Ch. 7: The Winged Hats - Page 2

Wall. Yes, the day after we had met him we held two
days' Games; but I think the greatest risk was run, not by
the poor wretches on the sand, but by Maximus. In the
old days the Legions kept silence before their Emperor.
So did not we! You could hear the solid roar run West
along the Wall as his chair was carried rocking through
the crowds. The garrison beat round him - clamouring,
clowning, asking for pay, for change of quarters, for
anything that came into their wild heads. That chair was
like a little boat among waves, dipping and falling,
but always rising again after one had shut the eyes.'
Parnesius shivered.
'Were they angry with him?' said Dan.

'No more angry than wolves in a cage when their
trainer walks among them. If he had turned his back an
instant, or for an instant had ceased to hold their eyes,
there would have been another Emperor made on the
Wall that hour. Was it not so, Faun?'

'So it was. So it always will be,' said Puck.

'Late in the evening his messenger came for us, and we
followed to the Temple of Victory, where he lodged with
Rutilianus, the General of the Wall. I had hardly seen the
General before, but he always gave me leave when I
wished to take Heather. He was a great glutton, and kept
five Asian cooks, and he came of a family that believed in
oracles. We could smell his good dinner when we
entered, but the tables were empty. He lay snorting on a
couch. Maximus sat apart among long rolls of accounts.
Then the doors were shut.

"'These are your men," said Maximus to the General,
who propped his eye-corners open with his gouty
fingers, and stared at us like a fish.

"'I shall know them again, Caesar," said Rutilianus.

"Very good," said Maximus. "Now hear! You are not
to move man or shield on the Wall except as these boys
shall tell you. You will do nothing, except eat, without
their permission. They are the head and arms. You are
the belly!"

"'As Caesar pleases," the old man grunted. "If my pay
and profits are not cut, you may make my Ancestors'
Oracle my master. Rome has been! Rome has been!"
Then he turned on his side to sleep.

"'He has it," said Maximus. "We will get to what I need."

'He unrolled full copies of the number of men and
supplies on the Wall - down to the sick that very day in
Hunno Hospital. Oh, but I groaned when his pen
marked off detachment after detachment of our best - of
our least worthless men! He took two towers of our
Scythians, two of our North British auxiliaries, two
Numidian cohorts, the Dacians all, and half the Belgians.
It was like an eagle pecking a carcass.