Semper Fidelis

Chapter 42

The legate’s house still smelled of fresh paint, and the slave girl who had told Tilla to wait in the yellow entrance hall had a smear of the same color on the shoulder of her tunic.

Tilla, left alone to wonder why the empress wanted to see her, glanced out at the courtyard garden. It had been a mass of brambles before yesterday’s desperate slash-and-burn preparations. Plants in pots had been commandeered from somewhere, and slaves were scurrying back and forth between the rooms she had helped to sweep and air yesterday afternoon. Through an open door she could see the wall hanging Minna had ordered put up to hide a damp patch. She wondered what it would be like to live surrounded by servants, with everything you wanted supplied for you, and with hundreds-maybe thousands-of armed men outside who would do whatever your husband told them. It might be very lonely.

An approaching male voice said, “They have searched her for weapons, I take it?”

Oh, yes, thought Tilla. Very thoroughly, and not with respect.

The slave with the paint on her tunic reappeared. “The empress will see you now.”

Moments later Tilla was announced as “The British woman, madam.”

She stepped into the big room with the cracked windowpanes and found herself under scrutiny. There were four women, three of whose plain slave tunics were finer than anything she had ever owned, and two ill-matched men in middle age: a lanky bald one looking uncomfortable in Praetorian uniform and a short one with a potbelly and inky fingers.

Sabina herself was seated in a basket chair and draped in pale gold silk. While two of the slaves adjusted the curls on her complicated hairstyle, she surveyed Tilla as if she were examining a piece of fruit for blemishes. The beautifully made-up eyes were puffy, and Tilla suspected she had not slept well.

The slave girl who had brought her in stepped forward and murmured in Tilla’s ear, “Do not stare at the empress!”

“Her hair is rather scruffy,” observed the empress. “And she isn’t blue at all. Ah, well. Do we have anyone who can translate?”

“I speak Latin, mistress,” said Tilla, addressing the thin fingers resting in the imperial lap. She was not sure what to call this woman. She did not want to get her husband into trouble. On the other hand, if empresses were fussy about who looked at them and what they were called, then they should arrange for someone to say so earlier.

“How convenient,” said Sabina, not sounding in the least embarrassed about her rudeness. “Not quite the barbarian I was hoping for, but never mind. Cheer up, young woman. I have not brought you here to terrify you.”

Someone must have told the empress about her. Perhaps she was here to be thanked for all her hard work.

Sabina said, “I hear one of our officers has married you.”

“I have married him also, mistress,” said Tilla. “My people choose our own men.”

“So I hear. Well, I am glad not all the Britons are hostile to us, although you are rather forward. Tell me something. I have also heard that your men share their wives.”

Tilla hesitated. Wretched Julius Caesar again. “I cannot speak for all the tribes, mistress. But I can tell you that no woman of my people would lie with a man she does not like.”

“You are very frank for a young woman with no position.”

Tilla was tired of looking anywhere but at the woman’s face. “I am trying to answer honestly,” she said, meeting the empress’s scrutiny. “You are a guest in these islands, and it would be inhospitable to lie to you.”

The men looked from her to Sabina. The empress’s brittle laughter seemed to come as a relief to everyone. “A guest in our own province! How quaint! Tell me, why are none of you blue?”

What was it that made Romans so interested in this sort of thing?

“Warriors paint themselves, mistress. Perhaps everyone did it in Caesar’s day, but I have never heard of it.” Just to be helpful, she added, “I have never heard of men hunting each other for sport, either.”

“Really?” The girl doing the hair above the left ear let go just in time as Sabina turned to the men. “You see? Even the barbarians have stricter standards than we do.”

“I suppose there’s no money for games here,” put in the lanky man. “It does look horribly poor.”

“Well, so far this is rather disappointing. Is it at least true that you are a midwife and your husband is a medicus with the Twentieth Legion?”

Relieved to be asked something sensible at last, Tilla said, “I deliver babies, mistress, and I help my husband with the civilian patients and medicines.” And perhaps, she saw suddenly, she could help someone else. “My husband is a good man,” she said. “He is trying to stop a centurion who is gambling away the lives of his recruits while the tribune stands by and does nothing.”

Sabina’s face tightened. “The army is not our concern. The emperor does not need advice and he would not like anyone to interfere in his business.”

The empress was not as empty-headed as she pretended to be. “I try not to interfere, mistress. I just try to find something useful to do, as the gods have not yet granted us children.”

“I shall pray for you.”

Tilla bowed her head. “And I for you, mistress. There is always hope. Not long ago I delivered a first child for a woman who had been married for seventeen winters.”

“I see,” said Sabina, not warmly. “Well, this has been very interesting.” Again the hairdresser slaves lifted their hands just in time as Sabina turned to consult the men. “Do we have any more questions for her, gentlemen?”

They did not.

“You may leave us now. Oh, and, girl …?”

“Mistress?”

Was that a faint smile creasing the makeup on the imperial cheeks? “Do not pray too hard.”

As she backed out of the room, Tilla heard the empress laughing. She hoped it was nothing to do with her.