Cerys looked up. ‘So it’s true.’ She stood up furiously. ‘How dare you pray to a foreign god over your father’s body! When that man said you were a Christian I didn’t believe him. Oh, I’ve long known that Antonia and her family were. Your father thought they were, but he said it didn’t matter. He said Christians were good people. But they are not. They have destroyed the city. They have destroyed my family and now they have destroyed my beloved! You have destroyed him!’
‘Mam! Please, no one destroyed him.’
She thought of Titus’s eyes as she spoke the words. He had been here. In this room. He had destroyed her father’s love for her; his faith in her; his last vestiges of peace. He had destroyed everything that she held dear and in so doing he had destroyed her.
‘Get out of this room!’ Cerys threw herself across her husband’s body, weeping. ‘Go away! You lost me Togo and Gwladys! Now you have lost me Caradoc! Just go with your Christian friends. Get out of this house. You no longer have a home here. I never want to see you again.’
Behind them a door opened quietly. ‘Eigon?’ It was Marcellus.
Eigon wasn’t sure how much he had heard. She turned blindly towards him. ‘He’s dead.’
‘My dear, I’m so sorry.’ He moved across the room, glancing down at the dead man, and the distraught woman who was clinging to him. ‘Eigon, I’m sorry, but one of your slaves has told me something disquieting,’ he whispered. ‘About the son of your steward. Flavius, is it? The slave thinks he took money from the Praetorian officer. When we arrived Flavius slipped out before the gates were barred. The slave thinks maybe he has gone to tell them that we are here.’
Eigon turned miserably to her mother. ‘Mam, did you hear that?’
‘Go!’ Cerys didn’t look up. ‘Just go. And never come back!’
Marcellus put a gentle hand on her shoulder. ‘I am sorry to have brought so much distress to this house.’
Eigon bit her lip. She reached out to her father’s body, changed her mind and moved away from the bed. ‘We must go now, while we have the chance so we don’t bring any more misfortune here,’ she said as resolutely as she could. ‘Where are the others?’
‘The slave, Silas, has taken them to the stables.’
She followed him to the door then she paused and glanced sadly over her shoulder towards the bed. ‘Goodbye, Mam. I love you.’
Cerys made no sign that she had heard.
They rode all night, each man with a child before them on the saddle. Marcellus knew of a place, he said, where they would be safe and as dawn broke they were again in rough wild country, but this time there was no sign of pursuit. Before they left Eigon had ransacked her room for fresh clothing for her and Antonia and cloaks for the children and Silas had made them up baskets of food hastily grabbed from the kitchens to sling from the saddles. He had gone with them to the Via Flaminia. There they paused.
‘Do you want to go back?’ Eigon asked him. ‘You will be safer there.’
He shook his head. ‘I’ll come with you, lady, if you let me.’ He glanced at Marcellus whom he seemed to regard with something like awe. ‘Please.’
She smiled. ‘We will be in danger.’
He nodded. ‘I can help. I’m strong and I know this countryside. I shouldn’t have left you before. I want to make up for it.’
‘Then you can come, lad.’ Marcellus put a hand on his shoulder. ‘We will be pleased to have you with us.’
The place they were seeking turned out to be a half-ruined village. There were some dozen Christian families there already, fleeing the horrors of the city. Marcellus knew some of them and they were instantly made welcome. Antonia and Eigon found themselves allocated a small room with two straw mattresses in one of the half-collapsed cottages.
‘Your mother didn’t mean it, you know.’ Antonia put her arm round Eigon’s shoulder. It was the first time they had had a chance to talk alone. ‘She was shocked and unhappy. She will always love you.’
Eigon shrugged. ‘I don’t think she ever did. She blamed me for the deaths of my brother and sister.’
Antonia shook her head. ‘We all say things in the heat of the moment. She was terribly distressed. Let’s pray for her.’
Eigon shook her head. ‘She wouldn’t want that. She has always been loyal to our own gods.’
‘We can still pray. And we can pray for Grandfather and Julius.’ Antonia bit her lip. ‘I so hoped they might be here.’
