Exiles of Arcadia: Legionnaire (8 page)

Primus stood there for a long time, staring after her. He could still feel the press of her lips on his cheek. Somnia had told him of the hierophant’s habit; she had not needed to tell him that he must keep it secret.
 

For a time, Primus stood absorbed in thought. Auguries were frequent at the citadel, and they were always, always favorable. Did the gods truly favor their actions, or were the priest’s reassurances simply the price he paid to obtain his strange drug? Primus thought of the rattle of papyrus as the hierophant held a scroll open in trembling hands, while Somnia stood at his elbow. Did she stand at his elbow now, while he breathed in this poison?

As he stood alone in the courtyard, the sound of raised voices reached him from within the temple. Primus glanced around, reminded that he was absent from his barracks without permission. But all was quiet in the camp; there was only the distant roar of the waterfall and the sound of voices from within the temple. Someone inside was shouting. He started back across the lawn, telling himself he did not intend to eavesdrop. He was not looking to learn secrets that didn’t belong to him; he only wanted to be sure that Somnia was safe.
 

From the portico, he could make out the voice of the hierophant–his musical intonation was starting to crack with hysteria. “Shadows!” he shouted. “I see black trees, black hands, and fire beneath the mountain!” His voice dropped below hearing. Primus hesitated no more than a moment before he pressed his ear to the door.
 

He heard Somnia’s voice, too low to understand. Soothing tones.

The hierophant shouted her down. “No! I have seen their deaths–I see them now! You think he doesn’t know? He feeds these fools to the old gods like shoveling fuel into an oven. He’ll feed us all to devils!”

Another voice, pleading. Primus thought it might be the acolyte who had met him at the door. Then the hierophant: “NO! I won’t let him use me anymore. I’m going to free us. DO NOT TOUCH ME!”

There was a crash, and Primus heard Somnia cry out in pain.
 

He pushed against the door, but they had latched it from within. He put his shoulder into it, but the wood only groaned. Inside, both the hierophant and the acolyte were shouting. Somnia was silent. Primus took two steps back, and flew at the door, slamming his heel into the carved ash panel. There was a crunch, and the door groaned inward a few inches. Primus backed up and put his heel into it again, careless of the noise. The latch splintered beneath his boot, and the temple doors flew inward.

Smoke billowed out of the temple the moment the doors were open. Primus coughed, waving a hand before his face as he edged inside. He recognized the hierophant, his back to the door as he stood over the brazier at Jupiter’s feet. Beneath one skinny arm he clutched a leather case the size of a marching drum; as Primus watched, the hierophant yanked a scroll from the case and held it above the brazier, waiting as it began to smolder. His hands were steady as he waited for the flame to take. Even as he rushed in, Primus remembered how the priest’s hands had trembled while he took auguries that morning. The hierophant dropped the scroll into the hammered bronze bowl where it sputtered, giving forth a thick and acrid smoke. The acolyte was watching this and wringing his hands. Somnia lay on the floor nearby, struggling to rise.

Primus went swiftly to Somnia, one hand over his mouth against the smoke. The acolyte attempted to bar his way but Primus shouldered him aside. He fluttered ineffectually around Primus, tugging at the back of his tunic. “You must not be here,” he fretted. “You must leave, right now. You’ll draw the whole camp down on us!”

A part of Primus wanted to obey the little man. But he knelt beside Somnia instead. Her lip was split, and blood was smeared across her chin. “What happened? Did he do this to you?” Primus looked up at the hierophant, ready to savage him with his bare hands. But the priest was ignoring them, chanting rhythmically in some strange tongue as he fed his sacred scrolls into the fire.

Somnia shook her head, pushing herself up from the floor. “He’s not himself.” She let him help her, putting one arm across his shoulders as he lifted her to her feet. But when he tried to steer her toward the door, she twisted away from him.

“Get out of here, now. You shouldn’t have come. I told you to go back to your barracks!” She pushed at him. Primus took a step back, but he did not turn to go.
 

“I came back to help you. I came back because I knew you were hurt.”

