Good. Stay where you are, stay safe.
“Turbis, Villius.” He stood slowly, and motioned for the men to be seated at the table, one either side of him. It would be best if Conlan sat opposite. “Please, come, sit. I have pomegranate juice, fresh from the orchard, Cohort Commander.” He looked Conlan in the eyes, sensing confusion and maybe a tinge of fear. “Forgive me; your given name is Conlan, yes?” If his name was anything to go by, Conlan was a descendant of the northern hill tribes, who, completely at odds with Adarnan traditions, rarely used their family or clan name.
Conlan stood stiffly beside the table for a long moment before sitting at last, but only after his seniors had settled. “Yes, sir,” his voice cracked as he spoke. “Conlan Danson, sir.”
“You are of the hill tribes, yes?”
“My father was a legionary, his father was a clansman from the hills, and my mother was a baker’s daughter from Adarna.” His tone was terse.
Martius smiled to put the man at ease. “It is often the way these days. The Empire has absorbed so many nations.” Be careful; you must sound like a pompous snob to him. “And so many different peoples have intertwined. We are all citizens though. That is the great thing about our nation. Our equality.” He cringed inwardly as he spoke. You’re out of touch; it’s been a long time since you could pretend to be one of the people — if you ever could at all.
Conlan leaned forward. “Actually, sir…” His eyes blazed with intensity. “I was wondering. If there is so much equality in the Empire, why are the majority of the senate and senior officers of pure Adarnan blood?”
Thankfully, Darcus chose the moment to interrupt gently; his giant frame moved to stand beside Conlan, perhaps to remind the man that he was outflanked. “Will you require anything else, sir?” he asked, his voice low and sonorous.
“Well, Darcus, I have to say that I think the vegetable patch needs tending. Would you be so kind as to get a couple of lads and clear up?” Martius replied.
Darcus paused momentarily, then, with a sideways look at Conlan, he nodded gently. “Of course, sir.” He raised an arm and two more housemen, both bearing legion tattoos on their biceps, appeared from the shadows of a nearby room. All three moved into the garden and stood, tools in hand, staring towards Martius. None made any effort to tend the vegetables.
Darcus my old friend, you’d already prepared for trouble. Darcus had always been faithful, even as a legionary; always ready as ever to defend the house of Felix. But not a very good gardener, by the looks of it.
Martius sipped his pomegranate juice. It had been a good year for the orchards; the juice was sweet yet mildly astringent. “You are right to question the order of the Empire,” he said, viewing Conlan over his goblet. “There is much in what you say that is true. Myself and Villius here are both from noble houses.”
Villius nodded earnestly and looked around the table. “Yes, it’s true.”
“But General Turbis,” Martius gestured with his goblet, “is no more a blue blood than you are.”
“And proud of it.” Turbis puffed his chest out and cast an amiable wink towards Conlan. “I came up through the ranks. Never knew my father, died when I was young. Mother was a bloody good seamstress. Nothing wrong with being common is there, boy?”
“No, sir, there isn’t,” Conlan said respectfully. “But he,” as he said the words he nodded towards Martius without making eye contact, “just murdered fifty-one of my good… and common brothers.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Villius replied, voice firm and defensive. “It wasn’t General Martius.”
“Then who was it?” Conlan snapped. “It looked like he ordered it from where I was standing.”
Martius took another sip from his goblet, then swilled the contents slowly around. The juice was particularly bright and red this year. “It was ordered by the Emperor. I had no choice.” This boy has no sense of self-preservation. He is released from the Hole, has no idea of his fate, and yet he is happy to argue with his superiors.
Conlan sat back in his chair. “But you still gave the order.”
“Had no choice, boy,” Turbis grumbled. “He couldn’t disobey the Emperor. No one can.”
“But…”
“Conlan.” Martius put his drink aside, and fixed Conlan with a stare. “I had no choice. I did not agree with the decision. I argued as much as I dared with him, but he would not be moved. Believe me, no one wanted to save the Twelfth more than I did.”
“Why would you care about the Twelfth?” Conlan shook his head. “Why would you care about any of us?”
Martius dropped his gaze. He cursed himself for showing weakness but he would not take the blame for the destruction of the Twelfth. “I cared about them because they were mine.”
Conlan frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
For Martius the pain was too fresh. Villius broke the silence. “General Martius began his career with the Twelfth,” he said. “He was legion father to them in the end.”
Conlan appeared to deflate. The fire extinguished from his eyes, his ire with it. He raised his right hand to his ear and tugged absently at the lobe. “The Emperor made you decimate your own legion? He made you destroy their standard? They will never march again!” Conlan’s voice trembled. “For the gods’ sake, why would he do that?”
He is reckless and seems to be set on suicide through lack of self-awareness, but he has a strong will. Perhaps strong enough to question anything he felt was wrong. If he could learn some discipline, Conlan might become a useful ally.
“We live in a complicated world,” replied Martius. “We are only human, and as such we are ruled by our own emotions, fickle and thoughtless just like the gods in whose image we are made.”
“Martius is a threat and the Emperor wants to hurt him,” Turbis interjected. “The Emperor doesn’t like him.”
Martius stifled a smile. “Well, that is another way of putting it my friend, yes.”
Conlan reached forward, grasped the jug in the centre of the table and slowly poured himself a drink. “Why are you telling me all of this?”
He seemed to have found his nerve. Either that or he did not care about his fate.
“I thought you’d brought me here to sentence me, or demote me, or have me flogged or… shamed out of the service. What am I doing here?”
“Well,” Martius said. “I always like to get acquainted with a new legion father.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Conlan reeled. LEGION FATHER? The words echoed through his mind, and he doubted the events of the last few weeks, doubted his very sanity. Am I still in the Hole? Or have I been driven mad by the isolation? He looked at Martius, sitting calm and relaxed across the table. The man had a thin-lipped smile on his face, his eyes glinting onyx in the sunlight, aloof and unreadable.
“Well,” said Martius. “Are you going to say anything?”
“Legion father?” Conlan croaked, his throat resisting reality as much as his mind.
Martius’s smile broadened and he raised an eyebrow. “You were voted in by the men three days ago. It was a landslide victory.”
“How?” Conlan replied. The words slowly sank in. Voted in? He had not long been centre branch leader, never mind his promotion to cohort commander, a post that he had undertaken, for the most part, in the Hole.