Even undermanned, the First Cohort was a double and numbered more than seven hundred men, a sea of steel and scarlet coming up the valley, inexorable as fire in grass. The village had ample warning of their coming.
Faustus ordered helmets on and shields up, but no one approached. He was praying desperately that the inhabitants had fled again when he saw the village headman waiting for them in the gateway where they had laid a corpse five days ago. The man was well into middle age, hair and mustache gone gray, and he leaned on a staff. He must have known why they were coming but he stood stubbornly at the gate and waited for Faustus to come to him.
Faustus leaned down from Arion’s back. He wore his short sword on one side, a long cavalry sword on the other. His shield hung from the saddle ready to hand. The helmet’s rim shadowed his face, cutting a dark bar across cheeks and nose. “Take your people out of here. I will give you one hour.”
The gray-haired man glared up at him. “This is our home. We had nothing to do with that.” He pointed to what looked like a fresh grave outside the fence. A cairn of stones sat messily atop it, not a tribute but only a jumble of rock to keep the wolves away.
“You gave over your village to let them hide,” Faustus said.
The headman’s mouth tightened. “We had no choice. When the lords come with orders, we obey or suffer for it.”
“What lords?”
The headman shrugged. “I did not know them.”
“Don’t lie to me!” Faustus snapped.
The headman’s mouth tightened. “Men of the king’s most likely. Men with good horses and weapons, and threats to burn us out if we did not let them in. I did not ask their names.”
Faustus knew he was unlikely to pry more from him. “And so you gave over to them while they attacked a Roman patrol against the treaty. What did you think would happen for that?”
“That the Romans would come for us when they had beaten off the lord’s men,” the man said. “And thus, we hid until both took their wounded and left.”
“And you were thinking we would not return?”
“We hoped you might think the village abandoned,” the man said wearily now, anger overlaid with despair. “It is no easy thing when our lords battle yours and we are caught between.”
“All the same,” Faustus said, “I have my orders.” He could see people gathered in a crowd behind the headman, women with babies on their hips, a small girl leading a goat on a rope. He thought of them picking through the devastation he was going to leave, and thought also of Blaesus, who was to have been married in the winter. He said, “You have an hour to get your people out, and what you can take with you.”
“Where will they go?” Septimus asked as they watched the women and children streaming through the gate, driving cattle and a flock of sheep ahead of them.
“To other villages likely,” Faustus said. Other villages that were already stretched thin with winter coming.
The headman boosted a woman that Faustus thought must be his wife into a chariot and set two children up behind her. She took the reins. “Go with her, you damned fool,” he muttered.
“Will their men stay to fight us?” Septimus asked unhappily.
“You like to fight,” Faustus reminded him.
“Not like this. Still, I suppose we can’t expect them to just give over. I wouldn’t, anyway.” He fiddled with the latch that buckled his shield to his saddle, loosening it.
“Pericles said that was the problem with ruling an empire,” Faustus said.
“Old Greek, wasn’t he?” Septimus checked the spear lashed to his saddle on the other side. “What problem?”
“You can’t let go of it once you’ve taken it.”
“I hadn’t thought of it like that,” Septimus said.
“I expect the emperor has.”
“I wouldn’t be emperor for anything. Life expectancy seems a bit better in the legions, if you ask me.”
Faustus gave a bark of laughter. He sobered again as they watched the evacuees crowding the gate. There were no men among them. “They’re going to fight us,” he said morosely.
“I wouldn’t even be legate, if it comes to that,” Septimus said. “And give orders like this one.”
Faustus looked at the sun. Their time was up. No more people spilled through the gate and the village had gone as silent as if it were truly deserted. “Just remember Blaesus,” he said. “It will help if you keep your mind on him.”
The timber fence around the village was no more than a discouragement for wolves and solitary wanderers. It would not even need siege weapons to take it down when a rope with six men on the end would do. At Faustus’s signal the third century rushed the gate in tortoise formation, shielding a dozen of Blaesus’s avenging legionaries as they pulled the posts down with rope and ax. A rain of spears from inside the fence clattered against the roof of their shields.
