The Last Roman (Praetorian Series - Book One) (36 page)

She stared at me and sighed, falling backwards onto
her butt to sit more comfortably. “I understand, Jacob. I suppose I
feel the same.”

“You do?”

“Don’t sound so relieved. I’m sorry I came off so
strong, but I meant what I said back there.” She paused and reached
out to grab my hand. “And I do need you, but I don’t want our
insecurities to jeopardize what we already have. You’re my friend,
and that’s enough.”

I raised an eyebrow at her. “For now?”

She smirked and gazed at me intently. “Perhaps.”

I didn’t smile, but inwardly I felt good. Here was
one of the first mature conversations I’d had in a long time and it
was relieving. Our bond of trust had been rebuilt and it felt
stronger now, more real. I squeezed her hand reassuringly and let
go before lowering myself gently onto my bedroll, my head feeling
only slightly better than it had a few minutes ago. While my
emotions had been soothed, the physical ailments certainly had
not.

Helena laid herself beside me and started to
unbutton her pants. She stopped and looked at me. “Close your eyes,
Lieutenant.”

I smiled and did as I was told, clapping my hands
over my eyes for good measure.

“If we’re going to be living together, I think we’ll
have to come up with a few rules.”

“Cohabitation rules?” I asked.

“Call it what you like, just keep your hands and
eyes to yourself. Okay, you can look now.”

I turned, half expecting her to be laying there
naked, having just played me a minute ago, but I found her bundled
up in her sleeping bag, nothing but her head and arms exposed. It
was for the best I suppose.

She looked at me with dreary eyes. “We’re going to
be okay, right?”

I took a deep breath and looked towards the ceiling.
“I really don’t know, Helena. We may have changed history by
keeping Caligula healthy and sane, but I don’t know how much it
will change. He may never reclaim the throne, and we’ll be targets
right alongside him.” I took a second to think. “And if we can’t
get back to Rome, I don’t know how we’ll be able to find the
sphere. I don’t even know where to start even if we did find it and
I…”

The sounds of soft snores coming from Helena
interrupted me. I glanced over to find her completely asleep. It
was probably just as well. She didn’t need to hear my useless
musings on if and how we can get home. I had no idea about anything
really, and it wasn’t worth speculating at this point. It was best
to stay positive. Lord knows life wasn’t about to get any easier,
and we had to focus on the present. I had no idea when our last day
in ancient Rome would come, but it wasn’t impossible to foresee it
coming soon

One way or another.

Part Three

IX

Legion

Cisalpine Gaul, Italy

April, 38 A.D.

Life in a Roman legion camp was hardly one of
leisure and comfort, or even restful slothfulness for that matter.
In fact, life amongst the legions, even during non-campaigning
months, was in fact nothing less than Hell on Earth. It was one of
hardship, pain, suffering, and plenty of fun things to do. Roman
drill masters and tacticians put me through tests and training
scenarios that may have even driven my drill instructors back in
BUD/S to tears.

Every day it was the same daily grind over and over
again. Enough to drive one insane from repetition, but of all of
us, Helena had it the worst. She was the only woman in the entire
camp, and under normal circumstances, wouldn’t even have been
allowed to enter the gates. Families or other confidants were
rarely allowed to travel with the legions while on campaign, and as
a result, many men became very lonely, very fast, and Helena had to
deal with being an extremely attractive woman surrounded by,
basically, very horny men.

There were three incidents before the boys let her
into their little club, the first of which occurred the very next
morning after we had arrived in camp. One of Galba’s junior
officers had been giving us a tour of the camp when a legionnaire
seated outside his tent cooking breakfast stood up, and spanked
Helena on her supple tush. I suppose she could have been asking for
it. She’d borrowed a pair of Wang’s BDU pants, which because he was
just a little guy, were a few sizes too small, and scandalously
tight on her. It wasn’t until later that I learned she had done
this on purpose. She’d anticipated her need to establish dominance
over the unruly men, and hoped to incite a reaction exactly like
the one she received so she could deal with it quickly.

