“How long until the next relief?” I asked the slave, a grayhaired man whose long service with the legion had earned him this cushy if somewhat sleep-deprived duty.
“Two hours, sir. They stand four on, four off in this legion. First night watch goes on an hour before sunset, the last is relieved an hour after sunrise.”
I looked at the water clock. It was a clever Greek contraption like an ornate bronze bucket filled with water. There was a hollow float in the water, which drained out through a small tube in the bottom. As it descended, the float tripped a lever at hourly intervals, and each time the lever would drop a bronze ball into a shallow dish of the same metal, producing a loud clang. I had seen the gigantic one in Alexandria, which produces a noise so loud you can hear it all over the city. I could never figure out why, since Alexandrians never pay any attention to what time it is.
“What do you do in winter, when it freezes?” I asked.
“Move it closer to the watchfire, so it doesn’t freeze. If the wind’s blowing hard and it freezes anyway, you watch the stars. If it’s cloudy, you just guess.”
“That must make for some hard feelings,” I mused. “Every man is sure to think he stood a longer watch than the other reliefs.”
The slave nodded. “Winter’s a bad time this far north, that’s for sure.”
I went to my tent, where I found Hermes dutifully tending the lamps. He handed me a flask. His arms and shoulders seemed to be recovering, since he could raise the flask waist-high. Its warmth felt good to my chilled hands.
“It’s that awful vinegar stuff the soldiers drink,” he said apologetically, “but it’ll sure wake you up.” I took a drink and he was courteous enough to wait for my eyes to stop watering before he asked me the inevitable question: “Are those barbarians making all that noise outside?” My tent was close enough to the north wall to hear them clearly.
“It certainly isn’t reinforcements from Rome. But don’t worry, they’re just entertaining us tonight.”
“If it’s all the same to you, I’ll worry anyway.” Then he lowered his voice, although he was already speaking in low tones for Hermes. “We’re really in the middle of it, aren’t we? I’ve heard the soldiers talking and they say we’re unsupported in the middle of barbarian territory and it’s only a matter of time before about a million of them come down on us all at once.”
My face must have been as sour as the posca as I nodded. “It’s true, and that’s not the worst of it. I think there’s a man in the camp as dangerous to us as anything outside.”
“How do you always find people like that?” Hermes asked.
“The gods are not without a sense of humor. This is their little joke on me.”
“Then they’re laughing hard up on Olympus tonight,” He said. “They’ve matched you up with the meanest crucifier in the legion.”
To a slave, “crucifier” is the most powerful epithet of fear and opprobrium. Hermes also had the slave’s facility for keeping his ears open while the free men all around ignored him and talked as if he wasn’t there. My peers often upbraided me for listening to slave talk, but it saved my life a good many times.
“More soldier gossip?”
“It’s all over the camp. Next to the barbarians, the First Spear and his German woman are the favorite subjects around here. Everyone’s talking about how Vinius and the new officer are going at it shield to shield.”
“Poor Caesar,” I said. “He’s used to everyone talking about him. Are bets being laid?”
He shook his head. “No. Everyone says you’ll be squashed like a bug.”
I took another drink of Posca and choked it down. “It’s going to get worse very quickly. I want you to ask around tomorrow, see if you can get odds on me to win.”
He looked at me pityingly. “You don’t expect me to bet any of my money, do you?”
“You’re a slave. You’re not supposed to own money. Have you been stealing from me again?” By law, slaves are not supposed to own property, but the gulf between law and reality is as wide as that between Hades and Olympus. Actually, Hermes rarely stole from me, but it did him good to know he was under suspicion at all times.
He dodged the question. “Are the odds about to go up even higher?”
“Yes, they are. I am about to make Titus Vinius even angrier at me. With luck, he may drop dead from pure rage.”
5
I ARRIVED AT THE WATCHFIRE just as the bronze ball clanged into the dish. The watch relief stood in two orderly lines. At their head was a man whose helmet was tinned so that it shone silver instead of bronze, and it sported a crest of white horsehair. His eyes widened a bit when he saw me, then widened a bit further when he saw that I was not alone. He saluted with a professional’s easy disdain.