before the woods were peopled with dark faces.  The warriors of this people had appeared, peering from the shelter of the forest, primitive bows and spears at the ready.  Some also held a strange spear-throwing device we have since learned they call “atlatl”   They were all of the same cooper-hued color with the same slanted eyes, rounded faces, feathered adornments and high cheekbones.  Had I not known better I might have taken them for the famed Seres people of the far Eastern realms, but there was no way this could be possible.  We had sailed west.

 

“I have never seen people like this before” Drusus muttered.  “They seem small in body and poorly organized”

 

“I agree, but until we have seen and known them better we treat them as a dangerous foe. Understood?”

 

Drusus just looked at me but I saw the learned acquiescence in his eyes that made him one of the most valuable under my command.

 

For perhaps 10 minutes, nothing happened.  Then apparently unable to restrain himself any longer, the old man shook free of the hands now only absent-mindedly holding him and let out in a high-pitched keening wail a long string of syllables which seemed to run into each other and tumble over and over in pronunciation.  The language was utterly different from any I had heard in 35 years military service throughout the world.

 

“Ayach piquatten corowikium pumppwat quall qwe apwia…” it seemed to go on and on without a breath.  Who would have known the old man had so much wind in him?  And then, suddenly as he had begun, he stopped.  

 

There was utter silence for a few moments.  We waited.

 

And then the slim brown girl slipped out of the forest onto the beach with another man highly bedecked with such an assortment of feathers and shells that he seemed to tinkle with sound whenever he moved.   If this was these people’s wealth, this man was surely a prince among them.  The man moved fearlessly, like one accustomed to being obeyed; like one who could not conceive of his life being in danger.

 

Now the old man let out a whoop and struggled to get free.  I cast a look at Decius and Cato which they understood immediately, and in short order the old man was over Cubis’ taffrail and splashing up onto the beach as fast as his skinny legs could carry him.  The scraggly, wispy beard and hair trailing behind.  I found myself muttering a quick prayer, knowing that if the old man had something uncomplimentary to say, there were now upward of 200 warriors peering from the forest.  And all of them were armed.

 

A few moments passed in conference.  The younger man listening attentively to the gyrations of this wizened sage.  The girl also listened, nodded a few times and then cast a meaningful glance at the chieftain.

 

Had I looked away at that moment, I would have missed what happened next.  It happened that fast.  The girl took a few steps into the shallows and stopped, standing in water up to her knees. With what seemed like one continuous writhing motion, she stripped off the skin skirt she wore, so that but for necklace, armband and a small tattoo on her belly she stood naked out to the sea and to us.  She was perfectly formed, the brown of her body throwing sharp contrast against the white sands behind her. Her teeth almost glowed.  She smiled beatifically.

 

“Venus in Heaven!  What is she…”

 

“Hoyyiiii –ay ay ay!”  She let out a long wail which ended in, from my best understanding, a sound like the hooting of an owl.

 

At this, a roar came from the warriors.  Double a hundred bodies now stepped from the shelter of the forest and moved onto the beach, each smiling, shouting and motioning for us to come to them.

 

Now, with the perspective of time, I know precisely what had happened.  But then, we were flabbergasted.  Drusus observed (who could stop him) “So here, a naked woman means peace?”

 

“It would seem so.”  The noise from the beach continued unabated.

 

“We don’t have to get undressed too, do we Centurion?”   Petronius, our late and sudden-made captain. 

 

“No, I think we just go out and say how do you do? Or glad to be here, wherever we are, or something like it; so keep your tunic on. ”

 

And this we did.  Each man, tired, weary, severely undernourished, frightened, and in a world stranger than any I had read of in the Epics, put off his swords and walked up onto the beach, into the arms of people whose friendliness was now genuine and unstinted.

 

 

V

It was remarkable how quickly good communication was established with these people.  They were primitive, but they were not stupid.  They learned quickly - and remembered what they learned.

