Nobody Loves a Centurion Read Online Free PDF

these strange battle trophies spent centuries slowly sinking into the mud. He also explained to me the horrible punishmentmeted out to anyone who took even the smallest item from one of them. I vowed never to go within spitting distance of such a trove.
    It was afternoon when we rode back into the camp. I tendered my report to Titus Labienus, Caesar’s legatus and deputy commander, then went in search of a legionary barber for a shave. I was not about to trust Hermes’ inexpert hand at so delicate a task.
    Freshly shaved, my stomach growling, I was walking back through the rows of legionary tents toward my own quarters and lunch when somebody hailed me.
    “Patron!”
    I looked around. I stood near the corner of a century block not far from the praetorium. The camp buzzed with the usual activities of such a place. Men in full gear marched to relieve the sentries, others swept and cleaned the streets, others carried supplies hither and yon. Little leisure is allowed in a legionary camp in the daytime. It is constantly being improved. There are always latrines to be dug, a bathhouse to be erected if the camp is to be occupied for a long time. And, it goes without saying, it never hurt to have that encircling ditch another foot deeper, the rampart another foot higher. Men with nothing else to do could always whittle a few more sharpened stakes to set in the bottom of the ditch.
    “Patron!” Now I saw a work detail tightening the ropes of a tent larger than the others and generally policing up its area. Doubtless it was their centurion’s tent, the lofty centurion being excused all such undignified labor. One of the men left the detail and trotted up to me. It took me a moment to recognize him.
    “Young Burrus!” I grasped his hands. He was the son ofone of my clients, an old soldier who had served with me in Spain. “I was going to look you up. I have letters for you from your family.” I also had letters for a half dozen or so other soldiers in the legion, sons of other clients of my family. Any time word gets out that an officer is going out to join a particular proconsul or propraetor, he becomes a mail carrier. But Burrus was an especially close client, having backed me in some decidedly rough situations.
    “How is Father?” He grinned, showing that he had lost a tooth on one side.
    “As mean as ever. He swears that you’re living easy up here, that soldiering isn’t what it was in his day.”
    “That sounds like the old brute.” Lucius Burrus had been a boy when I had last seen him. Now he was a handsome young man, of medium height, well knit and with the enduring strength of the Italian peasant, just the sort every recruiter looks for. He was a bit the worse for the wear, though, with bruises on his arms and neck and anywhere else his skin showed.
    “They must be training you hard here,” I commented.
    He winced and looked sheepish. “It isn’t that. It’s . . .” His voice tapered off and his gaze went to the entrance of the tent. So did mine. There was an abrupt cessation of activity around the tent as the door flap swept aside and a goddess walked out.
    How does one describe perfection, especially when it is barbaric perfection? She was taller than any woman should be, taller than any man there. She was about an inch taller than I, although my thick-soled military boots put our eyes on a level. Her face was made up of features that should have robbed it of beauty: her jaw too long and narrow, her eyes set too close beside a nose that was too long and thin, her mouth too wideand full-lipped, her lips pushed outward by teeth that were too large. Taken together, the effect was devastating.
    Her thick, gold-blond hair fell over her shoulders and to her waist, contrasting with her straight, level, dark brows. Her eyes were ice blue, paler even than a Gaul’s, her skin whiter than a candidate’s toga, her body as slender as a charioteer’s whip, and as strong and supple. That body was rendered