Stop! Octavia scolded herself, viciously squashing any happy fantasies. You’re not a giggling schoolgirl with her first crush. She drove her happiness mercilessly from her heart, then turned an imaginary key and locked it up. For the Emperor and Empire, she told herself sternly.
Although a Roman senator, Octavia had little experience with situations like this. She had never had a province in need of disaster relief, never been on the front lines of a battle or dealt with so many casualties, both injured and dead. She wrung her hands together; the desire to do something fighting with the nascent need to look, act, and carry herself as a senator.
Finally, she could wait no longer. “Captain, I require a boat. And I’ll need a crewman to row it.”
The captain looked at her in disbelief. Octavia could almost read his thoughts as he tried to figure out why she would want to leave the safety of the ship for the uncertainty and danger of the shore. After sputtering a flurry of unintelligible things she believed could be considered “salty language,” he got her a boat and crewperson.
On the short journey to the shore, Octavia struggled between her desire to order the ponytailed crewman to turn back to the ship, and her need to help. Only when the rowboat knocked against the stone pier did Octavia abandon that battle. “Ma’am? Here’s tha shore, if yar interst’d in gettin’ out,” the crewman said, offering her a leering, toothless smile. “Or it be back to the ship with yar.”
She stood carefully, aware of every dip and bump of the rowboat. The crewman offered her a hand, but Octavia haughtily ignored it. That’s for your leer. She carefully grasped the rusted iron ladder that clung precariously to the harbor wall. Now or never. She boosted herself up it.
Her haste caused a misstep, and with a gasp she grabbed for the rusty rungs as she slipped. Below her, the crewman cackled his amusement and put his hand on her behind, pushing her up until her feet finally found purchase. She scrambled the rest of the way up and hauled herself onto the quay, panting.
She briskly brushed her hands off, then rearranged her tunic to cover her embarrassment. When she finally turned to give the crewman a well-deserved tongue lashing, she found that he, and the rowboat, were already halfway across the harbor, virtually flying toward the Tiber.
Sighing, she looked around at the noisy chaos. Men ran to and fro; others simply sat, looking stunned, while others lay on the ground or around tents, somehow sleeping despite the noise. She walked through the canvas forest, soaking in the situation. Her clean tunic and face made men pause and stare at her as she walked past. More than one officer or legionnaire offered to escort her one way or another, warning her of the dangers of being alone in the city.
“How can I be alone with four legions of men here to protect me?” she replied, congratulating herself for such a forward comment. The soldiers looked flustered, then smiled at her warmly. Should I risk it? “I was hoping you might tell me the situation. No one appears to be in command at this moment,” she ventured.
The under-officer looked at his men, then back at her. He rubbed at the grime on his face with an equally grimy hand, only succeeding in smearing around what was there. “Well, Domina, we’re not really sure what to do. Some of our officers are telling us to fight the fires, while others are telling us to hunt down the Nortlanders. Every officer I meet tells me something different. Plus the men are exhausted and dropping like flies. . I just don’t know what to do.” Finished, he pursed his lips and cast his eyes downward.
Octavia gave the weary soldier her most expressionless, senatoresque face. “Soldier, that is no way to be talking. We have work to do. I am taking personal command of your detachment as the ranking civilian overseer of this expedition. What is your name?” The words came out in a rush, but they spurred the under-officer into action.
“But, ah, Domina, no disrespect, but our commanding officers-”
“Are not here,” Octavia finished forcefully. “And I am. Someone must take charge of this situation. And I mean to be that person, Under-officer. .”
“Optio Centuriae, actually; Optio Centuriae Leviticus Ronan of the IV Britania, at your service.” Noting her blank look, he elaborated on his title. “I manage the reinforcements during battle. Except now there seems to be no reinforcements at all, as the battle seems to be everywhere.”
She nodded to show her understanding and spread her arms. “Can you lead me to the legion hospital?”
Trailed by her gaggle of bodyguards-cum-escorts, she marched straight toward the main medical posting, a harried Ronan leading the way. A gruesome scene of death and dismemberment greeted her. Wounded lay on stretchers, on the floor, sat leaning against barrels of body parts that she could no longer identify. Battered armor and broken weapons lay in great heaps, much of it covered in blood. Two men bearing a stretcher cut her off, racing a screaming legionnaire between them into the large open tent where the surgeons worked with their crude gear.
Octavia watched in morbid fascination as the surgeon wiped his bloody hands on a dirty towel and lifted his large metal spectacles to his eyes. He pulled down on a small lever on the side and the lenses telescoped out, presumably magnifying his vision. Even her upbringing on the equivalent of a massive, sprawling farm did not prepare her for the casualness of the man’s hygiene. Even father rinsed his hands in water when coming in from the fields. This man doesn’t even take that step! When the surgeon pulled a small, humming drill saw from below the table, Octavia nearly puked. The thing was covered in dark blood, and he hadn’t even begun to work on the now-unconscious soldier.
She whirled about and glared at the leader of her little band. “What is this, Optio Centuriae Ronan? Where are the nurses? The clean tools? The standards of medicine that should be in place?”
Confused, the soldier looked blank-faced at the sheer amount of death around them. “This is how it is. I don’t know how it is in hospitals back in the civilized areas, but out here, on expedition, this is the best there is.”
Octavia scowled, then had a thought. “Get me some wood. I want to start some fires.”
The man’s eyes widened. “Start fires? What for?”
“Well we need to boil some water and wash those tools. You clean dirty plates with boiling water and soap. We can at least do the same with our medical equipment,” she ordered.
Startled, her escort hopped to. In no time at all, the flames of a fire burned merrily outside the tent. Two men lugged over a large cauldron found in the ruins of one of the buildings. Claiming it was still whole, despite its dented and scarred appearance, they set up some metal railings for support and began dumping buckets of water into it.
While the cauldron was being filled, Octavia turned to the surgeons hard at work over their helpless patients. “This is your last surgery. Then, we clean.”
The surgeon looked up at her, his magnifying glasses making him appear bug-eyed. “A lot of these boys won’t last long enough to clean off these tools. We’re doing the best we can.” With a tired shrug, he went back to his work.
Incensed, Octavia blurted, “I am a senator of Rome. I am taking command of all the medical tents and facilities here. This is my subordinate.” She pointed at the optio centuriae, who had been edging away from this fireball of a woman. “He will ensure that you have cleaned each set of tools in this,” she flung her arm back toward the fire, “or another boiling cauldron. And they will stay in the boiling water, and soap, when we find some, for at least an hour.” By the end of her speech, she was shouting at the shocked surgeon, and the medical tents had fallen quiet around her.