by Jack Whyte
THIRTY-EIGHT
It had been more than a week, and closer to two, since the events at the Carbo villa, and though Quintus Varrus—he could now call himself that openly—had taken care to thank the apprentice boy Aquino for his good work in summoning help as quickly as he had when he saw the abduction, Varrus had not yet had the opportunity to spend any time talking to the lad. He remembered that on his way back from the armoury that particular afternoon, and so he swung into the stables and paused in the doorway, inhaling the warm, dusty stable smells as he looked around for the boy. There was no sign of the apprentice, though, and it was only as he turned to walk away that Varrus caught sight of him, spread-eagled, belly down, and soundly asleep on the broad, glossy back of the big workhorse with whom he shared the stable. The horse, a large, heavy-headed, six-year-old chestnut gelding, had never had a name until the boy came along, but the lad had taken to calling him Tom from the day of his arrival, grooming the huge animal constantly and talking to him, so that now the enormous beast’s coat shone with a rich gloss, and the animal went to him obediently when summoned by name.
Varrus stood grinning at the spectacle of horse and boy, listening to the soft crunching sounds as Tom contentedly pulled mouthfuls of hay from a newly split bale that had been hoisted right up into his high feeding crib, chewing placidly while doing nothing to disturb the boy sprawled across his back. Eventually, Varrus started to edge away, unwilling to rouse the sleeping boy, who had been up before dawn, awakening and refreshing the fires in the forge and preparing the smithy for the daily routine. Something alerted the boy to his presence, though, and he sat up with a jerk, blinking at his employer in surprise.
Varrus held up a hand in greeting, a half smile on his lips. “Pardon me, Aquino,” he said. “I didn’t want to waken you.”
The boy merely shook his head, and Varrus continued. “Do you often sleep up there like that, on the horse’s back?” The boy blinked again and nodded, then raised his right hand, which had been hidden on the horse’s other side, to rub at his eye with the back of his wrist, and Varrus’s smile grew broader when he saw the thin-nosed pliers clutched in his fist.
“You know,” he said, “you could have asked me a hundred times to guess what you were holding in your hand there and I would have guessed wrongly every time. Can I ask why you are holding pliers while you sleep? Even if you pinched them tightly on Tom’s mane, they wouldn’t be strong enough to hold you in place up there if you fell sideways.”
The boy looked down at the pliers, twisting them from side to side, then answered in his surprisingly deep voice. “Tom had a stone lodged in his foot—in his hoof,” he said. “I took it out for him and then had nowhere to put the pliers without going back to the forge. So I stuck them in my belt. And when I climbed up here they hurt my belly, so I held them in my hand. Is it very painful for horses when stones get caught in their hooves?”
“I imagine it must be,” Varrus said. “It makes them lame, so it must be painful. Horses are like people in that regard. They wouldn’t limp if it didn’t hurt. Do you really like them?”
The boy looked confused. “Like what? Horses?” He saw Varrus’s nod and thought about the question for a moment. “I love horses,” he said then. “Someday I’m going to work with horses, looking after them.” He swung his right leg over the horse’s back and slid easily to the ground to stand in front of Varrus.
“Did you put that up there, for Tom?” Varrus was pointing at the bale of hay in the horse’s high manger.
“Yes,” the boy said, suddenly sounding apprehensive. “Am I not allowed to do that?”
“No, no. Of course you are allowed to feed the horse. I was simply wondering how you raised it up so high.”
The boy looked surprised by the question. “I lifted it up and tipped it in.”
“Ah! Yes, of course…Obviously you must have. But still, I would have thought that bale might be too heavy. It’s quite green, I see. That means it still contains moisture, and that would make it heavier than a dry bale of the same size.”
“It was, a bit,” came the reply. “But not too much. I was able to hoist it, once I got it off the ground.”
“Why didn’t you set it in the lower crib? That way you wouldn’t have had to heave it all the way up there.”
“Yes, but then Tom would have had to stoop too far all the time. He’s a big horse.”
