by Paul Waters
‘And you, sirs? Will you not escape with us?’
‘We are going back,’ I replied. ‘We have a job to do.’
TWELVE
ON THE RIDGE WE PAUSED. Ahead in the valley, behind its screen of poplars, the villa appeared as I remembered it, golden and rust-red against the winter sunset.
But Marcellus frowned and said, ‘It is too quiet. Why has no one kindled the lights, and where is the smoke from the kitchen fires?’
We urged our horses on. As we drew near, a head appeared over the enclosure wall and a young voice called out a challenge.
‘Open the gates, Tertius, it’s me.’
The boy – one of the farm-hands – let out a cry of joy: he ducked down, there was the sound of heavy bolts shifting, and the great oak-and-iron gate swung open on its massive hinges.
‘Is my grandfather here?’
‘At the house, Marcellus sir. He has been waiting.’
We cantered our horses past the leafless orchard and the lawns and fish-ponds, on through the second enclosure wall to where the great dolphin-fountain towered on its sculpted sandstone base in front of the house.
Someone had called Aquinus. He was waiting on the steps, a sombre, upright figure against the darkening sky, flanked by the vast Corinthian columns of the portico. Clemens stood beside him, and old Tyronius the bailiff.
‘You are safe,’ said Aquinus. His voice was flat and tired.
Briefly, quickly, Marcellus explained what had happened.
Aquinus listened grimly. When Marcellus had finished he said, ‘You are here, at least. I was going to send a man to the city. I thought . . . well, no matter what I thought. Whose horses are those?’
‘We took them from a horse-farm. We could not find the owner.’
By now the sun was no more than a blood-red afterglow in the west. A sharp, still coldness descended with the night. Clemens eased a cloak around Aquinus’s shoulders. It was the kind of thing that, once, Aquinus would have told him not to fuss about; now he merely accepted it.
One of the servants emerged with a lamp, and by its flame, as I moved towards the door, I saw what up to now the failing day had hidden. I turned and stared. Aquinus glanced round.
‘Ah, yes,’ he said, ‘I was going to tell you.’ He frowned deeply at the crude ochre-painted Christian symbol daubed across the stonework. ‘We have had visitors, and they have left their mark, as you can see.’
‘You were not hurt?’
‘I was not here. Tyronius and the hands took your mother to safety, concealing themselves below the house, in the hypocaust. Our visitors did not stay long.’ He gave a slight smile, adding, ‘The country makes them uneasy.’
Marcellus glared out into the darkness. ‘Did they take anything?’ he asked.
‘Oh, a few items they could carry off, the kind that seemed to them of value. But mostly they just broke things for the pleasure of it, and daubed their foolish symbols.’
Within, in the atrium, the great floor of green serpentine still bore the marks of spilled paint. Against the wall, at the base of one of the rose-pink columns, an olive-wood table lay on its side, two of its delicate legs torn off, the others protruding into the air like some felled animal. Shards of glass lay among the ruin. I remembered there had been a crystal vase upon it, engraved with a chariot and horses.
‘You should go to your mother,’ said Aquinus.
‘Yes,’ said Marcellus, frowning at the signs of violence that lay about. Something on the floor caught his eye. He picked it up. At first I thought it was a fragment of a painting; but then I saw it was an illuminated page, torn from its binding.
‘Your library?’ Marcellus said, looking round at his grandfather.
Aquinus gave a brief nod. ‘They knew where to strike. The rest – the broken furniture, the slashed tapestries – was just done in passing.’
And so, with the heavy air of a man who returns to the scene of great pain, he led us through the rooms to his library.
The shelves had been smashed with some blunt instrument. The stacks of books lay strewn across the floor. One by one, with systematic care, they had been trampled and torn apart; and in one corner charred remains lay on the ground.
We moved through the wreckage. After a short while Marcellus turned to where Aquinus was standing with Clemens at the threshold. ‘I am sorry, Grandfather. What kind of man hates knowledge so much that he would do this?’