 

We learned too.  The land was called “Quonnekiquot” and we had arrived just before an auspicious time called the Green Corn Festival.  This was a nonstop feast wherein the fertility of their crops and the bounty of the coming harvest could be assured only by endless dancing, endless smoking of the same herbs the young woman, had been entranced by the night we arrived. 

 

And that young woman.  She sought me out after peace had been made, and my men had been led away into the homes of these people, whose village was but a stone’s throw from the beach.

 

We lay on that beach then, her head nuzzled up under my arm.  Her name was Minewa, she told me with signs and soft sillibant murmurings.  She was shamaness of her people, who called themselves “Pequod”, and she had taken me first for a spirit or god, come over into her world. 

 

Now, she again looked at the pendant she had grasped when first we met and asked me what it meant, pointing toward the sky.

 

“No, I tried to say sternly.  My smile spoiling the effect.  “We come from the sea, not from the sky”.  Still she persisted, fingering the six equal points of the gold star, laughing and pointing at the sky above.

 

I am a Roman and a citizen and a centurion, so how could I explain the long, violent history of my mother’s people?  The toil in Egypt, the wanderings with Moses before Canaan, the uprisings during the time of Vespasian.  Then the vicious campaign of Titus at Masada, the long wearing trek to Alexandria and then to Athens, where my mother had enchanted the territorial governor of Cilicia, who married her in full and took her home to Rome as wife and mistress of his household.

 

And now the folly of Shimon Bar Kochba…. I knew how lucky I was to retain my command.

 

“Judeorum meum” I told her pointing at my heart.   She may as well know my secret.  It made no difference here.  She laughed and made sweet smacking sounds with her lips, bending now to kiss my chest and burrow her face among its hairs. There was no stopping this woman.  My good wife was dead six years.  I was at the end of Earth.  My resistance evaporated.

 

For a month my men rested and revived.  And then the great chief, for we know knew who he was, and his name, Quassahog, came to me and told me in halting imperfect Latin, “Soon big enemy come”

 

He pointed away from the sea between the path of the rising and setting sun, and said one more word “Iroquois”.   I called Drusus near for he was adept at language and had learned some of the Pequod words.  

 

“He says that there is a highly warlike tribe of people from the North who regularly come to these coastal villages to kill their people, rape and steal their women and make off with whatever wealth they find.   It has been several years since this last happened and since the harvest will be in soon and the Pequod community will be at its ripest, he expects them again at almost any time it seems.

 

I saw the chief nod.   I was amazed by his command of Latin after only one month.

 

“Can Maxentius friend help Pequod fight this bad people?  They come soon.”

 

“When?”

 

Quassahog made a sweeping motion with his hand. “Green corn time now.  Soon come big moon.  Night like day.  He come many then.”

 

“Many warriors?”

 

“Like stones there.”  His finger jabbed vigorously at the pebble-strewn beach.

 

“What kind of weapons do they have?”

 

“Same us, just more.  More anger, more killing.  He like.  Bad people.”

 

I looked at Drusus.  He wrinkled his mouth and returned the stare.

 

“Do you think we can fortify?”

 

“I was wondering about that.  The village is on a rise, and that’s good.  But it’s difficult to protect from a seaborne assault.   But if these Iroquois use the same kind of canoes they use here… We could think about a Castellum Marus on the ocean side and we’d be alright on the land.”

 

“Weapons?”

 

“These people have never seen a sword before.  Even better, you’ve seen those tall straight saplings on the hilltop?

 

“Oh ho! I was thinking the same thing: Ballistae.”

 

“Why not?  Aiming might be tricky, but there’s enough spring to them…it’s a question of height, I’d think”

 

“We’d probably want to try a few counterweight ballistae as well.”

 

We understood each other nicely.  “Let’s get to it.  I have no interest in learning about the torture techniques of the next band of these primitives”

 

There’s not much more to tell here.  The IV Narbonenseis had spent most of its existence fortifying.  They could do it in their sleep. 

