[RS 2.1a Roman (Auxiliary) AAR] Legacy Of The Father [COMPLETE]

[Ganbarenippon]

Nice chapter mate, and I have to salute you on taking our hero in another direction to many others on here. I think Laenas' attitude to homosexuality (or I suppose bisexuality is more apt) is probably a pretty good representation of social attitudes of the day. It adds a whole new dimension to the character. I look forward to the next battle too, good little cliffhanger at the end!

[McScottish]

Nice chapter mate, and I have to salute you on taking our hero in another direction to many others on here. I think Laenas' attitude to homosexuality (or I suppose bisexuality is more apt) is probably a pretty good representation of social attitudes of the day. It adds a whole new dimension to the character. I look forward to the next battle too, good little cliffhanger at the end!

Many thanks, my friend. Though, as I always say, homo or bi or sexuality of any type really didn't exist at the time. The Romans, much more-so than the Greeks, had certain rules which would mean you were masculine and it was certainly a terrible thing to go against being 'the man'. The relationship with foreigners, on the other hand, is slightly easier, being that they were not citizens and, if I were to use the 'rules' of the day, were actually more like slaves in that arena.

Anyway, thank you both, I shall endeavour to get the battle up soon enough.

[McScottish]

Like Tears...In Rain – Winter 630 A.U.C

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

“Forward lads, quiet now...”

I watched with baited breath as the seventh, eighth, ninth and tenth centuries of Gauls moved forward through the undergrowth. Their training made them both used to carrying all their weapons and armour, as well as working stealthily through ground otherwise prone to causing loud noises and snaps of twigs underfoot. The real skirmishers, however, were the three numerus of mixed German tribesmen, all clad in Chatti garb and with red bands of cloth about their upper arms, to distinguish them more clearly from any adversaries we may come across.

With Berengar and Gislin leading them, both more silent than shades of Hades and just as visible in the dim light of the greying day, the Germans slid between trees and somehow seemed to visibly glide over the earth and discarded vegetation, making the Gallic auxiliaries seem like blind children blundering about in the dark.

We had discovered the location of the enemy force only a few days ago, nearly three months since the original report, our resident spy informing us of their movements before they even knew we were onto them. So it was that, upon leaving, we headed toward the Rhaetian border to cut them off both from raiding that province and to rescue whatever prisoners they had taken in their previous forays.

“Somehow they knew we were coming, sir. They have arrayed themselves at the far end of the valley, on a hillside, with a large rock formation to their right flank and the dipping slope heading into the valley on their left.”

I must have looked a tad disgusted at the news, my face twisting into an expression of annoyance, the African senator asking me if everything was alright.

“Yes, Geminus, perfectly fine...thank you. Form the centuries up then, the numerus in front of them, and began the advance toward the barbarians. Then get yourself to the rear, bring up our Tencteri horsemen and attack their flanks. The infantry will then hammer the centre and, Gods willing, we shall carry this day.”

Standing up from the undergrowth, brushing leaves and twigs from my rapidly growing hair and the rings of my mail, I decided that since they knew we were here I may as well let them see us.

“Acies duplex, numerus to the fore, quick now!”

My words were translated for our Germans and, with precision and speed born of constant drilling, the auxiliaries and irregulars formed two rough lines as wide across as our enemy but perhaps a little shallower in depth.

The Gauls were clearly the more sturdy of our troops, their hasta held firmly in one hand, the other encircling the hand-grip of their oval shields and holding them before themselves like the life-saving pieces of equipment they were designed to be.

On the other hand, the Germans, on both sides of the valley, began to bellow out their war-cry, known to Romans as the barritus, a slow chanting cry that lifted upwards as if to the heavens and ended in a bellowing of yells like a very clap of thunder from Jupiter above. Their weapons banged against shields and the foremost of the warriors visibly began to shake, their bodies seemingly possessed by an energy of the Gods, the retired legionaries leading each numerus doing all they could to stop the irregular soldiers sprinting head first across the battlefield then and there.

“Standards...forward.”

The standard of each century, the Chatti using their own poles, adorned with heads and other trinkets and trophies, was carried to the front of each formation and bowed forward to signal the advance. And what can I say about the advance itself...honestly, not a great deal. We trod, hundreds of men, across the hardened turf of the valley, half our number walking at an angle along the sloping hillside but retaining their formation nonetheless, hillocks rising and falling all around and before us and the enemy simply waiting for us.

A pounding sound was heard from nearby, the valley sparsely covered by trees, more so by scrub and brush, making visibility of our allied horsemen very clear to both ourselves and our enemy on the hills. I watched from the rear of the eighth century as they rode past, huge men on diminutive ponies, Tencteri tribesmen and horsemen all, wielding spears and with axes and swords fit snugly into their belts. Whoops of joy and tribulation could be heard from them as they made their way past us and, just like that, they were gone into the distance ahead of us.