“Of course…And he is big, isn’t he? Do you like being here, Aquino, working in the smithy?”
“Ye-ess!” the boy whooped.
“And you love horses.” Varrus paused, thinking, then smiled and said, “D’you know, I think I might have found a name for you.” He watched the wide, intelligent eyes narrow and focus on him intently. “Your name is Simeon. Simeon of Aquino. Is that right?”
“Yes.”
“I suspect you don’t like the Simeon part much. Is that right, too?”
“Yes. It’s strange.”
“No, it’s not strange, it’s merely different. If other people around here used it, it wouldn’t sound strange at all. What about your other name, Aquino? Do you like that one?”
“Not much.”
“For the same reason?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what about this. You love horses. You want to work with horses someday. You live here in the stable, for now at least. You’re as strong as a horse, for your age—you’re what, twelve?”
“Yes.”
“I thought so. And your name, Aquino, sounds like equine, which means horsey. So what I thought was, why don’t we take things one step further and call you Equus? It’s a fine, strong name, straightforward and honest and full of character, and as you grow bigger and stronger, it will become better and better suited to you. Now, what do you think of that?”
“Equus,” the boy said, as though testing the word for flavour and texture. “Equus…That would be my name?”
He did not sound displeased, so Varrus shrugged. “From this day on, if you like it,” he said. “But only if you want it to be your name. No one else has any right to say who you can or cannot be. I’ve always thought a man should have the right to choose a name for himself, but most of us never have the opportunity.” He grinned again. “You can choose, though. And I like Equus. I like the sound of it. It sounds a lot more Roman than Simeon.”
“Equus…Equus!” The boy grinned then, a long, slow blossoming, and raised his hands above his head. “I am Equus!” he shouted, turning towards the horse. “Tom, my name is Equus!”
Varrus held out his hand. “So be it, then. Now give me those pliers and I’ll take them back to the smithy. I have to get to work.”
He left the newly named young man communing with his friend Tom and made his way into the empty smithy, which still smelled of the work Shamus had done that morning, and as he replaced the errant pliers on their rack he caught sight of the edge of the ill-placed, rusty little oven inside which his hoard of golden coins lay hidden. Two things crossed his mind as he looked at it: all it required was for one inquisitive person to take an idle look into what lay there for his vast wealth to be revealed; and even if such an inquisitive person were to find the hoard, he could not possibly steal all of the gold and run away with it.
He knew, nevertheless, that sooner or later he was going to have to find a really clever hiding place for all those coins, and that when he did, that place would have to be spacious enough to hold the entire hoard. Having thought deeply about that ever since taking delivery of the box from his uncle Marius, he now found himself naturally distrustful of the notion of splitting the coins into smaller collections. It raised too much potential for loss and inconvenience. Still, though, he had not the vaguest idea where he might begin to start looking for such a hiding place, and he was clever enough to know that there was little point in fretting over it when there was no need. One of these days, though…He walked away and forgot all about the golden coins as soon as he heard his wife’s laughter coming from the open door to the h
ouse at the rear of the smithy.
“Quintus, there you are! Tribune Marcellus here came by to tell us that Legate Britannicus will be returning with the rest of our friends within the next few days, and I was about to offer him a cup of wine. Would you like one?”
Varrus went and put an arm about her and kissed her on the cheek before nodding in greeting to Marcellus, whose tunic with its broad purple edging marked him as a tribunus laticlavius. A broad-banded tribune was a political appointee rather than a military one, a privileged aristocrat who served time in the armies as a senior officer, usually second-in-command of a legion, as part of his education before moving on to higher things.
“Damian,” he said. “You look well. When, exactly, do you expect them home from Londinium?”
Damian Marcellus smiled. “You know better than to ask me that, Quintus,” he drawled. “Like every other traveller alive, they’re hostages to the weather. I would guess they’ll return tomorrow or the following day. Is it important, which day?”
