Semper Fidelis

Chapter 54

The hammering on the door was louder the second time, which was just as well, because it covered the sound of Lucios shouting, “Dada! Dada gone!” as Victor vanished into the loft. Tilla grabbed the child and swept him up into the air, whispering, “Time to play bears sleeping in the trees!” while Corinna tried to peer through a crack between the planks.

“Some Roman,” announced Corinna, stepping back. “It’s all right, he’s gone.”

Tilla wanted to say, What if it is a message for me? but when she opened the door, there was no one there.

They were about to sit down when someone rattled the back gate and a voice shouted in Latin, “Hello! Anyone in?”

The sleeping bear came down from the trees faster than he expected. Tilla paused to kiss him on the forehead, then rushed out of the back door, leaned across the gate, and flung her arms around the visitor. “Valens! Oh, Valens, it is good to see a friend!”

He stepped back, holding her by the shoulders and looking at her. “Tilla, dear girl, you look exhausted.”

“It is not me who is in trouble, it is-”

“I know, I know. I’ve just seen him.”

Tilla turned to introduce him, but Corinna had slipped back into the house.

Valens said, “They don’t seem awfully welcoming around here. I just went to ask for you at the mansio and the chap couldn’t get rid of me fast enough. Where can we talk?”

The owner of the bar brought them very watered wine with a drop of honey and some sort of hard, flat cake. He apologized for the lack of choice, but his man had gone out of town in search of supplies: The locusts had stripped everything else last night. When he had gone, Tilla leaned across the table. “You have seen him. How is he?”

Valens shook his head sadly. “It was a shock to see him in that state, I have to admit. I’ve recommended they improve his diet and let him out for exercise. How long has he been like this?”

“They locked him up this morning. They won’t let me see him. What will happen?”

“You mustn’t despair. I’m going to try and talk to some people before I leave, see if we can get him a medical discharge.”

“You think they will let him out?”

“They might allow you to take him back to Gaul. He may well improve, you know. These things often burn themselves out.”

She shook her head. “I know you are trying to offer comfort, and I thank you. But you have been out of the Legion for a long time. The army will not forgive something like this.”

There was an awkward silence. Both picked up the unappetizing cake. Valens ventured a bite. Tilla noticed the scalded-like-a-pig woman and a friend staring at them from across the street. She waved and forced a smile, and they moved on.

Valens carried on chewing for a while, then pushed the remains of the cake away. “A whole one of those could be fatal.”

Tilla remembered to ask, “What are you doing here?”

“The emperor is here, the procurator is the emperor’s man, and I’m the emperor’s man’s doctor. We arrived this morning after a rather hasty journey. The wife would say hello if she knew I was seeing you.”

So he was still calling her “the wife.” It was as if he might change her at any moment and did not want the bother of remembering a new name. She said, “Please take my greetings to her and the boys.”

“I have to say,” said Valens, “that finding you here is one bright moment in rather a gruesome few days. I tried to persuade the procurator not to rush down here, but he insisted, even though he’s not well. Politics and friendship, you know. An irresistible force. Now it looks as though we’re going to be going straight back to the border again in the morning.”

Tilla said, “It is a comfort to see you.”

Valens nodded. “I was sorry to see poor old Ruso like that. He got quite agitated when I left.”

“I think perhaps it is my fault,” Tilla confessed.

“Oh, no! Never. Every marriage has its troubles, you know. If you could blame this sort of thing on the wife, I’d have been driven over the edge years ago. No, it would have happened anyway. He’s lucky he has you to look out for him. But in time, with the right care, I see no reason why he shouldn’t make a complete recovery.”

Tilla frowned. “He is ill?”

“Dear girl, hasn’t anyone told you?”

“No.”

“I happened to spot him by the gates as we arrived this morning. To be frank, he wasn’t looking good. So I asked around. It seems he started to think he’d been sent to inspect the entire fort. He’s been breaking into buildings and spying on the maintenance crews. Countermanding other men’s orders, making accusations, and … well, they should have kept a closer eye on him last night. But you don’t think he would have spoken to Hadrian like that if he were in his right mind, do you?”

She wrapped her hands around the cup to stop them trembling. “There was no problem with his mind last time I saw him.”

Valens gave her the look he would have given a patient who had disagreed with his diagnosis. “He looked me in the eye and asked if I was dead, Tilla.”

“Oh.” Gripped by a sudden worry she said, “Is he thirsty? He was bitten by a dog.”

“It didn’t look like hydrophobia, no.”

She said, “I was the one who wanted him to appeal to the emperor. I thought it would help.”

Valens looked blank. “Help what?”

It occurred to Tilla later that if the local gossips had enjoyed seeing the wife of the murderous doctor breaking bread with a handsome stranger, they must be even more excited now that stranger and doctor’s wife had taken a long and unchaperoned walk together beside the river. The fact that stranger and wife kept a respectable distance would not, of course, be reported. Nor-and this was why they had gone there-would anything that they said to each other on that walk.

“So,” said Valens as they passed beneath the trailing willow on their return, “if it wasn’t Ruso who cut this chap’s throat-which I must say I found very hard to believe when they told me-who was it?”

“Plenty of people had a reason. But it was dark, and there was a lot of fighting going on. How can anyone know which of them did it?”

Valens sighed. “He really should have left all this alone until you got back to Deva. The recruits would have backed him up once the centurion wasn’t in a position to frighten them anymore.”

“He saw the boy jump from the roof,” she said. “And he was angry about the boy who might lose his arm. He could not stand by and watch a patient being treated that way. His student had the courage to write a report, and he did not want to let him down.”

Valens’s smile was brief but as handsome as ever. “He just can’t resist taking on other people’s problems, can he?”

“No,” said Tilla. “That is why I like him.”