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Chapter 39

“Uther!” I shouted from the doorway. “Stop chasing your brother with that knife!”

Always Uther, forever Uther! I stood there with my hands on my hips and my heart in my mouth as the little lad glanced back over his shoulder, laughed at my fraught expression, and continued the pursuit. Aurelius—older, faster, easily outdistanced his little brother—was never in any real danger. Even so, I did not think it prudent for a child of four summers to be wielding a dagger as long as his arm and running with it. So unruly, these two! If either of them live to see ten summers it will be a marvel, I thought, dashing out the door.

Joining the chase, I sent up a quick prayer for the their protecting angels to be at the ready and the Good Lord to keep them safe in the palm of his hand—at least until I could get the knife away from Uther’s tight little fist. That boy! Where he got the knife, I could only guess—but since our home lay within the protecting walls of Constantia, a large and active military garrison, my guesses did not have far to travel to find a home.

“A flame-haired firebrand” is what Centurion Vitus called Uther, and he was not wrong. Though three years younger than his brother, Uther was ounce-for-ounce as strong and thought himself just as clever and capable of doing everything Aurelius did. He was headstrong as a mule and quick as a ferret, and there was no stopping him. Even as a barefoot toddler, once he set his mind to a thing he could not be diverted.

Vitus, watching from the yard, thought the mad chase hilarious; he often took a mild view of such japes. After Helena’s death, the this Armorican soldier had adopted both boys as a sort of guardian angel and advocate. One of the younger of the garrison’s centurions, he had already suffered the grief of losing his wife and daughter in childbirth, and this experience bound him to Aridius and Aridius’ two young sons. But he had a special place in his heart for Uther. “A real little soldier,” Vitus would say, and named him “the Littlest Legionary” although he knew it rankled my more tender maternal feelings to have either of my sons spoken of in this warlike way.

But what could I do? We were living in the center of a veritable military city, and the boys were surrounded by soldiers and all things soldierly every day: swords, shields, pikes, spears, armor, horses, and more: vexillum, and ballista, and galea, and buccina, and things I knew not what. But Aurelius and Uther knew. They knew all this and more because whatever they asked Vitus would tell them. Those two followed him around like small shadows.

Indeed, in time I learned that if ever I wanted to find them, I only had to locate the Vitus and the boys would not be far away. If he was not teaching them some new skill or maneuver, he was watching over their play and practice. The patience of the man was heroic! More than once through those early years—those difficult years—I had cause to bless the man and pray thanks to the Good Lord for Vitus and his tireless care. All the more so because, as one of the senior commanders of Legio Flavia Gallicana, he also had his daily duties to perform.

Dear Vitus . . . the man was a gift from God. I loved him, yes I did. Yet, if there were times I blessed him, there were times I could have cursed him for his casual disregard of my motherly concerns.

“You need to let them risk their necks from time to time, Aureliua,” Vitus would tell me. “It’s the making of them as men.”

“Only if the risk pays off!” I’d shout. “If these horrid games go wrong they won’t live long enough to be men!”

The two young scamps would disappear in the morning I would not catch sight of any of them again until they came dragging back at sunset: hair matted with sweat, thirsty, covered in mud and muck from nape to sole, too tired to wash, too tired to eat. More than once they fell asleep over their bowls—spoon in hand, head on table—and had to be carried to bed. Everything they saw the soldiers doing, they did, imitating the moves and feints of training with their ashwood swords and hazel spears, and marshalling the sons and daughters of the garrison’s soldiery into their own cohort of children.

My cardinal principle, the only rule I was able to enforce with any regularity was that they must stay within the walls of the garrison, where everyone knew them. I also insisted that the sons of a legate should spend at least half-as-much time with their slates and stylus as they did with their sword and shield. I made sure they kept at it until they could read and write a passable letter. All the same, learning sums and written Latin never captured their imaginations the way soldiering did. So far as Aurelius and Uther were concerned, time spent with Brother Theodorus—the priest who oversaw Bishop Gosselyn’s school for the garrison’s younger children—was merely time away from practice in the yard, where all their interests lay.

And it only got worse after they learned to ride.

That could not be prevented, even if I had tried. The garrison stables were full of some of the finest horses in Gaul and, thanks the stable master, the legate’s sons had full and ready access to a mount whenever they wished. When the boys were first learning to ride, Matteo, our Master of Horse, would steer them to the older, gentler, more indulgent of the animals in his keep—those too docile to fight, that were now more used to pull carts and wagons. Later, when they had grown sufficiently skilled and practiced, the boys could take whichever horse they fancied and so, inevitably, chose the fastest, most high-spirited beasts in the garrison. So long as the animals were not required for official service, Matteo was happy to allow them to ride since it exercised the horses for him and he knew his commander approved. Aridius always looked on his sons’ achievements with glowing fatherly pride. His encouragement was boundless as his love for them.

I did not begrudge the lads their father’s affection and attention, nor did I yearn for more from my husband than I received. Aridius did love me, I know. That I was not his first love, I knew that, too. Helena would always have primacy in his heart. But because I also loved her, I never felt the slightest twinge of jealousy. If I wanted for myself the bond the two of them had once shared, I would never have agreed to marry Aridius. I knew that her place in his life was never his to give away.

Helena, at the last when she knew she was dying, did what she could to release him from his deep attachment. In fact, it was she who encouraged Aridius and me to marry. Even so, there would never be a complete release for Aridius; nor did I expect that there should be. I accepted what I was offered and that offer was genuine. I was content—more than content: I was happy. Even though I was pulled in every direction at once, run to blisters, and harried from dawn to dusk just keeping up with my two young warriors, I was ever mindful of the great, good Providence that made my life so rich. The Gifting Giver, as Tomos used to say, had bestowed on his servant all that she could bear and more! Often, I sat in the little oratory a stone’s throw outside the garrison wall—eyes full of tears—overwhelmed by joy and gratitude for the life I had and the blessings showered upon me. I was happier than a deaf girl from Venta had any right to be, and well I knew it.

The first great test of that boundless Providence arrived when, one day a trumpet sounded at the gates.



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