THE REST OF the day had been long. Alex had bundled into Ixillius's cloak, one of the borrowed blankets under her and one pulled up above, and sighed contentedly as she nestled down on her sleeping pallet. Back in her own time, it was next to impossible to get this mix of raw wool, clean outdoors, armor, leather, horse and man smells. Right now, she was submerged, and it was awesome and homey and safe. After the day, she would have been more than happy to just fall asleep. But she'd promised Brasus that she'd send him back with Ixillius's cloak whenever Verus dismissed him. So she just stayed folded up, luxuriating in the pleasantly stinky smells of her early childhood and the fun, scratchy feeling of the rough wool on her arms, legs and feet, which was almost distracting enough that she didn't want to double over and throw up from the pain in her rib after the activities today.
Brasus laughed quietly when he crouched down beside where she was laying. She spied out at him with one eye and pouted mockingly when she saw he already had two new blankets to replace the ones the men of his century had given her for Max. In protest to already having to break up her nest, she pulled the cloak's hood all the way down over her face.
"Here now, out of there you little witch." Brasus reached over and started pulling the blankets and cloak apart.
Alex grumbled and groaned, but obediently sat up with the Optio's help and unpinned the cloak so she could give it back to him. He still had at least another couple of hours before he would be able to lie down for the night, and she didn't want to make the evening longer for him than need be by keeping him overly late because she was sore and cranky.
He cocked an eyebrow and smirked when she pressed her face into the collar and smelled as deeply as she could before relinquishing the cloak to him. She chuckled at his expression, holding her throbbing rib.
"This is to smell good," she explained, patting the cloak and the blankets. Then she picked up her cloak, which she'd been using as a pillow, and held out the top toward Brasus. "This is to smell of new and of me. No horse, no sweat, no outside, no man," she complained. Still grinning, he obligingly leaned forward and smelled the collar of her cloak. Surprising her, he then leaned close and breathed deeply at her neck.
"You may prefer this sorry rag," he said, sitting back on his heels and folding Ixillius's cloak to carry back to his commander, "but yours smells exactly like you, and after today there isn't a man in all the 1st who wouldn't rather have yours."
Alex rolled her eyes and tried to get her cloak around her shoulders without over-reaching on the sore side. Brasus set the neatly folded cloak aside and took hers out of her hands. Without hesitation, or any real effort that she could see, he wrapped his arm around her and lifted her to her feet so he could settle her cloak around her shoulders and fasten the pin at her throat. She scoffed and he made what she considered to be a 'dad face' at her. Her gigno would have made the same face in the same circumstances. Brasus must have been fully active in raising his kids, she thought, not just lived with them when they were with the Legion; or he'd learned this dad-ness from dealing with the younger men under his command.
"One ride, and now I am bad in my inside," she mumbled in reply to his look, pointing at her offending rib. "Now I have to stay in the cart for days one, two, three, four, five; or drink the medicine. And Verus gloats."
His 'dad face' deepened from her complaining and she found herself instinctively staring at the nearest corner of the tent rather than face off with him. He wrapped her in what could have been a hug in other circumstances and gently kicked her feet out from under her, lowering her down onto her pallet as she protested, making sure that her cloak stayed bundled around her. She was certain now that he must have taken an active part in raising his kids.
"Quit whining," he ordered gently, pulling the top blanket back up as she'd had it before. "You are worse than my sisters for being stubborn, and worse than your Centurion for taking care when you're injured." He cocked a smile down at her when she looked up at him in confusion. "That medicine he gave to you, who do you think poured that down his throat?"
She grinned up at him, managing to catch one of his hands to give his fingers a quick squeeze.
"You are good," she told him, planting a light kiss on his scarred knuckles.
"That's a rumor none would believe," he replied and gently pushed a stray tangle of hair off her cheek as he double checked that her cloak and blankets were arranged well around her. "Sleep now. Tomorrow and four days after, stay in the cart."
Alex didn't notice the little coin purse that was sitting on the ground where Brasus had set the cloak once he'd folded it until after the Optio had left. Gritting her teeth against the stretch, she reached over and picked up the purse. She canceled her original plan of calling over Verus immediately when she realized it was empty, so likely a spare, and simply started to tuck it into her own cloak pocket to be returned to Ixillius by messenger tomorrow. Then she stopped and pulled it back out.
