The soldiers instantly stood to attention, then with precise movements parted to either side of the gate, forming a ceremonial honor guard.
Marcus held his tongue until the princess approached, bringing her horse to a stop before Centurion Cantius. “What is the meaning of this?” She repeated in a cold voice.
“Princess,” the centurion said, saluting and bowing his head, “I can only beg forgiveness for such a rude welcome, but after what has happened, our general commanded that no one may enter the city without close inspection.”
“You said our timing could not have been worse,” Marcus said. “What did you mean by that?”
“You haven’t heard?” Cantius frowned. “The general sent couriers to you bearing word, requesting that you return to Rome, or at least delay your visit here until we knew it was safe.”
“If they came south along the Via Aurelia, they would have missed us,” Tullius told him. “We took a more westward route.”
“But why?” Valeria’s patience was quickly wearing thin. “Why wouldn’t we be safe here?”
“Because, princess,” Cantius told her in a grim voice, “the people in one of the villages in the province were massacred to the last soul, and we are marching at first light tomorrow to investigate.”
***
“Princess, it has been far too long.”
Valeria could not help but blush as Legatus Canus Sergius, commanding general of the legion known as Legio XVII Invictus, kissed her hand. He was young for a general, only in his mid-twenties, and undeniably handsome. His skin was dark, hearkening back to his Nubian ancestors, while his eyes were a rare and startling blue. His wiry black hair was trimmed short, barely more than stubble, which went completely against the norm among Roman men. She thought it looked fabulous on him. He was about the same height as Paulus, thinner perhaps, and she had no doubt that the well defined chest and abdominal muscles sculpted into his gilded breast plate were a reflection of the flesh that lay beneath.
“I…” She had to catch her breath, trying not to appear a fool. “I don’t recall having made your acquaintance before, general.”
He smiled, his white teeth seeming to glow in the bright light from the torches and central fire of his home. “You were but five years old at the time, and I was about as old as this young man here.” He reluctantly released Valeria and put his hand on Paulus’s shoulder. “Paulus Furius, I presume?”
“Yes, general. I’m very honored to meet you.”
“I knew your mother and father well,” Sergius told him. “My long-belated condolences on your loss.”
Paulus bobbed his head. “Thank you, sir.”
Turning to Marcus and Septimus, he said, “Centurion Tullius and Optio Cominius. It’s been a long time.”
Both men bowed their heads. “General,” Tullius said for them both in a voice that Valeria thought was unusually cool.
“The last time I saw these two,” Sergius said, turning to Valeria, “was just before the Battle of Agrigentum six years ago.” He grimaced. “That was a nasty bit of business, wasn’t it?”
“Indeed, it was, sir,” Tullius said tightly. Beside him, she saw a haunted expression pass over Septimus’s face like the shadow of a cloud, and the fingers of his sword hand twitched ever so slightly.
“And you have Pelonius the scribe with you.” Sergius nodded to Pelonius, who stood behind the others, “Behold, the most famous freed slave in all the Empire.”
Pelonius inclined his head. “The general is too kind.”
Sergius laughed. “As you say, Pelonius. As you say.” He peered behind Pelonius to where Hercules was lying on the floor, tail twitching. “Ah! There he is! I was hoping that you would bring your hexatiger. Such a magnificent animal, he was still smaller than a regular tiger when I saw you all those years ago. Never have I seen the like. He’s enormous!”
Hercules regarded him with his great yellow eyes, then laid his ears back. A low rumble escaped his throat, a sound almost too low for human hearing. Most people, not knowing anything about him, would think it was a hexatiger purr, but Valeria knew better. He was growling.
“But where are my manners?” Sergius said, quickly turning his attention back to the others. “Please, princess and honored guests—” He gestured toward the table on which a lavish spread of delicacies awaited. “—my table is yours.”
The men waited for Valeria to take her seat, followed by the general, who was joined by the senior officers of his legion.
