Hadrian's wall

XXXV

This time Valeria knew the way. Time had allowed her to associate landmarks with the daily path of the sun. She knew which direction must lead to the Wall.

After slipping out of Tiranen before dawn, she saddled her mare in the valley below and started south in sorrow, blinking back tears. The barbarians couldn't win, she knew; Rome was too strong. Arden was reckless to conspire with Galba. So now she must lose the only man she'd ever truly loved in order to save him, by warning the Romans of the attack so it could never happen. She'd ride back to the Wall. Back to her husband. Back to a lifetime of regret, as Galba had once warned her.

The gods were cruel, and Savia's new god seemed just as indifferent to her prayers as the old ones.

To avoid pursuit she followed high ridges and empty moors, riding all that lonely day and on through the lonelier night. This time she'd had the sense to bring proper clothing and food, including oats for her mount, but anxiety and the lack of rest exacted a mounting toll. The landscape was gray and cheerless, the wind sharp, the heather brown. Once she heard the distant howl of wolves.

Always she turned to look for pursuit. The tension slowly drained her.

Near the second morning she restlessly snatched two hours sleep in a grove of barren birch, wrapped in her cloak against the cold. She woke to a day cloudy and still, without sun or shadow, and had to use her own rough sense of geography to go on. Her months among the Celts had given knowledge enough that she was able to keep the Highlands at her back and retain a rough sense of direction, but she dared not use road or trail. Her meandering course added many miles.

In the afternoon of the second day it began to snow lightly, small flakes kissing the cheeks where her tears had been. She was too weary to be excited about weather she'd once dreamed of seeing. The snow was wet, soaking her cloak, and made it hard to see. Valeria noticed dully that her horse left a trail of tracks in the snow as it padded across the moors, helping any pursuers, but that when night fell again and the snow stopped, the thin coverlet also brightened the gloom and made it easier to find her way. It was thus both curse and blessing. Mostly, though, the snow simply made her feel colder and lonelier than ever. She felt lost between two worlds.

As she rode south and the number of farmsteads thickened, she'd sometimes hear the barking of dogs or the faint call of human voices, rising from a hollow and echoing across the moors. She'd wearily and carefully veer away. The detours might force her to drive through a thicket or circle a bog or climb an otherwise unnecessary hill, devouring time, but she couldn't risk capture. Finally Valeria would be alone on empty moorland again, making better progress, with the cold north wind at her back and endless rolling hills before her. She was sore to the core of her bones, her rump and thighs blistered, reeling in the saddle from exhaustion. Still she pushed on.

On the morning of the third day the dawn broke on a cold sky of pale blue studded with clouds. At long last, the pale line of the Wall! How endless it looked. It crowned the crest of Britannia's boundary like a great white worm, perched atop an escarpment here, plugging a narrow ravine there. How could the Celts hope to prevail against a civilization capable of building such a thing? How could Rome muster enough soldiers to adequately defend it? She saw legionary pennants flying from each milecastle where a contubernium of soldiers would live and stand guard: isolated, bored, quarreling, gambling, and dreaming. The sight gave her relief and disquiet.

How would Marcus receive her?

How would she respond to him?

She'd encountered the Wall at a place she was unfamiliar with.

Rolling, windswept hills led down to a wet valley of small lakes and bogs. Dark volcanic cliffs on the far side of the marshes were fortified at their top by the stone barrier, making this a place impossible to attack or even approach. What a view the clifftop must have! Had the barrier's builders stood there once, proudly imagining the line they were about to impose upon the earth? Guessing in her fog of exhaustion that Petrianis must lie to the west, she rode slowly in that direction, paralleling the fortification. The muscles of her horse were shuddering.

"Just to the Wall," she whispered, "and then you'll have feed and shelter. Just to the Wall, and then you'll be a Roman horse. Then it will be over."

After two miles the ground in front of the Wall rose out of marsh and grew firmer. She picked her way toward a milecastle, its base marked by a gate. It looked uninhabited. No helmeted heads watched her. No trumpets of recognition rang out.

