Free Hadrian's wall by William Dietrich Page A

uncontrolled passion for Cleopatra. It is permissible to love, but impermissible to show it.
    "All this settled her down?"
    "I like to think so." She's enjoying my questions. It has been my experience that all women thrive on attention, be they slave or highborn. They are as unconfident as they are vain.
    "And you prepared to leave Londinium?"
    "Valeria was anxious. It's bad luck to marry in May, and the girl was too impatient to wait for propitious June, so she hoped for a union in April. As did Marcus, meaning Galba had been instructed to hurry us there."
    "What was your impression of the senior tribune?"
    Savia smiles, the smile of the Roman urbanite. "Proud, but with the bluster that comes from being born a provincial. As a servant I saw through him more than the patricians did. He enjoyed our unease. It made him feel more equal."
    "You didn't trust him."
    "He was obviously a competent soldier, and candid. He said he'd been sent as escort because Marcus wanted time at the garrison out of Galba's shadow, and that he himself wanted a chance to ingratiate himself with his new commander's bride."
    "You believed him?"
    "Perhaps he was trying to make the situation work, in his own way."
    "Did Clodius accept Galba's leadership?"
    "Clodius felt superior to the Thracian in everything but military rank, and the Thracian felt superior to the Roman in everything but birth."
    "Not an easy way to begin."
    "Galba couldn't show any resentment toward Valeria. So he showed it toward Clodius, instead."
    "And you rode north."
    "No. We walked out of the city, Valeria in a litter."
    Of course. Horses are prohibited in Londinium, as they are in Rome. Too much manure and too many accidents. "Your escort?"
    "Eight cavalry. Clodius explained they were a contubernium, a squad that shares a single tent. They'd slept in garrison at the city's northwest corner and were waiting at a circus. Cliburnius the merchant had been elected to higher office from which to steal more effectively, and was rewarding his followers with games."
    I do not comment on this cynicism. The knavery of Briton officials is well known. Corruption is rampant, intrigue second nature. Briton perfidy is as proverbial in the empire as Egyptian slyness or Greek arrogance. And any man elected had better provide for the mob. Still, Londinium is not as bad as its reputation. The streets are straighter than Rome's, the congestion less terrible. There is such copious water that the fountains run free, discouraging the gangs that fight to control the taps of the capital. The gutters run so copiously that the stink from shit and garbage is surprisingly small. The baths are packed-the only way to keep warm in this country, I think.
    "They all wanted to watch Crispus in the arena," Savia goes on, "and the chariots of the Blue and the Green on the track outside. The wedding schedule made this impossible, so Galba told his men to meet us at the grounds, giving his soldiers a brief chance to mingle with the charioteers and see the exotic animals. Which led, of course, to the trouble with the elephant."
    "The elephant?"
    "We could hear its trumpeting a quarter mile away. Cliburnius insisted the slaves provoke its sound to remind the city of the day's competitions. The elephant was chained to a stake, and Galba's men were tormenting it for amusement, prodding it with the butts of their lances. Valeria, who has a weakness for animals, bounded out of her litter and demanded they stop. Immediately, the beast came at her."
    I raise my brow.
    "Somehow it got loose, and Valeria was trapped against the amphitheater wall. Then Galba was there with a torch he'd ignited in a cooking fire, darting in front of the girl to drive the elephant back."
    "I have seen an elephant kill a man," I remark, remembering a rampage in Carthage. The victim had been grotesquely flattened. "Your mistress was rash."
    "She has an impulsive heart."
    "And Galba brave."
    "So it seemed."
    "Seemed?"
    "It was Clodius who was suspicious