The Silver Branch [book II] (21 page)

Flavius nodded. ‘And the letter? Have you the letter yet?’

‘Should I have come without it?’ Cullen said. From the breast of his tattered motley he brought out something long and curved, muffled close in rags, and unwinding it gently as a woman loosing her babe from its swaddling bands, laid bare his Silver Branch.

Justin wondered at its silence in his hands until he saw the wisp of sheep’s wool sticking through the opening of the largest apple, and realized that, as well as the outer wrappings, each apple had been packed with wool to silence it. ‘Other things I have carried for Curoi my Lord in this hiding-place. It is a good hiding-place,’ Cullen was saying. He did something to the end of the enamelled hand-piece, and drew out from it a roll of papyrus not much thicker than a man’s finger. ‘Sa, here it is, safe where it has lain these more than two years past.’

Flavius took and unrolled it with great care, turning to the little lamp on the altar. The papyrus was so thin that the flame shone through it pinkish until he tipped it to catch the light on the surface. Justin, looking over his shoulder, saw Carausius’s bold writing flash up blackly from the fragile sheet.

‘To Centurion Marcelus Flavius Aquila, and to Tiberius Lucius Justinianus, Cohort Surgeon, from Marcus Aurelius Carausius, Emperor of Britain, Greeting,’ he read. ‘If ever you read this it will be that the man of whom you sought to warn me has slipped beneath my guard in the end. And—as though it mattered—if I should have no more speech with you in this world, I would not have you think I sent you from me in anger. You young fools, if I had not sent you to the Wall as being of no further use to me, you would have been dead men within three days. I salute you, my children. Farewell.’

There was a long silence. Only the faint whisper of the rain and the distant night-time sounds of the city. The noise of the hunt had quite died away. Flavius let the thin papyrus roll up on itself, very gently. Justin was staring at the flame of the lamp; a slender, spear shaped flame, blue at the heart, exquisite. There was a small aching lump in his throat, and somewhere below it, a small aching joy.

‘So he d-did believe us,’ he said at last. ‘He knew, all the time.’

‘A great man, our little Emperor,’ Flavius said huskily, and slipped the roll into the breast of his ragged tunic.

A
S he did so, from somewhere just beneath their feet came a thud, followed by a rustle as of falling plaster.

‘What is that?’ Flavius said, after a moment’s startled hush.

Little Cullen squirmed slightly, as a dog squirms in apology when he knows he has been doing what he should not. ‘Maybe it is the stone that moved in one of the pillars that hold up the floor. When we were down there I crept forward to hear better what went on, and it moved under my hand as I felt before me in the dark. It might be that I disturbed something.’

So that was what the sound in the darkness of the hypocaust had been.

‘Ah well, better the house falling down than more Saxons,’ Flavius said, and put out a hand to the lamp on the altar. ‘Aunt Honoria, may I take this? Better perhaps that I go see what
has
happened. Cullen, come you and show me.’

Aunt Honoria, who had seated herself in the one unbroken chair, rose. ‘While you are gone I’ll see to some food for you.’

Justin went with neither his Great-Aunt nor Flavius. There was no point in his going with either, and he was possessed suddenly of an odd stillness, a certainty that something very strange was coming. And he stood beside the little altar, waiting for it to come. With the lamp gone, it was almost as dark as it had been in the hypocaust. He heard the wind and the rain, and the waiting silence of the poor scarred house. He heard the other two moving below the floor, a grunt that was unmistakably Flavius, the soft, formless sound of something being shifted, followed by a muffled exclamation; and in a little the sounds of movement drawing away toward the door.

And then the other two were back, the shadows circling and racing before the lamp in Cullen’s hand. Flavius carried something else, a shapeless bundle of some sort, and as Cullen set the lamp once more on the altar, and the light steadied, Justin, casting a questioning glance at his cousin, was struck by the look of hushed excitement on his face.

‘All’s well?’ he asked.

Flavius nodded. ‘The house isn’t falling down. The side had come out of an old hiding-place in one of the hypocaust pillars—the plaster must have crumbled away. And inside was—this.’

‘What is it?’

‘I—do not know yet.’ Flavius turned to the lamp, and began very carefully to turn back the dark, musty-smelling folds of cloth in which the thing was wrapped. ‘The wool is rotten as tinder,’ he said. ‘But look at these inner folds, where the lamplight falls. Look, Justin, you can see that it has been scarlet!’

