by James Wilde
Lucanus laughed. ‘Mithras will never be destroyed. He’s been worshipped the world over since the oldest times.’
‘The Christians have already started to build their churches upon our temples. They take what we have by degrees. We’ve been sheltered from it here, so far from Rome. But they’ll come for us, soon enough, mark my words, and for all the pagans too. The gods we Romans worshipped in days gone? All will be forgotten. Their names scratched out. A new age is coming and it will not be good for the likes of us.’
The Wolf nodded, though he couldn’t believe any of it.
He heard Atellus’ voice harden when he continued. ‘And their Messiah, he is no more than Mithras by another name. They would steal all that we have.’
‘The Christ and Mithras …?’
Atellus wagged a finger. ‘Mithras, born of a virgin. A life of celibacy. We baptize our followers, so do they. We eat bread marked with a cross, and drink wine as the sacrificial blood. These Christians too. We worship the birth of Mithras upon the twenty-fifth day of December … the birth of the Invincible Sun … and now they say their Christ was born on that same day?’ The Wolf heard incredulity in the crack of the voice. ‘All their mysteries, they were ours first. Mark my words, Lucanus, they will not rest until they have destroyed us, so they can lay claim to this as if it were their own.’
Lucanus caught sight of a small, familiar figure watching him from the shadows along the side of the temple.
‘Praefectus, you’ve spoken with Centurion Falx?’ he asked, trying not to be distracted.
‘About what you Grim Wolves found in the Wilds?’ The commandant nodded. ‘Bodies defiled. Men eaten. I’ve never heard the like, in all my time as a soldier. I’ve seen barbarians slaughter men by the score … ram the heads of women and children upon poles … but this …’ Lucanus could hear the disgust in his voice. ‘I’ve sent a messenger along the frontier, to warn the other forts, and to find if any of them have heard of such a thing.’
‘They killed three of the arcani, Praefectus. That’s never been known.’
‘The season is turning, Lucanus. All the things we’ve known are falling into decay. Is this another portent of what is to come?’ Atellus looked up to the walls of Vercovicium. ‘We strip stone from our own fort to repair our defences because there’s little left in the coffers to pay for repairs, and little hope of more to come. Sagging gates are stopped up with timber. We’re short of food, short of new men to bolster our ranks. Pay comes late or not at all. And in Rome … in Rome …’ Lucanus watched him struggle to complete his thought. ‘We’ve brought order across this world.’ Atellus’ voice grew wistful as he turned and looked across the green lands to the south. ‘But now I see the sky shading to black. Night is drawing in. Beyond the frontiers of the empire, there’s only chaos and madness. Barbarians who don’t think like us, who place no value on the things we treasure, who would see all of this civilized world reduced to ashes and blood. Would we lose all that we’ve built? Is that to be our legacy?’
‘We stand firm here in Vercovicium, Praefectus. We will not be defeated.’
The commandant forced a smile. ‘When the messenger returns with news, I’ll summon the Grim Wolves. You’ll find what new threat waits out there beyond the wall, I have no doubt of that.’
The Wolf watched the other man trudge away, and then he beckoned to the figure hiding by the Mithraeum. A boy ran out of the shadows towards him. He looked like a small storm cloud with his black hair and eyes too dark and intense for a lad of just eight summers.
‘What is it, Marcus?’
‘Will you hide me?’
‘From the other lads?’ He’d never known Marcus to flinch from a fight.
‘Mother searches for me.’ The boy bit his lip, hopeful. ‘I’ve worked hard all morning, and now she wants me to study more.’
‘And why do you think I’d stand in the way of your mother?’
‘You didn’t waste your days at your books.’
‘And now I sleep in ditches and eat raw meat and wait for a barbarian sword to end my days.’
Lucanus saw Marcus wince. The boy hadn’t yet grasped the closeness of death, not for the people for whom he cared. He’d known Lucanus all his life and saw him as as much a part of his family as his own blood, Lucanus knew. ‘Come,’ he said, trying to make amends. ‘You can hide in my house, but make sure you’re back home before dark. And if your mother finds out I’ve helped you, that barbarian’s sword will be the least of my worries.’
