ALEX TOOK OUT the strained stitches and did what she could to clean the wound in Verus's thigh, and then she sent Marcus out with the rags she'd used to collect the pus, instructing him to toss the bundle in a latrine and have someone bury everything. The seasoned Optio, Quintus Abelardus, had left on her order for more hot water to be delivered in four hours. After that, he was to inform the rest of the officers what Ixillius wanted them all assured was a brief and temporary change in command from Verus – who was the true First File – to Ixillius, who Verus had promoted just before passing out.
"The wound looked better," Ixillius said quietly as Alex started washing up.
"We will see in four hours," was all Alex replied. She was trying to think where they were camped geographically, and if where they were was close to a town or a city she knew of in her time – two thousand years in the future from now – in case Verus didn't improve. Mark, another time traveler, had said that the jumps were all based on desires. For the past hour, Alex had been having a very difficult time thinking of anything but how much she wanted antibiotics, but she was still here. Mark had said that he'd gotten Big Man Max to love her, though, so that he could ride the stallion back to this time after Alex, so maybe what she wanted had to be a person. At least that made coming back to now easier if she did manage to go forward to her own time: she loved her husband and self-proclaimed brother.
She glanced between the two of them. Her husband, taller than nearly everyone, as blond and blue eyed as most of the locals they'd met, was the opposite to the dark hair and green eyes of her – using the only term that described him – beautiful brother. She'd thought because they'd gotten back to the Legion today, the rest of the march would be easy.
So much for that...
Alex sighed, her shoulders slumping under the worry and lack of knowledge that made curing the infection impossible. And guilt, she admitted. Verus wouldn't have gotten cut fighting if she hadn't been here in the first place, hadn't taken Naevius's little stallion into the forest to sell to the enemy and introduced herself to Hludwolf. The deaths of too many Romans and who knew how many Germans landed squarely on her shoulders for just being here.
"I did not hear you," she replied, the words her husband said not penetrating her thoughts. She turned toward Ixillius and grabbed up a rag to dry her hands now that all the blood was washed off. She was exhausted and just glad he was still here in Verus's tent with her. She dropped the rag beside the washstand and wrapped her arms around his waist, resting her ear on his chest to hear his heart beating. He didn't return the hug.
"What are you, Alex?" he asked again.
Ixillius finally knew what Alex meant when she'd described nearly drowning: the weight in his chest burned and he could barely breathe. He closed his eyes and pushed away his wife before he could let himself ignore the strange things about her yet again.
"This past month, I've watched you, listened to you. Nothing you say or do combine to make a full story," he said. Her face was a blank mask to him when he looked down at her, but he'd expected that. "I've prayed every day to stop thinking like this, but I can't. You talk of long travels, but are surprised at the trade value of meat. You say you're no soldier, but fight beside a veteran with familiar ease. A mare gone mad these past two years spends a day with you and can be ridden, an owl from the forest sits tame on your hand, you ride without bridle or saddle, the list goes on and on and then when I ask you say you knew nothing of the mare, the owl was tame, Max is trained that way..." he scoffed. "You have an answer for everything that's happened but none of your answers explain anything. But this?" he pointed to where Verus lay, then dropped his arm back to his side. "Bad drink and salt and the wound improves to the eye? Your father is gone for seventeen years, leaving nothing behind but tracks in the mud that simply stop, then you show up thirteen years after he returns and say you're looking for him but you wouldn't even tell me his name until..." he drew a shaking breath. "The slaves we took at the village where I found you say you pushed up from the Underworld. Alex, what are you?"
He watched her, but she didn't move. Her bottom lip was tucked between her teeth, as whenever she was thinking, with her gaze fixed on his face. He could see thoughts flicking behind her dark brown eyes, but she voiced none of them.
"I do not know how to say the words," she finally said. She was speaking and answering nothing. Again. He scrubbed his hands over his face.
"Try the truth," he suggested. "A whole truth, from start to finish."
"What do you want to know?" she asked, her voice small.
"Who taught you this medicine?"
"Her name is Mikayla Wyss, she is a..." Alex paused, thinking hard. "When a man is hurt very bad, she cuts inside to fix the hurt. I do not know the word. She fixes hurts in the bone and the muscle and the," she paused, thinking again, and then pointed at her own stomach.
