“And keep her away from your customers,” Correus added.
“Of course. And what were you planning to pay me to care for a she-cat who may stick a knife in me?”
They haggled mildly over the price until Rhodope nodded her orange head in agreement. Correus turned to the girl. “You will stay with this woman,” he said. “Her name is Rhodope and she will look after you, and you will have some women for company. But you belong to me, not her. You won’t have to, uh…”
“I can tell what she is,” Freita spat at him. “I am not stupid.”
“No, I expect you’re not.” Correus was beginning to feel a little harassed. His distress at the thought of the girl going to that bored-faced tribune was fading before the problem of what he was going to do with her now. He didn’t want a mistress – Rhodope’s Charis had been a much less complicated solution when his physical urges grew out of bounds. “Yes – well, you only have to live with her, not take up her trade,” he said. “I will come back as soon as I can and we will talk.” The girl looked as if she’d see him in Hell first.
Rhodope heaved herself up out of her chair. “Come along, child,” she said in rough German. “The world will look less black when you have washed and had something to eat.”
Correus left her to Rhodope. Any “Venus” stalwart enough to follow an army on campaign could undoubtedly handle one German girl, and Rhodope was legendary. He returned to his century with the pleasant task of informing them that the cohort had earned a commendation from the legate and that there would be a ration of good wine that night and a bonus later when the spoils had been turned to cash.
The camp was in a festival mood. Their losses in the last engagement were few and there was the promise of largesse to come. Nyall had escaped with no more than a fifth of his original war band, counting those who had not been in Jorunnshold when it was attacked, and these latter were now leaderless and lying low if they had any sense. The frontier would stay quiet while the Roman army dug in along the Nicer. The whole of the Black Forest, more than a third of the Agri Decumates, was now in Roman hands, and the new string of forts along the Nicer would make a base from which to bring the rest under control. There were few Germans left to fight for it.
Correus proudly paraded his men before the standards at the evening prayers. He had lost only two men out of a full complement of eighty (brought up to strength by the new drafts from the Emperor), and one of those was in the hospital with a wound that would heal cleanly. The other lay among the dead, and Correus called out his name in the Prayer for the Slain that followed the worship at the Altar of the Standards.
When they were dismissed, Silvanus came hunting him. He had a cloth tied around a cut in his temple, which gave him a rakish look, and there was a light in his eye. His helmet dangled by its strap from one hand.
“Damn thing rubs right on it,” he said. “I’ve got to figure out some way to pad it. The supply train caught up with us just now, and the post was with it. My sister wants me to send her a blond wig from Germany, my mother wants to know if I’m drinking too much, and my father has sent me my allowance, may the gods bless him. Here – this one’s yours.” He handed Correus a folded sheet of papyrus with a little blue seal.
Correus looked at the handwriting, a round childish scrawl with fancy flourishes. Aemelia. He was going to have to make her stop that, but he couldn’t figure out how to write and tell her so without getting caught by Aemelius. Maybe he could write to Julia. Typhon! What a mess!
“You look like a bear that waked up in midwinter,” Silvanus said. “What’s wrong?”
Correus explained. He probably shouldn’t have – Flavius wouldn’t like it – but he was feeling beset. He wanted a listening ear that wouldn’t blame him for the whole tangle concerning Aemelia.
Silvanus whistled. “No wonder Flavius is so broody.”
“I’m not sure Flavius actually knows why the silly girl won’t have him,” Correus said hopefully.
Silvanus snorted. “Oh, he knows. I’d bet a month’s pay he knows. You aren’t actually thinking of marrying that girl, are you?”
Correus gave him a harassed look. “Of course I’m not, you fool. What my father would have to say about it aside, she’s no more fit to follow the army than a week-old kitten. I could hardly steal Flavius’s bride and then leave her with his mother. I’d marry her if I were Flavius, though, and I made the mistake of telling her that when she asked point-blank. Now I’m in trouble.” Silvanus looked thoughtful. “She must be awfully young.”
“She is,” Correus said shortly.
