‘There’s a selection of walking boots and warm clothing in these. You and Consiliaria Quirinia should change as quickly as you can. I’ll prepare backpacks with some essentials.’
Thirty minutes later, we set off north in the direction of the mountains, walking poles in hands, loaded up for a survival exercise. But this was no exercise.
*
Scarcely a day after Caius had struck, we were hiking on a near moonless night into exile. If there was anything any Roman feared most it was being exiled, cut off from family, friends and community.
I marched behind Calavia, more comfortable now in countrywomen’s clothing, but my heart was heavier than my backpack. Quirinia said nothing. All I heard from her was laboured breathing. I’d trained more to the west, nearer the Bavarian border and to the south, but I vaguely knew where we were. Calavia obviously knew the area well as she guided us along the narrow overgrown tracks, through dips and gullies without hesitation.
After an hour, just before a steep ascent, we stopped for a rest. I leaned back against the rock, my backpack a lumpy cushion, and took some deep breaths. Calavia had set a good pace. Quirinia looked exhausted. She hunched over and didn’t move. She was, or had been, a government minister, not used to such physical demands. She probably hadn’t been on such a strenuous hike since her national service. I reached over into the side pocket of her backpack and fished out her water flask. She grabbed it and I let her gulp the water down, but I took it back after a couple of seconds. Apart from her surprise, she looked cross.
‘Slowly,’ I whispered, ‘or you’ll get cramps or throw up.’
She took a deep breath, burped, looked embarrassed. She nodded, and I gave her the flask back. She drank more calmly.
Calavia hunkered down by us. ‘We’ve come the short, direct way,’ she whispered. ‘We have to assume the main road will be barriered and they’ll be patrolling the area.’ She glanced at me. ‘I don’t know for sure but I reckon the guards will have been ordered to shoot on sight.’
‘The border guards?’ I was sceptical. ‘They couldn’t make an accurate shot at ten metres.’
‘Ten metres would be enough to hit a leg and stop us.’ She sounded impatient. ‘Perhaps you’ve forgotten, consiliaria, what it’s like to operate in hostile territory. We take no risks.’
I felt warmth rush up my neck into my face. I was furious and about to reprimand her for speaking to me like that. Then I realised she was right.
‘I apologise, Pia Calavia. You are quite correct. It’s been far too long. Please continue.’
‘And I apologise for my abruptness. But you must realise the danger. If Caius Tellus is as well organised out here as he was in the city, you can be sure he will have sealed the borders and deployed reinforcements, possibly his own political troops.’
‘But border guards are more used to stamping passports and confiscating coffee than actually shooting anybody.’
‘Perhaps. But given the choice of shooting or being shot and possibly your whole family or work crew with you, or even both, what would you do?’
*
An hour later, it was sleeting in our faces. It was late summer in the plain – it had been a golden September – but here up on the mountain, it was a different world. The slice of the barely new moon on the snowfield gave us minimal light, eerie and neutral. The last time I’d been so high was when we had caught the Prussian smugglers, twenty-odd years ago. This time, instead of leaping around the arrêts and gullies, I was trudging behind Pia Calavia like a retired zombie. And the sleet had turned to snow.
After what seemed several hours, she stopped, leaned towards me and cupped her mouth with her hands near my ear. ‘There’s a hut up here,’ she spoke against the wind. ‘About a hundred metres on. I’m going to check it. Stay here until I get back.’
She took three steps and vanished into the blizzard.
Atrius, Quirinia and I huddled down in the shelter of a rock. He crouched in front of us, slipped on night vision goggles and watched the track, alternating between directions every few minutes. Barely visible between the wool hat underneath the hood of her jacket and the scarf covering her nose and mouth, Quirinia’s eyes were dull. Tears had frozen on her face, on skin that looked grey. I pulled her to me and prayed that hut was unoccupied.
I wasn’t quite dozing, just sitting in a neutral dream state, gently rocking Quirinia, wondering whether we were going to perish in this snowstorm. I nearly jumped out of my skin when Atrius tapped me on the shoulder. He pointed up the track. It was Calavia.