All we could do, as we kept marching forward, the German infantry already frothing at the bit, was watch as the enemies flanks were assaulted by their Roman-allied brethren. The enemy line did not shirk or shrink back, instead the clearly stubborn mass of assorted killers stood its ground and waited for our main onrush at their centre.

Once I was near enough to see them more clearly, my eyes scanning this way and that along their line, I managed to discern that these were once more a gathering of a number of warriors from various tribes and not a single uniform collective.

There were bare-chested Nervians in their tall helmets and Belgic bracae, hair flowing and longswords being swung to and fro, standing alongside axe-wielding Volcae and Cherusci tribesmen, and at the end of the enemies left flank, our right, I hardened my face as I saw a group of Chatti who were clearly more than ready to fight till the death.

Upon seeing these men, it was beyond any means I could muster to hold back the Germans making up our first line of attack, simply gesturing for their 'handlers' to let them go and send them against the enemy. As I anticipated, the great many of them sped up a gentle slope and into the teeth of the spears of their waiting kinsmen, other Chatti that they believed had betrayed them and their appointed chief, that chief being myself.

Now, I had never seen two groups of Germans fight before, even the German Bodyguard I had led into battle having fought against Dacians, but it was a sight that staggered belief and made me think twice about future plans to wage a war on these people. In all things they were the complete opposite of the Roman soldier; stoic, sturdy and dependable, trained to shove and stab and shove and stab until the enemy lay dead before and around them.

Not the Germans.

They hit one another's lines like two stags butting one another with their antlers, with full force and making no attempt to even avoid blades being directed their way. I watched Berengar grip a spear thrust at him halfway up the shaft, breaking it in two with his bare hands and planting the iron tip back into the eye-socket of his attacker, another pair of Chatti tussling against one another in the dirt of the floor, the one wearing the red band of cloth slowly pressing his knife down into the gullet of his opponent before ripping it out sideways and laying the entire thing open to the elements.

“Standards,” I yelled over the din, airing my curved Dacian blade and pointing it at the nearest disengaged gathering of milling raiders, “on me...follow me!”

I stepped to the front of the eighth and continued straight up the hill toward the enemy, the Gauls holding their spears from the vertical to the horizontal, over two hundred glittering spear-points and hard-faced men behind them pushing forth up the hill and churning the ground into bog of piss, blood, offal and excrement.

The first man to come at me, seeing my transverse crest bobbing above the helmets of my men, was a huge Nervian wielding a sword nearly six-foot in length. A sword that, had it connected with me, would have at least broken my arm, if not taken off a limb or my head. Instead, as he raised it back to strike, a Gaul stepped smartly forward, speared the giant beneath the armpit, and stepped back into the ranks to watch with grim satisfaction as his kill toppled forward into the dirt.

Taking a discarded spear from a deceased auxiliary, sheathing my sica, I rejoined the front ranks of the eighth century, locking my shield into place with the men either side of me and hunching down behind the iron-rimmed board of wood which would hopefully protect me from harm.

Like the rising and the setting of the sun, the slaughter began, the Gauls pushing forward into the enemy like the well-drilled machine they were, Germans of all types hurling themselves this way and that, and I have no doubt that some of our own numerii were killed by dazed and confused Gauls amidst the horror of the melee. It is unfortunate, but that is war, as I had learnt to live with. Here and there I could still see a horseman or two, but their numbers had shrunk very low after the first charge and I could only pray for their survival now.

A wild-eyed figure burst from the ranks of barbarians being shoved back, followed by four or five more, heading straight for our line with little regard for their own lives. The fastest of them attempted to shoulder-barge his way past me, rebounding off of my shield and finding a spear embedded in his gut before he knew any more, a sharp twist and pull of the six-footer bringing slivers of intestine with it as I retracted the weapon to seek out another target. I did not have to wait long, the fallen mans comrade, a squat bull of a man, made taller only by the bronze and crested helmet on his head, whirled about and hammered against my shield with a one-handed axe, splintering the painted board and finding a spear in either side of his body just as quickly.

And so the battle went on this way, one side pushing against the other, neither willing to break, until finally the enemy had had enough. It started slowly at first, as a rout always does, the odd man peeling away from the rear ranks to turn and run, his comrades catching his eye and following, and before long the entire enemy army has turned about and fled with their tails between their legs. That is precisely what happened, unwilling Volcae tribesmen and younger members of the Cherusci beginning the defeat with their cowardice, followed shortly by the more yellow of the Nervians and so it went until the older members of each tribe were left, being cut down one-by-one, until only a handful were left.

These survivors formed a circle of bristling weapons, back-to-back, their defiance clear.

Without a second thought I stepped from the ranks of my encircling forces, the Tencteri hunting down those who fled, with Berengar and Gislin following me out to act as interpretors.

“Put down your weapons, immediately, and you have my word that no more need die today. If you do not, then I shall be forced to bring about on your bodies severe acts of mutilation, so horrid, that your own Gods will not recognise you whence you go to meet them.”

