Hero of Rome (16 page)

Cearan disappeared inside the gate and returned with a bulging sack which he handed to the
duplicarius
. ‘Perhaps this will make your journey seem a little shorter.’

Lunaris looked inside and smiled his thanks.

Cearan turned to Valerius. ‘Farewe—’

He was interrupted by a loud squeal of frustration from upriver and the two men turned to see Cearan’s grandson tottering on the bank of the river as he leaned precariously to reach the duck’s nest. A moment later a sharp cry rang out. The little boy disappeared in a fountain of dirty river water and the only evidence he had existed was a thatch of blond curls just visible in the torrent as it was carried towards them with incredible speed.

‘Tor!’ Cearan’s anguished cry spurred Valerius into action and he urged his horse towards the river. The instant he reached the bank he leapt from the saddle into the water, thanking the gods it was only knee deep at this point. Keeping hold of the reins for support and anchorage he hauled his protesting mount into the rushing flow, immediately feeling the current plucking at his legs and threatening to pull his feet from under him. The river was narrower here, but also swifter, and he knew if he went under in his armour he was unlikely to surface again. He glanced upstream. The boy was nowhere in sight. All he could see was a gushing, foam-flecked brown torrent. Then he spotted it, less than fifteen paces away and coming at him as fast as a galloping horse. A dull hint of gold just beneath the surface. With a thrill of panic he realized it would pass beyond his grasping hand, and he hauled desperately at the reins to give himself extra reach. He sent a silent prayer to Mars and even as he gave up hope he plunged forward with an enormous splash, reaching with his right arm, and came up with a handful of blond curls, followed by a squirming bundle that resembled a half-drowned hare.

Cearan flung himself from his horse and ran to the river just as Valerius emerged dripping wet with the little boy clutched to his chest, his eyes screwed tight shut and choking up river water in fountains. The Briton tenderly took his grandson from the Roman’s arms and nodded his thanks. ‘Now I am truly in your debt.’

XXI

Gwlym knew he was being followed. He had seen out the winter in a Catuvellauni roundhouse close to the place the Romans called Durobrivae, alternately starving and freezing, and looked upon with increasing resentment by his hosts. Boredom had corroded his brain and he fought it by whispering to himself the epic history of his people from the time of giants and the great flood. Generation after generation of fighting and suffering and always moving westwards. The endless name-lists of kings and mighty champions, tales of natural disaster and betrayal by peoples who were inferior but more numerous. It was this prodigious memory which had been recognized by the druids when he was chosen at the age of nine to study among them and be trained in the rites. He remembered the long days of repetition and testing as he prepared for the trials of Taranis, Esus and Teutates. Now he called on the same power that had carried him through that horror. Sometimes he felt so tired he suspected his body was dying from lack of will: only his mission and the inner fire kindled on Mona kept him alive.

For the past week he’d noticed the forest gradually thinning as he travelled further east and he knew he must maintain his vigilance or he’d end up in the hands of one of the Roman cavalry patrols which seemed more numerous here. Strange Romans, dark-eyed and heavy-browed, seemingly part man and part horse for they never left the saddle. That thought had brought him another vision, a man with a horse’s face, long and narrow with prominent nostrils and protruding teeth. A memorable face, and yet it was only now he remembered he had seen it twice, at different gatherings separated by several weeks and many miles. The thought sent a shiver through him. He knew he wouldn’t last a week without the silence of those who took him into their homes.

He entered an area of scrubby trees, low and thin-trunked but with broad canopies. The trees told him he was close to a river or a stream and with the sun close to its high point he decided to stop to eat his meagre rations, rest, and above all think. He realized belatedly that he’d been careless over the past few days, travelling in a direct line towards his next destination. It was a sign of his tiredness but also of something more. He’d always known he was likely to die before he had completed his task. Now it seemed his mind had accepted it as inevitable and was reaching out to it. He must become hard again, rediscover the iron which had been tempered in the flames of Mona’s fiery chamber. Careful not to disturb the vegetation, he moved fifty paces away from the path and deeper into the trees and bushes.

He waited for an hour, sitting in the shadow of a hawthorn bush with nothing in his ears but the buzz of flying insects and the crunch of his teeth on the gritty corn cakes he’d been given at the last farm. Perhaps he was wrong? But no, he knew with certainty he was being trailed. Who were they? Roman spies? It was possible. Every Celt knew the eyes and ears of Rome extended far and wide over this land. It was why he had been so careful at first and why he now cursed himself for his stupidity. More likely they were Britons in the pay of a local petty chieftain anxious to gain approval with the Romans. Handing over a druid would offset a year of taxes and more. One thing was in his favour. They hadn’t yet reported his presence or the area would be swarming with patrols.