Up close, the barrier seemed even more impregnable. Its V-shaped ditch exaggerated the effective height of the parapet, and all brush and trees had been chopped away for four hundred paces, the distance of a ballista shot. Even a Roman like herself felt naked and vulnerable when crossing that final stretch of ground. She felt watched, even though she could see no one.

There was a wisp of smoke from a cooking fire rising from behind the crenellations of the milecastle, but still she saw no sentry. They must be huddled inside because of cold. The absence of any visible soldiers made it seem as if the barrier was patrolled by ghosts, but no, that was Samhain, and this was the frontier of Rome: a place of stone and discipline and crisp reality.

It was simply early.

"Is anyone here?" she shouted across the ditch and its bridging causeway.

No answer. She was salivating at the scent of their breakfast.

Valeria got down from the mare, the horse sighing in gratitude. Wearily, she took out the spear she'd slipped into a holster at the rear of the saddle. It was the spear that Hool had given her, the one she'd used to kill the boar. The weapon had been presented to her in honor, and she wasn't about to leave it behind at Tiranen; it was her reminder of that vibrant, lusty, rough-textured, rank, colorful, and communal world, now left behind. She hefted the spear experimentally, her arms having gained a surprising and unaccustomed strength, and aimed at the gray and pitted oaken gate. Then she threw.

It thudded home smartly, the shaft quivering after it stuck, its knock booming inside the milecastle. "Hallo! Open this gate!"

The hurled weapon finally brought oaths and a rattle of footsteps. "Who's there?" someone shouted angrily. She looked up. A Roman infantryman was leaning over the parapet. "This gate is closed to passage, barbarian!" he said in Latin-accented Celtic. "Go down to Aesica if you want through! We're having breakfast!"

"Please! I'm Valeria of the House of Valens, daughter of a Roman senator and wife of the commander of the Petriana cavalry! I'm too exhausted to go anywhere! I've just escaped from the Caledonii!"

The man looked bewildered. "You're a woman?"

She realized what she must look like: Celtic trousers and mud-stained boots, her hair tucked beneath a woolen cap, her cloak hiding any hint of figure. She wore a raw tapestry of stains and spatters and bits of burr and leaf. She'd just hurled a spear.

"I'm a pig after riding two nights and three days, but yes, underneath all this I'm a daughter of Rome! Please open, before I faint!"

He shouted orders, and she heard the pounding of hobnailed infantry boots. The gate was unbolted and swung inward, creaking from disuse. She stepped into the milecastle archway, her horse pushing anxiously in behind her in hopes of food. Beyond was a small courtyard and barracks building where the soldiers slept, with a second gate on the far side. These entrances were traps. Anyone charging through the first gate could be blocked by the second and killed by Roman soldiers firing down from parapets on all four sides.

The barbarians stood no chance without Galba.

"Are you really the lady Valeria?" a decurion asked. This woman looked so wretched. Her face was filthy, her eyes red from lack of sleep and hopelessness, her hair like string. She looked haunted.

"I've come to warn of an attack on the Wall," she whispered. Then she collapsed.

Valeria had struck Hadrian's Wall ten miles east of the fort of the Petriana. She was revived with cider and put to bed over her own exhausted protests, clearly in no condition to push on. Signal flags sent a message to her husband while she slumbered, and before long an answering communication came back: Bring her to me. In early afternoon she was roused and taken to a chariot. She stood in the vehicle numbly, her clothes still filthy, her hair a tangle, her anxiety dulled by emotional depletion, her finger barren of any ring. She gripped the chariot rim tightly.

"Are you all right?" the driver asked doubtfully.

"Just take me home."

The driver cracked his whip, and they jolted forward along the military road, swiftly picking up speed. The wind helped revive her. Tower after tower and milecastle after milecastle flashed by. They dipped down into gullies and up onto panoramic bluffs. After an hour they came down into the river valley behind Petrianis, giving her the same view she'd seen on first arrival. They passed the house of Falco and Lucinda, where she'd been married, crossed the river, and clattered up the winding lane that led through the clinging village. Their route brought back a flood of memories and even more emotional confusion. They rode through the same southern gate she'd first ridden through on her wedding night-once more standing in a chariot, once more uncertain of her husband. It was as if her life had become a wheel, repeating itself. A sentry trumpeted an alert, and then they were in the paved courtyard of the fortress, men relaying shouts, the chariot team snorting and pawing, horses in the stables whinnying in reply. The familiar smell of charcoal fires, stables, fish oil, and olives washed over her.

