Reign of Iron (24 page)

She’d been in houses before, in the British towns of Bladonfort and Forkton, and had not been impressed. She now realised that they’d been fairly shit attempts to replicate a Roman house like the one she was living in, and conceded that maybe there was some point in persevering because despite herself, she liked her Roman house. It was clean. The chief attribute that the British imitations lacked was a regular supply of lots of water. On the journey south, she’d tried not to marvel too obviously at the colossal stone bridges and elevated man-made rivers that carried water from hills to towns. Due to those engineering marvels and the Romans’ understanding of how the river system worked, there was a limitless supply of water flowing into her house, which meant that the slaves could clean effectively and, perhaps more importantly, pour all their waste away into an underground stream that flowed into the great central drain – the Cloaca Maxima – then into the river and off to the sea. It was clever. The one downside, the thing that prevented her resolving to set something like this up back at home, was that the whole stream diverting venture must have been such a massive arseache for so many people – so many slaves – to build. Using time that could have been spent lying on a hillside and watching the clouds, thousands upon thousands had sweated away, moving rock from one place to another. She was glad they’d done it, she liked her clean house, but not so much that she could ever have been bothered to put all that effort in herself or expect anyone else to do it for her.

And it wasn’t like the water flowed to everyone. There were parts of the city which were more disgusting than the grubbiest parts of Bladonfort. She’d had to hold her breath down one street where they’d squelched through shit and rotting animal remains. It was the same at Maidun, of course. The people whose attributes best suited the culture – people with a degree of nous, a healthy body and a reasonable work ethic – lived in better, cleaner places. But in Rome, while the fortunate lived immeasurably more opulent lives than their peers in Britain, the unfortunate people lived in conditions that were worse than their British counterparts, which struck Spring as dumb. Why didn’t the rich accept just a little less so that the poor could have a whole lot more? What was the point of all this advancement if it only benefited the few?

And the “few” were dicks. She’d started a game of counting how many people described her as “sordida” –a pejorative term for anyone who didn’t wear Roman clothes, meaning grubby in both body and mind – but she’d given up because there were too many. Some people were interested, some were kind. Ragnall’s friend Clodia had even spoken to Spring, with Ragnall translating, as if they were equals. But mostly? They were a shower of shitheads, sneering and shunning her despite not knowing the least thing about her.

There was also the position of women in Roman culture. On the surface, women seemed to have it better than she’d heard. The poor Roman women lived equally miserable lives to the poor men and the richest ladies were actually more luxuriously dressed and pampered-looking than their husbands. But – and it was a big but – women were viewed by the men, and by themselves mostly, as little more than decoration, accessories to bolster the glory of male achievement. Every single story had a man as the hero. Everyone with any power, from the two consuls to the guards snarling at the plebs not to loiter outside expensive shops, was a man.

Despite all of this, she understood why Ragnall wanted to bring the Roman world to Britain. It was a bonus that such a huge town didn’t stink of shit, not everywhere anyway, and the public buildings were impressive. However, all in all, she preferred Britain as it was, and thought that most British men and all the women probably did, too. And if they wanted to copy Roman ways? Then they would, of their own accord. What they definitely didn’t need was these pricks rowing across the Channel, walking round with their noses in the air, telling them how wrong they were about everything and killing them if they disagreed.

“Caesar’s back in a couple of days,” said Ragnall one evening as they sat eating a simple but excellent meal of deep-fried scallops and olive bread. The winter diet in Rome, she had to admit, was good. In Britain it was wheat or barley bread or, on special days, barley porridge with a chunk of salted meat or fish. In Rome many people went to a lot of effort to produce delicious, interesting food and so long as you avoided the freaky stuff like otters’ noses and ocelot spleens, they succeeded.

Spring finished her mouthful and said: “Oh really?” She’d already heard her guards mention Caesar’s return, and people on the streets talking about it, and heralds shouting about it in the forum.

“He wants us to marry while he’s here.”

“I see. And what does that entail?”

“First we pick you a matron. I’ve got someone in mind. Remember Clodia, the lady we met at Pompey’s theatre?”

“Yup.”

