I glanced up and down as if checking that nobody was overhearing. Two cells up, Hermina was standing, obviously listening. Philippus, in the further cell, sat looking unconcerned, but the side of his head turned in my direction.
‘Somna threatened me again, pushing me about Apollodorus. I don’t know. I really don’t. Then Conradus, I mean, the legate, clambers onto my case, insinuating my loyalties were split.’
‘Aren’t they?’ Livius asked. ‘I mean, we’re chasing a known criminal who’s a traitor. Case proven.’
‘No, it’s not. But I was as shocked as anybody at the accusation. I can’t believe he’s crossed us like this.’ I hung my head down. ‘It’s become personal with Conradus.’
‘Has he any reason to think it’s justified?’ asked Paula.
‘None of your business, or his!’
‘I see,’ said Paula. She looked like a mother whose kid had a term report with straight Ds.
‘If I could find Apollodorus and talk to him—’
‘Fat chance,’ said Livius. ‘But I’m sure they’ll arrange to put you side by side cells when they catch him.’
‘Go away, Paula. I can’t think. And take this idiot with you.’
‘Pulcheria?’
Hermina.
‘I know that’s not your name, but I can’t think of you as anything else.’
‘What?’
‘Thank you for arranging the lawyers.’
I twisted around, grasped the bars and knelt up on the cell bench. ‘It’s the least I could do. You didn’t deserve this.’
‘I don’t understand why we’re here. I thought we’d helped. Now they think we’re part of the conspiracy.’
‘Don’t I know it!’
‘So what happens next?’ Philippus.
‘Me, I catch a court martial. If they prove I’m more involved than I said or that I’m protecting Apollodorus, probably twenty years in the central military prison. If I were you two, and you truly don’t have a clue where he is, I’d make a full statement. The lawyers will get you off.’ I paused. ‘You don’t have an idea, do you?’
Philippus looked up at the CCTV camera, shrugged. ‘No, not a clue, but I wasn’t giving them the satisfaction.’
I gave a short laugh. He grinned back.
‘Hermi, is there anything you can think of that might help?’
‘Nothing. I find it impossible to think of Apollodorus betraying us like this. He had so much to gain with you, I mean, them being in his debt.’ She shook her head.
I believed them both. Would Somna?
Around half an hour later, Hermina and Philippus were taken away, hopefully on their way out of here. I reckoned three hours passed – they’d confiscated my watch in the custody suite – when the guards shoved a bowl of soup through the door slot, slopping half of it on the floor. I didn’t touch it. Juno knew what they’d put in it. Traitors, even suspected traitors, had a rough ride. I remember Robbia seven years ago when she appeared at her hearing: pale, subdued and nervous. And she’d been a confident and sassy officer before her arrest for treason. I’d wait for the official rescue party.
But it wasn’t until early next morning after a tense night that Longina came and fetched me. She looked embarrassed and twitched while my cell door was unlocked.
‘I’m so sorry you were left here. Please believe it was a mistake. The colonel will be furious. I wouldn’t care to be the overnight shift leader when she gets hold of him.’
‘A mistake? How can it be a mistake? Do you realise I’ve eaten nothing since breakfast yesterday?’
‘Why didn’t you ask for something?’
‘Ever been a prisoner where the guards think you’re a traitor?’
She stared at me, not understanding.
‘I didn’t think so.’
She signed my release and stayed with me while I changed. The same custody sergeant was back on duty. I apologised for my behaviour, explaining I had to make it realistic so the bait would be taken. He didn’t change his dour expression.
I insisted on getting fresh clothes, showering and eating a full breakfast. Longina sat with me in the mess hall, and I saw she was shocked by some of the hostile looks.
Somna had gone to a round-up meeting so Longina showed me Hermina’s and Philippus’s statements. As predicted, they’d been released conditionally, pending formal discharge.
I’d done some hard thinking last night about my own future. No formal charges had been brought, and the disciplinary hearing might yet clear me. I’d helped Somna unblock the logjam with Hermina and Philippus, so I guessed that counted in my favour.