She was back.

She realized she'd forgotten Hool's spear.

It was almost evening. Marcus was like a statue on the steps of their house, making no move to greet her but waiting instead for his wife to come to him. What must he think? She got wearily down from the vehicle and walked toward him stiffly, feeling the eyes of the sentries upon her. None gave her greeting. None offered help. Then she stood two steps down from her husband and looked up, their positions ensuring that he towered over her. His assumption of male authority, apparent in his bearing and stance, took her by surprise. It was an unquestioned superiority that Arden had never pretended to, even when she was simply a captive. What a change of worlds!

"I've come back, Marcus." She waited, shivering, for an embrace.

"You're dressed like a man." It was not a question.

"For riding."

"You're dressed like a barbarian."

"I rode three days and nights to get here."

"So I've been told. Well." He looked away as if it made him uneasy to meet her eye. Was he embarrassed by her return? Angry at her absence? "I didn't even know you were alive." His tone was remote.

She took a breath and said what she'd rehearsed. "I've escaped to warn you of approaching war. If you act quickly, you can stop it. Even as we speak the tribes are gathering."

"Escaped from where?"

"From the hill fort of Arden Caratacus, the man who told us about the druids in the grove. Everyone's playing a double game, husband, and the Petriana is in peril."

"Everyone?" His mouth twisted. "I'd have thought better, until I was posted here."

And then, as if conceding her despair, he reached out a hand for her to finally, gratefully, take. Perhaps his hesitation was his habitual shyness. Marcus was quiet, she remembered, and undemonstrative. So different from the Celts! So different from Arden. "Come inside, woman, to bathe and eat and tell me what you know."

The warmth of the house enveloped her like a familiar blanket, and suddenly she had a rush of longing for the Roman baths and for everything that Rome stood for. The security! The stability! The predictability! She longed to surrender to order. The furniture and architecture was a reminder of where she'd come from and where she truly belonged. Her sudden nostalgia for the empire caught her by surprise. It was a dizzying attraction, leaving her more confused than ever.

With which man did she truly belong?

Which side of the Wall was native to her heart?

Marcus looked at her clothes with distaste. "Go, discard that filth and wash. I've ordered supper from Marta. There we'll discuss this adventure of yours."

"You need to alert the garrison now! Send a message to the duke now!"

"The men are already alerted. Wash first, it will help calm you. There's time enough for you to become presentable while the slaves make our meal."

"Marcus, you don't understand-"

"I do understand, wife. I understand I want you out of those rags and back in the proper dress of a Roman matron. So go, now!" It was an order.

She went to the baths at the rear of the house without calling for a slave. Their help seemed curiously superfluous. Her clothes, damp with sweat and snow, were peeled off and cast in a corner to corral their smell. Something caught at her neck, and she realized she still had the boar tusks. What must Marcus think? Adorned like a savage! He probably believed barbarians didn't wash at all and that she'd been dirty for half a year. No wonder he was remote. She gratefully but briskly bathed, not lingering as she'd have liked. With no maidservant, she had nobody to help with makeup and no time. Her hair was roughly tied back with a circlet of gold, and the stola she chose was a warm woolen one without style or seduction. The last thing she felt like doing was sharing her husband's bed! A mere half hour after she'd left Marcus, she was back and eating, once more famished by her adventures.

You'll have a bottom like Savia, she scolded herself. And yet her exploits just gave her more muscle. She supposed her husband would not entirely approve of her new fitness. It was unwomanly.

Marcus watched silently as she ate, chewing his own food more absently. It was as if he were trying to decide something about her.

