Hadrian's wall (4 page)

"Don't do that, Valeria. They're leeches."

"It was only a brass coin." One of the natives had won possession by biting a companion on the ear. The ferocity of their greed surprised her. "My father says that Rome wins loyalty by generosity, not the sword."

"A balance of both, I'd say, each used with careful forethought."

"And I give too little thought?"

"No… Just that your face needs neither sword nor money to earn loyalty."

"Ah, my gallant Clodius!"

Valeria was accustomed to such reactions from boys. Clodius, she knew, was already half in love with her. Her dark and liquid eyes were what first drew men's attention; a gaze of intelligence and will that allured and yet arrested, seducing strangers and yet making them wary. Hers was the magnetism of half girl, half woman, of bold curiosity and lingering innocence. It was advantage and burden that she'd learned to use and endure. The rest of her features reinforced the promise of her eyes. She had a southern beauty, her skin a cross of olive and gold, her hair a silken cascade of black, her lips full, her cheekbones high, and her figure as shapely as the carved wooden swan's head that arched over the tiller. Some speculated there must be Numidian blood in her dark, exotic looks; others opined Egyptian or Phoenician. She favored simple jewelry that would not compete with her: only three rings on her fingers and a single bracelet on one wrist, a tight and fine necklace at her throat, a brooch to hold her cape, and a golden clip in her tresses. Hardly any at all! Certainly none of the jangling ostentation of urban Rome, where women weighted themselves with gold like fetters. She usually dressed modestly and, with her handmaiden's coaching, could remember to stand demurely.

When she was excited, however, Valeria sprang and reached and craned like a boy. It was then that her male escorts would secretly groan at the curve of a hip, the swell of a breast, and wonder what her virgin enthusiasms might someday produce in bed.

The consensus aboard the Swan was that Marcus was a lucky bastard, and his father a sly one, to negotiate for a maiden of such station and desirability. Her parents must have been in extreme financial distress to let her go to the frontier, and Valeria dutiful to have agreed to it. None ever considered that the young woman wanted travel and adventure for herself, that she was well aware of her family's precarious financial position, and that she'd dressed carefully for shy Marcus because she was savvy enough to understand that her father's ruin would have been her own. Now she was saving them all: her father, her future husband, and herself.

The thought gave her a quiet thrill.

Valeria had been puzzled at her girlfriends' praise of her courage. It wasn't as if she were leaving the empire! Britannia had been a Roman province for three hundred years, and living on its border sounded more exciting than dangerous. It would be marvelous to live with rough cavalrymen and their magnificent horses, fascinating to see the hairy barbarians, and thrilling to stroll the crest of Hadrian's famous wall. She was eager to order her own household. Eager to learn of lovemaking. Eager to know her husband. His mind. His desires. His dreams.

"Like piglets at their mother's teat," Clodius muttered about the jostling boats. "We're at the utter edge of empire."

"This utter edge is home to the man I'm marrying," she reminded slyly. "The praefectus in command of your Petriana cavalry."

"My doubts don't include your future husband, lady, who we both know is a man of education, wealth, and refinement. But then he's Roman, not Briton, and deserving of the grace of one such as-I mean of equal stature-or rather…"

She laughed. "I know exactly what you mean, dear clumsy Clodius! How did an officer such as you suffer the ill fortune of not only being assigned to gloomy Britannia, but escorting your superior's betrothed across the Oceanus Britannicus!"

"My lady, I've enjoyed our passage-"

"We were all sick as dogs, and you know it." She gave a mock shudder. "Gracious! I hope I don't see such water again. So cold! So dark!"

"We were all thankful to enter the river."

"So get us the rest of the way ashore, tribune," a new voice suggested impatiently.

It was Savia, gazing longingly at the stone quay of Londinium. The handmaiden was the one bit of home Valeria had brought with her: nag, chaperone, and anchor. Savia knew Valeria's heart better than her mother did and cared more for propriety and promptness than Valeria did. The heaving sea had silenced the slave for two days. Now she was regaining her voice.

"I'm waiting for a ferry suitable to our station," Clodius said irritably.

"You're waiting the day away."

Valeria looked to the city. Londinium appeared civilized enough, she judged. Masts bristled from a thicket of lighters along a quay crowded with bales, barrels, sacks, and amphorae. Beyond the parapets rose the domes and red tile roofs of a respectably sized Roman capital, greasy smoke creating its own pall beneath the overcast. She could hear the rumble of urban commerce and smell the charcoal, sewage, bakeries, and leatherworks even from the water. Somewhere within would be baths and markets, temples and palaces. A long wooden bridge crowded with carts and couriers crossed the Tamesis a quarter mile upriver. On the river's southern shore was marshland, and in the distance low hills.

