‘Wait,’ Galerius called.
Marcus slowed to a halt and turned. ‘What?’ he demanded.
‘You can’t go through the stones.’
‘Why not? I am the son of Gnaeus Julius Agricola. I can do as I please.’
‘Not the stones; they’re unlucky,’ Galerius said as he caught up with Marcus.
Octavius followed. ‘He’s right, Marcus. Those stones are cursed. The Brigante say they are the homes of their gods.’
‘Well, their gods are no match for ours. My friends, this is exactly the sort of behaviour I am tired of chastising you for. We are the rulers here. We are the conquerors. The tribesmen are little more than animals, worshipping the trees and the earth. If I decide to walk through their holy places, then I shall. If I decide to tear them up and pave them over, then I shall. And if they protest, the legion will march out and cut them down. Look,’ he said with a sudden smile. ‘I will show you. I will prove to you that these heathen gods have no power.’
Marcus turned and ran towards the stones. His friends followed uneasily, Galerius gasping breathlessly as he tried to keep up. Once in the circle, Marcus stopped and began to walk around. He extended his arms out to either side of his body, palms up, and began to shout.
‘Here I am! Here I am, and I deny you! Gods? I think not. You are the fantasies of a barbarian race, creatures of superstitious dread. You have no substance, no power … I piss on you.’ Marcus moved over to one of the stones and started to tug at his britches. ‘I am the Lord here. I am the Master. I will hunt you down, and I will destroy you where I find you!’ Laughing, Marcus let loose a thick stream of yellow urine against the side of the stone.
Hot liquid splattered onto the moss and lichen, and dribbled down to the ground. Even in the heat of the evening, it steamed slightly. Still laughing, Marcus finished and fastened himself back up. ‘You see?’ he asked his uneasy companions, as the acrid stink of piss wafted over them. ‘There is nothing to fear here.’
‘Who are you?’ asked a melodic voice from behind Marcus. Galerius turned and ran. Octavius stood his ground, though his face was very pale. Marcus turned around with a sly smile on his face.
Stood within the circle of stones was a willowy girl with long red hair and huge green eyes. She was dressed in a flowing white dress which brushed the ground, and Marcus could see that she had no shoes or sandals on, though her feet were clean. The girl was beautiful. She had a heart-shaped face and soft white skin dusted with freckles. She wore the clothes of the tribes though, and Marcus stared at her with undisguised contempt.
‘Who am I? Who are you?’
‘I am the Maiden of Earth and Water,’ she said simply.
Octavius tugged at Marcus’s sleeve. ‘She appeared from thin air, Marcus. We should leave.’
Marcus turned on his friend. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. She stepped from behind one of the stones. That is all. You are jumping at shadows.’
‘She’s one of them, Marcus. Come on, let’s go.’
‘You go if you want. I will stay and show the peasant what a true Roman is.’ Marcus turned back to the girl. He sensed Octavius back away and then heard the thumps of the other man’s feet as he ran back towards the fort. ‘My companions are superstitious.’ He smiled without humour.
‘And you are not?’ asked the girl quietly.
Marcus scoffed. ‘Of course not. I was born in Rome, the greatest city in the world. I won’t be fooled by your trickery.’
‘Trickery?’ the girl asked with a smile of her own. ‘What trickery?’
‘Appearing from thin air …’ Marcus laughed. ‘I know that is not possible.’
‘You know a lot, young Roman.’
‘I know enough. I know that Rome is the centre of the world, and eventually all people will bow to its greatness. Rome will last forever, and I am Roman.’
‘Nothing lasts forever,’ the girl said sadly. ‘Even your arrogance must one-day crumble.’ She reached out and touched one of the stones gently. ‘This place was once a shrine to a hero of our people. He stood against a beast of great evil and he died. People came here every year to lay flowers in the circle. His deeds were legend amongst the tribes. Now the tribes are broken, and they have forgotten their heritage. And people like you can come and defile it with your words and deeds. It is a sad thing, but the magic of the land slowly dies beneath your cities and roads.’
‘That is the difference between my people and yours: Rome is eternal. It will stand until the end of time.’ The girl laughed out loud and Marcus bristled. ‘You doubt my word?’
