Hadrian's wall

by William Dietrich

  "The battle, but not the war. The Wall has been broken in other places, and each hour brings a worse dispatch. The duke is missing. It's not just the Picts and Attacotti. The Scotti, the Franks, and the Saxons are also attacking. My mistress is fleeing to Eburacum. Maybe Londinium."

  "That defeat is what I'm here to prevent! Lady Valeria is in peril, as is the fort and everyone in it! I need to talk to Falco about Galba!"

  "He's no time for Galba anymore, no more than Galba had time for his praefectus," Galen spat. "My master is tired of treachery. We've become a divided and dispirited command, each officer looking to himself. If the Celts come again, my master won't guarantee the outcome."

  "That's what I need to talk to Falco about! That, and Roman justice!"

  "Justice?" He laughed. "Where do you find that these days?"

  "It's about a murder. The murder of his slave, Odo."

  "Odo? That's an old matter, long buried." But Galen was curious.

  "No, he was exhumed by the druids and spirited north of the Wall. When they carried him, he spoke a final time, naming his murderer. The killer wasn't young Clodius, as everyone believes."

  "What are you saying?"

  "That the Petriana is falling under the control of a man not just ruthless, but a criminal. Your own master is just. Let me explain to him."

  They found the centurion in his office, instructing the foreman to drive the cattle into the nearby woods. An anxious Lucinda was bustling from room to room, issuing instructions like a general.

  "What's this?" Falco said to Galen in annoyance.

  "This slave has urgent news about Odo."

  "Urgent? All Britannia is under assault. Odo and his killer are long dead."

  "That's where you're wrong, centurion," Savia spoke up. "I've come because you're the last chance for my mistress. You remember the handle of the knife that killed your slave-"

  "From my own dinnerware, which tribune Clodius was using."

  "As was every other dinner guest, including Galba."

  "You're accusing our new commander? Odo and Galba had no quarrel."

  "He murdered Odo to cast doubt on Clodius. To provoke the attack on the grove. To maneuver lady Valeria to a place where she might be captured-"

  "That's absurd!"

  "The senior tribune dishonored you by misleading you, centurion."

  Falco was impatient. "I've no love for Galba Brassidias, but you have no proof."

  "Unless a dead man talks."

  "What?"

  "Did you know the Celts exhumed Odo's body?"

  "There was report of this."

  "They carried it north for return to the Scotti. A druid named Kalin oversaw this, and in the north, I met him. Now he's a prisoner, so I went to him and was reminded of a very strange thing. It seems that when they bathed and prepared the body of poor Odo and tried to place a coin in his mouth, something was already there."

  "What thing?"

  She held up a warrior's ring, heavy gold with red stone. "Do you recognize it?"

  Falco looked puzzled. "The foray in support of old Cato. Galba took that ring from a Scotti chieftain he killed. It was the fight where Odo was captured."

  "If you count the rings on Galba's lorica of chain mail, you'll find one missing."

  "So?"

  "Odo must have seized it as he died."

  "He clutched Galba's belt?"

  "The rings spilled like coins. In the dark and haste of having to prepare for the wedding processional, Galba couldn't find one. Instead, the druid Kalin eventually did, in the victim's mouth. The slave named his killer."

  Falco was grim. "So Galba lied to all of us about poor young Clodius." He sighed. "Well, what of it in this catastrophe? What's one more victim?" He began to turn away. "Galba's in command now. If I challenge him, he'll simply have me arrested, or worse, put in battle to be killed. There's nothing to do except try to save what I can."

  "But there's something you can do, centurion. Something before Galba weds the widow of your dead commander, Marcus Flavius."

  "Weds Valeria!"

  "Something before he creates a new tyranny over the wall that your family has defended for generations. Something before he betrays more armies, as he surely will do. Something before you and the last of the Petriana are sacrificed to his ambition."

  "What, slave woman?"

  "Help me free Arden Caratacus. And let him seek Roman justice for you."

