and that if we interfered with it, we’d be no better than those men who tweaked what they recorded just because no one could stop them. That voice was too little too late, though, because the other voice was enthusiastically interested in how things could now turn out. Maybe I’d even have great epics written, devoted to my life’s endeavors. They might even make me a god. It worked for Julius Caesar after all.
“So?” Vincent asked, interrupting my thoughts. “What do you think we should do now?”
What would I do?
I knew we couldn’t change what we’ve already done. As far as I knew, there wasn’t any way I could change the past, as stupidly ironic as that sounds, so I might as well make the best of it.
I sighed. “I really wish you would have come to me earlier. We need to work on setting things straight, not change things for what we perceive may be for the better.”
Vincent stood up, and placed both hands on my shoulders, a gesture a father would offer his son. “You’re a good officer, Hunter. Like McDougal said, you are quite the Renaissance man, intelligent, moral, and not unable to step back and make rational decisions, not unlike our friend, Caligula. I’m proud to have had this opportunity to serve with you.”
He held out his hand, which I very slowly grasped.
“Thanks, I guess. I still can’t believe this and I’m sure as shit not happy about it, but it is what it is.” A cluster fuck, basically. “So, what should I tell the others?”
“Tell them what you will, if you feel they truly want to know. I leave it in your hands now. I know you’ll make the right decision.
Later that night, after my watch was up, I slipped into the tent I shared with Helena, who was already in her sleeping bag. She was fast asleep, so I made every effort not to wake her, but when my head hit the pillow, her eyes fluttered open.
“I saw you talking with Vincent today,” she said, her head facing away from me. “Seemed pretty intense. Did you find the answers you were looking for?”
“Yes.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Anything I should know about?”
I thought about that for a second. She deserved to know, as do the rest of the guys, but would their knowing really change anything? They’d just have the same problem I did, with the worst case scenario being it would undermine Vincent’s authority. Even though I hardly felt it would come to that, we needed to stick together, no matter what.
“If I told you, would it change how you felt about anything?”
“No,” she whispered, half asleep. “Like I said when we first arrived here, we have to worry about the here and the now. There’s no way to change what was done, and even if there was the chance things might have turned out differently, there’s no point dwelling on it. We just have to make the best of it.”
“You’re a woman after my own heart,” I joked, but I wasn’t sure if she cracked a smile or not. “I’ll tell you one thing though: you are right. There is no way to change what happened, but I don’t think making the best of it is what we need to do.”
“Then what?”
I turned away from her and closed my eyes. “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.”
***
Having spoken with Vincent, there was nothing else to look towards but the upcoming months, which just about brought me up to the here and now: freezing my ass off on yet another morning watch.
Only for a short while did Helena and my watch schedules sync up so we could share the night together, but not since that night after my talk with Vincent did we manage it. These days, by the time my shift was finished, it was time to go to sleep, and when I woke up, she was just finishing her shift, and was ready for bed herself. It got pretty lonely at times, but at least as I sat here on the porta decumana rampart, freezing my ass off at three in the morning, I had Santino to keep me company.
“Come on, Jacob. Don’t lie to me. I know what’s going on in that tent of yours.”
“Santino, you of all people should know I’d never tell you anything even if we were doing what say we’re doing.”
“That’s not an answer, my friend.”
“What makes you think you deserve one?”
“Come on!” He said insistently. “I’m freezing my balls off here. Give me something. Anything.”
I shook my head. “You’re helpless. And an asshole. We need to find you a woman when we get back to Rome.”
“We’d better!” He exclaimed with a shake of his head. “A man can only go so long before going crazy. I don’t know how you’ve done it since the nurse.”
I frowned. It was still a bad memory.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to reopen old wounds.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I assured.
Santino turned and leaned against the railing to face the wilderness. “It’s hard not to.”
I moved to stand against the railing as well, but leaned so that I could face my friend. “Why do you say that?”
He smacked the railing. “Jacob, you have a wonderful and beautiful woman sitting in your tent every night! And then the two of you prance about the camp all day like you hardly know each other, but we can all see it.” He paused. “We can see a lot of things.”
“We’re just friends, John.”
He huffed. “You’re wasting your time if you ask me.”
“Well no one asked you.”
He snapped his head around and stared at me intently. “You shouldn’t have to. Guys like us don’t find a girl like her every day, and you’ve meet two that I know of, and you fucked up the first one. All I’m saying is that you’d better not let it happen again.”
I turned away from my friend and looked out over our wall, past the ditch and wooden stakes, and into the clearing, the tree line far off in the distance. He was right. I’d never find another one like her. I didn’t know why, but somehow that thought didn’t comfort me.
***
Days later, I leaned up off my bedroll after a sleepless night, resting my arms on my knees, and hanging my head between them. I felt horrible, and I had no idea why, but I suspected it had something to do with that beef patty MRE I had for dinner last night. Lifting my head, and rubbing my hand over my face and through my hair, which was getting much longer than I’d ever grown it, I looked over at the empty spot where Helena normally slept.
I sighed. Maybe I was just getting lonely since I never seemed to see her these days.
“Ah, get up, Jacob,” I said to no one in particular. “Today’s too big a day for this shit.”
I got to my feet and pulled off my shirt and looked around for a fresh one. Once I found one I thought was mostly clean, I snatched up my web belt, which held my tactical thigh holster holding my pistol and a few extra mags, and strapped it around my waist. My morning ritual completed, I unzipped the tent, stepped out into the frigid weather, and headed towards a trough of water. Normally used as the legion’s horses’ drinking water, I dunked my head as deep as I could into the freezing liquid, a scene I’d seen a dozen times in Wild West movies. Whipping my head out of the icy cold bath just as quickly as I had dunked it, I sent a stream of water flying behind me, splashing an unknowing Bordeaux as he walked towards his tent.
I stood and dried myself off as best I could, before I turned to see Bordeaux still standing there, a wet scowl on his face.
“Oh, sorry, Jeanne. Didn’t see you there.”
He walked up to me angrily, and snatched my dry shirt from my shoulder to dry his face with. In turn, he shoved a loaf of Roman bread into my hand, fresh off the fire. It was tough and chewy, thanks to the gluten rich