“Her.”

“OK.”

“Then we’ve got to get you a flame-coloured veil and a white dress. I think we’ve already got a cord we can use.”

“A cord?”

“It gets tied with a special knot, which I undo in front of everyone.”

“Everyone?” asked Spring, already planning to retie the knot into one that was impossible to undo.

“Not too many people, I’ll just ask a handful, but it will be in Caesar’s house so he might ask a few.”

“Right.”

“Then there’s a dinner.”

“Good.”

“After that I’m meant to symbolically wrestle you from the arms of your family, to represent the rape of the Sabine women—”

“The
what
?”

Ragnall explained the historical event that they were to commemorate as part of the wedding ceremony. Spring was not impressed. “Then what?” she said.

“Then I think you get led through the streets by two boys, with another boy holding a torch ahead of you. When we get back here – I guess we’ll use this house – you smear animal fat and wool on—”

“Hold on, hold on, this is all bollocks.”

“It’s tradition.”

“Why don’t we have a British wedding?”

“…That
would
be more fun.”

“Could you persuade Caesar?”

“You don’t persuade Caesar of anything, but I might be able to make him think that it’s his idea.”

Suddenly Spring was properly happy for the first time since they’d been in Rome. She completely forgot that her ankle was attached to the table by a chain, as possibilities flared up in her mind. “Oh, it’ll be
much
more fun. Who in Rome knows what a British wedding looks like?”

“Several tens of thousands of slaves?”

“Who that they’re going to ask?”

Spring was glad to see a hesitant smile creep onto Ragnall’s face. He wasn’t so bad really. “You and me. I think I see where you’re going…”

“We can do whatever we want! Like the custom of the bride being given a lovely new gold-decorated leather holster for her hammer and an aurochs’ skin quiver of the finest arrows?”

“And the groom being given the host’s finest white horse?”

“And the guests stripping naked and waving their cocks and tits at the departing couple?”

“They won’t do that.”

“They might!”

They thrashed out the details late into the night, drinking more and more wine. By the end of it, it wasn’t that exciting at all, really. Ragnall had diluted and diluted her ideas until in the end they just had a nice day planned, not too different from the real British ceremony, rather than Spring’s spectacularly hilarious series of wacky japes. But it was still by about a thousand times the best evening the two of them had spent together. By the end of it Spring was happy and drunk enough that she almost wanted Ragnall to ask her into his room. He didn’t, though. Her praetorians led her to her room as usual, attached her chain to the bed and bade her goodnight.

The day came. They waited in the garden of one of Caesar’s new houses for their guests, all friends of Ragnall since Spring didn’t have any friends in Rome. Ragnall was in a toga which Spring thought was probably the most pristinely clean piece of cloth in the whole word at that moment, and she was in a sleeveless white cotton dress.

First to arrive were Clodia and Pydna, with whom Ragnall had lived for a while. He’d been amusingly cagey about them and went pink when they walked in, so Spring guessed he’d had an affair with one them – probably Clodia. Given the way she looked at everyone, Spring included, Clodia was up for anything. Next came a chap called Publius Licinius Crassus and his wife Cornelia Metella. He looked to be about Ragnall’s age, but his wife looked, if anything, a little younger than Spring.

“Greet you,” said Publius to Spring in faltering Gaulish, “my wife beaut I full.” He indicated Cornelia, who took Spring’s hand.

“Good moaning to yoy,” said Cornelia, also attempting Gaulish.

“Good moaning to yoy too,” Spring replied, pleased that they’d made the effort.

Cornelia looked delighted and in a flash Spring saw that she was indeed beautiful. Her face was broad, her eyes long and narrow, her thinnish lips twisted as if she were chewing, but these all managed to combine into an intriguing, inviting, bright attractiveness, as if she were enjoying the world and wanted you to come along on the ride.

Ragnall was clearly surprised and pleased at the next guest, a gangly fellow, maybe ten years older than Caesar.

“This,” Ragnall said, “is Marcus Tullius Cicero, former consul and cleverest man in Rome.”

“You,” Cicero said in Latin, taking Spring’s hand and bowing, “are the most beautiful barbarian I have ever seen.”

