by R. W. Peake
“This isn’t going to get any easier putting it off like this,” he said without preamble, and for a moment, he thought he might have erred by overstepping, because Pullus shot him a glare that was, eerily and appropriately, almost identical to the kind his uncle had given him whenever Alex offered an inconvenient truth.
Pullus held the stare for a heartbeat, then his ire vanished in an explosive gasp of breath, and he said miserably, “I know. Trust me, I know.” He dropped his gaze to the bowl, shaking his head as he argued, “But I’m just still so angry about it that I’m afraid that I’ll say something I’ll regret.”
“Remember what we talked about a couple nights ago?” Alex asked, and when Pullus nodded, he said, “Are you likely to be more or less angry if someone runs their mouth about it before you talk to your mother?”
To his credit, it did not take Alex actually finishing before Pullus recognized the truth in this, but he still felt moved to grumble, “Fine, have it your way. I’ll go see her as soon as I eat.”
Alex turned to go, but Pullus called out, saying casually, “Go get your food and come eat with me.”
Sensing somehow that smiling or saying anything would not be appreciated, Alex nodded and left the room, returning with his meal, which they consumed in silence, although it was a companionable one.
Wiping his mouth after draining his cup, Pullus stood, then walked over to the frame that held his armor, and over which his baltea and the Pullus gladius were hung, unfastening the scabbard. Then, without saying anything, he walked over and grabbed one box of scrolls, then the other setting it on top of the first, which he had to hold with both arms.
“No, that’s too clumsy,” he grumbled, then as Alex watched, dropped one of the boxes to the floor, doing it with enough carelessness that it made the clerk wince, though he did not say anything, then he laid the scabbarded gladius on top of the box. “Well, wish me good fortune,” Pullus said as he left his quarters, and while he muttered it, Alex heard him add, “I’m going to need it.”
Alex waited just long enough to be sure Pullus would be well on his way into town before he got up, ignoring Demetrios’ question about where he was going. Using the same route, he made his way to the Porta Praetoria that led across the bridge into the town, still careful to scan ahead of him to avoid being seen by Pullus. What he was trying to set up was extraordinarily delicate, but more importantly, as urgent as he believed the situation with Pullus and the circumstances of his birth was, the only thing worse than being unable to engineer a confrontation at all would be to set events in motion too quickly. He was gambling that they would be marching within the next couple of days, and that once Pullus confronted his mother, even if they remained in Mogontiacum another day or two, he would be in no mood to go into town. If he was wrong, and the whispers that he intended to start spreading with the two possible targets he had selected as the most likely to take pleasure in rubbing Pullus’ nose in it happened to confront Pullus before they marched, he would inadvertently be signing Gnaeus Pullus’ death warrant. Brawls between soldiers were an inherent part of life in the Legions, and all but the most egregious were tolerated, except those that resulted in serious injury to one or more combatants, when rankers could expect to be seriously punished, usually in the form of being flogged, with a certain number of those lashes applied with the scourge. That, however, was with rankers; while not as common, brawls between members of the Optionate and Centurionate occurred, and he could never recall a time where one or more Centurions received that kind of punishment. Regardless of this, Alex’s one concern was timing, because if Pullus was confronted before they marched, and he was unable to control himself and administered the kind of beating to the degree of severity Alex had advised, there would be serious repercussions because Pullus would be robbing a Century of their Centurion before they were about to set out on campaign, which would hurt the readiness of the Legion. Therefore, his goal when he went out into Mogontiacum that night was to plant a seed, but subtly enough that it would take some time to germinate. It would only be later, after all the events he was trying to set in motion transpired that Alex realized one potential flaw in his thinking; it had never occurred to him that Gnaeus Pullus could come out on the losing end of such a confrontation. All of this, however, was in the future. Now, in this moment, what mattered to Alex was that Gnaeus Pullus come to terms with what it meant to carry a name that instantly increased the expectations by the young Centurion’s comrades under the standard, and more importantly, men like Germanicus Julius Caesar, who would be leading them to avenge Varus and his Legions.