A weedy dirt track on the left looked familiar. We were approaching the main Roman cemetery just a few miles from Camulodunum proper. Nobody, not even Romans, referred to the town as the “Colonia Claudia Victricensis.” Boudicca’s victory on the same site-in the Temple of Claudius itself!-guaranteed that.
I grinned, remembering the reparations to the giant bronze statue of the deified Claudius, after the rebels tore off the original head and threw it in the river. I was back from my first trip to Rome with Classicianus, a new son for a new father. Nero had just made him a senator. I was eleven.
We were at the ceremony, and I was ready to be full of Roman pride and native awe. But Claudius’ head was two sizes too small. It made him look like the moron some said he pretended to be. Nero, had he known, would’ve enjoyed the joke-and when Vespasian came to power, it was fashionable to ridicule some of Augustus’ bizarre family. So there he sat still, all golden, his Julian lock parted over his forehead, trying desperately to fit in as a god with a shrunken head. So much for awe.
I reined Nimbus, and turned toward the left. From here to the main gate of the town, the road from Londinium was lined with grave markers. I’d had enough of cemeteries yesterday, but there was one grave here I needed to see. I couldn’t visit one father without the other.
Marcus Favonius Facilis. There he was. The paint was still holding up-he looked almost life-like. At some point, the carving became my memory. I’d spent more years with it than with my father.
He lived with my mother when he was in the XX Legion, stationed at the fort which would become the Roman colony of Camulodunum. When the governor pulled the Legion out, the colonia was born. In a burst of typical Roman overconfidence, they filled in the defensive ditches and built a thriving, wealthy city out of the fortress architecture.
I remember, when I was very young, my father pointing out which buildings had been barracks, which had been storage rooms, when we walked through Camulodunum. In those days, Claudius had the right-size head.
He left with the Legion, and wasn’t discharged until 811. I didn’t see him again until I was eight years old. Marcus Favonius Facilis. I picked off some moss that had grown over two of the letters.
He was a smart man, and lived up to his name-everything came easily to him. He purchased an old farmstead from a veteran who was moving back to Italy, and found a bargain. It was bottom land, with a nice slope rising up to a hill, just in front of a forest, and the house looked over the land with pleasure. He moved my mother and myself out of the little round hut we’d been sharing with another family. It was home.
Everything came easily to my father. Even death. There was nothing my mother could do, but at least there wasn’t pain. I’d known him for a little over a year. I didn’t understand that my parents weren’t considered married until later, when I went to Rome with Classicianus, and some people called me a “little British bastard.” Some said it fondly, some said it condescendingly. I wasn’t sure which part was supposed to be the insult. No one said anything at all after Classicianus adopted me.
Marriage was not a privilege for the legionary, unless he was an equites and an officer. My father was made both when he achieved the rank of centurion, right before he retired. He could’ve continued in the army, could’ve left us behind, but he wanted to farm. Love is not something even Rome could control, and most men had “unofficial” families somewhere. Not all of them returned to make them official. I turned from the stone, from his painted picture, and looked at the view. His view. The bare tree limbs would be green again, the flat meadows slow and heavy with grain. Spring would come. The farmer’s favorite season.
He’d had such grand plans-he wanted to grow vines, make wine, have a real, thriving farm. I was glad he died before they burned the fields: the fields where my mother lied buried. I shrugged off memory, and took some wine and poured it for him. I couldn’t afford to linger. I had no time.
* * * * *
Nimbus and I-at least, Nimbus-drew appreciative looks when we walked through the giant triumphal arch that served as the western gate into Camulodunum. In a year or two it would join the walls that were almost finished, strong, high defensive walls around a prosperous farming town. Too little, twenty years too late.
At least Boudicca had evened the score for the natives. Camulodunum didn’t symbolize “Roman tyranny” as it used to-in fact, it seemed more Roman than Londinium, thanks to the veterans, two decades of enforced cooperation, and-most of all-money.
The largest theater in Britannia coaxed the rich out of all the cities within a two or three day ride. There was even a modest circus south of the town, a solid financial and social investment, since horse-breeding was a passion for all the tribes. Druids rubbed elbows with investors from Gaul and Cyrenica, and everyone was so damn cosmopolitan it was hard to find an honest face.
I nodded a few times at passers-by, most more interested in where I’d found the grey mare than what I was wearing, and headed straight for Narcissus and Verecundus. They lived in a small, comfortable town house near the Temple and the forum, on the east end of town.
My father freed them a few years before he retired, and they’d gone into the import/export business. Nothing ostentatious, but they’d made enough to live well and without worry.
When he died, my mother was left with practically nothing; my father’s fortune had gone into the land and rotting root stocks of vines from Gaul. So they purchased the gravestone, and paid for an excellent carving, fully painted and inscribed. They’d been in Gaul when the fighting broke out, but came back, and helped rebuild the town, keeping their investments in the area.
They loved one another. Somewhat unusual. Love always is.
We arrived at the house, and I dismounted and knocked on the door, holding Nimbus’ reins in my hand. She’d be entered in the fifth race if I didn’t keep an eye on her.
An old woman answered the door, her hair the mottled color of week-old straw. She hesitated, then leaned forward, squinting slightly, and suddenly a smile made her look ten years younger as she threw her arms around me.
“It’s you, is it? Arcturus! It’s been too long since you’ve visited. Come in, come in-they’re here, no mistake, and they’ll be so glad!”
“I can’t just yet, Dilys. Unless you want me to bring my horse with me.”
“I’ll get someone. Don’t leave!”
I grinned, and stroked Nimbus’ nose when she shoved it in my side. Another head popped through the door, a red, freckled face of a young boy of thirteen.
“I’ll take him to the stables, sir, if you like.”
“No thanks, Nye, I can’t stay long. Can you hold him for me?”
His eyes glowed at the thought of getting close to Nimbus. She looked at him a little doubtfully, but I whispered in her ear and handed him the reins. “Hold tight, now. She’s ridden far and will have to again.”
Nye nodded, and I glanced back as I entered the house, Dilys holding the door for me. He was gazing at Nimbus with the unmistakable, open-mouthed look of horse-love on his face. I laughed, and heard a dog barking from inside.
“Is that-”
“Yes, it’s the one you gave us, and a more feisty little thing I’ve yet to find. Play, play, play, all the time. Lucky for the gentlemen, we have Nye to take it out of her.”
Dilys and Nye weren’t slaves-they were native servants, hired by Verecundus and Narcissus to run the household. But Dilys never referred to them as anything but “the gentlemen.”
She ushered me into the dining room with an air of pride. Chances were that they’d be eating, whatever time of day I happened to come by. Narcissus in particular loved a good meal, and-though at least fifty-had managed to somehow maintain a trim figure, and his dark, boyish good looks.