She lay there thinking of the green, aqueous forest and the wild men who dropped from trees. So sudden, and yet so planned. She thought of their chieftain's good Latin and his cocky boldness. "Marcus?"
"Hmmm?" He was near sleep.
"I wonder how the painted man knew I wanted to ride a horse."
"Your gladiator, perhaps. He betrayed you."
She nestled even deeper. "Beware the one you trust," she recited.
XVI
The first thing Valeria decided about married life is that she didn't feel very married. She slept until noon, exhausted by the previous day's excitement and the night's apprehension and unsatisfactory fulfillment, and woke in a bed half empty and cold. As he'd warned, her new husband was gone. The house was quiet.
She swung her legs onto the floor of the sleeping chamber and felt its chill on the soles of her feet. The blossoms on their bed had browned and fallen to the floor, her wedding ribbons curled among them. The smell of incense had given way to the musty dampness of wet stone. The one tapestry, she saw now, was nothing but a woven replica of the red-and-yellow shields of the Petriana. She shivered. Perhaps summer would eventually come and bring some warmth to Britannia, but so far the lengthening days of spring carried a memory of winter and the dank breath of the northern sea. She'd have to learn to dress warmly, as the Britons did.
Valeria went to the chamber door and called for Savia. The older woman came eventually but without hurry, sleepy and cross. Hadn't Savia slept in as well? Pushing Valeria aside, the maidservant made a brisk and businesslike inspection of the bed, clucking approvingly at the blood.
"Now you're a woman. When you bear your first child, you'll have consummated your marriage. But you haven't started yet, I hope."
"You know I don't want a child in this fortress. I'll wait until we're home."
"Did you use the vinegar?"
She nodded, embarrassed. "Don't tell Marcus. He wants a son." She was anxious to change the subject. "I thought my husband would stay with me today."
"He's married to his fortress as well as to you."
"But the day after our wedding?" It was the only day in which Roman custom permitted daytime lovemaking. "He could at least spare a morning."
"You've wasted that morning asleep! And he has five hundred men to attend to. It's his duty to concentrate on the Petriana, and yours to concentrate on him."
"I was wondering how long it would take you to remind me of duty, Savia."
"Roman duty won you this house, this post, and this province. You've got an entire lifetime to see your husband, and if you're like any other wife, you'll get sick of him long before it's over. Now stop feeling sorry for yourself and come to the baths."
The house, Valeria saw, was built around a barren central atrium open to the sky, giving the domicile four wings. The courtyard drank in pale Briton sunlight but had no fountain or plantings to soften its stone. The baths at the rear were more encouraging: a privy above the burble of a piped underground stream with its sponge on a stick to wipe oneself, a fountain of clean washing water, a steam room, and hot and cold plunge baths. Mosaics of dolphins and waving kelp were laid with crude but colorful Briton craftsmanship. Valeria descended into the hot with a sigh and the cold with a gasp, climbing out with her pores shut and her skin goose-pimpled. The physical shock had washed away some of her strange gloom. She was married! It was both accomplishment and relief. Surely, now things would begin.
"You look as if you just awakened yourself, Savia," she observed as her maidservant dried her.
"Rather I was awakened at dawn by banging pots and splashing water," the slave replied. "Your new staff rose perversely early to impress you. I got up to scold the cook, Marta, and she said I was to answer to her. She's a Saxon by birth, as obstinate as any German, and as haughty as an Egyptian. I could barely understand her accent."
"I'll make clear the order of things," Valeria promised. "And you and I must learn to speak and understand Celtic, or they'll be chattering about us like magpies."
"It can be as difficult to command a household staff as a ship of pirates!"
They laughed, having heard a hundred stories to confirm the proverb. Valeria donned her linen underclothes, put on a long tunic, and then pulled over it her woolen stola and fastened it with brooches. How sad to have lost the sea-horse one, a present from her mother. She slipped on socks before her sandals and felt swaddled as a baby. What a sight she'd be in Rome!
"But before I organize the staff, I want to clear my head, perhaps with a tour of our fortress. Can you send for an escort?"
She nibbled on breakfast as she waited.
It did not entirely surprise her that Clodius was the one who eventually answered her summons. He bowed in the atrium. "It seems I've been sent again, my lady."
"Thank the gods," she joked. "My husband has already abandoned me!"
"No man abandons beauty like yours. Rather, he's been abducted by duty. We've received word that there may be news about the ambush. Galba is being sent to get it by helping a barbarian chieftain in a cattle dispute. He's riding with a hundred men."
The realization that Marcus had the power to send a hundred soldiers off into the wilderness gave Valeria a quiet thrill. Here was a tiny flexing of that vast power that reached all the way to Rome. "My husband has been busy, hasn't he?"
"And sends me as poor substitute in his place. I confess I suggested the assignment myself. It's a way for making up for my boorish poetry at your wedding."
"Oh, that's entirely forgiven and forgotten!"
"It's the oaf who is last to forgive his own clumsiness, I'm afraid."
"You were brave to defy those barbarians!"
"Brave, but helpless." He touched his neck. "I allowed us to be surprised."
She didn't contradict him. "Does it hurt?"
"I'll have a scar."
"Which will soon be covered by a Celtic torque of valor!"
They went outside. The flower petals of the night before had been swept from the courtyard, and men and horses were gathering there for the expedition. The cavalry animals weren't fine-boned steeds but shorter, shaggier, more stolid beasts, obviously bred not just for speed but for endurance. They snorted and whinnied, nipping at each other. Each was loaded with equipment for a short expedition: water skin, food bag, holstered throwing lances, cooking utensils, and tarps. The prelude to attack was often a great rattle, as necessary baggage was set aside before a charge.
Soldier's heads swung to look curiously at the woman who was the reason for this expedition, their expressions not unfriendly. Valeria was novel, beautiful, aristocratic, and newlywed, and this foray was a welcome break from post routine.
Galba was waiting at their head. "Good hunting, senior tribune," Valeria greeted. "I understand you ride to help one of our allies."
"Rufus Braxus would swell like a toad to hear you call him that."
"He's a chieftain?"
"He'll tell you he's a prince of the Novantae tribe, sire of nine sons, keeper of three wives, lord of a timbered hill fort, commander of eighty spears, and blood-bound to five high families. I'll tell you he's farmer, merchant, shepherd, drover, smuggler, cheat, and thief, who uses Roman money to carve a bigger stink-hole than he could by himself. As a result he's loud, ignorant, blasphemous, boastful, vain, sly, and lazy."
"In other words, a Briton," Clodius said.
"Aye, junior tribune, a Briton. A Celt. A barbarian. He helps us with word of the tribes farther north, and then tells them of Roman intentions. He's a border man, as close to an ally as we get in these parts. Now his neighbor, Caldo Twin-Axe, has stolen twenty head. Braxus promises information if we help get them back."
"Is such theft common?" She was fascinated by this glimpse of border politics.