The barbarians stood no chance without Galba.
"Are you really the lady Valeria?" a decurion asked. This woman looked so wretched. Her face was filthy, her eyes red from lack of sleep and hopelessness, her hair like string. She looked haunted.
"I've come to warn of an attack on the Wall," she whispered. Then she collapsed.
Valeria had struck Hadrian's Wall ten miles east of the fort of the Petriana. She was revived with cider and put to bed over her own exhausted protests, clearly in no condition to push on. Signal flags sent a message to her husband while she slumbered, and before long an answering communication came back: Bring her to me. In early afternoon she was roused and taken to a chariot. She stood in the vehicle numbly, her clothes still filthy, her hair a tangle, her anxiety dulled by emotional depletion, her finger barren of any ring. She gripped the chariot rim tightly.
"Are you all right?" the driver asked doubtfully.
"Just take me home."
The driver cracked his whip, and they jolted forward along the military road, swiftly picking up speed. The wind helped revive her. Tower after tower and milecastle after milecastle flashed by. They dipped down into gullies and up onto panoramic bluffs. After an hour they came down into the river valley behind Petrianis, giving her the same view she'd seen on first arrival. They passed the house of Falco and Lucinda, where she'd been married, crossed the river, and clattered up the winding lane that led through the clinging village. Their route brought back a flood of memories and even more emotional confusion. They rode through the same southern gate she'd first ridden through on her wedding night-once more standing in a chariot, once more uncertain of her husband. It was as if her life had become a wheel, repeating itself. A sentry trumpeted an alert, and then they were in the paved courtyard of the fortress, men relaying shouts, the chariot team snorting and pawing, horses in the stables whinnying in reply. The familiar smell of charcoal fires, stables, fish oil, and olives washed over her.
She was back.
She realized she'd forgotten Hool's spear.
It was almost evening. Marcus was like a statue on the steps of their house, making no move to greet her but waiting instead for his wife to come to him. What must he think? She got wearily down from the vehicle and walked toward him stiffly, feeling the eyes of the sentries upon her. None gave her greeting. None offered help. Then she stood two steps down from her husband and looked up, their positions ensuring that he towered over her. His assumption of male authority, apparent in his bearing and stance, took her by surprise. It was an unquestioned superiority that Arden had never pretended to, even when she was simply a captive. What a change of worlds!
"I've come back, Marcus." She waited, shivering, for an embrace.
"You're dressed like a man." It was not a question.
"For riding."
"You're dressed like a barbarian."
"I rode three days and nights to get here."
"So I've been told. Well." He looked away as if it made him uneasy to meet her eye. Was he embarrassed by her return? Angry at her absence? "I didn't even know you were alive." His tone was remote.
She took a breath and said what she'd rehearsed. "I've escaped to warn you of approaching war. If you act quickly, you can stop it. Even as we speak the tribes are gathering."
"Escaped from where?"
"From the hill fort of Arden Caratacus, the man who told us about the druids in the grove. Everyone's playing a double game, husband, and the Petriana is in peril."
"Everyone?" His mouth twisted. "I'd have thought better, until I was posted here."
And then, as if conceding her despair, he reached out a hand for her to finally, gratefully, take. Perhaps his hesitation was his habitual shyness. Marcus was quiet, she remembered, and undemonstrative. So different from the Celts! So different from Arden. "Come inside, woman, to bathe and eat and tell me what you know."
The warmth of the house enveloped her like a familiar blanket, and suddenly she had a rush of longing for the Roman baths and for everything that Rome stood for. The security! The stability! The predictability! She longed to surrender to order. The furniture and architecture was a reminder of where she'd come from and where she truly belonged. Her sudden nostalgia for the empire caught her by surprise. It was a dizzying attraction, leaving her more confused than ever.
With which man did she truly belong?
Which side of the Wall was native to her heart?
Marcus looked at her clothes with distaste. "Go, discard that filth and wash. I've ordered supper from Marta. There we'll discuss this adventure of yours."
"You need to alert the garrison now! Send a message to the duke now!"
"The men are already alerted. Wash first, it will help calm you. There's time enough for you to become presentable while the slaves make our meal."
"Marcus, you don't understand-"
"I do understand, wife. I understand I want you out of those rags and back in the proper dress of a Roman matron. So go, now!" It was an order.
She went to the baths at the rear of the house without calling for a slave. Their help seemed curiously superfluous. Her clothes, damp with sweat and snow, were peeled off and cast in a corner to corral their smell. Something caught at her neck, and she realized she still had the boar tusks. What must Marcus think? Adorned like a savage! He probably believed barbarians didn't wash at all and that she'd been dirty for half a year. No wonder he was remote. She gratefully but briskly bathed, not lingering as she'd have liked. With no maidservant, she had nobody to help with makeup and no time. Her hair was roughly tied back with a circlet of gold, and the stola she chose was a warm woolen one without style or seduction. The last thing she felt like doing was sharing her husband's bed! A mere half hour after she'd left Marcus, she was back and eating, once more famished by her adventures.
You'll have a bottom like Savia, she scolded herself. And yet her exploits just gave her more muscle. She supposed her husband would not entirely approve of her new fitness. It was unwomanly.
Marcus watched silently as she ate, chewing his own food more absently. It was as if he were trying to decide something about her.
The continued remoteness of his gaze, even more pronounced than she remembered, made her uneasy. Why was he so distant? "Marcus, the Celts are gathering against you," she tried again.
"So you've said," he remembered, as if she'd commented on the weather.
"I overheard it being discussed in the hill fort of Arden Caratacus, the man who captured me."
"You spied on him." It was more accusation than praise, which puzzled her.
"With my maidservant. We suspected something was amiss and hid in a hayrick to hear their talking." She paused, trying to find some diplomatic way to say what she must confide next, but finally gave up. Their senior tribune wasn't just rogue, he was traitor. "Arden was plotting with Galba."
"Was he really?" Her husband's tone was mild.
"Brassidias rode in with some soldiers to meet the barbarians. He said he was going to be transferred to Gaul, and there is a question of imperial succession, and soldiers are being drawn from the Wall for possible civil war on the Continent."
Marcus said nothing. Valeria's uneasiness increased. What did he already know? Had she ridden like the wind to warn him of nothing?
"The barbarian plan is to overthrow all Roman rule in Britannia," she went on. "If you can muster reinforcements from the south, you can stop them when they attack. Probably you can forestall any attack at all."
He looked at the tapestry covering the battle mural. "Where's Savia?"