Well, that’s half a compliment if ever I heard one, thought Spring, but when Ragnall had finished translating she smiled gratefully and said in British: “And you are the tallest gnome I have ever met.”

“She says your reputation precedes you, and she is more than honoured by your presence.”

“Good, good, what a lovely girl. Now, Ragnall,” Cicero gestured to two people who’d wandered into the garden behind him – a bearded man who looked about Cicero’s own age, and a tall, skeletally thin woman daubed with far too much red lip paint and black eye make-up, “I hope you don’t mind, but my younger brother Quintus Tullius Cicero has nipped back from winter quarters in Gaul for a few days, and he and his wife Pomponia were keen to help you celebrate.”

They didn’t look keen. When they were introduced, Pomponia peered over the top of Spring’s head as if seeking more interesting company, then fixed a fake smile and headed for Clodia. Conversely and disgustingly, her husband Quintus looked at Spring all too much, and not in the eye either. He grasped her hand with one of his clammy paws and her arm with the other. He released her hand, but kept his other hand on her arm, stroking her bicep with his thumb. She yanked away and looked at him as if he was the piece of shit that she thought he was.

“I see the girl does not understand a Roman greeting.”

“No,” said Cicero senior, looking appalled at his brother. “Why don’t you come over here, Quintus, there are some trees from Asia that you’ll be able to identify for me.”

“Sorry about him,” said Ragnall. “He’s a famous arsehole, as is his wife. People say they hate each other more even than people hate them, and that makes them even worse. Don’t get on his wrong side, though. I’ve heard he puts people who cross him in a leather sack full of snakes and chucks them into the Tiber. Strangely enough I knew another man in Gaul called Quintus, too, a fellow envoy. He was a prick as well.”

“What a lovely person to have at our wedding!”

Ragnall chuckled. “I suppose Cicero told them that Caesar was going to be here. Everyone’s trying to speak to Caesar at the moment, and Clodia told me that these two are social climbers.”

“Great! Got to love a social climber!” They had social climbers in Britain, too, of course – the way people acted around Lowa was very funny – but the affliction seemed more common and desperately grasping in Rome.

“Well, my old mentor Drustan used to say that if you were in a group of people and there wasn’t a twat, then the twat was you.”

Spring giggled. “I like that. And we’ve got two, which means that we’re double definitely not twats.”

“Yup.” Ragnall clacked his wine cup into hers and winked.

That was it for guests, other than Caesar himself. He was expected at any moment. Slaves brought drinks and food – “Steer clear of the mares’ vulvas,” warned Ragnall – and the others asked her questions about Britain, Ragnall translating. He altered her replies to say how much she was looking forward to Roman aid to recapture her throne, but other than that told them pretty much what she was saying. Clodia, Pydna, Publius, Cornelia and the friendly Cicero all listened politely, laughed when they were meant to laugh, gasped when they were meant to gasp and asked further questions that showed they’d paid attention to what she’d said and taken it seriously. Quintus Cicero and Pomponia were nowhere to be seen, presumably in another part of the garden waiting for Caesar to arrive.

Other than these latter two, they were kind, decent people, and Spring found herself having an excellent morning, both pleased and confused that there were good people in Rome when so many horrible acts had been committed in Rome’s name. Then again, she thought, she was Zadar’s daughter.

It looked briefly as if Caesar wasn’t going to make it – some other urgent business – but finally he arrived full of smiles and joy, and presented Spring with a quiver of arrows and Ragnall with a sword. The arrows and the sword weren’t nearly as good as Elann Nancarrow’s – the arrows were too short for Spring’s longbow and the sword not so lovingly forged – but the quiver was a delight. It was horse leather, she reckoned, but they must have found a really weird horse because its hair, which had been left on the outside, was striped black and white. Spring was genuinely touched, and she haltingly said “
Grat – ee – ass max – ee – mass
” to the great general. He looked surprised and raised an eyebrow at Ragnall.

“It’s the only phrase she knows,” he said. “I taught it to her specially so she could thank you. It took her about an hour to learn.”