The Last Roman (Praetorian Series - Book One) (55 page)

As for the casualties, there were too many to
recall.

Nisus had died, brought down protecting the
aquila
that was never dropped. It took three men to bring
him down, but the centurion I had barely known, but had grown to
respect during the battle, would not be returning to help retrain
the
XV Primigenia
. His loss hit the legion hard, but he was
just one of many.

Of the legion itself, it had been practically
destroyed. Half of the auxilia were killed, and only two cohorts
worth of legionnaires were left to walk off the field. Many of the
experienced officers had been wounded or killed, and even Galba had
sustained injury when he had tried to drive his cavalry squadron to
aid Caligula during his duel with Claudius.

The survivors were to be sent back North in another
month or so, after some much deserved rest and relaxation in Rome
courtesy of Caligula. He had even offered each surviving
legionnaire, none of whom were officially commissioned yet, full
retirement packages, including discharge and retirement payments
and a plot of land to any who desired it. Not a one had accepted
the gracious offer, and all would remain with the army.

Of the eight Praetorians cohorts that had fought in
the battle, only fifteen hundred men survived. Once the dust had
settled, Caligula interviewed each surviving tribune to determine
exactly what happened after his escape from the city. Each had
passionately denied any knowledge of his survival and claimed that
Claudius had told them he had been appointed emperor by the senate,
through Caligula’s own will. The deranged psychopath had even
staged a phony funeral to cover his tracks.

When the tribunes were asked why they hadn’t ceased
hostilities when they saw him on the battlefield, they replied that
they couldn’t explain it. It was as though some unseen force had
been moving them towards combat, and it wasn’t until Claudius had
been killed that they felt the effects slowly wear away.

Caligula had apparently accepted this explanation
and hadn’t pressed that line of questioning further.

They were dismissed, pardoned and reinstated into
the guard. As for those who had fought the day we were forced from
the city, the few that were left, they were lined up along the old
siege trenches and crucified.

The Sacred Band had lost half its strength, but with
the support and leadership of Quintilius, Gaius, and Marcus, whose
wound had missed any vital arteries, it would be quickly
reorganized and be as loyal as ever. From now on, the Sacred Band
would never leave his side, and even remain housed with him. One
half would be on duty at any given time while the other half would
remain in the
Castra Praetoria
, and would be chosen from
only the most loyal and able men available.

As for those of us formerly employed by the Vatican,
many outcomes, decisions, and scars, both physical and emotional,
were made and accumulated.

Just after Caligula’s duel with Claudius, Vincent
had been severely wounded. He had been stabbed through his forearm,
doing massive damage to his left arm. Wang had been there to do
what he could, but he couldn’t save the arm. Roman surgeons had
amputated it, just below the elbow, and Wang had done what he could
to stave off infection and ease Vincent’s pain. His recovery time
lasted a month, only minus an arm, and I remembered sad times when
I noticed him automatically reaching out with his severed arm, only
to realize it was no longer there. Hopefully, over time, he’d get
used to living a normal life without it.

Santino’s wounded leg only needed a dozen stitches,
while Bordeaux had fought a substantial part of the battle with an
arrow sticking out of his back. It had found itself lodged in his
trapezius muscle, near his neck, an errant missile from an archer.
Bordeaux’s overly muscled physique had probably saved his life, as
the arrow hadn’t made it past his dense muscle structure. Wang, not
trained in arrow removal, had allowed a Roman doctor handle it,
using ancient forceps, a tool developed in Greece specifically for
arrow retrieval. Both had recovered easily.

I was fine for the most part. My arm needed
stitching and would leave another scar that would bisect the last
one that had just healed there. Add to that another dozen or so
scrapes and gashes; I was a mess but had survived relatively
unscathed.

As for our decisions, Vincent made his to leave Rome
and Caligula’s employ to tour the empire about two weeks ago. He
voiced an interest in heading East to find the origins of
Christendom. He’d sworn, his remaining hand raised in a promise
gesture, that he would not do anything to affect its development,
and I hoped he’d keep his word.

