‘Well now, ladies, how are you? I swear you both look more radiant then you did yesterday, if that’s possible!’
Annia, slumped heavily in her place on the wagon’s bench seat in a position intended to protect her from the road’s potholes, had regarded him with a disbelieving glare, and Felicia, sharing her discomfort at his insincerity, had answered with care.
‘And you, Tribune, you truly look as if you don’t have a care in the world. How do you keep such equanimity under such trying circumstances?’
Sorex had smiled back at her, allowing his hard gaze to linger on her body for longer than might have been polite.
‘Equanimity, madam? It’s simple enough. My gold is about to roll into the strong stone walls of a legion fortress, where it will be carried down into the chapel of the standards and placed under twenty-four hour guard …’
‘Your gold?’
He’d affected not to have heard Annia’s muttered response.
‘Apart from that, I have several centuries heading north to investigate a fresh piece of information as to the whereabouts of my legion’s missing eagle—’
Annia’s response was louder than before, and she’d leaned forward awkwardly with a questioning look.
‘You sent our men north yesterday to chase your eagle, following “unmistakable intelligence” as to the eagle’s whereabouts, as I heard it. So what news do you have now?’
Clearly taken aback at being questioned by a mere doctor’s orderly, he’d frowned at her for a moment before deciding to dignify the question with a response.
‘As it happens, madam, we have information that the lost eagle, far from residing in the Venicone fortress to the far north, may well have been sent south to dwell among the Brigantes. A sort of double bluff, if you like, hiding the thing where we are least likely to look for it. Of course the tip may be false, but I would be failing in my duty were I not to investigate the report, wouldn’t you say?’
Felicia had nodded, tapping her assistant’s ankle with her toe in warning.
‘Quite so, Tribune. I’m sure that you will be leaving no stone unturned in your search for such an emotive symbol of your legion’s pride.’
Sorex had bowed his head in recognition of her words, the predatory smile returning to his face.
‘Emotive! Just the term I would have used myself! You really are quite a lady, Doctor, both erudite and possessed of looks that would put Aphrodite to shame were a comparison ever possible. I look forward to seeing more of you!’
And with that he had spurred his horse back up the column, leaving the women staring after him in a combination of bemusement and disbelief. Annia shook her head in disgust, leaning back in the wagon’s uncomfortable bench seat.
‘Best beware that one, I’d say. I ran a whorehouse for long enough that I’ve seen thousands of men looking for sex, but only a very few with the look that one has about him. He’s a taker, and a cruel-looking bastard at that, and if you let him get you alone he’ll be buried up to his balls in you before you know it, and you without much choice in the matter I’d guess.’
Felicia had stared at the tribune’s receding back with a troubled expression.
‘Yes, I’ve seen that look before. It’s the one my first husband used to give to the women he regarded as being there solely for the purpose of conquest, once he had me safely married. As you say, I may have my work cut out to avoid the tribune’s attentions until our men return from the north.’
‘It just don’t feel right to me. It’s like going to a whorehouse without getting a few beers down your neck first.’
Spared the usual labour of throwing up a turf-walled marching camp, the Tungrians found themselves bemused at the opportunity to do nothing more than sit around their tents and talk, waiting for their rations to be prepared by those men deemed suitably skilled in the use of the big iron cook pots that each century dragged into their section of the camp from the mule carts that carried their tents.
Sanga grinned lopsidedly at the speaker, a soldier from the adjoining tent party by the name of Horta who was known to fancy himself as the big man whilst never quite finding the courage to square up to the party’s de facto leader and press his claim.
‘From what I’ve heard you’re more one for getting a few too many beers down your neck first, and then presenting your chosen lady of the evening with a length of saggy meat that’s no use to either of you!’
His mates guffawed quietly, used to his acerbic way and well-practised in giving him a taste of his own repartee if he persisted with levity at their expense, but Horta, it seemed, was less able to enter into the cut and thrust of the continuous jockeying for position that was part and parcel of life in the cohort.
‘Fuck you, Sanga, I can make any women squeal with delight!’
The men about him shook their heads in dismay, more than one of them wincing visibly. This, as they well knew, was not how the game was played. Sanga grinned at him again, his eyes slitting with calculation as he selected his response.
‘I have heard that from the ladies, to be fair.’ Heads lifted again, as the men around the pair waited for the follow up, knowing that the rough soldier was silently counting in his head as Horta nodded sagely, accepting the apparent compliment. ‘More than one of the whores we’ve both had has told me how happy she was to take your money in return for nothing worse than a peck on the cheek and a few reassuring words. So one or two of them must have squealed at the prospect of an hour off!’
The two tent parties collapsed in mirth, only Horta and his mate Sliga remaining stony faced.
‘Fuck you, Sanga!’
The veteran shook his head in bemusement, altering the tone of his voice to match that of the other soldier, albeit pitched two octaves higher.
‘“Fuck you, Sanga!” Is that it? Is that the best you can do, Sliga my old mate? No witty put down? Nothing better than “Fuck you, Sanga!”?’ He got up, brushing the grass’s damp from his tunic. ‘There’s no sport to be had here, I’m going to offer my services to Quintus for fetching water. Make sure there’s some dinner left for me if it arrives while I’m away, or I’ll be roasting a slice of one of your arses for my evening meal. You coming, Saratos, you barbarian bumboy?’