Justin looked; and then put out his hands to take the mass of tindery cloth as the last folds fell away—scarlet: scarlet for a military cloak.

Flavius was holding an eagle of gilded bronze. Green-stained with verdigris where the gilding was gone, battered, mutilated—for where the great back-swept silver wings should have sprung from its shoulders were only empty socket-holes staring like blind eyes; but defiant in its furious pride, unmistakably an Eagle still.

Justin drew a long breath. ‘But it is an Eagle!’ he whispered unbelievingly. ‘I mean—it is the Eagle of a Legion.’

‘Sa, it is the Eagle of a Legion,’ Flavius said.

‘But—only one such Eagle was ever lost in Britain.’

They looked at the thing in silence, while little Cullen, with an air of being very well pleased with himself, after all, stood swinging his hound’s tail behind him with little flicks of his rump, and looking on. The lost Ninth Legion, the lost Hispana that had marched into the Northern mists and never returned…. ‘But how could it be that one?’ Justin whispered at last. ‘Who could have brought it South again? None of them ever got back.’

‘I don’t know,’ Flavius said. ‘But Marcus’s father disappeared with the Ninth, remember, and there was always that story in the family about an adventure in the North … Maybe he went to find out the truth and bring back the Eagle. A Roman Eagle in the hands of the Painted People would be a powerful rallying point. Justin, do you remember once—one evening at the farm, we were wondering how it all started; why he got that gratuity and land-grant from the Senate? Don’t you see it all fits?’

‘But—but if he brought it back, why should it have been hidden here? Why was the L-legion never re-formed?’

‘It wasn’t exactly hidden, it was buried before the Altar,’ Flavius said. ‘Maybe it was disgraced. We shall never know. But there could have been reasons.’ In the circle of lamplight, a soft yellow rose of lamplight in the darkened house, they looked at each other with growing excitement and certainty; while little Cullen stood by, swinging his hound’s tail behind him. ‘And I’d wager all I have that this is the Ninth’s lost Eagle!’

Aunt Honoria, who, unnoticed by any of them, had returned a little before, set down the bundle of food on a nearby table, and said, ‘So, you have found a lost Eagle, under the floor. At another time I will wonder and care and be amazed, but now it seems to me that it is not the time to be discovering lost Eagles. Here is food—the hunt may rouse up again at any moment, it will be dawn in an hour, and after this disturbance the Fates alone know how soon Volumnia and the rest will be stirring—let you take it, and go.’

Flavius did not seem to hear the last part of this speech. His head was up and his eyes suddenly blazing bright under the red fly-away brows. He held the battered thing against his breast. ‘But it is the time of all others to be discovering lost Eagles! We have our dunghill legion—and now the gods send us a standard to follow, and who are we to refuse a gift of the gods?’

‘So, take it with you. Only take it now, and go!’

Flavius had turned from her to the shrine, the Eagle still held against his breast, looking to the tiny crocus-flame of the lamp, or to the little bronze figures of the household gods in their niches, Justin was not sure which; or through them to something beyond. ‘I take it for the old Service again,’ he said.

And as though in answer, far off and faintly down the wind came the long-drawn, haunting notes of Cockcrow sounding from the transit camp without the Walls.

‘Flavius dear,’ said Aunt Honoria very gently, ‘I have had a rather trying night, and I feel my temper none too sure within me. Will you please go, before I lose it and box all your ears?’

And so a few moments later they stood ready to depart; Flavius with the Eagle once more wrapped in the remains of what had once been a military cloak, Justin with the food-bundle under his arm. Aunt Honoria had taken the lamp into another room, that it might not outline them in the doorway, and slipped out first herself to see that all was quiet, before she beckoned them after her. At the last moment, as they stood in the Atrium doorway with the soft rain blowing in their faces, Flavius said, ‘You have heard the news, that Constantius’s sails have been sighted off Tanatis?’

‘Yes, I have heard. Who has not?’

‘We thought you were at Aqua Sulis, safely out of the way.’

‘But, then, I have always hated to be out of the way when things happen.’

‘Well, there’s likely to be plenty happening soon,’ Flavius said, and kissed her gravely on the cheek. ‘The gods keep you when they start happening, you and Volumnia.’

