Marcus wasn’t sure what had tipped him off to the presence of his tail. He had long since ceased to question his knowledge of such things. He’d been in the business his entire life, and his mind seemed to assemble dozens of tiny, nearly unconscious cues into a tangible realization of his surroundings without any particular intent to do so on his part.

Upon reaching his tent, instead of entering he abruptly stopped in his tracks and went completely still. He reached into the earth and sent a portion of his awareness into the ground around him. The beating hearts and deep breathing of a couple of hundred legionares flowed up into him through his boots, tangible sensation that somehow felt like the background noise of waves breaking upon a shore sounded. The hasty stutter step of someone caught moving, somewhere nearby, stood out from that background like the cry of a nearby gull.

Marcus couldn’t pinpoint the exact location of his pursuer, but he did get a good general sense of the direction. He turned to face whoever it was, and said, quietly, “If your intentions are peaceful, show yourself.”

After a moment of silence, Magnus stepped out from between two tents and faced the First Spear.

“We can speak inside your tent,” Magnus murmured.

“The crows we can,” Marcus growled back, as quietly, letting his annoyance show in his voice. “I’m going to my bloody cot. And I don’t like being followed like that. A mistake in judgment on anyone’s part could make things turn ugly.”

Magnus walked closer. The old Cursor looked weary and stiff, and he studied Marcus with watery eyes. “Only if you get spotted by the mark. I’m getting old for this kind of work, First Spear. But I’ve got no one else to do it.”

Marcus tried to sound annoyed. “To spy on me?”

“You don’t add up,” the old Cursor said. “There are some mysteries hanging around you. I don’t like that.”

“There’s no mystery.” Marcus sighed.

“No? There’s some reason you are apparently so skilled in Cursor fieldcraft?” Marcus ground his teeth. One wouldn’t absolutely have had to be a Cursor to notice old Magnus following him—but he hadn’t made any mistakes, and there were few others who would have sensed Magnus’s presence. In the absence of other factors, it wouldn’t be suspicious for a veteran centurion to have done so. But with Magnus’s suspicions aroused, the First Spear had provided him with one more point of confirmation that Valiar Marcus was not who he appeared to be.

“After all we’ve been through,” he said quietly, “do you really think I’m out to harm the captain?”

“I think the captain has too high an opinion of his own cleverness,” Magnus replied. “He’s young. He doesn’t know how the world works. Or how cold-blooded it can be.”