by Jane Finnis
“No. Well, no harm done. But it was close.” I found I was shaking now it was all over. We went inside and I poured us each a drink, and told her what had happened, and what Titch had said.
She nodded. “Titch isn’t the only one to have seen them before. One of them, anyway. It was a good disguise, that’s why I didn’t realise at first.”
“Disguise? What disguise? When?”
“Yesterday. The short one, dark-skinned and longish black hair, put him in a Greek tunic, give him a black beard and a medical bag….I suspect you’d end up with the famous disappearing doctor, Lykos of Cos.”
Immediately I knew she was right. “It strikes me,” I said, “this Quintus Antonius must be rather an important cousin, if people are so set on getting rid of him.”
When I got back to his room, he was sitting up and grinning all over his battered face, and when he saw me he got out of bed. “Aurelia, thank you. That was magnificent! You were quite wonderful!”
“Thanks. I just hope I’ve done the right thing.”
“You have, you truly have. Oh, when I heard you laying into them about military procedure, threatening them with a case of harassment….I could kiss you, I could really!”
And he put his arms round me and kissed me on the mouth. I didn’t see any reason to stop him.
I heard Albia’s familiar giggle at the door, and I broke away, trying to think of something suitably cool and casual to say, but when I looked, the corridor was empty. So there was nobody around to see how many more times he kissed me before he finally stood back, smiling, and said: “And now, there’s only one more thing I need to make this morning perfect.”
So he went off, whistling, to his hot bath.
Chapter IX
I organised a larger room for him, in our private wing, away from other guests. It had a sitting-room attached, with cheerful red walls and scenes of distant hillsides painted in the panels, and it had a glazed window and a door which led out onto our personal garden. “In case you feel like taking a stroll later,” I said to him.
“Or need to come and go unobserved,” he agreed. “Thanks. This will be excellent.”
The morning wore on with a series of the usual guest-house dramas. Cook was moaning that someone was stealing plums, and then he threw a real temperament because he was making sausages, and didn’t like the quality of the smoked pork that Albia and two of the maids had prepared. He maintained it had an odd smell. Albia said it was fine, and I thought so too, when I was called in to arbitrate. One of the barmaids dropped a tray of six beakers; I gave her a box on the ears, and she went crying to Albia for sympathy, which she didn’t get. Taurus reported that a garden-boy had put an axe through his foot, so now they were short-handed for harvesting vegetables. I told him to see the farm foreman Ursulus and borrow a field-hand for the day, but Ursulus said he couldn’t spare a man, and sulked when I insisted….And so on, and so on. I wonder how many of our customers realise the behind-the-scenes turmoil that’s taking place while they’re sipping their drinks and chatting up the barmaids.
Twice I went to look in on Quintus Antonius in his new quarters, but he was fast asleep on his bed. It wasn’t the feverish unrestful sleep he’d had yesterday; he was relaxed and peaceful. Albia had found him a lightweight green tunic to wear, but he’d discarded it, and lay there mother-naked. Even with all his bruises, he had a good body, well muscled, no fat on him, with powerful shoulders and arms, and legs to die for. I found myself remembering his kisses, and imagining….Yes, I know; that’s not relevant to this report.
By noon there were several mules and a couple of horses on the forecourt, and one official government raeda. I’d seen its occupants in the bar, a tax collector and his clerk stopping for food on their way to the coast. (I regretfully set aside various private schemes Albia and I had hatched, only half joking, about putting hemlock into certain guests’ drinks.) Among the native ponies tied to the railings were five sturdy animals hitched in a row, which belonged to Vitalis and his warrior lads. Last and best, there was a grey scrawny donkey, standing with its head down in that lugubrious way all donkeys have. I smiled as I recognised the beast, and the worn leather pack and bulging saddlebags it carried. It meant my favourite pedlar was inside.
He was propping up the bar, chatting to Albia, and several customers were clustered around buying him drinks. With half an eye I noticed the group of young native warrior boys sitting at the same table as yesterday, but they were keeping themselves to themselves and I didn’t pay them any real attention.
