Time in camp passed slowly, but while Mattias brooded and worried about not fighting Hannibal in Italy, my life took an unexpected turn when I met Caelia. I couldn’t pronounce her Spanish name, which came with a thick guttural noise that sounded like a cat being throttled. But she spoke a little Latin, and after I proposed a few names, we settled on Caelia. To my chagrin she managed my name just fine, although at first she stretched out the last syllable, calling me Mar-cuuus, which made Crispus laugh. Caelia was a cook in the legionary mess, one of the many camp followers who always find themselves attached to armies of all sorts, looking for casual work, spying for the enemy, or hoping to make a love match.

Caelia was serving food one evening, a thick gruel of beans and stout green leaves of some sort that had to be boiled into submission, and, distracted by a call from another one of the cooks, she ladled the food over my mess tray and onto my tunic. She clapped one hand to her mouth.

‘So sorry!’ she stammered, and rushed around the table with a damp rag, skirts flying.

‘Here, let me—’ she began, but I gently took her hand, gesturing to my tunic.

‘It’s alright…between the dust and the grime, nobody will notice.’ Our eyes met, and, still holding her hand, that was that.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking. But it happened that way, I swear by Jupiter. Caelia was my first love; we kissed behind the mess tent that evening, my tunic stained with my spilled dinner. I have never forgotten her.

Caelia was short, as were many of the Spanish women, with a narrow waist and long hair the colour of black agate. She had stunning green eyes which she accented with a dark pigment, and her mouth was set in a perpetual smile and she laughed easily at almost anything. Our romance began slowly—our officers officially discouraged camp affairs—but I couldn’t help myself, and neither could she. We were smitten. Whenever I was off duty, we met at one of the taverns outside the walls of the fort, where no officer would dare show his face, and she patiently taught me some of the basics of her language, forgiving my clumsiness, while she learned Latin rapidly until we could talk quite easily. I still called her Caelia, though; the name had stuck, and she rather liked it. Over a drink one afternoon she told me about her life.

‘Marcus’, she began, smoothing her hair out of her eyes. ‘We used to have such a good life here in Spain. Our farm was large; we grew so much. Apples. Peaches. Plums. Wheat. Turnips, barley, grapes. There was land for everyone. My father, and his brothers, they worked very hard, but we never went hungry. Then, the Carthaginians came.’ Her face turned glum.

‘One morning, they came to my village and our lives changed forever. They rounded up the men, told them that they would be… what is that word? Militia, yes, militia for Hamilcar, who was the leader then of the Carthaginians here. This was six, seven winters ago. That was the last time I saw my father. I have no idea where he is now.’

Tears misted her eyes, and I reached out and held her hand.

‘My father is gone, too’, I said, the words pausing in my throat at the reminder of his loss. Caelia looked back at me in shared sympathy.

‘Since they came, Spaniard has been pitted against Spaniard. City against city, towns and villages ripped apart. After Hamilcar, Hannibal fought around here, reducing the settlements and forcing them over to his side. He came to our village once.’

‘You saw Hannibal?’ I blurted in astonishment, spilling my wine on the table.

‘Oh yes, we all did’, she said, surprised at my reaction. ‘He was short, like us, very handsome, well-dressed, with a trimmed beard. There was a medallion of Hercules on his armour, I remember that well—all of the children wanted to see it. He had a group of officers with him, and men recording his conversations and his decisions.’

I looked at her, stupefied.

‘This man… he has destroyed our nation’, I said. ‘My father died fighting him, along with my uncle, and cousin. He has ripped us to pieces… but you make him sound so normal, so…’

‘Hannibal has ruined us too, Marcus’, she said, a note of irritation in her voice. She softened. ‘He came to our village to resettle some people from another town, which had been burned in the endless wars. That’s how we lost much of our land, given over to these poor people—they took our orchards and our best land for wheat. And then with my father gone, it was just me, my mother, and the other three children, who were just toddlers then. It’s hard to get enough food on the table, especially as the last harvests have been very hard, and the Carthaginians come and take what they want.

‘And now my mother is sick, and so I must do most of the work. That is why when you Romans came, some of us thought it to be a gift from heaven: the work is easy, the pay is alright, and the head cook lets me take food home if any is left after the soldiers have eaten.’       She looked away for a moment.

‘Others, though, worry about your intentions here’. Her face was solemn.