Such a gray place! So far from Rome! Yet the sight of it filled her with anticipation. Soon, her Marcus! She thought Clodius was making too much of the absence of the official barge, which was just the latest of the indignities any long journey inflicted on travelers. It wasn't as if her future husband could be on hand to greet them anyway. He'd be at his fortress, seeing to his new command. But within a fortnight…

"We simply need to be prudent," Clodius stalled. "Britons are coarse. A third of the island remains unconquered, and what we rule remains rude."

"Rude, or simply poor?" Valeria bantered.

"Poor from poor initiative, I suspect."

"Or by taxation, corruption, and prejudice." She was unable to resist the temptation to bait the boy, a habit her mother said was deplorable for a Roman girl of marriageable age. "And these Britlets of yours prevented Rome from conquering their entire island."

It was supper-table talk picked up from the dining room of her father, and Clodius thought it slightly disreputable that a woman spoke so openly of politics. Still, he enjoyed her attention. "Rome wasn't stopped, it chose to stop, so built his wall to fence away what we didn't want and keep what we did." He took on a lecturing air. "Don't doubt it, Valeria, this is a promising place for a military officer like myself. Trouble gives soldiers a chance for glory. Marcus too! But I don't have to admire the cause of such trouble. By their very nature, Britons are rebel and rascal. The commoners, I mean. The upper class, I'm told, is acceptable."

"You seem quite the expert for a man who hasn't stepped ashore yourself," she teased. "Perhaps you should stay on the boat. I could tell my fiance that Britannia wasn't up to your standards."

In truth, Valeria was apprehensive herself, her teasing a mask for her own anxieties. She was homesick, though like any good Roman woman she wasn't about to admit such weakness. She barely knew Her intended husband, who'd seemed kind during their tentative meeting and quick betrothal in Rome but also big and quiet and, well… old. Certainly she'd never been intimate with a man. Never managed a household. Knew nothing about children. Was she ready to be a wife? Mother? Matron? What if she failed?

"Obey your husband," her father had instructed her. "Remember that duty is the steel that sustains Rome."

"Am I not to love him as well? And he to love me?"

"Love stems from respect," he'd intoned, "and respect follows duty."

It was the kind of admonition she'd heard a thousand times. Girls dreamed of romance. Parents plotted career and strategy.

Valeria looked up at the wet sky. Early April, the landscape an eruption of green, and still this cold cloud! Was it ever truly warm here? Come winter she'd see her first snow, she was sure of it. She was as anxious to get ashore as Savia was, and tired of waiting on Clodius. Why couldn't the youth decide? She saw another lighter and decided it was larger, cleaner, and better painted than the others. "Let's hire that one!"

Her request goaded Clodius to action, and with cries of disappointment, the little flotilla began to break up. The chosen lighter bumped alongside, a fare was negotiated, and there was confused bustle as sailors lowered her belongings into the bottom. Her trousseau was a mere cartload, given the expense of freight from Rome. Valeria's bodyguard Cassius lifted her down as if she were made of glass, plump Savia swayed down upon a rope, and Clodius took his place in the stern with the captain as if he knew something about piloting a boat. Then they made for Londinium's quay, the lighter leaning in the spring wind and an arrow of geese thrumming overhead, aimed toward the north.

Savia took heart. "Look! A welcoming sign from the Christ!"

"If so, they're bringing news of our arrival to my future husband."

Clodius smirked. "Don't they fly over everyone's head, and thus herald a dozen gods?"

"No. They appeared for our arrival."

They cut in and around other craft with practiced ease, a collision threatening at every tack and yet always narrowly avoided to cries of reflexive insult and hearty greeting. The shore was so crowded with craft that there seemed no opening to get ashore, and then a boat cast off and there was a glimpse of mossy stones and iron rings. The lighter pulled up into the wind and drifted neatly to lie alongside. A plank was laid and baggage slung. Valeria skipped ahead, Savia tottered across the plank in hasty reinforcement, and Cassius leaped the gap. Then the Romans were greeted with the kind of clamor that had besieged them on the Swan as merchants, beggars, and food vendors smelled money and class and surged forward.

"Sample the lamb of Londinium, lady? Sustenance after your long journey!"

She shrank from the crowding. "No, thank you…"

"Jewelry for the lass?" It was crude copper.

"I have enough."

"A flagon for you, tribune… This way to the best lodgings… Some help with your baggage… No, I'm best for that!"

