by Ian Ross
Ganna looked at him, her face reddened by the cold, strands of hair escaping from under her shawl as she shook her head. ‘No words,’ she told him.
Then she turned and climbed up onto the tail of the cart, carrying the sack that contained all her possessions. Castus heard the cry of the drover, and the head of the convoy lurched into motion. Before the cart could move he strode up to the tailgate, passing her a small bundle wrapped in thick cloth.
‘Take it,’ he said. Ganna held it in her hand, feeling the weight of metal. The jewelled handle of a dagger jutted from inside the cloth. She did not need to ask what else it contained. For a moment she appeared offended, and he thought she would hurl the gifts back at him. Then her brow creased, and she thrust the wrapped weapon and the purse of gold into her bag. Castus stepped closer. He untied the thong around his wrist, with the blue bead amulet she had given him many years before. Taking her hand, he knotted the leather cord around her wrist.
‘For protection,’ he said. ‘You need it more than me now.’
Then he drew her close and kissed her. For a moment she embraced him, returning the kiss. Then the cart jolted beneath her and pulled them apart.
Sabinus gave a cry, dashing forward, and Castus just managed to catch the boy before he ran out into the road. Holding his son close, one spread hand pressed over his chest, Castus watched the cart rolling away across the wide spans of the bridge. The ironbound wheels rumbled across the wooden planks of the roadway, and Ganna stared back at him until she was almost at the far side of the river. Then she pulled her shawl across her face. The convoy moved on through the gates of Divitia fort, following the straight road that would take them out through the far side, past the sentries and the customs officials, and into the wild country of barbaricum beyond.
Already Castus felt the loss of her, the churning sadness threatening to overwhelm him. He went to his horse, rubbed at her nose and felt her breath hot against his fingers. Mounting, he lifted Sabinus up to sit across the saddle in front of him, supported in the crook of his left arm. The boy was quiet as they rode back into the city. The dirty shacks that lined the street up from the gate looked black and grey in the morning chill, and the beggars stared with pallid faces as the dux rode by with his mounted guard. Castus remembered what Ganna had offered him months before: just for a moment he imagined them riding off together, into the forests of Germania. A new life, far from the sordid intrigues of the Roman world. His face twisted into a sour smile: the fantasy had no weight. He was a soldier; the army had made him and shaped him, and he belonged to the empire.
Sabinus twisted in the saddle, burrowing his face into the fold of Castus’s cloak. He had been quite sincere about sending the boy back to Rome. Now, in the bone-chilling cold of the morning, with Ganna gone from his life for ever and the grief of their parting pooling in his chest, he was not so sure. Sabinus was still sniffing quietly, his fingers and nose pink with cold. A year ago he had lost his mother, and now he had lost the woman who had raised him since he was a baby. Castus tightened his hold on the boy, the bunched muscle of his bicep like a shield that would hold the dangers of the world at bay.
*
Cold earth, cold hands. Under a sky the colour of spit, thirty men laboured with mattock and spade, hacking trenches into the hard ruddy soil. Another thirty hefted great baulks of timber from the wagons on the road, driving them into place to form the palisade. Castus sat on his horse and watched them working; the men were soldiers, and their stacked shields bore the trident and twin dolphin emblem of the Thirtieth Legion. Building fortifications had always been a job for the legions, and Castus knew the work all too well.
At the centre of the ringwork of trenches and palisade stood a stone watchtower, begun decades before but never completed. With the fortifications around it, the tower would form a stronghold on the road between Colonia and Tungris. Castus was reminded of the defensive tower that Magnius Rufus had recently built next to his villa; he guessed the landowner had used this one as a model.
Dismounting, he walked up the slope over the rutted ground to the gap in the palisade. This was only one of the dozen or so new and repaired fortifications he had inspected over the last three months. Watchtowers and burgi were going up along the west bank of the Rhine from Colonia to Noviomagus, and down the Mosa to Traiectum. When all were complete, the frontier districts would be held in a web of garrisoned posts and forts; any hostile force crossing the river would be detected quickly, and trapped in a killing ground fifty miles deep and wide. That was the theory – but the work would take time, and manpower was short.