Eigon nodded. ‘So did I,’ she admitted.
‘Do you think they are all right?’
‘They got away from Rome. Julius would have seen to it that your grandfather was somewhere safe.’ Eigon sighed. What if she never saw Julius again? He couldn’t have been caught. He couldn’t have been killed. His image kept appearing in her dreams. She kept thinking about him. His kind eyes, his strong arms, his merry laugh. He would have kept them safe. He wouldn’t have let anything happen to her.
Those who had brought food with them donated it towards a communal meal that night. The women prepared it while the men finished repairing the shelters then they all sat together to eat. Marcellus stood up and blessed the food. He was, Eigon was beginning to realise, very senior in the hierarchy of the newly developing church. At the end of the meal he stood up again and surveyed the bewildered, frightened group of people.
‘Friends, we have all lost someone we love. We have all been fleeing for our lives. We don’t know why God has seen fit to allow the Emperor to turn against us like this, but I am sure there is a reason. Perhaps to test our resolve. And we will have resolve. We will rest tonight, then tomorrow we will decide what to do and where to go. We will be strong.’ He smiled at them all. ‘God bless you, my children. Sleep well.’
Antonia pulled off her sandals with a groan of pain as she and Eigon settled into their makeshift beds. ‘My feet are agony. The ropes that brute tied me with have taken all the skin off.’
Eigon leaned forward to see. Her own ankle was still aching almost unbearably. She ignored it stoically. ‘Peter always used to say we should wash one another’s feet as an act of humility, do you remember? But there is no water, tonight, and I have no medicines. I left my bag in that room where Titus tied us up. One day I will fry that man’s eyeballs for what he has done to us and to my mother and father.’
Antonia gave a wan smile. ‘We are not supposed to say things like that. Jesus told us to love our enemies.’
‘He obviously hadn’t met Titus Marcus Olivinus,’ Eigon retorted. She pulled gently at Antonia’s skirt where it clung to the bloody wound on her ankle.
‘Ouch!’ Antonia flinched away from her. ‘Can’t you make some more remedies? There are all sorts of wild herbs growing round the village. There are a lot of people here who look as though they need your care.’
‘I’ll look tomorrow. I am sure I can find something to help.’
Antonia lay back with a sigh. ‘Why do you think this village was deserted?’
Eigon looked up. She stared round the room in silence, then she shivered. ‘There was sickness here. Can’t you feel it? Sickness and fear.’
Antonia stared at her. ‘You’re doing it again. Seeing ghosts.’
‘I’m sorry. I’ve always done it. It is something my people seem to be good at. The dead are not dead to us.’
‘Or to us.’ Antonia looked doubtful. ‘But Christians believe they go to heaven. They don’t hang around in dark corners.’
‘These people weren’t Christians,’ Eigon said slowly. She sank down onto her mattress and pulled a rug over herself. ‘They had no gods at all. They thought their gods had abandoned them.’
‘Perhaps we should pray for their souls,’ Antonia said after a long silence. ‘Would that make them go away?’
Eigon smiled. ‘It would give them peace,’ she said. Somehow she knew it was true.
‘Why don’t you sing,’ Antonia murmured after a while. ‘Something soft and gentle. I’d like that.’
Eigon smiled. The song soothe
d them both. Antonia was soon asleep and it wasn’t long before she too closed her eyes.
Sometime later she opened them again and found herself staring into the darkness, her heart thudding with fear.
Jess stirred uncomfortably. She was lying on her bed. Outside her own window it had grown dark again too. She should get up, get undressed and get into bed properly. But she was too tired. She tried to relax, her head on the pillow staring up at the ceiling. Then she felt it. The same strange sensation that had awoken Eigon. The eerie feeling that she was being watched; that there was someone in the shadows, waiting.
Jess sat up.
