Part 3 – Hercules
Polites (II)
Polites felt his sphincter clench as the ominous Publius Postumius glided as quiet as a lost soul into the tent. None in the ranks dared risk the wrath, nor even the mere displeasure, of the legion's senior sergeant, 'the' Tesserarius. The Greek kept from flinching in the instant the veteran's intense gaze passed over him. He noted the only time Publius Postumious paused in his scan of the tent's occupants, before snapping an impeccable salute to the Legatus, was a brief moment on Ser Barristan, who returned the Tesserarius' assessing stare.
After a brief introduction, the Legatus directed the Tesserarius to give the two barbarians a tour of the encampment to prove the martial bona fides of the Legion. Polites translation of Latin into Greek so that the older warrior might understand, made clear the auxiliary slinger would accompany the group as it walked through the castra. Publius Postumius eyes fleetingly glanced at the Tribunus before his cool tenor spoke, "Ita vero," and he saluted his acceptance of the orders.
"Polites," came the soft, dangerous voice; causing the Greek to quiver inside for he'd never guessed the Tesserarius knew his name. "Please ask our honored guests to follow me. Coming here I heard the curses of Titus Sidonius rising over the din of typical stupidity. If we are quick about it, we may still find the Pilus Posterior drilling the Second Cohors' centuria against each other." Without waiting for a response, the Tesserarius strode out of the tent.
The jowly Stag looked unhappy for a moment, then smiled, picked up a nearly full wine ewer, and passed out of the tent too. As the group marched determinedly down a tent lined avenue toward a gate, the Basileus and the Stratigos pointed at many different things and murmured to each other in their strange tongue. Occasionally, the old warrior posed a question in childish, Thracian inbred sounding Greek. "Swords all short" "Armor, no one piece, no arms." "No cart for food." When Polites tried to pass on the words to Publius Postumius, the man kept marching and tonelessly answered, "Later."
The contuberniums guarding the gate, promptly swung it open on the Tesserarius' approach and revealed three centuria, two hundred some odd men, sitting on the ground watching while two other centuria, each in ranked lines, hammered away at each other in earnest practice with scutum and point covered spatha. The gravelly voice of the middle aged Pilus Posterior bellowed a roll call of names; those struck too well by their opponent to continue in line.
Polites, having seen the bloody devastation of the disciplined, relentless thrusts of uncovered Latin blade points from behind the shield wall, silently praised Zeus Pater yet again for sparing him the fate of many a Pict or rebellious Brigantes. However such sage observation did not seem to enlighten the Basileus, who seemed more interested in guzzling wine straight from the ewer and laughing or making loud comments as more and more Legionnaires succumbed to the remorseless referee calls of Titus Sidonius.
Eventually, heads began to turn and look for the source of the overly loud rude cries in an unknown language. Polites wisely edged off to the side, away from any rising tide of anger that might swell up against the barbarians from either Publius Postumius or the entire Second Cohors.
Robert (III)
"Ho!" laughed Robert, before he shouted, "There's another'd be trying to hold his guts back."
"Most strike cunningly from behind their large shields," opined Ser Barristan.
"And for so many being on the runty side, they don't appear tire much, do they? OH! Well struck Ser. Ha! You'd have given him a second smile below his mouth."
"They maintain tight formation. See how quickly one from the back line steps into the place of a fallen comrade."
"Aye. Chew up and spit out any foot levies I ever saw. Awww! C'mon ya bastard, you had him! You had him, but you hesitated. And now you're dead, see?! Fool!" hawked Robert disparagingly at the man-at-arms who's actions he'd just been following.
"But will they stand a charge, your Grace?"
"They'd need spears. Do you see any? Hey! They're stopping. Ask Polites what goes," the King commanded.
Ser Barristan questioned a now nervous translator, who appeared to tremble at the stern glare of the Tesserarius lanced their way.
"He says they think we do not take them seriously."
"What!? Noooo! They were as entertaining as near any melee I ever watched. Top notch stuff."
As words were exchanged in one language, then another, Robert began to smell the mood of the troops gathered on the field and realized he might have put his foot in it somehow. He couldn't understand how though, he was the bluff, gregarious type that men-at-arms adored. 'Damned touchy pricks,' he thought.
His ears pricked up as more confusing gobbledygook sounding words were exchanged; then when the salt and pepper haired fellow who'd been judging the melee cried out "Gladiatores?" in a tone of outrage, many of the soldiers began to shout "Fellator!"
"Calm this all down Barristan."
"I'm trying your Grace."
Now the tough looking bastard who'd walked them out of the camp started speaking, causing the older, graying captain to nod his head, with a smug grin, in agreement.
"Well?" Robert rumbled impatiently.
