plying her hostess with countless questions about maintaining a household in Britannia. What foods did the province excel at? How best to keep warm through the seasons? How easy was it to import luxuries? What was the proper relationship between Roman master and Briton native? Did babes sicken unnaturally in the damp? How did highborn women keep in touch?
Oil lamps gave light and warmth to their gathering, and ironmullioned glass shut out the evening's chill. The floor, hollow underneath and heated by a stoked hypocaust fire, had mosaics the equal of Italy's. There were rich tapestries, Italian marbles, and the dining wall bore a splendid fresco of Roman ships plying the Hibernian Sea. Valeria could almost imagine herself enjoying a banquet at Capua, but the splendor also unexpectedly made her homesick. How big the world was!
They began with an appetizer of eggs, imported olives, oysters, early greens, and wintered apples. Quintus raised his wine cup. 'An opinion on this vintage, please, my new friends! I seek sophisticated judgment!'
'Most satisfying,' replied Clodius generously after sampling, as determined to be polite in upper-class surroundings as he was dismissive in lower. 'As good as any in Italy.'
Quintus beamed. 'Would my lady agree?'
Valeria sipped judiciously. While wines tasted little different to her, the Britons seemed to think her opinion important. 'Excellent, dear Quintus.'
'How delighted I am to hear you say that! You, so recently arrived from Rome!' He turned to Galba. 'And you, senior tribune?'
'You already have opinions.'
'Yet you're a famous warrior! I want yours!'
'I'm a man of the hard ground and rude camp.'
'Of experience and forthrightness!'
Galba regarded Quintus over his pewter cup with faint annoyance, his mouth a line at its rim. For a moment it seemed he wouldn't drink at all, and their host began to look anxious. Then Galba bolted it. The suddenness of his movement caught everyone by surprise; the man had the quickness of an animal.
They waited.
'Briton,' he pronounced. He tapped his cup with his thumb, and a pretty slave poured more. The tribune let his forearm caress her thigh, and she glanced at the soldier with interest, a sudden fluidity to her hip.
Quintus's face fell. 'It's that obvious?'
'And no insult. But yes, no honest man would mistake this taste for Italy's.' He kept his gaze from Clodius.
Their host looked morose. 'Indeed! It's too wet in Britannia, too wet and too cold. If you can delay your journey, I'd like to show you my vineyard. The mildew-'
'I'm a drinker, not a farmer.'
'This is from your own vines?' Clodius interjected. 'No, it's really quite fine, dear Quintus! As good as any!'
Quintus was dubious. 'Do you really think so?'
'I must have a second cup!'
Now the flirtatious slave came to the junior tribune. As she poured, he murmured in her ear, the swell of her breasts revealed by her low tunic. Then she slipped away.
The young Roman drank again. 'I'm impressed by your industry.'
Their host shook his head. 'We're trying, but life in Britannia is daunting. The weather is bad and the tax collectors worse. I caught one the other day using a grain measure marked with the wrong number. He blithely admitted fraud, took his rightful share without apology, and then got his bite by adding a surcharge for 'administrative necessities.' He laughed at me-me, Quintus Maxus!'
'Protest to higher authority.'
'I do! I complain to the magistrate, and nothing comes of it. I write the governor and get no answer. I try to see the duke and am told he has no time. I swear, every man with an imperial commission does nothing but sell smoke. A good wine can allow a man to forget many troubles… but we can't even make good wine!' He turned to his friend. 'Glidas-aren't you building a Christian chapel?'
'I am,' the merchant allowed.
'You find Christian prayers effective?' Valeria asked politely.
'I find public office ruinous. They've tried to make me consularis, but then I'd be responsible for road repairs I can ill afford. A friend has taken holy orders to escape obligation. I'm considering the same.'
'Yet not every man in the province is dishonest,' Calpurnia protested.
'No,' Quintus admitted, 'but something's gone wrong with the vintage of our society in Britannia here, just like this wine. The sense of citizenship is fading. Rome seems more distant.'
'It's really quite acceptable, dear Quintus,' Valeria insisted politely.
'Britannia?'
'The wine.'
They laughed. Valeria blushed.
'It smells of the Briton bog,' their host mourned, hoping for contradiction. 'It tastes like cabbage and peat. A pig would trade it for puddle water.'
'Nonsense,' Clodius said. 'Don't pay attention to our dour critic from Thrace.'
'The senior tribune was courageous in his honesty.'
'Or mistaken in his palate. Have him taste again.' The youth smiled encouragingly.
'I've no need to taste anything,' Galba grunted. 'I said what I think.'
'I challenge a more careful test,' Clodius insisted. 'Prove the consistency of your judgment.'
The senior tribune frowned, but the others looked expectant, and so he waved impatiently at the slave, who'd returned. She refilled his cup, once more seductively brushing against him. This time Galba didn't bolt his drink but sipped it and then politely put it down.
'Quintus, I never said it was bad. But Briton wine is Briton wine.'
'I should burn my vines,' their host mourned. 'I should break my jars.'
'Except,' Clodius interrupted mildly, 'our military expert has just sampled not your wine, dear Quintus, but a superb and expensive vintage that I brought from Italy.'
'What?'
'I had the slave girl switch them.'
'I don't understand.'
'My point is that our senior tribune can't tell the difference.'
The room was suddenly quiet.
'His opinion wasn't rude, but simply ignorant,' Clodius blandly went on. 'Your wine is quite good, Quintus. My apologies for our entire party.'
Quintus looked alarmed. 'I need no apology! I asked for an honest opinion!'
'You seek to embarrass me, boy?' Galba's voice rumbled like distant thunder.
'I seek the honesty you said you were giving.'
Galba looked at Clodius in disbelief.
'Nor am I intimidated by your sullen scowls, tribune.'
'Still,' a flustered Quintus stammered, hoping to deflect what he feared might become a deadly quarrel, 'I prefer imported to my own.'
'Trade wheat for wine, then,' Clodius said, as if he were governor. 'Wool for linen. Lead for iron. Let every part of the empire concentrate on its strengths.'
'And risk losing a year's cargo to storm or the next war,' Glidas warned.
'What storm? What war?'
'The emperor is ailing. His heir is only eight years old. Wars of imperial succession are what I came from Gaul to escape.'
'And escape you will. Imperial politics aren't decided in Britannia.' Clodius didn't notice his own condescension.
'Constantine was proclaimed by his soldiers in Eburacum,' their host reminded. 'He went on to conquer the empire. And it's not that invading troops will come here. It's that Britannia's legionaries are drawn off to fight there,
