Praetorian: The Price of Treason

by S. J. A. Turney

  ‘Nie….swine,’ he managed, through thick, rubbery lips after three or four attempts. Dexter peered at him. ‘Not wine. Blood. Your nose is flatter than an Arabian’s tits. Your head’s the same shape from every angle.’

  Rufinus frowned. His wits must be scattered if Dexter was starting to make sense!

  Was it his imagination or was the sky beginning to get lighter?

  Waves continued to strike the ship from every side, the bow dipping and rising, throwing them back against the stern rail with rhythmic strength, making them slump left and right from time to time and casting bucket after bucket of stinging freezing water over them both. The rest of the crew seemed to still be running around as best they could, securing the vessel, but no one seemed to be bothered with the two Praetorians at the rail.

  Rufinus shook his head. The ship was hardly bucking and the sky had turned a strange sickly yellow-grey. That was sudden. He noted with surprise that Dexter was no longer next to him and realised that he must have completely blanked out for a while. He was wondering blearily why, sliding away, when he suddenly started alert again to find that the ship was now calm and steady and the sky a pale white-grey. A man was crouching in front of him, dabbing at his face. Wherever the man touched felt raw and painful.

  Why did he keep passing out like this?

  His eyes seemed unhappy at the idea of focusing on any particular thing, and one happily played along the deck while the other locked onto the thing in front of his face. Slowly the other pupil wandered back into line and the green blob resolved into the shape of a bottle.

  ‘Sm-a?’ he managed to ask through lips that felt as though an elephant had sat on them.

  ‘This is mandragora and poppy oil,’ the man replied soothingly.’

  ‘S-nngh!’ Rufinus said desperately. He tried to wave away the bottle, but it seemed that his arms were now made of flax and lay floppy and pointless at his sides. ‘F-nagh!’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re saying, but you took a very dangerous blow to the head and you are suffering a scattering of the mind. You will dip in and out of consciousness and we must watch you to make sure you continue to return each time. Also, you might experience things that are not quite real. For some time you will be unable to form your thoughts into words. I have seen this many times from men hit by spinning spars on board. I am the ship’s capsarius. You can trust me.

  ‘N-farg!’ shouted Rufinus desperately, his eyes rolling as he locked on the bottle of lovely, wonderful, life-giving, pain-removing poppy which was tilting as it approached his lips.

  ‘Phwthhhthhthththtpphphphphph,’ he managed, blowing a rudimentary raspberry in a desperate attempt to stop the bottle neck touching his lips.

  ‘Don’t be foolish,’ the medic said sternly, gripping his chin and forcing his mouth open with little appreciable resistance. ‘I can assure you that this is not dangerous. It will help with the pain.’

  Rufinus started to choke as he felt the first drops of soothing, wondrous poppy and mandragora, with – yes, there it was – a hint of henbane, slide down his gullet. He coughed and choked to stop it, but the capsarius was smoothing his throat in a downward motion with his palm and Rufinus felt himself swallowing the awful, dreadful, wonderful liquid.

  No!

  ‘F-nakh. Gubl.’ He said miserably as the man let go of him and nodded, stepping back.

  That oh-so familiar taste began to seep into his innards. Soon he would feel it infuse him to every finger end and then the world would be wonderful again, and he would not have to worry about prefects and chamberlains and plots and suchlike.

  An urgent voice cut in from one side and he really had to concentrate to comprehend.

  ‘What is that?’ a voice demanded.

  Rufinus missed the capsarius’ reply as he turned his lolling, droopy head to see Mercator and Icarion standing over him. Merc looked furious, and Icarion was none too happy either. Rufinus wondered why. How could anyone be unhappy? They had survived the storm and this was now just a slightly chilly, damp sea voyage. And he felt comfortable. So nice and comfortable…

  ‘You fucking idiot,’ snarled Merc, swatting the precious medicine away, where it clattered across the deck, the stopper safely containing the liquid within. Rufinus was vaguely aware of a series of astonished and aggrieved sounds from the medic, but had little chance to pay too much attention to him as his friends seemed to be lifting him now. What were they playing at, the idiots?

