Simon Scarrow - Arena

‘Well?’ Bestia asked, tapping his foot. ‘I’m still waiting on an answer.’

Macro weighed up his words carefully. It had been a little under two months since he had departed Rome and tramped north. The march back to the legionary fortress had been good exercise, and despite the snow in the mountain passes and the mud of the forest tracks, he had marched twenty miles a day, stopping only to eat and put his head down at night. The newly promoted centurion had had plenty of time to think about his excuse for his prolonged absence from his comrades. But now with Bestia giving him a long, hard look, his mind was suddenly blank.

‘I, er … I mean …’

Bestia crossed his arms and frowned. ‘I think I know what happened here … Centurion.’

‘You do, sir?’ Macro blinked and tried to compose his face, suddenly afraid that Murena or one of his imperial colleagues had somehow sent word back to the Second Legion after all. He stiffened his muscles and prepared for Bestia to give him the bad news that his career as a soldier was over.

Bestia grinned. ‘You’ve been pissing away your reward money on tarts and wine. Then you panicked and realised you’d been away from your real mates for too long, so you used your new friends in high places to get you out of trouble with some half-baked excuse about being retained on imperial business. Bollocks! You don’t fool me, Macro. You were up to your neck in cunny and Falernian this whole time.’

Macro kept a straight face but breathed a deep sigh of relief. Bestia would jibe him relentlessly about his extended period of leave for several months, but that would be the worst of it. A smile escaped and the veteran centurion grunted at him.

‘There’s a ragged bunch of new recruits due here any day now. They’ll need to be whipped into shape. Doubtless some of them will head your way and will need training.’ He paused and looked hard at Macro. ‘That is, unless you’re too busy making friends in the palace.’

Macro straightened his back and sucked in a lungful of cold Rhine air. ‘It’s good to be back, sir.’

Bestia laughed. ‘Ha! Be careful what you wish for, Centurion.’ He tapped his nose. ‘Summer will soon be upon us. Those barbarians across the Rhine will be stirring. Mark my words, Centurion Macro. The excitement’s just about to begin …’