The continued remoteness of his gaze, even more pronounced than she remembered, made her uneasy. Why was he so distant? "Marcus, the Celts are gathering against you," she tried again.

"So you've said," he remembered, as if she'd commented on the weather.

"I overheard it being discussed in the hill fort of Arden Caratacus, the man who captured me."

"You spied on him." It was more accusation than praise, which puzzled her.

"With my maidservant. We suspected something was amiss and hid in a hayrick to hear their talking." She paused, trying to find some diplomatic way to say what she must confide next, but finally gave up. Their senior tribune wasn't just rogue, he was traitor. "Arden was plotting with Galba."

"Was he really?" Her husband's tone was mild.

"Brassidias rode in with some soldiers to meet the barbarians. He said he was going to be transferred to Gaul, and there is a question of imperial succession, and soldiers are being drawn from the Wall for possible civil war on the Continent."

Marcus said nothing. Valeria's uneasiness increased. What did he already know? Had she ridden like the wind to warn him of nothing?

"The barbarian plan is to overthrow all Roman rule in Britannia," she went on. "If you can muster reinforcements from the south, you can stop them when they attack. Probably you can forestall any attack at all."

He looked at the tapestry covering the battle mural. "Where's Savia?"

It seemed an odd digression, given the weight of her news. "I had to leave her behind to delay their pursuit."

"The Celts freed her, didn't they?"

"Yes, but she didn't seek such freedom-"

"What did they do for you?"

She flushed. "Kept me prisoner for six months-"

"Stop it." His voice was ice.

She was bewildered. "Marcus? What's wrong?"

"Stop your lies. I'm humiliated enough."

"Lies?"

"You didn't spy on Arden Caratacus, did you?"

"I did!"

"You heard what you're telling me in his bed."

"That's not true!"

"Isn't it? Then answer me this. Did you, or did you not, sleep with that conniving, treacherous, double-dealing piece of donkey offal who abducted you?"

How could he know? She couldn't speak.

Her husband stood to loom over her again, now a pillar of humiliation and rage. "Did you, or did you not, shame me and mock me and ruin me before every respectable man and woman of Rome?"

"How can you say these things?" All appetite had left her.

"Did you, or did you not, play the part of one of their pagan gods, and dance at their sacrificial ceremonies, and ride and hunt like a man, and work in the dirt like a peasant, and eat like a Hun as you've just done, and disgrace your own family's name for a hundred generations?" His voice was rising.

Furious at her own emotion, she began crying. "I rode here to warn you-"

"You rode here to betray me!"

"No, Marcus, no! You've got everything all wrong!"

"Where is Caratacus going to attack, Valeria?"

"Here!"

"I should concentrate my forces here, at the strongest part of the Wall?"

"Yes, yes!" she sobbed. "Here! I think so. He's coming to attack, and I want to save your life-"

"Save whose life, Valeria?"

She looked at him mutely, not understanding.

"Save your husband?"

She nodded, dumbly.

"Or save your lover?"

"Marcus, please…"

"You didn't ride fast enough, Valeria. Galba reached me first."

She closed her eyes in despair. "Don't listen to Galba! He's your enemy!"

"He outpaced you and told me of your lust for a barbarian. Did you like the roughness of this so-called Caratacus, Valeria, who names himself for a famous Roman enemy? Did you enjoy his crudity?"

"Marcus, don't believe-"

"Shouldn't I? Brassidias!" He roared the summons.

Boots rang across the stone floor of the commander's house, and Galba made an entrance in full armor, sword at his side, his chain of finger rings jingling at his waist, his bearing ready for war. He snapped to stern attention. "Yes, commander?" There was no surprise in his eyes.

"Is this the woman that you were told of at the hill fort of Arden Caratacus?"

"The same, commander."

"The woman who fled my house in the middle of the night to attempt an assignation with the tribune Clodius?"

"The same, commander."

"The woman who shamed Rome by becoming the lover of a barbarian?"

Galba bowed his head. "So I was told, commander."

"And who told you of this?"

"Arden Caratacus. He boasted of possessing the body of a daughter of Rome."

"What proof did he have for this boast?"

