Regina noticed Macco strapping a knife to his waist, under his tunic. She snapped, “Put that down, Macco, right now. Nobody is allowed to carry weapons except the soldiers. The Emperor says so.”
Macco had a heavy shaven head, and broad shoulders his loose tunic couldn’t conceal. He was a silent, gloomy man — Julia had always called him “dull” and ignored him — and now he glanced up at Aetius.
“What’s this? Wearing weapons? Quite right, Regina. But I am a commander in the army, and if I say it’s all right for Macco to have a knife, the Emperor isn’t going to mind.”
Regina pulled a face. “But he’s a slave.”
“He’s a slave who would lay down his life for yours, which is why I’ve chosen him to come with us. Now hush your prattling.”
She flinched, but subsided.
So it was in a stiff silence that the little party finally set off. Aetius sat beside Regina, a mighty pillar of muscle, his face as rigid as an actor’s mask. Regina looked back once, hoping to see her mother, but nobody came to wave them off.
That minor disappointment soon faded, as did her sulk over being ticked off in front of Macco, because the ride, at the beginning at least, was fun. It was another fine day. The sky was cloudless, a pale blue dome, and the horses trotted comfortably along, snorting and ducking their heads, the musky stink of their sweat wafting back to Regina.
Soon they reached the broad main road, heading east. The road cut as straight as an arrow across the green countryside. It was built by and for walking soldiers, and was uneven, and the ride was bumpy. But Regina didn’t care; she was too excited. She bounced in her seat, until Aetius, horse switch in hand, told her to stop.
Aetius tried to explain that they would travel east, all the way to Londinium, and then cut north.
“When will we see Londinium?”
“Not for a few days. It’s a long way.”
Her eyes widened. “Will we ride through the night? Will we sleep in the cart?”
“Don’t be silly. There are places to stay on the way.”
“But where—”
“Never mind your prattle.”
They encountered little traffic. There were a very few carriages, pulled by horses, donkeys, or bullocks, a few horse riders — but most of the traffic was people on foot. Many pedestrians carried heavy loads, bundled in boxes or cloth, on their heads or shoulders. Aetius pointed to one rider in a bright green uniform whose horse trotted at a bright clip, quickly overtaking the carriage. Aetius said he was from the Imperial Post, the cursus publicus. Along the roadside there were many small stations with stables and water troughs, places where a post rider could change his horse.
Sometimes the people walking along the road would peer at the carriage with an intensity that frightened Regina. At such times Macco was always alert, gazing back with his blank, hard face, the hilt of a weapon showing at his waist. Regina would stare into the faces of the people, hoping to glimpse her mother.
They passed one girl who couldn’t have been much older than Regina herself. Walking with a group of adults, she was bowed down under a great bundle strapped to her back. She had heavy-looking black leather boots on her feet; they dwarfed her thin, dirty legs.
Regina said, “Why doesn’t she get a carriage? She could put her stuff in the back. I certainly wouldn’t like to carry my luggage along the road like that …”
Aetius grimaced. “I doubt if anybody other than Hercules could carry your luggage, child. But I’m afraid she doesn’t have a choice.”
“Because she’s poor.”
“Or a slave. And look, over there.” A group of people, shuffling behind a slow-moving carriage, were bound together by ankle chains. “Carriages and horses are faster, but not everybody can afford a horse.”
She frowned. “Are slaves cheaper than horses?”
“Yes. Slaves are cheaper than horses. Look at the countryside. I bet you’ve never been so far from home before, have you?”
She had no idea if she had or not. She looked around at fields and hedgerows. There were a few buildings scattered here and there, small square huts and a few roundhouses with timber frames and thatched roofs; in the distance she saw the bright red roof tiles of something bigger, probably a villa.
It was farming country. Much of the Roman diocese of Britain was like this. Nobody knew for sure how many people lived in Britain south of the Wall, but there were thought to be at least four million. Only perhaps one in ten of the population lived in the villas and towns. The rest worked the land, where they cultivated wheat, barley, oats, peas, beans, vegetables, and herbs, and raised their cattle, sheep, and goats. Many of them had worked this land for generations, since long before the coming of the Romans: Regina might have been traveling through the landscape of five centuries earlier.
It was this way from end to end of the Empire, across two thousand miles, from Britain to the Middle East. The Empire was the most materially sophisticated civilization the western world had yet seen — but the overwhelming majority of people lived off the land, as they had always done.
Aetius spent a long time trying to explain some of this, but he got stuck on the meaning of the word million. Regina’s attention drifted, distracted by the sway of the horses, the clatter of the wheels, the buzzing of flies.
“Oh, stop fidgeting,” Aetius snapped. “If only I could just order you to sit still …” He pointed with his switch at a little cylindrical pillar set beside the road. “Well, what’s that? Do you know?”
She knew very well. It was a waystone. “It tells you how far it is to the nearest town, and who the Emperor is.”
He grunted. “Somehow I doubt that poor Honorius has gotten around to painting his name on the stones … But, yes, that’s the idea. Now, the stones are set every thousand paces or so along each main road. And if you count them, you’ll know how far we’ve come, won’t you?”
“Yes!” She rubbed her nose. “But what if I fall asleep? Or what if it’s dark?”
“If you fall asleep I’ll count for you. And don’t rub your nose. You have to start now. That’s one…”
“One.” Solemnly she folded a finger back as a marker, and peered along the road for the next pillar. But it seemed an awful long time coming, and by the time she saw it she had forgotten what she was supposed to be doing, and had let her finger fold out again.
Her grandfather seemed determined to keep up her schooling, and as they rattled along he told her the story of the road itself. The soldiers from the army of Emperor Claudius had first come this way, surveying the route. The road had been built by the soldiers themselves, and people drafted in from the countryside.
“How much did they get paid?”
“Paid? Hah! Everybody was a barbarian in those days, child. You didn’t get paid. Look. You put down a gravel core, and lay on a surface of crushed limestone. You use stone slabs where you can find them. The water drains out into those side ditches — can you see? …”
She was good at pretending to listen, while being occupied with her own thoughts. But eventually she drifted asleep, slumped against Aetius’s sturdy form, dreaming fitfully about the little girl in her hobnailed boots.
She dozed through the day, or listened to Aetius’s complicated talk, or played word games with Cartumandua. They stopped only to water and feed the horses; the passengers ate on the move in the cart, bread with fish and meat.
The last time Regina woke up that day, the cart was pulling into a courtyard. As Aetius and the others jumped down and began to unload, Regina stood up on her seat, stretched and massaged a sore rump, and looked around. The light was fading from the sky, and high, thin clouds had gathered. To her right she could see a wall, tall and formidable, a great curtain of slate gray two or three times her height that curved away across the ground.