Tuesday, November 02, 2021

Chapter 1 from the Roman of the North

 

While Ru's daughters are busy getting their stories written, I had an inspiration for a side story to include with the series. Look for the Roman of the North coming later this year: 

(Rough Draft) Chapter 1:

The clanging sound of swords and armor echoed between the green hills that cast long shadows on the narrow glen and darkened the lush trees.
Antonius shivered under his tunic as a breeze kicked up, rustling the leaves and chilling him to the bone. Even in high summer, this brutal remote land in the barbarian northern never warmed. Antonius missed the hot, arid summers of Rome, and the dark haired Mera who had promised to wait for him. She spoke the words with her mouth, but the lie rested in her eyes. She was too beautiful to wait for a poor legionnaire, especially with the butcher’s son, Marcus, chasing her heels at the forum market.
Memories of his time back in the outskirts of Rome warmed him little. As the third son of a poor market vendor selling cheap trinkets, what options did he have? None, but to join the Roman Legion in their call to send an Eagle standard to combat the northern barbarians. Now, instead of sleeping on a pallet, sweating in the Roman summer heat and dreaming of Mera, he was freezing on a military pallet, dreaming of his next meal.
Antonius’ legs pimpled under the cool breeze, and he again wished that he might wear his bracae pants under his tunic. The guard commander permitted it in the winter, when snow encased this land like a bad senator’s wig, but when leaves and grass sprouted under a pale summer sun? Never. Tunic and sandals only.
So instead, Antonius shivered as he walked, marching through yet another set of foothill near his fort, searching for the gods knew what. His commander had instructed them to keep their eyes open.
Open for what? That he didn’t tell them.
All he knew was his centuria troupe was marching north of the wall, a place off limits, according to the loose terms of the Caledonii peace treaty.
Antonius didn’t care.He hated this place. He hated these barbaric Caledonii. He hated this assignment in the far north away from the warmth of home.
In his estimation, they should just burn it all down and let the gods figure it out.
A plop of chilled rain splashed on his nose, just under the nose guard of his helmet.
He clenched his jaw.
This cold forsaken place, it probably won’t even burn, anyway. 

 ***

He wasn’t the only one grumbling, thankfully. Perhaps if the commander heard enough of them grumbling, he’d turn them around, south to the wall. If they were lucky, they might make it back in time for the evening meal.
The only redeeming aspect to that prospect was that it would be warm, even if it was only thin gruel and bread.
At least it’d be warm gruel.
Lost in his thoughts, his mind didn’t quite register the movement on the far side of the glen until the movement brightened. Antonius slowed his march and focused his eyes. The glen was narrow and ended in a thick tree line at the base of a stony hill. Bright red and a rich blue shifted in the trees.
Then the man and two young women emerged, and his entire centuria stopped, the halt of their clanging armor almost louder than the sound itself.
They were close enough to the trio for Antonius to register the shock on their faces.
The Roman army was somewhere they weren’t supposed to be.
Maybe a lone set of Caledonii was what Antonius was supposed to keep an eye open for.
They stared at each other for the space of several heartbeats, before several Roman soldiers broke rank and rushed the trio. The Caledonii man threw the spear he held before turning to run into the trees with the two women. The spear bounced off a soldier’s shield and was flung to the side like an irritating bug.
“Halt!” a stern, powerful voice carried in the air, and the few soldier who had broken rank immediately stopped, keeping their eyes on the tree line.
“Fall in!” the voice commanded, and those errant soldiers returned to their places.
The Prefect had instructed the lower ranks to keep their distance from any locals as established by the treaty.
Not that the Romans had abided by that treaty at all.
The men fell in. Antonius, however, didn’t focus on the rank and file in front of him. Something about those people, their shockingly bright hair, their muscular, barely covered bodies marked with red and blue tattoos in odd swirls. Their coloring wasn’t what caught his attention the most.
No, it was the fierce gaze of the shorter woman, the one with the wild shock of hair the color of an Alban sunset.
She didn’t turn as quickly as her two companions. Rather she kept her gaze riveted on the armor-clad men, as though she was challenging them to face her.
Antonius chewed at his lip, hiding a smile.
Gumption, his mother called that look, that trait. Gumption, the will to stand up in the face of something dire, to challenge authority.
Antonius never had the gumption, not the type his mother spoke of so highly.
The marching resumed its steady cadence, turning back in a south-easterly direction.