I blanched, and she added, ‘Not you, Marcus. The Romans. Your commanders and their masters in Italia. We have already suffered so much. What good is it to serve you if we would be better off with Hannibal?’

I had no answer to her question, and later, lying in my bunk, I thought about our conversation as I watched a moth fly lazily around the lantern in our tent. In the legion we viewed the Spanish civilians and the militias who fought with us with a certain unease, if not outright disdain. But Caelia tempered this. Mattias pointed it out to me.

‘Look, Marcus’, he began. ‘Caelia shows us what it means to live in Spain. I mean, to really live here. We only see Tarro and his men fighting; we don’t bunk with them, we don’t eat with them, we don’t mix with them. Hell, I don’t trust them. Caelia, though’—and at this, he smiled sadly—‘shows us that these poor people have suffered just as much as we have. Carthage’s coming to Spain—well, it’s fucked them up just as much as Hannibal’s invasion of Italy has. We have to do better, and not just be another occupying army, fighting over their land, taking their husbands and sons away from them, leaving them hollowed out with no future.’ He leaned over and gripped my shoulder for emphasis, the moth still dancing around the lantern.

I looked at him in surprise. ‘Since when did you become so soft?’ I asked, sitting up.

‘You have a chance, Marcus, a real chance, to show Caelia and her family that we are not like the bloody Carthaginians. The population is battered, they live in misery. We must do better.’

A month passed in our fleeting romance; we spent as much time together as we possible could. One evening, I looked at her nervously.

‘So, I have been thinking. I don’t know how much longer we’ll be here… I’d like to…’ I stuttered, embarrassed.

‘Yes?’ she said, eyebrow raised, a playful look on her face.

‘Well, I’d like to meet your family. I mean, if that’s alright with you.’ I exhaled with relief.

A broad smile on her face, Caelia took my hand.

‘Of course, Marcus! That would make mother so happy. She had had no visitors for so long, and maybe seeing you, talking with you, might make the presence of the Romans here more bearable.’

            There was just one obstacle to this plan. Officially, meeting her family was out of the question, as there was no way that I could get permission to leave the camp. But we had become quite inventive. And so I left anyway, with help from Mattias and Crispus, who covered for me while out on a foraging detail collecting wood for our cooking fires. Caelia had the day off, and I had learned that our foraging party, under the command of a disinterested corporal, would be working close to her village.

            ‘Uh, corporal’, I said, holding my stomach, grimacing. A timely fart helped with the deception.

            ‘Go’, he said, dismissing me with a disgusted look on his face, and I sneaked off.

The time that followed was like passing into another world, and was as far from the army as I could possibly go without actually deserting. Caelia, acting as interpreter, introduced me to her family. I had brought little in the way of gifts, but I had managed to get the legionary armourer to fashion a bracelet out of some scrap iron and to inscribe a design along it of the sort you would find in fancy houses back in Italy. I also purloined several loaves of bread from the mess, some salt pork, and some preserved fish. Her mother, short, of indeterminate age, with the same viscous black hair, accepted the gifts warmly and brought out some of her family’s meagre food to share with me. Two young girls and a boy played in the dirt nearby.

Caelia talked, telling her mother about her work, filling in the occasional silence that always comes between people of different tongues, as we sipped watered-down wine. I was content in their house; Caelia’s hand brushed mine, and I knew that her mother approved.

‘Marcus’, said Caelia at one juncture after listening to her mother for several minutes. ‘Mama would like to give you something… it belonged to my father.’

I didn’t know what to do, so I fell back on the manners that my father had instilled in me, stammering a polite refusal. It was no good; Caelia’s mother had already raised herself from her seat and had disappeared into the back of the house.

‘Caelia’, I began, ‘I can’t possibly take something that belonged—’ but she cut me off with the sharp motion of her hand.

‘I knew she would give you this, and want you to have it; it’s from me, as much as from Mama. This way I know you that you will always have our family’s protection, wherever you are, and whatever happens to you.’ She looked at me imploringly. ‘Please, Marcus. This is important.’ She squeezed my hand for emphasis, and kissed me on the cheek.

With reluctance, I smiled, admitting defeat. Caelia’s mother returned, carrying an object wrapped in an oily rag. I stood up as she entered, and she pressed the gift into my hands, before kissing me on both cheeks and gesturing for me to sit back down.

