Hadrian's wall

by William Dietrich

  "In other words, a Briton," Clodius said.

  "Aye, junior tribune, a Briton. A Celt. A barbarian. He helps us with word of the tribes farther north, and then tells them of Roman intentions. He's a border man, as close to an ally as we get in these parts. Now his neighbor, Caldo Twin-Axe, has stolen twenty head. Braxus promises information if we help get them back."

  "Is such theft common?" She was fascinated by this glimpse of border politics.

  "Braxus no doubt stole the same cows himself the season before. It's their sport."

  Decurions reported the men ready; Galba bowed his good-bye and began shouting orders. The line of assembled troopers began to uncoil, making for the barrel arch of the north gate. A legionary standard, cavalry pennants, and dragon-head banners jutted into the air. As the column moved, the open heads of the dragons filled the fabric behind, inflating it, and so the cavalry rode out of the fortress with the bodies of serpents writhing above their helmets.

  "They're so imposing," Valeria said.

  "Which is why they ride forth," Clodius replied. "To show our power. Come, let's watch from a tower."

  The buildings of Petrianis were packed ten feet apart. The junior tribune pointed out the granary, the saddler's shed, and the hospital as they passed. "Good doctoring is the most powerful recruiting tool the army has." Beyond was an armory, noisy with working soldiers. German recruits were hammering dents out of old armor. Syrians were shaping and fletching arrows from aspen, yew, and pine. Numidians were sorting river stones that would be fired from slings or catapults. The armory had a pungent smell of metal shavings, olive oil, and animal fat, used to combat rust.

  "Because of the ambush, the post is sharpening preparations," Clodius explained.

  She was taken aback by the industry. "I didn't mean to start a war. I fought them off with a brooch pin!" Since he grimaced at this unintentional comparison, she searched for another question. "How did they know we'd be in the forest?"

  "Our journey was no secret, and our progress slow. I made a bad choice."

  "It was at my insistence, Clodius."

  "We shared the mistake."

  "Perhaps we've all just had bad luck."

  He shook his head. "I think things happen for a reason."

  Behind the armory were the stables of the cavalry, and they decided to pass through inside. The animals snorted and whinnied as the pair walked by the stalls, some begging for a treat, and Valeria's heart quickened. "I'd like to pick one to go riding," she said. "Ride fast again, like in the forest. That white mare, perhaps, with the gray forehead."

  "A good eye. See how she's got the chest and legs for speed? Wide nostrils for stamina? And the mane falls to the right." "Is that important?"

  "All Roman soldiers must be right-handed, so their shields are uniformly on the left to maintain formation. A horse's bare neck lets a cavalryman's shield hand rest on its muscles and guide the horse while he fights."

  "You sound quite the expert."

  "I've read the classic advisories, from Xenophon to Virgil." "I hear the Celts have women who ride. Women who are war riors!"

  "Which makes us the Roman and they the barbarian," he jibed. There were long heaps of fodder near the fortress wall, the hay roofed with tile for protection against flaming arrows. In one corner was a kiln and clay. Adjacent was a blacksmith shop, next to that a glassworks, and beyond a carpentry woodshed perfumed with wood chips.

  "It seems less a fort than a factory," Valeria remarked. "It has to be, at civilization's end. The army has taught the world. A full legion employs architects, surveyors, plumbers, doctors, stonecutters, glass fitters, coppersmiths, armorers, wagon makers, coopers, and butchers." He grinned. "My dreams of martial glory have been tempered by my duties managing manure."

  They mounted to the top of a tower, Clodius guiding her around a wooden ballista and its rack of darts and pointing north. "Out there, Valeria, is the end of the world."

  She looked. There was a ditch directly below the wall, pools of rainwater at its bottom. Then a steep slope beyond to a valley, all shrubs and trees chopped away to preserve a clear field of fire. Nor could there be surprise: the view beyond seemed endless, a rolling panorama of moor and wood and fen and ridge and ponded water, as clearly seen as if she were a bird. Wisps of smoke marked a few crude farmsteads. She could still see the line of Galba's cavalry, riding north, lance heads glinting in the sun.

