The Son of Rome

The Thracian kingdom could hardly be called as such. In my time I had seen some truly dilapidated capitals, and borne witness to some heinously destitute kings, but they had always carried with them a sense of primitive weight. The Celtic kings were at least properly crowned, the hulking Gauls could at least build serviceable walls, and for all that the Egyptians disgusted me in a deep and personal way, I could not deny the magnitude and grandeur of their cultural works.

For all my qualms with the kingdoms through which Gaius had campaigned, there had been no other way to describe them. What Scythas led us through after two days’ hard riding was not at all like that. To call the sprawling settlement a kingdom at all was a disservice to the name.

It was hardly more than a loose collection of nomads and their camps. Wagons and beasts of burden abounded: the stench of horse shit was so pervasive that it soon drifted into the background of my sensory perceptions, occupying the same place as the sound of my own breathing and the taste of my own saliva. Shaggy hunting dogs ran wild alongside herding hounds, playing roughly or otherwise provoking the livestock and the children of the settlement.

This particular tribe called themselves the Korpiloi, or at least that was what the Greeks called them. The Thracian in our group hadn’t cared enough to correct them. There were a few oddities of that nature that I had noticed since the Babel shard had settled itself inside my soul. On occasion, I would hear the same concept delivered by two different cultural sources, and recognize two entirely different words despite the subject being the same.

For example, the river that this valley tribe of Thracians had spread themselves along - the Ebros River.

The Ebros fed directly into the Aegean sea, and had for various reasons been the point of entry Scythas had decided upon. When he had indicated it on the map and Griffon had spoken its name aloud, I had heard the underlying word that he spoke in his native Alikoan, Ebros, but the Babel shard had translated it as wide. Ebros, the wide river. When our Thracian sailor had later repeated it, the underlying word had been the same, Ebros - but the Babel shard had told me splasher. The same word, but a different meaning applied by each culture.

Regardless of whether the name was theirs or what they had been given, they were the Korpiloi to us. And no matter what they called themselves, they were hardly fit at all to be called a kingdom.

The Republic hadn’t qualified as a kingdom either, of course, but that was a product of cultural progression. This, as far as I could tell, was a regression from the barbarian standard that I had come to expect. The only other race I had seen come close to this was the Britons, and even those vile swamp people had rallied around their vile swamp king.

These Thracians just… Wandered. Up and down the winding valleys and through the mountain trails. They were large on the average, taller than the average Greek or Roman though without the overbearing bulk that made the Gallic tribes so fearsome. The inhabitants of the loose communities that we rode past, and in some cases, through, by and large lacked the sculpted definition that the Greeks so famously aspired towards. They were large, yes, but painfully lean or otherwise sloppily built.

Whether that was a genetic trend or or a trait unique to this tribe, I couldn’t say. Khabur had warned us that the mountain tribes were far and away more vicious than those that hugged the valley rivers. Perhaps that hard mountain living translated to finer physiques. Or, more likely, it brought them closer to the legion aesthetic than the Greek. Rugged Bodies to match their minds, both well suited to war.

I doubted it was a meaningful difference in the end, though. Docile valley tribe or brutal mountain men, they were all barbarians. My formative years had prepared me for ventures like these, but the first step into a new world was a shock no matter how many times you experienced it. Like diving headfirst into the frigid sea in winter. I was able to distance myself from the initial wonder quickly enough, falling back on the familiar expectation of a legionary far from home - I was here to accomplish something. For as long as that was true, nothing would sway me from that purpose. No matter how alien or bizarre.

Unfortunately, Griffon and Selene had no such restraint.

“The further we progress, the less I believe the Tyrant Riot was born and raised in a place like this,” Griffon said, while we settled our horses by the Ebros for a brief stop later that afternoon.

The timber of his voice was familiar. Equal parts deep disdain and baffled wonder. I remembered being almost exactly the same when I first ventured into Germania and saw what people lurked in the shadowed groves of their nation spanning forest. He hid it well, and maintained his usual facade of leonine apathy, but he couldn’t hide his true response from me.

