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  Empire of the Eagle

  ANDRE NORTON

  AND

  SUSAN SHWARTZ

  Introduction

  by

  Andre Norton

  IT WAS A soldier of hardly more than peasant birth, but possessing the spark of military genius and practical knowledge, who forged that steel-hard backbone which upheld first the Roman republic, and then the Empire— the Legion. Up to the time of Marius, men had fought hard and well, but the loose formation of an army founded on what had been a militia of citizens called out in times of national danger was not the weapon a leader convinced of his own destiny needed—or wanted.

  The concept of the professional soldier, whose home was truly the army itself and whose god was the Eagle of the Legion to which he was oathed, was born. In spite of the bloodbath ordered by Sulla, jealous of his predecessor's power, the idea of the Legion—and the Eagle— remained until it was accepted as the only possible answer to warfare with both barbarians of the borders and the trained armies of any others who dared to resist the expansion of Rome.

  To suffer such defeat as to lose an Eagle was a shame so dark that it could only be washed out in blood. Probably the most notable of such losses was the massacre of three of Augustus Caesar's Legions—and the loss of their Eagles—by Quinctilius Varus in the Teutoberger Wald; Augustus is said to have lamented, "Varus, Varus, give me back my Legions!"

  But an earlier defeat was suffered by the Proconsul Crassus (of the first Triumvirate). Envious of Julius Caesar and greedy for the fabled treasures of the Middle East, he marched his army to a bloody defeat at Carrhae in 43 B.C.

  It is always wise to explore the footnotes in any history. While gathering material for the novel Imperial Lady, we found it necessary to read the history of the Han Dynasty—a remnant from nearly two thousand years ago. And in a translation of those very ancient pages, there exists a footnote that proved to be an open door for imagination's sweep.

  We are told in a very brief paragraph that a portion of the Han Army, which had poured its might along the Silk Road conquering all that it met, rode into the Middle East and was present as audience to the defeat of the Legions.

  Impressed by the way these Westerners stood up to disaster and death, the commander of the Han force who had reached that point so far from his homeland claimed a cohort of these prisoners as a novel gift for his emperor.

  So baldly, the paragraph states a fact and mentions nothing more about the Romans' fate in a land so far away that they had no way of measuring the distance.

  What did become of the Romans? Because history does not tell us, perhaps we can try to guess. A handful out of a Legion, looking to their Eagle for inspiration and guide—what could chance thereafter?

  Andre Norton

  December 1992

  Introduction

  by

  Susan Shwartz

  I WELL REMEMBER the first time I heard of the Romans who became the protagonists of Empire of the Eagle. It was in 1964, and I had been spending my lunch hour reading The Last Planet, by Andre Norton. Those of you who know this book know that it opens with a description of Romans in Asia, marching east, always marching east, and, unnoticed to history, forming their last square somewhere in Asia—a perfect prelude to a tale of decaying empire.

  Her Operation Timesearch brought my attention to the Motherland of Mu, the Atlanteans, and the Uighurs; I was delighted, much later, to discover on the map a real Uighur Autonomous Republic in western China, on the border of what was formerly the Soviet Union. Several books later—Silk Roads and Shadows and Imperial Lady (written with Andre Norton)—I have still not visited this area in any way but research and dreams. Nevertheless, when the subject was proposed, I found myself ready to return in my writing to those places, and more than ready to deal with the enigma of Romans, marching across the Tarim Basin.

  How did they get there? With only a few records in Chinese history of people who might be Romans, we can only conjecture. On one such conjecture we built this book: the defeat of Crassus and his Legions at Carrhae in 43 B.C. A few things are certain: During the first century B.C, Rome first became aware of the trade routes now known as the Silk Roads and the wealth that traveled west along them.

  Especially interested was Crassus, already a spectacularly wealthy man. but one who envied his fellow triumvir Julius Caesar and sought victories of his own by campaigning in the Near East as a proconsul. Unfortunately, in addition to his greed and ambition, Crassus was a poor general.

  He was profoundly either unwise or unfortunate in his choice of allies, and was betrayed both by the Nabataean Arabs and the king of Armenia. In addition, he made several strategic and tactical blunders that doomed his campaign. Goaded by the Nabataeans, he allowed himself to be convinced to march his Legions at a cavalry pace. He waited for his son Publius's crack Gallic cavalry. And he fought his Legions under the hot sun near Carrhae, a garrison town near present-day Haran, without rest or water. Worse luck, he fought against The Surena, a charismatic, powerful, and skilled Parthian clan leader, who was later killed by his own king for Caesar's own fault—overmuch ambition.

  Those interested in this time and this part of the world know that the Parthians were skilled horse archers. Faced with archers, the Romans formed their testudo, or tortoise, shields over their heads to protect themselves against the arrow barrage and wait for the Parthians to exhaust their supply of ammunition. However, they had not counted on the heat, the thirst—or The Surena's bringing up additional supplies. Nor did they count on Crassus's collapse when his son's head was paraded before him.

