Oh, when I joined the Eagles, as it might be yesterday,
I kissed a girl at Clusium before I marched away.
A long march, a long march and 20 years in store.
When I left my girl in Clusium beside the threshing floor.
Your orders have been carried out, sir.
The village has been burned and the standing crops destroyed.
Plough salt into the fields.
Aulus.
It looks as if you haven't been to bed for a month.
Not quite as long as that.
- How long? - A few days.
Seems like years. The relief force got through?
Yes, yes.
400 men, the best part of a cohort of the Legion, from Durinum.
I must see Centurion Drusillus and the relief force Commander.
Maybe presently.
If you lie still.
Not presently, Aulus. No, it's an order.
I'm still in command of this gar...!
Oh, my leg! What's happened to my leg?
There, there.
Now you've made it worse.
That's because you didn't lie still as I bade you.
Best drink this. It'll do you good.
Sir?
Centurion Aquila has regained consciousness and requests to see you.
He shall, in time.
How badly wounded is your Commander?
His leg is severely injured, but let him be patient. It may carry him well enough, one day.
- One day? When? -Not for a long time.
I couldn't say how long.
One cannot smash a thigh bone and tear muscles to shreds
and then expect everything to be as it was before.
I see.
- What became of the holy man? - Gone to meet his own god, sir.
Caught between the relief forces and ourselves.
Many of his own tribe went with him.
And the charioteer, Cradoc?
Dead, as we thought you were, when we pulled you from the wreckage.
Centurion Clodius Maximus, Second Legion.
I would have come to see you before, Commander, but I had matters to attend to.
Still, everything is now under control.
The enemy are dead, captive or dispersed.
Their villages are in ashes, their fields destroyed.
Order has been restored.
Yes, order.
You knew their leader, I'm told?
We hunted together. I liked him and I thought the liking was returned.
These people are treacherous. He betrayed you, as they all would.
I felt bitterness towards them at first.
Now I understand that he didn't break faith.
There was simply another greater faith that he had to keep.
- Well, that's all over now. - Yes. Your relief force arrived quickly.
I was taking troops up to Isca Silurum when your distress signal reached us in Durinum
and I was deflected to answer it.
I intend to resume my interrupted march tomorrow.
- My garrison 's taken heavy loses. - I'm aware of that.
I'm leaving two Centuries to bring it up to strength.
I'm also leaving my Centurion to take charge.
He will be in command until your relief can be sent from Isca.
Whoever that is no doubt he will bring fresh drafts of auxiliaries with him.
My second in command, Drusillus, is an experienced officer.
But an auxiliary, and a Legionary Centurion outranks an auxiliary.
I'm aware of that, sir!
I'm also aware, until otherwise decided, I am in command of this fort!
I doubt that decision will be long delayed if what your surgeon tells me is true.
I'm afraid, Centurion, that your service with the Eagles is over.
So It's farewell to everything.
Life with the Eagles, hope, ambition.
I can never become the Prefect of an Egyptian Legion.
I can never buy back my father's farm In the Etruscan hills.
Having a breath of fresh air, sir?
Having a last look, Drusillus.
I'm off to Calleva tomorrow to my Uncle Aquila, carried in a litter.
Yes, I know.
How do you find your new Commander?
Oh... Well enough.
The replacements he brought with him are good lads.
Two Centuries of the Third. Gauls, like the rest.
I'm told they've been up north on the wall laying stone courses
and exchanging the odd arrow with the painted people?
If they can give as good an account as themselves in action
as your raw Fourth has done, they'll have no need to feel themselves disgraced.
I don't think they'll have any more trouble in these parts. Centurion Maximus saw to that.
Wattle and daub huts are easily rebuilt.
Salted fields will bear again in three years,
but not all the time in eternity will bring back the young men of the tribe.
I gathered you didn't take warmly to Centurion Maximus?
I did not.
You might feel yourself more friendly dispersed to him
if the rumour about the report he made to headquarters is true.
He didn't seem the type to make enthusiastic reports.
Well, there's talk of some trifle.
Say a gilded laurel wreath,
to make the standard of the Fourth Gaulish look pretty when it goes on parade.
If anything more than talk comes of it,
I'd like to know if the cohort won its first honours under my command.
- I'll send word, sir. - To Calleva.
Uncle, in all the months I've been here we've never once discussed the future.
- We must discuss it sometime. - Sometime, yes, but not now.
No need to trouble about the future until that leg of yours will carry you.
Mithras knows how long that'll take.
I can't go on foisting myself on you indefinitely.
My good lad, do try not be such a fool.
I'm not a rich man, but neither am I so poor
that I can't afford to add a kinsman to my household.
And you do play a reasonably good game of drafts.
So, that being settled, let's play, shall we?
- Your mind's not on the game. -No, no, I'm sorry.
It's difficult on this night of all nights.
The eve of the birth of Mithras.
In camps and forts, wherever the Eagles fly, men will soon be gathering to his worship.
I long for the old life, the old comradeship, to be given back to me.
I understand, Marcus.
