"Up the Wall" - читать интересную книгу автора (Friesner Esther M)

UP THE WALL
Esther M. Friesner
Reading a story like this makes one want to toss out all the old history texts and let the fantasy and SF writing community have a go at redoing them for the secondary-school market. Guaranteed you'd have more students interested in history, and that they wouldn't be bored.
Roman history is particularly fascinating, but all too often shrunken and curdled into an endless litany of Latin names and places and dates. The history that's fun to read is history that lives and breathes. "Up the Wall" doesn't merely breathe, it fairly vibrates with life. Whether it would be allowed in history texts, it's contextual accuracy notwithstanding, is another matter entirely. Most such weighty tomes have perforce had all the life sucked out of them by "review committees," whose sole task in life it is to reduce all textbooks to the literary level of vanilla pudding.
"Up the Wall" adds some spice. It also leaves you wondering who you'd really like to have standing alongside you in a crisis.
A GUST OF NORTHCOUNTRY air swept over the undulating hump of Hadrian's Wall, still bearing with it the chill of the sea. The northcountry was the hard country_even the starveling sheep had the grim air of failed philosophers_ but worse land yet lay north of the wall, in wild Caledonia, if the word of tribal Celts and travelers could be believed. Two figures in the full finery of the Roman legions paced the earthworks as dusk came on. The last rays of the setting sun struck gold from the breast of the eagle standard jammed into the soil between them. In looks, in bearing, in the solemn silence folded in wings around them, they carried a taste of eternity.
It all would have been very heroic and poetical if the shorter man had not reached up under his tunic and pteruges, undone his bracae, and taken a long, reflective pee in the direction of Orkney. His comrade affected not to notice.
Rather by way of distraction than conversation, the taller fellow broke silence almost simultaneously with his mate's breaking wind. In a good, loud, carrying voice he declaimed, "Joy to the Ninth, Caius Lucius Piso! The days of the beast are numbered. It shall be today that the hero comes; I feel it. This morning all the omens were propitious." He had the educated voice and diction a senator's son might envy. His Latin was high and pure, preserved inviolate even here, at the northernmost outpost of the legions. He turned to his mate. "What news from the south?"
"News?" his companion echoed. Then he placed a stubby tongue between badly chapped lips and blew a sound that never issued from the wolf's-head bell of any bucina. "Sweet sodding Saturn, Junie, how the blazes would I have any more news from the friggin' south than you, stuck up here freezin' me cobblers off, waitin' on the relief_see if them buggers ever show up, bleedin' arse-lickers the lot of 'em, and everyone knows Tullius Cato's old lady's been slippin' into the commander's bedroll, so he never pulls the shit-shift, wish my girl'd show half as much support for me career, but that's women for you_only women ain't so much to your taste, now as I remember the barrack-room gab, are they, no offense taken, I hope?"
His Latin was somewhat less pure than that of his hawk-faced comrade-in-arms.
Junius Claudius Maro regarded the balding, podgy little man with a look fit to petrify absolutely that fellow's already chilled cobblers. "You presume too much upon our training days, Caius Lucius Piso. Were I to report the half of what you have just said, our beloved commander could order the flesh flayed from your bones." He settled the drape of his thick wool mantle more comfortably on his shoulders, then suffered a happy afterthought: "With a steel-tipped knout. However, for the love that is between us, I will say nothing." He looked inordinately pleased with himself.
"Right, then," said Caius Lucius Piso. His own after-thought bid him add: "Ta." He uprooted the Imperial eagle, hoisted it fishpole-wise over one shoulder, and casually commenced a westerly ramble. "I'll just be toddling on down the wall, eh? Have a bit of a lookabout? Keep one peeper peeled for this hero fella you say's coming, maybe kindle a light, start a little summat boiling on the guardroom fire, hot wine, the cup that cheers, just the thing what with a winter like we're like to have, judging by the misery as's crept into me bones. Bring you back a cuppa, Junie?" This last comment was flung back from a goodly distance down the wall, went unheard, and received no reply.
The nearest guardroom along that section of the wall where the ill-matched pair patrolled had once been a thing of pride, to judge by its size. It was large enough to have housed sheep for whatever purpose. Years and neglect had done their damnedest to bring pride to a fall. Hares and foxes took it in turn to nest in the tumbledown sections of the derelict structure, but there was still a portion of the building with a make-do roof of old blankets and sod. In the lee of the October winds, surrounded by shadows, Caius Lucius Piso knelt to poke up the small peat fire in the pit.
