The Eagle of the Ninth

“It all seemed very peaceful, and yet he was filled with an uneasy feeling that the peace was only a film […] and that underneath, something very different was stirring. Again he remembered Hilarion’s warning. For the collar of the old war spear had been lately renewed, and the heron’s feathers were still bright with the lustre of a living bird.”

Marcus proves himself to be a highly perceptive, attentive observer of his environment, and in this moment of reflection he has detected details worthy of his attention, a skill he will continue to develop as his future endeavors require it. This passage also reemphasizes the differences in attitude held by the Britons; between those who have accepted the Roman occupation and those who have offered uncompromising resistance, another adaptation exists: those who demonstrate cooperation yet await the opportunity to rebel.

“To Marcus, running with the rest, it seemed suddenly that there was no weight in his body, none at all. He was filled through and through with a piercing awareness of life and the sweetness of life held in his hollowed hand, to be tossed away like the shining balls that the children played with in the gardens of Rome. […] It was a slim chance, but if it came off it would gain for his men those few extra moments that might mean life or death. For himself, it was death. He was quite clear about that.”

Marcus’s dedication to the men serving under him and his fidelity to the army of Rome are encapsulated in his decision early in the novel to sacrifice himself in battle in the interest of preserving the lives of his fellow soldiers. It is not only without hesitation but also with a profound sense of inner peace and acceptance that he embraces what he believes is his destiny, solidifying for the reader the depth to which his service to Rome is sacred to him.

“He had felt very bitter toward Cradoc; he had liked the hunter and thought that his liking was returned; and yet Cradoc had betrayed him. But that was all over. It was not that Cradoc had broken faith; simply that there had been another and stronger faith he must keep. Marcus understood that now.”

Marcus has grown up a native member of the dominant Roman culture. The attitudes of those living under Roman occupation who do not ascribe to the view that Rome’s power and influence should be absolute are initially foreign to him. This acknowledgement of the complexities contributing to the relationships that exist in an occupied territory is the first indication of the empathy he cultivates as his curiosity compels him to consider other perspectives.

“The fallen man made as though to raise his tampered arm in the signal by which a vanquished gladiator might appeal to the crowd for mercy; then let it drop back, proudly, to his side. Through the fold of the net across his face, he looked straight up into Marcus’s eyes, a look as direct and intimate as thought they had been the only two people in all that great amphitheater.”

Marcus and Esca come to establish an unbreakable bond, a kinship and rapport highly unusual for two young men separated by so many differences. It is not only Marcus’s saving of Esca’s life that binds them initially, but also the unspoken communication between the two that directly precedes it, a kind of profound understanding encapsulated in a moment. This depiction of that instantaneous human connection prepares the reader to appreciate one of the foundations on which their relationship is built.

“He was wondering for the first time—he had not thought to wonder before—why the fate of a slave gladiator he had never before set eyes on should matter to him so nearly. But it did matter. Maybe it was like calling to like; and yet it was hard to see quite what he had in common with a barbarian slave.”

As Marcus prepares to meet Esca, he ponders what it was about Esca that inspired such an intense reaction in him, that he would not only intervene on Esca’s behalf and sway the colosseum crowd in Esca’s favor, but also further bind Esca to him as an enslaved personal attendant. Absent the fraternity surrounding him in the legion, and besieged by loneliness since coming to live with Uncle Aquila, he is still perplexed that he feels so drawn to someone so unlike himself.

“Marcus was filled with a cold anger against the unknown Tribune, and the light of his rage suddenly made clear to them certain things that he had never through of before.”

Marcus’s response to hearing of Tribune Placidus’s statement to Esca reminding Esca of his inferiority in his enslaved status marks a shift toward his eventual rejection of the Roman tradition of enslaving other people. The consideration Marcus shows to Esca eventually changes his broader way of thinking and expands into a shift in his expectations of himself. It is important to Marcus that he not make Esca feel inferior, regardless of how others might behave, because he values Esca differently.

“You are the builders of coursed stone walls, the makers of straight roads and ordered justice and disciplined troops. We know that, we know it all too well. We know that your justice is more sure than ours, and when we rise against you, we see our hosts break against the discipline of your troops, as the sea breaks against a rock. And we do not understand, because all these things are of the ordered pattern, and only the free curves of the shield-boss are real to us. We do not understand. And when the time comes that we begin to understand your world, too often we lose the understanding of our own.”