“My apologies for not being able to meet with you upon your arrival, princess, and also for our unusual dining arrangements,” Sergius said as a slave offered Valeria, who sat at his right hand, a portion of perfectly seasoned roast chicken, “but I have, as you were informed, been preparing the legion for march at sunrise tomorrow. And this,” he waved his hand as if to take in the room in which they dined, “is something of a final staff meeting.”
“You need not apologize, general,” Valeria said graciously. “But please do tell what this is all about. With all due respect to your officers and men, no one has offered us any further word of what has happened than did Centurion Cantius when we reached the city gate.”
“As per my orders, princess. I wanted you to receive nothing but the latest information from my own lips.” He paused as he took a sip of wine. “Six days ago a citizen of Camaracum, which happens to be the third largest village in the province, rode into the city. He looked as if he had been on the losing end of a fight with your Hercules. His tunic was in tatters and spattered with blood, and he bore a dozen or more wounds, terrible bites and claw marks, made by some sort of animal. His horse was in little better shape, and had to be given mercy. I’m surprised the poor animal made it so far.” Sergius frowned as he took another sip of wine. “The man was delirious, the wounds already festering badly. All we could get out of him before he died was that the village had been attacked.”
“By whom, sir?” Tullius asked.
Sergius regarded him over the brim of his golden goblet. “Dark Wolves.”
“Impossible,” Pelonius breathed.
“Why is that impossible?” Valeria asked, confused. “I’ve read that the forests here have wolves aplenty, along with bears and lions, and even tigers. Why couldn’t there be dark wolves?”
“Because Dark Wolves are not at all like the wolves with which you are familiar, princess,” Pelonius explained. “They are mythical creatures dating back to a time of the First Spring. Legend says that a bridge once existed for a time between this continent and the Dark Lands, and the Dark Wolves and other creatures, some far more frightening, used it to cross the Haunted Sea to feast on the flesh of men. But Neptune took mercy upon us, and as the world warmed during the First Spring he commanded the waters to consume the bridge and made them deadly so that the evil of the Dark Lands could reach us no more.” He grimaced. “The accounts surrounding the Dark Wolves and the other spawn of the Dark Lands are among the oldest and most obscure in our history, and few of our people today have ever even heard of Dark Wolves. My compliments to you on your knowledge, general.”
“My thanks, Pelonius.” Sergius raised his goblet in a mock toast. “And so it was, based on the ravings of this poor soul, that I suspected he had simply fallen victim to an animal attack during his travels, for that happens with tragic regularity in some areas of the deeper forests. But I could not take the chance that something more serious had taken place: brigands and thieves have been known to menace villages now and again, but never in recent times have they posed any real threat to more than the smallest habitation. So I dispatched a cavalry squadron of thirty men to Camaracum to investigate.”
“What did they find?” Valeria asked. She realized that she was leaning so far toward the general that she was steadying herself with one hand on the arm of his chair, but didn’t care. She was near to trembling with excitement.
“I wish I knew,” Sergius told her in a grim voice. “They never returned, nor did they send word via messenger. T
he village is a day and a half away for men moving fast on horseback, and even allowing for unexpected delays along the way, they should have reported back by now.” He caught Tullius’s questioning look. In answer to the centurion’s unasked question, Sergius said, “Their commander was an experienced soldier and should not have been easily caught unaware. ”
“Bugger all,” Septimus breathed.
“Not quite the way I would have put it,” Sergius said, arching an eyebrow, “but eloquently said nonetheless. And so it is that come dawn tomorrow, the bulk of Legio Invictus will march to Camaracum. I’ll be taking six cohorts and half the cavalry with me, while the rest of the legion remains here to safeguard the city and act as a reserve for the province should any additional threats emerge.”
“We’re coming with you,” Valeria blurted.
All eyes turned to stare at her.
“I must beg your forgiveness, princess,” the general said with what could only be a patronizing look, “but that’s quite impossible. A woman has no business on such a potentially perilous expedition.”
