“Yes.”
“She said you were a treacherous bitch. I told her you weren’t.”
“You are right and she is wrong. Now, go home.”
Virana pouted. “I’ve got money. I can buy my own food.”
“Get down!” This was worse than talking to a dog.
Tilla was too busy arguing to notice the roan mare that had drawn up alongside them, and was startled when its rider wished her a good journey. It was another traveler she did not wish to see.
Metellus indicated the road ahead. “North. I think you’ve made a very wise choice.”
Tilla lifted her chin and tried to ignore Virana staring at Metellus with her mouth open. “Was it you who betrayed Victor?”
“Was that his name?”
“Have you been watching me?”
Metellus shook his head sadly. “If only I had the time. I confess I had quite lost interest in you until I heard someone was claiming to have had secret meetings with the empress.”
“The empress and I talked about nothing!”
Metellus nodded. “So I hear. But occasionally a surveillance of one person happens to turn up someone else of interest. The informant who was keeping an eye on you started to wonder why the deserter’s wife was buying so much food if she was only feeding two women and a toddler.”
So that was how it had been done. Corinna would be mortified. She said, “The men who took him came back specially to thank me for betraying him.”
“Yes.” If a snake could smile, that was what it would look like. “That was a nice touch, I thought.” He dug his spurs into the roan’s flanks and it sprang forward, taking him away before she could think of a curse foul enough.
“He is not a nice man,” observed Virana. She watched the roan ease through a gap. “He is quite good- looking, though.”
“Get down, before you have a long walk back.”
“You can’t throw me out on the road. I’m your patient: You have to look after me.”
“We are barely out of Eboracum. And we aren’t going to Deva.”
“I don’t mind.”
Tilla half rose, stabbing a forefinger at the ground. “Down! Right this moment, or I will throw you out.”
Virana slumped into a corner and folded her arms. “I don’t mind not going to Deva. There will be plenty of soldiers at the border.”
Tilla leaned forward. “Celer, pull off the road!”
The lad turned. “Here, miss?”
“Anywhere we won’t get stuck.”
Stopping was no problem, but Celer had been hired to follow the emperor and needed to be offered several half-truths and more money before he agreed to turn the cart around. Finally the road cleared of riders and baggage wagons and the number of pedestrians thinned out. Celer was able to swing the mules out onto the hard surface and bring the cart around. Meanwhile Tilla had made two skinny little girls repeat her message in their mother’s hearing before handing them a small coin each and promising there would be more when the job was done. “We give him the scroll,” they chanted, “and we say, ‘Tilla thanks you, Doctor Valens. She says she is not traveling alone and may the gods give you good health and a safe journey,’ and we do not tell him until everyone stops for a rest at midday.”
Talking was so much quicker than writing. The mother, who was carrying a toddler on her shoulders and now a scroll of Catullus’s poems in one hand, seemed grateful for the cash. She hurried the family away to catch up with their luggage.
“You have a choice now,” Tilla hissed to Virana as Celer urged the mule back the way they had just come. “You learn to keep quiet and do as you are told, or I take you home again.”
“I can keep quiet.”
“And leave me alone when I tell you to. I will have things to do that are private, and I cannot always have you trailing around with me like a strand of goose grass.”
“What things will you have to do?”
Tilla rummaged in her bag for a spare tunic. “First, I will hold the blanket around you while you put something sensible on.”
“Where are we going?”
“Wherever my husband goes,” said Tilla.
“Oh, yes!” agreed Virana as she disappeared inside the blanket. “That is exactly what I would do. And I can help you with all the private things!”
Chapter 61
The praetorians were streaming out of the fortress in the sunlight like one huge shining creature with many legs. The barbs of spears rose above their glittering helmets like bristles.
“So fierce!” gasped Virana, as if it were a good thing. “What do we do now?”
“More waiting.”
“Then what?”
“I don’t know yet.” Leaving her husband to face trouble alone would be very wrong. Knowing what was right was more difficult.
The carriage that must hold the empress was enormous, pulled by six black horses whose coats gleamed almost as brightly as the freshly washed paintwork. No doubt there would be soft beds inside so the wealthy passengers could rest while everyone else was out in all weathers, escorting them safely across lands where they had no business to be.
“Here they come!” cried Virana. The sound of jingling and clanking pots and pans accompanied the march of the men from the Twentieth: The Praetorians must have commandeered the baggage wagons, while the Twentieth had all their personal kit slung on their backs or loaded onto mules. Tilla recognized Accius on a leggy bay stallion. The squat centurion riding alongside him was Dexter, friend of the murdered Geminus.
Virana was enjoying herself. “There’s Marcus, and … Victor! Victor, it’s me! Cheer up!” She turned to Tilla. “They’ve chained him up like a slave! Do they think he’ll run away again?” Before Tilla could answer, she said, “I can’t see the Medicus, can you?”
Tilla raised one hand and pointed to a covered wagon that had just emerged from the gates. Behind it was a figure whose bearing and boots said he was a soldier. The loop of chain between the back of the wagon and his wrists told another story. Tilla leapt down from the cart, waited until Dexter was shouting at a man who had dropped something, and then ran across the rough grass toward the wagon.
“Husband!”
He seemed to be concentrating on the uneven stones beneath his feet.
She fell into step with him. “It is me!”
He looked startled, as if he had just woken. “What are you-”
“I am not leaving you.”
He glanced around. “Careful. They’ll be watching.”
“Are you all right? Your hands-”
“Valens was supposed to look after you.”
“He did. He does not know yet.” Pale faces were peering out at her from the gloom of the covered wagon, where a skeletal young man was lying under a white blanket. “Those are the people who should be in the grand carriage.”
He said, “I’ll ask the empress to swap.”
She lowered her voice so that the patients could not hear. “Victor has been arrested and they say he is accused of the murder.”