Cassius went first to plow like a bull while Clodius haggled with the lighter's master, who suddenly claimed a different understanding of his payment. Valeria and Savia followed the gladiator's lead but were wedged in a press of bodies. The Romans paused, uncertain where to go, while Britons struggled for a better view of the pretty young woman of high station. Women exclaimed, men pushed, and a thick odor of sweat, fish oil, and cheap wine washed over them. Suddenly Valeria felt dizzy.

"This way, lady!" A knobby hand closed on her arm, and she started. It was a plebe, coarse and gap-toothed. Her excitement was turning to alarm.

"Over here!" Another hand clasped her cloak, dragging her the other way.

"Let me go!" She pulled away. Her hood had been knocked back, and her hair was getting wet in the drizzle. Savia shrieked as someone bumped her. A child darted in, and there was a tug and rip. A brooch holding Valeria's cloak was suddenly gone, and it fell open, giving men a clearer glimpse of her form.

"Clodius!"

Her military escort was mired in a tangle of bodies behind. The Britons were laughing at them! A hideous looking man, red-faced and pockmarked, loomed. "Are you looking for a bed, fine lady?" He reached toward her, disgustingly.

"Leave us-"

"Give room!" Clodius shouted. "Which way to the Governor's Gate?"

"A coin first!" someone shouted. "A coin to show you the way!"

"Yes, coins, Romans! Coins for the poor of Britannia!"

Cassius smacked grasping hands away. In reply, a cabbage flew through the air and struck the bodyguard. The gladiator put a hand on his sword. An apple sailed past his head.

"Coins! Charity for poor islanders!"

"What a rubbish heap of a province," Clodius gasped.

"Pity for a people oppressed!" More bits of food flew at them.

"This is a scandal!"

And then, in deliverance, came a sharp cry of pain.

Their siege ended as quickly as it had begun. The yelp had come from the rear of the crowd, the product of a whistling in the air that ended with a sharp crack. "Ow!" Then another smack and another, in remorseless rhythm, like harvesting wheat. The Britons were being parted by a military baton wielded with the cadence of a whip.

"Out of the way, dock dung! Get back from your betters!"

Their rescuer, Valeria saw, was a tall and heavily muscled Roman officer in chain armor and peaked helmet, his thick arms braided with tendons and nicked with scars. He had the shoulders and solidity of a bull. And the meanness of its temperament, too, it seemed.

"Offal!"

One beggar didn't scramble fast enough and was caught across the mouth, flung backward. Others retreated in fear as more Roman soldiers materialized, carving a path through the crowd with the shafts of cavalry spears, their lance heads black and broad. "Part, Britunculi! Get away from the Romans!"

"Brassidias!" The warning sifted through the assembly. "It's Galba!"

The sword at his side swung to the time of his baton strokes like a warning pendulum, and his stride had the powerful deliberation of a man fording a river. His physical strength was reinforced by a brutally handsome face: dark eyes, hooded lids, set mouth, and a broken and reset nose. The enclosure of Britons gave way, and when he turned to face them, none offered challenge.

So instead he swung to the Romans, offering no more approval of them. He had a full beard flecked with gray, an old wound leaving a crevice in its growth, and a complexion brown and leathery. A Thracian, Valeria guessed, backbone of the Roman cavalry. She saw in fascination that a piece of one ear was gone, and as if to balance this loss, a single gold earring hung from the other. Valeria found his masculinity and ruggedness disturbingly sexual. Embossed disks of courage were layered on his chest like a silver roof, his belt held a golden chain that threaded a curious number of rings, and he held his vinestaff tightly in both hands, as if contemplating snapping it. His eyes flickered disdainfully from one of the newcomers to another before coming to rest on Valeria, her cloak open, her hair half unpinned and cascading down, her garment wet. She straightened against a look that seemed to disrobe her.

His voice was gravel. "So what gaggle of Romans is this that disembarks in a sewer of Londinium and, faster than a cock can crow, provokes a riot?"

Valeria glanced around. With no gate nearby, where had this officer come from? She looked at the top of the city wall. Now there was a sentry peering down at them. Had he been there before? She opened her mouth to reply but was interrupted.

"I am Gnaeus Clodius Albinus, newly assigned junior tribune of the Petriana cavalry," the young Roman announced. "And this is the lady Valeria, daughter of the senator Titus Valens and the betrothed of my commander, the praefectus Lucius Marcus Flavius." Clodius was stiff with pride and indignation. "Our thanks for your help, soldier, but I must complain it's tardy. We'd expected proper reception. Instead we've had to find our own way ashore. Word of this indignity will reach the governor!"

"Indeed?" The tough-looking soldier inspected Clodius as well, with disdain. "You'll discover that the governor isn't here, tribune."

