» Sat May 28, 2011 6:43 am
About time for a new post. Once more what I had originally planned to be only one chapter has turned into three. This current one I am posting is something I had in mind for a long time, but I never had it envisioned in a way for it to work. Then a few nights ago it came to me, and I have been writing furiously to get it on the screen. This will be the first, but not the last, chapter written from the pov of Volsinius. Because it is about him and his life, it has a lot of military titles, which are entirely based off the Roman Legions of the early principate. I have used the latin names for ranks as I think it adds flavor, but I have tried to write it in such a way that you can understand what means what.
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Chapter 9a - The Grass Crown
Volsinius stood alone at the gate between the Market and Arena districts. A steady flow of people shuffled past him, going from one section of the city to the other. Most were working folk dressed in wool or threadbare linen, a few were wealthier commoners in finer, cleaner linen. Here and there was a noble in velvet and lace, and to balance them out a street urchin or two wearing nothing but dirty sack cloth.
Out of habit he glanced down the streets that curved away to either side along the wall. Then he turned to cast another look through the open gate to the Arena District. Nothing was out of place, he thought. No guilty eyes flashing in every direction that gave the apprentice thieves away, nor the hard, measuring gazes of their masters.
Where was Brekke? he found himself thinking. It was nearing the noon hour, and he had not seen her all day. The girl had to be hungry by now, he thought. She had better not be stealing food again?
That is when he saw something that was very out of place. Stalking down the main street of the Market District was his Watch Commander, centurion Hirtius. His transverse crested helmet was on his head, and the vine staff that marked his authority was clenched tightly in his fist. Whatever this is, it cannot be good, Volsinius thought. Hirtius always took his lunch in the watchtower at this time. If he was out on the street he was likely to make someone else regret it.
"Legionary Volsinius!" the centurion's bark rang out down the street as he approached in a clangor of armor plate.
"Centurion." Volsinius' frame snapped rigidly upright as he brought his closed fist to his chest with a clash of steel on steel.
"I don't know who your friends are, but they sure have connections," the junior officer said dryly as he stepped in front of Volsinius and returned the salute.
"Sir?" Volsinius said, wondering what the centurion was up to.
"You are to immediately report to Legate Phillida at Fifth Legion headquarters," the shorter Imperial said.
"Sir, my relief has not arrived yet," Volsinius said, his eye once again darting down the side streets. "There is no one to watch the gate."
"I'm your relief soldier," the centurion spat. "Now get a move on, the legate isn't going to like waiting."
"Yes sir." the response flew from Volsinius' lips as reflexively as had his salute. Leaving the centurion behind him, he marched down the main thoroughfare that cut through the Market District. The road was crowded with people of all races, but he had no difficulty making his way. With his height and bulk, not to mention armor, the waves of humans and elves parted before him with ease.
His eye glanced at Jensine's shop as he passed by the arcade in which it was located. Simplicia was sweeping the cobblestones in front of the store. Her withered frame was clad in a simple green and brown dress. Her face was lined and weather-beaten, and her hair a grey tangle. She was only fifty years old, Volsinius knew, just a decade more than he was himself, yet she looked as old and withered as a seventy year old.
In his mind's eye he conjured up the Imperial woman as she was twenty years ago. Her hair had been as dark as Nocturnal then, and her skin smoother than cream. He remembered the gentle curve of her wide hips and the firm plumpness of her briasts. Even now he could see her smiling as wicked as a Daedra princess as she beckoned him into her bed at the Peony Pavilion. He could smell the jasmine and sandalwood of her perfume, and still feel her hands running over his features?
Volsinius jerked his head away as Simplicia turned and looked straight at him. Damn! he cursed inwardly, there he was again, wool-gathering about the old days. He could forget about all of the other prosttutes he had been with, usually as soon as he left their bordellos. So how come after all these years he was still thinking about her?
With an effort he pushed the image of the young, voluptuous Simplicia from his mind. That was the last thing he needed to be thinking about when he had been summoned to the legate's office. What in the name of Talos would Phillida want with him? he wondered. For that matter, how would the commander of an entire Legion even know that a simple foot soldier like him even existed?
Whatever it was, it could not be good, he thought. The last thing any legionary wanted was to be noticed by an officer. Nothing but trouble could follow.
With that uncertain dread in the back of his mind Volsinius marched to the center of the city, where the White Gold Tower rose up high into the blue summer sky. Around it sprawled the many buildings of the palace complex, enough to make for a small city in its own right. At the wide entrance to the complex stood a double row of praetorian guardsmen, clad in shining armor inlaid with gold-plated dragons.
What a bunch of peacocks, Volsinius thought as he approached, probably softer than a feather pillow too? He would sooner have one girl like Teresa with him in a fight than a dozen of them. He took off his helmet and tucked it under one arm so they could see what a real solder looked like, and strode past them with his back straight and head held high.
He had never been to the Imperial Palace before, but he had no trouble finding the wing that housed the headquarters of the Fifth Legion. He only had to follow the grey, dragon-emblazoned tunics that soldiers wore when not in armor.
In no time he was in the outer office of the legate, staring at a one-legged cornicularius. The senior clerk walked from the general's inner office with a crutch under one arm, and carried a stack of parchments tucked under the other. He was older than Volsinius, with closely-cropped hair that looked more grey than black, and his scarred face had the texture of old leather.
"What in Oblivion happened to you son, fall asleep in the fire?" the clerk laughed as he looked Volsinius over.
"Happens every time I drink too much Nordic Whiskey!" Volsinius returned the laugh with one of his own. "What about you, a mudcrab get the best of you?"
The other man laughed as well. This was no strutting peacock, Volsinius thought, but a real soldier like himself. It was the last thing he expected to find in the polished marble and silks of the palace, but a relief none the less.
"So what on Nirn are you doing here soldier?" the clerk asked as he laid down his parchments and eased behind a wide desk. "Shouldn't you be out killing something?"
"Legionary Volsinius reporting as ordered." Volsinius snapped to attention again. He did not salute. A cornicularius was staff position, he knew, but still one belonging to a legionary like himself rather than a ranking officer.
"Oh, so you're Volsinius then?" the other soldier said with cocked eyebrow, then motioned to a bench along one wall. "I'm Lentulus, the chief parchment-pusher here. Have a seat until the legate's ready for you. It'll probably be a while yet, he's got a meeting with the Watch Commanders right now."
Volsinius sat as instructed, laying his helmet beside him on the marble bench. A moment later a group of librarii entered the room with more paperwork for the cornicularius, and the one-legged man sent the lesser clerks away with the parchments which he had brought from the legate's office.
Volsinius waited as the day crawled by. After twenty years in the legion he was used to waiting. Half of the time waiting was all a soldier ever did, he thought. Then the other half it was hurrying to go somewhere else to wait.
In time a group of men clad in shining armor even more resplendent with gold and silver than that of palace guards issued from the legate's office. He recognized them immediately as his legion's tribunes, remembering Hieronymus Lex from his time at the Waterfront, and of course his current commander Audens Avidius. The others he did not know by their faces, but their armor said it all. Most of them did not appear to even notice him as they walked out, except Lex, who looked him straight in the eye and nodded.
The cornicularius was hobbling into the inner office then, and when he returned a moment later he motioned Volsinius within.
"The legate will see you now," he said.