  He suddenly felt very dizzy as they swung him around and the ship’s rail smacked painfully into his gut. One of the pair held him round the waist while the other pushed him forward, bending him over the rail. Rufinus giggled. He’s heard that sailors liked to do this sort of thing, but he’d never thought his friends…

  And suddenly a finger was thrust into his mouth, waggling painfully, deep, until it touched the back of his throat.

  What in the name of Aesculapius were they doing?

  ‘Vlarkle?’

  Then the vomit came. And it came and came and came until Rufinus began to think even through his fogged brain that he might just turn inside out. And as the seemingly endless torrent of puke arced out and down into the water, he could feel that pleasant warm feeling fading from the tips of his extremities, retreating into his core and then shrivelling up to leave only pain, discomfort and, apparently, yet more endless reservoirs of vomit.

  By the time Mercator let go of his head Rufinus was draped like a used rag over the rail, vomit, snot and blood congealing on his face, everything aching and his wits no better than before. Finally, his friends lifted him back and sank him slowly to the deck. The medic, who looked worried and chastened – who had presumably had something important explained to him – came over once more and very gently began to clean him up.

  ‘’Fnos?’

  ‘Your nose is shattered,’ the man said. ‘I cannot reset it. The bone has not just shifted. It is in several pieces. Your profile, I’m afraid, has been changed forever. I will try to ease it a little, though.’

  ‘With the smell of sick round here, you might be grateful your nose is out of action,’ grinned Icarion.

  ‘Yes. Sorry about that,’ Mercator murmured. ‘Seemed the only way in the circumstances.’

  Finishing cleaning up the worst of the mess, the medic leaned close and put his hands to Rufinus’ nose. ‘Hold him tight.’

  As though any part of him might move without being lifted!

  And yet as the medic started to play with his ruined nose, Rufinus began to buck and thrash with the sheer agony of it. Perhaps fifty heartbeats passed before the man stopped, a fresh torrent of blood now slicking down across Rufinus’ lips, which the man began to dab at.

  ‘There. You’ll still have an ugly shaped nose I’m afraid, but at least you should have no trouble breathing once it’s healed.’

  ‘Kya.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ the medic smiled. ‘Next time you go somewhere with medical staff, might I suggest you mention an inability to take poppy juice first. It could prevent all sorts of trouble.’

  The man wandered off, collecting his medicine vial as he went, and Mercator and Icarion crouched in front of him. ‘That’s a mess,’ the Greek gestured at his face. ‘What was it? Broken spar?’

  ‘Dangerous arsehole,’ countered Dexter, arriving from somewhere into a crouch beside them. ‘Someone with a grudge against Praetorians. He won’t be bothering Rufinus again. He’s a fish now.’

  The others frowned at each other for only a moment before they divined the meaning behind their cryptic friend’s words. Somewhere back across the deck a man shouted something about land and Coponius thumbed over his shoulder. ‘Dalmatian coast ahead.’

  ‘Typical,’ Merc chuckled. ‘Worst storm I’ve ever seen and we were just a few miles from shore.’

  ‘Sewt,’ Rufinus said urgently.

  ‘Suit?’

  The young guardsman rolled his eyes, almost, but not quite, in time with one another, and concentrated hard.r />
  ‘Psewt.’

  ‘Pursuit?’ hazarded Icarion.

  Rufinus nodded and regretted it as another wave of nausea began to make itself felt.

  ‘Who knows,’ Merc replied. ‘Maybe the storm will take them. It nearly took us, after all. Anyway, we can’t worry about that now. We can hardly put you on a horse until tomorrow at least, or you’ll just ride into trees and fall off a lot. A night in the mansio at Pietas Iulia should suffice and in the morning, if you’re hale, we’ll start to head north. If all goes well, even at Acheron’s pace four days will see us in Vindobona, handing over letters. I have to admit I cannot wait until we’re done with all this.’

  It was a sentiment Rufinus would echo when his brain, mouth, eyes and ears were working in concord once more.

