Death of an Empire (32 page)

But for those who had eyes to see below the glory, the architecture and the marvels of engineering, the same signs of neglect that had afflicted Ostia were exposed to the world. Fifty years earlier, Alaric’s Visigoths had sacked Rome and burned it, and even now some buildings still showed the scars of that fire. The population of the city had declined since the sacking, and many of the multi-storeyed tenements that covered the lower ground were empty and crumbling, especially close to the river and its noxious smells. Only here and there did brave displays of trees, dry fountains and even wild drifts of naturally sown flowers indicate that a tenement was at least partially occupied.

Eventually, Myrddion stopped at one of the cleaner tenements, which had a whitewashed stair beside an empty shop-front. Evidence of past grandeur was displayed by the width of the roadway, which permitted the wagons to pass along it without blocking traffic. Other buildings rose three, four and five storeys high, in various states of disrepair, but terra cotta pots of bright red geraniums rested on the sills of the upper windows of this particular one. The shutters were in good working order, and although the pigment was cracking and fading, traces of red, blue and ochre paint could still be seen against the grey of weathered plaster and stone.

‘Cadoc! Let’s see what we will need to pay to rent some rooms.’

‘Perhaps you’d allow me, master? This district is quite run-down in places and rentals shouldn’t be too high for respectable tenants. I’m sure I can handle it.’

The two men walked up the shallow steps, which led to an iron grille that acted as a door yet still permitted the free access of any breeze that was available. A brass bell, obviously regularly polished, was attached to the grille to enable visitors to summon the landlord of the building. So it was a surprise to be confronted by a buxom woman, approximately five feet three inches in height and almost as wide in girth.

‘Why do you ring my bell, young sirs?’

The woman’s voice was melodious and beautiful, turning her simple words into a song. Something in the cast of her features was exotic, especially the slant of her dark eyes and the narrow brows that slanted upwards in the outer corners. Myrddion could imagine the attraction of those sloe eyes when she was younger, for even now the young man found his lips twitching as she looked up into his face like a plump, perky wren. Her dark hair was liberally streaked with white, and long creases marred her golden skin from her nostrils to the corners of a mouth that smiled widely in welcome.

Cadoc grinned artlessly and Myrddion watched her eyes cloud momentarily as she noticed the scars that twisted one side of his face and disappeared into his coarse tunic.

‘Madam, I am Cadoc ap Cadwy of Cymru in the isles of Britain. As you can imagine, we have travelled many weary miles to the centre of the world. This gentleman is Myrddion Emrys, a healer of uncommon skill, who is my master and my teacher. We need a place to treat the sick as well as rooms for living purposes. Your building appears to be superior to many of your neighbours so here we are, eager to discover your rates.’

The little woman eyed both men closely, taking in their shabby clothes, and doubt was written clearly in her dark eyes.

‘I have no prejudice against foreigners,’ she said, then folded her arms under her ample breasts. ‘But you don’t look much like
healers, I must say. Are you sure you can afford a shop and an apartment?’

‘Depending on your rates, perhaps two apartments. My master has two apprentices and three widows who act as nurses. Our clothes are ragged from months of travel, salt from the sea and the vicissitudes of a great war. Don’t judge us by first appearances, fair lady, for we are exactly what we claim to be.’

Cadoc could charm the birds out of the trees when he chose, but Myrddion suspected that he might have met his match in this property owner. Her eyes were too bright and far too knowing to suggest that their owner could be easily taken in by flattery.

Myrddion bowed his head and gave her a smile. When he spoke, he was careful to use his purest Latin rather than the patois that Cadoc had mastered.

‘You have my assurance that you’ll have no cause for regret if you decide to trust us, mistress, despite our dirt and our threadbare clothing. I will bring many patients to your shop and cachet to your house. I bear references from wealthy patrons in Massilia and I can acquire a recommendation from Cleoxenes, the envoy of the emperor of the Eastern Empire. We’ll not cheat you or bring trouble to your house.’

‘Fair words,’ she murmured, surprised at his accent and his obvious education. Then her smile burst forth again, brilliant, whole-hearted and delightfully full of sexual promise for a woman long past her youth.

