by James Wilde
A small group had already gathered on the south side of the vicus. Bellicus saw Mato perched on an outcropping of stone, his face turned to the sun. Solinus stood beside him, one eyebrow cocked in a wry manner as he peered into the distance.
Bellicus watched the merchant’s rhedae drawing nearer along the Stanegate, the drumming of hoofbeats echoing through the crisp air. The wide stone road was unlike any he had heard tell of, winding its way around the hills and hummocks instead of ploughing as straight as an arrow across the landscape. Running south of the fort, it stretched from the river crossing at Corstopitum in the east to Luguvalium in the west.
At the fork, the riders slowed their pace and turned towards the fort.
Bellicus smelled a flowery scent on the breeze. Amarina and some of the women from the House of Wishes were swaying towards him, the golds and emeralds and ochres of their finest dresses bright in the muddy landscape. Amarina had a regal look about her, Bellicus thought. Her chin was up and she ignored the glances of the men as she watched the world through half-closed lids. The other women followed in her wake, whispering to each other and giggling behind their hands.
‘Greeting new customers?’ he said when Amarina arrived beside him.
‘I go where the gold is.’ A faint smile played on her lips, but her eyes were like a raptor’s as she watched the new arrivals draw nearer.
‘And there’s plenty of gold there, I hear tell.’
‘Men and their gold are easily parted where women are concerned.’
‘You have a low opinion of us.’
‘No, only a true opinion. You are all vile things when your mind is upon one thing.’
Bellicus thought about this for a moment, then nodded. ‘True. We are foul beasts, chariots of lust.’
The other women preened, twisting locks of hair and brushing away smudges. They chose the best positions to present themselves and waited.
‘I’ve often wondered,’ Bellicus mused, ‘what makes a woman as clever as you become a whore.’
‘My father raped me when I was a child.’
Bellicus eyed her, frowning at what he’d heard, but Amarina’s face remained as tranquil as a pool.
‘Only once, though. I poured molten lead in his ear while he slept. That put an end to it.’
Now he stared at her, but she kept her gaze on the trundling wagons. Before he could ask her any more questions, they were engulfed in the thunder of hooves and the creaking of wheels. The caravan rumbled to a halt, and the riders slipped down, stretching the kinks from their muscles after a long ride. They all carried short swords and wore helms and breastplates under their brown woollen cloaks.
The lead wagon was a palace on wheels, the gold edging its roof afire in the sun. The two rhedae behind it were smaller and plain, filled with supplies, no doubt. One of the aides swung open the doors on the front wagon and set a wooden box at the foot of it.
Bellicus waited, intrigued. Around him, all eyes were gripped by that open doorway.
The wagon creaked on its axle, and lurched to one side. A hugely corpulent man hove into view, legs and arms seemingly too small for his vast belly, white toga glowing in the morning light as if he were a priest at temple. A clipped black beard edged his jowls and a fringe of hair fell from a bald pate. He wavered at the top of the steps, then lumbered down to the ground. The aide offered him an arm, but the merchant flapped a hand to dismiss it, gold glinting from all the rings on those chubby fingers.
Turning his head slowly, he surveyed the desolate landscape, the township, the fort beyond. His face remained like stone, his mouth a pink slash in those black bristles. He did not look like a man who loved life much, Bellicus thought.
A dwarf with a twisted spine and a face that looked like a melted candle staggered from the rheda behind him, and squinted into the light. He was dressed like a Briton, with bound breeches under a tunic of gold and black. Pushed back on his head was a conical Phrygian cap made of soft leather, which Bellicus had seen some of the followers of Mithras wearing.
Without looking round, Varro twitched his fingers and the dwarf scampered to his side, searching the faces in the gathered crowd, seemingly weighing each one. He looked Amarina up and down and then moved that lizard stare to Bellicus. They held each other’s eyes for a long moment, the giant and the dwarf, sizing each other up. But whatever thoughts passed through the small man’s head, Bellicus couldn’t read them.
‘Look.’ An elbow nudged his side. Mato had risen from his rocky seat.
