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.
She’d grown weak and bed ridden over the next few weeks while she finished healing. She was trapped in bed, and even with modern antibiotics and Wang’s direct care, her recovery hadn’t been as graceful as it would have been in a modern hospital. She’d contracted a fever, and the wound on her back became infected, but she was resilient, and Wang was always there to help. A few weeks before he left for Greece, Wang finally gave her a clean bill of health and directions to start getting into shape. He never would have left Helena before making sure she made a full recovery. Total recovery time was over two months and she was still far from one hundred percent.
Helena leaned forward slightly on the bed and looked up at me. “Are you all right, Jacob?”
I smiled at her. “Me? I’m fine. I’m just glad you’re all right.”
I patted her on the knee and leaned in for a kiss. She didn’t pull away, and I found myself lying on the bed next to her a few seconds later.
“You know,” she said in between breaths and lip locks, “I still haven’t properly thanked you for taking care of me.”
I smiled, and pushed her gently away. “Now, that, you definitely haven’t been cleared for! Let’s not push it.”
She smiled back. “You are the most stubborn man I have ever met.”
“I know. It’s why you love me,” I answered, getting to my feet. “Come on. We’d better make sure Santino hasn’t choked on an olive or something.”
“We do?” She asked.
I chuckled, gripped her hands again, and slowly pulled her to her feet. I handed her the cane fashioned for her, and held out my arm for her to rest against as well. We walked out of the room together to find Santino, feet back on the table, trying to toss olives into his mouth. Judging by the body count on the floor, he hadn’t been very successful.
Putting his boot back on, he jumped to his feet when he saw us. “Finally! Let’s go. I’m starving.”
I shook my head. “Just so you know I’m not going to let you crash on my couch much longer. You need to find your own place.”
“I have one,” he said, information that I unfortunately already knew, “but your place is cleaner.”
I shook my head, and looked to Helena for support. Over the past few months, Santino hadn’t just been freeloading, but helping care for Helena when I had to do things like sleep, eat or other daily necessities. Needless to say, she didn’t hate him anymore, and with a heart of gold, could never force him to leave, even though he had a perfectly fine place right next door.
She shrugged at me and smiled.
My shoulders slumped. “You’re lucky you’re my best friend, and my girlfriend actually happens to like you,” I told Santino. “When does that ever happen?”
He smacked me on the shoulder. “Couldn’t have happened to a better guy. Now. Can we please go?” He asked, moving towards the other side of Helena and taking her other arm, tossing her cane on my couch.
“Seriously, Hunter,” she said. “I’m starving!”
I sighed, completely defeated. “All right. At least this should be an interesting evening.”
Interesting? Maybe. At least I wasn’t exactly looking forward to it.
Reclaiming an empire, even when you were the legitimate sovereign, wasn’t an easy task. When we had marched into the city, there were small pockets of resistance of little consequence. Stubborn senators with delusions of grandeur and dreams of a seat on the throne, defended their lives with hired servants and slaves. These were the men who had probably planted the seed of rebellion in Claudius’ mind to begin with, unaffected by the orb, their own egos fueling their quest for absolute power. Any remaining Senator who couldn’t prove his loyalty was likewise crucified next to their Praetorian allies. As for the orb, it was history. It was taken to an undisclosed position by Varus, and he hadn’t told us where it was. No one knew where the second one was either.
The next step was a conscription, which was basically a list of names, and if yours was on it, you were a free target for any legionnaire, bounty hunter, or civilian alike willing to sell your ass to the State. Any and all assets were to be seized, and your life forfeited. Dictators like Marius and Sulla had abused the process to eliminate those disloyal to them, but Caligula only targeted those directly involved in the plot. Almost a fourth of