The former Young Aristocrat of the Rosy Dawn devoured the Koripiloi tribe with his eyes, drank their river dry with every deep and relishing breath. He sneered at most everything he found, but he had not once withdrawn his curious influence since we reached the outer limits of the settlements.

“And why is that?” Scythas asked, dismounting from the mare that I had initially chosen and stretching while she dipped her head and drank greedily from the river.

Griffon gestured vaguely at a nearby cluster of wagons and cloth tented homes. A group of over a dozen men sat bundled up around a raging fire, though it was more like they sprawled. Their faces were flushed nearly the same shade as their auburn hair, and every man carried a horn cup in his hand. Periodically, their children and wives would come out to refill their horns before returning to their tents.

They were rowdy, and they were loud. Deep within their cups.

“Look at how they drink,” Griffon said as if that was an answer enough. As far as a Greek is concerned, I suppose it was. “A thinking man knows how to handle his wine. These savages clearly do not. Tell me, Khabur, Is this behavior uncommon among your kind?”

“Can’t say it is,” the old Thracian admitted. His expression was wistful as he looked over at the drunken congregation. “Far as I know, we all take our drinking a bit more serious than your lot.”

I had experienced both sides of that coin. The Greeks viewed libation as a civilized practice, and water their wine down to the point where they could drink it throughout the day without it overwhelming their senses. Even kykeon, the spirit wine that their cultivators drink, was only ever imbibed at its fullest strength during periods of religious significance. The rights at the Rosy Dawn had been my first time tasting undiluted Greek spirit wine. After that, I had understood why they diluted it.

The patricians in Rome followed a similar practice, associating the drunken mania of overindulgence as barbarism simply put. If a man’s cup was deep enough, even the consul could be regressed to a slavering beast at the bottom of it. That was a shame that no patrician wanted to suffer, and so my time at the villa had been characterized by watered down wine as well.

In the legions, however, luxuries were taken as they came. For better and for worse. God help a man if he overindulge and shirk his duties as a consequence, because his centurion would not - but if a legionary did what was expected of him and buried himself in undiluted drink during his leisure hours, a blind eye was generally turned. Life on campaign was cruel enough as it was. And, of course, as the first of Gaius’ legions to accept the tribals into her ranks, the fifth tended to enjoy those small luxuries more than most.

Having been on both sides of the cup, I couldn’t say I disagreed entirely with Griffon’s mindset. Though there was a time and a place for letting go.

A few of the drunken men sitting around the fire waved and hollered as they noticed us. Invitations to come drink and taunts about our state of dress, Griffon’s in particular. The former Young Aristocrat snorted and ignored them, raising an eyebrow at Scythas.

“How can these be his people? I confess I didn’t know Bakkhos like you did, but I assume the man that presided over the nexus of the civilized world for centuries was not a worthless rowdy lush.”

Scythas winced. Scarlet eyes narrowed.

“No,” Griffon said, a flat word.

“It is in the name, after all,” Selene said simply. She tore her wandering eyes away from the greater mountains rising up around us just long enough to offer him a briefly sympathetic look.

In contrast to the other sunkissed member of our group, she had been open and unashamed of her fascination since the Eos had set sail from Olympia. Every sight was one she hadn’t seen before, every sound and smell, and each of them came as a joy to her, without any of the accompanying disdain that Griffon projected. It was difficult not to look at her and feel a bit lighter.

“Bakkhos,” Scythas said, lest he forget it again. “Loud. Riotous. He didn’t take that name by mistake.”

Loud and riotus were apt descriptions of the campfire crowd hackling us further up the river.

“The Mad Tyrant,” I mused, invoking another of his titles. Wine mania was a common affliction the further one strayed from civilized cultures. Still, there was something… “Bakkhos isn’t his true name either?”

“It is and it isn’t,” Scythas said, wavering his hand in a half-truth gesture.

