The Silver Branch [book II] (7 page)

‘And this—certain man of our own camp. You told the Commandant that you did not know who he was. Was that the truth?’

The split moment of silence seemed to tingle. Then Flavius said, ‘No, Caesar, it was not.’

‘Who was he, then?’

‘The chief among your ministers, Allectus,’ Flavius said.

His words seemed to fall into the stillness like a pebble in a pool, and Justin had a vivid awareness of them spreading out and out like ripples across the waiting silence, until they burst and shattered as Allectus sprang up from the couch on which he had been lounging, with an exclamation between rage and sheer amazement.

‘Roma Dea! If this be a jest—’

‘It is no jest,’ Flavius flung back at him. ‘I give you my word of that.’

And then Carausius’s voice came like a naked blade between them. ‘Let me be clear about this thing. With what, exactly, do you charge my chief minister Allectus?’

‘With holding secret converse with the Sea Wolves, who are our enemies,’ Flavius said.

‘So, that is clear at all events.’ Carausius turned a bleak stare upon Justin. ‘You make the same charge?’

With his mouth uncomfortably dry, Justin said, ‘I saw what Flavius my kinsman saw. I make the same charge.’

‘And what defence has Allectus my chief minister to set against that?’

Allectus seemed to have got over his first astonishment and to be now merely angry. ‘The thing is so—so outrageous that I scarce know what to say. Am I to seriously defend myself from such a preposterous charge?’

Carausius gave a mirthless bark of laughter. ‘I scarcely think so.’

Flavius took an impulsive step forward. ‘Caesar, the matter does not rest on our word alone. The Saxon is held captive in the Guard-house at this moment; let him be brought face to face with Allectus, and assuredly the truth may be laid bare!’

‘So—it seems that you have plotted this thing with remarkable care!’ Allectus exclaimed; but Carausius’s voice drowned the sentence.

‘Centurion Aquila, will you open the door behind you and summon me a tribune?’

Flavius did as he was bid, and a moment later the tribune stood saluting on the threshold. ‘Excellency?’

‘I wish the prisoner in—’ Carausius turned to Flavius, who replied to the unspoken question, ‘Number five cell.’

‘Ah, the prisoner in number five cell brought here immediately, Tribune Vipsanius.’

Tribune Vipsanius saluted again, and withdrew. They heard his clipped footsteps through the Anteroom, and voice as he issued an order outside.

In the Emperor’s quarters an utter silence settled; a silence that was complete and oppressive, as though they were inside a giant gong. Justin, standing with Flavius near the door, was staring straight before him, seemingly at nothing. Yet he was aware of all kinds of details that he remembered afterwards. The perfect shadow of Carausius’s great helmet—every eagle-feather of the crest sharply distinct—thrown on the lamplit wall; a little muscle twitching in the angle of Flavius’s set jaw; the colour of the evening sky beyond the window, peacock blue, filmed with a kind of murky gold-dust haze by the great pharos beacon. And then a sound grew in the stillness, a small insistent rapping and drumming; and turning his eyes in the direction from which it came, he saw that Allectus, still standing by the couch from which he had risen, had begun to beat a tattoo with long, strong fingers on the wooden couch-head beside him. His face, pale as always in the lamplight, showed nothing but the set mouth and frowning brows of anger with difficulty held in check. Justin wondered what was going on behind the pale, angry mask; was it the fear and fury of the trapped?—or only a cool brain making or changing plans? The tattoo seemed to grow louder and louder in the stillness, and then it was joined by another sound: the urgent beat of footsteps, half marching, half running. The footsteps of two men, Justin thought, not more.

A few moments later Tribune Vipsanius again stood in the doorway, and with him the Centurion of the prison guard breathing heavily through his nose.

‘Excellency,’ said Tribune Vipsanius, ‘the prisoner in number five cell is dead.’

J
USTIN had a physical sensation as if he had been jolted in the stomach, and yet in an odd way he knew that he was not surprised. Allectus had ceased his drumming. Carausius set down the scroll on the table, very softly and exactly, and demanded, ‘How comes that about?’

The Tribune shook his head. ‘I do not know, Caesar; he’s just—dead.’