“Pity. If she’d marry Flavius it might go a long way to patching things up between you two. Well, there’s not a lot you can do about it here. Flavius will simply have to shower her with exotic gifts when he gets his leave.”
Correus laughed. “A blond wig?”
“Don’t remind me. Where am I going to get a blond wig in the middle of a marching camp?”
“What does your sister want with a blond wig, anyway?” Correus asked, looking at Silvanus’s barley-colored locks.
“Oh, she’s furious because I got the blond hair. Hers is mouse-color. Women! I tell you what, let’s go see if the Egyptian’s rolled in yet. You need a drink.”
Correus shook his head. “I can’t. I’ve got another woman problem to cope with.” He told Silvanus about Freita. “I’ve left her with Rhodope, but I’ve got to get her a tent from somewhere, and make arrangements about food and I don’t know what all. Silvanus, how do I get into these things?”
“I know why you bought that girl,” Silvanus said seriously. “Your birth comes back to haunt you, and it always will, so you might as well get used to it.”
“Right,” Correus said sarcastically. “I won’t own a slave because I was born one. So now I buy one, and she’s a woman to boot!”
“Well, in this case I’d have bought her myself,” Silvanus said. “I know Tribune Crassus, and I wouldn’t sell him a dog. You can always let her go.”
“No, I can’t. She stood and fought with a sword, and I think she’s been trained to it. That makes her an enemy soldier in our book, so I can’t send her to Nyall even if I knew where he was. And if I send her back to what’s left of her tribe, she’ll just be rounded up with the rest and sold again.”
“Well, find the woman a tent and then come over to the Egyptian’s,” Silvanus said. “You’re going to be needing some Falernian.” He tucked his vine staff under his arm and sauntered off, swinging his helmet with the air of a man whose life held no problems more complicated than getting a blond wig.
Correus gave him an exasperated glance (although he really didn’t know what Silvanus could have done to help) and set out to haggle with the quartermaster for the purchase of a tent, sub rosa.
It was full dark by the time he presented himself at Rhodope’s establishment, and she was doing a lively business. Rhodope’s tent was almost as spectacular as the madam herself – a gaudy affair of red and lavender stripes with rugs on the floor and a clutter of small tables supporting incense burners and bronze figures in inspiring poses. The beaded curtains over the draperies that divided the rear of the tent into private cubicles gave it an air of Eastern splendor. It was all very portable. Rhodope could pack statues, girls, and curtains into her brightly painted wagon in less than an hour, to be set up again at the next camp. Correus asked her once why she didn’t keep a permanent establishment at Augusta Treverorum or one of the other big towns, rather than trooping after a legion in dangerous country. Rhodope had laughed and told him the difference between the prices she could command in a town where her house was one of many and the competition was keen, and the take in a frontier zone where she generally had the field to herself. It added up to a healthy retirement.
“You’ll find your girl in there,” she said now, pointing to one of the curtained cubicles. “Martia’s sick and out of business for a few days, so I’ve put her in the wagon and given your wench her place.”
Correus t
hreaded his way through the crowd of soldiers who were waiting their turn or haggling about the price or merely lounging about and getting in the way. Rhodope was clucking over a wine stain on one of her rugs, and Charis was playing something inexpertly on a cithara. The transparent draperies of her gown more than made up for her lack of musical talent, and she gave Correus a hopeful smile as he passed. He pushed back the blue glass beads and the curtain behind them, and found Freita sitting on a cot bed in a blue-and-yellow gown that he remembered as being one of Martia’s. It was too tight across the chest and too big in the hips, and she looked miserable and uncomfortable. A plate of food and a pottery goblet stood untouched on the floor.
“Hello,” Correus said, and she looked up at him stonily. “I’ve found you a tent of your own. We’ll set it up tomorrow. And we’ll get you some clothes that fit,” he said with a smile. He sat on the bed beside her. “You haven’t eaten.”
“I am not hungry.” Her sea-grass eyes looked at him indifferently.