  XL

  The wedding of Galba Brassidias, senior tribune of Rome and de facto commander of the Petriana cavalry-soldier of the empire, winner of thirteen battles, killer of every man who'd ever opposed him, man of the border-and the lady Valeria, widow of the praefectus Marcus Flavius and daughter of Rome, was to be neither a formal nor a leisurely affair. A wounded but still-dangerous barbarian army was camped somewhere in the forest beyond the Wall. Signal flags warned of continuing assaults, feints, and partial breakthroughs elsewhere along the barrier's eighty-mile length. The north was in full revolt, and all Britannia was threatened. Galba had triumphed, but his orders for transfer to the Continent still stood. Both the imperial succession and the barbarian war were far from decided. His garrison was drastically depleted. The future could change in a moment. He wanted to triumph over his last opponent now, during that predawn quiet that marked the exhaustion of his garrison. He wanted to vanquish the woman by marrying her, thus tying her fate to his. He wanted the political protection she represented.

  "Pin the rag, and let's begin," he muttered. "Where's that fat maid to help?"

  Valeria was sullenly arranging the same wedding dress she'd worn to marry Marcus only half a year before. Galba had insisted she put it on.

  "I don't think she wants to witness this."

  "She doesn't approve?"

  "She hasn't approved of me for a long time."

  He grinned. "That, at least, we have in common."

  Galba had ordered the rousing of Sextus, the soldier who'd married Valeria the first time. He liked symmetry in his conquests. The man appeared sleepy, sore, and confused, having received a sword cut over one eye in the recent fighting. The entire side of his head was purple and black, and the blow had left him befuddled.

  "I want you to marry again, Sextus," Galba instructed brusquely. "Marry the lady Valeria and me."

  Sextus blinked. "But the lady is already married."

  "Her husband is dead, dolt."

  "Oh. Yes." He tilted his head as if to clear it. "When will the ceremony occur?"

  "Now, you dull-headed shit! Now! There's a war on!"

  "Now? With a war?"

  "Yes, now." It was a growl.

  "Here? In this house?" They were in the dining triclinium of the commander's house, Valeria standing stiff and pale and Galba wearing grubby chain mail over a simple woolen tunic, ready for quick battle should another assault come. His belt of rings once more numbered forty, the last in the chain the wedding ring his dead commander had given his new bride. The slave Marta had been pressed into service as witness, the tribune taking perverse pleasure in forcing the wench into the role. It was near dawn, a cock crowing from the village outside the fortress walls, oil lamps providing a dim, smoky illumination. There was no feast, no decoration, and no other guests. Just the mural of Roman triumph over Celtic chariots, which Galba had once more uncovered by ripping Valeria's tapestry down. He liked the cruel triumph the mural represented.

  "Yes, here, unless you care to object."

  "Here would be good," Sextus agreed, finally recognizing the impatience of his commander. He fingered the wound on his brow. "It's a splendid time for a wedding."

  "Just get on with it."

  Sextus glanced around as if for guidance. "Which gods shall we use?"

  "The good god Dagda," Valeria suddenly spoke up. "The god of the wood."

  The soldier blinked in confusion.

  "A Roman god, you fool," Galba corrected. "No blasphemy, and nothing to challenge the union later. Jupiter. Jupiter and cake. Isn't
that a Roman custom? Marta, do we have some cake?"

  "Not really, lord."

  "Then use Mars, the god of war."

  "A wedding is not war, tribune," Sextus ventured.

  "This one is."

  Marta was dispatched to fetch a figurine of Mars from Galba's old quarters. Sextus took a wax tablet and scratched the outline of a blessing so he'd not stumble under his commander's stare.

  While they waited, the groom leaned toward his bride. "I've decided I'm going to have you after all," he told her hoarsely. "Take you until you bear me a son and thus consummate our marriage."

  "I'll neither take nor give any pleasure from it."

  "Nor will I. After you start fattening with child, I'm going to put you aside for the rest of your life. If any other man so much as touches you, I'll kill you both."

  She closed her eyes. "What will become of Arden?"

  "He'll live, but finish his days as a slave."

  "If you don't keep your word to spare him, then I'll kill you."

  He smiled. "I don't doubt you would, given the chance. But I never give anyone the chance."

  Marta brought the small clay figure of the god Mars back and Sextus set it in an alcove of the wall alongside a candle. "Galba's god," the soldier observed.

