“I was wondering, sir,” he put in when they seemed to have run out of things to say about the crop yields of the farm Geminus had bought in Campania, “why the recruits were sent here instead of being trained at Deva.”
“Because somebody has to garrison Eboracum while everyone’s up on the border building the emperor’s wall,” explained the tribune, as if it were obvious.
“And they look like soldiers to the natives,” added Geminus.
“Ah,” said Ruso, suspecting he now appeared dim rather than sociable, and not sure what to say next.
“It was thought,” continued Accius, helpfully filling the silence, “that if we trained them over here, they wouldn’t pick up bad habits from the older men back at Deva.”
“But it turned out they’d got plenty of their own,” observed Geminus.
“You’ve all done everything that could possibly be asked of you,” Accius assured the centurions. “I saw that for myself this afternoon.”
Geminus said, “I should have got rid of that lad before, sir. But sometimes a recruit like that comes good.”
Dexter wiped his bowl with a chunk of bread. “You can’t do anything with a man whose mind has gone.” He crammed the bread into his mouth as if there were nothing more to be said on the subject.
Ruso felt there was a great deal more to be said, but not here. Instead he reached for the water jug. “So how did they get the idea they were cursed?”
No one replied. He glanced up. The others were looking at him as if he were an earwig that had just crawled out of their lettuce. He had a feeling this was not the sort of reaction Claudia would have intended.
“The curse of the Britons,” said Geminus finally, “is that they don’t do what they’re told. A couple of them found out the hard way that they should have paid more attention in swimming practice.”
“Geminus dived in and rescued one of them himself,” said Accius, as if he were afraid his relative might be too modest to mention it.
“Lost the other one downstream.” Geminus shook his head, acknowledging defeat. “Then this week we lost one in a training accident, and they’ve put the two together and made up some tale that means none of it’s their own fault.” He clapped his glass down on a side table as if signaling the end of this depressing subject and turned to Accius. “I noticed the mention of discipline in your speech, sir. Very appropriate.”
“Ah, yes.” Accius reached for his own wine. “Of course, you know why we have altars to Disciplina.”
“To encourage the men, sir?” ventured the plump one.
“The same reason we have coins celebrating Concordia,” said Accius, taking a sip and looking around the room. “Because we like to pretend we’ve got it.”
“We do, sir,” agreed Geminus. The plump centurion gave a grunt that might or might not have been assent, the thin one looked round for a cue, and the silent one busied himself with his dinner.
Ruso wondered how much wine Accius had drunk. The wording stamped on coins was chosen at the very top, and-given the bad relations between the Senate and Hadrian-it was hardly tactful for the son of a senator to be heard criticizing imperial policy in a building where any member of the staff could be a spy. The spies, on the other hand, would not be anywhere near as interested as Ruso was in the loss of a few unimportant Britons-something Accius should have been concerned about but apparently wasn’t.
“I was wondering, sir,” he said, “if the second recruit who died had been in some sort of a fight.”
Geminus frowned. “Where did you get that from?”
Too late, Ruso realized that a fight might suggest Geminus had failed to keep control, whereas an accident could be blamed on the gods. “The body,” he said, unable to think of a suitable lie and wishing the tribune had found some women to invite. Women were good at filling embarrassing silences. Except for Tilla, who was good at creating them.
This time it was Accius who restarted the conversation. “Did Geminus ever tell you,” he said to the centurions, “how he and I first met?”
The fat and the thin centurions greeted this opening with the eagerness of men stranded on a lonely road spying an approaching carriage. The silent one did not appear to notice.
“We’re related, you know,” Accius explained. “On my mother’s side.”
Ruso, who knew this much already, surmised that Geminus was a useful sort of relative: distant enough not to be a social embarrassment but close enough to be claimed as family when he had marched home from the Dacian campaign, his chest sparkling with decorations for bravery. Apparently the eight-year-old Accius had been escorted onto the streets of Rome to watch him in the victory parade. Later, he had followed Geminus around the house asking every question he could think of about life in the army.
Geminus’s hard features softened slightly as his protege reminded him of the marching lessons around the fishpond in the garden, and how Accius had taken to demanding the day’s watchword before allowing anyone to enter his presence.
“Do you remember that wooden sword you gave me?”
“Very well, sir.”
“Did Mother ever tell you Father confiscated it? I knocked over one of the statues in the garden while I was practising the thrust and twist. I wrote to the praetorian barracks to ask you for another one, but I think the slave must have been told to lose the letter.”
“I never got it, sir.”
“And finally, after all these years, I heard we were serving in the same province and I had the chance to thank you.”
The bald head dipped in acknowledgment. “You’ve made me very proud, sir.”
“And to apologize to you for being an insufferable brat.”
There was a brief silence while everyone waited to see if Accius would smile. Then they all laughed. Even Geminus. The subject of dead recruits was forgotten.
Chapter 15
By the time Ruso headed back around the courtyard toward his own room, the blustery rain had put out all but one of the torches, which was why he failed to see the puddle before he trod in it.
To his surprise he found his wife still awake and sitting at the table. Whatever was left of the food had been pushed to one side beneath a cloth. The flames of a triple-wicked lamp were dancing in the sudden draft from the door as she rolled up a scroll that had been laid out in front of them. He recognized the collection of poetry a friend had lent her for reading practice.
“If one of our poets had spoken this rubbish,” she said, tying it closed, “nobody would pass it on, and it would be forgotten, and good riddance. But this man wrote everything down, and now it floats about like somebody else’s hair in the bath. Who cares if his lady’s pet sparrow is dead?”
He sat on the bed and bent to tackle his wet boots. “The only other scroll Valens could lend me wasn’t fit for a decent man to read with his wife. It’s a foul night out there. How was your patient?”
“Pregnant, and very silly. Is it true three recruits have died?”
“And one’s deserted.”
“He is the one we met on the way here. His name is Victor. I hope he is somewhere safe in this storm.”
“I’m surprised more haven’t run off. They seem to be an unhappy bunch.” He tossed the boots into a corner.
Tilla retrieved them and put them on the windowsill to dry in the draft. “The girl said Fortuna has turned her back on Eboracum, and you should be careful. She thinks it is only the recruits who are cursed, but I have prayed to Christos for you-”
“I wish you wouldn’t keep doing that.”
“-and I will find a place to leave a gift for the goddess, just in case.”
“Did she say how the second man died?”
Tilla frowned, as if she was trying to remember exactly what she had been told. “The recruits were frightened of each other after the one who jumped off the roof lost his boyfriend in the river.”
“His boyfriend?” That might explain the suicide. “Why were they frightened of each other?”