The flame caught and flared, banishing darkness. Caius gasped as his small fire leaped in reflection on the iron helmet and drawn sword of the man hunkered on his hams in the dingy guardroom. The image of a slavering wild boar cresting his helmet seemed to leap out at the trembling Roman. Beneath the brim, two small, red, and nasty orbs glared. From porcine eyes to bristly snout, there was a striking family resemblance between boar crest and crest-wearer.
There was also the matter of the man's sword. Caius Lucius Piso's initial impression of that weapon had not been wrong. It was indeed as large, keen, and unsheathed as it had seemed at first glance. It was also leveled at the crouching Roman. The man snarled foreign words and raised the sword several degrees, sending ripples through his thickly-corded forearm muscles. Many of his teeth were broken, all were yellow as autumn crocus, and the stench emanating from him, body and bearskin, was enough to strike an unsuspecting passer-by senseless. He looked like a man to whom filth was not just a way of life, but a religious calling.
Caius Lucius Piso knew a hero when he saw one.
"Oh, shit" he said.
"That's him?" Goewin knotted her fists on her hips and studied the new arrival. "That's our precious hero?"
"Hush now, dear, he'll hear you." Caius Lucius Piso made small dampening motions with his hands, but the lady of his hearth and heart was undaunted. She had been the one who'd taught him how to make that obnoxious tongue-and-lips blatting sound, after all.
"Hush yerself, you great cowpat. Who cares does he hear me? Stupid clod don't speak [a speck] of honest Gaelic." She smiled sweetly at the visitor, who stood beside the oxhide-hung doorway, arms crossed. He appeared to disapprove of everything he saw within the humble hut, and, without a word, somehow conveyed the message that he had sheathed his fearsome sword under protest.
"Who'd like a bit of the old nip-and-tuck with any ewe he fancies, then?" Goewin asked him, still smiling. "Whose Mum did it for kippers?"
"Goewin, for Mithra's sake, the man's a guest. And a hero! He's only biding under our roof until they're ready to receive him formally at headquarters."
"[Hindquarters], you mean, if it's the Commander yer speaking of."
"Epona's east tit, woman, mind your tongue! If word gets back to the commander that you've been rude to his chosen hero ..." Caius Lucius turned chalky at the thought.
"A hero?" Goewin cocked her head at the impassive presence guarding her doorway. "Him?" She clicked her tongue. "If that's the sort of labor we're down to bringing into Britain, just to take care of a piddling beast you lot could handle, weren't you such hermaphros, well_"
"That's not fair and you know it, Goewin. You can't call a monster big enough to carry off five legionaries any sort of piddler."
"Oh, pooh. Tisn't as if it carried all five off in one go. I've not seen it anymore than you have, but I know different. You Romans always exaggerate, as many a poor girl's learned to her sorrow on the wedding night or 'round the Beltaine fires. Probably no more'n a newt with glanders, but straightaway you lot bawl 'Dragon!' and off for help you run. Bunch of babes. And if that piece propping up the doorpost's the best you could drum up on the Continent_" She shrugged expressively. "This country's just going to ruin, Cai, that's all." She slouched over to grasp the stranger's impressive left bicep. "Look 'ee here. Shoddy goods, that is. Scrawnier than_"
There was a flicker of cold steel. The man's dagger was smaller than his sword, lighter, far handier, with a clean line that would never go out of style. It was almost the size of a Roman legionary's shortsword, but he handled it with more address. Presently it addressed Goewin's windpipe.
"[Aye], all," said Junius, pulling back the oxhide and stepping unwittingly into the midst of this small domestic drama. "The commander is now prepared to greet our noble visitor with all due_"
The noble visitor growled something unintelligible and dropped his dagger point from Goewin's throat. Caius Lucius rather supposed that his guest disliked interruptions. Junius stared as the blade turned its attention to him.
"Now just a moment_" Junius objected in his flawless Latin.
A moment was all Caius Lucius wished. His wife was safe, but now his messmate was in danger. Dragon or no, and never mind that Junie Maro was the biggest prig the Glorious Ninth had ever spawned, the bonds of the legion still stood for something. While trying to remember precisely what, he picked up a small wine jug and belted the noble visitor smack on top of his iron boar.
