Hadrian's wall (7 page)

Valeria sipped judiciously. While wines tasted little different to her, the Britons seemed to think her opinion important. "Excellent, dear Quintus."

"How delighted I am to hear you say that! You, so recently arrived from Rome!" He turned to Galba. "And you, senior tribune?"

"You already have opinions."

"Yet you're a famous warrior! I want yours!"

"I'm a man of the hard ground and rude camp."

"Of experience and forthrightness!"

Galba regarded Quintus over his pewter cup with faint annoyance, his mouth a line at its rim. For a moment it seemed he wouldn't drink at all, and their host began to look anxious. Then Galba bolted it. The suddenness of his movement caught everyone by surprise; the man had the quickness of an animal.

They waited.

"Briton," he pronounced. He tapped his cup with his thumb, and a pretty slave poured more. The tribune let his forearm caress her thigh, and she glanced at the soldier with interest, a sudden fluidity to her hip.

Quintus's face fell. "It's that obvious?"

"And no insult. But yes, no honest man would mistake this taste for Italy's." He kept his gaze from Clodius.

Their host looked morose. "Indeed! It's too wet in Britannia, too wet and too cold. If you can delay your journey, I'd like to show you my vineyard. The mildew-"

"I'm a drinker, not a farmer."

"This is from your own vines?" Clodius interjected. "No, it's really quite fine, dear Quintus! As good as any!"

Quintus was dubious. "Do you really think so?"

"I must have a second cup!"

Now the flirtatious slave came to the junior tribune. As she poured, he murmured in her ear, the swell of her breasts revealed by her low tunic. Then she slipped away.

The young Roman drank again. "I'm impressed by your industry."

Their host shook his head. "We're trying, but life in Britannia is daunting. The weather is bad and the tax collectors worse. I caught one the other day using a grain measure marked with the wrong number. He blithely admitted fraud, took his rightful share without apology, and then got his bite by adding a surcharge for 'administrative necessities.' He laughed at me-me, Quintus Maxus!"

"Protest to higher authority."

"I do! I complain to the magistrate, and nothing comes of it. I write the governor and get no answer. I try to see the duke and am told he has no time. I swear, every man with an imperial commission does nothing but sell smoke. A good wine can allow a man to forget many troubles… but we can't even make good wine!" He turned to his friend. "Glidas-aren't you building a Christian chapel?"

"I am," the merchant allowed.

"You find Christian prayers effective?" Valeria asked politely.

"I find public office ruinous. They've tried to make me consularis, but then I'd be responsible for road repairs I can ill afford. A friend has taken holy orders to escape obligation. I'm considering the same."

"Yet not every man in the province is dishonest," Calpurnia protested.

"No," Quintus admitted, "but something's gone wrong with the vintage of our society in Britannia here, just like this wine. The sense of citizenship is fading. Rome seems more distant."

"It's really quite acceptable, dear Quintus," Valeria insisted politely.

"Britannia?"

"The wine."

They laughed. Valeria blushed.

"It smells of the Briton bog," their host mourned, hoping for contradiction. "It tastes like cabbage and peat. A pig would trade it for puddle water."

"Nonsense," Clodius said. "Don't pay attention to our dour critic from Thrace."

"The senior tribune was courageous in his honesty."

"Or mistaken in his palate. Have him taste again." The youth smiled encouragingly.

"I've no need to taste anything," Galba grunted. "I said what I think."

"I challenge a more careful test," Clodius insisted. "Prove the consistency of your judgment."

The senior tribune frowned, but the others looked expectant, and so he waved impatiently at the slave, who'd returned. She refilled his cup, once more seductively brushing against him. This time Galba didn't bolt his drink but sipped it and then politely put it down.

"Quintus, I never said it was bad. But Briton wine is Briton wine."

"I should burn my vines," their host mourned. "I should break my jars."

"Except," Clodius interrupted mildly, "our military expert has just sampled not your wine, dear Quintus, but a superb and expensive vintage that I brought from Italy."

"What?"

"I had the slave girl switch them."

"I don't understand."

"My point is that our senior tribune can't tell the difference."

The room was suddenly quiet.

"His opinion wasn't rude, but simply ignorant," Clodius blandly went on. "Your wine is quite good, Quintus. My apologies for our entire party."

Quintus looked alarmed. "I need no apology! I asked for an honest opinion!"

