I thought I was back at the mines.
No. Another world. I had left the mines, though they will never quite leave me.
I was lying on a high, hard bed in a small square room at a legionary hospital. Unhurried footsteps sometimes paced the long corridor round the courtyard at the back of their administration block. I recognized the evil reek of antiseptic turpentine. I felt the reassuring pressure of neat, firm bandaging. I was warm. I was clean. I was resting in tranquillity in a quiet, caring place.
Yet I was terrified.
What had woken me was a trumpet on the ramparts, sounding the night watch. A fort, I could cope with a fort. I heard the spiteful squawk of sea gulls. Must be Glevum. Glevum stood on the Estuary. She had done it then. For hours now I had been asleep in the Second Augusta’s big new headquarters base. The Second. I belonged to them; I was home.
I wanted to cry.
“Thinks he’s back on army service,” said the dryly amused voice of the procurator Flavius.
I never saw him. I was a felled log surging through warm barley soup, though my legs and arms could hardly thrash against the bumbling grains; they had filled me with poppyjuice to kill the pain.
“Marcus, rest now, I’ve had your report from Vitalis; I’ve been able to act on it already. Well done!”
Gaius, my friend; my friend, who sent me there…
I struggled abruptly; someone else gripped my arm. “Hush! It’s over; you’re quite safe.”
Helena, his niece, my enemy. My enemy, who came and fetched me back…
“Lie still, Falco; don’t make such a fuss…”
The dependable vindictiveness of Helena’s voice swung with me through delirium. To a freed slave, tyranny can be oddly comforting.