‘Open it, Marcus’, said Caelia. I folded back the cloth, a rich smell of oil and leather leaking from within. Caelia’s mother grinned, and sipped her wine. Inside the bundle of rags was an exquisite knife, a dagger, really, with a six-inch blade and a carved horn grip, decorated with geometric designs. I withdrew the blade and it hissed from its black leather sheath; testing the edge, I found it was honed to a wicked sharpness. I drew a sharp breath. This was beautiful, but was also a weapon of war, a testament to the madness that gripped both of our worlds. If I had any doubts as to the meaning of the gift, they were immediately dispelled by Caelia’s mother, who spoke once again to her daughter.

I looked at Caelia expectantly.

‘Mama says… well, that she wants you to kill as many Carthaginians as you can before you die’, she said flatly. I pushed the blade back into its sheath, and re-wrapped the dagger inside its cloth. I swallowed, and looked from Caelia to her mother.

‘I will’, I said simply.

Finally, so I heard later, the corporal started wondering where I was and sent Mattias to find me.

‘Still has the shits, corporal’, he told him, which bought me another precious half hour. When it came to his turn, Crispus made a face and told the corporal that he shouldn’t go down into the gully where I was supposedly voiding my insides, because ‘the smell would make Jupiter weep’. The corporal gave up and told Mattias and Crispus to wait behind for me as he took the rest back to camp with the firewood. Good lads, my friends. When we came back, Caelia threw an arm around each of them, and kissed them noisily on the cheek. Crispus turned purple with embarrassment, while Mattias just grinned. They loved her too.

This was the only time I met Caelia’s mother. Caelia and I continued our romance, though, and I avoided the enquiring stares of our officers who surely knew something was up. I was way too happy for a legionnaire stuck in the middle of nowhere. Later, acquiring some actual silver from a local trader, I asked the armourer to repeat his efforts, which he did magnificently.

‘Oh, Marcus!’ Caelia cried when I gave her the bracelet, and threw herself into my arms. The tavern keeper looked on sympathetically, one eye on a pregnant girl, barely sixteen, who was serving tables. Caelia had told me that she didn’t want to end up that way; she didn’t want a child of hers to grow up without a father, and I agreed with her. So although we talked about it, of course—we were young, and in heat—we never consummated our love for each other.

The months in camp passed. Talk in the ranks turned to the desperate news from home, which had travelled to us via the rumour mill. Nobody knew what was actually true, but to soldiers, that hardly matters; we’re prone to believe everything. Hannibal, we had heard, had cemented his control on Campania, a region within easy marching distance of Rome, bringing the city of Capua over as new allies. With Capua gone, Rome was under threat, and if Rome fell… well, the idea didn’t bear thinking about. Mattias summed up our feelings, one night after a heated debate between us over supper. Tempers were still flaring and one of our mates was up on charges for fighting in the mess hall.

            ‘What the heck are we doing messing around in Spain, while Hannibal threatens our families, our great city with its shrines and temples?’ Mattias kicked his cot in frustration.

‘I mean’, he went on, fuming, ‘aside from that night battle several moons ago, all we have done here is parade, train, parade, train… gods, if I have to practice dressing our marching lines one more gods-damned time, I’ll go mad.’

            Even though I loved every minute I could spend with Caelia, as a legion we had become bored, restless, and desperate for action. It was a dangerous combination. Our patrols had found little of the enemy, and when we did find them they refused our offers of battle and disappeared into the hills and the brush. Occasionally we would find one of our listening posts with their throats cut from the night before, their balls and hands cut off, their equipment taken. Such events turned us into impotent warriors, ready to fight but without a tangible enemy to vent our frustration on. No wonder, then, that brawls between comrades started seemingly at random, along with snide talk of the officers and increasing frustration with camp discipline. One morning just before we left camp, assigned to clean up wind-blown rubbish from around the latrine area, Crispus nearly came to blows with a young centurion who was about to put him up on charges for refusing to pick some of it up until someone, as he said ‘told him when he was getting out of this bloody place.’ We quickly intervened, dragging Crispus off before he decked the officer and got hauled up in front of the commander.

            So, all in all, I think it’s fair to say that when the time came to leave for Saguntum, we set to work with some enthusiasm. With our gear stowed and the camp neatly emptied of its contents, leaving just the earthen walls and wooden fortifications, we marched with a light step out of the south gate, the standards of the Glorious Second proudly held, the bronze eagle glittering in the sunlight above the fighting griffon, and the tassels of the legion’s battle honours streaming majestically in a stiff breeze.

