Semper Fidelis (30 page)

^{USO STOOD WAITING}
to be assigned a horse from the lines, and running over his conversation with Hadrian with increasing unease. He had been offered the chance to heave himself out of the muddy rut that was Britannia, and he had turned it down. He had just demonstrated the depths of cowardice to which his family and his first wife had always known he could sink.
You’re hopeless at putting yourself forward, Gaius.

Think of other people and make an effort.
“Ruso! A word!”
Accius was striding toward him across the grass. “I got you released. Have

the decency to tell me what’s going on.”
“I think there’ll be an announcement, sir.”
“There’s already been one. Geminus killed himself, the empress is going

Rome in disgrace.”
Ruso stared at him. “Why?”
“For being overfamiliar with the empress, whatever that means. Anyway,

it’s none of our business. What did the emperor say about me?” “He said you’d told him I was innocent, sir. I’m grateful.”
“So you bloody should be. What else?”
“Nothing else, sir.”
“So what did he talk about?”
“I can’t tell you, sir.”
“Did he mention my family?”
“No, sir.”
“What did he say about the Twentieth?”
“Sir, I’m really sorry, but I can’t tell you what he said.”
“I see.” The tribune lowered his voice. “So, it seems the Praetorian Guard

Across the field, the mules had been hitched to the hospital wagons. Ruso could see Pera helping Victor up to keep Austalis company. Dexter, relieved of duties pending trial, was just visible behind one of the supply vehicles. The remaining junior officers were yelling at the recruits to get a bloody move on. Apparently they had never seen such a bunch of ham-fisted layabouts. Ruso said, “In Geminus’s position, sir, I believe taking his own life was the most honorable thing he could do.”

“But you and I both know . . .” Accius paused. “Yes. Yes, I suppose you’re right.”
A groom was approaching with two horses. “Someone also just passed on a curious rumor about your wife,” murmured Accius.
When Ruso did not respond he said, “You need to get that woman under control, man. She’s a menace.”
“I’ll see she keeps out of your way in future, sir.”
“The last thing she needs is to be honored with citizenship. I take it that’s one of your rewards for silence?”
“Silence, sir?”
“Oh, I give up!” Accius seized the reins, spurned the assistance of the groom, and vaulted into the saddle unaided. “I suppose you’re just glad to be alive.”
“Always, sir,” said Ruso, who wasn’t, but who was beginning to think he really should be, when he noticed another man approaching across the grass. He tried to hide his surprise.
Metellus waited until Accius had gone. He did not bother with a greeting. “It wasn’t my idea to have you arrested the second time.”
Ruso took the proffered reins of a bay mare from its groom. “Well, you can’t have all the good ideas.”
“I suppose you think you’ve won.”
Ruso teased the mare’s forelock out from beneath the brow band. “Frankly, I’m happier when I don’t think about you at all.”
“Then you’ll share my pleasure in the news that a promotion will be sending me to Rome in the next few days.”
Ruso paused with one hand on the girth. “You’re going a long way away? Very good.”
Metellus said, “I only did what I did out of duty, you know. It was never personal.”
“Wasn’t it?”
“You know damn well your wife was withholding information.”
“My wife has just been made a citizen of Rome by the emperor himself.” Ruso pulled the girth tighter. “What we know or don’t know doesn’t matter anymore.”
“Exactly.” Metellus gave one of his rare and unnerving smiles. He said, “I would offer to shake hands, Doctor, but that would give you the pleasure of refusing.”
Then he turned on his heel and strode away, leaving Ruso to wonder whether Rome was really a promotion, and glad he wasn’t going there too.

^{T WAS A}
subdued pair of passengers who sat in Celer’s cart, waiting for it to set off behind the official transport of the Twentieth Legion. Tilla had heard nothing from her husband since his release. Before that, the only message had been an order to stay away from him. Valens, who knew nothing of the trouble she had caused by trying to help before, had seemed surprised and relieved when she promised to obey.

The news about Sabina had dampened her spirits further. She could not say good- bye, of course, but Tilla had gone to watch her carriage pulling away. The empress had enjoyed one brief moment of glory. Then her man had arrived out of nowhere, banished the people who seemed to be her only friends, and ordered her to accompany him. Tilla could not help thinking that if Hadrian had married a woman of the Corionotatae, she would have put him in his place many years ago, and they would both have been much happier for it.

Or perhaps not. She should have rejoiced when Valens came back with the good news that her husband had been set free, but still there was no message, and the silence grew louder with every moment that passed.

Virana had troubles of her own. She had scrambled down from the cart when Marcus and the other men emerged from the camp, only to return with the news that he was being horrible to her. “He told me to go away.”

