They sat in the straw beside an open window in the deserted upper storey of an old warehouse beside the river. Far down below them Marcus saw craft of all sizes pulling out along the Tamesa, some with sails that bellied in the evening breeze, others rowed by men who seemed anxious to be away. Gerd brought him a wooden platter of meat scraps and barley bread. At first he shook his head, but she grew so angry with him that he ate it up to the last crumb. And then he said, “It is a long time since anyone commanded me, Gerd. No doubt I shall get used to it in time.”
She brushed the damp hair from her eyes with her dusty hand. “That bread and meat took some getting,” she said smiling and showing her very white teeth. “I had to run half over Londinium on errands to get it. So I could not see it wasted after all that.”
Then she lay back in the straw and began to laugh. “You look so different,” she said. “I cannot believe a man could look so different with his hair dyed and his face blacked! Among my folk the men black their faces when they go to war—but you do it so as to stay at peace. You are a funny man, Marcus!”
Then Marcus began to laugh too, although he had enough sorrow in his heart to weigh him down for a lifetime. He said, “You would not think I was a funny man if you saw me on my horse, in my armour, with my tall war-helmet on and my long sword at my hip. You would not laugh if you saw me coming at you, with the soldiers behind me, glaring over their tall shields and their lances pointing at you.”
But this made her laugh more than ever. The tears ran down her face and made little clean runnels. She said, “You, on a horse! Oh! Oh! Oh! And with armour, no! You are teasing me again. You are the funniest man. You are like my cousin, Brand. He pretends that he has sailed down to Egypt and back again before breakfast. He talks about the great tombs there, and the camels—as though he has really seen them. He is a funny man too. But not as funny as you are. You are funnier than anyone else in all the world, I am certain.”
Marcus laughed again. He had not felt as happy as this for years. Not since his father used to take him out riding, perhaps. Or not since he used to play with Livia and the Africans on the sea shore at Carthago Novo. Mithras, but it was good to laugh again and be happy. He had forgotten what it was like, to do this simple thing.
He said, “Tell me about Brand. Is he clever and handsome like me?”
Gerd was chewing at a piece of straw and did not look at him now. She said slowly, “You are not clever, or you would not have let those fools tie you up to the stake. And as for being handsome, you are more like a hawk than a man. Look at your fierce eyes and your beaky nose! Brand has pretty green eyes. I think they are green, they change as the sea changes when he stares down at it to see if there are rocks under the keel. And his nose is nice and solid. A man from the Frisian islands hit it with an oar once when they quarrelled over a ship they had taken, and the oar made his nose very square and solid. A pleasant flat nose. I liked it so much, I promised to marry him and be his wife when he had made his fortune, robbing the Romans off Vectis.”
Marcus said, “I hope you are happy, with Brand Flatnose. I hope you have ten sons, all with flat noses.”
Gerd threw her straw away and said, “I would like daughters, all tall and beautiful, with good hands for the horses and for making pastry. I do not want sons because when they went from the steading with their swords I should worry about them every minute till they got back. I have seen the men come back to my village, Marcus, and I have grown to be sick and weary of what I saw. They sing and boast and drag carts full of plunder—but they are always hurt, always coming back to be looked after and healed. And they are never the same again. These warriors are as silly as the boys who mocked you down by the stake. They kill themselves quickly or slowly; but they kill themselves. I want daughters, when I have a family of my own.”
Marcus wanted to tell her that he was a warrior too; and that if he was only clever enough a warrior did not have to come back hurt every time out. But then he thought of the men he had been with—and they were all dead now. Even Petillius Cerialis, a leader of great warriors, he was shut up in Lindum, in sweating terror of the tribes. He thought of his father, of Tigidius. And Tigidius had gone away so quickly, without any glory, without anything—just reaching out for a piece of burned swine-flesh . . . So he said nothing.
And then, just as the sun was sinking fast, he heard a great shouting outside, down in the square, and the howling of horns and the clattering of horses’ hooves, and the thick murmuring of crowds. He went to the window-hole and said, “Something is happening.”
Gerd nodded lazily. “It is the Governor General coming in. He has ridden from the far side of Britain to be here, with just a few horse-soldiers. They were talking about it in the market while I was running errands to get your meat and bread. The folk down there say that he is a madman to risk so much, riding through the wild country to Londinium. They say there is nothing for him here.”
Marcus said, “You mean that Suetonius Paulinus has come into the city? Suetonius?”
Gerd rose from the straw and screwed up her eyes. “I do not know what his name is,” she said. “All Roman names sound the same to me. But I can tell you that it is the General who has come from killing priests in Mona. And now he thinks that he can rule Londinium with his army ways, but he cannot. That is what the folk in the streets say. They say that he may be a General, but he cannot tell people what they have to do, and where they have to go. The folk here are not soldiers to be ordered about by some General they have never seen, and don’t want to see either.”
Marcus said quietly, “But he is a great one. He is one of the greatest men living in this world, Gerd. If they only knew that, they would do what he said.”
Gerd said, “How do you know that he is great? What do you know about such men?”
Marcus said, “I have always known the General. He was a friend of my father’s. When I was a little boy, Suetonius took me on his white horse, in front of him, and we rode up and down the ranks of the Twentieth Legion. The men all cheered and waved their javelins. I shall never forget it. It was like riding in front of the god. And afterwards Suetonius took me into the Mess and with his own hands poured me a glass of wine and water. With his own hands, Gerd. How could I ever forget such a man?”
But she was nibbling at strands of her hair and not listening. Then she said, “They are coming in now. There is an old grey-haired man on a badly-kept pony in front. Is that the great Suetonius? Is that the god?”
Marcus hobbled to the window and gazed down. It was Suetonius, but he seemed so much smaller now. His back was bent too, and his legs looked thinner as they dangled down. Even his gear was dull and neglected. And the men who rode behind him looked like scarecrows or forest brigands.
Gerd said, “I do not understand Romans. They make so much of so little.” Then she turned away and went back to the straw.
But Marcus shouted out, “Up the legions! Paulinus! Paulinus!”
And for a short instant, the General seemed to hear his voice, and looked up from the street right into his eyes. But there was no understanding in those eyes, no friendship, no recognition. And the cavalcade passed on beneath the window, into the crowds of silent citizens who did not wish to be disturbed by Generals or by anyone.
Marcus turned away from the window and saw that the girl was looking at him, smiling and smoothing her hair. She said, “I did not hear him greet you, Marcus. He should have greeted one who rode before him and took wine from his cup. Why was that, do you think?”
Marcus sank down beside her wearily. “It is this colour on my face,” he said. “He did not know me as this colour.”
He waited a while and then suddenly he punched one hand into the other savagely and said, “I wish to Mithras that I did not skulk like a coward with this black face. I would rather go with my own face and die, as long as my General greeted me.”
But Gerd shrugged her shoulders and turned away. Then she began to sing a low mournful song about a lost child in a deep German forest, where the only light came from the glow of wolves’ eyes.