Agrippa eyed the Thirty-Seventh’s tribunus, wary that Marcus’s second might decide to turn on his heel and beat that jackass of a proconsul bloody, regardless of consequences. Felix loved Marcus like life and was protective of him at the best of times. With Marcus bleeding like a stuck pig and Grypus appearing ready to send them all to their deaths to get his fortress, these were not the best of times. “He’s fine, Felix. That was more slap than punch and if not for the fact that Grypus wears more baubles than his wife, it wouldn’t even have left a mark. I bet that it hurts less than the time that old woman nearly knocked him out cold with a single punch. You remember that, sir?”
“Agrippa,” Marcus’s voice was weary, “I got punched by a grandmother because she mistook me for the legionnaire who’d been kissing her granddaughter behind a cowshed. A legionnaire that happened to be you. Of course I remember.”
“It was hilarious.”
“It wasn’t. It hurt.”
“If it wasn’t funny then why do all the men still talk about it?” He grinned, elbowing Marcus in the side. “Besides, I heard the milkmaid made up for it later.”
Wiping more blood from his chin, Marcus looked at him. “That’s not true. I swear half of what comes out of your mouth is complete bullshit, Agrippa. It makes it hard to take you seriously.”
“Says the legatus who keeps getting punched in the face by old people.” He took a few skipping steps. “And, because I refuse to let a day go by without reminding you, the legatus who got shot in the face by Bardenese rebels while taking a shit.”
The wound Marcus had taken a few weeks ago from said incident was healing well, but it would still leave a scar across the golden skin of his cheek. Sadly, it would probably only make him better looking, which was incredibly unfair. The Prodigy of Lescendor was famous enough as it was.
“If you remind me one more time, I’ll demote you so I never have to see your obnoxious face,” Marcus muttered, but Agrippa caught the glint of humor in his blue-grey eyes, and to his left, even Felix was grinning, the tension fading.
For now.
Everything Marcus had said to Grypus was true, but that didn’t mean it was how it would go. And it was better to laugh than to consider that very soon, the Thirty-Seventh might be hurling itself against Hydrilla’s walls, arrows and burning pitch raining down on their heads, catapults shattering their ranks with rock. That half of the young men that he’d known since he was seven years old would be broken corpses on the fortress’s slopes, their names soon to be forgotten.
And for what?
So that patrician prick could take over the governorship of the region, lining his pockets with taxes taken from the conquered Bardenese? So that he could make a fortune selling off the indentures of those who survived the taking of the fortress? So he could return to Celendrial and march through the streets in triumph despite having never lifted a blade? It was the Thirty-Seventh who deserved the triumph and glory, who deserved statues of their faces carved and placed in positions of honor in the Forum.
Except what difference did that make if they weren’t alive to see them?
As though sensing his train of thought, Marcus said, “I know you need no reminders, but keep Grypus’s words to yourself. No need for the men to bear that burden until they have to.”
Which really meant: No need to give them time to wonder if deserting is the better option. There had never been a deserter from the Thirty-Seventh, but then again, they had never had a man like Grypus cracking the whip at their heels.
It made Agrippa feel powerless. And keeping it from the rest of the legion, many of whom were his friends, made him feel like a liar. “My lips are sealed. So, off to followers’ camp then, sir?”
Marcus nodded.
Raising his hands above his head, Agrippa clapped them. “An escort! We need an escort! Time to go on a walkabout!”
“Agrippa…” Felix made a face. “Could you not?”
Probably, but given that those in earshot—mostly Thirty-Seventh who looked dead weary from weeks of digging—grinned, Agrippa had no regrets. Nine of his men, which included his closest friends, Yaro, Quintus, and Miki, moved closer, forming up around their officers as they approached the high wall of the camp.
Made from the towering redwoods Bardeen was famed for, the wall was thick and heavily fortified, the men standing atop it surveying the surrounding land with watchful eyes. After the incident where Marcus had been shot in the face by a rebel in a tree, Hostus had the Thirty-Seventh cut the forest back an extra hundred yards, the valuable lumber then transported to the coast where it could be sold. Grypus pocketed the profits even as the Bardenese wept, for they believed the trees grew from the spirits of their ancestors.
As the gates swung open, it was to reveal ground barren of anything but stumps, mud, and dead grass. No cover for anyone to ambush them, but Agrippa still felt his hackles rise. A glance backward revealed several of the Twenty-Ninth standing on the wall, gazes feral as they watched them move down the path. One of them lifted a crossbow and pointed it at them. Agrippa blew him a kiss, then turned back to the path leading down to followers’ camp.
Nearly as big as the legion camp itself and containing close to two thousand civilians, the slum of derelict tents and ramshackle structures made of deadfall were filled with the men and women who followed after the Twenty-Ninth Legion, providing them services in exchange for coin. Primarily paid company and those who pandered to vice, offering up endless selections of moonshine and narcotics, but there were also laundresses and cobblers and seamstresses and people who could do whatever it was a man needed done but didn’t feel like doing himself.
It was good, reliable coin, which was why so many followed, but coin meant little when there were no food and supplies to be purchased. All food and supplies transported to Hydrilla went straight to the legion camp. Which meant thousands of people who were flush on coin yet slowly starving to death, the trek back to civilization too dangerous for most to consider.
Crossing the bridge that had been built over the small river between the two camps, they silently picked their way down the muddy slope into the camp. The cold fall winds did little to dispel the stench of latrines and woodsmoke and sweat that permeated the place, but there was something worse hanging in the air as they entered the maze of tents.
“Corpse,” Agrippa muttered, the smell far too familiar to be mistaken for a rotting animal.
“Corpses,” Felix corrected, wrinkling his nose. “And not recently dead. They’re living surrounded by rotting bodies.”
Lifting his cloak to wipe at his bleeding lip, Marcus huffed out an aggrieved breath, though his expression was unmoved. Which Agrippa knew from experience meant nothing—there was a reason why, when he deigned to play, Marcus was an excellent gambler. “If pestilence strikes here it will strike us soon enough.”
It already had. Fluxes and infections and funguses, along with the always problematic lice, had kept the medics busy, and Agrippa wanted to rip his helmet off to scratch his head just thinking about it.
“You want the camp searched?” Felix asked, and Marcus gave a slight nod.
“We’ll find contraband,” Agrippa warned him even as he watched a pair of women walk past, their faces gaunt and ashen, one of them coughing violently. Neither looked long for this world. “The Twenty-Ninth will extract their pound of flesh if we collect all the opiates.”