Barbarian Princess

by Barbarian Princess (retail) (epub)

  Forst took a feed bucket from a hook on the wall and upended it.

  “Odd,” Appius went on, scrubbing at the bay’s chest with a rag. “It has dawned on me tonight that my sons are grown men, and the time has come to back away. To stand on the sidelines and cheer, and to keep my hands off their business. And worse, that I should have known it four years ago.”

  “I don’t have children, sir,” Forst said thoughtfully, “but it occurs to me that that is a thought that’s most likely always a mite slow in the coming.”

  Appius gave a snort of laughter. “Do you really think so, Forst, or are you just telling the master what you think he’d like hearing?”

  “No, I’ve never told you a lie, sir.”

  “You haven’t, have you. You close up like a clam instead.”

  “A man needs some refuge, sir,” Forst said evenly.

  “I expect he does at that.” Appius hung the rag up on the hook. “Find me a hoof pick.”

  When Forst brought it, Appius held out his hand. It was plain that the master was in the mood to do his own work tonight, so Forst sat back on his bucket.

  “What do you think of that beast that Correus has so kindly given us?” Appius asked.

  “So far he’s got top colts, sir,” Forst said. “The stable-boys won’t go near him, but he minds well enough with Alan and me. I wish we had another stud or so like him.”

  “He’s too heavy. I think his colts are going to be.”

  “A few of them, sir. But the ones out of the Arab mares – Alan and I had the idea you might get a whole new beast out of those. The wiriness and temperament of the Arabs, and some of the bone and endurance of that gray.”

  “And the size? Cavalry has to be mobile.”

  “I never saw a half-Arab yet that couldn’t spin around on a flyspeck. And a bigger horse is none so bad if you’re going to draft cavalry from the Gauls and the Rhenus folk.” The Romans were a small race, but most of their auxiliaries came from the provinces. Forst, when he stood, was a good head above his master.

  Appius chuckled. “We’ve tried for size before, but mostly they turn heavy and sluggish. I’ve a fair amount of faith in Alan, though. If he wants to try a new breeding plan, I’m willing to buy the stock he needs. Tell him to talk to me about it.”

  “Alan’s old, sir,” Forst said. “He doesn’t think much of starting something that maybe someone else will finish.”

  “And maybe ruin? Alan doesn’t trust anyone but himself to tell one end of a horse from the other.”

  Forst chuckled. “He trusts me a fair amount – when carefully watched.”

  I’ve never heard him laugh before, Appius thought. Did any man ever really know his slaves? Probably not. “Tell him to start the program,” he said, on impulse. “If it looks worthwhile, I’ll give the post to you when he retires. Can you write Latin yet? If you can’t, learn it.”

  Forst’s head came up fast, in surprise. “I’m a slave, sir.”

  “So is the steward of this estate,” Appius said. “There are slaves in Rome with more power than most senators.”

  “I don’t understand that, sir.”

  “We’re complicated,” Appius said. “Tell Alan to see me tomorrow.”

  * * *

  Whatever it was that was abroad in the moonshine that night, Flavius felt it, too. The windows were propped open, and the moon turned the lotus flowers silver. Aemelia, in her night shift, was brushing her hair at a marble-topped table with fanciful crocodile legs. The flickering lamplight gave the crocodiles a jovial look.

  “It will be nice to go to parties again,” Flavius said lazily. “I should think you’ll like that.” He was stretched on the bed with his hands clasped behind his head, watching her. He would like it himself, he thought, spending his off-duty hours socializing in Rome instead of sitting in a Lindum wineshop drinking cheap wine and watching it rain.

  “Yes.” A vision of hitherto forbidden pleasures danced in the mirror before her. Aemelia was not long out of the schoolroom, and the amusements considered suitable for a schoolgirl couldn’t compare with those of a married lady. But it wasn’t respectable to go to parties by herself, and without Flavius to escort her, she might as well have been still in the schoolroom. Her mother and Lady Antonia had definite ideas about the conduct suitable for a young bride.

