that was worthy of blame. Anyway, he gave me Vilbia on the spot, I drew up the manumission papers, and I’m going to get them witnessed this afternoon and legally adopt the girl.”
“As your daughter?” I repeated, bewildered.
He barked with laughter. “You want a wife, but that doesn’t mean everyone does. I had one once, and that was enough for me. But I also had a daughter once. She died when she was seven. I’ve always had it in the back of my mind, ‘What would have happened if she’d lived? What would she be like now?’ Probably not a bit like Vilbia. But the girl has suffered, and she needs someone to care for her. She’s a sweet, kind girl, and brave, to defy her mistress over the baby-you know she believed in Bodica’s magic absolutely, and was terrified of her. I want a daughter; she wants a father. These things sort themselves out. One little piece of parchment and instantly I’m a father again, and a grandfather as well. Flavia Vilbia and Marcus Flavius Secundus, citizens of Rome. How about that, eh?”
“Congratulations,” I said, smiling at him. “I wish you all much joy.”
“We’re going to move to Eburacum,” he went on. “I’m being promoted, to primus pilus of the Sixth Victrix! Think of that! All those years I sweated in the Thirteenth Gemina, and I thought hastatus of the first rank was as high as I could get, and now I’m primus pilus for a year, over the heads of two others, and afterward something senior. No more muddling about with a lot of barbarians who always smell of horses.”
First the news that Comittus would be recalled to the Sixth; and now Facilis as well. “I will miss you,” I said, and it was perfectly true.
He slapped my shoulder. “You don’t intend to forget me completely, then? You remember that?”
I nodded.
“I’ll miss you, as well.” He added it very quietly, as though it embarrassed him to say it, and hurried on, “But it’s been pretty damn clear ever since we reached Cilurnum that you never needed me to keep an eye on you. And I imagine you’ll be in and out of Eburacum fairly frequently, as well as down to Londinium, advising people on how to treat Sarmatians: we’ll see each other from time to time. Anyway, there is a quick way of getting married, without going through all the ceremonies. You have Eukairios draw up a legal contract expressing your intent to marry a Brigantian citizen, one Pervica, and arranging your various properties however you wish. Then you sign it, she signs it, three witnesses sign it, and that is sufficient evidence of affectio maritalis to satisfy any court in the land. I’ll file it for you when I go down to the archives, and the job’s done. You’ll need your citizenship papers, though. I can collect them for you from the governor’s staff. What names do you want on them?”
I shrugged. Roman names.
“Well-to whom do you owe your citizenship?”
“First to the governor, then to the emperor.”
“Quintus Antistius Ariantes? Marcus Aurelius Ariantes?”
I flinched. “Marha!”
He grinned at me. “A bitter mouthful, is it? You’ll get used to it. Which one shall it be?”
“Marcus Aurelius.”
“The safest choice. The governor would be flattered if you used his names, but his term of office ends in a year or so, and he can’t be offended at you choosing to honor the emperor. I won’t call you Marcus, don’t worry.” He got to his feet. “I’ll go arrange it for you. Good health!”
Eukairios arrived a few minutes after he’d gone. “Pervica said you wanted to see me, Patron,” he said.
“I wanted to marry her today,” I said. “Marcus Flavius says that you can draw up a marriage contract concerning our property, and that we need three witnesses for it. He says he will collect my citizenship papers from the governor’s staff, take them down to the public archives, and file the contract for us. Is that all it needs?”
“That should be- What citizenship papers?”
I looked at him sourly. “I am rewarded with Roman citizenship.”
“Oh.” He sat down beside me and stared into the fountain. I noticed quite suddenly that his eyes were red.
“What is the matter?” I asked.
He looked away from the water reluctantly and rubbed his eyes. “I
… was visiting the brothers here, and they had a letter for me from the ekklesia in Bononia, the one I used to belong to. Three of my friends have been arrested, and were sent to Augusta Treverorum to die in the arena.”
“I am very sorry,” I said, after a moment’s silence.
He shook his head. “We say it’s a glorious death, to die praising Christ in the arena.” His voice had thickened. “We say that it’s the sure road to the Heavenly City, and that God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
“But you wept, nonetheless.”
“They were always so kind!” he exclaimed passionately, beginning to weep again. “Especially Lucilla. There was never a stray cat that went hungry from her door, and if she saw a child crying in the street, she comforted it. She used to send me honeyed wine when I’d had my rations stopped, and charcoal to warm my cell in the winter. Oh God, God, I loved her! They are going to throw her to the wild beasts.” He looked up at the dull sky, his face contorted and streaming. “I want to take the soldiers who arrested her, the magistrates who ordered it, the jailers who keep her prisoner-I want to take the whole howling mob of people who are going to watch it-I want to take them all, and cast them into the lake of Hell, and watch them burn!”
“I am sorry,” I said again.
“Vengeance is evil. I should forgive my enemies.” He was back in control of himself. “Otherwise the wounded strike the wounded, and so the world is chained in suffering. I should be glad for my sister and my brothers: they are leaping from a moment’s pain into eternal glory. I am confident that Christ will give them strength and bring them home.”
There was another minute of silence. I thought about the kind Lucilla, doomed to die in the arena; about the Pictish prisoners we had taken; about the druids imprisoned in this very city. I thought about Tirgatao’s death.
“So,” said Eukairios, after another minute of silence, “they’ve given you the Roman citizenship.”
I nodded. “Tell me, Eukairios, should I refuse it?”
“No!” he said, in astonished disbelief. “Of course not!”
“I do not want it. The gods know, I do not love Rome.”
“But you’ve risked so much to defend Roman power!”
“I had a choice between that and joining its enemies, who seemed to me much worse. I was not offered the choice my heart would make; one never is.”
“What choice would that be?”
I was silent for a long time. I did not want to be a Roman, but I already knew that I was no true Sarmatian anymore-and I still had no clear idea of what the Britons were like. What world would I choose, if I had my freedom?
“A world without hatred,” I said at last.
Eukairios looked away, into the fountain. He reached over and stirred the stagnant water with his hand. “You’re right,” he whispered. “That’s not a choice we’re ever offered.”
I touched his shoulder.
Pervica came into the garden and hurried over to me. I stood up, balancing on one foot, and let her take my left arm. “Facilis says he can arrange for us to be married today,” I told her. “Eukairios can draw up the contract, and Marcus will take it to the archives this afternoon.”
“I went to see Publius Verinus, the camp prefect here,” she replied, “and he says we can have a guest room in the commandant’s house, despite it being so crowded. He was very pleasant when I told him we wanted to get married, and wished us joy.”
Her face, turned up to mine, was flushed and radiant. I smiled into it. In that part of me that was neither Roman nor Sarmatian, I kicked shut the doors of all the worlds that offered, and chose the one that no one would give me, the way to the Jade Gate, where I could never go.
