Cursor's Fury (13 page)

The life of a legionare, even that of officers, had, in Tavi’s opinion, been vastly overrated. By the time a week had passed in the camp of the First Aleran, he had come to the conclusion that the vaunted glory and prestige of the officers corps was nothing more than a fiendish ploy on behalf of the Citizenry, designed to drive the ambitious to foaming insanity.

And that went double for the high reputation of the Cursors, which had gotten him ordered into this crowbegotten Legion to begin with.

Tavi had considered himself a stalwart, stoic, strong-minded agent of the Crown, especially after the trials he had faced at the Academy, where his time and focus had been in constant demand. There, he’d often been unable to find enough hours in the day to sleep, and constant runs up a monstrously sadistic stairwell had tested his physical and mental limits. There were some days where he had broken down into screaming fits of frustration, just to blow off steam.

The Legion life was worse.

Tavi tried not to give such cynical thoughts too much of his attention, but standing in the light, wooden storage building through the second chorus of yet another furious rant from Tribune Gracchus, to which he was not expected or allowed to respond, it was hard to keep from feeling somewhat bitter about the entire situation.

“Do you have any idea of the chaos you’ve caused?” Gracchus demanded. The beefy man slapped a pair of fingers against his opposite palm every few syllables, then jabbed them accusatorily at Tavi at the end of each sentence. “The
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measure of flour for each legionare is a precise calculation, Subtribune, and it is not subject to arbitrary adjustments by striplings on their first tour.”

There was a pause as Gracchus drew breath, and Tavi promptly interjected, “Yes, sir.” He had learned Gracchus’s rant-rhythm before the end of the second day.

“That’s why we
use
standardized, regulation measuring cups in the first place.”

“Yes, sir,” Tavi said.

“By introducing your shoddy replacements, you have thrown off my estimates, which will disrupt stores calculations for more than a month, Subtribune. I have every right to have you flogged for such a thing. In fact, I could have you up on charges for it and disenfranchised to repay the provisions budget.”

Freed to speak, Tavi kept his tone mild. “More than a score of veterans had complained to their centurions that they were receiving smaller measures of bread at meals. When enough of them had done so, the centurions requested that the First Spear look into the matter. He did. Per standard procedure, the First Spear approached a Subtribune Logistica. I happened to be the first one he found.”

Gracchus shook his head. “Do you have a point, Subtribune?”

“Yes, sir. I investigated the matter, and it seemed likely that some of the flour was going missing between the storehouse and the mess.” Tavi paused for a moment, then said, “I started by verifying the accuracy of the measuring cups. Sir.”

Gracchus’s face went florid and angry.

“Though the cups appear to be standard-issue, sir, they are in fact forgeries that hold nine-tenths of what the actual cups will contain. I asked one of the smiths to beat out a few cups of the proper size, sir, until they could be replaced with standard-issue gear.”

“I see,” Gracchus said. His upper lip had beaded with sweat.

“Sir, I figure that someone must have replaced the cups with forgeries, then skimmed the excess flour off to a market for it—or perhaps they were utterly unscrupulous thieves with the gall to sell the excess grain back to the Legion at a profit.” Tavi shrugged his shoulders. “If you wish me to face charges, sir, I understand your decision. But I estimate that the amount of money gained from this
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business wouldn’t buy much more than a silver ring and a new pair of boots. I think we caught it before any real harm could be done.”

“That’s enough, Subtribune,” Gracchus said in a quivering voice.

“Of course,” Tavi went on, “if you wish to put me up on charges or take disciplinary measures against me, the captain would be obligated to open an investigation. I’m sure he’ll be able to sort out exactly who was stealing what from whom, sir. That might be for the best.”

Gracchus’s face turned purple. He closed his eyes, and the silver ring on his left hand rapped nervously upon his breastplate. His new boots rasped against the floor as he shifted uncomfortably in place. “Subtribune Scipio, you are sorely trying my patience.”

“Beg pardon, sir,” Tavi said. “That was not my intention.”

“Oh yes it was,” Gracchus snarled. “You’re lucky I don’t drop you into a pit where you stand and close it after you.”

From the entry to the building, someone coughed politely and rapped knuckles against wood. “Good afternoon, sirs,” said Maestro Magnus, stepping forward to smile politely at them. “I hope this is not a bad time.”