‘The man who fears it. And there are many such men; do not deceive yourself. They lie in wait, until they sense their time is come. It is a mark of civilization that such men are kept in check – by what is higher, by what is better, by what is noble.’
He took the lamp from Clemens and advanced, pausing now and then to look around.
‘I was too attached to it,’ he said eventually, speaking in a low, remote voice. He shook his head. ‘There were books here that will be lost forever. Is this what the bishop and his new world holds out for us; is this his promise for the future? Nothing good has ever come from ignorance.’ And then he muttered once more, ‘I was too attached to it.’
Under the high mullioned window, where the remains of his desk lay strewn about, he seemed to gather himself up. Turning to me he said, ‘But enough of my own concerns; the questions we face are more pressing, and I have news.’ The remnants of the garrison, he said, which had been sent north, had finally mutinied. They had found the man who had murdered Trebius. ‘He was in the pay of the notary, and they will have no more of it. They are marching on London.’
‘Then we must join them,’ I cried.
‘Yes, I supposed you would.’
In the flickering light of the single lamp I could not see his face across the room. But something in his tone made me ask, ‘Do you disapprove, sir?’
For a few moments he remained still and did not answer. Then he said, ‘Of course you must go. What else now is possible? But let us beware of what we break, and what we awaken. We have built something that was long in the making, and is not easily remade when it is gone.’
‘We must trust in the gods, sir, who see further than men.’
He made a slight motion with his hand, I could not tell its meaning. Then, turning, he gazed out in silence at his darkened courtyard garden.
‘And thus the young teach the old,’ he said. ‘Well, our fate lies in your hands now. Too many men have stood apart, hoping that some other would bear the burden.’
The garrison army had made camp three days’ march north-west of London, on high defensive ground overlooking the road.
My men greeted me with all the warmth of old comrades, and the enthusiasm of rebels. They recounted to Marcellus and me, with outrage and anger, the tale of the murder of Trebius.
The killer, it turned out, had been one of the garrison troops. ‘One of our own,’ they said in disgust – though not, they pointed out emphatically, a member of my old company. He was a sentry. He had bided his time, but eventually he had been posted to the night-time watch he wanted; and when all was quiet he had slipped round to Trebius’s tent and entered unseen.
At first no one had suspected him. But he was a gambler, and a bad one at that – always broke – and it was not long before his new-found gold appeared at the dice-table. Someone had teased him about it, and meeting with an aggressive reply had grown suspicious enough to mention it to his superior. After that, the man’s pack was searched. Hidden at the bottom were Trebius’s signet-ring and his ceremonial dagger with its silver pommel.
The men, when the truth was known, had been in no mood for imperial justice. The killer was beheaded, and his body cast into a latrine-pit.
With Trebius gone, the other officers had chosen from among their number a new commander: a tall half-Greek from Phoenician Africa called Gauron. There had indeed been a minor disturbance in the north, Gauron explained, but it was nothing that called for the removal of the whole garrison from London. Perceiving this, and discovering too the truth of Trebius’s death, the men realized t
hey had been deceived. They put down the disturbance on the frontier, and afterwards, at about the time Mar-tinus had died, they turned south, determined to rid the city and the province of the hated notary.
They had been joined on the way by volunteers – landowners and their tenants and workers, who had been harried and bullied by the bishop’s mobs, whose farms had been burned and whose ancient rural shrines had been desecrated. There were, it seemed, good men still, who were prepared to stand up to tyranny.
On the third day after our arrival, on a cold, still, grey afternoon, we reached the outskirts of the city.
As we drew near, a ragtag band of the notary’s guards and the bishop’s roughs emerged, clad in ill-fitting armour and brandishing whatever they had been able to find in the garrison armoury.
We laughed at them; and they, having taken a careful look at our small determined force, retreated once more and closed the gates against us.
After that, feeling safe behind the walls, they discovered a courage of sorts. They jeered down at us, wasted a few javelins, and threw stones.
