have to do it. Just get him moving.”
Corda gave his captain a last determined glance, grasped his shoulder, and then strode out of the tent as though he’d do battle with the Gods.
Varro watched Scortius approaching the table once more, his soul hardening like baked clay as he lay there. There was more to this than simple chance. Someone had engineered Varro’s death, and that made him angry. Hopefully angry enough to stay alive long enough to settle this. Someone was going to pay for this. Someone would pay.
I opened my eyes. It took a few moments for me to place myself and my surroundings, but after a minute or so I remembered being helped back to my house by two medical orderlies. Scortius had given me some compound that quickly begun to clear my head and return the strength to my body. I know I was still feeling a little strange and confused as I woke, but some of that could well have been natural grogginess on waking from deep sleep.
I wasn’t prepared for what happened.
Clearly I was still hallucinating. Of course, a few hours later I began to doubt that, and in retrospect I’m now totally convinced of the reality of the situation; or at least the reality of it to me. But nothing prepares you to wake from fuddled sleep and find yourself staring deep into the eyes of a stag.
Needless to say, my first reaction was to turn my head this way and that, convinced that this was some trick of the light or reaction to Scortius’ medicine in my brain. Evidently the early morning sunlight streaming in through the glass panes of my room, squeezed to a sliver by the heavy drapes, was colliding with the many dust motes and creating a vision my battered subconscious had forced into the shape of a stag.
Yet as I turned my head and squinted, the creature was still there. I think I chuckled to myself as I struggled off the couch and my feet touched the tiled floor, sending a cold throb through them. I pulled myself upright with little pain and stood, swaying slightly. I remember the smell. I didn’t notice it at the time, but later conversations brought it flooding back to me. The scent of a forest. The mulched leaves and pine needles.
I reached forward, fully expecting either for my hand to pass through the beast like a fog, or to wake with a start and realise that I’d still been asleep. I felt a shudder pass through me as my fingers brushed the fine white hair of the creature’s nose. I had read stories of unwary hunters being gored by the antlers of even small stags, and yet this was no ordinary stag and no ordinary circumstance. In fact, this was impossible, I told myself again.
And yet for some reason it felt right. And more important than that, whereas the previous day I’d felt panic and horror, fear and anger, at that moment I felt none of those. On the first morning of my remaining days as a condemned man, what I actually felt was peace. And not just peace; peculiarly, peace and hope. Peace was a feeling I hadn’t felt in so long it almost floored me with its intensity. An absence of fear and anger.
Cernus had bestowed something indefinable upon me; or possibly removed it from me.
All I can truly tell you is that the stag snorted very gently and as I felt the warm breath brush my face, all I felt was happiness. Without really understanding why, I returned to the couch and lay down, drifting into a pleasant sleep with a smile on my face.
I dreamt of white stags, of glittering swords and, finally, of Catilina.
Chapter Four
Corda sat in the cohort’s small and austere command office within the headquarters building. Behind him, the unit’s raven and boar standards and pay chest sat, protected by a thick iron-grille gate to which only three people had a key. There was only one seat in the room, positioned behind a sturdy table commonly used for maps, charts, unit strength reports, rosters, casualty lists and the like. The commanding officer’s chair. Corda would habitually, as the cohort’s second in command, stand slightly behind and to one side of the seated Varro while the other various sergeants and lower non-commissioned officers would stand at attention while briefed. It seemed wrong to be sitting in Varro’s chair. He considered resuming his usual place but quickly put that aside. As temporary commander, he had to be seen to be acting as such, with full authority.
He leaned forward across the table with a sigh. This was not how he had pictured the victorious return from campaign. This morning was going to be difficult for everyone.
A knock at the heavy wooden door was followed a moment later by a click, and the door swung in to admit one of the two fort guard stationed permanently outside this important room.
“Your visitor’s here, sir.”
Corda nodded solemnly. “Show him in.”
The sergeant scratched his full beard and glanced down at the empty desk. It still seemed wrong.
The solid, stocky, youthful figure of Salonius appeared in the doorway, saluted and stepped inside.
“Close the door,” Corda said quietly.
As the portal clicked shut, the two men waited a moment for their eyes to adjust to the dimmer interior, lit only by the two small windows high in the outer wall and an oil lamp burning in an alcove opposite.
“You’re Salonius.” A statement; not a question.
“Yes, sir. Formerly second catapult torsion engineer, currently attached to the command guard,” Salonius replied with a clear voice.
Corda’s brow furrowed.
“That remains to be seen.”
“Sir?” Salonius seemed genuinely surprised, Corda noted. Youth with all its innocence.
The sergeant cleared his throat slowly.
“You had been seconded to the command guard for all of an hour when you became involved in a fistfight with three of your fellow guardsmen. This is not the sort of behaviour we expect from the command guard. What do you have to say?”
Salonius straightened, a hard look flattening his features.
“With respect sir, that was a matter of personal principal and was before I had officially reported for guard duty on my first parade.”
“Regardless,” Corda pressed, “I want to know what happened. Who initiated the fight?”
Salonius raised his chin and fixed his eyes on a spot high on the rear wall.
“I forget, sir.”
Corda sighed.
“I’m not on a witch hunt here, lad, but I can’t have the command guard involved in that sort of thing. They are supposed to represent the highest quality of soldiery in the cohort. Tell me something. Just something.”
“Sir, I was promoted from a basic green engineer to one of the most prestigious posts in the cohort. There would have to be some ‘settling in’ if you see what I mean, sergeant.”
“Yes,” Corda growled. “You settled one of them into the medical tent.”
He sighed.
“So you do want to stay in the guard, then?”
“Yes sir.”
“Why?” Corda leaned forward over the table and steepled his fingers.
“Because it’s an honour, sir.”
The sergeant frowned and closed his eyes for a moment.
“The problem is, Salonius, that the other guards don’t like you. They’ll never like you because you came from the engineers, not through the infantry ranks. They will always consider you a young upstart, and the fact that you stood up for yourself could just as easily turn around and make them hate you as make them respect you.”
Salonius nodded. “With all due respect, sir, I’m willing to take the risk.”
“Well I’m not.” Corda sighed and leaned back in the chair. As the young engineer stared at him open- mouthed, he cleared his throat once more.
“Salonius, the captain selected you specifically for a role close to him. There are any number of more qualified
