“I will, sir” the captain replied and hauled himself out of the chair, wobbling slightly as he came upright.
“Goodbye, captain.” The marshal inclined his head slightly and, turning, left the room.
Varro saluted as his superior departed, and then staggered slightly.
He turned to find the chair he’d been in, and as he spun, noted with fascination the way the light from the oil lamps in the recessed alcoves streaked along, like a greasy stain on a pane of glass. He smiled at that, or at least he thought he smiled. His mind didn’t seem to be functioning properly at that moment. He spotted what could well have been the expensive, carved oak chair with the leather padding and reached out to grasp the handle and sit while the feeling passed.
Varro pitched forward with all his weight, unconscious even before he fell through the oak chair with a crash, splintering the finely carved legs and coming, after a brief roll, to a halt amid the wreckage, viscera leaking from his reopened wound and fresh blood seeping from half a dozen new cuts.
When Varro awoke it felt as though his body were pierced through in a dozen places with jagged knives. His head felt heavy and thick and he had a headache that threatened to break through his skull, but the uncertain fluffiness of before seemed to have retreated. His eyes flickered open. The light immediately made his head thump all the louder, but he was grateful to note that after mere moments a dark wooden beamed ceiling swum into view. At least he could see.
With a groan he began to rise to a seated position and suddenly hands were on him, gently pushing him back down. In a minor panic, he turned his head, sending fresh thumping beats and waves of nausea through him. Two medical orderlies were performing some menial task over by the side bench.
The hospital then. He’d been here before often enough.
Very slowly and carefully rolling his head the other way, two more figures came into view.
Corda, clad in his dress tunic and cloak, stood beside the table, a look of great concern on his pale features. With a start, Varro realised his second in command was covered in dried rivulets and pools of blood. Varro’s blood, plainly.
Standing behind Corda was another figure in white. Even with his back to Varro, the captain recognised the low rumble of disapproval that was a trademark of Scortius, the chief doctor of the second cohort. The man was hunched over something on a table. Varro looked weakly up at Corda.
“Am I…”
The sergeant reached out a hand and clasped Varro’s in a time-honoured fashion.
“I found you on your floor. Don’t know how long you’d been out, but there was quite a pool of blood. You’re looking quite pale and Scortius had to take a chunk of chair out of your back. Another wound, sir, I’m afraid.”
Varro tried to lift his head from the table, failing drastically. There was so little strength in his body and the muscles refused to obey. Breathing deeply and collapsing back he closed his eyes. Corda cleared his throat.
“Your other wound opened right up again too. Scortius has been having a good look inside you.”
“Has he,” gurgled Varro with an edge of resentment. “And did he find anything he liked?”
Slowly the doctor turned and approached the table.
“Varro,” he said quietly, “lie still. You’re putting too much strain on what’s left of your body.”
“Nice.” The captain rolled his eyes. “At least I feel better.”
The doctor cleared his throat and leaned closer.
“You only feel better because I’ve filled you so full of pain-killing remedies that you probably couldn’t stand straight even if you were in full health.” He sighed. “I’ve got to tell you something; something you’re not going to like.”
Varro merely nodded as best he could.
“I’d a feeling something was wrong. I’ve been wounded many times, but it’s never hit me like this. Even worse-looking wounds I’ve suffered. But surely I can’t die from this? I mean; it’s not that bad a wound, surely?”
Resting the heels of his hands on the side of the surgical table, Scortius leaned over the captain and Varro felt his heart skip a beat when he saw the look in the doctor’s eyes; the same look that crossed them every time the man thought of his long-gone son, Terentius; a look that carried loss, and despair and utter hollowness. A look that frightened Varro to his very core.
“What…?” The captain’s voice came out little more than a croak, or a whisper.
“There’s nothing I can do, Varro.”
The captain’s eyes closed for a moment and then he frowned deeply before opening them once more.
“Would you just care to run that by me again, Scortius?”
The doctor sighed and, reaching out, pulled a basic wooden chair across to the table and took a seat.
“It’s not the wound. The wound is alright. It’s nasty, but it’d heal, as would the new furniture wound in your back.”
“So…” Varro’s frown deepened, “what are we talking about then?”
Scortius rested his elbows on his knees, clasped his hands together and raised his sad eyes to Varro.
“Have you ever heard of Ironroot?”
Varro shook his head, pensively.