  "The sword spatha," Valeria corrected, remembering the senior tribune's comment on that day in Londinium so many months ago.

  "What?"

  "He told us he worshiped the sword."

  "Enough! Enough! Begin!"

  Sextus turned to them. "Take her hand, please."

  She refused to give it.

  "Don't hesitate, Sextus!"

  "But why does she withhold her hand?"

  Galba grabbed her arm and jerked it to him. "Begin!"

  The soldier took a breath. "Very well. I call on Mars to witness-"

  He got no further. Suddenly something large and heavy sailed through the doorway and hit the central dining table with a bang, making everyone jump. It skidded to a stop, gleaming dully.

  "Look," Sextus said in wonder. "Galba's god."

  It was Galba's unsheathed cavalry sword, recognizable to everyone by its white hilt and gold pommel and edge nicked in the recent fighting. In respect and custom to his own wedding, he'd left it sheathed and hanging on a peg in the entryway. Yet here it was, thrown as if in challenge.

  The centurion Falco stepped after it. He had his own sword and armor on.

  The wedding party had frozen.

  "What's this, Falco?" Galba growled, uncharacteristically taken aback by this intrusion. "Can't you see I'm getting married?"

  "You might need your sword, tribune. Arden Caratacus has escaped."

  Valeria gasped and jerked her hand away from Galba.

  "Escaped? When?"

  "Just now. He's in the entry hall at this very moment, waiting to kill you."

  "What! How did he get here?"

  "I let him."

  Galba, slowly understanding, darkened like a cloud. "So you've betrayed me, Falco."

  "It's you who are the traitor, Galba Brassidias, you who let a unit of the Petriana perish outside the Wall and your commander with it. You who conspired to abduct his wife. You who murdered my slave Odo and blamed it on another soldier, setting into motion his death as well. If Caratacus doesn't kill you, I just might."

  "Are you insane? It was the stripling clown who killed Odo, not me!"

  "Then why, Galba, did my property have this secreted in his mouth?"

  Falco tossed again, this time an object tiny and bright. It too hit the table and bounced, finally skittering to a stop. It was a ring of heavy gold bearing a red stone.

  The tribune blinked in surprise, recognizing his own tactic for betraying Valeria.

  "I remember you with this trophy on a bloody finger after we ambushed the Scotti for Cato Cunedda," Falco said. "What I can't remember is seeing it since the wedding. Why did the dead Odo have it, and why is it missing from your belt?"

  Galba involuntarily glanced down, and as he did so, Valeria and Sextus stepped away from him. Suddenly he seemed very much alone.

  "He pulled it from your waist, didn't he? He named you from the grave."

  "By the gods, I'll slay you too," Galba slowly muttered. "You'll beg not to have me as an enemy. I'll spit on your corpse and possess this bitch anyway!"

  "No, Galba," Valeria calmly told him. "If you kill Arden and Falco, then I'll kill myself."

  And even as they turned to the entrance hall that Falco had come from, looking for Caratacus, Marta took the back way and darted from the house to give alarm.

  Arden was waiting for Galba in the broad entry. He was as still as a statue, resting on the long sword of the Celts. It made Valeria remember that awful moment by the spring of Bormo when young Clodius had charged to save her and been slain by this man she now knew she desperately loved. She could hardly breathe.

  Could Arden win? Galba Brassidias was no Clodius. He'd never been beaten in battle. Never been bested by the sword. The Thracian walked in with unsheathed spatha and without fear, his forearms roped with muscle, his eyes dark and wary, his torso erect, his manner deliberate. Would he kill the Celt as easily as he'd killed everyone else?

  Arden, by contrast, looked dirty and tired, dressed in the ragged tunic left to him after capture. The chieftain's ankles and wrists had the chafe marks of chains, his body was scratched, and his hair was a tangled mane. What remained bright were his sword and the bold blue eyes that regarded Galba with icy malevolence. It was different from any look that Valeria had seen in the Celt, even in previous combat. It was a look not just of hatred, but of final judgment. Involuntarily, she shivered.

  "So you crawled from the pit, Britlet," Galba growled.

