Ruth Downie - Semper Fidelis

She almost smiled back. “You are very kind, but-”

“Tilla, if you don’t get in this cart, what are you going to do?” His voice hardened. “They won’t let you near him. You’ll be alone with several hundred men. He’s got no authority anymore and you haven’t even got a maid to protect you. This isn’t the time to be stupidly brave. This is the time to think, Poor old Ruso has enough things to worry about, so I won’t give him another one .”

Tilla leaned back against the worm-holed boarding. “There is just me in this cart?”

“There wasn’t time to find a chaperone.” He gestured toward the melee of vehicles. “But as soon as that lot get moving, I’m sure you can find some local woman who needs a lift.”

And you will come back and see me when you can?”

“I promised I would look after you. I intend to take my duties very seriously.”

“Then I thank you for keeping your promise.” She gathered up her skirts in one hand, seized the side of the cart, placed a foot on the wheel hub, and swung up without his help.

When she was in, she crouched and looked over the side at him. “Valens, did you tell the tribune anything about the people in the house where I was staying?”

He frowned. “Should I have?”

“No,” she said. “But somebody did.”

The hound guardian of the underworld barked “Breakfast!” and the gates of Hades crashed shut.

Ruso opened his eyes, squinted at the new bowl of slop that had been placed inside the cell door, and realized with relief that he was not being crucified after all. He winced as he eased his stiff body into a new position, trying to angle his raised arms so that the cuffs bit into a different area of flesh. It provided some temporary relief.

There are eight bones in the human wrist. And not enough padding around them.

Very soon the skin would break down. There would be sores. He had tried lining the cuffs with corners of the blanket during the night, and woken up shivering.

Since the only window faced north, he had no idea what the time was, and no way of finding out.

The slop was paler than last night’s offering but smelled no better, although it was hard to tell over the stench of the bucket in the corner. He hoped he would be out of here before he was starved enough to eat it.

He had tried asking the guards last night, but if they knew any more than Valens about the travel plans, they were not telling. He realized now what a privileged position he had held as an officer. Of course, he had never known the secrets that were whispered in the legate’s private rooms-unless a patient happened to let something slip-but at least he had been entitled to know the official version given out at morning briefings. Now he had no information, no responsibilities, and no right to decide anything. Not even what he would eat for breakfast. From now on, unless he could find a way out of these chains, his every action would be decided by other people.

Tilla was safe: He had seen to that. He was almost certain that Valens would take his responsibility seriously, because he was a friend, and because Tilla was an attractive young woman, and because it would make Valens look like a hero, and that would please him enormously.

There were people outside his window. He caught a snatch of a discussion about the state of the roads. And then a blast from a trumpet, and a voice that said, “See you later,” and he supposed Hadrian was about to set off for the border, and Tilla would be going too, and he was reminding himself to be glad about that when the guards opened up his cell and threw in a new prisoner.

Ruso waited until they had gone before saying, “You’re Victor.” It sounded better than You’re the deserter or I see they’ve caught you at last, then.

The young man shifted until he could reach up a fist to wipe the blood trickling from his left nostril. Then he looked down at the fist, spat on it, and tried wiping again. The streak across his upper lip became a messy smear in the ginger stubble.

Ruso said, “We’ve met.”

Victor slumped against the wall and glared at the army boots that had betrayed him at their last meeting.

“By the river at Calcaria,” Ruso prompted. He was not sure why he felt responsible for lifting the youth’s low spirits. He was not an officer anymore. Still, a gloomy companion could lower a man’s own morale. “Have you any idea what they’re doing with us?”

Victor glanced up from his feet. “Leave me alone.”

Ruso closed his eyes and leaned back. If the youth wanted to sulk, he was not going to argue. Some people did not want to be cheerful. At the moment he was one of them himself.

An hour passed, or half an hour, or two hours: It was hard to mark the space between the watches when they were punctuated only by the use of the bucket and the frequent need to change the position of his arms. With every passing moment, the absence of a parting message from Tilla became more apparent. So did his disappointment. It seemed Valens’s charm had been so persuasive that she had forgotten about him entirely.

“It was your woman, wasn’t it?”

Victor’s words startled him out of his thoughts. “What?”

“I knew we were fools to trust her.”

“What was my woman?”

“Sneaky little cow. Sits by our hearth, eats our food, and this is the thanks we get.”

“You think Tilla betrayed you?”

“Who else?”

“Almost anyone else,” said Ruso.

“Well, it didn’t work. They haven’t let you out.”

“Not Tilla,” insisted Ruso, but in the silence that followed he began to wonder if he was wrong. Perhaps there was hope. Tilla would never have betrayed the husband of a friend for desertion-but for murder? It was possible. If Victor had been hiding in Eboracum with his family, he could have seized the chance to take revenge on Geminus under the cover of darkness. Perhaps her message was already here, sitting in front of him, while she was negotiating his freedom.

He felt the muscles in his shoulders relax until a stab of pain from his right wrist reminded him of where he was, and that there was still the business of the insubordination. He could, in theory, be executed for that as well. Perhaps that was why they were keeping him here even though Victor had been caught.

“Up!” roared a voice outside the cell door. The lock rattled. The door burst open. Had they come to release him?

“Shift your arses, the pair of you. We don’t want the bother of burning your stinking carcasses here. They can do it on the road.”

There were cheers-perhaps of relief-from the waiting travelers when the soldiers finally cleared the road and the emperor rode out of the north gate of Eboracum. Valens, mounted on a gray horse behind a gleaming carriage, drew admiring glances from some of the local women as he passed through the crowd who had come back to take a second look at the emperor. He caught sight of Tilla seated in the cart and gave a nod of approval. She smiled, knowing the women were looking at her with envy. A woman from these islands who had a man in the imperial party!

If only they knew.

Once the official travelers had set off, the soldiers who were not escorting them marched back inside the fort. The locals scattered. The civilian vehicles made a brief surge forward … and stopped. Nobody seemed to know what was causing the holdup.

Celer tied the reins, jumped down, and ran ahead. Moments later he returned with the news that two wagons had gone for the same gap and were now blocking the road with their wheels locked together. Tilla yawned and rolled up her blanket to make a pillow. This was going to be a long wait. She had grown used to the sheep smell, and there was nothing to do now but sleep.