The Centurion's Woman

Chapter 17

ALEX SHADOWED IXILLIUS as the oaths were spoken and then stood behind Verus until the usual matches were over. Ixillius grinned that Verus resolutely refused to leave after the oaths, only admitting to exhaustion when the nightly sparring ended and still rejecting – profanely – any help but the cane Marcus had given him a few days before. His limp was terrible, but he walked into his tent without any further help.

        The rumors about Verus's recovery grew more fantastic every day, and the familiar bickering with Alex did little to offset the watchful strangeness of the surgeon. Ixillius didn't offer explanations or join any conversations when people tried to glean more rumors, in spite of their best efforts to engage him tonight. He had seen that Alex wasn't with Verus and Mikayla when the First File had retired, but hadn't seen where she'd gone, and she wasn't tending to Max and the mare when he looked over to their pen.

        He swallowed his worry of where she was when Quintus joined him for the evening rounds, the circuit tonight more important due to confirming the newly made Legionnaires were settled with their contuberni. Quintus chuckled quietly at the dual-language argument that Verus and Mikayla were entrenched in as they passed Verus's tent.

        "When he was young, I watched how he worried at and outwitted his nursemaid, and warned his father he would argue with the gods when his opportunity arose," the older Legionnaire recalled. "I never thought to see that while I was standing on top of the grass."

        "Apparently they're not as easily offended as we've been taught," Ixillius offered with a grin and a quick shrug. "But that's not a theory I'd want to challenge."

        The topic of conversation changed easily as they walked through the camp. Ixillius listened well to his Optio, committing to memory the advice from Quintus's long years of service in the Legions. The final hours of the day passed quickly and the encampment was fully settled for the night when they parted, the rounds having been brightened by the announcement that Brasus's oldest son was tonight engaged. The knot in Ixillius's stomach eased when he returned to the Training Ground to find Max and the mare were fed and watered and Alex's kite was roosted at the top of Verus's tent.

                                                                ***

        Alex took advantage of the large crowd, pulling her hood close and adjusting her pace and posture to that of someone older, someone to whom the evening would have felt chilly, and walked away from the Training Ground. Unlike Ixillius, Alex had expected one woman to sign up tonight, and now she was curious why that hadn't happened. Alex was shaking her head at the rumors, and how quickly the events of the evening were turning magical, by the time she arrived at the horse pens. She skirted the fencing and walked the short distance to the 9th cohort.

        A merchant with his arm still in a sling was locked in a heated argument with the Legionnaire Ixillius had told her was Tanaquilla's father. Tanaquilla was standing nearby and offering her own opinions when asked by her father to give them. She spoke her mind concisely when asked, the argument a continuation of the same fight that had gotten the merchant cut in the first place, and the idiot still ignored her.

        Alex shuffled past to the tidy display of tunics without either of the men noticing. Tanaquilla stepped beside Alex's elbow, listing off the prices for the different fabrics, a moment after Alex stopped outside the Legionnaire's tent.

        "Do any of them interest you, old mother?" Tanaquilla asked politely, no hint of the anger that was boiling inside her leaking out.

        "This one is lovely," Alex brushed the back of her hand against a woman's tunic that was made of dark red silk. Tanaquilla froze in place. Her father was still arguing and not giving any attention to his daughter's 'customer'. "I expected you to enlist tonight," Alex said quietly.