Message: The Professionals!!! (Chapter XXIX)
Author: L. Didius Silva
Originally Posted: January 31, 2001 [Reposted with permission]


"Silva! How long are you going to stand there and just stare down that road? He's not coming."

"He'll come. You know Carbo as well as I do, Piso. If he were dead, Raza would be stomping all over us by now. He'll come." I was trying to convince myself more than Piso; and Piso knew it.

"Why not let me go back and take a look for him then?"

"No. We all knew the risks going in. If he's alive he'll be here; if he is dead, losing you won't bring him back."

Piso nodded and sat down against the broken wall. It was funny. We were all so tired that we could drop and yet too wired to sleep. I looked down at Piso.

"What about the XXXXV Galley?"

"Like I was saying before, the Navarchus told me that he had to put into Monguntiacum for supplies, and he would pick us up at dusk at the same spot he dropped us off."

Aelia walked over and stood next to me. "Carbo???"

I returned to staring down the road. "No sign of him yet," I replied. She slipped her hand into mine and leaned against me.

"I'm sorry," she said. I shrugged.

"How's Mardra?"

"She hasn't said a word since she saw Raza fall. I think a part of her died with him back there. She won't run away from Messalla again. This time she'll kill him."

"Well then maybe something good will come out of all this after all," I responded.

"Maybe, but I think she will also kill herself afterward, and that would be a loss. She's really quite a woman, Silva."

I look over toward Mardra. She was sitting between Doris and Marsha. All the fight had gone out of her. I knew that look on her face, especially the vacant staring eyes.

"What are you thinking Silva?" Aelia asked as she rested her head on my shoulder.

"I was just thinking that I must have looked the exact same way the year the plague swept Roma. In the morning I kissed good-bye to a vibrant, happy girl. At dusk I returned to find an old woman lying in a pool of her own sweat, shivering with cold one minute and burning with fever the next. She held my hand all night, unable to speak, her eyes pleading for the help I was incapable of providing. By dawn she was gone and I cursed the gods for not taking me with her. I wanted to. I tried to. I can still remember my brother Casca, and that friend of his Claudius Macer, holding me down while my sisters, Marta and Solana, tied me to my bed. Casca poured enough alcohol down my throat to sink a Trireme. It wasn't enough."

"It was the plague, Silva. It wasn't your fault. There was nothing you could have done."

"No there wasn't. But I wonder now if Mardra sees me as HER plague?"

Aelia kissed my cheek.

"What do you think is taking Messalla so long? I thought he was supposed to be here before noon," said Piso.

Mardra looked up and said in a lifeless voice, "Something important probably came up at the last minute." Then she started laughing hysterically. Aelia put her arm around Mardra and tried to comfort her. The laughter slowly turned into deep sobs. I turned away to stare up the road again. Piso looked embarrassed and decided to change the subject.

"Boy, I remember when we were here during the war. Carbo and I rode through this country like a whirlwind."

"And you just might live to do it again," I add. "Here comes the "whirlingest" wind of them all."

Piso jumped up and ran over: "I'll be damned. I never thought he'd pull it off."

Two tired horses plodded down the road. They'd been ridden hard in order to get here on time and they were all played out. Carbo swayed in the saddle of the first horse. He loosely held the lead reins of the second horse. There was something thrown across its back. Carbo brought them to a halt just inside the wall.

"Miss me?"

"What took you so long," I asked.

"He probably got tied up with that Allemanni Amazon Nordalla and couldn't get away," laughed Piso.

A brief flicker of pain crossed Carbo's face, then he replied, "Well you know me." He slid from the saddle and held on to it to keep from collapsing on the ground. Then he stumbled over to the packhorse. Aelia took one look at his blood-encrusted body and ran to get her medical kit. As she ran back with it, Carbo said: "Don't worry about me, take care of him first." He removed a blanket and cut the leather straps. A body slid to the ground at Mardra's feet.

"RAZAAAAAAAA!!!" Mardra screamed and pulled the body into her arms. Raza opened his eyes, smiled at her, then promptly passed out again.

"What's the idea," I asked.

"Silva, old buddy, this will come as a shock to the both of us, but I'm a born sucker for love."

"Listen Carbo, that blow to your head must have knocked out some of your senses."

"Or let some in."

"What happened back there? What made you change your mind?"

Carbo grinned and said: "Let's just say that I found out what makes a woman worth 100,000 sestercies."

Copyright © 2001-2002, L. Didius Silva. All Rights Reserved. All copyrighted material is the property of the original author.