Hadrian's wall Read Free Page A

an answer I can give." Crisp, unhesitating, to the point. A Roman.
    "Good. Now, you knew the senior tribune Galba Brassidias?"
    "Of course."
    "When be was promoted?"
    "I brought the news to him."
    "And when was that?"
    "The autumn of two years ago."
    "You were a courier?"
    Longinus is no simple soldier. He understands I'm surprised that a ranking centurion had been assigned the mission of riding the post. "The news was delicate. Duke Fullofaudes, the commander of northern Britannia, sent me because I'd campaigned with Galba and knew him as well as any man could know him. A hard man, but a good soldier. Galba, I mean."
    "What do you mean, 'a hard man'?"
    "Cavalry. Not the kind to have at banquet. Not a conversationalist. He was a provincial from Thrace who lacked refinement, a superb horseman but never schooled. Solid but grim. The best kind to have on your right side in battle."
    "Of course." As if I truly know. "And he took the news well?"
    Longinus gave a pained smile, remembering.
    "Poorly?"
    "None of this will make sense to you unless you've served on the Wall." It is a careful insult, an attempt to pretend at a vast difference between civilian and soldier. As if a breastplate changes the human heart!
    "I have spent my whole life on the Wall," I growl, giving him a sense of the power behind me. "Rome's wall, from Arabia Petraea to your dunghill here. I have traded insults with the arrogant warriors of Sarmatia and sifted rumors of the distant hun. I have smelled the stink of Berber camels and eaten with sentries on the cold palisades of the Rhine, counting the fires of the Germans across the river. Do not think you have to tell me about the Wall."
    "It's just that it was… complicated."
    "You said you would answer any question."
    He shifts, grimacing. "I'll answer it. To be honest isn't simple, however."
    "Explain yourself."
    "Life at the border is complex. Sometimes you're a sentry, sometimes an ambassador. Sometimes a wall, sometimes a gate. Sometimes we fight the barbarians, sometimes we enlist them. For outsiders like the woman to come in-"
    "Now you are getting ahead of my questions. I asked for Galba's reaction to his superior's appointment, not his justification."
    Longinus hesitates, appraising me. He doesn't seek to know if I can be trusted. How can you ever be sure of that? Rather, whether I can understand. The hardest thing in life, after all, is to be understood. "You've been to the breach where the barbarians broke through?"
    "It is the first place I went to."
    "What did you see there?"
    The interrogation has been turned around. Longinus wants proof I can comprehend what he tells me. I think before I speak.
    "A thin garrison. Sulking craftsmen. A cold pyre, nothing but bones."
    He nods, waiting.
    "The Wall is being repaired," I go on, betraying some of what will be in my report, "but not with the same care as before. I measured the lime, and the mix is weak. The contractor is corrupt and the imperial foreman untrained. His superior died in the fighting. The mortar will dry to little better than hard sand and will have to be redone."
    "Will it?"
    I know what he means. General Theodosius has restored rough order, but the treasury has been drained and authority is dissipating. The best builders are moving south. "It should be redone. How well depends on good Romans such as yourself."
    He nods. "You're observant, Inspector Draco. Realistic. Smart, perhaps. Smart to have gone to so many places and lived as long as you have." The centurion has approved of me, I realize, and I'm secretly flattered by his approval. A man of action seeing value in me, a man of words! "Maybe even honest, which is rare these days. So I'll tell you about Galba and the lady Valeria and the last good days of the Petriana cavalry. The patricians will blame him, but I don't. Do you?"
    I think again. "Loyalty is the first virtue."
    "Which Rome did not repay in kind."
    That is the question, isn't it? Everyone knows what soldiers owe the