Esca’s explanation of his fellow Britons’ perspective comes at Marcus’s request, as Marcus’s curiosity about oppressed viewpoints is further stirred by his acquaintance with Cottia, who holds her status as Iceni sacred. Marcus cannot understand why the peoples they conquer are not receptive to the conveniences, structure, and amenities associated with Roman occupation. Esca’s elucidation indicates that Marcus has never considered what must be sacrificed and what will inevitably be lost in the process for those who yield.

“Suddenly he knew, with a sense of discovery, that it had been a good summer. He had ben homesick, yes, dreaming night after night of his own hills, and waking with a sore heart; but none the less it had been a good summer. […] A kind summer, a kingfisher summer; and suddenly he was grateful for it.”

Reflecting before he must undergo surgery to debride his leg, Marcus experiences a moment of clarity through which he realizes that despite all he has so recently lost, he sincerely appreciates the new relationships that he has developed over the summer. Bonding with his Uncle Aquila, living in his comfortable and pleasant home, and establishing relationships with Esca, Cub, and Cottia have all contributed to a significant change in the quality of his life in a short amount of time.

“Marcus’s [thoughts] were mainly concerned, as they had been for some time past, with the question of what he was going to do with himself and his life, now that he was well again. […] he knew that for him to drift home, rootles and without any stake in the country that had bred him, nor any hope of such, would be only the shadow and none of the substance of homecoming. He would have carried this exile with him into his own hills and spoiled them, that was all.”

In the time between his injury and ousting from the Roman Army and his mission to rescue the eagle from the North, Marcus occupies a kind of limbo. The only element of his initial plan for his life that he might otherwise be able to implement is now impossible for him, because without the retirement benefits, he would have earned at the end of his military service, he cannot afford to return to Chiusi and repurchase his family farm, or any other property.

“Moment by lengthening moment it became more desperately urgent to him that he should win his marching orders. The very life or death of his father’s Legion was at stake; the Legion that his father had loved. And because he had loved his father with all the strength of his heart, the matter was a personal quest to him and shone as a quest shines. But beneath that shining fact lay the hard fact of a Roman eagle in hands that might one day use it as a weapon against Rome; and Marcus had been bred a soldier.”

Marcus requested to be stationed in Britain because he believed that in the course of his duties as a soldier, he might discover what became of his father, and his father’s legion. In light of the catastrophic end to his military career, that aspiration until this moment felt unattainable. Marcus, however, is filled with hope and elation that he may yet be able to serve his father’s memory and honor him by his own efforts, and in turn perform a final service to the Roman Army.

“Esca, I should never have asked you to come with me into this hazard when you were not free to refuse. It is like to prove a wild hunt, and whether or not we shall come back from it lies on the knees of the gods. No one should ask a slave to go with him on such a hunting trail; but—he might ask a friend.”

When Tribune Placidus questions the motives behind Esca’s loyalty to Marcus up until this point, Marcus defends Esca, but he comes to an important decision when Placidus’s challenge escalates to the suggestion that Marcus free him. Marcus does not hesitate to grant Esca his manumission, but not because he feels that he cannot trust Esca while Esca remains enslaved, or because he doubts Esca’s sincerity. Marcus’s conscience demands that if Esca is to risk his life to help Marcus, it must be of his own volition. Though they are not yet rendered equal in status under Roman law, this change in Esca’s station creates circumstances under which Esca’s choices and actions are testament to his own desires and loyalty to Marcus.

“You see, with us, the Eagle is the very life of a Legion; while it is in Roman hands, even if not six men of the Legion are left alive, the Legion itself is still in being. Only if the eagle is lost, the Legion dies.”

Through Marcus’s explanation to Cottia of the eagle’s significance, and with it his rationale for how important his mission is to retrieve it, the reader gains insight into Marcus’s thinking. Even if his father has perished, if the eagle can be retrieved then his father’s legion can be replenished with other soldiers and may contribute to the glory of Rome again. All along, Marcus has chosen to consider the eagle not lost, but rather merely missing, awaiting recovery.

“It had been part of his life, something that continued back from him to the wild olive tree in the loop of the stream, and the life and places and things and people that the wild olive tree belonged to. And suddenly, as he laid it in the hollow among the tiny stars of the rowan blossom, it seemed to him that with it—in it—he was laying the old life down, too.”