‘You are a child. I have seen the many futures, and Rome will fall just as every other Empire has. A new Empire will rise from this very isle, an Empire that will make Rome look insignificant, and yet even that will fall in time. Nothing lasts forever.’
‘You have seen the future? So, you claim to be one of the heathen gods?’
‘I claim nothing. I am simply the Maiden of Earth and Water.’
‘You are far too ripe to be a maiden. Lay down here, and I shall pluck you and show you what a Roman man can do.’
‘What of Annaea, Marcus? You would lie with me on the eve of your wedding?’
‘How do you know of Annaea?’ he snapped, angry to be chastised.
The girl simply shrugged and then turned to walk away. She hesitated. ‘Do not come back here,’ she said over her shoulder. Anger overwhelmed Marcus.
Leaping forwards, he gripped the girl’s arm and spun her around. ‘How dare you talk to me like that! I am Marcus Aquila Romila, citizen of Rome, son of the governor. I will have you whipped.’
The girl’s green eyes flashed, and Marcus felt a frisson of power run through the hand that held her. He stepped back uncertainly, his hand dropping to his side.
‘You doubt my power,’ she said. ‘Perhaps I can prove it to you.’
‘How? You will not fool me with your cheap parlour tricks.’
‘I shall grant you a wish, though there will be a price.’
Marcus laughed, his confidence returning. ‘What could I possibly wish for? I have everything I could ever want.’ The girl simply stared at him with those disconcerting green eyes. Marcus could feel the challenge in them, and he bridled. ‘I have a wish. Rome will stand eternal and so shall I. I wish to live forever, so that I may see the Empire’s destiny for myself!’
‘Granted,’ said the girl with the green eyes. Then, to Marcus’s sudden and heart-stopping consternation, she vanished.
Thursday
Cam felt like fire was running down his throat. He choked and nearly dropped his glass. Eyes watering, he turned to the woman in front of him.
‘Jesus, are you trying to poison me, Elsa?’
The woman looked at him with a bored expression. ‘You asked for the cheapest whisky, Cam. That’s the cheapest whisky.’
‘That’s antifreeze. No, that’s an insult to antifreeze – antifreeze tastes better than that.’
‘And how would you know?’ asked another man at the bar.
Cam turned and looked down the length of his nose at the speaker. Then, not deigning to reply, he turned back to Elsa. ‘Another one, I think.’
‘Even though it tastes like antifreeze?’ Elsa asked as she poured a second shot.
‘I find that after the initial bite, antifreeze is quite an acceptable substitute for whisky. As long as you don’t mind temporary blindness.’ Cam tipped back his head and poured the second shot down his throat. He gagged for a few seconds as he wordlessly gestured for a third.
‘Why would you want to drink antifreeze?’ Elsa asked as she filled Cam’s glass with more of the cheap whisky.
‘Sometimes providence leaves me a little light in the pocket, and the blue fairy is a good way to smooth out the inebriation-to-disbursement ratio.’ He smiled his best smile.
Elsa harrumphed. ‘Well, I hope you’re not a little light tonight.’
Cam’s eyes widened with outrage. ‘Of course not,’ he said, aghast. ‘If I was goin
g to flit out on the tab, I’d be drinking the best stuff you’ve got, not this swill.’ He threw back the third shot and fought his gag reflex. ‘Jesus,’ he said after the nausea had passed, ‘I think I should go on to Guinness.’
Elsa poured him a pint. Cam paid her. Satisfied, she wandered away to serve another patron.
Taking a sip of his drink, Cam swivelled on his stool to survey the rest of the bar. The Green Man was a regular haunt for the downtrodden and world weary. The wooden floor was scuffed by the soles of a thousand staggering feet, the broad tables scarred by keys or knives, and stained with a multitude of spilled drinks. The lighting was dim and the shadows dark. Recesses in the walls provided hiding places for those drunk and wretched enough to count themselves as clientele. There was a jukebox, but nobody ever put money into it. There was a gambling machine too, but it had been broken for so long, it had become invisible. There were no pictures or posters or decorations of any type, and the brick walls were bare – not through any attempt at old world chic, but simply because there was no point in covering them.