‘Centurion?’

The Centurion stared straight before him. ‘The prisoner was well enough, though dumb sullen, when his evening food went in to him an hour or so since; and now he’s dead, same as the Tribune said. That’s all I know, Caesar.’

Carausius stood away from the table. ‘It seems that I must come and see for myself.’ Then to Justin and Flavius, ‘You will accompany me.’

As the little group turned to the doorway, Allectus stepped forward. ‘Caesar, since this is a matter that concerns me somewhat closely, with your leave I also will accompany you.’

‘In Typhon’s name come then,’ Carausius said, and strode out with the rest behind him.

The Guard-house seemed disturbed and excited. In the first cell a drunken legionary was singing.

Oh why did I join the Eagles

The Empire for to roam?

Oh why did I leave me pumpkin patch

And me little dun cow at home?

Their footsteps rang hollow down the flagged passageway. The pale blur of a face appeared at the barred squint of a door, and hastily disappeared again as they went by. The voice of the singer fell more faintly behind them.

They said I’d rise to Emperor

As sure as sure could be.

If I left me little pumpkin patch

And sailed across the sea.

The door of the farthest cell was ajar, and a sentry who stood before it moved aside to make way for them. The cell was in darkness save for the reflection of the pharos beacon shining down through the high barred window, and the red square of light striped with the shadows of the bars fell full across the figure of the Saxon lying face down on the floor.

‘Bring a light, somebody,’ Carausius said, without raising his voice.

Justin, the surgeon in him suddenly uppermost, had pushed through the rest, and was already kneeling beside the fallen man as the Centurion brought the Guard-room lantern. There was nothing to be done for the Saxon, and one look at him in the lantern light told Justin all he needed to know. ‘Nightshade,’ he said. ‘He’s been poisoned.’

‘How?’ Carausius snapped.

Justin did not answer at once, but picked up the pottery bowl that lay beside the man and sniffed the few thick drops of broth remaining in it. He tasted gingerly, and then spat. ‘Probably in his supper broth. Quite simply.’

Away down the passage the singer had begun again, in a tone of deep melancholy.

So I upped and joined the Eagles,

And I left me little cow,

And I may be Emperor one of these days,

But Mother, just
look
at me now!

Justin had a sudden insane desire to laugh—to laugh and laugh until he was sick. But the sight of Flavius’s face steadied him.

It was Allectus who spoke first. ‘Then it must have been one of the prison guard. No one else could have been sure in which bowl to put the poison.’

‘No, sir,’ the Centurion contradicted respectfully. ‘That isn’t so, sir. There are only three other men in detention at this moment, and they are all on bread and water for their sins. Easy enough, ’twould be, for anyone to find that out and act according.’

Flavius cut in—Flavius with very bright eyes in a fierce white face. ‘What matter for the moment how the poison came into the man’s bowl? The thing that matters is
why
, and the answer to that is plain. Alive, he could tell who it was that he met on the marshes this morning, and what passed between them. Therefore he has died. Caesar, does the proof suffice?’

‘It is both chilly and depressing in this place,’ said Carausius. ‘Shall we return to my quarters?’

And not until they were back in the lamplit office, and the door shut behind them, did he speak again, as though Flavius had but that moment asked his question. ‘The Saxon you caught this morning in the marshes did indeed have dealings with
someone
in Rutupiae. For that, the proof suffices. No more.’ Then as Flavius made a quick gesture of protest, ‘Nay, hear me out. Had I, or the Camp Commandant or the bath-house sweeper had dealings with this Saxon, we should have had but two courses open to us after he was taken: to contrive his escape, or to kill him before he was questioned. And of the two, the second would be the surer and simpler method.’

Flavius spoke in a dead-level voice that somehow gave all the more desperate earnestness to his words. ‘Caesar, I beg you to listen to us. We were no more than a spear-throw from our men, it was more than half light, and neither of us is blind. We could not have been mistaken. If indeed the other man was not Allectus, then it must be that for some purpose of our own we deliberately bear false witness against him. Do you accuse us of that?’

