The Silver Branch [book II] (6 page)

Justin, crouching frozen beside him, was without any surprise. It was as though he had known.

Allectus had come up with the other man now. The Saxon said something in a low, angry growl, and he replied more loudly, ‘Aye, I know it is dangerous after cock-light. If I could have come sooner I would have done so—for my own skin’s sake. After all, it is I who run the chief risk. You have but to lie hid until the
Sea Witch
puts in for you … Now this is what I have to say to your lords who sent you.’ But even as he spoke, the two men had turned away together, and their voices sank to a formless murmuring.

Justin strained every sense to catch what they were saying, but could make nothing of the low mutter. Indeed he had a feeling that they had abandoned Latin and were speaking in a tongue that he did not know. He scanned the ground ahead of him, searching desperately for some means of getting closer without being seen, but once out of the reeds there was no cover for a curlew, let alone a man.

And then suddenly it seemed that the two men had reached the end of whatever it was that they had to say to each other. The Saxon nodded, as though in answer to some order; and Allectus turned away in the direction from which he had come. The Saxon stood a few moments looking after him, then, with a shrug, turned himself about and bending low so as not to break the skyline, set off along the old thorn windbreak, heading westward for the wildest and most solitary part of the marsh.

Among the reeds Justin and Flavius took one look into each other’s faces. There was no time to think, no time to weigh one thing against another and decide what was best to do. They must make an instant decision, and abide by it wherever it led them.

‘Wait till he rounds the end of the windbreak,’ Flavius muttered, his eyes narrowed as he stared out through the parted reeds. ‘If we go after him now, and he cries out, it will warn friend Allectus.’

Justin nodded. From where he was he could no longer see the retreating Saxon, and so he watched Flavius crouching with a knee drawn under him like a runner poised for the start of a race, watched him grow tense on the edge of movement …

‘
Now
,’ Flavius breathed.

They were out from the reeds like an arrow from a bow, running low for the end of the windbreak. By the time they reached it the man had disappeared from sight, but a few moments later, as they checked uncertain, he came into view again at the curve of a dry dyke, and glancing once behind him, struck out into the open over the tawny levels.

‘He’s probably got a hideout somewhere among the dunes,’ Flavius said. ‘Come on!’

And again they were out after him. There was no possibility now of keeping under cover—when he looked back he was bound to see them, and it would be a matter of speed against speed, and nothing else. At least they must be well out of earshot of Allectus by this time.

They had almost halved the distance between them when, on the edge of a clump of wind-twisted thorn trees the Saxon checked and glanced back, as they had known he must before long. Justin saw him freeze for one instant into intense stillness, like an animal that scents the hunter; then his hand flew to his sword-hilt, and next instant he had sprung away, running like a hare with the two young Romans on his trail.

As though realizing the danger of such country, lacking all shelter, and veined by wandering arms of the sea that might cut him off at any moment, the Saxon changed course almost at once, and began to swing away from the coast, heading inland for the forest fringe; and knowing that once he gained the trees they would almost certainly lose him, Justin and Flavius lengthened their stride, straining every nerve to come up with him before he reached shelter. Flavius was drawing slowly away from his kinsman, slowly nearer to the desperate quarry, while Justin, who was not much of a runner, came pounding doggedly along in the rear. The smoke-grey shoreline of the bare woods was very near now, and Justin was far behind, snatching at his breath in great gasps. He felt horribly sick, and he was deaf with the drubbing of his own heart; but the only thing in his mind was that away ahead of him, Flavius with only a little dagger was alone on the heels of a desperate man running with a naked sword in his hand.

On and on, the two figures in front were running almost as one now. They were into the furze and blackthorn scrub, when suddenly—he could not see quite what happened, he was too blind with his own running—the foremost figure seemed to stumble, and instantly the other was upon him. Justin saw them go down together, and put on one last heart-tearing burst of speed. Flavius and the Saxon were locked together in a struggling mass as he reached them; and through the buzzing haze before his eyes he caught the gleam of the naked blade upon the tawny grass, and Flavius’s hand gripping white-knuckled about the Saxon’s sword-wrist. He dropped upon it, twisted the sword out of the man’s grasp and sent it spinning sideways. Flavius, with a hand now to spare, drew it back and hit the Saxon cleanly under the ear, and the fight went out of him in one gasp.