Justin, going out last of all, hesitated, then bent also, and gave her a kiss that was clumsy with shyness, and at which she laughed on an unexpectedly soft and young note, as she closed the door behind them.

They found their friend who lived near the South Gate waiting anxiously with the mules ready loaded up, and when the gates opened at first light, passed out without any trouble, leading the beasts, little Cullen between them with his head coyly down-bent and the folds of a woman’s mantle drawn close over his motley rags which he had refused to change.

And two evenings later they stood on the crest of the Downs, where their way turned down to the farm. The wind that had been blowing off and on for several days had strengthened and was blowing hard from the South-West, driving before it the mist-scurries and low cloud as a dog drives sheep. Soft rain blew in their faces—rain that tasted faintly salt on their lips—and already the light was fading; but Justin, straining his eyes into the blurred and drifting distance, could make out no sign of Vectis Light.

His gaze going out in the same direction, Flavius said, ‘Dirty weather out round the Island. The Vectis fleet would have its work cut out to intercept anything that tries to get through on this part of the coast tonight, I’m thinking.’

And they turned their backs on the sea and went on down the last home stretch, urging the tired mules ahead of them. Anthonius met them at the lower end of the vine-terraces, followed by the boy Myron, who was seldom willingly apart from him. ‘All well?’ he asked.

‘All well, though there were exciting moments. And here?’

‘We’ve had nine new recruits in the past few days, and several of the old lot from Regnum and Adurni have come in. More than ever the “lamp-oil” will be welcome, especially if half the rumours flying through the forest be true.’

Young Myron had come forward to take charge of the mules, and as he led them away, Flavius said, ‘Here is another for the brotherhood. One that was Carausius’s hound and has no love for Allectus.’

‘So. We grow more to a full Legion every hour,’ Anthonius said. And then, ‘Pandarus and I have already called the band in and camped them about the farm. We thought it best not to wait for your orders, lest there be too little time to spare for mustering them later.’

Flavius nodded. ‘Good. Then let’s go and eat. I’ve forgotten what food looks like.’

Anthonius turned back beside them. ‘There’s a man waiting for you up at the houseplace—been there since yesterday, and won’t tell his errand to anyone.’

‘What sort of man?’

‘A hunter. Big, rather splendid-looking fellow with a great spear.’

Justin and Flavius glanced at each other in the dusk, with one swift unspoken thought between them. Then Flavius said, ‘Sa, we will go up and see this hunter. Anthonius, take Cullen and feed him; we’ll be down for some food ourselves by and by.’

‘We’ll keep you some deer-meat,’ said Anthonius. ‘Come, Cullen, hound of Carausius.’

And so while Anthonius and the little Fool turned off toward the farm-garth below the terrace, where a deer shot by Kyndylan was being baked, Flavius and Justin made their way up to the houseplace in search of the stranger with the spear.

A dark figure squatting on the terrace before the house-place shook clear of the shadows as they drew near, and stood out into the faint glow of a doorway that shone coppery on his lion’s mane of hair and touched with palest moony gold the collar of white swan’s feathers about the neck of the great spear on which he leaned.

‘It
is
Evicatos!’ Flavius said, voicing the thing that had been unspoken in both their minds. ‘Evicatos, by the gods!’ And he started forward. ‘In the name of all that is most wonderful, what brings you down here?’

Justin did not feel any particular surprise. After Cullen, it seemed natural and fitting, somehow; a gathering together of those who had been caught up in the thing at the outset, now that the end of it was in sight.

‘Allectus has withdrawn half the garrison from the Wall, and there is talk, much talk, among the heather,’ Evicatos said. ‘So I left my hounds again with Cuscrid the Smith, and came south with my spear, to share the last fight, that nothing may be left of Allectus to join with the Picts one day against my people.’

‘So. But how did you know where to find us? How did you know that we were not in Gaul?’

‘One hears things,’ said Evicatos vaguely. ‘One hears things, among the heather.’

‘Well, however you found the trail, glad we are to see you!’ Flavius said, with a hand on the hunter’s shoulder. ‘You and your great spear. But you had an over-long wait after a long trail, and they are baking a deer down yonder. Afterward we will talk of many things; but now—come you and eat.’