Iron Rebirth: The Eagle Eternal

He arrived nine days before Valens, which told Abster the nine days were for purpose — a man who needed to see the ground before his emperor saw the reports about it, so he could tell the emperor which reports to trust.

Tribune Sebastos was not what Abster had built in his head from Treverius's letter. He had built someone sharp and cold, the offensive campaign planner who had already decided on war and was coming to confirm the justification. What arrived was a man in his late forties who moved through a space the way soldiers moved through unfamiliar terrain — not tense, just aware, every room and field assessed without appearing to assess it. He had a long scar from his left eye to his jaw that was old enough to have settled into his face as a feature rather than an injury. He brought two aides and no escort, which was its own statement about what kind of danger he expected.

The first thing he did, stepping down from the horse at the gate, was crouch and pick up a handful of road soil. He turned it over, felt the texture, let it fall. He straightened and looked at Corvus as though this were a normal greeting, which for him apparently it was.

"I've read your sector record," he said. "All of it." He said it the way Palladius had — not a compliment or a warning, just a fact establishing what kind of conversation this would be. "I want to see the settlement first."

— ✦ —

They rode up through the foothills in the morning. Abster watched Sebastos watching the settlement come into focus — the smoke first, then the shape, then the detail. He had the hands of a man who'd spent time on campaigns where food supply was a deciding factor, and he crouched at intervals during the ride, picking up the roadside soil at different elevations, checking texture, letting it fall, saying nothing about what he found. It wasn't performance. It was information-gathering from a man for whom the ground told part of the story the documents didn't.

He asked questions as they rode.

"The eastern passes through the ridge. How many serviceable for cavalry."

"Two," Corvus said. "One in good weather only — too narrow for formation in wet ground. One year-round."

"Gothic warriors. Do they patrol the passes."

"Joint patrols, formally established five weeks ago. Roman and Gothic. We have records."

"The settlement's water supply."

"Spring-fed. Sufficient for current population, insufficient if population doubles."

"And if a large Roman force needed to water horses in this valley — would the Gothic community permit it."

Corvus said: "I don't know. I'd have to ask them."

Sebastos looked at him. The first time he'd fully looked at Corvus rather than the ground. "You'd ask."

"I'd ask," Corvus said, "because we've been building relationships here for fifteen months and the answer you got by asking would be more useful than the answer you got by not asking and finding out differently."

"That's an unusual answer from a sector officer."

"It's an unusual sector."

Sebastos picked up another handful of road soil. Let it fall. Rode on.

— ✦ —

Hrodgar met them at the settlement's edge. Abster had sent no word — Hrodgar simply had the quality of noticing things before being told about them, and a Roman tribune and a centurion arriving with aides was the kind of thing you went to meet.

He had the stick from Fortunatus today, the knee bad in the heat. He walked with it without self-consciousness, the way he walked with it on days when it was necessary and the necessity was simply a fact about the day.

Sebastos looked at him — at the stick, at the settlement behind him, at the post-harvest field beyond. He crouched at the field's edge and picked up the stubble-soil. Not the roadside habit this time; he held it longer, turned it over, and when he stood he looked at the field again with a slightly different expression — a fractional change, the kind Abster had learned to read in people who kept their professional mask in place but whose professional masks occasionally admitted one real response.

"This was planted this season," Sebastos said.

"First planting," Hrodgar said. "Under the grant. The main field came in well. The northern section had drainage problems — we know how to fix it for next year."

Sebastos was quiet for a moment. He was looking at the granary — the completed frame, the new timber, the structure that had been framing when Abster had first come here in April and was now a building. He had the expression of a man who had been briefed on a settlement and was now looking at the actual settlement and finding that the briefing had accurately described a thing it had nonetheless failed to make real.

"Next year," he said.

Hrodgar looked at him with sixty-one years of reading people in difficult situations and said nothing at all, which was its own confirmation.

— ✦ —

He walked the settlement. Not all of it — the main path, the granary, the field edge, the spring. He picked up soil at the spring. At the granary he put his hand flat on the timber and pressed, checking for green wood that hadn't been allowed to dry properly, finding none — the kind of check a man made who knew what poor construction looked like and needed to know quickly whether this was it.

Ragnaris was at the settlement's center when they passed through it, talking to Faramund about something that stopped when they came through and did not resume. Ragnaris watched Sebastos with the flat attention he gave to things he was assessing rather than reacting to. Sebastos registered him — the eyes going to him, the brief evaluation of someone noting military bearing and posture, the classification happening quickly and invisibly.

Ragnaris watched him walk away. Abster caught his expression and didn't know what it meant and stored it.

At the field edge, Sebastos crouched one more time. He picked up a handful of harvested soil — the soil that had been under the grain, now exposed to the air for the first time since planting — and he turned it over, and he looked at it for a moment longer than the information required.

"If Gothic warriors are in the eastern passes," he said, to no one in particular, "they can observe the Marcianopolis road for fifty miles in either direction."

"Yes," Abster said.

"And currently they report to your sector."

"To the sector record. Goes to the field army command through Sebastianus."

"Good." He looked at Abster directly for the first time since they'd arrived. "If the observation went the other direction — if the question were what they can deny an enemy the use of — how long to move sufficient warriors into the eastern passes to hold them."

"I don't know the answer. I know Alatheus has thought about it. He's assessed the passes."

Something shifted in Sebastos's expression — the professional mask admitting a second thing in one afternoon. "Alatheus has been thinking about defending the passes."

"He's been thinking about the passes. Whether his frame is defense or something else I'm still working out."

"Honest answer." He let the soil fall. "Keep it that way." He called to his aides. "We've seen enough."

— ✦ —

He rode out in the afternoon. At the boundary he stopped and looked back at the settlement once — not long, the way a man confirmed a position on a map before moving to the next one. Then continued south.

Abster stood with Corvus afterward.

"He's going to recommend using them," Abster said.

"I don't know." Corvus looked at the road Sebastos had taken. "He's going to recommend something. Whether it's using them or removing them or something between depends on what Valens's mind is when Sebastos briefs him, and what Valens's mind is depends on everything from the depot to Bassus's file to what else is happening in the empire that we can't see from here." A pause. "What I know is that Sebastos picked up the soil at the spring, and at the granary, and at the field edge. He picked it up four times in two hours. He's a man who understands what productive ground costs and what it costs to lose." He looked at Abster. "Whether that made it better or worse for us — I don't know."

"He didn't say anything at the end."

"No." Corvus turned back toward camp. "That's how military assessors work."

The Vellum387 days — one year, twenty-two days.

Sebastos crouches and picks up soil. Every time. The road, the field edge, the spring, the harvested ground. Not performance — information. He knows what productive ground costs.

He said "next year" the way someone said a thing they were checking against what they'd been told and were deciding how much it mattered. Hrodgar said nothing. That was the right answer.

He was surprised twice: the harvest, and Alatheus thinking about the passes. The mask admitted both. I filed both.

Ragnaris watched him walk away. I caught the expression and still don't know what it was.