Wang had decided to leave as well, indicating he
would go to Greece, and perhaps teach their doctors a thing or two
about modern medicine. A month ago, as he prepared to leave, I’d
clapped him on the shoulder and told him he’d have a fun time
learning Greek, and that he’d sooner enjoy Duran Duran than the
annoyingly complex language. He gave me a smile, said his goodbyes
to everyone who had gathered to see him off, and left.

Bordeaux, another old timer, only a handful of years
younger than Vincent, had lived many lives. He’d admitted that the
only one where he had been truly happy was the short year he had
spent with his wife. He hoped he could find that kind of
companionship again, and with no more use for fighting, he too had
set off, going North, with no real destination in mind.

They’d all taken plenty of supplies and gear, and
despite retiring, brought their weapons and plenty of ammo. They’d
be fine out in the wilderness of ancient Rome, and I hoped I
crossed paths with them again someday.

“These olives are stale,” Santino reported, his
mouth half full.

“I thought you didn’t like olives,” I said, my hand
on the door to my room.

“Eh,” he muttered, inspecting one in the light,
“they’re growing on me.”

I rolled my eyes. Unfortunately or fortunately, I
was still trying to decide which, Santino had chosen to stick
around.

That left just one person.

I tried not to think about my own personal last
moments on the battlefield. They had easily become some of the most
horrific ones I’ve ever experienced. I had nearly given up myself,
wondering if I could ever have been happy living while she didn’t,
but I endured.

I sighed.

I tried not to think about it.

Reaching for the door, I paused when it seemingly
opened on its own accord. Curious, I quickly pressed my hand
against it and shoved it open, hoping to catch any interloper off
guard. I was still pretty jumpy considering the kind of reception
we’d had in Rome over the past year.

I took a tentative step inside as my hand hovered
near my Sig. I crept forward and was surprised to notice a figure
step out from behind the door, surprising us both. I nearly dropped
to a knee for a better firing position, before recognition dawned
on me.

I looked across at a set of brilliant green eyes,
the same set that had haunted and loved me for nearly a year. Her
skin looked paler than normal, and she’d lost some weight during
her lengthy recovery, but the lovely face of Helena stared back at
me with the same angry expression I’d grown to love in return.

She leaned against the door and clutched her chest
with a hand. “For Christ’s sakes, Hunter! You nearly gave me a
heart attack bursting in here like that,” she told me, slightly out
of breath.

“Me?!” I responded with a frown. “What the hell are
you doing out of bed?”

I reached out to take her hands in my own and led
her to our bed, the most comfortable thing I’ve slept on since my
childhood one. She moved slowly, and I sat her down next to me
before I rested a hand on her forehead.

“You know you’re not supposed to exert yourself,” I
told her, my hand still pressed against her skin. “At least you
don’t seem to have a fever.”

She brushed my hand away. “Hunter, will you please
stop? You’re worse than my mother. Wang said I could start walking
around weeks ago, and I wasn’t going to miss this for the
world.”

I frowned again.

In those last few moments after I had broken down,
Helena had hung to life by a thread. Perhaps by divine
intervention, a wandering Roman medic from the legion had spotted
his fallen
Mater
, and rushed to her aid. The man had been
efficient, quick and thorough. Recognizing that the sword had done
little damage to her internal organs, he had gently removed the
blade and gone to work cleaning and containing the wound.

I remembered the field doctor roughly push me aside
as I tried to hold her. There had been so much blood. So much. It
had driven me to the point of helplessness even with the Roman
medic there.

I sat beside him for what seemed like ages, but my
mind forced my body from the scene. I’d gotten up and wearily
stumbled around until I found a rock to sit on. The battle was just
starting to wrap itself up around me, and after a few seconds of
rest, I started to weep. Just like Odysseus in his opening scene in
The Odyssey
, I sat on that rock, overlooked nothing in
particular, and cried for the one I loved the most. Odysseus had
sat there every day for years, and my suffering felt just as long.
His salvation came in the form of the fleet-footed Hermes who told
him the good news that Zeus had convinced his brother, Poseidon, to
lift the ban that had forced him from seeing his beloved Penelope.
All I got instead was Santino, who slowly approached my rock, and
placed his hands on my shoulders.