  "How did the ambushing Celts ever cross this barrier?"

  "That's what Galba hopes to learn from Braxus."

  She looked back at the fort and the roofs of the village clustered beyond. Then the river, and beyond that the villa where she'd been married. What a little empire a praefectus governed! She turned to sight along the Wall itself, a bony crest that stretched as far as the eye could see. "Like the back of a dragon."

  "A poetic description," Clodius complimented. He was standing quite close, perhaps closer than proper now that she was married, and yet his torso gave her some protection from the breeze and so she was secretly glad of it. He was trim, rather handsome, and solicitous in his eager way. Clodius was like a brother, she told herself, and Marcus still remote, like her… father.

  She was shamed at the sudden comparison that had come unbidden into her mind.

  "It's designed to intimidate as much as block," Clodius went on. "Any barbarian realizes the army that built this bulwark represents a power beyond their imagination."

  "We're safe, then."

  "Life is never safe. It's the possibility of death that defines life."

  "You sound like Galba," she teased. "Are you acquiring his grim-ness?"

  "His realism." He touched his throat.

  She turned around, taking it all in. "This fortress is grim like your soldier's philosophy, isn't it? It has the feel of a prison."

  "It doesn't lock us in. Only others out."

  "So I want to see this wild world of yours, Clodius. I want to go riding!"

  He was watching her carefully, trying to mask his attraction. By the gods, if he were Marcus, he wouldn't leave her alone for an instant, let alone the first day of their married life! He was guilty at his fascination, but escorting her was like rubbing a wound, exacerbating it and yet soothing it at the same time. Now he kept his voice carefully flat. "With your husband's permission, perhaps."

  "South of the Wall, to be safe." She gave him an impish smile, trying to seduce his support. "A test of your defenses."

  "Yes. A test." He swallowed. "And if they do test it, they learn of a wall of a different sort." He took a breath. "Come. The Petriana isn't really about horses. Or stones and mortar."

  They descended to the eastern half of the fort. Here were the barracks, long and trim. She could smell wood smoke, baking bread, male sweat, and oil for flesh and weapons. A cat lolled by one doorway, and crude graffiti decorated a whitewashed wall. In another entry the wife of a soldier watched them pass, a newborn suckling her breast.

  Soon that might be her, Valeria realized, or at least her hired wet nurse. How unready she felt to have children! Yet it could happen at any time, despite her precautions. Her life had changed overnight. So many changes that she felt, for a curious moment, as if she were looking at herself from outside, assessing her life's new peculiarities from a distance.

  Against the eastern wall was a small training ground enclosed with a low wooden palisade. A turma of new recruits was being drilled by a frog-throated decurion who seemed capable of cursing in three languages. The probatios looked tired, confused, and awkward in their armor, their forearms bearing a fresh red welt.

  "What happened to their flesh?" Valeria whispered.

  "The military tattoo. Officers don't bear them."

  "I saw one on Galba."

  "Evidence of his humble birth."

  "Does it hurt?"

  "I suppose, but pain is a soldier's companion. The tattoo discourages desertion and helps identify pulped remains after battle."

  It was sword practice, and the drillmas
ter picked out one of his recruits. "Brutus!" he barked.

  The man jerked, clearly unhappy at being singled out.

  "Step forward!"

  The new soldier hesitantly complied. He looked uncomfortable in his stiff new armor and walked as if weighted. His superior pointed to one of a score of heavily scarred wooden posts that had been inserted into stone holes in the training courtyard. "There stands your enemy! Attack with your sword!"

  The man obediently marched forward with heavy oval shield, lifted a blunt-edged Roman gladius, and began hacking at the wood with vigor, his companions laughing good-naturedly at his effort. His blows echoed from the fortress walls like the ring of an ax.

  "Now, for cavalry practice the men ride in the meadows outside," Clodius murmured. "It takes a year to make a good horseman and a lifetime to make a good cavalryman. But basic soldiering skills begin here."