  Now, with Flavius on the praetorian prefect’s staff, they would be invited everywhere. They could even have their own parties… Flavius was going to build a house of their own. Holding court for envoys and foreign ambassadors and the leading men of Rome… Aemelia drew the brush through her hair dreamily, while Flavius watched her with amusement.

  She’s a nice girl, but there isn’t much to her, he thought with sudden clarity. She’s relieved not to have to follow me about on some dreary frontier or feel guilty because she isn’t. Not like Correus’s Freita – but I couldn’t have lived with Freita. Maybe that’s why I love Aemelia; because she is less than I am. What that said about himself, he wasn’t sure, but he knew it for the truth in this odd, moonlit moment of knowledge. He shrugged his shoulders. It didn’t matter. It simply was.

  “We’ll pick the site for the house tomorrow,” he said, and smiled when her face lit up. He held his arms out, and she came and sat on the edge of the bed. He ran his hand down the front of her shift and she watched him solemnly. “It’s not supposed to be a duty,” he whispered. “It’s supposed to be fun.” He pulled her down on the bed beside him and kissed her. After a moment she slipped an arm around his neck.

  The lotus flowers shimmered in the moonlight, and the cat-headed god on the far wall seemed to smile benignly at them. You’ll be happy with me, Flavius thought. You wouldn’t have been with Correus. He started to say it aloud, and stopped. Let her come to that knowledge herself. And if it suited her to keep Correus as a pleasant daydream somewhere in the back of her mind, it took nothing away from Flavius. The dried herbs in the mattress gave off a soft, sweet scent as they moved, and he cradled her in his arms, content with the night.

  XII Thaw

  My dear Son,

  This is a letter which should have been written four years ago – or better yet, not have to have been written at all. No man is infallible, but very few of us are willing to admit it, especially to our children.

  Correus gave a snort of amusement. He thought he knew what was coming. It was a little late in the day for it, but he had to admire the old general for writing it.

  Before you joined the Centuriate, I extracted a promise from you for which I never should have asked, and which I am well aware you had very little choice but to give. I release you now from that promise, utterly and irrevocably, with the hope that it has done no lasting harm – and the hope you will understand why I asked it.

  The “why” wasn’t something Appius could put in a letter, Correus thought, but he knew what it was. Appius had asked him to look after Flavius because he thought Correus was the stronger of the two – the spoken reason. And because Appius loved his bastard son better than his legitimate one and felt guilty about it – the unspoken one, never to be spoken. Sad, to give yourself a choice like that. Correus was sitting at his desk in the barracks at Isca, wrapped in trousers and leggings and two cloaks, with a brazier going a few feet away while the wind screeched around the door frame and the snow piled itself into drifts against the barracks walls. It was the first real storm of winter, and the supply wagons with the post must have just outrun it.

  Flavius has been in Rome since the summer and told me in no uncertain terms to take my promise and put it in the Tiber. He is shrewder than I had thought. I am well aware that he did not learn about the promise from you.

  The rest of the family are well. Lady Antonia and your mother send their love, when they can be distracted from bickering with each other. I have thought of settling an allowance on your mother and giving her a house in the country, but she dislikes the idea and so in some ways do I, so we go on much as we have been, fang and claw discreetly veiled, bu
t generally at the ready.

  Julia and Paulinus are with us at the moment, and as Julia is with child, they are looking for a suitable house and intend to stay put for a while. Your son is well, beginning to walk now, and seems to have taken no harm from the continual jaunting about to which Julia has subjected him. Her own child will no doubt receive the same treatment. He is rapidly becoming, as you were, the pet of every servant in the house and looks, to my grandfatherly eye, a great deal like you – and hence, of course, a great deal like me – but much fairer. His hair is a very fine gold now, almost what your mother’s was when she was younger, and his eyes are a very remarkable shade of green – his mother’s, I think, if you don’t find it too painful for me to mention her. She was a good woman, and in spite of my objections to a marriage, I liked her. I am glad you have adopted him; you should have that at least. And since he is your firstborn, and you are as yet unmarried, any future wife will not be in a position to object. You will live to be glad of that, I can assure you.