 

 

VI

Our activity over the next few days initially provoked laughter and gesturing, until a few of their people began to understand what was underway.  Then everyone got involved; women included. We easily built up a breastworks on the landward side; branches and logs covered with piled earth.  In a short time we had a reasonable castellum of perhaps an eighth mile in extent and a height of some 10 feet.

 

Decius, Drusus and Cato now set to work felling saplings and crafting the counterbalances need to throw firepots.  By the 3rd day we had 20 of these set up around the landward as well as the seaward perimeter.  

 

I found it remarkable how the women participated in the work just as regularly as the men…and with just as common an irregularity.   These people worked just so long as it pleased them to do so. But when they decided to pursue some other interest, it never failed that another stepped into his place and job.

 

The trees were showing their first orange when a gaggle of children came running in from the cornfields at full-tilt, jabbering something about Wuassi hoee!  Wuassi hoee!

 

Learning that this was not good news did not take long.  Some of the women began wailing, and some began gathering up belongings as if to flee.  Warriors went for their weapons.  I sought out first Quassahog and then Minewa in our wickiup.

 

“What is happening?”

 

She told me in Latin: “Bad peoples come. Some Pequod fight, some Pequod run.  I stay with Maxasessensus” She clutched my arm, looking young and fragile in that pelt skirt and moccasins.

 

“Far-Seeing Moon!...” I now used all I knew of the Pequod tongue, “…no one must run.  Everyone must fight.  We have designed a fortress here which..." searching for an analogy, I muttered something utterly alien to them "...can castrate the worst screaming blue Britons”

 

She looked at me quizzically.

 

Please go fast.  Find Chief Quassahog.  Tell him that “Black Corn” time has come.  He will know what to do.

 

Minewa stared long at me through downturned eyelids and, silent as a deer, was off into the forest. Again I thanked God for sending me such a swift, clever girl in the black heart of this barbaric land.

 

In a moment, she was back with Quassahog who simply looked at me for confirmation and then began bellowing at the top of his lungs.  The high falsetto tone he used carried extraordinarily well and seemed to electrify everyone within earshot, including those whose primary intent at this moment was escape.

 

Those who had been drilled headed for the places prepared for them along the castellum.   Those we had instructed in swordplay emerged from wickiups carrying the blades salvaged from Cubis.  More than one man practiced decapitation on the foliage.

 

We had rehearsed mock attacks before.  Many times, in some cases; but the reality of Iroquois actually here in this village of Nauwauk had gotten them in a soft place.  They were so used to either running or fighting a hopeless stand that several warriors had to be physically restrained from rushing out to boldly impale themselves on the immovable weapons of a superior force.

 

It took perhaps an hour for the enemy to appear; an hour during which any advantage the element of surprise had conferred was utterly lost.  It seemed we were blessed with an absurdly slow enemy; perhaps used to simply walking in and taking what they wanted.

 

Every man and woman was at their place when the first Iroquois warriors, fierce, painted, and wearing very close to nothing appeared out of the darkness of the forest grimacing and hooting.  It took them a few moments to take in the castellum.  Then extremely puzzled expressions appeared on almost every face.  It could have been comical.

 

For some time, absolutely nothing happened.  We peered at them.  They stared at us.

 

Then, one ferociously painted individual stepped out from the throng, stood briefly in the clearing before the castellum wall and began delivering some sort of high pitched oration, punctuated by unmistakable pantomime reenactments of what he would do to any of the Pequods he encountered; demonstrating successively, throat-cutting, decapitation, scalp ripping. 

 

He was approximately two minutes into this when Trebonius drew his bow and shot him dead.

 

The shocked and stunned silence on both sides immediately following this suggested that what Trebonius had done was simply not done.   We were now in for an especially bloodthirsty attack.  The Iroquois than began some sort of a chant, beating their chests and stomping their feet as they steadily moved closer to the castellum wall.  They seemed convinced that all they had to do was arrive. 

 

It was our duty to educate them otherwise.

