THE NEXT NIGHT there were twenty new men waiting on the Training Ground when Alex and Verus came out, some Legion but most Auxiliary, and at least triple the size of the usual crowd watching. She made sure to greet Dario by name, and then set those who were unfamiliar at sword work into basic drills under the eyes of practiced Legionnaires who volunteered when Verus asked. Once the trainees were settled, she and Verus started into their regular routine of stepping through the forms she'd already taught him at the speeds he chose, then she either taught him something new or they practiced one of the forms he knew, depending on what he wanted to work on.
Tonight, Verus had just wanted to practice things he knew. Alex borrowed a sword again and stepped through what she wanted to work on, pausing now and then to watch Verus or any of the others and offer coaching. She wasn't surprised to see Brasus at the front of the crowd tonight, and took advantage of having him there to spot her for what she was working on. For how quickly he came to her side, she assumed that was why he was at the front again.
She was surprised, however, when half of the new trainees opted out of the sparring matches and instead drifted over to watch what she was doing. When she broke off for a drink of water and to return the borrowed sword, talking with Brasus about what he'd noticed she could improve, one of the trainees had nervously called for her attention.
"Lady Avilia," he started, using her formal title. "Where did you learn to fight like that?"
She shrugged, thinking through the best words to use.
"Many places, from many teachers."
"Why do you fight, Lady?" another trainee asked.
That one actually stumped her for a moment. Training had just been the way of life after her momma died, and had been part of her early childhood games before her momma died if she was honest. But after, her gigno had fallen back on what he knew when their family became just the two of them. Then when he disappeared, training had been a reprieve from society. The wages from the two clubs she taught and trained at paid for her engineering degree, and a weekend defense course for the survivalist company had landed her a job she'd liked. Then she'd had to kill a client in self-defense and the training had become more than a hobby, elevating back up being the way of life that her gigno had taught her. She hadn't ever really been without it.
"I do not know anything else," she finally replied.
"Have you fought in a war?" the first questioner asked.
"No."
"But you've killed men, right? Before the slaves in Bonna?" asked Dario.
"I have."
"In duels?" a different trainee asked, obviously hoping for an exciting story.
"No," Alex replied simply and everyone in hearing distance seemed to lean forward expectantly. Alex looked around, sighed at Brasus's raised eyebrow, and sheathed her sword. "I have not had enough strong wine tonight to tell the stories," she said, getting a few chuckles.
"Are you going to fight in Illyria?" someone in the crowd asked.
"If my father says to," she replied, dodging around having memorized her own grave's inscription.
"That would make you fight?" Dario asked.
"What makes a woman go to war?" another voice in the crowd piped up before she could reply.
"I am a poor choice of a woman to ask," she laughed. "I have trained for all my life, so for me to war is by one order from the good First File. For a woman, not me, she is usually to fight for love or hate."
The crowd stayed quiet. Alex hoped that was it for question time, pulling her sword back out so that she could work through another form or two while Brasus was still here.
"Only love or hate?" Dario asked.
***
Ixillius stood outside the light of the fires in his usual place, watching the training and what his woman could do as he did most nights. He grinned at the trainee's naïve question, remembering well that he had been that way himself many years ago.
"Only?" Alex replied, cocking a smile at the young man who'd asked. "For a woman, to kill a man is to know she has killed a son or a brother or a father. A woman who is in war is usually a woman insane with love or insane with hate, who will gain all or who has nothing left to lose."
A silence settled on the part of the crowd that was listening, seeming to make the sparring louder.
"So you will war for love?" a tentative voice asked from the edges of the Ground, the owner unable to separate her answers so far.
"I am to war if ordered," she answered, her voice amused, and in his mind Ixillius could see the single eyebrow she would have cocked at the questioner. "Another woman will war for her own reasons. I am always to train and to fight. A man of the Legion is my father, a man of the Legion is my owner, a man of the Legion is my guardian. I am a poor choice of a woman to ask about love."
"But you must love the Centurion who owns you. Surely that's the only reason you'd choose to stay a slave?"
