That’s when I spotted Elon standing on his tippy-hooves and peeking in through a window. Fauns aren’t allowed inside the mess hall, but they occasionally sneak in for a quick mouthful of tasty cutlery. Elon is a lot younger than the other fauns, though—his horns are barely noticeable and the fur on his legs still looks baby-fine—so I figured he was too intimidated to break the rules. I knew the legionnaires would protest even more loudly if I gave him a precious donut, so I went over and offered him my oatmeal instead.
Mistake. First off, the dude reeked like he’d been rolling in wet, slimy dumpster juice. Then he looked at my oatmeal as if it were purgamentorum derelinquere caeno. (That’s Latin for sewage sludge. I plan to hurl it at my enemy during the next war games. The phrase, not the actual sludge. Although…hmm.) And in case his disgusted expression didn’t get the message across, he gave me a verbal slap, too: “Elon doesn’t need your leftovers. Elon gets the pick of the litter.”
I’m sorry, but anyone who refers to himself in the third person and brags about getting the choicest trash does not deserve my oatmeal, thank you very much. So I emptied my bowl and went back inside to the sad discovery that the last available donut was covered in coconut. Talk about purgamentorum derelinquere caeno.
As bad as my morning was, it was nothing compared to what the aurae were going through. Usually, they’re invisible. But today they were so agitated they flickered like faulty lightbulbs. That’s how I realized that the food service mix-up wasn’t their doing. Which leads to these million-denarius questions: What went wrong? What will we eat if the mess hall is still messed up at lunch? And finally: Why would you ruin a perfectly good donut with coconut?
There comes a moment in every young probatio’s life when she realizes she should have peed before putting on her armor. For me, that moment came when I reached the top of the watchtower for my first shift on sentry duty. I tried to pay attention while my partner, Julius, a seasoned legionnaire with three tattooed lines above his dad Mars’s symbol, explained how to fire a mounted crossbow. But I was so seriously hydrated I had to cut him off and request permission to use the facilities.
He was very understanding (not). I believe his exact words were, “Stop dancing from foot to foot and just go already!” I’m pretty sure I set the camp record for racing down a flight of stairs while shedding armor.
The nearest facility was a unisex single-seater that looked like a Porta-Poo portable toilet dressed up in marble tiles. To my horror, the little sign by the door handle read OCCUPIED. A female voice inside confirmed that fact. “Mission accomplished!” she crowed.
Yeah, that was a weird thing to say in a bathroom, but I didn’t care, because it meant she was done and I’d reached the desperation point. And yet she still didn’t come out! So after waiting a hot second, I pounded on the door and asked if she could please hurry up.
I heard some shuffling, then the toilet flushed, the sign shifted to VACANT, and the occupant emerged. Not a girl. Not a boy, either, but Elon. I’m sure I looked surprised because, well, I’d assumed fauns used the great outdoors as their toilet. But judging from the stench that trailed out after him…um, no.
I’d also assumed all fauns were like Don, the faun who once tried to sweet-talk me out of denarii so he could buy donuts. But Elon said just two words: “All yours.” His high, reedy voice didn’t sound anything like the one I’d heard. That led me to a third assumption: He hadn’t been alone in the bathroom.
But I was wrong a third time, because no one else came out, and when I stepped inside, the bathroom was empty. Well, except for some flies, and they didn’t say anything except bzzz-bzzz-bzzz while I did my biz.
My sentry partner just smirked when I told him about the mysterious female voice. Said Elon was probably meeting up with a water naiad who flushed herself away when I knocked. I wondered aloud where she ended up. And then I stopped wondering because I remembered the smell and …gross.
Thing is, I’m not sure my partner was right. Because the voice didn’t sound girlish or flirty. It sounded raspy and triumphant. And Elon looked relieved, though not the way I did after I’d used the facilities. So now I’m wondering…what was that all about?
Breakthrough! I found out who MV is. Or was. Or is it is? What’s the proper way to refer to a ghost, anyway?
The source of my info was none other than Blaise, my rat-sacking aqueduct-clean-out partner. He was on duty at the forges when I brought my scutum in for ding repair. Stepping into that workspace was like crawling inside an asthmatic dragon, all hot and humid with weird wheezing sounds. The only light source was the orange glow of the furnace until Blaise flicked a switch and a bank of harsh fluorescent overheads came on. Kind of fizzled the volcanic atmosphere, if I’m honest.
I didn’t think Blaise knew who I was—I mean, we’re not in the same cohort and we’d literally spent thirty seconds together on chore duty last week—so I was shocked when he greeted me by name. Of course, he could have just read it off my probatio tag, but still…A for effort. He laid my shield on the worktable and ran his fingers over it, his brow furrowed. When I asked if he could fix it, he made a face. “Uh, duh. It’s what I do.” Then he picked up a little hammer and started banging away at the dents.
I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to stick around until he finished, but I did because Blaise was such stimulating company. Ha! Wrong. I stuck around because I’d spotted the net of a retiarius gladiator in need of a few replacement weights. Since it was already broken, I didn’t see any harm in taking it for a spin.
The problem with whirling a poorly weighted net inside a crowded space is that things get knocked over. And tangled up. And ever-so-slightly damaged. Whoops.
One of the things I knocked over was an old leather-bound book filled with beautiful sketches of weapons and shields and armor. Blaise yelped when he saw me paging through it. Turns out the book is one of a kind and contains the life’s work of an ancient master craftsman and demigod son of Vulcan, Mamurius Veturius.
MV.
I wasn’t sure the craftsman was my MV until Blaise mentioned that Mamurius is a ghost who usually hangs around the forges. That’s when I realized the squiggly oval around the initials on my note looked a lot like the outline of a ghost. So if I’m right—and I sure hope I am, because this is the only lead I’ve got—then I finally have MV’s identity.
What I don’t have is his actual incorporeal presence. Blaise hasn’t seen Mamurius at the forges for over a week. Which he says is weird, because the ghost is always lurking around there.
So, MV is not only a dead guy, but a dead end unless I can track him down. And how the heck am I supposed to do that? The guy can appear and disappear at will. He could be anywhere!
Blaise might be able to tell me about him, I suppose. He and Mamurius are both Vulcan’s sons, after all, which makes them half brothers. (Yikes. My head hurts just thinking about that.) But after the mess my net-twirling caused in the forges, I’m not sure I’m his favorite probatio right now. In fact, I think he was adding dents to my scutum when I left.
So for now, I’ll forge on alone. (Ha!)