In the Shadow of the Wall (60 page)

Caralugnus tried again to persuade them to stay until after the feast but Brude was adamant that they would leave as soon as Barabal was up and about. “The emperor and his family won’t miss us,” he told Caralugnus. “I visited the
temple
of
Apollo
to ask for an augury and the signs are right for us to go.” Brude had thought that the sacrificing of a small pigeon and the reading of the entrails was a bizarre ritual but Cleon had suggested it and, just as Cleon had predicted, the priest announced the omens favourable. This gave them a good excuse to leave. No Roman would ever consider arguing against favourable omens. “What if the omens aren’t favourable?” Brude had asked Cleon.

“Pay the priest enough and they will be,” Cleon promised him.

They went over their plan again and again. Cleon was worried that there was still a large element of luck required but he managed to solve their biggest problem for them. With seven days to go before the feast, he arrived at Caralugnus’ home with a small, rectangular wooden box, which he handed to Brude with great solemnity.

“What is it?” Brude asked him.

“Open it and see. But carefully. Do not touch what is inside.”

Brude gently lifted off the lid and saw that the box contained two blocks of soft wax, each of which was imprinted with the outline of a large key. He looked at Cleon who beamed back at him. “Master Lucius was duty officer yesterday. He had the key to the room which adjoins the emperor’s room. I took a copy.”

“We have a way in,” said Brude. “By all the gods, Cleon, you are a marvel! We have a way in!”

“You still need to turn it into a duplicate key,” Cleon pointed out, his voice almost bursting with pride at his achievement.

Brude handed the box to Fothair. “Moritasgus has a smith. Ask him to make two copies. And if Moritasgus has the other things we need, you can tell him we are going ahead.”

Eboracum A.D. 211

So the day came at last, cold, with a biting, blustery wind sending clouds scudding across the sky. Caralugnus and his household saw them off as Mairead and Barabal, her baby clutched tight and wrapped in several layers, clambered into the coach that Caralugnus had given them. Fothair sat in the driver’s seat, Castatin beside him, while Brude rode his large, brown mare. Brude presented Caralugnus with a bronze statuette of the goddess Minerva. “A small token of thanks for all your kindness,” he said.

Caralugnus clasped his hand as he wiped a tear from his eye. “Good fortune to you all!”

Cleon came ee them off but there was no sign of Lucius. Brude had visited him the day before to say farewell, a risk he had not wanted to take because he did not want to chance someone recognising him later, but it would have looked odd if he had left without paying his respects to his patron, so he had wrapped himself in a hooded cloak and gone to the fortress. Lucius was polite and formal. He tried half-heartedly to persuade him to stay, but did not protest when Brude explained that his family were eager to return home to help their people adjust to life as part of the empire. Then the young Roman surprised Brude by giving him another gift of money, which he tried to refuse but accepted when Lucius insisted. “Use it to help build a proper Roman town north of the Wall,” Lucius told him.

Now they were ready and there were no excuses for delaying any longer. Fothair got the horses moving, slowly at first in his inexpert hands but the coach rumbled through the paved streets and then out onto the road leading north. They were on their way home.

The weather was cold so they all wore warm clothing against the chill wind. Barabal looked tired but happy, engrossed in her baby. Opposite her in the carriage sat Mairead, her face pale. Brude was worried that the strain of what they had planned was at last beginning to tell on her. She had shrugged it off but he was grateful that they had the carriage so that she could rest while they travelled.

They made their way northwards, the road climbing steep hills and then falling down into deep valleys. Fothair’s driving was clumsy and awkward but they were in no hurry so they travelled slowly and he soon got the hang of how to get the horses to do what he wanted. Inside the coach, the ride was relatively smooth as the carriage hung on its leather and rope suspension. There were few other travellers on the road at this time of year. The weather was still too unpredictable for most people to travel far, but imperial messengers galloped past once or twice and they saw the occasional wagon or army patrol.

At the twentieth milestone there was a staging post where they stopped for a short break. Brude wanted witnesses to see them heading north, so before moving on again, he chatted to the ostler who cared for the horses, which were always kept available for the imperial messengers.

Four miles later, the road descended into a wooded valley. They went very slowly down the slope. At the foot, they found a trackway leaving the road, heading west through the trees. After checking carefully that there was nobody around to see them, they turned off the road, plunging into the darkness of the thick woods. After only fifty paces they were out of sight of the road. Brude dismounted. “This is the place. Now we need to wait for our friends to arrive.”

“We are here,” a deep voice called from the shadows. Half a dozen men suddenly stood up from where they had lain concealed in the undergrowth. They were armed with axes and spears. All of them had moustaches with ends that drooped to their chins and they wore their hair long in the style of the Brigantes. Moritasgus stepped out of the shadows and walked over greet Brude with a friendly handshake. “Sorry about that. We wanted to be sure it was you. This is a dangerous game we are playing.”

Brude clasped the man’s great ham of a hand. “Thank you for your help, my friend,” he said. “We are entrusting our families to you. Take good care of them.”

“As our own,” nodded Moritasgus. He waved a hand, beckoning his men forwards. “We have what you wanted.”

One of the Brigante warriors carried a large, heavy sack, which he emptied on to the ground. The uniform of an imperial messenger reluctantly disentangled itself from the sacking and lay crumpled on the damp grass. “I hope it fits,” said Moritasgus. “You are a big fellow and it took us a while to find one we thought matched your size.”