Bellicus followed the other man’s gaze. Amatius was striding from the vicus with Catia by his side. A broad grin cracked his face, and his eyes gleamed as if he could already see the gold. Catia was looking down, her face ashen.
Amatius greeted Varro with a clap upon his shoulder. They leaned in, exchanging words, and then Amatius pushed Catia up to the wealthy merchant. She bowed her head, polite even then. The dwarf danced round her, lifting the hem of her skirt to peer under. Amatius and Varro laughed as Catia yanked her dress away.
‘The dwarf is one of the scurrae, yes?’ Amarina said. ‘I’ve never found them amusing.’
‘They’re supposed to speak great truths,’ Comitinus muttered. ‘The gods have given them wisdom to make up for their cursed bodies.’
‘What is this?’ Amarina was looking towards the last of the wagons.
Bellicus followed her stare. A slave was walking towards the doors of the rear wagon with bread and a skin of water, or more likely wine. The doors of that rheda had been sealed shut with rope. The slave shook the fastening free and clambered inside with the provisions.
‘A mystery,’ Amarina mused. ‘It seems the merchant Varro has a prisoner.’
CHAPTER NINE
Corvus and Pavo
The Northern Frontier, Gaul
BLOCKS OF GRANITE rained from the heavens. Soaring pines shattered into splinters as the missiles laid waste to the snow-bound woods. Fires raged and the ground shook, and for the howling Alamanni warriors scrambling away from the onslaught it could have been the end of the world.
But not for Lucius Aurelius Corvus. He urged his horse on through a wall of acrid smoke, laughing; a madman, any observer would think.
The onagers had been pounding for an hour now and charred flakes and glowing sparks drifted across the snow. Though the Roman cavalry soldier was far behind enemy lines and as likely to be crushed by the stones as any of the fleeing barbarians, he dug his heels in his horse’s haunches. It was too late to turn back now.
In the skirmish he’d drifted to the flanks, and while the other men were hacking down the Alamanni with their long, straight spatha-blades he’d followed a barbarian into the forest. His prey was still ahead, somewhere at the end of the trail of footprints in front of him.
Away from the raging fire, the icy wind sliced into his face, but he still screwed up his nose at the sweat flooding beneath his mail shirt and tunic and his leather trousers. Fear-sweat. How could he forget the risk from an enemy attack while he was isolated from his brothers? But the rush from that sense of danger was exhilarating too. He lived for moments like this.
Glancing back, he saw that any pursuers had fallen behind. Only his friend and co-conspirator rode with him. ‘Let’s get this done and return to where it’s safe,’ he called.
Tiberius Annaeus Pavo pulled up beside him. Smaller and stockier than his companion, he squatted low on his mount, huge hands gripping the reins. Corvus nodded, pleased that the other man was by his side, as he almost always was, whether they were fighting or feasting, matching him blow for blow and drink for drink.
‘Savour the moment. After this you will be proclaimed hero,’ Pavo told him.
‘If only my mother saw it that way,’ Corvus grumbled. ‘I could bring back a mountain of gold and she’d still think my brother had a hand in it.’
‘Ah, Ruga. A wonder to behold. Tall and handsome and wise. So much greatness lying ahead of him,’ Pavo taunted. ‘And you’re just a filthy soldier with a k
nack for getting dirty jobs done.’
‘True. All true. I can’t argue with that.’
Corvus guided his horse on through the drifting snow, pushing aside the distant screams and the thunder of the assault. The last few months had been hard. While Valens, the emperor of the east, was putting down the revolt by the traitor Procopius, in the west there had been nothing but war against the Alamanni kings. They were a wild band of loosely linked tribes – the Lentienses, the Raetovarii, the Brisigavi, the Bucinobantes – but they fought with one mind.
He remembered returning to his bed night after night drenched in blood. The first time he’d seen them massed among the trees, their hair dyed red for battle, most of them drunk and roaring oaths to their pagan gods, he knew the threat was greater than most in the army believed.
