"Sneaking out?"
"I went to relieve myself and heard Galba's graveled gargle. He was talking to some hooded Celt, and when I challenged them, the man slipped away. Brassidias was all bluster, claiming he was getting intelligence from one of the Areani, a spy from the north. They sell information for money."
"What's wrong with that?"
"Why not inform me? Teach me? Include me?"
She looked to Galba, riding a hundred paces ahead. "He does things alone."
"So why plague us with his dour presence in the first place? We were doing fine until he came along."
Here it was, Valeria thought: male rivalry, instinctive and ridiculous. Boys quarreling for meaningless status, and shedding blood for reasons forgotten an hour afterward. It was worse when women were involved. "Marcus sent him so we could become a partnership."
"Some partner. He treats us like children. We should leave his tedious expertise and go directly to your future husband." He looked at her again and then dropped back to ride, like Galba, alone.
As they made their way north, native villages began to thin and the countryside steeped into rolling, windswept hills. Grain and vegetable fields faded away and were replaced first by pasture and then by open moors and marshes. Lakes dotted the landscape so thickly that northern Britannia looked like a table set with pewter, vast clouds of ducks and geese winging in to rain upon the water like spring hail. Between rainstorms the sky was a scrubbed blue, clouds towering overhead like ruins of white marble. Squalls swept across gray horizons, rainbows signaling a breakthrough of sun. Twice the travelers came upon small groups of deer that bounded away into thick forest. The presence of these wild beasts exemplified the difference the travelers were experiencing as they journeyed north. There were woodlots still, the trees young and orderly, but also large brooding tracts of arboreal wilderness, peasant woodmen chopping at the periphery like ants against a tangled garden.
And still there was no sign of the Wall.
"How much time would we save if we didn't accompany Galba and went straight to my Marcus?" she finally asked Clodius a day later.
He looked at her with new confidence. "At least two days."
They came the second afternoon to a small tollhouse and watch-post on a broad hill called Bravoniacum. A grassy track branched north from the main road and disappeared into forest. It pointed in the direction the Wall must lie.
As they watered the horses, Clodius announced to Galba, "We part here."
The tribune squinted. "What? Who parts?"
"I and the women. There's no need to drag Valeria a hundred miles out of her way. I've studied the maps. Petrianis is but a day's ride north of here, through that wood. My orders, from the signet ring of Marcus himself, were to escort her, not horses. I'll take her there myself"
Galba smirked. "You don't know the way."
"I'll find it."
"You couldn't find your ass by yourself."
Clodius remained cool. "This cart slows you down. Ride ahead for your horses, and you'll reach the fort of the Petriana when we do. We'll both sleep in proper beds a night or two earlier." He tried to give his voice authority. While Galba had the higher rank, Clodius had the surety of birth.
"The lady requires protection," the senior man said.
"Which she has from Cassius and me. Lend me a guide, if you wish, but leave me to finish my task while you finish yours."
Valeria's heart was hammering. She longed for a swifter end! "Yes," she spoke up. "I want to go with Clodius."
Galba looked at her impassively. So: she'd chosen the boy. The other cavalrymen were giving their own imperceptible nods. All were tired of this slow escort. This was a chance to save everybody time.
"If you take her down that track," Galba warned, "it's your decision, not mine, junior tribune."
Clodius nodded. "A decision I'm comfortable making."
"It's my choice as well," Valeria said.
Galba considered them. Then he spoke carefully. "So be it. I'll give you Titus as guide."
Clodius nodded. "This makes the most sense, I think."
"Prove to me that it does." Galba conferred a moment with the soldier he was to loan, clapped him on the shoulder, and then mounted. "We meet in Petrianis!" The decision made, he seemed newly energized. His men sprang on their horses as well, as if released from a dull lesson. Free of the trundling cart, the cavalry galloped. In moments, they were gone.
"Good riddance," Clodius whispered as the rumbling faded.
The women turned to look at the lane they would follow into the forest. Suddenly their group seemed much smaller and the wood much bigger, its canopy shimmering with spring's green. Valeria hoped the Wall was truly nearby.
Clodius pointed. "We go that way, Titus?"
"Aye, tribune," said the soldier. "A bit of woods, and we're home."
They set off down the track at dawn the next morning. A few rude Briton farmsteads gave way to rough pasture, dotted with sheep, and then pasture devolved into unkempt moor and boggy marsh. Birch, aspen, and willow grew along a meandering stream thick with rushes, their road following its course. There was a wall of new leaf, a hole like a tunnel where the lane led, and then they were swallowed by the forest. It was dimmer and cooler inside the wood.
Valeria leaned out from her cart's canopy to look up into the trees. They seemed as old as time, and after the deliberately open shoulders of the Roman road, she felt submerged. The forest light was green and sallow, pressing with the weight of water, and the gnarled trunks were fat as towers, their roots sprawled outward like the legs of a lizard. Limbs entwined in an obscenity of embrace. Some trees were straight, others leaned ominously, and all of them creaked to a low moan of wind. The trees of the woods of Italy were smaller and more regularly spaced, paths broader, and intersections marked by temples. Britannia's woods seemed primitive and unexplored.
The straight highway she was accustomed to had been replaced by a winding track paved with the previous autumn's leaves, giving no clear view of what lay ahead or where they'd come from. Her cart jounced and tipped as it rumbled along, occasionally bogging in mud until Cassius pushed it out. Insects spun in whirling clouds above stagnant water. Birdcall slowly faded. The deeper into the wood they traveled, the damper and danker and quieter it became. They were all quiet, the primary sound the creak and jingle of leather harness and the rasp of axle.
It was with considerable relief, then, when they finally came to a place where the track forded a clear stream, the watercourse providing a welcome wedge of open sky. Titus and Clodius dismounted to water their horses while Cassius and the women climbed down from the cart. Bread, fruit, and cheese were shared. They nibbled quietly.
The walls of the enclosing forest formed a green pit, its escape the sky. White clouds scudded across the top of the clearing like a fleet of boats seen from the ocean's bottom. Green willows overhung the stream like bowing servants, their drooping tendrils brushing the water. Valeria decided to explore under the branches of one, letting the vines close behind her to form a tent. A forest house! So obese its trunk, so arching its branches! The willow's roots plunged down into the water, and she balanced on one, looking into a clear pool for signs of fish. A shape did dart through the water, and its quickness gave her a quiet thrill. So free it seemed! Swimming where it chose. Diving as it wished. Not trapped, as people were, in an itinerary of schedule and alliance and jealousy and marriage.
The thought startled her. How odd to think Marcus so close! He seemed farther away than ever.
There was a snap of brush, and the soldier Titus appeared, cutting through the willow's overhang after relieving himself. He stopped uncertainly, surprised and embarrassed to encounter Valeria so near.