*
‘Here.’ I handed Quirinia a mug of the soup I’d made up from powdered rations on the tiny stove spotted with burnt-on food and rust. The chemical fuel blocks carried by most sport climbers and walkers as well as military made the hut smell like a petrol station, but they didn’t produce any smoke. We helped ourselves to four of the emergency ‘rat-packs’; Atrius stirred dried vegetables into tinned meat stew in an aluminium pan. Highly nutritious, but gastronomically dubious, it would refuel us before the most dangerous part of our journey.
I panned around the hut. Although rough wood on the outside, it was dry-lined and insulated. Six sleeping shelves along the walls took up most of the hut. We unclipped the folding table stacked flush to one wall and found unmatched base metal cutlery in the cupboard. I didn’t count the chips on the enamelled tin plates and mugs; I was too hungry.
Calavia had pulled the blind down over the one window and fixed a blanket above it to cover the whole frame and glass.
‘It’s double-glazed, but that’s not the problem. I don’t want even the tiniest light leak.’
‘I’ll help you do the door.’ I picked up the small hammer from the hut’s toolkit and nailed the dark blanket along the top frame as she held it. ‘If it continues snowing, all our footprints will disappear. Not that anybody with half a brain is going to come up here in this.’
‘Still, I’ll take the first watch,’ she replied.
‘Wake me in three hours. I’ll do the next and Atrius can take over after that.’
She gave a little smile and settled back on the bench under the covered window, Atrius’s rifle across her knees. We rolled out our sleeping bags on the other three benches, clambered into them and were soon asleep.
Someone was shaking me. I sat up, groggy, blinked to see Calavia looming over me. I started to drag myself out of the warm cocoon of my sleeping bag. She thrust a water flask at me.
‘I left you another hour, it’s just before eight,’ she whispered. ‘Nothing to report. Are you ready, consiliaria?’
My mouth tasted like glue, my teeth were furred, the flesh wound on my arm was itching like Tartarus under the bandage, my back ached and my legs were stiff, but I smiled at her.
‘Yes, go and get your head down. I’m fine.’
Like almost all active soldiers she was asleep within minutes of zipping her sleeping bag up.
I spent the first half-hour taking the blanket down from the window and checking that nothing significant could be seen through it. Even the slightest movement could be detected from a distance. Leaving the blanket in place would have looked more suspicious, though. At the moment the others were sleeping. The danger would come when we were all up and moving about. I dragged my sleeping bag onto the floor and knelt and packed it up with the rest of my kit.
As I threw a couple of scoops of sawdust in the dry latrine behind the corner curtain and rinsed my hands under the trickle from the hand basin tap, I realised the weight of Calavia’s words. We were operating in hostile territory, even though still in Roma Nova. The silence and the freezing cold merely reinforced my feeling of bitterness.
We’d been extremely lucky to use this shelter. Normally we would have replenished the water tank by filling the snow funnel, and reported and paid for ration packs used at the next village. That was what you did on the mountain – lef
t a hut supplied for the next users. But it would have been like waving a location flag for any patrol to see. Another tiny but significant break in normality.
I wedged myself into the corner of the bench and wall, to the side of the window and out of sight. I’d forgotten how boring sentry duty was. Looking out from an oblique angle, all I could see was the snowfield, peaks, scree banks, all lit by a pale yellow sun in a cloudless rich blue sky. Pretty as a postcard.
An hour later it was snowing again.
XX
‘Pluto in Tartarus!’ cried Atrius. ‘On the floor. Now.’
Calavia threw herself down, grabbed Quirinia and pushed her under the lower sleeping shelf. I rolled off the opposite shelf where I’d been dozing after I’d woken Atrius, and scuttled underneath.
A buzz outside like an angry mechanical wasp. Then a faint thump-thump. Rotor blades.
‘Faces to the wall. Don’t move a millimetre,’ Calavia ordered.