The sharp crack of a broken twig froze his blood. The sound came from
behind
him. With infinite care he turned his head and recognized Horseface, the man from the meetings, less than a spear’s length distant, thankfully scanning the trees to his left, away from Gwlym’s hide. Unthinkingly, Gwlym slipped the long, curved knife from his belt, rose and with three quick strides wrapped his hand across his hunter’s mouth and plunged the blade deep into his back. He had never killed before and it proved more difficult than he would have believed. Horseface was tall and strong and the sting of the knife point gave his strength a greater urgency. He struggled and shook in Gwlym’s grasp, emitting animal grunting sounds beneath the clasped hand. At last Gwlym found the gap between the ribs and forced the knife blade through it, the movement accompanied by a warm flood of liquid over his hand. Horseface shuddered, but still he twisted and squealed like a piglet being hunted for a feast. Somehow the dying man found the strength to turn, wrenching the hilt from Gwlym’s grasp and breaking the grip over his mouth. He let out a roar of agony as he clawed at the blade buried deep in his back.

At first Gwlym froze, but a shout of alarm from away to the right broke the spell. He bolted into the trees in the opposite direction from the cry. Too late. He could hear the sound of pursuit and when he risked a glance across his shoulder he saw that his hunter was less than thirty feet behind and carried a long sword. Gwlym knew his exertions of the past months had left him too weak to outrun the man, but what alternative did he have? He crashed blindly through the trees, ignoring the snagging branches and the leaves that whipped his face. His left foot hit thin air. He was falling. A shock like death itself knocked the breath from his lungs as he struck the freezing water of the river and went under. Desperate for air, he fought his way to the surface only to find the spy towering over him with the sword raised to strike. A grin spread across the man’s face as Gwlym attempted to burrow into the bank. He was still grinning when his belly erupted in a fountain of blood and guts and he was catapulted over the druid’s head into the river with a spear shaft transfixing his body.

Sheltered by the high bank, Gwlym allowed the current to carry him downstream into the shadow of an overhanging tree. He gripped a low branch for just long enough to witness the Roman auxiliary cavalryman retrieve his spear from the corpse and gleefully remove its head, then his numbed fingers slipped and he found he didn’t have the will or the strength to fight the river.

XXII

For the first time she could remember Maeve was frightened. Since her mother died when she was six years old, her father had been the cornerstone of her life, dealing with every girlish tantrum and adolescent obsession with the same good humour with which he laughed off the peaks and troughs of his ever-changing fortunes. Even the arrival of her first red moon had been greeted only with a sharp ‘tut’ and a call for Catia, her personal slave, to explain the intricacies and burdens of a woman’s existence. It was for her sake, she knew, that he had stayed on his farm and kept his father’s sword in its place on the wall when the young men followed Caratacus to their deaths. As she grew older she had seen the pain the decision had cost him and the damage to his honour that was so clear in the contemptuous glances of Camulodunum’s women. But he had been prepared to bear it. For her.

When Claudius declared Camulodunum a Roman colony and renamed it Colonia, Lucullus had fought desperately to keep what was his. He hadn’t always succeeded – he had mourned Dywel as keenly as she had – and some of the alliances he made had cost him more than he would ever admit. But he had protected her. When he took the Roman name Lucullus she had been ashamed, but she never allowed it to show. He was her father and she loved him.

Yet now she barely recognized this shell of a man with empty, staring eyes; a fat man grown suddenly thin.

‘I am ruined.’ The words were said in a whisper. ‘They will take everything, and when they have it all I will still owe them more than I can ever repay. I am ruined.’

It had started when Petronius, the
quaestor
, had arrived at the villa just before noon. At first Lucullus had been genuinely pleased to see his business partner, believing this was at last the delivery of the outstanding rent money for the
insulae
in Colonia. But it took only a few moments for Petronius to reveal the true reason for his visit.

‘I have had word from Londinium,’ the lawyer said solemnly, handing over a wrapped scroll with a broken seal. A few minutes later the
quaestor
left and her father retired to the room he called the
tablinum
, from which he ordered his business. She found him there four hours later, amidst the innocent bills and records that concealed the labyrinth of his finances and, she finally learned, the bottomless pit of his debt that now threatened to swallow the Celtic trader alive.

They sat together in the little room until the sun drifted below the horizon and they were left in darkness. By then Maeve had long given up her attempts at reassurance, and the only words that passed between them from one hour to the next was the little man’s shocked whisper: ‘I am ruined.’ Every attempt to move him was a wasted effort. He had become a human shipwreck with the jagged rocks of failure buried deep in his belly and every wave dragging him closer to destruction.

