|
An Optio (ôpt·ē·ô), from the Latin verb optare (to choose), was a soldier in the Roman Army holding a position similar to the Executive Officer or First Sergeant in a modern army. The primary function of the Optio was as an Optio Centuriae, the second-in-command of a Century (one-hundred men).
|
|
"Pull you sons-a-bitches! Pull!" the Optio yells as he walks down the line of slaves, the crest on his bronze helmet and the gladius on his hip bobbing in time with his stride. Plumes of dust rise into the air above his footsteps, and the harsh, afternoon sun reflects intensely from the plates of his segmented armor. In his right hand he carries the nine-tails, and the ends drag, leaving lines in the dirt beside his footprints. There used to be small iron weights at the end of the straps, but they caused too much damage and he'd been forced to cut them off. Etched in block letters on the back of his helmet are the words SILEX VULTUS, "STONE FACE."
"Harder, you!" Silex encourages one, and the sound of the whip against flesh echoes out through the construction site. It’s not the cracking sound of a bullwhip, but softer, like the swish of a horse's tail followed by a rush of terrifying slaps. The slaves who hear it flinch and pull harder--all of them except for the Gaul.
The Gaul’s sole acknowledgement is the slow, almost mechanical, turning of his head toward the Roman. Sky-blue eyes glare at Silex, but the slave doesn’t make the mistake of stopping in his work and continues pulling on the rope used to lift stone blocks to the top of the monument. Most legionaries would beat the slave for his insolence, but Silex only places his hands on his hips and stares in return.
To the slaves in the line, the Roman's face hardens and gains intensity. His features, already callous, become absent of emotion, leaving only a harsh, uncompromising solidity that denies the soft nature of flesh--as if a man's fist would crumble against the square, chiseled jaw or the angular, sculpted cheekbones.
In war, a Centurio Ordinarius leads from the front, marching a hundred legionaries into battle without ever looking back, trusting his men to follow and hold the line no matter the odds. An Optio Centuriae is his second and stands at the rear, ensuring that all one hundred choose to live up to that trust. In the fifteen years worth of campaigns Silex fought in before receiving lighter duties, he’d only needed to cut down one legionary who chose to run. The other desperate men had taken one look at his face and decided they’d rather die on the line. The Gaul is no different, and turns his eyes back to the rope.
The Gaul is thick bodied with an excessive amount of blond curly hair on his chest and back, and strong, like all the Gauls Silex fought when he was in the Sixth. Small wooden beams have been hammered with spikes into the clay for traction, but the slave is between two, and his bare feet scratch and slide as he pulls. His knuckles are white on the coarse rope and sweat runs down his face to where it drips from the short, rough hair on his chin. Dust cakes his back with a thin layer of grime, except for where a stroke of the nine-tails has wiped it away, exposing a latticework of pink scars. The slave stirs up trouble every time he’s allowed among his own kind, so he’s kept isolated, working and living with Carthaginians.
"The milites,” Silex extends the whip out, pointing to the common soldiers who stand guard around the site, “they’re tough on you, but they're stupid. A man doesn't whip a plow horse for being strong--he whips him for disobedience, or as a reminder of who the master is. It's the same for a slave, except a slave forgets the feel of the whip faster than a horse and needs to be reminded more often."
If the slave understands, he gives no sign, and Silex returns to walking the line and checking the rope.
The rope is as thick as a man's wrist, and it’s so taut that it vibrates and hums in the open distance between the slaves and the pulley. From there it runs upward, along the completed portion of the monument, until it’s sixty feet above the ground--exactly half an actus. It then winds through the wheels of a block and tackle before plunging back down to wrap around a massive stone block that rotates slowly as it rises.
"You motherless bastards drop this one and I'll send the lot of you to the mines!" The slap of the whip echoes out again. The slaves don’t understand the words, but they understand the tone and the intent.
Not even half the blocks are set, and already the clang of hammers and chisels comes from the other side of the structure. The monument will be another tribute to Julius Caesar, depicting the general sitting on his horse as he leads the Sixth Legion across the river Rubicon into Italia after defeating the Gauls. Generals are forbidden from bringing their legions into Italia, but Caesar's victories made him too popular with the people. In fear the Senate asked him to resign. The river crossing gave the senators his answer and started a civil war.
