Empire of the Eagle

3

The sun was rising far over Asia when the remnants of Crassus's great army finally came to The Surena's camp. Save for a small group, the Parthians had ridden away, "to prepare a welcome," someone had said bleakly. "Morituri te ... We who are about to die..."

"Quiet there!" a centurion shouted before one of the Parthians could enforce silence. All told, it was a small group of guards. Possibly, the Romans could have broken free. But the Parthians had bows, and the Romans' will to fight was gone with their leader's. The Surena had promised a truce; a truce they would have.

Quintus forced himself not to stagger into the great square outside the prince's tent. From the corner of his eye, he saw the signifer raise his battered Eagle proudly, as if its presence alone could turn the camp into a Roman conquest.

Remember, you are a Roman, he told himself as he put foot ahead of foot. It was an effort not to shake or weave, and his kit felt as if he carried all Rome upon his back. Crassus and some of the other, most senior officers had been given horses and Quintus saw sidelong smiles at how poorly they sat them, tired as they were and as unused to the breeds of Parthia and Persia. (Lucilius, Quintus noticed, had somehow acquired a horse too and rode with a grace that made the other tribune, worn as he was, want to pull him out of the saddle.) Their world was ending, but Lucilius managed to look almost jaunty ahorse.

Remember you are a Roman.

Tramp, tramp, tramp. The Parthians were watching... long sidelong glances and sly smiles were as much of their faces as you could see under their helms.

Tramp, tramp, tramp. Remember you are mortal. Remembering that was all too easy, even though Crassus had probably dreamed of returning in triumph to Rome, throwing down his colleague Caesar (who would never have permitted such a defeat as this), and becoming a Sulla who never, never resigned his power. Of the great army that had marched from Armenia—28,000 Legionaries, 3,000 Asian mounted auxiliaries, and 100 Gaulish cavalry—perhaps 10,000 Romans survived.

As captives, no matter what sort of gloss was put on it.

Outside the camp, bland-faced guards requested they stack their arms. There were more guards than Romans.

"Where's the yoke?" muttered Rufus, marching with his men. Quintus was willing to wager the pay he'd never see now that most of the men had hidden daggers or even a gladius somewhere about them. He had sanctioned enough of a departure from the ranks that hale men bore along those who were wounded or nigh dropping from exhaustion or fever.

It was a Roman custom, marching captives beneath the iugum, their necks bent in token of servitude.

"Vae victis," Quintus muttered out of his memories of boyhood Livy. Woe to the conquered. It had happened to Romans before. It was still a disgrace.

The sun's first rays shot down over the great plain, turning the sallow land ruddy as if the rays were arrows. And fine scale armor and weapons blazed as the light rose toward full dawn. It kindled on the fittings of drums and brass bells, which rang as the Romans marched toward inevitable dishonor. Only the Legion's Eagle did not shine.

Outside the prince's great tent, troops were drawn up—proud Parthians, their Persian auxiliaries so like those of Rome (and possibly men who had eaten Roman bread among them), the tall Saka, masters of horse, and, strangest of all, the Yueh-chih with their sallow skins, narrow, slanting eyes, and those bandy legs that only were revealed on the rare occasions when these mercenaries from the steppes and high deserts of Asia dismounted. Their battle standards were strange: But last time that Quintus had seen such men in the field, it had not been their standards that concerned him.

There were even officials of Carrhae, that whore of garrisons, and some wealthy merchants whose long, rich robes bloused over their bellies, making them look slack and weak by contrast with the men who had destroyed Rome's greatest army. Their eyes were eager, though: the clever, ancient eyes of the Levantine, eager for advantage, hoping now that Rome's defeat meant the end of Rome's taxes.

All watched the sorry remnants of what had been the -greatest army in Asia. Romans in defeat. Remarkable: They bleed like other men. Can they also serve as slaves?

The princes held the arms; the merchants held other power. Quintus fancied that they cast knowledgeable eyes over the conquered Romans, assessing this one's strength and that one's skills, where each might be needed, and how to dispose of the infirm, the useless, and the merely dangerous.