“You can’t stop us!” Faustus shouted. “Give way and we will only burn it.”
A slingstone answered him from someone on the byre roof.
“Fire it!”
The trumpeter lifted his horn. A stack of pitch-dipped arrows waited in the baggage wagon with a pot of coals, and they flared up like beacons as the archers drew their bows. Streaks of fire shot across the fence into roof thatch while at another trumpet call more men formed a wedge and drove it headlong into the battered gate. The defenders in the gate fell backward, fighting with the fury and desperation of men who have already given themselves to death.
Faustus rode over dying bodies and through the gate. Flames were already rising from the byre roof and the round houses that ringed the open yard. In the blacksmith’s hut, they scattered the embers of the forge everywhere that something might catch alight. The men of the village formed a desperate spear band, plainly with no intent but to kill Romans until they were killed themselves.
One ran at Faustus, spear gone, howling, swinging a long sword with a strength born of hopeless fury. Faustus spun Arion to put his shield side into the blow and slashed at a bare ribcage with the cavalry sword. It bit deep, cutting across the old blue of tribal tattooing with a line of red that welled up and flowed the way Blaesus’s blood had. The gash on Faustus’s calf still stung, and he kept the image of Blaesus in his mind as he struck again and again and the man went down under Arion’s hooves and another took his place, to be run through the throat with someone’s spear. Faustus saw Septimus on the other end of the spear, dismounted, sword gone, driving it into the body on the ground until it stilled.
The defenders were fewer now, the cohort ranging through the houses with torches, taking what they could find and firing the thatch and the withy screens that partitioned the inner rooms. Blaesus’s optio led the third century in the rout with a ferocity that made Faustus think he needed a new centurion as quickly as possible. They had been close, and Blaesus’s death had left his second-in-command raw with anguish. That was a recipe for lethal mistakes.
The sky was black with billowing smoke now, and the air on the ground choking with ash. As Faustus watched, the roof of the village hall came down into the wreckage of its first story. A pig left behind ran squealing through the fire. Arion was beginning to dance under him, afraid of the flames. Faustus dismounted as most of his officers already had, and slapped him on the rump, pointing him at the ruined gates and the baggage wagons. A last defender staggered through the smoke and ran at him: the village headman, covered in ash as gray as his hair, spear in hand, cursing Faustus, cursing all the Romans.
“Curse those that brought you to this!” Faustus shouted at him.
“The Morrigan take them, too! May her birds eat their eyes and yours!” He flung himself at Faustus and Faustus brought his shield up and ducked his head against the fury of the blow. It went past his ear and the man stumbled forward with the force of it, onto Faustus’s sword. The flames rose everywhere, sending smoke and showers of sparks into the darkened air.
They camped for the night outside the ruined village, watching as smoke filled the sky and then drifted away until there were only embers glowing red in the charred remains of houses. There were no dead among Faustus’s avenging cohort and only a few with minor wounds, cleaned and bound up by the cohort’s field medic. Paullus set up Faustus’s tent and made him a supper of camp bread and dried beef. The smell of the bread in camp ovens overlaid the scent of burned thatch and Faustus was grateful they would be away before the bodies began to call the carrion birds down through the wreckage. Someone began to sing, one of the songs the legions marched to. The voice was insistent and after a while the rest took it up, raggedly at first. Septimus sat down in the grass beside Faustus.
“They’re nervy now,” he said, listening to the voices in the dark. “They’d get drunk if they could, and it’s as well they can’t.”
“It was ugly,” Faustus said shortly.
“It was. What was it you said about that Greek?”
“Pericles. According to Thucydides, he was talking about the hatred of the conquered for the conqueror, and the danger of letting loose your hold on them once you have them. Your empire is now like a tyranny: it may have been wrong to take it; it is certainly dangerous to let it go.”
“And when was he passing that advice around?”
“When Athens was still the great power in the world, not long after the fall of the kings at Rome. We were no doubt too busy with that to pay attention.”
Septimus was silent for a while. Argos came out of the tent and sniffed at Faustus’s leavings and Septimus ruffled his fur. He said, “Blaesus’s century needs a new commander.”
