Macedon
"Message from Gaul, Legate Zhang." Frank rolled his eyes at the servant's entrance, Hazel rolled her hips underneath him to punish him for the distraction.
"Leave it on the table." Frank called and lowered his lips to Hazel's neck.
"It is marked urgent." Frank closed his eyes and loud measured breaths flowed through his nostrils.
"It takes over two weeks for messages to get here from Gaul. It's not that fucking urgent, so get out." Hazel's hands were teasing him under the blanket. The servant had not moved. "Out godsdamnit!" he shouted and the man left the scroll on the table and left. Frank was shaking his head as he turned back to Hazel. She continued to tease him under the blankets.
"You shouldn't yell at people," she murmured as he buried his face in her neck.
"You don't mind it when I make you yell." Despite their being alone Hazel began to blush crimson. Frank enjoyed that about her. Her ability to still maintain a semblance of innocence despite the lives they now had and things they had done. He knew that owning slaves the way they did was hard on her, but she understood the stigmas of the times enough to endure it. He knew she still regretted the day she followed Jason's orders and together the Gemini legions had slaughtered thousands of Macedonians.
He had regret, yes, but he buried it with the hope it would go away. He wished he could put on the face of the old Frank Zhang. He could not do that, he had tried to maintain his personality despite the changes around them and could not. Violence, intrigue, and the subjugation of people had taken their toll on him. It had been nearly six years since the battle of Pharsalus, he was only twenty-nine years old, but he felt like an old man. The stubble that did not come in well was littered with gray, streaks of gray were already on his head, he could not look at a young soldier without thinking "Is he going to be the next of my men that I bury?"
"I'm sorry," he muttered to Hazel and rolled off of the bed. She propped herself on an elbow and watched him pad across the floor.
"Is it that message, or is it just conveniently there because your mind is torturing you again?" His lack of answer was answer enough.
"The things we've done, Hazel. How am supposed to live with them? Slaughter, pillage, I was Primus Pilus for Jason's legion in Africa. We were the first ones into that city before we razed it."
"And I was prefect equitarius and cut down thousands of soldiers in the back. We were the ones that tied burning ropes to our saddles and drug them through the grain fields of the city. We do the only thing we can do, Frank. We promise ourselves that someday, in some way we'll do something that balances the scales for what we've done."
"How did we not see there was something wrong with Jason?"
"We were all young. We did not know what we were doing as commanders, we did what we thought necessary to win. You saw me before the battle. As much as we thought that we understood it wasn't the Twelfth we were leading against monsters, we thought the monsters that war would create. We didn't notice Jason because we were all changing into something we never were before, Frank. Soldiers didn't fight monsters, demigods in formation did. On the plains of Africa, the hills of Macedon, over in the forests of Gaul, here we became soldiers and it was lot fucking easier to watch the enemy die than bury our legionnaires." She managed a short humorless laugh, "We feel bad about it, imagine how Reyna feels, she was the one sleeping with him the whole time."
Frank's face screwed up, "She was?" Hazel gave him a look that read "How oblivious are you?" He shrugged in response.
"Reyna says that Percy is sending agents to Rome to uncover who is behind it all. She also says he is preparing for war in case that doesn't work." He sat down heavily in a chair and rested his forehead into his palm. "He was never as dumb as people made him out to be. Goofy maybe, he could be goofy as hell, but never dumb. I think too many people never saw the parts of him we did on the way to Alaska. He sank back with the seven, at the beginning because he could, after Tartarus because he was frightened of himself. Annabeth was the planner so they said he couldn't, but why would you when the daughter strategy herself is always next to you? I don't want to fight him, Hazel."
"Rome will send us where it wishes, not where we do."
"I'm saying if they tell us to march against him, I might not do it." She looked at him in shock. For all of Reyna's loyalty to Rome, for all of Jason's power and drive, both in their time and now, Frank had always been the duty driven one. He saw the expression on her face. "Duty, right? That's what is throwing you off." She nodded. "Our duty is to the people of Rome, starting a war with King Perseus of the Greeks is not doing that duty. That is duty to the coffers of the Senate and nothing else. Because who is going to pay in blood when the wrath of Greece and the Seas turns its eyes to Rome? Not a single fucking senator is lifting a sword, I can tell you that."