Corvus shook his head, but his mother’s warning still rang there: All that we have fought for can be snatched away in the blink of an eye. We must fight and fight and fight and never stop to keep our hands upon our prize.
The Alamanni had learned a powerful lesson. Only by banding together could the tribes have the strength to defeat the army of Rome. And they were well organized. That chill morning, when the first force had emerged from the mist, his friend Theodosius had told him what he’d learned from his father, the general. There were two superior kings overseeing the whole territory, and many lesser kings, and beneath them princes who ruled the smaller districts, the pagi. Each pagus provided a thousand fighting men. A thousand! For too long Rome had underestimated the barbarians. All it took was for those wild men of the forests to start acting together.
And so it had proved. The summer before last, after they had finished sowing the spring crops, they raided Gaul. The army had been defeated.
Blame Valentinian, the emperor in the west, a new and arrogant ruler, that’s what the Alamanni said. He’d not given them the traditional gifts, and the kings needed that gold to pay their troops. One victory had been enough to make them believe Valentinian was a poor military leader. Together they could win more.
One year gone, they’d invaded Gaul with three great armies and many smaller tribal groups who smelled a chance they had never known before. Battle after battle had followed.
Corvus could count every scar across his arms and legs, each one marking a struggle where his life had hung in the balance. There were times when he thought the fighting would never end. But in the end they had claimed victory and the Alamanni had paid a terrible price. Thousands dead; the sky black with crows feasting upon the remains.
But that could not be the end of it.
Valentinian accepted, as they all did, that the barbarians had to be punished so that never again would they consider an attack upon the empire. Plans were made to invade. Corvus knew that, and the Alamanni knew it too. The skirmishes along the border, like this one, had escalated. Soon the time would come.
Corvus pushed up high on his horse and looked through the smoke and the swirling snowflakes. ‘Now would not be the time to get lost in the woods. You would freeze and starve.’
‘Never mind get captured by the enemy and have your bollocks cut off or be ransomed back to Theodosius the Elder like some slave girl,’ Pavo added.
‘The trials a man must face while fighting for the greater good.’
Corvus rode on a little further and then brought his mount to a halt. ‘What’s this?’ He wiped the stinging flecks of snow from his eyes. Dropping to the ground, he followed the trail to a confusion of footprints by the tip of a rock protruding from a billowing snowdrift. He wiped away the folds of white to reveal a marker stone, carved with a man’s face made out of leaves.
‘A sign,’ he murmured to himself. ‘I know this.’
As he studied that graven image, a cry rang out. Corvus jerked up and drew his sword, holding it loosely at his side.
A moment later a bloody clot appeared in the white. The Alamanni warrior he had been following stepped out of the gusting snow, his dripping blade held out before him, his red hair stark in that black and white world. He was dragging a woman of perhaps twenty by the wrist.
Her blonde hair was a wild mane, matted and greasy, her face and arms streaked with dirt. Tracks of tears cut through the muck on her cheeks. Though she was filthy and untamed, she had a raw beauty to her, Corvus thought. Large eyes, full lips, a delicate jawline. Washed and groomed, she could pass for any noblewoman in Rome.
Corvus flashed a look at Pavo, and a nod, and then his feet flew across the snow. He watched the barbarian’s eyes widen and a strange hint of incomprehension cross them as the man saw this Roman soldier bearing down on him. The warrior opened his mouth to speak, but before a sound came out Corvus rammed his sword into the man’s gut.
The woman wrenched free and ran.
As the Alamanni fighter slumped down into the bloody splatter on the virgin snow, Corvus craned his neck round to his friend. ‘Well, we can’t turn back now.’
Corvus followed the trail of small footprints to the top of a ridge, from where he looked down on a hut so ramshackle it seemed little more than a pile of branches heaped against a tree. Two bodies lay in crimson slush beside it, an old crone and a dumpy, grey-haired woman. He understood the tears he had seen on the younger woman’s face.
Descending the slope, he pushed open what he presumed to be a door and entered the hut. Embers glowed red in a circle of stones in the centre of the beaten-earth floor, but Corvus still shivered; it was as cold inside as out. His nose wrinkled at the tang of unfamiliar spices, no doubt rising from several rough clay pots set around the wall, but then his eyes fell on the young woman cowering in one corner and he forgot all else.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said in a gentle voice. ‘I’m here to help.’