She was beautiful, he thought. Her skin was a pale milk color except where the burns showed red on her throat and cheek. They looked well enough under Labienus’s salve, hardly blistered at all. Rhodope had cut her singed hair into layers, so that it fell in little waves on that side. But her face was blank, lifeless. She looked like someone had put a blue-and-yellow dress on a temple statue.
Correus sighed. “If you don’t eat, you will get sick,” he said patiently. “I don’t want to have to feed you.”
The green eyes flashed, and just for an instant her face came alive. That should have warned him. She reached down for the plate and came up with a knife instead.
Correus struggled with her as the blade ripped into his tunic under the edge of his lorica. He flung himself back on the bed and grabbed at her wrist, turning the knife so that the blade scraped painfully along his skin. His howl of indignation sent Rhodope running in as he smacked the girl across the face with his free hand and twisted her wrist hard. The knife thudded on the rug just as Rhodope jerked the curtains open. Correus kicked it across the floor at her. Outside a curious crowd of faces peered through the open doorway.
“How in Hades did you let her get a knife?” he shouted furiously. The scrape on his belly hurt like fire, and he jerked the girl’s arm around behind her roughly.
Rhodope picked up the knife. “It’s Martia’s. She keeps it under the bed for… emergencies. All my girls do. But I told the stupid thing to take it with her.”
“All right, get out.” He pulled the girl around and sat her down on the bed. “I ought to beat you within an inch off your life!” he said. He was boiling mad, and he took a deep breath, remembering the trapped-cat look he had seen earlier. There was no point in shouting at a hunted thing. “Now look,” he said more calmly, “where did you think you were going to go if you killed me in the middle of a Roman camp? Assuming you could even get out of this tent alive, which I doubt.”
She was breathing hard, but her face was blank and closed again.
“You told me you weren’t stupid,” he said. She had relaxed and he let go of her arm. She sat in silence, rubbing the red mark on her wrist. “You’ll like belonging to me a lot more than you’ll like what will happen to you if you kill a Roman officer,” he said bluntly. “Slaves who kill their masters aren’t just executed, you know. There are… other things that happen first. I ought to know. I was born a slave.”
Her eyes flew up at that, startled.
“Now if you will give me your oath to behave and obey me, you will have a place of your own and as much comfort as I can provide in a marching camp. If you don’t, I will tie you up and you will stay that way until you do. Make up your mind.”
The girl closed her eyes for a moment, apparently thinking. “I will swear,” she said when she opened them. Her voice was tired and resigned.
* * *
In his own tent Correus stripped off his lorica and tunic to see how much damage the little demon had done. He didn’t feel like making explanations to Labienus, so he cleaned the scrape himself with wine, gritting his teeth. He hoped Martia’s knife had been clean.
As he picked up his tunic again, Aemelia’s letter fell from its folds. He’d forgotten about that. He sighed and sat down at the camp desk to read it.
My dearest Correus,
I am sending this to the post with my page Hyacinthus. He is very loyal to me…
I’ll bet he is, Correus thought, remembering how the wine steward’s boy had fallen over himself staring at Aemelia during Appius’s dinner party.
…and never gossips. I know that you can’t answer because Papa sees everything that comes to me here, so I shall take my comfort by writing to you as often as I can.
Oh, wonderful.
Papa hasn’t weakened so far, but I know that your father would if mine did, and your mother has been so very kind. I spoke to her the last time I visited Julia, and she was so much in sympathy. She must have had a very hard life, and she said that marrying a man you cannot love is only another form of slavery. I think all the time about the morning when you kissed me in the rose garden, and I wish that I could be with you now. I hope that you are well and not wounded – I couldn’t bear to think of you hurt. I must give this to Hyacinthus now, because Papa will be home soon and then Mama will be looking for him to carry their chairs into the garden.
Your devoted Aemelia
Correus crumpled up the letter and flung it across the tent. Damn his mother! And damn Aemelia. He damned Freita as well when he stood up and scraped the cut she’d given him on the edge of the desk.
