The Bones of the Earth (The Dark Age) (35 page)

A man and a woman in long robes were walking up the street toward him. “Excuse me,” he said as politely as he could muster, “Can you tell me where the Inn of the Four Winds is?”

They looked at him with a mixture of shock, contempt and fear. Without pausing in his stride, the man said “It’s right behind you!” They turned their eyes from him and hurried past.

Javor turned around. The building before him was a dilapidated contrivance of shabby wood that would have been laughed at in his village. The door was made of splintered, gray wood and didn’t fill up the doorway, and the only window was a mean, shrunken opening in the wall with two battered shutters hanging outside. He could hear an occasional murmur and sullen dull clanking of dishes, but his eyes couldn’t penetrate the gloom inside.

He pushed open the door and ducked under the lintel. Inside, he could just make out a scattering of rickety stools and tables, over which a few men slumped, holding clay cups. Along the far wall was a counter, and behind it on shelves stood an assortment of dusty bottles. A fat man stood behind the counter, glaring at Javor.

Once again, he asked “Inn of the Four Winds?”

“
Yah,” barked the man at the counter. “You found it. Whaddaya want? ”

Javor walked around a man who seemed to be growing out of a stool and merging into a low, round table. “I’m looking for Rutius.”

“
You found ’im, too,” the fat man growled. As Javor’s eyes adjusted to the dim light, he noticed Rutius’ short-cropped hair was reddish. His eyes seemed sunken into his fat face, drooping at the outer corners, and dark semi-circles sagged under them.  He wore a stained grey robe that he probably thought was white. “You going to tell me what you want? I ain’t got all day.”

“
I was told you could give me a good meal and a decent place to stay … for a few days,” he stammered.

Rutius nodded and poured a cup of wine. “Sure, kid. It’s a
follies
a night. Forty
nummi
.”

Javor could almost hear Antonio’s voice:
Don’t take his first price. It’ll be ten times too high.
He feigned anger. “What! Forty? Are you crazy?”

Rutius looked up at Javor, who towered over him, with shock that quickly turned into anger. “Look, country boy–”

“
I’m sick of people calling me ‘country boy,’” Javor growled. The slumped patrons straightened and looked at him.

In one fluid motion, faster than Javor thought such a fat man could move, Rutius stepped back and pulled a long club from under the counter.

“
No one talks to me like that in my inn!” he barked, and swung the club at Javor’s head. Javor heard it whistle past his ear as it flew across the room, smashing into the wall and splintering the rotten wood. He leaned across the counter and grabbed Rutius’ right wrist, then leaned forward until their noses were almost touching. “My good friend, Antonio d’Osta, told me I could trust you,” he snarled. “What do you think I should tell him now?”

Fear and respect flashed in Rutius’ eyes. “How do you know Antonio d’Osta?” he asked quietly.

“
We fought together in Dacia. And I know about you and him at Adrianople.” Antonio hadn’t actually told him anything about Adrianople; to Javor, it was just a Greek-sounding place name. But he pushed ahead. “He also told me I should kick your ass.”

Rutius swallowed, then smiled fearfully. “Oh, of course, I didn’t know to give you the Legionnaire’s discount. Sure. For you, the best room for … 10
nummi
.”

“
How much?”

“
Five
nummi
.”

“
Including breakfast.”

“
Oh, yes, yes, of course. Always the finest breakfast for our friends in the service.”

“
I want to clean up, too.”

“
I’ll have the boy set up a washbasin. Do you have any bags?”

Javor let go of Rutius and swung his pack off his shoulders. “And I’m hungry and thirsty right now, so before I go to my room, I’d like a meal and a cup of wine. Included in the price.”

“
Now just a…”

“
Remember, when I find your donkey, I’ll kick it. Hard. Like Antonio said.”

“
He said that?” Rutius appeared genuinely mystified.

Javor just nodded. “Hard.” Rutius swallowed again. Javor reached under his tunic to one of the purses he had secreted there and fished out a large, flat coin. It had taken Antonio most of a day to explain the concept of money, coins and denominations to Javor. “Here’s four days’ worth,” he said, and found a stool to sit at, away from the other patrons, who had lost interest in the exchange.

“
Timon!” Rutius bellowed, and a very thin young boy, who stood no higher than Javor’s stomach, ran into the room. “Get the back room ready…”

“
Not the back room, the best room,” Javor growled. He didn’t know anything about the back room, but he felt this risk was the right one.

“
Right. That’s what I said — the best room. Get it ready for this fine gentleman here, a Legionnaire and friend to our dear Antonio. And send Barbara down here pronto!” Timon scrambled away, shrieking for Barbara.

Javor found a table and sat with his back to the wall, facing out the rotting window. Cobwebs hung in the corners, and Javor wondered if they weren’t beginning to form on the other patrons, too.

Soon, Barbara—presumably Rutius’ wife, as fat and short as him with black hair pulled severely back from her scowling face, brought out a bowl of broth and a small loaf of crusty bread. Rutius poured a large cup of strange-smelling wine, then retreated behind his bar.

