Ruth Downie - Semper Fidelis

Before Tilla could speak, the girl said in British, “Are you the doctor’s woman?”

“I am the midwife,” said Tilla in the same tongue. The girl was too young to be the boy’s mother, so she was not Lucina come to ask why some stranger had been claiming to know her. It must be Pamphile, or Hedone, or some other working girl who was supposed to be looking forward to the arrival of the Sixth Legion. Which was more likely to mean her owner was looking forward to a rise in his profits.

“I am Virana.” The girl glanced over her shoulder at the manager. “Grumpy over there doesn’t like me. But you did say to come here, didn’t you?”

Tilla gestured toward the courtyard door. “Come with me. We will speak in private.”

“You are not Parisi,” the girl guessed, following her along the walkway. “From your accent-Brigante?”

“Near enough,” agreed Tilla, because no matter how many times she explained about the Corionotatae, people only remembered the names of tribes they had heard of before.

“You are Brigante, and you have married an officer!” It seemed the girl had never heard of such a thing. “How did you do it?”

“That is a long story.” Tilla ushered her into the room and gestured toward the chair with the red cushion.

The girl seated herself and gazed around her, lifting the corner of the cloth to see what was laid out on the table. “Is this your dinner?” She tipped the flagon toward her and sniffed the contents. “I don’t like wine,” she said. “Beer is much nicer.”

“Yes,” said Tilla, putting the flagon back and replacing the cloth. She had left Marcia’s letter on the table, hoping her husband might read her some news of his family in Gaul. Now she moved that out of the girl’s reach too, hoping this was indeed a patient, and not just a local nuisance whom the mansio manager had failed to keep out. “You look in good health, Virana.”

“Oh, I am! Is that your husband’s armor?” The girl reached out and ran a fingertip along the curve of the metal plates.

“Yes.” Who else’s did she imagine it might be? “How can I help you?”

Virana, having finished her inspection of the room, leaned across the table to where Tilla had seated herself on the bed, and beamed. “I think I am with child!”

“That is good news,” said Tilla, not entirely sure that it was. “I have herbs that will help the baby grow and keep you strong. I can give you something to take when the time comes, and an egg charm to hold in your hand when you give birth, but you will have to find your own midwife. We are only here for a few days.”

“And then you are going back to Deva with the soldiers,” said Virana, her eyes bright. “Tell me, is it true there are stalls selling silk and ivory and spices and eastern perfumes? And I can wear my shoes outside, because there is no mud in the streets, and nobody needs buckets, because the water flows to every house?”

“No.”

“Well, never mind.” Virana reached back to retrieve a bone pin and shook her hair loose. “I’m sure it will be better than here. I know the Sixth Legion are coming, but they’ll send all the best ones up north to build the Great Wall, won’t they? We’ll just be stuck with the old fat ones again. So I thought you would know what to do.”

“What to do about what?”

“I don’t mind if he doesn’t marry me. I know it’s not allowed unless he’s an officer.”

“It is not recognized,” corrected Tilla. “But if you have chosen a soldier and he has chosen you, that is none of the army’s business.”

“That’s what I think too.”

“When your man is moved, you will have to follow. It will not be easy, but plenty of women do it.”

Virana pouted. “But that’s the trouble. Nobody wants me to follow. They all say the baby is somebody else’s.”

Tilla suppressed a sigh. Was there no end to the supply of stupid girls living near army bases?

“Please don’t shout at me. Everyone else does.”

“I am not going to shout at you. I am going to work out some dates. It is hard to be certain about these things, but at least we might know where to start.”

The girl shook her head and her hair came loose again. “I don’t know anything about dates. One day is much like another here. We don’t have all those big festivals and games like you have in Deva.”

“You must have a market day.”

Virana brightened at this, but it seemed one market day was also much like another, and the boredom of life around Eboracum was only made bearable by friendly encounters with young recruits on their weekly afternoon out from the local fort. “I was going to wait and see who it looked like,” she said, “but now they’re going back to Deva there isn’t time.”

“I will examine you now,” Tilla told her. “But these things are very uncertain, and if you cannot remember when things happened, I am not sure how else I can help.”

The girl lay down on one of the beds as instructed, then sat up suddenly. “You aren’t going to take it away, are you?”

“No.”

“Because if you take it away, I’ll have to stay here, won’t I?”

The examination revealed nothing new. The girl was indeed pregnant and all appeared to be well. Tilla felt a wave of jealousy. Why this stupid girl? Why almost every other woman in the world and not her? She swallowed, hearing the echo of her mother’s words after she had voiced some forgotten complaint: Nobody likes a person who feels sorry for herself.

You don’t understand, Mam.

No. And nobody else will, either. It’s no good moping, girl. There’s work to be done!

Virana was still prattling. “What I was thinking,” she said, “was that if you tell your husband that you know who the father is, then he could order him-”

“My husband is not allowed to do that sort of thing.”

“But how else will I get out of this place?” Virana sat up and gave the pink dress a violent tug to straighten it. A bulge of pale flesh appeared through a hole in the side seam. “They won’t even let me in to talk to anybody.”

“They are not going to help you,” Tilla agreed.

“Those horrible centurions don’t care about anybody.”

“It is not their job to care about you.”

The girl swung her feet to the floor. “They don’t even care about their own soldiers!”

Tilla said, “My man does his best.”

The girl put a hand to her mouth. “I am sorry. I meant no insult.”

“You can speak the truth, Virana. I am not in the Twentieth Legion just because he is.”

Virana glanced at the window, then said softly, “You should tell him to be careful in there.”

“Why?”

The girl leaned closer and mouthed, “People keep on dying. They say there is a curse.”

“I heard about the man on the roof.”

“Not just Sulio.” Virana glanced at the window again, and fell silent.

Tilla checked that no one was listening at the door. Then she closed the shutters, plunging them into near darkness. “What do you mean, ‘People keep on dying’? What sort of people?”

“I don’t want to get into trouble.”

“There will be no trouble if you tell me the truth.”

The girl sniffed. “First Dannicus. Then Tadius. Then Victor ran away, and now Sulio lies dead too.”

Tilla paused. “This Victor-does he have ginger hair?”

In the gloom she could just make out Virana’s nod.

She said, “I think I have seen him,” but Virana was not listening.

“Fortune has turned her back on them!”

“But you still want to go to Deva with them?”

“They say the tribune will offer a ram to Jupiter in the morning. Perhaps things will be better after that. But tonight-”