The Tyrant's Tomb

“Thank you,” Hazel managed at last. “I—I’ll do everything I can to be
worthy of your trust. Here’s the thing, though. This leaves the Fifth Cohort
without a centurion, so—”
The entire Fifth Cohort started chanting in unison: “LAVINIA!
LAVINIA!”
“What?” Lavinia’s face turned pinker than her hair. “Oh, no. I don’t do
leadership!”
“LAVINIA! LAVINIA!”
“Is this a joke? Guys, I—”
“Lavinia Asimov!” Hazel said with a smile. “The Fifth Cohort read my
mind. As my first act as praetor, for your unparalleled heroism in the Battle
of San Francisco Bay, I hereby promote you to centurion—unless my fellow
praetor has any objections?”
“None,” Frank said.
“Then come forward, Lavinia!”
To more applause and whistling, Lavinia approached the rostrum and got
her new badge of office. She hugged Frank and Hazel, which wasn’t the
usual military protocol, but no one seemed to care. Nobody clapped louder
or whistled more shrilly than Meg. I know because she left me deaf in one
ear.
“Thanks, guys,” Lavinia announced. “So, Fifth Cohort, first we’re going
to learn to tap-dance. Then—”
“Thank you, Centurion,” Hazel said. “You may be seated.”
“What? I’m not kidding—”
“On to our next order of business!” Frank said, as Lavinia skipped
grumpily (if that’s even possible) back to her seat. “We realize the legion
will need time to heal. There’s lots to be done. This summer we will rebuild.
We’ll speak to Lupa about getting more recruits as quickly as possible, so we
can come back from this battle stronger than ever. But for now, our fight is
won, and we have to honor two people who made that possible: Apollo,
otherwise known as Lester Papadopoulos, and his comrade, Meg
McCaffrey!”
The crowd applauded so much, I doubt many people heard Meg say,
“Master, not comrade,” which was fine with me.
As we stood to accept the legion’s thanks, I felt strangely uncomfortable.
Now that I finally had a friendly crowd cheering for me, I just wanted to sit
down and cover my head with a toga. I had done so little compared to Hazel