“And now they hide behind their Great Wall,” her father continued. “Because they are afraid of us.”
“And so they should be!” agreed Dubnus, raising the beer jug as if he expected an invisible war band to burst into cheering around him.
Brigius beckoned for the jug and didn’t bother to reply. Whatever anyone said, Rome had played the Maeatae leaders for fools: bribed them for a few years of peace, built a better wall to defend the border, then sailed up the coast to batter the Caledonii while the Maeatae in between sat on their tainted gold and did nothing.
The cousin, Senna noticed, was still busying herself somewhere else in the house, out of sight. She would be able to hear her man’s annoying voice through the wicker screens, but at least—unlike Senna—she wouldn’t be tempted to poke him in the eye.
“So,” put in her father, “it’s not true that you’re fighting amongst yourselves?”
“Just a friendly scuffle,” Brigius told him. “Like the sort I’d have with Dubnus here.”
Dubnus looked at him for a moment, then muttered something and reached forward to ram the poker into the fire.
Her father said, “Is there any more beer in that jug?”
Senna refilled his cup, then reached for a lamp. “I’ll go and check on the boy.”
Atto was curled up behind the wicker partition with the other children. In the uncertain light she could just see the top of his head above the blankets: untidy brown curls just like his father’s.
A child of the Maeatae, like her.
A child of the Votadini also, although they hardly ever saw his father’s tribe.
By blood, a Briton.
Yet his father had sworn loyalty to Rome, so did that make him a Roman too? And did it matter?
It mattered to emperors. It mattered to fools like Dubnus.
Totia’s soft voice from the shadows made her jump. “Take no notice of him, cousin. It’s just the beer talking.”
“He should be more careful,” Senna whispered. “You never know who’s listening.”
“But you are family! Surely—”
“It’s difficult for Brigius if people say such things. And for me.”
Totia sniffed. “Things are not easy for us here, cousin. It was a poor harvest and a hungry winter. People died.”
“We sent what we could,” Senna told her. And felt guilty that our boy was well fed when we knew others were not.
“It’s all right for you, down there in Vindolanda with your shops and your bakeries and your man in the fort with all that food stored up.”
“It is different,” Senna agreed. She wanted to say, You try living in a cramped room off a stable yard, miles away from your family. You try living with a man who has sworn his life to an emperor who doesn’t trust my people. But to speak these things aloud would be a waste of breath. She had made her choice: she would not complain about it.
The cousin’s wife was saying something about grain stores. “Is it true, cousin? So many?”
“Grain stores?”
“At the mouth of the river in the east. People are saying there are at least ten already and more being built, and every one big enough to hold food for five hundred people for a year.”
“Perhaps. Why do you ask?”
“They’re saying the emperor plans to steal our harvest and send it to Rome. All of it! And then what will we do? Nobody—well, some people want war, but not everybody. Lots of us just want to mind our own business, but if they take our food—”
Senna frowned. “I don’t think they’d do that.”
“Then what are the stores for?”
“I wouldn’t worry,” Senna told her. “The soldiers often build things that make no sense. Like all those round houses squashed in at Vindolanda. Brigius says it gives them something to do.”
“We heard about the houses. I thought they might be for the soldier’s families like you.”
“I doubt it,” said Senna, wishing she had not mentioned them, because the other rumour was that they were to house friendly locals in safety while Rome showed the Maeatae what they really thought of being asked to pay tribute. Thank the gods that had not happened. So far. “But then they turned out to be for the cavalry,” she said brightly. “I don’t think the emperor will want to steal everyone’s crops. I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
“Anyway, Dubnus says the emperor is away in the south and too ill to lead his men.”
“Yes.” Senna giggled. “If we were at Vindolanda we would be telling each other very loudly how we pray daily for his health.”
Totia placed her hand on Senna’s arm. “I thank you, cousin. Dubnus hears lots of things but I never know whether they are true or not.”
“It is true,” Senna promised her. She had always liked her cousin, even if she had terrible taste in men. Why deny her some peace of mind? It was indeed true that the emperor who had led the vicious attacks on the Caledonii was old and in poor health. But what was it that the Numidian officer had said?
Wait till our prince gets here.
The emperor had two sons desperate to take over from him, and the older one was reputed to be even more cruel than his father.
By the time they had said goodbye to everyone the next morning, the sun was higher than they’d hoped. As they stood under the porch and squinted out into the brightness of the day, Senna heard her father say, “You know what your problem is down at that fort, boy?”
Before she could beg him not to start again, he continued, “Not enough hens,”
Brigius glanced at the scatter of poultry pecking round the farmyard. “Hens?”
“Hens,” her father repeated. “If that governor of yours had any sense he’d do something about it. See, you can keep a group of cockerels together without any hens. Or you can keep them together inside a big flock. But you can’t keep cockerels together with not enough hens to go round. That’s when the fighting starts.”
Brigius grinned. “True.”
