She frowned at Desidra’s sudden inattention to her words, realising that the mistress of the house’s face had suddenly turned to Annia, whose beatific expression at the bed’s comfort had abruptly vanished as she stared in horror at the wide, wet stain on the sheets beneath her.
The next day’s march north wound through a low mountain range, and the Tungrians hunched into their cloaks as curtains of misty rain advanced down the valley on a bitterly cold north wind. Trickles of water insinuated their way down necks and into socks, eventually soaking the soldiers through almost as thoroughly as a heavy deluge might have done. Wet, cold and exhausted from a third day marching at the double pace for much of the time, the cohort marched wearily across the bridge over the Wet River and found themselves facing the ruins of the fort that had for a time guarded the crossing.
‘Silus!’
The grizzled decurion rode up the column at Julius’s call, the riders of his squadron following in a long string, their progress punctuated by the barrage of insults and crude humour that was their customary accompaniment. Silus reined his horse in and jumped down to salute the first spear.
‘You want me to go and find you a marching camp?’
Julius nodded, glancing round at their grim surroundings and pointing at the shattered ruins of the Wet River fort on the hillside to their north like a set of broken teeth.
‘Well I’m not going anywhere near that. Not only will it be of absolutely no value defensively, but it’ll scare the living shit out of the weaker sisters among the men. Besides which, before we know it we’ll have Morban taking bets with the more easily led among us that the souls of dead soldiers are roaming the ruins and then paying someone to wander about groaning and rattling their mail once the sun’s down.’
The horsemen quickly located the site of an old marching camp, the once proud turf walls sunken and gapped by decades of neglect, but the Tungrians set to with the urgency of men keen to be done with labour for the day and soon had it patched up to the first spear’s satisfaction. Julius toured the four-foot-high enclosure in the day’s last fading light and nodded his satisfaction to his officers.
‘Very good. Construction teams dismissed, and we’ll have double guards tonight this far north, supposedly friendly territory or not. And if you want a little ray of sunshine for your men, you can tell them that today was the last day we’ll need to march quite that hard. Tomorrow morning we’ll be approaching the eastern end of the wall and I think a gentler pace might be a wise way to approach, given how jumpy we’re likely to find the occupying forces.’
Annia lay asleep on the wider of the guest room’s two beds, her new-born daughter dozing contentedly in the crook of her arm after her second feed of the evening. The room was lit by a pair of oil lamps either side of the bed, and in their pale golden light Felicia and Desidra stood and watched fondly as the baby’s tiny hands clenched and unclenched in her sleep.
‘Your friend may have a hard face for the world, but she melted quickly enough once that tiny life was placed in her arms.’
Felicia nodded at the whispered comment, recalling the moment she’d held Appius for the first time.
‘She wears the face that life thrust upon her when circumstances forced her to offer her body to an unending succession of men for whom she felt no emotion other than loathing. But when you scratch the surface of that hard mask you find all the same vulnerabilities and hopes that the rest of us entertain.’
Castus’s woman was silent for a moment, staring down at mother and child with an expression of longing.
‘I must confess myself more affected by the presence of this baby than I thought would be the case …’
Felicia nodded.
‘It’s a common reaction among the childless. Before I had my son I only had to see a child under five to desperately want to become a mother.’
‘And now?’
‘And now, Domina, whenever I see a baby I see years of dirty napkins to boil clean, food to mash and sleepless nights.’
The older woman looked up at her with a disbelieving smile.
‘I realise that the nature of your calling compels you to seek to lighten my mood, and I thank you for trying, Doctor, but we both know that you worship that little man just as much as you love his father. And doubtless I would love my child no less, were Artorius and I to succeed in conceiving.’
‘Your husband entertains hopes of a child?’
Desidra laughed softly.
‘Of course! What man doesn’t? He longs for a son to pass his blood down to future generations.’ Desidra looked down at the sleeping baby for another long moment. ‘Tell me, how will this one’s father react to the delivery of a little girl? If I am to believe Annia, he is a man with a fearsome reputation?’
Felicia nodded, drawing the older woman away.
‘And well deserved. He rescued her from her brothel and the owner sought to punish him by means of her humiliation and murder. When Julius brought her to safety he was painted from head to toe with the blood of the men he had caught raping her. Annia later told me that he hacked off one of her attackers’ manhood before leaving him to bleed to death with the ruined meat on the floor in front of him.’
Desidra’s face hardened with the image, her eyes narrowing at the prospect of such bloody revenge.
‘There is more than one man upon whom I would have wished exactly such a death, given the chance. But seriously, how will such a man react to a female child?’
Felicia shrugged.
‘I cannot tell you, but be assured, that little girl lies in the arms of a woman more than capable of putting Julius in his place should he react badly. In that partnership I’d have to say that she wields the longer sword.’
Rising from their damp blankets in the next day’s dawn, a cloudless sky having coated every surface with frost, the soldiers were for once grateful to receive the order to march. The cohort headed north-west in windless conditions towards Broad Land fort, the point where the road north would meet the Antonine Wall, trails of steam rising from each man’s gear as it dried under the heat of his exertions, and conversation was limited to the occasional collective groan of complaint as individual soldiers broke wind.
‘You don’t fancy a ride today then, eh Centurion? The tribune has asked me to scout as far north as Broad Land, and I have permission for you to accompany us if you’re game.’
Marcus looked up at Silus as the grinning decurion ranged up alongside him with a pair of riders following behind, looking down at the labouring troops with a sardonic smile.
‘No thank you, Silus. The first spear did mention the possibility at this morning’s officers’ meeting, but you know how it is for us centurions. We share our men’s hardships with the same pleasure that we take in their victories. And besides, where else would I hear the broad range of marching songs that we use to pass the time?’
The men in the century’s front rank behind him took his words as a cue for song, dragging in lungfuls of air before roaring out the first verse of a ditty they had been working on for several days.
Silus pursed his lips approvingly.
‘It has a certain poetic ring to it. And not a word about the cavalry either, which makes for a pleasant ch-.’
His words were drowned out by the next verse.