Semper Fidelis: A Novel of the Roman Empire

by Ruth Downie

  One of the soldiers was coming back. She had just said, “It is not saving very many lives here, is it?” when someone thumped on the door and shouted, “Message for the medical officer!”

  Ruso sighed, rolled off the bed, and padded barefoot to the door. His eyes widened as the captain of Accius’s guard whispered the message in his ear. He said, “Is this some sort of joke?”

  “I hope not, sir.”

  Reflecting that this was not going to help his headache, he buckled his belt and retrieved his boots from under the bed. “Don’t wait up,” he told Tilla. If the guard had not been standing three feet away, he would have told her the news. Instead, all he could say was “Something’s happening. You’ll find out in the morning.”

  Chapter 33

  Tilla took a moment to recognize the hideous screeches that had woken her as the sounds of heavy furniture being dragged across the floor of the room next door. Outside she heard urgent voices, the slap of mats being beaten, and the frantic swish of scrubbing brushes. Distant and discordant clanging told her that more than one blacksmith was up and working. She rolled over and opened her eyes. The rumpled bed beside hers was empty. Why was everyone making so much noise? How late had she slept?

  That was when she remembered the second knock on the door, just after the Medicus had hurried away without telling her where he was going. That time it was Minna, bundled up in a shawl, pushing her way in without invitation and hissing in a stage whisper, “Have you heard? The emperor is coming!”

  “I know,” Tilla had said, bemused and not a little annoyed at the late invasion. “Everybody knows.”

  “No, he has landed somewhere called Petuaria. His ships were damaged in the storm and he’s coming here tomorrow!”

  Tilla’s first thought had been that she did not much care where the emperor went. Her second was that this would give the snooty tribune something bigger to worry about than tracking down local people who said things he did not want to hear.

  Minna had probably thought the smile meant she was excited about the visit.

  Tilla splashed last night’s cold water from the bowl over her face, imagining the panic in the fort after the news arrived. Few of them would know any more about Hadrian and Sabina than she did herself, but they would know how vital it was to please them.

  Tilla had always felt sorry for Vibia Sabina, who appeared from her statues and coins to be both beautiful and vacant. Sabina too was childless, and after more than twenty years of marriage. There were people who wondered why the emperor had not divorced her and found someone fertile. Tilla was glad he had not.

  Hadrian himself always appeared on his coins and statues with a heavy jaw and a curly beard, an odd little crease in each earlobe, and beady eyes that were too close together. He was supposed to be a clever man and a fierce improver of poor standards. It pleased her to imagine those eyes taking in the shameful state of the officers’ empty houses at Eboracum.

  The breakfast tray and the fresh water finally arrived with two girls who were so busy whispering and giggling that they forgot to bow altogether. From somewhere beyond the rose beds she could hear Minna’s voice raised in complaint. Moments later the manager, flustered and apologetic, arrived to explain that he had been given orders to prepare for ten very senior officials and their staff, and would she and the Medicus mind moving to another room? Behind him, she could see more staff scurrying about with piles of bedding. “It’s quite comfortable,” he assured her. “Compact. Very convenient to the dining room.”

  She felt too sorry for him to ask if the tribune would be moving too.

  The room was, as she had expected, only big enough for one bed and a chest, and potentially very noisy, but it was clean. She was checking that the staff had brought all the luggage when a shadow fell across the courtyard window and a voice she had not expected said in British, “There you are! I couldn’t find you!”

  “Virana! What are you doing here?”

  “It’s all right, nobody is looking. I got in through the side door. I have decided what to do. Let me in so I can tell you.”

  They sat side by side on the bed, since there was nowhere else, while Virana revealed that she had not one plan but two. The first was for Tilla’s husband to give her the password so she could get into the fort and make a last-minute appeal to whichever of her former lovers she could find, since they might not be allowed out again before they marched away. When Tilla explained that this was impossible, she said, “I thought you would say that. But it doesn’t matter, because the emperor is coming!”

  “I know.”