She wasn’t very thrilled when I stepped in and
defended her before she could do it herself.

As soon as I witnessed the harassment, I snatched
his wrist in a quick motion and turned it in a direction it wasn’t
designed to rotate in. The move forced the man’s body to
instinctively lean back on his knees. I followed up the hold by
kicking the back of his leg, dropping him to the ground. Following
him to the ground, I landed on my back, and simultaneously pulled
his arm so that his elbow rested against my knee. I could have
ended it right there by applying enough pressure and wait for him
to tap out, but his action had infuriated me.

So, pausing for only a moment, just long enough to
make sure the man knew he had made a very stupid mistake, I pulled
on his arm as hard as I could. His elbow bent in the wrong
direction, and I heard a loud pop followed by a crack as I nearly
broke his elbow in half. The crowd reacted with an understandable
gasp of disgust at my results, if not my actions. The man was
punished for assaulting a guest of the camp commander, and spent
two weeks in the stockade after receiving twenty lashes from his
centurion’s olive branch, a ceremonial tool meant for inflicting
pain and punishment in lackluster or disobedient legionnaires.

Later that night, Helena explained her plan, and
though grateful for my help, asked that I let her handle herself
next time.

I agreed.

She didn’t have to wait long.

Two days later, after Galba was satisfied we had
settled into the arduous routine of the camp, had us perform a
similar demonstration to the one we had showed Caligula back in the
Circus Maximus
. The emperor showed nothing but amusement at
the general’s unwillingness to accept his word, and approved the
demonstration.

We shot some armor, blew some holes in the ground,
and Helena shot an apple off the rampart near the
porta
praetoria
from the gate opposite it. Additionally, since we had
plenty of time to spare, Wang demonstrated his self-defense and
hand to hand combat techniques. Wang borrowed from Asian forms he
had known as a boy, and the Special Forces training he had obtained
later to show the Romans many kinds of throws, takedowns, holds,
pressure points, and submission moves, the last of which gave me
the impression he watched just a bit too much professional
wrestling as well.

We all had self-defense training, even Helena
despite her accelerated basic training program, and we had also
trained with Wang during our month long lull period after arriving
in ancient Rome. When Galba invited our entire squad, Helena
included, to help demonstrate and teach these moves to his
centurions and decurions, men just below the rank of centurion, one
of them decided to get a little frisky.

The maneuver was simple. The decurion Helena was
assigned to held a wooden training
pugio
, or dagger, in an
inverted grip, and was instructed to jab it downwards towards her
chest. Helena began her defensive move by grasping his wrist which
held the knife, and followed by ducking under the dagger, putting
her body up against his. This was followed by her final move, using
her hips to toss him over her. It was martial arts 101, but the
decurion had more than the self-defense class on his mind.

Helena was wearing boots, her BDU pants, and a white
tank-top, the same as the rest of us. The difference between us and
her, of course, was her curvy waistline and large breasts, and just
before Helena tossed the decurion, he reached around with his free
hand to fondle them. Successful though he was, his fun didn’t last
long.

To Helena’s credit, she was unphased by her attacker
and followed through with her throw as planned. Instead of ending
it there, she held onto his wrist, twisting it hard, stunning the
man long enough for her to step around his arm, lock her ankles
near his neck, and fall next to him, positioning him in a textbook
arm bar maneuver. However, unlike in a cage match, she broke his
arm, just above the elbow.

The man wailed in pain, clutching his crippled
appendage. As he squirmed on the ground, I saw that the break was
compound, and part of his radius bone pierced his skin. Helena,
calm and collected, got to her feet, stepped around the decurion,
reared her right leg back, and kicked him with the force of a
freight train right in his groin. Unable to determine which body
part hurt more, he continued wailing, but kept switching between
straddling his arm and clutching his balls. Satisfied, Helena
kicked some dirt on the man and turned to leave.