Feeling his touch, I turned to see Wang. Santino had
found him working on a fallen Praetorian who was too far gone to
help. As soon as Wang had heard Helena’s name, he’d dropped what he
was doing and rushed to her side as fast as his legs could carry
him. He’d ordered the Roman medic aside, and his fingers danced
with graceful care, and his presence offered the briefest seconds
of hope.

Then, she died.

At least, her heart had stopped beating, but with a
few hits of his mobile defibrillator, Wang managed to revive her,
repair her struck internal organs including her pancreas and large
intestine, put her back together, sewed her up, and saved her life.
It had taken him almost three hours kneeling in the mud and the
blood on that battlefield, but he’d somehow managed to pull her
from the jaws of death. Bordeaux had joined Santino, arrow still
lodged in his back, kneeling around Wang as he worked, keeping
vigil while I remained glued to my rock, too afraid to face the
worst. Many other legionnaires came and kneeled with them. When
Wang finally walked over and told me the good news, it took minutes
for his words to sink in, but when they finally did, I rushed to
her side to find her unconscious and as pale as a ghost.

But alive!

I tried to thank him with a bear hug that launched
him a foot off the ground, but nothing I said could truly convey
how I felt. He’d smiled and told me our happiness would be thanks
enough. After that, I’d spent the next three weeks in a field
hospital with her, surrounded by thousands of other wounded
soldiers. I rarely left her side before she was allowed to leave
and join me in the beautiful home we had been given near the
Palatine, interestingly on the spot where the Colosseum should be
standing in about forty years or so. When I passed that bit of
information on to Helena, she had coughed out a laugh and said she
couldn’t make any promises she would survive if I kept
lecturing.

She’d grown weak and bed ridden over the next few
weeks while she finished healing. She was trapped in bed, and even
with modern antibiotics and Wang’s direct care, her recovery hadn’t
been as graceful as it would have been in a modern hospital. She’d
contracted a fever, and the wound on her back became infected, but
she was resilient, and Wang was always there to help. A few weeks
before he left for Greece, Wang finally gave her a clean bill of
health and directions to start getting into shape. He never would
have left Helena before making sure she made a full recovery. Total
recovery time was over two months and she was still far from one
hundred percent.

Helena leaned forward slightly on the bed and looked
up at me. “Are you all right, Jacob?”

I smiled at her. “Me? I’m fine. I’m just glad you’re
all right.”

I patted her on the knee and leaned in for a kiss.
She didn’t pull away, and I found myself lying on the bed next to
her a few seconds later.

“You know,” she said in between breaths and lip
locks, “I still haven’t properly thanked you for taking care of
me.”

I smiled, and pushed her gently away. “Now,
that
, you definitely haven’t been cleared for! Let’s not
push it.”

She smiled back. “You’re such a tease.”

“I know. It’s why you love me,” I answered, getting
to my feet. “Come on. We’d better make sure Santino hasn’t choked
on an olive or something.”

“We do?” She asked.

I chuckled, gripped her hands again, and slowly
pulled her to her feet. I handed her the cane fashioned for her,
and held out my arm for her to rest against as well. We walked out
of the room together to find Santino, feet back on the table,
trying to toss olives into his mouth. Judging by the body count on
the floor, he hadn’t been very successful.

Putting his boot back on, he jumped to his feet when
he saw us. “Finally! Let’s go. I’m starving.”

I shook my head. “Just so you know, I’m not going to
let you crash on my couch much longer. You need to find your own
place.”

“I have one,” he said, information that I
unfortunately already knew, “but your place is cleaner.”

I shook my head, and looked to Helena for support.
Over the past few months, Santino hadn’t just been freeloading, but
helping care for Helena when I had to do things like sleep, eat or
other daily necessities. Needless to say, she didn’t hate him
anymore, and with a heart of gold, could never force him to leave,
even though he had a perfectly fine place right next door.