The Burning Stone

by Jack Whyte

  The silence that followed that utterance was profound. For long moments it lingered, those final five syllables seeming to hang in the air. Somewhere within that strangely artificial silence, Lydia found herself understanding the true enormity of what her rescuer had said. For the first time, she fully understood that four men who had been alive that morning were now forever dead, and that Quintus Varrus had killed all of them. And in a flash of memory she recalled her father, who had been a soldier in his youth, telling one of his friends earnestly that he had never taken a man’s life and doubted that he ever could, no matter what the provocation.

  And she knew, with an absolute certainty that came from beyond her own knowledge, that the single most important man in all Londinium at that moment was the young Roman, Quintus Varrus.

  “You killed them?” Aidan said. “By yourself? Four men?”

  “Of course he did, you idiot!” she snarled, suddenly furious with her eldest brother, to whom she had never before said an angry word. “Had he not, none of us would be here now. He and I would both be lying dead in a dung-stinking goat pen, and you four would be running around bleating like lost lambs, trying to find me.”

  She found a fleeting satisfaction in seeing the stupefaction on the faces of her brothers, none of whom had ever heard her sound so scathing. “You doubt my word, or his? D’you think I would lie about a thing like this? Yes, he killed them. Four of them. One at a time. All by himself. With a sword. And now they’re all dead, and we are alive.”

  She swung to face Varrus now, who was looking at her with a peculiar, musing expression on his face. “Well?” she demanded. “What have you to say? What do we do now?”

  He raised his eyebrows at that, and then shrugged. “I would suggest you all go home. All except you, Shamus. I’ll need you to come with me.”

  “And where are you going?” She knew even as she asked that the question was impertinent, but it was out and she could not retract it.

  He looked at her and his mouth quirked into an almost-smile. “I am going walking, with your brother Shamus, who is well known to Nerva. We are going to walk briskly in the direction of the praesidium in the garrison headquarters, and we are going to make sure that we pass close by the decanus and his patrol on our way there. Needless to say, we won’t be going into the fortress, but Nerva will have no way of knowing that and I hope to convince him that we might be going to visit his commanding legate, to complain about his conduct. That should keep him concerned enough to be very careful about how he behaves and what he says for the remainder of the day. And when we have finished, Shamus will bring me back to join the rest of you at your father’s smithy.”

  Lydia was almost squinting at him, so intently was she trying to see through what she thought to be his false equanimity.

  “Do you know where my father’s smithy is?”

  His smile grew slightly wider, infuriating her even as she accepted that she had no reason to be angry with him. “No,” he drawled, “but I’m sure Shamus does.”

  He was mocking her, she knew, though he was being gentle and her brothers had no inkling of his raillery, and suddenly all the fight went out of her. “So be it,” she said, sounding thoroughly subdued. “I’ll warn my father that you’re coming and tell him what you did for us this morning. And you will dine with us tonight, so make no other plans.” She turned to Shamus, who had been looking from one to the other of them. “You look after him, for we are all in his debt—not just me—and bring him home with you as soon as you can.”

  EIGHT

  Shamus fell into step beside the strange fellow. He was curious about him, and eager to question him, but his more taciturn elder brothers had taught him long since that betraying ignorance was a sign of weakness, be it in trading, in dealing with strangers, or in life generally, and so he strode beside the Roman in silence. He felt abashed—and he could feel the truth of this in the speed of his heartbeat—to be walking as an apparent equal with such a well-dressed and obviously important personage, when it must be obvious to anyone who looked at them that they were far from being equals.

  On the other hand, his stubborn Celtic pride would not permit him to yield place to the other man by as much as a single step. And he remembered his father saying, years earlier, that no one could gauge the true worth of a man by the quality of his clothes. And so he matched the Roman stride for stride, noticing the man’s limp.

  They reached the bottom of the hill where the road split to enter the marketplace in two different directions, and the Roman stopped at the fork and looked to the right. “What’s up there?”

