My darling Julia, I cannot tell you how much I want to marry you. How unexpected it was to find you. How much I love you…
Julia fell over a potted tree in the atrium, reading the letter as she went, then fixed ecstatic eyes on her father. “I’ve had a letter from Lucius, and Correus and Flavius are both promoted, and he’s just as tired of lawyers as I am! Papa, when can I get married?”
“You shouldn’t be receiving letters without our knowledge,” Antonia said, “even from Lucius.” But her heart wasn’t in it. It was such a good match and, incredibly, Julia seemed to be in love with him. Most girls never had that, she thought sadly.
“Promoted?” Helva looked up from a piece of embroidery. “But you didn’t tell me,” she said, turning her blue eyes on Appius. “Surely he has written to you about it?”
“Not everyone reads their letters in public,” Antonia said tartly, and appeared about to do battle. “Julia, go to bed.”
“But, Mama—”
“But how nice that Flavius has been promoted, too,” Helva said demurely, “especially now that poor little Aemelia has been made to agree to a marriage.”
Appius retreated to his study.
* * *
It was a golden season, all that summer. Correus, in the pleasant haze of a coming cohort command, shook off the horrors of his grisly battlefield search and set about knocking into line the new recruits of the Eighth Cohort of the Eighth Legion Augusta before Messala Cominius was finally let loose from Labienus’s watchful eye. Anset the Egyptian and Rhodope and her girls made their appearance as soon as the coast was clear, and when Silvanus’s posting came through they gave him a party with Anset’s wine in Rhodope’s opulent tent. And if the question of how Nyall had learned that Ingald had sold him away for a promise of Rome’s favor crossed Correus’s mind now and again, he put it away from him. Nyall and his tribe were dead and buried, and it didn’t matter. Knowing Nyall’s spy wouldn’t bring back the men of his cohort over whose pyre he had made the death prayer as the legate himself had put the torch to the pitch-soaked wood. This was now, and he was among the living, with a cohort command to come, and a girl to go home to.
In the meantime they were at work strengthening the Nicer Valley forts and laying a permanent roadway between them. Flavius had a letter from Aemelia tucked in his tunic – a little stilted and possibly dictated by her mother, but written in her own hand all the same. In the face of that happiness, when the picture of Correus’s German girl by Beorn’s fire rose once or twice in Flavius’s mind, he pushed it away.
And the road moved on. At any other time the howling boredom of cutting turf and digging endless miles of ditch would have driven them mad, but after the slaughter of Nyall’s army and the brutal mopping up that had followed, the hard labor of building roads and camps was a pleasure and a release. In the face of all this fortification, the other tribes beyond the Agri Decumates were sitting quietly in their halls and signing treaties with Rome, while from the Hermanduri and the rest of the southeastern half of the Agri Decumates there was only shining good behavior.
The army even found time to do some permanent building at Aquae, just east of the Rhenus in the Black Forest, where a natural hot spring bubbled from the ground. The waters were said to be medicinal, and the civilian population of the Rhenus towns, assured of the district’s pacification, began to make the trek to Aquae to soak away whatever ailed them in the bubbling pools. It wouldn’t be long, Correus thought, watching a stout matron descending from a traveling carriage with two cowed-looking daughters in her wake, before the eastern bank of the Rhenus was as Roman as the west.
Labienus let Messala Cominius go back to duty in a month, and he took the cohort over from Correus, leaning on his staff whenever his leg pained him. Correus was glad to see Cominius up again, but only the promise of a cohort of his own made it bearable to give back the command. By the end of summer, Correus’s desire for peace and quiet was finally wearing thin, as was his enchantment with ditch-digging. A nice land, the Rhenus, when it wasn’t winter, but he would be gone from here soon, and he felt he was only marking time. When the Eighth Augusta was finally ready to march back to Argentoratum at the start of fall, he was pacing like a caged wolf.
He reported in, saw his century settled in barracks, and gave them a short lecture on the evils of too much celebration their first night in town. They would have a whole winter of regular leaves, he said firmly, if they would kindly contain their exuberance now. On the heels of these pious remarks, he pitched his greaves and marching kit into a corner of the central room of his quarters and sprinted for the landward gate, still in his helmet and lorica. He dived through with a word to the sentries and then slowed his pace to a walk as the townsfolk in the market eyed him with curiosity. A Roman officer didn’t cavort through the marketplace like a schoolboy on holiday, he told himself sternly, but there was a bounce in his walk all the same. It was almost evening, the air gold and slightly hazy, with the smell of cookfires in it, and the trees were going red and yellow. He felt good. He was home.
He had seen Freita for just a moment in the crowd that had turned out to cheer the legion home, and now she would be waiting for him.
The lamps were lit and light came invitingly through the unshuttered windows. The gray cat was asleep on the steps, and four kittens were wrestling in the path. There were flowers growing beside it now.
The kittens teamed up and began trying to catch a bug, and Correus watched them for a moment, uncomfortably. Amid the ending of so many lives, he had forgotten the possibility of a new one. Was that what had worried Freita in the spring?
