‘For such a bold warrior you tease very easily!’ Sulpicia Lepidina laughed softly. They were standing close together, and after a glance to see that the troopers and her stepson were some way away, she took his hand. ‘This time you must forgive me for being cruel. You are a soldier under discipline, and not free to act or say what you wish to me.’

‘Duty and discipline, my lady.’ He thought that he ought to pull his hand free, but did not and instead pressed hers. ‘There is little left for me in this life.’

‘The soldier’s life,’ she said sadly. ‘That of the noblewoman is not so different. We marry as we have to, live as we have to, and try to avoid disgrace. Duty and discipline in another guise, its hold on us just as tight.’ The lady slid her hand away back under the cover of her cloak.

She turned away, looking out across the hills. ‘I like it here. Duty commands me to come and assist my husband. Discipline makes me run the house well and try my best to raise his children – our children, I should say. I serve my husband and my own family as best I can. It is not perhaps what I expected. Children have such dreams. When your grandfather put you on that pony did you ever think that your path would lead you here?’

‘No. It is hard to remember what I expected from life, but this was not it.’

‘Loss is a terrible thing, and yet the gods seem to have placed it at the heart of our lives. Little turns out as you expect. Loss of dreams and loss of hope are almost as sad as the loss of people. I liked Titus Annius, even if I do not think he had much time for me or even for my husband.’

‘He was a good man,’ Ferox said, and hoped that did not imply an insult to her or the prefect.

‘Duty and discipline.’ She looked up at him again. ‘It is not all bad. At least it has brought me to places that I might only have read about. Life at home can be very dull. To return to the question you have no doubt forgotten. Yes, I like Vindolanda. I like it because it is near the edge of the world. That does not release me from duty and discipline, but at least now and then I can glimpse freedom.

‘I had better go. Flavius tries very hard and I do not believe his father gives him sufficient praise, so I try to make up for that.’

Sulpicia Lepidina walked away, and Ferox forced himself to stare at the hills and not watch her go.

XIV

THREE HOURS LATER he passed a couple of drunken Tungrians staggering happily out of Flora’s place.