‘Got it from a splinter,’ I told him as I turned for the door.
‘Hang on a minute, Felix.’ The centurion’s tone was friendly, but it was still an order. ‘I’ve got my own question about the QM.’
I held my tongue.
‘It’s all through the cohort that you can have a good night in one of the stores down there – wine and tits – but no matter who I ask, everyone’s pretending like it doesn’t exist.’ He paused then, trying to read me. I knew that my face would be nothing but a scar-crossed mask.
‘I’m not stupid, Felix, I know why they don’t want an officer turning up, but officers need wine and tits too. Seeing as you arranged your friend’s transfer so easily, I’m wondering, if you and the QM are such old pals, whether maybe you could vouch for me? Leave rank at the door, and all that good stuff.’
‘If I can,’ I began, keeping up my guard, ‘then I’ll be glad to.’
‘Good man.’ H grinned, his spirits seemingly restored. ‘If we can die together we can drink together is the way I see it. Not that I plan on the first eventuality. Tomorrow night then, if you don’t mind? We’ve got the walls tonight. Try not to let any of the boys fall asleep or kill themselves out of boredom. It’s going to be another dull watch.’
He was wrong.
36
No one knew when the girl had died, only that her young life had come to an end in a bloodstained alleyway, her corpse then dragged and stuffed into a latrine. Gruff soldiers laughed and joked that the civilian who found the body had shit herself.
I was not one of the men laughing.
Our section was on the walls when the news of the latest killing spread around the fort, the army’s chain of whispers leading from the patrolling soldiers who attended to the girl’s body, to the guard commander of the watch, and finally to the eager ears of the men on the battlements.
I might not have been laughing, but I was the most enthusiastic amongst the guard to hear every detail of the body, no matter how grim, and my hurried questions drew peculiar looks from my comrades, who must have wondered why I wanted to know such things. Doubtless they thought me deranged, but I was not seeking the sickening facts from morbid curiosity, but from fear. Try as I might, from the moment I had heard the first whisper of death, I had not been able to shake the idea that the butchered girl was Linza. No matter how hard I tried to push the images away, the picture of her cut-up body floated in front of my eyes.
‘You sure she had brown hair?’ I pressed the soldiers who were relieving us of our duty.
One of the veterans shrugged. ‘That’s what everyone’s saying.’
‘Who’s they?’ I pushed him.
‘Fuck’s sake, I don’t know. Everyone. I won’t bother saying anything next time, if you’re just gonna grill me over it.’
I brushed past the man towards the battlement’s stairs. I moved with speed because I knew that the soldier was wrong. He was wrong, and the girl’s hair would be blond. She would be German.
She would be Linza.
‘Felix,’ Folcher called after me as I reached the bottom step and broke into a run. ‘Where are you going?’
I ignored him. I ran past our barrack block, not wanting to waste a single second by stripping off my kit. Instead I carried my shield and javelin as my sandals slapped against the dirt. My haste and my armour drew looks of flushed panic from the civilians and curious frowns from soldiers, but I ignored them all as I concentrated on finding Linza. By the time that I had sprinted to her block on the west side of the fort, sweat was running into my eyes and my chest was heaving beneath the heavy chain mail.
‘Who was the dead girl?’ I asked a crone who backed away at the sight of my desperate eyes.
‘Where’s Linza?’ I shot at a pair of frightened children. ‘She’s Batavian. Linza? Do you know her? Linza?’
‘Felix?’
I turned.
She stood in the alleyway, a bucket of water held in both hands, a look of confusion on her face. She was alive.
‘Linza,’ I breathed, my relief followed instantly by regret at jumping to morbid conclusions, ‘I was worried you—’
She sliced off my feeble words: ‘Are you my friend?’ she demanded, catching me off guard, her blue eyes now lost beneath a frown.
‘Of… of course,’ I stumbled.
Linza placed the bucket down. Her fingers ran through blond hair dirtied by labour. ‘You only come to look for me when I’m dead?’ she finally accused. There was no heat in her tone, only disappointment.
I said nothing. I had nothing to say, because it was true.
‘I’m sorry,’ I mumbled, cursing my stupidity. Cursing my warped mind. ‘I…’
Why did I think this way? Act this way? I had thought about this woman for days. She was here all of that time, literally trapped within the same four walls as I was. Why had I made no attempt to see her – to talk to her – until I thought that she was a cut-up body dumped in a latrine?
What the fuck was wrong with me?
‘I’m sorry,’ I repeated, my words heavy with self-reproach.
My apology was honest. Linza saw that. Her frown softened, but she held her distance.
‘Do you only talk to dead people?’ she pressed me sadly, before realizing that the handful of civilians were watching our exchange avidly. ‘Come with me.’ She gestured towards a building, tired of their scrutiny.
I followed her away from prying eyes. ‘I didn’t come here to upset you,’ I told her once we were in the privacy of a wooden awning.
‘Do I look upset?’ She shook her head. ‘I am worried.’
‘I can teach you how to look after yourself, and how to fight?’ I offered quickly, desperate to be a help and not a burden. ‘And I know a safer place for you to stay. My friend is the quarter—’
‘I am worried for you,’ Linza confided. ‘You, Felix, when you run around looking for death. Looking for hurt. You have friends. They are alive and they are here, but when do you live with them? When do you think about living, and not dying?’
‘I—’
‘Shut up,’ she told me gently. ‘I don’t want you to speak. I want you to think. I want you to enjoy.’
‘But—’
‘Fuck!’ She laughed with frustration. ‘Shut up, Felix!’ she ordered me, waving her arms to drive home her point. ‘I am not stupid. I know I can die here. I know I can die out there. We can all die. We will all die. I don’t need to think about it every. Single. Hour. And neither do you,’ she offered with a smile.
I had the sense then to hold my tongue. Silence fell, and with it, unease. I felt as though I had walked into an ambush. A killing ground. I was a yard away from this woman who had cost me sleep and caused me panic. If she were an enemy, I could cross that space and kill her before she breathed. Being who she was, that yard was as great an obstacle as the blue sea where I had sat on the pier and dreamed.
‘You remind me of someone,’ I admitted, thinking back on those blissful days.
‘You too,’ she slowly confessed.
I didn’t dare meet her pale eyes. ‘Your husband?’
I saw the smallest of nods in the corner of my vision.
‘Who?’ she then asked as she reached out, her fingers falling on to my shoulder, her gaze irresistibly drawing my own.
Looking up, I saw comfort in blue eyes. Comfort and love. It was not born of lust, but kinship, the recognition of a fellow wounded soul. That compassion took me back to a life before war and suffering. To a time where I had looked into eyes like hers, and known that each breath, each touch, was a blessing to be cherished.