Edward Crichton - The Last Roman

Santino’s wounded leg only needed a dozen stitches, while Bordeaux had fought a substantial part of the battle with an arrow sticking out of his back. It found itself lodged in his trapezius muscle, near his neck, an errant missile from an archer. Bordeaux’s overly muscled physique had probably saved his life, and the arrow hadn’t made it past his dense muscle structure. Wang, not trained in arrow removal, had allowed a Roman doctor handle it, using ancient forceps, a tool developed in Greece specifically for arrow retrieval. Both had recovered easily.

I was fine for the most part. My arm needed stitching and would leave another scar that would bisect the last one that had just healed there. Add to that another dozen or so scrapes and gashes; I was a mess but had survived relatively unscathed.

As for our decisions, Vincent made his to leave Rome and Caligula’s employ to tour the empire about two weeks ago. He voiced an interest in heading East to find the origins of Christendom. He’d sworn, his remaining hand raised in a promise gesture, that he would not do anything to affect its development, and I hoped he’d keep his word.

Wang had decided to leave as well, indicating he would go to Greece, and perhaps teach their doctors a thing or two about modern medicine. A month ago, as he prepared to leave, I’d clapped him on the shoulder and told him he’d have a fun time learning Greek, and that he’d sooner enjoy Duran Duran than the annoyingly complex language. He gave me a smile, said his goodbyes to everyone who had gathered to see him off, and left.

Bordeaux, another old timer, only a handful of years younger than Vincent, had lived many lives. He’d admitted that the only one where he had been truly happy was the short year he had spent with his wife. He hoped he could find that kind of companionship again, and with no more use for fighting, he too had set off, going North, with no real destination in mind.

They’d all taken plenty of supplies and gear, and despite retiring, brought their weapons and plenty of ammo. They’d be fine out in the wilderness of ancient Rome, and I hoped I crossed paths with them again someday.

“These olives are stale,” Santino reported, his mouth half full.

“I thought you didn’t like olives?” I asked, my hand on the door to my room.

“Eh,” he muttered, inspecting one in the light, “they’re growing on me.”

I rolled my eyes. Unfortunately or fortunately, I was still trying to decide which, Santino had chosen to stick around.

That left just one person.

I tried not to think about my own personal last moments on the battlefield. They had easily become some of the most horrific ones I’ve ever experienced. I had nearly given up myself, wondering if I could ever have been happy living while she didn’t, but I endured.

I sighed. I tried not to think about it.

Reaching for the door, I paused when it seemingly opened on its own accord. Curious, I quickly pressed my hand against it and shoved it open, hoping to catch any interloper off guard. I was still pretty jumpy considering the kind of reception we’d had in Rome over the past year.

I took a tentative step inside as my hand hovered near my Sig. I crept forward and was surprised to notice a figure step out from behind the door, surprising us both. I nearly dropped to a knee for a better firing position, before recognition dawned on me.

I looked across at a set of brilliant green eyes, the same set that had haunted and loved me for nearly a year. Her skin looked paler than normal, and she’d lost some weight during her lengthy recovery, but the lovely face of Helena stared back at me with the same angry expression I’d grown to love in return.

She leaned against the door and clutched her chest with a hand. “For Christ’s sakes, Hunter! You nearly gave me a heart attack bursting in here like that,” she told me, slightly out of breath.

“Me?!” I responded with a frown. “What the hell are you doing out of bed?”

I reached out to take her hands in my own, and led her to our bed, the most comfortable thing I’ve slept on since my childhood one. She moved slowly, and I sat her down next to me before I rested a hand on her forehead.

“You know you’re not supposed to exert yourself,” I told her, my hand still pressed against her skin. “At least you don’t seem to have a fever.”

She brushed my hand away. “Hunter, will you please stop? You’re worse than my mother. Wang said I could start walking around weeks ago, and I wasn’t going to miss this for the world.”

I frowned again.

In those last few moments after I had broken down, Helena had hung to life by a thread. Perhaps by divine intervention, a wandering Roman medic from the legion had spotted his fallen Mater, and rushed to her aid. The man had been efficient, quick, and thorough. Recognizing that the sword had done no, or little, damage to any internal organs, he had gently removed the blade, and gone to work cleaning, and containing the wound.

I remembered the field doctor roughly push me aside as I tried to hold her, and go to work patching her up. There had been so much blood. So much. It had driven me to the point of helplessness even with the Roman medic there.

I sat beside him for what seemed like ages, but my mind forced my body from the scene. I’d gotten up and wearily stumbled around until I found a rock to sit on. The battle was just starting to wrap itself up around me, and after a few seconds of rest, I started to weep. Just like Odysseus in his opening scene in The Odyssey, I sat on that rock, overlooked nothing in particular, and cried for the one I loved the most. Odysseus had sat there every day for years, and my suffering felt just as long. His salvation came in the form of the fleet-footed Hermes who told him the good news that Zeus had convinced his brother, Poseidon, to lift the ban that had forced him from seeing his beloved Penelope. All I got instead was Santino, who slowly approached my rock, and placed his hands on my shoulders.

Feeling his touch, I turned to see Wang. Santino had found him working on a fallen Praetorian who was too far gone to help. As soon as Wang heard Helena’s name, he dropped what he was doing and rushed to her side as fast as he could. He ordered the Roman medic aside, and his fingers danced with graceful care, and his presence offered the briefest seconds of hope.

Then, she died.

At least, her heart had stopped beating, but with a few hits of his mobile defibrillator, Wang managed to revive her, repair her internal injuries, put her back together, sew her up, and save her life. It had taken him almost two hours kneeling next to her on that battlefield, but he’d somehow managed to pull her from the jaws of death. Bordeaux had joined Santino, arrow still lodged in his back, kneeling around Wang as he worked, keeping vigil while I remained glued to my rock, too afraid to face the worst. Many other legionnaires came and kneeled with them. When Wang walked over and told me the good news, it took minutes for his words to sink in. When they finally did, I rushed to her side to find her unconscious and as pale as a ghost. But alive!

I tried to thank him with a bear hug that launched him a foot off the ground, but nothing I said could truly convey how I felt. He’d smiled and told me our happiness would be thanks enough. After that, I’d spent the next three weeks in a field hospital with her, surrounded by thousands of other wounded soldiers. I rarely left her side before she was allowed to leave and brought to the beautiful home we had been given near the Palatine, interestingly on the spot where the Colosseum should be standing in about forty years or so. When I passed that bit of information on to Helena, she had coughed out a laugh and said she couldn’t make any promises she would survive if I kept lecturing.