Despite his concern, Conrad had retreated into formal and official, Sella regarded me as an unstable maverick, and I’d lost Daniel’s friendship. Lucius and Somna would support me, but they were part of the system. I wasn’t sure I could see a way back from where I was. Maybe I’d talk it through with Conrad. He couldn’t refuse me as my commanding officer. But I came to the conclusion I was on my way out.
Lucius buzzed me later that morning, but when I reported to his office the only person sitting at the desk was Conrad.
‘Well done for encouraging those two to talk. You’re quite remarkable when you operate.’
‘I’d prefer a less hostile environment another time.’
Somna had messaged me with her thanks, regretting the “unfortunate misunderstanding” about not extracting me earlier.
‘I’ve just sent a circular out so you shouldn’t get any further trouble. I think I’ll be able to persuade the senior legate to relax her attitude now after what you did at Apollodorus’s house as well as unjamming the interviews. It’s obvious where you stand.’
Although he wasn’t to blame for my CB order, he looked contrite.
‘I had a lot of time to think last night in my cell,’ I said. I couldn’t look directly at him. I didn’t know if it was embarrassment or apathy underneath, but I’d lost my ability to be bothered about anything. ‘I don’t think I’m following the same road as everybody else. I know I produce results, but it’s not enough. I want you to accept my resignation.’
He looked appalled. ‘No.’
I sighed. ‘You can’t refuse. I feel so wrong here, as if something’s broken.’ I looked at him. ‘You have to let me go.’
After I wrote and delivered my resignation letter by hand, copied to Lucius the adjutant I cleared my locker, messaged my comrades, posted a drinks date two weeks later for my ART, if they wanted to come, and left. I felt depressed, alienated. I wasn’t glad or sorry about leaving – just numb.
XXXIX
I went home and slept for a full ten hours. The next day, I moped around the house, grumping at everybody. By mid-afternoon, I’d made the children cry, quarrelled with Helena, and infuriated my grandmother. I retreated to the atrium to sulk to myself.
‘I want a word with you, my girl.’
I looked up at my grandmother but didn’t say anything.
‘I don’t know what’s going on, but I won’t have you flouncing around here like a brat having a tantrum.’
I shrugged and looked down at my magazine. I knew it was rude, but I couldn’t be bothered to apologise. The next minute, the magazine was across the other side of the room and my face was stinging.
‘Nonna.’ I gasped and struggled up.
‘Sit down.’
She looked like the Furies on a bad day. With hangovers. I shrank back into my seat.
‘Now tell me.’
‘I’ve resigned. I don’t belong there.’ I gave her the short version.
‘So you made a mistake and ran away. I thought you had more backbone.’
I looked down at the marble floor.
She snorted. ‘What about your promise to Lurio? To bring Apollodorus down?’
‘He won’t expect me to go hunting now. I’ll tell him what I suspect. He’ll take it from there.’
‘So you’re going to complete your self-misery by letting down your oldest colleague and turning your ba
ck on a challenge you’re perfectly capable of dealing with because you can’t face the fact that you made a mistake?’ She raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘Juno grant me strength!’
She took both my hands in hers. ‘If you don’t do this, you will never be able to look inside yourself and like what you see. You made a mistake. You think it’s the end of the world. Believe me, it’s happened before. I’ve made some horrendous foul-ups in my time, so I know.’
She gave my hands a little shake and me a little smile.
‘The way to work through it is to recognise your mistake and swallow the embarrassment. Be honest, catch your breath, and pick yourself up. Then you have to get on and do something about it.’
She fixed me with a steady, uncompromising look. After a few moments, she let my hands fall, went over to the drinks table and poured out one small and one standard measure of her French brandy.
‘Here.’ She handed me the small one. ‘You may be driving later and you don’t want to be picked up for drunk-driving.’
I called Lurio and asked if he could let me have a small item.
‘I’ll call by with it in about an hour.’