“I saw that, too,” Faustus said.
“I’m grateful for the promotion and the pay,” Septimus said, “but there are times, look you, when it seems simpler to follow another man’s orders.”
“Depends on which man,” Faustus said.
“True. Mithras knows, there’s always someone upwards of you, giving orders, and someone downwards that you’ve got to give orders to, so I suppose it doesn’t matter so much where you are on the ladder.”
Septimus in a philosophical mood was something new. Faustus said, “I won’t get a replacement for Blaesus. New junior officers are all being sent to the Rhenus and the Danuvius. Would Quintus do if he had some leave first, do you think?” Quintus was Blaesus’s optio.
“I don’t know. I wouldn’t trust him right now around civilians.”
Faustus sighed. “He won’t like it if I promote someone over his head.”
“That’s why you have the legate do it,” Septimus said, standing up. “Good night, commander. I’ll have a look-in on Quintus before I turn in.”
A scutter of dry leaves went by on a little twist of wind and Faustus lay back in the dry grass, hands behind his head, watching the sweep of the Via Lactea flowing overhead through an inky sky. He wasn’t surprised to see his father’s shade materialize out of the milky shimmer. The old man had a habit of coming when Faustus most doubted himself.
“Does the farm you abandoned, our land you abandoned, seem somewhat more attractive to you tonight?” Silvius Valerianus asked. The starlight reflected from his pale hair. Argos thumped his tail, and the shade ran an insubstantial hand across his head. The old man had always preferred dogs to his children.
“Because I don’t like what I just had to do?” Faustus inquired. “I didn’t like what you wanted me to do either.”
“If you remember, it was I who required you to read Thucydides. That might have been a warning.”
“It might have,” Faustus admitted. “Do you know, I think I have spoken more to you since you died than before.”
“I saw no need for idle conversation.”
“Just orders.”
“I was paterfamilias. Now you are. Do something about your sister.”
Faustus sat up. “I’m trying to. Unfortunately, you made her hate the army enough to reject the most suitable prospect she has, and the only one who doesn’t care that she hasn’t any money.”
“You must get her and my grandson out of Britain.”
“They wouldn’t be here, and I would be most grateful for it, if you hadn’t married her to a wastrel like Manlius with expensive hobbies above his income!”
“I was mistaken in Manlius,” the shade admitted. “And in his uncles who refused their duty to your sister. Your mother’s people…” he said, and then stopped.
“What about them?”
“I’m afraid of them.”
“You’re already dead. Why won’t you go wherever you’re supposed to?”
“I want to,” the shade said fretfully.
The singers in the firelit camp had begun a new verse, led by Quintus, an old and vicious paean to the slaughter of the Iceni following their rebellion some thirty years ago. It was an excellent marching song but tonight Faustus found it made his skin crawl. “I am going to put a stop to that,” he told the shade.
“Be quiet!” he bellowed. His parade ground voice roared across the camp, and they fell silent, looking uneasily at the commander’s furious figure backlit by the flames of his campfire. Something pale and insubstantial hovered behind him.
“Hecate,” someone whispered. “What is that?”
“It’ll come for you in your sleep if you don’t shut up,” Septimus said. “Now!”
Faustus sat back down and then knelt, head bowed. “Mithras, god of soldiers, tell me what to do,” he whispered.
“Foreign gods!” the shade snapped. “Where is your respect for the gods of Rome?”
Faustus didn’t answer. Jupiter Optimus Maximus received his prayers every morning at the standards, with Juno and Minerva and Mars Ultor. Mithras, adopted by many in the legions, was a private worship, a pact between man and god for redemption and healing. The Mithraeum at Isca had been built in Julius Frontinus’s day and saw steady worship among the men of the Second Augusta. Faustus shut his father’s voice out of his head and listened to catch the drifting thought that might be the god’s response. None came. He had half hoped that Mithras would tell him that he had only to do his duty, to serve, to follow his orders as the legate followed his. It should have been that straightforward.
“It never is,” the shade said, despite the fact that Faustus had not spoken aloud.
“Get out of my head! You never wanted to know what I thought when you were alive!”
