Corda nodded.
“Sharp. I can see why the captain wanted you in the guard. But the fact remains that I don’t. I don’t want to spend half my time separating you and the other soldiers. And I don’t want you ending up knifed in the latrines one night. But I don’t want you to slide back into the engineers either; I suspect you were being wasted there.”
Salonius nodded. He could see where this was going.
The sergeant sat up straight and unfolded his arms. “I want you to report to the captain’s house. He might want to brief you on the situation straight away, or he might prefer to wait until I get there. I have a few things to do, but I shaln’t be far behind you.”
He rose from the chair and straightened.
“You’ll retain your new rank, pay, uniform and all benefits, but I’m assigning you on detached duty to the captain himself. You know where his house is?”
Salonius shook his head slightly.
“No, sir, but I can find it.”
“Good.” Corda stepped round the table and reached out, grasping the younger man by the shoulder. “Get going and tell the captain that I’ll meet you there when I’ve got the morning briefing out of the way.”
Salonius saluted and, turning, unlatched the door and strode out into the morning sunshine. The captain’s house would be close and easy to find. As he stepped between the guards at the door and out into the street, he noted the sergeant of the command guard, followed by all the senior officers of the cohort, marching along the street toward the cohort office.
Stepping respectfully to one side, he hurried across the main square toward the two senior officer’s houses that lay between him and the cohort’s barrack blocks. A swift glance at the house to his left revealed a tile cemented into the wall next to the door with FC. Fortress command; wrong house. A few steps across the thoroughfare and the tile on the house opposite read IIC; commander of the second cohort. Salonius stepped up to the door and knocked firmly.
The door was opened by the captain’s body servant, Martis. The older man gave Salonius a shrewd once-over and then stepped aside without a word. The young guard took a tentative step inside and glanced around. Captain Varro sat in the main room in his tunic and breeches, cradling a bronze cup in his hands and staring down into the contents, seemingly deep in thought. Stepping stiff backed into the room, Salonius came to attention and cleared his throat.
Varro looked up from his cup and frowned.
“Soldier?”
There was something in his tone, Salonius thought, but couldn’t identify what it was.
“Reporting under orders of sergeant Corda, sir,” he announced.
There was clearly something bothering the captain and Salonius realised he himself had an indescribable itch beneath the skin. Risking breaking his attentive stance, he cast his eyes momentarily about the room and sniffed deeply. The room had a peculiar smell; an old smell that he remembered from the days of his youth all those years ago in that village on the edge of the Northern Woods. A smell of wet forest and disturbed undergrowth had been badly masked with some kind of fragrance. In the old days they’d have burned some herbs over the fire in the centre of the room to remove the smell. Someone… Martis, he suspected, had burned a scented oil throughout the house and then opened the windows to drive the combined thick, cloying scent out on the breeze. It had largely worked, but Salonius knew something Martis didn’t.
He smiled nervously.
Varro grunted and took a sip of his heated drink, a wisp of steam wafting up into the air-chilled room. A faint hint of lemon accompanied the steam, adding to the already complex aroma of the room. The captain leaned back.
“Relax, Salonius. I’m off duty for one thing, and for another I actually hold no active rank at all currently.”
“Respectfully, sir” the young guard replied, remaining straight, “you are my superior officer and I am reporting under the orders of the acting captain.”
Varro smiled. A strange smile that Salonius couldn’t quite work out.
“Very well then. At ease, soldier.” The captain sighed. “And that can be an order if you like.”
Salonius shrugged and settled into a more comfortable stance.
“You seem in an odd mood, if I may say, sir?”
It was impertinent, and he knew it, but something was bothering the captain, and something was bothering him too; the same thing, he was sure. He took a deep breath.
“It may not be possible, sir, but it still happens.”
Varro looked up sharply.
“What?”
“A visit? An encounter, sir?”
Varro carefully placed his cup down on the small table and looked past the guard’s head.
“Martis. Go to the shop and get me some wine.”
The stocky servant nodded silently and, collecting a small bag of coins from a drawer in the cabinet by the door, ducked outside and disappeared out into the morning light, leaving the door to swing shut with a click.
“Tell me what you mean, Salonius. And knock off the inferior officer stuff. This is important…”
Salonius stepped forward and the captain gestured at a seat near the window. The guard placed his helmet on the cabinet and sat carefully, making sure his sword sheath hung neatly to one side of the chair.
“Cernus sir,” the young man replied earnestly. “You spoke briefly of him after the battle. It struck me as strange then, you not being one of the folk, if you pardon the expression sir?”
Varro waved that aside and leaned forward, listening intently.
“Well, sir,” Salonius went on, “it’s almost unheard of for someone outside our people to see Cernus in the flesh, so to speak, sir. I presume you’d seen him before the battle?”
Varro nodded, saying nothing.
“And you saw him again last night, sir?”
“Last night… this morning. When I woke. I thought I was dreaming. But how do you know all this?” the captain queried, his brow furrowing.
Salonius shrugged. “I can smell it. Honestly, sir, I can virtually feel it. I don’t know whether any of your servants or friends here would notice, but I know the signs sir. No amount of spiced oil is going to hide that scent.”
Varro’s frown deepened. “You speak from experience.”
The young man nodded.
“Tell me…” the captain urged.
Salonius squared his shoulders.
“I’ve seen him twice sir. Both times have changed my life. Cernus is a Lord of Portents. To see the stag himself is to be given a portent; a herald of things changing. Something for you will change. I can’t speak for what you saw sir, but my first vision was pretty clear.”
He smiled, wistfully, his eyes glazing slightly with the memory.
“I was hunting with my brothers in the woods near our village. Somehow we got separated and I ended up deep in the undergrowth on my own. I had a bow, you see, sir? I was after game really, or a coney. Whatever I could find. Other than that I just had a long knife on my belt. I stumbled into a clearing just as a bloody great boar burst out of the other edge. I didn’t really have time to react. I dropped the bow and reached for my knife, but I’d have been dead before I’d freed the blade…”
“And?” Varro had moved to the edge of his seat in rapt fascination.
“And the wolf saved me, sir. A big grey wolf came from nowhere and hit the boar in the flank. He tore its throat out as I stood there, then he looked at me just once and settled down to eat his kill. I turned and ran back into the woods and after a dozen steps, there was the white stag. I’d been saved by the wolf, sir. It was clear to me anyway, but I went to see the village healer and he confirmed what it meant. I set off for Vengen the next morning and enlisted to serve the Imperial wolf, sir.”
Varro blinked and sat back.
“I don’t think your God showed me anything; don’t think he told me what to expect. I just remember the feeling; the aura of the place and the thing.”
Salonius nodded thoughtfully.