Quintus and the standard-bearer found themselves shunted subtly toward the front of the Roman column, away from the remnants of the cohort that Rufus had managed to keep together. To his horror, he realized he might well have welcomed a command to kneel: At this point, "kneel" meant "rest," not disgrace. He thought that even Rufus would have accepted it if it meant his sons, the Legionaries, could rest. There he waited, disarmed, his body shivering a little in the dawn wind. The scarlet silk banners of Parthia lifted in the wind and the rising sunlight turned the sallow plain to gold.

It was not the blue river valleys of his home, but it was, nevertheless, beautiful country. Would he have chosen it as a place in which to die? Better the square amid his troops, he realized. Better yet the farm, with its river and the mourning voice of the spirit who touched his mind and heart. Better than all, however, would have been to go on living with health and honor. Since that did not seem possible, Quintus tried to tell himself he had no regrets. He thought he could believe that the dancing feet of his amulet would tread out the measures long after he would cease to breathe. It had existed so long that it challenged time itself.

Crassus sat his horse before his army, preserving the illusion, for one last moment, of a general, not a suppliant come to submit to whatever terms The Surena thought good. Then an officer emerged from The Surena's tent and gestured. Crassus began to dismount and wavered. His face twisted.

Cassius slid out of his saddle quickly and was at the wretched proconsul's side, aiding him to dismount, keeping a supportive hold on his arm as master and officer vanished into the tent. Sunlight struck the doorflap, making the space within look very dark. Other officers followed the proconsul, last of them Lucilius. His eyes, despite the circles beneath them, were bright as if he were about to spend the day dicing.

Perhaps he was. They all were. The difference was that Lucilius had no doubts he would emerge with his hands full of coin.

A cataphract in full heavy armor rode by and shoved Quintus on the shoulder. Pointless to resent the petty insult, and worse than that: He knew how quickly the Parthians could nock and shoot when they wished. He wore an officer's sigils; he must go inside.

He caught Rufus's eyes. They narrowed and the old soldier tightened his lips, wishing him good luck without speech, as was safest.

Then, as best he could, he marched into the dark maw of The Surena's tent.

The air was thick with mansmell: sweat, leather, armor, and the perfumes that these easterners used to scent themselves, even in battle. Too many men crowded into the huge tent; as one of the last and least of the Romans, Quintus would have found himself pressing against the tent wall, had a guard not stood between him and any quick knifeslash up that wall that might have bought a few Romans at least a chance for freedom had he still a ready knife.

Even though it was dawn, torches still flared, and he blinked. It took some time to become accustomed to the changing light and shadow in the prince's tent. The torchlight danced, a flickering, treacherous pattern in which partners changed and betrayed each other in the flickering of an eye. The Surena and his men. Representatives of the six other great Parthian families—and probably even a spy or two from Pacorus, the king's renegade son. Arabs from Edessa, no doubt servants of Ariamnes and Alchaudonius, the chieftains who had snatched their six thousand riders away.

And even though Orodes of Parthia had led half his army into Armenia to punish Artavasdos for sending troops to Crassus, Armenian lords sat as witnesses. No doubt their king prepared to turn his coat, too. Empty chairs, richly draped, stood at the center of the cluster of Rome's enemies. They did not face the chief of them, yet.

Crassus stood before the men who had destroyed him. Despite the weathered armor he wore and the sword he had been allowed to keep, he looked like an old man, a sick man, a man who had lost his son. Like Priam in Achilles's tent, stripped of his pride. Cassius stood away from him, and Crassus raised his chin. That gesture took an effort which impressed Quintus.

Achilles had raised Priam, offered him food and wine, honor and even mercy of a sort. These princes were slow to offer the proconsul even a chair, much less the honor due a patrician of Rome. The one they finally brought him was low; he must look up into the conqueror's eyes. Cassius stood stiffly at his back.

Quintus wondered if Lucilius would still place odds on Crassus.

The Surena chose that moment to take his seat. As if to underline his disdain for his adversaries, he had taken the time to bathe and put on fresh robes. Now he was resplendent in shimmering fabrics brought all the way from the Land of Gold—some of the very wealth Crassus had hoped to gain by taking this land.

No sooner than Crassus sat, he must rise in reluctant homage. He glared at the guard who hissed at him, but submitted. With the Parthian general came officers—men of the Saka and of the Yueh-chih.