Rome
Once upon a time, Nico's family had lived in Rome. Not the Rome of the Republic or Empire, but the Rome of the Papacy and fascism. Happy fucking homecoming, he told himself. He was currently walking through the house of Jason Grace Macedonicus. His wife, the elder daughter of Scipio Africanus, was currently on her way to a party at the house of another noble woman. Based off the report from the last "party" she attended, curtesy of the young man sent by Drew Tanaka, the was more of an orgy, but Nico was not here to judge.
The two Hunters were positioned outside the house. Zoë was praying at an altar to the fertility goddess Bona Dea, equally comical was Phoebe attempting to shepherd a small herd goats through the street. Nico had entered the house because he was the one who could without opening a door. One of girls sent by Drew were attempting to ingratiate themselves with a senator who seemed to visit Cornelia quite often. It was never long enough to have been a tryst. The other was working on a young auger, the son of a bitch, Octavian. The man had clearly not ever received much affection from the opposite sex because after the first fuck he was hers. It did not appear that he was involved yet, but he had sources they could not reach. The young man was working the party Cornelia was attending and as much as he hated it, Nico had given him permission to do what he had to to get information from Jason's wife.
The upper portion of the house, most of that being the open air sleeping quarters for the household slaves, revealed nothing but a couple of slaves discussing the long absence of the master of the house and his wife having ended a pregnancy that could not have been his. Well, I don't feel bad about ordering the boy into her bed now. She's apparently doing that on her own.
Her and Jason's bedchambers revealed little, neither did the room he suspected to be the salon for entertaining guests. The kitchens were empty of people and information. But as he was about to leave he saw a net full of vegetables move of its own accord. He held up a hand and thought he felt a breeze. He lifted a candle and the flame waivered before going out. Nico turned his gaze to the large cabinet. When he opened it was as one would expect. So I have to move the motherfucker. He braced himself against the wall and with a grunt managed to move the hulking wooden cabinet. The antechamber behind it was small. Only a single desk with a pile of scrolls and message tablets rested upon it. Nico opened the first.
"We have the one you search for. Wait for our messenger then we discuss what you must do to obtain her return." A drawing of a spear was the only signature. Nico dumped all of the items into his bag. Who knows which one will actually answer anything. Or if they will at all. He pulled the cabinet back into place and used the darkness of the antechamber to travel out of the room.
He appeared next to Zoë. She started slightly, then stood and surprised Nico, she put her arm through his playing still the role of a woman needing a blessing from the fertility goddess. She blushed slightly and Nico did little better as Phoebe walked past. "The wife's on her way home. She's bringing our boy with her. Time to leave." The large hunter kept walking, never slowing as she passed the "couple." Nico, having recovered, escorted his "wife" through the streets and markets before arriving at the small hovel they had acquired for the time being.
Phoebe was leaning back against the wall, a cup of wine in her hand. "Don't you two strike a beautiful fucking couple." She was grinning at their clear discomfort. Zoë blush returned while Nico glared at her. There was, and never had been, anything between them.
"It was an act, Phoebe. Two men had leered at me earlier, I thought Nico being there might cause them to forget me if we have to go back." It sounded reasonable to Nico. Phoebe merely scoffed.
"I also happen to be married, Phoebe. To another man, so Zoë does not exactly fit my type." He pulled the documents out of the bag he carried. "We need to start reading these. I found them hidden in the house. Maybe there's something in there that can help."
"We must start then," Zoë said accepting a cup of wine from Phoebe. "This may take a while."
