Ferox reached out to touch her hair. For a moment her smile grew warm, although there was something brittle about her in the pale light that came into the room through the cracks in the high, shuttered window.
‘I am glad to have a good memory,’ she said. ‘Its sweetness will carry me through the days to come.’ The lady took his hand and kissed his fingers.
‘I am glad that you are safe,’ he said. ‘Last night I was…’ He struggled to finish, but then she leaned forward and he pulled her to him. They kissed for a while, until more might have happened if she had not pulled away.
‘You are a good friend,’ she said. ‘Someone I can trust.’
‘I have been from the start,’ he said, wanting to believe her in spite of his instincts that told him no fine lady would bother with a mere centurion unless she needed him for some dark purpose. ‘If you just want a friend, you did not need all that business last night.’
She sat up, the covers slipping down so that she was naked to the waist. Her face was a mask except for the anger smouldering in her eyes.
‘What do you really want from me, lady? I am a nobody, and you have thrown yourself at me from the start.’
‘Bastard!’ she hissed the word. ‘I must be a fool to bother.’
‘As a matter of fact you are. I’m really not worth it.’
The slap caught him by surprise. The lady swung her arm and hit him across the face with enough force to sting. ‘Bastard!’ she said again, but now her eyes were glassy, and Ferox still did not know what to think.
There was a knock on the door before it opened and Flora appeared with the news that a carriage and escort was on the way to collect the lady. She hurried Ferox out, and he knew that there was nothing to be said even though he wished that there were. They left Sulpicia Lepidina to get dressed – her maid had appeared and must have spent the night in the place. From the next room Ferox heard Flora telling the soldiers that the prefect’s lady would be with them soon, and informing the decurion in charge that Flavius Ferox had stood guard all night outside the lady’s room, so that it was just moments ago that she had sent him off to sleep. The lie added to the sense of unreality, and it was already feeling like a dream save for the lingering taste of her lips and the smell of her hair.
He stayed at Flora’s for an hour, for the sake of form and to help the story the brothel owner had told. One of her girls was a good barber and she shaved him, and it was strange that having a pretty and flimsily clad young woman fussing over him brought only mild arousal. He had not felt like this for many years, and even though any love was hopeless, even dangerous, it was still as if life was breathed into him, and all his suspicion and doubt could not quite hold it back. There was happiness in the world, even for him and even here near the edge of the world. It might be fleeting, already past, and was probably taking him down a dangerous road, but he had the memory to cherish and warm him. Better yet a vague hope of contentment was welling up within him, and when he glanced at the copper mirrors covering all of one wall he saw that he was smiling.
Flora provided him with clean tunic, trousers and socks, so that he was more presentable when he went to the fort, heading for the principia. He forced his face into its usual impassive mask, but suspected that he walked with a jauntiness reflecting his mood. The sight of pale-faced and nauseous Batavians standing guard at the main gate added to his high spirits. He could guess how they felt, but sympathy struggled with amusement and lost. Others responded in the same way. A party of Tungrians marched out of the fort to go on patrol and the soldiers stamped louder than was necessary, while their commander yelled with all his might when he asked permission to leave the base.
‘You’re up then?’ Vindex appeared as he approached the big archway leading into the principia. He looked the centurion up and down and burst out laughing.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ The Brigantian fell silent apart from the occasional snigger, but then stopped and clapped his hands on the centurion’s shoulders. ‘It is good to see you again.’
‘Huh.’ It was not a question. Ferox did not want to talk, but the scout ignored his mood and began to tell him what had happened. Three slaves and a freedman found dead in the praetorium, along with a sentry at the western gate. Another soldier wounded, along with Longinus, who was coming along well.
‘Tough old bugger, that one,’ Vindex said, and then explained that everyone else was safe. ‘The prefect’s got a bruise the size of an apple on his cheek from when he fell. Longinus’ men carried him to a barrack room and watched him all night.’
‘Attacked?’
‘No, beer.’
‘A couple of slave girls are missing, but that lad Privatus reckons they’ll have been out with soldiers during the night, so they’re probably just drunk or bow-legged by now.’
A thought nagged him for a while, and it was only as they walked across the courtyard that he remembered Flora telling him that the Batavians abstained from women during their festival. Perhaps the women were just too drunk to return to the house.
Morning reports were a good deal more subdued than usual, with less stamping and shouting. Flavius Cerialis sat at the table, chin resting on his hands, and apart from the bruise on his face his skin had a greenish pallor and his eyes were glassy and red-rimmed. His servants had done their best to tidy him up, but there were stains on his boots and trousers. Ferox wondered whether they had brought the commander directly from the barrack block to the headquarters. Of all the men assembled for the parade he looked the one closest to death. Several of the ordinary soldiers were turned out as perfectly as on any other day, even though he was sure they had drunk as much as anyone else. He had known a fair few soldiers like that, who could spend all the night drinking, get no sleep, and yet still look ready to parade in front of the princeps himself. What was the old tag? ‘Iron stomach, iron head, iron heart.’ Ferox wanted to smile at the thought, and it took an effort to keep his face rigid.
The bad news came in gradually, and it was as if enemy soldiers were undermining the rampart of his good mood. An optio from the Tungrians came first, marching smartly and noisily into the hall and shouting out a request to deliver an important message. Cerialis winced as if the sky had fallen on his head. He struggled to speak, then satisfied himself with a beckoning wave that was meant to give permission.
‘The centurion Pudens regrets to report that cohors I Tungrorum has a number of men missing.’
Cerialis gave a weak smile and coughed to clear his throat. ‘I dare say there are fifty or sixty of my men unaccounted for at the moment.’
The optio did not smile. They had found two soldiers killed, the bodies dumped inside a workshop. Three soldiers were gone. ‘We fear that they have gone over the wall.’
‘Deserted?’ Cerialis was brutal in his reply, not sparing the junior officer’s shame. ‘I suppose you know who they are.’
‘Yes, my lord. All from the new draft that reached us back in the spring.’ The optio spotted the questioning look. ‘Yes, my lord, all three are Britons.’
Cerialis nodded. ‘As before.’
‘I fear so, my lord. And the sentry wounded at the gate says that they were attacked from behind. Some men in uniform approached them. They were not men he knew, but he did think one was from the cohort. Then half a dozen men in trousers and tunics sprang out from the shadows. He heard them speak and thought that they were Brigantes.’ There was a murmur at that. ‘Britons at the very least.’
‘My lord! My lord!’ The shout came from the courtyard. Other voices answered in anger, but the man persisted. ‘My lord! I must speak with you.’