To Crown a Caesar (The Praetorian Series: Book II) (3 page)

As for our supplies, we didn’t have much
left.  Spare ammunition, a few extra rifles, replacement parts, survival gear and clothing.  We only had a few dozen MREs left, and had been force to relegate them to survival food a year ago.  Besides our weapons, we were living pretty much like every other ancient person.

“What?
”  Helena repeated insistently as she stirred her dinner.

“Nothing,” I told her, a smile still on my face.  “I just can’t get over how beautiful you look tonight.”

She kicked me in the shin beneath the table and I felt a spark of pain shoot up my leg.  Despite her beauty, she had a fiery and violent temper.  I’d lost count of how many times she’d punched, poked, kicked, or prodded me over the years.  Her temper stemmed from a repressive father and an entire life before joining the Pope’s military trapped in a prearranged engagement.  The relationship had been everything but loving or intimate, but before they could wed, her fiancé had died in a car accident, and she had been free of it just before I met her.  We had quickly connected, sharing annoying fathers and sad love lives, and it hadn’t taken long before I’d learned just how volatile she was, and I loved her for it.

“Sorry,” I said, rubbing my shin.  “I
t’s just that I want to take you home and have my way with you.”

She pointed her spoon at me accusingly, an annoyed expression on her face.  “You haven’t said anything like that to me in months, so don’t think I’m going to be impressed now.”

I frowned.  Relationships were hard, especially when forced to live the way we had.  We weren’t the crazily intimate couple we had been after the first few years.  The love and affection was still there, just buried beneath years of survival, pain, and a sense of loss at our predicament.  We had nothing permanent to latch onto, nothing for us to call our own.  All we had was each other, and over time, even that sentiment grew flimsy.  Lately, things had grown worse, but I figured it was just a phase.

Probably.

I ignored her flippancy and tried to push away the annoyance I felt at it.  “Since you seem to be done gluttonizing yourself, I think it’s time I asked whether you brought everything we need or not?”

She looked down at her bowl, perhaps noticing for the first time that she’d been scraping away
at nothing but wood for the past twenty seconds.  Wiping her mouth on a sleeve, she pushed it away.  It was quickly swiped up by a passing barmaid who smiled at me.  I gave her a wink along with a smile full of teeth, only to receive an ice cold stare from Helena in return.

“Yes,” she replied sourly, holding
up one of the three large bags she’d brought with her.  “Everything on the list is here, plus a few things I added at the last moment.  Plenty of ammo for each of us, some C4, NVGs, a few MREs, don’t worry, no beef patties…”

“Thanks,” I interrupted.  For some reason the beef patties
had never sat well with me.

She ignored my interruption.  “…Santino’s UAV, our ghilli suits,
a grappling hook with rope, tranquilizer darts, your wetsuit and Santino’s, along with your breathing apparatuses, some soap and shampoo for me, three bedrolls, and… two tents.”  She described the last item with a bit of disdain, which caused me to wince.  Normally, we shared a tent with no problem, and have a good time of it, but lately the cramped space had gotten awkward.

I broke eye contact with her for a moment, distractedly flaking away some decaying meat that had fused itself with the table.  “Did you get in contact with our sleeper?”

“Yes,” she said.  “His answer was, ‘I’ll think about it.’”

I
nodded.  No surprise there.

All the vital details concluded, we found ourselves with little else to talk about.  I spread my hands out along the edge of the table and gave her an awkward smile.  Her expression was blank as she
stared deadpanned in my direction, clearly not interested in further conversation.  I put my hands in my lap and tried to think of something to say, but just before the silence grew unbearable, a third figure sat down at the table.

I
glanced over to see Santino plop himself down between us, apparently finished womanizing his waitress.  I looked at his scarred and roguish face, the result of a grenade accident during basic that left him with a series of scars along his left cheek and brow, scars that women always found dashing. He sported a short, but scruffy beard these days, a practice he’d picked up during his days in Delta, and had grown out his hair to just before his shoulders, just as I had – only his was curly, whereas mine was more wavy.  His most enduring physical quality, however, was his shit eating grin that spread from ear to ear, and never seemed to leave his face.  Even in the heat of battle, the man’s smile rarely faded. 

He leaned his chair back and crossed his feet up on the table, interlocking his hands
atop his stomach.  He looked at me, then to Helena, back to me and then her again, before staring directly between us.

“Boy… you could cut the tension between you two with a spork.”  He shifted his look
towards each of us in turn again, hoping for a laugh, before settling between us with a sigh.  “I miss sporks.”

Both Helena and I looked at him with mixed look
s of pity and annoyance.  I’d long ago determined Santino would always be Santino.  Even if the world flipped over on its axis, he would never change.  It was a personality quirk I had gotten a kick out of since I’d known him but one that had grown slowly on Helena.

I heard a commotion outside and looked over Helena’s shoulder at the door.  I saw agitated men outside the windows tying up their horses.

“Looks like it’s time for you to go,” Santino informed Helena.

She looked back at us, her eyes lingering on mine just slightly before nod
ding and getting to her feet.  She stood ,but before she could straighten completely, she suddenly doubled over, one hand reaching for the table to steady herself, the other to her abdomen, her face cringing in pain.

“Are you all right?”  Santino asked, rising to help.

She held out the arm she had used to steady herself before answering.  “I’m fine.”

Grabbing one of our bags
and pulling her long traveler cloak’s hood over her head, she quickly transformed from the beautiful but disheveled woman I’d known for years, to yet another random female denizen of the town.  She turned quickly and left.