Uncle, whatever possessed you to settle in Britain when you could have gone home?
On a night like this it seems past believing,
but I have nothing to take me back.
I was a young man when I first saw the white cliffs above the transport galley's prow.
I made friends here, a few.
The only girl I ever cared for lies buried at Glevum.
- I never knew. - Why should you?
But I wasn't always old Uncle Aquila with the grey hair.
Oh, she was very pretty. The camp commandant's daughter.
She was 1 8 when she died.
I was 22.
I've marched with the Eagles from end to end of Britain.
I've sworn blood brotherhood with a painted tribesman
up above where Hadrian 's Wall stands now.
I've loved a girl at Glevum.
Such precious things.
They go to make roots for a man.
- I think I begin to understand. - Good.
Your move.
Oh! What an autumnal mood we've wandered into. We need livening up, you and I.
What do you suggest?
Our Saturnalia Games can't compare with the Colosseum, of course,
but it should be quite a reasonable show, I think.
I believe there's going to be a bear fight and the usual gladiators, of course,
and some wrestling.
A fellow Magistrate of mine, name of Kaeso and his wife, Valaria.
- They're our next door neighbours. - But that'd be surely no daughter of theirs?
For a small colonial circus, they seem rather a good lot.
Too good maybe. They're probably all slaves.
Well, I like to see a wild beast show or even a sham fight if it's well done,
but to put men to fight to the death for the crowd's amusement,
even slaves,
seems to me a waste.
- This is what they've waited for. - A sham fight?
No, no, a fight to the death.
Never did like the net, not a clean fight.
No! Thumbs up!
Thumbs up!
Thumbs up, you fools! Thumbs up!
Thumbs up! Thumbs up!
Thumbs up!
Thumbs up! Thumbs up!
Thumbs up!
- What'll become of that lad now? - The young fool of a swordsmen?
He'll be sold, in all likelihood.
The crowd don't pay to see a man fight once he's been down and at their mercy.
That's what I've been thinking.
Oh! Jupiter!
- Would 1,500 sesterces buy him? - Probably.
You're not thinking of buying him yourself, are you?
- That's all the money you have in the world. - Would you give him house room?
I expect so.
Though I'm somewhat at a loss to understand why you should want to keep a tame gladiator.
Why not try a wolf instead?
I need a body slave. I can't keep overworking poor old Stephanos.
Send down to the slave master at the circus
and offer half what you expect to pay.
And sleep with a knife under your pillow thereafter.
So... it is you.
Yes, it is I.
Why did you turn the purpose of the crowd? I didn't ask for mercy.
Possibly that is why.
I was afraid. l, who have been a warrior.
I was afraid to choke out my life in the fisher's net.
But still you did not ask for mercy.
Why have you bought me?
I need a body slave.
Surely, the arena is an unusual place to pick one?
I wish for an unusual body slave.
I've been but two years a slave.
And before that you were a warrior.
Your name?
I am Esca, son of Cunoval,
of the tribe of the Brigantes, the bearers of the blue war-shield.
And I am Marcus Flavius Aquila.
I was a Centurion with the Auxiliaries of the Second Legion.
I know.
It would have been easy to escape on my way here.
The old goaty one could not have stopped me.
But I chose to come because it was in my heart that it was you we came to.
And had it been another?
Well, then I should have escaped later,
to the wilds where my clipped ear would not betray me.
There are still free tribes beyond the frontier.
I had this.
And now?
I am the Centurion 's hound, to lie at the Centurion 's feet.
Wolves, they've been giving a lot of trouble of late.
Hunting under the very walls of Calleva.
- Killed a baby, I'm told. - Yes.
A hunt's been organised. I've sent Esca to join it.
Indeed? I'll expect he'll come back.
I've been watching him these past weeks.
He's a very good body slave and quite devoted to you.
Oh, he is. I no longer need a stick now that I have his shoulder to support me.
- How did he come to be in the arena? - I haven't asked him.
There's something about him that warns me such a question would be an intrusion.
Someday he'll tell me freely.
You make him sound more like a friend than a slave.
Perhaps he is?
A wolf cub! How did you get him?
We killed a she-wolf in milk, so we went to look for the whelps.
I saved this one.
And then his sire came.
They're good fathers, the wolf kind. Fierce to protect their young.
It was a good fight. Good fight.
Esca, that was taking a hideous risk. You shouldn't have done.
Sorry.
I forgot it was my master's property that I risked.
Don't be a fool! That's not what I meant.
Esca, what happened?
There was another there when we found the cubs.
A Roman, an officer from the transit camp.
Seeing my clipped ear, he knew me for a slave and said,
"Your master, having paid good money for you,
will not thank you for leaving him with a carcass
he could not even sell to the knacker's yard."
- What was his name? - Placidus.
Tribune Placidus.
And his smile is a sickness in my belly still.
Then curse this Tribune Placidus.
Does his word strike deeper with you than mine?
I have not thought of slave or freeman in my dealings with you,
though you are too proud to do the same for me.