‘Very well, call me a fool, but I’ll take a chance. The gods know that there are few takers for empty rooms.’ Then she quoted a figure that Myrddion considered remarkably low, but Cadoc laughed as if she had told him an amusing joke. With obvious relish, he was ready to commence haggling.

‘For quality tenants – who’ll not be drunken, noisy or slow to
pay? I’ve seen the style of most of your clients. Perhaps we should look elsewhere.’

He turned to leave, Myrddion following helplessly in his wake, and the landlady had a sudden change of heart.

‘You’ll not find better than my rooms,’ she called after them. ‘But perhaps I could lower my charges a little if you plan to take all three apartments.’

After some further haggling, Mistress Pulchria demanded a month’s rent in advance, and Myrddion found his purse lighter by much less than he had dared hope. The healers were now in possession of a shop and two apartments. All that remained was to unpack the wagons and discover a stable prepared to house and feed their horses, a task that Finn promised to organise before nightfall.

The widows descended on the building with the sworn declaration that the premises would be far better after a good scrubbing. Fortunately, Pulchria had no idea what they were saying, or that good lady would have been mortally insulted. Staring a little wildly at the Celtic women and the small child, she retreated up the central hallway and led her new tenants up another small flight of stairs to a higher level around a central atrium that was open to the sky. The adjoining apartments were far from large, but both contained basic furnishings, a tiled space suitable for cooking and long windows that allowed light to enter from the courtyard. The doors and shutters could be securely bolted and locked, and the public privies outside the building were clean enough, although rather pungent.

‘If you wish to bathe, as I would recommend to all of you, there’s a public bath two streets over that only costs a copper coin. The one great sin in our community is to be dirty in one’s personal habits.’

‘Thank you for the advice, Mistress Pulchria,’ Myrddion
murmured, suppressing a smile. ‘I will explore the baths immediately.’ It struck him as ironic that Romans should place such a high value on personal cleanliness when the streets of the city were filled with refuse, except where some house-proud Romans like Pulchria sent out servants or slaves to clear around their buildings. Great aqueducts brought clean water to the city, so wells and fountains could be found at most major crossroads. No one considered drinking from the Tiber. In fact, if Pulchria was to be believed, very few Romans drank water at all.

Pulchria had two more items of good advice, although Myrddion laughed off her warnings. ‘Don’t take your purse with you and mind how you speak to others when you go to the baths, young man. You’re altogether too pretty to travel unarmed.’ She dissolved into giggles as she waddled away down the stairs.

Myrddion informed his apprentices of his intentions, and took the precaution of sliding one of his narrow surgeon’s knives into his boot. Then, with a clean change of clothing in his empty satchel, he ventured out into the streets, which were still crowded in spite of the approach of night.

The young healer found the public baths without difficulty and paid one coin for entry and another for a clean towel. Unfamiliar with the use of oil and strigil, he watched a range of men of all ages and occupations as they stripped naked without embarrassment and stowed their clothes on little wooden shelves, supposedly watched by a sharp-eyed slave. For the first time, Myrddion was grateful that his clothes were so ragged. Surreptitiously, he slipped several coins into his mouth, retaining one for the hire of a very battered strigil and a bottle of rancid oil. In the changing room, where the floor was warm and the air steamy, he oiled his body and scraped it vigorously with the small tool while keeping one eye on his fellow bathers. Then, before he lost his nerve in his vulnerable nakedness, he plunged into the hot pool.

Initially, his body seemed on fire, but then his flesh became acclimatised to the heat and his muscles began to relax as his pores opened. He immersed his head and then wrung his long hair free of streaming water.

‘Look, friends, we’ve got a woman,’ a coarse voice joked in the crude Latin patois of the streets. ‘But this one’s got no tits.’

Myrddion turned and came face to face with a thickset man much shorter than himself whose body was knotted with muscle and seamed with old scars.

‘You spoke to me, friend?’ Myrddion asked with one eyebrow raised.

‘La-de-da! It talks! Perhaps it’s a castrato, although the voice sounds deep enough to be a man. Then he’s a fancy bum boy, come slumming and looking for customers. Will I do, sweetheart?’ The man blew Myrddion a juicy, exaggerated kiss, and Myrddion turned his back. ‘I’m talking to you, pretty boy. Aren’t I good enough for you?’

