by Manda Scott
The Thracian laughed, a little late, as if his mind were elsewhere. “And the beams are made of straw that they do not take the weight?”
“No. The beams are made of green oak which is what you get if you build a fortress in a newly conquered territory and have to use whatever materials are to hand. The first architect built on Roman lines, believing that the beams must be slender to look good. The second learned from his predecessor’s mistakes. The new ones are twice the size of the old but this snow is twice as thick. It should be swept from the roof without delay. I can see to that, or find someone who can. If your horses and your men are well and you can spare the time, it might be good if you sought out the water engineer. The baths are the child of his heart and if he finds the pipes are malfunctioning he may, like the horse, decide it is time to lie down and give himself up to the god. His name is Lucius Bassianus, an Iberian—you will have heard of him?”
The foreigner was leaning against the wall of the last stable in line, with his thumb in his belt, and he was studying Valerius as a man might study a newly bought colt. He was manifestly unconcerned by the fate of the principia or the latrines. “I’m sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “I haven’t, but then I have been here less than two days and those who tell tales are concerned with bigger minds than a water engineer and the sewers he builds. The most talkative, or perhaps the most vengeful, speak of a newly made duplicarius of the Fifth Gallorum with a pied horse that is evil incarnate and of his once-friend, the prefect Corvus, who was a captive of the natives in his youth.”
The tilt of his head left the way for a question and its ready answer. Any normal man would want to know what others said of him when his back was turned. In return, such a man would offer more information than the rumour-mongers could provide.
Valerius had a good idea what was said of him and had no desire to hear the embellishments spewed from late-night wine. He said, “Did they tell you that we have a governor who rode into his province expecting the rich pickings of conquest and found himself instead in the midst of an unfinished war that could take him ten years and as many legions to win?”
The Thracian conceded defeat with a good grace. “No,” he said. “For the hard truth, I come to my elders and betters. In the minds of those I drink with, talk of war is a waste of breath when we could be talking of love and loss and the passions that arouse us. The word of the governor was all of his son who is senior tribune with the Second legion, stationed in the far south-west. The lad, they say, had barely settled into his new lodgings when he was sent back to attend the governor’s war council with word that the legion is beset by natives and the legate dare not leave his post.”
“Which, of course, has much to do with love and loss and the passions of arousal.”
The Thracian grinned. “It might do. I am told that the governor’s son is tall and very beautiful with jet black hair and eyes like a doe and the legate has really sent him east to keep him safe from the centurions of the Second who have been in post too long and are tiring of the other ranks.” He evaluated the effect of this and then, only a little more gravely, said, “But of course those of us of more senior rank know that he will have been sent because he can be relied upon to impress on his father the severity of the threat posed by the hostile tribes that besiege his legion.”
“And those of us of more senior rank can imagine that if the young man succeeds, we might well find ourselves riding west to support that legion in battle.”
“Would we mind that?”
Valerius said, “The Gauls would be delighted. They are ready for action. I don’t know about the Thracians. Can you ride your horses in knee-deep snow?”
The Thracian blinked slowly. With a childlike gravity, he said, “Of course, but we would not choose to do so unless forced. In Thrace, a man’s horse is his brother. We would never make him lame to prove a point.”
Valerius laughed. It was a long time since he had been bested in conversation and longer still since he had laughed aloud and meant it. Better than anything else, it cleared the last vestiges of the dreams from the night. He said, “If you drink in the sewer taverns long enough, you’ll find that the men of the Quinta Gallorum prefer to ride mares rather than geldings because a mare can pass urine at a full gallop without needing to slow or to stop, and that to a Gaul a man’s mount is far closer than his brother.”
The smile that met Valerius’ was brilliant. “But you’re not a Gaul?”
“I am not.”
They walked on in peaceful silence to the junction with the via principalis. The snow was thicker here. Drifts piled deeply against the side of the nearest tribune’s house, made citrus by the light of a late-tended lamp. The frozen crust was thicker here, too. Almost, they could walk on it without sinking through.
The Thracian said, “I will find the engineer Bassianus and tell him that the pipes leading to the latrines are frozen and also some of those feeding the bath house. I looked in before I came up here and at least half are not flowing as they were last night. In the course of my search, is there anywhere I might come across real, cooked food?”
He asked his question casually, which must have taken some effort. Every fortress had somewhere among its guard posts a reliable source of decent, safe, hot food that could be begged or bought on a cold night. For a trooper or a legionary newly arrived, the knowledge of who cooked it and where was one of those many small details that transformed fortress life from the barely endurable to something more pleasant. The secret was not always freely given, however, or even readily bought.
At another time, or with another man, Valerius might well have feigned ignorance, or simply refused to answer. Instead, pointing to his right, he said, “Try the south tower of the east gate. They keep alight a brazier and I have never known them not have meat. At worst, on poor days, it isn’t spiced.”
Grinning, the Thracian clapped him on the arm. “But today will not be a poor day. Will you join me?”
With all that had just passed, Valerius might have considered it, but he had seen a lamp lit in the doorway of a house further down the via principalis and had a need to find what it meant. “With regret, no,” he said. “There is still the matter of the snow on the roof of the principia. I should report now, while there is still time to act.”