"The, uhm, cohors, would be honored if the Great Lord would like to fight one of their groups of eight, a, uhm, contubernium."
Robert's eyes narrowed, he definitely had put his foot in it, and they wanted him to pay for it, in bruises at the least. "Well I can't avoid this trap without looking the craven fool, can I?"
"No, your Grace," agreed Ser Barristan unhappily.
Robert shrugged and then grinned broadly. "So I shall pound on them. Ask where I can find a hammer and if I get any helpers."
More incomprehensible consulting followed until the senior leader, Titus Sidonius, shouted something out and his entire band of warriors cheered.
"You may take two men with you, your Grace. They say that three of our kind will likely use as much space as eight of them shield to shield."
Robert's smile curled more wolf-like. "Better take your pretty white cape off Ser Barristan."
"Ah, unfortunately I am not permitted, your Grace."
"What?!"
"The Tesserarius asked me to judge, to ensure the fairness of the melee."
At the news, Robert's turned to gaze at Publius Postumius and saw a wolfish grin staring back at him.
"He says they have no war hammers, but you may use his spatha if you so choose."
"Bah! Colin, Alek!" the King shouted at the more martial of his accompanying retainers, "see if they can guard the edges of your blades. I'll go find my own damn weapons." he then wandered off, examining a few nearby carts and barrels holding entrenching tools. He soon came back carrying nothing more than a mattock and a shovel.
"Tell the poxy bastards I'm ready when they are!" Robert hollered with a hint of amusement in his voice.
Barristan (III)
"Either side of me," commanded the King to his two retainers. "Stop the ends from getting round behind us, and I'll crack the middle like a walnut."
"Your Grace?"
"What?" he growled at the Lord Commander.
"This is no more than a friendly Tourney bout, please don't kill any of them," advised Ser Barristan.
"Of course not, do you take me for a fool!?"
"No, your Grace."
Eight Romans, each wearing scaled armor and carrying a large shield, stood together tightly in a short line. The several hundred other troops of their cohors stood well back in a hodgepodge of lines that took the general shape of a 'U' so that all could watch the coming confrontation while giving plenty of space for the mock combat.
As King Robert approached the formation of overlapping shields, he called out, "What's the damn signal to start?"
"Polites, how does this begin?" the Lord Commander asked in Pentos accented Free Cities Valyrian.
The translator pointed at a man with a horn and said, "Buccinator."
"When the horn blows, your Grace," replied Ser Barristan. "Is the … contubernium? … ready, Polites?" The question prompted a brief conversation between the slinger, the dangerous Tesserarius, the middle aged Pilus Posterior,and the horn blower.
The Tesserarius, Publius Postumius, stepped next to Ser Barristan, and in Free Cities Valyrian even more atrocious than Polites, said with a grin, "Men ready. Raise hand, drop hand, horn blows, fight."
Ser Barristan hid his surprise at the Tesserarius revealing his language ability and immediately decided to see what else the light moving, steady armed, ice gray eyed Roman might disclose. "Who wins?"
"Rex," he replied, but wobbled a hand back and forth to show he did not necessarily think it a certainty. "Warrior once. True battle, fat man dead. centuria fight so," and Publius now gestured with both hands to represent lines of men. "Kill one, two, three, four; then …" and he poked with his fingers to show multiple stabs coming from every direction. "Go, start."
The Lord Commander nodded his head and raised a hand; as it started to drop, the horn pealed and Robert Baratheon rushed straight at the middle of the line of Romans. Scutas and spathas raised in response, and the line of eight took a step forward too, but the Stag pulled up just short of them and swung his shovel along their front, causing loud clangs as it bounced across shield faces and touched blades.
The Tesserarius distracted Ser Barristan by tapping on his breast plate. "All one?"
"Yes," he answered, trying to keep his attention fully on the action he had been 'volunteered' to judge.
Tap, tap, tap. "Back metal, yes?"
Ser Barristan absent mindedly lifted his white cape enough to reveal the full length back plate to the Roman.
While the Stag danced back and forth, trying to draw a soldier from out behind the short shield wall; his retainers took defensive poses on either side of their King, giving him ample space to work, while only half heartedly keeping the soldiers in front of them engaged by rather lack luster feints and the occasional shout.
"Fight horse? Not foot?"
"Horse."
"How? Sword? Arrow?"
In unison the entire line of eight took another step forward, each shield edge staying in near contact with its neighbor, swords licking out, looking to take a bite. The King hopped back, but never took his eyes off them, searching for any sort of gap to open for even a second that he could exploit.
"Yes, yes; and lance."
"Lance?"
"Long spear," and Ser Barristan quickly posed how he would hold one at the charge.