The shade dissipated, fading into the milky steam of stars.
The cohort returned to Isca on the day before Samhain. The vicus was stirring with excitement at news that the new king of the Silures would come for the Samhain fire. Households in the hills that usually lit their own fires came instead to Isca to see the king. The stack laid by the river was larger than usual, with room for cattle to be driven past for the luck of the king’s presence.
Loarn and his captains arrived at midday on Samhain eve, a cavalcade of impressive finery – brightly painted chariots with silver mounts, ponies fitted with enameled headstalls, drivers and passengers brighter yet in scarlet and blue, green and yellow, gold at their throats and wrists. They drew rein outside a tavern inn, where Rhodri tossed the tavern keeper a handful of Dobunni silver and ordered any other travelers to find lodging elsewhere. Small hounds leapt from the chariots to unhitch the ponies.
Gwladus, shopping for fish in the vicus, saw their arrival and came back to report that they were very fine indeed. She had been impressed with the new king. “Dark like all the Silures, but if a raven was human that would be him. The tavern keeper saw me and gave me this,” she added, handing a small wooden tablet to Silvia. “To save him a trip up to the fort, he said.”
Silvia opened it and smiled. “In Latin,” she said. “He’s had someone write this for him. I’m flattered.”
“He?” Faustus asked suspiciously.
“Loarn. He said I was to call him that. Apparently, he isn’t as angry as I would be over the way you and that woman came roaring after us when we were talking at Venta.”
“What does he say?” Faustus asked. “Communicating with the king of the Silures is not something you may do privately. It is a matter for the legate.”
“He says he will be at the fire tonight and would like to wish me well,” Silvia said stiffly. She handed Faustus the tablet. “You may take that to the legate if you wish. Alternatively, you may stick it in your behind.” She stalked off and Eirian broke into laughter.
“I don’t like this,” Faustus said.
“And the more you try to stop her, the more stubborn she will grow,” Eirian told him. “If he wants to court her a little, let him. It’s unlikely that it’s serious but I also doubt he will do anything to harm her.”
“We still don’t know who sent that ambush. And he knows about the village we burned. I don’t trust him.”
“No,” Eirian agreed. She winced, hoping he wouldn’t see. Her belly ached. She had begun to bleed again that morning despite her prayers to both the Mother and Juno Lucina. “No doubt all will proceed as it should,” she said, as much to herself as to Faustus. He snorted and picked up his helmet.
Silvia took enough time dressing and having Gwladus arrange and rearrange her hair to make Faustus uneasy about her intentions, if not Loarn’s. When he escorted the family to the bonfire at dusk to watch as the first spark was kindled, the vicus was mostly dark, fires quenched to await the Samhain need-fire, although the fort itself was well alight, torches on the sentry walk casting pools of light along the walls. Sellers of beer and pies threaded through the crowd with their wares, and those gathered to watch the fire spark were in a festival mood. The whooping that rose when dry tinder leapt into flame was partly beer and partly relief that things that rode the Samhain wind were barricaded outside the human habitations for another year.
Herdsmen driving cattle toward the fire stopped to duck their heads as they passed the new arena and the old god on his plinth. Offerings had begun to appear at its base: bunches of autumn seed heads, bits of red cloth, a polished green stone. They stared at the king’s party, keeping a respectful distance, but Loarn didn’t seem to mind when a small boy ran up, touched the hem of his cloak and darted away; the kingship held powers of healing and protection.
Faustus’s family arrived as the first flames rose. Loarn smiled when he saw Silvia, left his captains, and made his way through the crowd while more hands reached out to touch the king’s cloak.
“Stay with your uncle,” Silvia told Lucius. She detached herself from her family, ignoring Faustus’s glare, and went to meet Loarn. It was full dark now, the sky overhead thick with curdled cloud lit by the rising moon above them.
“The Goddess’s greeting to you on this Samhain night,” Loarn said. Samhain belonged to the Mother, as Lughnasa did to the Sun Lord.
“And to you, King.” The Goddess of the Silures was not after all so different from the Bona Dea, who watched over the fertility of women and the land. To govern rebirth in spring was also to order the dying of autumn.