Verus and Gabinius were still locked in conversation when she glanced over at them, ignoring her now that she was lying down and Brasus had taken his leave. Alex loosed the strings on the little purse and felt inside. The cool loop of metal slid easily over the end of her index finger, and had a dark, metallic sheen when she pulled it from the purse. An unbroken band of plain iron sat on her finger, a typical wedding ring of the time, with edges that were unscratched and still showed the fine lines from being worked smooth. The ring was newly made, which meant likely bought for her. Alex took it off her index finger and slipped it into place on the ring finger of her left hand, smiling that it was too big by at least two sizes.
She tucked the ring back into the purse as she yawned, and put the purse in her cloak pocket, hiding the motion by shifting for comfort before falling asleep in case Verus was glancing her way. As she drifted off, she decided that she would speak only to Brasus about returning the ring, not trusting a messenger. The rumors running up and down the line had enough fuel right now.
***
Ixillius lay awake and stared at the shadows playing across the walls of his tent. He still wasn't certain whether or not he was, or even should be, furious or deeply complimented that Verus had usurped Brasus for the entire afternoon, casually leaving the capable Optio in command of the 1st and 1st while the First File satisfied his own curiosity now that there was a translator here to speak with Alex. And Ixillius was fairly certain that he was furious that Verus had held the majority of the conversation with her, but mostly with himself for not speaking more. He had to admit, though, more than all the questions he would have asked, Verus did.
She had asked for information from them, as well, wanting to know each of them more completely. Verus had been amused that she'd asked about Brasus and Quintus as well, adding his own questions to hers when things he didn't already know about Brasus were said. Gabinius had been fully in thrall to Verus when they had gotten to the started encampment and Ixillius had reluctantly split from them to oversee his century.
Tales of the race against Naevius had already taken on mythic proportions, and the men in the 5th cohort who'd witnessed and cheered the charge through the mud were in high demand to speak on the subject at length. Ixillius again found he was next to the heart of the rumors being passed through the encampment, his own name entwined tightly with those of Max, Verus, Naevius and Alex.
Brasus returned over an hour later, and his report of the moments leading up to, and the time he'd spent in command of, the First File's century, and then of the continued conversation with Alex upon Verus's return to his own post, was full of more tiny details. The Optio had laughed openly many times when Ixillius recounted the events of the afternoon's happenings in the 6th and 4th, and exclaimed in disbelief when the Centurion swore truth that Alex had put Max into harness to help pull a cart through the bog, wading thigh-deep through the mud herself to lead the proud stallion. After an extended hesitation, Ixillius had even confided the name that Alex had bestowed on him, and her coercion to force him to accept. Brasus had snickered wickedly, but confirmed that she'd added more to the short letter she was sending to her father before retiring for the night.
After Brasus had left for his own tent, Ixillius had attempted to think of a letter he could write to Alex's father, as he had every night and much of each day since she'd told him the man's name. The words that came to his thoughts now were either begging forgiveness, or adding insult, or a combination of both, as with every other time he'd tried. After an hour he'd given up and lay down for sleeping, and had been lying here since.
Suddenly, one of Alex's statements from earlier in the day surfaced in his mind, that he didn't know her father. He rolled off the pallet and to his feet, cursing for not coming to the conclusion sooner that her father didn't know him, either. He lit the lamp above the table and began the letter. Once he was done, everything he wanted the man to know about him was laid bare, including everything he would have never wanted to tell the father of any woman he wanted as a wife had she not been Alex. He finished with pledging his life to Alexandria, leaving the choice to Avilius of whether the length of the march, or a longer span, would be the length of living Ixillius had remaining.
Before he could change his mind, he sealed the letter and set off to Verus's tent, where Gabinius was passing the night before going to Avilius. As expected, the conversation between the First File and Inquisitor had progressed to more intimate flirting when Ixillius arrived after midnight and gave over the letter, and Alex was asleep. Feeling as though he'd left his soul behind, and praying fervently to any gods listening that the man he'd written his appeal to would see his truth in the words, he returned to his tent and wrapped tightly in his cloak, lying down again to sleep. This time exhaustion pulled him down quickly, the hope that he'd done the right thing burning weakly deep in his chest.