Gracchus’s stare was almost poisonous, and Tavi was sure that if looks could kill, he would already be a dead man. “Not at all, centurion,” he murmured, before Gracchus could answer. “How may I assist you?”

“Captain Cyril’s compliments, Tribune, and will Subtribune Scipio join him at the practice field?”

Tavi frowned at Magnus, but the old Maestro’s expression told him nothing. “With your permission, sir?”

“Why not,” Gracchus said, his voice smooth. “I can use the time to consider how best to employ your energies. Something in the way of sanitation, perhaps.”

“Tribunes Logistica skimming from their Legion is not precisely unheard of,” Magnus said. “Though in general they cover their tracks a little more carefully. Gracchus lacks the guile to do it well.”

They strode past one neat row of tents after another. In the week since they’d arrived, the fish had at least learned the proper procedure for pitching a tent. Tavi frowned at Magnus. “Did the captain know?”

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“Naturally.”

“Then why didn’t he do something about it?” Tavi asked.

“Because while Gracchus might be an incompetent embezzler, he’s a capable logistics officer. We need him. Had the captain ordered an official investigation, it would have stained Gracchus’s honor, ruined his career, and discharged him from the Legion over a few bits of jewelry and new boots.”

Tavi grimaced. “So the captain is letting it slide.”

“He’s not a legate, Tavi. He’s a soldier. His job is to build and maintain the Legion as a strong, capable military force. If that means ignoring an indiscretion or three within his senior staff, he’s willing to pay that price.”

“He did no such thing,” Magnus replied, smile widening. “Though I might have misunderstood some comments he made, and shared my misunderstanding with Valiar Marcus.”

Tavi grunted and thought about it for a moment. “It was a test,” he said. “He wanted to see how I’d react to it.”

“Many men would have blackmailed their way into a share of the profits,” Magnus said. “Now the captain knows you’re honest. Gracchus’s greedy impulses have been checked. The legionares are getting their full measure of food, and the Legion still has its Tribune Logistica. Everyone’s a winner.”

They walked out the west gate and received overly precise salutes from the two fish standing sentry in their brown tunics and training weapons. A few hundred yards from the gate, there was a wide field, furycrafted into a perfectly flat plane. A broad oval of stone road ringed the field—a practice course of roadway, built with the same properties as the roads throughout the Realm.

Four full cohorts of recruits were on the track, attempting to speed-march in formation. Properly utilized, the furies built into the Realm’s roads would enable a traveler to maintain a running pace for hours at a time with little more effort than walking. The recruits, for the most part, were not utilizing the road
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properly, and instead of moving in neat ranks their formation resembled a comet—a solid leading element led the way, followed by stragglers who grew progressively slower, more distant, and more exhausted.

In the center of the field, centurions drilled some recruits in weapon play, while others practiced with the true steel shields of a full legionare, learning a basic metalcrafting discipline that would enable them to make their shields stronger and more able to resist impacts—and that would, incidentally, carry over into similarly reinforcing their weapons and armor. Still other recruits sat in loose groups around their instructors, being shown the correct way to wear and maintain armor, how properly to care for weaponry, and dozens of other facets of Legion business.

Tavi and Magnus waited for a comet-shaped cohort of fish to pound past on the training road, then walked across it toward a wooden observation platform at roughly the field’s center. The grounds around the tower served as a watering station for the thirsty recruits and also featured an infirmary for the recruits who had succumbed to fatigue or who had, like Tavi, earned a pointed lesson from the weapon instructors.

Captain Cyril stood atop the observation platform, and the sun shone off his armor and bald pate. He leaned against a guardrail, speaking quietly with Tribune Cadius Hadrian, a small, slender man who stood beside him in the light armor and woodland colors of a scout. Hadrian pointed at the running trainees on the back stretch of the track and murmured something to the captain. Then he pointed toward a group of fish strapping into bulky suits of training armor. Cyril nodded, then glanced down to see Tavi and Magnus at the base of the platform.

Cadius Hadrian followed the captain’s look, then saluted and slid down the platform’s ladder to the earth. The leader of the Legion’s scouts nodded silently to Tavi and Magnus as they saluted him, and paced away.

“I’ve brought him for you, sir,” Magnus called. “And I told you so.”