The doctor pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I can’t say I’m really surprised. Ironroot is the Imperial name for a substance the Pelasians know as Sher-Thais. It’s harvested from the seeds of a plant the locals call the ‘suicide tree’. I’ve seen it used in the eastern provinces as both a poison and a pesticide, but never this far north or west.”
Varro stared at the doctor, confusion and panic fighting for control of his expression.
“I’m sorry,” Scortius shook his head. ”There’s no cure.” He sat back with a flat look on his face.
Varro tried once more to raise his head, growling.
“How can this happen?”
Scortius pinched his nose again and frowned.
“There appears to be some discoloration of the organs and flesh around your wound. At this point, I’d say that the blade that cut you was coated with the stuff. Very nasty. And curious…”
“Curious?”
Varro’s growl deepened.
“Curious? That’s all you have to say?”
The doctor sat back slightly. “Curious that a hairy, unwashed barbarian from the northern mountains would have a sword coated with an exotic and expensive poison from the other side of the world? I’m sorry this has happened Varro, and if I could stop it, I would, but I can’t help being curious as to how he got it.”
“How long have I got?”
Scortius shrugged slightly. “He’s obviously used a strong dose. And straight into your body. Normally I’d expect a few days at most, but I think I can give you things that’ll keep you going longer than that. A week? Maybe two? I’d have liked to see that sword. Perhaps we could have learned more.”
Varro collapsed back, exhausted and stunned, as the doctor gave a weak and sympathetic half-smile.
“I’ll go see what I can mix up for you.” The doctor shuffled off among his bottles and bags in the corner, muttering “for pain, stimulation, retardation and blood. Hmm…”
Varro blinked and turned his head to look at Corda, clearly stunned, his face bleak, but showing the first signs of anger. The sergeant leaned down toward his officer and growled.
“I take it the bastard’s dead? We’ll not be able to find out.”
Varro’s eyes narrowed.
“The barbarian’s dead alright, but I don’t think he was the problem.”
“What?” Corda frowned and leaned closer. The captain closed his eyes and the veins on his temple pulsed as he tracked back over the last two days.
“The sword.“ Varro’s hand reached up and grasped his sergeant by the shoulder. “The bastard that stuck me had an Imperial sword; a nice one too. A proper officer’s sword. That hairy piece of shit didn’t get the poison at all. This is someone else’s doing! One of our own, for Gods’ sake, Corda… o
ne of our own!”
Corda’s expression hardened.
“I’m going to go see the quartermaster and go through the loot; see if I can find an Imperial sword.” He looked up at Scortius as the captain sank wearily back to the table. “You get him up and about. I don’t care how you 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.
And cleft in two does history lie…
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 men for the post, even if we were short
of guards, which we’re not. And while he’s an exceptionally fair and good man, the captain is not soft in the head and he wouldn’t promote someone unfitting without having a good reason. So there seems to me to be an excellent solution presenting itself here.”
“Sir?”
“I am temporarily, but for as long as is necessary, assuming full command of the cohort.”
Salonius’ stiff stance faltered for a moment, and Corda nodded.
“It’s true. I don’t like it any more than you appear to. But for the time being it’s necessary. The captain is currently unable to resume his position, and so it becomes my job. This means that I will now have the command guard assigned to me. In theory I should post a detachment of them to assist and protect the captain, but that’s not going to happen.”
Corda watched the young man with sharp eyes. He may be little more than a boy, but there was something about him. He was short, but strong and brave enough to take on three bigger and more experienced soldiers and now, as he stood in the low light of the headquarters, Corda could see the lad’s mind racing, piecing things together. He smiled.
“Go on, lad…”
“Well sir,” Salonius said quietly, “the captain’s wound isn’t bad enough to keep him away from his post for any length of time, especially while we’re in quarters. And, well, I don’t like to listen to rumour, but…”
“Go on…”
“Well, I heard the captain was taken to the hospital last night. And that the marshal actually visited his house last night. And I was in the quartermaster’s office last night finalising my kit change when you came in asking for a list of all the military salvage from the battlefield.”
“And…” Corda prompted.
“I’m not sure sir, and I apologise for my bluntness, but there’s something going on; something you’re not telling me, and something I think you’re keeping from the rest of the cohort too.”
Corda nodded.
“Sharp. I can see why the captain wanted you in the guard. But the fact remains that I don’t. I don’t want to spend half my time separating you and the other soldiers. And I don’t want you ending up knifed in the latrines one night. But I don’t want you to slide back into the engineers either; I suspect you were being wasted there.”
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