  Correus chuckled in spite of himself, putting the memory of Freita carefully into the back of his mind. Lady Antonia was fond of him, but she had made a number of pointed remarks on the subject of his own adoption.

  Do you have any preference as to what name he shall be known by in the family? Your sister said, and I quote, that Frontinus is all very well to flatter the governor, but it doesn’t suit a small child, and she has taken to calling the boy Felix. Since Flavius’s firstborn will undoubtedly be known as Appius – he had better – I have no objections to Frontinus or Felix. I shall send this to you in a scroll case in order to include Paulinus’s drawing of the child. It is an excellent likeness, I think. He has a way with faces that is sometimes too accurate. He did a sketch of his uncle Gentilius that comes close to being rude.

  Correus reached for the scroll case and shook the second sheet from it. He had taken it for merely a continuation of his father’s letter, and the scroll case for a protection against the civilian postal services, which stuffed their correspondence into canvas bags and jumped on them at regular intervals.

  It was an ink drawing, quickly done but heart-stoppingly clear, as if the child had been caught in motion for a single frozen second. Over it, apparently at some later point, Paulinus had laid a faint wash of color, just enough to show the fairness of skin and hair.

  Correus spread the drawing out flat and weighted it with an inkstand and a penknife from among the clutter on his desk. He put his chin in his hands and stared. There is very little to be said about a baby, even at several months, other than that it is one’s own and, therefore, beloved. But this was a child of one year, a person in his own right, green eyes bright with curiosity and round baby face beginning to be overlaid with something of Correus’s angular features.

  He was still staring when the door opened and a small figure, muffled to the eyes like a mummy, darted in and pushed it closed again against the wind.

  “Who is that?” She peered over his shoulder.

  “That is my son. Ygerna, you are not supposed to be in barracks.”

  “Why not? You never said you had a son.” She unwrapped the scarf from around her neck and shed the outermost of her cloaks.

  “It wasn’t any of your business,” Correus said. “But you may look if you want to. My father thinks he looks like me, but I don’t know. This is the first I have seen of him since he was a month old.”

  Ygerna looked from Correus’s intent face to the drawing. “That is sad,” she decided.

  “Yes, I think so, too.” Correus rolled up the drawing with his father’s letter and slipped them into the scroll case.

  You have leave due you, a voice in his head said, and as always, a second voice answered, Why? To see a child you can’t have?

  He is still mourning that woman, Ygerna thought. She was beginning to warm up, and she pulled off her inner cloak as well, spreading both out beside the brazier where they gave off the heavy smell of wet wool. She had finally outgrown the clothes with which she had come, and the Dobunni woman had made her new ones, salvaging what ornamentation she could from the old gowns. The top of her head still didn’t reach his shoulder. “Why am I not allowed in barracks?” she prodded him to take that bleak look off his face – and the dead woman off his mind. “I am bored.”

  “Because you’re a girl, and it isn’t respectable,” Correus said. “Though you’re so young I suppose it really doesn’t matter. But don’t make habit of it. The governor won’t like it.”

  “I am nearly fifteen!” Ygerna said indignantly, ignoring the governor. “So it does matter! But I wish to stay anyway,” she added hastily.

  Correus looked at her appraisingly. She was still as thin as she had been at thirteen and not so very much taller. But it was the sidhe blood that caused her diminutive stature, not her youth. He had trouble remembering how old she was because she was so small. But she was almost a woman now. She was going to have to stop running tame about the camp before some fool with a skin full of wine came to the same realization. He ruffled her hair. “Come along. I’ll walk you back to the house before your woman comes looking for you. Behave yourself, and I’ll play a game of Wisdom with you.”

  * * *

  “Where did you learn to play this?” Ygerna moved a piece on the board and took one of Correus’s men. She sat back to watch him deciding on his strategy.

