‘Easy, brother,’ Valens said quietly, leaning across the table. He nodded towards the door. ‘I’ve got a couple of spare tokens for the Blue House, if you’re interested.’ Balbinus and Galleo were busy rattling dice in a cup. Castus drank down the rest of his beer and upended the cup on the table.
‘Leaving so soon?’ Balbinus cried, flinging the dice down. ‘And you haven’t even told us again how you beat the King of Persia at arm-wrestling!’
‘You worry me sometimes,’ Valens said as they walked together past the warehouses. ‘You fall into one of your silences, and I think you’re about to start breaking people’s heads open.’ The air was still, the crescent moon bright; it was as close to a pleasant summer’s evening as Castus had known in this country. ‘Mind you, I’m sure nobody’d think any the worse of you if you did…’
‘They’re just talking,’ Castus said, shrugging lightly. ‘Nothing better to do.’ The mood of irritation still gripped him; but there was only one person he wanted to see now, and he knew where to find her. He could still taste the beer on his tongue, and worried that his breath might smell of it – cupping his hand over his mouth, he breathed and sniffed.
The sound of rapid hoofbeats came along the wide central street from the north-west gate. Both centurions stepped back into the shadow of the portico; a solitary horseman in a thick native cloak was riding hard along the street. He reined in before the gates of the headquarters building, shouted a reply to the sentries as he dismounted, and then ran inside.
‘Looks like he’s late for his supper,’ Valens said as they continued across the street and down the broad colonnaded avenue towards the river gate. Knots of men passed in the darkness, some of them saluting when they noticed the centurions’ staffs. A wagon loaded with barrels from the legion brewery groaned by, and then they were passing beneath the arches of the gatehouse and out of the fortress.
The road ran down from the gates to the stone bridge that crossed the river. On the far side, the lights of the civilian settlement spread along the banks. The colony of Eboracum, capital city of Britannia Secunda province, was almost as old as the fortress; Castus had been surprised at its size when he had first come here, although compared to the cities of the east it wasn’t much. Tiled roofs caught the moonlight, and the smoke of a thousand hearths and kitchen fires rose towards the tattered night clouds. City and fortress depended on one another, but the soldiers of the legion did not mix much with the civilians on the other side of the river.
Crunching over the cobbles, the two men descended towards the bridge. Just before it, they turned off to the right along another road that traced the strip of sloping ground between the ditch and wall of the fortress and the river. Along the riverbank there were low buildings: warehouses and shacks, crude taverns and brothels. Valens shoved a couple of staggering soldiers out of his path, while Castus paced along behind him, rolling his shoulders.
The Blue House stood at the far end of the row of buildings. Narrow and two-storeyed, with a rickety balcony overhanging the street, it was painted all over with a sky-blue wash. A side gate gave access to the yard, and a miserable-looking sentry was posted there to deny entry to anyone except centurions and tribunes. The Blue House was what passed for a high-class establishment in Eboracum.
An elderly eunuch in a blue chiton met them as they stepped through into the yard. Valens passed over his two tokens, and the eunuch held the leather discs up to the light of a lamp.
‘Don’t worry, they’re genuine,’ Valens said, and smiled over his shoulder to Castus. The eunuch made a weary bow and gestured them into the house.
‘Welcome, welcome, brave and handsome centurions!’ Dionysia, the madam of the house, was a woman in her fifties, wearing garish cosmetics and heavy earrings that chimed. ‘Come in and be seated – you’re our only visitors tonight! Sit down and I’ll send for wine!’
In the blue-walled sitting room, Castus eased himself down onto a shabby divan and spread his knees. He always felt uncomfortable in brothels, even if Valens appeared entirely relaxed. A boy brought cups and a bronze pitcher of earthy brown wine. There was a thick smell in the air, like burnt flowers.
‘The only visitors?’ Valens said dubiously. He glanced up at the ceiling, as if he expected to see it shuddering.
A bell sounded, the beaded curtain across the inner doorway opened, and a group of girls filed into the room. Castus gazed at them: a couple were familiar from his previous visits, but the face he was looking for was not there. One of the girls, a skinny redhead who looked about fifteen, was trying to stifle a cough.
‘Cleopatra!’ Valens cried, getting up and seizing the hand of a tall dark-skinned girl. ‘You’re for me. Castus, which do you fancy?’
‘Is Afrodisia not here tonight?’ Castus asked, turning to the woman lingering by the door.
‘Ah, Afrodisia,’ Dionysia replied, rolling her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Yes, but she’s… she’s bathing at the moment. Perhaps you’d like to wait?’
Castus nodded and settled back on the divan.
‘Bathing!’ Valens grinned. ‘She’s bathing in something, but I’ll bet it’s not mare’s milk. Choose another one…’ He gave the dark girl a slap on the buttocks and herded her out through the bead curtain, and the other girls followed behind him.
Afrodisia was really called Claudia Galla, but clients were supposed to use only trade names. Castus had met her only a month after arriving in Britain: a blonde woman, a few years younger than himself, with a soft womanly body and a tired ease about her that he found deeply attractive. Sometimes he had fantasised about marrying her, but the idea was absurd, the sort of misty notion that bored soldiers concocted when they spent too long in barracks. Even so, he wanted her now – wanted to see her and talk with her more than anything. The wine was stripping away whatever vague ardour he might previously have possessed.
Settling himself heavily on the narrow divan, he wondered at the gathering frustration he had felt these last months, the sense of barely tethered anger. Was it something he had inherited from his father? His promotion to centurion had seemed like a reward once, but now the fortress was coming to feel like a snare. He could lose himself here. All day he had been baited: by Ursicinus on the drill field; by Balbinus and Galleo in the messroom; by all the head-scratching routines of unit administration and hospital visits. He felt a raging violence inside him, a need for release. The disappointment at not seeing Afrodisia was just the latest of his vexations.
From somewhere upstairs he heard a man shout. Not Valens. A woman screamed – it was her, he was sure – and at once he was crossing the room: three long strides to the curtain with his centurion’s staff gripped in his fist. Swiping aside the beaded curtain, he stared down the wooden passageway to the stairs: the big Frankish slave rising to his feet, Dionysia’s startled expression through a doorway to the right.
‘Centurion?’ the madam said. ‘Please, be calm… nothing is wrong!’
A woman’s laughter came from upstairs. Castus lowered his staff and the beads dropped back into place, swinging and clattering. Embarrassment creased through him. A stupid mistake, that was all.
Another voice now, from out in the yard. Hurried words. Castus turned as the eunuch appeared through the doorway, stooping a bow.
‘Would the dominus be Centurion Aurelius Castus?’ he asked.
Castus glared at him, and the eunuch swallowed thickly.
‘There is messenger for you, dominus. From the prefect. He claims it’s an urgent matter.’
He stepped away from the curtain. Dionysia was still peering at him through the swinging beads, her earrings chiming.