Her inability to help him left her feeling a sort of growing paralysis. She had to do something. Anything. Lucullus had insisted she learn to read Latin as well as speak it, so she could assist him with his business affairs, and eventually she left the
tablinum
to study the letter. It was dated a week earlier and as she read it, line by line, she was overwhelmed by first fear, then fury and finally dread. The contents were almost beyond belief. The letter contained a warning from the new procurator in Londinium, Catus Decianus, to his friend Petronius of fundamental changes in the way the province was to be governed and financed.

She had heard the name Seneca hailed by Lucullus as the great benefactor who had set him on the way to prosperity. Now this same Seneca had decided to call in every loan he had made in the province with immediate effect. Catus Decianus was commanded to maximize the return on all his investments, convert them to currency and send them to Rome. And that wasn’t all. State subsidies, loans and investments were also being withdrawn. It took time for her to understand the true enormity of what she was reading.

Now
everything
would belong to the imperial treasury and the native rulers of southern Britain would be reduced to penury, and their people with them, robbed even of the chance to pay off the loans with the fruits of the earth they tended and farmed.

If that was not enough, her outrage grew as she realized exactly why Petronius had shown the letter to her father. The
quaestor
had never hidden his greed from his Trinovante business partner; indeed that was what had made him an ideal foil for Lucullus. Now he saw the opportunity to lay hands on the
insulae
in Colonia and – she gasped at his audacity – the whole estate, this house, the farms and the hunting grounds, at a bargain price from his ‘friend’ Decianus. Worse, when she read the letter again she realized it contained another, more sinister message. It was an invitation to Lucullus to commit suicide. Was that not the Roman way, to avoid disgrace by taking one’s own life? And how much more convenient for Petronius’s transaction if the former owner was dead.

She felt like riding into Colonia and confronting that thieving, conniving … No. She could imagine the cold stare if a woman, and a British woman at that, dared to challenge the
quaestor
. He might even have her whipped. Only one person could help her. She called for one of the slaves.

‘Go swiftly to Colonia and seek out Tribune Verrens. Ask him to call on the trader Lucullus as soon as it is convenient. Hurry now!’

She fell asleep thinking of the young Roman and when she opened her eyes she was lying on a couch in the room with the paintings of Claudius. The light streamed in through the gaps in the shutters, creating intricate dappled patterns on the walls and floor. The familiar setting reassured her and for the first time she felt hope. Valerius would protect them. Her father would normally have left for Colonia by this time but when she checked his bed he was still in it, the coverlet clenched to his chin and his eyes tight shut. She guessed he wasn’t asleep but decided to leave him in any case. There would be time later to face the harsh new realities of their life.

She washed and dressed, taking care with her appearance. The blue dress today because it was the one Valerius liked. Would he still love her now that she was poor? With a sudden clarity she realized it didn’t matter. She saw that their relationship, which had first smouldered, then blazed into a white heat of an intensity she had never known, was a fleeting thing and, like the snows of winter, must pass in its own time. He never talked of it, but she knew he would shortly be returning to his legion, knew even, thanks to her father, that he was due soon to be recalled to Rome. In the first glow of their love she had dreamed of travelling there with him and becoming the mistress of a Roman household, but as the months passed she understood that it could never be. Her experience of the world was limited to Colonia and the estate looking out over the river, but she had seen the way Petronius and the others of the city’s equestrian class looked at her father; the sneering glances and contemptuous smiles. Lucullus accepted their disdain because he had no other option; hid his resentment and his anger behind the mask of his smile. How much worse would it be in Rome? Valerius’s family might tolerate her as his wife, but they would never truly accept her. And Rome, for all the wonders he described, was an alien place. This was her land. These were her people.

Two hours later she heard the sound of horses on the track from Colonia and she rushed out to greet Valerius. Her spirits lifted at the sight of the unmistakable figure of a mounted Roman soldier outlined against the low sun.

‘This is the house of Lucullus,
augustalis
of the Temple of Claudius?’ The voice was detached but the speaker managed to invest the simple question with a measure of threat that sent a shudder through Maeve. Not Valerius, but who? And why? Only now did she notice the other riders who accompanied the soldier, along with four open-topped ox carts trundling along behind.

‘Answer me. I don’t have time to sit here all day.’

She stared up at the rider. She might be frightened, but she would not be cowed. She was a Trinovante maiden and mistress of this house. ‘It is the home of Lucullus,’ she confirmed, trying to keep the anxiety from her voice. ‘And I am his daughter.’

The legionary grunted and slid from his horse, allowing her to see his face for the first time. The eyes that stared at her were close-set and cold. Very deliberately he allowed his gaze to run over her body, lingering on her breasts and hips. It left her feeling somehow violated, as if his eyes were his hands, which were large and rough with long, dirt-caked fingernails. He had coarse, angular features and at some point his prominent nose had been broken and poorly set. Pock marks dotted his sallow skin. This man has been angry from the day he was born, she thought.

