Legionary: The Scourge of Thracia (Legionary 4) Read Online Free

disagreeably hot and dry, carrying with it a tang of dung and vintage armpits. The main way that ran from the Imperial Palace region at the tip of the peninsula all the way to the land walls was bustling as usual; thick with a sea of sweating faces and jostling wagons moving to and fro in a chorus of clopping hooves and babbling voices, a haze of red dust lingering above the throng. The people shoved and shouldered past each other to buy bread, wine, fabrics and spices at the street-side stalls. But there was one face amongst the throng entirely disinterested in trade: a young, lean man with a crop of short, dark hair and a sun-burnished, hawk-like face, heading west along the main road at haste.
    Pavo barged past a pair of squabbling shoppers, straightening the sleeves of his fresh white tunic and brushing a hand across his smooth jaw. After some five months in the burning sands of Persia, such simple pleasures as shaving and clean clothes were still a novelty to be savoured. The very fact he had survived the fraught journey east was a blessing he would never forget.
    A two-hundred-strong vexillatio of the Claudia had been sent into Persia that spring. Yesterday, just five had returned. They had sailed from Antioch, enduring a stomach-churning fortnight at sea before reaching Constantinople and docking at the Neorion harbour in the north of the city yesterday morning. Utterly spent, they had staggered to the dusty little barrack compound that they had left behind earlier that year. His itchy hay-mattress bunk had felt like a silken cradle, and he slept dreamlessly for the rest of that day and most of this one too. Waking just hours ago, he had eaten like a starving beggar with his four surviving comrades in the barracks. Half a pheasant, three bowls of mutton stew mopped up with half a loaf of bread, then yoghurt and honey, finished with a small lake’s worth of chilled water. They had said little as they ate, each man exhausted and acutely aware of their many absent comrades who had fallen in the east. So much had changed during those months in the burning sands. So many questions had been answered, he realised, gulping back the swelling in his throat as he thought of Father. And so many new questions posed, he mused, glancing down to the leather bracelet on his wrist – Father’s last gift to him.
    Numerius Vitellius Pavo, Hostus Vitellius Dexion. Every beat of my heart is for you, my sons.
    He could even hear Father’s voice as he read the etching on the bracelet one more time. A father lost, the promise of a half-brother found. It truly had been a monumental time in the fiery east.
    A sudden waft of floral perfume from a passing group of lead-painted ladies on the way stirred him from memory and reminded him of his destination. All throughout the unpleasant voyage home, he had yearned for the moment when he would be reunited with Felicia. Again, his mind’s eye taunted him with images of her. Her amber locks, her floral scent. Her warm, soft skin against his. Soon it would no longer be a fruitless longing. Before setting sail from Antioch he had sent her a message on the Cursus Publicus , assuring her he was well and would return to her. The imperial messenger would have reached her in a fraction of the time their sea voyage had taken. She would have had days to eagerly anticipate his return.
    He noticed his surroundings growing less salubrious as the road skirted the foot of the seventh hill – with crumbling insulae tenements becoming more dominant than marble edifices. Regardless, the sight evoked a thousand precious memories within him. His early years had been spent here with Father, and now it was home for him and Felicia. He came under the shade of the city walls and the Saturninus Gate and then veered off down a narrow and relatively quiet alley. His boots clattered on the uneven flagstones, drawing glances from the few characters lingering in doorways and looking down from windows. Pavo noticed one hooded