Ironroot tote-2

by S. J. A. Turney

  “Just suffering a little after effect from the battle. Apologies.”

  “No apology necessary, captain, as long as you’re alright”, the man replied sincerely.

  Varro stepped back and straightened a little. The cooler night air was beginning to clear his head a little and his focus was sharpening. The man was not alone, but indeed part of a squad of six guards, all in the marshal’s guard dress uniform, and betwixt them stood a slighter, shorter figure wrapped tightly in a lustrous dark blue robe against the chill of the night air. Varro frowned as he caught sight of the pale, slender hand holding the robe closed, and the two white gold and amethyst rings on the hand.

  “Catilina?”

  The captain stepped back and straightened, a dozen emotions fighting for control of his face. He suddenly felt quite ill.

  “Catilina…”

  The lady let the hood of the robe fall back to reveal her delicate porcelain features. Her prefect brow and the tresses and curls of her ebony hair gave her an austere and otherworldly appearance in the strange, waning sunlight. Catilina had been renowned as a beauty from a very young age and many a courtier had been deceived by her looks into believing her to be flighty, weak or even vapid. Nothing could be farther from the truth and, given her parentage, there was no surprise in that. marshal Sabian had built the modern Imperial army back up from scratch, and the Lady Cassida had survived twenty years of civil war as mistress of her own estate, purely through nerve and insight, while many a powerful lord had fallen.

  “Captain Varro, you should address me as Lady Sabianus.” The primness of her words caught Varro off guard and he stood dumb, weighing her words and trying to decide whether she was truly serious or playing some game with him. This was not a simple woman, even in simple conversation.

  She waited a moment, watching the uncertainty on Varro’s face. “Has the constant drudgery of battle finally driven your Gods-born manners from you?” she enquired in a flat tone.

  The captain remained still. When he opened his mouth to reply, all that came out was a choking, stuttering noise. He felt a slight flush rise in his cheeks and damned himself to more than one hell for showing such childish weakness in front of professional soldiers. He was a longstanding and decorated veteran and yet, faced with a dozen words from Catilina he fell apart like a fresh faced boy. A low growl of irritation or anger began to well up deep in his throat.

  “Varro,” the woman laughed lightly, her eyes suddenly sparkling in the moonlight, matching the amethysts on her fingers almost perfectly. “I do believe you are blushing!”

  Before he could react, for which he was truly grateful, Catilina’s smile warmed and she tilted her head slightly to one side.

  “But I see you’ve been wounded again, my dear captain.”

  Varro’s hand went to his aching side in an involuntary movement.

  “Yes.”

  The lady locked his eyes with her own for a moment and a look of concern passed briefly across her face before being replaced once more with a visage of good natured elegance. Her eyes bored into his.

  “You’re not yourself, Varro” she stated as a matter of fact.

  He shook his head and gave a weak smile, but Catilina tapped her cheek with a slender finger, her gaze never leaving his face.

  “You’ve no banter and no quick wit. Most unlike you. Your eyes seem hazy and they wander while I speak.” To emphasise her point, she held up her index finger and moved it slowly from side to side while her eyes remained locked on his face.

  Varro found with great irritation, that he was watching her finger and shaking his head like an idiot. He growled and waved a hand at her irritably, dismissing the conversation, but her look hardened.

  “You’ve been on mare’s mead,” she said with a note of accusation. “Or something stronger, possibly. Whatever it is, you don’t look well.”

  Finally Varro found his voice. It wasn’t as strong as he’d like, but still clear enough in the cool evening air.

  “I’m fine, Lady Sabianus.” He stressed the title a little too much. “A little battered, but I’m fine. I’m due to see Scortius sometime today…” He looked around the street, now almost dark with the sun fully set. “Tonight, I suppose.”

  Catilina glared at him.

  “You need to see him now, Varro. Not later. I’ll have two of the guard escort you.”

