Swords Around the Throne (18 page)

It was not a woman, but neither was it a man. As the figure came towards him Castus saw the silver collar winking in the shadow, the unnaturally smooth face. Serapion, they had called him, he remembered.

‘We have a broken axletree, it seems,' the eunuch said, clasping his hands before him. If he recognised Castus, he did not show it. ‘We thought it might be spliced, but the repairs will take some time. The commander of the rearguard was supposed to send riders to help us, but there's been nobody... I see by those patches on your cloak and tunic that you are a Protector, however...'

Castus glanced at the carriage. It was small, a closed box of lattice-sided wood mounted high on a wagon chassis. The front nearside wheel was off, the axle propped on timbers. The draught horses had been released from their traces and stood cropping the verge, while three slaves sat by the fallen wheel, one of them chewing on a stem of grass while the other two tried to light a fire.

‘I can't help you,' Castus said. ‘I'm carrying despatches, and they need to be in Antunnacum before nightfall.' He looked up at the sky; already the first stars were showing.

‘How far is it from here?' called a voice from inside the carriage. A curtain screened the interior.

‘Two or three miles. I'll send someone back to you when I get there.'

Castus tugged on the reins and nudged the horse into motion.

‘Wait,' the voice called, commanding.

Castus turned, saddle leather creaking beneath him. The curtain was drawn aside, the door of the carriage opened and a woman stepped down from inside.

‘If it's only two miles I'll come with you,' she said. ‘Anything's better than spending a night on a wet riverbank with only slaves and a eunuch for company.'

Castus knew her at once, but it was a few moments before he saw the slightest flicker of recognition on the woman's face, swiftly dispelled. She wore deep red instead of the yellow gown, with a shawl of fine white wool draped around her shoulders and drawn up over her hair.

‘Domina Sabina,' the eunuch was saying, ‘the road, as you see, is very muddy, and soon it will be dark. I really think...'

Castus was looking at her shoes: soft red leather openwork, not much good for walking long distance. The woman caught his eye and gave him a cool smile.

‘I'm sure the noble Protector would allow me to perch on his horse,' she said.

‘Domina, really, riding is no fit activity for women!'

‘I only need cling to the saddle – we won't be performing any equestrian exercises, I assure you. Cinna and Petrus can bring the brass trunk with my overnight things. Xanthe can bring my wicker case, the round one. You can wait here with the carriage, Serapion. Protect it from thieves in the night...'

Castus sighed heavily, and drummed his fingers on the saddle horn. He was very tempted to put spurs to his horse and ride on before anyone could try and stop him. The woman, Sabina, was already marshalling her slaves and having them pack the trunk and basket. With a low groan he slipped from the saddle and dropped to the ground, feeling the cramps racking his leg muscles. It would be good to walk for a while anyway, he told himself, although he would have preferred it to be his own decision. He took the saddlebag and slung it over his shoulder – he was not letting that out of his sight.

‘What a big horse,' Sabina said, walking carefully across the wet mud as Castus waited holding the bridle.

‘I'm a big man.'

‘No doubt,' she said lightly. The two slaves lifted her between them onto the saddle, where she sat with her legs to one side, gripping the leather saddle horn. Without further delay Castus gave a tug on the reins and set off, the horse walking after him and the slaves lagging along the road behind with the luggage. The eunuch, the other slave and the remaining maidservant gathered around the crippled coach, gazing in apprehension across the river as the evening darkened into night.

There were no other travellers on the road, and for a while they walked in silence, on around the next bend in the river until the carriage was out of sight behind them. The only sounds were the steady beat of the horse's hooves in the mud, the jingle of the bridle and the occasional cry of a waterbird. The Rhine took on a grey-blue sheen in the evening light, the smooth flow appearing almost motionless as the forests on the far bank dropped into shadow.

‘How menacing it looks,' Sabina said, twisting in the saddle to gaze across the river at the trees. ‘I was imagining all sorts of barbarians emerging from it – you can almost see figures moving in there if you stare hard enough. Franks, I suppose.'