  “Women’s market,” Shamus said. “Fresh farm stuff mainly, then women’s stuff beyond that.”

  “Then we go the other way. Vegetables and women’s clothes don’t need patrols to safeguard them. We’ll go to the left. That’s where the garrison headquarters is. We want to have that idiot Nerva see us passing by together, heading for the praesidium. Nothing like the fear of being noticed by his legate to put a guilty-minded decanus off his food.”

  Shamus could only nod his head, finding nothing to say that would make sense, since he knew nothing of armies or military custom.

  “Good,” Varrus said, though Shamus had no idea what he meant. “Then give me a little time to buy one of those cloaks over there, and we’ll go and find him.” He had pointed to a nearby booth selling used clothing, and when he saw the blank look of surprise on Shamus’s face he swept his hand downwards, indicating his startlingly white robe. “Don’t you think I look slightly unfitted to pass unnoticed through a crowd? Give me a moment, that’s all I’ll need.”

  Shamus watched him sort quickly through a rack of garments until he found a dark, nondescript ankle-length cloak of heavy, waxed wool, made in the style of the ancient military cloak called the sagum. Varrus threw it over his shoulders to check it for length, and once sure that it reached his ankles, he paid the merchant his asking price without demur, leaving the fellow standing open-mouthed as he covered his magnificent white robe with the plain, well-worn woollen garment.

  A short time later, having overtaken the patrol without being noticed, the two young men stood side by side, looking for a suitable spot where they could allow themselves to be seen by Nerva.

  “Why don’t we wait outside the fort?” Shamus was working hard to appear unconcerned as he stood watching the approaching soldiers, and Varrus glanced at him sideways.

  “Where outside the fort?” he asked.

  “By the gates. Then we can be sure they’ll see us going in as they arrive.”

  Varrus cocked his head. “That’s exactly why we can’t do it,” he said, and Shamus blinked at him. “We can’t do that because then we would be inside,” Varrus said. “And I have no intention of entering that place.”

  “Why not? You’re a Roman citizen.”

  “Aye, I am. A Roman citizen who long ago lost any false notions he might have had about the probity and dignitas of official, imperial Rome. I want Nerva to see us going in that direction and to draw his own conclusions from that, but I have no wish to go in there. We’ll need to intercept him sooner, and some distance from here, so let’s be about it.”

  Not long after that, from a window in a street-side tavern, they watched Nerva’s patrol approach, then break into a double-paced trot and change smoothly into confrontation mode when a street brawl suddenly broke out among a gang of half a dozen ruffians some distance ahead of them. There was little chance that the disturbance would result in arrest or incarceration, for Nerva’s squad was too close to the end of its tour to want to incur extra duty time or inconvenience through arresting mere nuisances. They would dispense rough punishment in situ. At any rate, the size of the purse Varrus had handed to the leader of the brawlers was large enough to compensate them for their time and trouble.

  As the squad members set about breaking up the squabble, restraining the participants and restoring order, Varrus removed his drab cloak and handed it to Shamus.

  �
��Carry that over your arm, will you? If I pass by him carrying it, he’ll wonder why I have it. Now, move when I do, and once we’ve started walking keep moving and don’t even glance in his direction. Let’s go.”

  He stepped out boldly, almost swaggering as he went, and together they passed within paces of Nerva and his guards, paying little attention to the scene other than a casual glance, and passing Nerva himself without a flicker of recognition. Shamus was watching for Nerva’s reaction and saw the decanus freeze the moment he set eyes on the white-clad apparition with the golden hair passing almost within arm’s reach of him. Shamus kept pace beside Varrus, knowing that Nerva’s hands were full and he could do nothing to deter the pair of them from heading resolutely in the direction of the garrison commander’s quarters.

