“It’s the rest of the bodyguards coming in,” he said, indicating the line of armored toad-things. When the file-closer’s eyes followed the gesture the tribune was able to quickly rub his chest where it ached. “Only half of them were here before. These must be the ones, you know, keeping an eye on things with the Medic.”
They had entered the gallery by a side door near the front rather than marching all the way through the assembly. Nothing surprising about that. The fact that the previously-hidden portal had opened without the sparkle of light which accompanied the Commander’s entry was just another datum, another scrap of information that might someday help Vibulenus again understand the world as clearly as he had until — he entered the here and now in which he had just started to live.
“Hercules!” he gasped as he saw what his eyes had been receiving while his mind dealt with other things. “They’ve got Rufus and Niger!”
“By Death and Hades. . . ,” muttered Clodius Afer in a voice without emotion.
Vibulenus did not notice the file-closer’s arms move; in fact, he noticed nothing but his one-time schoolmates, each of them gripped by the elbows in the articulated iron gloves of two bodyguards. When the tribune’s legs thrust him forward, toward the creatures who held his men, Clodius Afer’s hands anchored him as solidly as they had lifted Vibulenus for a look only moments before.
“Now just hold on,” said the file-closer in a voice that was soothing despite its raspy tone because it was totally controlled. “Let’s see what’s happening before we decide we’re what’s happening ourselves.”
“Do not be concerned,” the Commander’s voice said coolly. “You will believe the evidence of your fellows where you would not accept another sort of demonstration.”
In the instant before his reasoning mind took over again, Vibulenus would have lashed out with his fists and elbows to free himself if Clodius Afer had not dealt too often with men driven by a single emotion — hate or fear or fury — to give the younger man that play: His bear hug enwrapped the tribune’s forearms so that Vibulenus’ thrashing had no physical effect. The tribune’s blood pressure shot up momentarily, and the crystal matrix in which he saw the Pompilii cousins became a blood-red haze.
But that passed: Clodius was right as well as being incomparably stronger, and the Commander was — in charge.
When he relaxed, Vibulenus saw the Pompilii were not being severely treated by the guards who had stepped out of the wall behind the foremost legionaries, grabbing the cousins as the two closest Romans before the men realized what was happening. For a moment, Rufus lifted both his feet and was carried, without slowing or otherwise affecting what the toad-things were doing with him.
Vibulenus noticed also that no Roman but himself seemed to have tried to rescue the cousins. Maybe they all had cold common sense like Clodius; maybe nobody knew the boys; and maybe Gaius Vibulenus Caper was a bigger fool than he’d felt since blubbering in fear while Parthian arrows whistled down. At least he knew this time that he was proud of his instinct — and that the file-closer’s judgment had kept that instinct from getting him killed.
“Now what, by the Mother’s tits,” said Clodius Afer, releasing the tribune but not so completely that his hands did not hover near enough to regain their previous grip, “are they doing with a shield?”
The ten bodyguards marched with stiff deliberation to join their fellows already standing in front of the bulkhead. They clumped along two by two, the leading pairs carrying Niger and Rufus; and one of the last pair carried a shield, just as the file-closer had said.
It seemed to be an ordinary legionary’s seutum of leather-covered plywood, twice as high as it was wide and slightly convex on the side toward the enemy. The rim was bound with bronze strips, and there was a rectangular boss of the same metal bulging out sharply to give room for the hand of the man carrying it.
Neither the boss nor the shield-facing had any of the fancy work, heraldic engraving and appliqued geometric designs, which distinguished the equipment Crassus’ army carried into Parthia. Structurally the shield appeared to be the same, and the way Niger’s arms flexed when the guard handed it to him showed that the piece was of at least the usual weight.