But the reason for the war never truly mattered. To a man, the men of the Sixth would have followed the general if he’d told them they were marching against Mars himself. Silex still remembers Caesar's words passed down the line while they marched. The same words that are now chiseled across the base of the monument, ALEA JACTA EST! "THE DIE IS CAST!"
"Optio Carceris," a voice calls.
Hurrying toward him is a pale, thin man in the white robes of a citizen. He’s young enough to be Silex's son, but he wears the red sash of an engineer.
"Domine!" The iron hobnails of Silex's boots clang as his right fist snaps over his heart.
The engineer stops in front of him and looks around nervously before raising his fist clumsily to his chest in return.
"They’re having trouble seating the last block and are not ready for the next one." The engineer points to the top of the monument. "You’re going to have to hold this one for a bit until they're ready."
Silex nods and waits for the engineer to continue, but the young man just stands there, his gaze roaming along the line of slaves.
"Will that be all?" Silex prompts.
"Um...yes. I'll yell down when they're ready for this one, and you can have them pull it the rest of the way up."
Silex salutes again, and the engineer turns and moves to a ladder tied to one of the many scaffolds that line the monument. His red sash stands out against the dull stone, and Silex stares at it, his thoughts a thousand miles away as he remembers staring at the red cape of a young Centurio in Transalpine Gaul. It’d been morning, and his Centurio was speaking to him, asking about the men. Silex was the Signifer back then, the standard bearer, in charge of the men’s pay and third in command of the century.
"How are the men holding up?"
"They’re cold, domine, but not a man avoids his duty, and they're all glad to be in garrison for the worst part of winter. Plus the pay chest arrived yesterday. Nobody's cold on payday."
"Truer words were never spoken." The Centurio smiles and claps Silex on the shoulder.
The Centurio is young. Most likely his family paid for his position just before the campaign started.
"Well, I know they'll be gambling late into the night. Just be sure they get enough sleep to remain alert for their shifts."
"Of course, domine."
"I’m going to walk the wall now. Make sure you get enough sleep as well."
"Ita domine." Silex salutes.
The young officer returns the salute and moves to a ladder that climbs to the walkway along the top of the palisade. He reaches the top, his breath billowing out white clouds and his red cape bright against the ice-encrusted timber. He takes three steps along the scaffold and stops to speak to a legionary who is huddled down with his cloak wrapped about him tightly. The officer is still smiling as he leans down and places a hand on the legionary's shoulder.
The young officer opens his mouth to say something. That’s when the arrow hits him. It probably would have been deflected by his armor if he hadn't leaned down to comfort the legionary, but instead it buries itself deep into the officer’s neck.
A few moments later, the red cape is spread out beneath the officer as they hold him down to keep the choking spasms from shifting the arrow while they wait for the medicus. There’s so much blood that it’s difficult to see the outline of the cape against the bloodstained snow. Silex pins his shoulders down while the Optio holds his head and a legionary holds his arms. Silex's hands and arms are covered in blood, and steam rises into the air above them.
The thought of how warm his hands are flashes through Silex's mind, warmer than they’ve been in weeks. This is immediately followed by guilt as the young officer's eyes bulge and stare up at Silex as he chokes for air. The eyes beg him to do something, anything.
"Should we pull the arrow out?" Silex asks. "I know he might bleed to death, but it's better than suffocating."
"Don't even think it," his Optio responds. "If we were out on patrol it would be fine, but we're in garrison. You know the medicus. He’d have your ass for interfering before he arrived. I sent a runner, it won’t be long."
"Taking his gods’ cursed time.”
The young officer's eyes continue to plead with Silex, but there’s nothing he can do, so he stares off at a clean patch of snow and tries to ignore the gurgling noises beneath him.
After an eternity, the noise and the struggling cease, but the dead eyes still plead for help.
For a long time those eyes haunted Silex. When he leaned down to comfort a legionary they were there, and he would stop himself and stare out into the distance, looking for the arrow. When a man stumbled and fell, the eyes were there, telling Silex to ignore his compassion, that it was deadly. So he cut it away, locked it deep within himself and replaced it with the cold, emotionless efficiency that earned him his cognomen.
