Hadrian's wall (3 page)

"For the standards of the Petriana!"

Arrows whizzed past like buzzing insects.

There was a great crash as the lines met, a scream of horses and shout of men, and then the cavalry was over the barbarians and past them, their lances left upright in writhing, impaled bodies. The Romans slid free their long swords and turned.

Galba's own sword had hit something solid in the initial collision, coming up red and glistening. Now he sawed with his reins, his horse's eyes rolling with the pain of the harsh cavalry bit, and charged toward the blond giant with the ax. The chieftain was whirling his weapon and singing a death song, his eyes opaque with wonder at that ghostly world he'd already half stepped into. "So shall I give it to you," the Roman promised. He cut with his sword to parry the ax shaft, used the heavy shoulder of his horse to knock his enemy over, and then leaped from his saddle to finish the pirate off. Strike fast, when they're down.

Yet the butted chieftain kept rolling and so Galba's grunting stroke missed and struck turf, sticking there. It was an almost fatal mistake. The barbarian came up howling, covered in grass and dirt and the smoke and blood of his earlier pillage, his torso a topography of sinew, bone, and blue tattoo. When the warrior reared back to lift his ax, he was like some monstrous bear, and a newcomer to war might have been transfixed enough to let the Scotti strike.

But Galba was a veteran of a hundred fights and gave his opponent no time to set himself. Instead he saw opportunity. Yanking his blade clear in the time the Scotti took to raise his ax, he made a quick horizontal slash that opened the barbarian's stomach and then stepped smartly back as the ax whizzed by his ear. The shock of disembowelment caused the Scotti to let the heavy weapon thud all the way into the ground, and so the Roman swung again and heard an audible crack of bone as he took off the chieftain's hands. The Celt staggered, only dimly realizing what had happened to him, screamed to the gods who'd forsaken him this day, and held his bloody stumps to heaven. Then he crashed to earth.

Galba whirled for another antagonist, but his men had already made short work of the rest who'd dared stand, the bravest already dying or enslaved. The Roman horses were prancing over the corpses as if uncertain where to put their hooves, and there was that familiar battlefield smell of urine, dung, hot blood, and fearful sweat, as bizarrely intoxicating as it was repulsive.

Galba looked at his chipped blade tip. It was the first time he'd missed an enemy already down, and he couldn't make that mistake again. Grunting, he stooped and pried a severed hand off the ax handle to look for a ring. There was a fine golden one, he saw, with a red stone. Probably stolen from a Roman.

"I'll take this back, boy." He used his dagger to saw the finger off.

Victory!

"They're getting away!" a decurion shouted.

Galba stood and whistled for his horse, leaping agilely into the saddle and roaring his men into some kind of quick order. The redheaded chieftain had escaped and was leading twenty of his raiders into the trees toward the water.

"Let them run!" he shouted to his men.

The Romans pursued just out of bowshot, weaving through trees. As the barbarians ran they looked back at their seemingly wary pursuers and jeered, but Galba held his men in careful check. They came to a bluff in time to see the Scotti fling their weapons and helmets aside and spill like lemmings into the sea. The barbarians surfaced, wet and howling from the cold, and struck for longboats hidden among the reeds of an estuary.

"Hold and watch!"

The redhead who'd escaped turned in the water and taunted them in thick Latin, vowing revenge.

"Hold, I say!"

The Romans stood mute and winded, lining the bluff.

The Scotti reached the reedy water on the far side of the inlet, some managing to stand in the shallows and others thrashing for their boats. They shouted for the comrades they'd left behind, gasping explanations, and anxiously grasped oar holes to lift themselves aboard.

Then there was a Latin shout, Falco's command carrying across the inlet of water, and a row of helmeted heads rose from the bowels of the longboats.

More Romans.

Falco's wing had ridden around and already captured the craft, slaying their guards. Now they stood from the hulls where they'd been hiding and fell upon the unarmed barbarians trying to climb aboard.

Galba's plan had worked.

