Chapter 5: Reading Between the Lines
It took less than twenty minutes for the guard to return with the scribe. Theron was a slip of a man, old and frail, with watery eyes and ink stains permanently embedded in the creases of his fingers. He shuffled into the tent behind the guard, clutching a stack of wax tablets and papyrus scrolls to his chest as if they were a shield. He bowed so low his forehead nearly brushed his knees, his entire body trembling. He was clearly terrified, expecting the notoriously short-tempered son of Marcus Aurelius to lash out at any moment for some unknown offense.
Alex saw the man's fear and realized it was a tool. Coached by Lyra's whispered instructions, he modulated his voice, softening it from a command to a tone of somber reflection.
"Theron," he said, gesturing to a simple stool. "Rise. Be at ease. You served my father faithfully for many years. Today, you will serve his memory."
The old Greek looked up, his expression a cocktail of confusion and relief. This was not the arrogant boy he had been dreading.
"I have decided to use my divine father's command tent for my period of mourning," Alex announced, the plan Lyra had formulated rolling off his tongue. "It is there I feel closest to his spirit. You will accompany me. You will read to me from his private journals. I wish to hear his words, his thoughts, in a voice that was familiar to him."
The request was so bizarre, yet so steeped in filial piety, that it was beyond questioning. Theron simply nodded, his Adam's apple bobbing in his thin neck. "It would be my greatest honor, Caesar."
Marcus Aurelius's command tent was larger and more orderly than Alex's own quarters. It was a general's brain made manifest: maps of the Danubian frontier covered a massive central table, pinned with colored markers indicating legionary positions and tribal movements. Shelves along the canvas walls held neatly stacked scrolls, and a small writing desk was still covered with the late emperor's pens and inkwells. The air smelled of old paper, leather, and the faint, lingering scent of Marcus Aurelius himself. It felt like walking onto a museum exhibit, except it was real.
Alex settled into his father's campaign chair, a heavy wooden seat draped in a bearskin, and gestured for Theron to begin. The old scribe, his hands shaking slightly, carefully unrolled the first scroll—the emperor's personal diary for the final year of the war.
As Theron's reedy voice filled the tent, reading Marcus Aurelius's stoic reflections on duty, mortality, and the burdens of command, Alex entered a state of intense, bifurcated focus. Part of his mind listened to the philosophy, marveling at the mind of the man whose body had sired his own. But the greater part was in constant, silent communion with Lyra.
"Theron just read an entry about a supply shortage in the Third Legion," Alex subvocalized, his lips barely moving. "Lyra, cross-reference that. Who was the quartermaster? Did that affect troop morale? Is there any connection to Legate Varus?"