  Varro waved his hands at her in a way he hoped looked pleasantly admonishing and shook his head, which threatened to send his brain spinning once more. The queasiness came again in a sudden blast but was, fortunately, gone in a flash.

  “I’m going to see him later,” he replied flatly. “Right now, I’m going home for a while. I haven’t eaten for a year or so, my stomach tells me.”

  For a long moment the two held each others’ gaze, locked in a battle of wills, until Catilina looked away, folding her arms indignantly to indicate to all present that she had decided the captain’s decision was wrong but was willing to watch him fail to prove her point.

  Varro ground his teeth in frustration. No matter how he dealt with Catilina, in every argument, every conversation and even every minor exchange of greetings, he had always left feeling that he had lost the debate and she had let him go.

  “I’ll no doubt see you shortly, Lady Sabianus. I expect your father and the prefect will want to see me tomorrow.”

  Catilina regarded him with an unreadable expression.

  “In this world, Varro, all things are possible.”

  She gestured at the man Varro had bumped into.

  “Crinus, take two others and make sure the captain gets back to his house safely.”

  She looked at him and smiled mischievously.

  “If, that is, he can remember where he lives.”

  Varro continued to grind his teeth, unable to form a suitable reply. His mind was feeling surprisingly clouded, even here in the late evening breeze.

  “Come!” Catilina waved to her retinue and swept away past the captain toward the grand headquarters building at the centre of the fort.

  The captain watched her go with a curious mixture of desire and relief. The three remaining guards exchanged a look that Varro recognised in irritation: soldiers that had been assigned a duty they felt was beneath them. Baby-sitting. He grinned a wicked grin.

  “So, lads. Who’s for a jug of good wine?”

  The senior of the soldiers regarded Varro with something akin to disdain, as though he were some sort of carrion, and returned the captain’s smile with no warmth.

  “Home, Captain.”

  The other two guards reached for Varro’s elbows as if to support him, and he pulled away indignantly with as much pride as he could muster.

  “I’m quite capable of walking, even if the Lady feels I need an escort,” he narrowed his eyes at their leader. “So let’s just go.”

  The group of four walked purposefully along the street toward the officers’ quarters as the arteries of the fortress gradually filled with off-duty soldiers on their way to the baths, taverns, gambling pits, or to the other dens of pleasure that were to be found in the civilian settlement just beyond the fort’s massive walls. As he walked, Varro found he had to concentrate with every step to prevent himself staggering.

  As they rounded a corner, sergeant Corda strode into view, still in his armour and coated in the grime of travel. Varro nodded a professional greeting as he came to as steady a halt as he could manage.

  “Corda. Would you care to join me this evening? Martis is making something fowl.”

  The sergeant smiled a rare smile at the pun and nodded.

  “I’d be glad to, sir, but I must settle in and bathe first. I’ll join you shortly.”

  With a salute, he strode off toward his quarters while Varro made for the welcoming lights of his house. At the door, he thanked the marshal’s guards with mock extravagance and entered, closing the door behind him. He leaned on the door jamb for support for a moment, breathing heavily, and then turned and walked into h
is main room.

  “Good evening, captain Varro,” the marshal said from his seat beside the fire.

  Varro stopped in his tracks and swayed for a moment before recovering himself as best he could and coming to a surprisingly smart salute. The sudden movement certainly made his head swim a little, but he snapped his arm back down by his side and stood as straight and as still as he could, a gentle sweat beginning to glisten on his brow.

  Marshal Sabian, tall and imposing with his iron grey hair and his handsome, yet lined and careworn face, sat with his legs crossed and his black-plumed helmet on his lap. The fact that the marshal already held a crystal glass of what was clearly Varro’s best wine and a small platter or cold meats lay on the table beside him made it plain that Martis had been as diligent and efficient as ever in dealing with the man who was, after all, the second most powerful man in the Empire.

  The captain smiled weakly.

  “Marshal, you honour my house.”

  Sabian waved his hand, brushing aside the compliment.