As the war dragged on into years, he saw compassion kill others over and over, strengthening his choice. A man, forgetting his place in line to save a comrade, caused five others to die because he left a hole in the shield wall. Three scouts were killed, losing valuable information on the enemy’s location because they wouldn't leave a wounded man behind as the enemy pursued. The worst, a newly promoted Optio who couldn't bring himself to stab two of his men to keep them from retreating caused the flank of the entire legion to panic and fold. The legion lost an entire cohort that day, almost six hundred men.
Eventually the eyes left Silex alone, but he still continued to push his compassion deeper and deeper until he hardly remembered what it was he’d locked away, and it kept him alive through the campaign in Gaul and through the civil war that followed.
Back in the present, the engineer reaches the top of the monument and disappears among the distorting waves of heat that rise from the stone. It’s odd the way the engineer's sash stood out—colors are usually more vibrant in the depths of winter. With a strange uneasiness, Silex turns back to the line of slaves.
"Hold!" he yells, raising his palm into the air. "Hold!"
"Stupid, dumb, asinine, son-of-a-whore engineer," Silex mumbles as he paces the line. "What in Pluto's name is taking so long?" The water wagon comes every half-hour, and soon it would come a second time.
The slaves now sit with their feet braced on the wooden beams as they continue to hold the rope, and they all seem to echo the Roman's sentiments with murmurs and groans. All of them except the Gaul, who is silent. If it was going to take this long they should’ve locked the pulleys so that the slaves could rest.
Shading his eyes from the sun with his hand, he squints up toward the top of the monument. "Engineer!" he yells. Then again after waiting another moment, "Engineer!"
A few seconds later, the young engineer leans out over the edge. "Yes?"
"What's the delay? These slaves are going to be useless for the rest of the day."
"The last stone was faced the wrong way and the grains didn't match. I had to set up a new frame and pulley to lift it and flip it so that they would align properly."
"Well, why didn't you yell down? My line's been holding the next stone in the air since we spoke the first time. We could have locked the pulley and put them on another task."
"Sorry. I should have let you know. The foreman didn't catch the mistake like he should have, and I didn't see the problem until I was up here. Then I was busy rigging the new pulley. Shouldn't be but a moment longer." As if in answer, the last block shifts, and the engineer disappears from sight.
"Useless little prick," Silex mumbles as he turns to get the slaves on their feet again. The Gaul nearby chuckles at the words, and Silex stops. The slave is watching him with those sky-blue eyes. The defiance is no longer there, but something still bothers Silex. Maybe it’s because of Uxellodunum.
"Uxellodunum," Silex says the name out loud, conjuring the memory of the last battle in an eight-year campaign.
Uxellodunum had been the last fortification the Gauls held, but it had been more than a fortification. It had been a small city defended by thousands. After it fell, Caesar ordered the right hand of every surviving Gaul in the city be removed. There would be no one left to hold a blade against the Legion. Silex never hesitated in his orders, but he’d been forced to bury something else that day as he looked into the eyes of the prisoners.
A loud crack and the clap of stone hitting stone pull Silex from the memory. The rope on the stone the engineer is turning has snapped, and the massive block now sits teetering on the edge, tilting farther and farther out as the slaves on top of the monument try to hold it back. They can't do it though, and the block, along with several slaves, tumbles out over the edge in slow motion.
Silex stands fast, watching the stone as it falls. After years of war he can gauge what will hit him and what will not. The stone will fall well short. Unfortunately, most of the slaves in the line do not have the same instinct. Panicked, many of them let go of the rope and scatter, causing those that do not to be jerked forward by the weight of the block.
"Hold, damn you!" More slaves panic and let go, and he can see the rope sliding through the Gaul's hands. "Hold!"
At first it seems that the remaining slaves will be enough, but it’s no use. Too few are left, and the block begins to fall with the first toward the ground, like two giant dice cast by Fortuna. The rope is shredding the Gaul's hands as it gains speed, but he only grits his teeth and strains harder.
