Authors: Paul Waters
Cast Not the Day
THE DAY
Paul Waters is a well-travelled classicist; though educated in Britain, he has lived much of his life abroad, including in Africa, America and Greece. His first novel,
Of Merchants & Heroes
, was published in 2008.
Also by Paul Waters
Of Merchants & Heroes
First published 2009 by Macmillan
This edition first published 2009 by Pan Books
This electronic edition published 2009 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan Ltd
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ISBN 978-0-330-51506-1 in Adobe Reader format
ISBN 978-0-330-51505-4 in Adobe Digital Editions format
ISBN 978-0-330-51507-8 in Mobipocket format
Copyright © Paul Waters 2009
The right of Paul Waters to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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ONTENTS
For K.W.
For thy kingdom is past not away,
Nor thy power from the place thereof hurled;
Out of heaven they shall cast not the day,
They shall cast not out song from the world.
Algernon Charles Swinburne, ‘The Last Oracle’
NE
W
HEN
I
WAS A BOY
, and wanted to be alone, I would climb the ancient apple tree at the back of our house, up onto the roof above the kitchens. From there, propped against the gable over the portico, where it was highest, I used to gaze out across the barley fields at the ships on the distant estuary, and dream of adventure and escape.
High summer was best, when the sea-lanes were busy and my tutor was in no mood for teaching. Then I would spend warm afternoons dozing naked in the sun, watching the merchantmen as they rode the tide upriver to London, or out seawards on their way to Gaul or Spain or the Middle Sea.
I was a solitary child, though I may say at the outset that this was not my own choice. I was lonely and yearned for friendship. But my father forbade me to play with the farm-hands, saying they had their own work to do, and I had mine. He was rearing a Roman gentleman, not a country peasant. And though I disobeyed him often enough, I remembered that, but for me, my mother would still be alive, and I had already brought him enough trouble. For she had died in childbirth when I was born.
He kept a picture of her in his study, a small image painted on wood. I suppose he must have missed her, though he never spoke of it. He was private, stern and remote. Indeed, in most ways he was a stranger to me. But I knew well enough that he believed in decorum and firm discipline, for which, it seemed, I was ill suited. He used to say, before he beat me, that character is wrought with the rod, like a sword beneath the hammer.
My only real companion in those days was Sericus, my tutor. He said he preferred books to boys, and had a strict air. But I believe he loved me all the same, and the strictness was just to please my father. He used to let me wander. But when he thought I had been away too long, he would come looking, and from my rooftop eyrie I would hear his voice in the courtyard, asking the slaves where I had gone. Then with a sigh I would pull myself up, pad across the sun-warm tiles, dust my tunic at the foot of the tree, and make my way to the front to find him.
Sericus was an old man even then. He had come into our family years before as my mother’s tutor, when she was still a girl at her father’s house in Gallic Autun. Sericus had known her longest of all, longer even than my father, and it was he who brought her back to life for me, telling me about her smile, and how she threw back her long dark hair when she laughed, and how she had loved me even when she was carrying me in her belly.
I never tired of these stories, which I must have asked him to repeat a thousand times. I used to think that if only I could see her clearly enough in my dreams, some magic would bring her back to me.
But of course she never came; for there is no magic that brings the dead back to the living, whatever the Christians say.
That year, near midsummer, I began to see something new on the water of the estuary: dark bulbous troopships, heavy and sluggish as they made their way in convoy downriver towards the sea, bearing our men away to Gaul.
I asked Sericus who would protect us from the Saxons, with the army gone. But he answered sharply and told me to speak to my father. I frowned at this, and bent my head to my wax-board and my exercises. One did not go to my father without being summoned, as Sericus well knew.
For as long as I could remember, high-ranking visitors had come to our villa, Father having been the emperor’s deputy in Britain, and so an important man. We received a steady stream of counts and tribunes, fat finance officers, wealthy landowners, and decurions from the cities, with their soldier escorts and smart carriages. The steward would meet them at the door and usher them inside, and I would run to the courtyard and talk to the waiting soldiers as they brushed down their horses, or lounged beside the fountain.
They were rough men who smelled of sweat and leather; they joked and spat and tousled my hair, feeling the childish muscles in my arms and asking, while the great men conducted their business inside, when I was coming to join them in the army. They would tell me stories of battles and exotic places far away, sometimes rummaging in their satchels to find some trinket for me – a fragment of broken lamp, a rough clay votive figure, or a shard of polished glass – saying it had come all the way from Spain or wild Thrace, or sun-baked Egypt, older than time.
I daresay, in truth, these mementoes had travelled no further than the nearest tavern or barrack-house. But for me they were full of mystery and promise, and I ranged them on the sill of my bedroom, where I would gaze at them and dream of heroes.
We had our own jetty on the water’s edge, by a hamlet fortified against raiders from the sea. From there, each harvest time, we loaded barges with grain destined for London. For the rest of the year traffic seldom stopped there; but late one afternoon at the end of summer, when I was basking on the roof, I spotted a naval cutter veer suddenly from midstream and put in. I watched, and presently two men on horses appeared on the track. They paused, like dogs seeking a scent, then struck out through the barley fields, spurring their horses and throwing up a plume of dust behind, riding at a gallop under the avenue of limes that led to our house, and clattering into the courtyard – two men in uniform, with the straight-backed poise of officers. But when they were close I saw they had removed the marks of rank from their tunics.
They shouted for the groom, ordering him to wait: they would not be long. Then they strode up the steps under the porch.
The groom was still at the fountain with the reins in his hand when they returned. They mounted, wheeled their horses, and urged them away under the gateway. And as they turned, one of the men glanced up and caught sight of me looking down at him. For a moment he paused, grim-faced, and shook his head. Then he looked away and was gone.
I waited, feeling the first cold fingers of fear creep in my hair. A stillness had descended on the house, and I was just about to return inside when hurried footfalls sounded on the ground below.