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.”
“I will, sir” the captain replied and hauled himself out of the chair, wobbling slightly as he came upright.
“Goodbye, captain.” The marshal inclined his head slightly and, turning, left the room.
Varro saluted as his superior departed, and then staggered slightly.
He turned to find the chair he’d been in, and as he spun, noted with fascination the way the light from the oil lamps in the recessed alcoves streaked along, like a greasy stain on a pane of glass. He smiled at that, or at least he thought he smiled. His mind didn’t seem to be functioning properly at that moment. He spotted what could well have been the expensive, carved oak chair with the leather padding and reached out to grasp the handle and sit while the feeling passed.
Varro pitched forward with all his weight, unconscious even before he fell through the oak chair with a crash, splintering the finely carved legs and coming, after a brief roll, to a halt amid the wreckage, viscera leaking from his reopened wound and fresh blood seeping from half a dozen new cuts.
When Varro awoke it felt as though his body were pierced through in a dozen places with jagged knives. His head felt heavy and thick and he had a headache that threatened to break through his skull, but the uncertain fluffiness of before seemed to have retreated. His eyes flickered open. The light immediately made his head thump all the louder, but he was grateful to note that after mere moments a dark wooden beamed ceiling swum into view. At least he could see.
With a groan he began to rise to a seated position and suddenly hands were on him, gently pushing him back down. In a minor panic, he turned his head, sending fresh thumping beats and waves of nausea through him. Two medical orderlies were performing some menial task over by the side bench.
The hospital then. He’d been here before often enough.
Very slowly and carefully rolling his head the other way, two more figures came into view.