"You seek to embarrass me, boy?" Galba's voice rumbled like distant thunder.

"I seek the honesty you said you were giving."

Galba looked at Clodius in disbelief.

"Nor am I intimidated by your sullen scowls, tribune."

"Still," a flustered Quintus stammered, hoping to deflect what he feared might become a deadly quarrel, "I prefer imported to my own."

"Trade wheat for wine, then," Clodius said, as if he were governor. "Wool for linen. Lead for iron. Let every part of the empire concentrate on its strengths."

"And risk losing a year's cargo to storm or the next war," Glidas warned.

"What storm? What war?"

"The emperor is ailing. His heir is only eight years old. Wars of imperial succession are what I came from Gaul to escape."

"And escape you will. Imperial politics aren't decided in Britannia." Clodius didn't notice his own condescension.

"Constantine was proclaimed by his soldiers in Eburacum," their host reminded. "He went on to conquer the empire. And it's not that invading troops will come here. It's that Britannia's legionaries are drawn off to fight there, in Gaul and Iberia. And when they go, the Picts and the Scotti become restless. The Franks and Saxons raid."

"Raid where?" Valeria asked.

"The coast. Or the Wall, where you're going."

"By the gods, that's frightening talk for a woman betrothed!" Clodius objected.

"Yes, Quintus," Calpurnia scolded. "Frustration with your wine is no reason to threaten danger to a pretty bride. She'll be safer with the Petriana than in Rome."

Quintus looked embarrassed. The last thing he wanted to do was offend a senator's daughter. "Of course, of course. I exaggerate. It's just that Rome ignores our problems."

Valeria smiled in forgiveness. "The Roman energy you're seeking has come back in my Marcus," she promised.

"Well said! Every man should have such loyalty! And before you're even married!"

"The gods know that few men earn it after the wedding," Calpurnia said.

And with that they laughed, Quintus clapping for the main course in relief.

"Please, I don't intend to scare you, Valeria," their host went on. "This is a good place you've come to, and a good man too. I just talk without thinking at times."

"It's his most tedious habit," his wife said gently.

"But the barbarians are getting bolder and the garrisons weaker."

"The Wall stands," Clodius said grandly. "Sleep well behind it, Quintus."

"I appreciate your reassurance, young tribune. But I mean no disrespect when I point out that you've yet to serve in the north."

"True." Clodius speared a dumpling. "In military matters, as opposed to wine, I defer to our senior tribune." It was an attempt at truce.

Their host turned. "And you, Brassidias, who has served on the Wall: Are you as sure as your young officer here that the garrison can hold, should civil war break out?"

Galba had been speculatively eyeing the slave girl waiting in a corner. Her little conspiracy with Clodius had made him want to possess her even more. Now he turned reluctantly back. "For once I agree with the junior tribune," he said slowly. "The issue is never numbers, Quintus. It's fear, generated by Roman will."

"That's exactly what I'm questioning! Roman will!"

"No, you're questioning my will. And as long as I will it, no barbarian tribe will threaten Hadrian's Wall. My will creates their fear. My will sustains the empire."

I dismiss the landowner Quintus Maxus from my chambers and review my information with unease. It is but a short step in today's empire from candor to treason, and I realize that my report will have to tread carefully. How much can I blame on the characters of this story? How much on the empire itself?

The truth is that this woman Valeria came to Britannia at a particularly troubled time, and that the key to understanding what happened might be not just her but aging emperors and the dispatch of legions. How much do we control events, and how much are we controlled by them? As my own years grow longer, I argue increasingly for fate, and for blind reaction to trends so enveloping that we fail to notice their significance at the time. The world is changing, and I am disturbed by that change. Disturbed most of all that I can't quite put my finger on what is different. The soldier Titus comes next, and I hope that in his military simplicity he can see what I cannot. That he can explain the strange final episode of the woman's journey northward to meet her future husband.

Larger mysteries remain. I've detected a peculiar restlessness in the empire. Is there something about the human spirit that defeats satisfaction and prevents contentment? Rome provides peace, commerce, and tolerance. Yet there is this strange yearning among the empire's subjects for something intangible and inexpressible, a dangerous freedom that invites chaos. Part of it is this restless longing for religion, this back-and-forth favoritism between the old gods and the crucified Jew. Part is a childlike rebellion against authority. Part is real difficulty with taxation, debased coinage, and cynical corruption.

