Let him try again. Let him know what it feels like. And then, please all the gods, let him succeed. The equivalent of a patrician tribune would be a formidable ally, especially if they were sent on eastward to the capital of Ch’ang-an. Some of them, he was sure, would indeed be sent in just the same way as Crassus and the other proconsuls pillaged the eastern provinces for exotic goods and noble hostages. But who would be among them? Lucilius, if he had his way. Arsaces, perhaps: He was useful with beasts and could be serviceable during the march as well as a translator. Himself? He was only commander by default. Perhaps it was time to turn command over to Lucilius, if he could accomplish anything with it. And then, perhaps, Quintus could stay here with those of the Romans who were not sent on ahead. He might even get to work this stubborn land.
In a way, it would be little different from the fates of his brother Legionaries at Merv—save that here, perhaps, they would have at least a chance at a kind of freedom. And land. Certainly, it was dry, but there was water here. Otherwise, there would be no fields and no poplars. What a cohort or so of Romans, working together, might build … aqueducts soaring in the Italian hills flickered in his mind’s eye. His head felt as if his brains were boiling under his turban. And beneath his tunic gathered the familiar power of his talisman.
Danger here? Or was it forgetfulness? Folly to dream of land and a future, even as bleak and isolated a one as Su-le, for himself and his followers. Draupadi rode past, and the talisman heated again. Oh gods, she would be sent on, and he could not let her go alone. Not after what he had vowed.
The Ch’in guards closed in around here. A look from Ssu-ma Chao was all the apology he was going to get: the Ch’in officer was a man with two masters to obey now.
The gates of Kashgar opened to engulf them. For an instant, the walls’ shadow swallowed them—an instant of blessed coolness and darkness. Then they passed through the stockade into the town itself. Above them on the walls, guards stood prepared.
“Alert,” Rufus commented. “Maybe too much so?”
The Ch’in soldiers did have the too-tense look of men who constantly await attack: from what direction or enemy they do not know. You could see that in Li Liang-li: arrogant, high-handed, still ready to jump at shadows with deadly force. Men did that—from the merest recruit to proconsuls in their glory—when they were afraid. And judging from what Quintus had seen, this was a town, a region, a land that had right to be afraid.
Harness jingled amid the cries of sullen, weary beasts that scented water and an end to toil not far ahead. For the first time in months, the clamor of a town enveloped them. Food that was not dried or seared over a dung fire—Quintus’s mouth watered. Best not think of it; after all, prisoners’ rations might not bear thinking on. And he had no money. Certainly he had none for extra food. And—a more painful thought—he had no coin for even the type of gift that a client, back in Rome, was able to buy for a woman.
A camel snaked out her neck. The foul-breathed jaws snapped. Quintus recognized that beast, as he would have known what it bore if he had seen it in Hades. The Eagle. Relax, he told himself. You are worn out. The gates are shut, and even if that camel breaks loose, it’s not going anywhere.
Clearly, the soldiers on the wall agreed that for now, the threat was past. They relaxed minutely, no longer considering themselves to be under immediate danger of attack. One or two men who seemed to be off-duty pointed and laughed at the angry beast, which was plunging and snapping in a very determined attempt to live down to camels’ reputation for terrible dispositions.
Except that in all the time the beast had been part of the caravan, it had never once spit on or lunged at any of its drivers. That was one reason it had been selected to bear the Eagle sent on before. It had even been the subject of some jokes, though its driver had been much envied. Now it moaned, snapped, and tried to break free, lashing out at the men who dodged and attempted to restrain it. One man went sprawling. He rolled fast, seeking to dodge the beast.
“If that were a dog, I’d swear it was mad,” Rufus commented. “About time they brought it under control.”
Some of the others thought that way, too. Arsaces was a horseman, but even as he approached the maddened camel, hands out, a man in a mottled robe brought a staff down on the Persian’s back. A moment later, he rolled beneath the camel’s feet. Even in the noise of the square, Quintus heard the snap of bone. Arsaces’s face was bloody and scraped. His neck hung twisted at an impossible angle.
My sword! Damn, I knew this was folly!
Where had Arsaces’s damned mount gotten itself to? Ah, there! When Quintus swerved to try to seek out the man who had struck the guide down, he had vanished into the crowd. Get the sword, in case he comes back. But a soldier with a drawn sword barred his way.
How did you avenge a comrade on a camel? A Persian, Arsaces was, but he had served the Legions well, with a loyalty exceeding anything they might have expected from a man of the East. Hard to believe that energy was stilled. What folly had prompted Quintus to go unarmed?
Again, the beast plunged and twisted. Its pack started to slip to one side as the girths of its packsaddle weakened. There was that murderer once more! His staff cracked down, this time on the camel’s back. Again, the beast lunged. Its saddle jolted farther to the side. Straps snapped, and it fell. So carefully wrapped was the Eagle that Quintus could not hear the clang of metal striking earth. The staff lashed out again, a final blow. With a grunt, as if all the air in its body had been forced from its lungs at once, the beast collapsed on top of Arsaces.
Now the thief and killer in a mottled robe boldly snatched for the roll of fabric that was the Eagle of Rome.
“Get him!”
“Shoot!”
“Kill that thief!”
The man in desert robes had snatched up the pack and hauled it across his back. He swung about, desperately seeking a road of escape. Perhaps he might have made it, had the Romans not been there, had the thing he sought to steal been anything but a Legion’s Eagle. But if the Romans’ way was blocked, so was his.
The thief’s eyes were black, yet they shone strangely in sockets blackened against the sun. His face—Quintus had seen that elegance of feature before, and that supple length of limb—on Draupadi. This ragged, murderous thief looked enough like her to be close kin.
Ssu-ma Chao beckoned his men aside. After all, it wasn’t as if the Romans were going anywhere out of town, either. Might as well let them take out the thief. He held his staff out before him.
This murderer had the Eagle, and their way to him was clear!
Quintus hurled himself forward, even as Draupadi cried his name—his or Arjuna’s—he no longer cared. All he knew was that no one, no one at all, must be allowed to kill a comrade and steal a pack, least of all when it held the Eagle of the Legion.
He shouted in sheer rage. The man in the shabby robes could escape! Now he was heading toward the gates, but they were shut, blocked by the Ch’in as well as the Romans. Quintus moved into the thief’s path. He raised his staff.
“For all the gods’ sake! Give me a sword!” he cried. The idea that he might be perceived as begging the Ch’in for the order they should keep in one of their frontier cities enraged him. “Get him!”
“Men of Ta’Chin!” Ssu-ma Chao shouted. Drawing his own sword, he tossed it at Quintus. It glinted as it flew, catching the flash of the hot sun; the Roman caught it in time to bring it up against the thief’s staff.
The staff hit the borrowed blade with a ring of two blades clashing. The force of that clash rocked Quintus. Heat flowed up the sword he held into its hilt, from its hilt up his arm, into his body. Flames shot from the sword, wreathing about his enemy. The man swung his staff so that it whistled with the force that sent it passing through the air. Once more came the ring of metal against metal.