The olivewood bird that Marcus carved as a child from the knot in the olive tree at his home in Chiusi has been precious to him since his youth and is one of the last physical pieces of his family’s land left for him to cling to. In burning it as a sacrifice, Marcus surrenders something of meaning in the hopes that he might attain something even more significant. As he lays his old life down, he also acknowledges that he may not return to his home territory, or even south of the wall, such are the risks of this undertaking.

“He might of course have learned the song from the Legionnaires who had served here; he was fully old enough for that. Mithras sometimes found followers in unexpected places. But taking the two things together, it was unusual, to say the least of it, and Marcus had been looking for something unusual all summer.”

After many months of searching, Marcus is validated in his recent decision to double back on the hunch that he and Esca may have traveled too far north. With the promising lead of a Roman song from the mouth of a man who maintains the appearance of a native Briton, Marcus feels that sweeping back over uncovered territory has granted them the first indication that they may be on the right path.

“What a fool he had been! What a blind fool! Clinging to the stubborn faith that because it had been his father’s, there had been nothing wrong with the Ninth Legion, after all. He knew better now. His father’s legion had been putrid, a rotten apple that fell to pieces when it was struck by a heel. And God of the Legions! What his father must have suffered! Out of the ruin, one thing stood up unchanged: that the Eagle was still to be found and brought back, lest one day it became a menace to the frontier. There was something comforting about that. A faith still to be kept.”

Through Gruen, Marcus has at long last learned the fate of his father’s legion. Though there is satisfaction for Marcus in having confirmation of the loyalty to Rome he was sure his father possessed, he is devastated by the betrayal that his father experienced, and his disillusionment with the Ninth begins as he realizes that strangers were perhaps right to question the integrity of the legion’s ranks.

“But all the while, listen as they might, neither he nor Esca heard anything to suggest that the place and the thing they were looking for was nearby. Once or twice, during those days, Marcus glimpsed a black-cloaked figure passing through the dun, remote from the warm and crowded humanity of the tribe and seeming to brood over it as Cruachan brooded over the land. But Druids were everywhere, up here beyond the reach of Rome, just as holy places were everywhere. They did not live among the people, but withdrawn into themselves, in the misty fastness of the mountains, in the hidden glens, and among the forests of birch and hazel. Their influence lay heavy on the duns and villages, but no one spoke of them, any more than they spoke of their gods and the prowling ghosts of their forefathers.”

Marcus and Esca wait patiently through the healing of Dergdian’s son, catching numerous glimpses of the less elusive Northern Druids during their stay. Ever aware of their presence, Marcus appreciates the likely connection between these holy priests and the custodial guardianship of the eagle, but no further clues have emerged to encourage Marcus and Esca that they have come to the right place. Many times in the novel, Marcus and Esca have nearly been led astray, and this passage intimates they may have to continue their search elsewhere. The passage comes just before Marcus and Esca learn of the Feast of the New Spears, which sparks their interest, and during the course of which the eagle will be heavily featured. They nearly missed learning of its whereabouts.

“Much as he might tell of a bygone hunting that had been good, the old warrior told how he and his sword-brethren had hunted down the last remnants of the Ninth Legion, closing round them as a wolf pack closes round its prey. The old man told it without a shadow of pity, without a shadow of understanding for the agony of his quarry; but with a fierce admiration that lit is his face and sounded in every word.”

Marcus struggles to listen to Tradui recount the events of the Ninth Legion’s demise from the remove of his perspective as a native Briton. Marcus has heard Guern’s account, but Guern’s telling did not include his father’s fate, nor was he speaking from the opposing side of the conflict. Hearing the details of his father’s death told with such coldness is difficult for Marcus to bear, especially as he must remain neutral. Marcus has expressed increasing curiosity about the experiences of native Britons, and Tradui’s retelling is the least filtered expression of an incident so close to Marcus’s heart. It is not until Tradui has finished his tale that he is reminded of Marcus’s father and, in drawing Marcus’s father’s visage to mind, notices the physical characteristics shared between Marcus and his father.

“Suddenly he remembered the flood of sunset light in his sleeping-cell at Calleva, that evening when Esca and Cub and Cottia had come to him in his desperate need. He called it up now, like golden water, like a trumpet call, the light of Mithras. He hurled it against the darkness, forcing it back—back—back.”