There was a murmuring of conference, each man looking to the one by his side, then all looking to the man I suspected of being their self-proclaimed leader. He was all that a war-leader should be, tall and sturdily built, muscular and scarred from years of battle, and it was he who stepped forward from his own men and dropped his weapons.

“Roman,” he said to me in thickly slurred Latin, the two of us only a spear-length apart, “you want the prisoners, yes?” I nodded and the other man gave a crooked smile, “ I am Nasua, and I shall take you to them. Do not harm my men, though you may bind them if you wish, and follow me.”

**********

As soon as I saw the thick, black, mass of smoke rising from beyond the crest of a nearby hill I knew something was wrong. Very wrong. I remember breaking into a sprint, clambering up the side of the mound and peering down at a scene from straight out of the papyri scrolls of the Fall of Troy.

Strewn all across the rather flat field on the other side of the rising terrain were the survivors of the marauding band that the cavalry, their numbers too few, had failed to catch. Here and there they ran, setting alight their wagons and any plunder that had been taken, cutting the thread of life from any prisoners they came across in an act of such cold-bloodedness that it turned my own to ice and caused the hairs on the back of my neck to stand on end.

“Herleva!” I shouted at the top of my voice, shoving Nasua ahead of me, his hands tied with thick rope and his person kept under close watch by the large group of Gauls and Germans that followed in my wake, “Herleva, where are you?” Each time we passed another body I would pause in my snow white stride to lift a head or roll over another dead innocent, killed entirely out of hand by homeless and landless men of no morals, the remaining raiders taking to their heels if we got too close and melting away before us like a hot torch to a block of ice.

Then I saw here, time seeming to vanish and my vision turning into a tunnel, everything slowing down to the pace of a garden slug as it moves from one leaf to another, my feet feeling like lead weights attached to the ends of my legs.

Next to the prone form of the golden-haired goddess, her hands bound as well as her feet, squatted a German and in one meaty fist was the glittering iron of a bared blade, the metal placing its cold kiss against the pale neck of the trembling woman.

At that point things went slowly but also went fast; my entire body seemed heavier than a pile of iron ingots, my only wish to be able to strip off my armour and discard my weapons as I ran, but a discipline drilled into me telling me otherwise. With a yell, like an animal scream from my throat, the German turned his head to stare at me with wide and unseeing eyes, his mind completely gone, the blade he held drawing itself across the throat of my beloved and carving her once perfect neck into a livid red ruin of gore and spurting blood. A fraction of a second later, and my sica clove his head from his shoulders as he attempted to stand and flee, a hobnailed foot sending his carcass hammering back into the burning wagon to which my dying bride was bound.

“Herleva...” with one hand I tried to stem the blood, knowing it was no use, my other hand supporting her body as I fell to my knees beside her, her head lolling onto my shoulder and he mouth forming a smile even as blood frothed her lips, “Herleva,” I said, my voice cracking and tears stinging my eyes, “don't leave me...don't leave me!”

I knew it was too late, I knew all hope had ended and I had failed utterly, but I clutched her body too me and cradled it like a mother cradles a newborn child, pressing my cheek to her own, my shoulders heaving and the tears flowing freely where they would. One bloodied hand slid her eyelids shut and, as if with a will of its own, plucked a single coin from the pouch I carried at my waist and placed it with the most gentle tenderness between her teeth. The fee for the boatman.

Somewhere behind me, I know not where exactly, I overheard the voice of my dear Gislin as he tried to be deliberately discreet, my eyes may have been clasped shut at that point but my ears were perfectly open.

“There is no doubt about it,” he tried to whisper, “the man was a Chatti tribesmen, one of the Athalaric line, I would say.”

Resting the slowly cooling corpse of my deceased love, only twenty-one years of age, against the wagon, I stood up with a deliberate slowness and opened my eyes to look at each of the assembled in turn. Gislin, Berengar and his brother, Geminus and others, before I turned my away from them and locked it onto the cowering form of Nausea. He knew his time had come, and I had but to pronounce his end for it to be so.

Turning to face away from them, a long breath filling my lungs, I shut my eyes against pain threatening to overwhelm me and made my pronouncement through clenched teeth.

“I tried to love you people, I really did. Have I not done much for you savages? Have I not bought prosperity and wealth, baths and order to chaos? Is this not enough for you...” My hand began to twitch at my side and then I balled both tightly into fists “...enough is enough, I gave you the Pax Romana and malcontent's like that headless carcass still seek to undermine me. Now they have taken my wife from me, and the tribe I sough to adopt, no less. Know that I shall bring down retribution and suffering upon you the likes of which you have never seen, the Gods above and below as my witnesses, on the Chatti, and on all who were involved in this...this...atrocity.”

Then there was silence, so much silence, and I swore to the Gods that day, something I may well live to regret.

Then, as if the sky itself wept for Herleva, it began to rain.

- B. M. Laenas

I realise the image is not Roman, or ancient, but hey...I like it and believe it fits in well...so there.