“Ulysses!” I called out. “The welcome wanderer returns! How are you?”
“Ah, Mistress Aurelia, good day!” His big smile was as genuine as ever. He wasn’t much to look at, short and weather-beaten, with hair and beard as grey as his donkey, and he was wearing the same old blue cloak with yellowish trimmings that had once been white. But he didn’t need to be a Greek sculpture. He was just—well, just Ulysses.
“Good day, and a lovely day too, even better now that you’re here! And how is my very favourite mansio lady?” He bowed and kissed my hand, a quite outrageous gesture which would have earned anyone else a caustic comment, but not old Ulysses. He was a perfume and trinket seller, originally from Syria somewhere, and though he travelled the Empire, he’d never lost his oriental charm, or his air of having had a good education, yet having deliberately chosen the simple life. He was a born rover, and he always came with a pack full of the best scents and potions this side of the Alps, and a head full of amazing stories, most of them about as factual as the Odyssey. We hadn’t seen him for six months, so we’d a treat in store.
After a couple of beakers of wine, and an account of his recent adventures, including a ludicrous but very entertaining tale about a dragon, Ulysses fetched his packs, and started laying out his wares.
“Any fancy ribbons today, ladies? Gentlemen—they would make perfect gifts for your wives. Look at these wonderful new colours, the very height of fashion in Rome, fresh in from Italia….”
The patter was professional, and the colours were beautiful; there was a glowing bright turquoise that would set off my fair hair, and I saw Albia eyeing a vivid scarlet, which would suit her dark curls.
He pulled some small clay flasks from a box where they’d been carefully packed in straw. “Or if it’s perfumes you’re after, I’ve got a wonderful rose scent, straight from the flowering gardens of Damascus….Or how about this now?” Out came some little round clay pots, their lids held in place by thin string. “A real treat for you, Mistress Aurelia. Straight off a boat from Alexandria, it is. Made from a secret recipe for the Queen of Egypt herself. A marvellous new face cream, guaranteed to banish all wrinkles and lines, and leave every lady looking like the beautiful Queen Cleopatra.”
“Ulysses, you’re treading on dangerous ground,” I warned. “Do I look as if I need a face cream to banish wrinkles and lines?”
He chuckled. “Well of course not, Mistress. Not now. And if you use this cream, I promise you never will. But if you don’t buy a little pot today, can you be certain that one fine morning years and years from now you won’t wake up and look in that pretty bronze mirror of yours, and say, ‘Oh no, I’m sure there’s a tiny wrinkle there, and how I wish I’d taken the advice of good old Ulysses?’…Who’s to say, lady? Who’s to say what the future holds? Why not take a pot just to be on the safe side?”
Albia and I and the senior maids spent a happy half-hour going through his stock, taking turns to attend to the customers when their good-natured complaints about dying of thirst became too strident. Some of the men even bought small items too, presents for their womenfolk. Several of us girls were persuaded to buy a couple of pots of the cream; then Albia bought a piece of scarlet ribbon, and I took some of the turquoise. And finally I went quite mad and bought a pair of lovely silver dress brooches with pieces of jet in them, and even some rose perfume.
Then we sat Ulysses down with more wine and some bread and cold venison, and asked him for
the news.
He sighed. “I wish I could say all is well with the world, but in truth I can’t. There’s something disturbing going on. For years I’ve been travelling this province, going all over, from the white cliffs at Dubris to the hills of Brigantia; and I’ve always felt safe, give or take the odd highway robber. Now…I don’t know, but something’s changed. I hear tales of horse raids and barns being burnt, and now these murders, and the strange messages….Well, you’ll say to me, Ulysses, there have always been small crimes—feuds between families, squabbling over tribal boundaries, that sort of thing. But now it’s different. Always it’s Romans who are the victims.”
“Yes, that’s right,” I agreed. “I wish I knew what’s causing it. We’ve always got on well with the local people.”