Her eyes were wild and her lips were pulling back from her teeth as her hand crept towards a pile of rags. A hidden weapon, no doubt.
Kneeling, he looked at her through the blue wisp rising from the hot coals. ‘I won’t hurt you.’
She only glared at him, tears still brimming.
‘Your sisters are dead.’
‘Murdered.’ The woman spat into the embers.
‘I’m sorry about your suffering,’ Corvus said. ‘I can’t put right what you’ve lost, but I might be able to bring a little light into your days.’
‘You? A Roman bastard?’
‘Was it a Roman who killed those dearest to you?’
Her eyes closed. A stray tear streaked her cheek.
‘You can’t stay here.’
‘There is no other place for me.’
Corvus held her pale eyes. ‘You don’t have to be alone.’
She swallowed. ‘I will not betray anyone.’
‘Nor would I ask you to. I’m an honourable man, and I’m a good judge of a person. Though we have only just met, I can see you’re honourable too.’ He smiled his winning smile and he saw it pull a flicker of a response despite herself.
She narrowed her eyes at him. ‘You are a Christian?’
‘I follow Mithras. But we have much in common, you and I. We have to hide our true selves away. The Christians will come for both of us, sooner or later.’ He held out both hands. ‘I suggest an alliance. Equals. Friends. What’s your name?’
‘Hecate.’
‘Then, Hecate, hear my vow. War is coming to these parts, but I’ll keep you safe, even at the cost of my own life. I’ll keep you well fed and give you all the gold you need so you can …’ he looked round at the dismal surroundings, ‘build a bigger hut—’
‘I need nothing.’
He could not leave her here, he knew that. He had a responsibility. ‘Then come with me, and we’ll see what common ground we have, and what we can do to make things right.’
‘And where would we go?’
‘Rome.’ When her eyes lit with fear, he said hastily, ‘I’ve made a vow – I’ll keep you safe. And should you decide at any time that our ways must part, I’ll deliver you back here.’
He watched her
making her calculations, but he knew she could not refuse. She must know she would struggle to survive in this dismal place on her own.
Once Hecate had nodded her assent, he left her there to gather whatever she needed, though he could see nothing worth bringing, and hurried back up the slope to Pavo. His friend was leaning against an ash tree, looking bored.
‘Lead the way,’ Corvus said, ‘and make sure there are no enemies lying in wait.’
‘Oh, good. You get to ride with a woman’s arms around you and her breasts pressed against your back, and I get to be a soft target for spears and swords.’
Corvus sighed. ‘If I bought you a drink for every complaint, you would not be sober for the rest of your days.’
Pavo grinned. ‘A drink. That’ll do to begin with.’ When the woman joined them, he climbed on his horse and set off back the way they had come.
The walls of Reims loomed out of the snowstorm. It was night and the torches above the gate roared in the wind. Corvus flexed his frozen face, cracking the rime on his eyebrows. Some warmth at last, hot mulled wine, roasted lamb.
In summer, the green Gaulish land was pleasant enough, a patchwork of forest and grassy plain. But it was a hellish place in the grip of winter. On the ride from the frontier, the wind had blasted and the snow had cut like knives. Five days it had taken, five bitter days, begging a seat by the fire and any food that could be spared in the villages they passed through on the way.
Swaddled in a thick cloak, Hecate hugged tight against his back. Her head bobbed against his shoulder. Sleeping. At the start of their journey, she’d been silent and suspicious of him. He was sure she carried a knife on her somewhere – he’d felt her digging deep in the folds of her clothes whenever her body stiffened. But on the road together, especially in the heart of winter, two people found common ground quickly enough. She would tell him nothing about herself – the ways of her kind were secretive, as he knew. But they’d talked about small things: the light off the snow, the sound the crows made in the stark trees, like angry old women, the faces they saw in the clouds. Once she’d even laughed.
