Knowing my roommate smelled much better than Vincent did, I didn’t have any such problems, so I went inside my own tent without comment. It was roomier than it looked from the outside, and I estimated it could fit at least three men about my size comfortably. I figured Helena and I, along with our gear, would fit snugly. Taking off my pack, I placed everything against the left wall, and unraveled my bed roll. It was thin and light, and while warm, I suspected I’d still need to borrow some Roman blankets for the winter.
After laying everything out neatly, I removed my shirt very gently, quickly becoming aware of the extremely large bruises spreading across my middle and lower back, towards my left abdominal and along my right shoulder. They hadn’t hurt during the march and our first night because I’d been too tired to notice them, but I now was beginning to feel them. Combined with my arm, which still hadn’t been properly tended to, I was quite a mess.
Helena came in and zipped the tent closed behind her.
Similarly unarming herself, she laid her bedroll down next to mine while I tried to redress my wound. I covered it with a new bandage, and tried to tie it off using my free hand and teeth. Helena noticed my fruitless effort and moved close, taking the bandage in her own hands.
“Here,” she said softly, “let me do that.”
“Sure.”
The wound wasn’t that deep, but it traversed nearly my entire forearm. The scar would probably last my entire life, but I didn’t mind. It would join all the rest.
Helena removed my sloppily arranged bandage and cleaned the wound as best she could. She took meticulous care of my arm, tending to it like a seasoned nurse and worried mother both. After cleaning it, she sprayed it with an antibacterial ointment, smiling at me sweetly when I flinched from the sting, and finally replaced the bandage, wrapping it tightly and securing it firmly.
She seemed satisfied the bandage wouldn’t easily come off, so she moved her eyes to the extremely large bruise on my side. She frowned and probed it with a gentle touch. She must have thought it would be soothing, or something, but it was anything but. I winced at the pain and had to jerk myself away from her.
“Sorry,” she said gently, moving her hand to my unharmed, but bare chest. “It looks bad.”
“Really? Can’t be any worse than the last bruise I had,” I said sarcastically. In fact I couldn’t have been farther from the truth. My entire body felt like it was on fire.
Helena opened her mouth to speak but shut it with exaggerated slowness. It didn’t take a genius to know what was on her mind. I laid there in silence as well, trying to figure out how best to broach the subject of our earlier kiss. It would have been far easier had it been as innocent as it seemed, but it wasn’t. Emotions had been high, adrenaline and endorphins pumping by our frantic rush to reach Caligula, and while the feelings had felt real enough – the question was how much they meant.
Helena leaned away from me suddenly and crouched on the balls of her feet, her forearms resting on her thighs. “Jacob, about earlier…”
I leaned myself up and waved a hand to cut her off. “It was what it was, Helena.”
Her eyebrows narrowed. “I’m not sure how to respond to that.”
“I care for you, Helena, I do, and that kiss…” I shuddered in comic relief and she smiled, “but there was a lot of emotions bandying about, brought on by a very stressful argument. I’m not so sure that’s the best way to start something more intimate. I don’t want to risk our friendship because of our impulsiveness.”
She stared at me and sighed, falling backwards onto her butt to sit more comfortably. “I understand, Jacob. I suppose I feel the same.”
“You do?”
“Don’t sound so relieved. I’m sorry I came off so strong, but I meant what I said back there.” She paused and reached out to grab my hand. “And I do need you, but I don’t want our insecurities to jeopardize what we already have. You’re my friend, and that’s enough.”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “For now?”
She smirked and gazed at me intently. “Perhaps.”
I didn’t smile, but inwardly I felt good. Here was one of the first mature conversations I’d had in a long time and it was relieving. Our bond of trust had been rebuilt and it felt stronger now, more real. I squeezed her hand reassuringly and let go before lowering myself gently onto my bedroll, my head feeling only slightly better than it had a few minutes ago. While my emotions had been soothed, the physical ailments certainly had not.
Helena laid herself beside me and started to unbutton her pants. She stopped and looked at me. “Close your eyes, Lieutenant.”
I smiled and did as I was told, clapping my hands over my eyes for good measure.
“If we’re going to be living together, I think we’ll have to come up with a few rules.”
“Cohabitation rules?” I asked.
“Call it what you like, just keep your hands and eyes to yourself. Okay, you can look now.”
I turned, half expecting her to be laying there naked, having just played me a minute ago, but I found her bundled up in her sleeping bag, nothing but her head and arms exposed. It was for the best I suppose.
She looked at me with dreary eyes. “We’re going to be okay, right?”
I took a deep breath and looked towards the ceiling. “I really don’t know, Helena. We may have changed history by keeping Caligula healthy and sane, but I don’t know how much it will change. He may never reclaim the throne, and we’ll be targets right alongside him.” I took a second to think. “And if we can’t get back to Rome, I don’t know how we’ll be able to find the sphere. I don’t even know where to start even if we did find it and I…”
The sounds of soft snores coming from Helena interrupted me. I glanced over to find her completely asleep. It was probably just as well. She didn’t need to hear my useless musings on if and how we can get home. I had no idea about anything really, and it wasn’t worth speculating at this point. It was best to stay positive. Lord knows life wasn’t about to get any easier, and we had to focus on the present. I had no idea when our last day in ancient Rome would come, but it wasn’t impossible to foresee it coming soon
One way or another.
