Chapter 9: Apollonia Minor

The thriving (Yes, I wax sarcastic) market town of Apollonia Minor looked like it was asleep that morning. We had come cross country from the southeast and camped for the night on the outskirts. After a hearty breakfast of what was left of last night’s chicken, which wasn’t much, we wandered into town. It was big enough to have a forum, which was empty when we went through it early in the day. There was a wooden temple of Jupiter, a bakery, a wine shop, a tavern, and a few other buildings. There was a shoddy-looking public bath, and a nicely kept house built around an atrium that I guessed was the mayor’s. Everybody else’s houses weren’t very big. They reminded me of the old beach cottages that were giving way to condos and pricey developments like Bayside in my reality stream. There was a livery stable and a campus martius, where the troops lived when they were in town.

A handful of minutes later we were wandering out of town on the Roman road. If you blinked, you missed the place, even afoot and not in a hurry. There weren’t many sights to see.

Say what you will about the Romans, they knew how to build a road. Via XLI ran straight as an arrow, relatively, from Apollonia Minor to Apollonia Maior, which lay across the Chesapeake Bay from the mainland. The Eastern Shore is the “mainland” as well, to Ocean City, but to prove it you have to trek to the north for four or five days, turn west past where Havre de Grace is in our realm, and then trek south again even further to get where we wanted to go. Best to go hard west and take the ferry from what’s basically a big (DelMarVa – Delaware-Maryland-Virginia) peninsula. Via XLI was also referred to by name as “Cassillianus,” for a local judge who had ruled against something or other once in a career of about eighty years. Before that it had been named “Verae Amicitiae,” which means “Of True Friendship.” Cassillius pegged out with his toga on and they had to name something for him, and Route 41 was closest at hand. I guess they didn’t need the True Friendship that naming it a hundred or so years before had demanded anymore. I think the politics comes with that patch of dirt, regardless of who lives on it, since they did the same sort of thing where I came from. Everything was named for politicians nobody had heard of.

The road was easier on the feet, at least at first, than walking cross-country had been. Once the day got going we had to stay out of the way of wagons, carts, coaches, and the occasional patrol of cavalry. For company we met people walking the other way. It took a while for those traveling from Apollonia Minor to catch up to us, and then it was the horse and carriage traffic for the most part. We’d occasionally be joined, usually just for a few miles, by people from farms or hamlets along the road, walking on business. They were voluble, friendly folk, chattering away at each other in Saxon-English, Lenape, and a variety of vulgar Latin that sounded sort of like Portuguese spoken in a Swedish accent, only with K’s for all the C’s. (Caesar actually came, saw, and conquered and pronounced it “Wenny, widdy, winky.“) An old man with a big gray mustache that grew below his lower lip to meet his chin whiskers walked with us for quite a few miles, herding three swine with the help of a stick and a dog we were all afraid to approach. He spoke to Nannakussi in pigeon Lenape and to Nevianne’s mother in pigeon Saxon. He didn’t address Nevy or me because she was an unmarried maid traveling with me, her intended, and I might be jealous. Intendeds sometimes are, especially if the maid is really good-looking, like Nevy. Nannakussi told him the story of how he had come to be a servus, and the old guy eyed me even more warily. When I wasn’t looking, Nevy caught him making the sign against the ochius malus, or evil eye, toward me. Intendeds are sometimes really jealous, especially if the maid is really good-looking, like Nevy, and the intendeds are demons.

Nevy snickered. So did Blæda. She’d already forgotten trying to faint at the sight of me two whole days previous.

“This evening,” Nevy told me, and I translate again for conciseness, “we will be at the crossroads. There we can get lodging and some money. I don’t think we can get enough horses for all of us.”

“We’re going to have to kill or steal something to eat on the way,” I told her, worried. I was pretty sure they didn’t take MasterCard at the occasional kiosks along the road.

“Expect to share it with our fellow travelers,” she warned.

I gazed upon one of the old fellow’s pigs and she poked me. “Better not,” she told me. “You’ll scare him to death! Nannakussi’s telling him about the length of your claws!”

“Have I told you today that you’re beautiful?” I asked, turning my attention from pork butt to her. I used wunderschön for beautiful, since I wasn’t sure what the Saxon word might be and I didn’t think super had been invented in this realm. It’s last week’s slang in Bremen or Munich or someplace.

