“I’m sure they’ll find you a house,” said Pervica.
I put my arm around her waist and looked at her. I could feel her hipbone against my wrist, and the smoothness of her stomach under my hand. I suddenly wanted her very badly. I knew that she was staying in an inn in town, and I didn’t want to leave her there. “If I am a citizen,” I said, “it will make it easier to marry legally. I suppose I could tolerate a house, if you shared it.”
Her fingers tightened on my shoulder. “It will probably take longer than one afternoon, though, to sort it out,” she said quietly.
“Let us try!” I said, urgently now. “We can have a wedding feast back in Cilurnum: see if we cannot sort out some kind of contract today!”
She flushed bright red and kissed me. “Yes!” she cried, suddenly enthusiastic. “Yes, right now! Gaius and I will go and see what we can do. I’ll find Eukairios, and he can find Marcus Flavius: they’ll know how we can do it.”
I stayed in the hospital garden while they searched, sitting down beside the fountain. It was a warm day, for February: the sun was shining, and the early crocuses had shoved their blunt snouts above the ground. Hellebore was flowering, white and sweet-scented, and the water was dark and clear. After a while, Facilis trotted into the courtyard. He seemed unusually pleased with himself.
“Congratulations,” he said. “Honors all round. Gaius tells me you want to get married today.”
I nodded. I had another thing to say to him first. “I understand you spoke to the governor on my behalf, urging him to give me honors for killing Arshak.”
Facilis grunted. “I pointed out to them that you solved a very sticky problem for us.”
“You slippery bastard,” I said, with feeling.
He barked, and sat down on the fountain beside me, grinning. “We’ll have you speaking Latin properly yet!” he exclaimed. “About the marriage-I can help arrange it for you, if you like. I’m going to the public archives myself this afternoon anyway.”
I eyed him suspiciously. “Why?”
He grinned at me. “A manumission and an adoption.”
“What?”
He gave a pleased grunt. “I told Julius Priscus last night that I’d… um, found Vilbia, with her baby, in Corstopitum, and that I’d, um, apprehended them. But I said I’d taken a liking to the girl and wanted to buy her. He had no objection. He doesn’t want anything that ever had anything to do with his wife, poor bastard; he’s sick with the whole business, ruined and disgraced. His administrative career is finished, though I can’t see anything he did that was worthy of blame. Anyway, he gave me Vilbia on the spot, I drew up the manumission papers, and I’m going to get them witnessed this afternoon and legally adopt the girl.”
“As your daughter?” I repeated, bewildered.
He barked with laughter. “You want a wife, but that doesn’t mean everyone does. I had one once, and that was enough for me. But I also had a daughter once. She died when she was seven. I’ve always had it in the back of my mind, ‘What would have happened if she’d lived? What would she be like now?’ Probably not a bit like Vilbia. But the girl has suffered, and she needs someone to care for her. She’s a sweet, kind girl, and brave, to defy her mistress over the baby-you know she believed in Bodica’s magic absolutely, and was terrified of her. I want a daughter; she wants a father. These things sort themselves out. One little piece of parchment and instantly I’m a father again, and a grandfather as well. Flavia Vilbia and Marcus Flavius Secundus, citizens of Rome. How about that, eh?”
“Congratulations,” I said, smiling at him. “I wish you all much joy.”
“We’re going to move to Eburacum,” he went on. “I’m being promoted, to primus pilus of the Sixth Victrix! Think of that! All those years I sweated in the Thirteenth Gemina, and I thought hastatus of the first rank was as high as I could get, and now I’m primus pilus for a year, over the heads of two others, and afterward something senior. No more muddling about with a lot of barbarians who always smell of horses.”
First the news that Comittus would be recalled to the Sixth; and now Facilis as well. “I will miss you,” I said, and it was perfectly true.
He slapped my shoulder. “You don’t intend to forget me completely, then? You remember that?”
I nodded.
“I’ll miss you, as well.” He added it very quietly, as though it embarrassed him to say it, and hurried on, “But it’s been pretty damn clear ever since we reached Cilurnum that you never needed me to keep an eye on you. And I imagine you’ll be in and out of Eburacum fairly frequently, as well as down to Londinium, advising people on how to treat Sarmatians: we’ll see each other from time to time. Anyway, there is a quick way of getting married, without going through all the ceremonies. You have Eukairios draw up a legal contract expressing your intent to marry a Brigantian citizen, one Pervica, and arranging your various properties however you wish. Then you sign it, she signs it, three witnesses sign it, and that is sufficient evidence of affectio maritalis to satisfy any court in the land. I’ll file it for you when I go down to the archives, and the job’s done. You’ll need your citizenship papers, though. I can collect them for you from the governor’s staff. What names do you want on them?”
I shrugged. Roman names.
“Well-to whom do you owe your citizenship?”
“First to the governor, then to the emperor.”
“Quintus Antistius Ariantes? Marcus Aurelius Ariantes?”
I flinched. “Marha!”
He grinned at me. “A bitter mouthful, is it? You’ll get used to it. Which one shall it be?”
“Marcus Aurelius.”
“The safest choice. The governor would be flattered if you used his names, but his term of office ends in a year or so, and he can’t be offended at you choosing to honor the emperor. I won’t call you Marcus, don’t worry.” He got to his feet. “I’ll go arrange it for you. Good health!”
Eukairios arrived a few minutes after he’d gone. “Pervica said you wanted to see me, Patron,” he said.
“I wanted to marry her today,” I said. “Marcus Flavius says that you can draw up a marriage contract concerning our property, and that we need three witnesses for it. He says he will collect my citizenship papers from the governor’s staff, take them down to the public archives, and file the contract for us. Is that all it needs?”
“That should be- What citizenship papers?”
I looked at him sourly. “I am rewarded with Roman citizenship.”
“Oh.” He sat down beside me and stared into the fountain. I noticed quite suddenly that his eyes were red.
“What is the matter?” I asked.
He looked away from the water reluctantly and rubbed his eyes. “I
… was visiting the brothers here, and they had a letter for me from the ekklesia in Bononia, the one I used to belong to. Three of my friends have been arrested, and were sent to Augusta Treverorum to die in the arena.”
“I am very sorry,” I said, after a moment’s silence.
He shook his head. “We say it’s a glorious death, to die praising Christ in the arena.” His voice had thickened. “We say that it’s the sure road to the Heavenly City, and that God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
“But you wept, nonetheless.”
“They were always so kind!” he exclaimed passionately, beginning to weep again. “Especially Lucilla. There was never a stray cat that went hungry from her door, and if she saw a child crying in the street, she comforted it. She used to send me honeyed wine when I’d had my rations stopped, and charcoal to warm my cell in the winter. Oh God, God, I loved her! They are going to throw her to the wild beasts.” He looked up at the dull sky, his face contorted and streaming. “I want to take the soldiers who arrested her, the magistrates who ordered it, the jailers who keep her prisoner-I want to take the whole howling mob of people who are going to watch it-I want to take them all, and cast them into the lake of Hell, and watch them burn!”
“I am sorry,” I said again.