‘Alamanni, domina, this far south,' Castus told her. He was in no mood for talking, and marched steadily ahead of the horse.

‘Oh, yes, Alamanni. Like that king, Hrocus, who hangs around the court. Quite a sad figure, don't you think? All his people have deserted him and gone back to Germania – they said he was becoming too Roman...'

Castus made no reply. It felt good to walk again, even with the mud working up over his boots and leg wrappings. They had drawn some way ahead of the slaves with the luggage, who were making a slow journey of it.

‘Not much of a conversationalist, are you?' she said, a while later.

‘I wasn't aware you needed me to entertain you, domina.'

He heard her laugh quietly to herself. ‘Oh, I see,' she said. ‘You're thinking of that little game with the flower wreaths, before Floralia. I should apologise. I'm sorry. Crescentilla and Plautiana are not as bad as they seem. I'm probably not either. We weren't laughing at you. Why would we?'

‘I don't know, domina.'

‘Well, perhaps you're right. We do get so bored, you know, out here in the provinces, and boredom makes one callous. In Rome we are quite different people – better people, I'm sure.'

‘You miss Rome?' Castus said. He still had little desire to engage with the conversation, but he liked the sound of the woman's voice. Nobody of her class had ever really addressed him before – it was quite fascinating, he had to admit.

‘Oh, of course I miss Rome. Wouldn't you?'

‘I don't know, domina. I've never been there.'

‘I was born there,' she said. ‘Although my family are from Madaurus in Numidia originally, and Phrygia on my mother's side... What's your name anyway?' she asked abruptly.

‘Aurelius Castus, domina.'

‘Easy to remember, I suppose. And you don't have to keep calling me that either. You're a Protector of the Sacred Bodyguard, aren't you? Not so far beneath me, socially speaking.'

Castus shrugged. The social status of the Protectores was largely a matter of convenience, and although he had earned more in the last year than he had done in all his time as a legionary, he still did not feel particularly exalted.

‘What should I call you then?'

He glanced back, and saw her look of amusement.

‘Valeria Domitia Sabina.
Clarissima
,' she said.

‘That's enough names for anybody.'

‘You should meet my father,' she said, still smiling. ‘He's a senator, you know.
Clarissimus
Lucius Valerius Domitius Honoratus Latronianus. My family have been
clarissimi
for four generations. My great-grandfather served as Praetorian Prefect to the emperor Severus Alexander.'

Was that a good thing? Castus could not remember whether Severus Alexander had been deified, or his memory damned.

‘And your husband?' he said. There was a slight pause.

‘My husband, Maecius Flavianus,' she said in a noticeably stiffer tone, ‘is in Africa, serving as
rationalis summarum Numidiae
.'

‘What's that?' Castus felt no need to conceal his ignorance of imperial titles.

‘It means he controls the imperial finances in Numidia. Only of course at the moment he's serving under Domitius Alexander, who's a relation of mine, actually, a cousin on my mother's side, I think. Which makes things difficult, because Maxentius in Rome calls Alexander a rebel and a usurper...'

‘Are you related to Maxentius too?' Castus could not help smiling as he asked.

‘Him? Certainly not! His father was a common soldier before he became emperor, and his mother was some Syrian nobody...' Her words trailed off as she realised her mistake. Much the same could be said of Constantine, after all. ‘Meaning no disrespect, of course,' she added.

Castus raised one shoulder in a half-shrug, and for a while they walked on in silence.

‘You have children?' he asked. He wanted her to carry on talking; while her words tried his patience, the tone of them captivated him: the slightly rough deepness under the gloss of her voice.

‘No children,' she said, and he heard the stiffness returning, that cold bitter edge. ‘My husband has little interest in such things; he is often far away, and when he returns he... keeps alternative company. As do I.'

Castus recalled what Sallustius had told him about the ways of the ladies in Fausta's household. He made no comment. Behind them the two slaves laboured through the mud with the heavy trunk; one was a youth, with a broad flat face and a pug nose, the other almost an old man. The girl hurried after them with the basket. Night was drawing in, and the river seemed a less peaceful place now.

