Semper Fidelis: A Novel of the Roman Empire Read online

  Contents

  Map

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Acknowledgments

  Author’s Note

  A Note on the Author

  By the Same Author

  To Vicki and Mike Finnegan

  (You’ll know why.)

  Hadrianus …. Britanniam petiit, in qua multa correxit …

  Hadrian … made for Britain, where he set many things straight …

  Historia Augusta, Life of Hadrian

  Map

  Chapter 1

  Victor’s left eye felt as though it was about to burst like a squashed plum. He ran his tongue along the inside of his gum, tasting blood in gaps that had not been there before. He made a tentative exploration of a couple of loose teeth, seeing how far they would move. It was a mistake. He gasped and fell back against the trunk of the willow as pain welled up and flooded the lower half of his face.

  This will pass, he urged himself, all the while feeling that someone was screwing a hot poker into his jaw. Count to ten. Breathe in … and … One. In … and … Two. Think of something else.

  But all that came was the memory of Tadius struggling to rise from the floor, and the voices roaring at him, Get in there, or you’ll be next.

  Tadius, lying very still.

  Blood pooling in the dust.

  As the pain ebbed he crept forward again, peering out between the willow fronds. The trumpets had sounded the hour for the midday meal and there was hardly anyone about. The girl was still alone on the sunny slab that overhung the water, her skirts hitched up and her bare feet dangling in the river. Beside her on the stone sat a wooden platter with bread and cheese and perhaps beer in the cup. She was busy looking at something in her hand. The willow hid her from the guards over on the fort gates. She had no idea that anyone was watching her.

  The guards were standing in the shadow of the wall, leaning on their shields and gazing into the distance with the air of men expecting a quiet afternoon. Victor swallowed. There was a time—it seemed years ago now—when he had dreamed that being in the Legion would be a good life.

  The girl sighed and flung down whatever she was holding. She pushed a wisp of blond hair out of her eyes and turned her attention to the platter. The sunlight flashed on a blade. His fingers slid toward his own knife, but she was only cutting the cheese. He let out his breath. He did not want to hurt her, but he had to keep her quiet. If she screamed, the guards would come, and he might not be fast enough to get away with the food.

  He would stroll up and try to chat with her. If he said he was hungry, she might even offer to share.

  He ran a fingertip over his injured eye. She might not. If the eye was as ugly as it felt, she might scream at the sight of him.

  The guards were still looking vacant and bored. The girl tore off a big chunk of bread and put it into her mouth.

  Victor stepped forward. “It is a good day to eat beside the river.”

  The girl jerked round. Her eyes widened in alarm, but instead of screaming she was convulsed by a choking fit. He reached for the platter, ready to grab the food and run before she could call for help, then saw one hand flapping helplessly toward him as she spluttered and tried to draw breath and thought, What if she chokes to death? He stepped behind her, hesitated for a moment, then smacked his hand against the middle of her back.

  Moments later she took the beer from him and nodded her thanks.

  When she could breathe again without coughing, he spoke slowly, trying not to let his swollen jaw mangle his words. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”

  “If you don’t want to startle people,” she said with the accent of a tribeswoman from farther north, “Don’t creep up on them. Especially when they are eating.”

  She was older than he had thought: perhaps in her mid-twenties, and attractive in a way that would have distracted him on better days. He took a deep breath. “I was hoping—”

  Her gaze shifted past him. Too late, he heard movement.

  As he hit the ground a boot clamped across the back of his neck, ramming his face into the grass. Pain flared from his jaw to his temple. Something hard slammed into the small of his back and a voice said in Latin, “We’ve been watching you, sonny.”

  “Please, sir, she was—”

  “Shut up!” the voice said, reinforcing its meaning with another blow. “Who d’you think you are, striking an officer’s wife?”

  Oh, holy Bregans. She looked like a native. She spoke British. Where were the slaves? The jewelry? The fancy clothes?

  “Sir, she was—”

  “Shut up!”

  There were two of them: one who gave the orders and one who looked as if he would obey them without question and without mercy. As they wrenched his arms back and lashed his wrists together, the woman began to say something. The soldier cut her short: “It’s all right, miss, you’re safe now.”

  “But—”

  “We’ll deal with him.”

  As if to show how, one of them rammed the pommel of a sword into his ribs. He had no idea why the woman cried out. She wasn’t the one being hit. She wasn’t the fool who had thrown away an escape for the sake of bread he couldn’t even chew.