Valeria slowly straightened, her spine becoming ramrod straight as she held the general’s gaze. Her nostrils flared, and she saw Marcus’s lips press into a thin line as he forced himself to keep his mouth shut. “I am the daughter of the Emperor, General Sergius,” she said in a tone of voice she had learned from her mother. “When I said ‘We’re coming with you,’ it was not meant to be taken as a request for you to grant or deny. It was a command. Ignore it at peril to your position and your life.”
Sergius stared at her, and the room was utterly still. No one even dared to breathe. “I do believe, princess,” he said slowly, his lips curling up into a smile that never reached his eyes, “that you mean that.”
“Do not doubt it for a moment.” As Sergius considered her words in silence, she went on, “I have no interest in commandeering your troops or endangering your mission, general. I give you my solemn word on that, and promise to obey Centurion Tullius in all things if battle is joined, both for my own safety and to ensure you enjoy complete freedom to lead your men as you would.” She leaned forward, just slightly. “But I will be going with you tomorrow.”
With a heavy sigh, Sergius waved over a slave to refill his goblet and the one Valeria was clinging to with a white knuckled grip. With a bright smile, he held up his goblet in salute. “I am your humble servant, Princess Valeria, and your wish is my command.”
***
The rest of the dinner was conducted, as Sergius had indicated at the beginning, as more of a pre-deployment staff meeting than a social occasion. The general was outwardly gracious and courteous to his guests, but Valeria could sense that it was an act put on for her benefit after she had put him on the spot.
When she could take no more, she politely excused herself, and she and her small retinue, followed by Hercules, from whom everyone else shrank away in poorly disguised fear, followed the young officer General Sergius had detailed to show the princess to her quarters for the evening.
“Other rooms have been prepared for your companions,” the officer informed her.
“That won’t be necessary,” she replied after quickly surveying the palatial suite. “There is quite enough room here, and my guards always attend me.”
“As my lady wishes.” With a bow, he departed.
She was not surprised when Marcus quickly assigned the men of her guard to every point of entry in the suite, except the massive and ornately furnished main bedroom. As in the palace in Rome, Hercules would serve as her guard in her personal chambers.
While Marcus, Septimus, and Paulus made sure all was secure, Valeria and Pelonius waited in the open courtyard of the peristylium that was part of her suite. The scribe appeared lost in thought, and she chose not to interrupt him.
When Marcus returned with Paulus and Septimus, Valeria asked, “Would one of you explain what really happened at dinner tonight?”
“You made an enemy,” Marcus told her bluntly after taking a quick look about to double check that none of the general’s men or slaves were present, having dismissed them all himself. “A very deadly one.”
She shook her head, bewildered. “What general worthy of the name would take such offense?”
“One who has his heart set upon becoming Caesar,” Marcus told her. “He’s rumored to have…accelerated his advancement by facilitating, shall we say, the demise of certain of his superiors to rise to his current rank, with promise of a seat in the Senate. That, so the story goes, is how he became a general at such an early age.”
“It certainly wasn’t for being a military genius,” Septimus spat.
“The Battle of Agrigentum,” Valeria said. “I could tell from your expressions when he mentioned it that something happened there.”
“Something happened, all right,” Septimus told her in a bitter voice. “The little shit had just taken over the legion before marching it into that battle, where he completely bungled everything. He got his men in a horrible spot, their backs against a deep river facing twice their number and enemy cavalry, to boot. It took four other legions to pull them out of that mess. It should have been an easy battle, as easy as any can be. But he turned it into a gods-be-damned nightmare.”
Valeria blinked, startled. That was more than Septimus typically spoke over the course of a week.
“Septimus’s brother was killed,” Marcus told her, “along with three thousand other men. Over half the legion commanded by Sergius was wiped out.”
“Septimus, I’m so sorry,” Valeria said. “I…I had no idea you had a brother. You never told me.”