She only pushed at him harder. Her other hand she held close to her chest, as if her wrist pained her. “You can’t help me. You’re going to ruin us all if you don’t
get out
.” She coughed into her hand, and Primus saw blood on her fingers. She bent over against the smoke, and her hair fell away from her neck. Primus was suddenly entranced by the sight of smooth white skin above her collar. She limped back to the hierophant, and as he watched her go, Primus heard again the buzzing voices at the edge of consciousness. He looked to the brazier, knowing it was the source of the strange fog that suddenly gripped him.
It’s a little bit like dreaming,
Somnia had said. But that wasn’t it at all. He watched the flames dancing in the brazier, consuming the reed-paper scrolls, hissing out black smoke. Suddenly he realized what the hierophant was chanting: they were the same words that buzzed in his ears, the strange whispers in the corners of his mind.

Primus stepped closer to the brazier. The voices grew clearer as he listened to the hierophant. The speech was harsh and guttural–a rockslide of words. Almost he could grasp the meaning, like a snatch of remembered music. Someone gripped his arm, and Primus looked down at Somnia. She was speaking to him. She looked frightened, but he could not understand her. It was as though his ears were stoppered with wax. He patted her hand, and peeled her grip off of him. He came to stand beside the hierophant, and watched the scrolls unfurl as flames consumed them.
 

Only words,
he thought. Scrolls were meaningless when you could hear the gods themselves. He looked up into the rough-hewn face of Jupiter. In the light of the flames he saw that the eyes were empty, simple pits in a face of stone. A shiver went through him. No god animated this statue. The chanting voices carried on, relentless.

Primus realized that the hierophant was watching him. Clammy sweat stood out on the priest’s sharp cheekbones, and wild terror seized his dark eyes. He leaned close to Primus. His breath smelled rank, even above the pungent smoke. “Just a rock,” he said, tipping his head toward the statue. “Nothing but empty promises.” He drew another scroll from his case and raised it to the brazier. “No one to save you from what’s coming.”

The chanting in his ears crested like a wave, and Primus’ dread turned to terror. He sank to his knees. He heard his name, distantly, and turned his head. Somnia was standing over him. In her hand she held the rod of Jupiter, taken from the statue’s shapeless grip. She tried to pull him up, but nameless fear held him in place. He watched her lips move as she spoke to him, but he could not force meaning from the words. Suddenly she placed a hand atop his head, and leaned over to kiss his brow. “I’m sorry,” she whispered, and for an instant Primus heard her clearly. Then she raised the iron staff of the god high above her head, and swung it down. Light exploded before Primus’ eyes.
 

The world turned black.

It was my father’s notion to steal the prophecies of the Sybil from the Capitoline vault. With them, he could bind an army more firmly to his purpose; without them, Tiberius would find Arcadia a little harder to control.

–
Lucan Venator,

Testimony before the Senate

EXTRORDINARIUS

Primus watched the treetops pass by, filtering the weak afternoon sunlight through their branches. His head throbbed in time with the clop of his horse’s hooves upon the cobblestones, and his stomach roiled, empty and angry. Twice he’d tried to eat something to settle his stomach, and twice he’d been forced to climb down from his mount to vomit beside the elevated roadbed. The
extrordinarii
ate in the saddle, rolling along at a steady canter, and they had no mercy for Primus’ aching head and delicate stomach. Each time he stopped to vomit, he was forced to kick his mount to a gallop to catch up with the others, compounding his headache.

He had been shaken awake that morning by Black Titus, who frowned over him as Primus looked around, trying to remember where he was. He lay on his back on a flat stone slab, in the center of an unfamiliar room. Neatly labeled clay pots and colorful glass bottles crowded the shelves that lined one side of the room. The opposite wall was hung with tools, black iron and shining bronze. He was in the infirmary. He was lying on the slab where Lepus had died.

Primus sat up with a start and the world spun around him as his vision dimmed. He would have fallen if Titus had not caught him by the shoulders. “Easy,” the old man said. “You’re still in one piece.” He waited patiently while Primus recovered himself. “I woke you twice before. You didn’t seem to know me. Can I ask what happened to you last night?”

Primus thought about it. He remembered slipping out to visit the temple and his conversation with Somnia. He cringed, remembering how he’d kicked down the temple doors. Beyond that, nothing seemed clear. He shied away from the memories. “What time is it?” he croaked. Titus passed him a cup of water from the surgeon’s bench.
 

