Foreign Devils Read Free Page B

to one of the optio’s dwellings to offer whatever bloodwork the legionnaires might need. I’d watched her there before at her labours. Half the men of the thirteenth were in love with her and the other half in love with the idea of her – a pregnant patrician woman, a medic, carrying Hellfire at her hip. She was formidable. She lanced their boils and mixed them balms and talcums and bound their wounds while they looked upon her like she was some goddess incarnate upon the earth, holding her in a talismanic position reserved for revered mothers, gods, and the legion’s eagle. Soldiers are terribly predictable. But Livia has that effect on people.
    After her departure, and when the sounds of the camp quieted, four legionnaires muscled in a large box, removed the lid with crowbars, and very carefully lifted up and stood upright a tall still figure while Cornelius gestured with the tip of his cigar as to where they should place it.
    ‘A beauty, isn’t he?’ the senator said, looking over the stuffed figure of the vaettir .
    ‘He is impressive, sir,’ I said. ‘But hardly beautiful.’
    Fisk remained silent, staring at the figure. Whatever taxidermist had prepared the carcass of Berith, the vaettir, they had replaced the eyes with smooth, milky glass, so that the fourteen-foot-tall creature seemed to stare into infinity as an unpainted stone statue might. But frightful he was; tall, his head in the shadows of the tent, the taxidermist had set the vaettir in a pose as if he were about to leap – legs flexed, clawed hands open and eager, lips pulled back in a snarl, showing sharp teeth.
    ‘Took the taxidermist two mounts to get the posture right. The damned fool had never seen an elf and I had to explain to him how they leap about,’ Cornelius said. ‘But I am well pleased, now. It will make quite a stir back in Rume.’
    I looked at the mount. Maybe longer than I should have. Whatever they are, the vaettir and the dvergar are the two native intelligent races here in Occidentalia and knowing Rumans – even Cornelius – I would imagine that somewhere, at some time, he might’ve been party to the mounting of a dvergar.
    ‘Damn straight,’ Cornelius said, walking around the mounted figure of the stretcher. ‘That jumped-up whore’s son didn’t realize he prodded the bear in the balls with a pointy stick.’ Cigar in his mouth, whiskey glass in hand, he reached up with his free hand and rapped on the vaettir’s ribcage right where its heart would be: the exact spot where Cornelius had shot the stretcher, punching a fist-sized hole in the creature’s chest cavity, killing it.
    Rubus, the chief secretary, entered the tent and cleared his throat, lightly.
    Cornelius turned, moving smoothly despite the whiskey and artificial leg. ‘Rubus! What do you think of this bastard? Fierce, is he not?’
    ‘Terrifying, sir,’ he said, and it sounded like he meant it. Rubus’ hair was shorn very short and on a metal chain around his neck were a set of ground glass oculars. I’d guess, due to the shortness of his hair, he might’ve seen some of the damage a single vaettir could wreak on the human body. In particular, stretchers have a penchant for scalpings. ‘It is the kalends of Quintilius, sir.’
    ‘Ah,’ Cornelius said, looking a little grumpy. ‘Already?’
    ‘Yes sir.’
    Cornelius laughed. ‘Back in Rume there’ll be a great amount of fornication today!’
    ‘The Ludi Florae?’ Secundus asked. From what I heard around the fire, it was some sort of naughty Ruman carnival, but no one in the Protectorate or Territories celebrated it. ‘The old gods rear their fleshy heads. The plebs will be fucking in the alleyways.’
    Father and son both laughed and then, together, noticed Rubus’ scarlet face. The secretary blushed to his roots.
    ‘Well then. Ahem. Place the parchment and device over here then, on the table. I can do the rest,’ Cornelius said. He moved around the table, limping only slightly.
    An