[Knonfoda]

Nice! Sad to see her go, although I am not entirely surprised, for some reason I didn't think she would be a recurring character.

I pity the Germans now though. Unleash your wrath unto them, and as my friend Justinian would say, make them inbibe the bitter medicine of rebuke and vengeance! Make them PAY for what they have done!

[Ybbon]

Bitter, very bitter. Will he now fight against Geslin and the others too? I knew things were going too well

+rep if I can.

[Ganbarenippon]

Just when things were working out! It'll be interesting to see what our hero does next.

[Mr. Bean Laden]

Damn shame, I was already worked up about what kind of children will they have, and now, poof. Really good update, can't wait to see how will you destroy them!

[McScottish]

Damn shame, I was already worked up about what kind of children will they have, and now, poof. Really good update, can't wait to see how will you destroy them!

Have no fear, my friend. For he is 25 years old and she was but the eldest daughter. There are plenty more women in Germania...and Syria...and Hispania...and Arabia...and Africa...and Gallia...well, you get the point. Who is to say he may not find love, and indeed produce children, in the future? (I'm to say, but we'll ignore that for now.)

[McScottish]

(Credit to http://www.pragmatik.org/blog/2004/03/ )


A Fine Selection – Winter 630 A.U.C

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

My mood for nearly a month after the incident was bleaker than the dark God Dis himself, on his darkened throne in the Underworld as he holds dominion over the shades of a million souls and more, my brow constantly furrowed in barely contained anger and even Gislin, though he tried, could not cheer me nor get me out of my chamber. There were no meetings of delegations, no organization from the highest of the high, that being me, everything was left to my subordinates and although they saved the province from total ruin, they could not stop me or my temper.

I had the Asutrian turmae out at all hours, every day and night, hunting down the survivors of the raid which we may not have discovered, covering them and then setting them alight as human torches to serve as a warning to others. Once they had found, what we believed, were every one of these scum, I had them begin raiding into the territory of other tribes.

Yet my melancholy-induced oppression did not simply extend to our enemies, my own people suffering as well, so-called innocents dragged forward to face justice on the most imaginatively created up of charges, children taken from their parents to be held as hostages, taxes raised, and members of other tribes turned away from joining the Chatti numerus, so that they would be levied from none but the young men of that tribe and no other.

It shames me to write it, but my anger was not simply directed to those beneath me in the ladder of society, but at those around me in gatherings and at those closest to me.

I remember laying close to Gislin one night, my body fitting to perfectly about his own, when I was struck with a nightmare so strong that I began to thrash and call out my dead brides name. Gislin, who has always stood by me, attempted to calm me down, my arms flailing and striking him multiple times before I awoke and cursed him roundly over and over again. Yes, I was completely awake, yet the insults and slurs against him came from my mouth without any thought of the consequences, calling him a half-man, a common prostitute, telling him I hated him and wish it had been he instead of Herleva. None of which I meant, of course.

When I finally did emerge from the hideaway of my chambers, looking paler and more gaunt than I had before, my talks with my fellows, whether Greek, German or African, were short and sharp and resigned to the smallest amount of words I could say to get my points across.

Everything came to a head one day, with an occasion I had truly never expected...

***********

“Roman!” Called a clearly Germanic voice from outside my hall one day, “Roman, come out here, now.”

Barely awake when the shout first came, I recognised it as that of Hadufuns in my dazed state, dragging my tunic over my head and pulling on some caligae , I proceeded at a cautious pace down the wooden steps leading down to the bottom floor of my quarters and then, ever-so-carefully, pulled the door enough that I could see the muscled form of the chieftain standing in the rain.

When his eyes finally found me, my face obvious and clear when compared to the shadows of the hall and the wood of the thick and studded door, I felt a shiver of fear run down my spine and swallowed deeply. Upon seeing me he began to advance forward, rain that continued to pour down around him had soaked him to the bone and, as he got closer, I saw that his face held no malice or ill intention, only a neutral expression of very little.

“May I come in?” He asked, almost politely, “unless you would rather I stand out here and speak with you.”

**********

“I...have to pick one?”

Once I had let Hadufuns, who turned out to be a greater ally and man of his oath than I would have expected, into the hall everything had become much like a dream. He had ushered a number of young women through the door, all swaddled in fur cloaks to keep them dry, and presented them to me as if they were gifts. It transpired that they were the eldest daughters of the most high-ranking families in the Tencteri, Ubii and Usipetes and that, with the death of his own daughter, he had bought them all the way here to make sure an alliance with at least one of his client-states was sealed by marriage.

“Yes, please pick one, or more, if they interest you. This alliance, our friendship, my friendship with Roma, will be sealed by marriage, or I shall simply walk away and we shall be enemies once more.”

There was clearly no choice and, with a short sigh, I rose from my seated position and strode up and down the line of almost fourteen young women. Each one had now removed their cloaks, letting them drop to the floor at their feet, their bodies covered but barely and my eyes roving casually over each and every one of them.