Then her father slapped him on the shoulder and said, “You look after my girl and my grandson,” and hobbled back into the house, and it struck her for the first time that he didn’t want to watch them walk away.
CHAPTER 3
“Was Da right about the fighting?” Senna asked as they picked their way up through the woods above the fast-flowing burn. “Too few hens?”
Brigius paused to adjust his hold of Atto, who had announced that he was too tired to walk barely ten paces beyond the farm gate. “Perhaps.”
“You are lucky you have me.”
“I am,” he agreed.
“So if there were more women—”
He said, “There’d still be beer, and gambling, and debts, and vegetables, and somebody looking at somebody else the wrong way.”
She stepped over a fallen branch and turned to wait for him. “Vegetables?”
“Some of our lads—hold tight.” This last was said to the boy, who tightened his grip around his father’s neck as they passed over the branch. “Some of our lads planted cabbages on the slope of the new ramparts, and—”
“I don’t like cabbages,” put in Atto.
“Soldiers eat them to grow strong,” his father told him. “Cabbage is good for you.”
“They’re growing them inside the fort?” Senna asked, counting the steps to each breath now as the hill grew steeper.
“Why not? It’s good soil, it’s sheltered, it catches the sun.”
“I suppose so.”
“The Numidians said they were acting like slaves.”
As they walked on Senna wondered if the Numidians had a point. Soldiers were paid to fight and march and build things. Not to tend vegetable plots. No wonder the cavalry thought the Second had gone soft.
Moments later they were out of the woods and looking along the steep valley above the burn. She said, “Atto, you can walk now.”
Brigius said, “He’s fine.”
“He can walk,” she insisted, glancing at the long drop below the
narrow path that clung to the steep hillside ahead of them. She would never have suggested going through the Valley of the Stag Spirits if they had not been late setting off. “If you were to slip—”
He swung the boy down between them. “Single file, men. Hands on shoulders.”
When the boy said he didn’t need to hold on, Brigius crouched beside him and pointed. “See down there? One slip and you could roll over and over and bang your head on the rocks all the way down. Hold onto my belt.”
Wanting to push away thoughts of the boy falling, Senna said, “I am worried about my cousin and Dubnus.”
Brigius glanced over his shoulder. “Someone’s going to give him a smack on the nose one day.”
“Not that. He is listening to foolish talk, and Totia is frightened.”
“Tell her he’s all wind and piss.”
“She knows,” Senna told him. “But he has never spoken like that before. Boasting about our warriors defeating the cavalry.”
When he didn’t answer she said, “I should have told him what Thea said.”
“What did she say?”
“Some of the cavalrymen came into the stables and asked her brother to show them his best horse. And when he brought out the bay mare he bought from my people, they laughed. And he put her away again and did not say a word. I was there, watching from behind the door.”
“So?”
“You know how proud he is of that mare. And you know how he argues. But he was too scared to talk back to them. And when I told her about it, Thea said even her own people in Africa are afraid of the Numidian cavalry.”
Brigius said, “I doubt Dubnus would know where Africa is.”
Senna sighed. He was right, of course. Why would Dubnus care what a stable-keeper thought? Especially one who had come here from far away. Most of her family had only the vaguest idea of what lay beyond the sea or the Great Wall. In fact, now she thought about it—
“Pa?” said Atto.
“What?”
“Where is Africa?”
“Ask your mother,” said Brigius.
“Across the sea,” she told him. “Near Numidia.”
“Where’s Nu—”
“Much too far to walk. Watch where you’re going.”
She saved the next part of her question until they were up on the moor, where the small boy with the big ears could be allowed to run ahead with only, “Stay on the path! Don’t fall into the bog!” to control him. So he was safely out of earshot when she said, “Totia asked me something strange. About grain stores at the river mouth. And what they are there for.”
“I expect,” he said, “The grain stores are there for storing grain.”
“But so many!”
When she explained about emperor stealing the harvest and having it shipped off to Rome, he said, “Hm,” as if he didn’t think much of the idea. “Has she thought that the emperor might be bringing food in, instead of taking it away in taxes?”
No, Totia had not thought of that. Neither had Senna, but it was not a great comfort when she did. Who was the emperor planning to feed? Not the hungry Maeatae, for certain. The grain would be bread for the soldiers. So if the rumour about the new stores was really true, even though the Caledonii had been beaten back to the far corners of their mountainous lands and admitted defeat, the soldiers weren’t leaving after all.
She said, “What do you think that officer meant when he said, ‘Wait till our prince gets here?’”
He glanced across at her. “I don’t know.”
“If the emperor is ill, will he put his son in charge?”
Even here, up on the open moorland with nobody but the skylarks to eavesdrop, she did not dare to ask And what will happen when the emperor dies?
Brigius’s reply was barely above a murmur. “I doubt he’ll let Caracalla loose. He didn’t trust either of the sons enough to leave them in Rome when he came over here.”
“I know, but—”
“There’s a very strong rumour that Caracalla tried to murder him while they were up in Caledonia. In front of witnesses.”