The red-haired one, half naked and weaponless now, saw the murder that was happening and thrashed his way to a muddy bank.

Falco himself rode the man down.

The bang and thud of weapons and the screams of the wounded echoed across the water for only moments and then it was done, the reeds stained red, bodies floating like logs.

"Come," Galba said. "We meet Lucius Falco on the other side."

The two wings of cavalry joined at the head of the inlet, the longboats already burning as fiercely as Cato's village. A handful of captured warriors would stay with the Romans as slaves. Some of the booty would be returned to their client, others kept as tax.

One of them was the defiant red-haired chieftain: a rib cracked after being overridden by Falco's horse, head bloody, manner abject. In minutes he'd gone from conqueror to conquered, from lord to prisoner, and he stood trussed and naked with that dull expression of shock and resignation that comes from enslavement.

"I was hoping that one for my own, Falco," Galba congratulated.

"He's a bit of a badger. Even after riding over the top of him, I had to club with my dagger. He'll be trouble, perhaps."

"Or spirit. Get him home and make clear how things are."

Falco nodded.

"Let's find out who he is." Galba walked his horse up to the subdued barbarian. "What's your name, boy?" These Scotti were a last stubborn branch of those Celtic tribes the Romans had been fighting for eight centuries, their ferocity in battle and despair in defeat both as predictable as the tides. It might take a bit of whip and club to tame this one, but he, like them all, would submit. "What do they call you, stripling?"

The man looked up sullenly and for just one moment Galba felt chilled. It was a blackly baleful look he got, the captive thinking no doubt of the hearth and woman and horse he'd never see again, but beyond that there was something in his sorrow that seemed to give a glimpse of a dim and troubled future. Let Falco keep him, indeed.

"I am Odocullin of the Dal Riasta. Prince of the Scotti and a lord of Eiru."

"Odocul-what? That's more mouthful than a Sicilian sweetcake. Repeat yourself, slave!"

The man looked away.

Galba's hand went to the pouch at his side. He could feel the severed finger of this man's dead compatriot and the hard curve of the barbarian's ring. None ever ignored Galba Brassidias for long, and someday this carrot-colored Hibernian would learn that too. In the meantime, who cared what the captive was called by his own people? "We'll name you Odo, then," he pronounced, "and the cost of your defeat will be slavery in the house of the soldier who defeated you, Lucius Falco."

The Scotti still wouldn't look at his captors.

"Odo," Falco repeated. "Even I can remember that."

So Odo became houseboy to the villa of Lucius Falco, and Galba Brassidias, forty rings now jangling from the waist chain of his armor, burst from the base of the watchtower to receive his reward from Rome.

The courtyard of the fortress headquarters was lit with torches in the dusk, a turma of thirty-two men snapping to attention. "Straight ranks! Weapons high!" The butts of their lances banged smartly against paving stone. The courier who trotted through the barrel gate was another centurion, Longinus by name, his boots flecked with mud and the rim of his tunic sweaty.

The choice was reassuring. The duke wouldn't have sent a man of this rank unless he bore the message Galba was waiting for.

Longinus swung stiffly down, and his horse, hide steaming and muscles quivering, urinated in a great smoking hiss. The courier saluted. "Good news, commander!"

Galba's heart leapt. Yes!

"In recognition of your accomplished record, you've been named senior tribune of the Petriana cavalry!" His voice was loud enough to let others hear.

There was a rustle in the ranks. Senior tribune! The news would fly through the fort in minutes. Galba had gotten what every man expected, and confirmation would be received with both satisfaction and regret. The new tribune was as stern as he was able.

"Silence!" Galba shouted, in order to be able to shout something. He felt a flush of pride. Born a provincial, and now a Roman tribune. His eyes gleamed. "I'm unworthy of the honor."

"We both know the honor is long overdue."

Galba allowed himself a slight smile. False modesty was an affectation of weaklings. He lowered his voice. "For this long-awaited word I've saved Falernian wine, Longinus. Come into my new house and share it."