The two blocks hit, shaking the ground and sending up a shower of dust and earth. The block the engineer was attempting to turn lands flat and doesn't move. The one that Silex’s slaves no longer hold hits on a corner and bounces out away from the monument—straight in his direction. Silex turns and ducks, dropping the nine-tails as he throws his arms up to cover his face. There is a heartbeat of silence before dirt sprays over him, and the block whooshes past and settles nearby.
Coughing from the dust, Silex waves his arms back and forth in front of his face, trying to clear the air as he stands. He can see the path gouged by the block only a few steps away, and the massive stone sits no more than ten paces from him. Pinned face down underneath is the Gaul.
"Damn it all!"
The enormous block is crushing one of the slave’s legs, covering it to just above the knee. With the weight of the stone, there’ll be nothing left underneath, but at least the pressure will keep the slave alive until they can get a medicus to amputate the leg. The slave will never be as useful as he was.
The Gaul groans and pushes his torso up until his face and chest are off the ground. For a moment, he’s confused as he tries to figure out why he can’t rise before twisting around to determine the cause. When understanding comes, he turns to face the Roman. The muscles in the slave’s neck and jaw bulge out, his face is flushed, and the veins along his temples and forehead stand out like the ropes he pulls.
"Don't...let them save...my life.” Beads of sweat roll down the slave’s face as he speaks, and his arms tremble, but his eyes are lucid and focused. They remind Silex of the young officer's from so many years ago, but unlike those eyes, the Gaul's don’t beg or plead. They are insistent and demanding, but there is a measured purpose behind them.
Silex feels the muscles in his face soften and relax, and for the first time, his skin feels heavy and thick--as if it sags the way an old man’s face hangs with the weight of countless years and countless choices. For once, the wrong decision comes without a price.
In more of a salute than a nod, Silex signals his consent, and the Gaul nods returns it without speaking before lowering himself slowly to the ground.
"Are you all right, Optio?" A milite asks as he comes sliding to a stop next to Silex. He is breathing hard.
Silex stands. "Yes. Gather some slaves and get bars to lift the stone."
"First, shouldn’t we-"
In an instant, Silex's face regains its former callousness. He grabs the milite by the front of his armor and lifts the soldier until only his toes reach the ground.
"I didn't ask for you to speak," he says, over-enunciating each word. "I said, gather some slaves and get the bars."
"Yes, sir." The milite tries to move away, but Silex continues to hold him.
"And when you're done with that, round up every slave that panicked and ran." Silex shoves him away, and the soldier hurries off shouting orders.
Dusting himself off as he walks, Silex moves to retrieve the nine-tails. For what he’s about to do, it’s a good the weights have been removed.
"Harder, you!" Silex encourages one, and the sound of the whip against flesh echoes out through the construction site. It’s not the cracking sound of a bullwhip, but softer, like the swish of a horse's tail followed by a rush of terrifying slaps. The slaves who hear it flinch and pull harder--all of them except for the Gaul.
The Gaul’s sole acknowledgement is the slow, almost mechanical, turning of his head toward the Roman. Sky-blue eyes glare at Silex, but the slave doesn’t make the mistake of stopping in his work and continues pulling on the rope used to lift stone blocks to the top of the monument. Most legionaries would beat the slave for his insolence, but Silex only places his hands on his hips and stares in return.
To the slaves in the line, the Roman's face hardens and gains intensity. His features, already callous, become absent of emotion, leaving only a harsh, uncompromising solidity that denies the soft nature of flesh--as if a man's fist would crumble against the square, chiseled jaw or the angular, sculpted cheekbones.
In war, a Centurio Ordinarius leads from the front, marching a hundred legionaries into battle without ever looking back, trusting his men to follow and hold the line no matter the odds. An Optio Centuriae is his second and stands at the rear, ensuring that all one hundred choose to live up to that trust. In the fifteen years worth of campaigns Silex fought in before receiving lighter duties, he’d only needed to cut down one legionary who chose to run. The other desperate men had taken one look at his face and decided they’d rather die on the line. The Gaul is no different, and turns his eyes back to the rope.
