"Scalp wound," the medic said. "Don't know how you got it, but it bled a lot, for all that it's only superficial. I couldn't see any real damage. You have a hard head."
I probed more firmly with my fingertips and found a sore spot high on the thickest part of my skull on the right side, and an immediate vision swept into my head of the thundering, iron-shod wheel of the charging wagon as it swept by me. It had been closer than I thought. The hub must have scraped my head.
The medic left to carry on with his business, and Picus led me to the rooms that had been placed at his disposal, where he poured us both a cup of wine.
"Well," he said, after we had drunk, "what was all that about, do you suppose?"
I put my cup down carefully. "Seneca."
"What?" His eyebrow shot up like his father's.
"Claudius Seneca. You asked me what that was all about. I answered you."
"That's impossible."
I shook my head. "No, it's an absolute certainty, but you'll never prove it, unless your torturers can wring a confession out of the man I wounded."
"Nuh." Picus shook his head. "The big fellow killed him before he fled the room."
I sucked air through my teeth and sniffed loudly. "Now why doesn't that surprise me? No witnesses ... I thought at first they were after the prisoners out in the yard....I noticed the four of them all watching their leader before you arrived. He'd been standing looking out the window, at the prisoners, I thought. But now I think he was only checking their escape route. It was us they were after. Me and you. And they'd have had us if that whoreson hadn't smelled so foul. I paid more attention to him than I normally would have, just because he was so offensively dirty. I knew they were up to something, but it was only when I saw two of them sidling up to you that I raised the alarm."
He gulped more wine. "Thank the gods you did, too, otherwise he'd have killed me. I hadn't suspected a thing."
"I know. I didn't realize until I was in the thick of it that I was a target, too. So it had to be Seneca. He found out you were going to be here today, and that I was joining you. It was a perfect situation, away from the praesidium, and it would have been a perfect revenge — on me, on your father, on you, and on Stilicho. Where's Seneca now?"
"Gone. He left last night, with Stilicho, and won't be back. Stilicho has demoted him, in effect. He'll retain his rank... still be a legate entitled to command a legion... but he's been assigned to frontier duty in a subservient capacity, up behind the Wall. That should keep him out of mischief. He'll have no more time to be plotting revenge on you or anyone else. He'll ride with Stilicho as far as Pontes, and then Seneca will head north, to the Wall, with the new unit that just arrived from Gaul..." He stopped, thinking deeply. "No, by God, he won't. I'll have the whoreson recalled."
I held up my hand to give him pause. "Don't bother, Picus. Leave well enough alone. We're alive, he's gone, and with any blessing from Fortune some northern Pict will soon have his head on a spear. Should he survive, on the other hand, and be foolish enough to come back, I'll have his head on a spear. But for now, as I said, there's really nothing we can do, except bring charges against him that we can't substantiate. We can't prove a thing. At least he thinks we're dead."
Picus looked at me and grinned. "It's good to see you again, Uncle Varrus. I had forgotten how cool-headed you always are."
"Don't deceive yourself, Picus. Given half a chance, I'd disembowel that man with my bare hands."
He rose to his feet. "Come on, let's get out of here. How do you feel?"
"I'm fine, but what about your judiciary?"
"Postponed. I'm free."
"Then let's go."
XVI
A short time later, we were leaving Londinium, and five short miles after that, we clattered onto the packed earth of the parade ground outside the gates of a large equine camp the likes of which I had never seen. A military camp for horsemen! There were horses everywhere, thousands of them. I gazed avidly around me, making no move to dismount, and seeing my awe, Picus began to lead me through the lines to where a massive standard of black and white cloth marked his quarters, a large and spacious tent.
I nodded towards the great standard. "That's yours, I take it?"
"It is. What do you think of it?"
I grunted. "It's big enough."
"What is that supposed to mean?" he asked, laughing. "Don't you like it?"
I tried to bluster, to cover up my discomfort with what seemed to me to be a gratuitous overstatement. "Well, now that you ask me, it seems a bit ostentatious."
"Of course it is, it's blatantly ostentatious. That's the whole idea of it, Uncle. It's big enough to be seen and identified from a long way off. Look at the base of it."
I saw that the bottom of the shaft ended in a wide, padded fork. Picus was nodding enthusiastically.
"That padded fork fits over the horse's neck, so the weight doesn't tire the standard-bearer. Stilicho is half Vandal. These new standards were his idea. He adapted them from the kind used by his own people and by the Goths and the Huns." Something else caught his eye and he nodded to direct my attention towards it. "Look at that."
"That" was formation drill being practised by massed phalanxes of horsemen. We sat our horses and watched them for a while, and then Picus nudged his mount into motion again and this time, when he spoke, neither his voice nor his words bore any relationship to the conversation that had gone before.
"My father's getting old, Uncle."
I looked at him sideways. "Is he? You'd better not tell him that!" I heard surprise and defensiveness in my own tone, and I recognized that I had been lying to myself. I, too, had noticed a change in Britannicus but had chosen to ignore what my eyes were telling me. Caius was no longer young. He had lost weight, muscle, resilience and vitality. All on the physical side, of course. Mentally he was keener than ever. I suddenly felt guilty.
"Well," I admitted reluctantly, "I suppose, now that you bring it up, he is not as young a man as he was when I first met him. Nor even as he was when you left home. But he's not aged, senile or infirm."
"No, I know." Picus's headshake was abrupt. "I didn't mean it that way. God knows, he's strong enough — probably more so than he was when we returned from Africa, twenty years ago — but he looks old, Uncle. I've been carrying a picture of him in my mind for years now, and it's an image of a much, much younger man." There was silence between us for a few moments, until he continued. "Is he happy, Uncle Varrus? Does he enjoy his life?"
I thought for a few seconds before answering that, staring at my horse's ears. "What do you want me to say, Picus? Those are two powerful questions. Can any man be happy in this world? What is happiness, anyway? It's different for everyone. A man grows older every day and watches his friends die off. His illusions dry up and blow away in the wind. And every day, it seems, he develops more ... what's the word I'm looking for? Appreciation? It's as good as any... more appreciation of the weakness and stupidities of his fellow men, who are just ordinary people like himself. No recipe for happiness in that, Picus. I can't tell you your father's happy. He's himself. He's busy all day long, his life is good, and he seems satisfied. But happy? I don't know."
"Has he no female friends? Companions?"
I shook my head. "No. None. Except for his sister and the wives of some of his old friends. But those aren't companions. At least, not in the sense I think you mean. If you're asking me if he dallies with women, the answer is no. Never. Your father is the most abstemious man I've ever known, in that regard. He knows no women. I doubt if he even thinks of them. He certainly never speaks of them."