  “Gods, Varro, I have more than enough obsequious sycophants hanging around me at Vengen; I don’t need the same here. Sit down before you fall down. I sent your servant out for a short while. I don’t want us to be disturbed.” He reached and took a neat slice of chicken from the plate, rolling it and dipping it in the accompanying pickle before popping it into his mouth. His eyes swept the room, taking in its austere appearance, almost entirely lacking in decoration, and that which could be seen was clearly of military origin: a worn pennon here, a scabbard with a telling dent there. Clearly the home of a career soldier.

  Without a word, and quietly grateful, the captain made his way to a seat close by; close enough for low conversation, but not close enough to seem discourteous.

  “It’s been a long time, marshal,” he replied, being careful to keep his tone slightly familiar and yet thoroughly respectful.

  “Long indeed,” Sabian replied quietly, his gaze slowly wandering down to rest on his boots. “Always knew you’d be commissioned, Varro. Even in the old days, I mean. I suspect if I hadn’t given command of the Fourth to Cristus, it would have wound up with you, sooner or later.”

  Varro blinked a few times, gently shaking his head. Likely it was the fault of the drugs and the drowsiness, but his mind seemed to be refusing to work correctly. He was suddenly entirely unsure of the situation around him and the scene felt increasingly unreal to him.

  Here was the second most powerful man in the Empire, a close friend of the Emperor himself, speaking to him as though they were campfire companions on campaign in the wilderness; suggesting that he could be a staff officer in the right circumstances. Oh, not that he hadn’t considered that himself from time to time, but had never thought to hear it from above. And perhaps he hadn’t done. It wouldn’t entirely surprise him to find his mind was playing tricks on him. He focused once more on Sabian, aware that the marshal had continued to talk, long after he’d stopped listening.

  “…and so you might still get that chance, Varro; probably will in fact.”

  The marshal raised those insightful eyes, ‘a window onto genius’ as some poet had once written of him, and rested them on Varro.

  “But for that to happen,” he said with surprising force, ”I need you to do something.”

  Varro blinked in alarm. He’d missed something. Trying not to sound panicked, he settled slightly in the seat and gave a reassuring smile.

  “Can you just repeat that, sir?”

  Sabian gave him an odd look; disturbingly reminiscent of the one Catilina had given him in the street outside the bathhouse.

  “Prefect Cristus will, tomorrow, be formally announcing his decision to step down from command.”

  Again Varro blinked and Sabian’s eyes narrowed.

  “You are taking all this in, aren’t you Varro? If I didn’t know better I’d say you were topped up on Mare’s Mead.” His eyes narrowed and he leaned forward in his seat.

  The captain shook his head.

  “Sorry sir. Strong medicine our cohort doctor put me on. Took a stab wound in the side yesterday and it pinches a bit.”

  Sabian smiled.

  “I expect it does, Varro; I expect it does. Still, it’ll be towards the end of the year before Cristus can actually fully step down. He’s plenty to do before then, but he’ll be looking at a position on the Imperial Council in Velutio. And that’s where I need to strike a bargain with you, Varro.”

  “Sir?” The captain’s brow furrowed. Taking this in at face value was hard enough. Digesting the details and trying to read between the lines was positively crippling in his current state, though with the marshal it was always worth checking.

  Sabian sighed and leaned forward over the plume of his helmet, resting his elbows on the knees of his black breeches and steepling his fingers.

  “Catilina.”

  “Catilina, sir?” replied Varro, thoughts rushing around his head and refusing to settle. For certain Sabian had known of their dalliance; Varro would never have been foolish enough to tangle with the marshal’s daughter in secret. But that had been over for years now, hadn’t it? And yet the marshal had come to his house; the house of a lowly captain, to speak of her?

  “Yes Varro,” Sabian continued, his voice clear and suddenly much less familiar, “Catilina. I know the two of you had something together; a few years ago, back in Vengen. I might have been busy, but I couldn’t miss my daughter fawning and swooning over a scarred captain on a furlough. Besides,” he continued, “my son knew well enough. And he and I talk.”

