After Rome (5 page)

Nothing happened.

As Meradoc came along his other side the horse arched his neck, displaying the impressive crest of a mature stallion. He flared his nostrils and made little whuffling sounds.

“Look out, you fool!” cried Dinas.

To his astonishment, the dark horse lowered his head for the little man's caress. “See? He likes me,” Meradoc said shyly. He stroked the stallion's velvety nose. The horse gave a contented sigh that transmitted itself to its rider.

At moments like these, small moments indeed, lives are changed.

Dinas swung his right leg over the horse's withers with a catlike alacrity and slid to the ground. His scabbard clattered against his leg.

“Weapons of war are not permitted in Deva,” Ludno warned.

“You can't expect me to leave a good sword lying outside the gates.”

“Very well, bring it with you. Just don't wave it around.”

“I never wave it around. This is a thrusting sword.” Dinas took off his cape and folded it over his arm. He asked Meradoc, “Are you always so good with horses?”

The little man ducked his chin in embarrassment. “Not many horses come to Deva now. I never touched one until today.”

“Pay no mind to him,” said Ludno. “Meradoc is all right but he's a bit simple, if you know what I mean.” He tapped his forehead.

I really do not like this man, thought Dinas. “No, Ludno, I don't know what you mean. My horse likes him, and my horse is an excellent judge of character. What is your occupation, Meradoc?”

By now the little man was rubbing the stallion behind the ears with his knuckles. The horse's eyes were half closed with pleasure. “I don't have an occupation. I just do whatever needs to be done.”

“Then yours is the apex of occupations,” Dinas told him. “It requires as much ability as all the others put together.” Glancing toward Ludno, he was pleased to see the man's discomfiture at hearing a compliment paid to Meradoc.

“What does ‘apex' mean?” whispered Meradoc.

Dinas whispered back, “The highest.”

Ludno said sharply, “Do you want to see the martyrium or not?”

When Dinas felt Meradoc tug at his sleeve, he looked down. “It's worth it,” the little man mouthed silently.

“I do.”

“Then follow me.” Ludno gave a peremptory wave of his arm—and the dark horse flattened his ears.

Ludno and Brecon set off together, still arguing about who was best qualified to guide, while Dinas followed, leading his horse. Meradoc walked at the stallion's shoulder. As the little procession made its way through the town, people in the streets or standing in open doorways watched curiously. Several men spoke to Brecon or Ludno, but no one spoke to Meradoc. He would not have noticed anyway. All his attention was on the dark horse.

What Dinas saw confirmed his initial impression of Deva. Although vast in area, the former garrison was little better than a prison cell. Walls limiting space, roofs hiding sky. Dwellings crowded so close together the occupants could hear one another farting. Unspecified rickety structures slowly disintegrating. Air polluted with a pervasive miasma; midden heaps covered with flies; open latrines running with filth. Life always the same, day after day.

How could anyone choose to …

“Here we are,” Ludno announced.

They had come to the large central square, from which four streets radiated at right angles. The paved streets were swept clean, but the little alleyways that ran between them were choked with debris. Market stalls, more than half of them empty and with torn awnings sagging, ran along two sides of the square. A few dispirited women were picking desultorily over the meager merchandise.

There lies the future, thought Dinas.

Ludno cleared his throat to command attention. “Beyond the square, and just outside the walls, you can see the great coliseum of Deva, which was built entirely by the army. The military occupation of Albion lasted for three and a half centuries, during which time the Romans established and fortified a number of garrisons like this one. They constructed twenty-eight cities and large towns and built over seven thousand miles of roads. They built a wall twenty feet high and over seventy-three miles long to protect the pacified southern part of the island, which they called Britannia Superior, from the northern part, which they designated as Britannia Inferior. But the Picts of Caledonia and their allies, the Scoti from Eire, were hardly inferior. The legions were never able to conquer them, which is why Emperor Hadrian erected a wall to conceal his failure.”

Dinas stifled a yawn. “I don't need a history lesson, thank you.”