The Sarmatae got to his feet with a hard smile, flexing his biceps at the veteran soldier.
‘Yes, I come carry water for you. Can carry two bucket more than you, since you tired from fucking animals.’
Sanga nodded appreciatively.
‘There you go, Horta, that’s the way to do it. Take the insult and give it back with interest. And don’t be trying to stare me out, you pussy, not unless you want to lose that little battle as well.’ Horta blinked, and his tormentor raised his eyes to the sky in wry amusement. ‘See? Come on, Saratos. See you later, losers, we’re off to spend some time with real men.’
Felicia looked about their new quarters in the Yew Grove fortress’s vicus with an expression of relief, absent-mindedly stroking at the downy hairs on the head of the infant lolling slackly in her arms. The richly dressed woman who had led them from the gate to her house caught her stare and nodded apologetically, gesturing at the spare bedroom’s lamplit space, a pair of beds standing on a plain tiled floor, its walls simple white-washed plaster.
‘I’m sorry that I’ve nothing better to offer you. I know it’s not up to much.’
Annia spun round to face her, the movement made ponderous by her swollen belly.
‘You’re joking! We’re used to taking up residence in the fort’s medical quarters, with wounded soldiers watching our every move like hungry dogs waiting for a bone, or in a tent surrounded by a sea of iron and leather. Have you ever lived in the middle of a cohort in the field after a few days on campaign?’ The slightly built woman shook her head quickly, nervously fingering the collar of her rich wool stola that was the mark of a wealthy man’s companion, the garment somehow slightly incongruous on her elegantly spare frame. ‘You should try it, Domina, there’s nothing quite lik
e the smell of eight hundred men rank with days of dried sweat, all of them reeking of badly wiped arses and the stale cum left on their tunics from furtive nighttime wanking.’
The woman had introduced herself as Desidra at the fortress’s gate, and had seemed nervous in the presence of the tribune and his men, keen to gather the women about her and be away from under their hungry eyes, and Felicia saw the same uncertainty in her as she raised her eyebrows, clearly taken aback by Annia’s words. She took their hostess’s hand in a warm two-handed grip.
‘Ignore her, Domina, she’s just tired and grumpy from carrying that baby for the best part of nine months, not to mention a two-day cart ride from the coast with legionaries making crude gestures at her at every turn.’
Annia nodded with a hint of a smile.
‘Cheeky bastards. And me the scourge of every soldier within fifty miles of my old establishment. In my prime I only had to look at one of those mules with the merest hint of discouragement and they’d be falling over themselves to get back in my graces. If there was no smile from Annia then there’d be no pussy for him from any of my girls that night.’
The mistress of the house’s painstakingly plucked eyebrows arched again, this time more in amazement than distaste.
‘You were …’
‘Oh yes, I was the madam of a brothel in Germania, and rather a good one too. I …’
Felicia smiled wanly at their new friend, waving a hand to silence her assistant.
‘I suspect there are better ways that we might have got to know each other than swapping such revelations within a few minutes of meeting each other. But, since we’re here, perhaps I ought to explain just who we are? Or did your … husband explain that already?’
Desidra shook her head.
‘There was no opportunity. He banged on our door, told me to take care of you all and then hurried off shouting something about gold. I barely had time to get to the fortress’s main gate before your cart arrived.’
Felicia smiled.
‘In which case this must all be a little disconcerting. Perhaps we might take a seat on these highly inviting beds? I’m willing to risk the chance that either one of us might pass out from the simple joy of touching a clean sheet!’
She eased the sleeping Appius down onto the nearest bed’s softly yielding surface while Annia sat down with a sigh of pleasure, then slumped back onto her back with her pregnant belly uppermost.
‘Any time spent not carting this little monster around is a minute well spent.’
Desidra conceded the point.
‘I have never carried a child myself, and the time when that is possible may have passed me by, but I can see that you carry a heavy burden. Now, if I am to understand what you have said, you –’ she looked at Felicia with more than a hint of disbelief ‘– are a doctor? And you, madam, from your statements a moment ago, are a retired …’
She struggled for a polite way to continue the sentence, and Annia, her good temper returned with the bed’s soothing embrace, smiled serenely at the ceiling in response.
‘Prostitute, yes. Although the term we usually went under was “whore”. And, let me tell you, you’re looking at the best doctor and the best whore in the whole of this shitty, fucked-up country.’
Felicia waited in trepidation for Desidra’s response, raising an eyebrow as the older woman smiled back at Annia and replied with a hint of mischief in her voice.
‘Well you were clearly an industrious whore, my dear, to judge from your current condition!’
The Tungrian woman gaped for a moment then laughed uproariously, struggling into a sitting position.
‘You’re not quite as strait-laced as you might seem, are you?’
Desidra shrugged, the line of her jaw hardening as she raised her head defiantly.
