The two tent parties collapsed in mirth, only Horta and his mate Sliga remaining stony faced.
‘Fuck you, Sanga!’
The veteran shook his head in bemusement, altering the tone of his voice to match that of the other soldier, albeit pitched two octaves higher.
‘“Fuck you, Sanga!” Is that it? Is that the best you can do, Sliga my old mate? No witty put down? Nothing better than “Fuck you, Sanga!”?’ He got up, brushing the grass’s damp from his tunic. ‘There’s no sport to be had here, I’m going to offer my services to Quintus for fetching water. Make sure there’s some dinner left for me if it arrives while I’m away, or I’ll be roasting a slice of one of your arses for my evening meal. You coming, Saratos, you barbarian bumboy?’
The Sarmatae got to his feet with a hard smile, flexing his biceps at the veteran soldier.
‘Yes, I come carry water for you. Can carry two bucket more than you, since you tired from fucking animals.’
Sanga nodded appreciatively.
‘There you go, Horta, that’s the way to do it. Take the insult and give it back with interest. And don’t be trying to stare me out, you pussy, not unless you want to lose that little battle as well.’ Horta blinked, and his tormentor raised his eyes to the sky in wry amusement. ‘See? Come on, Saratos. See you later, losers, we’re off to spend some time with real men.’
Felicia looked about their new quarters in the Yew Grove fortress’s vicus with an expression of relief, absent-mindedly stroking at the downy hairs on the head of the infant lolling slackly in her arms. The richly dressed woman who had led them from the gate to her house caught her stare and nodded apologetically, gesturing at the spare bedroom’s lamplit space, a pair of beds standing on a plain tiled floor, its walls simple white-washed plaster.
‘I’m sorry that I’ve nothing better to offer you. I know it’s not up to much.’
Annia spun round to face her, the movement made ponderous by her swollen belly.
‘You’re joking! We’re used to taking up residence in the fort’s medical quarters, with wounded soldiers watching our every move like hungry dogs waiting for a bone, or in a tent surrounded by a sea of iron and leather. Have you ever lived in the middle of a cohort in the field after a few days on campaign?’ The slightly built woman shook her head quickly, nervously fingering the collar of her rich wool stola that was the mark of a wealthy man’s companion, the garment somehow slightly incongruous on her elegantly spare frame. ‘You should try it, Domina, there’s nothing quite like the smell of eight hundred men rank with days of dried sweat, all of them reeking of badly wiped arses and the stale cum left on their tunics from furtive nighttime wanking.’
The woman had introduced herself as Desidra at the fortress’s gate, and had seemed nervous in the presence of the tribune and his men, keen to gather the women about her and be away from under their hungry eyes, and Felicia saw the same uncertainty in her as she raised her eyebrows, clearly taken aback by Annia’s words. She took their hostess’s hand in a warm two-handed grip.
‘Ignore her, Domina, she’s just tired and grumpy from carrying that baby for the best part of nine months, not to mention a two-day cart ride from the coast with legionaries making crude gestures at her at every turn.’
Annia nodded with a hint of a smile.
‘Cheeky bastards. And me the scourge of every soldier within fifty miles of my old establishment. In my prime I only had to look at one of those mules with the merest hint of discouragement and they’d be falling over themselves to get back in my graces. If there was no smile from Annia then there’d be no pussy for him from any of my girls that night.’
The mistress of the house’s painstakingly plucked eyebrows arched again, this time more in amazement than distaste.
‘You were …’
‘Oh yes, I was the madam of a brothel in Germania, and rather a good one too. I …’
Felicia smiled wanly at their new friend, waving a hand to silence her assistant.
‘I suspect there are better ways that we might have got to know each other than swapping such revelations within a few minutes of meeting each other. But, since we’re here, perhaps I ought to explain just who we are? Or did your … husband explain that already?’
Desidra shook her head.
‘There was no opportunity. He banged on our door, told me to take care of you all and then hurried off shouting something about gold. I barely had time to get to the fortress’s main gate before your cart arrived.’
Felicia smiled.
‘In which case this must all be a little disconcerting. Perhaps we might take a seat on these highly inviting beds? I’m willing to risk the chance that either one of us might pass out from the simple joy of touching a clean sheet!’
She eased the sleeping Appius down onto the nearest bed’s softly yielding surface while Annia sat down with a sigh of pleasure, then slumped back onto her back with her pregnant belly uppermost.
‘Any time spent not carting this little monster around is a minute well spent.’
Desidra conceded the point.
‘I have never carried a child myself, and the time when that is possible may have passed me by, but I can see that you carry a heavy burden. Now, if I am to understand what you have said, you — ’ she looked at Felicia with more than a hint of disbelief ‘- are a doctor? And you, madam, from your statements a moment ago, are a retired …’
She struggled for a polite way to continue the sentence, and Annia, her good temper returned with the bed’s soothing embrace, smiled serenely at the ceiling in response.
‘Prostitute, yes. Although the term we usually went under was “whore”. And, let me tell you, you’re looking at the best doctor and the best whore in the whole of this shitty, fucked-up country.’
Felicia waited in trepidation for Desidra’s response, raising an eyebrow as the older woman smiled back at Annia and replied with a hint of mischief in her voice.
‘Well you were clearly an industrious whore, my dear, to judge from your current condition!’
The Tungrian woman gaped for a moment then laughed uproariously, struggling into a sitting position.
‘You’re not quite as strait-laced as you might seem, are you?’
Desidra shrugged, the line of her jaw hardening as she raised her head defiantly.
‘I had a life before Artorius Castus plucked me from a slave market to take care of his material needs, taking pity on my emaciated frame and never for a moment seeing the woman within. My father and brothers were killed in the German Wars, and I was washed up on the empire’s border in a slave convoy, more dead than living, barely hanging on to my humanity through rape and degradation all the four months it took me to travel from my village to the marketplace. A woman doesn’t survive being enslaved in the middle of a frontier war without learning to deal with the harshest aspects of life, no matter how soft the clothes I wear now that Artorius and I have become man and woman.’ She looked about the room, shrugging at the bare plastered walls. ‘And yes, you are stuck with these somewhat disappointing surroundings, at least for the time being. Once Legatus Equitius has returned from his visit to Fortress Deva, I’m sure Artorius will ask him to take you into his residence, but until then it’ll be the five of us, a former slave, a former whore, the doctor and her infant son and … what do you call the child playing outside?’
Felicia smiled again, leaning back to look out of the room’s window to where Lupus was regaling a group of wide-eyed vicus children with a story from his adventures with the Tungrian cohort.
‘Lupus? Oh now, there’s a complex story for you, Domina, but if ever there was a child born to be raised to manhood by soldiers, Lupus is that boy. Every day he trains to kill with a German who cares for him as if he were the father the boy lost in the barbarian revolt, while he provides my husband with a replacement for the younger brother he lost to Rome’s murderers. And as for his grandfather …’