Junius Claudius Maro looked down at the crumpled heap of clay shards, fur, and badly-tanned leather at his feet, then gave Caius Lucius a filthy glare by way of thanks for his life. "You idiot," he said.
"You're welcome, I'm sure," Caius replied. Sullen and bitter, he added, "Didn't kill 'im. Didn't even snuff his wick."
That much was true. The man was not unconscious, just badly dazed and grinning like a squirrel. Caius Lucius watched, astounded, as old Junie knelt beside the stunned barbarian and spoke to him in a strange, harsh tongue. Still half loopy, the man responded haltingly in kind, and before long the two of them were deep in earnest conversation punctuated by bellowing laughter.
"You_you speak that gibberish, Junie?" Caius Lucius ventured to ask when his comrade finally stood up.
"Goatish, not gibberish," Junius replied, wiping tears of hilarity from his eyes. "Gods, and to think I never believed the pater when he told me it's the only tongue on earth fit for telling a really elegant latrine joke! Later on, you must remind me to tell you the one about_but no. The pun won't translate, and, in any case, Ursus here says he's going to kill you in a bit. If our commander doesn't have you crucified first, for nearly doing in our dragon-slayer."
Caius Lucius gaped. "Crucified?"
His wife sighed. "Didn't me Mum just warn me you'd come to a bad end. Now I'll have to listen to the old girl's bloody I-told-you-so's 'til Imbolc. Honestly, Cai_!"
"Caius Lucius Piso, you are accused of damaging legion property." The Commander of the Ninth slurped an oyster and gave the accused the fish-eye. "This man has been brought into our service at great personal expense to deal with our_ah_little problem, and you make free with his cranial integrity." The commander grinned, never loath to let his audience know when he'd come up with an especially elegant turn of phrase. Marcus Septimus, the commander's secretary, toady, and emergency catamite, applauded dutifully and made a note of it.
"Bashed him one on the conk, he did," Goewin piped up from the doorway. "I saw 'im!"
Caius could not turn to give his wife the killing look she deserved. He was compelled to stand facing his commander, head bowed, and hear Goewin condemn him with one breath, then, with the second, titter, "Oooh, Maxentius, you keep your hands to yourself, you horrid goat! And me not even a widow yet!" Her pleased tone of voice belied her harsh words. Obviously, Goewin did not believe in waiting until the last minute to provide for her future.
Caius scuffed his already worn perones in the packed earthen floor of the commander's hut, and tried to think of something besides death. It didn't help to dwell on the thought of killing old Junie, for that specific fantasy always veered over to the general theme of thanatos, which by turns yanked his musings back to his own imminent fate.
The commander was not happy, and all the way back to the first generation, the Commanders of the Ninth had had a simple way of dealing with their discontent.
"Right. Guilty. Crucify him," said the commander.
Junius looked smug. He stood at the commander's left hand while the man he had dubbed Ursus sprawled on a bench to the right. He still wore the boar's head helm, but now the eyes beneath the brim no longer showed murderous rage. Instead they roved slowly around the hut, silently weighing the worth and transportability of every even vaguely valuable item they spied. They only paused in their mercantile circuit when Junius leaned around the back of the commander's chair to whisper a translation of Caius' sentence in the barbarian's shaggy ear.
Something like a flint-struck spark kindled in the depth of those tiny eyes. "NEVER!" Ursus bawled_and then all Hades broke loose.
Afterwards, Caius could not say whether he was more shocked by the barbarian's reaction, or by the fact that he had understood the man's exclamation precisely.
He quickly shelved linguistic musings in favor of survival. It really was an impressive tantrum the barbarian was throwing; he also threw the bench. Everyone in the commander's hut who could reach an exit, did so, in short order. The commander and all members of the makeshift tribunal held their ground, but only because they were cut off from the sole escape route by the rampaging dragon-slayer himself.
Ursus was on his feet, each clenched fist the size of a toddler's skull. He gave a fierce kick, knocking over a little tabouret bearing a bowl of windfalls and a silver wine jug with matched goblets. He picked up the fallen objects one by one and flung them at the hut's curved walls. Though his sword and dagger had perforce been laid aside before coming into the commander's presence, he still looked able to reduce the population barehanded ad libitum. Throughout this demonstration, he continued to chant, "Never, never, never!"