Free Nobody Loves a Centurion by John Maddox Roberts Page A

were anything especially atrocious: just one of the many hazards of soldiering, like wounds and inclement weather and being captured by barbarians for torture and human sacrifice.
    “It’s happened before,” Burrus said, reading my thoughts. “But never in the Tenth.”
    “Has Vinius always been here in the Tenth?” I asked. Some men spent their whole careers in a single legion, but senior officers were sometimes transferred.
    “No,” Burrus said. “He was with Caesar in Spain a few years ago, one of the first order centurions in the Seventh.” This meant he had been one of the centurions of the First, Second, and Third cohorts, who were senior to the other centurions of the legion. At least, this was how it was back then. I understand things have changed since the First Citizen’s military reforms. I hope the changes have been for the better, but I doubt it.
    “Why did Caesar want him in particular?”
    “You don’t make the first order without being good at your job,” Quadratus opined. “He’s a good soldier, at least on the march and in camp. We haven’t seen him in battle yet.”
    “And,” Burrus added, “he has a set of phalerae that he wears for ceremonial parades. They don’t award those for good behavior.”
    Phalerae are massive, circular medallions worn mounted on a strap harness and worn over the armor. They are decorationsawarded for extraordinary valor, so awe-inspiring that men who won them actually wore them into battle, although they were nothing but an encumbrance and extra weight.
    Something whizzed past my head and I brushed at my ear, thinking it was some night-flying insect. Both sentries swung around to face the outer darkness and raised their shields to just below eye level. They did this so perfunctorily, seeming bored by yet another military chore, that at first its significance escaped me.
    “That was an arrow, Patron,” Burrus informed me. “You’d best duck below the palisade or get behind us, seeing as you’re not carrying a shield.” Even as he said it I heard an arrow thunk solidly into the chest-high wood of the palisade. From the gloom outside the camp came the sound of Gauls hooting and shouting.
    I edged behind them. “I’m going to have a few words with Carbo,” I said. “He was supposed to stop this sort of thing.” I was appalled at how badly my military instincts had eroded. In a Roman alley I could sense danger coming from any direction. Here, it seemed I was as helpless as a tribune on his first day of service.
    “Not much chance of that,” Quadratus said. “These Gauls get around in the dark like bats.” A slingstone smacked off the hide-sheathed wood of his shield with a crack that rang in my ears.
    “Shouldn’t we raise the alarm?” I asked, embarrassed that I, an officer, had to solicit advice from a couple of common legionaries.
    “It will have to get a lot worse than this,” Burrus told me. “We don’t wake the whole camp for a few arrows and stones.The barbarians aren’t even very close, or we’d have been catching javelins by now.”
    “It’s what the Gauls want, you see,” Quadratus added. “It’s to keep us on edge and wakeful. The less sleep we get, the worse shape we’ll be in on the day we fight them in force, in the open.” Another stone clanged loudly off the bronze-sheathed rim of his shield. He felt for damage. “Damn! Put a dent in it. No, Captain, we only raise the alarm if they make an assault on the camp, and they can’t get past the rampart in big enough numbers for that, so it’s just this petty harassment every night.”
    “At least it’s every third night for you two,” I said.
    “Don’t we wish,” Burrus said. “Vinius said he found leather mold on our tent this morning. We stand sentry every night until he tells us otherwise.”
    “After a full duty day?” A stone hurtled over my head, making a sound like a large bee hurrying to a distant flower. “I’ll speak to Caesar about