  “None of your business.” He moved a piece carefully, baiting a trap.

  Ygerna saw his intention and sidestepped, grinning. “You know too much,” she said. “Too many things that Romans don’t know, I mean. Why?”

  “I can’t tell you,” Correus said patiently, thanking the gods that Rhys the trader had never spoken to the king’s niece while he had peddled his wares in Silure holdings. “And I’ve told you that already. Be a good girl and stop prying.”

  “I am not a child!” Ygerna thumped her fist on the marble tabletop and made the game board jump. She glared at him.

  “Then would the princess kindly cease to ask about things that I can’t tell her?” Correus rephrased it.

  Ygerna laughed. “That is better,” she said with mock dignity. “All right, if you won’t tell me that, then tell me something else.”

  “What, O Princess?”

  “What is the governor going to do in the spring?” she said seriously. “Correus, I can’t stand not knowing what is going to happen to me. I feel like something in a cage, and I don’t know if they’re going to set me free, or put a ribbon around my neck and keep me for a pet like the cat, or just have me for dinner.”

  “Not that, I promise you. As to the other two, I don’t know, either.” Correus’s voice was serious now. “It depends on what Bendigeid does, and how the spring campaign goes, and where the governor thinks you’ll be the most use.”

  Ygerna made a face. “The governor is no better than the king my uncle. I am tired of being of use to people. Does anyone care what happens to me?”

  “I do.”

  Ygerna gave him a long look. “But you are not the king or the governor, are you?” she said finally.

  “No.” Correus sighed. “Look, I will tell you what our army will do in the spring. Truly, that is all I know.”

  Ygerna picked up the Wisdom board and set it on another table. “We can finish later.” She sat back down across the marble table from him while the cat patted interestedly at the Wisdom men.

  “Now. Tell me.”

  * * *

  All summer long Governor Frontinus had laid down a gridwork, like the pattern on a loom, through the river valleys of West Britain. With every pass of the shuttle, a new road would begin its course, a new fort rise up to guard it. Perhaps a third of Bendigeid’s total strength had been smashed in the first battle. The rest harried the Romans as they went. Sometimes two and three at a time would act as bait, drawing unwary patrols into ambush. Sometimes by night they would cut the tethered cavalry horses loose or burn what had been built the day before. They left Roman heads along the path
of the new road, a day’s work ahead for their mates to find, and they prowled like wolves around the outskirts of the camps. But slowly the grid moved on, tighter with each new fort and road. It was drawn almost closed by the start of winter. With the spring they would weave the last line, build the last fort, and Bendigeid would be trapped, able to shift his men only in small bands along secret tracks. Then there would be no movement possible on open land that would not cross the sweep of Roman patrols.

  Bendigeid knew it. Already his forays were beginning to have the recklessness of desperation. In the spring the governor would slam the lid down and nail it shut with the two legions he had in winter quarters now and the long-awaited Second Adiutrix. The Ninth Hispana was as stable as it was ever going to be, and Gaius Gratus had taken his Second Legion back to winter at Lindum. Even the detachment of the Twentieth, which had harried Cadal’s borders all summer, would move against Bendigeid in the spring. Cadal could preen himself on a victory and grow fat and lazy thinking he had driven Rome back. Or so it was hoped.

  * * *

  Ygerna listened gravely as Correus explained it to her, omitting only the matter of the Ninth Hispana and the governor’s plans for Cadal. She leaned forward, arms crossed on the marble tabletop. Her face had left much of its childhood behind by the time he had finished. She spread out her hands and looked at them, as if they were someone else’s, and then looked up at him suddenly, eye to eye.

  “You told me you didn’t want to destroy my tribe, only to make them… Romans.”

  “Yes.”

  “When Bendigeid my uncle is gone, your governor will be needing a new ruler for the Silures.”

  “Yes.”

  “So you were told to make me like you. To make me… Roman.” She gestured toward the Latin scrolls and alphabet, the cat asleep next to the Wisdom board, the pictures of Rome he had brought to amuse her.