The morning passed in a blaze of misery. Quintus, his jaw set against a protest that might have meant the death of all of them, listened to the terms of "truce" and "friendship" promised them the night before as they lay in the marsh. Some part of him might have rejoiced. It was a balancing of the scales for him and his family. It was vengeance, even, for those deaths whose stench polluted the great roads outside Rome.

It was disgrace, not truce.

"You might as well decimate what's left and have done!" sputtered one officer. Cassius hissed at him and, had he been nearer, looked as if he might have struck the speaker.

"That too might be arranged," purred The Surena. "The decision lies in your hands."

The proconsul stiffened. For a moment it looked as if he would hurl himself from his chair, but his staff officers' hands dropped upon his shoulders. Comfort, it looked like, until one remembered that only last night. The Surena had given him a clear choice: Surrender or die.

Now Crassus removed his helm. His thinning hair lay sweat-plastered to his skull. He shook his head. "That decision has already been made. We will have peace."

"That is what you call it when your men, when your son, all lie dead, is it? Peace? We would call it...."

Quintus shivered. From the soles of his feet, he could sense the hot hate of other Romans in the tent. Outside the tent, the Parthians might be relaying this conversation to the survivors of the Legions: Asiatics loved to boast and gloat. He tensed, waiting for the first man to leap forward. The tiny statue in his breast warmed, as if the two torches it had held aloft all these centuries suddenly kindled.

Outside the tent came a clamor that made the Romans start. Better coached, the Parthians, Saka, and Persians did not move from their seats around the table. The Yueh-chih reached for weapons, but subsided at a glare from their master.

Warriors unlike any Quintus had ever seen entered the Prince's tent, led by a man who was too young to be a general, but whose manner clearly proclaimed that he had a right to take a place at least the equal of those who sat at their ease in judgment upon Rome. His armor, like that of his guard, was scaled, his garments quilted, and his boots high, adapted for riding. He was stocky, foursquare; and if his eyes were slanted like those of the Yueh-chih, he was not bandy-legged like them. Despite the season, he wore a leopard's skin over his armor, as if the heat that would soon rise from the earth was nothing to him. Oddest of all was his skin, which was the color of gold.

Placing himself well away from the Yueh-chih, who muttered but gave place to him, he seated himself near The Surena with the air of one taking a throne by right.

Now he was actually looking at a warrior of the Land of Gold, from beyond the eastern deserts, Quintus realized. It was said—by those eager for riches—that this land was so wealthy that the dust of gold had sunk into the skins of its inhabitants. And enough Romans had believed that legend to bring them to this place where they might die. Parthia, he had heard rumors, paid tribute to that realm in return for trade. At the time he found it hard to believe. Now, seeing the man's imperial composure even though he was too young to hold rank equal to that of The Surena or Crassus before his downfall, Quintus wondered. It would be a great thing to control access to such a realm—great enough to make the downfall of Rome even more worthwhile than hatred could account for.

He stared at the cause of an army's death, meeting for a sharp second the eastern warrior's gaze. The eyes of that one flicked over the assembled princes as a dog-breeder might regard an unsatisfactory litter, then fastened completely on the Romans.

A small wave brought to his side a man with the quick, mobile features of a Sogdian, who—oddly enough—wore the same livery of scales and quilted fabric. He spoke.

"My lord says your men fought well. But they lost. And your son died. Now my lord asks you—" he jerked his chin at Crassus, "—why you yet live."

"I still have an army to protect. They are all my sons," said the proconsul. He drew himself up as proudly as he might.

If they all survived this day. Lucilius might laugh at Crassus's words. But for the first time, Quintus saw the old man as one who could have been followed had Fortune not turned the scale.

Quintus felt his eyes sting, and another sting besides. Moving very slowly, mindful always of the watchful Saka guard beside him, he raised one hand to where the little bronze statue danced above his heart. A warmth, pervasive but not unpleasant, radiated from it as a promise of comfort. He felt, if not rested, fit to march or fight. Or, likelier than either, to endure what must be.

The Sogdian eyed Crassus, skepticism writ large on his mobile features. He glanced at The Surena as if for permission to smile. But the Parthian lord's face was as impassive as that of the man from the Land of Gold.

