XIII

Piroboridava

The fifteenth day before the kalends of May, the fourth hour

PISO WAS NOT dead, at least not yet, but his breathing was faint and he would not wake. The medicus had examined him, found no other injury apart from the wound to the head. It was slighter than Ferox had suspected, for head wounds always bled like stuck pigs, but the medicus’ opinion was that more severe was the force of the blow.

‘Will he live?’ Hadrian had asked when he visited the hospital early the next morning.

The medicus shrugged. ‘Perhaps? Perhaps not? And perhaps he will have some life, some of his wits, but not all.’

‘When will you know?’

Another shrug. ‘I cannot say, my lord.’ The medicus added the title, because even the authority of his rank in his hospital ought to defer a little to a senator and senior officer. ‘I have attended to the wound and bound it. He sleeps without the need of poppy seed or any other comfort, so he does not feel any pain. The tribune may sleep for hours or many days and he may never wake. At the moment there is no more that can be done for him apart from keeping him warm and comfortable and making an offering to the gods.’

‘See to it.’

The other casualty, a Brigantian struck so hard that the back of his skull had collapsed, was most certainly dead. Found under a pile of debris from one of the buildings when the fire was well under control, the death might have been an accident, but Ferox had not had the energy to investigate in any more detail as yet for there had been so much to do. Hadrian had not slept until the fire was extinguished, by which time the night was more than half spent. Ferox had kept awake even longer, and finally got a little sleep on the cot kept in the hut behind the main gates. Even then, he only gave in to exhaustion on the promise that he be woken at the slightest sign of trouble inside or outside the fort.

An hour before dawn, Philo appeared with fresh clothes, and managed his old trick of shaving Ferox while the centurion slept. With less than half an hour to spare he had shaken his master awake.

‘Mongrel,’ Ferox had croaked at him, but the freedman was persistent and the centurion knew the signs.

‘The legatus, the noble Aelius Hadrianus, wishes to see you, so you must look your best.’

Ferox grunted his opinion of that, but knew how the army worked and also how relentless Philo was bound to be. By his own standards, if not the much higher ones of his servant, he was smartly turned out by the time he stood waiting in the main office of the principia. Hadrian appeared just as the trumpets sounded the end of the night and the first watch of the day, and looked as if he had slept twelve hours on a feather mattress, before bathing and taking a leisurely breakfast.