“It’ll be dawn soon. I relieved the surgeon about an hour ago.”

“The scouts?”

“They’re assembling on the martial field.”

“Then I can still catch them,” Primus said, pushing himself off the slab. Titus steadied him as his feet found the floor. “Thank you for waking me.”

“Slowly, lad. You’re in no condition to go anywhere.”

“I’ll be fine.” Primus stooped carefully to pull on his boots. “I’m not going to miss this.”

“Oh, you’re fine? I suppose this is nothing, then.” Titus pressed his finger against Primus’ temple, and pain exploded behind his eyes. Primus cried out and dropped to his knees.

“The surgeon says it might be fractured. Even if not, it’ll be days before you can return to duty.”

Primus clutched at his head, feeling linen bandages and beneath them, the bulge of a damp poultice. He focused on simply breathing until the pain and nausea receded. Then, moving gingerly, he began to drag his boots onto his feet. “If I don’t leave now, I’ll never get this chance again.”

Titus sighed. “You don’t know that.” But Primus kept on fumbling with his bootlaces, not even looking at the old man. “What do you think will happen if you fall out of your saddle on the road? Do you think the
extrordinarii
are going to nurse you along?”

“That won’t happen.” Primus decided his boots were tight enough. He gripped the edge of the table and pulled himself laboriously to his feet. After a moment, Titus made a disgusted sound and helped him up.

“Stop and think, boy. This is an opportunity. Just lie back down. The surgeon will tell them you are unfit; with that head, no one will accuse you of shirking. You can return to the Dead Men, and no shame upon you.”

Primus was suddenly furious. “This again. You’re so convinced that I won’t be able to handle myself. Are you afraid I’ll bring shame to the cohort, or to you?” Primus steadied himself against the table. Blood pounded in his ears.
 
“Tell me something: if you aren’t here to help me, then why are you here?”

“Damn it boy, I
am
trying to help you. I’m trying to protect you. I’ve been telling you for days now to ask yourself why they chose you for this mission–”
 

“I heard you, old man. You don’t think I’m ready to be a legionnaire, let alone a scout. Believe it or not, I don’t care what you think of me. You’re not my father. You’re just a sad old man. You lied to get rid of your enemy, and now you see liars everywhere. But they aren’t there, Titus. It’s just you. Now get out of my way. My brothers are waiting.”
 

Titus stared at him a moment, looking more sad than angry. It unnerved Primus, but still he brushed the old man aside and made unsteadily for the door. That was how they left it; Primus found his kit and armor in the barracks, and removed the poultice from his bandages in order to pull his helmet on. No one made any comment when he arrived on the martial field, except to ask whether he could ride a horse. So Primus fixed his pack behind the saddle of the mount they gave him, and they rode through the gates while stars still shone in the lead-grey sky, a chill wind biting at their backs.

Only five of them rode on the river road, though there were twenty in their company. The others ranged out into the forest all around, alert for signs of Woade. Primus sometimes glimpsed them through the trees, their mounts kicking up snow. They wore cloaks of white, lined with snow-fox fur about the collars. Simple caps of iron sat upon their heads. Primus felt strange in his blood-red cloak and heavy helmet, greaves on his shins and shield strapped to his back. Even their leader wore no crest upon his head, but a simple iron cap like all the others. Lucan Venator was the general’s son, and a legate, but he wore no insignia to show it. Sometime after midday, Lucan turned in his saddle to look back at Primus, and beckoned him forward.
 

“You ride well enough,” the legate observed when he drew close. Lucan Venator had some of his father’s size, but his coloring was Arcadian, as was his hooked nose. His eyes were pure Woade, and it was strange to see blue eyes in an Arcadian face.

“Thank you, sir. I learned to ride on my father’s farm. At Campagna, before the war.”

Lucan nodded to that. “My mother’s people had peach orchards. I haven’t had a peach in ten years now.” He glanced at Primus. “I wasn’t sure you’d be able to travel at all this morning.”
 

Primus said nothing.
 

“Your quartermaster tells me you left your barracks last night in order to visit the latrine. We decided that you must have seen the smoke from the temple and rushed to help.” Primus managed a nod. There was little chance that Lucan did not know the truth, he realized. The legate was covering for him. Lucan frowned. “You’re not going to be sick again, are you?”