  "Falco ordered me out under pretext of interrogation." Arden glanced just a moment at Valeria, his eyes softening, and a lifetime of explanation flashed between them. Then his cold focus was once more on his opponent.

  Galba snorted. "If you'd let me marry your bitch, I'd have let you live, Caratacus, and maybe even made you a petty king. I've always been your best chance."

  "What a habitual liar you've become."

  "I told you I'd let you through the gate! I just didn't tell you what you'd find on the other side." Galba grinned. "I played with your dreams of independence, Britlet. But I gave you those dreams, as well."

  "I've realized I can't even fully kill you, Galba. You're already half-dead, rotting from the inside out. Your self-pity lives on, but whatever heart you had died long ago."

  "But I can kill you, barbarian. And I will!"

  Galba sprang, and their blades clashed in the entry chamber's dimness, sparks flying as the metal rang. Their arms bulged, pushing and testing each other's strength, and then they repelled with a grunt, leaping apart, each armed with some knowledge of his opponent's power. They circled warily, looking for weaknesses or mistakes.

  "You didn't even dress for your wedding," Arden said, his feet light on the boards of the room. "You look as though you feared she'd stab you."

  Galba's circle was smaller and more solid, his guard high. "Maybe instinct told me to dress for war. Better instinct than you."

  Galba charged, his spatha flicking back and forth in a blur, and before Arden could fully knock it away, the sword found fabric and ripped, cutting a slash on the Briton's chest. Valeria screamed and wished she hadn't.

  The barbarian danced back, Galba tracking him. "Poor armor, boy!" It hung on Arden with a bloody fold.

  "Then I'll fight in the armor of my ancestors. I'll fight with the shield of the gods and the oak." With his free hand he gripped the tunic and wrenched until it ripped and fell away, leaving him naked. "This is how my people first went into battle against the Romans, murderer, and this is how we'll fight the last battle as well." His body was lean and sculpted and his act both challenge and insult, a tactic as old as the Greeks of Olympia and the Gauls who'd charged Caesar.

  Galba smirked. "Then you'll leave the world as naked as y
ou came into it!"

  The tribune lunged again, missing, and Arden took the moment's space to utter a high, wavering cry that echoed in the room, an eerie reminder of earlier times and older gods. "Daggggggdaaaaaa!" Then he lifted his tall sword and closed with his opponent in earnest, both hands on his weapon now as it beat furiously toward Galba, the churning of their blades so swift that it made a subtle wind Valeria felt on her cheek. She could feel the sweat of the antagonists, the room hot and close. The suspense was suffocating. She longed for a weapon if Galba triumphed, to kill him or herself.

  The swords danced and clanged like flashing beams of light, stroke and counterstroke so quick it couldn't be followed, like the beat of raptor wings. Both men were grunting, taking harsh breath.

  The cavalry officer was trying to get under Arden's guard as the barbarian had gotten under Clodius's, but the ferocity of the Celt's attack wouldn't let him. The barbarian sword was longer and heavier, designed to cleave a man in two, and the pounding of its weight was twisting the tribune's wrists. Galba's sword was chipping under the pounding, bits from its edge flying like fire. The tribune was snarling and backing, beginning to pant, sweat beading as he realized this wouldn't be the easy kill he was accustomed to.

  "You're carrying your murders on your back," Arden taunted him. "You're wheezing like a crone."

  Galba began to give ground in a circle. In response the chieftain shifted his relentless assault to the other side, so Galba had to back the other way. Then Arden reversed again, and then again. Thus the tribune found himself being forced into a corner, hemmed by the ceaseless rain of blows.

  "Damn you!"

  Arden's attack seemed as tireless as it was relentless. Valeria remembered the Roman probatio exhausting himself against the post in the training courtyard and wondered if that would happen here. Yet there was no slowing, no respite, and no opportunity for Galba to duck in and under. Instead the Thracian was being pounded downward, shrinking under the barrage of steel, his spatha darting near Arden's flesh but never striking as it was parried.

  Caratacus, Galba realized with incredulous dread, was the stronger. "You're going to tire, scumlet!" he gasped, as if the threat might make it true. Yet the opposite was occurring.