‘So—that is better,’ Flavius panted. ‘Now help me bind his hands. The spare bow-strings will serve.’

They got his arms behind him and lashed his wrists together with the thin, strong bow-string which Justin, still sobbing for breath, dragged out from his belt; and rolled him over on his back. Flavius had struck only hard enough to quieten the man for the moment, and he was coming to himself already. His eyes opened, and he lay staring up at them stupidly, then his lips parted in a snarl, his teeth showing little and pointed in the gold of his beard, and he began to fight like a wild beast at his bonds.

Flavius had a knee on his chest, and slipping the dagger from his belt, held it to his throat. ‘No use to struggle, my friend,’ he said. ‘Never wise to struggle with a handspan of cold iron against your windpipe.’

Justin, still feeling very sick, but with the breath beginning to come back into him, crossed to the Saxon’s sword where it had fallen among the roots of a gorsebush. He picked it up and turned again to the other two. The Saxon had ceased to struggle, and lay glaring at his captor.

‘Why do you set on me?’ he demanded at last, speaking in Latin, but with a thick and guttural accent that made it almost unintelligible. ‘I do no harm—I am from the Rhenus Fleet.’

‘And you with the gear and weapons of a Saxon pirate on you,’ Flavius said softly. ‘Go tell that tale to the seamews.’

The man was silent a moment, then he said with sullen pride, ‘
Sa
; I will tell it to the seamews. What do you want with me?’

‘What passed between you and the man you met back yonder by the ruined fisher-huts?’

‘That is a thing between the man and me.’

Justin said quickly, ‘It doesn’t m-matter much for now. Whatever his orders or his message are, he won’t be passing them on, and someone else can get the truth out of him later. Our job is to get him up to the fortress.’

Flavius nodded, his eyes never leaving the Saxon’s face. ‘Yes, you are in the right of it. The main thing is to get him back; otherwise it is but our word against Allectus’s.’ He lifted his knee from the man’s chest. ‘Up, you.’

Rather more than an hour later, they stood before the Commandant in his office, their captive between them, his eyes darting and sliding from side to side in search of a way of escape.

Mutius Urbanus, Commandant of Rutupiae, was a thin, stooping man with a long, grey face a little like a tired old horse’s; but his eyes were shrewdly alert as he leaned back in his chair surveying the three before him. ‘So, one of the Sea Wolves,’ he was saying. ‘How did you come by him?’

‘We were out on the marshes by the old fisher-huts, sir,’ Flavius said, ‘lying up among the reeds for the duck, and we saw a meeting between this man and—a man of our own. After they parted we gave chase to this one, and—here he is.’

The Commandant nodded. ‘And this man of our own. Who was he?’

There was a silence, and then Flavius said deliberately, ‘We did not know him, sir.’

‘How then did you know him for a man of our own?’

Flavius never blinked an eyelid. ‘He was in uniform, sir.’

‘Centurion Aquila,’ said the Commandant, ‘I am not sure that I believe you.’

‘I am sorry, sir.’ Flavius looked him straight in the eye, and pressed on to the next thing. ‘Sir, I believe the Emperor is expected this evening? Will you apply for us—Justin and myself—to have speech with him as soon as may be after his arrival, and meanwhile have this man bestowed in the Guard-house to await his coming?’

Urbanus raised his brows. ‘I scarcely think that this is such a matter as need go to Caesar.’

Flavius came a step nearer and set a hand on the littered table, desperate urgency in both face and voice. ‘But it is, sir. I swear to you that it is. If it doesn’t go to Caesar, and that quickly, and without anyone else meddling with it first, the gods alone know what the consequences may be!’

‘So?’ The Commandant’s gaze turned on Justin. ‘And you also are of that opinion?’

‘I also,’ said Justin.

‘And you do not know who the other man was. More than ever I am not sure that I believe you, Centurion Aquila.’ The Commandant tapped his nose gently with the butt end of his stylus, a trick of his when thoughtful. Then he said abruptly, ‘So let it be; you shall have your speech with the Emperor. But your reason for this mystery, whatever it may be, had better be a good one, for if it is not, and you make me look a fool, the gods may have mercy on you, but I’ll have none.’ He raised his voice to the Optio of the Guard standing at the door. ‘Optio, take this man down to the cells. You two had best go and see him safely under lock and key. After that I suggest that you change into uniform. I will send for you when you may speak with the Emperor.’