“You have done well, my friend,” Brude told him. In the cold winter air he stripped off his cloak, tunic and leggings, changing quickly into the Roman uniform. It was a little tight, but he managed to squeeze into it. He kept his own undershoes and sandals and had to pad the helmet, but it was not a bad fit.

“We even cleaned the blood off it,” Moritasgus told him with a grin.

Now, dressed as an imperial messenger, Brude asked his companions, “How do I look?”

“Convincing enough,” Fothair told him, although he sounded worried.

“You know what to do?”

“We’ve been over it often enough,” Fothair told him.

Mairead hugged him and gave him a kiss. “Be careful. I need you to come back to me.”

He kissed her back, recognising the strain she was under and the effort it was taking her to appear strong. “Don’t worry, I can take care of myself.” He hoped he sounded calmer than he felt. “You can dispose of the coach?” he asked Moritasgus.

The big man nodded. “I can’t guarantee they won’t find it but there is a dale not far from here which is deep and difficult to get down to. We’ll drag it over there. If they do find it, we’ll make sure they find it looted and with blood stains all over it. We slaughtered an old sheep this morning so we have plenty of fresh blood.”

“You know that if things go wron they might still come looking?”

Moritasgus shrugged. “There are two villages nearer this place than our own. If they do come, they will search there first. And if all goes well you will be on your way before they get to us.”

“Thank you. If, as you say, all goes well, we should see you tomorrow.” He clasped the big man’s hand again.

“Will you still not tell me what you intend to do?”

“You will learn soon enough, my friend. Best to keep it secret a little longer.”

Fothair had unhitched the horses from the wagon. He produced saddles and harness from a hiding place in the trees, where he and Castatin had hidden them a few days earlier. He nodded to Brude. “Ready when you are.”

Brude hugged Castatin, not knowing what to say to him. They had had so little time to learn how to be a family and now he was leaving again, on a journey from which, despite his outward optimism, he knew he had little hope of a safe return. He hugged Barabal, gave little Seasaidh a kiss on the forehead then kissed Mairead again. He thought she was close to tears.

He mounted his horse then turned to Fothair who had clambered onto one of the others, leading the third as a spare. Brude’s other clothes were bundled and strapped to the saddle. “You should have run last year when you had the chance,” Brude told him.

“What, and miss all this fun?”

They waved farewell, knowing that if things did not work out the way they had planned they might never see any of their family again, but there was no time to worry about that. Veleda’s spell still hung over Brude and he knew that he had to attempt this. Now he and Fothair had to get back to Eboracum to carry out the rest of their plan. They reached the road, turned south but, once out of the deep valley, they cut across country, riding in a great circle, passing the staging post before turning back to the road. Then Brude clapped his heels against the horse’s flanks and rode at a fast canter along the paved roadway, trusting to his uniform to ensure that nobody impeded his journey. Fothair followed some distance behind, leading the spare horse.

As night began to fall he travelled more slowly. Thick clouds hid the moon and the night was dark, the road difficult to make out. The wind still gusted chill around him, carrying a threat of snow in its bitter breath. He offered up a silent prayer to all the gods he could think of to stop that. Snow would mean leaving tracks, making him easy to follow. The plan depended on him disappearing from sight. A few random spots of wet sleet spattered n his face but by the time he reached Eboracum it was late evening and still the snow held off.

He approached from the north, heading for the fortress. The bulk of the city was clustered round the south-western side of the fortress in the loop of the river so he had no need to go through the city streets. He could no longer see Fothair behind him but he trusted the tall man and knew that he would do what he had to. From here on, Brude was on his own. He swallowed, trying to get moisture into his dry mouth.

Two sentries stood on guard outside the closed gate, while others patrolled the ramparts or stood atop the gatehouse. When they saw Brude, they ordered the gate opened, without comment. Imperial messengers were never delayed. He nodded a greeting as he rode through, heading for the Principia. The building was a blaze of light with torches and oil lamps burning bright. He left his horse with the attendants then, clasping his leather message pouch, strode confidently up the steps to the main entrance.

Cleon was more nervous than he had ever felt in his life. He had vomited up the contents of his stomach and was feeling weak, his knees trembling. He had thought such reactions were just things that poets wrote about and was horrified to discover that they were real symptoms of fear. He wondered again how men like Brude could march into an arena to fight, knowing that death waited for them, or how Hector could have stood to face Achilles, knowing he could not kill him. The poems suddenly seemed inadequate in their descriptions of fear. Lucius had told him to go to bed but Cleon had insisted it was just a stomach upset and that he would be fine. “Everyone is busy tonight, Master,” he had said. “I shall be on duty welcoming the guests, as I promised.”

Somehow he managed to get through the first part of the evening. The guests began streaming in and Cleon organised slaves to take their cloaks while he and other freedmen checked their invitations before directing them towards the great hall, where the imperial family would join them for the feast. The last stragglers were ushered through, the large, heavy doors were closed and Cleon returned to the entrance hall where he waited, ostensibly to greet any late arrivals. The sound of music echoed distantly, muted by the closed doors. Soon, the slaves were all despatched to carry the food from the kitchens. Still Cleon waited.