122 A.D.: Flesh

A corpse: tattered flesh; dead, discarded – just a broken piece of human meat lying there in the mashed, half-frozen mud. The rags that cover it are stained and caked in what could be blood or ruddy water. Or both. There is little left of the face; just a pale strip of skin, smashed in between clots of wet, dark hair and a deep gash eaten by gore beneath the chin.

Nothing moves, now. After the clamor of the battle and the smell of death, the wet, panting bodies of those left alive turned their backs and walked away, victorious and wretched. In the night the armors of the dead were ripped off their bodies and taken away. Now these corpses are strewn on the field in the cold morning – like broken dolls – sleeping on pillows of raw earth, in crimson puddles of human fluids, shed or spewed.

Suddenly, a big, black bird soars down and lands on the corpse’s bloated chest. It pecks at the hardened flesh exposed at the neck for a while, tearing away frozen reddish-brown flecks. Unsatisfied, it claws its way closer to the face, tiny talons leaving broken scratches in the waxy skin, and starts to stab the corpse's head with renewed vigor. The bird wants to pluck out an eyeball and eat it.

***

Thirty-six hours before, this corpse is a living, breathing human being – though not much less ugly than the corpse he will become. He sits in a darkened corner of the tent, looking about coldly. His face, burnished and weatherworn by days spent outside, is slashed from the upper lip to his cheek by a terrible, pale scar, which gives his mouth a constant sneer. His name is Scabius. He is half-revered and half-hated among the men of the legion, and feared by all of them.

The tent is mostly quiet, with groups of two or three men drinking and talking in hushed tones. Then, Antonine enters the tent with some other men. They are drunk, and loud, and expect to get louder and drunker still. They sit at a table in the center of the tent and laugh and shout. There will be a battle tomorrow, and the men are scared out of their wits – you have to deal with it one way or another.

Scabius is annoyed by the rambunctious group, and does not conceal it. After a particularly bawdy joke, which climaxes in much bellowing laughter, thigh-slapping, and vulgar hand motions, Scabius has had enough. He yells; a frightful, blood-freezing groan – like that of some famished, half-crazed animal – and sends a goblet shattering on the ground.

“What’s wrong with you, Scabius?” Antonin asks. “You can join us here, if you want – if you improve your mood that is. Is that what’s troubling you?”

“That is not what troubles me.” Scabius stares at Antonine, eyes locked on his, a glacial stare – the stare of a madman; of a murder. “What troubles me is that there will be a battle tomorrow, and all you do is drink, and laugh like stupid swine, dishonoring your duty, and preparing yourself to be unfit to fight tomorrow. If you wish to be butchered like a pig, so be it, but I will not be dishonored on the battlefield because of you!”

“Scabius, we have come here to relax before the battle and talk of things other than death. I would never dishonor my duty or my legion. If we bother you here in your meditations, so be it, we will leave and let you ponder on dark things while we enjoy ourselves while we can!”

And so Antonine gets up, urging his men to do the same, and prepares himself to leave without more trouble. But Scabius will not have this. Anger flashes in his mind, his heartbeat pulses loudly in his ears, a deafening rage takes hold of him.

“How dare you turn your back on me!”

Kicking aside table, chair, and restraint, he approaches Antonine from the back and strikes him hard with his fist on the nape of the neck.

A fight eruptes, of course. Nothing abnormal before a big battle, just a drunken bar brawl. The palpable tension needs to escape somehow, and everyone joins in. Whoever hears the low-pitched grunts and thick sounds of fist and flesh comes thrashing into the tent to send and receive a blow or two.

It could have been just that: a harmless, almost friendly fight, ending with the men bruised but relaxed, sent to bed cold-headed before the big day ahead. But it did not end so simply.