  X – The Pannonian Prefect

  January 13th 185AD

  Rufinus sat astride his latest troublesome steed and shivered. He was more than a little familiar with Pannonian winters, having spent several of them knee deep in snow encamped outside the boundary of the sensible world, facing hordes of slavering Marcomanni. His shivering was only partially on account of the weather.

  If he’d had any doubt as to the ongoing effect of poppy juice, he’d had that made perfectly clear on the ship. A few drops past his lips and with barely time to register in his gut before he was heaving them back up, and yet just that tiny taste had sent him back months to the height of his troubles and left him feeling sick and oddly hollow once he had recovered.

  His head had cleared the next day, though not until they were well north of Pietas Iulia, bouncing along a gravelled road with the other three laughing about the dreadful experiences they had survived on the Adriaticum. The crew had lost nine men in that storm and never had a trierarch been more grateful to disgorge his passengers onto a dock. Several of the crew had made warding signs against the evil eye, directing them blatantly at the four Praetorians and the giant black hound, and the trierarch had told them flatly that he would never put his ship at their disposal again, even if he had to explain himself to the Praetorian commander. Donnus had even pointed an angry finger at Acheron as the big dog paced past to disembark, recoiling sharply as those teeth like pugio blades snapped together menacingly a mere hand’s breadth from the protruding digit before padding on with a snarl.

  Rufinus had left the ship with a fascinating wound – a triangular red mark between his eyes that was surrounded by a wide, purple bruise. That had faded a little over the four days of riding, there being little flesh on his forehead to retain the bruise, but still a discolouration remained. His nose was a different matter. He couldn’t touch it and had been forced to sleep on his back, which, combined with his shattered proboscis, had resulted in the most tremendous snore. Moreover, even when he was upright, there was an insistent whistle to his breathing that had turned out to be loud enough for even the others to hear clearly. He could only hope that would go away as it mended. Already Icarion was referring to him as ‘the flautist’. It had been bad enough being ‘Argentulum’ for a year or more, and he could do without a fresh nickname to spread through the cohort.

  His nose looked like a set of steps. He had tenderly probed it in a mansio bathhouse the night before last, trying to even out some of the ridges. And then when he had woken again, after passing out mid-probe, he’d decided not to touch it further. The medic had been right about the multiple breaks. Still, at least now he looked like a boxer. His tent mates had always told him he was too pretty to be what he was. With a jolt he suddenly wondered what Senova would make of his new face. He doubted she would consider it an improvement. It was like meeting a deer one day and seeing it transform into a hog the next.

  ‘Stop daydreaming. You nearly rode off into the ditch,’ chuckled Mercator, dragging his attention back to the road and their current location.

  The outskirts of Vindobona lay ahead, the city lurking on the bleak winter ground like a decomposing animal, rooks and ravens the flies buzzing around it, clouds of grey smoke rising up from the chimneys to mingle with the mean grey sky. It had changed little since Rufinus was last here, though it had clearly grown a little, the edge of the civilian settlement creeping ever outward. One thing was different, though, as Rufinus scanned the city in which he’d spent his first years of service.

  ‘You noticed that?’ he gestured off to the right, risking loss of control over his latest horse that seemed to wait patiently until Rufinus was not fully attentive and then break into a little trot for no reason.

  The other three followed his pointing finger. On one of the other roads leading into the city, to the east, they could clearly make out a raised earth rampart with a temporary fence of sudis stakes atop it, and the ridges of row upon row of tents beyond, banners waving dark red in the grey.

  ‘I thought this was now just the base of the Tenth? The other legions returned to their quarters after the war.’

  Mercator nodded, squinting into the distance. ‘I can make out various auxiliary flags there, but there’s legionary vexillae too. Icarion?’

  The Greek peered off into the distance. ‘It’s a bull. And the X. It’s the Tenth Gemina.’

  Rufinus’ brow furrowed. ‘Why are they not in the fortress then? Something odd is going on.’

  ‘Maybe there’s work going on at the barracks?’ hazarded Icarion.

  ‘Maybe. Come on.’