Now there are no truths, only opinions, and not just rightful birth but, under the Christian creed, an unseemly equality. As if patrician and slave can ever share the same paradise! Is it any wonder that disasters occur? Yet I must he careful how I couch my conclusions. Rome seeks fault in individuals, not in Rome.

Perhaps the problem is Britannia itself. It is too distant, too foggy, too ungovernable. Its northern third has never been conquered. Usurper after usurper has arisen here. The Britons themselves remain crude, intractable, argumentative, and ungrateful. One shudders at what will happen if they ever break loose of their soggy island and create empires of their own. One wonders if the Britons would have been better off left to themselves: ignorant, forgotten, and penned by cold water.

I am investigating only one incident. But as I talk to these people, I'm beginning to wonder if Rome should be here at all.

The party was six more days reaching Eburacum, headquarters of the Sixth Victrix Legion. Despite her impatience, Valeria was grateful for a day's relief from the sore tedium of the mule cart. She'd never realized travel was so slow and terrible! Waiting at Eburacum was the pleasure and admonition of a letter from her mother. It had been mailed after she'd left Rome, carried by imperial post, and had now overtaken Valeria's own slow progress.

To my obedient daughter Valeria:

Two weeks have passed since you left to join your future husband. Already your absence seems like two years. The house is quieter without your mischief, and emptier than I would wish. Even your brothers miss you! I pray to the gods to keep you safe, and long for the day of your return to Marcus. Is it cold in Britannia? Have you kept your health? I told Savia that she must be your mother now, and I hope her common sense is helping you sustain decorum. Such a long journey! I grieve at its necessity, even while I am proud of you for making it.

Your father's career has been saved by this alliance, and he sends you goodwill. Your friends are astonished at your courage. I mourn that I cannot see you in your bridal gown, when I know you'll be beautiful. Yet my heart is glad at the thought of it! Valeria, make us proud by devotion to your new husband. Marcus is a good man, an aristocrat of duty and prudence. His honor is your own, and your reputation is his honor. Obey, respect, and stay loyal. You are of the House of Valens! Never forget that, even on the farthest frontier…

Dutifully, Valeria wrote back of her own health and good spirits, but what more could she say? She'd yet to see her husband, let alone marry him! Valeria had been trying to live up to Roman ideals for as long as she could remember, and she didn't need reminders now. Savia was nag enough. She felt already married to stuffy tradition, a thousand-year stale crust of history, famed battles, proverbs, cautionary fables, and overlapping religions endlessly repeated, in the most tedious ways, to instruct citizens how they should behave. Rome worshiped its own past. Would her husband too lecture her on Roman virtues? And would she in turn torment her own children?

Probably. But right now she didn't want rectitude. She wanted strong arms.

Galba met briefly with Duke Fullofaudes, conferring on the administration and mission of the Petriana cavalry and receiving dispatches for delivery to the fort. He emerged and announced to Valeria and Clodius a change in plan.

"We're going to have to add a couple days to our journey. We have to go to Uxelodunum, at the western end of the Wall."

Valeria protested. "But I've been traveling for more than a month!"

"Remounts have been imported from Hibernia. The duke wants me to collect them for the Petriana."

"I thought our mission was to deliver Valeria," Clodius objected.

"So it is. But with new horses, as well."

"I don't agree with this detour."

"I don't care if you do."

"I'm a tribune too, Galba."

"In name. Not yet in deed."

"My duty is to the bride of our commander!"

"And her duty is to come with me."

Clodius brooded and grumbled as they continued northward and now westward, their pace always set by the trundling cart. "He should take us to the fort first and then go get his damned horses."

"What choice do we have?" Valeria responded. "Wasn't this an order?"

"An order we neither heard nor read. An order that contradicts the one sent by your future husband. An order that fits Galba's needs more than your own."

"But how does this detour suit him, Clodius?"

"He's a border man! Bribery and graft. It's the same the empire over. Are we going to Uxelodunum simply to get horses?"

"How suspicious you are!"

"And why not? He takes over my mission to escort you, makes himself your rescuer, and drags you with him to get his remounts." Clodius leaned closer. "The other night I caught him sneaking out to confer with some ruffian or tramp."

"Sneaking out?"