She managed to figure it eventually. The word I wanted was Saxon or Olde English ælfscíene, which was long gone by my time. The scíene part morphed into the German schön, which also means “pretty,” which was inadequate to describe my girl. The ælf, or “elf” part, sadly died somewhere along the years, so I hadn’t met it. Nevy thought wunderschön was an elegant turn of phrase. “Nay, my lord,” she replied, revealing dimples I could have fallen into lips first, “but feel free to call me such any time!”

She gave my hand a squeeze, since Mother was watching us closely. Public displays of affection are frowned upon in that society. Holding hands was okay, kissing wasn’t. I wondered what the Saxon or Olde English word was for “duenna.”

I tried my eleven word Lenape vocabulary out on Nannakussi, gave up, and had Nevy ask him if he wanted to go hunting with me, or more accurately, take me hunting. “Aye,” he answered with a grin. I got that pretty easily.

We left the road and went a-tromping, he with his bow, me with a knife and the remains of his sword, which was going to turn into a poorly balanced knife, with a long handle, and a short blade. They didn’t throw many things away in the Really Later Roman Empire. The strip on this part of the left side of the road was designated as game lands. Theoretically, the game lands were Imperial hunting preserves. The Emperor didn’t get out that way often, so he had to count on us locals to keep the game from getting out of control.

As we tromped, I’d point to this or that, and Nannakussi would tell me what it was in Lenape and I’d tell him, or try to, what it was in English. “Hitkuk“ was trees, plural, one tree was “hitkunk.” Good start. I could remember that. Then we went into a little detail. A white oak tree was “wipunkòkuk.” A hedge tree was “wisaokw” – no “kuk,” just a hint at the end. That “kw” sound was more like a “kng” to my ear. A box elder was “wisaitunas“ and a honey locust was “kawënshuwik.” There weren’t any “kuks“ to be found there either, since each kind of tree had its own name.

“He stood under a tree” was “Ekwi hìtkunk nipu, “ but “He set fire to a tree (I’m not sure why he would) was “Nòxkwsao nèl hìtko.” “I walked around the tree” was “Okai mpëmska na hìtkunk,” but “I went around the tree,” which to me was just about the same, was “Nòkahëla na hìtùkw.” Grammar, if any, was as yet a total mystery to me. I’m pretty sure Nannakussi remembered a lot more of my language than I did of his, though I did retain “hitkunk“ and “hitkuk.” I remember them to this day. I just didn’t know what to do with them at the time.

The word for turkey was “chikënëm.” Nannakussi saw it way before I did. His bow came up in a quick, fluid motion as the bird hit the air, and it flew right into the arrow. The arrow went through its neck, it did a kind of in-the-air stumble, and fell to the ground, flopping for a bit before it gave up the ghost. We did a little war dance together, laughing like a couple of six-year-olds, emitting “yee-hoo’s,” which were the same in both languages. I gutted the bird, leaving the head and the entrails for the scavengers, and we took turns plucking it on the way back to the road.

The plural form of turkey was “chikënëmuk.” I learned that because the second one ran right in front of us, when we were not a hundred yards from the road. It broke out of nowhere, with a a couple inches of lizard hanging from its beak. Nannakussi took him just as effortlessly. He took two steps, caught him by the head, and wrung his neck. Another minor war dance ensued, with me telling Nannakussi he was the world’s mightiest hunter. He probably had no idea what I was saying, but he was pleased that I was pleased with him. Now we each had a chikënëm to carry and pluck, and we had enough to share with strangers, which was the Lenape custom.

We found the road, and we found the ladies by following the trail of crap the piggies were leaving. We could tell by its freshness when we were getting closer. The swineherd looked a little more friendly toward me, so I guessed that Nevy and her Mom had explained to him that for a demon I wasn’t so bad. “Chikënëmuk!” I hollered as we approached, probably sounding more childish than demonic.

When we had rejoined them I clapped Nannakussi on the shoulder and proclaimed to anyone who’d listen that he was a hunter who had taken two turkeys with a single arrow, and I held them both up as evidence. There was general applause (after translation) and he got a “my hero” look from his wife and daughter. There’s nothing better for a man’s soul than a wifely “my hero” look, no matter how good he is routinely.

There were little plazas built every couple miles, rest stops for the foot weary. They were a part of the road system. Often there were kiosks there, selling food or sandals or moccasins. Everyone but me was walking barefoot, conserving their footwear. I wore a pair of Nike knockoffs from Walmart that were good for two or three thousand miles. The locals all had pretty tough feet. I was a product of my society. If I’d gone barefoot, I’d have been leaving bloody tracks in a mile or two.