Hadrian gave his faint flick of a smile, stripping off his gloves and giving them to the dog to chew. He already wore his legate’s cloak and breastplate, and very handsome he looked in it too. “How’s my old lady here doing?” he asked, reaching down to stroke the gray-muzzled hound curled in the furs at Sabina’s feet. “She gets stiff in this cold—”
“Don’t worry, I’m taking good care of your favorite girl.” Hadrian had no great interest in the comforts of his slaves, but nothing was too much for his dogs. He’d brought the whole pack with him to Germania, insisting there would be good hunting outside Moguntiacum, and they loped grinning and happy behind his big horse—all but the graying bitch who he insisted was too old to run the whole journey, and consequently rode in luxury with Sabina. Most men would have had her knocked on the head as soon as she couldn’t hunt, Sabina thought. But Hadrian stood tweaking fondly at the old dog’s ears as her tail thumped the furs, and every evening he brought her the choice bones from the evening’s meat. “I promise I’m looking after her,” Sabina reassured her husband. “Do you want breakfast? Looks like we’ve got a halt before the next river crossing.”
Outside the wagon, Sabina heard the cheerful bustle of their journeying party: the ox drovers swearing at their beasts; the young tribunes boasting and spurring their horses back and forth; the slaves dashing in search of food, cloaks, anything to keep their masters comfortable. The sky was gray and the road puddled, but their party of northbound officers, officials, and soldiers was cheerful and noisy. “Bread, honey, and grapes,” Sabina said as the slave entered and began laying the cups and plates. “Your usual.”
Hadrian’s breakfast had to be arranged just so—new-baked bread, the crust not too dark; grapes in a cluster (never a bowl); and just a thimble of honey. Exactly the same whether he was breakfasting at home in their house on the Palatine Hill, here on the road halfway between Rome and Moguntiacum, or anywhere in between. On the day he landed in Hades, Sabina thought with amusement, her husband would demand that Charon the Ferryman bring him his bread, his grapes, and his honey. Half the baggage on this lengthy northbound train of wagons and mules was Hadrian’s: the books he could not do without, the slaves essential for his comfort, the dogs and horses and bits of Greek sculpture… “And they say women pack too much!” Sabina teased him. “I was ready to leave with a trunk of clothes and a few books!”
“I may wish to see the world,” Hadrian said primly, “but not without my library.”
At least we are seeing the world now, Sabina thought. With every slow, ponderous creak of the wagon’s wheels, they were retreating farther and farther from Rome, from duty, from Plotina’s lecturing. Sabina had spent hours hanging out the window of the wagon, chilled to the bone but too fascinated to close the shutters, watching as tilled green fields and tidy vineyards slowly gave way to craggier rocks, deeper pines, darker shadows. Hadrian said they had passed into Raetia now, perhaps halfway to Moguntiacum and the legion that awaited him. Germania. What would it hold?
Hadrian made a face at the cup Sabina passed him as he settled on the bench opposite her. “What is this?”
“The local mead. I like it.”
He passed the cup back. “I’ll stick to Roman wine, thank you.”
Sabina took another swallow, unrolling a new section of her scroll. “Lucius Nystericus didn’t like the mead either, according to this.”
“Who’s Lucius Nystericus?” Hadrian sat reading through the correspondence that had already followed them from Rome. They hadn’t been two days on the road before messengers on lathered horses began appearing with letter cases.
“Lucius Nystericus was a legate who served here under Augustus. I found a copy of his diaries; thought it might have something useful on the region.”
“Anything interesting?” Hadrian reached out absently, scratching the dog’s belly as she rolled on her back.
“‘The natives are surly,’” Sabina read in a pompous bass. “‘But ferocious fighters.’”
“They do look surly. I noticed as soon as we crossed the mountains.” Hadrian’s hand on the dog’s belly slowed; she nosed him until he began to stroke again. “Let’s hope they’re not still ferocious. Leave the book out for me, will you?”
“Of course.” Sabina curled her feet up onto the bench, tucking the fur lap robes in closer. “Any letters in that pile of correspondence for me?”