He scoffed and shook his head, not able to look at her. She actually believed what she was saying, or – his greater fear – she was improving at lying the longer she was among men. He had seen surgeries done, and few men that had them lived. What Alex had done with Verus's wound, though, that hadn't been a surgery. He scrubbed his hand over his face and then glared down at her. She was still lying to him, giving half-truths and bits of facts that didn't tie together into anything.
"A whole truth, Alexandria," he said. Ixillius hated how his voice pleaded worse the heavier the weight in his chest became. Her stare never changed, but a single tear slid down her cheek.
"I do not know the words," she whispered. "I can draw," she blurted, spinning toward the table and clearing a place big enough for a blank page.
He couldn't do this anymore. His body ached with the need to reach out and pull her close, but he couldn't stop thinking. She'd arrived in his life when he wanted marriage, claimed to want a child, had hidden who her father was for no reason, and still demanded he keep her a slave in spite of training many of the Legionnaires in the weeks before she was taken. It looks as though she is fitting into her skin, Verus had said when watching how she woke the first time he saw her doing so, and Ixillius hadn't been able to erase the nagging thought that his commander was right.
He knocked her hand away when she reached for the charcoal, causing another tear on her cheek. Then she backed out of his reach, her gaze hardening as her own anger started to rise.
"I cannot say words I do not know," she stated. "You want a whole truth? Learn to speak my mother's words."
He didn't trust his voice, so made no reply. She picked up and threw at him the empty alcohol skein, which he caught by reflex.
"Go get more," she ordered.
"By the gods, Alex, just tell me one truth! One whole truth!" She met his glare with her own, then sighed and slowly shook her head, her anger dissipating quickly.
"I cannot say words that I do not know. Get more of the bad drink. We will clean the wound again in four hours."
Alex watched her husband storm out. He was suspicious and angry and no matter what she said he would take everything as some kind of lie. She didn't have the Latin vocabulary to explain Mikayla, a trauma surgeon turned emergency responder, and he didn't have the patience to listen to her tonight anyway. They were both too tired from the events of the day, and too worried and uncertain to speak well to each other. She needed to figure out how to talk to him, and she wasn't going to be able to do that until she wasn't worried about Verus.
She ground her knuckles into her eyes and sighed instead of screaming. Knowing that at some future point her marriage worked out okay, she had her own tomb's inscription memorized after all, didn't help with the communication problem right now. She set her palms on the table and took a couple of deep breaths, staring at the blank page she'd hastily grabbed a few moments ago. If she could figure out how to explain Mikayla through sketches, maybe she could have them prepared for talking to Ixillius after they'd cleaned out Verus's wound again, after Quintus and Marcus left. While she was waiting for the four hours to pass, she could prioritize while figuring out how to sketch what she wanted to say.
Priority one: Verus had to survive. The thought of him dying made her feel sick with vertigo and left strange thoughts in her head. Alex needed to know what she had to work with. That meant figuring out everything on the table and finding out what the camp's healers had already tried. That also meant finding an hour of alone time to lay out a map and get her geographical positioning nailed down in case she needed to try going forward to her own time.
Priority two: Alex needed to know what had been happening in the Legion during the month she'd been gone after being stolen. Marcus had not been full of good news today, and there were some major problems that the more superstitious factions were trying to blame on her presence here. If she could get some details pulled together with the right twists, she might be able to start working some rumors to her favor; which is what Verus would do. If he started improving, the current rumors would disappear for the most part. But if he didn't ... back to the first priority, she thought, pushing down the vertigo.
Priority three: she needed to know exactly what ties and alliances Aquilus Naevius had. The rumors Marcus told them hadn't mentioned 'Alex' or 'Alexandria', they had only spoken of 'Avilia', and Naevius was the only one who used her name without any title. The promises Naevius had made to Dario, of being heir to Alex's family fortune once she was out of the way, would be enough to buy a lot of men. The half of the Auxiliary that had deserted had been locals, and the attackers that had stolen her had an uncanny knowledge of the camp layout – right down to exactly where to cut the tent to take her out. That realization triggered an unpleasant idea in her mind ... she needed to know loyalties, and she needed to know them sooner rather than later.
First, though, was Verus. Alex turned to the items on the table and started sorting them as useful, not useful, or unknown. She was absorbed in the task of cleaning up the stuff on the table when Marcus returned. Once she gave him permission to come in, he stood just inside the entrance.
"Speak," Alex said, not pausing in her methodical progress.
