“This is very bad, Tilla.”
“I will stay out of sight.”
He sighed. “The damage is done now. Clarus will assume you were acting for me.”
“I am sorry, husband!” He could tell from her voice that she was close to crying. “I was trying to help. I am so tired, and so very … oh, why does nothing go right?”
He put his arms around her, because that was the only answer he had. The hot tears soaked though the shoulder of his tunic. He thought of other times when he had told Tilla to stay out of something, only to find that he was glad of her help. This time it had gone wrong, and it was his own fault as much as hers, because instead of being grateful to her in the past, he should have insisted that she learn the first duty of a wife: obedience.
When she lifted her head and sniffed he murmured, “We both need to be careful now. We know too much, and we’re more expendable than Geminus. Don’t imagine that because you’ve helped the empress, she will help you.”
“But … what are we going to do?”
He stroked her hair. “You’re right,” he said, not because she was but because he could think of nothing better. “We’ll both keep out of the way, and we’ll keep quiet. The empress will leave and life will go back to normal. All this will all blow over.”
She wiped her eyes on a fistful of his tunic. “That is what you said before.” She released him and reached down to pull something out of her boot. “I have this.”
He caught a glint of light on the bronze handle of his missing scalpel. “Careful with that!” He tried to take it from her, but she bent to slide it back into its hiding place. She was lucky she had not sliced herself open.
This was ridiculous. Mixing up medicines, stealing dangerous equipment, assaulting a close friend of the emperor … Why had he not had the sense to do what other men did: to buy a slave and leave his wife at home?
Somewhere across the yard, a door scraped open. A voice said, “There you are!”
“Virana,” Tilla sighed as the girl approached. “Are you all right?”
“Marcus came to save me! Did you see? And the empress will sign my petition in the morning!”
“I think,” said Tilla acidly, “it is time for bed.”
“Yes, that is the other good news! Celer is guarding our space in the hayloft.” She looked at Ruso. “There is room for another one, sir.”
Ruso shook his head. “I’m going back to the camp,” he said. Before he left he squeezed Tilla’s hand, glad that the girl could not see she had been crying. “Be careful.”
“Don’t worry, sir,” put in Virana. “I will look after her for you.”
As he made his way back toward the entrance hall, he heard a loud whisper of “Oh, isn’t he kind! You are so lucky!”
No, he thought. She is not. She is cursed with knowing too much. And so am I.
Chapter 82
Alone as usual, Sabina lay in the comfort of her own fragranced sheets and savored the silence. The women bedded down on the floor around her would not dare to speak into the darkness unless she gave the order, and of course there were no rats. It had been the sound of mutinous Britons creeping across the roof.
The tremulous staff from the inn were long gone, as was the dreadful woman from the tribune’s household who had the nerve to ask the slaves-in her hearing! — if the empress was really as all right as she claimed to be.
Clarus had been harder to get rid of, but he had finally stopped making a fuss when she compromised: no Praetorians standing guard in the bedroom, but however many he wanted outside the door. She heard a floorboard creak as one of them shifted his footing. It would not surprise her if Clarus, ever loyal and now unusually flustered and apologetic as well, was lined up out there with them.
Safely returned into the care of her staff, she was finding it hard to believe what had happened this evening. All those men chanting her name! She could not restrain a smile. Her name. Not that of the emperor. Sa-bi-na! Raw and raucous and potent.
For a few brief minutes, she had been more than an unloved wife trailed in the wake of the most powerful man in the world. More than a woman with thinning hair and a tooth held in by gold wire whose slaves tactfully buried her deeper each year in layers of jewelry and makeup and hairpieces.
They had called for her. They had cheered her. They had listened to her. They had even laughed at her joke. She had felt a thrill run all the way through her as she knew for the first time what real power was like.
If the men knew what you had done, the Briton had said, they would be grateful to you. What did the Briton know about the murder of the centurion? What exactly had Clarus told her when they were alone together, and how much had she passed on?
It was a problem she would consider tomorrow.
Tonight she would enjoy being Sa-bi-na, Warrior-Queen of the Britons.
Chapter 83
Morning came, and with it the sound of birds singing and broken things being swept up. The Warrior-Queen of the Britons pulled the sheet up over her face, wishing away the knocking on the door and the urgent whisper of “Madam!”
The wishing did not work. Sabina, empress of Rome, flapped the sheet back down and said, “What?”
“Madam, Prefect Clarus is here to speak with you.”
“Tell him to come back at a sensible hour.”
“We tried, Madam. He won’t go.”
She ran her fingers through her thin hair. He could not be allowed to see her like this. Gesticulating to the other slaves to fetch her clothes, she said, “Ask him if the carriage is mended, and whether-” She stopped herself just in time from calling them my men. “-and whether the soldiers are behaving themselves, and how long it will be before we can get out of this dreadful place.”
The questions were conveyed, but instead of answering them Clarus called through the door, “Madam, the emperor is in the camp. He will be here at any moment.”
“Here?” She sat bolt upright. “Why did nobody-What is he doing here?”
“I sent a message last night, madam.”
What would people tell him about yesterday? Would anyone tell him how much she had enjoyed it? She turned to her slaves. “Clothes, quickly! Fetch my hair!”
“Madam, if I could speak with you a little more privately …”
“In a moment!”
When she was sufficiently clothed and coiffed to be decent-although the perfect lead-pale skin was still in its pot and the curling tongs were heating in the brazier-she finally allowed him to enter.
Clarus looked even more cadaverous than usual. “Madam. I am glad to see you looking refreshed and well this morning.”
“I wish I could say the same of you.”
“It has been a long night,” he conceded. “But now that the emperor is here, I’m sure all will be well.”
“No doubt he will enjoy setting us all straight. What do you want?”
“I thought you would like to know that the officers were very grateful for your help last night, madam. The camp has been peaceful all night.”
“Good.”
He lowered his voice. “Although some of the Twentieth seem to think that my men murdered their centurion.”
So the woman had talked. Already rumors were spreading among the soldiers. “Well, you’re in charge of the investigation,” she told him, settling herself on the stool as the slave approached with the first pot of skin cream. “It’s nothing to do with me. I thought you had some suspects under arrest.”
“The Briton’s husband and the recruit. Both have been released. You agreed to the release of the recruit last night.”