The Great Game

The Great Game Read Online Free PDF Page B

Book: The Great Game Read Online Free PDF
Author: S. J. A. Turney
Tags: Historical fiction
four-man escort rode along the side of the column, raising a number of looks of varying degrees of interest or malice from the rest.
    Paternus and the tribunes had already dismounted by the time they arrived, guardsmen taking the reins of their horses ready to lead them away. As Rufinus and his escort came to a halt and saluted, another two white-clad soldiers reached for their reins and motioned them to dismount.
    Turning with an expression of mild surprise, as though he’d not expected to see them, prefect Paternus clapped his hands together and rubbed them against the cold.
    ‘Ah, good; Legionary Rustius Rufinus. You’ll be coming with me. You four will escort us as far as the Imperial court and then return to your quarters and arrange temporary accommodation and clean, dry kit for this man.’
    Rufinus felt his heart skip a beat and panic began to set in again.
    The Imperial court?
    Could Paternus really be meaning to present him to the Emperor? His mind raced through a thousand pitiful excuses and listed a thousand more things he could potentially do wrong in the presence of the great Marcus Aurelius. The master of Rome was reputed to be a man of moderate temper and good humour, intelligent and introspective, but then his predecessor had been possessed of similar traits and yet still the Rustii had found
his
bad side. Rufinus was well aware of the dangerous games the patrician class liked to play. The loss of one such game had led to the Rustii relocating from the Esquiline hill and putting a sea between them and the anger of the former emperor Antoninus
    And now, in one fell swoop, Rufinus could take the lucky escape into exile of his family and turn it into damnatio and enforced suicide for the entire clan.
    As Paternus and the mono-browed Perennis, tribune of the First cohort, marched off to the great, ornate archway that led into the headquarters building, Rufinus’ eyes darted this way and that. In six years of service with the Tenth, he had been inside the headquarters building precisely three times: once when he arrived, to see the clerk and quartermaster, once to have his duplicarius status confirmed, and once to stand before the tribunal for an unfortunate, drink-fuelled punch that had felled an optio after a game of dice had gone very wrong. All that was in the years before the Emperor had resided at Vindobona and set up his office in the structure.
    Passing beneath the arch, his pulse quickened again and Rufinus, gauging that the officers were far enough ahead and paying little enough attention that they would not hear a conversation, nudged Mercator and spoke in a low whisper.
    ‘They can’t be meaning to take me into the emperor’s presence like this?’
    He indicated with his hands the bedraggled nature of his clothes, the dirty armour already spotted with tiny brown stains as the weather got to work on the plates, the lack of shield and kit.
    The two officers ahead stopped sharply and the guardsmen almost walked into them as they turned. Paternus’ mouth twisted up at the corner in a quirky smile that looked peculiar on his aquiline features. Perennis, however, stared at him coldly, his dissatisfaction at this breech in military etiquette clear.
    ‘May I ask, legionary Rufinus,’ Paternus asked quietly ‘why you are unfit to be seen by the emperor?’
    Rufinus fumbled his words for a moment and finally croaked ‘should I not be bathed and in fresh uniform, sir?’
    Paternus smiled. ‘You are being presented as a valiant soldier of Rome, fresh from a battle in which you were wounded while endangering your life to save an officer. Some of the effect of that could be negated if you are clean-shaven, well-dressed and smell like a Syrian perfumery, could it not?’
    Perennis rolled his eyes and turned to his prefect. ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’
    Paternus nodded. ‘Oh yes. Words of retreat and the cost of war are poured into the emperor’s ear on an hourly basis. Any time the success
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