"The rumor..." his voice trailed off and he cleared his throat. "The rumor has already begun that the First File is dead."
"That started very fast," Alex sighed; she'd expected to deal with that in the morning. "Any Centurions can talk with him when he is awake."
"And when will that be?" a new voice asked.
Alex glanced over her shoulder at the new arrival as the man strode into the tent and stood in front of Marcus, arms crossed to help accentuate his condescending tone. By his armor, he was Auxiliary. By the amount of gold he was wearing, he was good. By his tone, he'd been commanding for a while. By the way Marcus was deferring, this was probably the new Auxiliary Legate Marcus had mentioned this afternoon, placed by Verus after the entire Legion command had been killed in the same attack where Alex had been kidnapped.
Alex didn't know when Quintus would be back, his errand included informing all the acting First Orders and the Front Files that Ixillius had been made First File, and Quintus would do each officer the respect of telling them in person. She was fairly certain Ixillius wasn't coming back until the four-hour mark she'd given him because he'd been really angry when he left. That meant she had just herself and Marcus for dealing with this officer, and Marcus wouldn't be any help because he'd been running the 6th and 4th century in place of Ixillius for the past month. The timing was late for a social call, and way too late for issues related to the march. That meant he was here specifically to see her and, from his arrogant posturing, probably to see if he could make Ixillius look like a fool through her.
Alex moved the jars and small pots so that there was a straight line of empty space down the center of the table. She took off her sword belt and dropped the jeweled jian she'd acquired from one of her kidnappers with a clatter into the space she'd made, and then turned to face the newcomer. She mimicked his posture for a moment, scoffed, and looked to Marcus.
"Introduction," she commanded. Marcus stepped forward immediately.
"Heliodoro Idoya Luz, Auxiliary Legate," Marcus stated, confirming her assumption and nodding in the direction of the Auxiliary Legate. "Lady Alexandria Avilia," he continued, nodding toward Alex.
"We are well met," Alex said, shifting her gaze back to the officer and nodding respectfully, but without offering a hand, so that she stayed in accordance with her station based on her family name and in accordance with her gender.
"We are well met," the Auxiliary Legate returned the greeting, his look turning wary at the sudden formalities. She was pleased to see he wasn't thrown off balance for longer than a second. He was testing her, and he was confirming if the rumor of the First File being dead was true, but she had to believe that Verus had picked him for a reason. Alex resigned to being respectful of her brother's decision and sat on the stool closest to where she'd been standing, motioning for the officer to sit on another.
"Marcus?" she asked and his attention clicked to her smartly. "Please scribe."
"What's going on here?" Heliodoro asked quietly, his eyes sliding from Marcus and pinching suspiciously at Alex.
Alex stared back levelly. She wanted to throw him out on his ass, finish inventorying the contents of the table, get the healers back in here to collect their things from the useless section, and have the unknown items explained to her. Priority one was Verus, and this was an unnecessary delay. She also wanted a shot of tequila and a chance to scream profanities for five minutes. Instead, she assumed a straight posture and smiled coldly as Marcus sat at the table behind her with fresh ink.
"You are an idiot," Alex started, holding up a hand to stop the Auxiliary Legate from interrupting. "You must have watched for one hour for Marcus only to return," she accused, his startled look confirming her statement. "You are here to see if Celsus Calix is breathing," she nodded to where Verus lay, "and to test me. Your excuse to come here, which must be close to honest, is one I cannot answer and that Ixillius cannot answer because we were not here, Marcus cannot answer because he was not with Verus, so Optio Abelardus must find you and look like a fool because I do not speak well and he will not understand completely."
The Commander had been shifting uneasily while Alex was talking, his body confirming her statements even though his face remained impassive.
"This insult –"
"Silence," she interrupted him sharply. "Speak your excuse, Marcus will scribe each word, and Quintus will give you the answer. Only us," she gestured at the three of them sitting near and at the table, "will know you are an idiot. Then you will go away."
Heliodoro squirmed under her steady gaze, his eyes darting between her and the patiently waiting Marcus. Suddenly Verus rasped out a rough chuckle. Alex nearly flew across the tent to drop beside her brother, leaving the Auxiliary Legate sitting alone, shocked and suddenly unsure because Celsus Calix had obviously heard the exchange.
"Dear one," Verus smiled up at her from his pallet, still chuckling, as she took his hand in hers. "You've no idea how much I've missed you."