  Half dragged, half stumbling, Victor was hustled up through the rough grass toward the fort gates. The officer’s wife was hurrying to keep up, still talking.

  “Don’t you worry, miss,”
the senior one assured her. “He’ll understand Latin when we’ve finished with him.”

  “I want to speak to him myself.”

  The men ignored her. A few paces farther on she appeared in front of them, holding her skirts clear of the grass with one hand and clutching a pair of battered boots in the other.

  “So!” she said, looking from one to the other. “I am worth rescuing but not worth listening to?”

  For a moment Victor thought they were going to barge her out of the way. Then the senior one seemed to think better of it and said gruffly, “The prisoner was watching you, miss. Hiding under the tree.”

  She said in British, “Were you watching me?”

  He lifted his head to look into eyes that were not quite blue, and not quite green, either.

  He staggered as a blow landed on his ear, muffling the roar of “Show some respect!”

  Victor lowered his head. Trying to focus on the muddy toes poking out from under the woman’s skirt, he heard himself mangle the words, “I’m very hungry, miss.”

  She said, “Have you no family?”

  “Not here, miss.” None who could feed him, anyway.

  Pale curls tumbled forward as she bent to pull on her boots. “You should have gone to a farm.”

  He averted his gaze, afraid another clout would send him sprawling on the grass. He was not going to explain all the reasons why going to a farm was a bad idea. She seemed to think he was a civilian. If the men thought the same thing, there was a chance they might let him go with a beating.

  She finished tying her boots and stood up to address the soldiers in Latin. “I thank you,” she said. “Now, will you please fetch my husband? He will know what to do.”

  There was a moment of hesitation, then the senior one allowed himself a grunt of disapproval before ordering his comrade to take the message to the gate.

  “And ask him to bring his case!” she called after him.

  Victor closed his one good eye and prayed that the mighty Bregans would remember the pair of white doves he had promised to sacrifice if he got away safely. He was not to be taken into the fort yet: That was good. But now he had to explain to an officer why he had been hiding under a tree to watch a respectable married woman untie her boots, hitch up her skirts, and dangle her bare feet in the river. And as if that weren’t enough, he had then stepped forward and hit her.

  Of course, the man should never have allowed her to wander the countryside by herself in the first place, but in Victor’s experience officers never took the blame for anything.

  His new bruises had already begun to stiffen up by the time more men emerged from the fort. The two big lads in chain mail must be part of the German unit based here. The one in the middle was taller than some officers and scruffier than others, but he had the coloring of a man from a hot and dusty place where they talked too much and thought they were clever. Besides, there was no mistaking that walk. They all had it: the confident stride of a man who knew what to do.

  Victor stifled the instinct to stand to attention while the men spoke in Latin about “this native” as if he were a stray dog.

  The Germans saluted and marched back to the fort. The officer turned to his wife. “This had better be good,” he said.

  Chapter 2

  Ruso had already noted with relief that the young man’s black eye and swollen jaw were too mature to have been administered by his wife. Or by the Germans, who had sloped off up the hill with obvious disappointment now that their sport had been taken away from them. “I’ve just left spiced chicken and a decent wine,” he said. “Why aren’t you over at the inn?”

  Tilla frowned. “If I have to listen to the driver and that woman for much longer, I shall get off and walk. I went to eat in peace by the river and look at your sister’s letter, and this man came to beg for food. Do you think his jaw is broken?”

  Ruso, setting aside yet again the disagreeable prospect of a letter from his sister, cast an eye over the native’s injuries. They looked like the result of a brawl. Perhaps somebody else had caught him pestering their wife.

  The man had shortish ginger hair, appeared to be in his early twenties, and—apart from the bruises—seemed to be in excellent physical shape. Still speaking Latin, Ruso asked, “Been in a fight, soldier?”

  The native looked up. There was fear in his eyes.

  “It is all right,” Tilla assured him in British, but the words were still on her lips as the man sprang away and pelted down the slope toward the river.

  “Stop!” cried Tilla.

  Ruso seized her by the wrist before she could give chase.

  “My husband is a doctor!” she cried. “He can help you! Come back!”

  The man’s tethered hands gave him a peculiar gait, as if he were trying to run through something sticky.

  Ruso released his grip on her wrist.

  “We will give you food!”

  The man did not break his stride.

  “What is the matter with him?”