In a moment of exceptional stress and fear, attempting to abscond with the eagle during what is the most dangerous part of his journey thus far, Marcus’s mind turns to his experiences with Cub, Esca, and Cottia, illustrating the soothing role his relationships with them play in his life. Marcus once harkened back to his childhood in Chiusi as a balm in times of difficulty, but now his new attachments provide more recent comforting memories.

“If it were yet in the place we took it from, it would be still a danger to the frontier—a danger to other Legions. Also it was my father’s Eagle and not theirs. Let them keep it if they can. Only it is in my heart that I wish we need not have made Dergdian and his sword-brethren ashamed.”

As he responds to Esca’s question as to whether he feels any guilt for rescuing the eagle from the Britons, Marcus assures Esca that he is certain in his convictions that their actions are justified. Marcus has healed the sight of Dergdian’s son in return for their hospitality, and the eagle belonged to Rome in the first place. Marcus’s ability to experience compassion for the Britons, however, has weighed on his conscience in the sense that he had not wanted Dergdian and the others to feel shame, particularly because they were correct in assuming that Marcus and Esca had taken the eagle. That it bothers Marcus is a testament to the compassion that he has developed for those to whom he was once indifferent and from whom he felt detached.

“Always it was Esca who had the extra task to do, the extra risk to run.”

Marcus is frequently frustrated by his inability to participate in certain tasks and activities because of the limitations associated with his injury. In the North, he is further and more significantly limited by his appearance, unable to traverse the landscape without attracting attention because he is so Roman in his physical features. As a lifelong hunter, Esca is also at a greater advantage because he knows the terrain of the North and possesses the agility and stealth developed through years of tracking prey. Marcus feels ineffectual and is all the more grateful to Esca because he is choosing to assume these additional responsibilities.

“He wondered if any word of that ending would one day drift south across the Wall, would reach the Legate Claudius, and through him, Uncle Aquila; would reach Cottia in the garden under the sheltering ramparts of Calleva. He should like them to know…it had been good hunting, that he and Esca had had together. Suddenly he knew that, despite all outward seeming, it had been worthwhile. There was a great quietness in him.”

When for the second time Marcus is faced with the certainty that his death is near, he experiences the same sense of peace that overcame him when he prepared to sacrifice himself for his fellow soldiers at Isca Dumnoniorum. He is satisfied with his actions and filled with affection for Esca. Only one remaining thought occurs to him, and he worries that the person who had the faith to endorse his mission, and more importantly those who have become dear to him, may never learn of what happened to them. This consideration is a testament to how his attachments to others have grown, and how he has achieved fulfillment once again, after so long a struggle with his purpose.

“He sent for me, and said: ‘It may be that it is you who hunt him down, for there is a link of fate between this line and ours. If it be so, kill him if you can, for he has put shame to the gods of the tribe; but also give him his father’s ring, for he is his father’s son in more than blood.’”

Marcus has long struggled with understanding the ways of the Britons, and Tradui, whose words Liathan is relating in this quote, is someone who Marcus initially disliked, came to tolerate, and again became averse to when he learned of Tradui’s role in his father’s death. Regardless of the animosity between Marcus and the tribes, Marcus finds validation in this unlikely conference of honor from Tradui. He has not only returned Marcus’s father’s ring, but also likened Marcus to the person he admires most in the world and acknowledged the multigenerational entanglement in which they have all become involved as a result of the Ninth’s disappearance.

“Marcus had never thought of it either, but he knew that it was true. You could give a slave his freedom, but nothing could undo the fact that he had been a slave; and between him, a freed-man, and any free man who had never been unfree, there would still be a difference. Wherever the Roman way of life held good, that difference would be there. That was why It had not mattered, all these months that they had been away; that was why it mattered now.”

Although he can never effectively empathize with Esca’s period of enslavement, Marcus is aware of the power and complexities associated with status and identity in the Roman world. Marcus appreciates how such a delineation between those who have been or who are enslaved and those who have never had that experience marks a gap of understanding that can never be bridged. This realization is important in the sense that Esca’s status is soon to change again when the Roman Senate bestows upon him the rights of a citizen. Esca’s enslavement will forever impact and inform his experience, but because of his heroism, he will be afforded opportunities and liberties in his future not afforded Britons without such a status. Hereafter, Marcus and Esca will be on equal footing in their farming endeavors, as friends and partners.