  As chips flew, the man began to sweat and his strokes to falter. "His training armor and weapons are twice normal weight," Clodius explained.

  "Don't give up now, Brutus!" his companions called. "We need more kindling for the barracks!"

  Grimacing, the soldier kept swinging, but his assault had turned to dispirited labor. Finally the decurion raised his arm. "Enough, dull-wit!"

  The soldier stopped, arms hanging like ropes.

  "Tired?"

  There was no need to nod.

  "No matter, because you were a dead man twenty strokes ago. First, you let your shield arm drift to your left, making a target of your chest and belly. Second, you were chopping high like a barbarian, inviting a sword point into your armpit." He raised his own arm in demonstration and looked at the other recruits. "Forget the gladiatorial nonsense of fancy arm and footwork. This is war, not the arena!" The decurion crouched, sidling forward. "Now, a barbarian looks fearsome with his long overhead stroke, but in the time he takes to swing, a Roman will kill him three times. Why? Because a Roman doesn't stroke, he stabs-from below, like this." The decurion thrust, and the young man recoiled. "You go for the abdomen. You go for the balls. Stab in… and up! I don't care if your blue-colored Pict is seven feet tall, he'll squeal and go down. You'll be standing on his great gaping face, smelling his blood and shit, while you do the same trick to his brother. Thrust!" He showed the move again. "That's the Roman way!"

  The men laughed.

  "I get queasy just listening to it," she whispered.

  "Decurions like that made us masters of the world. He's the real Hadrian's Wall."

  "Men like Galba." She understood some of the hardness of Galba Brassidias then. Understood his dour nature. Most Romans never met anyone like him, and never knew who kept their lives so placid.

  They walked back toward the commander's house. An older soldier was standing near the training stockade with his arms stretched out, a centurion's vinestaff balanced on his wrists. "Galba's discipline," Clodius whispered.

  "Galba's world," Valeria murmured. "A man's world. So odd to see no other highborn women within these walls."

  "Invite Lady Lucinda for company. Or wives from the other forts."

  "I will."

  "And don't hesitate to ask for me, as a friend."

  "I appreciate that, Clodius."

  "I almost let you be captured once. I won't again."

  "Tribune!"

  They looked ahead. Marcus! Valeria's first instinct was to run, but he looked stern, even unhappy. So she stopped to wait for his approach, earning a brief nod of approval at her circumspection.

  "A pleasure to see you again, bride. My apologies for not having more time today."

  "Clodius has been showing me your fort."

  "An assignment he was sly enough to ask for." He turned to his subordinate. "I wish to talk to you in private, Clodius Albinus. Falco is here."

  Clodius looked depressed. "Is it about the banquet?"

  "The young tribune has already apologized," Valeria spoke up. "The wine made him foolish. Please don't be harsh."

  "This isn't your issue, wife."

  "I'm sure he'll have more kindness for British beer!"

  "This has nothing to do with beer, either."

  "But what, then? Why bother him further?"

  Marcus was annoyed at her persistence. "It's the slave, Odo."

  "Odo?" Clodius didn't understand.

  "The one you poured beer on."

  "What about him?"

  "He's been murdered."

  XVII

  This man-boy Clodius has not impressed me, from every description I've had of him. "You seriously suspected him of murder?"

  I put the question to the centurion Falco, owner of the dead slave, unsure if this bizarre detour has anything at all to do with the real mystery I'm trying to unravel.

  "Clodius had impressed no one-except, perhaps, Valeria. They were close to the same age and both newcomers. She bewitched him, I think, which made the other men think him an even greater fool. So yes, the rest of us suspected him."

  "Tell me how this came about."

  "My slave, Odo, was found dead the morning after the wedding, killed by a table knife thrust to the heart. His head was still sticky with the beer that the buffoon had poured on it, and we all knew Clodius was angry at the Celts for marring his throat. Odo was Scotti, a recent capture, and fighter enough that he hadn't entirely learned a slave's humility. The young tribune was drunk, unhappy, and unable to avenge himself. We thought he might have killed in frustration."

