“Come on up,” the agent called. He did not turn his head.
“I thought you must be asleep,” Sabellia said as she walked out onto the top floor of the watch tower.
Perennius was wrapped in his cloak with his back to one wall of the parapet. The high curtain of clouds had thinned enough that the moon was a noticeable glow in the heavens. There were no stars. The agent shook back his cowl when Sabellia settled carefully on the dewy stones beside him.
“Thought it might be a good place to get some sleep tonight,” Perennius said. He looked at the woman, then motioned around the tower with his eyes. “Reminds me too much of back when I was a kid on guard duty, though. I just dozed, waiting for Franks to hit the palisade.”
The cloak Sabellia wore was the one a pirate had given her while she gathered herbs and poison. The brown wool was the same soft shade as her hair, since the light was too faint to show colors. “It’s going to be dangerous tomorrow,” the woman said. Her sandals peeked out beneath the hem of the cloak. Her hands kept the garment tight about the rest of her body.
Perennius shrugged. “It’s always dangerous,” he said. He met her eyes and added, “I’m sorry about Quintus. I – wouldn’t have had it happen that way if I’d planned a little better.”
“I think he wanted to do something himself,” the woman said, letting her eyes drift up toward the empty sky. “He was jealous, you know.”
“Listen,” the agent said. The statement had touched a sore point. “I may not be the best damned leader going, but I am in charge. I don’t expect a lot of crap from centurions under me!”
“I don’t mean that, Aulus Perennius,” Sabellia said.
“Oh,” Perennius said. He looked away, feeling foolish. “Well. I never gave him cause, I think.”
“Maybe I did, then,” Sabellia said. Her bare arm reached out to Perennius. He twisted clumsily to meet her. He was trapped by his own weight on the folds of his cloak. Sabellia’s garment opened as her arms released the front hems. She wore nothing beneath the soft wool.
When Perennius cupped her breast, the woman shuddered. He cursed and jerked back, ashamed of his awkwardness and of forgetting the bruises and cuts that laced her torso.
“No, no, darling,” Sabellia whispered. One of her arms drew his head down while the other caught his hand and pressed it back to the breast. “Not pain, no.” Her flesh was firmer than he expected, and the nipple was already rising to meet his tongue.
Perennius had time to wonder whether Sestius had been given a similar send-off the night before. But that really did not matter.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
“If this doesn’t work,” Perennius said, “the best I can suggest is you gather up people in Tarsus, archers, slingers. Artillery for the dragon. It’ll take somebody as persuasive as you are, but it’s better than trying it alone if we don’t make it back.” The agent was aware that the bronze facemask muffled his voice to those outside while it made the words echo in his own ears. His voice was hollow, as hollow as he felt the words themselves to be.
Perennius’ headgear was hot, heavy, and almost blinding. He bent over at the waist, directing his eyeholes like weapons at Calvus as she lifted up the bar of the gate. Perennius could not see what her expression was as she said calmly, “They’ll probably use area weapons, despite the traces that would leave for the future to find. They wouldn’t do that in Rome or even Tarsus, because there’d be too many surviving witnesses to pique the curiosity of a later age. Out here … if they think they know where I am, they’ll risk a few acres of glazed earth so long as it’s an anomaly in the wilderness rather than a disaster more riveting than Pompeii.” The gate began to creak open as Calvus pulled at it.
“Still clear,” called Sabellia from the roof of the gate house. The dragon, the allosaurus, patrolled a broad territory. The best way Perennius had come up with to deal with the monster was to avoid it. Riding north while the beast was still to the south of the inn was a good way to achieve that end. Perennius wasn’t a hero. Heroes gained fame and medals for the chances they took. Aulus Perennius had instead a reputation for getting the job done. If he had any regret about that fact, it was that the job he wished to do more than anything else was to save the Empire. That was beyond him as it was beyond every man. And perhaps beyond all men, the agent thought in the gloom of his nightmares.