‘Help me down off this horse, would you,' Sabina said. ‘Riding's a lot less comfortable than it looks, and I'd rather walk. Good shoes can be bought.'

Drawing the horse to a halt, Castus stepped up beside her; she reached down and grasped his shoulders, and he took her by the waist and lifted her from the saddle. For a moment he held her in his arms, and her perfume was all around him, a dark sweet musk that reminded him of the markets of Antioch.

‘Thank you,' she said, drawing her shawl tighter around her shoulders.

They walked on along the road, Sabina stepping carefully in the mud with her hems of her gown lifted while Castus led the horse.

‘Will you be returning to Rome soon?' he asked her.

‘May the gods grant that I do,' she said quietly. She had moved closer to him as they walked, and her voice had dropped to a whisper against the hush of the night. ‘But it is as the emperor decrees. And with Maxentius controlling Rome it seems unlikely, unless Constantine divorces his wife or sends her away...' Castus caught the pale flicker of her fingers as she made a warding sign against bad luck. ‘He might – he spends all his time with his concubine and seldom sees the nobilissima femina at all.'

Castus nodded, uncomfortable. This woman, he reminded himself, knew things about the inner life of the court that he did not.

‘But I do miss Rome so much,' Sabina went on. ‘If you've never seen it you could not comprehend... There are houses there the size of small towns, temples and basilicas entirely covered in marble and gold. It's the mother of cities, the centre of the world.'

‘So I've heard.'

He looked at her then. Her shadowed profile was outlined against the radiance of the river, and he saw the proud elegance of her face, the curve of her lip, the line of her nose. He felt an urge to reach out and touch her, to turn her face to his. But then he became aware of himself, and felt heavy and coarse beside her. He knew that he must smell strongly of stale sweat, horse, the dust and mud of the road. Even to feel attracted to her felt shameful. He remembered seeing the woman and her friends in the courtyard and thinking that they resembled members of some other species.

‘Don't you miss your own home?' she asked him.

‘My home's the army,' he told her.
And, yes
, he thought,
I do miss it
.

She staggered and let out a cry as her foot slipped beneath her, and grabbed at his arm to steady herself. Her slender hand gripped his biceps, and he smelled the wave of perfume again, intoxicating in the darkness.

‘That's Antunnacum up ahead,' he told her, conscious of the thickness of his voice. ‘See those lights along the valley there? The imperial camp.'

‘Oh, yes,' she said, with almost a note of disappointment. ‘We should be there in no time.'

A movement from the shadows at the side of the road, and Castus halted suddenly. He had been staring at the distant glow of the encampment, and for a moment he could see nothing of the shapes that seemed to gather from the surrounding darkness. He cursed under his breath as he reached for the hilt of his sword: the woman's presence had distracted him, and he had let his attention slip.

There were men all around them, closing in on both sides. Sabina drew a quick breath, stepping closer to Castus, both hands clasping his arm. He could feel her involuntary shudder as he eased the sword smoothly from his scabbard.

‘Who's there?' he said, low and steady. The horse blew and nuzzled at his shoulder.

‘Identify yourselves,' came a voice in response. Latin, but Castus kept his guard up.

‘Aurelius Castus, Ducenarius of the Protectores of the Sacred Bodyguard.'

He could make out their forms more clearly now. Eight men, wearing military cloaks, several with shields and spears. One of them uncovered a lantern, and for a moment the wavering light flared brightly, throwing wheeling shadows across the road.

‘Aurelius Castus?' the voice replied. ‘We meet again then, eh?'

Something in the tone was familiar; an ugly memory surfaced in Castus's mind. The lantern had dazzled him for a moment, but when he blinked and squinted the features of the man before him were clear. He wore the uniform and insignia of a centurion in the Praetorian Cohorts, but the scarred face and sour grimace were the same. The last time Castus had seen them, he had been staring across a battle line.

‘Oh, yes,' Satrius Urbicus said. ‘You weren't the only one who got promotion after that fight back in Germania. And I still haven't forgotten you, either. Who's your lady friend?'