“I am to command a maniple?” That was one hundred twenty soldiers.
“No, imbecile. I will command, but you will lead a patrol in the streets.” In the Republic, soldiers also acted as police. Leigh was getting his first assignment to the city night watch.
“Any advice on who I should pick, centurion?”
“The idiots behind you will do. Wear full leather kit, swords, but no shields.”
Hmm, swords. Leigh asked if they were allowed to use them.
“What do you think, philosopher? Use your head for something besides a target! For brawlers and drunks, use the flat of the blade. Thieves you may kill if they resist. Women and slaves tie up and bring back to camp so they can be claimed later.”
Leigh vowed he would do his best. Inside, he tingled at the thought he might be able to escape the legion. Tonight would be the first time since arriving in Eternus that he would not be watched and guarded.
Rufus spat in the dust. “Remember, the laws of the legion still apply.” Leigh must have flinched because the centurion added, “Having made aquilifer, don’t soil my name by deserting. I’ll hunt you down myself and offer your carcass on the altar of Mars.”
Never was a threat more sincere. Clutching the standard, Leigh asked for permission to go. Rufus waved him off. Leigh did as he was told and chose all the men left in his training group.
Because they had duty all night, Leigh’s maniple had the afternoon off from drill. They still had to police their barracks, clean and prepare their equipment, and so on, but compared to drilling under the tender direction of Rufus Panthera, the afternoon was like a day at the beach.
Before the sun set, they marched out. Leigh didn’t have to carry the weighty standard in the city. To signify his rank, he was given the special uniform of an aquilifer, a lion’s skin. The lion’s open jaw fit over his helmet, and the dangling front paws were tied around his neck. Honor or not, the pelt was hot and heavy. Still, Leigh felt rather proud leading seventy-eight men out of camp. Rufus rode ahead of them on a stubby-legged pony. He looked ridiculous on it, but no one dared say so.
At the Field of Mercury, the maniple broke into separate patrols. Leigh had twenty men under his direct command. They were to patrol the ward around the Temple of Mercury, an area of twelve square blocks.
“There are temples, taverns, and shops in the area. Watch out for drunks and cutpurses,” Rufus told him. “There are also two brothels. Unless you are called, stay out of them. If I find any man in my century in a brothel with a woman, I’ll cut his balls off.” Leigh believed him without question.
“Is the house of Luxuria in our ward?” Leigh asked, trying to sound detached. It is, Rufus declared. He gave Leigh a hard look.
“Remember what I said. I don’t want my new aquilifer singing soprano.”
“Neither do I, centurion!”
The streets of Eternus were dark. Overhanging buildings blotted what starlight or moonlight there was, making the streets as murky as a Mumbai blackout. In Leigh’s maniple they were allowed four torches, which were spaced two up front, one in the center, and one carried by a man in the last rank. Rufus told them not to tiptoe around. They were to clank along, talking loudly, to make it clear to anyone in the street that the army was out and on duty.
Not much happened at first. They caught a poor man who had robbed a tanner’s shop. The soldiers roughed him up until Leigh made them stop, and then he was sent to the city prefect’s building, escorted by two of Leigh’s men. Some kids threw eggs at them from a rooftop. Leigh ignored that. They helped a man right a one-horse cart that had turned over while trying to make a sharp left corner. The driver seemed very surprised Leigh’s maniple helped him. He was so grateful, he gave the men several squat clay bottles of wine.
“I don’t think we can accept,” Leigh said doubtfully, holding a bottle in each hand.
“Nonsense!” insisted the driver. “Just be sure to give one to your centurion.” He winked. “Hide them from your officers. They can buy their own.”
Cheered by the gifts, Leigh's men continued their rounds. From a quiet shop street they marched into a well-lit boulevard. Torches and braziers burned at intervals all along the block. Revelers drifted from one side of the street to another. This was the street one of the local recruits called “Bucket of Blood Lane.” It was lined with wine shops and gambling dens.
“All right,” said Leigh, squaring his shoulders. “Maniple, close order by fours! Forward!”