‘Now what?’ said Gauron, regarding them with distaste. ‘We are too few to take the city by siege, and they know it. They will send to Gaul for reinforcements.’
But I said, ‘I know a way.’
The tide was up. The piles of the old jetty loomed in the darkness.
‘This is the place,’ whispered Marcellus to the rowers behind.
The boat eased left, and from my place in the bow I stretched forward, grabbed the mooring-chain, and pulled us in. We paused and listened. Torches flickered from high up on the riverside wall, reflecting in the black still water around us.
I secured the boat and climbed out onto the wet planking of the jetty. The old wood creaked and I hesitated; but no light showed at the postern, and advancing I peered in at the iron grille.
The cell inside was dark. I made a sound like a birdcall. No one responded; there was no sound of sleeping bodies shifting. Then I tried the heavy door. It stirred, groaning on its rusted hinges. It was not locked.
I signalled; the others advanced behind me, and once again the foul stench seized my nostrils.
‘By the Bull,’ muttered the trooper beside Marcellus, ‘what is this, a sewer?’
‘It’s the notary’s prison,’ said Marcellus. ‘This is perfume, compared to what it’s like inside. Come on; this way.’
The wall-torches had been left to die down and fail. But we found a clay lamp burning in an alcove, and took it to light our way.
Carefully, silently, we advanced along the reeking passage. Most of the cages on each side were empty; but every so often we passed a man lying in the muck and straw. Some were dead. Others shifted and stared, disturbed by the light.
‘Where are the guards?’ I said to one. But he just looked at me blankly.
‘Why don’t they speak?’ said one of my comrades.
‘They have lost their wits,’ said another. He shook the door of the man’s cell, rattling it on its chain. The man inside let out a whine of terror and curled up in the corner, covering his eyes with his hands, as if the evil could be averted if he could not see it.
‘Be still,’ I said to him. ‘We are not here to harm you.’ But he seemed not to hear me.
Presently we came to a flight of stone steps, rising in a spiral. At the top the air was cleaner. There was an air shaft, and then, through a low brick arch, a wide hexagonal room with a bare-wood table, and, on one wall, suspended on hooks, a collection of loose chains, and irons, and sets of keys on rings.
‘The guardhouse,’ I said to Marcellus.
‘And where are the guards?’ he replied.
There was no sign of them. They had been called, we guessed, to man the walls.
Further on we came to the cellars proper, white-painted brickwork vaults where old furniture and storage jars stood piled up. This part I remembered from my time with the Protectors, and from here I knew the way up to the governor’s palace above. We followed old passages and stairs, and emerged into a servants’ corridor; and then, passing through a door, we came into one of the elegant rooms-of-state, a long chamber with arched windows, gilded furniture, and decorated panels.
Here we encountered a man – the first we had seen. It was the chamberlain, the same self-important fussing official who had conducted me to my first interview with Count Gratian four years before.
‘What are you doing?’ he demanded, ‘you are not permitted here!’ He had taken me for one of the palace sentries, for whom the interior was out of bounds.
But then, from the doorway behind, the rest of my company emerged with swords pointing. The chamberlain, whose only battles had been the intrigues of clerks and the struggle for place in the imperial bureaucracy, raised his knuckle to his open mouth and stared.
‘If you want to live,’ I said, ‘tell me where to find the notary.’
The chamberlain needed no persuading. ‘He is in the private rooms,’ he answered in a wavering voice. ‘But he is not to be disturbed. Those were his orders.’
‘This for his orders!’ said one of the men, making a clear hand-gesture. The chamberlain goggled, appalled that anyone should dare to show such disrespect to a superior.
‘Who is with him?’ I demanded, showing him the point of my sword.
‘He is alone. He always dines alone.’
‘Well tonight,’ I said, ‘he will have company.’
We found him in the governor’s private dining-room, with its green and gold painted walls, and expensive Italian couches upholstered in silk and crimson damask.