"I went to relieve myself and heard Galba's graveled gargle. He was talking to some hooded Celt, and when I challenged them, the man slipped away. Brassidias was all bluster, claiming he was getting intelligence from one of the Areani, a spy from the north. They sell information for money."

"What's wrong with that?"

"Why not inform me? Teach me? Include me?"

She looked to Galba, riding a hundred paces ahead. "He does things alone."

"So why plague us with his dour presence in the first place? We were doing fine until he came along."

Here it was, Valeria thought: male rivalry, instinctive and ridiculous. Boys quarreling for meaningless status, and shedding blood for reasons forgotten an hour afterward. It was worse when women were involved. "Marcus sent him so we could become a partnership."

"Some partner. He treats us like children. We should leave his tedious expertise and go directly to your future husband." He looked at her again and then dropped back to ride, like Galba, alone.

As they made their way north, native villages began to thin and the countryside steeped into rolling, windswept hills. Grain and vegetable fields faded away and were replaced first by pasture and then by open moors and marshes. Lakes dotted the landscape so thickly that northern Britannia looked like a table set with pewter, vast clouds of ducks and geese winging in to rain upon the water like spring hail. Between rainstorms the sky was a scrubbed blue, clouds towering overhead like ruins of white marble. Squalls swept across gray horizons, rainbows signaling a breakthrough of sun. Twice the travelers came upon small groups of deer that bounded away into thick forest. The presence of these wild beasts exemplified the difference the travelers were experiencing as they journeyed north. There were woodlots still, the trees young and orderly, but also large brooding tracts of arboreal wilderness, peasant woodmen chopping at the periphery like ants against a tangled garden.

And still there was no sign of the Wall.

"How much time would we save if we didn't accompany Galba and went straight to my Marcus?" she finally asked Clodius a day later.

He looked at her with new confidence. "At least two days."

They came the second afternoon to a small tollhouse and watch-post on a broad hill called Bravoniacum. A grassy track branched north from the main road and disappeared into forest. It pointed in the direction the Wall must lie.

As they watered the horses, Clodius announced to Galba, "We part here."

The tribune squinted. "What? Who parts?"

"I and the women. There's no need to drag Valeria a hundred miles out of her way. I've studied the maps. Petrianis is but a day's ride north of here, through that wood. My orders, from the signet ring of Marcus himself, were to escort her, not horses. I'll take her there myself"

Galba smirked. "You don't know the way."

"I'll find it."

"You couldn't find your ass by yourself."

Clodius remained cool. "This cart slows you down. Ride ahead for your horses, and you'll reach the fort of the Petriana when we do. We'll both sleep in proper beds a night or two earlier." He tried to give his voice authority. While Galba had the higher rank, Clodius had the surety of birth.

"The lady requires protection," the senior man said.

"Which she has from Cassius and me. Lend me a guide, if you wish, but leave me to finish my task while you finish yours."

Valeria's heart was hammering. She longed for a swifter end! "Yes," she spoke up. "I want to go with Clodius."

Galba looked at her impassively. So: she'd chosen the boy. The other cavalrymen were giving their own imperceptible nods. All were tired of this slow escort. This was a chance to save everybody time.

"If you take her down that track," Galba warned, "it's your decision, not mine, junior tribune."

Clodius nodded. "A decision I'm comfortable making."

"It's my choice as well," Valeria said.

Galba considered them. Then he spoke carefully. "So be it. I'll give you Titus as guide."

Clodius nodded. "This makes the most sense, I think."

"Prove to me that it does." Galba conferred a moment with the soldier he was to loan, clapped him on the shoulder, and then mounted. "We meet in Petrianis!" The decision made, he seemed newly energized. His men sprang on their horses as well, as if released from a dull lesson. Free of the trundling cart, the cavalry galloped. In moments, they were gone.

"Good riddance," Clodius whispered as the rumbling faded.

The women turned to look at the lane they would follow into the forest. Suddenly their group seemed much smaller and the wood much bigger, its canopy shimmering with spring's green. Valeria hoped the Wall was truly nearby.

Clodius pointed. "We go that way, Titus?"

"Aye, tribune," said the soldier. "A bit of woods, and we're home."

They set off down the track at dawn the next morning. A few rude Briton farmsteads gave way to rough pasture, dotted with sheep, and then pasture devolved into unkempt moor and boggy marsh. Birch, aspen, and willow grew along a meandering stream thick with rushes, their road following its course. There was a wall of new leaf, a hole like a tunnel where the lane led, and then they were swallowed by the forest. It was dimmer and cooler inside the wood.