Part Three
IX
Legion
Cisalpine Gaul, Italy
April, 38 A.D.
Life in a Roman legion camp was hardly one of leisure and comfort, or even restful slothfulness for that matter. In fact, life amongst the legions, even during non-campaigning months, was in fact nothing less than Hell on Earth. It was one of hardship, pain, suffering, and plenty of fun things to do. Roman drill masters and tacticians put me through tests and training scenarios that may have even driven my drill instructors back in BUD/S to tears.
Every day it was the same daily grind over and over again. Enough to drive one insane from repetition, but of all of us, Helena had it the worst. She was the only woman in the entire camp, and under normal circumstances, wouldn’t even have been allowed to enter the gates. Families or other confidants were rarely allowed to travel with the legions while on campaign, and as a result, many men became very lonely, very fast, and Helena had to deal with being an extremely attractive woman surrounded by, basically, very horny men.
There were three incidents before the boys let her into their little club, the first of which occurred the very next morning after we had arrived in camp. One of Galba’s junior officers had been giving us a tour of the camp when a legionnaire seated outside his tent cooking breakfast stood up, and spanked Helena on her supple tush. I suppose she could have been asking for it. She’d borrowed a pair of Wang’s BDU pants, which because he was just a little guy, were a few sizes too small, and scandalously tight on her. It wasn’t until later that I learned she had done this on purpose. She’d anticipated her need to establish dominance over the unruly men, and hoped to incite a reaction exactly like the one she received so she could deal with it quickly.
She wasn’t very thrilled when I stepped in and
defended her before she could do it herself.
As soon as I witnessed the harassment, I snatched his wrist in a quick motion and turned it in a direction it wasn’t designed to rotate in. The move forced the man’s body to instinctively lean back on his knees. I followed up the hold by kicking the back of his leg, dropping him to the ground. Following him to the ground, I landed on my back, and simultaneously pulled his arm so that his elbow rested against my knee. I could have ended it right there by applying enough pressure and wait for him to tap out, but his action had infuriated me.
So, pausing for only a moment, just long enough to make sure the man knew he had made a very stupid mistake, I pulled on his arm as hard as I could. His elbow bent in the wrong direction, and I heard a loud pop followed by a crack as I nearly broke his elbow in half. The crowd reacted with an understandable gasp of disgust at my results, if not my actions. The man was punished for assaulting a guest of the camp commander, and spent two weeks in the stockade after receiving twenty lashes from his centurion’s olive branch, a ceremonial tool meant for inflicting pain and punishment in lackluster or disobedient legionnaires.
Later that night, Helena explained her plan, and though grateful for my help, asked that I let her handle herself next time.
I agreed.
She didn’t have to wait long.
Two days later, after Galba was satisfied we had settled into the arduous routine of the camp, had us perform a similar demonstration to the one we had showed Caligula back in the Circus Maximus. The emperor showed nothing but amusement at the general’s unwillingness to accept his word, and approved the demonstration.
We shot some armor, blew some holes in the ground, and Helena shot an apple off the rampart near the porta praetoria from the gate opposite it. Additionally, since we had plenty of time to spare, Wang demonstrated his self-defense and hand to hand combat techniques. Wang borrowed from Asian forms he had known as a boy, and the Special Forces training he had obtained later to show the Romans many kinds of throws, takedowns, holds, pressure points, and submission moves, the last of which gave me the impression he watched just a bit too much professional wrestling as well.
We all had self-defense training, even Helena despite her accelerated basic training program, and we had also trained with Wang during our month long lull period after arriving in ancient Rome. When Galba invited our entire squad, Helena included, to help demonstrate and teach these moves to his centurions and decurions, men just below the rank of centurion, one of them decided to get a little frisky.
The maneuver was simple. The decurion Helena was assigned to held a wooden training pugio, or dagger, in an inverted grip, and was instructed to jab it downwards towards her chest. Helena began her defensive move by grasping his wrist which held the knife, and followed by ducking under the dagger, putting her body up against his. This was followed by her final move, using her hips to toss him over her. It was martial arts 101, but the decurion had more than the self-defense class on his mind.
Helena was wearing boots, her BDU pants, and a white tank-top, the same as the rest of us. The difference between us and her, of course, was her curvy waistline and large breasts, and just before Helena tossed the decurion, he reached around with his free hand to fondle them. Successful though he was, his fun didn’t last long.
To Helena’s credit, she was unphased by her attacker and followed through with her throw as planned. Instead of ending it there, she held onto his wrist, twisting it hard, stunning the man long enough for her to step around his arm, lock her ankles near his neck, and fall next to him, positioning him in a textbook arm bar maneuver. However, unlike in a cage match, she broke his arm, just above the elbow.