  The defeat was staggering: Rome lost not only tens of thousands of men, but the Eagles of their Legions, the sign of their power and their honor. Abandoning the dead and wounded, Crassus and the remnants of his command holed up in Carrhae and, ultimately, sought terms.

  What happened to the remnants of the Legions—and the captured Eagles? Most likely, they finished out their days in captivity, the Romans as slaves, the Eagles as trophies.

  That is the story that has intrigued Andre Norton for decades. And that was our jumping-off point. What if, as they marched east into captivity, they marched straight into myths? Asia—especially Central Asia—is an incredible nexus for myths; and we had two extraordinary storehouses of such myths to hand. We had the stories of fabled Mu, often combined with Atlantis and solar mythology in inimitable nineteenth-century-type scholarship that seeks to prove survivals of a lost culture and a lost continent. And we had the ancient Indian epic. The Mahabharata, with its gods, demigods, and princes striding among mortals in epic battle. I had become fascinated with it after seeing a performance of Peter Brooks's adaptation at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and I was intrigued to learn that the stories of Krishna and of his human allies, Arjuna the hero and his brothers, their wife, Draupadi, and their wars are still loved, taught to children, and even form the inspiration of modem comic books.

  Certainly, this combination removes Empire of the Eagle firmly from the realm of historical fiction and into fantasy such as, I like to think, the elephant-headed Ganesha records in The Mahabharata.

  - Imagine him opening his story. It is dark. Men are crouching in a swamp, betrayed, defeated, unsure of their leaders. And messengers are coming—bringing terms and, for us and for them, the beginning of a journey across cultures and across time.

  Susan Shwartz

  December 1992

  1

  CARRHAE'S WALLS HAD let the survivors of Crassus's Legions slip away as ignominiously as it had admitted them: ridding the town of one more set of masters unable to command it. The remnants of the Legion had no pride left—and very little strength. Bl
ank and indifferent, the outpost might have been as far from them as Rome herself. At this moment, the tribune Quintus longed for the protection of those walls and wished the people within heartily to Tartarus. He fully expected to arrive among the damned sooner or later himself.

  Up ahead, his superiors and elders gestured while centurions struck flagging men into one last formation with their vinestaffs in order to follow their guide into the marshes.

  "You think we can trust him?"

  "You want to eat mud, comrade?"

  Someone else drew in his cheeks, making a sucking sound. Amazing anyone had strength and spirit left to raise even so feeble a jest.

  "Quiet, you!" Rufus, the senior centurion, reinforced his order with his staff. Quintus would have expected that tough old man to survive. How he had made it himself, though, was more of a surprise. Perhaps because he did not wholly want to....

  They had learned they could not trust their fellow Romans, let alone some of their allies: How then could they trust their guide, who cringed when they laid eyes or hand on him, and glared when their backs were turned? His knowledge gave them a scant chance, yet he promised a better, if less honorable, fate than the drums and the arrows they would probably face again at dawn.

  The Parthians were horse archers, not ready to battle at night, which risked killing their prized mounts. If they felt that way about mere men, twenty thousand Romans would still be alive.

  Besides, what need would now press The Surena and his warriors to fight at all? The legions of Syria were bled out. Roman cavalry was withdrawn, what survived of it. And the auxiliaries—only a few of them lived or remained loyal to follow the Legionaries marshward.

  Now Prince Surena—The Surena, ruler of one of the noblest of the Parthian clans—had only to wait for sure-to-be-treacherous guides and the veritable sinks of the marshes to assure him of complete victory.

  Near Quintus, someone gagged. Sour sickness rose in his own gullet, triggered by the fetid marsh stench, nearly as foul as the oaths sputtering from First Centurion Rufus, like bubbles popping in the muck. The veteran had not stopped swearing since the orders came to retire. First, they had fought their way from the battlefield, men falling under the horse-archers' bows. They were forced to abandon the wounded, and so their rout was complete and shaming. Then, they had slunk out of Carrhae itself like a man sneaking from the stews, defeated, destroyed. Dead, as soon as their only probable fate caught up with them.

  Under the helm that made Quintus sweat, blood pounded in his temples, seeming as heavy as the enemies' wardrums and those bronze bells that had clanged deafeningly during the battle as The Surena had paraded or that had heralded the severed head of the proconsul's son impaled on a lancepoint before the Roman overlord, whose arrogance turned to grief and fear, robbing his Legions of such leadership as even Crassus might give and even of their will to win. Now that dull throb in the young tribunes head, the rasp of the cooling air he drew into his aching lungs, somehow kept him going even as the drums of a galley set the measure for sweating rowers. They had managed not to run. That was all that could be said for them—the shocked remnants of Crassus's seven Legions.

  "Down!" The whisper held a snap.

  Quintus flung himself to earth—or mud—by a pool, so scummed over it reflected neither stars nor moon. The gods have turned their faces from us, he thought. But what more could they expect after such a defeat as this?

