The Burning Stone

by Jack Whyte

  Varrus nodded. “It is.”

  “Hmm. Then I’m surprised you would ever lose sight of that, even for a moment. So would you tell me, if it pleases you, how a bright young fellow like yourself would hope to keep himself unnoticed in a place like this—a provincial capital that’s swarming with Roman officers and magistrates—by declaring himself to be about the personal affairs of the Emperor?”

  Varrus stared unblinkingly at the older man, then dipped his head infinitesimally to one side in a tiny gesture that managed to convey self-disparagement. “It doesn’t appear to have been too clever, does it? But it was the best course of action I could think of at the time—part spur-of-the-moment impulse, part calculated risk.”

  “That makes no sense.”

  “It makes sense to me.”

  “Then explain it to me.”

  Quintus Varrus took a long, slow pull of the fine dark ale. He swallowed, then smacked his lips. “Are none of your sons married, sir?”

  The big man frowned, perplexed. “Why would you ask such a thing? What has it—?” He calmed himself. “They’re all wed, save for Shamus—wed and bred,” he said, and then his brow cleared and he beamed good-naturedly. “Ah! I see now why you’d ask. Yes, the house is usually full of wee folk—grandsons and granddaughters and the like—but they’re all away, today, with Aidan. He’s gone to deliver a new plow, and since he had to take Declan in the big wagon, to help him carry it, Declan’s wife opted to go along, too, and take all the little ones with her, to pick blackberries along the riverside, and once her mind was made up, the other two wives decided to go, too, with their littluns. It’s only a short ride, so they’ll be home by nightfall…But you’re right, the place is quiet today.”

  Varrus nodded, then eyed the jug of ale on the table in front of him, turning it slowly with one fingertip. “About what I did in the market,” he said. “With the labarum. Everything happened quickly, so I did the only thing I could think of.”

  “Lydia said you disappeared. One moment you were there beside her, and the next time she looked, there was no sign of you. Where did you go?”

  “To my friend Dylan’s place of business, no more than a few paces from where we were sitting. Dylan’s a cloth merchant, and he had been storing my belongings for me, so I ran to change my clothes. I knew, dressed as I was as a nonentity, I could do nothing to alter what was going to happen, but were I to appear as a wealthy Roman, I might be able to intimidate Nerva.”

  “You said you had no time,” the smith said. “But that thing you’re wearing is a rich man’s garment—costly and complicated. It must have taken you a long time to strip off what you were wearing and then change into that.”

  “Not at all,” Varrus said. “I had no need to undress first.”

  He stood up and spread his arms dramatically so that his sumptuous garment fell into its fully draped proportions, dropping into scalloped, sculpted folds of snow-white woollen perfection. Then he took a long, exaggerated step away from the table and spun slowly in a stately pivot, ignoring the astonished expression on the smith’s face. That done, he reached up and shook out the drapes from his shoulders before flipping their ends backwards to hang down behind him like a cloak. He then undid two cunningly concealed fabric-covered clasps at his left shoulder, loosened the slipknot that bound a belt of white cloth around his waist, opened the garment down the front and shrugged out of it. He dropped it across the back of his chair.

  He stood there in the same clothes he had been wearing when Lydia first saw him.

  “As you can see, the robe is an artifice,” Varrus said, grinning at the effect his transformation had had on the smith. He picked up the robe. “But it’s a clever one, heh? I bought it in Napoli.” While he talked he folded it lengthwise once and then again, then shaped it carefully into a neat bundle, which he tied into a parcel with the white belt. “From a distance, it looks ancient and cumbersome, like a formal toga from the time of the Caesars, but it’s really nothing of the kind, and it’s much more modern in design. It’s what all the richest people in Italy are wearing nowadays.”

  He placed the bundle on the table in front of him, picked up his ale again, and took a healthy swig. “At that moment, though, in the marketplace,” he said as he sat again, “the thought of it came to me in a flash, like an inspiration from the gods themselves. I rushed into the tent in Dylan’s stall, and he brought hot water to wash my face and hands and insisted I brush my hair properly, to look the part I was about to play. I remembered the cylinder containing the labarum among my things and snatched it up because it looked—” He paused. “It looked official. It struck me as the sort of thing a man of affairs might carry, so I slung it over my shoulder and ran back out into the street.”

  “And this labarum. Where did it come from in the first place—after the Emperor signed it, I mean? How did you lay hands on it?”

  “It was given to me…By my uncle Marius.”

  “And how did he come to have it?”

  Varrus hesitated. “He had it from a dead man.”

  “A dead man.” The Eirishman smiled, the corners of his eyes wrinkling. “Now that’s an answer sure to provoke more questions, and I think you will not argue.”

  Varrus smiled back at him. “No, I won’t argue. It was provocative.”

  “Aye, and I am provoked. Can you tell me whence came this dead man?”

  “I can. He was found aboard a drifting boat in the Euxine Sea, which you might know better, if you have heard of it all, as the Black Sea.”

  “I’ve never heard of it. Is it black, then? A black-watered sea?”