“You might as well hear him out,” Meradoc whispered. “We won't get any farther until he's made his speech.”

Ludno cleared his throat again. “It is important to view our Martyrium in context, Dinas. The Romans built the coliseum—that means ‘gigantic,' you know—to hold gladiatorial games for entertaining the famed Twentieth Legion, which commanded the entire northwestern quarter of Britannia. Eight thousand spectators at a time could be packed into the stands in our coliseum; it was and still is the largest amphitheater in Britannia. Any living creature that walked or flew was butchered in the arena for what the Romans called sport. That includes human beings. Men and women and children died in agony to provide amusement for their conquerors. Come, pilgrim. See for yourself.” Giving a commanding wave of his arm, Ludno set out across the square.

“He is a good speaker, you know,” murmured Meradoc. “I get chills when he talks about the martyrs.”

They followed Ludno to an open gate set in the town wall. A wide, paved walk, deeply grooved by chariot wheels, led from the wall to an imposing archway. Before he entered the coliseum Dinas paused to look up at the structure towering above them. It was even larger than it appeared from a distance; thousands of tons of gray stone scarred by chisels and roughened by weather. Implacable; indestructible. Built to stand for a thousand years.

Dinas was surprised by his horse's reluctance to walk through the archway. Shadows gathered within that portal. Darkly suggestive shadows, like old sins. When Dinas tugged on the reins the stallion took a step back.

Meradoc made a low clucking noise. The horse took a step forward.

Once again Dinas raised a sharply peaked eyebrow. The skin around his mouth tightened imperceptibly.

The footing under the arch was gritty; the stone walls on either side were slimy. In the warm, damp air, a smell from the arena came to meet them. A fetid odor. The stallion snorted explosively. Every muscle in his body strained to turn and run.

Dinas tightened his hold on the reins.

Meradoc put one hand on the horse's shoulder. “Come now,” he said softly. “Come now.”

They stepped out of the shadows and into the arena. This time it was Dinas who wanted to shy away. The hairs rose on the backs of his arms.

The sandy earth that slaves had carefully raked before and after every event was no longer level, but as rough and pockmarked as old skin. On this killing ground captive wolves had been battered with spiked clubs. Captive bears had been baited by dogs bred for savagery. Captive gladiators had fought to the death while thousands of cheering, jeering men watched from the tiers above the arena, and the bright flags of Imperial Rome and the Twentieth Legion fluttered overhead. Centuries of blood had soaked into the sand. With those senses that he could not name, Dinas could still hear the roars and screams. Could feel the abject terror and the undying fury. And smell the blood. Smell the blood …

The amphitheater was hell.

In the middle of the arena, in the heart of that unyielding stone, stood a tiny wooden building topped by a cross. “There is our martyrium,” Brecon said proudly.

Dinas could hardly hear him above the cries of the dead.

Ludno continued his lecture. “We built this chapel to commemorate the Christians who were tortured and slain in Deva Victrix. The timber was taken from oaks that were standing when Christ was alive. We men located and felled the trees; our women cut and shaped the wooden pegs that hold the building together. Even the smallest child had a job to do, if only bringing water to the workmen.”

“I carved the cross on top,” said Brecon as he outmaneuvered Ludno and opened the door.

 

CHAPTER THREE

A pale shaft of light slanted through the narrow window in the eastern wall. Cadogan's neck was stiff. He felt as if he had been sitting on the floor for days with his back pressed against the wall and his ears straining to detect the slightest sound.

Sometime during the night he had dreamed about his parents. Fragmented, disturbing dreams, mostly featuring his mother. He could not see her face but he recognized the flavor of her. The sweetness that surrounded him. He yearned toward her with every fiber of his being, even as she receded into a shadowy nowhere. Out of that same nowhere his father loomed toward him. Not sweetness this time, but a hard and bitter crust like that on a burned loaf of bread, which he could not break through.

Beside him Quartilla said in her knife-edged voice, “It's been quiet out there for a long time. Can't we get up now? I ache all over.”

The dream evaporated. Cadogan did not know whether to be sad or glad. “Get up then. We have to sooner or later anyway.”

