My inspection of the fort itself, confined to a cursory examination of the condition of its buildings, was brief, since I knew what I was looking for, although one small construction was a surprise. Lucanus pointed it out to me in passing, and then departed in search of food, leaving me to investigate. It was a stone building, in the north-eastern quadrant of the fort, abutting the outer wall close to the guard tower. I leaned inside and then withdrew again, absurdly pleased.
"What is it, Merlyn?"
"A latrine, and a good one, too. I hadn't expected it."
Arthur approached the door then and leaned in as I had done, sniffing deeply before turning to look at me, his eyebrows raised in puzzlement. "It's tiny. What's good about it?"
I grinned at him, then led him inside, to where the air had been untainted by men for many years, and gestured to the stonework of the floor and the upright, less than knee-high wall that framed it. A handbreadth-deep channel in the concrete of the floor ran along three sides in front of this wall, and it was evident from the slight slope in the floor that the channel had been fashioned to lead water from the mouth of a pipe that protruded from, one corner of the small room towards the drain holes at each end. I recognized the style immediately as being of the kind I had only read about before: the classic, early-Roman garrison latrine. I could see where there had been spaces for nine men to squat; three to a side on three sides. In one corner, close by the end of the front wall, I saw what looked like several dust-covered pebbles and a few short sticks. I crossed and kneeled to pick up one of the "stones," finding it, as I had suspected, completely weightless.
"Here," I grunted. "Look at this. You know what it is?"
The boy examined it, clearly baffled as to its nature, and shook his head. I picked up one of the dry sticks and moved directly to the low wall that ran around the floor, where I inserted the stick into one of the three curious keyhole-like slots that pierced each side of it.
"This is very much like our own latrine in Camulod, Arthur, but very old, and even more functional. This place could service three or four hundred men. The pit behind the wall here was covered by wooden bench seats, three holes each, centred on these slots." I held up the weightless pebble. "This is a sponge, more than two hundred years old and probably much smaller than the ones we use today in Camulod. Our sponges are precious now, because they are hard to come by, but when this place was built, they were plentiful, because the Romans ruled the world and had endless access to such things. You've heard Lucanus talk about the need for cleanliness the Romans have always shown, well, here's a perfect example. The sponge was held on one of these sticks. The channel in front, here, was filled with running water. The soldiers wet the sponges in the water, inserted them through the slot in the wall between their legs, and cleaned themselves, then washed the sponge again in the channel. Simple, effective and hygienic. And if we can get the water to run again, we'll have a working, permanent latrine. Should we, of course, decide to stay here."
He wrinkled his nose. "It will stink."
"Aye, but that's the nature of latrines. I suspect, though, that since this place was built against the outer wall, above the gorge, we'll find an outlet leading to the cliff beyond the wall, which means we'll be able to" sluice the detritus out regularly. This place was built by an engineer."
"But we have no sponges."
"No, but we have cloth. Come on, let's look at the rest of the place."
By this time, we were the only ones left still exploring. We inspected the Horrea, the building that had housed the granaries and storage warehouses, and I was glad to see that the domed, concrete roof was weather-tight and solid, and that the buttresses supporting it on either side were sound, the mortar that bound them largely unaffected by time and weather. The headquarters building and the commander's house were in equally good condition, all lacking serviceable doors but surprisingly undamaged after such a long abandonment. There was nothing wooden remaining at all, anywhere, only the obdurate stone.
When we rejoined our group beyond the main gates, they were clustered around one of three fires. The other two were being used as cooking fires, tended by Lars and Rufio. Only Dedalus was missing, and I wondered if we had passed him by, somehow, inside the fort.
"Where's Dedalus?" People looked at me blank-faced, a few of them shaking their heads, but Shelagh was the only one who answered.
"I was talking to him here a little while ago. The last time I saw him, he was headed over that way, towards the bathhouse."
A few moments later, I entered the bathhouse, noting that it, too, had a sound roof. In one corner, lodged partially upright against one wall of the entranceway, the rotted remnants of a door lay mouldering; the brightly coloured glass that had filled its upper panel was still intact beneath a heavy layer of dirt. Surprised to see anything so valuable here, I looked for its fellow and saw the rectangular shape of it beneath the covering of dirt on the floor of the vestibule. Then, curious, I fell to one knee and dragged the leading edge of my dagger through the dirt on the floor itself, uncovering a bright stripe of multicoloured mosaic tiles.
More curious than ever now, I wondered idly at the temperament of the commanding officer who had overseen the building of this place. Such luxurious appointments could not have been installed without his approval, and such concern for the welfare of garrison grunts was unusual, to say the very least. I moved on to examine the rest of the place. It was not large, but it was large enough for its purpose, and it seemed to have been well designed and appointed. There was a good-sized changing room, beyond which lay the series of pools terminating in the calidarium, the hot pool, and then a narrow passageway led off to the right to an ample steam room above the furnace. Apart from the dirt of ages, everything seemed to be in excellent condition, except the floor in the hot room, which had collapsed in one corner into the space beneath, and down there, in the darkness, I heard movement and a muttered, explosive curse.
"Ded? Are you down there?" I crossed to the hole and knelt, bending forward to see into the darkness.
"Aye, and I've broken my gods-cursed head!" I heard the sound of him approaching the opening, and as he came I crouched low to look at the base of the hypocaust pillars I could see through the sagging hole in the floor. Designed to channel the heat from the furnace to where I crouched peering, they were amazingly beautiful, although never meant to be seen, each of them clad with dense-packed, deep-red glazed tiles. Dedalus appeared in the opening, crawling into view, and I reached down to help him climb out. He was filthy, covered with dirt and crusted with ancient soot.
"Whoreson," he spat, ejecting a mouthful of saliva mixed with soot as he heaved himself up to sit on the edge of the hole. "It's blacker than a raven's arse down there."
"What in die name of God were you doing?"
He scratched at his face. "Checking the furnace. That whoreson will work. It's not blocked, and it hasn't given way, except at the front, where you throw the fuel in. That's collapsed, so I couldn't get in that way. Then I remembered this hole. But the aqueduct for the run-off's still intact down there, and the cisterns above ground look good, too. I'll wager I could make this whoreson work, once we re-dig some ditches. They're all blocked and filled in, of course."
"Of course." I was staring at him in wonder. "Dedalus, what do you know about bathhouses?"