His head snapped round as I entered. A tall lamp of wrought bronze stood between him and the door, illuminating the couch where he sat, and the low table in front of him. He had not allowed the trouble in the city to disturb his dinner. The last of his meal sat there in silver dishes, and on the floor lay a mess of chewed bones, waiting for the slaves to clear away. No doubt he felt secure behind the walls, and knew our small army was no match for them.
He stared angrily, his eyes wide and unblinking, like a bird of prey disturbed at its meal. The light had dazzled him, so that, at first, he could not discern who was there. He began to speak – some sort of angry protest. But then my sword, and those of my comrades, flashed in the lamplight, and his mouth set into a hard thin line. He had been chewing. With a slight inclination of his head he spat whatever it was onto the floor.
‘How did you enter?’ he said quietly.
‘No matter. We are here. The city is ours.’
Already a contingent of men had gone off to open the gates from within.
He gave a slight nod; I saw the calculation in his face. Whatever else he was, he was not a fool, and though he seemed unarmed, I did not allow my guard to fall, or permit myself to forget that he was dangerous.
And now, as he sat still and rigid, the notary made use of the weapon he had honed through years of expert practice: fear and insinuating terror, and the threat of the dark unknown.
In a smooth, reasonable voice he said, ‘You have been resourceful in finding your way in, and I commend you for it. But now use your wits, and reflect for a moment that whatever you may do to me, you cannot win. The emperor is all-powerful, and I am his trusted servant. Let this matter end before it goes too far. Leave now, while I do not know your names, and have not seen your faces. You have taken a wrong turn in the corridors of the palace, that is all – an easy mistake, when it is dark. Go now, and no more will be said.’
There was a silence. He regarded us with a face of accommodating warmth – except for his eyes, which were deadly.
‘I took no wrong turn,’ I said.
His eyes moved to my face. I think, then, for the first time he knew me.
In a low, measured voice he said, ‘This is treason.’ He let the dread words hang in the air. Then he said, ‘Think on it, all of you, and on what it means. Some of you have families – wives and children. So far you have done no wrong, just a simple error, no more. You stand
on the threshold: do not cross it. You have been misled, deceived. You do not know what you are doing. Arrest this traitor, and all will be forgotten.’
There was a pause. My men were standing behind me. I could not see their faces.
Then one of them said, ‘Go and tell it to Trebius’s shade!’
The notary looked blank. The name meant nothing. One might as well have asked a butcher the names of the animals he had slaughtered. I knew the men had seen it too, and I knew that in that moment he had lost whatever hold he had on them.
I heard them shift, and felt their anger like heat from a fire. The notary let out a short sigh, as though he had lost some minor wager in a dice-game. He sat up straight, and smoothed his clothing with his pale long-fingered hand.
‘Then let us have done with it,’ he said. ‘Which of you will kill me, or will it be all of you, so that the guilt attaches to no single one?’
I exchanged a look with Marcellus. We had talked about this, he and I and all the officers who had marched on London, and had made our decision. But still the words came hard, now that the man was in front of me, and my sword was in my hand.
‘We are sending you back to the emperor,’ I said eventually. ‘Let him judge you.’
The notary’s eyes snapped to mine, and for the first time I saw fear there – and this I had not predicted. He seemed to still himself; but then, in a flash of sudden movement, his hand darted to the table, and from one of the dishes, beside a sliced half-eaten apple, he snatched an ivory-handled fruit-knife. One of the men let out a snort of derision: did the notary suppose the tiny blade was a match for our swords? But my eyes had been on his face: I realized what he intended.
I threw myself forward, overturning the slender-legged table, sending the silver dishes sliding over the inlaid floor. The notary was fast; but I was faster. I caught his bony wrist just as the knife was at his throat. He struggled – he was strong, for all his emaciated look – and as I fought I felt the sting of the blade as it sliced my hand. But I had a firm hold of him. I prised his arm away, forcing it downwards until at last I heard the knife clatter on the ground.