  Ruso folded his arms and watched as the man staggered across the river, lurching as the current pulled at him and then recovering to struggle up the slippery bank without the help of his hands. Finally he vanished into the woods on the far side.

  “He’s either stolen his civilian clothes,” Ruso observed, “or his army boots. My money’s on the clothes.”

  “Will you send the soldiers after him?”

  He bent to pick up his case. “I’ve got enough patients without chasing after more.”

  “What will happen to him?”

  “I’m guessing he’s one of the British recruits they’ve started taking into the Legion. Not a very bright one. He’s got rid of his belt, but unless he has the sense to change his boots and hide amongst the locals while his hair grows, he’ll be caught.”

  “But he has the voice of a Southerner,” she said. “He has no one around here.”

  “So?”

  “The local tribe might sell him back to the army.”

  Ruso reflected that British tribes were always more complicated than you thought. “Well, it’s not our problem.”

  Assuming that the spiced chicken would be cold and the wine would be finished by now, he accompanied his wife back to the river bank to compete with the local ducks for a share of her lunch.

  “My brothers,” said Tilla, raising her voice over the din of a squawking flotilla lunging for the bread as it hit the water, “would never have joined the Legion.”

  Since Tilla’s brothers were not Roman citizens and had been killed by neighboring cattle raiders before they were twenty years old, this was not surprising. “And would they have said, Our sister would never marry a soldier?”

  “You are not a proper soldier,” she said, flinging the next handful toward a lone bird hesitating at the back. “You are a medicus.”

  Ruso glanced down at his army belt and reflected that this fine distinction might be a comfort to Tilla, but it was invisible to everybody else. He had renewed his vows to the emperor. He was an officer of the Twentieth once more, and it did not matter that he had only come back because he missed the salary and the camaraderie and because he never, ever wanted to work as an investigator again. As far as the rest of the world was concerned, he was just another soldier.

  When all the food was gone, he escorted her back to the inn. “Just stay out of trouble this afternoon, will you?”

  “If that driver is still in there telling stories about how stupid the natives are, I may punch him on the nose.”

  “Fair enough,” he agreed. “If it needs straightening afterward, send him up to me.”

  On the way back past the gate guards he wondered if he should, after all, report the escaped Briton as a deserter. Then he remembered it was his own wife who had prized the man away from the guards, and decided someone else could do it.

  Chapter 3

  Victor struggled on into the deep shade of the woods, his head pounding with every step. His throat was sore. His legs felt like lead. He w
as torn all over by brambles. He stumbled over a root and went headlong, crying out at the jolt of the landing but knowing he was lucky: The rotting leaves had broken his fall. He lay still, trying to listen over the rasp of his own breathing. Nobody seemed to be following him.

  He began to squirm, curling up into a position in which he might be able to reach the clasp knife they had not taken because they had not searched him properly. Whatever they had tied around his wrists was digging into his flesh. His fingers felt numb and clumsy. Slowly, patiently, he managed to tease the little knife out of its hiding place in the sodden sheepskin that lined his boot. Still listening for pursuers, he pried it open and tried to angle the blade against the binding without cutting himself. He could move it only a fraction of an inch at a time. He had no idea whether it was having any effect.

  Suddenly the knife slipped out of his grasp. He yanked his wrists against the binding, but it felt tighter than ever. Groping for the knife amongst the leaves, he touched a smooth surface with the tip of one finger. He stretched out his hand. He had two fingers on the blade now, pressing down to get some purchase. It shifted, flipped away from beneath his fingers, and landed somewhere out of reach.

  Victor lay back, exhausted. He was beginning to shiver. He thought: I could die here.

  He dared not go back to Eboracum, but if he went home, what would he tell everyone? That he had run away in the fine army boots Corinna’s family had given him for a leaving present? Even if his people took him back, what if Geminus and his men came looking for him? Whole families had been known to be condemned as traitors. There was always room on the ships for more slaves to feed to Rome.

  He couldn’t go to his own people. He wasn’t going back to the army. He couldn’t rely on hospitality from other tribes. There was only one place where he was wanted, and he definitely couldn’t risk being found there.

  He had made a mess of everything.

  That was when Victor, champion wrestler of the Dumnonii tribe for two years in a row, only the second Roman citizen in his family, proud recruit to the Twentieth Legion, father of one, almost able to read and write, laid his head on the ground and wept like a girl.

  Chapter 4