Ever since Helena
had been at death’s door all those years ago, she’d been experiencing an odd, intermittent pain in her abdomen.  It was probably nothing serious, just some side effect from the extensive procedure needed to save her life.  Even so, I’ve seen her in some of our most tender moments cry out for no apparent reason, only to collapse in pain, her teeth grinding against themselves.  It was because of moments like those that I felt her pain as well.  I should have been there to protect her when it happened like I promised her I would, but I hadn’t, and in the end, she’d paid for it, and the only person I blamed was myself.

“What’s wrong with you two, anyway?”  Santino asked as he sat back down, watching Helena open the door and leave.

“I really don’t know,” I replied, watching her go as well.  “Things have been kinda shaky for a few months now, but I don’t know where I went wrong.  She’s been acting weird.”

“Women,” Santino said mockingly.  “What good are they, anyway?”

“Well, lots of things,” I told him, not rising to the bait.  “They’re pretty to look at, fun to play with and are the vessels through which life is created.”

“That
all?”  Santino asked, unimpressed.  “Anything else?”

“Well,” I thought about it, the last few months replaying in my mind.  “Yeah… you’re probably right.”

“Like I said,” Santino finished with a wink, helpful as ever.

When the tavern door finally opened again, I folded m
y arms across my chest and waited patiently as the men responsible for a family’s murder and the kidnapping of their only daughter walked inside the room and approached our table.  I put on my business face and shut down my emotions, allowing me the fortitude to do what I needed, no matter what that entailed.

I’d need
to because we were going to change the timeline today, and even though I should, I couldn’t care less.  Not when a young girl’s life was at stake.

The five men who walked in were tall, burly and had really bad blond hair
– long and fizzed with gnarly curls – and only a few of them had all their teeth.  They came bursting in as though they owned the joint, and didn’t even pause as they marched straight for my table.  They stopped short with looks of anger and intimidation on their faces, but some with a hint of fear as well.

“You!”  The lead man said in heavily accented Latin.  “
Vani
.  We were told we could find you here!”

Santino looked lazil
y at the speaker, his feet atop the table.  “We’ve been here for two days, champ.  Way to keep up.”

I smiled at my hand while I picked at some grime underneath my fingernails.  I did my best to look uninterested.  Santino took a long swig of the dry wine in his cup, his eyes still locked on the speaker.

The Gauls looked amongst themselves in confusion, unsure how to respond to such a statement.  One of them, perhaps the dumbest of the group, had the bright idea of placing a hand on Santino’s shoulder.  Santino reacted instantly, snatching the man’s hand in his own and twisting it violently while forcing his attacker to his knees.  The wrist didn’t break, but the pain was so bad that Santino simply kicked the man to the ground with a light tap of his foot.  The entire exercise went down all the while Santino took another pull of his wine.

The downed victim clutched his hand while
the leader, who merely smiled, took a seat in the chair Helena had just vacated.  He calmly folded his hands together and looked directly at me, ignoring Santino, who was once again preoccupied with the cute barmaid he had been flirting with earlier.

“If you are
Vani
,” he began, “what are you doing here with the likes of us?”  He spread his left arm out to encompass the entirety of the bar, numerous heads turning to look in our directions.

The ones who did were the ones I’d earlier identified as potential problems.

I ignored him and held out my tumbler for Santino’s wench to refill as she sat perched on his lap.  She laughed as he tickled her and I brought the cup to my lips, noticing the seated man’s patience wan and his hand move threateningly towards his lap.  His body language suggested he was about to stand up, but I held up a hand to dissuade any aggression.  Santino continued his games.

“There is no need for violence, gentlemen,” I informed them.  “My name is Buzz, and this is my friend, Woody.”  I gestured at Santino who smiled at the men stupidly.  Their confusion was more evident than ever.  I leaned in and lowered my voice just a bit.  “I’ll
just be honest with you.  Life isn’t as exciting as it used to be and we’re not getting paid nearly what we want, so we’re seeking… alternative employment opportunities.”

“I
find that difficult to believe,” the man in charge said as he sat back in his chair.  His face seemed deep in thought, something I hadn’t been so sure he was capable of.  But he must have run out of synapses quickly, as his face relaxed and he glanced between Santino and me.  “Are there more of you?”

I shr
ugged.  Between Santino, Helena and I, we’d never given anyone a real opportunity to tell how many of us there really were.  Besides the quick regrouping here, the only time the three of us were together was when we were off on our own in the wilderness.  Our missions were mostly conducted in pairs, consisting of the few combinations the three of us allotted.  Because of our precaution, some people thought there were at least five of us, and I had heard the random rumor of as many as ten.

The man looked around skeptically, perhaps fearing how others would view him in the future were he to trust us
, but we’d run into guys like him everywhere we went: leaders of small bandit groups with more balls than brains, and a lust for gold and riches that overwhelmed more rational thoughts.

He had been as good as convinced
long ago.

“I’ve heard many rumors,” the man explained, “about your abilities and skills.  Some
even say you are gods.”

Roman gods, Greek gods, Gaulic gods, it didn’t matter.  Everyone we ran into always jumped to that conclusion
first, and we never gave them any reason to doubt it.

“
We can demonstrate our worth if you require,” I told him.  “But if you’re satisfied, I want fifty percent of all our earnings.”

My negotiating partner crossed his arms and looked up at hi
s companions.  Not a one said a thing but some glanced amongst themselves awkwardly.  They’d all heard the stories as well and knew we’d be powerful allies… or deadly enemies.

“Thirty percent,” the man haggled.

“Fifty,” I said.

“Forty?”  He asked, knowing full well where I was going.

“Fifty,” I repeated a final time.

The man looked beaten, but still pleased.  “
We must see what you can do first.  Where?”