her family was dead and her arm had been broken when she tried to defend herself against a Roman merchant who had brought her down from the north to sell her.
It was as much of the truth as it was safe for them to know, and it would have satisfied them, if only a Roman officer had not arrived that afternoon on an elderly horse and announced that he had come to look for a woman.
The blank expressions with which he was faced were a defense the family had used many times. In truth several of them understood what he was saying and all grasped what he wanted, but none chose to reveal that the woman he sought was inside a house not ten steps from where he stood.
The Roman had finally given up and tramped back through the gateway. It was not until he was out of sight that the arguments started.
By this time the men had arrived, summoned from the fields by those nearest to home who had heard the dogs.
Their guest, it seemed, had lied to them. (Her objection of 'I told no lies!' was ignored.) She was a runaway. It was against the law to harbor runaways. She must go.
No, insisted other voices, she must stay. She was a Brigante, true, but not a complete foreigner. She was nearly one of their own people. It was a matter of honor not to betray her.
Tilla, realizing she was not expected to be a part of this argument, slipped back inside the house and sat by the door, listening as indignation rose on both sides of the debate. A couple of the women tried to intervene. Nobody took any notice.
Someone cried that it was a disgrace to deny hospitality to an injured woman.
'Her master is a healer. Let him deal with it.'
'Her master is a Roman!'
'She has brought the army to our doors!'
'One man on an old horse?'
'Romans are like rats. Where there is one there are more.'
'What if they decide to search the houses?'
'What, for one slave?'
'Enough!' It was the voice of the old woman, quavering but loud enough to silence the debate. 'Enough,' she repeated. Tilla wondered who had gone to fetch her and how much they had managed to explain. 'The girl will stay here tonight. We will discuss this matter after dark. You all have work to do. Go.'
The arguers did not bother to mute their grumbling as they dispersed, and Tilla overheard someone say, 'She's not his slave, you fool.'
'He said ancilla. Ancilla means slave.'
'Never mind what ancilla means. She's not his slave. She's his woman.'
The evening meal was finished. The other girls had gone to mind younger brothers and sisters. The adults had carried rush lights across to the big house and closed the door behind them. Tilla was squatting by the fire in the girls' house, busying herself grinding corn while she waited to be told her fate. It was a job that could be done, albeit slowly, with one hand.
As the stone scraped and rumbled round on its base she thought about the people she had left behind. She thought about the girls at Merula's, and the boy Lucco, who did not know that it was forbidden to eat swan, and Bassus, and Stichus with the ginger-colored hair, and the woman she had got to know at the bakery. She thought about the pregnant Brica whose man might lose his sight, and the handsome doctor who always smiled at her, but mostly she thought about the medicus, who hardly smiled at all. She supposed he was smiling even less now. It served him right. Behind her back he had made arrangements to have her sold. At first she had not believed Bassus, but later she had arrived back inside the fort with the shopping and there he was, standing in the street outside the hospital, chatting to the medicus as if they were old friends. That was when she finally understood what the medicus had meant when he had told her she would be useful to him. He had mended her arm not out of kindness, but out of greed. Instead of going to his house to prepare supper, she had turned around, made her way back out through the east gate, and kept walking.
The dog lying beside her suddenly lifted his head and turned toward the door. Moments later, a hinge creaked and a figure slipped in.
'My cousins are seeing to the little ones,' announced Sabrann. 'And my aunt is shouting for the grandmother.' She dropped the sack on the ground. 'I brought you some more corn, daughter of Lugh.'
'Thank you.'
It was the first time they had been able to speak privately since the argument erupted. Sabrann said, 'They are talking about you.'
'I know.'
'I would have you stay.'
'Others would have me leave.'
Sabrann reached a hand inside the sack and trickled a fistful of corn into the hole in the center of the stone. 'He was quite good-looking,' she observed.
Tilla tightened her grip on the handle and carried on swiveling the top stone back and forth in a half circle over the lower one. 'Who?'
'Your Roman. And not as short as most of them.'
'No,' Tilla agreed, stilling her arm as the girl reached a hand forward to scoop up the speckled flour that was trickling out from between the stones to form little mounds on the cloth.
Sabrann dropped the handful of flour into the bowl. 'Are you his slave?'
The stone began to move again. 'He thinks so.'
'Did you go inside the fort?'
'Yes.'
'Is it true what they say about the granary?'
Tilla frowned. 'The granary?'
Sabrann nodded. 'Everyone says they have a great big building filled with enough corn to stuff themselves for a year.'
'It's possible. They like making great big buildings.'
'Can you imagine how many families that would feed? And still they take the taxes.'
'Is this why your grandmother is angry with Brica?'
'It was bad enough my great-uncle's family chose to trade with the army. Now one of them allows a soldier to father her children.' Sabrann paused to watch the stone's movement around and back. 'They say,' she said, 'that most of them have to pay women to lie with them.'
'They speak the truth.'
'Why would any woman do that? I would never do it.'
'If you thought they would kill you,' said Tilla slowly, 'you might consider it.'
The stone ground away and back, away and back before the girl murmured, 'Forgive me. Everyone says I speak before I think.'
Tilla shook her head. 'No need. The goddess was protecting me. The medicus is not like that.'
'People are saying you are his woman.'
There was a grating sound from the millstones. Tilla let go of the handle and flexed her stiff fingers. 'People are wrong.'
Sabrann reached into the sack and gave a sudden giggle. 'Can you keep a secret?'
'Always.'
'Before we sent the corn tax in, we all took turns spitting in it.'
Tilla smiled. 'This was to wish them luck?'
'Of course.' Sabrann cupped her hands to trickle more corn into the opening. 'The boys wanted to piss in it, but Da said they would notice the smell. And they'd see it was damp. Spit, you can stir in.'
Their eyes met, and both girls grinned.
'Your medicus might be eating spit,' observed Sabrann.
'Good luck to him,' said Tilla, seizing the handle and scraping the millstone faster back and forth on its half circle.
