While he had kept his face straight and his feelings to himself, in truth Marcus had thought of little else since their last meeting, or at least during those times when his mind had not been occupied by the duties of his command. Given both the circumstances of that brief encounter, and those of her husband’s death, he had been prey to a host of doubts in the intervening weeks. And so the young centurion lurked in stealthy indecision. He and Felicia had briefly been close, but that was before…
‘Centurion?’ Marcus jerked out of his reverie, realising that he had been close to dozing in the quiet warmth of the hospital. An orderly stood before him with a dim lamp, the oil almost exhausted. ‘Can I help you, sir? Do you require treatment?
‘Marcus shook his head, removing his helmet. ‘No, thank you, I have come to visit Doctor Clodia Drusilla. I’m told that she is here, and I would appreciate a moment of her time, if the hour is forgivable.’
‘Yes, sir, I will pass your request on. Your name, Centurion?’
‘Corvus. Just that.’ He waited a moment, the fears of a thousand dismal reflections on their situation crowding back down on him. She must see that his life was not for her, she would have met another man, a safer man, she would be dismayed with his unheralded arrival, she…
‘Marcus!’ Felicia hurried down the corridor with her skirts flying, and wrapped her arms around him in a warm embrace that dispelled his fears in an instant. ‘I’ve missed you! I’d almost given up on you as a lost cause, it’s been so long. Come into my office.’ She took his arm and drew him down the corridor, pulling him into the privacy of her room and closing the door before pressing him up against the wall in a long searching kiss. Breaking away after a long moment, she held him out at arm’s length in the flickering lamplight, appraising him as if in comparison with her memories before poking his armoured chest. ‘I’m sure I promised myself that you wouldn’t be quite so sturdily dressed the next time we kissed. It’s been so long, Marcus, I was sure you weren’t coming back for me.’ Her voice sounded small, almost lost, and her eyes moistened with repressed emotion.
He took both of her hands, her fingers warm between his. ‘I’m sorry, I’ve been tied up patrolling the border area. The locals have reacted badly to not being liberated by their northern brothers, so they’ve taken to hit-and-run raids on Roman outposts and farms. The only way I might have seen you earlier would have been to get in the way of a blue-nose arrow. Besides, last time we met you were…’ He dried up, not wanting to say the words for fear of offending her.
Felicia sighed and shook her head, staring at the floor. ‘I know, I was distant, and I’ve cursed myself a thousand times since. I suppose it was just a reaction to my husband’s death… That and being told that he was killed by a wound in the back.’
Marcus trod carefully. Prefect Bassus had been stabbed in the back at the height of the pursuit that had followed the barbarian rout at the battle of Lost Eagle. He was widely reputed to have brought his death, presumably at the hands of his men, upon himself. His harsh leadership, combined with an inability to see his soldiers’ growing anger with their treatment, had seemingly driven them to deal with him in the only way left open to them. ‘You know he was…?’
‘A difficult man to like? Of course, who knew that better than I did? Why else would I have run away from him, although I thank the day I made that choice every time I pray to Fortuna. He didn’t deserve to die that way, though…’ She was silent for a moment, her hands clenched in her lap. ‘And I still feel guilty. When I heard he was dead my first reaction was joy, joy to be free of him, and to have my chance to be with you.’ She turned her head away, staring into the room’s shadowed corner. ‘Nobody with a calling to healing should be able to take even the slightest pleasure in death, and he was still my husband. I felt so… ashamed of myself.’
Marcus put a finger to her chin and turned her face back to his own. ‘He spoke to me on that bloody hill, when the Second Cohort pulled our chestnuts out of the fire at the last moment, before the barbarian charge, and I swear he knew what had happened between us, or at least guessed. He made it very clear that he was going to call me out after the battle, but I couldn’t have fought him. I would have been forced to kill him, and that would have brought disaster on both of us. Whoever put that spear in his back saved me from taking my own life to avoid implicating us both, me for treason and you for adultery.’ He paused for a moment to stare into her eyes. ‘Anyway, he’s gone. We can either decide to make the most of where we find ourselves, or just waste our lives worrying about our mutual guilt. I know which I prefer.’
She looked back up at him, her eyes soft in the lamplight, shrugging the sleeves of her tunic off her shoulders, so that the garment was held in place only by its friction with the slope of her breasts. ‘And you’d like to know what my choice is? Why don’t you lock that door and ask me properly?’
It was another two hours before Marcus made his way back to the transit barracks, bone weary and yet elated beyond expectation. Rufius looked up expectantly as he opened the door to the barrack the four centurions had agreed to share. Julius and Dubnus were already asleep in their bunks, huddled down into straw mattresses. ‘Ah, so there you are. I had half a mind to call out the guard to look for you, it’s been so long, but Julius convinced me that you were likely just guzzling down the legatus’s Iberian red without concern for your elders and betters. Anyway, what have you been up to… you look like you’re dead on your feet, but you don’t smell of drink…’
The veteran centurion sniffed ostentatiously, his eyes widening as he did so. He leaned back in his chair and prodded the recumbent form behind him. ‘Hey, Julius! Julius, wake up, man!’
Their brother officer woke with red-rimmed eyes, sat up, shot Marcus a glance and subsided back on to his bed. ‘He’s back. Big deal. Let me sleep, damn you.’
Rufius shook him by the shoulder. ‘I think you’re going to want to see this. Or rather, I think you’re going to want to smell it.’
Julius sat back up with a frown, looked Marcus up and down and drew in a long breath through his nose. He stared at Marcus with a look of dawning amazement. ‘Bugger me…’
Rufius snorted. ‘I wouldn’t turn over tonight or the horny young sod probably will.’
Julius tried again. ‘You’ve… you’ve been…’
Marcus reddened, and Rufius pounced. ‘Yes, he bloody well has. While we’ve been sat here worrying that some nasty little thief might have clouted him and left him for dead in the dark, he’s been playing hide-the-cucumber. Not only that, but he hasn’t even washed the lady’s smell from his skin before coming back to gloat over us poor celibates. Didn’t they teach you to go to the baths after a tumble, eh, boy, or least get a washcloth and a bucket and do your best with that?’
Marcus opened his mouth to retort, only to get Julius’s cloth square in the face, still damp from his end-of-day wipe-down. ‘Have one on me, lad. Just don’t be settling down to sleep in here reeking like that or I’ll be as stiff as a crowbar all bloody night. Go on, there’s a bucket of water outside the door, go and wash it off like a decent comrade.’ He stopped, caught off guard by the look on Marcus’s face. ‘Hang on, look at you. You look like every lovestruck prick I’ve ever had the misfortune to bunk with over the last twenty years, about as sharp as a ragman’s donkey. You didn’t even see that washcloth coming. I know who you’ve been with… what’s her name, the doctor…’