“He says he won’t marry me and he only saved me because the Medicus told him to.”
“Oh.”
“Why can’t the Medicus tell him to marry me?”
“Because he can’t! Think of something else to talk about!” As soon as the words were out, Tilla wished she had not spoken them. “I am sorry. But wishing for something will not make it so, and besides, being married to a soldier is not the wonderful life you imagine.”
Virana was still thinking about that when Corinna arrived to say how pleased she and Victor were that the Medicus had been released and everything had worked out so well. “I am sorry for the harsh words I spoke back in Eboracum.”
“They are forgotten,” Tilla assured her.
“And I shall forget that you were cross with me,” put in Virana, pushing herself up to peer ahead. “Is that the nice doctor? Is he coming with us to Deva?”
Tilla said, “ ‘The nice doctor’?”
“The good- looking one. The one who is getting divorced.”
“Valens? Divorced? Never.”
“He says his wife is always cross with him.”
“His wife is also very rich.”
Virana slumped back into her seat. “So what am I going to do? I was only going to Deva to help you, and now I shall be stuck there and nobody will want me!”
“But you were the one—”
“And my baby will starve and I shall end up being a slave in a whorehouse!”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” snapped Tilla, remembering too late that that was exactly where she had thought Virana would end up.
“Of course you will not!” Corinna assured her. “The Medicus and his wife would never let that happen. They are good people.” She turned to Tilla. “You will look after Virana, won’t you?”
Tilla sighed. “Virana, I do not know what is waiting for us in Deva. But you can help me until your baby is born. Then you must either go home or find respectable work.”
“Oh, thank you, thank you!” Virana’s troubles were forgotten. “I know how to work hard. I will fetch the wood and the water and light the fires and cook and clean the house and milk the goats, and I promise I will behave myself, and—”
Tilla stopped listening to the promises the girl would probably break

She gathered up fistfuls of skirt, leapt down from the cart, and ran toward him. “Husband!”
He leaned down from the horse and held out one hand to seize her own.
“Are you really safe this time?”
“I am,” he assured her, bending to kiss the top of her head.
“What did the emperor say to you?”
He swung down from the horse and they fell respectably into step, a glance the only further sign of affection between officer and wife: nothing to entertain the drivers of the baggage train.
“You’ve heard about Geminus’s suicide?”
She said, “I do not care about him. The important people to remember are the three boys who died.”
He nodded. They walked together in silence. Then he cleared his throat. “There’s something I need to talk to you about. We can stop worrying about Metellus’s wretched list from now on.”
“This is good news, husband!”
“Yes. I was hoping you would see it that way.”
“Why would I not?”
He seemed to be having some trouble with his throat. “The emperor didn’t arrange it in quite the way I was expecting.”
“Do we have to go to Rome?”
“No. Metellus does, but I expect his lists will continue to circulate after he’s gone.”
“Like the lady with the sparrow.”
He said, “You don’t have to learn to read if you don’t want to.”
“I want to. So I will know what it says on the all the labels and you can teach me how to be a medicus.”
“How to be a—”
“And when you go away, I can write and nag you, like Marcia does.”
His eyes widened. “Gods above. I saw him twice and completely forgot. She wanted me to ask Hadrian for a job for her husband.”
“She does not need to know that you met him.”
“But how else do I explain why you’re a . . .” He paused, looking round. “Who
is
that girl that keeps hanging around? She reminds me of somebody.”
Tilla turned. “Do you not remember Virana?”
“The pregnant tart from Eboracum? But she’s—”
“Wearing something respectable.”
“What’s she doing here?”
Tilla took a deep breath. “There is something I need to explain to you.” “Yes. There’s something I need to explain to you too.”
Their eyes met. “You first,” she said.

Eboracum (York) is known as the home of the Ninth and Sixth Legions, but the last record of the Ninth there is in the year 108. Where it went after that is a question for other storytellers, but we know the Sixth Legion did not arrive until 122. Somebody must have garrisoned York through the lean years in between, when a British rebellion early in Hadrian’s reign reduced the Roman numbers so far that reinforcements had to be brought in from elsewhere.

Hadrian made a tour of Britannia in the summer of 122, but the details are tantalizingly sketchy. We know he made “improvements” but have no record of where he went, although he must surely have visited the troops who were building the Great Wall to mark the edge of the empire.

The unhappiness of the emperor’s relationship with his wife, Sabina, is a matter of record, but they remained married until her death—although there was a suggestion that he had her poisoned. Meanwhile, the outcome of the trip for imperial biographer Suetonius Tranquillus and his friend and patron Septicius Clarus was exactly as it is described in the story, although much else about them here is fiction.

Hadrian: The Restless Emperor
by Anthony R. Birley
Hadrian: Empire and Conflict
by Thorsten Opper
Roman York
by Patrick Ottaway
The Ordnance Survey Map of Roman and Anglian York

The Yorkshire Museum does a fine job of commemorating some of the real inhabitants of Eboracum, a fortress whose Roman walls still dictate the layout of the city that grew up around them. The Roman Headquarters Hall (Basilica) mentioned in the story is long gone, but a lone column still stands, and visitors to the York Minster undercroft will find the stone foundations of the original building upon whose roof Sulio sat.

A novel is never a solo effort. At least, mine aren’t. I’m grateful to Benjamin Adams, Peta Nightingale, Araminta Whitley, George Lucas, and David Chesanow for encouragement and for helping to beat the manuscript into shape. Guy Russell, Kathy Barbour, Carol Barac, Caroline Davies, and Andy Downie bravely read and commented on the first draft.

Sandra Garside-Neville kindly recommended source material on Eboracum; the organizers of This Is Deva provided the inspiring sight of a “real” century on parade; and Lindsay Powell reassured me that, despite much research and experiment, nobody really knows how the Romans cleaned their armor. All the surrounding speculation and invention is my own, and so are the errors.

Ruth Downie is the author of the
New York Times
bestselling
Medicus
,
Terra Incognita
,
Persona Non Grata
, and
Caveat Emptor
. She is married with two sons and lives in Devon, England.