“Then I will go alone.” The Thracian saluted. “It has been a pleasure to know you.”
“And you.” They had parted and taken ten paces before Valerius turned back. “You didn’t tell me your name.”
“Sdapeze, Longinus Sdapeze, armourer and horse-master of the Ala Prima Thracum.” The man’s smile was open and friendly. He had pale eyes, almost yellow, like a hawk’s. “We will ride out together one day soon when the snow will not make the horses lame and you will see that a Thracian mount can match any colt bred in Gaul, however bad its temper.”
The man was lost in the gloom before Valerius turned his mind to what had been said and found that this last, which had sounded like a request, had in fact been a challenge and an offer, and that, nodding, he had accepted both.
CHAPTER 4
If he had been faithful to the requirements of rank order, Valerius would have reported the facts of the snow and the frozen latrines to his immediate superior, the decurion Regulus. If, instead, he had followed the imperatives of his god, he would have sought out the centurion of the third cohort of the XXth legion who was his new Father under the Sun, replacing Marullus, who had gone to join the Praetorian Guard in Rome. He did neither of these, but followed the light of a single lamp south down the main arterial road of the fortress. As he walked, he tracked a single set of footprints in the snow, passing in the same direction.
Quintus Valerius Corvus, prefect of the Ala Quinta Gallorum, occupied one of the smaller tribunical houses located near the southern end of the via principalis, on the opposite side to the great covered quadrangle of the principia. The prefect had given Valerius the name he now bore and, for five good years, a reason to live. There had bee
n a time, before the building of the tribunes’ quarters was complete, when it had seemed likely that Valerius would have been granted his own room within Corvus’ lodgings. Indeed, in the chaos of building, when men throughout the fortress lived in half-finished accommodation, sleeping amongst piles of bricks with wet plaster on the walls and the smell of whitewash in the air, they had known which room it would be even if Valerius had not yet slept there.
Then, the embers of passion had still warmed Valerius’ heart and the impossible pressures of his life had not begun to take their full toll. He had been of junior rank, and liked by his peers. The unstable patronage of the Emperor Caligula and his own passionate relationship with Corvus, which could so easily have soured his standing with the other men, had instead elevated him to the rank of mascot within the troop. He had found honour fighting the hostile Germanic tribes on the Rhine and, in his twisted half-mastery of the Crow-horse, he had proved himself a horseman worthy of the rank Corvus had bestowed on him.
To the cavalry, horsemanship and fighting prowess were intimately entwined, and in a wing drawn almost exclusively from the ranks of conquered Gauls Valerius had been one of the very few to have seen real combat before he had enrolled. His peers invented stories of the dark-haired tribal boy who had ridden his mad horse to freedom and then, eschewing all offers to return to his homeland, had joined the legions to fight for Rome. Rumours grew around him and Corvus, further tangling their joint past until it was said that the Roman prefect had been captured by barbarian tribes as he spied for the emperor in Britannia and that Valerius had conspired to free him, waiting on the shore until Corvus could sail back alone to find him. The wilder tales said that together they had fought the dreamers to wrest Valerius back to civilization, calling down the power of Roman gods to best those of the natives. No-one thought to ask why a boy raised in the freedom of the native tribes should prefer the discipline of the Rhine legions, beset by river-mist and the constant threat of hostile attack, nor, later, fighting the dreamers and the fog they called down on a battlefield, did anybody question the ability of one man to fight against them and win.
The truth was both less and more unlikely and it waited for Valerius in the waking dreams of his nights, when fear of his mother kept sleep at bay. Then, he lay in the dormitory listening to the sleeping breath of men he did not love and it was hard not to compare the cold and isolated damp with the comfort of a crowded roundhouse and the close, uncomplicated warmth of a hound, or the unexpected joy of intimacy with Corvus, which had opened the world and made life possible again.
The paths to the past, once travelled, were not easy to avoid. Valerius had found by experience that half a night could be lost staring into darkness trying to decide if the gossip was half right and the spark with Corvus had truly been there in the six months when the young Roman officer had, indeed, been a captive of the tribes and a boy with a passing knowledge of Gaulish had become his confidant and friend. It was too long ago ever to be sure and the memories, when they came, had an otherworldly sense to them, as if they were tales of another man’s life, told so often as to gain a credence of their own. Only some things came back in full and those most often in daylight, cripplingly: the sudden knifing images of love and its aftermath; the flash of a blue cloak and the smile above it; the sheer exhilarating power of a red Thessalian mare, racing a man on a dun colt; the flash of sun-struck bronze as a line of Trinovantian horsemen raised their shields and the Eceni, schooled by a Roman, came against them. All these could sweep through without warning, leaving Valerius ragged, irritable and looking for someone or something to shout at.
With adequate sleep and no dreams, he could manage the worst excesses of his anger, but the constant presence of his mother and the judgements she brought had eroded his equanimity. The first few months after the invasion had been chaotic and everyone had lived on short tempers and little sleep. The warmer, longer days of spring had restored most men’s humour; it was only Valerius who continued to vent his rage at whoever was within reach. The men came to like him less and fear him more, and, although this was almost certainly what had earned him the promotion, it had not restored peace to his soul.
