'Stone?' Brigonius felt bewildered. 'All the way across the country? Are even the Romans capable of that?'
'Oh, they're capable of a great many things, if they put their collective mind to it. And if we can persuade him to build in stone, then somebody nearby is going to have to provide that stone for him.' She eyed him. 'There will be handsome profits to be made, quarryman Brigonius.'
'But how can you know the Emperor will build a wall at all, let alone choose stone over turf?'
She patted the leather packet. 'Because the Prophecy says so. "A noose of stone"-what else could it mean?'
Lepidina seemed sceptical. 'Yes, but what was all that about a "little Greek", a "God-as-babe"?'
Severa was impatient. 'Prophecies are always cryptic.'
'You can't just pick out the useful bits, mother! Don't you wonder what the real purpose of the Prophecy is? Assuming it holds any truth at all. You want to use it to make money. Fine. But what was the purpose of God in sending it to us?'
Severa merely shrugged. 'Does it matter?'
Brigonius, though, was impressed by Lepidina's comment. Sometimes she showed surprising depths. He asked, 'Severa-why are you doing this? You have a comfortable life in Rome. Why come all the way to Britain?'
Her face hardened. 'A comfortable life-perhaps. We think of ourselves as Roman. Lepidina was born there, as was I, as was my mother. Three generations. But to the true Romans, the old blood, we will always be barbarians. Why, even the Emperor is looked down upon, because his father was born in Iberia! It is only money that breaks through such barriers, money and lots of it that washes away dried-up old blood. Is that motive enough?'
The crowd stirred as men in togas came filing onto the stage-officials of the imperial court, Severa told Brigonius. She pointed some out. 'Those two are important for our purposes. The short, squat fellow is Platorius Nepos.'
'The new governor.'
'Yes, and an old friend of the Emperor's. It is under his control that our wall will be built, if at all. And the skinny chap in the toga is called Primigenius.'
'A slave's name.' First born. But Primigenius, wiry, bald, watchful, did not look like a slave to Brigonius. His face was well-proportioned, perhaps once beautiful, his eyes darkened and cheeks whitened by powder.
Severa murmured, 'He's a freedman but he kept his birth name. Now he runs the Emperor's household-and once, it is said, he warmed his bed. It is through Primigenius that we will obtain access to Nepos, and the Emperor. So if he glances at you, remember to smile. So what do you say, Brigonius? Will you work with me? As far as I can see you have little to lose.' She eyed Lepidina. 'And perhaps a great deal to gain.'
Brigonius was astonished at the implied offer. Could a mother be so cold and calculating as to tout her daughter like this?
But Lepidina was distracted by what was happening on the stage. 'There he is!' she squealed, excited.
A man came striding out onto the stage. The crowd surged forward and roared.
He was tall, vigorous, well-muscled, wearing shining gold armour. His skin looked tanned, and his curling hair and beard were sun-streaked brown. Brigonius judged he was about forty. He glanced over the crowd-and his gaze lit on Brigonius, who with his height stood out from the mob. Thus Brigonius found himself subject to the complex inspection of a man, an emperor, a god-Hadrian.
'He's taller than he looks on the coins,' Lepidina breathed.
IV
Severa arranged an audience with the court. They would meet the new governor, Platorius Nepos, and, with luck, perhaps even the Emperor himself.
'It cost me plenty. Every chancer in the province is trying to get to Hadrian, as you can imagine. And that manipulative snake Primigenius is fiendishly difficult to work with. But I got there in the end. If this comes off, we will have years of profitable business ahead of us-plenty of time for me to pay back my debts.'
'If,' Brigonius said. 'You're a gambler, Severa! And if Hadrian decides on turf as he did in Germany?'
'You mustn't think like that, Brigonius. You must be positive-seize this chance-and deal with the consequences later.'
In any event they would have no access to the Emperor until he reached the colonia of Camulodunum. And it was going to take many days for the imperial circus to travel that far, Brigonius learned. The whole purpose of the trip was for the people to see Hadrian. There would be stops in the new city of Londinium and elsewhere, so the wealthier citizens of the towns, already heavily taxed in this heavily militarised province, could feel they got their money's worth from the huge expense of this visit.
Rather than wait, Severa decided that she, her daughter and Brigonius would go on ahead. Arriving early at Camulodunum they would have more time to prepare their pitch.
On his journey south Brigonius had travelled fast and light. He rode all the way, changing his horses at roadside inns-mansiones, as they were called, stations primarily intended for official despatch riders and the cursus publicus, the fast public postal service. But he didn't sleep in the inns. He had a leather tent, in fact a Roman army surplus item he'd purchased at Vindolanda. He didn't like towns; he had been happy to sleep in fields with his own small fire and his horse tethered nearby. Cheaper too.
Going back with two Roman ladies was a different matter. They weren't about to sleep in a field; the question never even arose. Severa lavished money to hire a new carriage, slaves and horses. Then, armed with a schematic map of the province, she plotted out a route. From Rutupiae they would travel west through Durovernum and along the south bank of the Tamesis estuary-said to be the route once taken by Claudius's conquering army-and then via smaller towns to Londinium. There they would cross the river by the Romans' new wooden bridge, and head north.
This route would incidentally take them through the homelands of several British nations, including Brigonius's own ancestral people the Catuvellaunians. But these were not marked on Severa's map, which showed only the Romans' new towns, their roads, and the rivers with their new Latin names.
So they set off. They rolled through peaceful farmland. The fields were marked out by hedgerows or stone walls, given over on this summer's day to wheat or barley. Away from the towns, the buildings were mostly round thatched houses; here and there smoke seeped into the sky.
From the start it was an unhappy journey. Lepidina and her mother had already journeyed all the way from Rome, and were frankly tired of travelling. Brigonius had hoped he could at least use the trip to get to know Lepidina a little better. Lepidina did some perfunctory flirting with Brigonius for the first day or two, but soon grew bored and retreated into the back of the carriage, where, curled up among bundles of clothing, she immersed herself in books of poetry.
She showed these to Brigonius. Written out on papyrus scrolls they were poems by somebody known as Ovid. Brigonius found this difficult to read; his Latin wasn't good enough to spot all the allusions and verbal trickeries. But the poetry was racy stuff and he found it embarrassing.
Severa teased him mercilessly. 'You're like all young people. Do you imagine your generation invented sex?…'
But these intervals of banter were moments in a rather dreary progression.
In the event it wasn't Lepidina whom Brigonius got to know better during the journey but her mother, in the long hours he spent riding with her at the front of the carriage. Alongside Severa, he saw his own landscape through her sharper eyes.