Empress & Soldier, Chapter 14, part 1
In which Druisius goes visiting.
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ON THE FIRST DAY after we leave the quarry-side inn we ride with two merchants. They are glad of company on the road. Mostly they talk to Tarquin, about the new city, and the Emperor’s visit. They are dealers in hides and wool, and their taxes have not changed.
The horse the ostler chose for me has an even gait. Tarquin chuckled at the sheepskin, but I prefer not to arrive in Serdik chafed and sore. I have a friend to visit, if he is still alive. The thought brings a shiver of anticipation. I ride last, leading the pack mule, so there is no one to see what my face might reveal.
Riding is pleasant enough. The day is warm and the flies not too irritating. When the sun is high we stop to eat the bread and cheese provided by the inn. The wineskin is passed around. The horses and the mule crop grass. A distance from us, a child watches a herd of goats.
I walk away from the others, to ease my back from riding, and to relieve myself. I follow a path to the river, probably where the goats come to drink. The water is high, the bank hoof-pocked and muddy. I look along the river. It is empty of boats. Above me the sky arches across the valley. For this moment, there is no one in sight but my companions and the child. No buildings but a distant hut, probably the goatherd’s shelter. No sound but wind and water and the faint jingle of a bell on one of the goats’ necks. A different shiver runs through me. Not fear, but something close. I am meant for camps and cities, to be among many men. There I can do my work. Here, what is there to stop thought?
A strange idea. A strange mood. What I have led you to become. I shake my head to clear it. Think of my friend in Serdik, the place near the city wall where he serves bad ale to most customers, and gives his attentions to a few. The leather straps of a boxer wrapped around his hands. I try not to anticipate, or riding will be difficult.
~
We spend the night at another inn. The next morning the merchants do not leave with us. They have business here. Tarquin is in a good mood. He called me from my blankets by the door this morning to join him in the bed. This is rare, and has left him cheerful. He is whistling as we ride.
“You should have brought your cithar,” he says. “Music speeds a journey.”
“I cannot ride, lead the mule, and play,” I point out. He laughs.
“I’d have led the mule.” I have never brought the cithar on the boats. The instrument is too easily damaged. The small one Marcellus bought me was broken on the journey from Qipërta, but I have the larger one that was his. It travelled wrapped in sheepskin in one of Tarquin’s trunks. I will not risk it.
“We can’t prove anything against the new official, you know,” he says suddenly. “It would cost the quarrymaster his licence, even if all I do is ask questions.” He is right. The master will blame an underling, and punish the man who complained.
“Then I do not ask questions about his office, but the man?”
“Yes. You know the sort of thing.” What the servants say, and the merchants he frequents. Which baths he visits, and whether it is a boy or a woman—or more than one, or both—he hires. How he treats them. If his bills are paid. Tarquin will spend time with other officers at the baths, meals. Maybe at the house of one or another, to hear what their wives say.
For our stay in Serdik I will have little to do as his soldier-servant, except to keep his uniform clean and in order. A time for my other duties, and my own pleasures.
~
I AM AWAKE. I can feel each hair on my body, the air as it enters my lungs. I move, anticipating. The soreness of my body reminds me of last night. I smile, touch a bruise. Something like a shiver runs through me. I am alive.
The creak of the door opening makes me open my eyes. My friend stands above me. “Time you were gone,” he says. Mildly, but his presence arouses me. That, and when he reaches out to squeeze my thigh. Pain and pleasure shoot through me. I moan.
He grins. His teeth flash in the dim light. “I’ve got work to do,” he says. He glances down. “Handle that, if you want, but then go.” He bends, puts a pot of water on the floor. “You can wash first.”
It is his taberna, if you can call it that. Telling me to go is his right. I take my private pleasure, intense and rapid. Then I wash. The water is cold. I leave the cloth against the worst bruises until it warms. Wring it out, repeat. Resist the desire rising in me again. When I am calmer and clean I dress, tunic and leggings, find my sandals. There is still a stirring in blood and flesh, centred low and deep.
I go out into the day. Tarquin may or may not have missed me, but in Serdik I have this freedom. He never asks. Not about where I go, or what I do. Or about the bruises he must see, although they will have faded before he does.
For the first time, I wonder. Am I watched? Is Tarquin? I think I know the answer.
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