  They walked straight into the open, cobbled space in front of the fort’s main entranceway, and when they knew Nerva could no longer see them, veered left until they reached the high city wall that continued directly from the fort’s southwestern corner. It was pierced there by an open postern gate. The entry was broad, perhaps three strides in width, and the approximate height of a man standing on the platform of a heavy dray. Varrus noticed that it was unguarded, enabling traffic to pass freely into and out of the town.

  “What’s through there?” he asked, pointing at the postern with his thumb.

  Shamus looked at him sharply. “Don’t you know?” His suspicions about this fellow and his sister instantly renewed, his voice emerged heavy with distrust and dislike, but the other did not appear to notice.

  “How would I know?” he said reasonably. “I don’t even know where we are now. Well, I do, I suppose, since we’re outside the fort, but I’ve never been up here before. My lodgings are down by the riverside, and until today I’ve had no cause to venture beyond there and the marketplace.”

  “And how long have you known our Lydia?”

  The Roman seemed oblivious to the menacing tone of the question, for he did no more than shrug one shoulder. “Since this morning,” he said. “I’d seen her before, several times, and I knew who she was, but we had never met and I doubt that she had ever noticed me. I saw her again in the market this morning, and then I saw her start to run, and saw the men who started after her. I didn’t like the look of them and so I followed. Caught up with them eventually, and stopped them before they could harm her. When it was all over, I brought her back to the market, where you found her.”

  “Did you hurt yourself in that chase?”

  “No. Why?”

  “You’re limping. You try to hide it, but you’re injured.”

  Now the Roman’s obviously genuine smile made Shamus frown again, though this time in confusion. “Ah,” Varrus said. “No, I’m perfectly well. I was born with a twisted leg, that’s all.” He shrugged. “So, where’s your smithy from here?”

  “You really don’t know?”

  “I really don’t know,” Varrus said.

  “Through there,” Shamus said, pointing at the postern gate. “On the other side.”

  “Outside the city, you mean?”

  “Aye, but not far. Just on the other side, almost against the walls of the fort.”

  “That close? Why didn’t you say so before?”

  Shamus looked at him wide-eyed. “I thought you knew where you were going.”

  “No, Shamus, I thought you were leading me home to your father’s smithy. That’s what Lydia told you to do.”

  “And that’s what I’ve done, isn’t it?”

  The Roman paused for a moment. “I suppose it is. But you made it look difficult and it seems to me I did most of the leading,” he added with a grin. “Let’s go, then.”

  They passed through the gate side by side, and as soon as they emerged from the shadowed gateway, Varrus stopped to look around. The great wall at their backs now towered above them like a mountain cliff. A two-cart road ran along the foot of it, weeds thrusting up between the cobblestones. In both directions, he saw a number of stone buildings parallel to the wall, some of them appearing abandoned and two that had collapsed completely. Several others, though, looked substantial and strong, well kept and evidently lived in. His gaze was drawn towards the middle distance where a large body of water reflected the light of the afternoon sun into his eyes.

  “Is that a river? I thought the Thamis was Londinium’s only river.”

  “It is,” Shamus said. “That one’s more like a broad stream. It’s called the Fleyt and it runs into the Thamis on the far side of the walls.”

  Varrus angled his body to look back to his right again. “And who lives over there, in the big place beside the wall?”

  “We do. The long brick wall there is the left side of our smithy. The other part, stretching off towards the town wall, that’s the wall of our house.”

  Varrus was frowning. “Why would your father build there, outside the town walls?”

  “It’s safer, for one thing,” Shamus said. “When there’s trouble inside the gates and they turn out the garrison, you’d rather be out here than in there, believe me. It doesn’t often happen, but when it does, it’s usually bad. Besides, it’s less crowded this side of the wall, and we’re close to our most reliable customers—the quartermaster’s office is just the other side of the wall, and the farmers who supply the city market are mostly along the Fleyt. But my father didn’t build the place, he bought it, because it had belonged to a cooper and already had a forge of sorts.”

  “And when was that?”