This was a drinking man’s pub. The only woman that ever came in, apart from the occasional lost student, was Elsa. Cam risked a glance at the landlady out of the corner of his eye. Elsa was just over six feet tall and four feet across. She had arms like telephone pylons and brutal, flat features that lay host to a twice-broken nose. Cam was half-convinced she had Jötnar blood in her. Elsa didn’t bother to employ bouncers; the few idiots brave or stupid enough to tangle with Elsa usually took a trip up to Hope Hospital afterwards. ‘Brave’ and ‘stupid’ – in Cam’s opinion, the two words were synonymous with one another.
No, the Green Man was not a place to go and make friends or meet women. Nobody here enjoyed themselves. Nobody knew your name. Behind the plain bar with its grimy mirror and rows of half-full bottles, beneath the peanut-strewn floor and the stench of rarely-cleaned urinals, the Green Man provided only one thing: it was a place anybody could come and find alcohol-serrated oblivion.
Depressingly, Cam felt that he could see something of himself in the dirty, scarred bar. It was a place of helplessness and it harboured only the lost. The people that came here did not belong, but they had nowhere else to go. Around him were misfits and crazies, eccentrics and downright lunatics, all hitting the same low from a hundred different directions. Cam swivelled back and put his elbows on the sticky bar. He gazed at himself in the mirror. He fit neatly into the misfit category.
A frown wrinkled the brow of his image. Could you fit neatly into the misfit category? Christ, the cheap whisky was getting to him. He dismissed the thought and went back to staring at his mirrored self.
Long hair, which glowed with life and refused to tangle no matter how he abused it, framed a finely boned face that hadn’t an ounce of fat. High cheekbones and deep eyes gave him an otherworldly appearance, which was only intensified by the flawless alabaster skin stretched between them. His lips were full, and laughter lines creased the sides of his eyes and mouth in a way that inspired trust and warmth in those who met him. His eyes were a vivacious violet, and they sparkled no matter how poor the ambient light was. His hair fell below his shoulders like a spun gold waterfall. Cam knew, without any trace of narcissism, that he was not merely handsome. He was beautiful.
A croaking voice interrupted his reverie. ‘Maybe I should try and drink antifreeze,’ said the patron to Cam’s left. He turned and found himself staring into the bloodshot eyes of a scruffy little man. He had thinning hair and massive, uncombed moustaches that appeared to contain most of a shredded boiled egg. A waft of stale sweat and old socks came from his direction.
‘I wouldn’t,’ Cam said. ‘It’d most likely kill you.’
The man began to laugh. ‘I knew it. I knew you’d never drunk antifreeze.’ The man turned back to his drink, still giggling drunkenly to himself. Cam ignored him. He had lied, of course; he would never have to drink antifreeze simply because he was broke: he was never broke. Cam drank to escape, and occasionally he experimented. Antifreeze had tasted very nice. Almost sweet, but that could have been the pineapple juice mixer. In the end though, the stuff hadn’t really got him any drunker, so he’d gone back to tequila.
Finishing his pint, Cam ordered another and settled into the long, grim process of getting utterly and incapably drunk. He would not be happy until he could not remember who or what he was. It was going to be a long night.
Darkness reigned.
A thick blanket of angry cloud hid the moon and conspired with the driving rain to bring visibility down to a few scant feet. The December chill leeched the heat from everything, turning the city centre buildings into vague grey monoliths that reared, menacing and aloof, in the hazy glow of the street lamps: cold, oversized tombstones that promised only grim indifference. The hard patter of fat raindrops falling onto concrete and into black puddles was lost in the whisper of the wind. The gusts that swept down the dark street were not particularly powerful, but they were still quite capable of cutting through even the sturdiest of coats, to run icy hands up and down a warm body.
Sam Autumn hunched his head into the upturned collar of his sadly inadequate jacket and cursed himself once more for not bringing an umbrella. He was cold and wet. The winter’s night had sneered at his thin suit, so practical for a Thursday in the office, and proceeded to work its frigid waters through the weave and weft to brush almost tenderly against his flesh.