“Have you given thought to my offer to show you your mother’s land?” he asked her.
Silvia smiled. “I have. My brother has not, nor will he.”
“How if I gave your brother assurance that no harm would come to you?”
“Despite his having burned your village? I do know about that.”
“Despite that. I would bring Llamrei with me so that there would be a woman at your side, and you could bring your maid if you wished. I would show you Porth Cerrig, and the green valleys that bred your Silure half.”
“Llamrei does not like me,” Silvia said.
“No,” Loarn admitted, adding after a moment, “Llamrei is not king.”
The firelight made dancing patterns on his dark face and the king mark on his forehead. Gwladus was right when she spoke of ravens. He was beautiful in a way that Silvia thought men rarely were. Certainly in a way that Manlius had not been. The fire shone on his dark hair and the mustache that made her wonder what it would be like to kiss him. Roman men were clean-shaven, hairiness the mark of a barbarian. Manlius’s barber had shaved him every morning. Loarn took her hand in his and a spark like the first one of the need-fire ran up her arm. She wanted him, she realized with surprise. She had never wanted Manlius, only done her duty and if she wanted more, tended to it herself.
“You may speak to my brother,” she said, “and he will no doubt speak to the legate. I don’t know what they will say.”
“They will want to send their soldiers with you.”
“They will, I expect.”
“And I will not have them in Porth Cerrig so that must be negotiated. You are going to be a great deal of trouble.”
She laughed. “Then why go to so much trouble?”
“I want you,” he said, and she knew that he meant it.
A pair of small boys ran past them with torches kindled from the flames to relight cold hearths. It was full dark now and he drew her a bit farther from the firelight, into the shadows of trees that lined the river past the docks and bridge. His white and black cloak blended with the tree shadow like patches of winter snow between stones. He put his hands on her shoulders and when she didn’t pull away, he drew the cloak around them both. He put his lips against her throat.
“Your people will be looking for you,” she whispered.
“They know when not to.”
“And mine.”
“We won’t stay long.” He kissed her and she gave into it with her whole body. The mustache was less bristly than she would have thought, soft like the face of some wild creature. She could feel him hard against her, feel herself responding, shivering. Then he unwound his cloak from about them and took her hand again. “Tell your brother that I could have done you ill tonight and I did not.”
She might have let him.
“I will take you back to him now. And when spring comes, I will show you your mother’s country.”
Faustus kept his temper in check until they were home again and Gwladus had brought in their dinner. Silvia took the Lares from their niche and set them on the dining table, a ritual at every family meal. Lucius sprawled on his couch, full of sausages, apples in pastry and whatever else the vendors had been selling.
“If you’re not hungry, Lucius, you may be excused,” Silvia said, suspecting a row was coming. “Paullus will play rota with you.”
“He’s past rota,” Faustus said. “He’s teaching Paullus latrunculi, which I never could.” He was aware that Paullus was also teaching Lucius to throw dice, but he didn’t mention that. He had no intention of giving Silvia ammunition to hurl back at him.
“Lucius has a logical mind,” Silvia said as Lucius departed. She glanced at Eirian, who was serenely eating the stewed hare that Gwladus had set before them. She had the look of someone who intended to keep her opinions to herself when the battle began. Silvia said, “I have been invited to see the west country.”
“No.”
Silvia glared at her brother. “I am an adult and a widow. I am capable of my own decisions.”
“I am paterfamilias,” Faustus said. “You are under my protection.”
“Don’t try to sound like Father.”
“You can’t go haring off into the countryside with the Silure king and no escort. Did he say you could bring an escort?”
“Of course not,” Silvia said. “Nor would you let him loose here in the fort with his men.”
“And you can’t throw a rock in the works when we are trying to avoid a revolt. I don’t even know if he ordered the attack on us.”
“He says not.”
“I lost a good officer. If you go off with him and I can’t get you out again we have a diplomatic crisis of the sort that generally ends with siege weapons.”
“He won’t hurt me.” Silvia smiled into her wine cup in a way that made the hair rise on the back of Faustus’s neck.