Myrddion felt his slow temper begin to ignite. ‘Enough, sir. I’ve no desire to quarrel with you, so leave me be.’

With a smooth, elegant dive beneath the hot waters, he made his way underwater to the steps leading out of the pool. Slick as a seal, he climbed the heated tiles with water streaming from his waist-length hair and beading his rosy skin with glistening droplets. His height, his smooth skin and his beautiful proportions made more than one man stare with hot, lascivious eyes. Several slave girls were also open in their approval, but Myrddion walked between them with his head held high. At the frigidarium, he plunged into the cold water to close the pores of his skin, careless of splashing several giggling youths and earning a hard flash of dislike from several pairs of older men. Then, without a backward glance, he walked back to his clothing as if he was fully dressed. His pleasure in cleanliness now ruined, Myrddion barely
paused to dry himself before dressing and striding out of the public baths.

Unfortunately, the muscular dwarf hadn’t yet done with him. Myrddion had walked for only two minutes when a broad hand with fingers like iron claws reached up to his shoulder. ‘Who said you could walk out on me, boy? I’m inclined to feel insulted.’

Wrong-footed, Myrddion was swung round and saw, with a sigh of fatalism, that he faced four men, as hard and as vile as any creatures of his night dreams. His chief tormentor smiled like a toad with lewd, thin lips, and his red tongue flicked the corners of his odious mouth in feigned sexual gratification.

‘Don’t you know who I am, boy? I’m Ferreus, sometimes called Iron Bar when I boxed for the pleasure of the high, mucky court. I’ve eaten boys like you, no matter how tall you are. I think I’ll change that pretty face so your clients aren’t quite so keen on you.’

He prefers to talk rather than act, Myrddion thought, as his anger began to grow into a hot, scarfing thing that was quickly developing a life of its own. Realising that to beg or reason with his aggressor would only give the brute pleasure, he drew his lips together into an uncompromising line and stared at the thug as if he were a cockroach under his heel.

Ferreus flushed until his facial scars stood out like thick white ridges. He feinted with one hand and lashed out at the younger man with the other, causing Myrddion to rock from a blow to the ribs. As he felt one rib crack, he knew that Ferreus would kill him while the gathering crowd laughed and enjoyed the spectacle.

Another blow fell, almost in the same spot, and Myrddion realised the fighter was trying to finish him off by driving his broken ribs into his lungs. He found himself on his knees, his chest burning, and something rose in his head like sour vomit, obscuring his vision. His fingers found the knife in his boot and he surged to
his feet, careless of the pain in his ribs. The blade shone in the early evening half-light and Ferreus reared back from a narrow slice across his chest. ‘You shite! You cowardly shite!’

The contempt in Ferreus’s voice triggered Myrddion’s fury and the scent of blood made his head spin.

‘You may intend to kill me, Ferreus, but I assure you that you’ll die earlier than I will. Beware whom you try to harm, for I can see the strangler who comes for you in the cells. If you are fortunate, he will kill you at once. Whatever he decides, your dead body will be thrown from the rock, and will flavour the Tiber so that men will never know that you have ever lived and died in shame.’

Ferreus stepped back, alarmed by a real, red glow in the eyes of this stranger whose unnatural height had so angered him only moments before.

‘I have marked you now so that men will know you by the signs I make on your body. When you come closer, as you will, I can finish what I started with ease. I, Myrddion Emrys of Segontium, promise that the fish will devour your eyes before another week has passed.’

Ferreus’s friends melted into the crowd like smoke in rain, but Ferreus had been the victor of countless contests in fine mansions where he had fought for fat purses of gold. His courage was limitless whenever he competed against easy targets, for Ferreus couldn’t imagine losing any contest where his strength gave him a decided edge. He stepped forward. ‘I’m not afraid of your piddling little blade, nor of any sodding threats that you care to make, bum boy. I’ll just drive your pretty nose back into your brain.’

He rushed at Myrddion, who absorbed a punishing blow on his shoulder. But even as the young man twisted and turned to minimise the effect of the punch, he managed to run his blade back over the narrow wound above Ferreus’s ribs and left a large, shallow cross in its wake.