  “Oh, it was a long time ago—sixteen or seventeen years. I was too little to remember.”

  “And your family was living in Britain before then?”

  “Aye.”

  “Here, in Londinium?”

  “Aye.”

  “So you’ve lived here all your life.”

  “Aye, but not a-purpose. We’re Eirish. Father came here to work, is all.”

  “And someday you’ll go home to Eire. Is that what you mean?”

  “Aye. Someday.”

  “And will your father be at the smithy now?”

  “He would be, on a normal day,” Shamus answered, “but today’s not normal, is it? He’s probably at the house, waiting for us to get back.”

  “Then let’s go and join him.”

  The younger Mcuil almost grinned. “Are you sure you want to do that? The old man can be wicked when he’s angered.”

  Varrus looked again at the smith’s premises and then turned back. “And you think he’ll be angry at me?”

  The other shrugged.

  “Really?” Varrus persisted. “For saving his daughter’s life?”

  The Eirishman’s eyes flickered up and down the Roman’s white-clad frame. “You don’t look like the kind of man he likes to see around his daughter,” he said quietly.

  Quintus Varrus dipped his right shoulder in a gesture with which Shamus Mcuil was already becoming familiar. “That might have been true before this day,” he said. “Now, though, I think things might be different. Let’s find out.”

  * * *

  —

  The Mcuil family’s premises turned out to be far larger than Quintus Varrus had thought at first glance, for that first glance had been from the rear, and from behind one corner of the buildings, at a distance upwards of a hundred paces. He began to walk along the lane beside the high, blank, windowless wall Shamus had said was the side of the house, and he counted ninety paces before he reached the end of the lane where it met the street that fronted the buildings. Seeing now the spotless whitewashed wall that separated the house from the street, he felt a twinge of guilt for having expected less than he found. In truth, the Mcuil place was more of a villa than a mere house.

  The front wall, he judged, was some seventy paces in length and almost twice his own height, and had a decorative arched and roofed gate set into it that would be, he thought, sufficient to accommodate any vehicle that might seek entry. Twin buildings flanked this ornate gate tower, each single-storeyed and with peak
ed, red-tiled roofs. The gates themselves hung from massive iron hinges and were made of hand-span-thick balks of solid, blackened oak and topped with a row of sharpened iron spikes. The Mcuil smithy, a lean-to structure at one end of this front wall, was freshly whitewashed, a dazzling, almost bluish white, with one large, shuttered window high up. Its roof too was red-tiled, and at the end of the wall with the window was a working gate, also whitewashed, giving access to the smithy yard. It was unadorned and wide enough to admit a large wagon drawn by a team of horses.

  What attracted his attention most, though, was the roar of fast-flowing water, and he moved forward to where he could see down into a stone-walled channel at the end of the Mcuil property. Varrus gauged its width as perhaps six paces at the top, and its sides were lined with the same stone that had been used to build the fortress. The water that it channelled roared down at a prodigious rate, spuming high where it dashed against a rounded corner and was flung sideways, disappearing to the right some fifty paces from where he stood. Quintus pointed. “Farther down there, just around that corner, this drives your father’s waterwheel. Am I correct?”

  “How did you know that?” Shamus made no attempt to hide his surprise.

  “Because your father is a smith and has four sons who work with him. That means a big smithy, and that would need at least one large bellows. And the best and biggest bellows are always water-driven. I know because my best friend was an apprentice smith, almost fully trained, and he had a water-driven bellows where he worked. That’s probably why your father bought this place.”

  “That’s right,” Shamus said. “Our Aidan says Da nearly choked when he saw what was here.” He nodded towards where the churning mill race vanished around the corner. “That ditch runs all the way round three sides of the place before it runs off to the Fleyt River. So by the time the water hits the waterwheel it’s strong enough to spin the thing without effort. Nobody’s ever been able to beat that rushing water. Not even us lads, and many’s the time we near died tryin’.”