The man nodded uncomfortably. "My thanks for the offer." He hesitated. "However, there's more, tribune."

"More?" Galba's head was still churning with the new possibilities of command.

"Complications."

The soldier looked at Longinus uncertainly.

"Considerations."

Galba tried not to betray his unease. "I've waited twenty years for the news you've brought and prefer to savor it," he said slowly. "The rest can wait for the grape."

"Yes." Longinus's tone was quiet. "Inside would be best."

Orders were snapped, and the turma wheeled to disperse. The two senior men strode to the commander's house, its door swung open by slaves, their armor unhooked with silent efficiency, brass basins of warm water and towels offered to both. They went on to the warmth of the dining room and sprawled on couches in the Roman fashion. The vintage was as promised, transported in amphorae for a thousand miles and served in green glass with a painted frieze of gladiators battling around the rim. Longinus, parched from his hard ride, watered his and drank deeply. The new tribune sipped an unwatered serving and waited impatiently. "And this other news, centurion? Are we to start a campaign?"

The messenger shook his head, wiping his mouth. "It has to do with the command of this cavalry. This part of my message isn't as happy, tribune."

Galba hoisted himself on an elbow. "I've commanded as senior centurion already, since the transfer of the previous tribune. I've won a major action. Now I have his rank. The command is mine, isn't it?"

"Were it simply up to the duke, it would be. You know that."

Galba's eyes narrowed with that dark look men usually only saw in battle. He was being made a fool. "What are you telling me, Longinus, as you lie on my couch and sip my finest wine?"

"I'm sorry, but this part of the message isn't my choice to deliver. Rejoice in your promotion and new pay, Galba; you deserve it. But there are politics in Rome, of course, politics and more politics. A new alliance of families-and a position to be found for a new officer. A praefectus. He asked for the Petriana cavalry because of its reputation. He wanted this fort because word has reached all the way to Rome of what a job you've done. He wants to make his mark here. With you."

The new tribune sat up in disbelief. "You're telling me I'm promoted, only to lose command? I've worked my whole career for this command!"

Longinus looked at him with sympathy. "I'm sorry, it has nothing to do with you. It's simply preferment for an officer of the equestrian class. Unfair, I know."

"What politics?"

"The fellow is betrothed to a senator's daughter. It's as simple as that." He drank.

"Dung of Pluto!" Galba was a big man, but incredibly swift. He sprang, cuffed, and the wine cup flew away, shattering against the wall. A spray of red drops made a bright crescent across the mosaic floor. Then Galba loomed like a father over a child, immense and shadowy. "You're telling me that some Roman snoblet is taking away the Petriana-the unit I built-because he married some ranking bitch in Rome?" The question was a roar.

Longinus looked at his hand, stinging from the blow. "I'm only the messenger, Galba. And they're not married. Only betrothed."

He took a breath. "There's hope then."

"No. The wedding will occur here."

The new tribune sat. "I won't tolerate this insult. Take that back to the duke."

"I certainly will not. You're a soldier. You'll tolerate it because you must tolerate it. And you'll still be commander in all but name.

This Lucius Marcus Flavius will serve a couple years and leave for higher things. The army remains ours."

"That Roman aristocrat will take my new house. My credit. While I do the work."

"So what else is new?" Longinus was becoming impatient. "Remember the way of things. Defy this Marcus, and you'll earn nothing but trouble. Flatter him, and he'll be of use. In the meantime, be grateful for what you have, like a well-deserved promotion- and that wine." He pointed with regret. "It was really quite good."

"Second place to a highborn dabbler who won't know one end of a spatha from another. Beaten by an arranged marriage."

"Never beaten in battle. Remember that."

The reply was bitter. "Beaten by a woman."

Many Romans believe slaves are morally unreliable, but I, Draco, regard them as the most observant of witnesses. True, they will steal. Yes, they will lie. Of course they are lazy. They lack even the patient virtues of a domesticated, animal. Yet a careful listener can turn this lack of character to his advantage. Slaves are shameless eavesdroppers and tireless gossips, their primary entertainment the foibles of their betters. You can learn a lot from a smart slave. And this one, before me, is one of the smartest.