“You don’t know what he will do. For Venus’s sake, if you want a man, marry Galerius. Do you realize what a fine hostage you would make?”
“You wanted me to know Mother’s people,” she said.
“And you behaved as if they were all diseased goatherds. Now you’re seduced by a romantic delusion. Stick with your own kind.” He pointed at the silver figures of the Lares, representatives of generations of their ancestors.
Silvia’s eyes slid toward Eirian. Eirian went on placidly eating stew.
“That’s different,” Faustus said. “I told you that any doings with the king of the Silures are a matter for the legate, not something you may conduct privately. Last night will be the end of that!”
Silvia dipped her spoon in her bowl. “This needs parsley. Have you spoken to the legate?”
“No. I’m oddly reluctant to mention that my sister is trying to create a diplomatic incident.”
“Perhaps you should. You brought me to Britain, Faustus. You wanted me to know my mother’s people. I intend to.”
“I did not bring you to Britain. You arrived when your spendthrift husband keeled over – no doubt from the weight of his debts – and his family packed you off to me.”
“Manlius died of a fever!” Silvia snapped. “You are making things up.”
“So are you.”
“You rejected every offer of a suitable wife, from Father and Manlius both.”
“The child with fits or some hideous affliction that no one would be specific about, that Manlius dredged up?” Faustus asked acidly. “Stay with the subject at hand, please.”
“I am.” Silvia’s expression was stubborn, eyes narrowed. “My point is that you married the person you wanted. You have no moral standing to prevent me from doing the same.”
“You intend to marry him?”
“I don’t know,” Silvia said stiffly.
“I will be surprised if he intends to marry you.”
“That’s my business.”
“It is not.”
“Perhaps a little bit,” Eirian murmured.
They both turned toward her.
“You will have to go to the legate,” Eirian said to Faustus. “It was necessary when the king wrote to her asking to meet. You know you do. So go do it and see what he says.”
“And if he says to tie her up in her bedchamber?”
Silvia stiffened.
“I doubt he will,” Eirian said. “It may be that he will find no harm in it.”
“Loarn could hold her hostage.”
“Well then, she knows that, and so it would be her problem to solve, having been warned.” She glanced at Silvia then. “It may boil down to what risk Silvia is willing to take.”
Faustus considered the risks that Eirian herself had taken. Those had seemed to him to be her right even though the idea had terrified him. He hadn’t thought Silvia had that kind of temperament. He still didn’t, but Eirian was right about the legate.
Caecilius was eating his breakfast on his desk in the Principia over a pile of messages – an unrolled scroll in front of him, pinned down by his wine cup. He raised his eyebrows and considered Faustus’s news while Faustus stood at attention. There was every possibility that the result was going to be immediate transfer to a desert outpost in Syria, which at least would solve the problem of Silvia and Loarn.
Instead, Caecilius said, “I’m not sure this is an entirely bad thing, Centurion, if we use the opportunity carefully.”
“This is my sister, sir,” Faustus protested.
“Of course. Of course. Her wishes must be taken into consideration, naturally.” The legate paused, considering something, possibly Silvia’s cooperation. “What do you think the king actually has in mind? If he were just trying to seduce her, I think he would be less obvious about that, don’t you?”
“I have no idea,” Faustus said frankly. “I don’t understand the Silures as well as people think I do.”
“Marriage to a high-ranking Roman woman might be just what would buy lasting peace, don’t you think? These tribes often make alliances that way.”
“Among themselves, sir.” Aedden’s predecessor had promised his niece to every chieftain in West Britain at one time or another during his war with Rome.
“Then why not with us? Hmm?”
“Our family is not high-ranking,” Faustus said.
“True.” The legate chewed a bite of bread and cheese. “However, Loarn doesn’t know that.”
“Do you imagine he actually wants to marry her?” That still seemed unlikely to Faustus. Particularly for a man who was almost certainly stockpiling grain and weapons in preparation for a revolt.
“He certainly seems to want her in some fashion, perhaps less official?”
“My sister is not a concubine, sir.”