On the edge of the township’s main street, a crowd surged around two men grappling with each other, barrel-chested and bare to the waist despite the cold. A wrestling exhibition. Lucanus saw the glint of coin changing hands as the onlookers wagered on the outcome. Outside the tavern, Qunavo was on his hands and knees, throwing up his stomach of ale. He was always drunk these days and survived only through the kindness of his neighbours. Behind him, Falx bowed his head in intense conversation with Docca the tavern owner, a big-bellied man with a wild mane of blond hair. The centurion was whispering, no doubt conducting another illicit deal. Further down the street, a group of men were racing dogs, and in the lulls in the din Lucanus heard the twang of bowstrings and the thud of arrows hitting a target.
As he turned away, two gamblers on the edge of the crowd watching the wrestling bout started throwing punches at each other. A moment later, they were brawling on the ground beside the competitors. Lucanus pushed Marcus into the narrow ways at the back of the workshops. At the other end of the track, they slipped back on to the main street where his house leaned against the fence of a reeking pigsty. It was little more than a shack: mud walls and old timbers with a turf roof.
As they reached the door, Marcus’ eyes widened. ‘Quick. She’s coming.’
Lucanus saw a blonde head bobbing among the throng on the main street. He shoved the boy into the dark interior and went to meet her.
‘Catia.’ He grinned at her, ignoring her stern expression. However much she pretended to be the cold, disapproving mother, he knew the truth. During their childhood, they’d barely spent a day apart. An odd couple, everyone agreed, she with her wealthy family and he learning to be a wolf-brother, crawling on his belly through the Wilds. But he’d never forget the time, when he was barely big enough to lift a sword and out in the Wilds on his own, when he hadn’t heard his father creep up on him – a test, to discover if he was ready for a life where a lack of attention could see him dead – and his father had boxed his ears as a lesson. When Catia found him, she’d taken him to the stream alongside the Stanegate and bathed a cut above his eye from the silver ring his father had worn – a dragon with a studded ruby eye, he remembered. Though they’d heard her own father calling for her, she’d stayed with him until she was sure he was recovered, knowing full well it would mean a beating for her too.
He was a boy then, and he thought the world went the way he wished it to go. Now he knew better.
‘Have you seen Marcus?’ Catia narrowed her eyes at him.
‘I’m fresh back from the Wilds. Why would I—’
Catia wagged her finger to silence him. ‘Don’t play games with me. You know that boy sees you as friend, protector, teacher and counsellor. That’s why he must study more – to get some sense into his head.’
Lucanus knew the true story: Marcus came to him because he couldn’t rely on his father. And Catia was more than aware of her husband’s failings. He stared at another new bruise marking her face, this time above her left eye. Forgetting himself, he reached out to it.
Catia recoiled as if she’d been burned. ‘I don’t need you to protect me.’
‘Wolf-sister …’
‘Don’t call me that! I’m not a child,’ she snapped, pushing past him. ‘And I can endure a little hardship for a greater good.’
Caught up in a whirl of emotion, Lucanus only realized Catia was heading towards his house when she’d reached his door. By the time he caught up with her she was standing in the middle of
the solitary room, looking round. With relief, he saw Marcus wasn’t there. There was no bed to hide under, merely rushes and straw in one corner. The boy must have run away again, fearful that his mother would sniff him out.
‘You live like a pig, Lucanus.’ He watched her turn her nose up at the dried remnants of stew in the pot on the cold hearth, and the whetstone lying next to where he slept, and his old tunic still streaked with mud and wood-green from the last time he’d travelled beyond the wall.
‘I live like a beast in the wild. Which is what I am.’
He saw a hint of tenderness in her eyes. She rarely let herself show it these days, as if it was too harsh a reminder of what she’d lost. Once she’d said to him, ‘I must become like the stones of the earth.’ At the time, he hadn’t understood what she’d meant. Now he thought he knew.
‘You’re a good man,’ she said, looking away. ‘Everyone here is grateful for you and the Grim Wolves. You let us sleep well in our beds, we all know that.’
He knew she meant to be kind, but her words still stung. Grateful.
Catia must have seen his thoughts in his face. She stepped to the door, saying, ‘Come to our house tonight. Eat with us. My father would be happy to see you.’ As she slipped out, she added, ‘And I would too.’