The noble from the East nodded gravely, accepting the words as if they came from a victor and general, not a beaten man. "You said, Prince of An'Hsi, that this was the Prince of Ta'Tsien ... that land to the west... who would turn his land to gold and count it? Who would venture to trade with us of the Han? Is he a noble, or is he a merchant?"

Again, the Sogdian spoke. Had the auxilia Quintus saw in the marsh survived? He would have been glad of an interpreter of his own. Some of the princes were shifting, impatient, in their seats. It was always dangerous when barbarians became restive. Apparently, the man from the Land of Gold—the Han, he called it—thought so too.

The Surena laughed now, a sound echoed by his Persian nobles, whose pride it was to live off their lands and never soil their fingers with trade. These patricians, these patricians, Quintus thought. They would be the death of him as they had been of his family's hopes. The statue over his heart pricked at his flesh. Pay attention, fool. He all but heard his grandfather's voice exhort him.

"How can this be?"

Abruptly, one of the deadly steppe riders broke into a tumult of words that sounded much like the speech of the man of the Han—and that young lordly officer listened, then spoke,

"Their gods, you say," the interpreter repeated. "Their gods travel with their armies? Careless of them, should they lose. My most excellent Lord Surena, this insignificant one would see these gods of the West."

The Surena clapped his hands.

And, carried any which way, as slaves would drag bodies out of a prison, Parthians brought the Eagles of Crassus's slain Legions into the tent and hurled them onto the table.

The clash of the metal made everyone start. The Yueh-chih muttered as if they expected the Eagles to leap from their standards, mantle, and strike with beaks and claws. Several men, and those not the least in rank, muttered, gestured, and fumbled at amulets.

The captive Eagles of the Legions lay there on the table: no gods, but tarnished metal, hacked with sword-thrusts, stained with the blood of their Roman bearers.

The blood was fresh on one.

"We found this one just outside. He who carried it ... fought us."

Crassus half rose from his chair, then sank down at a glance from his staff officers.

Quintus closed his eyes. That Eagle's bearer had been a brave man. Then he forced his eyes open again, condemning himself to watch every last instant of his country's disgrace.

"It seems," said the man of the Han through his interpreter, "that even some gods can be overpowered. What shall you do with these?"

"They go to our temples, especially the one at Merv," said The Surena. "To commemorate my victory."

Behind him, several warriors on embassy from the King Orodes flickered glances at one another. Powerful The Surena was; had he become so powerful that the king would have to risk removing him or losing his own crown? Quintus knew he would never have time to learn.

The Han officer rose. "Metal gods for which men die," he mused, putting out a well-kept hand to touch the nearest Eagle—Quintus's own.

"My tu hu must see this. It will be for my commander to decide, but this foolish one should think that the Son of Heaven in Ch'ang-an must see these Eagles, and that the exalted one's learned men should unravel the mystery of the power that makes men die for them."

He raised the Eagle as if it had been a standard of his own. SPQR, half covered by blood, shone in the firelight. Crassus stared at it as a drowning man stares at the faintest beam of light taunting him at a horizon of air and water that he is fated never to reach, struggle as he may.

"I take this," the officer of Han announced. "As part of An'Hsi's tribute to the Son of Heaven."

He bowed as courteously as if he had done no more than accept a cup of wine among his brothers, then strode from the tent, taking the Eagle with him.

Two men strode forward to gather up the remaining standards.

"No...." whispered Crassus, echoing Quintus's longing. "By all the gods of hell, no!"

They were Crassus's son, Quintus's friends, Rufus's very lifeblood; and should they be borne in triumph to a barbarian shrine, witness of Rome's failure to protect them? They were Rome herself. Surely, great Romulus himself would turn his face away from the army that lost them.

Vargontius and Cassius had their hands on the proconsul's shoulders, but he shook them off with the strength of a much younger man whom despair has made strong.

"Give me back my. Eagles!" he howled and hurled himself forward.

He crashed against a warrior and the table, one arm flung out to capture as many of the precious signa as he could, the other snatching a dagger from the nearest Parthian's belt. He could have struck in that moment when everyone stood shocked into stillness, avenged his son and his army and his Eagles with one stroke, deep in The Surena's throat.

Instead, he whirled, the dagger out as if to defend the Eagles he held before him as shield and as standards. The torchlight gleamed off them, splintering the light so that the tent walls seemed patterned by a forest of shadows, oak, and pine, and piercing it, the standards of Rome.