The Gaul is thick bodied with an excessive amount of blond curly hair on his chest and back, and strong, like all the Gauls Silex fought when he was in the Sixth. Small wooden beams have been hammered with spikes into the clay for traction, but the slave is between two, and his bare feet scratch and slide as he pulls. His knuckles are white on the coarse rope and sweat runs down his face to where it drips from the short, rough hair on his chin. Dust cakes his back with a thin layer of grime, except for where a stroke of the nine-tails has wiped it away, exposing a latticework of pink scars. The slave stirs up trouble every time he’s allowed among his own kind, so he’s kept isolated, working and living with Carthaginians.
"The milites,” Silex extends the whip out, pointing to the common soldiers who stand guard around the site, “they’re tough on you, but they're stupid. A man doesn't whip a plow horse for being strong--he whips him for disobedience, or as a reminder of who the master is. It's the same for a slave, except a slave forgets the feel of the whip faster than a horse and needs to be reminded more often."
If the slave understands, he gives no sign, and Silex returns to walking the line and checking the rope.
The rope is as thick as a man's wrist, and it’s so taut that it vibrates and hums in the open distance between the slaves and the pulley. From there it runs upward, along the completed portion of the monument, until it’s sixty feet above the ground--exactly half an actus. It then winds through the wheels of a block and tackle before plunging back down to wrap around a massive stone block that rotates slowly as it rises.
"You motherless bastards drop this one and I'll send the lot of you to the mines!" The slap of the whip echoes out again. The slaves don’t understand the words, but they understand the tone and the intent.
Not even half the blocks are set, and already the clang of hammers and chisels comes from the other side of the structure. The monument will be another tribute to Julius Caesar, depicting the general sitting on his horse as he leads the Sixth Legion across the river Rubicon into Italia after defeating the Gauls. Generals are forbidden from bringing their legions into Italia, but Caesar's victories made him too popular with the people. In fear the Senate asked him to resign. The river crossing gave the senators his answer and started a civil war.
But the reason for the war never truly mattered. To a man, the men of the Sixth would have followed the general if he’d told them they were marching against Mars himself. Silex still remembers Caesar's words passed down the line while they marched. The same words that are now chiseled across the base of the monument, ALEA JACTA EST! "THE DIE IS CAST!"
"Optio Carceris," a voice calls.
Hurrying toward him is a pale, thin man in the white robes of a citizen. He’s young enough to be Silex's son, but he wears the red sash of an engineer.
"Domine!" The iron hobnails of Silex's boots clang as his right fist snaps over his heart.
The engineer stops in front of him and looks around nervously before raising his fist clumsily to his chest in return.
"They’re having trouble seating the last block and are not ready for the next one." The engineer points to the top of the monument. "You’re going to have to hold this one for a bit until they're ready."
Silex nods and waits for the engineer to continue, but the young man just stands there, his gaze roaming along the line of slaves.
"Will that be all?" Silex prompts.
"Um...yes. I'll yell down when they're ready for this one, and you can have them pull it the rest of the way up."
Silex salutes again, and the engineer turns and moves to a ladder tied to one of the many scaffolds that line the monument. His red sash stands out against the dull stone, and Silex stares at it, his thoughts a thousand miles away as he remembers staring at the red cape of a young Centurio in Transalpine Gaul. It’d been morning, and his Centurio was speaking to him, asking about the men. Silex was the Signifer back then, the standard bearer, in charge of the men’s pay and third in command of the century.
"How are the men holding up?"
"They’re cold, domine, but not a man avoids his duty, and they're all glad to be in garrison for the worst part of winter. Plus the pay chest arrived yesterday. Nobody's cold on payday."
"Truer words were never spoken." The Centurio smiles and claps Silex on the shoulder.
The Centurio is young. Most likely his family paid for his position just before the campaign started.
"Well, I know they'll be gambling late into the night. Just be sure they get enough sleep to remain alert for their shifts."
"Of course, domine."
"I’m going to walk the wall now. Make sure you get enough sleep as well."
"Ita domine." Silex salutes.
The young officer returns the salute and moves to a ladder that climbs to the walkway along the top of the palisade. He reaches the top, his breath billowing out white clouds and his red cape bright against the ice-encrusted timber. He takes three steps along the scaffold and stops to speak to a legionary who is huddled down with his cloak wrapped about him tightly. The officer is still smiling as he leans down and places a hand on the legionary's shoulder.
