'You're dressed like a man.' It was not a question.
'For riding.'
'You're dressed like a barbarian.'
'I rode three days and nights to get here.'
'So I've been told. Well.' He looked away as if it made him uneasy to meet her eye. Was he embarrassed by her return? Angry at her absence? 'I didn't even know you were alive.' His tone was remote.
She took a breath and said what she'd rehearsed. 'I've escaped to warn you of approaching war. If you act quickly, you can stop it. Even as we speak the tribes are gathering.'
'Escaped from where?'
'From the hill fort of Arden Caratacus, the man who told us about the druids in the grove. Everyone's playing a double game, husband, and the Petriana is in peril.'
'Everyone?' His mouth twisted. 'I'd have thought better, until I was posted here.'
And then, as if conceding her despair, he reached out a hand for her to finally, gratefully, take. Perhaps his hesitation was his habitual shyness. Marcus was quiet, she remembered, and undemonstrative. So different from the Celts! So different from Arden. 'Come inside, woman, to bathe and eat and tell me what you know.'
The warmth of the house enveloped her like a familiar blanket, and suddenly she had a rush of longing for the Roman baths and for everything that Rome stood for. The security! The stability! The predictability! She longed to surrender to order. The furniture and architecture was a reminder of where she'd come from and where she truly belonged. Her sudden nostalgia for the empire caught her by surprise. It was a dizzying attraction, leaving her more confused than ever.
With which man did she truly belong?
Which side of the Wall was native to her heart?
Marcus looked at her clothes with distaste. 'Go, discard that filth and wash. I've ordered supper from Marta. There we'll discuss this adventure of yours.'
'You need to alert the garrison now! Send a message to the duke now!'
'The men are already alerted. Wash first, it will help calm you. There's time enough for you to become presentable while the slaves make our meal.'
'Marcus, you don't understand-'
'I do understand, wife. I understand I want you out of those rags and back in the proper dress of a Roman matron. So go, now!' It was an order.
She went to the baths at the rear of the house without calling for a slave. Their help seemed curiously superfluous. Her clothes, damp with sweat and snow, were peeled off and cast in a corner to corral their smell. Something caught at her neck, and she realized she still had the boar tusks. What must Marcus think? Adorned like a savage! He probably believed barbarians didn't wash at all and that she'd been dirty for half a year. No wonder he was remote. She gratefully but briskly bathed, not lingering as she'd have liked. With no maidservant, she had nobody to help with makeup and no time. Her hair was roughly tied back with a circlet of gold, and the stola she chose was a warm woolen one without style or seduction. The last thing she felt like doing was sharing her husband's bed! A mere half hour after she'd left Marcus, she was back and eating, once more famished by her adventures.
You'll have a bottom like Savia, she scolded herself. And yet her exploits just gave her more muscle. She supposed her husband would not entirely approve of her new fitness. It was unwomanly.
Marcus watched silently as she ate, chewing his own food more absently. It was as if he were trying to decide something about her.
The continued remoteness of his gaze, even more pronounced than she remembered, made her uneasy. Why was he so distant? 'Marcus, the Celts are gathering against you,' she tried again.
'So you've said,' he remembered, as if she'd commented on the weather.
'I overheard it being discussed in the hill fort of Arden Caratacus, the man who captured me.'
'You spied on him.' It was more accusation than praise, which puzzled her.
'With my maidservant. We suspected something was amiss and hid in a hayrick to hear their talking.' She paused, trying to find some diplomatic way to say what she must confide next, but finally gave up. Their senior tribune wasn't just rogue, he was traitor. 'Arden was plotting with Galba.'
'Was he really?' Her husband's tone was mild.
'Brassidias rode in with some soldiers to meet the barbarians. He said he was going to be transferred to Gaul, and there is a question of imperial succession, and soldiers are being drawn from the Wall for possible civil war on the Continent.'
Marcus said nothing. Valeria's uneasiness increased. What did he already know? Had she ridden like the wind to warn him of nothing?
'The barbarian plan is to overthrow all Roman rule in Britannia,' she went on. 'If you can muster reinforcements from the south, you can stop them when they attack. Probably you can forestall any attack at all.'
He looked at the tapestry covering the battle mural. 'Where's Savia?'
It seemed an odd digression, given the weight of her news. 'I had to leave her behind to delay their pursuit.'
'The Celts freed her, didn't they?'
'Yes, but she didn't seek such freedom-'
'What did they do for you?'
She flushed. 'Kept me prisoner for six months-'
'Stop it.' His voice was ice.
She was bewildered. 'Marcus? What's wrong?'
'Stop your lies. I'm humiliated enough.'
'Lies?'
'You didn't spy on Arden Caratacus, did you?'
'I did!'
'You heard what you're telling me in his bed.'
'That's not true!'
'Isn't it? Then answer me this. Did you, or did you not, sleep with that conniving, treacherous, double-dealing piece of donkey offal who abducted you?'
How could he know? She couldn't speak.
Her husband stood to loom over her again, now a pillar of humiliation and rage. 'Did you, or did you not, shame me and mock me and ruin me before every respectable man and woman of Rome?'
'How can you say these things?' All appetite had left her.
'Did you, or did you not, play the part of one of their pagan gods, and dance at their sacrificial ceremonies, and ride and hunt like a man, and work in the dirt like a peasant, and eat like a Hun as you've just done, and disgrace your own family's name for a hundred generations?' His voice was rising.
Furious at her own emotion, she began crying. 'I rode here to warn you-'
'You rode here to betray me!'
'No, Marcus, no! You've got everything all wrong!'
'Where is Caratacus going to attack, Valeria?'
'Here!'
'I should concentrate my forces here, at the strongest part of the Wall?'
'Yes, yes!' she sobbed. 'Here! I think so. He's coming to attack, and I want to save your life-'
'Save whose life, Valeria?'
She looked at him mutely, not understanding.
'Save your husband?'
She nodded, dumbly.
'Or save your lover?'
'Marcus, please…'
'You didn't ride fast enough, Valeria. Galba reached me first.'
She closed her eyes in despair. 'Don't listen to Galba! He's your enemy!'