  “So I got this.” She delved into her cleavage and pulled out a rolled and squashed scrap of parchment. “Look!”

  Tilla unrolled it and made out the words Your Majesty. She stopped. “What is this?”

  Virana beamed. “The scribe down the road wrote it for me. He was very nice. I’m going to—”

  “He should not have taken your money,” Tilla told her.

  “Oh, he didn’t want money!”

  “He knows as well as I do that you are not a citizen of Rome,” said Tilla, guessing what he had taken instead. “The emperor is the most powerful man in the world. If the officers here will not listen to you, why would he?”

  Virana looked crestfallen. “But he’s the emperor! He goes around the world giving out justice!”

  “Not to you and me.”

  “But somebody has to take me to Deva. I can’t stay here!” Virana threw the parchment aside and clasped her hands together. “Let me come with you. Please. I could help you. You need a servant.”

  It was true, and it irritated Tilla that even this silly girl could see it. “Go home,” she said. “You should not be wandering unescorted around here.”

  Virana pouted. “You wander unescorted!”

  “That is different.”

  “The Sixth Legion will be here soon, did you know? And the new governor will come with the emperor and there will be the cavalry escort and the Praetorian Guard with the scorpions on their shields … Is it true they are all six feet tall and very rich?”

  “The Praetorian Guard would swallow you whole and not even notice,” said Tilla, who had never met them except by reputation. “Go home.”

  Virana’s lower lip began to tremble. “Please don’t send me away! Nobody wants me!”

  Tilla sighed. “Very well. You can stay with me just for this morning.”

  Virana clutched at her arm. “Yes! Oh, thank you, thank you! Where shall we go? Can we go inside the fort?”

  Tilla detached her grip. “No. You can wait while I visit Corinna, then you can take me to talk to your family.”

  “My family?” The girl grabbed at her again, then remembered and let go. “My family will not listen to anyone. Not even you. Anyway, I can’t miss the emperor! And Vibia Sabina. Did you know the empress was younger than me when she got married?”

  “The emperor will not be here until this evening. Perhaps your family will bring you back to watch.”

  “No they won’t. They’re horrible. Anyway, I can’t walk that far. I feel sick.”

  “Some exercise will do you good.”

  “My brothers are nasty and violent. And they don’t like strangers.”

  “I am Brigante, and the wife of a Roman officer,” said Tilla, squaring her shoulders. “Your family will not frighten me, and unless they are very stupid they will not hurt me, either.” At least, she hoped not. Anyway, she could not spend all day sitting in this room with nothing to do or wandering about the streets. None of Virana’s family was in the army, so she could truthfully say she was obeying the tribune’s orders not to get involved in the Legion’s affairs. She got to her feet. “Are you coming, or will I have to find the way by myself?”

  Virana was chewing her lower lip. “They will tell you lies about me.”

  “Then it will be best if you are there to tell the truth,” said Tilla, bending to tighten the laces on her boots and reaching for her bag.

 
Chapter 34

  The lazy lard-arses of the maintenance crews were lazy no longer. It was a bright morning, and everywhere Ruso went, men in brown working tunics were hammering wooden shingles onto roofs, sweeping up old leaves, filling potholes, clearing dumped rubbish, scything grass, slapping on paint, greasing hinges, and opening windows to air long-neglected buildings. The granaries had been opened to release extra wheat, and pink-eyed slaves who had been up all night grinding flour were now shambling back and forth to the ovens with trays of loaves.

  An arrhythmic clanging had been echoing across the fort since first light as the sweating blacksmiths labored to keep pace with the demand for tools and repairs. Evidently they were not succeeding: Ruso had been called upon earlier to patch up two men injured in a fight over a rusty spade, and a third who had been knocked out by the ill-fitting head of an axe. A long queue outside Stores was jeering as the clerk who had refused to give Ruso more lamp oil last night was being told by a man twice his size exactly where he could shove his official permit.