The young officer opens his mouth to say something. That’s when the arrow hits him. It probably would have been deflected by his armor if he hadn't leaned down to comfort the legionary, but instead it buries itself deep into the officer’s neck.
A few moments later, the red cape is spread out beneath the officer as they hold him down to keep the choking spasms from shifting the arrow while they wait for the medicus. There’s so much blood that it’s difficult to see the outline of the cape against the bloodstained snow. Silex pins his shoulders down while the Optio holds his head and a legionary holds his arms. Silex's hands and arms are covered in blood, and steam rises into the air above them.
The thought of how warm his hands are flashes through Silex's mind, warmer than they’ve been in weeks. This is immediately followed by guilt as the young officer's eyes bulge and stare up at Silex as he chokes for air. The eyes beg him to do something, anything.
"Should we pull the arrow out?" Silex asks. "I know he might bleed to death, but it's better than suffocating."
"Don't even think it," his Optio responds. "If we were out on patrol it would be fine, but we're in garrison. You know the medicus. He’d have your ass for interfering before he arrived. I sent a runner, it won’t be long."
"Taking his gods’ cursed time.”
The young officer's eyes continue to plead with Silex, but there’s nothing he can do, so he stares off at a clean patch of snow and tries to ignore the gurgling noises beneath him.
After an eternity, the noise and the struggling cease, but the dead eyes still plead for help.
For a long time those eyes haunted Silex. When he leaned down to comfort a legionary they were there, and he would stop himself and stare out into the distance, looking for the arrow. When a man stumbled and fell, the eyes were there, telling Silex to ignore his compassion, that it was deadly. So he cut it away, locked it deep within himself and replaced it with the cold, emotionless efficiency that earned him his cognomen.
As the war dragged on into years, he saw compassion kill others over and over, strengthening his choice. A man, forgetting his place in line to save a comrade, caused five others to die because he left a hole in the shield wall. Three scouts were killed, losing valuable information on the enemy’s location because they wouldn't leave a wounded man behind as the enemy pursued. The worst, a newly promoted Optio who couldn't bring himself to stab two of his men to keep them from retreating caused the flank of the entire legion to panic and fold. The legion lost an entire cohort that day, almost six hundred men.
Eventually the eyes left Silex alone, but he still continued to push his compassion deeper and deeper until he hardly remembered what it was he’d locked away, and it kept him alive through the campaign in Gaul and through the civil war that followed.
Back in the present, the engineer reaches the top of the monument and disappears among the distorting waves of heat that rise from the stone. It’s odd the way the engineer's sash stood out—colors are usually more vibrant in the depths of winter. With a strange uneasiness, Silex turns back to the line of slaves.
"Hold!" he yells, raising his palm into the air. "Hold!"
"Stupid, dumb, asinine, son-of-a-whore engineer," Silex mumbles as he paces the line. "What in Pluto's name is taking so long?" The water wagon comes every half-hour, and soon it would come a second time.
The slaves now sit with their feet braced on the wooden beams as they continue to hold the rope, and they all seem to echo the Roman's sentiments with murmurs and groans. All of them except the Gaul, who is silent. If it was going to take this long they should’ve locked the pulleys so that the slaves could rest.
Shading his eyes from the sun with his hand, he squints up toward the top of the monument. "Engineer!" he yells. Then again after waiting another moment, "Engineer!"
A few seconds later, the young engineer leans out over the edge. "Yes?"
"What's the delay? These slaves are going to be useless for the rest of the day."
"The last stone was faced the wrong way and the grains didn't match. I had to set up a new frame and pulley to lift it and flip it so that they would align properly."
"Well, why didn't you yell down? My line's been holding the next stone in the air since we spoke the first time. We could have locked the pulley and put them on another task."
"Sorry. I should have let you know. The foreman didn't catch the mistake like he should have, and I didn't see the problem until I was up here. Then I was busy rigging the new pulley. Shouldn't be but a moment longer." As if in answer, the last block shifts, and the engineer disappears from sight.
"Useless little prick," Silex mumbles as he turns to get the slaves on their feet again. The Gaul nearby chuckles at the words, and Silex stops. The slave is watching him with those sky-blue eyes. The defiance is no longer there, but something still bothers Silex. Maybe it’s because of Uxellodunum.