She annoys me already.

Her name is Savia. Wet nurse turned substitute mother. Servant turned handmaiden, scold, and chaperone. Every highborn Roman girl like the missing Valeria should have one, and most do. Savia is, of course, a Christian, like so many of the lower classes, but unlike some I cannot afford to be intolerant of naive beliefs in a peasant god and a happy death. I use every eye and ear I can recruit. A good Christian can be as upright as a good pagan, in my experience. Or as venal. There are scoundrels enough for all religions.

So. Savia is well fed and plump, despite her present incarceration, and was probably not uncomely a score of years ago. She would still feel warm enough in any bed, I judge. Now her hair is streaked with gray, her face has the paleness of incarceration, and her look is quicker and more direct than is proper. That intelligence, again: it cannot be hidden. She is a survivor, too, having passed through the recent tumult entirely unscathed. Legend to the contrary, it is the rare slave willing to die for her mistress.

So I have this image of brutally efficient Galba, the frustrated subordinate, but that's hardly enough to explain the catastrophe I am investigating. Something more happened on Hadrian's Wall, something that led to incaution and treason, and it appears to have centered on the owner of this slave, the lady Valeria. I've summoned Savia from prison to explain her mistress so I can understand a woman who is no longer here. The slave, in turn, looks upon me as a potential rescuer. She abhors confinement and has protested it loudly. "I am of the House of Valens!" The soldiers laugh at her.

She sits now in my stone chamber, truculent, flustered, hopeful, wary, vain. She wants as much from me as I from her.

"You served the lady Valeria?"

She sizes me up, then nods with cautious pride. "For nineteen years. Fed her, wiped her, weaned her, and spanked her. Taught her to be a woman. And accompanied her all the way to Britannia-"

"For her wedding to the commander of the Petriana cavalry, Marcus Flavius."

"I saw it arranged in Rome."

"A political or a love match?"

"Both, of course."

I am dissatisfied by an answer so obvious that it's no answer at all. "You avoid my question. Did she love her intended husband?"

"It depends what you mean by love."

"Mean? By the gods, was her motive passion or politics?"

Savia looks at me speculatively. "I wish to help you, master, but confinement has confused my memory." Her eyes flicker around the room as quick as a bird, as if looking for a key to release.

"I've just brought you out of confinement."

"Only for this interview. I've done nothing to deserve that cell!"

"You were imprisoned because you aided an enemy."

"I was imprisoned because I saved my mistress."

I ignore that comment for now. "Still, you'll answer when I ask," I warn grumpily. l can, of course, have her flogged.

She refuses to be frightened, having sensed my lamentable sympathy for her gender and kind. "And I'll remember the past when I have a future."

"You will speak now or be beaten until you do speak!"

"And speak what?" she cries indignantly, as if it is I instead of she in the wrong. "The truth, or the cries of a whipped slave?"

I grimace. But I'm also amused, and struggle not to show it. She's watching me like a sly dog, knowing she is valuable property and a waste to feed in prison. Moreover, I need her story. So I employ silence. Nothing so prompts a companion to speak.

"I'm sorry," she amends. "It's horrid and dirty in my cell."

So I visibly soften, to soften her. "Then help me learn the fate of your mistress."

She leans forward. "I can help most if you take me with you!"

"I have no use for an old maid."

"Then take me and sell me! But it's better to keep me! Look at yourself. You 're as old as I am. You should be retiring to a farm. You could use me there."

The last thing I need in the quiet of my life is this piece of spoiled baggage. Still, at the end of the day the horse will ride harder to the hay than to the whip. I pretend to consider this proposal. "I cannot afford another slave."

"The garrison would almost give me away! I complain too much!"

I laugh. "As if that is a recommendation!"

"I eat too much, too! But I can cook. Better than your servant does now, judging from your scrawny frame."

I shake my head, suspecting she's right. "Listen, impress me with the usefulness of your memory, and I will consider what you suggest. Agreed?"