‘Thank you, sir. At once, sir.’ Flavius drew himself up and saluted, followed by Justin; and behind the two Legionaries of the Guard who had appeared to take their places on either side of the captive, marched out from the Commandant’s office, across the Praetorium Courtyard into the parade-ground of the fort. They were just crossing the Via Principia when they met a party of horsemen clattering up it from the main gate and the Londinium road; and drawing aside to give them the crown of the way, Justin saw that the tall man in civilian dress riding in their midst was Allectus.

He glanced down at them as he passed, and his glance lighted on the face of the Saxon captive—and seemed to hang there an instant before it moved on; and to Justin it seemed that his face stiffened for that instant into a mere smiling mask. But he gave no sign, and rode by without a second glance; and the little party moved forward again, hobnailed sandals ringing on the cobbles, down between the workshops where the armourers were busy, and so to the Guard-house by the gate.

‘It is a most hideous piece of ill fortune that Allectus saw him,’ Flavius said, as they recrossed the parade ground toward their quarters. ‘I suppose he has come on ahead of Carausius—leastwise it’s meant to look like that.’

‘He can’t know for sure that we saw him with the Saxon,’ Justin said. ‘We might have come on the man afterward. And anyway, there can be little enough that he can do about it without b-betraying himself still more completely.’

‘I don’t know. I can’t think of anything; but then—I’m not Allectus.’ And Justin saw that his kinsman was very white in the thin March sunlight.

In the pressure of work that waited for him in the hospital that day, Justin had little more leisure to think about Allectus, even when he heard in the distance the clatter of hooves and the sound of trumpets that heralded the Emperor’s arrival. He was measuring a draught for one of his patients when at last the Commandant’s summons reached him, and he finished the task with great care and exactness before he went clattering down the stone stairway after the messenger, hastily making sure that nothing was amiss with his uniform tunic and the clasp of his belt was dead centre.

Outside he met Flavius hurrying to answer the same summons and they went on together.

The two young tribunes on duty in the Anteroom of the Emperor’s quarters looked at them with interest. Clearly the story of their having brought in a Saxon captive that morning had gone the rounds. And one of them rose and disappeared into the inner chamber, returning in a few moments to stand aside, leaving the door open. ‘Go in now, the Emperor will see you.’

Carausius had done no more than lay aside crested helmet and heavy mud-sparked cloak before turning himself to his writing-table, on which various papers awaited his attention. He was standing beside it now, an open scroll in his hands; he looked up as they entered. ‘Ah, you two again. The Commandant tells me that you would speak to me on a matter of urgency. Surely it must be a matter of very great urgency that even at this late hour it cannot wait for the morning.’

‘Caesar, it is a matter of very great urgency,’ Flavius said, saluting, as the door closed behind them. His gaze went past the Emperor to the tall figure lounging in the farther shadows. ‘Caesar, we would have speech with you alone.’

‘If the matter be indeed as urgent as you appear to think it, speak and have done,’ Carausius said. ‘You can scarcely expect that I shall dismiss the chief among my ministers like a dog to his kennel at your behest.’

Justin, standing at Flavius’s shoulder, felt him stiffen, felt the resolve take shape and harden in him. ‘Be it as you say, Caesar; I will speak and have done. This morning we two were lying up in the reeds by the old fisher-huts, waiting for the duck. There we saw—though we could make out little of what passed—a meeting between one of the Sea Wolves and a certain man of our own camp.’

Carausius let the scroll he was holding roll back on itself with a snapping sound. ‘That much I have already gathered from the Commandant Urbanus,’ he said. ‘What was the little that you made out to pass between them?’

‘Nothing to much purpose. The Saxon seemed to protest at the other man’s lateness, and the other said, “I know it is dangerous after daylight. I would have come earlier if I could, for my own skin’s sake. I run the chief risk; you have but to lie hid until the
Sea Witch
puts in for you.” That is as near as I can remember it. And then he said, “Now this is what I have to say to your Lords who sent you,” and after that they turned away together and we could hear no more.’