“Not at all. I’m simply missing them all. We have much to talk about.”
“How so?”
“Well, my life changed radically last time I saw them all—for the better, certainly—but I still don’t know quite as much as I would like to about everything we talked about. I have a few questions about the whole situation with Endor.”
“Ah! Well, I’m sure you must have, but were I you, I would be prepared for disappointment. The army loves to keep its secrets, especially from…non-military citizens. And your friends have, after all, been attending a military board of inquiry for the past week. You might find they’ve been warned to say nothing to anyone. It is all rather sensitive, I think you’ll agree.”
“Sensitive?” Varrus was about to say more, but Lydia approached at that moment carrying a tray from the heavy sideboard where Liam Mcuil had always kept his hospitality store of decanted wine, cups, and jugs. He glanced at the tray and counted three cups. “Thank you, my love,” he said. “I see you are joining us, so we must have broached a new amphora of the Germanica, am I right?”
“You are, of course.” She raised her cup in a salute to both of them, but spoke to the tribune. “I love this wine. It’s tarter than most of the others, almost tangy, and I like the way it lingers after you’ve swallowed. It’s very hard to come by, though, and we have to hoard it, so you were lucky in your choice of a visiting day, Tribune Marcellus. Now, what were you telling my husband he can’t have?”
Marcellus lifted his cup in a silent dedication and sipped at it cautiously. “I can see why you treasure it,” he said after a moment, his eyebrows raised in approval. He took a larger sip and savoured it, then lowered his cup and wrinkled his nose. “But you misunderstood me. I was not refusing Quintus anything. I was merely saying he ought not to expect openness from the army.”
“He was saying the information on Endor is sensitive,” Varrus said. “Which makes me wonder: to whom? Endor’s dead, so he doesn’t care what might be said about him. But are there others who might?” He turned to the tribune, all wide-eyed innocence, save that his eyes were dancing. “The people who accepted his premature death and claimed credit for it, perhaps?” He waved a hand. “But hey, I care for none of that, I promise you. What the army and the imperial authorities choose to do with their secrets and arcane knowledge is the last thing I care about.” Marcellus nodded, then drained his cup and set it back on the tray that Lydia had laid on a nearby table. “I believe you,” he said. “Nonetheless, be prepared for them to tell you they have been forbidden to discuss the matter.” He turned to Lydia and bowed smartly. “My thanks for the delicious refreshment, Mistress Varrus. I had best be getting back to my duties now. I wish you both well.”
When he was gone, Lydia looked up at her husband with slitted eyes. “You look very sober, Magister Varrus. What are you thinking?”
“That I like Marcellus. I’ve met a number of his ilk that I detested on sight, but for an effete aristocrat, he’ll be acceptable at my table. Speaking of which, we should have everyone here for dinner when they all come back.”
“Very well. We’ll have them all on the second night after they return. And I’ll hire the baker and his wife to cook the meal.” She pushed him away. “And now, have you no work to do in your forge? Go and do it, then, or I’ll inveigle you into bed and we’ll have no supper this night.” He remained where he stood, gazing at her until, slightly exasperated, she asked him what he was looking at.
“At your beauty,” he said. “But I was wondering, too…Why the second night after they come back? Is there a reason for that?”
“Of course there’s a reason,” she said. “Several reasons, in fact. First of all, so they’ll be road weary and saddle-sore when they return, infantrymen that they are, and they won’t want to go far or do anything on their first night back in barracks. By the third night, they’ll all have different things to do. So the second night is the only time we can expect them all to be available and willing. And were that not sufficient reason, we two are leaving within days after that for Londuin and our triumphant wedding with my father and his new bride, and we will be gone for at least a month, I believe, and by the time we return every one of those friends of yours could have been transferred to other parts and we might never see any of them again. So it’s the second night or nothing. It’s a simple thought process, my love.”
“It is,” he agreed. “And now I’ll leave you to your preparations.”
