Human for a Day (9781101552391) Read Online Free Page A

Ben Yosef started all those years ago on top of a dusty hill too far from his home or mine.
    Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Blessings upon you, all that are in my power to give. I know God has an eye on me; lets me direct His gaze to your heart.
    Well, maybe not that last.
    Â 
    Longinus had already walked the earth six times longer than the life of a mortal man. He had fought in Syria, in Scythia, among the Parthians. He’d changed his name a dozen times. No matter how far he ranged, he eventually found his way back into the legions.
    He’d settled on the rank of tesserarius , always being vague about his exact history while showing enough of his experience with weapons and maneuver and the business of wrangling men to be convincing to a signi-fer or centurion desperate enough for skilled bodies to ignore the irregularities. The older the empire grew, the easier this became. There were always men discharged for drunkenness or brutality who drifted back into the ranks.
    And by the gods, Longinus knew one end of a spear from the other.
    This time, though, he could see the end coming. Not his own end. Not anymore. He’d taken enough blows, caught enough arrows point first to know what would happen to him. It hurt like crazy, but the wounds always closed up. So far no one had tried to cut off his head. He wasn’t looking forward to finding out how that went.
    This time it was not his body absorbing the blow. It was the Eternal City herself. Alaric’s armies were at the gates for the third time in two years. The Emperor Hon-orious was long since decamped. Everyone of consequence in the senate and the army had gone with him.
    Only the broken legions, and those whose masters could not arrange their timely withdrawal, remained.
    Longinus watched the smoke rise from the fires near the Salarian Gate. Rumor among the centurions and their troops was that slaves had let the attackers in. Not that it had done the poor bastards much good. The Visigoths seemed pleased to kill anyone unlucky enough to be in their path.
    Now, atop a house part way up the Aventine Hill, he no longer wondered how long it would take them to reach him. A band of the Celtic warriors had ridden into the Vicus Frumentarius perhaps half a glass earlier and set to the serious business of smashing their way through the homes here.
    He had four men with him—two of them drunkards, one barely old enough to shave, and another veteran like himself. Longinus had only bothered to learn the old soldier’s name—Rattus—as the others wouldn’t live long enough for him to need to remember them.
    â€œWe could just bugger off.” Rattus was slumped against the rooftop parapet sucking down the last of a broken amphora of wine from the house stores. The kid had been useful at least in handling the petty thievery on behalf of the older veterans. It wasn’t very good wine, though. The vinegar stink rose up like pickling time in the kitchens.
    â€œBugger off where?” asked Longinus distantly. He wondered how many of the Visigoths would make it to this house. They were visibly drunk, and not moving with their reputed efficiency.
    â€œSkin out of our kit, flee with the rest of the meat.”
    Longinus understood from Rattus’ tone that the old soldier wasn’t serious. “Die here, die there,” he said. “They kill everything.”
    Rattus burped. “What’s so special about dying here? If we die there, might have a little longer to live first. Something could happen along the way. A man can be lucky.”
    â€œHere is where we were sent to die.” Longinus remembered a hot, dusty hilltop in Judaea. He’d learned a lot about being sent to die at that place.
    â€œFair enough.” Another belch.
    One of the drunkards poked his head up from the narrow ladderway. “You coming down?” he asked. “We got duck in brine.”
    â€œEat, drink, and be merry,” Longinus replied.