  "What did Clodius say in his own defense?"

  "He said that he was ashamed of what he'd done to the slave at the banquet and had no reason to harm him further. If anything, he argued, Odo should have more resentment toward Clodius than Clodius toward him. Which of course made us think that perhaps Odo had attacked Clodius. The boy had no alibi. He'd left the wedding in disgrace and hadn't been seen the rest of the evening."

  I study Falco. He seems a fair but practical man. His decency has a foundation of iron. "You cared for this slave?"

  "I valued him at three hundred siliqua."

  "So you wanted the culprit punished?"

  "I wanted the culprit to pay me for my loss."

  "What did Marcus decide?"

  "Nothing, as usual." Falco stops, realizing he has finally betrayed something useful. His glance shifts away as he remembers unhappy times.

  "The praefectus was an indecisive man," I clarify.

  The centurion hesitates, weighing his loyalties, and then remembers how many are dead. "The praefectus was… careful. We learned eventually that he'd made an early blunder as a junior tribune in campaign against brigands in Galatia. Later, he'd been unfairly caught up in the stink from the sexual scandal of a superior. He'd mismanaged a business of his father's. He'd learned caution, and it's but a short step from caution to fear."

  "I'm told he was bookish."

  "His library filled two carts. Not at all what we were accustomed to."

  "Galba, you mean."

  "The senior tribune could be rash, but decisive. The two had different styles."

  Different styles. A unit responds to a commander like a team to the rein, and so his personality becomes the personality of his men. Accordingly, it troubles soldiers whenever there's a switch, and it takes them a while to settle under the new hand. If they ever do. "How well did they work together?"

  "Awkwardly. The first time I saw Galba in the baths I counted twenty-one scars on the front of his body and none on his back. He had a chain or belt of rings-"

  "I've heard of this chain."

  "Marcus, in contrast, had never seen real battle. It was even more uncomfortable after our commander's marriage to his inquisitive bride."

  "The men did not like Valeria, either?"

  "They appreciated her beauty, even when it made the garrison restless with longing. But yes, she made us uneasy as well-even Lucinda was taken aback. Valeria roamed the fort like a decurion. She was curious about the natives and demanded that a kitchen maid teach her and the Roman slave woman the Celtic
tongue. She absorbed it like a child, and asked about things that are no business of women."

  "What things?"

  "Warfare. The mood of the men. The organization of the Petriana. Firing‹ a forge, straightening an arrow shaft, the sicknesses of soldiers. Her curiosity was boundless. Marcus couldn't silence her. He was embarrassed but confused by her, I think, and the men didn't like it. It was no secret that she was the reason for Marcus's command."

  "And Galba?"

  "The quieter he was about his resentment, the plainer his frustration. He was the one man who knew how the fort worked, and everyone looked to him for instruction and direction. Even Marcus. Yet the Roman made a point of countermanding the Thracian to establish his own authority. We were a cavalry with two heads."

  I frown, recognizing the situation from problems I have investigated before. There is nothing more fatal than disunity of command. "The duke did nothing?"

  "He was stationed at Eburacum, and it took time for the situation to reach his ears. Then he was distracted by events on the Continent."

  He means the succession, which I will get to in my own good time. I want to get to the heart of matters before it. "Did these difficulties affect the Petriana as a whole?"

  Falco ponders. I am asking him not about individuals but about the performance of his unit, of the eagle standard to which all good soldiers give their ultimate loyalty.

  "The strain made us too eager," he suggests. "None of us were happy with the situation, and all thirsted for change. There's opportunity in conflict. Some men fall in battle, but others rise. Careers demand a certain amount of chaos."

  Chaos. I've spent my own career trying to prevent what ambitious men long for. Men seed their own disasters. "All this was in the background when you discussed the murder of Odo?"

  "Yes. For Galba the murder was an opportunity."