"A trophy, commander."

"Would I recognize this trophy?"

"You gave it to your bride on the night of your wedding."

"A ring, you mean? And how do I know you're telling the truth?"

"Because I brought it back with me. Because I have it here." Galba reached in a pouch at his belt and tossed something that rang as it bounced across the table, coming to rest near the praefectus. It was her ring with the intaglio of Fortuna.

Had Arden given it to Galba to betray her? Certainly fortune had deserted her.

"No!" she protested wildly. "Galba came to Tiranen to plot with Arden. It's been a plot from the beginning to manipulate and discredit you, Marcus-"

"Answer me! Did you sleep with that Caledonii animal?"

"He's not an animal."

"Answer me!"

Her voice was small. "Yes." She struggled for explanation. "We were drunk from a ceremony, and it was a meaningless thing, and I came back to warn you-"

"It was not a meaningless thing!" His fist came down on the table with a bang, and its leg buckled. Valeria shrank, fearing a beating. He was in a rage. "By the gods, betrayed already! Our marriage bed scarcely warmed!"

"You don't understand. I was a prisoner-"

Marta appeared, summoned by the clamor. Her eyes darted from one aristocrat to another, her expression a combination of curiosity and smirk. This scene would be all over the fort within an hour.

"Get out," Marcus snapped at her.

The slave disappeared.

The praefectus turned back to his wife. "And yet somehow you found the freedom, the moment it entered your head, to ride blithely back to the Wall. To tell me how to dispose of my forces."

"To warn you!"

"I've had my warning. From Galba Brassidias."

"He's the traitor!"

"He's our agent, Valeria. He's been treating with this Caratacus bastard for years. He fills the barbarian's head with foolishness and keeps the Celts off balance. You had no idea what was going on in that fort. No idea what your secrets meant."

His contempt stung. Now she was getting angry. "Isn't the emperor ill? Aren't powerful men choosing between him and his son?"

Marcus didn't reply.

"Aren't troops being sent to the Continent?"

"What of it?"

"You're in peril!"

"From you! You betrayed me!"

"I was confused! I came back-"

"To betray me with your words!"

"No!"

"Caratacus sent you to mislead me about the attack. To seduce me with your sex. To make us ready for an attack in one place while he strikes at another. All this he boasted about to our senior tribune, Galba Brassidias."

"No…" It was a moan.

"He's used you, Valeria. Caratacus seduced you, and persuaded you to betray Rome. To engineer the death of your husband. To serve as an agent of confusion-"

She was shaking her head in despair.

"And breach the Wall."

"Galba has twisted everything all around."

"Galba set a trap. For Caratacus and for you. And now it has snapped shut on the first one of you."

Valeria looked at him in disbelief.

"We can beat the Celts if we're ready," Galba rumbled. "It's persuading a pitched battle in a favorable place that's difficult. I've convinced Caratacus that I'll help him get through the Wall, but we'll pinch him off and destroy him when he does."

"See!" Valeria exclaimed. "Galba's going to let Caratacus through the Wall! Let me go to Arden, Marcus! None of this bloodshed will be necessary! I'll warn him, and no one will have to die!"

Marcus laughed, the bitter laugh of a man who sees his marriage and its political influence in ruins. His wife had shamed him, and what had he ever given her but love and honor? His only chance now was victory in battle. "Let you go to Arden? How you must wish it! You'll rue the day you left his protection. You're a traitor to the Roman state and the destroyer of our marriage, and after the battle I'll deal with you in accordance to ancient law."

"Ancient law?"

"A Roman husband has the right of divorce. Of discipline. Of taking the life of an adulteress if her treachery is grave enough, as Cato and Augustus and Constantine have said. You know that. You've risked that. Of losing your life by stoning or drowning or a noose around the neck." She was dizzy with fear. This couldn't be happening. "Marcus-" "You might wish to use a dagger or poison to assuage your shame, but I'm not going to give you that chance. You'll wait here, in locked confinement, for my final decision after the battle. And the next time I let you out, it will be to watch the torture and death of your barbarian lover."