As I sprayed the mouse-brown dye into my hair, I wondered what in Hades I was doing. Inserting the contacts to dull my eyes to grey, I blinked back excess liquid, not sure it was tears or saline solution. By the time I was pulling on old jeans and a threadbare top, I was resigned to it. Closing my apartment door and walking into the atrium in worn sneakers and carrying a thin cotton jacket and canvas backpack, I was as ready as I could hope to be.
Lurio’s bulky figure sitting on the couch was bent in conversation with my grandmother. He rose as soon as he saw me and strapped the ID I’d asked for onto my outstretched wrist.
‘Got your knives?’
I nodded.
‘Got your head together?’
The nod was briefer.
‘Come on, then.’
I had him drop me at a shuttle stop on the city south-east periphery.
‘Sure you don’t want to go to the car rental or the interrail terminus?’
‘No, this is fine. And no, I’m not telling you where I’m going. But thanks for the ID.’ I leaned over and kissed his cheek, then pulled myself out of the car as if I carried twice my own weight and trudged down the steps into the dark tunnel.
I spent a few moments in the restroom picking the back off the ID and removing the tracker chip. I smiled as I flushed it down the pan, a journey which would give Lurio a few minutes’ grief. The train south left in ten minutes, and I hung around behind the luggage carts until the door warning sounded. I jumped on, catching a frown from the guard. She checked my ticket there and then. I shrugged and plunked myself down on a spare seat next to a suit. I stepped off at each of the next two stops, walking a few cars further up or down the platform each time, turning my coat inside out and putting my hair up or loosening it. I couldn’t see anybody following. Nobody paid any attention: they just wanted to get home after work.
I finally quit the train at Castra Lucilla. Although we came here every summer and in between, I’d never been to the train station: we always travelled in Aurelia’s Mercedes. I checked the town map for the nearest mansio. Only three streets away. After grey soup and roll in the dining room, I found my place in a four-bed room, tied my shoes together to one of the legs at the head of the bed, pulled the cover over my fully-clothed body and went to sleep.
I was first in line at the door of the employment centre at eight next morning. I registered for casual outdoor work, specialism horticulture, knowing that at this time of year estate labour would be pressured by olive and grape harvesting. And the Mitela home farm was the largest one around. The steward ran it efficiently with a lean team, calling on casuals twice a year during harvest and pruning to take over the routine stuff and free up the more skilled permanent staff.
Sure enough, I was called forward and told to assemble for a transport that would take us up there. We passed the shaded plane-treed drive I knew well and bumped up the service entrance. As soon as the truck stopped, we were told to hurry up and climb out. A farm assistant I didn’t know allocated us each a dormitory bed. After a plain lunch in the farm hall, we collected coveralls, gloves, tools and task sheets.
Next day, I asked if I could work in the gardens as I had experience. The assistant looked over her glasses for a moment, but agreed and gave me the herb garden which looked straggly at this time of the year, all six metres of it. I forgot just how boring weeding was, but the upside was that I was getting nearer to my goal. I didn’t want my quarry to hear the whisper of a hint I was anywhere near him. I wanted him to feel totally secure.
I graduated to the main driveway the next day, strimming the edges and weeding the bases of the trees. Near the main gate, I stopped and leaned back to ease my shoulder. I glanced across the fields on the other side of the road to give my eyes a break. Then I saw the skinny figure loping from one of the privately let farm cottages towards a utility. He pulled himself into the cab and drove off. It trundled along parallel to the main road, raising little dust whorls behind each wheel. As it made a right turn, it came towards me, and I was sure then.
After the evening meal, I checked I’d left the shower block far window catch open. I glanced at the group of smokers outside the accommodation and made a walking sign to them. I blinked at one off-colour reply, but carried on towards the back of the farm. Dusk came down fast and with it a new moon. I double-backed to the main road perimeter. I knew exactly where the thinnest part of the hedge was and pushed out with minimum tearing to my jacket. I darted over the road and crouched in the ditch for a few minutes checking nobody was following.