“The Druids are behind it,” Ulysses declared.
“The Druids are outlawed now, though,” Albia pointed out. “Not in a position to do much harm, surely?”
“That’s as may be. The politicians in Rome, they think all they have to do is announce that a religion is forbidden, and it’ll evaporate like the morning mist. But the Druid beliefs are still strong in this province. And their priests are saying their gods are angry, because the gods of Rome have become too powerful now.”
“If you ask me,” I said, “the Druid gods always seem to be angry about something. Isn’t that why they have those disgusting human sacrifices at their ceremonies? To try to appease them?”
“Yes, but this isn’t the same. The Druids have been stirring things up for some time, especially in Brigantia, prophesying that Britannia will soon be free again, and that the gods will send a sign. So when the eclipse happened two days ago, of course they made the most of it. It wasn’t a total eclipse, but very nearly. Quite spectacular. Did you see it?”
“No. It was cloudy here, and we missed it.”
He drank some more wine. “I was in Eburacum. Well, just outside it, where the soldiers’ families live. It was quite a sight.”
“Did the Druids know the eclipse was coming, then?” Albia asked.
“Oh yes, for sure. They’re knowledgeable about the skies. There are ways of working out where the sun and moon will be as they travel round the earth….I used to know about such things myself once.” He smiled, remembering. “I wasn’t always a poor pedlar, you know. When I was a young man in Damascus, I had good Roman schooling, like a fine gentleman…but I’ve forgotten most of it now, and I certainly didn’t realise there was an eclipse coming. I was actually in a tavern, just wetting my whistle, when one of the soldiers’ women ran in all excited, and called us to come outside and look because the sun was being eaten alive. So we went out, and sure enough, the sun seemed to be disappearing into a giant black disc, getting smaller and smaller like a melting piece of ice, till eventually it was nearly all hidden, with just a small part of it at the top shining brightly still. The sky went dark blue, and it got quite cold.” He shivered at the memory, and took a sip of wine.
“Weird,” I agreed. “And a bit frightening?”
He laughed. “Not to us Romans, no. I mean we all knew it was only a temporary thing, and would put itself right. It’s to do with the moon moving in front of the sun, and blocking out its light for a bit. But the natives were in a terrible state, thinking the sun was going to vanish altogether and never come back. Shouting and crying and praying, they were. What a din!”
“I can imagine.” It doesn’t take much to scare a bunch of barbarians.
Ulysses dropped his voice dramatically and we all craned forward to listen. “The natives all thought the gods had sent a huge monster to gobble up the sun. The more it gobbled, the more terrified they were, calling out to their gods for help.” He paused theatrically; the whole bar had gone silent, listening.
“Then this old Druid came out among the people, all in his white robes, and held up his hands and started praying to Taranis and the Three Mothers, saying the people would avenge the old gods and destroy their enemies, if only they’d have mercy and not take away the sunlight. He didn’t actually say drive out the Romans, but it was clear enough. And, what a surprise, slowly, slowly, the sun came out from behind the moon, and everyone let out a great cheer. Even the Romans. Even me! I couldn’t help myself. Soon the sun was whole again, and the old Druid stood there, taking all the credit for having rescued it, and saying to the people, ‘You all know what’s required of you. Take heed of this sign from the gods.’ Sign from the gods, indeed! Makes you laugh, doesn’t it?” But he wasn’t laughing, and neither was I.
“It could have been a sign from the gods,” Vitalis spoke up from his corner. “The gods could make an eclipse happen, couldn’t they?”
“Well, yes, they could.” Ulysses turned to face the five young warriors at their table. “In fact I suppose they do, but not just when they feel like it. The patterns of the sun and moon are fixed, and come round again and again every few years. Can the gods know, years in advance, that they are going to be angry on such-and-such a day, and will need an eclipse to give a sign to mortal men? Well, yes, before you say it,” he waved a hand to stop Vitalis interrupting, “perhaps the immortals do know the future, and they did predict that they were going to be angry about the Roman conquest. But if they knew about all these happenings long ago, why couldn’t they have done something to stop the Romans conquering Britannia in the first place?” He smiled triumphantly and drained his beaker.
