XIII
PISO WAS NOT dead, at least not yet, but his breathing was faint and he would not wake. The medicus had examined him, found no other injury apart from the wound to the head. It was slighter than Ferox had suspected, for head wounds always bled like stuck pigs, but the medicus’ opinion was that more severe was the force of the blow.
‘Will he live?’ Hadrian had asked when he visited the hospital early the next morning.
The medicus shrugged. ‘Perhaps? Perhaps not? And perhaps he will have some life, some of his wits, but not all.’
‘When will you know?’
Another shrug. ‘I cannot say, my lord.’ The medicus added the title, because even the authority of his rank in his hospital ought to defer a little to a senator and senior officer. ‘I have attended to the wound and bound it. He sleeps without the need of poppy seed or any other comfort, so he does not feel any pain. The tribune may sleep for hours or many days and he may never wake. At the moment there is no more that can be done for him apart from keeping him warm and comfortable and making an offering to the gods.’
‘See to it.’
The other casualty, a Brigantian struck so hard that the back of his skull had collapsed, was most certainly dead. Found under a pile of debris from one of the buildings when the fire was well under control, the death might have been an accident, but Ferox had not had the energy to investigate in any more detail as yet for there had been so much to do. Hadrian had not slept until the fire was extinguished, by which time the night was more than half spent. Ferox had kept awake even longer, and finally got a little sleep on the cot kept in the hut behind the main gates. Even then, he only gave in to exhaustion on the promise that he be woken at the slightest sign of trouble inside or outside the fort.
An hour before dawn, Philo appeared with fresh clothes, and managed his old trick of shaving Ferox while the centurion slept. With less than half an hour to spare he had shaken his master awake.
‘Mongrel,’ Ferox had croaked at him, but the freedman was persistent and the centurion knew the signs.
‘The legatus, the noble Aelius Hadrianus, wishes to see you, so you must look your best.’
Ferox grunted his opinion of that, but knew how the army worked and also how relentless Philo was bound to be. By his own standards, if not the much higher ones of his servant, he was smartly turned out by the time he stood waiting in the main office of the principia. Hadrian appeared just as the trumpets sounded the end of the night and the first watch of the day, and looked as if he had slept twelve hours on a feather mattress, before bathing and taking a leisurely breakfast.
They talked for an hour, just the two of them, or rather Hadrian asked a lot of questions and each answer prompted even more queries. Then they toured the fort, talking all the time, but now attended by several officers and clerks. Apart from the hospital, Hadrian watched as the guards were replaced at the gates, before visiting the debris from the fire.
‘We were lucky,’ the legatus told them. ‘Without the rain…’
They paused while the legatus had a light breakfast served in the principia, during which he issued orders for his escort and essential staff to prepare. After that he spoke to all the men from I Minervia not on other duties and, after dismissing the others, ordered Ferox to come with him and inspect the ground outside the rampart. They looked at the ditches, the pits and obstacles, wandered through the canabae past the bath house and down to the river. The questions kept coming, and they always were apposite. Ferox had met plenty of senior officers, and the senators even more than the equestrians liked to hear their own voices, but with Hadrian there was a grasp of detail that was unusual. It was a considerable relief to have undertaken so much work on the defences, for he suspected that the criticism would have been far harsher if the inspection had occurred when Ferox had only just arrived. Even so, there were suggestions that were effectively orders to do more, and Ferox could not really resent them. On the whole, the legatus was right.
‘This is not an easy task,’ Hadrian said as he strode across the planks of the bridge. His escort was still waiting inside the fort, and only two troopers had accompanied them and they sat their horses well out of earshot, for he wished to speak to Ferox alone. ‘That blaze was deliberate, no doubt about it. Do you think it was some of your Britons?’
‘No, my lord. I don’t see what they would gain. The sling shot lobbed at me most likely was, unless it was whoever attacked the noble tribune.’
‘Not much noble about that sod. No restraint or wisdom, little honesty and randy as a stoat.’
Ferox forbore to suggest that this was surely fairly typical of Rome’s ancient families.
‘Cannot say that I’ll miss him,’ Hadrian said. ‘Saw him slide his hand onto your wife’s arse more than once.’
‘He would regret that,’ Ferox said without thinking and did not explain, just in case Hadrian decided that Enica or her people had anything to do with the attack.
Hadrian’s brow furrowed, as if trying and failing to read the centurion’s thoughts. ‘Have you seen your wife yet?’
Ferox shook his head.
‘My apologies, for I have kept you too busy. She has travelled a long way to be with you.’
The tone implied surprise at such determination for so small a prize, or perhaps that was Ferox’s imagination. He was no longer sure whether he and Claudia Enica were married and was still wondering what her appearance meant.
‘I am truly sorry,’ Hadrian said, ‘but let us talk instead of the assault on Piso. Any idea who might have done it?’
‘No, my lord.’ Ferox suspected that the legatus was more likely to guess what had been behind the attack. ‘I had never heard his name until last night. Perhaps there is someone with a grudge against the family, but it seems improbable. And I cannot help wondering whether the dead soldier was killed by whoever attacked the tribune.’
‘Unless that Briton had a go at Piso, and then had a roof fall on him…’ Hadrian hesitated, and that was striking in so suspicious a man. ‘Or he was the one who tried to kill our tribune, and some pious citizen saw it, stopped him from finishing the job and then made sure that the would-be assassin would not have the chance to make any more trouble?’
‘Perhaps, my lord.’
‘Well, it would fit the facts, would it not? Robbery, hatred of Rome or even mistaken identity. If he was also the incendiary, then disposing of an officer would be an added treat for his Dacian paymasters.’
‘I shall see what I can find out,’ Ferox said, although he could sense that the legate knew a good deal more about the whole affair.
‘As you wish,’ Hadrian said. ‘See what you can discover, but some sense tells me that something very much like that happened. As long as there is no one else here in the pay of the Dacians, the danger may be over.’