At the military baths just outside the stockade, Macellius chose a low chair while Gaius was stripped and scrubbed by the army attendants. Once his personal slave had been despatched to their house for clean garments, Macellius lay back in his chair wondering what the boy had been up to now. There was a difference in him, something more than could be explained by the injury. For a moment he wished himself back in his office dealing with questions that could be quickly dismissed.
Presently Gaius emerged from the bath looking young and very clean in his short wool tunic, his damp hair curling down his back. He sent for a barber-slave and as the man clipped the unruly hair to proper military shortness and scraped away the nascent beard, he recounted his adventure. Clearly he was leaving some things out, thought Macellius. Why had Clotinus Albinus not reported the accident? He felt a moment of gratitude at being spared the kind of unpleasantness any irregularity would involve.
“You should have a regular army doctor look at that arm,” he said simply when the tale was done.
Gaius protested irritably, “It’s doing well enough.” But Macellius insisted, and after a certain amount of delay old Manlius came and unbound Cynric’s careful bandages, and probed and poked and pressed until Gaius was white-faced and sweating. Then he solemnly pronounced that the arm was healed as well as if he had had the care of it from the beginning.
“I could have told you that —” muttered the boy, refusing to meet his father’s eyes. Good, thought the older man, he knows better than to argue with me . . .
Gaius lay back limply, his good hand falling away from a fumbling attempt to repin his tunic, yet he grinned as Macellius reached out and refastened it, reaching up to take his father’s hand in his own.
“I told you I was all right, Dad, you old Stoic,” he said roughly. Macellius thought again, He’s a handsome boy; I wonder what sort of devilry he’s been up to? Well, he has a right to a certain amount of folly. Better not let him know that, though . . .” He cleared his throat, glad that no one else was using the bathhouse at this time of day.
“So, what excuse can you offer for overstaying your leave, Son?”
Gaius nodded at his arm.
“I understand; of course you couldn’t travel with that injury, and I’ll speak to Sextillus. Another time, allow for accidents. But you’re not some patrician puppy who can slack. Your grandfather was a farmer outside Tarentum, and I’ve had to work hard to get this far. Gaius, what would you say to not going back to Glevum?”
“Do you mean they would courtmartial me for overstaying leave because of an accident -?” He looked so upset that Macellius hastened to reassure him.
“No, no, I didn’t mean it that way. I mean, would you care to be transferred to my staff? I need someone to help me here, and when I spoke to the Governor on his way north he agreed to make an exception and let you serve with me. It’s time I started introducing you to my connections here. The Province is growing, Gaius. Intelligence and energy will carry a man far. If I could rise to the rank of Equestrian, only one rung below the nobility, who knows how far you might go?”
He saw the trouble in Gaius’s eyes, and wondered if his son was in pain. It seemed a long time before the boy replied. “I’ve never understood why you stayed here in Britain, Father. Couldn’t you have risen more quickly if you had been willing to go elsewhere? It’s a big empire.”
“Britain isn’t the whole world,” said Macellius, “but I like it.” His face grew grave. “They offered me a Juridicus post once in Hispania. I should have taken it, if only for your sake.”
“Why Hispania, Father? Why not of Britain?” As soon as the question left his lips, Gaius seemed aware that it had been a mistake. Macellius felt his own face stiffening.
“The Emperor Claudius was so busy trying to reform things at home, from the Senate and the coinage to the state religion, that he never got around to reforming the military laws,” Macellius explained, “and the emperors who came after him seemed to think that he, as the official conqueror of Britain, knew what he was doing.”