“From the Empress—”
Sabina took the scroll with Plotina’s seal and tossed it out the window unopened. “Anything else?”
He slanted a disapproving brow but let it go. “A letter from your little sister, judging by the straggly handwriting. Perhaps I can leave you to it? The dogs flushed a stag in the woods earlier; magnificent rack of antlers, and since we’re paused for another hour—”
“Go hunt.” She waved him on. He dropped a perfunctory kiss on her cheek, and she felt the scrape of bristle. “You’re growing your beard again?” So many senators had mocked him in Rome that he’d finally shaved it. He’d been out of temper about that for a full week.
Hadrian passed a hand over the stubble. “I think it will pass in the provinces.”
“A beard suits you. Very philosophical.” And it hid the acne scars he’d acquired as a boy—the real reason he’d grown a beard in the first place. You’re vainer than I am, husband.
He smiled, touched her hair in passing, and looked down at the dog. “What do you say, old lady? Can you manage a short sprint after a stag?”
The dog uncurled with a happy pant and trotted after him as he ducked out. Sabina waved after them, then finished her mead and handed the cup to a page hovering outside the wagon. A beautiful page; dark-haired and long-limbed and well-muscled; an Antiochene youth of perhaps twenty. Hadrian had not taken as many slaves on this journey as dogs, but somehow all the slaves he’d brought were male and beautiful.
“Domina, will you be wanting to visit the other ladies while the wagons are halted?”
“Gods, no,” Sabina said, going back to her book. The long-dead legate Lucius Nystericus had abandoned his complaining about the natives and was now reminiscing about his days stationed in Greece.
Maybe we should go back to Athens soon. Hadrian would like that—he was already complaining about the air here in the north, so damp and heavy on the lungs. Very far from Greece’s violent white light and equally violent purple shades. But Sabina thought she might get to like the mists here, the deep stands of trees and the short days with their mole-dark shadows. Things to be learned here, and work to be done, she thought, and tossed aside the useless scroll with its prim views on native mead and native women. No matter what Lucius Nystericus says.
VIX
Moguntiacum was a different place with three and a half legions in it. Normally it was quiet enough—native women and children bustling through the markets in the daytime hours, taverns and brothels coming alive at night when the legionaries came off duty. Besides drinking and whoring there was a bridge over the Rhine, though what there was to do over the Rhine I didn’t know, and there was a shrine to some long-dead Roman prince that drew worshippers from all over Germania, and there was a playhouse that Demetra told me proudly was the largest north of the mountains. I told her I’d seen theatres three times as big in Rome, but she didn’t believe me. I’m not even sure she entirely believed in Rome. To Demetra, Rome was Elysium—it might exist somewhere, glittering and beautiful, but it had nothing to do with her.
Now, though, Mog wasn’t nearly so sleepy. It was full, crammed, bursting with soldiers. That bloody Dacian king was in full rebellion, and the Emperor had brought in more legions to deal with him properly.
“Three months,” Titus had said, and he’d been right after all—we were all the way through winter and into spring now with no sign of marching yet. Nor were the legions done pouring in—the Second Adiutrix had come first, swaggering and boasting that they’d take care of the king of Dacia without needing to stir us from our cozy fort; then the Fourth Fla
via Felix came, swaggering and boasting of their lucky reputations without which nothing could be won, and just last week a division of the Sixth Ferrata had come as well, swaggering and boasting of their feats along the Rhine; and now there weren’t enough women to go around in Mog, and the girls who looked like my Demetra had to be careful when they went out.
“How many legions do we need?” I’d snarled to the rest of my contubernium one night when we were all out whoring. I’d dragged Titus along too, though he and my brothers-in-arms still regarded each other with wary bemusement. He was a tribune, after all, an officer even when off-duty, and they were my fellow soldiers, the four men with whom I bunked, slept, ate, trained, and fought. Usually a contubernium was made up of eight men, but we’d lost one to a Dacian spear thrust the year I entered the Tenth, and two more had died of camp fever last fall. The five of us left—Simon, Boil, Philip, Julius, and me—might as well have been brothers.
