Don’t ask me when Nova Roma III will be available to read; I don’t know. I’m keeping a lot of balls in the air right now. But enjoy this teaser, and rest assured that I intend to keep bringing you all great Monday fiction.

***

The Tacitean Academy, north of Durobrivia

Located ten mille north of the city of Durobrivia, the Tacitean Academy of Transalpine Tsalesia was laid out in an enormous square.  The road from the city led up to an enormous building of gray stone with guard towers at the front corners.  The school’s administrators worked in the stone building.  To the sides stood large wooden buildings housing classrooms and the personal offices of the instructors.  The two sides of the quarter-mille square were made up of wooden barracks; a row of stables and storage buildings closed an enormous parade field within the square.

The entrance hall for new cadets was in the leftmost portion of the stone building, behind an enormous marble statue of the school’s founder, the famed giant Ursus Tacitus.  The huge, lantern-jawed, broad-shouldered figure stood as a sentinel, with one foot placed on an uncarved chunk of stone; his right hand held an old-fashioned gladius held to the sky, while his left cradled several scrolls, thus simultaneously representing martial skills and scholarship.  The statue’s carved breastplate bore images of Mars and Jupiter; a carved bearskin was about his shoulders, the bear’s head placed atop the head of the heroic figure.

As did most of the boys, Gaius Vulpes Minimus stopped to examine the great statue, ignoring the heat and humidity so common to the open country north of Durobrivia in September.  Ursus Tacitus was worth the discomfort.  He was a hero out of legend, and the standard to which all cadets were expected to aspire.

The line at the entrance hall seemed interminable, but Gaius had finally made it to the front of the line where a grizzled old soldier in the uniform of a Cornicularius Primus sat behind a large wooden table, piles of parchment in front of him.  “Name,” he barked at Minimus.

“Gaius Vulpes Minimus,” he replied.

The Cornicularius shuffled through the parchments.  “Here you are.”  He looked up.  “Stand at attention while I take your particulars, boy!”

Gaius’ father had explained the soldier’s posture; he assumed the position of attention as best he could.

“Home?”

“Prospero, Trans-Mesizibi Province.  South of Prospero, in fact, my father farms there in the….”

“My father farms there, sir,” the Cornicularius corrected.  He dipped a quill in an ink pot, scribbled on the parchment.

“Sir,” Gaius replied.

“Reference to the Academy?”

“Yes sir,” Gaius said, proudly.  “My father, sir.  Marius Secunda Ofilio.  He was an Academy graduate and served a decade in the Eleventh Trans-Mesizibi Legion.”

“His last rank in the Legion?”

“Second Spear Centurion, sir.”

More scribbling.  “Very well.  Go through that door, boy.  The physicians will have a look at you.”  He jabbed a thumb at a wooden door in the wall behind him.  He let out an enormous yawn and bellowed, “Next!”

Gaius was ordered to strip; an elderly physician with a white owl’s feather embroidered on his legionary’s tunic looked at his teeth, in his eyes, prodded Gaius in some extremely personal and uncomfortable places and pronounced him fit.

Following the examination, Gaius was ordered through another door into a long hallway, where he joined another line of boys, all naked, all extremely uncomfortable.  A tall, thin man in the uniform of a Decanus-Second emerged from another doorway.  “Line up for uniform issue, you lot,” he barked.

A soldier’s tunic was traditionally red, although some special units wore other colors, to identify them as an elite.  Not so the applicants to the Academy; the tunic Gaius and the others were issued was plain cotton, dyed a dull gray.  With it came plain leather caliga, an undyed, un-tooled leather belt with a small leather pouch, and a heavy linen cape of the same gray as the tunic.  The new cadets were finally issued personal gear: A coarse blanket, a brass eating tray, knife and fork, a vinegar flask, a crude brass cup and a canteen fashioned from a gourd.

Finally dressed and equipped, the boys were ushered out into the huge square of the parade ground, half of which was covered with large white linen tents.  Shouting, swearing legionaries pushed the boys into a rough formation and ordered them to stand at attention.  When that was done, a small, skinny legionary emerged from one of the barracks with a large wooden crate, which he carried to the front of the formation of a thousand boys.  He placed the crate on the ground.

From the same barracks, a large man in an Academy uniform appeared.   Like the other men the new cadets had seen so far, his uniform looked much like an Army uniform except for a few particulars; his tunic was dyed a deep green instead of army red, and his sword belt and caliga were black.  The man wore a polished bronze Centurion’s helmet, but the side-to-side brush of horsehair was dyed the same green as his tunic.

The man marched across the field and stepped up in the crate.  He stood for a moment, regarding the formation, rocking back and forth on his heels, hands behind his back.  Finally, he spoke:

“I am First Spear Centurion Marcus Cornelius Gracchus, formerly of the Third Cisalpine Tsalesian Legion, now commander and primary instructor of the first-year cadets at this Academy.  You… objects, will be housed in the tents behind me for your summer encampment.  Tomorrow you will be assigned a day to take your entrance examinations.  Those of you who pass will begin your course of instruction.  Those of you who fail will be sent home, to live out your lives as…”  His face twisted in a fine display of contempt.  “Civilians.”

“The price of attending this Academy as you all should know, is a decade in the Legions.  Those of you who, at the completion of your three years of study here in the Academy, pass final examinations, will enter the Legions as the optio to a Centurion-Second.  Those of you who fail final examinations will serve your decade as a common legionary.”

“Do not expect any coddling or special treatment.  This Academy will hold you to,” he roared, “…the standards of our Founder, the great Roman hero Ursus Tacitus.  As he was a giant among men, you too will be expected to become giants, in character if not in body.  Let me make this clear; neither I nor the instructors that work for me are your fucking mother!  Nobody within these walls gives a fuck who your father or grandfather was.  Nobody within these walls cares in the least who you were before you came here.  As of this moment you are the lowest of the low.  Consider yourselves as fucking insects beneath the feet of the lowest-ranked instructor here, as well as the upper-classmen.  Is that clear?”

“Yes sir,” the new cadets chorused.

“What?  What?  You sound like fucking un-weaned children!  When I ask you a question, you will all fucking sound off like men, do you hear?”

“Yes sir!”

Gracchus sneered at the assembled cadets.  “Mewling children,” he snapped.  “You all sound like bleating fawns.  Very well, we’ll soon sort that out.”  He waved to the legionaries who had pushed the boys into formation.  “Get these babies into tents,” he shouted.  “Evening parade at the sixth hour.  Evening meal at the seventh.  Be prepared to comport yourselves as men, damn you!”

Along with the others, Gaius shuffled miserably towards the tents, carrying his newly issued gear, ushered into the summer encampment by the swearing legionaries.  His thoughts were dark:  Pluto’s thorny cock, what have I gotten myself into?