Initium

W Anderson T

Description

What effect did the Crucifixion have on the Roman Army? What effect did the Roman Army have on the Resurrection? Are these the most important questions of all time?Through the power of a compelling fictional narrative, back to 33 AD when men and women were inspired to take up thecross and change the world, the reader is taken on a journey of discovery to an alternative account of events in RomanJudea. It is the characters we meet in the Roman Army who will be their unknown inspiration, and stray from their ownusual paths. Everything we feel and touch within this world is fictional or is it?Is there an ultimate truth? And are you ready to face it?

Sujets

• Historical fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Troubador Publishing Ltd
• Date de parution: 29 mai 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781838596101
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Copyright © 2020 T W Anderson

The moral right of the author has been asserted.

Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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ISBN 9781838596101

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Contents
THE HILL
THE WORD
THE OATH
THE CHARGE
THE AUDIENCE
THE VISIT
THE DEED
THE DREAM
THE DUTY
THE AFTERMATH
THE DELIBERATION – I
THE DELIBERATION – II
THE DELIBERATION – III
THE DELIBERATION – IV
THE DELIBERATION – V
THE DELIBERATION – VI
EPILOGUE
Postscript
THE HILL
There was a gully at the bottom where they could rest.
Fatigue, which slowed the reflexes and weighed you down to the dust on which you hardly knew how to sink your aching limbs, had to be resisted. Easier for him than most: he had other things to think about. This was his burden. There could be no let-up. If you weren’t alert to every risk and possibility then you weren’t doing your job. Keep with it, concentrate, no matter how tired and dehydrated you are. They could be close now, watching, and they’d know how to lie low, to evade if they could, how to fight if cornered. The main band of them had to be somewhere in this maze. Or away, miles away already, slipped through again. Ten to one this would be another wasted effort, designed by demons to sap their energies and morale interminably, until the next time, when they would have to do it all over again. Still it was what they did and what they were paid for, so if you had any sense you accepted and got on with it.
There were worse things in life. And you never knew, one day their luck might be in. There’d be a scrap, rewards of bounty, renown and recognition, even some leave for the luckiest. There was always that chance, and you had to play on it, stress the positive, make sure they didn’t ease off. After weeks of tedium in the field, that’s when leadership came to the fore, not the routine variety but something deeper. Especially with seasoned soldiers. If you wanted keenness then stick to the green, the greener the better. The older lags knew too well how to get by doing the minimum, to hold back from anything involving extra effort if they could get away with it. At some point with most of them you could get the best of both, that blend of experience and enthusiasm before they got too stuck in their ways.
The building-block which made all things possible was the dependable, self-contained individual who wasn’t going to get very far up the promotion ladder, such as it was, but was quietly confident in his abilities, and on whom you knew you could always count. You wanted as many of those as you could get. Still it took all sorts, and you had to work with what you’d got. None in this backwater had ever seen proper action, but he had no doubt they’d perform well if the test came. He’d rather have this lot than battle-hardened veterans, who’d either be over-confident or more likely been around too long and gone the other way, and come to see risk in terms of fairness and survival, which was known often to have been a problem in the great wars of the past. There was a limit to the well of courage for all men.
Yet these particular ones, his own command that he’d trained and brought on and whose interests and futures he’d always tried to further, whether they realized it or not, were his responsibility and his alone. How they’d perform would be a reflection on him. He’d have liked to have been sure, but the fact was that few had experienced real danger. They hadn’t seen mass casualties and possibly never would. Their forefathers had fought each other, and knew what it was to be on the wrong end of a ruthless killing machine, when the fortunes of battle went not for you but remorselessly against. They, he too, were lucky, a generation spawned by the great peace which had followed the civil wars. As he looked at them now, each with their own thoughts and waiting for their own next step into the unknown, he recognized the emotion edging into his own: feelings of pride, admiration, identification, and an empathy that could become disconcerting if it wasn’t controlled.
Stay with it. Too easy to let the body relax, too easy to lose alertness. You might go through the routine more times than you could remember, march all day, lie in wait all night, patrol, always patrol, then when you least expected it the moment would be on you, the call to action when all would depend on instinct and speed and you hoped you would have enough of whatever it took – quick thinking, courage, stamina …
Stop drifting. What if the intelligence were accurate? Could this, here and now, just for once, just possibly, be the place and the time? Now they’d been out so long, worn out and worn down once more? To be teased then tested by Fortuna in this state – was this to be their lot? And why shouldn’t it be? That’s how it usually went, didn’t it? Not when you were fresh and ready, but when you weren’t. Less moaning, it could be worse, everything could always be worse. Yes there was luck, but also the skill of war. You made your own, both. Surprise was the winning tactic, to be sought and maximized on the largest scale down to the least, by them, by you. You looked for it in every conceivable situation, and you assumed they were always trying to spring it equally on you. So you took precautions, and you were a fool if you thought you couldn’t be caught napping. Well not on his watch. Not with his command.
Very soon they’d be on the move again, able to expand their field of vision against the heat-haze, clearing the ground for a purpose, carrying out the mission. And if the chances of contact were to prove low after all, so what? It was another day, another sweep. They were professionals if not all volunteers, thorough, patient, ready to keep going time after time. And with no illusions. If they did find these bandits they’d be in for a hard slog, inevitably uphill, a long approach with the danger of snares and ambush at any moment, attack by missiles of all descriptions, stones of all sizes hurled and slung from the heights by determined, resourceful, well-rested opponents. Likely there’d only be a handful, and likely they’d be quickly away again, too quick to bring to battle, up and away to vanish completely … or lure them on to another ambush…
Surely now they must know the force was in the general area, probably have a good idea of their dispositions and intentions? Could the cordon have been compromised? Could there be any chance of surprise left at all after their labours of the morning, when their movements must have been abundantly clear? And what was Century I up to? They’d been waiting too long for them now, for the signal that hadn’t come for so long that it didn’t seem likely now it ever would. Had something gone wrong? Was it his own company that was in the wrong place? Had he misjudged the country, where one hill looked very much like another and distances were deceptive? Could Century I have lost their way among the many spurs and re-entrants over on that flank, and borne too far off, out of earshot? Suppose even now they’d made contact, well out of sight, able to crow in the mess hall afterwards that it was they alone who had earned the glory, whilst everybody else had been pissing about and catching up on their beauty sleep. And suppose at that very moment they were fighting for their lives, against a concentration of the enemy way beyond what the intelligence reports had indicated, cursing their comrades for abandoning them in their crisis …
He was squinting into the glare, up towards the short horizon, when the call came – off to the right, faint but distinct. At last! Recumbent figures were up and crouching against the bank, pulses quickening, fatigue forgotten, alert, expectant. No time to waste. He stood back to better his view against the broad bend of the gully, waiting for the last men to look in before the signal, then in one smooth movement they were up in a muted jangle of armour and weaponry, a shifting of weight to steady the poise ready for the move, and with another short wave of his sword-arm they were clambering over with javelin-butt and shield-base and shaking out silently into skirmishing formation. It was good to be off.
Very soon it was a matter of steady going against the gradient, not too fast, controlling the breathing, keeping an eye on the line as they moved up the long incline, accommodating the obstacles, maintaining the dressing, keeping the momentum going, needing no orders. This was the advance-to-contact, straightforward tactically if tense. They were covering as wide a front as he thought prudent, dwarfed by the scale of the landscape, the flanks wide open. You’d need half a legion to be sure of catching anyone who ne