“Titus and I saw off three of those Dacian bastards,” I complained. “I don’t see why the Tenth can’t handle the rest, outnumbered or no.”
“Correction,” Titus murmured around his mug of beer. “You saw those three Dacians off. I just hung on and prayed.”
“It worked,” I pointed out. “We’re both still alive. Hey, why haven’t you grabbed yourself a girl? It’s why we came here.”
“I don’t really go whoring very much,” Titus said. He cut an odd figure in that dim smoky little room among my brothers-in-arms: sitting with one heel crossed over his knee, sipping his beer as if it were fine wine as Philip on his right side sat dicing with two half-naked whores, Boil on his left fumbled under the dress of the girl on his lap, and Julius across the table was halfway into his signature tall tale about being descended from Julius Caesar. “Besides, there aren’t enough women to go around with three and a half legions in town.” He gave a courteous nod to the various half-naked girls around him, and they all dimpled back. “I’m sure the girls are overworked enough as it is.”
“Too right,” grumbled the redhead in my lap—my favorite for the nights I didn’t spend with Demetra. “The men from the Sixth, they’re arrogant bastards. Worst tippers in Mog—”
“Them and their lion-head banners,” Simon sneered, cracking a nut between his mug and the table. “My sweet, why don’t you bring me some more of that mead, and then take a seat on my knee and share it with me—”
“Don’t you be sweet-talking me! You know what I cost, and I want coin in hand before I’m sitting on your knee or any other part of you—”
“I’m inclined to think well of the Sixth right now.” I draped an arm around my redhead’s neck, savoring the news I’d been waiting to drop all night. “Our centurion, in his infinite wisdom”—we all paused to spit and swear—“has decided that with the newest influx of our brothers from the Sixth Ferrata, the camp is becoming overly crowded—”
“We could have told him that!”
“Actually I did tell him that,” said Titus. “He didn’t listen to me either.”
“—and those men who have arrangements in town might lodge there, provided they pay for the privilege.” I tilted my chair back, smug. “So while you bastards are bunking with the Sixth and their lion-head banners, I’ll be snug in bed with Demetra.”
“Hey,” said my redhead, poking my shoulder.
“Don’t worry, love, I’ll have plenty of time for you.” I dragged her head down for a kiss. Simon pitched more nutshells at me. Julius, who liked to brag he was descended from the legendary Gaius Julius Caesar just because he had the same balding head and hook nose, made a rude gesture at me without coming up for air from his whore’s breasts. “You’ll be eating that swill from the legion cooks,” I told them with relish, “and I’ll wake up every morning to Demetra’s bread—”
“Where’s my javelin?” Philip asked his two giggling half-naked girls. Philip was a lean little Greek, small but quick, and the only time he didn’t have his dice in his hand was when he had his javelin, and when he had his javelin you prayed to whatever god you had that he wasn’t pointing it at you.
“You know where your javelin is, legionary!” his girls giggled. “Standing at attention like a proper little soldier, he is—”
“Of course you’re all welcome to come eat bread and roast pork whenever you like,” I concluded. “Didn’t I mention that part?”
“Why didn’t you say so?” Boil put down the knife he’d been preparing to whiff through my hair. “Tell her Boil’s coming tomorrow after sentry duty.”
“Boil, that’s an interesting name,” Titus said. “How did you get it?”
“Don’t ask,” I snickered as Boil scowled. He was the youngest of us at seventeen, a fair-haired Gaul as big as a stone outhouse, and when he’d first joined our contubernium he’d had a boil on his arse the size of an apple. In the legions you’ll be dead before you ever get rid of a nickname like that.
My redhead was scowling at me. “So that’s why you stay with that Greek girl. For the food?”
“Now, don’t be cross with me—”
“You can find another bed warmer, Vercingetorix,” she sniffed, and slid off my lap. “I think I’ll find myself a gentleman for a change.” She grabbed Titus’s hand and hauled him up from his chair. “Want to see if I’m red-haired all over, Tribune?”
“I wouldn’t dream of doubting a lady’s word,” he said politely. But she was already hauling him away.