My pacing took me from line end to line end a number of times, inspecting each girl with only a fraction of the concentration I could have, my mind occupied with other past matters. That was until I saw her, someone that snapped me out of my reverie and made me take a closer look. She was not really much to look at, not compared to Herleva, but was possessed of a small frame and delicate bone-structure and build, curling black hair coming down to her shoulders and blue eyes peeking out at me from beneath thin brows.

Just...something about her.

“You,” I said quietly, her own eyes lifting to meet mine, “Alina of the Ubii, my lord,” her reply was given with a sort of challenge in both her voice, posture and the way she met my stare with one of her own.

“A good choice,” spoke a voice, one that I took at first to be Hadufuns, but was in fact that of a bent and hooded figure standing just inside the door and dripping rainwater across the rush-covered floor, “but I would expect that from you, Praetor.”

As the figure advanced, a man by the sound of his dry and reed-like voice, I stepped forward to meet him, the women in the hall rushing to conceal themselves as best they could from the eyes of this newcomer.

“Do not play coy with me, sir...” I barked in what I believed was my most threatening tone, “...remove your hood immediately, or by all the Gods I shall run you through from front to back, and my German friend here will have just as little problem.”

Stopping dead in his tracks, reaching upwards with two blue veined hands and gripping the sides of the hood, the piece of waterlogged material was dragged firmly back. My face must have betrayed me, as much as my body and my voice, my mouth flinching and no words coming forth as my lips moved noiselessly.

My finger raised itself, pointing directly at the face of this new arrival.

“You!”


- B. M. Laenas

[Ybbon]

Well his Grandfather was killed, or did he somehow make it...?

[Knonfoda]

Who this could be I wonder?

[McScottish]

Dead Man Walking – Winter 630 A.U.C

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

“Now, now, my adopted son. What did I teach you about pointing at people?”

My hand continued to hover amidst the air before, regaining control of my own senses, I slowly lowered my arm back to my side and gestured to Hadufuns to sheath his weapon. The man standing before me, though emaciated and looking like a skin cover over a skeletal vessel, could be no-one else but my Grandfather. I noticed, as I allowed him to take a seat near my German guest, that he walked with a limp in one leg and that a bald-patch and scar ran across his skull, his hair quite thin anyway but the thick pink line standing out quite significantly.

“But...but you're dead. I saw you fall.”

Marcus the Elder, honoured veteran and survivor of even death, it seemed, sat and stretched out his legs before him. Reaching down he gently massaged the one with the limp and smiled up at me, the crows feet around his eyes always reminding me that he had once been a man of much laughter and humour in his life. Now he seemed somehow different, somehow changed.

“Did you, Borbrentas? Are you certain of that?”

Shutting my eyes for a moment, ignoring the young women in the hall, the chieftain who gazed at my Grandfather and I with great confusion, and Marcus himself, thinking back to years earlier and recounting vividly everything I could. Seeing him fall, seeing blood streaming from his wound and the Dacii standing triumphantly over his prone form...before I ran.

“No,” I said, barely a whisper, the word seeming to hang in the air before it disappeared, “no, I did not see you die. I saw you fall, struck from behind and tossed like a stunned animal to the dirt, your erstwhile countrymen closing in around you. The battle was so confusing, my nerves on end, my legs carrying me to safety.”

My eyes had began to fill up with tears now, knowing I had done what no man should do, I had deserted my Grandfather like a coward and left him to be killed because I thought he had been by the time he hit the snow-covered floor.

“I could have died, and in fact they too believed me gone from this world. They took my torc, stripped me of all my valuables, and threw my body into a ditch, along with those of our comrades. I lay there for hours, in a dreamlike state, my head hammering harder than any ceremonial drum and my body feeling as if it were floating, slowly I could feel the icy hands of Thanatos creeping over my body and that was when he came.”

“Who?”

“I do not know exactly,” said my senior and mentor in a slightly dazed voice, “but he was larger than any man I have ever seen before, walking completely naked through the snow as if he had no reaction to the temperature or danger he might encounter. He carried a twin-headed axe over one shoulder and crouched down beside me, placing an eerily warm hand on my shoulder. 'Thiacus,' he said to me in a voice like rolling thunder, 'now is not your time to die. There is still more for you to do. You will live.'”

I wondered if my Grandfather finally had lost his mind, the crack on his head causing delusions and hallucinations, things talking to him that weren't there. The rest of his tale, however, made much more sense.

“As for the rest, well, I awoke inside a Dacian dungeon in the bowels of a fortress. There I was kept for years on end, never knowing when it was day or night or how long had passed, living in my own faeces and consuming rats with my bare hands and teeth. That was until, at long last, I heard shouts from without and the door hammered open by five figures wearing the armour of a Spanish auxiliary cohort.”