“Welcome home.”
The door was open and Freita stood there, smiling at him. He took the steps at a jump and pulled her into his arms, drew her inside, and closed the door.
“Take that thing off,” she said, and he laughed and began to undo the straps of his lorica.
“I see the household has multiplied,” he said, feeling awkward now. “Are there any other surprises?”
Correus had set his helmet on the floor beside his lorica and she caught him eyeing her waistline thoughtfully.
She started to laugh. “No, I have no surprises for you. I wouldn’t mind, but that is a thing for the Mother to send, or not send, I suppose.”
He put his arms around her again and smiled. “I wouldn’t mind either, but it might be awkward just now. Freita, I’m to have a cohort command – I don’t even know where yet.”
He had known what her reply would be, but he had not expected the vehemence with which she said, burying her face against his neck, “Anywhere, Correus! Just get me out of Germany, please!”
“Wait a minute.” He pulled away from her gently and saw that her green eyes were bright and troubled, and her face was pale, not its usual milky color, but a dead, chalky pale. “Freita, what is it?”
She shook her head. “Tell me… about the battle. Not the killing… but… but how it came. Tell me that first.”
“All right.” He lay down on the couch with his chin in his hand, while she took her usual spot in the chair by the hearth. He began to tell her, starting with the German spy, which was a subject he was never overly proud of, and going on to the trap they had laid in the hills above the Moenus. It was not the conversation he had envisioned for the first hour of his homecoming, but she wanted to know…
Freita listened silently, staring down at her hands in her lap. Correus told her of Nyall’s unexpected march from the south and the hasty river crossing by the Twenty-second Legion, the desperate stand by the advance guard, and the slaughter that followed. He painted a plain picture, bloody and factual, and by the time he was through, he thought he knew what was wrong.
“Nyall couldn’t hold his warriors, not against disciplined troops,” he said, gently now. “Not even when we were surprised. The spy didn’t make much difference in the end.”
“It made a difference to your own cohort.”
His cohort… almost a hundred men gone
, the worst loss in the legion. His men. “Yes. It tore it apart.”
“I asked the gods for you,” Freita whispered. “I didn’t think to ask for your men.”
“Freita, look at me.”
She raised her head. She was crying, but she made no sound.
“You saw me with the German, didn’t you?”
“He was at Jorunnshold,” she said bleakly. “He made trouble there, too.”
“And you warned Nyall, didn’t you?” His voice was harsh.
She nodded. “They are my people. And so are you. I didn’t know what to do. I can’t be a German, and love you. And I can’t be a Roman for you, not here. And now I’ve lost you both.” She sat up straight, as if the tears belonged to someone else. “Bargains with the gods have a way of turning out like that. I should have known.”
No! It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t even right. His heart ached for the men he’d lost but he reached out and pulled her from the chair and held her. “I love you,” he said firmly. “If you don’t hold your people’s death against me, how can I hold my people’s losses against you?”
She began to cry at that, out loud now, choking sobs that shook her whole body, and he just sat and held her. So many dead. But one lived with death… lived with it, and went on. Finally the sobbing subsided and he lay down on the couch and pulled her down with him, and she huddled in his arms.
“Were you weeping for me or for your people?” he whispered.
“Both,” she whispered back.
He nodded. “I, too.”
She raised her head and traced a finger along his eyelids, surprised to see his tears.
She put her arms around his neck, and they lay and held each other for a long time. Julius poked his head in the door, eager to welcome the master home, but they didn’t see him. He backed out again, and then his face brightened. Argentoratum was in festival tonight, the streets thronging and lamplight spilling from every doorway. And he wouldn’t be missed until dawn.
Finally Correus lifted his head and propped himself up on one elbow. He drew a finger along Freita’s cheek and she opened her eyes.
“Now,” he said firmly. “We talk.”
Freita nodded. Her green eyes had dark smudges under them and her face looked exhausted. He realized that she must have been tormenting herself with this since the night she had seen the legate’s spy. Worse since the legion had marched out. And probably worse still since she had known he was coming home.
“A double loyalty is no easy thing to carry,” he said. “I ought to know.”
“Your brother?” she whispered.
Correus nodded. “I had a choice once. Of killing Nyall or pulling my brother out alive. An oath to the army, or a promise to my father.”
She closed her eyes for a moment. “I thought I could never make you understand. I thought I’d lost you.”
“No. A decision like that, and no time to make it in – as much as I’m thinking that if you hadn’t warned Nyall, my men might be alive, I’ve thought that if I had let Flavius go, and killed Nyall when I could, there might be many more men still living.”
“With all the time in the world to think it out, would you do differently now?”
“I don’t know. Likely not. Would you?”
She shook her head. “No.” She was looking somewhere over his shoulder, but now she brought her eyes back to his. “Hindsight doesn’t seem to help much, does it? Is that promise to your father still binding?”
“Yes.”
