Cursor's Fury (Codex Alera #3)(31)

Tavi shook his head. "Aren't men like that going to be bad for the Legion as a whole?"

Magnus smiled a little and shook his head. "Not under Captain Cyril. He lets his centurions maintain discipline in whatever way they see fit."

Max twirled his baton with a sunny smile.

Tavi pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Will all the veterans be like them?"

Max shrugged. "I suspect that most of the High Lords will do everything in their power to keep their most experienced men close to home. No Legion has too many veterans, but they all have too many slives like Nonus and Bortus. "

"So you're saying the only men in this Legion will be incompetent fish-"

"Of which you are one," Max said. "Technically speaking, sir."

"Of which I am one," Tavi allowed. "And malcontents."

"And spies," the Maestro added. "Anyone competent and friendly is likely a spy."

Max grunted. "They can't all be rotten. And if Valiar Marcus is here, I suspect we'll find some other solid centurions where he came from. We'll slap the scum around enough to keep them in line, and work the fish until they shape up. Every Legion has this kind of problem when it forms."

The Maestro shook his head. "Not to such a dramatic degree."

Max shrugged a shoulder without disagreeing. "It'll come together. Just takes time."

Tavi nodded ahead of them, to a tent three or four times the size of any others, though it was made of the same plain canvas as all the rest. Two sides of the tent were rolled up, leaving the interior open to anyone passing by. Several men were inside. "That's the captain's tent?"

Max frowned. "It's in the right place. But they're usually bigger. Fancier."

Magnus let out a chuckle. "That's Cyril's style."

Tavi drew his mount to a halt and glanced around him. A slim gentleman of middle age appeared, dressed in a plain grey tunic. The eagle sigil of the crown had been stitched into the tunic over his heart, divided down the middle into blue and red halves. "Let me take those for you, gentlemen." He glanced at each of them and then abruptly smiled at the Maestro. "Magnus, I take it?"

"My fame precedes me," the Maestro said. He pushed the heels of his hands against the small of his back and winced, stretching. "You have the advantage of me."

The man saluted, fist to heart, Legion fashion. "Lorico, sir. Valet. I'll be working for you." He waved, and a young page came over to take the horses.

Magnus nodded and traded grips with the man, forearm to forearm. "Pleased to meet you. This is Subtribune Scipio Rufus. Centurion Antillar Maximus."

Lorico saluted them as well. "The captain is having his first general staff meeting, sirs, if you'd care to go inside."

Max nodded to them. "Lorico, could you direct me to my billet?"

"Begging your pardon, centurion, but the captain asked that you attend as well."

Max lifted his eyebrows and gestured to Tavi. "Sir."

Tavi nodded and entered the tent, glancing around the place. A plain le-gionare's bedroll sat neatly atop a battered old standard-issue travel chest. They were the only evidence of anyone residing in the tent. Several writing tables stood against the walls of the tent, though their three-legged camp stools had been drawn to the tent's middle, and were occupied by one woman and half a dozen men. There were another score or so of armored men crowded into the space the tent provided, all of them arranged in a loose half circle around an unremarkable-looking bald man in armor worn over a grey tunic. Captain Cyril.