He reclined further, spreading his arms either side of him and giving a small shrug, “I was taken to Publius Caesar in Sarmizegetusa only weeks later and, after telling him everything and having my identity confirmed, he told me your location, gave me a horse, clothes, coin and told me to tell you that he was well and commanding all forces in Dacia.”

There was little I could say in reply, taking a seat next to him and lowering my head, sliding from the seat and getting on one knee before him.

“Grandfather, please forgive me. I have neither become a better man, nor taken the lessons you gave me and used them as I should have. I have deserted my heritage and become a tyrant in lands peopled by loyal and sturdy tribes.”

A friendly hand was placed on my shoulder then, the elderly face only inches from mine, those eyes I had known while growing up still containing the same spark and vigour for life that they always had. I should have known that incarceration could not blunt the spirits of so strong a man and soldier.

“My son, faber est quisque fortunae suae.”

And it was true, every man is architect of his own fortune.

“Now,” he said as he lifted me up by one arm, his head nodding toward my chosen bride, “there is plenty of time for talk, how about you show me my future daughter instead?”


- B. M. Laenas

[Knonfoda]

To study for a numeracy test for a job, or to read this fascinating tale?

The answer is obvious lol What a lovely twist, maybe Marcus Laenas can bring some sense into his grandson's head.

[McScottish]

To study for a numeracy test for a job, or to read this fascinating tale?

The answer is obvious lol What a lovely twist, maybe Marcus Laenas can bring some sense into his grandson's head.

Well, there were a number of options. Could have also gone with his biological father, son of Laenas, or even with Herleva, or Bolinthos, twin son of Marcus the Elder or Arzas, his daughter. In the end though, I just thought I'd go with Marcus. But, in the future...who knows?

[Mr. Bean Laden]

Now that was something again that I did not expect, and I see that you started involving gods/spirits, not sure who Thanantos is? Anyways, I'm looking forward to the next chapter, damn this family is sturdy as hell.

[McScottish]

Now that was something again that I did not expect, and I see that you started involving gods/spirits, not sure who Thanantos is? Anyways, I'm looking forward to the next chapter, damn this family is sturdy as hell.

Ah, that was a mispelling, was meant to 'Thanatos', the ancient Greek version of Death As for being a sturdy family...well...full of bad-asses, that's what it is. Even a crack in the head won't stop a Laenas!

[Ybbon]

Well he may not be at the forefront of the battle but his advice could help a lot will be invaluable. Not sure what he'd make of the relationship with Geslin though.

[McScottish]

Well he may not be at the forefront of the battle but his advice could help a lot will be invaluable. Not sure what he'd make of the relationship with Geslin though.

Says Mr Ruinitall Looks like Ybbon has this all figured out, nothing surprises him any more, but I shall change that...oh yes, my precious...yes I shall.

I can't rep you yet. This is disgraceful! It is deserved but not given, pah! I shall rep you two times over, for the last two updates alone.

Oh Diomede, you flatter my ego too much. Just have patience, my friend, and ye shall be able to rep me in due time. As the Ozzies say, no worries!

[McScottish]

(Credit to: Institutul Italian de Cultură "Vito Grasso")


Visions And Decisions – Winter 630 A.U.C

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

My Grandfather looked like a wizened old priest as we stood atop a hill, overlooking Chattium below us, his hood down and the strong winds whipping his strands of white hair this way and that. Down below, sitting on the plains, was the capital of the Chatti people, my people now, and Marcus had bought me up the steep slope for what I knew would be a conversation of some weight. Little did I know that I was ill-prepared for it, ill-prepared for everything that was going to happen.

“So, you've taken that young nobleman as a lover?” He said casually, snorting with laughter when he saw the look on my face, his lips breaking into a smile, “yes, I know all about it, and there is nothing wrong with it. You do play the part of the man, do you not?”

I could already feel my cheeks burning red, the grey clouds overhead and sharp wind cracking against my skin doing nothing to help cool the internal fire down, my head nodding slowly, “yes Grandfather, I take the role of the male. He is a foreigner and it would be both foolish and wrong for me to do otherwise.”

“Indeed,” his smile only grew, knowing exactly what he was doing, “I was once propositioned by an officer of mine named Nepos, I refused him, of course, but there is no shame in taking a male lover if you so wish. Just remember that you now also have a bright and intelligent, though mousey, bride-to-be. One that shall be kept here for her own safety this time.”

My thoughts turned to Alina and the conversations we had already had, marking her out as something other than just another savage German. She knew all about the Roman Empire, our language, our customs, even some of our history, and assured me that there would be no problems from her people, the Ubii, who were more than willing to be loyal and faithful allies of Publius Augustus and his dominion. Already the ranks of our numerii had swollen with Ubian recruits, just one indicator of continued support.

“I will not forget,” I retorted, “not after what happened the last time. Though I fail to see what Gislin has to do with that.”

“Let us then change the subject, yes?” He suggested out of both kindness and wishing to spare me any further embarrassment, though we were both alone atop the mound, “let me ask you a question, Borbrentas...do you see those people down there?”

