Empress & Soldier Chapter 14 part 3
In which Druisius asks questions.
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The streets grow wider. Houses, not shops and apartments. Ahead, the baths, tall and domed, in grounds with trees and lawns and paths. Not as big as the ones Tarquin built in the new city. A paved walk leads to a wide portico, tall doors, statues. I avoid this entrance. My tunic and leggings are creased and stained. The baths are open to all, but I prefer not to be noticed.
In a shaded courtyard to one side of the building I find who I have come to see. Several women, two young men. The scraptae of the baths, resting before work. My sister Bernikë is one. She disliked the man chosen for her. So she ran away. Marius told me this, in the first letter that reached me in Qipërta. Not so different from me, I thought then. Still do.
The women barely glance at me. One of the men raises an eyebrow. “You look like you’ve had a rough night,” he says.
I grin. “I have.”
“If you’re looking for more of the same, this is the wrong place.”
“I’m not. Just some company to share this.” I hold out the wine flask I bought from the taberna.
He considers. Shrugs. “Why not?”
We talk. About why I am in Serdik. What Casil is like. Little of what I tell him is true. I am just a soldier-servant, without rank. My officer lends me to his friends for their enjoyment. I am thinking of deserting.
“To join us?” the man asks.
“Maybe.”
“If you can.” He gives me a disdainful look. “We are licenced, you know. Inspected by a doctor weekly. Not everyone can work at the baths.”
“I didn’t know that.” Another lie. “The taxes are high, yes?”
“High enough,” he admits.
“At the docks I heard there is a new tax-gatherer? Higher rates?”
“What were you doing at the docks?” I have loosened my tunic’s neck, as if for relief from the heat. I touch a bruise. He makes a derisive sound. “Of course. I forgot. No, no higher taxes here.”
“If there were,” one of the women says, “he’d have to pay more, wouldn’t he?”
“He comes here?” I try to sound surprised. “The new tax official?”
“Frequently,” she says, raising her eyebrows. Emphasizing both meanings. I laugh.
“What’s he like?” She wrinkles her nose.
“Soft. Not that way,” she adds, when I snort. “A desk man. Not much muscle.”
“Are you his favourite?”
She shakes her head. “Doesn’t have one. I don’t think he even knows our names. Any woman will do.”
I start to ask about men, but something makes me turn. A noise, the eyes of one of the scraptae, both. Two guards approach.
“Who are you?” one asks. Not in a friendly way.
“Just talking. Sharing wine,” I say. If I show my sergeant’s insignia, word might get back to the new tax official that questions are being asked. Almost certainly will.
“The fuck you are,” he says. “Recruiting for another bathhouse, are you? Or a taberna?”
I hold out my hands, palms up. “Not me.” The scraptae are quiet. My problem, not theirs.
The lead man steps forward. Without thought, my hand drops to my belt knife. All he needs. He is on me. They both are. Punches on yesterday’s bruises. Kicks onto swollen flesh. Pain, without pleasure. I stop fighting, drop, curl in on myself. If I do not, they might kill me.
They drag me a few paces. A kick or two more. “Get out of here. Don’t come back.”
For a minute I do not move. Just breathe. Calming the rage inside. I have what I came for. Most of it. I roll over, slowly. Push myself up. The guards watch. I nod. Walk away.
In an alley I lean against a wall. Pain throbs. My lip is bleeding. Sweat soaks my armpits. I wipe blood from my face, pull off my leggings. No need to hide bruises from Tarquin now.
Bare-legged, I am cooler. At a fountain, I wash my face. Drink, several dips of the cup on its chain. Pour another over my head. Walk back to our rooms, thinking.
Tarquin is out. I strip, wash myself and my clothes. His too, the ones he has left. Hang them to dry. Tidy the room, fetch water. My stomach rumbles. I have not eaten since the early hours, so I go out again, find a food stall. Bread and olives are enough. Pain flares when I move, like flames from coals. I see an apothecary’s sign.
She looks me up and down. “Lost a fight, did you?” Uninterested, a comment to a client. She sells me a salve, offers the juice of poppy. I shake my head. She gives me willow-bark instead.
I am doing nothing when Tarquin returns. My body aches, dully. He greets me, looks again. “What happened to you?”
I stood when he came in, as I should. “Bath guards didn’t like the look of me,” I say. “But just bruises, yes?”
“And a split lip,” he notes. “Sit down again. I can pour my own wine.” He does, and a cup for me. “Why didn’t you tell them who you were?”
“I was asking questions.”