As he marched towards the wooden ladder that rose to the tower doorway, Castus overheard the centurion commanding the legionaries giving orders to his men. A Pannonian accent, much like his own. The man paused as he noticed his commander watching him, then saluted.
‘You’re a long way from home, brother,’ Castus said.
Beneath his fur cap, the centurion’s bearded face flickered into a smile. ‘You too, excellency.’
‘You were with the Guard?’
The centurion glanced away, his shoulders rising. ‘Long time ago,’ he said. ‘Fifth Cohort.’
Castus nodded. There were plenty of ex-Praetorians with the Thirtieth. Their posting to the frontier was a form of punishment: most would serve their time and then settle here. Few would see their old homes on the Danube again.
‘Before that?’ Castus asked.
The centurion brightened visibly. ‘Thirteenth Gemina,’ he said. ‘Up at Carnuntum. Better days, I’d say.’
Castus could only agree. The Danubian soldiers that had joined Maxentius’s Praetorian Guard had lived well in Rome, and fought well at the battle of the Milvian Bridge. But that was a disgraceful memory now. Castus wondered whether this centurion had been there, fighting among his enemies. Probably so. Would time ever mend the divisions between them?
He turned to go, but the centurion stepped towards him. ‘You reckon they’ll attack again, dominus?’ he asked. ‘All this, I mean.’ He gestured at the trenches and palisade.
‘I don’t reckon anything,’ Castus told him. ‘But if you want peace...’
‘...prepare for war!’ The centurion grinned. It was an old maxim.
The ladder groaned beneath his weight as Castus climbed. He edged past the two sentries in the doorway, then climbed another ladder from the dingy chamber inside up to the second floor lookout.
Wind blasted at him as he stepped out onto the walkway. Moving around the circuit of the tower, boards creaking, Castus gazed at the landscape in each direction. The tower stood on a low ridge, a wide marshy river valley to the west. Clutches of trees stood black against the grey sky. The subtle undulations of the ground could hide a lot, but the land around the tower had been well cleared; nobody could approach this place undetected. It was a good landscape for war.
He left the tower and rejoined the horsemen on the road.
Castus was travelling with only a small escort: his four bodyguards, his standard-bearer, his orderly Eumolpius and four pack mules. He could cover more ground, and cover it faster, this way. But they had been on the road for many days in this hard season and all of them, Castus knew, were eager to return to the comforts of Colonia.
It was late afternoon, and they were still several miles from Juliacum, when the sky to the south darkened dramatically. The wind rose, driving freezing rain before the storm, and the riders pulled their cloaks tighter as they kicked their horses into a trot. Ahead of them was a group of other mounted men, with some slaves on foot. Castus swung out into the road to give them a wide berth; he knew the boundary of Magnius Rufus’s estate lay close by, and he had no wish to encounter any of the landowner’s people.
‘Excellency!’ a voice cried. Castus reined in his horse and glanced back. The leading rider had pushed his hood away from his face and Castus recognised Dulcitius, the grain merchant. Marcellina’s husband.
‘We thought when we saw you coming that you might be br
igands,’ the merchant said. ‘They do prey upon travellers on this road... But then we saw your banner. This is a happy meeting!’
Castus had heard stories about the brigands, escaped slaves and rebel peasants turned to thievery and ambush – bagaudae, the locals called them. They had been a force in Gaul decades before. But he had assumed they were a myth these days; nobody he had met had ever encountered one in reality.
‘It seems we’ll have sleet,’ Dulcitius said, squinting through the rain as he gestured at the approaching darkness. ‘You’ll be soaked and frozen before you reach Juliacum! My villa lies just over there, along the track you can see – will you join me and shelter until the storm passes?’
Castus looked back at his small retinue. Eumolpius sat hunched in the saddle, teeth clenched to stop them chattering. The five troopers looked staunch enough, but he could see the spark of hope in their eyes at the offer of shelter.
‘Let’s go then,’ he said, and swung his arm.
