Ruth Downie - Semper Fidelis

“I don’t think I’ve been much help here, Pera.”

“Only the gods can work miracles, sir. We mortals just have to do our best.”

Ruso shook his head. “I must have been a pompous ass as a tutor.”

“Not as much of an ass as I was, sir.”

They clasped hands, then Ruso turned on his heel and followed the messenger down the corridor. He gave Aesculapius a farewell nod before he stepped out into the street.

“You should have-come-to me-first!” hissed Accius, leaving gaps between the words for emphasis, as if he would have liked to shout but did not want to be overheard by any of the men passing back and forth across the headquarters hall outside.

“You deliberately undermined me! I had to sit next to him for hours, looking like a complete idiot while he oversaw the exercises. As if I don’t know what’s going on in my own unit!”

“Sir, I told him-”

“I ordered you to stay away from him. You disobeyed me.”

Common sense and experience were telling Ruso not to argue, but he was not in the mood to listen to either of them. “Sir, the emperor asked me-”

“Of course he did: That’s what emperors do! The answer was Yes, everything is fine, because it is! Our men were having a simple run of bad luck. Everything was getting back to normal until you and that native woman started stirring up malicious gossip.”

“Sir, I was going to-”

“You ran after him to tell him! And you did it because you thought I wouldn’t listen!”

There was no point in denying it. “Yes, sir. I did it because-” The back of Accius’s hand hit his face with a force that stunned him.

“Don’t speak! Guards!” The men Accius had stationed outside the door stepped in. “If this man speaks again, run him through.”

Over the ringing in one ear Ruso heard, “You are demoted to the ranks, confined to the fortress, and forbidden to speak until further notice. You can reflect on your disloyalty while you scrub out the sewers. As for that woman: Have her sent back to wherever you got her from. You’re divorced.”

Ruso opened his mouth to protest, heard the swish of swords being drawn, and thought better of it.

Accius shook his head sadly. “You’re a fool, Ruso. You could have used your time with Hadrian to get yourself noticed. Instead you’ve ruined yourself and embarrassed everybody else.” He gestured toward the guards. “Take him to the sewers.”

Ruso tied his neckerchief over his nose and mouth. He turned aside, took a deep breath, hooked his fingers through the iron rings, and heaved. The trapdoor lifted. He did not need to inhale the stench: He could taste it.

The guards, one of whom Ruso vaguely recognized as a former patient from Deva, stepped back.

“The tribune didn’t order you to stay,” said Ruso. The pair looked at each other, evidently wondering whether to run him through for speaking, then shrugged and walked away.

“Well,” said Sabina when the woman had gone, “what did you make of her? Shall I take her with me?”

“Take her with you?” At the sight of Tranquillus’s mouth forming an “O” of horror in his little round face, Sabina felt a shiver of delight. This afternoon had been the best entertainment she had had since coming to Britannia. “Oh, Tranquillus! You look almost as amusing as she did when I said, ‘Do not pray too hard.’”

“Madam, the woman is a native!”

“That is what makes her interesting. Clarus, what do you think?”

“And very impertinent!” put in Tranquillus before he had a chance to answer.

Sabina sighed. “Yes, I suppose so. Sooner or later I should be obliged to have her beaten, which would be a pity. Do our centurions really gamble away their men, Clarus?”

“It’s not customary, madam. I think that woman must be the wife of the rather wild-eyed doctor who ran after the emperor this morning.”

“Really?” Sabina sat forward, felt herself jerked backward, and aimed a slap at the slave who had failed to let go of her hair in time. “A doctor ran after the emperor? How wild was he? Did he have to be restrained?”

Tranquillus said, “He was not quite that wild, madam.”

“A pity. Still, at last, something interesting! I love a good scandal.”

“But, madam-”

“Don’t pretend you don’t, Tranquillus. We all know what you wrote about Tiberius. So what will happen to the gambling centurion?”

But disappointingly it seemed nothing would happen to the centurion. The case had been referred back to the tribune. “The same tribune that the woman said does nothing?”

“Perhaps because the centurion is innocent,” said Clarus, setting aside the usual disdain of the Praetorians for everyone else in order to defend a fellow officer.

Tranquillus said, “One cannot believe everything the Britons say, madam.” Sabina sniffed. “She seemed alarmingly honest to me. And not unintelligent.”

“She may believe what she says,” put in Clarus. “Apparently the natives here imagine all sorts of nonsense.”

“I see,” Sabina said. “Perhaps I shall bring her back and ask if she believes in men who wrap themselves in their ears.”

The chief hairdresser was hovering in front of her, clutching a mirror. Sabina snatched it from her, because no matter how many directions one gave, a mirror in someone else’s hands was never at quite the right angle. She moved it about, examining the result of their efforts, and saw the relief on their faces when she said, “I expect that will do. It is rather hard to tell. Why is it that no one has made a mirror in which a person can see all of herself at once?”

It was one of those perfectly sensible questions that left everyone in the room looking worried, as if she were about to order instant execution if they failed to produce whatever it was she wanted. The next question was just as good: “And why,” she said, “do our officers leave it to some mad-eyed doctor and a barbarian woman to discipline one of our centurions?”

Tilla held her head high as she stepped into the entrance hall of the mansio. She was not going to allow a group of spoiled rich people to upset her. The manager, looking concerned, hurried to greet her. The last time he had seen her, she was being marched off to the fort by four Praetorian Guards. “It is all right,” she assured him, not sure she wanted to tell anyone about her meeting with the empress. “It was nothing bad.”

But he was not interested in where she had been. He was interested in where she was going, which was anywhere but in his building. He was very sorry, but there was no room any more.

“But I have nowhere to go! Everywhere in Eboracum is full.”

“I’m sorry, madam. You can’t stay here. We’ve had orders.”

“But why? Is the tribune’s household still here?”

“I can’t discuss other guests, madam.”

She was about to answer, when she heard shouting outside. “They’re here! The Sixth are here!”

The manager straightened up, craning past her to look out through the open doors. She could hear the steady tread of boots now. This was not good. In moments the street would be filled with a blue and silver river of men in armor, sweeping away everything in its path. She would have to find a way out through a side door and hope that there would still be somewhere in the fortress for an officer and his wife to spend the night.

“I need to find my husband.”

“There is also the matter of payment-”

“Send the bill to my husband at the hospital.”

“Madam, our usual policy-”

She straightened her shoulders and looked him in the eye. “Do you want me to leave, or not?”

Corinna was kind, and surprised, and reassuring. No, they had no right to throw her out like that. “You are safe here,” Corinna assured her, handing her a piece of bread and giving another to her son, distracting him from tugging threads out of the bandage on his leg. “The door is strong, and there is no one here but us.”