Empress & Soldier, Chapter 13, part 2
In which Druisius considers his future.
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“New taxes?” Tarquin asks. We sit in the courtyard of his house. Stars glitter above us. The moon is almost full.
“That is what he said.”
“Not on our shipment, though,” he says.
“An implication, yes?” I should have asked. Made sure that was what the quarryman meant.
“Find out,” Tarquin says. “There should be no new taxes on marble already contracted. Especially for here.” He stares up at the stars. “I wonder if this is the same new man who is demanding our accounts.” Tarquin is tired, I think. Five years of difficulties. Late shipments, the wrong marble, leaking pipes. Incompetent mosaicists, subsidence, local men demanding higher pay. He has good lieutenants. His men are well trained, skilled. But all comes back to him. His name to be made or disgraced. Made, I think. Hope. The city streets are wide and straight, its buildings gleam, pleasing the eye with their geometry. A new word he has taught me.
“If the taxes are on our marble,” he says now, “you’ll get your wish. We’ll go on the barges, so I can talk to the quarrymaster.” He grins. “But you’ll have to ride from there.” He yawns. “Two more days to unload?”
“If there are no problems.”
“If the foreman confirms the taxes are on our shipment, tell him we’re returning to the quarry with him.”
“Which sergeant directs my cohorts while I am gone?”
He thinks. “Who is your most competent capora?”
“You would promote now?” We are nearly finished here.
“Yes. Give him, and others, the chance to find their feet. Establish their authority. We may be leaving soon, Druisius, but an engineering regiment must remain. There will always be repairs and expansions and new buildings needed.”
Another thing he must think about, plan. He looks my way, suddenly.
“Or do you want to stay here? I assumed, without asking. Am I wrong?”
“I am your aide,” I say. I have assumed too.
“But not forever,” Tarquin says. “I am not Marcellus, who would have become a general in time, I have no doubt. I will never need a personal guard, or a man to head it.”
It is late. There is no one in the house but us. The day servants have returned to their homes. “Building is not all we do,” I say. I am known in the tabernae, and in certain brothels. Both in this new city, and in the town across the river. The Trakïyani are allies, friends. But not all. I throw dice, wager. Drink less than I seem to. Ask questions. Listen. Men talk, when inebriated or after sex. Sometimes both.
Sometimes I offer myself to certain men. Tarquin tells me what I can reveal to gain their trust. I find out things about them. From them. One or two, whose talk is dangerous, who have followers, have been found dead. In alleyways. Or near the warehouses where at night the scraptae work. Purses gone, throats cut. It happens. The city guard cannot be everywhere.
Tarquin has not answered me. “Overseeing the unloading of boats. Checking cargo. I would have done this in Casil, yes?” Or on the other side of the Nivéan Sea. “It is not why I joined the army.”
“Maybe not,” Tarquin says. Quietly, although there is no one to overhear. “But Marcellus would not like what I have led you to become.”
“Marcellus is dead.” I am rarely this blunt. Tarquin is still my captain, no matter what else I do for him.
“I told him I would keep you safe.”
What I told Bernikë. Words are just words. Promises mean nothing. I push away thoughts of Marcellus. “You cannot,” I say. He grunts, neither agreement nor disagreement.
“I should have my pick of assignments, after this,” he says. “I want to go west.” To look for ruins. Remnants of what Casil’s empire once was. I remember.
“Sylana?” I ask.
“Unlikely. North of it. Ulpius built a wall between Casil’s lands and the Boranoi; it needs repair and improvement.”
I think about this. “You build a city, and then you are sent to fix a wall? That is not a reward.”
“It is, if it is what I want.” He fills his wine cup, holds out the flask to fill mine. As if I was an equal.
“I can speak to the Boranoi,” I remind him. “I would be useful.”
He makes a sound, not a laugh. “You are always useful. But it would be as remote as that mountain pass was in Qipërta, at least. Not your natural territory, Druisius, is it?”
He is right. But if I do not go with Tarquin, I could be posted anywhere.
“What is it I am doing in Serdik?”
“Find out what you can about this new man. The things I won’t hear.”
Simple enough. Just questions at the tabernae and baths. What I am good at. I drink my wine. “What is his name?”
“Decanius.” He yawns again. “A surprising appointment, considering.”
“Why?”
“His grandfather was the man you saw take his own life in the forum. Blaesus.”
This is surprising. The governor who started a bad war here. Whose name I still hear, across the river, some nights. Certain men carry long grudges.
“The Emperor would have agreed to this?”
Tarquin shrugs. “Decanius’s father is governor of Qipërta. His uncle Quintus is high in the fiscarius’s office at the palace. Influential men. Persuasive.” He stands, slowly. Wearily, I think. “Bed, for me. Are you going out again?”
I shake my head. “I have locked the gates.” He smiles his thanks and leaves me to the night. No sounds now, except the splash of the courtyard fountain. I think about Tarquin’s words. What I have led you to become. I am a soldier. He is my officer. I kill when it is needed, on the battlefield or elsewhere. As he directs. My job, yes?
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