Tabula Rasa(8)

They might have been, though.

It was a peculiar thought that she might have been the old man’s daughter. If Mam had not broken her promise and run away with her father instead, Tilla might have spent her whole life here, milking cows and growing vegetables, grumbling about the Romans and refusing to speak Latin. Thinking a trip to market was exciting, a journey to the seaside a once-in-a-lifetime adventure. Knowing and being known by all the neighbors and never wanting to leave. Or maybe desperate to get out? Neighbors were not always kind.

Instead here she was, trailing about after a foreign husband. Living in temporary lodgings, having to eat meals from snack bars, while half their possessions were stored miles away in Deva. Soon she would leave behind most of the people she had grown to know here over the summer. Probably she would never see them again, because you never knew where a soldier would be sent next, and if you wanted any sort of marriage, you had to go with him.

The shutters that formed the entrance of the snack bar had been opened up to let in what was left of the autumn sun. A group of dark-skinned men dressed in rich colors were seated outside, chatting over the remains of a meal in a tongue Tilla did not recognize. She wondered what they made of the drab décor of the only bar in town. Ria looked up from stacking cups behind the counter. “I hear your man’s a hero.”

“I will tell him you said so,” Tilla promised, feeling guilty. At least he did not beat her, and he was not a maid chaser like the centurion at the fort, whose kitchen girl had come to her in tears begging for some charm or potion to keep her from falling pregnant.

Ria leaned across the counter, jabbed a bony finger toward the men outside, and whispered, “From Palmyra. If you want any silk, let me know.”

“Not really.”

“Pity,” she observed. “I could have got you a good deal.”

Someone in the back room was humming a tune Tilla had heard the soldiers singing on the march.

Ria observed, “Your girl’s in a good mood.”

“She doesn’t like silence.”

“She’ll be glad enough of it after the baby comes. What can I get you?”

“I’ll put my bag away first.” Tilla made her way past the empty tables and into the dimly lit storeroom where Virana slept, and where a sturdy ladder provided access to the privacy of the loft room she and her husband were renting.

“Mistress!” Virana’s large form was precariously balanced on a stool in front of a high shelf.

“If you’re going to do that,” Tilla told her, “find something safe to stand on.”

“Oh, I’ve finished now.” Virana clambered down clutching a honey pot. “How is Cata? Is it true her boyfriend broke her jaw?”

Tilla delved into her bag. “Share a pastry?” She would have died rather than reveal anything about her patients to Virana, but sometimes she wondered why she bothered to keep her mouth shut. Nobody else around here did.

Virana picked out a raisin and popped it into her mouth. “Is the master back yet?”

“No.”

“He is very brave. Did his clerk come back?”

“Yes. And no.”

“Shall I take your bag up?”

“Virana, you’re supposed to be . . .” Tilla paused. She could hardly say resting, since the arrangement for Virana to work in Ria’s snack bar suited everyone very nicely, including Virana, who saw it as a chance to meet the legionary of her dreams. “I’ll take it,” she said. “You’re supposed to be careful. And don’t drop crumbs or you’ll be sleeping with mice.”

By the time she came back down, Ria had left the bar and was clattering about in the kitchen. The outside table had now been taken over by a group of local women. The loaded baskets suggested they had been shopping over at Vindolanda; the fact that they were here suggested they were in no hurry to go home, but not daft enough to pay Vindolanda prices for drinks.

She had not intended to eavesdrop, but as she carried her beer across to the last patch of sunshine slanting in through the doorway and across a table, she realized she was in an ideal position to listen: hidden from view but able to hear every word.

“So she said to them,” declared a voice with a familiar lisp, “ ‘Why d’you have to march straight through my cabbages?’ So the one in charge pointed up the hill, and he said, ‘We’ve got orders to go up there.’ So she said, ‘Well, you should go around! Can’t you see I’ve got things growing here?’ and he said—this is what he said, without a word of a lie—‘The Twentieth Legion do not go around.’ ”