*
The villa stood at the end of a track lined with poplars. It was a single-storey building, with a portico at the front flanked by outbuildings around a yard. A modest place, Castus thought. In the shelter of the gateway the men dismounted, and Dulcitius ordered his slaves to take the horses and mules to the stable. Sleet was coming down already, slanting with the wind, and the group of men huddled in their cloaks as they jogged across the yard.
‘Your men can rest in the side chamber there,’ Dulcitius said. ‘I will have hot food sent to them. But perhaps, excellency, you would care to follow me?’
He led the way into the main house, Castus behind him trying to stamp the mud from his boots. Outside, the yard was almost obscured by grey sleet, turning now to hail. They passed through the doors and into the reception room, where braziers stood warming the air. Castus felt the steam rising from his sodden cloak.
‘Wine, perhaps? And would you like me to have the baths heated?’
‘A drink, yes, but no bath,’ Castus said. He felt uncomfortable here. ‘We won’t stay long. As soon as the storm’s passed, we’ll be on our way.’
Dulcitius was fussing around the room, giving whispered instructions to his household slaves. Castus paced awkwardly; he was beginning to regret coming here. A slave approached, with an apologetic expression and a pair of house slippers in his hand; Castus waved him away with a frown. He could smell food cooking, and a lingering feminine perfume that quickened his pulse. Perhaps he should leave now, before the merchant got any further ideas of hospitality? Before Marcellina made an appearance... The noise of the sleet was loud on the tiled roof overhead, and somewhere he could hear water dripping.
Female voices from the next chamber, and a moment later three figures appeared in the doorway. Dulcitius returned, followed by a slave bearing a tray with cups of wine. ‘Ah, there you are!’ he declared. ‘Excellency, may I present my daughters, Julia Dulcitia and Julia Maiana? I believe you’ve already met my wife...’
Marcellina stared at him, visibly surprised. She looked tired, pallid, with dark rings under her eyes, but she managed a tense smile. The two girls stood watching him, perplexed. The older one was tall and gangly, with very wide eyes. The younger had a round face and a pert, questioning expression.
‘Greet his excellency!’ Dulcitius told his daughters. Both girls bowed slightly, touching their foreheads with their fingertips.
Castus took one of the cups of wine. He was trying not to meet Marcellina’s eye. Her strained nervousness was easy to read, and Dulcitius still seemed agitated. Too agitated, perhaps: he was still talking, stammering something about the weather, but he was clearly on the edge of panic. Not just the surprise of an unexpected guest, Castus knew. He felt his sense of uneasiness tightening into apprehension.
‘How did you get that?’ the younger girl said, touching her jaw. She was gazing at him, her head angled to one side.
‘Eh? Oh... in a battle,’ Castus told her, his hand instinctively rising to cover his scar. ‘A cavalry spear...’
‘Did it hurt a lot?’
‘Girls!’ Marcellina said promptly. ‘Don’t ask rude questions. Go back to your chambers now.’ She trapped Castus’s glance and held it for a heartbeat.
‘Now, won’t you sit, excellency,’ Dulcitius said. ‘A long ride today, I expect!’
Castus made a sound in his throat, then lowered himself into one of the chairs. Marcellina had crossed to a small cabinet with doors of ornate brass grillwork that stood against the far wall. Castus followed her movements from the corner of his eye. Her husband was saying something about the bad weather damaging the winter crops as she opened the cabinet, crouching before it.
‘My wife feels the cold and damp badly,’ Dulcitius said. ‘She has southern blood, you know!’ Castus recalled that Marcellina’s father had been from Spain. But she had grown up in north Britain: it was not the weather that was causing her distress. She was still crouched by the cabinet, and he tried to make out what she was doing.
‘I remembered that verse by Ovidius you were asking about when we last met,’ Marcellina said, with a rather false smile. The cabinet was stacked with scrolls, Castus noticed. She straightened up holding one of them, a slim tube capped with ivory bosses. ‘Here – I found a copy. Why don’t you take it with you?’
She crossed the room again and passed the scroll to Castus with a flicker of her left eyelid. There was a dark smudge on her finger, he noticed. Trying not to let his confusion show, he took the scroll and held it clumsily, rubbing his thumb over the ivory. There was no way he would want to read verse, especially at a time like this...
