having gone to the expense and trouble of venturing where most civilized people were too sensible to go, was going to come home and admit that it had been a waste of time. Instead, he had to pronounce his destination to be full of strange wonders, like the elk with no knees that could be caught by sabotaging the tree against which it leaned when it slept (Julius Caesar) or the men from India who could wrap themselves in their own ears (reported by the elder Pliny, who seemed to have written down everything he was ever told), or the blue-skinned Britons (Julius Caesar again).
Strangely, no traveler ever brought one of these creatures home for inspection. Doubtless they were impossible to capture, or died on the journey, or the blue came off in the wash.
Travel, in Sabina’s experience-and the gods knew she had suffered enough of it in the last twenty years-was less a matter of wonder than of discomfort and disappointment. Londinium was no exception. It had been as empty of blue-skinned natives and promiscuous Druid women as she had feared. Instead, the outgoing governor had led them on a tour of the local forum, followed by an interminable display of marching, fighting, and killing in the amphitheater. In the evenings she and the emperor had been trapped for hours in the palace dining room with provincial administrators and hairy native chieftains. As if the emperor could not see fora or amphitheaters, or eat oysters, or meet barbarians who spoke Latin everywhere he went! The irony, which of course the native chieftains would never be subtle enough to grasp, was that while they were eager to be Romans, their esteemed Roman leader liked to pose as an intellectual Greek.
But since Julia had fallen pregnant-no doubt on purpose in order to avoid this trip-there was no friend with whom she could share the joke. The slaves were all chosen by Hadrian, and presumably primed to report her every complaint, yawn, and mutinous scowl.
The governor’s wife, poor woman, was as tedious as Sabina feared she herself might become if she were obliged to spend much longer marooned in the provinces. She was desperate for the latest gossip from Rome-as if Sabina had been there recently, instead of dutifully shivering through a Germanic winter that froze your teeth if you opened your mouth, and turned the slaves’ feet and noses blue with cold.
Perhaps things would be better when they finally arrived in Deva. Paulina had sounded positively thrilled to know that her distant and now very famous cousin was coming to visit. She had promised to keep Sabina entertained while the emperor and her husband did all those important things that emperors and legates had to do. Meanwhile, Sabina had asked the governor’s wife in vain for the locations of singing stones, statues that spoke, stuffed monsters, giants’ bones, or relics of Helen of Troy. She supposed pyramids were unlikely in Britannia, as were temples filled with treasures, or elephants trained to write, or fountains that miraculously spouted wine- although admittedly she had never been able to pin down the last two herself. But it seemed even the distant hills of the North and West boasted no steaming sulfurous craters or fissures belching poison gases. There was not even an oracle.
“There is the circle of very large stones, madam.”
“Do they do anything?”
“Not that I know of. But you might like the temple of Sulis Minerva at Aquae Sulis.”
“What does that do?”
“It is an old and very holy place where a constant supply of hot water springs out of the ground.”
“How very convenient,” she conceded. “If one were short of slaves.”
“The people throw in offerings to the goddess and curses on their enemies.”
“Well, I suppose it will have to do. Is it nearby?”
Sadly, it was not.
The only way to get to Paulina at Deva was to travel north with the emperor. Even that was a better prospect than staying in Londinium, discussing cushion covers with the governor’s wife. Besides, there was always a faint chance that the stories of a northern land of perpetual daylight might be true. Even if they were not, Tranquillus and Clarus would be amusing and intelligent company on the journey. Although they did not dare say so, she was sure they, too, wished they were back at home: Tranquillus working on his writing, and Clarus, who always looked as though his uniform belonged to somebody else, with his nose buried in a scroll.
Hadrian could find someone else to bore with his lectures about drawings and measurements. His latest project might be the biggest and best wall in the empire, but it was still just a wall. Of course, she was the only one who had ever dared to tell him so.
An auspicious day had been chosen for the start of the voyage, and the omens had been good. Even so, things had gone wrong almost straight away. The dress she wanted to wear turned out to be in one of several trunks loaded onto the wrong ship. Clarus had been assigned to another vessel with most of his men, while the quiet and nondescript man who had been hanging around in the governor’s palace-and was undoubtedly some sort of spy-turned up on deck and then vanished, giving her the uneasy feeling that he had hidden somewhere to watch everybody. Or perhaps just her.
Tranquillus had shrunk yet again from letting her read his
She no longer cared. It was impossible to be amused or intrigued when the wallowing and heaving of the gray waters outside seemed to be competing with what was going on in one’s stomach. It was a great pity that the author who had declared the sea around the north of Britannia to be “sluggish and scarcely troubled by winds” was already dead. She would have taken great pleasure in arranging to have him tied in a sack and thrown into it.
The emperor, of course-that was how she thought of him these days:
There was a soft tap at the door.
“Come!”
A blast of damp air blew a slave into the little cabin. The slave was clutching a tray in one hand and had a cup clamped onto it with the other. She fell backward, slamming the door with her bottom.
Faintly recollecting that she had asked for some water, Sabina said, “Just leave it on the floor.”
The slave, appointed by the emperor and so doubtless a spy, did as she was told and withdrew. A moment later the ship gave a violent lurch to starboard. Somewhere outside, a woman screamed. The cup fell over, sending trickles of water exploring first one way and then another across the boards. Every timber around her seemed to be creaking as if it was straining to part from its neighbor.
Men were shouting. Footsteps hurried past the cabin. The bedchamber slave crouched to wipe up the water just as the ship hit another wave. The girl fell sideways, grabbing at the end of Sabina’s small sleeping platform to steady herself. Seawater slid in under the door and sloshed across the planking. Normally silent unless told to speak, the girl began to gabble prayers to her gods.
More shouting. More lurching.
The empress Sabina lay on her side, closed her eyes and prayed for sleep. Or death. Either would do, so long as she stopped feeling like this, but neither was happening. The pitching and rolling of the ship grew worse. She clung to the edge of the sleeping platform to steady herself. Finally the prayers ended in a shriek as the world rolled sideways. Sabina lost her grip and landed on top of the struggling slave.
The women slid in a heap of limbs into the corner. Water was streaming in from all directions now. They clung to each other, the slave sobbing and wailing and Sabina trying to call out prayers to Neptune over the crashing of waves and the straining of timbers.
They both screamed as the door burst open and a bedraggled figure staggered in, clutching a knife. It bent to slash the ropes that held the trunk containing her jewelry in place beneath the sleeping platform and dragged it toward the door.
Remembering her duty, the slave made a lunge for it. “Thief! Stop!”
“Captain’s orders!” he yelled.
Sabina pulled her back, put her mouth against the girl’s wet hair, and shouted, “They are throwing everything