Allectus himself answered first, with the quickness of anger. ‘That is assuredly the most likely explanation of your behaviour. What you yourself have to gain by this I cannot imagine—it may be that your cousin has influenced you in some way—but as for our Junior Surgeon,’ he turned to Carausius, ‘I remember that when first he was posted here, you yourself, Caesar, were not too sure of his good faith. This is surely some plot of Maximian’s, to cast doubt and suspicion between the Emperor of Britain and the man who, however unworthily, serves him to the best of his ability as chief minister.’

Justin stepped forward, his hands clenched at his sides.

‘That is a foul lie,’ he said, for once without a trace of his stutter. ‘And you know it, Allectus; none better.’

‘Will you grant me also a space to speak?’ Carausius said quietly, and silence fell like a blight on the lamplit chamber. He looked round at all three of them, taking his time.

‘I remember my doubts, Allectus. I remember also that the dawn-light can be uncertain, and that there are in Rutupiae more tall, fair-haired men than one.—They will all be questioned in due course.—I believe that this has been an honest mistake.’ He turned his attention to the two young men. ‘However, I, Carausius, do not tolerate such mistakes, and I have no further use for the men who make them. Tomorrow you will receive fresh postings; and it may be that life on the Wall will keep you better occupied and save your over-active fancies from leading you into such mistakes again.’ He picked up the scroll that he had been studying when they first entered. ‘You may go now. I have no more to say.’

For one instant neither of the two made any move. Then Flavius drew himself rigidly to attention, and saluted. ‘It is as Caesar commands,’ he said, and opened the door and walked stiffly out.

Justin followed him, carefully closing the door at his back. On the far side of it, he heard Allectus’s voice beginning, ‘Caesar is too lenient—’ and the rest was lost.

‘Come to my sleeping-cell,’ Flavius demanded, as they crossed the parade-ground under the great pharos.

‘I will come by and by,’ Justin said dully. ‘There are men needing me in the hospital. I must see to them first.’

Tomorrow they would be no affair of his, those men; but tonight he was the surgeon on duty, and it was not until he had made his round of the men in his care, that he went to join Flavius.

Flavius was sitting on the edge of his cot, staring straight before him; his red hair ruffled like the feathers of a bird with the wind behind it, his face, in the light of the wall lamp overhead, drawn and white and angry. He looked up as Justin entered, and jerked his head towards the clothes-chest.

Justin sat down, his arms across his knees, and for a while they looked at each other in silence. Then Flavius said, ‘Well, so that is that.’

Justin nodded, and the silence settled again.

And again it was Flavius who broke it. ‘I’d have staked all I possess that the Emperor would have given us a fair hearing,’ he said moodily.

‘I suppose coming out of a clear sky, it would be hard to believe that someone you trusted could betray you,’ Justin said.

‘Not for Carausius,’ Flavius returned with certainty. ‘He is not the blindly trusting kind.’

Justin said, ‘If the
Sea Witch
puts in again to pick up that Saxon, maybe our galleys will get her, and the truth will come out that way.’

The other shook his head. ‘Allectus will find means to warn her not to come.’ He stretched, with an angry and miserable laugh. ‘Well, no good to yelp about it. He did
not
believe us, and that’s all there is to it. We did our best, and there’s nothing more that we can do;—and if one day, in some stinking little Auxiliary outpost of the Wall, we hear that Allectus has led a Saxon invasion and made himself Emperor, I hope we both find that very comforting.’ He got up, stretching still. ‘The Emperor’s done with us. We’re broke, my lad, broke, and to no purpose. Get off that clothes-chest. I want to start packing.’

The sleeping-cell was looking as though it had been hit by a whirlwind, when a while later the tramp of feet came up the stair, and there was a rap on the door.

Justin, who was nearest, opened it, to find one of the Commandant’s messengers standing there. ‘For the Centurion Aquila,’ said the man; and then, recognizing Justin, ‘For you also, sir, if you will take it here.’

A few moments later he had disappeared into the night, and Flavius and Justin turned to look at each other, each with a sealed tablet in his hand.

‘So he could not even wait for tomorrow to give us our marching orders,’ Flavius said bitterly, snapping the crimson thread under the seal.