William Dietrich - Hadrian's wall

"You approved of this plan?"

"All the officers did, including Marcus, because it seemed brilliant. It had just one flaw, which didn't become apparent until the fighting."

"What flaw?"

He laughs. "There were more of them than we thought!"

"So it was not Valeria's fault. It was all imperial politics and the shifting of legions and the conspiracies of the tribes."

Longinus shakes his head. He's not a man to forgive or forget, not with his foot crushed. He's not a man to blame human failings on the maneuverings of armies. "The woman brought Marcus. The praefectus ignited the war and tried to transfer Galba. She inflamed the barbarian Caratacus. And Galba outwitted us all."

I sigh. "Galba would do well at imperial court." It's an impolitic statement to make to a near stranger, but I cannot resist it. One either plots to survive in Rome, or one stays on its fringes, as I have done. In a sense, my job is a form of hiding. Galba, in contrast, chafed at being on the fringe. "What was Marcus thinking?"

"That it was he who would win the battle and the glory. That was the genius of Galba's plan. Caratacus, Marcus Flavius, and Galba himself all felt they were on the path to victory."

"It was a trap for both Arden and Marcus."

"Engineered by Galba Brassidias." Longinus smiles thinly. "I rode withMarcus and got to see it play out. It's a beautiful spectacle, battle, until it's over and you're left with the stink of the dead and the screams of the wounded."

I look at his foot. "Did you scream?"

"Do you think I remember?"

We sit in silence for a moment. The gulf between us that he hinted at in our first meeting seems less deniable now. It is the gulf between virgin and harlot, or play and work. I have been around soldiers my entire career, but always afterward: questioning decisions, plumbing motives, and passing judgment on an experience I don't understand.

What do my reports really matter?

"What is it like getting ready for battle?" I impulsively ask.

Longinus isn't impatient with my question. He understands that I truly want to know. "Like prayer," he replies. "Not just that you're praying, though all sensible men do so, but that your preparation for combat is a ritual itself, a form of meditation. I don't know what it's like for others, but my mind is always full. I sharpen all my weapons. I eat sparingly, for quickness and to avoid infection from a stab in the gut. I order and reassure my men, taking their measure, and go over in my head what we must do as a unit and what I must do individually if faced with open combat: each thrust, each parry, and every fighting trick I've ever learned and taught. I dream the battle before I fight it. There's this solemn rasping of blades being honed, and the smell of oil being wiped from steel and applied to leather. The talk is quiet."

"You are not afraid?"

"Any sensible man is afraid. But soldiers have chosen their lot long ago and are far too busy trying to survive to let fear overmaster them. Besides, you have your comrades, and you share your fate with theirs. That's a kind of friendship a civilian can never know. We depend on each for our lives, and there's bittersweet love in that."

"Love? In a battle?"

"War isn't about hate, inspector. It's about communion."

"The Wall, Caratacus."

The ground had frozen brittle. A skin of ice had formed on the shallow river Ilibrium, which meandered in a swale below Hadrian's Wall. Gray cloud had covered the stars, and dawn saw a few scattered snowflakes drift down, sticking and then evaporating on the brown grass. The Wall itself materialized slowly, surfacing out of ground fog like the back of an undulating sea monster, its serpentine crest marking the horizon. The heads of a few Roman sentries were silhouetted against the sky, but as Galba had promised, there didn't seem to be any concentration of strength here.

"A good morning for fighting," Luca went on as he stretched and grunted, his breath forming a light cloud. "The kind of morning to hunt or ride."

"Can we beat them?" Arden asked softly.

Luca glanced at him. "A fine time to be asking."

"None in the world has ever beaten them permanently."

"Battle is no time for doubt."

"Every man has doubts."

"And real men don't voice them. It's that woman who's drained you of certainty, Arden, and you won't get it back until you get her back. Get through that Wall and find her. Kill her or marry her, but set things to right."

"Yes. To right." Could he find her? And if he did, what would she say? Had she fled him or this war? It was as useless to speculate as to spit upon a fire.

He reviewed their strategy. There were two gates to force open at each milecastle, one in the wall that he could plainly see, the other at the rear of the small fortlet that jutted from the southern side of the Wall like a boxed pimple. Get through those two gates, and all Britannia lay before them. Then wheel…

"The druids say the Roman time is over," Luca went on. "They've never been so weak, and we've never been so united. Worry if you wish, but I'll eat off Roman flatware tonight."

Arden thought such confidence tempted disaster. Better to worry. "The cavalry is ready?" The Celtic aristocracy had gathered as a reserve, their heads crowned with fantastically crested helmets, their swords inscribed with runes, their lances carved and beaded with gold.

"Yes. Everything is happening as Galba promised."

So: at long last it was time. None respected and feared Roman prowess at war more than Caratacus did. None had more confidence in Celtic courage than he did. At full charge, his clan was unstoppable.

Now the two would be tested, each against the other.

Arden wore chain mail but had rejected a helmet, preferring unencumbered sight. Some of his infantry disdained any protection at all, waiting naked or nearly so under their cloaks in the cold, as patient and dangerous as wolves. They squatted by the hundreds, staring at the stone barrier with predatory hunger, the ex-gladiator Cassius among them. They lived for war.

The bowmen waited nearby, their bows nearly as tall as a man and able to kill at three hundred paces. They'd provide covering fire. Each arrow had been shaped smooth over long winter evenings, given a name, marked with that name, and fitted with a slim iron arrowhead that could punch through armor. The war-maiden Brisa was among them, and Arden would trust her to find a fat target before anyone.

Still another group were the Scotti, who'd sailed from Eiru. They'd marched in only the night before, painted blue and garbed for war, grim and anxious. He'd never fought with their kind, but they said they wanted Roman blood to avenge a captured prince of theirs, a man named Odocullin of the Dal Riasta. Murdered, they said.

He envied their grim passion.

His own excitement, so long anticipated, was curiously absent. The world seemed a plain of ashes, its taste like sand. He'd opened his heart to two women in his life, and both times it had been squeezed like a rag, wrung dry of blood. He'd thought that after Alesia his sorrow had scabbed over and that he could never be hurt that badly again, but then he'd dropped from the oak to see Valeria on her mule cart, frightened and brave and wily enough to use her brooch pin to unhorse him, and with that he'd been lost.

So he hunted her again, captured her, and introduced her to his world. And just when Arden needed her most, trusted her most, desired her most, Valeria had deserted him for her husband. Chosen an empty marriage over love! She'd even taken her wedding ring back with her. She'd run to warn the Romans and ensure his defeat, to set up his death. And indeed, he longed to die after this betrayal.

First, he would do all he could to injure Rome.