He felt a pang of regret as he watched her walk away. She wavered by a broad strip of land next to the stonemason’s, where a group of archers were thumping arrows into a target, the sound he had heard earlier. Even before they hailed Catia, Lucanus knew what she would do next.
When she was a girl his own father had taught her how to use a bow, much to the annoyance of her family – it was not a suitable pastime for someone of her standing – and she’d taken to it better than anyone he knew. He smiled as he watched her grab a bow from one of the men and nock her shaft. For a moment she stood there, string drawn, arms rigid, her keen eyes judging the target. Her arrow thudded into the wood dead centre. Cheers rang out around her, and he saw she was flushed and smiling. He realized with a note of sadness that he hadn’t seen her so alive in a long while.
As he turned away, he sensed a shadow darken the door and for a moment he thought she’d come back to him. Instead, it was her younger brother Aelius.
‘Don’t take her words to heart,’ Aelius said. ‘You know there’s a good reason she’s so harsh.’
‘You were listening?’
‘I hear everything, I see everything. That’s one of the few advantages of being someone who is not seen or heard.’
Aelius was sixteen, his hair sleek and black, his jaw square. He was really Catia’s half-brother, though no mention was ever made of his mother – one of the women at the House of Wishes, Lucanus guessed – but he had been raised as a full member of the family. He always turned his face to hide the side scarred from the pox that had afflicted him when he was a child, yet it was the withered right arm that diminished him in the eyes of many. Useless, it hung loosely at his side, a defect that had been apparent the moment he was born. It was not that he was sorely crippled – he’d learned to use his left arm effectively – it was that many said he’d been cursed by the gods. The girls ignored him, the young men taunted him. However skilled he was, that judgement hung over him like a cloud. Eternally damned, he said, even if he fought a hero’s battle.
‘Do you follow your sister round all day now?’
‘I was helping her search for Marcus. It’s not as if I’m overburdened with responsibilities.’ Aelius held up a sack hanging from his shoulder. ‘And I have bought a new book for my father’s library. It’s a door through which I will escape from this world for a while.’
‘You like your books.’
‘One of the rewards of my family’s riches. My life with books is better than my life without them.’ Yet for all his words, Lucanus heard a sour note in his voice.
Aelius wandered around the hut, examining the patched ceiling where the rain came through in the storms, and the few possessions scattered here and there. ‘Well, you live like an emperor, Lucanus. A home befitting a hero of the empire.’
‘The Wilds, that’s my home. The ditch my bed. The sky my ceiling.’
Aelius chuckled to himself. ‘Oh, how your masters must love you. They give you … this.’ He swept his good arm round the space. ‘And all you give them in return is … everything. The days of your life, your good years, perhaps your neck, all to keep them safe and rich.’
‘I’m happy with my lot.’
‘And there is your curse. A life of sacrifice allows lesser men to prey upon you. You should be with Catia, you know that.’
‘The wine’s addled you.’ Lucanus could smell it on his breath. Slumping on his straw bed, he picked up the whetstone and began slow, steady strokes along the edge of his blade. He didn’t like where this conversation was going.
‘Everyone can see it. Even Amatius, I’d wager. But Amatius is a complicated man,’ Aelius continued. Lucanus could hear the sarcasm. ‘He’s filled with a raging jealousy. That bruise above her eye? Payment for the lascivious look the merchant Magiorius cast her way, as if she had summoned it herself. And yet he takes pride in showing off the most beautiful woman here around. A contradiction? Not in his mind. When she’s on his arm, it’s his worth that increases, for owning a thing of such value.’
‘Catia chose Amatius.’
‘Yes, yes. We all know our history, Wolf. A transaction. Her body for saving her family from ruin. Her choice. Even my father, for all his many flaws, would not have asked that of her. But Catia isn’t a mewling child. She’s got more fire in her heart than most men I know. More than me, that’s without doubt. But she found she had agreed to much more than was ever in that original bargain. No life to call her own. Why, she is his plaything now.’
‘Don’t say such things.’ Lucanus focused on the strokes of the whetstone.