Ixillius watched Brasus's features go blank at the question asked by the taunting voice that could only belong to Aquilus Naevius, the Optio's glance fixing on where he knew his Centurion stood in the shadows as if he was simply looking away. Ixillius knew Naevius had come to watch tonight, and the question was asked simply to humiliate him, but he already knew the answer. He might be in love with the strange woman the question was asked to, but he wasn't fool enough to think that meant she loved him in return. He also knew that she knew she was currently safer as a war won slave than she would be as a fatherless Lady with the way Naevius was after her. She'd be killed within a week if he released ownership. Besides, he fully expected her to be whisked away the instant a messenger returned with word from her father. Aside from a few frail, ridiculous hopes he clung to during the darkest times of the nights, he knew the certainty was that soon she would be gone from him completely.
He saw Alex shift and turn to look in the same direction as Brasus stared, her face masked. Ixillius knew that in her mind she understood that he was here, watching and listening, but she couldn't see him. A smile touched her face, one side of her mouth curling in what could only be a mockingly pitying sneer, as she turned to face squarely where Naevius was.
"That is a very stupid question. I do not love him," she replied in clear tones. "A man with one eye can see I use him to keep me from you," she continued and the Training Ground fell into shocked silence. Even the sparring matches stopped. "What?" she asked the crowd, turning slowly and looking at individuals around the Ground. "You all want me to lie? No," she stopped, looking directly at Brasus. "Ixillius loves me too much for me to lie, so he is to keep me safe and I am to give him honor and respect and truth."
Ixillius was grateful to the shadows he stood in for hiding his reaction to her words. He assumed most men would not be smiling so broadly at a woman they loved as she declared publicly she had no love for them in return. But in those simple sentences, he could see by Brasus's face that the woman he loved had just earned the loyalty and trust of his greatest friend – no small feat – and he couldn't help but smile as his pride grew even more that she chose to remain his woman. At this moment, he honestly didn't care why she chose to be his.
His smile shifted to a wicked grin and he started walking toward the Training Ground, the little voice in his mind turning to mischief. Brasus's face had gone blank again the instant Alex had turned away, and stayed blank as he watched Ixillius approach.
"You think you make the men see Ixillius as a fool?" she asked, turning back to Naevius and sweeping her arm to encompass the crowd. "You think to love a woman is to be a fool?" Alex challenged and Ixillius could see Naevius's posture shift to the stance he usually took when sneering.
"When she doesn't care about—"
"I trust him," Alex interrupted the mocking tones with her own level voice, cutting short the intended insult. "I do not love him, that is a truth, so I am loyal and right and very careful with the love he gives to me."
"Lady?" the naïve trainee cautiously drew Alex's attention. "What does love matter? Your owner is far below a patrician and your father will find a husband for you, anyway."
Alex chuckled quietly, Ixillius could tell because her shoulders shook once and he could see a small grin from the angle he had looking at the side of her face. He wondered what the joke was in her mind as he stopped at the back of the crowd.
"My mother's people are very different," was all she said in reply. Brasus stepped close to her and touched her elbow.
"Your fool is arrived, Lady Avilia," he told her, his voice carrying to the edge where Ixillius stood.
"The bitch speaks of love and the dog comes running with his dick out," one of the men standing close to Naevius sneered, making his small group of friends around him snigger.
A few men around the Training Ground called out for an end to the argument before even starting one, causing further insults to get hurled. Quickly, the yelling of the fracturing audience and trainees escalated until Ixillius was certain he wouldn't be heard even if he did reply. Naevius was pointing at him and yelling something, but Ixillius couldn't hear.
Suddenly an eerie, lonely howl rose over the arguing. The voices fell off as fast as they'd risen, all the men now looking around as they either reached for a weapon or searched for a fast exit. Ixillius felt his hand close on the hilt of his sword as he looked for the wolf's throat where the howl originated, the hair all over his body standing on end as primal fear surged through him and all the men around him. He could hear the war dogs in the camp start to bark and whine.
Drawing the eye simply by sharp contrast to the rest of the mob, Brasus stood beside Alex, shaking from the laughter he was barely holding in. Alex stood with her head tilted back, her hands cupped at an odd way at her mouth. By the time the howl died away, all eyes were staring at Brasus and Alex. She breathed deeply to catch her breath as she dropped her hands and grinned at Brasus, making him finally burst out laughing. A few nervous chuckles joined in around the Training Ground, snuffed out as a questioning howl a distance away returned the hunting call that Alex had just made. She waited for the closest barking to subside before turning to face Aquilus Naevius again.