It got a big laugh from everyone, except the young warriors, who sat glowering in their corner, muttering among themselves.
We passed round more drinks, and the bar became noisy again. “You gave those warrior lads one in the eye,” I said to Ulysses. “Take care you don’t cross their path on a dark night. They didn’t look too pleased.”
“I should hope I can speak my mind without worrying about a few foolish boys,” he answered. “Mostly I don’t mind what religion a man follows, but I don’t care for Druids. They’d trick the hair off your head if they thought it would do them any good.”
“More like the head off your shoulders,” I joked.
“That too, yes.” Ulysses looked at me seriously. “I knew a Syrian boy once in the far west of Britannia, by the ocean. Well, a man I should say. He’d been a soldier and got his discharge, and bought a small farm, just a few cows and a field or two, and he worked hard, and married a lovely girl, and started dreaming about raising a family. But the Druids in those parts told him his bit of land used to be one of their holy shrines, there was a spring and some oaks, and you know how they are about oak trees. They threatened the boy that he’d be killed if he didn’t leave, but he wouldn’t budge, and he bought a couple of strong field-hands for extra protection. So then the Druids apologised to him and said they didn’t want to take away his living, but their tribesmen were upset at the holy place being used for a farm, and they promised if he’d move out peacefully, they’d give him a bigger and better patch of land a few miles away.”
Again his voice had dropped, and the whole bar-room was listening. “Well his wife was a local girl, related to half the families around, and he didn’t want a feud on his hands, so eventually he agreed, and he and his slaves and his girl and the cows set off for the new farm. But they never got there. They were ambushed on the road, and all killed.”
There was a collective sigh, almost a moan. Suddenly the air felt chilly.
“Surely Druids aren’t all like that?” Albia asked. “I thought they were scholars, and even healers.”
“Well.” Ulysses considered it. “To be fair, I have met a few Druids who are truly wise, and have the gift of healing too. But most of them are evil men who care more for their own power than anything else.”
He stayed for one more beaker of wine and then went on his way. As he left I was surprised to see Junius standing near the door; he’d been listening to Ulysses too. Albia got him some wine, and said, “Have you given up hunting for today?”
He nodded. “The trackers were worse than ever. If you believe what th
ey say, there isn’t an animal worth hunting for ten miles in any direction. I wish I knew what’s got into them! Perhaps the pedlar is right, the Druids are making them jumpy. Anyhow there was no point wasting more time. Marius is going off somewhere with his latest boy.” He smiled at Albia. “I’ll have to think of some other way to pass the afternoon. Do you ever get any time off, or does Aurelia keep you working all day and all night?”
“She’s a real slave-driver,” Albia smiled back. “But I might manage an hour or two.”
“Good!” He turned to me. “But first…I say, Aurelia, could I have a quick word in private?”
“Why, yes, of course.” I took him to my study. “What’s up, Junius? Something wrong? I mean apart from the hunting?”
“No, nothing at all. But I’ve been trying to get a chance to talk to you on your own. I’ve a message from your brother Lucius, but he said to keep it discreet. About your Aunt Julia. Her birthday’s coming up soon, apparently.”
I must have looked completely thunderstruck, because he asked uncertainly, “Doesn’t that make sense to you?”
“Is this the same Aunt Julia who’s set her heart on an elephant?”
“That’s the one!” He smiled, relieved. “So Lucius did write to you. He said he would, but I didn’t know if the letter had got here.”
“Well if that doesn’t beat everything! Welcome, Cousin Junius. Welcome indeed! As you’ve seen for yourself, we’ve got troubles here, and we need all the help we can get.”
“That’s why I thought I’d better make contact,” he answered. “But you’ll keep all this to yourself, won’t you?”
“Of course. Except you don’t mind if I tell Albia—or perhaps you’ve done that already?”
