The Eagle of the Ninth

“Name of Light! Do I have to tell you in so many words that I really do not imagine a clipped ear to be the dividing line between men and beasts? Have I not shown you clearly enough all this while? I have not thought of equal or unequal, slave or free, in my dealings with you, though you were too proud to do the same for me! Too proud! Do you hear me? […]”

Abruptly, the Roman stooped to unbuckle the heavy bronze-studded collar from the wolf’s neck. Cub was full grown now, though not yet come to his full strength, and the time had arrived when he must have his choice of returning to the wild. You could tame a wild thing, but never count it as truly won until, being free to return to its own kind, it chose to come back to you. Marcus had known that all along, and he and Esca had made their preparations with infinite care, bringing Cub to this spot again and again, that he might be sure of the way home if he wished to take it.

“Doubtless you know best. Personally I should not care to let my life hang by so slender a thread as the loyalty of a slave.”

“Esca and I—” Marcus began, and broke off. […] “Esca has been with me a long time. He nursed me when I was sick; he did everything for me, all the while I was laid by with this leg.”

“Why not? He is your slave,” said Placidus carelessly.

Sheer surprise held Marcus silent for a moment. It was a long time since he had thought of Esca as a slave. “That was not his reason,” he said. “It is not the reason that he comes with me now.”

“Is it not? Oh, my Marcus, what an innocent you are; slaves are all—slaves. Give him his freedom and see what happens.”

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.

How long he stood like that he never knew, until he saw the blue spark strengthen slowly, sink a little, and then lick up suddenly into a clear, small flame.

Suddenly he knew why Uncle Aquila had come back to this country when his years of service were done. All his life he would remember his own hills, sometimes he would remember them with longing; but Britain was his home. That came to him, not as a new thing, but as something so familiar that he wondered why he had not known it before.