Another gust of Arctic air washed over him, chilling the already cold water that had soaked into his designer shirt. A violent shudder caused his teeth to clash together in an uncontrollable chatter. He pulled the suit jacket tighter around his gaunt frame and flexed his fingers in an effort to work some heat back into them.
Numbness spread up his hands, and he clutched them under his armpits in a useless attempt to warm them. It didn’t work, and his jacket fell open. Sam shivered and swore. His words were slurred. Water dripped into his eyes. When he had first gotten caught in the cloudburst, rainwater had run through his hair, washing the gel from his stylish messy cut and burning his eyes. Now that burn had vanished with the purged hair product, and he suspected that he looked like a drowned rat.
It hadn’t mattered that he had no winter coat when he’d left the pub; he had expected to quickly find a taxi to take him home. Usually Manchester was awash with them. They parked on corners, or in box junctions, or stopped to talk to each other on busy main roads. They drove with scurrilous disregard for anybody else, their unexpected U-turns and lane changes left to other road users to sort out.
Whenever Sam had to drive into town, he was always forced to avoid some careering Hackney Carriage that appeared quite out of control. Yet when he actually needed their services, there wasn’t one to be found. Cursing all taxi drivers, who he half-suspected were a secret fraternity bound to create chaos, he trudged onward in search of that magical yellow light, which would promise succour from the hateful weather … and a lift home.
Miserable and damp, Sam kept walking for a few more minutes before he realised that he was heading into Salford and in completely the wrong direction. He stood still for a second, bemused that he could have got so turned around. He was on Quay Street. He blearily remembered turning up there to see if any of the late pubs were kicking out, hoping that maybe a rank of taxis had formed to ferry the late-night revellers home, but he had been disappointed. He’d drunk far too much. Tabby would be furious with him.
Deciding that Bridge Street might be a better prospect, Sam staggered into the gloom of Gartside Street, intending to cut through Spinningfields. Stoically, he fought his way into the wind and rain, and pulled his head deeper into his collar. He barely noticed the massive hole in the street in time. For a second, he teetered on the lip of a huge, dark chasm. He wind-milled his arms furiously as he felt himself sliding into the pit. The wind at his back seemed to take a gleeful delight in pushing him further into the hole’s gaping maw, and for a terrifying moment, he thought his drunken limbs were going
to let him down. His expensive shoes slid on the damp tarmac, and Sam’s heart fluttered in despair. Then with one last wobble, he regained his balance and stepped backwards.
Roadworks. Some drunken moron had removed the barriers that had surrounded them, and Sam nearly fell in. A pizza box lay empty and sodden on the edge of the pit. He peered past it and could see the faint blue gleam of a gas main through a malevolent and muddy puddle. It was a conspiracy, he decided forlornly. Taxi drivers and the Council – those faceless bureaucrats that sat in offices and randomly redesigned the layout of the roads to include as many bus lanes and mini-roundabouts as possible – were actively seeking to make his life unbearable.
He kicked the pizza box petulantly into the hole and then carried on towards Bridge Street. The wind seemed to be laughing at him as he walked. Sam wrapped his arms around his frozen chest and kept on going.
It had all started off innocently enough with a few drinks after work. It was Thursday, after all – almost the weekend. Annalise had organised it, sashaying through the office in that low-cut blouse and tight black skirt, her long blond hair flowing behind her like a cape of liquid gold, her green eyes flashing dangerously while her lush, red lips quirked in that peculiar smile of hers. It was a smile that promised everything and delivered nothing, yet there wasn’t a man in the office who was going to say no to her. Besides, a couple of drinks after work weren’t going to hurt.
At six o’clock, Sam, Annalise, Toby the creepy office junior, and a few others (including Mr. Milton, one of the partners at Milton & Hill Solicitors where Sam worked), had all piled into a pub near the town hall. Mr. Milton bought the first round and waved off all attempts to pay him back. Twenty minutes later, Sam was listening to Toby tell him about his collection of spiders. He nodded politely while his flesh crawled at the graphic descriptions of poison, digestive juices, and fly soup. All the while, he battled an embarrassing surge of jealousy as he watched Annalise flirt with Mr. Milton.
Immortals' Requiem Page 2
