Gordon Doherty - Legionary

‘Let’s hear it for the Claudia!’ He roared, punching the air as the men set him down and handed him the wine sack. He gazed into the azure sky as the bittersweet liquid rolled down his throat.

Felicia’s stomach was in knots. She barged through the ruddy-faced and grinning throng on the streets, all vying to get into the heart of the celebrations in the Augusteum. Every character she bundled from her path embodied the emotions she wished to feel once again.

But all she could see, feel and hear was her long dead brother, Curtius. Her heart ached as she saw his face again, a weak, pining expression. Curtius had played the reluctant conscript and played it well. He had once told her that an imperial agent could not be conspicuously competent. However, to be found slain, throat cut from ear to ear, inside his own fort…she closed her eyes, blinking back the tears.

Wading into the centre of the Augusteum, she thought of Pavo; a sweet boy, a boy she could see herself with if life wasn’t so…complicated. No, her life was all about infiltrating the XI Claudia now, all about finding those responsible for the death of Curtius. All about finding the counteragent, the hired dagger in the ranks of the XI Claudia. Despite the legion’s losses, the culprit was still serving in her ranks — one of the veterans, apparently, or so her sources told her. Pavo was her new key into that dark stony bulwark back at Durostorum. She would obtain justice, she grimaced, justice dealt with her own hand. Blood would be let, she shuddered, and let in the gallon.

She saw Pavo at last, tipping a wine sack to his lips. Still the skinny, hawk-faced creature she remembered fondly. She wiped her eyes dry, took a deep breath and smiled. They could still have some fun before the storm…

Confetti swirled lazily amidst the warm breeze as the triumph party roared on. The streets of Constantinople continued to effervesce as the population cheered, drank and danced in waiting for Valens’ speech. After that, the celebrations would continue long into the evening.

Meanwhile, Pavo remained in a lasting embrace with Felicia under a small archway in the shade. Seemingly invisible to the crowd at last, he nuzzled into her sweet scented neck and ran a hand back and forth through her tumbling amber locks.

‘I thought you’d have forgotten about me?’ He asked, holding her chin in his hands, gazing into her blue eyes and drinking in her beauty.

‘Well, maybe I had for a while. But you’re my free pass to a triumph, and I couldn’t miss out, could I?’ She teased. ‘My father’s down for the weekend trading anyway, so like a good girl I offered to come and help him…’

They fell silent for a moment again, before Felicia looked up into his eyes.

‘So when you go back to Durostorum. Are you there to stay?’ She asked.

Pavo felt his mind drift to the previous day in the legionary fort. The debriefing had involved talk of an emergency vexillatio from the remainder of the legion being sent north of the Danubius, where Athanaric’s Gothic armies were rebelling against Fritigern and teetering on a full-scale invasion. Something was wrong up there. Badly wrong. He felt the onset of a frown, before checking it with a laugh.

‘Next thing for me is to go for a drink and to properly meet your father!’

He wrapped his arms around her waist tightly, pulled her as close as he could and pressed his mouth firmly against her soft cherry lips.

‘Pavo!’ A gruff and familiar voice roared.

Pavo twisted round in alarm. Three faces grinned back at him; Felix, flanked by Zosimus and Sura.

‘Permission to fall out granted!’ Felix cackled, before they disappeared again into the midst of the revelry.

From the balcony, Tarquitius let the silk curtain fall shut again. When things had seemed lost, he had pulled off a masterstroke with his wit and charm. The missing bishop had been disgraced as a traitor and rumour was that his gilded bones hung in Balamber the Hun’s tent. Meanwhile the senate had been restored and him along with it as a senior senator. But Valens was no puppet — that was for sure. But as always, he would outmanoeuvre the man; his next move would just have to be shrewder than ever.

He grinned, sipping his watered wine and inhaling the afternoon air through his nostrils. The comeback didn’t end there, he gloried; young Pavo had been little use to him as a slave. But now, now he had a contact right in the heart of the army. And at his meeting with Athanaric the previous week, he had promised a strong network of military contacts to smooth the coming Gothic invasion.

Maybe, he mused, it would be prudent to play dice with the young man whom he had magnanimously freed from the bonds of slavery. What else did he have over the boy, he mused? Then he remembered the old crone from the slave market that day. Her words hissed in his head and he shivered. The curse had chilled his very blood. No, some things he could never tell another soul. But it was the person who had sent the crone that could be most useful. Yes, maybe it was time to play that card…to his advantage, of course.

Pavo’s father might well have a part to play in this game, he grinned…