Gaul
The chieftain of the Teutons gave out a loud cry and his warriors started forward. Six legions stood in formation waiting on them. Praetor Reyna commanded the right flank, Jason sat on his horse in the center while Michael Kahale led Legios XVI and XVII on the left flank. He had not been demoted from his command of the Eighth. But between he, Gwen, and Luciano Grupo, he was a better commander. Cavalry fought skirmishes with Gallic cavalry to the flanks while auxiliary velites and archers rained murderous missile fire on the enemy. Reyna was standing in the third rank of her first line in the Ninth. Three cohorts, the first through the third made up her first line. She has removed the tenth cohort and reinforced each of the first three to one hundred and five vice eighty soldiers.
A whistle blew and the front rank held steady while the second moved into position. She should not have been in the ranks. Especially commanding two legions, what in gods' names are you thinking Daughter of War, her mind mocked her. Instead she focused on the rank ahead of her carving through the Teutons as she and the ranks behind her ended the lives of the wounded enemy. The whistle blew again. She surged past the second rank and found herself locking blades with a tall warrior. With a bellow he through his weight behind a sword strike that number her shield arm with its force.
A warrior behind the swordsman thrust out with a spear. It was a low strike, originally aimed at her torso but deflected at her legs. She saw it with plenty of time to react to it. She saw the spear. She saw the opportunity to return to Rome without any questions. She thrust her gladius into the throat of the swordsman and accepted the spear that penetrated the flesh of her thigh. She cried out in pain and then stepped forward with her legionnaires. Daughter of fucking war, she thought as the whistle blew and she held as the next rank surged forward.
"Your horse, Legatus. You're wounded." The tribune was waiting behind the first row of cohorts. She struggled but managed to climb aboard the bay mare. Reyna pulled the red scarf from her neck and wrapped the wound tightly. She surveyed the battlefield. The infantry was pushing forward. The cavalry on the right was in chaos and disorder.
"Tribune Agrippa!" she shouted. The man heeled his horse forward. His father was a senator in Rome. "Take the third row of the Ninth. Extend the flank, support the cavalry. I'll reinforce you as able." He crushed his fist against his breastplate and extended his hand.
"Of course, Praetor Reyna." She was already turning the third row of the Eighth.
"Centurian Marius!" the first and second rows of cohorts were performing a rotation. The first row with the first through third cohorts held position while the fourth through sixth of each pressed into the fray. The Primus Pilus of the Ninth stepped forward. "Order the ninth cohort to support Tribune Agrippa on the flank. The seventh with stay the legion and divide to cover losses in the front row cohorts, the eighth will move to reinforce the Ninth legion." He too slammed a fist into his armor and extended his arm.
"As you command, Praetor." The tribune had added her name because he was a nobleman. The primus pilus was a common soldier but a damned good one. A veteran of Africa, Macedonia, and now Gaul he was only out experienced by Marcus Lucinius, the primus pilus of Legio XII Fulminata. Agrippa, with his four cohorts, was extending the line. The Roman horse, long an Achilles heel of the legion, had held their own but not pushed the enemy back. Like Caesar against Pompey at the original timeline's battle of Pharsalus she intended to prove that disciplined infantry could be decisive against horsemen. The primus pilus of Legio VIII was quickly moving soldiers. Gaps in the front row formations were filled with fresh soldiers from the two third row cohorts of the Eighth. They were four rotations into the second row. Preparatory commands were shoring up the already bloodied first row cohorts to reenter the fight. The tribune of the Eighth looked to her. She waived with her hand and he raised a whistle to his lips. The nearly thirty-two hundred legionnaires prepared themselves in a front nearly eight hundred men across.
Reyna dropped her hand. The second row of cohorts froze in place as the bloodied lead cohorts marched forward, their swords pounding against their shields in blood lust. To her far right the four cohorts with Tribune Agrippa were pulling Gallic horsemen from their horses and dispatching them with gladii and pila. Scuta were being thrust at horses' faces causing them to balk and buck. The Teuton's left flank, the enemy in front of her was collapsing.
"Secunda aciem progressus. CUNEUM FORMATE!" Both second rows began to form their wedge for the assault. Reyna was at the lead of the Ninth's advance. The first rows were on mass an advance of the second. She never felt the Gallic arrow tear into her chest on the right side near the top of her breast. She tumbled from her horse and her soldiers rushed past her body on their advance to victory.