With a dramatic moan, Quartilla stretched her legs in front of her. The stained gown she wore rode up to reveal thin thighs and dirty knees. Apparently she did not bother to use the washbasin.

Cadogan was disgusted. What does this woman have to whine about? She's spent the last ten days gorging on my food and sleeping in my bed while I sifted through wreckage.

“Who were they, Cadogan? Us? Or them?”

“Them, but I don't know which ‘them.' My knowledge of the barbarian tribes is pretty limited. I couldn't get a good look at them, it was too dark. They might be Picts or Scoti, I suppose.”

“Not Saxons?”

“I haven't heard about Saxons in this part of the country. Yet,” he added. He struggled to his feet—he ached all over too—and peered through the window.

“What's out there?”

“Nothing. Grass and trees.”

“Is that all?”

“See for yourself.” He extended a hand to help her up but she ignored it.

Grunting and groaning, she scrambled to her feet unaided and rubbed her buttocks with both hands. “Sweet Mother Isis, I think I'm dead behind.” Belatedly straightening her gown, she gave a cursory glance through the window. “I wonder why they didn't break down the door.”

“I made that door strong enough to resist anything short of a battering ram,” said Cadogan. “I also made sure the outside looks like nothing here is worth the effort to break in.”

“That's what it looks like inside, too,” Quartilla commented.

Cadogan went to the next window. Gloomily observed trees losing their leaves and grass turning brown. Pallid sky, threads of cloud hinting at rain. “I knew marauders would come sooner or later,” he said over his shoulder, “so I tried to prepare for them. I knew what they had done in other…”

“What did you see in Viroconium? That is where you went, isn't it?”

He turned to look at her. She was sitting on the bed again, trying to comb a rats' nest of dyed red hair. “Didn't Dinas bring you from Viroconium?”

“No. I've never been there.”

“Then where did you come from?”

She was not going to give him an answer, then thought better of it. For the time being Cadogan was her only protector. “Dinas found me hiding in the hills.”

“Hiding from what?” he asked as he went to the next window.

“Them,” Quartilla said simply.

Cadogan's voice sank deep in his chest. “Them. Yes. They'd already been to Viroconium by the time I got there.”

“Was anyone killed?”

He was disgusted; Viola would not have asked that question so avidly. “A few of our servants were slain.”

“Your
servants
?”

“Very well then, our slaves,” he conceded. “In Viroconium we like to use more polite terms. Actually, a couple of them were indentured and might have paid their way to freedom someday.”

Quartilla did not request elucidation on the topic; instead she wanted to know how the intruders entered the city.

“A handful of barbarians discovered an unguarded gate behind the theater,” Cadogan told her. “Our house is one of those nearest the theater; it's a very desirable location. The raiders broke open a door leading to my mother's chambers—she used to love to walk in the garden without disturbing anyone—and ransacked her private rooms. The servants who came to investigate the noise were killed before the raiders fled.

“None of my family was in the house at the time, but Esoros, my father's steward, was there. When he realized what was happening he hid beside the furnace under the floor. He assumed barbarians wouldn't know about hypocausts and he was right. When I got there he was still cleaning up the damage. The rest of the servants were so frightened they'd run away, but Esoros has been loyal to my father for almost thirty years.

“He told me Father had gone to Londinium on business two weeks earlier. Thank God for that! If Vintrex had been at home he would have felt obligated to fight the barbarians himself, and they could have killed him in a blink. As for my mother, she died several years ago. Under the circumstances I'm glad of that, too. It would have broken her heart to have her jewelry and trinkets stolen.”

Cadogan moved from one side of the window to the other, changing his angle of vision. “I don't see my horse anywhere.”

The woman was struggling with an intractable knot of hair. “It must have wandered off,” she said indifferently. The behavior of horses was not one of her interests.

“My mare would never stray, she's as loyal as Esoros.” Cadogan stood indecisive for a few moments, then retrieved his smoke-stained cloak from its peg. “Stay here, Quartilla; I'm going to get her back if I can.”