The decurion couldn’t let it go though, and between
cries of pain, managed to call Helena a whore, a bitch, and words I
hadn’t even learned yet. She turned and returned to the man’s
position, who had now given up swearing, and was fearfully trying
to crawl away. Grabbing the man by his broken arm, the pain almost
driving him to unconsciousness, Helena pulled his back off the
ground, and jabbed her middle three fingers into his throat.

She didn’t break his neck, but it took him at least
a minute before he could breathe again, and he never uttered
another word, or even a pained sound, for a very long time after
that.

Finished with her attacker, she turned and came to
stand by Santino and me. The gathered crowd was stunned.
Legionnaires, auxilia, centurions, tribunes, and even Galba himself
stood, mouths ajar, having witnessed everything. Passing by the
general’s position without a word, since her Latin at that point
was still rather horrible, she gave him a look which transcended
the language barrier, saying little more than, “you’d better hope
this never happens again.” Nodding in disbelief, Galba turned, and
left the area. Afterwards, no man in the camp dared even touch
Helena, and those who had to spar with her, were laughably
nervous.

Except for one stubborn dumbass.

By the end of the second week, most of the
legionnaires looked at her with nothing but respect and
friendliness, and offered her the same jibes, jokes, and taunts
they would any other man in the camp. The third incident, however,
happened at the beginning of the third week. Helena and I made our
way to visit Gaius and Marcus when along the way, a nearby
legionnaire offered Helena a wolf whistle. Without pausing, she
thrust her palm upwards into the man’s nose, breaking it. The man
got off the easiest of the three, and he proved to be the last who
treated Helena like an object of interest. She was a legionnaire
now, and while she still received jokes for being a female over the
months, her sharp wit and evil eye always made sure she had the
last laugh.

She slowly became a kind of mascot for the legion.
The combination of her fighting prowess and physical beauty was
very rare in the Roman world, and many legionnaires claimed she was
Minerva personified in human form. Minerva was, amongst many
things, the beautiful goddess of war and warriors, so the stretch
didn’t seem that unbelievable, even to my modern eyes. As the weeks
went on, the men quickly realized they would not get far lusting
over her, but they fell in love with her all the same, bestowing
her with the title
Mater Legionis
, Mother of the Legion.

They even crafted a special suit of legionary armor
specifically for her. Tailored to fit her frame, impressive, since
no measurements were taken, she’d slipped into a red linen skirt
and wool shirt, and draped the tight fitting and battle ready
lorica segmentata
armor over her head, which was custom
molded to fit her comfortably around her chest. She attached a
standard legionnaire belt, a scarlet cape, and pulled on her
likewise newly fashioned
caligae
.

Boots laced and legs flashing, Helena took a stroll
through the camp.

This time, many wolf whistles were offered, but
Helena laughed off each of them, knowing they were offered only in
jest, and directed more towards the armor than herself. She happily
thanked the trio of men who had taken the time to remold the armor
to fit her feminine curves, and even offered the lead designer and
forger a kiss on the cheek in gratitude. The designer rubbed his
face, and had the long, lost look of a man who had just fallen in
love. His fellow men playfully shoved him, unhappy they weren’t
equally thanked, shaking him from his fantasy. Other men, who had
observed the event, offered her swords, daggers, helmets, and other
knickknacks. Helena joyfully ignored them.

As for the rest of us, fitting in was as simple as
making sure we didn’t do anything too stupid. We’d spent the time
gambling, recounting war stories, our own of particular interest to
the legionnaires, and theirs to me, and training.

Training defined the Roman military, as did more
training, and even more training after that. While the Roman’s
benefited from our personal defense lessons, they didn’t spend the
rest of their days lounging either, and neither did we. We learned
enough to hold our own in combat, but we’d never cut it as front
line soldiers in the legions. After two months of hard training,
other duties took us elsewhere. We spent much of that time
analyzing our strategy for the upcoming campaign to retake
Rome.