The man wailed in pain, clutching his crippled appendage. As he squirmed on the ground, I saw that the break was compound, and part of his radius bone pierced his skin. Helena, calm and collected, got to her feet, stepped around the decurion, reared her right leg back, and kicked him with the force of a freight train right in his groin. Unable to determine which body part hurt more, he continued wailing, but kept switching between straddling his arm and clutching his balls. Satisfied, Helena kicked some dirt on the man and turned to leave.
The decurion couldn’t let it go though, and between cries of pain, managed to call Helena a whore, a bitch, and words I hadn’t even learned yet. She turned and returned to the man’s position, who had now given up swearing, and was fearfully trying to crawl away. Grabbing the man by his broken arm, the pain almost driving him to unconsciousness, Helena pulled his back off the ground, and jabbed her middle three fingers into his throat.
She didn’t break his neck, but it took him at least a minute before he could breathe again, and he never uttered another word, or even a pained sound, for a very long time after that.
Finished with her attacker, she turned and came to stand by Santino and me. The gathered crowd was stunned. Legionnaires, auxilia, centurions, tribunes, and even Galba himself stood, mouths ajar, having witnessed everything. Passing by the general’s position without a word, since her Latin at that point was still rather horrible, she gave him a look which transcended the language barrier, saying little more than, “you’d better hope this never happens again.” Nodding in disbelief, Galba turned, and left the area. Afterwards, no man in the camp dared even touch Helena, and those who had to spar with her, were laughably nervous.
Except for one stubborn dumbass.
By the end of the second week, most of the legionnaires looked at her with nothing but respect and friendliness, and offered her the same jibes, jokes, and taunts they would any other man in the camp. The third incident, however, happened at the beginning of the third week. Helena and I made our way to visit Gaius and Marcus when along the way, a nearby legionnaire offered Helena a wolf whistle. Without pausing, she thrust her palm upwards into the man’s nose, breaking it. The man got off the easiest of the three, and he proved to be the last who treated Helena like an object of interest. She was a legionnaire now, and while she still received jokes for being a female over the months, her sharp wit and evil eye always made sure she had the last laugh.
She slowly became a kind of mascot for the legion. The combination of her fighting prowess and physical beauty was very rare in the Roman world, and many legionnaires claimed she was Minerva personified in human form. Minerva was, amongst many things, the beautiful goddess of war and warriors, so the stretch didn’t seem that unbelievable, even to my modern eyes. As the weeks went on, the men quickly realized they would not get far lusting over her, but they fell in love with her all the same, bestowing her with the title Mater Legionis, Mother of the Legion.
They even crafted a special suit of legionary armor specifically for her. Tailored to fit her frame, impressive, since no measurements were taken, she’d slipped into a red linen skirt and wool shirt, and draped the tight fitting and battle ready lorica segmentata armor over her head, which was custom molded to fit her comfortably around her chest. She attached a standard legionnaire belt, a scarlet cape, and pulled on her likewise newly fashioned caligae.
Boots laced and legs flashing, Helena took a stroll through the camp.
This time, many wolf whistles were offered, but Helena laughed off each of them, knowing they were offered only in jest, and directed more towards the armor than herself. She happily thanked the trio of men who had taken the time to remold the armor to fit her feminine curves, and even offered the lead designer and forger a kiss on the cheek in gratitude. The designer rubbed his face, and had the long, lost look of a man who had just fallen in love. His fellow men playfully shoved him, unhappy they weren’t equally thanked, shaking him from his fantasy. Other men, who had observed the event, offered her swords, daggers, helmets, and other knickknacks. Helena joyfully ignored them.
As for the rest of us, fitting in was as simple as making sure we didn’t do anything too stupid. We’d spent the time gambling, recounting war stories, our own of particular interest to the legionnaires, and theirs to me, and training.
Training defined the Roman military, as did more training, and even more training after that. While the Roman’s benefited from our personal defense lessons, they didn’t spend the rest of their days lounging either, and neither did we. We learned enough to hold our own in combat, but we’d never cut it as front line soldiers in the legions. After two months of hard training, other duties took us elsewhere. We spent much of that time analyzing our strategy for the upcoming campaign to retake Rome.
Normal legionnaire training took around six months, and every day of it started off with a run. Afterwards came sword training, where centurions taught us the ins and outs of Roman swordsmanship. Romans fought with the tip of their swords, always stabbing, and never slashing. A legion fought like a machine, blocking and stabbing in a seemingly choreographed sequence. It wasn’t flashy or destined for accuracy in Hollywood, but it was effective, as many defeated barbarians could attest to. I knew the basics, and understood why they were so effective, but the others did not. One time, when Santino tried to slash down at his training partner with his wooden training sword, a centurion smacked him with his olive branch, just as he would have with any of his other trainees. Santino had not been happy, but had learned his lesson.
We also learned the fine art of spear casting, and even though I had no intention of trading in my rifle for a pilum, I figured it was still a good skill to learn. More intense training came in swordplay, how to hide behind our shields and rely on the person next to us for additional protection, as well as how to snap quick attacks with as little risk as possible. Legions fought as units, and any individual heroics were frowned up. Their strength relied on their discipline, maneuverability, and coordination, philosophies drilled into us harder than pretty much anything I’ve ever experienced before.
The Last Roman (Praetorian Series - Book One) Page 27