‘Good.’ He pushed roughly past her. ‘Fetch your father out here. Vettius? Get to work. Remember, everything of value.’

Maeve watched in astonishment as the men trooped by her into the house, each carrying a large basket. They were a combination of soldiers and slaves and she had never seen a more brutish-looking group of individuals.

‘Wait! What are you doing?’ she protested. ‘By whose authority do you act?’

The soldier turned slowly and removed his helmet. He looked at her with a slightly pained expression as if uncertain who she was. In the same instant her world pitched upside down and she found herself on her back in the dirt, staring at the sky. Every nerve in her body jangled and her vision was shot with lightning bolts. It took a moment to realize she’d been punched. Her face was a mass of pain beneath the right eye and she could already feel her cheek swelling. Tears blurred her vision as she struggled to sit up.

The pock-marked soldier stood over her and she wondered distractedly if he was about to kick her. ‘If I have to repeat myself,’ he warned, ‘I’ll have you trussed up and scourged. At last.’

Lucullus walked stiff-legged from the villa with the bewildered air of a man woken in the middle of a nightmare. He wore the fine toga presented to him when he had been voted to the priesthood and didn’t seem to notice that the men were laughing at him. They moved briskly back and forth between the villa and the carts loaded with the household treasures he had collected to make himself more Roman. Now the Romans were stripping him of everything.

Maeve struggled to her feet and ran to her father’s side as the leader drew a scroll from a pouch on his sword belt and read from it in a disinterested drawl.

‘By the authority of the procurator this estate is now imperial property, held as security for the repayment of one million, two hundred and twenty-three thousand
sestertii
loaned to the merchant Lucullus by the senator Lucius Annaeus Seneca. You have seventy-two hours to repay the debt or such portion of it as you are able, or face certain penalties deemed appropriate by the state. Signed Catus Decianus, procurator.’

Maeve gasped at the magnitude of the debt and Lucullus was jolted from his torpor. ‘But I cannot,’ he whispered. ‘No man could raise such a sum in three days.’

The Roman came close enough for Maeve to smell his foul breath. He smiled and she was reminded of a festering sore.

‘Three days, old man. I see no gold in those baskets, so you must have it hidden somewhere else. I’ve never come across a Celt yet who didn’t like the glitter of gold. So dig up your treasure and sell everything you’ve got and bring the proceeds to the procurator’s office in Londinium. Maybe you could even sell yourself.’ He laughed. ‘We done yet, Vettius?’ he shouted.

‘Unless you want the furniture.’

‘Every stick.’

‘And the slaves?’

‘Round them up. If we leave them they’ll only clear off. They can all carry something. Come here.’ Fire streaked across Maeve’s scalp as the soldier wrapped his hand in her hair and hauled her roughly towards one of the wagons. She kicked out at him and screamed in fury but she was powerless against his strength. Her father shouted a protest which was instantly cut off and she felt a momentary panic that he’d been harmed. ‘Stay where you are, you old fool,’ the legionary warned. ‘Vettius would like nothing better than to gut you, but you can’t pay up if you’re dead. You won’t be tempted to run if you know she’s keeping us company. Three days and you’ll get her back, and she might even be in the same condition.’ A hand slipped surreptitiously inside her dress and cupped Maeve’s breast, making her gasp in outrage. ‘Or maybe not,’ he said.

They tethered her hands to the rear of the wagon and as the soldiers and slaves completed their task it lurched off slowly in the direction of the Londinium road. She felt an agonizing tug on her wrists and stumbled helplessly behind, with only time for a single glance back to where her father knelt in the mud with tears running down his cheeks.

Her mind still whirled from the blow she had received, but she willed it to think rationally. There could be no question of escape; she was too tightly bound for that and where would she run to in any case? She was a hostage for her father’s return with the payment. But he could never pay back the full amount and what if it was true and there was no money? What would her fate be at the hands of these evil men? She remembered the touch of the officer’s fingers on her body and her skin crawled. She closed her eyes and a groan escaped her lips. Valerius, why did you not come to me?

Red-eyed and almost sleeping in the saddle, Valerius led his men into the legionary tent lines at Colonia two hours after dawn. They had ridden through the night with the aid of a full moon which showed the road ahead like a shining silver pathway between its pair of ditches. As he rode, he had composed in his mind the report he would send to the governor. Cearan had convinced him that only by supporting Boudicca could Rome ensure lasting peace with the Iceni, but Suetonius Paulinus might not be so easily persuaded. Paulinus had the reputation of a man of bull-headed single-mindedness. He was unlikely to appreciate being distracted from his campaign against Mona by what he would regard as the political gossip of a disaffected Iceni lord.