Too proud, do you hear me? And now... Ow!
Now your gift has bitten me.
I've waited a long time for you to look up.
I'm sorry. I was busy with this shield.
May I see the wolf cub?
- I haven't seen a tame one before. - Surely.
But be careful, he's not used to strangers.
- His name is Cub. - Just Cub?
Yes. How did you know about him?
I heard of him about a moon ago.
Didn't believe it at first, but then yesterday I heard one of your slaves call to another.
"Oh, worthless one, my master's wolf whelp has bitten my toe!"
And the other called back, "Then the gods grant that the taste of it will not make him sick."
So I knew it was true.
And it did! At least something did.
Yes, I remember now, I saw you at the Saturnalia Games.
Yes, they say you bought that gladiator.
I wish you could have bought the bear too.
Oh, yes, you minded very badly about the bear, didn't you?
It was cruel.
To kill on the hunting trail, that's one thing,
but they took away his freedom, kept him in a cage and then they killed him.
I don't like cages or nets.
I'm glad you bought the gladiator.
You're cold.
Here, put this on.
This is a soldier's cloak, like the ones the Centurions from the transit camp wear.
You behold in me ex -Centurion Marcus Aquila,
formerly of the Gaulish Auxiliaries of the Second Legion.
I know.
Does your wound hurt you still?
Sometimes.
I've told you my name. What's yours?
My uncle and aunt call me Camilla.
My real name is Cottia.
They like everything to be very Roman, you see.
- And you do not? - l?
I am of the Iceni, so is my Aunt Valaria, though she likes to forget it.
I once drove a chariot team that was descended from the royal stables of the Iceni.
As were my father's stallions.
We are all horse breeders, we of the Iceni, from the king downward.
When we had a king.
My father was killed breaking a young horse.
- That's why I live with my Aunt Valaria now. - Poor Cottia.
You do not like living with your aunt, do you?
I don't like living in a town full of straight lines,
being shut up inside brick walls and being called Camilla.
And I hate it when they try to make me pretend to be a Roman maiden.
Forget my own tribe, my own father.
If it's any conciliation to you, they seem to have succeeded very ill so far.
I will not let them.
I pretend outside my tunic.
I answer when they call me Camilla and I speak to them in Latin.
But underneath my tunic, I am of the Iceni.
And when I take my tunic off at night, I say, "There!
- That rids me of Rome until the morning." - And then?
And then...
I lie on my bed and think,
think about my home.
The marsh birds flighting down from the north in the fall of the leaf.
The brood mares and their foals in my father's runs.
I remember everything I'm not supposed to remember.
I speak to myself inside my head in my own tongue.
I like being inside your cloak. It feels safe and warm,
as a bird must feel inside its own feathers.
Esca, how did you come to be a gladiator in the arena at Calleva?
My father was a clan chieftain of the Brigantes.
Lord of 500 spears.
I was his armour bearer, until such time as I became a warrior in my own right.
With the men of my tribe, that happened after the 16th summer.
When I'd been a year or more a man among men
and my father's charioteer,
the clan rose against our overlords, for the lust for freedom was strong within us.
The Brigantes? You've been a thorn in the flesh of the Legion since they first marched north.
We rose...
and we were beaten back.
We made our last stand in our strong place and we were overwhelmed.
- The men who survived were sold as slaves. - As you were.
I swear before the gods of my people,
before Lugh, the light of the sun, that I was lying for dead in a ditch when they took me.
They'd not of taken me else.
I was bought by a trader from the south who sold me here to the arena in Calleva.
You alone of all your kin?
My father and two brothers died.
My mother also.
My father killed her before the legionaries broke through.
She wished it so.
Mithras, what a story.
It's a common enough story.
Was it so very different at Isca Dumnoniorum, do you suppose?
Nonetheless, doesn't do to remember too closely.
The time before - all the time before -
that is the good time to remember.
What do you recall of these good times?
My warrior's training,
river bathing on hot summer days when the midges danced in the shimmering air.
My father had a great white bull we would garland for the festival.
And I had a tame otter I used to share with me brother.
And I recall my first sight of the Legions.
It was many years ago, when the whole country was in revolt.
I lay behind a boulder to watch a Legion marching north,
a Legion that never came marching back.
I'd never seen such a sight before,
like a shining serpent of men winding across the hills.
A serpent hackled with scarlet cloaks and the crests of the officers.
And I remember how the Eagle flashed in the sun as it came by.
A golden Eagle with its wings arched back,
as I've seen them often stoop upon a screaming hare among the heather.
Ah, but the mist was creeping down from the high moors
and the Legion marched into it.
The Legion marched into it, straight into it.
And it licked them up and flowed together behind them.
And they were gone, as though they'd marched from one world into another.
There were strange tales about that Legion.
Men said it was accursed.
But it looked stronger than any curse.
Stronger and more deadly.
Strange tales there were about that Legion.
Yes, I've heard those tales.
Esca, the Legion you saw was my father's Legion, the Ninth Hispana.
His crest would have been the scarlet hackle just after the Eagle.