Emperor

II

Claudia Severa and her daughter arrived in a small carriage covered by an awning of bright red cloth. A servant, probably a slave, led two docile horses. Severa and Lepidina stepped down from the carriage with unreasonable grace, and walked towards Brigonius. The mother might have been forty, the daughter eighteen or nineteen. The two of them were very alike, both very pale, with strawberry-blonde hair piled high in exotic sculptures.

The older woman wore a stola, a swatch of brilliant white cloth embroidered with purple. Under her loose clothing Severa's figure was shapely, her bust prominent and her hips swaying as she walked. She was sensual, but she looked solid, almost muscular. This was a formidable woman, Brigonius thought immediately.

The daughter, though, was slighter, slimmer, and she walked with a loose-jointed beauty. She wore a long skirt and tunic of pink and silver-grey, the colours somehow blending perfectly together, and she wore a scarf around her neck, some purple-pink fabric as light as mist. She was so delicate, so pale-white, she seemed only loosely attached to reality. Again he felt like a clod with his black hair and dark colouring, a lump of earth compared to this creature of air and fire.

Severa was watching him. 'You must be Brigonius,' she said dryly.

He was staring at the girl, still sitting on his milestone like a child. He clambered to his feet, making dust rise in a cloud. The daughter's eyes widened as he revealed his full height. 'I'm sorry,' he said.

'I am Claudia Severa. My daughter, Lepidina.'

The girl turned away coyly. He tried to fix his attention on Severa. 'How did you know me?'

'You weren't hard to spot,' Severa said. 'I just looked for the beard. The Cantiaci go clean-shaven, you know, like all good Romans!'

'I, ah-'

The girl spoke for the first time. 'You seem fascinated by me, Brigantius.'

'Brigonius. I am a Brigantian. My name is Brigonius-'

'Do you like my scarf?' She touched it. Its colour perfectly complemented the grey of Lepidina's tunic, and it cast reflected sunlight over the soft white flesh of her throat.

He was staring again. 'I've never seen material like it.'

'Well, you wouldn't have. It's silk. It comes from a land far to the east, even beyond the Parthians. Nobody knows how it's made-imagine that!'

He saw now that the scarf was fixed by a small brooch: a crossed-over curve of silver wire, a stylised fish perhaps. 'That's a pretty design. The fish.'

Severa evidently hadn't known the brooch was there. She glared at her daughter. 'Cover that up, you little idiot!'

With bad grace, Lepidina tucked the brooch out of sight.

Severa walked around Brigonius, eyeing him up and down as she might a horse. 'Well, you're evidently a lust-addled fool, like all men. But you're healthy enough, and you seem honest. I think we're going to be able to do business, you and me. But first we've an emperor to greet. Will you ride with us to Rutupiae? We've room.'

Lepidina, girlishly friendly now, linked her arm through his. She was soft and fragrant, like a scented cloud. 'Oh, yes, do. We've got fruit and wine. It will be fun!'

So Brigonius found himself sitting between mother and daughter in the shade of the carriage's awning.

The carriage joined the flow towards Rutupiae, the slave guiding Brigonius's horse. As they rolled across the flat coastal plain, it wasn't long before Brigonius caught the first whiffs of salty sea air-and through the awning he glimpsed the gleaming white shoulders of the monument at Rutupiae, a landmark visible for miles around. Meanwhile the air in the carriage was filled with the tickling scent of cosmetics, and the women plied him with a fine light wine and strawberries dipped in ground pepper.

'We heard of your trouble,' Severa said.

'Trouble?'

'The revolt in Brigantia. News of such things reaches Rome, you know!'

'I'd hardly call it a revolt,' Brigonius said. 'It started with a riot outside Vindolanda. Came from a bit of heavy-handedness by a decurion.' In fact the officer had beaten a Brigantian labourer he accused, falsely, of thievery. 'Next thing you know there was trouble all over the place. Some of the lads took the opportunity for a little petty banditry.'

'I thought it was more serious than that,' Severa said.

'Oh, the army had to deploy.' Once roused from its brothels and bath houses the army had, as usual, stamped down with maximum force on the dissidents. Heads were broken, a few villages burned, a gaggle of wives and children taken off into slavery. 'They cleared up the trouble quickly.'

'I don't understand why people even want to fight the army,' Lepidina said. 'I mean, what if they won, somehow? Why, without the army…' She tailed off. Her face was empty, her eyes and mouth wide, like a child's.

Her life had been remarkably sheltered, Brigonius thought. He felt an impulse to protect her-an impulse no doubt deriving from lust, but genuine despite that, he thought.

'Not everybody likes the Romans,' he said gently. 'Their taxes, their forced-labour levies-'

'You must like them,' Lepidina said sharply. 'You sell them your stone.'

'That doesn't mean they're my friends.' He grinned. 'I follow my father. I bleed the Romans white, if I can.'

Severa nodded, apparently approving. 'You learned much from your father?'

'He died a couple of years ago.'

'Yet you still rely on his wisdom, as you wait to accrue your own. A sound strategy. We are all shaped by the past, aren't we, Brigonius? In fact we wouldn't be sitting here now if not for deep historical links we share.'

'In your note you talk of your grandmother, who was a Brigantian but went to Rome.'

'Agrippina, yes. She died before I was born, but my mother told me all about her. Fascinating life! Somebody ought to write it down. And, you see, she knew your great-grandfather, Brigonius, who was called Cunedda-'

'Like my own father.'

'Yes. And his father before him. The story goes that Agrippina and Cunedda knew each other at the time of Claudius's invasion of Britain. Your family were Catuvellaunians, Brigonius. My grandmother's family owned an interest in a quarrying concern. Later in life she passed it to your family-to the son of that first Cunedda. And that is how your family came by their interest in quarrying, and moved to Brigantia to take possession of it. So, you see, in a way you are in my debt, aren't you?'

Brigonius, feeling manipulated, wasn't sure about that.

Lepidina had evidently heard all this before. 'I think they were more than friends,' she said mischievously. 'Agrippina and her Cunedda. Otherwise why make such an extravagant gift? I think they were lovers!' She whispered, her eyes huge, 'What do you think, Brigantius-Brigonius? Does love cross the generations, does love stand outside time?'

She was playing games, of course. But he felt a warm flush inside.

It got noisier. Lepidina ducked and looked out of the awning. 'Rutupiae!' she said. 'We're nearly there.'