I was now wealthier than I ever dreamed possible, and because I had been frugal, I had more money than I could ever spend in a lifetime, so I decided that I would use my own funds to provide a bounty of 1,000 sesterces for immunes of the second grade, and 2,000 for those of the first grade. Trades like tanning are considered second grade immunes, while smiths are of the first grade. While using my own money would solve the problem, it did not make me particularly happy, even with General Pollio’s assurances that I would be reimbursed. I cannot deny that Caesar’s tardiness in giving the men the bounties that he had promised was in the back of my mind, but ultimately the 10th needed these men badly, and fortunately, these actions solved that problem, as within two weeks we filled the empty spots with skilled men. The only problem was that my funds had been depleted by more than half, and despite Pollio’s promise, I knew there was no real guarantee that I would ever see that money again. Fortunately, I was not only reimbursed, but Pollio ensured that I was repaid at ten percent simple interest. While I would like to think it was simply because of the regard in which I was held by General Pollio, by the time there were funds available for such matters, men like me had become very, very important to men like Pollio. But that is for later.
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As the day approached where we were scheduled to begin the march to Rome, the pace of training picked up, the men beginning to look more like Legionaries of Rome every day. I was almost back to normal, though my endurance was still not where I wanted it to be, while the wound in my chest had tightened into a knot of scar tissue that restricted my movement a bit, causing a dull ache at the end of the day or after a bout of hard activity. I had resumed my practice of a third of a watch of weapons training every day, stripping to the waist as I worked so that the youngsters could see the scars that I had earned over the years. I was definitely rusty, but before long the habits formed over the 20 years I had been training, starting when Vibius and I were barely in our teens with Cyclops as our teacher, came back. I must admit that it was a somewhat strange feeling to command the man who had introduced me to what it meant to be a Legionary, but Cyclops and I had talked about it, and he assured me that he did not have any problems with the arrangement. The one topic we did not talk about was Vibius, who I was sure I would never see again now that he had left the army, particularly since I decided that I would not be returning home to visit my sister and Phocas, mainly to avoid the possibility of running into him. While my anger towards him had cooled, it was still there, forming a hard knot in my soul that I did not want to rupture by coming face to face with him. The remaining time we spent in uniform after our confrontation at Pharsalus, we had the buffer of our separate ranks and the regulations of the army keeping either of us from spilling blood, although it would have been suicide for Vibius even to draw a weapon on a superior. If we were to come face to face now, neither of us would have that protection; I could easily imagine a situation similar to that time years before when Vibius and I had first come home on leave and we had taken our revenge on our childhood enemies Marcus and Aulus. It was Marcus and Aulus who had unwittingly introduced Vibius and me when we were boys and I came upon the two of them dumping Vibius headfirst into a bucket of
cac. I had been a large boy, strong even for my size, so I thrashed the two of them easily, though Vibius had helped. After we had joined the Legions, we came home to visit for the first time, running into the two of them in the forum, where they had been up to their old tricks, except this time we were no longer boys; we were hardened soldiers. I still have some regrets about killing Marcus, and I believe the surprise at seeing the two of them contributed to my perhaps overwrought reaction. It was the memory of that day that was the basis of my decision not to go home before we began marching to Rome, although I was not about to give that as the reason when I wrote to my sister telling her that I would not be visiting. Instead, I fell back on the same excuses I had always used when I wrote to her, telling her that I would not be coming for a visit; that my job kept me much too busy. This time there was at least a grain of truth; breaking in a new Legion, especially one that was preparing to embark on a two-month march was a job that never stopped, as we were now little more than two weeks away from marching, although our destination had changed. Instead of marching to Rome, we would be marching to Narbo, where we would take ship to sail to Syria to meet Caesar and the rest of the army. The men had not been informed of this change, and I thanked the gods for the small blessing that the Legion was still too green to sniff out the news before we were ready to let them know. A long sea voyage is enough to make even veterans nervous, and we did not need to deal with a panicked bunch of youngsters while we were marching.