Legionary: The Emperor's Shield (Legionary 9) by Gordon Doherty

Author:Gordon Doherty
Format: epub

Chapter 15

April 388 AD

Thessalonica

Months passed, spring came, and the best ambassadors in the East gathered at Thessalonica. The group put their minds to organising the promised delegation that was to travel west. They squabbled about what measures would force Maximus to withdraw from Italia: blocking Western ships’ access to the Eastern ports; cutting vital trade exports to the West; calling on the powerful bishops of the West to denounce Maximus as a heretic. They argued through every daylight hour and every so often one would come stomping out of the palace and buzz to and fro with a batch of scrolls, vexed and tense as they tried to find the emperor to show them these latest proposals.

Yet Theodosius proved evasive. With every passing moment since meeting Galla, he had plunged deeper and deeper into a romantic stupefaction. Day after day, he and she walked the gardens of Thessalonica, his hands busy shaping his words as he told her everything about his past, she learning from him and teaching him of how things had really been in the West. Every so often Theodosius would sink to his knees before her and hug her waist, weeping. Other times he would break into song and begin prancing like a boy before her. Her laughter, pealing across the gardens, became a common sound.

Pavo, on the other hand, had never known boredom like it. Stuck here as long as the emperor remained in the city, his lot was somewhat mundane: the nights were neverending, spent standing watch outside the imperial bedchambers, or lying awake in the palace guard house, listening to the grunting and scratching of Lucius and the other Protectores, all the while thinking of Izodora and Marcus. By day he had to stand in some discreet spot in the gardens – near enough the amorous pair that he might be able to rush to their aid should danger arise, but not so near that he might spoil their affair.

Today, at the centre of a huge lawn, the couple dined upon a reed mat under a canopy. For Pavo, this meant standing at the lawn’s edge, unprotected from the sun, his body warm and sticky. At least, he mused, for this duty he was required to wear only light robes and the white greaves, and to carry a spear – his heavy cloak, armour and the porpax shield Frugilo had crafted for him lay unused in his leather bag in the guard house. Things were not so comfortable for the watchmen down on the sea walls, clad in steel and lugging their shields as they patrolled up and down the battlements, mopping at their sweaty necks with rags. Poor bastards, he thought.

The soft crunch of gravel stirred him. Someone close behind. Someone creeping up.

Pavo swung around, automatically tilting his spear head towards the sound. There, at the hovering sharp end of the lance, stood young Valentinian, the deposed heir to the West. It was the first time they had been face to face like this during his stay in Thessalonica.

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