They marched down the wide street in locked step, iron nails striking sparks when their sandals struck the cobblestones. People idling in the street moved out of their way, but they stayed to eye the approaching soldiers.
It was Leigh’s intention to march the length of the street and go on. They didn’t get the chance. A third of the way along, the door of a saloon burst open and a knot of cursing, struggling men rolled out into the street.
“Maniple, halt!”
Well-practiced, the Republic soldiers stopped as one. Leigh said in a loud, hopefully commanding voice, “You there! Break it up!”
The fight went on. One man got kicked in the face. He spit teeth on the street and punched his attacker savagely in the gut.
“Break it up!”
“That won’t do it, son of Mars,” someone called from the sidelines. “You’re going to have to get your hands dirty.”
Everyone was watching. The Latins respected bold, forceful action, so Leigh ordered the front four ranks, sixteen men, to break up the brawl. They waded in, kicking the combatants and whacking a few on the head with their sheathed swords. Sheathed or not, a Latin blade could crack a man’s skull open. Some of the brawlers ended up lying faceup in the street, not moving.
“Somebody claim them, or I’ll have to take them to the city prefect,” Leigh shouted. A few people shuffled forward to drag the unconscious men away.
“Aquilifer, should we go in the wine shop to investigate the fight?” one of Leigh’s men asked.
He agreed. Backed by another three ranks of men, Leigh strode into the smoky, ill-lit shop. The rest of the maniple he ordered to stand fast in the street.
All talk ceased. A lot of hard faces stared at the soldiers over cups of dark red wine. Under his lion skin, Leigh sweated.
“Who started the fight?” he demanded. The only answer was a cough from the back of the room.
“Brawling is against the prefect’s orders,” Leigh went on. He didn’t know if this was true or not, but it sounded good. “Someone talk to me, or I’ll clear the place and order it closed.”
A man in a long white apron—the owner—hurried forward.
“Noble warrior,” he whined, “don’t shut me down! I’m a poor man, a humble man—”
“And a peddler of filthy wine,” said a thick voice behind them.
“Shut your hole! I know you, Arius, you started the fight! Talking religion in my shop! I won’t have it!” Arius made an anatomically impossible suggestion to the groveling owner.
“Catamite! Get out of my shop and don’t come back!” he shrilled.
In reply, a short, three-legged stool hurtled past Leigh’s head. It hit the shop owner square in the face. Blood spurted from his nose. Down he went, spraying it all over Leigh’s white leather breastplate.
“All right men!” said one of the soldiers behind Leigh. “Clear ’em out!”
Before Leigh could say anything, the room erupted. His twelve men attacked anyone within reach. Stools and clay cups flew, thudding off walls and skulls all around them. With his men committed, Leigh had no choice but to defend himself. He had a baton, mostly as a symbol of his rank. With his back to his own squad, he batted aside a stool and laid his stick hard on the neck of a Latin charging at him. The guy crumpled at Leigh’s feet.
He felt a curious rush at his success. For weeks since coming to this crazy, backward place, people
had been beating on him. It felt good—yes, good—to give back a little of what he’d been getting.
Unfortunately, there were more people in the shop than he had first thought. They kept coming out of the shadows, more of them, and some weren’t armed with table legs or fists. Leigh saw the iron glint of knife blades among them.
“Knives!” he shouted. “Men, swords!”
The scabbards came off, clattering on the floor. The sight of forged metal took the fight out of most of their enemies. They bolted for the door. A thin guy with a long scar on his face traded fast cuts with Leigh, but his knife was outranged, and he quickly gave up and fled. Leigh let him go. In moments, the shop was empty. A dozen men lay around them, bleeding and unconscious. Two of Leigh’s men had scalp wounds from projectiles. Watching the motionless men on the floor carefully, Leigh ordered his men to back out.
Outside, the street was empty except for the rest of Leigh’s maniple. Leigh pulled the scarf from around his neck and mopped his face. Glancing at it, he saw it was streaked with red.