For a moment I thought my adopted father was attempting some humour, though his eyes scanning the settlement below told me otherwise, there gaze then turning on me and waiting for a reply. So I too looked down at the plains beneath us, ringed on all sides by the dark depths of the forest, the community of round wooden huts and the larger buildings of more importance, as well as the wall and buildings I had begun construction of in an attempt to bring some semblance of civilisation to these people.

Not only that, but I saw single figures as they moved about their business, the blacksmith hammering at his anvil in the open air, the sparks coming away from whatever he was working on, a small group of Germans being trained by a hard-faced Gallic auxiliary and overseen by a junior centurion of the cohort in the area of the villages market square, the area we used as an impromptu training ground. From the sides of the square, in between the spaces of the market stalls, were groups of dirty-looking children as they watched male relatives train with spear and sword, and I could even make out a trio of them hitting one another with imaginary swords made from sticks and spears made from the longer and pointier tree branch.

“I see...I see homes, I see people and I see Germans.”

“These are not just any people, my son, or just any Germans. These are your people now, and your Germans, you arr responsible for them and in return they will give you their loyalty and their lives. This is how it has always been here, and in Dacia. You are a chief of men, their figurehead and leader, and you cannot keep abusing them as you have been for the fault of one man.”

“What do you know, old man!” I shot back at him, knowing I should have held my tongue as soon as the words came out, the anger clear on his face as he replied, “why, you little bastard! You dare ask me what I would know of such things? When the Romans slaughter thousands of my people and enslave others, raping women and young men and looting and plundering homes?” His hand even raised as if to strike me, his features shifting between countenances, before he finally lowered his hand and his voice, “listen to me, and listen well. You are young and you have no idea of what you speak. I spent most of my life away from the warm embrace of my wife, from the yelps and laughter of my children, including your father, and let tell you again...you...know...nothing.”

With that he slumped down beside a tree trunk, sitting his back against it and drawing his knees up toward him, arms holding them there as he glared into the mid-ground before him. I knew, of course I did, that what I said was wrong and that I was in the wrong, stepping tentatively toward him and sitting down beside him, bowing my head as I spoke.

“I apologise, pater. You are right and I know I am wrong, please, do not give up on me.”

His head turned slowly toward me and, after a few moments of gazing into my eyes, he gave the cutest of nods and gestured toward the lip of the hill and the denizens of the ground over the crest.

“I took the gifts of Roma, I accepted promotion and enjoyed wealth and power within her armies, I became the Emperors personal guard, as you now have. In doing so I lost a part of myself, one which was revealed to me during the attack. I had lost the nature of my people, the strength of my blood, the edge that stood me above these civilised peoples I now called my comrades. It has happened to you as well, though you are from Thrace and both your parents are provincials, if citizens.”

A hand went up, whipping back the long sleeve of his cloak so that he could wipe his lips with the back of his hand, his mouth turning into a grimace.

“You are better here, my son, believe me. You think these Romani care about us? About you, a backwater provincial with a little influence? You may have power, but they still glare at you as if you were a piece of horse crap on their sandal. Do you not notice that you surround yourself with like individuals? Africans, Greeks, Germans and Gauls? Even centurion Marcellus is only here because serving under Titus would be worse.”

“What are you saying, Grandfather? That I am looked down on by true Romans so I should hide here in this place until the day they see us as equals?”

“Partially,” there was that smile again, “but what I am suggesting is rather that you embrace what you could have here. Learn the ways of the Germans, form a coalition of tribes as a tribal leader, not as a Roman praetor. Give these people luxuries, baths and the like, but do not force Roman culture and 'refinement' upon them without their consent. You are a barbarian by blood, only two generations past, it is and always had been 'us' and 'them'. Do not forget it.”

Standing back up, helping Marcus to his feet as I did so, he turned away to walk off and whipped a hand for me to follow him.

“Come...do not simply take my word for it.”

**********

My nostrils inhaled the scent of the herb again, my face twisting into a look of disgust and the smell causing a little light headedness, my Grandfather sitting opposite from me on the other side of the fire and caught up in his own preparations. It was just past midnight, and we both sat together in a woodland clearing with the fire blazing and the shadows dancing around and through the trees like benevolent woodland spirits. I shivered consciously at the thought, tales of Nymphs, spirits and other things whisking unwary people away were commonplace in my childhood stories and made my skin crawl even now.

“You say this will help me communicate with the Gods?” I asked, a nervous chuckle following to reassure myself, Marcus not even looking up as he answered me, “it should. Healers, mystics and priests of a thousand religions use it when communing with their deities, I purchased it at great cost from a merchant in Roma. Simply place it into the wooden vessel next to you, light it with some embers from the fire and inhale deeply. You may shut your eyes or keep them open, but you must listen carefully and keep your ears open at all times. I shall be sat here and intervene if needs be.”