‘I had a life before Artorius Castus plucked me from a slave market to take care of his material needs, taking pity on my emaciated frame and never for a moment seeing the woman within. My father and brothers were killed in the German Wars, and I was washed up on the empire’s border in a slave convoy, more dead than living, barely hanging on to my humanity through rape and degradation all the four months it took me to travel from my village to the marketplace. A woman doesn’t survive being enslaved in the middle of a frontier war without learning to deal with the harshest aspects of life, no matter how soft the clothes I wear now that Artorius and I have become man and woman.’ She looked about the room, shrugging at the bare plastered walls. ‘And yes, you are stuck with these somewhat disappointing surroundings, at least for the time being. Once Legatus Equitius has returned from his visit to Fortress Deva, I’m sure Artorius will ask him to take you into his residence, but until then it’ll be the five of us, a former slave, a former whore, the doctor and her infant son and … what do you call the child playing outside?’
Felicia smiled again, leaning back to look out of the room’s window to where Lupus was regaling a group of wide-eyed vicus children with a story from his adventures with the Tungrian cohort.
‘Lupus? Oh now, there’s a complex story for you, Domina, but if ever there was a child born to be raised to manhood by soldiers, Lupus is that boy. Every day he trains to kill with a German who cares for him as if he were the father the boy lost in the barbarian revolt, while he provides my husband with a replacement for the younger brother he lost to Rome’s murderers. And as for his grandfather …’
She frowned at Desidra’s sudden inattention to her words, realising that the mistress of the house’s face had suddenly turned to Annia, whose beatific expression at the bed’s comfort had abruptly vanished as she stared in horror at the wide, wet stain on the sheets beneath her.
The next day’s march north wound through a low mountain range, and the Tungrians hunched into their cloaks as curtains of misty rain advanced down the valley on a bitterly cold north wind. Trickles of water insinuated their way down necks and into socks, eventually soaking the soldiers through almost as thoroughly as a heavy deluge might have done. Wet, cold and exhausted from a third day marching at the double pace for much of the time, the cohort marched wearily across the bridge over the Wet River and found themselves facing the ruins of the fort that had for a time guarded the crossing.
‘Silus!’
The grizzled decurion rode up the column at Julius’s call, the riders of his squadron following in a long string, their progress punctuated by the barrage of insults and crude humour that was their customary accompaniment. Silus reined his horse in and jumped down to salute the first spear.
‘You want me to go and find you a marching camp?’
Julius nodded, glancing round at their grim surroundings and pointing at the shattered ruins of the Wet River fort on the hillside to their north like a set of broken teeth.
‘Well I’m not going anywhere near that. Not only will it be of absolutely no value defensively, but it’ll scare the living shit out of the weaker sisters among the men. Besides which, before we know it we’ll have Morban taking bets with the more easily led among us that the souls of dead soldiers are roaming the ruins and then paying someone to wander about groaning and rattling their mail once the sun’s down.’
The horsemen quickly located the site of an old marching camp, the once proud turf walls sunken and gapped by decades of neglect, but the Tungrians set to with the urgency of men keen to be done with labour for the day and soon had it patched up to the first spear’s satisfaction. Julius toured the four-foot-high enclosure in the day’s last fading light and nodded his satisfaction to his officers.
‘Very good. Construction teams dismissed, and we’ll have double guards tonight this far north, supposedly friendly territory or not. And if you want a little ray of sunshine for your men, you can tell them that today was the last day we’ll need to march quite that hard. Tomorrow morning we’ll be approaching the eastern end of the wall and I think a gentler pace might be a wise way to approach, given how jumpy we’re likely to find the occupying forces.’
An
nia lay asleep on the wider of the guest room’s two beds, her new-born daughter dozing contentedly in the crook of her arm after her second feed of the evening. The room was lit by a pair of oil lamps either side of the bed, and in their pale golden light Felicia and Desidra stood and watched fondly as the baby’s tiny hands clenched and unclenched in her sleep.
‘Your friend may have a hard face for the world, but she melted quickly enough once that tiny life was placed in her arms.’
Felicia nodded at the whispered comment, recalling the moment she’d held Appius for the first time.
‘She wears the face that life thrust upon her when circumstances forced her to offer her body to an unending succession of men for whom she felt no emotion other than loathing. But when you scratch the surface of that hard mask you find all the same vulnerabilities and hopes that the rest of us entertain.’
Castus’s woman was silent for a moment, staring down at mother and child with an expression of longing.
‘I must confess myself more affected by the presence of this baby than I thought would be the case …’
Felicia nodded.
‘It’s a common reaction among the childless. Before I had my son I only had to see a child under five to desperately want to become a mother.’
‘And now?’
‘And now, Domina, whenever I see a baby I see years of dirty napkins to boil clean, food to mash and sleepless nights.’
The older woman looked up at her with a disbelieving smile.
‘I realise that the nature of your calling compels you to seek to lighten my mood, and I thank you for trying, Doctor, but we both know that you worship that little man just as much as you love his father. And doubtless I would love my child no less, were Artorius and I to succeed in conceiving.’
‘Your husband entertains hopes of a child?’
The Eagle's Vengeance Page 10
