William Watson
Clavius Peronicus is a
soldier in the Roman army. He misses his home and would really rather not be a
soldier, but financial circumstances have forced him to find a source of
income. He hates everything about the military life: the physical training, the
dirty conditions of the field, the system of hierarchy and obedience, the way
veterans pick on and abuse him due to his partial African heritage, and in
general the hardships of the military way. He constantly voices his discontent
with everything to just about everyone who will listen, and has been berated
(often very harshly and painfully), by officers who were close enough to
overhear. He especially hates the commander of his legion, Gauis Artulius who
once kicked him down into the mud when he knelt down to pick up a letter from
his father that he had dropped and laughed outrageously, making him the joke of
the legion for the next month. Clavius has fumed at the thought of the
commander ever since, and it was well known within his unit that he hated the
commander with zeal most reserved for the barbaric enemies they were paid to
kill.
One
night all hell broke loose. Gauis Artulius was found dead sitting in his chair
in his tent, killed by dagger through the heart. They were currently fighting the
Northern Africans, but they were still two weeks from the nearest encampment,
and their scouts had not seen any advance units at all. Therefore, an inside
job was highly suspected, and the investigation immediately concluded that the
only individual who would do such a thing would have to fulfill three criteria:
they would have to be traveling with the legion, they would have to have some connection
to the Africans, and they would have to not be viewed as an enemy by the
commander as there were no signs of struggle whatsoever so the commander was at
ease. This did not look good for Clavius.