Lights. Camera. Action. Carmella’s words. Fill the room with light. Surround yourself with it. Look round. Focus. And fight. ‘Hugo?’ Jess whispered. ‘Are you here? Keep watch, good dog.’ There was no sound of claws on the wooden floor. Nothing. Cautiously she swung her legs off the bed and stood up. She reached for the bedside light, then went over to the door and turned the switch. It worked the lamp on the dressing table and another on the table by the window. She surveyed the room. She could see nothing unusual. Nothing had been moved. It felt all right. Warm in the night air from the window, and safe. As she watched a white moth sailed in and began bashing around inside the lampshade on the table. A moth. An ordinary moth. Nothing sinister in that. And no danger from the window. It was far too high for anyone to climb in. She walked slowly over to the table and reached to switch the lamp off at the stem. The moth settled at once, its wings trembling slightly as it clung to the inside of the shade.
There it was again. Someone was trying to access her brain. She gave a wry grin. Computer speak. Stupid, but that was what it felt like. Creepy fingers insinuating their search inside her head, parting through the fibres and synapses. She shuddered. Somehow she had to keep him out. It had to be Titus. But how could she fight him? Think! That is what she had to do. Set the whole apparatus whirring so she could distract him. Not allow him to access her thoughts. He wanted to know where she was. That was it, of course. He needed her address. She mustn’t think it. Mustn’t picture it. Mustn’t let him know anything about this place at all.
Recite. That would distract him. Fill her head with something else.
‘I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,
Where oxlips and the nodding violet grows,
Quite over-canopied with luscious woodbine,
With sweet musk-roses, and with eglantine;
There sleeps Titania sometime of the night,
Lull’d in these flowers with dances and delight;
And there the snake throws her enamell’d skin,
Weed wide enough to wrap a fairy in.’
She paused, listening to the echoing silence. ‘That got you, you bastard. You didn’t expect that, did you!’ She spoke out loud. ‘Try and get inside my head, and you can expect more of the same:
‘“The lunatic, the lover, and the poet,
Are of imagination all compact:
One sees more devils than vast hell can hold,
That is the madman; the love, all as frantic,
Sees Helen’s beauty in a brow of Egypt –”’
She paused. ‘Want some more? Recognise yourself there, do you? You lunatic! I can go on for hours. Mess with an English teacher, and you find a head full of quotations!’ She turned slowly round and round, listening. He had gone. She was sure of it.
What about Eigon? Had he left her alone too?
She walked slowly back to the bed and climbed onto it, still fully dressed. Leaving the light on she huddled back against the pillows and with a last wary glance round the room she closed her eyes.
Eigon was sitting up, her back pressed against the cold stones of the ruined wall, her eyes open as she peered through the darkness. Something had woken her. Titus was searching for her, wondering where she had gone, resenting her escape with such fury she could sense his anger against her skin. Desperately she tried to blank him out. What would Melinus have told her to do? She tried to think. He would have invoked the gods as a protection. But the old gods would not come to her as a Christian; and Jesus would not be invoked against a Roman who believed in his own gods, if he believed in any gods at all. Or would he? She tried to remember the words of the prayer Peter had taught them. There was a bit of it which always comforted her: Deliver us from evil. Titus Marcus Olivinus was the most evil man she had ever encountered. She shivered, pressing her hands against her ears.
She dozed, then she woke again. The voices she could hear were louder and to her relief she realised that this time they were real. There were people talking quietly and urgently outside. Pulling the rug around her shoulders she crept out, leaving Antonia asleep.
Several figures huddled round the fire. As she crept closer someone bent and threw on a log. A blaze flared up and she saw the faces of the men. They looked weary and distraught.
‘What’s wrong? Has something happened?’ She joined them, shivering in the pre-dawn chill of the hills.
Marcellus sat down on the log they had dragged over to the fire as a bench. He rubbed his hands over his face, his palms rasping against his unshaven cheeks. ‘There is bad news. Felicius Marinus Publius and his grandson, Julius, have been taken.’
‘No!’ Eigon stared at him in anguish. ‘Oh, please, no.’
One of the other men nodded. ‘I’m afraid so.’ He was a newcomer who must have arrived after the others had gone to bed. Dust-covered and exhausted the man sat down next to Marcellus. ‘The Praetorian guard came to the villa where we were all hiding. They knew exactly who they were looking for. No one stood a chance. They put most of the household to the sword and took away Felicius and Julius in chains.’