  “No, not even slightly. I’ve never seen it, but my uncle knows it well. He was stationed there, for three tours of duty with the Moesian fleet that operates against the barbarian invaders from north of the Danube River.”

  “I’ve never heard of that either.”

  “It’s very famous. And huge. It makes the Thamis look like a trout stream, I’ve been told. It forms the entire northern border of the empire, from east to west. And to reach it, you have to sail to the farthest northeastern reaches of the Aegean Sea and traverse the narrow seaway there, the Hellespont, that separates Greece from Asia. That takes you to a little neck of land straddling the trading routes of the world, that holds the city of Byzantium—the one Constantine wants to call Constantinopolis. And behind Constantinopolis, stretching northward, is the Euxine Sea. Its northern shores are peopled by savages, and the Moesian fleet has been winning fame up there for decades now. Anyway, Marius tells me the waters are crystal clear, not black at all, though they appear grey under leaden skies most of the time.”

  “And your dead man was found there. Was he drowned?”

  “No, he had died of exposure, a long, slow death from being adrift too long without food or water. There were four others with him, all of them long dead and dried up by the summer sun. No one knew how they had come to such an end. Pirates would have killed them outright, thrown them into the sea, and kept the little boat, which had a mast and spars. The best anyone could suggest was that they had been aboard a larger vessel that was caught in a storm and wrecked, and they had managed to scramble aboard their little boat, only to perish from lack of food and water.”

  “And what about the labarum?”

  “It was in the tube it occupies today, tied to the waist of the best-dressed corpse in the boat, and it was taken to my uncle with the remainder of what was found on board. Marius knew what the labarum was, having seen copies of it before, so he knew the fellow had been an imperial envoy. But precisely who he was, or what his business might have been, was beyond divination. And so, as navarch and senior officer in the area, Marius took possession of the document, intending to deliver it to his commanding admiral when he returned to his base.

  “In the event, though, Admiral Niger, whom my uncle trusted implicitly, had set out to sea mere days before Marius’s squadron reached port, and in his absence his duties had been assumed by a deputy whom my uncle detes
ted for being a corrupt, politically appointed lickspittle, a puppet to a conspiracy of imperial courtiers rumoured to be enriching themselves, at every opportunity, at the expense of the navy and its personnel.”

  “So he did not leave the document with the deputy.”

  “He did not. As he told me later, the labarum was indisputably genuine, signed by the Emperor’s own hand. But even more significantly, it had no history. There was no record of when it had been issued or to whom. Yet simple possession of the document endowed its bearer with all the personal power of the Emperor Constantine himself. And as such its potential for abuse was frightening.”

  Mcuil sniffed. “And your uncle never handed the thing over to his admiral?”

  “He did not, because he never saw him again. Admiral Niger died at sea on that voyage. Discovered among the last orders the admiral left behind before he set sail was a signed commission promoting my uncle to Italy, in recognition of twelve years of outstanding service to the empire. It was well timed, for my uncle was sick and tired of the northern frontiers and besides, he would have hated serving under the new admiral—the deputy he so despised. Marius simply kept the labarum because no one knew he had it and he knew no one he could trust to return it safely to where it had been issued.

  “That was the summer our family was murdered. Later, when Marius and I arrived back at his quarters in Napoli, he insisted I take the labarum. He thought it might someday be advantageous for me to have some such safeguard—something I could produce in time of dire need. Though frankly I had little faith in what it might do for me.”

  “And you believe that what took place this morning was such a time?”

  Varrus picked up his mug and sipped at it, finding, to his mild surprise, that the ale had grown noticeably warmer since he had tasted it last. “Near enough,” he said. “Besides, it worked, didn’t it? Nerva went away and no one is any the wiser.”

  “Don’t be too sure of that,” the smith said. “This is a small place, for all they call it a provincial capital, and not much gets by folk. What are we, thirty thousand people? And most folk in Londuin knows most everybody else, at least to see ’em, if not to talk to ’em. And people do love to talk, especially about the likes of rich young fellows who turn up out of nowhere carrying credentials out of Rome that are signed by the Emperor’s own hand. That’s worth talking about, by my reckoning, so I would say you’d best take note and plan accordingly.”

  The smith rose to his feet, tilting his jug to show that it was empty and asking mutely, one eyebrow raised in question, if Varrus, too, would like some more. When the younger man declined, he moved to the keg on the table and poured himself another, speaking over his shoulder as he watched the rising level in his jug. “Lydia said you’ve been here a month. Tell me how you learned to speak our tongue so well in such a short time. It seems impossible.”

  “And it would be, had I begun a month ago,” Varrus said, shifting in his seat and flexing his leg under the table. “But I’ve been speaking it for most of my life. We spoke Latin in my father’s household in Dalmatia, but my old teacher came from here, was born right here in Londinium—Londuin you call it, is that right?”

  “Aye, that’s what we call it, some of us at least, but we’re not Roman. The Romans call it what you did.”

  Varrus nodded. “Anyway, Rhys was born here and he taught me to speak the language when I was young enough not to ask him why.” He shrugged. “Which meant I was young enough to learn it quickly.”

