Ian Ross - The War at the Edge of the World

Some of them were still causing problems, Castus thought as he turned into the barrack lines. Placidus, the burly Gaul from the Wall garrison, was one of them. A braggart and a borderline insubordinate. The scenery-painter Acranius had lived up to expectations, and contrived to get himself admitted to hospital three times already. But, despite his appearance, the schoolteacher Diogenes had proved surprisingly able. He stuck up for himself, had a tenacious sort of stamina, and gave a fearless performance on the drill field. His eccentricities were accepted now, even respected, by his comrades – but Castus still found him bafflingly peculiar…

As he moved towards his own quarters at the end of the block, Castus caught a movement in the darkness: two figures, heavily cloaked, standing in the doorway of his rooms. At once the lingering effects of the alcohol were gone. His hand went to his belt, but he had left his sword back in his quarters and had only his staff.

‘Who’s there?’ he said, clear and loud.

‘Centurion Castus,’ a woman’s voice said. ‘I’m sorry – I know it’s late. I hoped to find you at home.’

Castus recognised the voice at once, but could scarcely believe it. The second figure, a tall man, drew a lantern from under his cloak and uncovered the light.

‘Domina Marcellina,’ Castus said. ‘Why are you here? You shouldn’t have come – it’s Saturnalia. This is no place for you.’ He was pacing closer as he spoke. The man in the cloak was the big slave from the house.

‘I know… As I say, I’m sorry. But I wanted to see you.’

Castus unlocked the door and ushered them both inside. He lit the lamp in the vestibule as the two of them shed their cloaks, and the big slave squatted down at once just inside the door, with a heavy club across his knees.

‘I’m here without permission, you see,’ Marcellina was saying. ‘My brother and his tutor have forbidden me to leave the house, but they gave the slaves the night off duty, and I was able to persuade Buccus here to accompany me.’

Even so, Castus thought. It was less than a mile from her house to the barracks, but this was the rowdiest night of the year. Anything might have happened. He felt angry, but did not know why. Instead he went through into his private rooms, and Marcellina followed behind him.

‘I know this is… irregular,’ the girl said. She sounded unsure of herself. ‘But after you came to the house and I was forbidden to speak with you, I… What my brother said was unforgivable. His accusation that you had failed in your duty, I mean. His tutor put him up to it…’

Castus set the lamp down on the table and glanced around his quarters. Weapons and kit hung from nails on the walls; bowls were stacked on the table. Dirty boots and muddy tunics in a pile in the corner, and the tatty blanket that screened his sleeping alcove thrown back to reveal a mess of bedding. The whole place stank of stale clothing, lamp smoke and army life. Marcellina caught his look of dismay.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said with a slight smile. ‘We’ve both known worse.’

She seated herself on a stool beside the shuttered window. Now, for the first time, Castus looked at her properly. His memories of her were conflicted: the strange self-possessed child he had seen at her father’s house during the long march north, and the shocked and ragged fugitive she had later become. Now she was something more than both, it appeared: a grown woman, quietly confident and collected, dressed plainly in a dark wool gown. Only her pendant earrings and coral necklace showed that she came from wealth.

‘I wanted to thank you,’ she said. ‘In person, rather than by letter. I realise that you didn’t have to come back for me like that. You could have just left me at the villa. And you were… very brave too. I’m sure I wouldn’t have survived with shy;out your help.’

‘You were brave too,’ Castus told her. ‘Hanging onto the horse like that. I’d have jumped off if I was you.’

She smiled a little again. A slight twitch of her lips, but there was a sense of shared warmth in it.

‘I wanted to thank you as well for your… restraint,’ she said, and dropped her gaze as she noticed his jaw tightening. ‘You know what I mean, I’m sure,’ she said, almost stammering the words. ‘I was… in a state of distress when you found me. Not myself. I know I acted in an immodest way, and I’m sorry. I’m glad you acted with honour, and did not… take advantage of my situation.’

‘What did you expect ?’ he asked, unable to keep the low anger from his voice. She was blushing, twisting the hem of her shawl in her hands, but when she looked up at him again he caught a glimmer of challenge in her eyes. A more knowing, adult glance. Once again he had that sense of physical clumsiness he had felt before with this woman.

‘You’re not the way you appear, are you?’ she said. ‘I mean, it’s not for me to say – I hardly know you… But you put on an act, I think. Always appearing the strong obedient soldier, unthinking. Like a dumb animal, almost…’

Castus rocked back against the table, trying not to frown too heavily.

‘No, I’m sorry,’ she went on quickly, ‘I don’t mean to offend you. It’s just… I don’t think you’re really like that, are you? You do it on purpose. You appear that way, so people underestimate you. I’m not very good at expressing myself…’

‘That makes two of us.’

She smiled at that. ‘You’re a good man, centurion. That’s all I’m trying to say.’

For a few moments they remained silent, each avoiding the other’s eye.

‘There’s something else.’ She looked up again. ‘A man came to the house, asking questions about you. He had two bodyguards with him – I think they were Praetorians.’

‘What sort of man?’ Castus asked warily. He already had a good idea of his identity.

‘Thin, dry-looking, the way he spoke was… not pleasant at all.’ Marcellina twitched her shoulders, uncomfortable with the memory. Castus started forward from the table.

‘He threatened you?’

‘No, no…’ she said, eyes wide at the sudden vehemence of his words. ‘He was not aggressive, but his questions were strange, his manner cold. He was asking about what had happened, after… after you found me at the villa. What you’d told me, and whether we’d discussed my father.’

Castus blanked his face, tried to keep his tone neutral. ‘What did you tell him?’ he asked her, aware of the tightness in his chest.

She shrugged. ‘I told him that I had been too discomfited by my experiences to notice anything of what was happening. Besides,’ she went on with a quiet smile, ‘why should I have paid any attention to you? You are just a simple soldier, after all.’

How much easier it would be if I were, Castus thought.

‘You did the right thing,’ he said. The idea that Nigrinus was still stalking around, that he had deliberately sought the girl out, both chilled and angered him. Marcellina too had been in danger, although she surely did not know it. But she was safe, they were both safe, for now at least; he eased out a held breath, unclenched his fists and smoothed his palms along the edge of the table.

‘What will you do now?’ he asked her.

‘Oh, my future has been decided,’ she said. ‘By my brother and his tutor between them. The house is being sold and we’re moving to the southern province. My engagement to my cousin Felicianus had been resumed, and we are to be married in the spring.’

Castus remembered her anger when she had spoken of this before, in the marsh hut. There was none of that now, just a calm, sad resignation. It was like duty, he supposed.

‘When are you going?’

‘In two days’ time. My brother wishes to leave the house as soon as possible – he dislikes the bad spirits there, he says. We’ll go to Danum first and spend the winter there. So we won’t meet again, I’m afraid.’