I breathed as lightly as possible, inhaling a mixed smell of wood, sweat and musty clothes. It had stopped snowing a good hour ago and it was two hours before the sun went down, so a perfect time window for a helicopter. Thank Juno, we hadn’t cooked anything since last night. The heat sensor equipment on routine planes wasn’t that sophisticated. I hoped the snow on the roof would blanket us.
The whump-whump grew louder joined by the scream of the tail rotor. The hut shook as the helicopter hovered. Cutlery stacked on the table jumped. A fork fell onto the floor, tines down and narrowly missed Atrius’s eye. He blinked, let out a breath, but said nothing. The thunderous rhythm of the blades beat against my eardrums, but I couldn’t risk moving my hands up to cover them.
Suddenly, the noise dropped, then faded away rapidly. Within half a minute we could hear nothing but our own breathing.
‘Oh, gods,’ moaned Quirinia. ‘Is it over?’
‘Shh!’ I hissed at her. ‘We have to wait,’ I whispered so quietly it was scarcely louder than a breath.
Pia Calavia signalled with her fingers that we would wait fifteen minutes, but ready our weapons. I slid my hand down to my jacket pocket and retrieved Fabia’s pistol. If they’d landed troops, the classic tactic would be to wait five, then smash their way in. If they were being subtle it would be ten, so fifteen was a wise precaution.
Seventeen minutes later, Pia let out a sigh. ‘I think we’re clear,’ she whispered, ‘but let’s just wait a few more.’ She wriggled across the floor and touched Quirinia’s shoulder. ‘Are you all right, consiliaria?’
‘Yes, yes,’ Quirinia sniffed, rolling over to face us. ‘Now I’m wondering what the next delightful thing will be.’ Her voice was brittle, but I could see she was trying to keep herself calm. ‘While we were waiting I was calculating the budget for sending that helicopter up here in manpower, fuel and opportunity cost. It must run into tens of thousands of solidi. And if I’ve got it right, today’s the first of October, only eight weeks until close of expenditure period. Unless they’ve found a bottomless pit, they won’t be back.’
The three of us stared at this accountant become budget minister as if she were an alien. She’d out-thought all of us.
*
We moved out just after the sun set. We’d had to dig a path out from the door through the snow and although we piled it back as best we could, until it snowed again we couldn’t help leaving some evidence behind. But we were rested and in better spirits. Quirinia moved stiffly at first but seemed more alert and interested in the process, rather than being only a victim and refugee. After three hours, we descended through the treeline of conifers. We stopped at the lower edge for a few minutes’ rest. Calavia handed me her field glasses.
‘See those far lights? They’re in New Austria. Now look right. That’s our problem.’
The original border post on the autovia which ran from Roma Nova city to Vienna had been reinforced by a temporary camp. It wasn’t just the ancients who could set up a camp in hours; it was a skill that had passed down over fifteen centuries. There were six eight-person canvas tents erected in a neat rectangle behind the post. Which meant there could be four separate four-person patrols out on a twenty-four-hour basis.
Hades.
‘There’s a track, of course,’ Calavia said, ‘a smugglers’ route to the west, but the border force will know all about that. That’s probably where they’ll concentrate their patrols. So we’ll go east.’ She smiled brightly. Her confidence was almost too much.
We retreated back into the middle of the trees and struck east. It was silent around us. Calavia didn’t have to warn us not to talk; the fear of being discovered so near to the frontier between death and life was too real.
As we neared the autovia, it was unnerving. The dual carriageways usually buzzed with freight lorries, cars and small vans weaving in and out. Now, I heard nothing. We crouched in the trees on top of the embankment looking down at four empty lanes, curving in a wide arc, the white road markings glimmering in the faint moonlight. Not a truck, nor tanker, nor private car. Zero.
Breaking the silence, the noise of an engine accelerating. It grew louder, deepening into the rhythmic thudding of a powerful diesel engine.
‘Back!’ Calavia hissed. But I was already lying flush to the ground and pulled Quirinia with me. An armoured personnel carrier, one of the new Agrippa wheeled models scarcely out of the factory, appeared, travelling at around 50 kph. Aside from the gunner, there was another figure, the commander, scanning both sides of the road with a pair of heavy night vision binoculars. She, or now more likely he, was looking purposefully. My stomach churned.