The fields were open with a few shrubs scattered along the boundaries. I crouched behind the cover provided by hedges, resorting to crawling along the open ground between them by pulling myself along by my elbows. As I edged up the side of the track, I saw lights shining through the window of one cottage. Built nearly two hundred years ago for older, often poorer, cousins who had lost the ability to make enough to support themselves, only two were occupied now by Mitelae; the others were rented out to city people.
I reached the hedge twenty metres from the cottage, fished out my pocket field glasses and scanned to see if I could see anyone. I zoomed in on the windows, pushing the digital focus to maximum. At that moment, the window was flung open. I stabbed the auto button which fired off a series of shots from the built-in camera and threw myself back on the earth. I heard the squeak of the wooden shutters as they were swung shut and the metal hasp rammed home into the internal catch. The sound was repeated several times before it became quiet again. But I had glimpsed the ratty little face as it turned in profile to talk to another person in the room.
Justus.
XL
I was trimming shrubs at the far side of the villa next afternoon when I heard a car stereo blasting away in the distance. It gained in level relentlessly. I heard, but couldn’t see, a car racing up the drive, passengers bawling their heads off to the music. The brakes screeched, no doubt depositing rubber on the driveway that one of us would have to clean off. The music cut with the engine, followed by laughing and shouting. Sounded like three, no four voices. I heard car doors slam, the steward’s calm voice, then silence.
I wheeled the barrow full of green clippings back to the composting bin in the yard, hoping that the arrival of this noisy weekend party, undoubtedly some of the younger Mitelae, wouldn’t interfere with what I had planned. Thinking about it, they could be a great diversion, keeping the steward’s team too busy to follow what a casual outdoor worker was up to.
My backpack had been upended, my pathetic collection of tees on the floor with boot marks, my notebook torn, the plastic baggie with my wash kit split open, the contents scattered over the bed. The sponge was making an increasing wet patch in the centre. Two women at the far end of the dormitory stopped talking as I started gathering things back together. I sensed more people circlin
g around. I glanced up, but said nothing as I repacked my things.
‘Oh, dear. Had an accident? That’s what happens when you keep to yourself.’ A coarse face, framed by long black and grey hair tied back with an elastic tie, topped a broad unforgiving figure. ‘We too good for you, ay?’
‘She goes off on little walks by herself in the evening, spying on the rest of us having a good time.’
Another, younger version said, ‘Look what I found.’
My field glasses. I held my hand out. ‘Give them back, please.’
‘Oooh! “Please”. Little Miss Suck-Arse who bags garden duty while the rest of us are scrubbing in the fields.’ She smirked at me, revealing gapped, stained teeth under mean little eyes. ‘Come and get them.’
I reached her in two strides, kicked her fat stomach, winding her, grabbed the field glasses as she fell, and whirled round to face the older one. She had a knife in her hand. I threw my glasses on my bed, praying nobody else would feel tempted. My knives were too safely hidden inside the mattress. I shucked off my jacket, held it in my left hand, ready to use it like a retarius net. We circled. My opponent’s breathing shortened. She tried a few jabs and slashes, but I dodged them easily: she moved too slowly.
Time for a lesson. I flicked my left wrist and my coat shot out, slapping across her face. She lunged towards me, I shot my leg out, and she went over, landing hard. The knife skittered away. Her younger friend had recovered enough to rush me from the other side. I jabbed my right elbow into her face with the whole force of my upper body. The crunch of breaking bone was easy to hear in the silence surrounding us. She collapsed on the floor, clutching a bleeding nose.
The older one grabbed my ankle, pulled me over, but I rolled as I fell, tearing my leg out of her reach. I was on my feet in seconds. Crouching. Waiting. She pushed herself up, put her hand out toward the audience, fingers commanding somebody give a fresh weapon, but they shrank back. Breathing heavily, she lunged at me, a good eighty-five kilos of solid flesh, mouth wide open and roaring. As she bent her head to bite, I jumped sideways, thrust my covered arm into her jaws and brought the edge of my right hand down in a hard jab on the back of her bent neck. She stopped dead, her eyes rolled up, and she fell, unconscious, slumped in a heap.
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