* * *
The next morning his troops were surly with the after-effects of the wine ration and disinclined to work. The legion was beginning construction of a permanent fort on the site of the destroyed Jorunnshold, but first the mess had to be cleared. It was hot work in the muggy summer weather; dirt and ashes stuck to the skin and itched. At the end of the day Correus went with his sweating crew to wash off the grime in the river and then, still in no pleasant mood, set out to put up Freita’s tent.
He picked a spot by the baggage wagons where the other officers’ slaves were quartered, next to the tent of Verus, Silvanus’s sturdy body servant. From his rapidly dwindling purse he gave the man a coin to look after her and make it plain to any man with ideas that she was an officer’s woman. Once that was known, she wouldn’t be touched. Until then, in the chaotic aftermath of a battle, he wasn’t so sure. The manners of the army were never improved by a long campaign.
Verus helped him wrestle the tent into place, and Silvanus appeared and told him, laughing, that as long as he had bought one slave, he might as well break down and buy another – male – and then he wouldn’t have to put up tents.
Correus, half buried under the tent’s leather folds while he struggled with a pole, made a rude gesture and his friend departed unchastened. When Correus had finished, he brought the gray horse around and tethered him nearby, knee-deep in the meadow grass. The horse snorted and nuzzled at his tunic for the honeycake which Correus occasionally filched from the mess for him.
“Well, you find me tolerable, anyway,” he said, rubbing its nose. “It’s a pity you couldn’t be so fine-mannered with the cavalry commander.” It was at that officer’s request that he had removed the gray from the cavalry pasture. Correus had been casting about for a name for the beast since he had acquired him and had finally settled on Aeshma, the demon, as appropriate enough. He gave the animal a piece of cake.
Freita was not so friendly when he fetched her from Rhodope’s tent, but she didn’t try to knife him again. She followed him docilely to the tent and folded her few possessions into a small chest. He had found her a comb and a mirror and two gowns, bought from a sulking Charis, who was more her size than Martia. A rug from his own tent was spread on the dirt floor and there was a bed of straw with a good blanket on top. She looked around her in silence, her body slumped and resigned, her face devoid of all animation. It was that stoic withdrawal tha
t made Correus first exasperated and then angry.
He made her sit down on the rug and began to teach her a few words of Latin; enough to get by on with Verus, and to get a point of Correus’s own across: “I belong to Centurion Julianus.”
He thought she was going to protest at that, but she repeated the words after him, and the flash of anger in her eyes faded almost as soon as it sparked up. He knew the anger was still there, but it was a brooding thing, a black hate inside, somehow all the worse for being unspoken. Outside she was a statue in a pool of twilight; pale and cold and unreachable. And beautiful. Very beautiful.
The only time she had shown the slightest life since he had saved her from the untender hands of Tribune Crassus was when she had tried to kill him, he thought angrily. He wanted to shake some life into her, anything to make those cold green eyes take notice of him. The letter from Aemelia and the memory of her warm body against his among the roses were stirring in his blood unbidden. The knife score on his belly still hurt, and there was a debt to pay for that, too. He felt his anger rising. He reached out roughly and tore loose the ties at the shoulders of her gown.
She never flinched. To his surprise, she rose, her white face moving up out of the twilight into shadow, and tugged the gown down over her breasts herself. She let it fall to the floor and stood, her body dappled with the shadows, watching him. She had expected no more. Why else would the Roman have bought her?
That wasn’t why he had bought her, but Correus, with that cold, white beauty and his own anger singing in his blood together, came close to not caring anymore. He put his hands on her bare shoulders.
She made no sound, her mind moving somewhere in the dark night outside, but the scent of her hair was as heady as the summer grass, and the feel of her skin under his hands – this was a longing that not even red-haired Emer had ever stirred in him. He wanted her. He had wanted her when he first saw her smeared with blood and ashes, and he knew it now. She didn’t resist his hands. She didn’t even move. In the end it was her silence that brought him up short, still angry, and sick now on top of it, with the knowledge that he had almost done something unspeakably wrong. He turned and stalked out of the tent.
The Centurions Page 24