"Uxellodunum," Silex says the name out loud, conjuring the memory of the last battle in an eight-year campaign.
Uxellodunum had been the last fortification the Gauls held, but it had been more than a fortification. It had been a small city defended by thousands. After it fell, Caesar ordered the right hand of every surviving Gaul in the city be removed. There would be no one left to hold a blade against the Legion. Silex never hesitated in his orders, but he’d been forced to bury something else that day as he looked into the eyes of the prisoners.
A loud crack and the clap of stone hitting stone pull Silex from the memory. The rope on the stone the engineer is turning has snapped, and the massive block now sits teetering on the edge, tilting farther and farther out as the slaves on top of the monument try to hold it back. They can't do it though, and the block, along with several slaves, tumbles out over the edge in slow motion.
Silex stands fast, watching the stone as it falls. After years of war he can gauge what will hit him and what will not. The stone will fall well short. Unfortunately, most of the slaves in the line do not have the same instinct. Panicked, many of them let go of the rope and scatter, causing those that do not to be jerked forward by the weight of the block.
"Hold, damn you!" More slaves panic and let go, and he can see the rope sliding through the Gaul's hands. "Hold!"
At first it seems that the remaining slaves will be enough, but it’s no use. Too few are left, and the block begins to fall with the first toward the ground, like two giant dice cast by Fortuna. The rope is shredding the Gaul's hands as it gains speed, but he only grits his teeth and strains harder.
The two blocks hit, shaking the ground and sending up a shower of dust and earth. The block the engineer was attempting to turn lands flat and doesn't move. The one that Silex’s slaves no longer hold hits on a corner and bounces out away from the monument—straight in his direction. Silex turns and ducks, dropping the nine-tails as he throws his arms up to cover his face. There is a heartbeat of silence before dirt sprays over him, and the block whooshes past and settles nearby.
Coughing from the dust, Silex waves his arms back and forth in front of his face, trying to clear the air as he stands. He can see the path gouged by the block only a few steps away, and the massive stone sits no more than ten paces from him. Pinned face down underneath is the Gaul.
"Damn it all!"
The enormous block is crushing one of the slave’s legs, covering it to just above the knee. With the weight of the stone, there’ll be nothing left underneath, but at least the pressure will keep the slave alive until they can get a medicus to amputate the leg. The slave will never be as useful as he was.
The Gaul groans and pushes his torso up until his face and chest are off the ground. For a moment, he’s confused as he tries to figure out why he can’t rise before twisting around to determine the cause. When understanding comes, he turns to face the Roman. The muscles in the slave’s neck and jaw bulge out, his face is flushed, and the veins along his temples and forehead stand out like the ropes he pulls.
"Don't...let them save...my life.” Beads of sweat roll down the slave’s face as he speaks, and his arms tremble, but his eyes are lucid and focused. They remind Silex of the young officer's from so many years ago, but unlike those eyes, the Gaul's don’t beg or plead. They are insistent and demanding, but there is a measured purpose behind them.
Silex feels the muscles in his face soften and relax, and for the first time, his skin feels heavy and thick--as if it sags the way an old man’s face hangs with the weight of countless years and countless choices. For once, the wrong decision comes without a price.
In more of a salute than a nod, Silex signals his consent, and the Gaul nods returns it without speaking before lowering himself slowly to the ground.
"Are you all right, Optio?" A milite asks as he comes sliding to a stop next to Silex. He is breathing hard.
Silex stands. "Yes. Gather some slaves and get bars to lift the stone."
"First, shouldn’t we-"
In an instant, Silex's face regains its former callousness. He grabs the milite by the front of his armor and lifts the soldier until only his toes reach the ground.
"I didn't ask for you to speak," he says, over-enunciating each word. "I said, gather some slaves and get the bars."
"Yes, sir." The milite tries to move away, but Silex continues to hold him.
"And when you're done with that, round up every slave that panicked and ran." Silex shoves him away, and the soldier hurries off shouting orders.
Dusting himself off as he walks, Silex moves to retrieve the nine-tails. For what he’s about to do, it’s a good the weights have been removed.