He tossed the straw aside and headed into the headquarters hall for morning briefing. The dead had never been his patients. This morning he needed to concentrate on the living recruit who had taken a slice off one arm.
The briefing was a formality, since most of those present had already met and discussed the same issues over dinner last night. The sun was just gilding the tops of the surrounding roofs by the time the men were marched into the courtyard, ready to watch the sacrifice. Ruso slipped in next to Pera. The plump centurion poked the line straight with his stick and then moved on. After he was gone, Pera murmured, “Sir, I’m assigned to sanitary inspection this morning. Can you do the ward round?”
As the senior medic Ruso would have expected to be consulted about where Pera was assigned, but this was not the time to say so. Barely moving his lips, and with his eyes focused on a dent in the helmet of the man in front of him, Ruso said, “Of course.” Then he added, “I read your postmortem report.”
When there was no reply, he glanced at Pera, who was standing like a statue. He showed no sign of having heard. “Why can you write the truth but you can’t speak it?”
Still no reply. More men took their places ahead of them. One recruit was hauled out of line for some misdemeanor. As he was being marched out of the courtyard by a pair of Geminus’s junior officers, Ruso heard Pera murmur, “Geminus’s two shadows.”
The miscreant had barely disappeared when the tinny sound of a rattle being shaken around the courtyard served as a warning that the procession was on its way. There was no chance of further conversation now, with the centurions glaring along the ranks like schoolmasters watching for bad behavior.
Ruso had to admit that Accius looked imposing in his toga. The aristocratic voice rang out clearly, reading the traditional words with confidence. There was no stumbling and no interruptions-not only auspicious but a relief, since it meant they would not have to go back to the beginning and start again. The ram appeared content to be led up to the altar: another good sign. The blade flashed in the early morning sun. The animal barely struggled. The blood spurted. It was all very professionally done. Even to a man whose religion consisted mostly of half-formed and unanswered questions, it was strangely reassuring.
Ruso hoped the men would be impressed. Whatever words might be necessary to pacify the spirits of the dead would have been said over their pyres last night, and with this performance the pollution of the deaths and the nonsense about the curse should be over. The men now marching out of the headquarters courtyard in their best kit would soon head west across the hills to Deva, where they would be split up and assigned to their centuries. Older, wiser, and better disciplined, they would each make a fresh start in the Legion.
On his right a quiet voice said, “That question you asked me earlier, sir …”
“Don’t tell me to go to Geminus.”
“It’s best not to ask that sort of thing at all, sir. You really don’t want to know the answer.”
Chapter 17
Two days’ march south of Eboracum, another dawn sacrifice was offered with more than the usual gratitude. This one was to Neptune and Oceanus. Sabina watched the smoke rise into the clear sky, fingered the cluster of emeralds in her one remaining pair of earrings, and tried to be grateful that the rest of her luggage had been saved instead of furious that most of her jewelry was at the bottom of the ocean. She was not sure where this outpost was, but of one thing she was certain: she would never set foot on a ship again until it was time to leave this ghastly island behind.
She left the emperor striding about the place, deep in conversation with Clarus and the local centurion. The centurion was probably still reeling from the shock of sighting a battered imperial flotilla in the estuary. Hadrian would be doing the rounds of the survivors, pausing to chat to exhausted sailors, inquiring about injuries to the horses, and sympathizing with the comrades of the men washed overboard. Meanwhile she was taken to the local inn, where she was to lie on a couch in some other woman’s clothes while her staff went in search of her missing luggage. She glanced across at the emperor’s secretary, busy scribbling despatches explaining the change of imperial plans.
“Tranquillus?”
“Madam?”
Watching poor Tranquillus trying to conceal his excitement at being noticed was an entertainment in itself.
“I hope you are taking notes on all this so that you can tell the world what we have had to suffer.”
“Indeed, madam.”
“Because you will hardly get a whole book out of Interesting Things to See in Britannia. A few statues of dead emperors, stones arranged in a circle, and burial mounds of people no one has ever heard of.”
“Indeed, madam.”
“I have been wondering if Clarus and I could persuade you to include the present emperor in your list of biographies.”
Tranquillus swallowed. “I am delighted to say that the present emperor is still with us, madam. It would be premature to attempt to summarize his already great achievements when there will doubtless be so many more to record.”
“Ah, yes,” agreed Sabina. “Of course.” There were times when she wondered whether she should be kinder to Tranquillus. Then he came up with an answer like that and she wondered whether he, too, was enjoying the game.
Tranquillus was not fool enough even to consider writing about Hadrian, but as the limping chambermaid from last night took her arm to escort her around a pothole, she wondered if he was thinking of the scandalous material he could include if he did. Nothing as scurrilous as the depravities that he had related from the old days, of course, but Hadrian would not want the world to read about that sordid squabble with Trajan over the pretty boy. Nor about the dubious manner in which he had become emperor. She did not believe for a moment that Trajan had named Hadrian on his deathbed. The old man’s widow, the only witness, was one of Hadrian’s collection of devoted middle-aged women. All of them thought they understood him better than she did. But what normal man preferred the company of his mother-in-law to that of his wife?
Neither she nor Tranquillus, of course, would ever mention these things. The quiet man who had appeared on the ship had vanished, but the slaves were always there, and always listening. She knew that because once she had invented an overpriced diamond and spoken of having it imported from India, and sure enough the emperor had later accused her of wasting money. He had not been in the least perturbed when she complained about him spying on her. “Of course,” he said, as if it were as natural as breathing. “Do you have something to hide?”
“How could I?”
“Precisely.” He had turned away to discuss the defense of Lower Pannonia, and that was the end of the interview.
Now, of course, he really would have to buy her some jewelry.
The sound of hammering and sawing rose from the wharf: They were starting the repairs on the ships already. She turned to Tranquillus. “I begin to understand why you refused your first posting here.”
Tranquillus turned pink again and mumbled something about not refusing exactly; it was simply that at the time he had been inconveniently unable-
“Do you know whether one can travel by road to the place where the hot springs rise?”
“It is even farther from here than from Londinium, madam.” Tranquillus’s apologetic tone suggested this was his own fault.
“What about the land of endless day?”
“Many miles to the north of us, madam.”
She sighed. “Well, if you can think of anything at all that might relieve the ghastliness of this place, please do suggest it.”
