An Emperor for the Legion Read Free Page B

first into Khliat. Most of them were without women here, as they had taken service with Videssos for the one campaign alone and thus left wives and sweethearts behind in their forested homeland.
    The tribune passed through the squat gray arch of stone and under the iron-spiked portcullis which warded the city’s west-em gate. He looked up through the murder-holes and shook his head. Where were the archers to spit death at any invader who tried to force an entrance, where the tubs of bubbling oil and molten lead to warm the foe’s reception? Likely, hethought bitterly, the officer in charge of such things fled, and no one has thought of them since.
    Then any concern over matters military was swept from him, for Helvis was holding him tightly, heedless of the pinch of his armor, laughing and crying at the same time. “Marcus! Oh, Marcus!” she said, covering his bristly face with kisses. For her, too, the agony of suspense was over.
    Other women were crying out with joy and rushing forward to embrace their men. Three, comely lasses all, made for Viridovix, then halted in dismay and dawning hostility as they realized their common goal.
    “I’d sooner face the Yezda than a mess like that,” Gaius Philippus declared, but Viridovix met the challenge without flinching. With fine impartiality, the big Gaul had kisses, hugs, and fair words for all; the blithe charm that had won each girl separately now rewon them all together.
    “It’s bloody uncanny,” the senior centurion muttered enviously. His own luck with women was poor, for the most part because he took no interest in them beyond serving his lusts.
    “The Romans! The Romans!” Starting at the western gate, the cry spread through Khliat almost before the last legionary was in the city. Their dependents flocked to them, and many were the joyful meetings. But many, too, were the women who learned, some gently from comrades, others by the simple brutal fact of a loved one’s absence, that for them there would be no reunions. There were Romans as well, who looked in vain for loved faces in the excited crowd and hung their heads, sorrow sharpened by their companions’ delight.
    “Where’s Malric?” Marcus asked Helvis. He had to shout to make himself understood.
    “With Erene. I watched her two girls yesterday while she kept vigil here at the gates. I should go to her, to let her know you’ve come.”
    He would not let her out of their embrace. “The whole city must know that by now,” he said. “Bide a moment with me.” He was startled to realize how much for granted he had come to take her beauty in the short time they had been together. Seeing her afresh after separation and danger was almost like looking at her for the first time.
    Hers were not the sculptured, aquiline good looks to which Videssian women aspired. Helvis was a daughter of Namdalen, snub-nosed and rather wide-featured. But her eyes weredeepest blue, her smiling mouth ample and generous, her figure a shout of gladness. It was too soon for pregnancy to mark her body, but the promise of new life glowed from her face.
    The tribune kissed her slowly and thoroughly. Then he turned to Gaius Philippus with orders: “Keep the single men here while those of us with partners find them—the gods willing—and bring them back. Give us, hmm—” He gauged the westering sun. “—two hours, then tell off a hundred or so good, reliable men and rout out anyone fool enough to think he’d sooner go it alone.”
    “Aye, sir.” The grim promise on the centurion’s face was enough to make any would-be deserter think twice. Gaius Philippus suggested, “We could do worse than using some Khatrishers in our patrols, too.”
    “There’s a thought,” Marcus nodded. “Pakhymer!” he called, and the commander of the horsemen from Khatrish guided his small, shaggy horse into earshot. Scaurus explained with he wanted. He phrased it as request; the Khatrishers were equals, voluntary companions in misfortune,