Free Legionary: The Scourge of Thracia (Legionary 4) by Gordon Doherty

all, he realised. As he wrenched his boot free, he heard her voice. Her throaty, sultry voice.
    ‘Even that foul wine they make here is tempting right now. It’ll warm my blood and make me numb to my filthy, damp tent,’ she said then craned her neck back and yawned, stroking her neck as she did so.
    The words were anything but sensual, but the way she said them sent the blood rushing to Pavo’s loins. Well, it has been a long time, he thought.
    ‘I hear your man is coming to the camp soon?’ the light voice of some unseen other woman said. ‘So perhaps you will have more than wine to keep you warm at night?’
    Pavo frowned. Had word somehow reached her that he was alive and well and coming for her?
    ‘I know that look,’ the other said. ‘You’re in love! It’s true, isn’t it?’
    ‘Am I in love?’ Felicia chuckled. ‘No . . . ’
    No? Pavo’s smile faded and a scowl began to form.
    ‘Well, maybe,’ she added. ‘Yes . . . yes I am,’ she admitted finally.
    Pavo’s smile returned and he steadied himself, trying to slide on his boot in the dark as he listened in. Just then, through the sliver of tent-flap, he caught sight of the other woman, older, with grey-flecked hair. ‘Wading in blood and amputated limbs is no place for you. As an officer’s woman, surely you could be anywhere but here?’ she said. Pavo felt his chest prickle with pride, and when one sour-faced off-duty legionary stalked by, scowling at him, Pavo shot him an imperious look, as if to say, I’m an officer, don’t you know?
    ‘Ah, perhaps, but I came here by choice. I came here to help. And in any case, the life of a primus pilus’ woman is not the life for me.’
    Pavo felt a cold pang of confusion. A primus pilus’ woman? This sent him wobbling on his one booted foot.
    ‘Wanting for nothing in some countryside villa? My mind would eat itself. A marble cage, as I see it. The primus pilus can have his pick of servile women, of that I have no doubt. But if he wants me, then he has to understand me.’
    There it was again. Primus Pilus? Who was this Primus Pilus? His chest prickling with jealousy, he made the snap decision to confront her there and then. He wrenched on his boot, stood tall, sucked in a breath, strode for the tent flap . . . then tripped over a mud-disguised and badly-placed guy rope, splashed face down in the mire and skidded inside the tent, face and body plastered with filth.
    The older woman inside screamed.
    ‘What the?’ Felicia yelped, leaping back, snatching up a scalpel.
    Pavo, clambering to all fours, waved his hands in supplication. ‘It’s me!’ he spluttered, spitting sod from his lips.
    But Felicia shielded the older woman and backed around the scarred and bloodied surgical table in the centre of the tent. ‘We’ve had drunks, lechers and thieves crawling in here at all hours. So I don’t care if you’re bloody Mithras himself,’ she hissed as she held the scalpel up like a dagger. ‘Come any closer and I’ll have your balls off!’
    Pavo hurriedly wiped at his face and swiped the worst of the mud from his hair. ‘Felicia. It’s me!’ Seeing her eyes dart over him uncertainly, he rummaged to pull a strip of filthy cloth from his belt, then shook the mud from this too, unmasking it as a rather sorry-looking strip of red silk.
    She gasped, dropped the scalpel and stumbled back against a wooden cabinet. ‘Pavo?’ she croaked.
    Pavo nodded, coming closer, swiping the remnant mud from his face. ‘I . . . I . . . ’
    Suddenly, the older woman, in a fit of boldness, swept up the dropped scalpel and rushed for him, her face pinched and her shrill cry filling the tent.
    Pavo leapt back from her wild swipe at his crotch.
    ‘Lucilla, No!’ Felicia cried. ‘He’s a friend!’
    Pavo grasped Lucilla’s wrist, squeezing it so she dropped the implement. The woman staggered back, grumbling, clutching her wrist. ‘I’m sorry,’ he pleaded with her. ‘I’m not one of them, ’ he nodded