“It’s as well then, I think, this new posting. Correus, you cannot live forever in your brother’s shadow, and he in yours. The sooner you are apart, the better.”
“And the sooner you are out of Germany, the better.”
“You’ll never be able to trust me here, will you?”
He smiled. “I long ago gave up expecting a knife in my back. But I wouldn’t be able to tell you things, and I need that. I never had someone to talk to before. Freita, I want you out of Germany for your own sake. If anyone else ever finds out who warned Nyall…” His face was worried. “My heart, I’d fight the army for you – but I wouldn’t win.”
She put a hand to his lips. “When I thought you wouldn’t want me, I didn’t care. Now… understand me, Correus. My loyalty is to you, not to Rome. It may never be to Rome, although I will try. But except for you, and your men because you care for them, I can’t mourn your legion’s losses. Silvanus, Lucius, that troublesome Julius. Those, yes, are friends. Maybe other Romans too, when I know them. But Rome… no. Not now, maybe never. I’m not a Roman, Correus, and I may never be. I love one Roman, not your so-great Empire. You must realize that.”
“You got yourself in trouble, when you fell in love with me, didn’t you?” he said.
She smiled at him now, a sideways smile that was almost a grin, cheeky and unrepentant. “I’ve always been in trouble. They sent me to wait on Jorunn’s lady so she could beat it out of me, but it didn’t work.” Her mood changed abruptly, and she sighed. “Now I’ve got you in trouble, too.”
Correus bent down and kissed her. “Don’t flatter yourself, witch. I’ve been in trouble since my father adopted me. And I love you. That makes all the difference.”
Freita wrapped her arms around his neck. “What does it mean, a cohort command?”
“A lot. Almost five hundred men under me. Senior officer’s rank. More pay – enough to afford a decent house. A frontier-fort command even. In some provinces they split the legions up, or post legionary officers to camp commandant in auxiliary forts. I—there’s no way to tell.”
“And you don’t even know where they’ll send you?”
“There’s a lot of Empire,” he said cheerfully. “Half the world. Do you mind?”
Freita took a deep breath. “Not if you don’t,” she said.
“I wouldn’t mind anyplace as long as you were there,” he assured her solemnly.
And as long as you were still with your Eagles, she thought. Did they matter more than she did? That was a question only a fool would ask. He loved her. He would not be whole without her now. And he would end by going maimed and lacking all his life if some fool forced him to a choice that could not be made. She felt his hands begin to slide across the front of her gown and pushed herself contentedly against them…
* * *
The knocking on the door grew more insistent, and Correus dragged himself up out of the depths of their lovemaking as out of sleep. Where was Julius? Oh. He would hardly come in with the master and mistress making love in the middle of the room. Correus fumbled for his cloak and wrapped it around him as he dragged the door open, then stood blinking at the resplendent optio on the steps.
“What is it?”
“Centurion Julianus?” The optio’s face was carefully arranged in an expressionless military stare, but Correus thought his mouth twitched.
“Yes?”
“From the legate, sir. Orders, sir.” The optio saluted smartly.
Correus attempted to salute in return and gave it up as the cloak showed signs of slipping. He took the sealed tablet and nodded at the optio. “Thank you. That will be all.”
The optio saluted again, made a precise half-turn, and stepped off down the path.
Freita had relit one of the lamps. Correus stood beside it and turned the tablet over in his hands, two thin wax leaves sealed with red cord and the scarlet Imperial Seal. His orders… his cohort command. His ticket to whatever he could make of it… and of himself.
He took a deep breath and snapped the seal open with his fingernail. Legio II Augusta… Britannia.
An unknown province on the far edge of the world. Agricola had served there, he remembered. A place where a man could make a name for himself. He looked at Freita and then back at the orders. As good a place as any to start – for the two of them.
Cast of Characters
ROME
APPIUS
Flavius Appius Julianus the elder, a retired general
FLAVIUS
&nbs
p; Flavius Appius Julianus the younger, his son
CORREUS
Appius’s son by a slave, later given the name Correus Appius Julianus
JULIA
Appia Julia, daughter of Appius and his wife
ANTONIA
Wife of Appius and mother of Flavius and Julia
HELVA
A slave, Appius’s mistress and Correus’s mother
ALAN
Ex-cavalryman, a Briton, master of the cavalry remounts raised on Appius’s estate
DIULIUS
Freed slave and former chariot driver, master of the chariot horses raised by Appius
SABINUS
Former centurion and staff aide to Appius, now weapons master to Appius’s sons
FORST
A German slave
PHILIPPOS
Steward of Appius’s estate
NIARCHOS
In charge of the indoor servants in Appius’s household
EMER
A kitchen maid
THAIS
Former nurse of Flavius and Correus
AEMELIUS
A senator and neighbor of Appius
AEMELIA
His daughter
VALERIA LUCILLA
His wife
PERTINAX AQUILA
Camp prefect at the training camp of the Centuriate
MUCIUS
Drillmaster at the training camp
GENTELIUS PAULINUS
A senator and an old comrade of Appius
The Centurions Page 43