Deva Tales Read online

  After all, he might as well be rewarded for his efforts.

  Now to deal with Tribune Longus…

  7. THE LADY

  Early that same morning.

  Tiberia Marcia narrowed her eyes, her cheek pulsing dangerously.

  ‘Just because you haven’t put a wedding ring on this finger yet doesn’t mean you are free to swan about as though you were a young recruit and leave me with your household. After all, it’s not my household… yet!’

  The camp prefect of Deva, third in command of the fortress and veteran of almost forty years of service, turned on his betrothed of more than a decade, an exasperated look about his eyes.

  ‘Listen, Tiberia. This is an important and very busy day. The procurator of Britannia is in our yard this week, and careers will be made and broken on his say so. It’s alright for the legate, who’s a favourite of Governor Lucullus, or Tribune Longus, who owes his commission to the procurator anyway. But me? I’m a former centurion with nothing to show for my two terms of service but a dozen scars, a good reputation and the hope of an excellent pension. But that pay-out could easily either double or halve, all depending on what the procurator thinks of me.’

  Tiberia’s eyes became that little bit flintier.

  ‘Listen, Tiberia, another three or four years and I’ll be out. Then I can add a new ring to that engagement one and we can be formal. I can adopt the kids and all will be good. Lucius can even join the legion himself then. And think what a difference it’ll make to us if I can impress the procurator and raise my pension. So excuse me if I’m a little busy or preoccupied this morning. And I apologise for sending for you while it’s still dark. I have to go out and do things, but I need my house to be tidy and clean and looking perfect, just in case I manage to persuade the procurator to drop in for a cup of wine. My whole future might be riding on this.’

  There was a tight silence, and Tiberia gave a disgruntled nod. ‘But I am not your skivvy, old man. Do not expect this to set a precedent. I shall not be ‘popping into the fortress’ to clean your house for you on a daily basis. Remember, your children and I still have a house to look after in the town, too.’

  The prefect gave his wife a weak smile and a brief kiss on the cheek, and then, fastening his sword belt around his girth, nodded and scuttled from the room and out into the pre-dawn inky air.

  Tiberia huffed irritably and looked around. The house glowed with oil lamps lit in every room, displaying the clothes scattered around the floor and the used cups and platters on almost every surface. No wonder Pompeius had had to sell his body slave. He’d claimed it was the rising cost of looking after his family in the town, but Tiberia was not fooled for a moment. She knew exactly how much she and the children cost, and had a pretty good idea of how much money the old bugger brought home each month. Yet he’d let go his two servants, and the old sod couldn’t even afford to keep his slave because he was wasteful. Because he burned expensive olive oil imported from Hispania in every damned room, even when he was alone in the house and could simply carry a lamp with him. And because of…

  The ire was creeping back into her and it began to unearth all her usual doubts.

  The other woman.

  She’d never openly accused him, but for his age Pompeius was still a handsome man and in one of the most powerful and influential positions in the north of the province. She’d seen the way women looked at him at parties. She’d noted the subconscious flush in the cheeks of that local widow at the legate’s feast last night as she was introduced to Pompeius. Could it be her?

  No. Not her. He wouldn’t have been able to look her in the face last night. He wasn’t a good liar. In fact, the poor attempts at covering himself were what had led her initially to the conclusion that she now shared her intended’s affections.

  He was a soldier. Soldiers did that, sometimes. It was a sad fact, but they were under pressure and often in mortal danger, and it sometimes drove them to seek solace. And after all, though they had been promised to one another since before the kids were born, twelve years ago, they were not married, and therefore not contractually obliged.

  But she would have to put down her foot and make him cut out that behaviour. Soon, Pompeius would receive his honesta missio and they would retire to some estate down south, buy a dozen slaves and live like landed nobility. And Tiberia was damned if she was going to let some power-struck whore cut into her future at this point.

  She stooped, her nerves jangling, partially from the lack of sleep and the gentle hangover that was the result of last night’s social gathering and this morning’s early rise, and partially from the irritation that was swirling around inside her skull. Sweeping up her betrothed’s used clothing from the party last night, she pursed her lips.

  There would be evidence.

  It was all well and good that she felt sure of his misdeeds. He disappeared for protracted periods, not only without telling her, but even without notifying the other staff in the fortress. His money seemed to dribble out through a hole in the bottom of his purse, and it was not all his simple spendthrift ways – his was a well-paid position. And there were the occasional bundles of cash she knew he’d put aside and then disappeared into town with, later claiming poverty when she wanted to be taken out for a meal or bought a trinket.

  A trinket that had undoubtedly ended up around her neck!

  His body slave, Euxus, had been extremely evasive and flushed when she’d brought up the subject once, quite subtly. And then, a week later, the efficient little Greek had been sold ‘to help support her and the kids’.

  There would be evidence.

  It wouldn’t be one of the girls from the brothels. Soldiers were not reticent about talking of their evenings in those supple arms, and she’d have heard if Pompeius was frequenting such a place. And there were only two women in the fortress itself: the legate’s wife, who Pompeius would not be stupid enough to bed, and the wife of the Chief Medicus, who was only recently arrived and so could not be a suspect. So it had to be a civilian. Some woman in the town who saw him as a path to a comfortable future.