“Ah.” He swallows some wine. “About Decanius.” I nod. “What did you learn?”
I start to shrug. Think better of it. “Women, at the baths. Frequently. No favourites. Just an appetite satisfied, yes?”
“No unusual tastes?”
“Nothing the scraptae mentioned. I was about to ask. The guards arrived.”
“Anything else?”
“At the docks, no higher landing rates or warehouse charges. The scraptae pay no higher fees.”
“So only the quarries and mines. Lining his own purse, as we thought.” His lips twist. “They all do it. The government officials. One way or the other.” He sighs, spreads his hands. “He assumed I was, too. Hours going over the orders and payments with a clerk. And of course they found nothing.”
Tarquin is honest, except for the expected bribes. Many in his place would not be. “He wanted to bring you into his schemes, yes?”
“Yes.” He finishes his wine. “I must go to the baths. I’m expected at dinner with the governor in a few hours.”
“Full dress?” I ask. The governor? This is not usual.
“Better be.” He stands. “I’ll get shaved at the baths. I’m not sure I’d trust your hand to be steady.”
At the door he pauses. “That’s a lot of damage to learn very little. I’m sorry, Druisius.”
Soldiers get hurt. Die for less. It is the way of things. I say this. He nods. “Don’t wait up.”
I find my cleaning tools, and begin another job.
~
“Druisius?” Tarquin, at the door to my room. I blink my eyes open. It feels late. I sit up, stifling a sound.
“You need me?”
He comes in. Sits on the end of the bed. “I can’t keep this to myself. But you cannot tell anyone, Sergeant. You understand?”
I do. He has given me an order. This is not information to be traded or let slip.
“The Emperor may not come. The talk is he’s sending the prince instead,”
“Why?” I think of the boy I saw. Younger than me. In his twenties now. Old enough.
“It’s not clear. Perhaps poor health, perhaps something political. But he’s unhappy with his heir, and wants him out of Casil for a while.”
“What does this mean for you?” He is still holding an oil lamp. I take it from him, place it on the small table beside the bed.
“Not a lot. The temple and the arch are to be finished, but no dedication placed on the arch, the governor says.” He rubs a hand over his brow. “Which suggests to me there is doubt about the Emperor’s health, regardless of problems with his son.”
Ambitious sons find ways to supplant their fathers. I say this. Tarquin grimaces, shakes his head. “Philitos isn’t so much ambitious as he is love-struck. His father thinks he’s besotted with one of his tutors’ daughters.”
A red-haired girl. In an office lined with books. A name surfaces. “Eudekia? Varos’s daughter, yes?”
“How did you know that?”
“Varos is my family’s patron,” I explain. Marcellus knew this, but he would have had no reason to tell Tarquin. “I saw the girl once. We had gone to the house to ask a favour.”
“Is she beautiful?” Tarquin asks. I chuckle.
“Not then. She was a skinny twelve-year-old.” A memory comes. “Educated, yes? She spoke a language I did not know. To her tutor. He replied in the same.”
“Heræcrian, I’d guess,” Tarquin says. Absently. “I suspect she is beautiful now, and the prince is smitten.”
“She is not useful.” Tarquin frowns at my words. “To Casil. She does not strengthen an alliance. Settle a treaty.”
His face clears. “No. No, she doesn’t. I don’t know what Philitos is thinking. Emperors and their heirs don’t marry for love. Sending him away for several months should cure him of his foolishness.” He stands, looks down at me. “The governor thinks I should marry.”
“Will you?”
“Probably.” He picks up the lamp. “Good night. I apologize for disturbing you.”
He is disappointed. To have the Emperor see the city he has built in his name would have meant accolades. Promotion. His choice of assignments. Now? If the governor suggests marriage, it is as another route to this goal. An alliance. He would be foolish to refuse. It will make little difference to me.
WE TAKE A BOAT BACK. Because of my bruises. Downstream is faster. When we moor at night we walk a bit, to stretch cramped legs. Tarquin talks of what else Decanius told him. Which suppliers to use, which carters and barges.
“Will you?” I ask.
He smiles a twisted smile. “I told him if it did not compromise quality.” He is subdued. We walk in silence for some time. I listen, but there are only the night sounds of the countryside. “When I marry,” he says, “she—whoever she is—will accompany me, wherever I am posted.”
I understand. His desires are not great enough to need two bedmates. Disappointment surprises me. I have grown used to him, what he likes. But there is no shortage of men to slake need. Wanting more brings the wrong sort of pain.
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