‘Fists,’ Aelius continued, seemingly oblivious. ‘A foot in the ribs. A punch in the belly. Some nights he takes her so roughly her screams ring through the house. My father … all of us … must lie there and listen to her suffering.’
‘Still your tongue.’ Lucanus hurled the whetstone aside and stood up.
‘Would you rather not hear these truths?’ Aelius did not retreat. Instead, he stepped forward, almost challenging. He raised his head, smiling. ‘Would you prefer to pull that wolf pelt over your eyes and run back into the Wilds, where all is good?’
‘Don’t push me. I’m not a good man.’
‘Ah, but you are, Lucanus. You are. Too good. And therein lies the problem.’ Aelius turned away, slinking around the hut once more. ‘Children can always see the truth. We lose that skill, when life sours us. But Marcus thinks you’re a great man. I saw you with him earlier. He knows the real you.’
Lucanus bunched his fists, but there was nothing there deserving of his frustration. He knew everything Aelius said was true, and that he did his best to pretend it wasn’t so. ‘This is how things are. It can’t be changed.’
‘You could run Amatius through with your sword.’
‘Murder?’
‘Is it a crime to prevent a greater crime?’
‘I see no crime. Catia is Amatius’ wife. She serves him as he sees fit.’
‘Easily said, if your heart’s as cold as stone.’ Aelius’ stare was piercing.
Lucanus held it for a moment, then looked away. ‘I will not murder a man.’
‘I would, if I could.’ Aelius’ words were as light as if he’d asked for another cup of wine. He threw his cloak back to reveal his withered arm. ‘But one good arm is not enough for such an act, not with a man like Amatius. A sword in my left hand would prick him like a needle, and my head would be off my shoulders before I had another chance. There is poison, of course. But where does one find such a thing? And how to feed it to him? Fire? Doused in oil and set ablaze?’ He shrugged. ‘I’ve thought of these things, and greatly, of late. I can see only one answer. One man capable of such a thing. One great hero of the empire who cou
ld commit such an act and escape judgement.’
‘Return to your wine, Aelius, and don’t speak of these things again, lest you be held to judgement.’
‘Oh, I’ve already been judged by the gods and found wanting. Haven’t you noticed?’ Aelius swayed to the door, resting for one moment upon the jamb. ‘Think on what I’ve said, Lucanus. But don’t think too long.’
And then he was gone.
Lucanus slumped back on to the straw, feeling the weariness flood his limbs. As he lay there with his hands behind his head, his eyes fell on something swaying in the shadows above the door.
Hanging from the timber that supported the roof was an unfamiliar construction: twigs bound with grass to form a double cross with a square upon it, threaded on a leather thong. Feathers and small animal bones were fastened into the design. It was like one of the bird-frighteners the slaves hung around the fields.
Uneasily, Lucanus contemplated what hung from the bottom: a baby’s skull with a triangle in a circle scratched in black on the forehead.
For a moment, he stared at the creamy bone swinging gently in the breeze. That unease was settling deeper into him. Who had left it there? And was it a charm?
Or a curse?
CHAPTER FOUR
The House of Wishes
GOLD AND PURPLE streaked the western sky. The land was darkening fast.
Bellicus sucked in a deep, steadying breath. Behind him he could hear the Grim Wolves’ raucous laughter as they weaved a drunken dance through the vicus. He was not as deep in his cups as some of them – Comitinus stumbled into walls every few paces, laughing, and sharp-tongued Solinus and the always sunny Mato exchanged merry talk. Lucanus had been right. The wine had washed away all their worries.
Not his own, though. He couldn’t forget what he’d seen in that clearing at dawn. And the cavalry still hadn’t returned. They should have been within the gates by sunset, that was the command.
In the huts and workshops, faces floated in the drifting smoke of the hearth-fires as the Grim Wolves passed by. Vrocata, a pretty girl with hair as red as his own, flirted with the twins Map and Lossio. They managed to flirt back with her while bickering between themselves. Old Gavo hammered new tiles on to the roof of his house in the last of the light, cursing loudly with each mistimed blow of his mallet. Qunavo the drunk danced a jig. Two laughing lads chased an escaped pig. Someone was singing away in the dark, the melody soaring above the rooftops.
