Gillian Bradshaw - Island of Ghosts

I made them stop before they took me back to my hospital room, and they put me down outside in the hospital courtyard, where there was a garden. Pervica and Longus hurried up behind them. Longus was laughing. I climbed out of the chair and steadied myself against a potted shrub. “Should we take the chair back then?” asked the leading guardsman. “Or will you need it later, sir?”

“I do not want it!” I said, with some force, and he grinned.

“Very good!” he said cheerfully, and gestured for the others to take it away. “Sorry they didn’t give you the crown, sir. You deserved it. But that’s the senior command: they always come down hard on a breach of discipline. Good luck!” And he and the rest marched off.

Longus laughed again. “Hercules!” he said. “You looked so stupid when the governor said you couldn’t have a golden crown.”

“I thought I would be punished,” I told him.

He laughed again. “That’s what Marcus Flavius said. You have a very low opinion of Romans, don’t you? We’d be a pretty ungrateful bunch to punish you after you saved the province-or the north quarter of it, anyway. And you standing there, wobbling on one leg, the other injured in your struggle against the enemies of Rome-Hercules! Half the governor’s staff think he’s treated you very unfairly as it is. Of course, you gave them presents when you were trying to increase the pay offer, didn’t you? They had a high opinion of you anyway.”

I shook my head in bewilderment. I told myself how pleased my men would be when they learned that the Romans had honored me-but I realized even as I thought it that they would find out that I might have been given a gold crown, and they would instantly forget their relief and resent the lack of it. Siyavak, they would tell each other, had been given a gold crown, and he wasn’t even a scepter-holder. And the next time they met up with the men of the fourth dragon, they’d quarrel with them. As Facilis said, Sarmatians!

“So,” said Longus happily, “now you’re officially prefect of the ala of the Second Asturians-my prefect, my lord”-he swept me a mocking bow-“as well as commander of the Sixth Sarmatians. And Comittus goes back to being a staff officer of the Sixth Legion. You’ll have to move into that house after all, you know. You’re a Roman citizen! What are you going to call yourself?”

I shrugged. Pervica came over and put my arm over her shoulders, helping me to balance. “You don’t want to be a Roman citizen, do you?” she asked gently.

“No,” I agreed.

“You can’t refuse!” exclaimed Longus, losing his mockery.

“It would insult the governor if I did, would it not?” I said evenly, “And it would give me… advantages, I suppose, which would be useful. No, I cannot refuse.” I looked sourly at the hospital. “If I am not technically under arrest, I do not need to stay here, do I? But my wagon is in Cilurnum.”

“I’m sure they’ll find you a house,” said Pervica.

I put my arm around her waist and looked at her. I could feel her hipbone against my wrist, and the smoothness of her stomach under my hand. I suddenly wanted her very badly. I knew that she was staying in an inn in town, and I didn’t want to leave her there. “If I am a citizen,” I said, “it will make it easier to marry legally. I suppose I could tolerate a house, if you shared it.”

Her fingers tightened on my shoulder. “It will probably take longer than one afternoon, though, to sort it out,” she said quietly.

“Let us try!” I said, urgently now. “We can have a wedding feast back in Cilurnum: see if we cannot sort out some kind of contract today!”

She flushed bright red and kissed me. “Yes!” she cried, suddenly enthusiastic. “Yes, right now! Gaius and I will go and see what we can do. I’ll find Eukairios, and he can find Marcus Flavius: they’ll know how we can do it.”

I stayed in the hospital garden while they searched, sitting down beside the fountain. It was a warm day, for February: the sun was shining, and the early crocuses had shoved their blunt snouts above the ground. Hellebore was flowering, white and sweet-scented, and the water was dark and clear. After a while, Facilis trotted into the courtyard. He seemed unusually pleased with himself.

“Congratulations,” he said. “Honors all round. Gaius tells me you want to get married today.”

I nodded. I had another thing to say to him first. “I understand you spoke to the governor on my behalf, urging him to give me honors for killing Arshak.”

Facilis grunted. “I pointed out to them that you solved a very sticky problem for us.”

“You slippery bastard,” I said, with feeling.

He barked, and sat down on the fountain beside me, grinning. “We’ll have you speaking Latin properly yet!” he exclaimed. “About the marriage-I can help arrange it for you, if you like. I’m going to the public archives myself this afternoon anyway.”

I eyed him suspiciously. “Why?”

He grinned at me. “A manumission and an adoption.”

“What?”

He gave a pleased grunt. “I told Julius Priscus last night that I’d… um, found Vilbia, with her baby, in Corstopitum, and that I’d, um, apprehended them. But I said I’d taken a liking to the girl and wanted to buy her. He had no objection. He doesn’t want anything that ever had anything to do with his wife, poor bastard; he’s sick with the whole business, ruined and disgraced. His administrative career is finished, though I can’t see anything he did that was worthy of blame. Anyway, he gave me Vilbia on the spot, I drew up the manumission papers, and I’m going to get them witnessed this afternoon and legally adopt the girl.”

“As your daughter?” I repeated, bewildered.

He barked with laughter. “You want a wife, but that doesn’t mean everyone does. I had one once, and that was enough for me. But I also had a daughter once. She died when she was seven. I’ve always had it in the back of my mind, ‘What would have happened if she’d lived? What would she be like now?’ Probably not a bit like Vilbia. But the girl has suffered, and she needs someone to care for her. She’s a sweet, kind girl, and brave, to defy her mistress over the baby-you know she believed in Bodica’s magic absolutely, and was terrified of her. I want a daughter; she wants a father. These things sort themselves out. One little piece of parchment and instantly I’m a father again, and a grandfather as well. Flavia Vilbia and Marcus Flavius Secundus, citizens of Rome. How about that, eh?”

“Congratulations,” I said, smiling at him. “I wish you all much joy.”

“We’re going to move to Eburacum,” he went on. “I’m being promoted, to primus pilus of the Sixth Victrix! Think of that! All those years I sweated in the Thirteenth Gemina, and I thought hastatus of the first rank was as high as I could get, and now I’m primus pilus for a year, over the heads of two others, and afterward something senior. No more muddling about with a lot of barbarians who always smell of horses.”

First the news that Comittus would be recalled to the Sixth; and now Facilis as well. “I will miss you,” I said, and it was perfectly true.

He slapped my shoulder. “You don’t intend to forget me completely, then? You remember that?”

I nodded.

“I’ll miss you, as well.” He added it very quietly, as though it embarrassed him to say it, and hurried on, “But it’s been pretty damn clear ever since we reached Cilurnum that you never needed me to keep an eye on you. And I imagine you’ll be in and out of Eburacum fairly frequently, as well as down to Londinium, advising people on how to treat Sarmatians: we’ll see each other from time to time. Anyway, there is a quick way of getting married, without going through all the ceremonies. You have Eukairios draw up a legal contract expressing your intent to marry a Brigantian citizen, one Pervica, and arranging your various properties however you wish. Then you sign it, she signs it, three witnesses sign it, and that is sufficient evidence of affectio maritalis to satisfy any court in the land. I’ll file it for you when I go down to the archives, and the job’s done. You’ll need your citizenship papers, though. I can collect them for you from the governor’s staff. What names do you want on them?”