He knew the instant the Stag finished assessing the Roman eight's reaction speeds; and the King proved Ser Barristan correct by almost immediately taking an exaggerated half step to the right toward an extended spatha and then leaping to his left while whirling the mattock in a powerful arc over his head.
Thunk. The dull blade of the field tool crashed with enormous force on the upper third of a shield, puncturing it and causing the man-at-arms behind it to stagger from the impact. Instantly the soldier to the King's left sprang out his stabbing blade, but the large man was prepared and deflected the attack with an already positioned shovel; all the while with a massive arm pulling back on the mattock, dragging the soldier strapped to the caught shield out of line from his brethren. Over the top of the shield the shovel swung next and solidly tapped the man on his helmet. Tang!
"Out!" cried Ser Barristan; and promptly, if unhappily, the struck soldier dropped to the ground, taking on the role of a battlefield casualty.
The remaining 'alive' Romans immediately shuffled to close the space left by their fallen comrade. Encumbered by a large shield stuck on his mattock, which took several titanic shakes to dislodge, the King could not take advantage of the hole he had made, and roared with frustration at his two retainers, "Come on then! Get in on them!" A shout which did spur Colin Roone and Alek Estren to more vigorous efforts, at least until the Romans took another unified step forward.
"Us swords. Enemies, you many?"
"No enemies."
Part of Ser Barristan's brain searched for easy words to explain why the King wanted to hire them, besides their being a shiny new toy that attracted his Grace's juvenile like attention. Finally he dredged up a single word common to the speech of the Free Cities, "Politics." The tone of the grunt Publius Postumius gave contained all the meaning the Lord Commander needed to know that the Roman understood that unsavory business too. "Out!" he called, after the Stag again used a hammer of an overhand mattock blow to crumple a second Roman's shield and render him vulnerable to the swipe of the shovel.
"Alek, out!" The retainer had come too close to the shield wall as it shuffled forward to try and catch the King as he dislodged the stuck shield from the mattock, and a spatha had snaked out to take the young aide in the fleshy part of a thigh.
"I can still fight," the third son of the cadet line of House Roone countered.
"Out!" Ser Barristan repeated, adding a touch more authority to his voice, causing the man to simply sit back with ill grace on his arse. The Tesserarius clapped Ser Barristan encouragingly on the shoulder for not showing favoritism.
The far man on the King's now unguarded side started to edge ahead of the Roman line, waiting for a moment he could swing in on an exposed flank; and the fat Stag purposefully pretended to ignore the threat until the man finally choose to rush in. The sweaty, panting, out of shape Stag surprisingly still had the speed to greet the charge with a low, backhanded swipe of the shovel which took the man's feet from under him. The King paused, ever so briefly, most likely listening for an 'out' call that Ser Barristan judged he could not fairly give. And when it did not come, he unwisely turned his considerable bulk enough to swing the mattock, none too gently, upon the fallen warrior's chest.
"Out!" Ser Barristan yelled, even as the remaining five Romans now rushed at the out of position Stag and his remaining retainer.
Colin acquitted himself adequately, stepping forward to impede the attack, even 'killing' one, before taking a 'fatal' blow himself. "Out!" "Colin, Out!"
Off balance and momentum working against him, Robert Baratheon's still immense strength was such he pulled back on the mattock and unleashed a walloping shot that took the nearest charging Roman on his sword arm. The loud 'crack' of a breaking bone was heard right before the impact flung the soldier into the man next to him, causing both to drop to the ground. "Out!"
But the last unengaged soldier had a clear shot at the twisted around King and his point capped spatha poked hard into the Stag's kettledrum of a belly. "Out, your Grace!"
"Bugger!" the Stag yelled mightily, tossed his two improvised weapons in the air, and dramatically fell on the ground next to the man who's feet he'd taken out only seconds earlier. A roar of approval shot out of the gathered cohort at their comrades' triumph. The 'victor' came and stood over the now foolishly grinning fallen King.
"Fellator am I?" shouted Robert Baratheon through the tumult of the celebrating cohors, as he extended a hand up to the 'victor'.
The man looked down in confusion. He shook his head negatively.
"Then what bloody am I?" he challenged.
The reanimated others of the contubernium gathered around their brother, above the King.
"Fellator?" he repeated stubbornly.
They all shook their heads no. Then the one with the broken arm said, "Hercules." The rest quickly nodded in agreement and reached down to his outstretched arm, calling out, "Hercules."
As the Stag got pulled to his feet, and surprisingly started to be affectionately pummeled on his wide chest, back, and shoulders, many in the cohors took up a chant of "Hercules!"
The King's grin broadened even more as he shouted, "I don't know what it means Barristan, but I think I like it."