“Tribunes Logistica skimming from their Legion is not precisely unheard of,” Magnus said. “Though in general they cover their tracks a little more carefully. Gracchus lacks the guile to do it well.”
They strode past one neat row of tents after another. In the week since they’d arrived, the fish had at least learned the proper procedure for pitching a tent. Tavi frowned at Magnus. “Did the captain know?”
“Naturally.”
“Then why didn’t he do something about it?” Tavi asked.
“Because while Gracchus might be an incompetent embezzler, he’s a capable logistics officer. We need him. Had the captain ordered an official investigation, it would have stained Gracchus’s honor, ruined his career, and discharged him from the Legion over a few bits of jewelry and new boots.”
Tavi grimaced. “So the captain is letting it slide.”
“He’s not a legate, Tavi. He’s a soldier. His job is to build and maintain the Legion as a strong, capable military force. If that means ignoring an indiscretion or three within his senior staff, he’s willing to pay that price.”
“Even if it means short rations for the Legion?”
Magnus smiled. “But they aren’t getting short rations, Subtribune. The cups have been replaced, the problem eliminated.”
“The First Spear.” Tavi sighed. “The captain sent him to me.”
“He did no such thing,” Magnus replied, smile widening. “Though I might have misunderstood some comments he made, and shared my misunderstanding with Valiar Marcus.”
Tavi grunted and thought about it for a moment. “It was a test,” he said. “He wanted to see how I’d react to it.”
“Many men would have blackmailed their way into a share of the profits,” Magnus said. “Now the captain knows you’re honest. Gracchus’s greedy impulses have been checked. The legionares are getting their full measure of food, and the Legion still has its Tribune Logistica. Everyone’s a winner.”
“Except me.” Tavi sighed. “After today, Gracchus is going to have me knee deep in the latrines for a month.”
“Welcome to the Legions,” Magnus agreed. “I suggest you regard it as a learning experience.”
Tavi scowled.
They walked out the west gate and received overly precise salutes from the two fish standing sentry in their brown tunics and training weapons. A few hundred yards from the gate, there was a wide field, furyc rafted into a perfectly flat plane. A broad oval of stone road ringed the field-a practice course of roadway, built with the same properties as the roads throughout the Realm.
Four full cohorts of recruits were on the track, attempting to speed-march in formation. Properly utilized, the furies built into the Realm’s roads would enable a traveler to maintain a running pace for hours at a time with little more effort than walking. The recruits, for the most part, were not utilizing the road properly, and instead of moving in neat ranks their formation resembled a comet-a solid leading element led the way, followed by stragglers who grew progressively slower, more distant, and more exhausted.
In the center of the field, centurions drilled some recruits in weapon play, while others practiced with the true steel shields of a full legionare, learning a basic metalcrafting discipline that would enable them to make their shields stronger and more able to resist impacts-and that would, incidentally, carry over into similarly reinforcing their weapons and armor. Still other recruits sat in loose groups around their instructors, being shown the correct way to wear and maintain armor, how properly to care for weaponry, and dozens of other facets of Legion business.
Tavi and Magnus waited for a comet-shaped cohort of fish to pound past on the training road, then walked across it toward a wooden observation platform at roughly the field’s center. The grounds around the tower served as a watering station for the thirsty recruits and also featured an infirmary for the recruits who had succumbed to fatigue or who had, like Tavi, earned a pointed lesson from the weapon instructors.
Captain Cyril stood atop the observation platform, and the sun shone off his armor and bald pate. He leaned against a guardrail, speaking quietly with Tribune Cadius Hadrian, a small, slender man who stood beside him in the light armor and woodland colors of a scout. Hadrian pointed at the running trainees on the back stretch of the track and murmured something to the captain. Then he pointed toward a group of fish strapping into bulky suits of training armor. Cyril nodded, then glanced down to see Tavi and Magnus at the base of the platform.
Cadius Hadrian followed the captain’s look, then saluted and slid down the platform’s ladder to the earth. The leader of the Legion’s scouts nodded silently to Tavi and Magnus as they saluted him, and paced away.
“I’ve brought him for you, sir,” Magnus called. “And I told you so.”
Captain Cyril had a blocky, largely immobile face, tanned to leather by his time in the field, and even a small smile sent creases across his features. “Send him up.”
Tavi turned to the ladder, and Magnus touched his arm. “Lad,” he murmured, almost too low to be heard. “Remember your duty. But don’t play him false.”
Tavi frowned, then nodded to Magnus and scaled the ladder to join the captain on the platform. He reached the top, came to attention, and saluted.
“At ease,” Cyril said easily, beckoning with one hand as he turned back to the field. Tavi stepped up to stand beside him. Neither said anything for several moments, and Tavi waited for the captain to break the silence.
“Not many novice subtribunes would stand up to their commanding officer like that,” Cyril finally murmured. “That takes a certain amount of courage.”
“Not really, sir,” Tavi said. “He couldn’t come against me without revealing what he’d done.”
Cyril grunted. “There are ways he can get around it. Not to hurt your career, perhaps, but he can make your duties unpleasant.”
“Yes,” Tavi said, simply.
Cyril smiled again. “A Stoic, I see.”
“I’m not afraid of work, sir. It will pass.”
“True enough.” The captain turned speculative eyes on Tavi. “I looked into your records,” he said. “You aren’t much of a furycrafter.”
A flash of irritation mixed with pain rolled through Tavi’s chest. “I’ve just got my Legion basics, “ Tavi said-which was true, as far as the false records provided by the Cursors were concerned. “A little metal. I can handle a sword. Not like the greats, but I can hold my own.”
The captain nodded. “Sometimes men go out of their way to conceal their talents, for whatever reason. Some don’t want the responsibility. Some don’t want to stand out. Others will embarrass an illegitimate parent should they do too much. Like your friend, Maximus.”
Tavi smiled tightly. “That’s not me, Captain.”
Cyril studied Tavi for a moment, then nodded slowly. “I don’t have those kinds of gifts, either. Pity,” he said, and turned back to the field. “I was hoping I might round up a few more Knights.”
Tavi arched an eyebrow. “Knights? Don’t we have a full complement, sir?”
Cyril’s armor rasped as he shrugged a shoulder. “We have Knights, but you know what a valuable commodity that kind of talent can be. Every High Lord in the Realm wants all the Knights he can beg, buy, borrow, or steal. Especially given the tensions lately. Our Knights are largely, ah… how to phrase this.”
“Fish, sir?” Tavi suggested. “Knights Pisces?”
The captain snorted. “Close enough. Though I would have said young and clumsy. We’ve only got one Knight Ignus, and he’s currently being treated for burn wounds.” Cyril shook his head. “A batch of a dozen or so Terra and Flora aren’t bad, but they’ve got a lot of work to do, and there aren’t nearly enough of them. We’ve got no Knights Ferrous at all. And all the rest, sixty of them, are Knights Aeris.”
Tavi lifted his eyebrows. “Most Legions would kill to have that many Knights Aeris, sir.”
“Yes.” Cyril sighed. “If they could fly.”
“They can’t?” Tavi asked. “I thought that was what you had to be able to do to be one of those, sir.”
“Oh, they can get into the air, for the most part. Getting down again in one piece has proven something of a problem. If Tribune Fantus and young Antillus hadn’t been there to lessen the impacts, and Lady Antillus hadn’t come down with her son, we’d have had fatalities already.”