“Turn a blind eye to anything that isn’t dead. If it is dead, bury it deep,” Marcus said. “And have Racker and the medics escorted down here so they can do a few rounds.”
“Yes, sir,” Felix said. “I’ll have it done straight away.”
He started back the way they’d come, and Agrippa raised two fingers. Gibzen and Yaro broke away from the group to ensure he made it back to camp unscathed. Felix could take care of himself, but more and more frequently, Thirty-Seventh boys caught alone were being roughed up by the Twenty-Ninth. While they hadn’t been bold enough to target an officer yet, Agrippa had no intention of allowing it to happen on his watch. Quintus and Miki moved to take their positions, eyes roving through the shadows, hunting for threats. Though they kept far enough back that he and Marcus could speak without being overheard.
“We can’t feed them,” Marcus muttered, then shook his head. “But Grypus might be convinced to bring in more supplies if he can sell at an excessive markup.”
“What difference does it make if we’ll be done here in a matter of weeks?” Agrippa asked, even as the thought rolled through his head, what difference will it make to us if we’re dead in a matter of weeks?
“We’re not going to be gone before winter.” Marcus’s eyes fixed on him. “Grypus will come around. He’ll see that a frontal attack is folly and that there is more to gain from patience.”
“I think you’re underestimating the lengths he’ll go to appease his own vanity,” Agrippa found himself retorting, then bit down on the insides of his cheeks.
They’d been rivals during their schooling at Lescendor, but it had been Marcus who’d won the position of legatus of the newly minted Thirty-Seventh. For the sake of his own survival, Agrippa had—bloodied and on his hands and knees—sworn an oath to the other boy to give up any aspirations at command. Which meant staying silent on his opinions of politics and those involved with them. Yet he couldn’t help but mutter, “Bastard just wants a parade and doesn’t care if we all die so he can have it.”
“He’s posturing. The Senate won’t stand for that sort of decision-making and he knows it. We’re too valuable to throw away on this pile of rocks in the middle of a forest.”
“If you say so, sir,” Agrippa answered, never mind that he disagreed. Never mind that he thought Grypus entitled enough to believe he didn’t need to ask for permission. Or to beg for forgiveness if things went wrong. The proconsul was done with waiting for his glory.
And there is nothing you can do about it. Obey or die. Obey or die. The refrain repeated over and over in his head.
Marcus watched him for a long moment, his eyes seeing too much. He always had—even when they were children newly taken from their families to embark on their new lives as legionnaires, he’d seemed to see down into a person’s most hidden thoughts. And often used the information he learned to his advantage. Agrippa had always been convinced that the reason he was so good at it was that Marcus had secrets of his own to hide, though what they might be, he’d never discovered.
“For once, Hostus and I are aligned,” Marcus said. “His power rests on the shoulders of the Twenty-Ninth and if he gets them all killed, he won’t have any power at all.”
“Maybe the murderous prick will do us all a favor and silence Grypus for good. But more likely, he’ll send us against Hydrilla’s walls first and the Twenty-Ninth will walk over our corpses to take the fortress.”
Marcus gave him a long stare, then said, “I won’t let that happen, and you know it. Now shall we continue?”
They meandered through the camp, Marcus muttering under his breath about this and that, though Agrippa ignored him in favor of watching for threats. The rebels knew what Marcus looked like, and they’d tried to kill him before. And only a fool would believe they hadn’t infiltrated this camp.
Ahead of them, Quintus walked past a gap between tents, but the moment he passed, a girl strode out with her head down. Which resulted in her walking straight into Marcus, her forehead bouncing off his breastplate.
Blades were in hands in an instant and the girl let out a soft gasp of terror, dropping the buckets she carried and sending water spilling over Marcus’s feet. Agrippa immediately pushed between them, gladius up. For if there was one thing he knew, and knew well, it was that girls could slip a knife between a pair of ribs as well as any man. “If you’d step back, please.”
“I’m so sorry,” she blurted out in accented Cel, then looked up at him.
A jolt ran through Agrippa as he stared into wide brown eyes framed with thick lashes. The girl was so deeply and profoundly beautiful that he half wondered if he was seeing visions. Because something so lovely did not belong in this place of death and despair.
“It’s fine,” Agrippa managed to answer, though her dousing a legion legatus in freezing river water was probably not fine. But Marcus was not Hostus, which meant he could be intensely annoyed about something and no one would ever know. “He’s not made of sugar.”
A smile split the girl’s face, teeth white against the deep brown of her skin. Curling, dark strands of hair that had escaped her braid danced against her cheeks. She smelled of the soap the laundresses used, but also of forest; the scent of redwoods filled his nose as he inhaled.
“It was an accident,” Marcus said from behind him in flawless Bardenese. “Think no more on it and carry about your business.”
Agrippa heard the dismissal in Marcus’s tone, and the girl must have too, because her smile faltered.
Sheathing his blade, Agrippa reached down to retrieve the fallen buckets, holding them out to her. “Sorry that you’ll have to make another trip.”
“A fitting punishment for not watching where I walk,” she said, then nodded. “Apologies, again, Legatus. May the balance of your day see more fortune than this moment.”
Agrippa doubted anything could be more fortuitous than having seen her, but Marcus only said, “Likewise,” then stepped around her and started walking away.
Agrippa trailed after him, but not before casting a backward glance at the girl as she carried the buckets away, braid blowing sideways in the wind. “Did you see that?”
“I presume you mean the girl, to which the answer is: obviously.”
“I mean, did you see her?”
Marcus sighed. “She was pretty enough, I suppose. But my feet are now very cold, so if we could please finish this task without further comments about laundresses, I’d appreciate it.”
“Pretty enough? It’s no wonder Amarin picks your girls for you—you’ve got no taste.”
“Agrippa…”
“Yes, sir. Sorry, sir.” Practice allowed him to turn his mind to the task at hand, his focus entirely on ensuring his commander’s safety. But as they returned to the legion camp, he saw Yaro approaching, the next shift following at his heels. Take over? Agrippa mouthed at his best friend.
Yaro shrugged, then nodded before saluting Marcus. “Back to your tent, sir?”
Agrippa slung his arms around Quintus and Miki’s shoulders, pulling them to a stop. “Plans for your leisure hours, boys?”
“Cards,” Quintus answered even as Miki said, “Sleep.”