‘Oh yes,’ he said. ‘I remember now.’
‘You’d better take a look and check it’s the right one.’
Castus felt a breath up his spine. He cleared his throat, glanced down at the scroll and unrolled the first leaf.
Scratched in charcoal, tight against the roller, a single word: FLEE.
‘I never would have guessed you were an admirer of poetry, excellency,’ Dulcitius was saying. ‘My wife’s very fond of reading – unnaturally so, some might suggest! Yes, her collection there’s quite extensive...’
Castus rolled the scroll tight again and tucked it inside his tunic.
‘Seems to be the right one,’ he said, feeling the thickness in his voice. Dulcitius appeared to have noticed nothing. Raising his head, Castus peered at the ceiling. The roar of the sleet had not eased. He could hear it crashing against the paving of the portico outside.
Marcellina was staring at him, hollow-faced. He caught her slight nod.
Drawing a deep breath, he stirred himself and stood up, trying not to appear hurried. He paced to the door and edged it open to glance outside. ‘Looks like it’s clearing up,’ he said. ‘I thank you for the shelter, but I think we really ought to move on. I want to be at Juliacum before dusk.’
Dulcitius was on his feet, hands fretting at the front of his tunic. ‘Oh no, please, do stay longer. It’s only another few miles into town – there’s plenty of time! I’ve told the kitchen slaves to prepare a meal...’
Castus narrowed his eyes at the man. He forced himself to smile. ‘Your kindness does you credit,’ he said. ‘But my decision is made.’ He looked back at Marcellina, nodding his farewell. ‘Thanks for the verses,’ he said.
They rode hard through the driving sleet, heads down in their cloaks. Where the track from the house met the main highway Castus signalled a halt; he glanced left and right, but there were no signs of other travellers. A hundred paces towards the town, a copse of trees stood near the road, the bare branches thrashing in the wind.
‘Over there,’ he called above the noise of the storm. ‘And be on your guard.’
As they neared the trees Castus could tell that there was nobody waiting. But it was the only good spot for an ambush along this road. He guessed that Dulcitius must have sent his message as soon as they arrived at the house; doubtless whoever had intended to waylay them had been close by, but not yet in posit
ion. He led his small troop of men off the verge and into the cover of the trees, their horses forging through the dripping brambles and scrub.
Dismounting, Castus scanned the road. Still nobody in sight. Rain spattered over his shoulders, pouring icy water down the back of his neck. The men with him remained silent; he had told them nothing since leaving the house, but all seemed aware of what was happening and needed no orders from him. Good soldiers. He jerked a thumb at his head, and each man took his helmet from the leather bag on his saddle horn and put it on over his wet cap.
They did not have long to wait. The sleet had slackened to a cold flurrying rain as the group of riders appeared on the road, moving fast from the east. Twelve of them, all dressed in short waterproof capes with hoods drawn up. Some carried spears, and all had scarves tied across their lower faces. They did a good impression of being brigands, at least.
Castus let them pass, a palm raised to hold his men in silent readiness. The group of riders reached the turning to Dulcitius’s villa and halted, peering down at the rutted surface of the road, reading the marks of the horses. One pointed away to the left; another stared at the trees, but appeared to see nothing unusual. Slowly, careful not to make any sudden movement, Castus swung himself up into the saddle and nudged Dapple forward out of the copse.
He was up on the road before any of the riders noticed his appearance. Drawing his cloak tight around his body to free his right arm, Castus unsheathed his sword.
‘Looking for somebody?’ he shouted down the road.
The riders drew closer together, readying their spears. They were mounted on small ponies: good for cross-country hacking, but no match for a trained warhorse. No time for delay now: Castus glanced back to see the first pair of his soldiers joining him on the road. Then he raised his sword and signalled the charge.
Immediately his opponents scattered in panic. Two of them had drawn bows from under their cloaks, but their aim was poor; Castus had closed half the distance when the first arrow snicked past him. Rain was in his face, the noise of the hooves loud on the wet gravel of the road. For three heartbeats he felt only the sting of the wind, the punch of blood in his head, then his charge carried him crashing between the enemy riders.