News had spread amongst us that we were making for Saguntum, the place where this infernal war had begun. Inevitably, on the march we gossiped about the city and talked superstitiously about what we found there.

‘It was our own government’s folly that was to blame’, one of my mates said. There was a rumble of agreement.

‘I mean, what were they thinking? When they had already agreed that Hannibal could do what he liked in Spain, south of the Ebro river, the hallowed conscript fathers of the Senate declared Saguntum a friend of Rome. If that isn’t a set up, I don’t know what is.’

Mattias spoke up. ‘Obviously they did this to make a war happen. There was no way Saguntum could be protected, and they knew it. I mean, come on. How many times in our history have such things happened? It is always good to have a convenient way to find wrongdoing in others when our blood is to be expended. It makes tallying the butcher’s bill more palatable.’

Another man agreed with him.

‘Not to mention that there were those in the bloody Senate who had some unfinished business from the first war. Carthage got off rather lightly, and needed to be punished again.’ He spat. ‘My grandfather died in that war, and if he were alive today, he would have voted to crush Hannibal and wipe our arses with the lily-white robes of the Carthaginian senators.’ A cheer went up, and Aelius looked back at us, annoyed.

‘Settle down, lads. There is still a long way to go’, he chided.

            Several days of hard marching followed, taking us through farmland and small villages, whose inhabitants watched us warily as we passed by. Occasionally they would hiss at the women and children who followed the legion, or shout angrily at them. To our right I could see the line of foreboding hills that ran down much of the eastern part of the Spanish coast, dark and sinister even in winter, guarding entry to the interior; they were natural ambush points and we stayed far clear, following the track that ran parallel to the shoreline, about five miles distant to our left. The tang of salt air and the plaintive calls of gulls were never far off, and our nights were cool and pleasant.

Eventually we came within striking distance of Saguntum. On the march, though, a more promising target beckoned: our officers received reports that Hasdrubal—the brother of Hannibal himself—was camped with his army only a few miles away. His roving cavalry pickets had been sighted, and chased off. The coming clash would be the first great test of our combined strength, as Publius Scipio and his Fifth legion were marching to join us, swelling our numbers to nearly ten thousand strong, with his large Spanish contingent. Sure enough, later that same day our patrols met up with outriders of the Fifth, exchanging greetings and providing guides to bring our fellow legionnaires to camp alongside us.

            ‘Look at those magnificent bastards’, grunted Mattias with admiration, leaning on his shield. And indeed, they were a sight: as straight as the javelins they carried, armour polished to a glittering, almost blinding shine, trumpets sounding and the noise of thousands of hob-nailed feet filling the air around us as they approached. Dust, masses of it, billowing behind them. On a fine white mare, Publius Cornelius Scipio, surrounded by his bodyguard, led his troops into camp. He dismounted, embraced his brother, and while a squire took his horse to the stables, the two men disappeared into the headquarters tent for a council of war. As the men of the Fifth fell out of marching formation, some spotted comrades amongst our ranks, offering gifts, news, and clasped hands; sergeants and corporals looked on indulgently for a while before chivvying the men to their assigned areas and tasking them with preparing their marching camp for the night. As dusk fell, smoke from thousands of cooking fires scented the sky, and sentries took up positions and listening posts left our lines to settle down for the night, carrying precooked rations and skins of wine and water.

            After supper, feeling content that for once the sergeant had spared me night sentry duty, I was preparing to call it a night when a familiar voice sounded from behind me.

            ‘By the gods! Marcus!’

            I spun around, a grin appearing on my face.

            ‘Quintus!’ Gone was the young freckled boy from training at Arretium, who had jumped up, tight as a beanpole, nervously answering the roach’s questions. Here was a man who had put on muscle, and whose freckles had faded. There was a hardness in his face that his smile tried to conceal. I clasped his arm in mine. ‘It’s good to see you’, I said. ‘You remember this asshole, don’t you?’

            Quintus greeted Mattias with a laugh. ‘I am glad to see you both still alive. What news?’

            I told Quintus of my first blood during the failed night ambush, the days of tedium in camp, the endless drills, and our push now towards Saguntum. In return, he told us of his own months since arriving from Pisae.

            ‘We’ve had a rough time of it with the Fifth. We campaigned to the west of here, and we’ve seen plenty of action. But the main problem was with our so-called allies, the bloody Spaniards. My friends, you need to watch yourselves; you can’t trust them.’ He grasped the skin of wine I offered him, taking a deep pull and then passing it back.