His second-in-command, a slightly older guy named Aurelius, stepped out of line.
“Aquilifer! Are you well?”
“Well enough. You could’ve come in to help, you know.”
Aurelius shrugged. “Our orders were to stay outside and keep order,” he said.
“And what if we got massacred in there?”
He smiled. “Then I would have arrested the killers and taken them to the city prefect.”
It was Leigh’s turn to smile. “I guess I can’t expect more than that.”
The gamblers, drunks, and other idlers had fled when the sound of the fight reached the street. With no one to arrest, Leigh ordered his men to line up as before. As he took his place at their head, he glimpsed an apparition in white a block away, hovering near the mouth of an alley.
“Who’s there?” he called. Night wind stirred pale clothing, but the figure did not move or reply.
Leigh straightened his cloak and checked the sword on his hip. “Stay here,” he told Aurelius.
“Don’t go, sir. It may be a trick.”
He’d thought of that. Why would anyone bother to ambush a lowly trainee, a newly minted aquilifer? He repeated his order for the maniple to stay put.
Leigh walked down the center of the empty street. All the shutters were closed in all the windows facing the street. Here and there, lamplight gleamed through cracks under doors or between shutters.
The ghostly figure did not move. Leigh half-convinced himself it wasn’t a person at all, only a scrap of cloth billowing in the breeze. He changed his mind when he saw it shrink back into the alley.
He looked back once at Aurelius and his men. He waved everything was okay.
“Who’s there? Do you need help?” he called. Ten yards away, he saw slender hands and feet showing outside the smoke-gray cloak. He slowed, letting his hand rest on the pommel of his short Roman sword.
“The fight’s over,” Leigh said calmly. “Do you need to get somewhere? My men and I will escort you.”
“Are you Levius Moro?” said the stranger in soft tones. The Latin handle still sounded strange to Leigh, but he knew that was his name here.
“That’s me. Who are you?”
She stepped out into the better light. He knew her instantly—Eleanor Quarrel, Elianora in the Republic.
“Elianora?”
“I have a message for you, Levius Moro. From your sister, Julia.”
He rushed forward, taking Eleanor by the hands. “Where is she? Is she all right?”
Eleanor leaned away from him, but didn’t try to pull free.
“She is well, but afraid. Soon the mistress of the house of Luxuria will consecrate her to the service of Venus—”
“They’re going to make her a prostitute?”
Eleanor nodded.
He let go of her hands. “Where is this house?”
“Two streets to the west and a block forward.”
That was in their assigned patrol area, but not on their present line of march. Still, Leigh wasn’t going to go about his business while dirty old men did awful things to his sister. He thought hard.
“Wait,” he told Eleanor. He turned to his men and called through cupped hands, “Maniple, this way, quick!”
The newly trained soldiers trotted to him. He told Aurelius he was going to escort the young woman home. Aurelius would continue the patrol. Leigh would catch up with them by the Field of Mercury after seeing the frightened girl home.
Aurelius didn’t hide his skepticism. “Do you know this girl, sir?”
“We . . . traveled here together from . . . the provinces.” Leigh knew his explanation was weak, but he was counting on the discipline of his troops to get them out of the way.
“Rufus won’t like it if he finds out, sir.”
“Continue your patrol,” he said. Aurelius vowed he would.
“I hope to see the aquilifer in the Field of Mercury,” he said.
The maniple marched away. Leigh drew close to Eleanor.
“Do you remember?” he whispered. “The Carleton, the shipwreck?”
Her eyes darted from side to side. “Hurry. Already your sister may be lost to the service of Venus!”
She knew what to say to get Leigh going. Taking her hand, he let Eleanor lead him away down the dark alley to the house of Luxuria.
Chapter 18
A single lamp glowed by the garden gate. By it stood Ramesses, the giant guard Luxuria employed to keep order in her house. As Eleanor and Leigh approached, the big man held out his hand to stop them.
Leigh tensed. He’d never used a sword to kill someone, but at that moment, he was considering his chances of taking down this giant.