“No! Is this Caracalla a fool?”
“Perhaps his father’s the fool for forgiving him.” He looked up. “Atto, not too far ahead! Atto!”
The boy stopped, turned round and waved. Senna said, “He’ll wear himself out.”
“I’ll carry him,” he said, and she knew he would. She had done well when she chose this man.
CHAPTER 4
By the time they tramped into Vindolanda the sun was low in the sky and Atto had been asleep on his father’s back for several miles. They were tired and hungry and the boy would want food when he woke. So Senna picked up the big bowl and a cloth and left Brigius cleaning his boots for the morning while she went out out to buy hot food.
For some reason the streets were filled with cavalrymen, but they showed no interest in her when she slipped by. The crowd grew denser as she approached the main street. She pushed her way to the front just as a blare of trumpets and the clop of hooves on stone warned her there was someone important approaching.
She looked up the street to see a squad of Numidian cavalry with shields and spears, astride the fine horses that were trained to need neither reins nor bridle. Behind them, some sort of procession was wending its way down towards the fort. Ahead of them, the gates were open and men of the Second were lining the route. Senna was amongst the ordinary people gathered at the roadside to gawp and cheer.
“Stand back!”
She could see banners now. Ranks of guards wearing polished armour. A man on a white horse.
“Stand back! Make way for the noble—” But Senna was across the road and down an alleyway before the guards could stop her, because a procession could block the road for ages, and she had a hungry family waiting for dinner.
When she came came back a few moments later the bowl of stew was warming her hands through the cloth, and to her annoyance the procession had ground to a halt. The cheering had died away and the crowd was oddly quiet, but there was some sort of commotion going on at the front. She tried to cross the street and a guard ordered her to keep back.
“Please sir, I have to get home.”
He ignored her, craning to see what was going on himself.
Someone said, “It’s an accident.”
The hot bowl was burning her hands. She lowered it to the ground to adjust the cloth, then tried to edge along the street in search of a place to cross. She heard someone say, “It’s a kid,” and someone else say, “He just ran into the road!” and she muttered a prayer for the child and his mother and was glad that Atto was safely at home with Brigius.
And then she got nearer to the front and somebody clutched her arm and said, “Oh, Senna! I am so sorry!”
The pot fell from her hands and smashed on the ground. She was half-aware of something hot splashing on her feet and then she was pounding on the backs of the guards and crying, “Let me through!”
The little body lay crumpled on the stones. There was blood in the brown curls. One pale leg was horribly twisted. Senna fell to her knees beside him, shaking all over. “Oh, my baby!” She closed her eyes, but when she opened them again he was still lying there. She bent over him, shielding him as she should have been shielding him just now, instead of running off because she was hungry.
Somewhere above her, strangers were talking about him. “He just ran under the horse. Didn’t stop to look.”
“Shouldn’t have been out on his own.”
“He wasn’t!” she cried. Except he was. Where was Brigius?
“Oh, Atto!” she whispered, resting her face against his.
Then a sudden, shuddering intake of breath. He opened his eyes.
“Atto!” She wanted to laugh and cry at the same time.
He whispered, “Mam?”
“I’m here,” she promised in the language of her childhood. “Don’t be frightened. Everything will be all right.” She did not dare to look more closely at the twisted leg. “You
r Da will ask the medicus from the fort and he’ll make you better.”
But where was Brigius?
At first she took no notice of the shouting, but then the words came clear. The Numidian officer she had first seen at the bar was standing over her, demanding that she clear the road.
She looked up. “He’s hurt!”
“By order of our prince, noble son and representative of his imperial majesty Lucius Septimius Severus, this road is to be cleared.”
“You can’t move him, he’s hurt!”
Around her, other voices were raised in protest. “Leave her be! Wait for the medicus!”
“It’s a little kid, sir, have a heart!”
And then everyone stopped because there was a shout of, “Make way for the prince!”
Suddenly Senna and her boy were alone in the middle of the road.
The heavy brows of the dark, bearded young man who sauntered forward were knotted together in a scowl. Senna averted her eyes. She held her breath as the man they called Caracalla, eldest son of the emperor, seemed to stand above them for a long time. Then he walked around to the other side of Atto and she heard a creak of leather as he crouched down. It was as if he was trying to work out how this obstacle had got into his path, and what he should do about it.
Atto begin to whimper, and she stroked his hand. The man got to his feet. “If this child had known me,” he announced, “he would have known better than to get in my way.”
There were gasps from the crowd.
Senna shifted so she was on her knees, and bowed her head. Holy gods: what did you call an emperor? What if she got it wrong? “Please, Caesar sir—”
“You are?”
“I’m his mother, your majesty.”
“You should have taken better care of him.”
She nodded. She dared not speak again. But around her she could heard rising murmurs in the crowd of “Shame!” and “Show mercy!”
And then the scrape of hobnails on stone as more guards stepped forward.
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