Semper Fidelis

Chapter 45

Tilla held her head high as she stepped into the entrance hall of the mansio. She was not going to allow a group of spoiled rich people to upset her. The manager, looking concerned, hurried to greet her. The last time he had seen her, she was being marched off to the fort by four Praetorian Guards. “It is all right,” she assured him, not sure she wanted to tell anyone about her meeting with the empress. “It was nothing bad.”

But he was not interested in where she had been. He was interested in where she was going, which was anywhere but in his building. He was very sorry, but there was no room any more.

“But I have nowhere to go! Everywhere in Eboracum is full.”

“I’m sorry, madam. You can’t stay here. We’ve had orders.”

“But why? Is the tribune’s household still here?”

“I can’t discuss other guests, madam.”

She was about to answer, when she heard shouting outside. “They’re here! The Sixth are here!”

The manager straightened up, craning past her to look out through the open doors. She could hear the steady tread of boots now. This was not good. In moments the street would be filled with a blue and silver river of men in armor, sweeping away everything in its path. She would have to find a way out through a side door and hope that there would still be somewhere in the fortress for an officer and his wife to spend the night.

“I need to find my husband.”

“There is also the matter of payment-”

“Send the bill to my husband at the hospital.”

“Madam, our usual policy-”

She straightened her shoulders and looked him in the eye. “Do you want me to leave, or not?”

Corinna was kind, and surprised, and reassuring. No, they had no right to throw her out like that. “You are safe here,” Corinna assured her, handing her a piece of bread and giving another to her son, distracting him from tugging threads out of the bandage on his leg. “The door is strong, and there is no one here but us.”

As if to reinforce what she said, the sound of raised voices came from the street. Corinna looked up from stirring something that smelled good, and sighed. “It was noisy last night too. All these new people arriving. You must stay here until your husband comes to take you to the fort.”

Tilla ripped a chunk off the bread. “I sent a message. I hope someone will give it to him.”

She had managed to snatch a word with the lame gardener, who had been sympathetic but able neither to help nor to explain. He did whisper, though, that he thought the order to throw her out had come from the tribune. He did not know why, and Tilla could only guess. Was it something to do with what her husband had said about Geminus? Surely they were not being thrown out because she had stared at the empress?

She glanced up, startled by a sound that seemed to come from the top of the ladder leading to the boarded loft under the thatch. “What is that?”

Corinna took a sip from the spoon and said calmly, “Just the rats. A nuisance, but last night they put off two ambassadors from Baetica who banged on the door demanding beds. If we stay here, I must find a cat.”

Tilla shuddered and hoped the message would get through quickly. She had thought about asking if she could spend the night here, but how could anyone sleep with rats running about the house? Was nowhere safe? She needed to be settled somewhere else before dark. She needed the Medicus.

Someone banged on the door, but it was only a mansio porter bringing her luggage, just as the embarrassed manager had promised. She checked the contents, only too aware of how easy it would be for a slave to hide something and sell it quietly later on. When she had finished, she sank down onto the stool by the hearth.

Corinna said, “Is it all there?”

She nodded.

Corinna wrapped a cloth around her hands and poured broth from the pan into the two bowls she had set on the table. “Eat,” she said, wiping the drips from the metal rim of the pan. “We will think of something more cheerful. Tell me about the empress.”

“You know about that?”

“This is a small place. People talk.”

“She wanted to meet a Briton,” said Tilla. “I think I was a disappointment to her.”

“So is it true what they say about them? That he prefers boys and they hate each other?”

Tilla looked up from her bowl. “They hate each other?”

Corinna dipped a piece of bread into the broth, shook off the drips, and tested the temperature before handing it to her son. “I hear he was always more friendly with his mother-in-law than his wife.”

Tilla’s spoon came to a halt as she heard an echo of her own voice. I can tell you that no woman of my people would lie with a man she does not like. She hoped the empress had not thought it was a deliberate insult. “Perhaps that is why she has no children,” she said. “I thought she might have sent for me because she wanted medicine, but she did not ask.”

“They say she makes sure she will never give him children. I heard that she says any child of his would harm the human race.”

Tilla stared at her in mounting alarm. “Are you sure?”

“Who knows?” Corinna shrugged. “That is what I heard.”

“Perhaps you heard wrongly,” said Tilla, feeling her intestines writhe as she recalled the sound of laughter following her around the courtyard. So that was why the empress had said, Do not pray too hard.

She had spoken with the best of intentions. She had tried to be kind. She hoped the empress realized that. Still, no matter what the empress realized, the words were out now. There is always hope. And then she had made it worse by gabbling about the patient who had been married for seventeen winters.

Tilla pushed a chunk of bread under the surface of the broth with her spoon. She was no longer hungry. She had made a fool of herself. It should not be any worse because it was in front of the wife of the most powerful man in the world, but it was.

“So what did she say to you?”

Tilla watched the brown liquid soak up into another piece of bread. It was bad enough to be laughed at without having to relive the embarrassment every time someone asked. “I can’t tell you,” she said, shoving the second piece of bread down below the surface. “It was a secret.”