  Ruso had snatched barely three hours in bed after Accius’s emergency planning meeting last night. The hospital’s role—to open up the empty wards to accommodate the Praetorians—was decided early on, but clearly there was no hope of being sent away to get some sleep. As the discussions wore on, he found himself reflecting that at least they had some warning. He could only imagine the consternation of the man in charge at the humble ferry port of Petuaria when Hadrian’s ships had been sighted in the river Abus instead of the Tinea. There had been a collective sigh of relief at the meeting when Accius announced that the tides were not high enough for Hadrian’s rowers to bring him upriver as far as Eboracum. At least, if he were traveling by road, it would be possible to monitor his progress.

  Ruso had just left Accius’s second briefing meeting of the morning, where a dusty cavalryman had confirmed that the imperial invasion—which was how Ruso thought of it—was still six or seven hours away. He strode back toward the hospital, anxious to see Austalis, who to his immense relief seemed to be showing signs of responding to treatment. He had set aside his plans to amputate, pleased that his visit here might at least have achieved one useful outcome. As for the Geminus business … it was unfortunate, but with the tramp of the emperor’s escort growing closer every second, it was hard to see who would care about the loss of a few recruits.

  As he rounded the corner, he was startled by a rumbling growl. Furious, deep-throated barking. Something huge and brown with teeth hurtling toward him. He flung himself sideways, hauled open a door—thank the gods, it wasn’t locked—slammed it shut and threw himself against it, feeling the jolt as the massive creature collided with the other side.

  Back to the door, gasping for breath, he marveled at the closeness of his escape—until the room went dark and the snarling dog crashed in through the open window. Wrenching himself away from something tearing at his tunic, he was out of the door and scrambling up the nearest pillar with the dog snapping at his feet. Finally he collapsed, breathless, on the shingles of the walkway roof. Below him he could hear the dog scrabbling against the pillar, still barking and snarling as if he’d just attacked it, instead of the other way around. He ran a hand over the back of his left thigh, feeling torn flesh and the warm stickiness of blood.

  Somebody was yelling over the din. He lifted his head to shout, “Careful, it’s vicious!” just as the barking stopped.

  “Here, girl,” said the gravelly voice of Centurion Geminus. He sounded almost affectionate. Then he called, “Sorry about that, Doc. Did she get you?”

  Cautiously, barely able to believe what had just happened, Ruso peered over the rough edge of the roof. Geminus was standing next to a creature that was part large hunting dog and very definitely part wolf. Man and animal were joined by a slack rope that looped around the dog’s neck.

  “Is that yours?” demanded Ruso, eyeing it with suspicion. “She tried to have my leg off. She shouldn’t be out.”

  “Oh, she wouldn’t have had your leg off,” said Geminus cheerfully. “Not Bella.” He patted the dog. “Would you, girl?” Then he said, without a hint of irony, “If she was serious, she’d have had your throat out.”

  Ruso maneuvered onto his back and lifted his leg to examine the bite. It was messy but, as far as he could make out, not deep. The hem of his tunic was shredded and soaked with blood. He was aware that he was shaky and not thinking straight, his body still fearful even though his mind knew the danger was over. Geminus was saying something, but it was a moment before he could unscramble the words.

  “It’s all right, Doctor, you can come down. She won’t touch you.”

  Insisting on escorting him back to the hospital, Geminus apologized again for his dog, but in a tone implying that Ruso should have known better than to be walking around while the dog was loose. Then he moved on to discuss the plan to invite Hadrian to watch the recruits’ final tests tomorrow morning. Ruso, forcing his jittery mind to concentrate, gave him the latest news on Austalis.

  “Pity about that one,” Geminus said.

  Ruso had just remembered that he had promised to talk to Geminus about tattoo removal when the centurion said, “No hard feelings over your complaint, by the way.”

  “Complaint?”

  Geminus chuckled. “You thought he wouldn’t tell me?”

  When Ruso did not reply he said, “We’re all grown men here, Doc. Good men have to stick together, not tittle-tattle like children.” He gestured around him. “After all, you can’t trust this bunch.”