“Thank you, princess,” Septimus told her, bowing his head before he went on. “It’s not a wound upon my soul that he died. He and I, we’ve always been soldiers. So was our father, and his father before him back as far as I know. The men of my family have been soldiers for generations. We don’t know anything else, and none of us ever expected to live forever, right? That’s just the way things are. But to die like that, to be wasted for nothing, and then for that bastard Sergius to return to a triumph in Rome, paraded around like a god…” As if realizing that he had said far too much, Septimus changed the subject. “Princess, I had best go check on those lazy sods in the baggage train. By your leave.”
“Of course,” she told him.
He came to stiff attention before turning and stalking off.
“He’ll be all right, won’t he?” Valeria asked as she watched him go. “He won’t do anything foolish?”
“He’s fine,” Marcus said. “He’s just not used to talking so much, is all.”
“But one thing I don’t understand about this battle: how could Sergius have received the honor of a triumph after such a disaster?”
“Because he’s a close friend of Senator Livius,” Marcus said. “Blame was directed elsewhere, at better and more honorable men who were dead and unable to defend their reputations.”
“And so General Sergius is likely an enemy of my father,” Valeria surmised.
“There’s no likely about it.” He leaned closer. “The other certainty is that we can’t protect you if you go galloping off like you did when we arrived. How hard do you think it would be for someone opposed to your father to engineer an unfortunate accident for you? And what do you think your father would do should that happen?” He shook his head slowly. “Princess, make no mistake: your death from anything other than old age will almost certainly start a civil war between the Emperor and his opponents in the Senate that would rip the Empire apart.”
She suppressed a shudder. Intrigue was an integral part of life for anyone of importance in Rome, but it wasn’t typically a life or death matter. But you’re not in Rome anymore, she told herself, and Marcus only has a total of fifty men to protect you against an entire legion under the command of one of Father’s enemies.
“Promise me that from now on,” Marcus said, “you’ll stay close and do as I or Septimus tell you. No more games. And for the sake of all the go
ds, don’t ever let Hercules stray from your side. I want him with you everywhere, even when you go to relieve yourself.”
She lowered her eyes. “I promise, Centurion Tullius.” Then she turned to Pelonius, who had remained uncharacteristically silent, staring off into some inner vista as he often did when he was deep in thought. “Don’t you have anything to say?”
He blinked, then focused on her, a disturbed expression on his face. “I hope that Sergius is all we have to worry about.”
Two words flashed through Valeria’s mind. Dark Wolves.
CHAPTER FIVE
The march to Camaracum went without incident until the afternoon of the second day, when the first bodies were found along the road. At the general’s invitation, the princess had ridden forward, escorted by Marcus, Septimus, Paulus, and Pelonius. Hercules came with her, stalking through the woods to one side, his tail twitching.
Sergius pointed at two bloody corpses on the side of the road. His men had taken up defensive positions farther up the road and to either side. “Take a look, if it please you, your highness.”
“You stay in your saddle,” Marcus told Valeria. After she nodded understanding, he dismounted from his horse and handed the reins to Paulus before kneeling down beside the nearest body. Septimus stayed where he was beside Valeria, his hand on the handle of his sword.
“Well, now we know the fate of your cavalrymen, general,” Marcus said grimly. Beside him, Atticus Cantius, his fellow centurion in Sergius’s legion, nodded in agreement. General Sergius looked on from horseback, wearing an expression of distaste.
The bodies had once been two soldiers, one of them the cavalry squadron’s signifier; the standard he had been carrying lay on the ground a few feet away. Both men had been torn limb from limb, the flesh stripped from the bones. The torsos were little more than empty cages of bones from pelvis to shoulder, the flesh, entrails, and organs all gone. Their chest armor had been bent back like the outer skin of a macabre fruit, and Marcus ran his fingers along the deep indentations in the metal from what he knew must have been made by teeth. Their helmets still held what was left of their skull caps, but the faces and lower parts of both skulls had been cracked open like eggs, the flesh, tongues, eyes, and brains eaten and the inside of the skulls licked clean. The carcass of a cavalry horse lay nearby. While most of its bones were still more or less attached, it, too, had been stripped of its flesh and innards, and a flock of vultures, having momentarily retreated before Sergius’s men, waited to finish picking it clean.
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