Free Dreaming the Serpent Spear by Manda Scott Page A

their noise elsewhere. The messenger’s companion, a russet-haired cavalryman, dismounted more neatly into relative silence and stood behind his fallen comrade.
    Petillius Cerialis, legate of the IXth legion, drew in a breath of brine-laden air and directing his voice downwards said, “If you are not dead, perhaps you would care to stand and deliver your message?”
    Valerius lay with his face pressed to the wet grass, and realized that he was genuinely winded so that rising was, for the moment, impossible. Through the tunnel of black that sucked at his diaphragm, he heard Longinus say, in thoughtful Thracian, “You’ve ruined that horse.”
    He had not intended to bring Longinus; very specifically, he had given the former cavalryman tasks that would keep him at the steading watching over the routes from Camulodunum by which a desperate cohort of veterans might march. The Thracian’s name was not the first that had come to mind, therefore, when he heard the horse openly following him on the track north to the IXth legion.
    Pulling the messenger’s strawberry roan off the track, he had waited, and continued to wait while a riderless horse galloped past him. Then, understanding, had said aloud, “Longinus Sdapeze. It’s less than six months since you were half dead with a broken skull and that was my fault. I amoath-sworn to keep you from further harm. You are not coming with me to the fortress of the Ninth.”
    “I would like you to explain how you can stop me,” Longinus had said, from behind his left shoulder. “And you told your sister there was no risk. If they don’t remember one decurion of the Thracian cavalry, I don’t see why they should remember his successor any better.”
    A little desperately, Valerius had said, “They think you’re dead. The veterans of the Twentieth held collections for your memorial stone. That kind of word passes.”
    “Then we’ll raise a wine jug to the incompetence of scribes throughout the empire and celebrate the fact that I am very much alive. I haven’t been indicted for treason. If you’re safe, I’m in no greater danger.”
    So saying, Longinus had pushed out through the spring undergrowth. He whistled and the horse, which had stopped, came back to him. Mounted again, he had grinned, and then stopped, and said, “Do your gods see danger in this for you?”
    “No. Not as long as I hold courage.”
    “Do I lessen that courage?”
    “Never.”
    “Good.” Longinus’ smile had been real for a moment, shorn of the dangerous hilarity with which he faced danger. “Then we have a time to be together, before the real fighting starts. I, too, have things to prove to your sister’s war host before they will believe I have joined their cause.”
    He had swung his horse, and his mood had lightened. “In any case, these horses are too good to waste. If I left you with that roan, you’d give it to the barbarian Batavians and they’d ruin its tendons in a month of bad riding. You needme there to keep it safe for you so you have something decent to ride back down on.”
    It had been better riding north with company, particularly this company. Not for the first time, lying prone on the grass at the legate’s feet, it came to Valerius that, alone of his sister’s close circle, he had no honour guard that might surround him in battle, and nor did he want one; but that this one, solid, unwavering friendship, and the steady humour it offered, was a gift to be treasured.
    It was a pity about the horse.
    He could breathe again, which was good. He counted a few heartbeats longer, then pressed his palms to the turf and levered himself to standing. He swayed a little, and it was not all for show. His hand had a welt across the knuckles, as of a sword cut gone awry. His face, too, was bruised, as if he had fallen from his horse onto rough ground, or been hit a glancing blow by a club. Cygfa had done that, not unkindly, but perhaps with more enthusiasm than might have been