  Well she would soon learn a difficult lesson. With a black eye.

  Dumping the clothes with other used garments in a wicker basket, she looked around.

  Where to start?

  The easiest room to tidy and clean would be the miniature bath suite, with one warm bath – heated all day whatever the weather in case Pompeius fancied a dip, the wastrel – one cold one and a changing area to towel down and dress. She looked out across the darkened peristyle garden towards the glowing doorway of the bath suite, feeling a fresh wave of irritation that the garden was unruly and overgrown since the servants had been let go.

  This woman must be something to require that kind of upkeep!

  Gritting her teeth with irritation, Tiberia’s gaze slid from the baths. Easy, yes, but there were other easy rooms to tidy. The kitchen, for instance, which had hardly been used since the servants went, Pompeius wasting yet more money eating from taverns and vendors in the town rather than spend time making something for himself.

  But the baths and the kitchen, while easy places to begin, held less interest suddenly than the room she could see off to the left – one of the very few not brightly-lit.

  The camp prefect claimed to be so busy with work during this official visit, and yet his private office was one of few rooms in which he’d clearly spent no time this morning.

  Finally her irritation could stand it no more, and she hurried out into the purple morning, grabbing two of the lamps on her way and extinguishing two more out of habit. With a lamp in each hand – one shaped like a trireme and the other more… priapic – she crossed the garden, safe in the knowledge that she would not be interrupted. Pompeius had been desperate to leave, and these days his household was devoid of help.

  The tribune hadn’t bothered locking his tablinum door. Idiot. Admittedly this was only his personal office, and all the important legion documentation would be in his work offic
e in the headquarters building, but still, he should get into the habit of closing and locking doors, if only to keep in the heat and stop wasting fuel on braziers.

  The room burst into life in the golden glow of the lamps as she crossed the threshold, and she was further irritated to discover that the room was probably the only one in the entire house that was perfectly neat and tidy. Oh not clean… he never cleaned it, but it seemed he kept his work organised, even if his life was a mess. Vexing. Tiberia huffed and bit her cheek as she examined the room. A fine layer of grey dust covered all the surfaces. That meant that if she wanted to pry, she would inevitably leave evidence of her doing so. Unless Pompeius was too busy to notice the marks she would leave in the dust. She could, of course, clean the place afterwards.

  She smiled.

  So long as she made sure the whole house was spotless, she would be able to claim she had cleaned the office as part of her work. She thought ahead. After his morning of ‘work’ with whoever she was, Pompeius would attend the games with the legate, the senior tribune and the visiting procurator. That would keep him busy until mid-afternoon, and then there would undoubtedly be socialising and then other legion work. She would be willing to bet that Pompeius would not be back here until near dark. And the kids were helping at the bakery to earn a little extra money. Old Rubrius would keep them busy until she returned, so she could be sure they were safe. Plenty of time to gut and cleanse the entire house, possibly even weed and cut back the garden… and pry in the office.

  A chest, a rack of scrolls above the desk, a strongbox, a cabinet, and a drawer in the aforementioned desk.

  Where to start?

  Placing the oil lamps carefully, one in the niche by the door and the other on the desktop, she leaned over and tugged at the drawer. It slid free and she looked carefully down at it. Pompeius was not the sort of man to memorise the order of the drawer’s contents, but if she left it too different, it would be obvious, and she could hardly claim to be cleaning the inside of drawers.

  Carefully, she lifted out the wax tablets in their ordered piles and, placing them on the desk, ran quickly through them. Six blank, freshly scraped clear. One containing important dates, with nothing incriminating – though she was freshly irked to note the absence of her naming day from the list. One containing a list of his kit with notes on what needed replacing or mending, and what was still serviceable and acceptable. One with a list of names, which momentarily intrigued her until she realised they were all men’s names.

  On to the scroll rack.

  Nothing. She carefully took out each scroll and examined the old fart’s spidery writing. Copies of various dull documents, a few letters from his sister who was married to a prefect who ran an auxiliary cavalry unit in Noricum, and two or three military treatises that had been so well read they were almost transparent.

  The cabinet. Inks, spare styluses, pins for fastening documents, a seal-stamp with his gorgon seal, sticks of red wax, a spare cushion(?), a king’s ransom in blank parchment and vellum sheets, imported at ridiculous expense. Other general tat. Nothing incriminating.

  She tutted her irritation.

  The chest was unlocked and revealed only endless pay confirmations and requisition chits for kit and leave. It did confirm that Pompeius was on a particularly good wage, which only added to Tiberia’s vexation, but it did nothing to name that elusive other woman.

  The strongbox was small for its type, but the lock was heavy and clearly secure. She knew that there was a small key on the leather thong round the silly old sod’s neck, hanging alongside the pendant of Minerva. Little chance she would get into this, then.