“No women allowed,” Ramesses said in an appropriately deep voice. “Only those working here, or hired singers and dancers.”
Eleanor opened her mouth, but Leigh shushed her.
“It’s all right,” he said. “I can manage.”
“But—”
“Do you remember our friend, Gallus?” Leigh knew in his head somehow that was France Martin. He hoped Eleanor remembered him. She nodded mutely.
Putting on a casual tone, Leigh said, “Find Gallus, and tell him where I am, will you?” Latin soldiers were expected to be macho around girls, so he patted her on the cheek, adding, “That’s a good girl.”
Dismayed, Eleanor stood and stared as Ramesses led Leigh to the door.
“Sword,” said the giant. Leigh held on to the pommel. “You must give up your sword and any knives, legionnaire. No one enters the House of Luxuria armed.”
Grimacing, Leigh surrendered his blade. “I better get it back!”
“You ask Ramesses. I’ll have your sword.”
Heart thumping, Leigh went inside. He smelled incense at once and heard the lilt of a harp. A woman’s voice sang sweetly in a low, throaty voice:
Wine, wine is not the answer, stranger.
Sleep is not your friend,
Seek peace in the arms of a lover, stranger
It only costs a dream.
A dream and five denarii, Leigh thought. He’d heard enough barracks gossip to know what the going rate was in an Eternus brothel.
From a dark hall, Leigh emerged in a moderately big room with a low ceiling. The walls painted with frescoes—elaborately painted scenes from mythology. Naughty scenes they were, too, of frisky gods, nymphs, and ugly guys with hairy legs and hooves. Leigh did not look at them too closely. He could feel his ears getting hot just glancing at them, and he didn’t want to give himself away as too much of a nerd.
Around the room were couches. Men—the clients—reclined on these couches, eating, drinking, and laughing while the courtesans of their choice sat with them. The singer, a plump woman with an obvious, curly black wig, was in the
far corner. Her harpist was a downright dangerous-looking man with a leather eye patch. He played remarkably well with thick, lethal-looking fingers.
An attractive woman somewhere between forty and fifty appeared in front of Leigh. She would have looked better without the clownish makeup she wore, but he knew enough not to say so. All the women in the room were heavily painted, even the singer.
“Welcome, young hero!” said the woman with a warm smile. “An aquilifer! We haven’t had a man of your stature here in some time.”
“I heard that, Luxuria!” said a lean, gray-haired man on a couch behind her.
“You’re not a young warrior anymore, Lucius,” she replied. “Your fights are in the Senate, not the battlefield. But you were a lion in battle, I know.”
Senator Lucius laughed and would have carried on the argument, but his companion kissed him ardently, and he forgot what he was arguing about.
Luxuria slipped her arm around Leigh’s. “Your first time here, is it not? I never forget a face, especially not a handsome one like yours. Let me show you around.”
She did not introduce him to the other men, or the women already entertaining them. They walked arm in arm into the next room, which was less decorated but better lit. A table against one wall was tastefully heaped with refreshments. Four women of different builds and coloring loitered near the table. When Leigh saw who was standing in the corner holding a tall pitcher of wine, he almost choked. It was Julie.
She was dressed in a simpler version of the gown Luxuria wore, a sleeveless sheath gathered tightly at the waist with a wide fabric sash. Her face was powdered and red rouge was dabbed on her cheeks. Julie’s hair was drawn back in a severe bun, a style calculated to show off her neck and shoulders.
“Let me introduce you,” Luxuria said. She drew Leigh up in front of a tall blond woman in her midtwenties. “This is Eurydice.”
Eurydice lowered her eyes. It was an act, but she did it well.
“What may we call you, young hero?” Luxuria asked.
“Levius Moro.”
A loud crash from the corner signaled Julie’s recognition. She had dropped her pitcher. Blood-red wine spilled on the tile floor. Julie dropped to her knees and sopped up the spill with a white cloth. Leigh pulled free of Luxuria and went to help her.
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