‘So, by now they are probably already dead.’ Marcellus stared between his knees at the ground. His shoulders had slumped.
‘Not yet. They are destined for Nero’s circus. I was told they are running out of Christians after burning so many in the palace gardens. They tied them to posts soaked in pitch and lit them at dusk, even children –’
‘We know!’ Marcellus cut him off. ‘What has happened to Peter?’ He changed the subject quickly. ‘Is there any news?’
‘He’s safe. In hiding with several others.’
‘And when are – the games at which our friends are to provide the entertainment?’ Marcellus’s voice was husky.
The newcomer shrugged. ‘They have been taken to the Mamertine prison. Nero is said to want a good show to cheer up his citizens.’ His voice was heavy. ‘Maybe they will wait a few days till they have enough victims to make it worthwhile. I hear the lions are sated,’ he added bitterly. ‘They will have to wait until they grow hungry again.’
Eigon was fighting back her tears, her fists clenched until her palms bled, looking from one man to the other. ‘But we can rescue them. Surely we can rescue them?’ Her voice rose in a panic.
They turned to her. Marcellus stood up. He went over and put his arm around her shoulders. ‘Julius and his grandfather are Roman citizens. It is forbidden to torture them. They can’t be thrown to the wild beasts.’
The man gave him a pitying look. ‘Mistakes are made. Men who are dragged to the arena in chains can scream all they like that they are citizens. Most do. No one can hear them in the roar of the crowd. If a mistake is found to have happened it is too late. The state merely promises to pay compensation to the family. It never happens.’
There was a moment’s silence. Marcellus cleared his throat. ‘If there is any way to get them out of those dungeons we will try, I promise you. But they are in deep beneath the ground, barred and guarded day and night.’ He guided Eigon to the log and she sat down near the fire. Beyond the circle of warmth and light the ruined village was very dark. No one else had woken. Somewhere in the woods an owl hooted. ‘We will pray for guidance. There must be a way.’
Eigon took a deep breath. ‘There is.’
The others looked at her. Marcellus raised an eyebrow. ‘You’ve thought of something?’
&nb
sp; ‘I know the man who captured them. Almost certainly it was a Praetorian officer called Titus Marcus Olivinus. The man who captured me and Antonia.’ She tried very hard to keep her voice steady. ‘He and I –’ She paused, fighting her rising terror. ‘He and I have an ongoing argument. He would give a great deal to get his hands on me again.’ She gave them a humourless smile. ‘When your wagon arrived and we were thrown into it, he had been about to settle a personal score with me which might have deflected him from his ardour in hunting down Christians. He knew Felicius and Julius are my friends. He knew Antonia was my friend. We have a quarrel going back many years to something that happened in Britannia when my mother and I were captured after my father’s defeat.’ Her voice had grown so soft the men had to lean forward to hear. ‘He is afraid I will tell the authorities something he did which incurs the death penalty. He raped my mother the queen. And he raped me. I was only a child.’
Her fists were clenched so tightly now that her hands had turned to white marble in the firelight. ‘I could say nothing as my mother did not want my father to find out. He could not have borne the humiliation, but now he is dead.’ She pressed her lips together to hide her grief, then took a deep breath as the men stared at her in silence. ‘I think I am sufficiently important to Titus for a deal to be made. Felicius and Julius in exchange for me.’
There was another long silence broken only by the crackling of the flames. At last Marcellus moved towards her. He knelt stiffly down in front of her and taking her hands in his own he kissed them. ‘You love them so much you would give up your life for them? Bless you, my child. Your bravery is without comparison. But we cannot allow you to do this.’ He glanced at the others, who all nodded agreement. ‘Every life is precious before God and it is my belief that He has not called you to die in someone else’s place.’
For a moment she stared at him, panic-stricken. ‘But I have to do something.’ She blinked away her tears. Her head was whirling. ‘Then I have another idea. Perhaps we could pretend you are going to give me in exchange. At least it might lure Titus out into the open and he might be persuaded to bring Felicius and Julius to an exchange point?’
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