 

When the enemy was no more than 20 yards from the wall I signaled Decius who alerted Silenus and some of the others on the array of ballistae.   Petronius silently passed by and touched his torch to each of the firepots which sprang up brightly, the pitch and tar of the surrounding pine forests of Nauwauk quite as flammable as we had hoped.

 

I called out “Carpetae!” Then, as one, each of the restraining cords was released and the flaming ballistae sprang forward as if alive. 

 

I could not be certain, but it seemed as if the screams of fear and anguish came from both sides of the wall.  The Iroquois had been hit full face by the flaming pitch pots and had instantly dissolved into a chaotic melee of screaming bodies.  They ran, trailing feathers, weapons, flames.  We reloaded and released a second barrage.

 

The few warriors who got through clambered up the side of the castellum to be met the flashing gladii of Briseus, Marcus and Cato.  One was decapitated instantly.  The other staggered backward, staring incredulously at the mass of intestines pouring into his cupped hands from the gaping hole in his belly.

 

A shout drew my attention toward the seaward end of the castellum.  Three warriors had climbed to the rear-end of the fortification and were clambering over the wall.  A Pequod arrow caught one in the neck, and he toppled backward, gurgling.   I saw Minewa’s kinsman, Hopping-Bird, run forward at that moment an hurl a spear from his “atlatl” with stunning accuracy,  It not only pierced the chest of the first Iroquois over the seaward wall but most of it protruded through the man’s back.  He continued walking a few steps forward. Then he slowed and was immediately feathered with perhaps 6 or 7 arrows.  He was unrecognizable by the time he fell.

 

The last Iroquois over the wall continued forward either from stupidity or incredible bravery, screaming and firing arrows as he came.  I saw Marcus take one in the chest and two Pequod fell.  Then suddenly, the man was silent.  I saw his left arm drop off almost before I saw the downward arc of the sword Quassahog had seized.  The man staggered and fountained blood into the dust for a moment and then moved no more.

 

It was over in no more than 10 minutes.  Seven or eight dead bodies lay smoking and still burning on the cleared ground before the castellum.  The screams of the badly burned and dying deeper in the forest sent a chill through our warriors.   This raid, this battle, this war, was finished.

 

VII.

Marcus had taken only a light flesh wound due to his armor, but one of the Pequod was dead, the other seriously wounded.  As the sun began to sink low a tall Iroquois who may have been their chief emerged into the clearing to begin another narration.  This time, however, the man was considerably less self-assured and kept stopping to peer forward as if he expected another pot of flaming death to target him at any moment.

 

Minewa stood next to me, clutching my arm, kneading it, utterly absorbed in what she was hearing.

 

“Can you understand him?” I said in Latin.

 

“Little.  He say Pequod make friends with fire devil.  He say, fight is not fair, Iroquois are strong and must conquer Pequod but this time something is wrong.  Strange hairy men are here.  They will return to Pogeebsie.  They will hold a council of war, they will talk about what happen here in Nauwauk.  Then they will come back and kill every person here.”

 

The warrior continued, apparently in this vein for some time, but growing progressively more nervous, until on a whim, grinning Briseus released another ballista in his general direction.  However, this one was filled with quite non-flammable sewage from the Castellum latrine.  This was all the chief needed to turn on his heel and disappear back into the forest with his remaining warriors.

 

But for a few badly burned men who still lay writhing on the ground and who the villagers finished off in short order, the Iroquois were gone.

 

The next night, Decius, as befit his position as Decurion called a council of war.  The interim had given me some time to think.

 

“It seems these feathered monkeys intend to come back.”

 

The men crowded in close, their triumphant bearded faces glowing with victory in the firelight.

“So?  We’ll singe them again!” said Macro

 

“Did you see that old chief, Cassalog swing that sword?  Even I’d worry about him in close combat”

 

“All they’re good for is paint and screaming and getting killed.  The cunni didn’t even have the sense to breach the seaward wall!”

 

“They were all dead or burning before I had a chance to even get started!”

 

“Cassiodorus, tell me honestly.  Weren’t these your old mother’s friends in disguise?”