With not a little apprehension, mingled with fear, I placed the dry herb in the smooth wooden bowl that I clasped in one hand and, using the edge of my gladius, scooped some embers from the fire and placed them atop the flammable plant. I blew on it carefully, coercing the flames without extinguishing the vitality of the flame completely, waiting for wisps of smoke to rise and for the entire mixture to burn.

I did as I was instructed, inhaling as much of the smoke as I could, through my mouth and nose, my eye stinging slightly and my head beginning to feel odd. With a few mistakes to begin with, I finally managed to place down the still-smoking herb beside me and bent down from time-to-time to breathe in further vapours.

After a few minutes of constant breathing my head began to feel as if it were not even their, my eyes becoming slightly unfocused and my breathing becoming shallower. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest and, as my eyes became clearer, did not actually know if I was imagining things or seeing reality for what it was for the very first time.

Marcus was still there, clear as day, still whittling away at a stick, but shadows that previously had been stationary now started to detach themselves from behind trees, from the spaces between them and make their way nearer the fire.

Some began to shift, taking the form of people I knew and some that I did not, my father and Herleva amongst them, moving their mouths but no sound coming out.

Each time I blinked, closing my eyes for but a second, they got closer and closer to the fire and the light thrown on them made them even more vivid in detail, an old man with hollow eyes and missing teeth, a young girl with a bleeding stab crying voicelessly out for her mother, a noble man wearing a muscle cuirass and Boeotian helmet whose neck showed signs of animal mauling and a Roman in the robes of a senator and a grave number of stab wounds covering his body.

“Who are you?!” I demanded, their vacant gazes freezing me to the spot and making my voice quiver in my throat, “why won't you speak, damn you...say something!”

They kept their silence, as silent as the graves they probably now lay in, wherever it was, each one the victim of a violent and unnecessary death. Even the elderly man, as he drew closer, appeared to have the marks of gripping fingers about his throat.

It was then that I had to throw my hands over my eyes, a flash of blinding light nearly causing me to fall backwards off of the log on which I sat. For a moment I believed I was blind, my sight gradually adjusting itself and my eyes, already sore, looking on three humans shapes standing between myself and the fire and the shadows crawling about in the peripheral corners of my eyesight.

“Hail, Borbrentas, Roman by design and savage by blood and fate.”

A voice spoke in my head but none of the three, two males and a female, moved their lips.

The first was a huge man, as my Grandfather had seen, naked and carrying a two-headed axe over his shoulder with piercing eyes and a body to make Hercules jealous, his face was clean-shaven and a mass of black hair topped his head. Second was another man, older than the first and bearded, an eye paired with an empty socket, holding a spear in one hand and allowing a raven to perch on one shoulder. Then, lastly, was the singular women of the triad who looked at me through benevolent eyes, a smile playing on her pale face and long black hair flowing down to her waist.

“What do you want from me?” I asked quietly, “I am just a man and not worthy of the attention of the Gods, why do you come here?”

We have come here to tell you that you have stepped from the path you were set upon, a path which did not include power and glory, but dedication to your lineage and ancestors and correct worship to your Gods. You have neglected both,” accused the voices reverberating in my head, as if all three spoke at the same time, “and your Grandfather was sent as an example, to show you that mortals who turn from their set paths are destined to fall and fail.”

I shook my head, holding up my arms as if imploring them, my hands held out toward them and my hands shaking.

“I do not understand, what would you have me do?”

“Conquest, Borbrentas. We are choosing you as the vessel to hold the liquid that are the German tribes, for they are divided and scattered. Cling to the ways of their forefathers, and your own. Do not bring the blight of Roma down on their heads, yet harness their natural strength and bend it to your will, our will. Kill who you will, use whatever assistance you must, but allow the German peoples to remain free once the killing is done, do not shackle them in chains as your Emperor has done to your Dacian cousins.”

The face of the axe-bearing giant appeared to fall slightly at that comment, his eyes narrowing to slits and his fists tightening on the haft of his weapon.

“Do you accept this charge, child of the wilds? In conquest you shall liberate, in carnage you shall unite, and in victory you shall achieve freedom and protection for those who call you murderer.”

Though my mind was hazy, and the pangs of a hunger the likes of which I had never known were creeping forth in the pit of my stomach, I inclined my head.

“I accept.”

This was the unfortunate moment that I did black out, falling backwards and being unconscious by the time my body hit the ground.

**********

“Marcus...Marcus...”

A cold splash of water, followed by a stinging slap to the cheek, caused me to wake up spluttering, my mouth as dry as the Arabian desert and my stomach as hollow as the inside of an empty amphora.

“What?!”

My eyes opened and immediately shut again, my head pounding like a drum and my eyes hurting as I looked up into the face of my paterfamilias.

“How are you today?”

“How am I...I am hungry.”


- B. M. Laenas

[Diomede]

I can't rep you yet. This is disgraceful! It is deserved but not given, pah! I shall rep you two times over, for the last two updates alone.