The Centurion's Woman

Chapter 6

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.