"Well, then, a senior commander."

"Who was expecting advance word that you apparently neglected to send. Who was waiting to provide the escort expected."

"Oh? And where is this elusive officer?"

A soldier snickered, his leader's eye silencing him. "Standing before you, junior tribune Clodius. I'm senior tribune Galba Brassidias, second in command of the cavalry to which you're reporting- and thus in command of you."

Clodius colored. "Tribune! I didn't realize…"

"Nor report, it seems."

"But I sent a message that our lateness required us to take a merchant vessel-"

"A message that obviously didn't reach us. Common sense would suggest waiting for a navy galley or, lacking that, waiting in your merchant tub for proper greeting. It's your impatience that has embarrassed Rome."

Clodius flushed.

"And when making an opposed landing"-Galba pointed to the slave Cassius-"don't rely on arena thugs."

The ex-gladiator's mouth tightened.

"Or women."

Someone in the crowd of Britons laughed.

"I don't think recriminations are necessary," Valeria said. Not liking the arrogance of this provincial, despite his timely rescue, her voice carried the sharp authority of her class. "We were unaware that docking at Londinium was considered an opposed landing, tribune."

Her reprimand made him appraise her anew. "It wouldn't have been, if you'd waited for me."

"And how long did you intend to make us wait?"

He smiled thinly. "I would have hurried had I known your beauty, lady." He bowed slightly, having apparently decided on caution. "And please, call me Galba. A pity that our acquaintance should begin so awkwardly, but I think we've all been taken by surprise. Marcus Flavius sent me here to escort you to the Wall. The noise of this rabble drew me."

"A remarkable coincidence."

"Fortunate." He looked around. "So let's get you to the governor's palace. He's touring in the south but left word to give you a night there."

Clodius spoke. "A lady requires proper transport-"

"Which I'm about to provide. Titus!"

"Yes, commander!"

"A litter for the lady Valeria!"

The man moved off at a trot.

"My apologies for this mob. If your tribune there had sent word ashore, we could have avoided- Your cloak is torn!" He looked concerned.

Valeria had clutched it around herself. "I was jostled by the crowd. A boy made off with a brooch."

"A what?"

"It was sudden. A small thing-"

Galba swung to the Britons and pointed. "Her."

A middle-aged woman screamed as two soldiers seized her and dragged her forward, anxious shouts rising. Galba drew his sword, the spatha rasping as it came out of its scabbard, and put its point under her chin. The blade gleamed dully in Londinium's gray light.

"A brooch is missing!" he shouted. "I want it back, and back now! Tell the thief who stole it to hurry, or I cut her!" A spot of blood appeared at the woman's throat, and she writhed, begging for time.

There was a commotion, a succession of cries. Someone small darted forward under the cover of the adults, and the gold clasp spat from the crowd's cluster of legs. Then the furtive thief ran madly away.

Galba glared at the others for a long minute and then dropped his sword, shoving the woman away. "Next time I slice off hands until I find the one that holds it!" Then he scooped the clasp up and presented it to Valeria. It was in the shape of a sea horse. "Your missing brooch. A horse of the sea. Appropriate for your new garrison."

She was shocked at his tactic. "You seize a woman at random, tribune?"

He slid his sword into its scabbard. "To get back what's rightfully yours."

"For which I thank you. But her terror-"

"I make clear what isn't tolerated so women are never terrified."

"Rome relies on the affection of her people-"

"You're not in Rome any longer, lady. Manners are rougher in the provinces and worse yet on the frontier, as you'll learn. But these people won't bother you again." He raised his voice so the Britons could hear. "Count on it!"

She hastily pinned her cloak once more, hoping the brute didn't notice that her fingers trembled slightly. The mob began to break up as quickly as it had formed. "Well," she said, straightening as she tried to regain composure. "Let's see the rest of this rough Londinium, then."

"The litter hasn't arrived."

She took a breath. "And I haven't stretched my legs for two days. We'll meet it."

Clodius touched her arm. "Valeria, it's more appropriate to be carried-"

"And tedious to stay here." She started down the quay.

The party hastily formed around her, Galba and his cavalrymen to her front, Cassius and Savia to her rear. Clodius strode alongside, brooding and subdued.

"Well, that was exciting," she finally said to the young tribune as they threaded past piles of cargo, the wet pavement sparkling from the scales of landed fish. "Quite an introduction."

"Quite timely," he replied. "Your hero appears from… where? Was he waiting?"

"For what?"

"I don't know, but look there. Another prosperous party coming ashore, and I don't see them molested by a Briton mob."

"Galba's warning has spread, I think."

"Or his need for drama is over."