Valeria leaned out from her cart's canopy to look up into the trees. They seemed as old as time, and after the deliberately open shoulders of the Roman road, she felt submerged. The forest light was green and sallow, pressing with the weight of water, and the gnarled trunks were fat as towers, their roots sprawled outward like the legs of a lizard. Limbs entwined in an obscenity of embrace. Some trees were straight, others leaned ominously, and all of them creaked to a low moan of wind. The trees of the woods of Italy were smaller and more regularly spaced, paths broader, and intersections marked by temples. Britannia's woods seemed primitive and unexplored.

The straight highway she was accustomed to had been replaced by a winding track paved with the previous autumn's leaves, giving no clear view of what lay ahead or where they'd come from. Her cart jounced and tipped as it rumbled along, occasionally bogging in mud until Cassius pushed it out. Insects spun in whirling clouds above stagnant water. Birdcall slowly faded. The deeper into the wood they traveled, the damper and danker and quieter it became. They were all quiet, the primary sound the creak and jingle of leather harness and the rasp of axle.

It was with considerable relief, then, when they finally came to a place where the track forded a clear stream, the watercourse providing a welcome wedge of open sky. Titus and Clodius dismounted to water their horses while Cassius and the women climbed down from the cart. Bread, fruit, and cheese were shared. They nibbled quietly.

The walls of the enclosing forest formed a green pit, its escape the sky. White clouds scudded across the top of the clearing like a fleet of boats seen from the ocean's bottom. Green willows overhung the stream like bowing servants, their drooping tendrils brushing the water. Valeria decided to explore under the branches of one, letting the vines close behind her to form a tent. A forest house! So obese its trunk, so arching its branches! The willow's roots plunged down into the water, and she balanced on one, looking into a clear pool for signs of fish. A shape did dart through the water, and its quickness gave her a quiet thrill. So free it seemed! Swimming where it chose. Diving as it wished. Not trapped, as people were, in an itinerary of schedule and alliance and jealousy and marriage.

The thought startled her. How odd to think Marcus so close! He seemed farther away than ever.

There was a snap of brush, and the soldier Titus appeared, cutting through the willow's overhang after relieving himself. He stopped uncertainly, surprised and embarrassed to encounter Valeria so near.

"Isn't this a grand canopy, Titus?" she asked, hoping to put him at ease. "Like being in my mother's skirts."

He looked uneasy. "I've never heard the willow thought of that way, lady."

"You don't feel cozy here?"

"No Briton would think so."

"Really? And how do they think of willows in green Britannia?"

He looked down. "Briton children are warned not to fall asleep at the willow's twisted feet, lest they be seized and pulled underground. The roots drag them under if the trees aren't appeased."

She looked at him uncertainly. "Surely you don't believe that."

"I haven't seen it, lady." He pointed upward. "They also say hair can become ensnared and maidens hung helpless off the ground. It's just a tale. Still, I don't stay too long under one. The Celts worship the willow god with blood."

"Blood?"

"Life's essence for Esus, the woodman's god. The Celts believe he demands human sacrifice for safe passage. We Romans have ended the practice, of course, but my friend Servius once saw a human skull in the crook of a willow."

Valeria's eyes were wide. "What did he do?"

"Crossed himself and fled. He's a Christian."

"Surely that was from many years ago."

"Perhaps, but the old ways are coming back, I'm told. Life is less certain, and belief is less proven. People are turning to any god they hope might help. I scoff at none and respect the places of all."

He was just an ignorant soldier, of course, and she knew she shouldn't take his barracks stories too seriously. Still, as they moved out from under the willow, Valeria wondered just what she had seen in the water. Any deep forest could be haunted by mares, or ghosts, of the dead. Had she seen some kind of spirit in the water?

Valeria told Clodius what Titus had said.

"Like the black forests of Germania," he replied slyly. "Quiet as a tomb, and so cushioned by pine needles that you can't hear your own footsteps. Just dark trees, straight as pillars, and then suddenly from behind… the enemy attacks!" She started, and he grinned at her. "Varus marched in with three legions and never returned, you know. When relief arrived, all they found was a trail of bones."

"That was three hundred years ago."

"And Rome has never tried to conquer those forests since."