  Faintly, his memory sharpened. They had been cursed even as they marched from Rome. Had not tribune Aetius, not satisfied with arguing that Parthia was a neutral kingdom and thus not to be attacked, condemned Crassus and his army openly and sternly? Any sane man would have taken that as an omen and thought twice, thrice on what he would do. They said Crassus had prattled in company of the feats of Alexander, and it was rumored that he envied Caesar, his friend and rival. He would have his victory witnessed by all Rome. And so he had ignored Aetius.

  What was that word the Greeks used for going against the gods? Quintus searched memory again. It was all in a fog.

  Hubris. That was right. Well, given his own choice, he himself would have been a farmer, not a scholar. And certainly not a soldier. So plain words were good enough. And the blunt commons had a fit word for such arrogance, too. Nefas. Unspeakable evil.

  Here all about him was nefas.

  Around him, men were sinking to their knees or to their bellies by the fetid water, shedding their packs. Romans crouched with Romans; the few auxiliaries companioned one another, by nationality. At night it might be hard to tell auxilia from enemies; but they must note how the forces were strung out. Some of them had betrayed their oaths. Still, best not kill the ones who held to their faith.

  His ribs ached with every breath he drew. In the battle, something had whined by his head. By unbelievable fortune, he had swerved at just the right time, only to be struck with a near-paralyzing but glancing blow.

  I'm hit! he had thought. For a moment he was dazed as might be a gladiator waiting for the final stroke. Sluggishly, he tried to put away memory. Magna Mater, it hadn't been much of a life!

  No home. No sons. No lands.

  Time slowed, and he was back in his memories of the battle. He doubled over, bemused about whether an arrow had hit a lung and how long it might take him to drown in his own blood.

  Quintus rubbed his side as he half sat, half lay by a scummy pool. No arrow wound had sapped his strength, but he winced from a burn mark. That blow had struck right above where he stowed the tiny bronze statue that had been his lucky-piece since he found it as a boy on the farm since stolen from his family.

  "Don't drink, fools! Not that muck." The centurion ordered and enforced the command with a whack of his staff across the back of one impatient man. "No water? You there. Share with Titus here. And both of you, go easy. There is no likely spring here!"

  No man in the Legion was obeyed more quickly than Rufus. Still a mutter, almost a whine, of protest rose.

  "You don't drink standing water. Look at that scum. Smell it. You want the flux or a fever that would make Tiberside in the summer seem like a garden? Are you stupid enough to think they'll let us carry you when we move out?"

  That, Quintus thought, was what hurt the old veteran worst. On a lost battlefield, Rome had abandoned her wounded. Men he had known, had ordered, had punished and praised as if they were his own sons—and they had been left to have their throats cut (or what more savage ways the Parthians killed those in their power), their screams concealed beneath the beat of the Parthian drums.

  Without knowing it, the Primus Pilus took off his helmet and rubbed his graying hair. Rufus no longer: The red hair that had given him that name had long since faded. He had grown old in the Legions. Only the needs of men who feared this battle without him to bully them had stopped him from storming into Crassus's tent and choosing the moment of his death rather than waiting for the Parthians. His men. The only sons he would ever have. He had watched these sons of his die for pride and treachery, shot full of Parthian arrows and now he would watch them die in the marshes outside Carrhae, and no sword or shield of his could be raised in bloody answer.

  Unless his heart broke first. Dully, Quintus watched the older man, gathering strength himself from the way the centurion went about his rounds, soldiering as usual. The old man's heart was tougher than the Legions had proved themselves to be. He would live as long as anyone needed him to live. Even when dying was easier.

  "Good thing you made it," Rufus came to a halt beside Quintus. They had seen each other after the flight to Carrhae, but not spoken. "I saw you miss the spear..."

  What spear?

  "... then take that arrow hit. Thought it was a waste, after you'd escaped such a close shave. And I wondered if I'd wasted the time I had put in on you."

  Quintus shrugged. His ribs twinged, then subsided. "I am ready to move when orders come." He tried to match some of Rufus's matter-of-fact tone.

  Exhaustion forced the men into obedience. Rufus moved amon
g them where they lay, inspecting, and ordering the distribution of what food and safe water remained. Quintus got up to follow nearly blindly. Somehow, the younger man could hear his grandfather's voice: Watch well, boy. This is one of the real soldiers.

  Death lay outside the marsh—Parthians and arrows. And the muck about them was full of its own noises—a maddening buzz of insects that worked their way under clothes and armor. Everywhere rose the rot of dying plants, the stink of frightened men and of blood of those wounded lightly enough so they could flee, not like... not like the Romans they were. No one had killed himself for the dishonor as they would have in the old tales. None of these leaders here and now would have understood the gesture or deserved it.

  At least the night's darkness had brought relief from the glare of the Syrian sun on bare land or brown water. However, Quintus's headache worsened—lights seemed to shoot red and white behind his eyelids. Even keeping on his helmet was some kind of small victory. Others, he knew, had hurled theirs away as useless weight, discarding all to stampede like beasts. Shame—the proconsul had made sure they already had their fill of that, if nothing else.