Ruth Downie - Semper Fidelis

“She doesn’t know any decent entertainers around here, I suppose?”

“I don’t think so, sir.”

“No, of course not. Respectable married woman. Well, we shall have to do without. Somebody found a juggler, but he wasn’t up to much. Did Geminus have a word, by the way?”

“After his dog bit me, sir.”

“Good. I had a chat with him on the way to worship last night. He took it like the man I always knew he was. Shame you weren’t there. He could have put your mind at rest personally.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re not a follower of Mithras, are you, Ruso?”

“No, sir.”

“You should consider it. Not only an inspiration, but you make good contacts. Friends wherever you go.”

Ruso, whose former clerk was miles away in Verulamium and whose old friend Valens was somewhere sucking up to people more important than himself, felt suddenly like the only man left out of the club.

“Geminus has his rough edges, but he’s a fine centurion. Staunch. A lot of men owe their lives to him. I couldn’t allow the end of his career to be blighted by unfounded rumors.”

“Yes, sir.”

“So, onward! Tell your men to keep up the good work.”

Accius was enjoying himself. Hadrian might not be his family’s choice for emperor but this was his chance to shine, and he knew it. “Not long to go now. Eboracum’s luck has turned.”

“I hope so, sir. Is there anything else I can do to help?”

“There is,” said Accius. “When Hadrian gets here, stay out of his way.”

Motionless, silent, gazing at the crested helmet of the man in front of him, Ruso marveled at the way a couple of trumpet blasts had conjured these splendid ranks of legionaries out of the chaos of half an hour ago. The first call had been the signal for every man to abandon whatever unfinished task lay in front of him, run to his quarters, and scramble into full parade uniform. The second was the signal to assemble. They were now standing like parallel rows of statues lining the road from the marketplace to the east gate, waiting in the low evening sun for the most powerful man in the world to pass between them. All around, an excited rabble of civilians chatted and laughed and argued in the sunshine, waiting for the free show. Youths dangled their legs from the eaves of buildings. Children had been hoisted up on parents’ shoulders. A white-haired woman was clinging to a donkey.

Ruso shifted his grip on his shield and watched a fly land on the helmet and begin to crawl up the crest. His bandaged leg was aching and his mind kept going back to two conversations. The first was with Marcus.

He had spotted the tattooed recruit moving toward the barrack blocks with the cautious gait of a man in pain. He offered what was intended to be a friendly greeting. Marcus jumped as if he had felt the cold touch of a ghost, then turned and gave an awkward salute.

His upper lip was swollen to twice its normal size. There was dark blood congealed around his nostrils and a jagged wound at the edge of his hairline.

“What happened to you?”

“Nothing, sir.” The swollen lip distorted the edges of his words.

Ruso wondered what else was concealed beneath the tunic. “A training injury, perhaps?”

“Yes, sir.” The Briton glanced around awkwardly, as if he were trapped with a bore at a party and was longing to get away.

“I haven’t forgotten our conversation. I’ll talk to your centurion-”

“No, sir, don’t-”

“I’m speaking!” Ruso was not used to being interrupted by his juniors. “I’ll talk to your centurion when things aren’t so busy.”

Marcus’s eyes widened with desperation. “Please, sir. I’ve changed my mind. I want to keep them, sir.”

“Keep the tattoos?”

“Yes, sir.” A slave emerged from one of the barrack rooms. “I have no complaints, sir,” Marcus announced in a voice loud enough to be overheard.

And that was all Ruso could get out of him.

The second conversation was with Tilla. His message to report to the emperor’s steward had allowed her into the fort, where she had arrived at the hospital with some medicines he didn’t need in order to tell him things he didn’t like the sound of.

First, someone had been in their room in the mansio and left a gruesome souvenir of the visit, and she was clearly not as calm about it as she was trying to pretend.

“I’m going to have this out with Geminus,” he fumed. “It’ll be him, or one of his shadows. And I’ll see the manager. I can’t believe a thing like that can happen and nobody sees anything. It’s outrageous!”

“The manager is asking his staff,” she said, “but there are always people coming and going there. Lots of them are carrying things. Nobody would notice one more sack.”

“Surely the room was locked?”

“Lots of people can pick locks.”

“I don’t want you going back there without me.”

“Then where am I to go when I have finished cleaning and sweeping up for your emperor? It will be all right. We have another new room, and the staff are watching. Now, stop making a fuss, because there is something else I must tell you.”

He did not like the second piece of news, either. Had he not been so busy nor she so pale, he would have quarreled with her, demanding to know why she had allowed herself to listen to more scandalous gossip about Geminus.

“Somebody will have to do something,” she said. “They cannot ignore something like this.”

“I can’t do anything now, Tilla. This is not the time.”

So she had looked him in the eye and said, “Then when is?”

Ruso opened his mouth very slightly and directed a stream of air at the fly. It flew off on his second attempt.

Geminus was strutting up and down the silent ranks, prodding the occasional offender back into line with his stick. Ruso found himself eyeing the end of the stick for traces of Marcus’s blood. He was certain that the clerk had overheard the conversation in the office and reported every word.

And now there was Tilla’s news. They have been placing bets on the recruits …

It made sense. It made sense of the dangerous order to cross the river. It made sense of the training injuries, incurred when the British recruits were urged to compete with each other. It made sense of Austalis and Marcus’s desperation not to be marked out as Britons when they reached Deva, lest they be exposed to more men like Geminus. Geminus, or perhaps his shadows, had beaten Marcus into silence. Now he had taken steps to frighten Tilla. If it was true that Tadius and Victor had been caught trying to report their centurion’s twisted abuse of power to Deva, then perhaps they had been not only threatened but silenced.

On the other hand, it was hard to be rational about a man after being attacked by his dog.

He tensed the muscles in the injured leg. A fresh stab of pain cut through the ache. There were times when it did not matter whether you were rational, as long as you were right.

There had been no physical coercion of Sulio, but there had been no need. Recalling his early conversation with Geminus, Ruso doubted that the centurion had really persuaded the lad to stay in the army. If the conversation had taken place at all, it was far more likely that Geminus-knowing what Sulio might reveal once he was freed-had refused him permission to leave. Trapped inside the fortress, perhaps fearing that he too would shortly meet with some kind of “accident,” Sulio had attempted the only escape that seemed open to him, and Geminus had followed him onto the roof to make sure he succeeded.

Ruso focused his gaze on the blank faces of the men lining the far side of the street. How many of them could testify to Geminus’s bullying? There must be witnesses standing all around him now, too frightened to speak. If only Pera had kept his nerve and clung to the courage that had caused him to slip an accurate postmortem report into the records without anyone else seeing it. He must have watched with horror as Ruso blundered in and drew it to the clerk’s attention. Now the report was destroyed, and Pera had fallen silent. Just like all the others who had failed to support Tadius and Victor. Perhaps it was too far-fetched to imagine that all those minor annoyances at the hospital had been arranged by Geminus. But someone had put that thing in the mansio bed. And then there was the dog. The dog had been a deliberate attack.