  The four men and their canine escort moved into Vindobona and past the theatre, now complete and imposing, on through the grand square where an emperor had collapsed and been mourned, where Rufinus had been raised from the legions. A strange combination of emotions, good and bad, washed over him, and he found himself averting his eyes as they moved on, somehow unwilling to let his gaze linger on the place where the great Marcus Aurelius had addressed the army before his sudden death.

  The ghosts of his past seemed insistent on haunting him this winter.

  The four men passed through the city in a strange silence broken only by the clopping of hooves, the panting of Acheron and the sporadic whistling of Rufinus’ ruined nose, the late afternoon sun failing entirely to burn through the cold cloud and lighten the mood. Indeed, though the city was busy enough, the people seemed oddly subdued. Perhaps it was because of the weather, Rufinus ruminated. He remembered how it had affected the legions during the war. A Pannonian winter could kill a man’s spirits faster than a case of crotch rot or a thousand ugly Marcomanni.

  At the heart of the urban sprawl lay the fortress, separated from the civilian settlement that surrounded it by a ditch filled with stagnant water from the stream that ran down alongside to join the mighty Danuvius River to the north. The four men rode across the causeway toward the high, strong gate upon which Rufinus had spent many a cold dull watch, stamping his feet to generate pitiful heat.

  The legionaries on guard called for them to stop, demanding to see their orders and gesturing for them to keep Acheron at a distance. Mercator showed the guard their transit documents and the man asked if they needed directions to the stable, taking their good time to stare at Rufinus’ discoloured face and fascinatingly-shaped nose. Rufinus declined stiffly since he knew the way off by heart, and they entered the fortress, the guards stepping back to allow plenty of room for Acheron to pass unmolested. Moments later they were dismounted, leading their steeds through surprisingly crowded streets toward the small cavalry detachment’s corner of the fortress. Rufinus took the reins of all four horses and, while the dog stayed with the others, delivered them to the stable’s equisio, flashing their documents and explaining that they were relay horses from the mansio at Savaria. Moments later the four men, armoured, clad in white and with their travel-worn kit bags over their shoulders, strode across the wide Via Principalis and to the wide gateway into the headquarters building.

  The two men on guard straightened with a hint of tension at the sight of four men in Praetorian white and the juxtaposed black mass of Acheron at their heels.

  ‘We are here to see the legate on th
e orders of the Praetorian prefect in Rome,’ Mercator announced authoritatively.

  ‘Command offices are on the far side of the basilica,’ one of the guards informed them, peering intently at Rufinus’ forehead. This was going to wear thin really fast. No one speaking to him looked him in the eye. They were always too busy staring at his nose or the bloom of fading purple on his brow.

  ‘I know them well,’ Rufinus snapped irritably as they began to move forward.

  ‘Wait a moment,’ barked the other guard. ‘You can’t take that thing into the headquarters!’

  Acheron showed a little tooth and the guard shrank back against the wall. ‘He doesn’t like to be left out,’ Rufinus smiled.

  ‘Well you still can’t take him in. Rules are rules.’

  Rufinus crouched by the great hound – though he didn’t have to crouch very far to be at the right height – and spoke gently into Acheron’s ear. ‘You have to stay here, lad. We’ll be back in a little while. Try not to eat anyone,’ he added, louder and with a mischievous grin.

  ‘You’re not leaving him with us!’ said the first guard, with wide eyes.

  ‘Well you won’t let us take him in. What do you suggest?’

  ‘Here,’ the man breathed, fishing a strip of dried, salted meat from a belt pouch – some mid-duty snack presumably – and tossing it across the street to the far side. ‘He can wait there ‘til you come back.’

  Rufinus chuckled. ‘Go get it, boy.’

  Acheron bounded away easily and Rufinus turned again. ‘All fine?’

  ‘In you go,’ confirmed the guards, still eyeing the big dog nervously as he walked across to the strip of tough meat and lay down with it between his great paws, chewing happily.

  As they strode through the arch and into the courtyard of the headquarters complex, Rufinus swallowed nervously. The last time he had been in here had been following the death of the great Aurelius, in that odd, unpleasant limbo when he had been neither truly legionary nor guardsman. The place looked almost the same, though the statue of the old stoic emperor had been replaced with one of the energetic, youthful Commodus.