Hadrian's wall

'I didn't have an instant's doubt who killed her,' he cut her off.

He was like that probatio who she'd watched training in the courtyard, letting his shield drift and exposing his heart. 'So you killed him.'

'No man had ever beaten Lucullus in a fight, fair or foul. But I found him that night, knocked away the dagger he kept at the small of his back, and strangled him with my own hands. I killed Criton, too, and took both the money I'd paid for Alesia and the bribe Lucullus had left and threw it to the beggars. I dumped my Roman armor into the river and swam for Germania. Eventually I made my way back here.'

'To drag others into revenge.'

'To warn others of Rome. It took my father. My mother. The woman I loved. So I took you.'

'To get back at the empire,' she whispered.

'That was my motive, at first.'

She looked away. She must not fall under his spell. 'But you can't mean to sweep all of Rome away from Britannia for-' She gestured around the hut. 'This.'

'This is all I need.'

'Except for that wine you brought. I, too, am a product of the empire you despise. If Rome is so worthless, why do barbarians try to plunder it? And if you plunder too much, where will your sons and daughters get their goods?'

'And if you Romans conquer too much, who will you ever learn from but yourselves? Why does one nation need to own the entire world?'

'The world is that nation now!'

'Not my world. Not my life.'

XXX

I realize, when Savia is brought before me again, that our relationship has subtly changed. I had her moved to better quarters and quietly inquired about her purchase price. It was low, as expected. Some word of my interest must have filtered back to her. She sits before me with new confidence.

Certainly we seem not so much master and slave, or interrogator and witness, as tentative allies trying to understand what happened at Hadrian's Wall. I don't find this assumption of equality entirely disturbing because I realize that I look forward to her company. This is the woman closest to the heart of Valeria, and thus most vital to my own understanding. I also find some strange comfort in her presence, as if we know each other better than we do. She's a little thinner than when I saw her last, but not disagreeably so, and in fact has an attractiveness that I didn't entirely recognize before. It is the serene beauty of the good mother or the longtime companion. It occurs to me that the beauty of another person increases with affection. Is it possible that I feel something for this woman? What does that say about my habit of solitude? I have roamed the Roman world and met thousands of people. Who, in the end, do I really feel close to? This is a question that seemed trivial in my youth. It is of increasing importance as I age.

She sits before me less anxious this time, knowing there's some unspoken understanding between us. Perhaps she thinks the story I'm piecing together has subtly affected me. Certainly I have become more at home in this tale of Britannia, less the skeptical sophisticate sent by Rome. My imagination has smelled the acrid smoke of the burning grove and the rank musk of a dead boar. What seems inexplicable at long range sometimes seems inevitable when explained in context. We share a history now, she by experience and I by understanding, and are bound to each other by what happened and what must happen next.

I greet her politely and relate what I have learned from the druid Kalin, who nursed Valeria on that crannog. I ask Savia to think back to her captivity in Caledonia with the clan of Arden Caratacus, prince of the Attacotti. What developed between this Celtic warrior and this Roman woman who had been ripped so quickly from her new marriage?

'I have been told of this boar hunt, for example. It changed things, did it not?'

'It changed Valeria.' Savia looks at me now with hope.

'How?' My tone is gentler than the first time we met.

'She was almost killed, and thus never more alive. I saw the huge gorgon she'd killed when it was brought back to Tiranen for feasting, so heavy it had to be suspended between horses instead of men. Yet this Roman girl had slain the boar.'

'The Celts were impressed?'

'The Celts thought it a sign. When she rode back from the crannog with Arden and passed between the wooden gate towers of Tiranen, they sang her powers as if she were an Amazon. Hool rode back with them, still bandaged with splints to his leg and torso, but everyone knew she had saved his life, and helped nurse him afterward. He shouted her praises. Cassius, her former bodyguard, gave her the polished tusks to wear on her neck. She had a look of stunned radiance. She'd felt the fire of being a barbarian.'

'She liked it.'

'She told me later that she'd never felt such fear. Or such exaltation at having survived. That hut on the lake where she'd healed had seduced her as well.'

'So she and Arden came together.'

'Oh, no. She remained a chaste married woman. You could tell by his longing.'

'She felt loyalty to her husband?'

'Loyalty is everything. The question is how much loyalty her husband felt toward her.'

'She gave up on the idea of rescue?'

Savia thinks about this for a moment. 'She felt the rescuers had given up on her. Both of us felt that way, master. We still waited to hear the bleat of the Celtic warning horn that would signal her husband's approach in his golden armor, determined to wrest her away. This is the way it is in the old stories, like Agamemnon sailing to Troy to win back stolen Helen. Yet day after day went by without even word of negotiations. Then week after week, month after month. We didn't understand what was happening in the Empire, nor how Galba plied Marcus's fears. None of this would be made dear until the winter.'

'And so Valeria, despite her chastity, felt doubt.'

'We felt abandoned.'

Abandoned. And adopted, I think. 'What was your life like among the Celts?'

'Simpler. In Rome, everything was strategic: marriage, career, children, assignment, house, neighborhood, entertainment. One measured the progress of one's life by money and station. The barbarians, in contrast, were like animals, or children. It was hard to get them to commit to anything tomorrow, let alone months or years ahead. Time had less meaning. You'd set a meeting, and they might ignore it completely. Or show hours late with no apology. They were wonderful craftsmen who could carve a piece of wood into a song-but would also put off the repair of a leaky roof for weeks.'

'Surely they had to pay attention to the seasons.'

'That's what the druids were for. The priests would watch the sun and stars and tell them when to plant and reap. They'd also divine the future.'

'With blood sacrifice?'

'Of animals. Yet I didn't doubt it might be with Roman captives, too.'

'Was it clear that war was coming?'

'The raid on the grove had aroused the tribes, but the Wall was still too strong and the barbarians too divided. Uniting the Picts and Attacotti and Scotti and Saxons into one great army was Arden's goal, but it was an almost impossible one. There was no strategy. Arden understood planning because he'd lived among the Romans, but it was difficult to explain to his people. To them, time was circular and life was brief.'

'A rather aimless existence.'

'Not aimless. Simply that every deed was aimed at that day, not the next. It's a way of life not entirely unpleasant. They measure happiness by feelings more than achievement. Their homes are cruder than a tenement in Rome, their heat is more spotty, a proper bath is nonexistent, their clothes are rougher to the skin, their cooking is plain, their mud is everywhere, and they are more apt to have a cow in their dining room than an aristocrat. Yet