 

This led to a raucous eruption of guffawing and cursing.  It was clear that this was about to turn into a free-for-all of abuse for the Iroquois, one or two of whom found in the forest were presently being tortured by the Pequod.  I let my legionaries have their fun, but we were going to have to return to reality at some point.

 

“Yes, Mars has had his day…”

 

“..and we’ve had Artemis up the anus!” screamed Cato.

 

“Let the Centurion speak!”

 

“Shut up Claudius!”

 

“…but we have got to deal with the fact that these people will probably come back twice as strong in numbers, three times as wise about our defenses and overwhelmingly ready to fight us to the death.  Our friend Quassahog tells me that these people are implacable and in the face of a defeat as thorough as this, they will be thinking of nothing beyond our destruction.”

 

“Centurion, don’t be an old woman.  This is nothing we cannot handle”

 

“Yes, Briseus.  You are completely correct.  I do not doubt that this small microcosm of the IV Narbonensis can utterly defeat these Iroquois yet again.  However, the question is – Do we need to?”

 

“I understand from our friend Minewa…”

 

“Oooooh!  Mmmmmh!   Honey, honey sweet!”  I let the crude gestures pass…

 

“…that Nauwauk is only one of many sea-side villages.   It seems many peaceful lands lie to the south.  I understand that this land is neither Africa nor Asia nor Europa.  It is vast beyond imagining and continues virtually forever.  There is no reason we must stay here in Quonnekiquot.”

 

I let this sink in for a moment.

 

“I know that Petronius intends to repair Cubis and attempt to return to his beloved Danubium.   I wish him well…

 

“Yes, enough of these stinking oysters, give us some roast goose with garum!”

 

“Oh Silenus, blessed words!”

 

“…and I wish well to all who intend to accompany him, - But I will not be among you.  You wonder why?  It is this: the ocean we have crossed is monstrous.  We were blown here by a wind which did not subside for two weeks by my counting.  The chance of being able to find such a wind to return to Mare Nostrum seems highly unlikely.”

 

I saw only a few nods of agreement at this.

 

“Instead, it may be wise to accept the fact that we are here in Quonnekiquot for as long as it takes another ship to land here.  In the meanwhile we may consider finding a more peaceful region, free of the Iroquois.” 

 

“Do you mean among the Secaucii”?  This was Drusus who had been absorbing Pequod wisdom like a sponge.

 

“Possibly.  Some of you have heard that the lands of the Secaucii to the south are peaceful and well-watered.  The fishing is good, the farming is excellent and the waters are navigable.  A great island which they call Manahatta lies to the north between two rivers and the people there are said to be great traders, able to provide anything that cannot be wrested from the sea or soil.”

 

“Centurion, what is your intention?”  It was clear that the possibility of the legion’s fragmentation was going to be hard for some to accept.

 

“I am 52 years old and have seen enough of death and bloodshed to last me a century.  My wife is dead and my children near grown” I thought of Manacia and then Aronius and the avidity with which my son would seize upon his senatorial privileges once he was of age. “I believe I have no real hope of returning to Rome.  Instead, it is my intention, especially after this battle to travel south and build a home…at least until such time as another of our countrymen make landfall here and can provide a way home and a life not likely to end in miserable death on a black ocean.”

 

I saw Petronius flinch uncomfortably at this statement, but then I had to hold them all to the mirror of reality.

 

“Our Pequod friends will not suffer.  I understand that every 20 years or so they also move south for a generation or two and have done so as long as memory holds.  That time has more or less come again.  If the Iroquois return any time longer than a month from now, they will find this village deserted; that is unless any of you intend on remaining.”

 

VIII

Thus, it was that most of the Pequod and eight old soldiers of the IV Legion Narbonensis traveled south with us in October of that year to the lands of the Secaucii.  We paddled their bark canoes and passed great fisheries, endless villages and a myriad of peoples: the Quonarsie, the Hoboka, the Paumanok.