"I am the wrong breed of bitch to call a simple dog for sex, Naevius."
The Centurion she called out to sputtered, attempting to come up with an equal reply and failing. Alex laughed mockingly and tipped her chin up again, pretending to howl badly. Ixillius laughed, sheathed his sword and threw his head back. He howled poorly, but with gusto, followed by Verus and Brasus and quickly a loud chorus of most of the men at the Ground that night. Naevius started stomping away with his few friends, with howls, laughter and barking following him.
"And Naevia!" Alex called over the heckling, freezing the Centurion in place with rage at the use of his name in the feminine. "I would ask myself the worth of my man should he think this is funny to have his dick out and ready at the time for sex!"
Ixillius could see Verus glaring hard at him, but he didn't care. Alex's response to Naevius's insult had nearly all the men here outright laughing and joking crudely, and had destroyed any further attempt that Naevius might have had of gaining an upper hand in a second round of hate slinging this evening. Ixillius smiled at his woman and stepped between the few men in front of him so he could walk over to her.
"Centurion," Brasus greeted him with a nod, speaking overloud for the benefit of the still listening crowd.
"Optio," Ixillius returned the formal greeting at the same volume and nodded politely.
If he chose to, he knew he could pull Alex into his arms and kiss her as deeply as he wanted to. Her body would yield against him, bowing backwards slightly as her arms slipped around his neck. He would thoroughly enjoy rediscovering that the back of her head fit as perfectly in his right hand as her ass did in his left.
He also knew if he did that, the spell that she held over the mob would break, and he would reduce her from the otherworldly creature she appeared to be right now down to just a woman. He loved both versions of her too much to do that. He was glad of the cloak he wore, however, so that none could see his hands clenched into fists with the effort of his restraint.
"Master," she greeted him with an owner's title, inclining her head as though respectfully subservient but simply appearing even more regal.
"Lady Avilia," he responded, bowing fully.
Her fingers rested on his cheek and straightened him back to his full height. When he looked down at her, she just shook her head at him like he was the fool that he was. He saw desire flash behind her eyes, her preference falling on him like gods' favor, and his sworn word to leave her untouched his own curse. Alex stepped close enough that her body touched his cloak as somewhere far removed from him Verus called the matches back into order and the sparring and wagering started again.
"When I do love," she said softly, "the love will be for you."
The lie was beautiful, and he was grateful to her for saying the words.
"How do I survive until that day?" he begged, his lips unable to stop the whisper from escaping.
Her understanding smile wrapped his heart warmly and fueled the fire kindled lower in his belly. Then her grin shifted to mischief. She stepped back from him and her hand dropped away to sweepingly gesture to the trainees that had been watching her and had started the questioning.
"If you can talk, you can breathe," she called loudly and clearly, drawing the eyes of many old veterans as she turned to the young men. The older men laughed as she took on the posture and bearing of someone Ixillius had never seen. "If you can breathe," she started, many of the veterans joining in as she spoke, "you're not training hard enough!"
Ixillius let her spell work on him, burying his own wants as he called the watching trainees into pairs to start them running through drills again. He made a note to speak with Quintus Abelardus at the next opportunity so he could find out who Alex had just imitated as she drew her sword and started working through her own forms, Brasus staying on to attend her at her own request.
The sparring matches ended an hour later, Alex and Brasus had left together shortly before the final match finished, and Ixillius dismissed the trainees. He answered questions about the drills and offered help as he'd always wished his own instructor had done, and was grateful of from the older men who had. A few of the departing spectators clapped him on the back or shoulder as they passed on their way back to their tents, a couple of the veterans howling quietly and grinning at him. As he turned to leave the nearly deserted Training Ground, his previous Guard Commander – now Optio to the First File since three days prior – Marcus Lucilius fell in step beside him and jovially crowded Ixillius onto a path leading directly to Verus's tent.
"Let me guess," Ixillius grinned at the man he'd recommended for the promotion, "he wants to know if I knew about the howl?"
"Not at all," Marcus replied lightly. "He needs to know if you knew about the howl."