THIRTY-NINE
The travellers returned within the week, though without Cato, whom none of them had seen since the day after they arrived in Londinium, when he had disappeared in search of his lost family, and the dinner was duly arranged for the second night after their arrival. At noon on that second day, though, when Varrus returned from the armoury, he was much surprised to find Cato himself, looking both sober and subdued, waiting for him in the smithy. He took him into his little records cubicle, where he asked him straightforwardly what had happened.
Cato shrugged. “I found them,” he said. “They’re safe and doing well, and they seemed happy.”
“Were they glad to see you?”
“They didn’t see me. Rhea married another man, a wheelwright, two years ago. He treats her like an empress, he adopted the boy, and they both look happy. He’s good to them. You can be sure I asked more than one person about that. The fellow is highly thought of, and so are they, Rhea and Nicodemo. So I decided to stay away from them. They don’t need me fouling up their lives anymore…Now I’m back here, looking for information.”
“About what?”
“A couple of things. For starters, where did that steward go, that Albus fellow? Do you know?”
“No. I didn’t want to know. We agreed on that, remember? We helped him to leave, and technically he was a felon, so the less we knew about his whereabouts after that, the better.”
Varrus frowned slightly, remembering how appalled the steward had been at hearing the dark truth about the man for whom he had worked for years. But his horror had quickly turned to fear as soon as he realized that, as a trusted employee of a condemned felon, he himself would be considered complicit in his employer’s criminality. Feeling certain Albus was utterly innocent of anything blameworthy, Varrus had persuaded Cato to help him send the man away safely, before any investigators arrived. There had been two workhorses in the stable, and a heavy, well-made wagon with iron tires and a tented cover, and Cato had suggested that those, plus an amount of fodder for the beasts, should be part of Albus’s settlement, along with any coins or valuables the steward felt, in good conscience, were owed to him. By the time the investigators came to the villa the next morning, there was no sign that there had ever been a steward there.
“What has changed since that night?” Varrus asked. “Something must have, to make you wonder where Albus went.”
Cato shrugged. “I’m simply trying to tidy up some loose ends that have been bothering me.” He looked around the tiny room. “Is
it safe to talk in here?”
“Safe? I think so. It’s my house and we are the only ones here. Lydia’s over at her friend’s house, preparing food for tonight. I suppose, though, it depends on what you want to talk about. Some things are never safe to discuss.”
“Oh, it’s nothing like that.” Cato shook his head apologetically. “I’ve been doing what I do for too long, I suppose. I always feel threatened when I feel exposed—and I feel exposed when I’m outside my own realm.” He glanced around again, searching. “Do you have any wine?”
“Yes, but I also have a dinner to attend tonight, to celebrate the end of all this nonsense and to drink, finally, to Endor’s damnation. You’ll be welcome there, too—if you’re still sober.”
Cato dipped his head. “Fine, then. I’ll be there.”
“Good. I’ll tell Lydia.”
“In the meantime, can I have watered wine? I’ve been travelling for days and haven’t had a drop.”
Varrus left, returning a short time later with two cups and a jug of watered wine. He poured for both of them, then set the jug down on the window ledge and sipped his own, nodding in appreciation. He sat across from Cato and raised his cup in salute. “Welcome back, my friend. It’s good to see you again.”
“You, too.” Cato returned the gesture. “Now, do you still have that labarum you were waving about in Londinium a few years ago?”
Varrus froze, his cup halfway to his mouth.
“Well? Do you? Or were you clever enough to get rid of it?”
Varrus settled back slowly into his chair, shaking his head in disbelief. “I cannot believe…How did you ever find out about that? I haven’t spoken about it to anyone since I came here.”
“It wasn’t difficult.” Cato’s voice was level, unhurried. “You were snatched off the street in Camulodunum, Quintus! Hardly a centre of commerce or even of clandestine activities. Why? Why you? You’re an apprentice smith, a devotee of Vulcan, black with smoke and ashes. Who, in the name of all the ancient gods, would want to abduct a blacksmith?