“Meaning?” I asked. Griffon, meanwhile, was staring into the middle distance while the hands of his violent intent cut his chin and dug their knuckles into his temples.

“The kyrios was born and raised in Thracian fields, but his parents weren’t the ones to raise him. He grew up with a vine keeper’s family, and when he was old enough to understand it they told him the truth of his origins - left abandoned in a field of teeming grape vines by his true parents, half-buried in the soil like they had tried to bury him alive and given up part way. Like he was just another sprouting vine.

“The vine keeper explained this to him, and knowing then that that family was not his family after all, the kyrios decided to name himself. Bakkhos was his choice. Bakkhos, he told me, because the vine keeper had once confessed that he was the noisiest infant in the world, and that was the only reason he found him.”

“A trait he carried with him into adulthood,” I extrapolated wryly. Scythas sighed and nodded.

“Bakkhos was unmatched in many respects. Restraint was not one of them.”

“You mean to tell me,” Griffon said slowly, biting out each word like it caused him visible pain, “that the greatest man Olympia had to offer, the towering central pillar of the Raging Heaven’s virtue, was a hedonist?”

“Not a hedonist,” Selene corrected him. “The hedonist.”

Griffon’s pneuma rose.

For a man so vain, he despised the reflection of a mirror more than most.

A ball of bunched up wool hit the ground and rolled towards us, thrown by one of the drunken men around the fire. I watched the man to do it stand up and condemn himself, taking a pull from his hollow horn cup and cupping his empty hand around his mouth so his voice would carry.

“Cover yourself up! Even a Greek woman ought to show a bit of modesty!” he jeered, the Babel shard even translating his drunken slur.

“Hold on,” Scythas said, as Griffon slid wordlessly off his horse and retrieved the bundle of wool with a pankration hand. It unfurled into something like a cloak, long enough to fall past his knees and stitched with bright designs of color, winding horizontal lines that gave an effect of layering. A few more of the drunkards laughed and hollered for him to try it on.

Griffon started walking their way.

“They’re only drunk!” Scythas tried. “Remember what Solus told you at the funeral- diplomacy!”

Ah, right. I had said that, hadn’t I.

“Things will go smoother for us if we remain on good terms with the locals,” I put forward, to which Scythas and Khabur vehemently agreed. I knew it was wasted breath.

“I agree,” Griffon said with complete sincerity, donning the woolen cloak and smiling sharply at the fireside crowd’s howling laughter. “This is a fine garment. The least I can do is thank them for it.”

He strode with purpose over to the Thracian crowd. Whether or not they were cultivators, I couldn’t tell. But there were over a dozen of them, and a couple were nearly as large as Kyno. Each and every one turned to watch curiously as the Greek approached. They had no larger weapons at hand that I could see, but several of them were using daggers to cut meat from a spit-roasted boar.

“Get back on your horse, Khabur,” I told the Thracian. “We’ll have to rest them later.”

“He’s not going over there to thank them, is he?” Selene murmured knowingly.

“No,” I sighed. “He is.”

I didn’t hear exactly how he phrased it, not from that distance, but the Heroic cultivators with me did. At the same time they winced and grimaced, the cocky and jovial faces of the Thracian men around the fire darkened. One of them snapped something, stepping towards the scarlet son and brandishing his carving knife.

Griffon replied.

“Fuck me,” Scythas hissed, and kicked his mare into a gallop away from the crowd and further up the river. Khabur followed directly on his tail.

“Should we leave him to it?” Selene asked, peering over my shoulder as Griffon roundhoused the first man to take a stab at him.

If only.

“Give us a minute,” I told her instead, dismounting from the black charger. When the stir-crazed warhorse shifted its weight ominously, I wrapped as much of my hand around its muzzle as I could and pulled its head down so its eyes met mine. “Stay.”

I turned up the river bank and cracked my neck as the air filled with Thracian howls and curses.

Time for a brawl.