209 AD
13.
Eboracum
When we arrived at Eboracum, the cold rain was drizzling down like walls of grey that hid the town completely. Our carriage stuck in the mud, and the oxen skidded on slippery cobblestones. The river was so high that at first we could not cross it and had to wait around while the carriage was dug out, freezing and dripping and miserably cursing the fate that had dragged us to this horrible place. Even when we got into the town, we saw nothing of Eboracum except the rain for the next two days.
When we finally did get to see it, it was a disappointment. Londinium had been a proper Roman city; Lindum was a centre for trade with a busy feeling about it. But Eboracum was just an army camp, it seemed, with run-down defences. It had been built, Marcus told me, to split the territory of two tribes, the Parisi and the Brigantes, and you could tell it was a fortress. Everyone in Eboracum was there, in one way or another, because of the soldiers.
By now, I was tired of soldiers. I was tired of the tramp-tramp-tramp of their boots and the clashing jingle of their chain mail. Tired of the blaring trumpets. Even the scarlet banner and the gilded eagles hurt my eyes. I missed the sunshine, I missed the grapes and sweet figs that I had taken for granted in Leptis Magna, I missed the grand buildings of Rome, and I missed the clever conversations my father and his friends had late into the evening when the air was scented with blossom. Here, there seemed to be no flowers, no blossom, no colour that wasn’t drab grey-green or the blaring scarlet and gold of the soldiers, and the main smell was the river: cool and damp at best, and stinking at worst. British rivers and marshes, I thought, were a poor exchange for living on the brink of the fresh, wild sea which always smelled clean.
But it was clear that the Emperor had big plans for Eboracum. After all, it was now the most important town in the Empire – for the head of the Empire was wherever the Emperor was.
“From now on, Eboracum will be the capital of Britannia Inferior,” the Emperor told the assembled officials. A ripple of pride and excitement ran through the crowd. He had the defences repaired and improved, timber walls replaced with stone and he had new buildings set up, to make it all more Roman. The message to all who lived here – the soldiers of Rome, the British tribesmen who wore togas and spoke Latin, the Gaulish traders and their Punic wives, their children with blue eyes and tanned skin who played in the river’s shallows – was: This too is Rome, and we are here to stay.
Except the Emperor, it became clear, was not here to stay for long.
For the first evenings in Eboracum, I had nothing to do but sit in my room, listen to the rain, and read or weave and wait for Julia Domna to remember my existence and send for me. It was very boring, for there was no one of my own age, and my father, who would gladly have had me stay with a respectable family in the city, was kept so busy by the Emperor that he had not a moment to arrange it. I got nervous and unhappy and could not stop thinking of my mother, my old nurse and even of Publius. I was fifteen now. I wondered what would happen to me.
Then, just before midnight, my father came into my bedroom, where I was dozing in a chair. I did not like to go to bed before I knew he was home. He was accompanied by his slave, Salvius, whom he had bought in Lindum.
“Camilla?” His face was pale, but perhaps that was just the light from the oil lamp. His voice sounded calm enough.
“Yes, Father?”
“Pack anything of value you have. The Emperor travels to the Northern borders tomorrow.”
I sat up, wide awake suddenly, as Salvius began silently packing my father’s belongings.
“The borders? You mean the wall?”
“Yes, to retake the wall that the emperors before Commodus built.”
“Will it. . . be dangerous?” I said as I began to collect my personal belongings.
“I hope so! I may finally get my barbarian to dissect,” he said cheerfully.
“I meant – for us.”
“Us?” He shook his head. “Camilla, you don’t understand. I am to travel with the Emperor to the wall in the North. You are to remain here, with the Empress. You are packing to move into the Empress’s apartments.”
I leapt to my feet.
“Father, no! You can’t leave me here alone!”
“You won’t be alone. You will live with the Empress.”
“But—”
He glanced at Salvius, then ushered me out of the room and into his own room. In a low voice, he said: “Camilla, I know this is frightening to you, but you will be safe here. You cannot possibly follow the army up North. I would not be able to take care of you and things are different up there. It may well be dangerous, for us as well as the barbarians.
