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Hello. This was part of a creative writing assignment I had, but also a segment of a larger issue concerning social commentary on ancient history and sexuality.
Enjoy!
Scaevola is dead.
The Pict responsible is also dead, but not by my blade. Vitrum is smeared across his grimacing face. Laelius is behind me, quietly blocking us from view. The sun is slowly peering over the horizon, setting the light snowfall aflame.
"Was it you?"
"Yes, sir." He shifts closer and gazes at my optio. The distinctive black and white crest marking Scaevola's rank flutters in the wind.
There is an eerie life-like quality to him. He regards the sky with unblinking calm. He has only been dead for a few minutes and it gives his face a newborn's innocence.
I hate this man. His patrician blood smells of Rome and corruption. In these times the one is easily exchanged for the other, but it feels strange to exist in a world where he does not.
Our roles should be reversed. I am a centurion. I have a place in the first ranks to engage our enemies. He is always at the back searching for deserters. It is a suitable arrangement. It is fitting. He was terrified of dying.
"Sir, what are your orders?" Laelius' voice is deep and whispering.
It takes an age to understand him. "Bury the dead. I will not have rot and disease so close to camp."
He nods. "What of the officers?"
Scaevola stares at the sky, snowflakes gather in his eyelashes. His voice taunts me. "For Caesar. Imagine all this, after all this time, for a dead man."
"Bury him," I repeat and turn away.
The march back to our fortified camp is short and surreal. I give orders as I have for years, but it is jarring when I turn and Scaevola is not there.
After the men are given tasks or permission to leave Tribune Picus emerges from his tent and claps my shoulder. "Well done," he says. "I have never commanded a better man, Aulus."
He has never commanded, but arguing is not important. I must find another optio. I mutter an excuse and he seems to understand.
I dislike these upheavals. It is a bothersome task deciding who fills the empty air at my side. Laelius is an obvious choice. His skills in battle are not extraordinary, but he is a practical man. He is respected, worthy of my position when I am dead or promoted.
Instead of supervising drills I walk to my tent. It has been a hard day, hard won, but the sun is up and the Celt in me will not sleep. No matter. My bones ache in cold weather. I am not old, but my body reminds me I am not young either.
I duck beneath the tent flap and close it behind me. Scaevola has been here. He has moved my things.
I sigh and begin the arduous process of stripping my armour. Something catches my eye and I glance over my shoulder. His wax tablet is on my table. One of his machinations cut short.
Scaevola is the only one audacious enough to come here without permission. This is his way of rebuking me for some mean-minded thing I have ordered him to do. The writing is neat compared to my self-taught lettering. He received many years of schooling before the army, apparently. I never did ask why his father forced him to fight on Britannia's frontiers. He is a politician not a soldier.
He is dead.
Ah.
I shrug off my antiquated chain-mail. This lapsing will become a nuisance. I unbuckle my helmet. It gleams dully in my hands and distorts my reflection. It is repelling. I look away, afflicted by something unsuitable for a Roman.
I should not have ordered Laelius to bury him. He wanted to be burned. He was obsessed with the idea. He claimed being eaten by worms in foreign soil was worse than being dead and buried. How did I forget that?
The chair creaks when I sit down. I grasp Scaevola's wax tablet from its resting place and read it. There is a litter of mundane things, the routines of army life. This is the last of him. His final order is to choose a new password. Catamite is wryly scrawled underneath. An unsavoury nickname I gave him in a fit of irritation.
The wind outside is becoming stronger. I should consult the other optios while the weather is tolerable. My body disagrees. Exhaustion sets in. I do not fight it.
Scaevola once said Rome was the centre of the world, the pinnacle of civilization.
I have never been there.
Pict/i: a member of a Northern confederation of tribes based in Scotland, means "painted/tattooed people." Picti comes from pingere - to paint.
Vitrum: the blue substance Picts used to paint themselves. It has linked to the Woad plant, but is probably a blue-green grass. Woad doesn't behave well as a skin pigment.
Catamite: the younger member in a pederastic relationship, but can also be used to insult another's masculinity. Same sex relations, especially between an older man and a boy, was deemed a "Greek thing" until Rome became an empire. Acceptance of homosexuality varied between provinces. It should also be noted the Celtic peoples were also involved in homosexual practices.