She sits back. "I'm very useful."

"And you will answer my questions?"

"I'll try, inspector."

I sigh for effect, knowing full well why she'd like me to buy her. A slave enjoys the status of her master. "All right, then. Back to it. Was the marriage a love match?"

She takes a moment to think this time. "It was a marriage of the upper class. Love is irrelevant, don't you think?"

"Yet not the usual dowry."

"It was the man who provided the coin this time, not the woman."

"Marcus needed a good posting?"

"He needed a new start."

"And Valeria's father needed money?"

"Being a senator is expensive. To entertain, to facilitate agreements-"

"You understand these things?"

She smiles. "I lived with Senator Valens longer than his wife."

"And became maidservant to Valeria."

"I instructed that child, as I said."

It is disconcerting, the pride of this slave. No doubt she'd once bedded Valens and was smug with the memory of coupling with a patrician. And Christians! It's their god that gives them their impudence. Their serenity can be infuriating.

"You lived with this woman daily, "I try again. "Was she in love or not?"

"She barely knew Marcus. They'd only met once."

"Her reaction?"

"He was handsome. But old, to her eyes. Thirty-five to her nineteen."

"Yet she did not object?"

"She encouraged the union. She dressed for Marcus, charmed him, and promised obedience to her father's plan. The marriage rescued the senator and was a way for Valeria to get away from Rome. Marriage would please her father, let her escape her mother, and complete herself. Like all young women, she assumed either her husband would match her dreams or she'd teach him to do so."

Of course. Women think weddings the end of problems, instead of their beginning. "Why didn't the marriage take place in Rome?"

"The post was vacant, occupied temporarily by the senior tribune Galba Brassidias. The army wanted the command settled, and Senator Valens was anxious for the money his daughter would bring. The promise was paid, promotion granted, and rather than wait for wedding preparations, Marcus was advised to take the risk of traveling in winter to assume office and clarify command. Talks were concluded in his absence. Valeria followed in March, as soon as the first ships could leave Ostia. Even at that, it was a rough voyage. We anchored three times on the coast of Italy before reaching port in Gaul. All of us were sick."

I nod. I hate the sea. "Then north through Gaul-"

"Tiresome. Bad inns, bad food, and bad company. The river barges were fine, but the mule carts wearying and tedious. It was odd to have the days grow longer and yet colder. And at the Oceanus Britannicus the sea sucked in and out."

"The tide."

"I'd never seen its like."

"It took Caesar by surprise when he first invaded Britannia." Why I offer historical trivia to this woman I can't say.

"I shouldn't wonder."

I plunge ahead, embarrassed by my own digression. "So you crossed the Channel-"

"We'd missed the naval galley and bought passage on a merchant ship. We were sick again, and afraid of pirates. The captain kept waving toward the white cliffs of Dubris, trying to impress a senator's daughter, but none of us cared."

"And came up the Tamesis to Londinium."

"It was all perfectly proper, as you can see. Except for her riding."

"Her what?"

"When crossing Gaul, Valeria became bored. She'd borrow a horse and go trotting ahead in a lady's manner, sidesaddle, accompanied by her bodyguard Cassius."

"A retired soldier?"

"Better. A surviving gladiator."

"And you did not approve."

"She wasn't so bold as to go out of sight, but a Roman lady doesn't ride a horse like some Celtic wench. As I told her! But Valeria was always a willful child. I warned that she'd ride herself barren and be sent home in disgrace, but she just laughed at me. I told her she'd hurt herself and she scoffed. She said her husband-to-be was a cavalry officer and would appreciate a wife who could gallop. I almost fainted."

I try to picture this bold and impudent young woman. Was she vulgar? Immature? Or simply impish? "She had learned how?"

"On her father's estate. He was as hopelessly indulgent when she was a child as he was strict after her menarche. Only I kept any control. She'd have played with wooden swords if her brothers hadn't refused."

"So she was in the habit of not doing what she was told."

"She was in the habit of listening to her heart."

