The Centurion's Woman

Chapter 33

ALEX NEVER IMAGINED she could be so relieved to see a line of carts, and Ixillius and Brasus quickened the pace at the promise of rejoining Minerva's 1st this afternoon. The warhorses picked up the excitement and Max and the mare both pranced into an easy lope to keep up with the stolen mounts, all four horses cantering on the side of the road, past first the trailing civilians and then the marching Auxiliaries. Alex set Hades to wing and he cawed happily, flashing in and out of the nearby trees as he flew beside Alex.

        The walnut mare whinnied loudly as they approached the end of the Legion and was answered by at least two other horses. A few Legionnaires glanced back, and then the pointing and yelling started. Alex grinned as more than a few cheers rose up. The march must've gotten boring again in the month since the attack, she thought.

        Word of their arrival was shouted forward along the line faster than any horse could run. In the general din, Alex couldn't hear any specifics of what was being said as she tried to keep both Max and the mare from getting too close to the men that quickly surrounded Brasus and Ixillius. She tried to ask a Cavalryman about the owner of the mare, but he just looked at the two warhorses wearing no tack, and then glanced at Brasus and Ixillius, looking confused by her question and making no reply.

        After a few minutes, the large group broke up and went back into line. Ixillius called Alex by her title and they were soon back into an easy lope and working their way forward along the line. Alex tried to ask Brasus about the mare, remembering that the horse's owner was in the cavalry group assigned to the 10th cohort, but he told her not to worry about ownership right now. He and Ixillius were both looking more grim than happy, so Alex left off with questions and simply followed along.

        They joined the line at the front of the 6th and 4th, all three of them sliding off their horses to greet Marcus, who had been given command, and another man who must be – Alex assumed – Caeles Aelius, who she'd heard was the Guard Commander for Brasus and would have been reporting now to Marcus.

                                                                ***

        Ixillius was grateful that Alex stood by her usual habit of seeing to the horses before dealing with the affairs of people. She seemed aware that things were not as they should be, but had apparently been spared the details of the rumors that he and Brasus had been greeted with. Marcus was more than willing to fill in the past weeks, speaking quietly and quickly while Alex stripped the warhorses of their burdens and saw them to a feed cart and water.

        "The command was built quickly, but Verus knows the men well and he was wise with his choices," Marcus confirmed when Ixillius asked how the restructuring had gone. "Quintus Abelardus now serves as Optio directly to the First File, and most of the deserting Auxiliary returned the day before we broke camp and left the hill."

        Brasus cleared his throat and he and Ixillius shared a glance, remembering the odd reactions of the messenger party when they learned the day of Alex's rescue. Per the timing that Marcus had just told them, combined with what they'd learned from Legionnaires at the end of the line, both events fell on the same day. Ixillius tried to ignore the coincidence for the time being.

        "What of the rumors in the 10th cohort that Celsus Calix is ill?" Ixillius pressed, watching Alex as she was finishing with the warhorses.

        "His leg," Marcus replied, his gaze following Ixillius's, but his look turning worried. "The cut was healing well, but a section of the temporary bridge tore loose while the engineers were still building. Two men were lost to the flood, and the First File rescued a third," Marcus paused, chewing on his words before he spoke them. "The flood waters got into his wound and poisoned him, and the wound infected."