  A momentary panic seized Varro but faded into disbelief. Catilina was not a woman to whom anyone would apply words like ‘fawn’ and ‘swoon’.

  “It was truly nothing sir. We never…”

  Sabian stopped him with a hard look.

  “She was sixteen and headstrong,” the marshal interrupted. “She’s always known exactly what she’s doing and I trusted her judgement even then; even with you.”

  His look softened once more.

  “But the problem is this: Cristus has asked me for permission to court her.”

  Varro leaned back heavily in the chair. He tried to find his voice, but nothing seemed to be coming out, no matter how hard he tried.

  Sabian continued to stare directly at him.

  “Cristus will be one of the most powerful politicians in the Empire. Very suitable as a match for Catilina. But the problem is: I am very much afraid she still carries a torch for you. A worryingly bright torch. I almost had you broken when you went back the next month. You left her a mess, though she would have no one tell you of it. A father knows, though.”

  Again Varro’s mouth moved with hardly any sound emerging.

  “I won’t have her marry a soldier, Varro. It’s a dangerous profession, no matter how good at it one is. I love my daughter and I won’t have her destroyed because the man she loves is lying face down in a mountain pass with a spear in his back. Do you understand me?”

  Varro nodded and managed an affirmative sound. He really was having trouble now. It was one thing to be feeling light headed and woolly, but he was now having real difficulty forming words in his head, let alone voicing them.

  Shaking his head again in a vain attempt to clear it a little, he squinted and focused on his commander.

  “I understand that sir. Catilina’s n’extraordinary woman sir, but I never expected her to…”

  Again he fumbled with his words.

  “I wouldn’t…”

  He was saved any further attempt as Sabian nodded.

  “Calm yourself, Varro. I’m not here to rake over the past with you. My visit here concerns the future. All I’m asking you to do is keep my daughter at arm’s length and, if she insists on being near you, to try and put her off; to dissuade her from pursuing this. She doesn’t know about Cristus’ troth yet, but she will do so before we return to Vengen at the end of the week.”

  Varro nodded uncertainly.

  “This may sound a
little unfair to you, Varro,” the marshal continued. “But I’ve watched both you and Cristus. He’s moderately ambitious on a personal level and actively seeks a lifestyle that I’d like him to be able to provide for Catilina. You are an outstanding field officer. I’ve said as much many times. You may even be a truly great officer. But one thing I’m also certain of is that you will live and die a soldier. I’ve known your sort many times. Many of my closest friends fit that very mould.” He sat back once more.

  “But that’s just not for my daughter.”

  Varro shook his head again. Nothing he tried was clearing the fog that continued to settle on his mind. He smiled weakly at the marshal.

  “So,” Sabian went on, “the fact remains that when Cristus steps down at the end of the year, the fourth will need a new prefect. By general right of seniority, I should give the position to the captain of the first cohort, but you know Parestes as well as I do.”

  Varro nodded and cleared his throat.

  “He’s ‘by th’ book’ sir. Good enough, but no ‘magination.” Why the hell wouldn’t his tongue work properly. Surely the drugs must be wearing off by now.

  “He hasn’t an imaginative bone in his body, Varro. Moreover, though he’s commanding the senior cohort, you actually have more years’ active service than he. You were just held back by that incident at Fallowford. My doing, I know, and probably unfair, but necessary at the time.” The marshal smiled.

  “So I’m going to name you. It’s my prerogative, and I really don’t think Parestes will be put out over the matter. He knows you have more ‘time-in’ than him.”

  Varro nodded again, and then shook his head.

  “Thank you sir.”

  Sabian flexed his shoulders and pulled himself upright.

  “Very well, Varro. I’ll see you at the headquarters tomorrow morning. Get some rest. That wound’s clearly taken a lot out of you.”