Interesting. Rome's foundation is reason, of course. "I am trying to understand what happened here," I explain. "What kind of treachery."

She laughs. "Treachery?"

"The attack on the Wall."

"I would never call it treachery."

"What then?"

"I'd call it love."

"Love! You said-"

"Not in the way you think. It began in Londinium "

V

"Roman lady!" the peddlers shrieked, lifting their trinkets up into the rain. "Look! The jewels of Britannia!"

Valeria had drawn her hood against the shouts and spring drizzle. Shadowed and thus shielded, she looked down in consternation and amusement at the little navy that had nosed to the bulwarks of her ship. River lighters and skin coracles surrounded the newly anchored Swan like a ragged noose, their grubby captains screeching offers to ferry the Roman passengers to the stone quay of Londinium. Briton women, their hair tangled and clothes sodden from the damp, held up offerings of wet bread, cheap wine, cheaper jewelry, and bared breasts. Children lifted palms to beg for coins, their fingers wiggling like the legs of an overturned beetle. Feral youths shouted advice on lodgings, brothels, and bargains. Dogs barked, a caged rooster crowed, her own captain cursed at the craft scarring his ship's side, and it was difficult to judge what was worse, the noise or the stink.

In other words, her tumultuous greeting to Britannia was as foreign, colorful, and marvelous as she'd hoped. One thousand miles from jaded Rome, and her life was at last beginning! Valeria glanced at the city across the gray water, imagining somewhere beyond it the distant Wall. Soon, soon: her wedding!

"Britlets," scorned the young man at her side, looking down at their besiegers. "Britunculi! Our soldiers called them that after the first battles. Naked, blue, screaming, undisciplined, and filled with bluster until they broke on a shield wall. After which they ran like rabbits." He shook his head. "These, apparently, are their progeny."

"They're offering help, dear Clodius." Valeria was determined not to let her own excitement be soured by the cynicism of her escort, a newly minted junior tribune putting in an obligatory year of military service. "Look how tall they are, how hairy, how pale, how gray-eyed, how bleached! I think they're wonderful." She was at the age when she enjoyed stating opinions boldly, as if trying them on for size. Nor was a senator's daughter impressed by the bright sword and reflexive snobbery of a young officer like Clodius, aristocratic by birth, prosperous by inheritance, and superior by that blissful ignorance that comes from inexperience. Knowing nothing, his type pretended to know everything, including what a young woman like Valeria should think and like and do. It was her game to put them in their place. "Look at the jewelry. There's Celtic craftsmanship there." She squinted playfully. "Of course, it's going green in the rain."

It was disquieting to have to choose a public ferry, Valeria conceded to herself. She could see the government barge still tied to its dock, its red enamel and gilt trim as brilliant as a flower in the gray-green riverscape. Had message of her pending arrival not preceded them across the Channel? Was her masthead banner of senatorial rank not visible from the city wall? Yet the Swan had anchored without a hint of official greeting.

None of her Roman acquaintances would have been surprised by this clumsiness. When told of Valeria's betrothal to an officer posted to Hadrian's Wall, their congratulations had been tinged with condescension. Marcus was rich, of course, but Britannia? Not a single university! Not a game worth reporting! Not a notable poet or artist or writer! The pitying concern had been careful, of course, and all the worse because of it. Some of the baths and villas were by reputation the equal of Italy's, her circle of maidens had comforted; it was only the rest of Britannia that was dark, wet, and filthy. And she was to live in a cavalry fortress? They'd all but shuddered at her fate, a sure sign of the decline of the House of Valens. But the money from Marcus's family would allow her father to sustain his senatorial career, while her own ancestral name would help her new husband's advancement. Let her silly friends sit in Rome! Her fiance wanted glory. Valeria would help him get it.

"Why not enjoy our armada of suitors?" she gamely asked her escort. "Nobody would pay us this much attention in Rome." She dropped a coin, setting off a mad scramble that sent the lighters rocking. The anxious cries of the Britons rose louder.