Eagle's Honour by Rosemary Sutcliff Read Free Book Online

one where it came down to the eastern plain. That way, there was no risk of the tribes swarming down unchecked to take us in the rear or cut our supply lines after we had passed by.

    We got sullen-sick of fort building, all over again, yes; especially with our shoulder-blades always on the twitch for an arrow between them. The Ninth wintered at Inchtuthil, the biggest of the forts. The place was not finished, but we sat in the middle and went on building it round us, which is never a very comfortable state of things, in enemy country. We lost a lot of men in one way and another; and the old ugly talk of the Ninth being an unlucky Legion woke up and began to drift round again. It might have been better if the Legate had not had a convenient bout of stomach trouble and gone south to winter in Corstopitum. I didn’t envy Senior Centurion Dexius left in command. It was our third winter in the wilds, and we were sick of snow and hill mists, and the painted devils sniping at us from behind every gorse-bush; and we wanted to be able to drink with our friends in a wineshop, and walk twenty paces without wondering what was coming up behind us. And we cursed the Legate for being comfortable in Corstopitum, and grew to hate the sight of each other’s faces.

    I began to smell trouble coming, sure as acorns grow on oak trees.
    And then one day when we had almost won through to spring, some of the men broke into the wine store and were found drunk on watch. They were put under guard, ready to be brought up before the Senior Centurion next day. And everyone knew what that meant – He’d have been within his rights to order the death penalty; but being Daddy Dexius, who could be relied on to be soft in such matters, they would probably get off with a flogging. Even so, it would be the kind of flogging that spreads a man flat on his face in the sick block for three days afterwards.
    All the rest of that day you could feel the trouble like nearing thunder prickling the back of your neck. And in the middle of supper, it came. Being the Eagle Bearer, I ate in the Centurions’ mess-hall, though in the lowest place there, next to the door; and I hadn’t long sat down when the noise began.
    It wasn’t particularly loud, but there was anugly note to it; a snarling note; ‘Come on, lads, let’s get the prisoners out!’ and other voices taking up the cry.

    I remember Dexius’s face as he got up and strode past me to the door; and suddenly knowing that we had all been quite wrong about him; that he wasn’t soft at all. – More the kind of man who gets a reputation for being good-tempered and fair-game, because he knows that if he once lets his temper go and hits somebody he probably won’t leave off till he’s killed them.
    I had only just started my supper, so I snatched a hard-boiled duck’s egg from a bowl on the table and shoved it down the front of my uniform, and dashed out with the rest.
    Outside on the parade-ground a crowd was gathering. Some of them had makeshift torches. The flare of them was teased by the thin wind that was blowing, and their light fell ragged on faces that were sullen and dangerous. Vipsanius the duty centurion was trying to deal with the situation, but he didn’t seem to be having much success, and the crowd was getting bigger every moment.
    Daddy Dexius said coolly, ‘What goes on here, Centurion?’
    ‘They’re refusing to go on watch, Sir,’ saidVipsanius. I mind he was sweating up a bit, despite the edge to the wind.

    ‘We’ve had enough of going on watch in this dog-hole, night after filthy night!’ someone shouted.
    And his mates backed him up. ‘How much longer are we going to squat here, making a free target of ourselves for the blue painted barbarians?’
    ‘If Agricola wants to fight them, why doesn’t he come up and get things going?’
    ‘Otherwise why don’t we get out of here and go back where we came from?’
    Men began shouting from all over the crowd, bringing up all the