  Ruso could not think of a reply. His leg hurt, and the revelation reverberating around his mind was leaving no space for anything else. He had dared to complain to Accius. Instead of keeping it quiet, Accius had told Geminus about their conversation. Now Geminus’s dog had attacked him.

  Geminus was still talking. “Only fair to give a man a chance to tell his side of the story, eh? You were honest with him, he was honest with me, I’m being honest with you. You only had to ask about the river. I’d have told you. Both those lads had swimming lessons. I taught them myself. They knew what to do. They’d have been all right if young Dannicus hadn’t panicked. As for what went on with Tadius: You’re right. Shameful.” He broke off to shout, “Oi! Sharpen your blade, son!” to a youth who was ineffectively swinging a scythe at a patch of nettles.

  They were outside the hospital entrance now. Geminus clapped a hand on Ruso’s shoulder. “Sorry about the leg,” he said. “But you look to be walking all right. Tell Stores I said not to bill you for another tunic. And let me know how young Austalis does, will you?”

  Ruso stood in the hospital doorway, feeling the blood pooling inside his boot. He watched man and dog walk away. Geminus had not explained what the animal was doing loose in the street at the very moment Ruso had been approaching. If she was serious, she’d have had your throat out. She had seemed serious. If he hadn’t moved fast enough, would Geminus have stopped her? When nobody in authority cared about the fatal bullying of a few humble recruits, how closely would anyone have questioned the loss of one medic? His death would be just another accident for the unlucky garrison of Eboracum.

  This time he had escaped with a warning. Next time there might not be a roof within reach.

  Chapter 35

  As she left Corinna’s house, Tilla realized that reaching Virana’s family was not going to be as easy as she had thought. News of the emperor’s arrival had galloped ahead of him. The streets of Eboracum were already thick with people and vehicles. Drivers were yelling at each other, trying to keep their animals under control and ignoring the attempts of the legionaries stationed on each corner to direct the traffic. The air was thick with curses and children crying and the calls of bewildered sheep and cattle being driven in for slaughter. She had hoped they might be able to pick up a lift out of town with a passing carter, but as they dodged their way through the crowds and a flurry of plucked chicken feathers, it was clear that the world was converging on Eboracum. Farther out, i
nnocent of the chaos ahead, still more muddy farm vehicles were lumbering toward town, stacked with produce to sell. Everybody seemed to have brought something: a loaded mule or a handcart or a side of bacon or a couple of hens in a basket or just handfuls of freshly picked flowers. One old woman was trying to sell lucky pebbles from the shore where the emperor had landed, while her husband had carved wooden souvenirs depicting the great man as a lumpy figure with bulgy eyes. All were hoping for a good price and a view of the famous couple. Tilla almost had to drag Virana away from a group of entertainers whose cart had a juggler balanced on top of the luggage, entertaining any other travelers willing to throw him a couple of coins.

  The road grew emptier and Virana’s spirits visibly sank as they turned north. Finally they were on a track that was mostly churned mud with patches of grass sprouting in the middle. After a few minutes Tilla saw smoke, and beneath it the thatched cones of three or four buildings. “Is that it?”

  “I feel really, really sick.” Virana’s head hung down. She had let her hair fall forward over her face. “I think I’m going to faint.”

  Tilla tucked one hand firmly under the girl’s arm and urged her forward. “Not far now.”

  Beyond the gate, a pair of geese announced their arrival to two young men who were loading a mule cart. Farther back toward the houses, a barefoot girl of about ten was milking a goat. It was a scene that reminded Tilla of her own home in the good days. Before the raiders came.

  The girl moved the bucket out of kicking distance and abandoned the goat, running toward one of the buildings. “Mam!”

  A woman emerged, pushing graying hair out of her eyes with exactly the same gesture as Virana. She stared at the two figures by the gate. “Where have you been, then?”

  “As if we can’t guess,” put in the smaller of the young men, sounding more disdainful than fierce.