“Juno forbid, of course not, Centurion. No insult intended. He is being exceedingly public in his courtship, which argues an official approach. Does she want to marry him might be the question. If she doesn’t, we should nip it in the bud to avoid further provocation. I suspect that rebellious kings are more dangerous when lovelorn. It affects their judgment.”
“She wants to traipse about the countryside with him and see our mother’s land,” Faustus said. “Beyond that, I don’t know. I don’t think she does either.”
“That seems harmless, and indicates she is considering the idea.” The legate sounded hopeful.
“He won’t let me send an escort with her, only her maid.”
“Of course he won’t. The man’s not a fool. Tell her she may take the king up on his invitation, Centurion, if he hasn’t changed his mind by spring. Or his own people talked him out of it.”
“They may,” Faustus said. He hoped so.
“Well, I trust not,” Caecilius said. “This is really very useful. We all serve Rome.”
“My sister is also not in the army,” Faustus said but Caecilius had stopped listening, his attention returned to his messages. Faustus saluted and left.
Faustus spent the rest of the day in a foul mood, cursing the legate and Loarn alternately under his breath while his cohort worked on the new arena. The foundation was complete – tiers of seats beginning to rise above it – and the arena floor leveled, overseen by the enigmatic whiskered face and tufted ears of Cath Mawr. Nothing new had surfaced in the work and the legionaries on construction rota had taken to brushing their fingers across the plinth as they passed it, for luck.
Before the king’s party drove out toward Porth Cerrig, a boy brought a small package wrapped in red wool to the fortress gate to be delivered to Silvia. The sentry brought it to the house himself, radiating interest.
“It’s for the primus pilus’s sister, from the Silure king,” he announced as he handed it over.
“Thank you,” Eirian said firmly, motioning to Paullus to show him back out again. As the door closed behind him, she said, “That will be all over the fort in an hour.”
“Eirian, look.” Silvia held out a gold brooch, an S-shape formed by two beast’s heads. Blue enamel decorated their eyes and snouts and banded the midsection.
“It’s beautiful,” Eirian said, examining it.
“What do you think the legate told Faustus?”
“That he was to leave you be, I expect. Else he would have been back here by now to tell you that you’re forbidden further contact.”
Silvia laid her ears back. “He can try. Gwladus says British women have more rights than we had in Rome.”
“He only worries for you,” Eirian said. “The Silures are very different from the ways you are used to.”
“Do you mean people in the villages? Loarn is the king. Loarn doesn’t live in a village.”
“He lives in a drafty great fort with no hypocaust,” Eirian said. She had come to appreciate that function of Roman houses. “My father’s house on the island was always cold. Or smoky. Or both.”
“After Castra Borea I have some acquaintance with discomfort,” Silvia told her.
“Well, you didn’t like it there. And you don’t know what it will be like to find yourself among people who do things differently, who have different gods, who have different customs, who think differently.”
Silvia pinned the brooch to her mantle, wrapping the woolen folds around her shoulders. It was cold in the house even with the hypocaust burning. A gray autumn rain had settled in during the last hour. “What was that like for you?” she asked Eirian.
“I came to it gradually, you know,” Eirian told her. “On the road with Cuno and Rotri, then at Castra Borea. To come here was… peculiar. I felt at home in the vicus, the people there are very like my own. Here in the fort… you know what it was like. The women in Loarn’s house may not be kind to you.”
“Well, I haven’t said I will marry him. He hasn’t asked me.”
“He may have to ask the Druids first.”
“I thought the Druids were all gone.”
“I imagine that the Druids are only gone when Rome looks for them,” Eirian said. “You have barely met this man.”
“I had barely met Manlius,” Silvia said. “That is almost always the way.”
“Do you care for him?”
“I must, I suppose, or I wouldn’t be angering Faustus over it. I want him,” she admitted. “I never felt that way about Manlius, not really. Does that mean caring? Or just my body having its way?”
“I expect it can be both,” Eirian said. “Maybe a better question is, do you trust him?”
Silvia shrugged her shoulders. An enameled eye on the brooch shifted its blue stare toward Eirian. “I trusted Manlius,” she said.