            ‘We were on one operation, a sweep of a miserable patch of countryside sprinkled with small villages and a couple of towns. Full of sullen people. We found caches of weapons in some, and our officers ordered us to confiscate the stuff and be done with it.

            ‘As we marched out of one of these shitholes, we heard a commotion behind us. The women had been grouped together in the square by our Spanish militia leader, and he was handing them out to his men. They were being taken into hovels, and well…’ He stopped, looking uncomfortable, and beckoned for the wine again.         ‘It was just a company sweep, so our highest ranker was a centurion. But junior, too, fresh from Pisae. He tried to stop it, but the militia leader, a Spanish brute with a scarred face and one ear missing called Edobo, bullied him into submission. I mean, here was a commissioned officer of the Roman bloody army, entrusted to his sacred duty by none other than the Senate and the people of Rome, giving in to a filthy Spaniard.’ He spat in the dirt.

            ‘Of course, our sergeants weren’t having any of that. They immediately intervened, punching Edobo to the ground and protecting their officer. Edobo’s men turned hostile, drew their blades. And that’s when the killing began. There was no choice, really. We’re not barbarians, and none of us could believe that the Spaniards would do something like that to their own village folk.

            ‘It was a massacre. There were forty of them, eighty of us. Edobo was strung up from a tree and left there to rot. The villagers were safe, and their womenfolk sobbed at our feet. We gave them some of our rations, our medics patched up what complaints they could, and then we continued our sweep, sending a fast messenger back to headquarters with our centurion’s report, such as he could make it, he was shaking so much from anger and humiliation and could barely keep the stylus straight on the tablet.’ He looked us both hard in the eyes, and took another deep pull from the wine, and then handed the skin to Mattias.

            ‘Two weeks later, we had finished our patrol and were running low on food and water. Our officer kinked our route home a little to check on the village. It was gone—and I mean, utterly fucking vaporised. Burned to the ground. Dead bodies everywhere. Edobo’s body had disappeared, and in his place was the body of our messenger. He never made it through to headquarters. His cock was cut off and stuck in his mouth, his nose cut off, no ears, no fingers, no toes. His intestines draped the tree behind him. The wax tablet with the message was affixed to his chest with a dagger. I tell you friends, you have to watch these shits. They’ll knife you in the back the minute you cross them. And don’t be fooled by the villagers, either. One of our men died after eating food given to him by a well-wishing grandmother during another operation. Less than an hour after his meal, we found him, rigid, foam around his mouth, his breeches soiled.’ He looked down.

            We sat in an uncomfortable silence for a few moments. Mattias opened his mouth to tell Quintus of our own experiences with Tarro, his loyalty and courage, but I waved him off, instead, indicating that he should pass the wine back to Quintus.

            ‘Well’, said Mattias instead, standing up. ‘I need a piss.’ And with that he walked off away from the fire.

            ‘A rough time indeed, Quintus’, I said, ‘but your honour is intact. You did what was necessary to protect your comrades, your sergeants, and your officer. And you did right by the village and their women folk. Imagine if that had taken place in Italy, what would you have done? Strung the bastards up, no trial, perhaps not even if they were Roman citizens. It was they who brought death to the village, not you.’

Quintus nodded reluctantly, and then stood, hearing the change of watch trumpeted from the Fifth’s lines.

            ‘Our sergeant told us that battle is likely tomorrow. Hasdrubal and his army are nearby. It’s time for some payback.’ We clasped arms again, and he was gone.

            Caelia, who had flitted from the mess after her shift, found her way to my tent, pushing me over in my bunk and lying down next to me. I stroked her hair, and we held each other warmly, chatting about what tomorrow might bring. Mattias returned, and damped down the fire, leaving just a few embers for warmth.

            ‘Enjoy your sleep, shithead’, he said, with a grimace, and then grinned.

‘Pardon my language, my lady’, he said, offering a mock bow after spying Caelia, who kissed me, winked at Mattias, and then disappeared from the tent.

Mattias was pulling sentry duty in the middle of the night. Poor bastard. I lay down by the fire, head on my ruck, blanket wrapped around me, and drifted into a disturbed, wine-addled sleep, in which murdered villagers and a desecrated messenger danced macabrely through my dreams. 

Next Chapter: Chapter Five - Hasdrubal