It was Corvus, ultimately, who bore the worst and deserved it least and it had been at Valerius’ own request that his room in Corvus’ house had been given over to other use and he had been billeted instead with the other junior officers of his troop. He had believed at the time that it was a temporary necessity and that he was acting to protect both himself and a man for whom, at the very least, he still had utmost respect from his own unpredictable, unforgivable, uncontrollable and ever-increasing lapses in temper. Even now, two years later, he continued to believe he might one day go back.
He had visited only twice after the house had been built, both times in the first month after his change of billet. On each occasion, a lamp lit in the doorway had been a signal that Corvus was alone and would welcome company. It seemed likely it did so still. It was possible that the lamp had been lit tonight for Valerius and that, if he chose to, he could enter unannounced and follow the familiar line of sheltered candles to the private apartments. He did not so choose.
Corvus’ household was always first to wake and deal with the events of the night. The snow had been shovelled away from the doorways and a broad corridor dug out into the via principalis, easing the route for the passers-by. It was a helpful gesture that also effectively removed the possibility that anyone could follow the trail of a single set of boot prints from the several that passed down the roadway to this particular entrance.
Frozen gravel crunched underfoot as Valerius walked to the door. A bronze bowl stood to one side, a small mallet above it. He struck the one softly with the other and waited as the sound embrazened the night. Everything around him was white. Even the walls of this place were washed with simple lime, leaving it pure, like the snow, clearly set apart from the tiled and painted glory of the legionary tribunes’ houses set on either side.
The gong was answered, as Valerius had known it would be, by Mazoias, the Babylonian. The head of Corvus’ household was a white-haired old man with a crooked shoulder. In his cups, Mazoias claimed kinship with princes of Babylon and the royal house of Persia. Sober, he was a slave whom Corvus had bought at a market in Iberia and subsequently freed, who chose to continue in place because a life spent in service to Corvus was better than any other he could envisage. The old man recognized Valerius. His gnarled features froze midway through their message of welcome and the door, which had been opening, began to close.
Valerius put his foot in the jamb. “I think not. I have a message for the prefect. Tell him the snow is an arm’s length thick on the roof of the principia and it will take more men than I can order to clear it. If he wishes the governor to make his first public address to his legions in safety and warmth, he will order out at least one full troop of men. Tell him also that the pipes to the main latrines are frozen. I have sent a man to find Bassianus but the prefect may wish—”
Each man has his own scent. It may lessen a little when he is warm and oiled from the baths, or running freely with other men’s blood in battle, but it never departs entirely. After a night wrapped in sheepskin against the cold, it is as strong as it will ever become, unless that night has been spent in company, in which case it is stronger. Corvus, Valerius thought, had spent this night alone, but perhaps not that part since waking. No amount of work or responsibility or prayer to the god could protect him completely from the impact of that. He drew his foot from the door jamb, fixed his gaze on the wall opposite and saluted.
Corvus said, “Thank you, Mazoias. I will speak with the officer.”
There was a brief clash of wills, the outcome of which was never in doubt. With a glance that promised eternal damnation if his master was left out of sorts, the old man withdrew.
They were alone. Neither spoke. Snow sucked at the silence, softening it. The lamp nearest the doorway was of clay with a Capricorn painted in rough glaze on t
he bowl. It had never burned cleanly and did not do so now. Out of habit, and for something to do, Corvus reached up and altered the lie of the wick. A spiral of smoke rose to stain the ceiling and the light glowed more strongly after, so that more of each of them could be seen. Corvus had not been awake long; his brown hair was still damp from a hurried morning wash and not adequately combed. In truth, it was never adequately combed. The back was cut properly short but the flick of life at the front swooped in an unruly curve across his forehead and mirrored the arc of his brows. It said all one needed to know of the man and his attitude to authority. The scars and the weather-browned skin told the same tale. Only his eyes could tell more, did he choose, but they were hidden in shadow. His words fell out of the same shaded space.
“What do I call you now?” Their last argument, the most damaging, had been over Corvus’ use of the old name, now abandoned. They had never resolved it.
Valerius said, “I am Julius Valerius in the records, as you know. My men call me duplicarius, or master of horse. Both are acceptable.”
“Good. I’ll try to remember. How is he?”
“Who?”
“Your man-killing horse. The one of whom you are master.”
There was a thread of humour in the voice. Caught off guard, Valerius replied in kind. “He’s well. You’d be proud of him. He managed to bite me this morning. The shock nearly killed us both.”
Distantly, he was aware that his shoulder ached but the pain was not yet fully part of him. Like the brand, he yearned for it to come home, as if pain were something real in which he could hide. Experimentally, he rolled his arm back and winced.
He had forgotten in whose company he stood. Corvus had reached a hand for his cloak and turned the neck of it back before either of them remembered that he no longer had leave—and then remembered also that he was a prefect and could do anything he chose with the cloak and person of a junior officer. Valerius swayed back at his touch and came upright again, parade-ground stiff.