The old proconsul's eyes were alight, but not with battle madness.

"Romans! he screamed. "Comites, to me! Finish what we should have ended! Roma!"

His staff officers leapt, calculating as great cats: Help the proconsul or take their chances on escape?

"Out!" cried Vargontius. "Someone bring them word!" His hand shoved Cassius from the tent, which seem to shrink inward, holding still the iron reek of blood and metal and sweat. Screams came from outside the tent as merchants fled from riot, and Romans and Parthians sought each other's throats.

Pain thrust Quintus forward, his hand falling past his side to the blade of the nearest guard. How slowly the man moved. Seizing the sword was like taking a pine branch from a girl-child.

"Roma!" shouted Crassus as if he had not tried, all his life, to turn Rome into sesterces and hoard them all. Quintus fought forward, struggling to reach the proconsul's side. Crassus had stolen his land, but he had called on Rome. Well, he should have what he could of it. This was a better death than Quintus had expected. It was even honorable. He could meet his grandfather's eyes on the other side of the Styx, assuming someone spared him the coin for passage.

"Someone get the torches!" The heavy braziers toppled, and flames licked up blood and dirt before they, like so many within the tent, died.

Crassus might be sane in his wish to die, but now Pan piped within the tent, and madness struck. Quintus slashed down with his stolen sword. As if in a dream, he saw the man before him spew blood and fall upon another. There must have been screams and groans but the pounding in his temples, harsher than the Parthians' drums, drowned out all other sounds as Romans and Parthians and Yueh-chih contended in what light the tent let in now that the torches had died. It was a mad dance, a fever in the blood, Quintus thought. He might as well be a woman, carrying a cone-tipped wand and screaming paeans to Bacchus and Bromius.

He caught a glimpse of Lucilius, his fair hair smeared with blood, his eyes bright as if Fortuna drank to him and his dice. He had despised them all, but they were Romans.

"Crassus!" Quintus screamed, trying to hack through to the old man. Weakened by age and defeat, the commander would not be able to defend himself and his Eagles for long. One more man—the tribune used the fine steel of the Parthian's sword as if it were a gladius to stab him in the throat. And then he reeled before the proconsul, gasping. His heart rose as Crassus's eyes brightened at the sight of him.

"Behind you! Down!" the old man gasped at the same time that fire burned his chest—the bronze statue again? Quintus doubled over, then curved around, almost on his knees. He brought his blade up and around, spitting the man who had thought to slay him from behind.

Quintus turned, and the thanks died on his lips. He lunged but, even as his sword thrust home, the Parthian's blade fell on Crassus's hand as it clutched the Eagles, severing it at the wrist. It fell on Quintus's head in a macabre parody of the blessings his grandfather had once given him.

His shout of horror and Crassus's scream rang out. He hurled himself forward to defend the man who had become—against all reason—his proconsul and general. The old man sagged, the Eagles dropping from his arm in a clatter of heavy bronze. He started to fall—too slowly. A Parthian's blade took him at the nape of the neck, and his head fell first.

"No!" screamed Quintus. He fought as he did not know he could, until a space cleared between him and his dead and the Parthians. Sobbing for breath, he paused, his sword as steady as if it did not feel made of lead. The Parthians circled him. It was just a matter of time till they cut him down. Just a matter of time.

But he would sell himself as dearly as he could. How many could he take with him? And where should he start? He eyed the warriors speculatively, and he could see that they knew it. Came a commotion and movement underfoot. He lashed out, but his blade hit the edge of the table and rebounded. He recovered his guard and struck again....

To his horror, one of his enemies parried not with a sword but with the Eagle he had snatched up.

If Quintus died for it, he could not strike that Eagle: as well as strike down his grandfather or Rome herself. They had struck down Crassus. He feinted, then attacked viciously. The Parthian dodged and laughed. Again, he tried; and again.

They were laughing at him, teasing him as wanton boys tease a chained beast. With a scream, he threw himself forward, determined to take as many of his enemies with him as he could...

...and what felt like a bar of red-hot iron smashed across his neck. The roaring of the battlefield died away to the murmur of a river on a hazy day, and then into silence.