 

Manahatta was as they said, a great narrow island of hills and forests hugged by two rivers.  Smoke from the fires of the Quonarsie and Lenape rose at its southern extent.  I thought of what a harbor this would make and saw the triremes of the Caesars moving up and down the rivers, great white marble buildings rising on the three shores.   What were the chances our countrymen would one day follow us here?   Would it be in my lifetime?  I once read that Agrippa Deciunus had ventured out into the open sea to the west en-route to Britannia.  He fancied he had seen a green and mountainous land West.  Perhaps.  But he was Agrippa.  More likely he had seen a mirage.  Most likely he had made it all up.

 

The Secaucii were a tall proud people who had jealously guarded the boundaries of their seaside lands for generations, but who were delighted to accept us – and even more eager to marry us to their women who for some reason were in great abundance.  “The Pequod have always been our brothers” they told us, and friends of their brothers, (even though white-skinned and evil-smelling and hairy) would also be their brothers.

​

IX

Time passed, our men prospered.  Briseus took two wives, built a substantial house far inland, and with the help of his Secaucii friends installed a miniature thermae, heated by an eagerly-burning oil that seeped from the ground to the west.  News came that Petronius and eight others had done what they could to repair Cubis and had sailed toward the rising of the sun.  They are brave men.  Perhaps they will return to Rome.  Perhaps they will bring others.  We have heard or seen nothing, but for a spar of wood inscribed DECUMANUS VII brought to me by some Shinnecock fisherfolk.  Beyond that, all is silence.

 

Minewa and I built our home and I learned to farm, and I learned to fish. 

 

Fourteen years have now passed.  It is the 29th year of Hadrian, if he still reigns in Rome.  We have lived in peace since that ungodlike storm swept us beyond the borders of civilization. We have neither seen nor heard anything of the Iroquois. Yet, as hard as it is to say, I am content.  I am now an old man of 66 and Minewa is still youthful and beautiful at 32 years.   Our colony of Novo Eboracum extends from the lands of the Secaucii to the South to the lands of the Hoboka in the North.  We have a gymnasium of sorts and a crude aqueduct to bring water down from the hills to the west.  There was talk of building something akin to a Senate House, but our men and their children seem more interested in hunting and fishing, and relaxing than establishing an enduring colony.

 

No one can be made interested in smelting bronze.  There is no threat from enemies so my old veterans grow fat and lazy.  Some now speak more Pequod than they do Latin or Greek.  So much so that I fear our sons will forget their heritage.  Our men, those who remain, (we lost joking Drusus, stupid Silenus and then Decius to a fever), have elected me Governor, but I might as well be Duumvir of the swamps, Procurator of mosquitos.  I fear Rome will vanish from these lands.

 

My legacy will be our son Josephus.  He is now 13 years of age.  To the best of my ability, I inscribed the beruchim, so much as I remembered, on the thin clear bark of the Birch trees here, and he has studied diligently.  It is far from what would have been in Rome, or Jerusalem, and my abilities here are poor.  But, here I may follow my heart.  A week ago Minewa, Hopping Bird, Marcus, Owl, Briseus, Cato, and Talks Much looked on as he declared himself a man, and Bar Mitzvah, perhaps the first ever in these lands.

 

So life remains quiet and I have had time to set down these reminiscences. Minewa has tamed a brace of pet doves and taught them to return to her dovecote after their travels.  I bid them fly to the city of my birth, Opidum Genua and tell my aged mother that I still live.  Minewa’s favorite, whom she calls by its Latin name, Columbus, has now been gone two weeks.  She hopes he will return to these shores soon, but I think it may be some time yet.

 

So to all of you who may someday read this, remember the Seventh Legion Narbonensis.  Remember we did not perish.  Remember there was a time in Nauwak and among the Secaucii when the children of Zeus broke bread with the children of Manitou and for one family among them, the words of the One God were inscribed on the doorposts of our home: Shma yisroel, adonai eloheinu, adonai echod…

 

FINIS