I can’t believe I got away with that
, Javor thought. He wondered again about Antonio’s history with Rutius, and just what had happened at Adrianople, and where Adrianople was, anyway. He wondered about Barbara and Timon—surely he couldn’t be her child? She seemed far too old.

This food is terrible
. The soup was watery and bland, yet tasted of strange spices. The bread was half-stale, heavy and chewy. And the wine—he had never tasted anything like it. There was a strong scent and flavour that reminded him of the forests of home. His first gulp made him shudder.

One of the other patrons chuckled. “Whatssa matta? Don’t like retsina?”

Javor choked down another mouthful—he was very thirsty—and shook his head. “No, I can’t say I do.” He called Rutius over. “Hey, can I have some wine that doesn’t taste like piss?”
Why am I talking like this?

Rutius brought another cup and bottle and poured a cup of red wine, and this one tasted good—better than anything Javor had ever had at home, better than the legionnaires had in their fort.  A few sips made the rest of the meal taste better, and when he was done, Rutius brought the bottle and another cup, and sat across the table.

“
Now, son, I’m a little concerned that we got started on the wrong foot,” he said quietly and earnestly. “I didn’t know you were a friend of Antonio’s. He was a very good friend to me, and I’m indebted to him. But I need to know a few things: how do you know him, is he still alive, and if so, where is he now? Just tell me, and you’ll be safer here than in any place in Constantinople.”

Rutius
seemed
sincere, but Javor admitted to himself that he really didn’t know much about people.
Well, where’s the harm in telling him the truth?

“
Last time I saw Antonio was about two weeks ago, in the town of  Drobeta on the Danube.”

“
I know it,” Rutius nodded.

“
He was fine. I met him at the fort in the mountains north of there—I never learned its name—and we were in a few scrapes together.”
I’d best not tell him about the dragon
. “He brought me to Drobeta and told me to come looking for you when I came to Constantinople.”

Rutius smiled wryly. “Oh, he would. He sends me all the trouble he drags up.”

“
Anyway, he was in good shape when I last saw him. He was going to report to the Legion in Drobeta.”

“
Drobeta? Why? Wasn’t he attached to Valgus’s cohort in the barbarian lands?”

Javor hesitated. “Valgus is dead. So are many in the cohort.”

Rutius didn’t react for a long time. Eventually, he nodded and pushed the stool back. “These are evil times. Did Antonio tell you anything else?”

“
Other than kicking your donkey if you didn’t give me a good price for a room, and some general advice about hiding my money and not trying to out-bargain Greeks, no.”

Rutius laughed, slapping the table. “Out-bargain Greeks! Ho! Oh, yes, that was Antonio. If ever I doubted that you knew Antonio, now I know it’s true!” He laughed until he started to cough, then drank the rest of Javor’s wine. “Antonio d’Osta. Well, well.” He gulped down another cup of wine. As he refilled both cups, he said, “We were very close, but it was a long time ago. I was in the service, too, but after my term was up, I settled down. But Antonio, he likes adventure. Couldn’t get enough of the wild lands and the wild women.”

Javor sipped his wine carefully, wary of drinking too much. He didn’t trust this Rutius, despite Antonio’s recommendation.

“
Me, I like settling down with one good woman,” Rutius chortled, leering at Barbara, who was fussing behind the bar. “No matter how many women are after me, I say it’s quality over quantity, eh, Barbara?”

“
Oh, yes, so many women are falling over themselves for a fat redhead like you,” Barbara sneered, but there was laughter in her eyes.

“
Ah, spice! That’s what I live for!” Rutius laughed, winking at Javor. Barbara went back to the kitchen, nose in the air but hips swaying. “So Antonio is still in good health? Well, that’s good. Terrible shame about Valgus. He was a good man. He was my commanding officer, second in command of the cohort when I served. I heard he had been promoted, and he deserved it. Did he die well?”

“
He … he died fighting. He died in command of his army.”
How can I call that “dying well?”

“
Who was he fighting that could get past a Legate’s bodyguard?” Rutius asked.

Javor realized that he would have to add details to his story to satisfy people like Rutius. “I—I think you call them Avars. Barbarians with furry hats.”

“
Avars! Oh, no. They’re the worst.” Rutius shook his head. “Worse than the Huns. Evil, evil people. I encountered them—well, my Legion did, in Moesia. It was a terrible battle.” He sighed and drained another cup of wine. Barbara came back into the dining room and looked at Rutius with her hands on her hips. Timon returned, and Barbara scowled and pointed at the few other patrons. Timon fetched a large vessel of ale and started refilling cups and taking coins.

“
The Avars were savage, wild, evil, killing villagers and burning fields. The Emperor sent our cohort to punish them and drive them back to where they came from.

“
We found them beyond the Danuvius, feasting on God knows what. We charged them without mercy, but they fought back like wildcats —”

“
As Antonio told you when the fighting was over and he came back to eat!” Barbara interrupted, lightly smacking her husband’s head. “Don’t listen to him, boy. He spent his time in the legions as a cook.”

Rutius looked embarrassed. “It
was
dangerous. The Avars
could
have overrun the Legion and wiped out every Roman for a hundred miles.