‘Calavia,’ I whispered as soon as it had disappeared into the distance, ‘they know we’re out here, but not where.’
‘Agreed.’
‘With their numbers it’s only a matter of time before they find us. We have to move now and fast.’
She nodded.
‘First thing is to get across this bloody road,’ I said. ‘I suggest Atrius goes first taking Quirinia, then me then you.’ The theory was slowest first, fastest last.
‘If they stick to standard patrolling they’ll be back in twenty-five minutes.’ She looked at her watch. ‘Best cut that in half.’
We scrambled down the bank and crouched at the side of the road. Unluckily, we were inside the concave arc, so our field of vision was restricted at each end. Once Atrius was across, he could spot for us. He and Quirinia ran for the central reservation, waited for a few seconds and scuttled over to the far bank and started climbing it. Atrius heaved Quirinia over the ridge and they disappeared. I was on my toes to sprint across when I caught the buzz of vehicle engine. A scout car tore around the corner from the other direction and screeched to a halt. By then, Calavia and I were face down in the drainage ditch.
I turned my head very slowly and glanced sideways across the road. The figure beside the driver leapt out. On his left upper arm, I saw a pale armband with a darker indistinct design. I didn’t have to see the symbolic fasces and mailed fist. He turned into the moonlight and I saw his face. Phobius. Caius’s sidekick.
I started to sweat. Until now, despite the difficult journey, I hadn’t believed we wouldn’t make it. Now, doubt started to creep into my mind. Was it a coincidence Phobius was here, now? Was Caius hunting me personally? But I knew the answer. Phobius would have described us to Caius. Calavia’s trail of deception had been temporary and fragile. Caius would have been furious at our escape and probably threatened to terminate Phobius if he didn’t come back with us. Perhaps that was why Phobius had two heavies as armed escort. Or perhaps I had got it all wrong. Was I that important in reality? No, I was sure it wasn’t my status. With Caius it was always personal.
Phobius brought a radio handset up to his face, spoke into it, gesturing with his hand while walking up and down the road in short, snatched lengths. He turned abruptly, jumped back into the vehicle and flicked his hand brusqu
ely at the driver. They drove off as urgently as they had arrived.
‘Merda, that was close.’ Calavia rolled to my side. She extracted her field glasses from her jacket pocket and scanned the far ridge.
‘Got him. Atrius signals all clear.’ She stuffed the glasses back into her pocket. We crept out of the ditch and crouched by the hard shoulder. ‘Care to make a bet who gets there first, Major?’
‘Be a shame to take your money, Lieutenant,’ and I launched myself across the road. It was a tie, but she beat me by two seconds to the top of the far embankment.
We marched on in silence but watchful for the least sound. Twice, Calavia raised her hand to stop us, and we hit the ground. Probably wildlife, foxes or the like. We shouldn’t find wolves this close to the border.
A glimmer of light hesitated at the horizon. I checked my watch; just after four. Calavia directed us to the edge of the trees and scanned the fields with her glasses.
‘Nothing moving out there.’
‘How near are we?’ I asked.
‘Just under a kilometre. You see that farmhouse?’ A traditional alpine building with shingle roof, windows shuttered. ‘That’s in New Austria.’
‘Right, let’s do it.’
Calavia nodded and beckoned Atrius and Quirinia forward.
‘Atrius,’ she said, ‘take Consiliaria Quirinia along the hedge line west of that farmhouse. You have cover almost all the way. You’ll have to belly-crawl the gaps, but there are only a few. RV at the taxi rank in Meintberg. Wait only two hours, then go on to the safe house in Vienna. The major and I will join you at one or the other.’
He handed Calavia his rifle and saluted.
Quirinia grabbed my wrist. ‘Why aren’t we going together, Aurelia?’
‘We can’t risk all of us being caught. Atrius is taking you by the safest route. Pia and I won’t be far behind. We want to make sure you get to safety before we move. Now go. The sun will be up soon.’
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