  Staring at the difficult repository in ire, she stepped close and tested the weight of the thing. The ease with which she lifted it surprised her. She had expected a back-breaking weight, but it felt like a small wooden box. She lifted it and, experimentally, turned it over.

  There was a hollow tinkle of coins within. Not more than a couple of dozen, and loose. The hollowness of the noise also suggested that the chest was otherwise empty.

  That was it. The whole office checked over.

  There was, of course, the possibility that he kept something so incriminating somewhere else, though she couldn’t imagine Pompeius having the guile to do that.

  Frustrated in her efforts and feeling edgy, Tiberia slumped into the chair at the desk. What to do? It felt like accepting defeat to just clean the house now and nothing else. As she fumed and thought hard, she found her gaze was settled on the wax tablets she had not yet put away. Something had been nagging at her for the last few moments while she pondered, and she tried to isolate the thought. It was something to do with the list of names on the open tablet.

  She was a civilian. Tiberia Marcia had, officially, no business being in the fortress of the legion. The guards were used to her coming and going, because the status of her relationship with the camp prefect was well known, and Pompeius could order anyone in or out of the gates if he so wished. She was a civilian, but after a decade of coming and going into Deva’s walls, she was willing to bet she’d more working knowledge of the legion than any other outsider.

  Plus she was clever, and she knew it.

  Add those two facts together, and it was no surprise that she had picked up on something in that list of names that no other civilian would have noticed.

  They were the controllers of Deva.

  Oh not all of them, but the principle ones. A spider’s web of control, which connected every important role, no matter how junior or seemingly unimportant.

  Legate Viator’s name was absent, as was Tribune Longus.

  But all the five junior tribunes were there, each of whom would take a turn as tribune of the watch, in command of the internal guards and gate sentries for the fortress. The senior cornicen – who assigned musician duties for the others around Deva – was there, as were five of the more senior centurions. Not the most senior centurion – the Primus Pilus – nor the second, but then they were both absent up in Caledonii lands. In their absence – and the absence of the legate and the senior tribune – these five were the centurions who would likely be in positions of guard command around the fortress. The prefect in command of the legion’s cavalry was absent, but his third in command was on the list – the man who would command the scout units of Deva. The quartermaster centurion was there, one of Pompeius’ deputies. Then there was the senior tesserarius, who controlled Deva’s passwords, the nine actuarii – the clerks who controlled things for the legate, the tribune and Pompeius, and three of the adjutants who pretty much ran the headquarters building.

  It was a chilling list.

  Because if one were to read into it what had immediately occurred to Tiberia, it looked distinctly treasonous. If one man gained control of the people on this list, then even without the legate, the senior tribune, the cavalry prefect or the primus pilus, he effectively controlled Deva and the legion that dwelled there. He could open the fortress up to an enemy, or he could seal it up tighter than a Greek’s purse-strings. He could do anything!

  Oh, Pompeius, what are you up to?

  Did the men on this list know they were on it?

  A chill ran up her spine. The tablet she was holding suddenly felt like the heaviest, most dangerous blade in the world. With it someone could cause havoc. She stared at the thing. What to do? She could put it back and go on with the tidying and cleaning as if nothing had happened…

  She sighed. Tiberia Marcia could no more ignore the discovery of something like this than she could grow a second head.

  Then what to do?

  She could approach Pompeius about it. He would be embarrassed, probably try to lie his way out of whatever it was – extremely badly. But the most likely full end result would be that the silly old sod would decide he couldn’t trust her anymore and she would find their long-term engagement no more solid than the dust that covered every surface of his house.

  The legate? Tribune Longus?

  Neither of th
em was on the list, which could be either good or bad. But neither would see her anyway, since she was simply a civilian and they probably weren’t even aware of her regular visits into their fortress. She would at best be ignored and ejected. At worst, she would be accused of complicity in something and then… well the consequences of that didn’t bear thinking about.

  Damn her inquisitiveness. She should have left well alone and tidied up the washing!

  So who else? Someone on the list?

  Her eyes ran down the centurions. She knew a few centurions through her husband-to-be, who had served alongside the older ones before his promotion to the camp prefecture. She knew a few, most importantly, who she thought to be honourable and trustworthy. She’d always assumed Pompeius to be one such, barring this foolishness over a woman. None of those she trusted appeared on the list.

  Curiously, she realised that all the centurions she felt were truly trustworthy were currently away on assignment elsewhere. Could that be part and parcel of this most dubious list?

  So who, then?

  Her gaze fell upon the name Aulus Placidius, an actuarius who she knew well, who worked closely with Pompeius in his daily duties. She smiled. Placidius was no better known to her really than many of the others on the list, but he did know Tiberia, and had flaunted the legion’s rules plenty of times to help her at Pompeius’ request. As such, he was clearly the most trustworthy man on the list.

  Satisfied with her logic, Tiberia grasped the wax tablet, slapped the wooden case shut and fastened it. The stylus fell out of the holder as she did so, and she tried half a dozen times to put it back, but part of the holder was loose and the pen wouldn’t stay in. Giving up, she carried the tablet and stylus together back to the main room and slid them into her bag.