  “And why do you think he would take the time to do that?” the smith asked as he moved back to his seat at the table.

  “Loneliness, probably. I’ve wondered about that, too, from time to time, and loneliness or homesickness seem to be the two most likely reasons. He had been away from Britannia for a very long time, and not a single person could speak to him in his native tongue. And there was I, young and eager to please, so he began to teach me the occasional word or two in his own language. And once begun, it became a source of pleasure to both of us, as a means to pass the time—and to communicate with each other when we had no wish to be understood by others.”

  “And your parents did not mind?”

  “My mother didn’t mind. She thought it wonderful that I should want to learn another tongue. My father, though?” The corners of his mouth turned down. “He didn’t know about it and wouldn’t have cared anyway. He was barely aware of my existence.”

  “Hmm…This teacher, was he the smith Lydia told me about?”

  “He was. Rhys Twohands, so named because he was equally skilful with either one, no matter what he was doing.”

  The big smith shook his head in wonder. “That would be a powerful advantage at a forge.”

  “And at an anvil,” Varrus said. “Holding tongs in either hand with equal ease and wielding a hammer skilfully with both…He always made me feel inadequate.”

  “Aye…Lydia said you were a smith.” The pause that followed, emphasized by his eyeing of the bundled white robe, was eloquent, so that he barely had to ask, “Is it true?”

  Varrus sat back and crossed his arms. “I would like to think so. But you might think otherwise. I spent most of my boyhood in Rhys’s forge, and for more than five years before we left home he trained me seriously, every day, to be a smith. But I never thought to ask him if he considered me an able apprentice, or even a satisfactory student. I did it for the pleasure of it. I never thought to work at it as a livelihood. And I never thought that he might die before I could find out.”

  “Aye,” Mcuil said again. “I understand.” He took a swig of his ale. “So what will you do now?”

  “What, about being a smith?”

  “No, I mean in the aftermath of today’s events. Where will you go? You obviously can’t stay in Londuin.”

  Varrus frowned. “Why not?”

  “Why not?” Mcuil’s eyes widened. “Because you’re a marked man!” he said. “You’ve made the provincial authorities aware of you, and now they’ll come looking for you. They have no choice. You’ve provoked their interest, and almost certainly their fear, by appearing unexpectedly and waving your labarum around under their noses! They’ll be scrambling to find out who you are and where you came from and who sent you, because until they discover all there is to know about you, they’ll see you as a threat.”

  “A threat to what? I don’t even know who we’re talking about.”

  “Nor do they! But you can be sure that, as men of power in a Roman provincial capital, every one of them will have something they want to hide from prying eyes in Rome. That’s the disadvantage of being involved in politics—no one holds his secrets more closely than a guilty politician, whether that be in Eire, in Londuin, or in Rome itself. None of them can afford to trust anyone but himself, and so none of them trusts anyone…and they’ll all be trying to find you because each one will see you as a threat to whatever it is he is up to.” He hesitated, reading the disbelief in Varrus’s eyes, and then charged on. “And don’t delude yourself that they won’t know where to look, because they’ll look everywhere. This isn’t Rome, with its teeming mobs and anthills of people. This is Londuin. It’s small, and they have an entire bored garrison that they can muster to hunt you. They’ll turn this whole town upside down trying to find the wealthy, well-dressed young man from Rome who was waving the Emperor’s insignia about in an open marketplace. They’ll roust out every roadhouse in and around the city, and when they don’t find him there they’ll ransack every lodging house and drinking den in this entire region. And when they’ve done all that, they’ll start going from house to house.”

  He stopped, cocking his head. “Do you really think no one took note of what you did? Do you believe for one moment that the people who deal in such things, in court politics and mysteries, might not hear about a thing like that?”

  He shook his head emphatically and pointed a finger towards the white bundle on the tabletop. “That robe, that thing you wore today, might be the most dangerous thin
g you own now—apart from the Emperor’s labarum, of course.”

  Varrus sat silent, his face betraying nothing of his thoughts, but then he inhaled sharply and straightened in his chair. “You’re right,” he said. “I’d thought of none of that…Stupid of me, and unforgivable to have brought danger into your house. Forgive me. I’ll leave immediately.”

  “No, you won’t. Stay where you are and finish your ale. I wasn’t telling you to go. I was pointing out a truth I thought you might have missed. And I was right. But you’re safer here, for now at least, than you would be anywhere else. If anyone took note of you when you left the marketplace, they would have seen you heading towards the garrison headquarters, just as Nerva did, and they’d have assumed you was going there on official business to do with the Emperor. It’s unlikely anyone saw you come here afterwards, because not too many folk live in this area, and none of them’s the kind who’d ever dream about going to talk to anyone in a uniform. So you’ll stay here safe for now, and there’s an end of it.”

  Varrus nodded. “Thank you, then,” he said. “I don’t know what else to say.”

  “You saved my daughter’s life today, so there’s no need to say anything.” The smith rose to his feet and placed his mug carefully on the serving table at his back. “Come with me into the smithy, and let’s find out how much you know.”