Slats looked at the centurion and opened his mouth as if to comment. Then he spread his limbs and resumed his directions to the village chief, speaking with great earnestness.
* * *
Froggie woke before the man coming down the ladder had reached the top level of the temple’s own staircase. There were two sentries on the temple roof as well as the pair at the entrance. Froggie was with the squad sleeping in the nave of the temple, while for official purposes the other men were distributed in the rooms on higher levels.
When he’d gotten his boots laced, Froggie started up the stairs to meet the messenger. He hadn’t put on his cuirass, but he carried it on his left forearm. The information coming down from the roof wasn’t an immediate crisis—there was a gong for that—but something might blow up while Froggie was talking to the messenger. He didn’t want to be in the dark and a level away from his armor if that happened.
“Top?” Glabrio whispered. Froggie figured it’d be him. “There’s a couple guys went out through the wicket in the gate tower. They started west toward the hills, but from up in the tower we couldn’t see ’em once they got into the brush.”
“A couple of the bodyguards, did it look?” Froggie said.
Glabrio nodded. “Hard to see much by starlight, but they had axes,” he said. “Besides, who else would it be?”
Slats came through the curtained doorway of the room beside them. “Centurion Froggie?” he said. “There is trouble?”
“Naw,” said Froggie. He’d forgotten that the room was occupied. “Not just yet, anyhow. Glabrio tells me a couple barb soldiers went out of the village tonight. Tomorrow night him and me’ll be in the fort with the girls, so if it happens again we’ll follow them.”
Glabrio grinned. “Hoped you might say that,” he murmured.
“Do you think that’s . . . ?” Slats began, but his voice trailed off. He twisted his head fiercely.
“Centurion Froggie,” he said, facing away from the two Romans. The words still whispered from the translator on his chest. “I do not understand what is happening and I’m very concerned.”
“Well, sir,” Froggie said judiciously, “that’s true of the rest of us too. We ought to know more soon, though; and anyhow, we’re working on ways to handle whatever might come up.”
Slats faced around. “I am glad to hear that,” he said, though he didn’t sound glad about much of anything. “I have heard at the Harbor that the aide Three-Spire visits the Commander often in private. And I have heard—I have never seen this!—that sometimes after those private meetings, the Commander dances to music only he can hear.”
“The barb’s fixing up our blue-suited leader with drugs, you mean,” Froggie said bluntly. Glabrio was holding as still as a hare in covert. Froggie trusted Glabrio with anything there was to know, but he doubted the administrator would feel that way except he was so upset.
“I don’t know that!” Slats said, flailing his middle limbs like they were wings. “And even if it were true, why would Three-Spire want to split the legion up into tiny groups? How would he gain if we were all killed?”
“I wouldn’t guess Three-Spire was in charge of whatever’s going on,” Froggie said. “But we’ll know more soon. Why don’t you go back to bed, Slats?”
“To sleep?” Slats said. His mouth gave a clack that the lavaliere couldn’t translate. “How could I do that? But I will try.”
He paused and cocked his head. “Centurion Froggie?” he said. “I hear the sound of tools.”
“No,” Froggie said. “You don’t hear tools. Remember that, Slats. It’s important.”
“Ah,” said the administrator. “I will remember that, Centurion Froggie. And perhaps I will sleep after all.”
* * *
Froggie could stay awake constantly for half an eight-day market cycle if he had to, but pieces started coming off his concentration early on. He’d napped because there was no reason not to. Now he got up, cinched his swordbelt tighter—he hadn’t actually unbuckled it or taken his boots off—and sauntered out of the temple. The guards murmured politely.