“Didn’t have to poach mine, did you?” I called after him, but he just gave me a rueful look as the redhead yanked him upstairs.
“Serves you right,” Simon told me. Simon was senior man in my contubernium, a dark burly man of forty years or so, close to the end of his stint with the legion. He’d been the one to welcome me to the Tenth, when I first shipped north out of my training camp to Germania.
“Vercingetorix.” He’d looked me up and down in my creaky new armor and clean sandals. “From Gaul?”
“Britannia.”
He grunted and waved a hand at the lowest cot in the contubernium. “The recruits keep getting younger,” he muttered in Hebrew.
“And the veterans keep getting older,” I said back in the same language, and his heavy brows shot up.
“A Jew as well as a Briton?”
“No.” I lapsed out of Hebrew, which was rusty for me. “My mother was, that’s all.”
“Then you’re a Jew,” Simon said firmly.
“How’s that?”
“You’re a Jew if your mother is a Jew. That’s our law.”
“Why the mother?” I wondered. “Why not the father?”
“Because too many soldiers like us have marched through Judaea to make anyone too certain of their fathers,” Simon had grimaced. A good man to have on your shield arm.
Titus came down from my redhead’s room a few minutes later, looking mussed. “Done already?” I jeered. “Quick work. Admit it, she was your first!”
“No, I just thought I’d come tell you to go home without me,” he explained. “She’s giving me a whole night free.”
“I never get a night free,” Boil complained. “What’s your secret?”
“I said she had wine-dark lips. It’s from the Odyssey, sort of.”
“Poetry,” Philip mused. “Never tried that before. Have you got any more quotes handy?”
“I’ll have a list for you by tomorrow,” Titus promised over his shoulder as he dashed back up the stairs. They liked him after that, tribune or no.
A long impatient winter, though it passed faster and warmer with Demetra’s savory stews in my stomach and her long body in my bed. The other four in my contubernium came for dinner as often as they could get out of evening duty, and they got comfortable enough with Titus to start groaning openly whenever he quoted Cicero. Titus still made Demetra nervous, and so did Simon. “You’re sure he’s not a devil?” she whispered to me, watching him mutter his Hebrew prayers over his plate. “They say Jews mutilate their babies!” She cast an uneasy look at her lit
tle boy who tussled, solemn and absorbed, with his carved horse.
“Only their own babies, I think,” I said vaguely.
“But Vix—”
“Stop fussing!”
She bit her lip, and I bit mine too. Demetra had a harder time of it with so many more men in Mog, after all—a girl who looked like she did couldn’t even go to the market alone now without being harassed by off-duty legionaries. She’d tried to hide how relieved she was when I brought my pack to stay in her cozy little home, but she’d cried tears of relief the first time I’d tossed some drunken bastards from the Second out on their heads when they came pounding on her door. She’d been so happy that night, she even let me love her on top of the blankets in the firelight where I could see how beautiful she was. Her hair rippled over my hands like a fall of honey, and I pulled her down to the bed on top of me. She put her arms about my neck, but she was so plainly uneasy that I laughed and tugged the blanket over us both. “Have it your way, prig.”
“I am not a prig! People don’t make love in plain view where I come from.”
“I’m a barbarian.” I growled and bit her shoulder. “We do things differently.”
“I know,” she giggled, and kissed me. An easy lovemaking—she lay still beneath me, smelling sweetly of fresh bread, and afterward she lay against my shoulder chattering of little things. The gossip she heard from the bakeshop, the rumors that the Dacian king had a lion’s mane and three horns, the new play coming to the theatre soon. She didn’t expect me to listen, and I didn’t, just dozed in the cradle of her hair. Dozed, and dreamed of glory.
Spring came muddy and early that year, none too soon because we were hearing more and more rumors of the Dacians massing in the east, and I hoped finally we might be marching. But our legate was ill, something quick and convenient that got him out of his post and back to Rome in a hurry where there were no more wars threatening. Wasn’t that fun, defending the Tenth’s reputation to the bastards in the Fourth and the Sixth and the Second, while their legates growled for war and ours went home to his house on the Tiber. But none of us was growling long, because the Emperor came.