The Eagle and the Raven (74 page)

“Very much, and I am sure Caelte would as well. Bring him to dinner soon. I will ask Father for a time. Do you live far from here?”

He drew her back to the wall and pointed down and to the south. “I rent three rooms in a house on the Clivus Victoriae,” he said. “You cannot see it for the trees, but it is almost directly below here. I am seldom in Rome, and when I am it is usually for business, so three rooms are sufficient.”

“The gray stone house that fronts the street directly? I know it. Tell me, Rufus, do you have many friends at court?”

He was pierced by the hint of pathos in her tone. “I have a few,” he said simply, and took her hand. “Now I must go. I am afraid I have become thirty-four again. Forgive my stupidity, Gladys, and let me come to see you again.”

“Tomorrow!” she shouted as he walked toward the gate, and he turned and waved before disappearing among the trees.

He spent three hours at the baths, but it was only when he and Martial lay side by side on the boards in order to be oiled that he unburdened himself. Martial grinned across at him. “Your dear mother will die of shock,” he said. “And truthfully, Rufus, I myself think you are touched. You will end up blowing her nose for her when she cries, and singing to her when she has nightmares.”

“She wants to meet you. Her bard will enjoy you as well.”

The black, heavy eyebrows went up. “Oh. Then she must be reasonably civilized if she appreciates my work. But I don’t know about the bard. All love and flowers, I suppose.”

Pudens saw himself back in the garden on Plautius’s estate, in the night, and Caelte’s head was bent over his magic. “Not exactly. Why don’t you reserve judgment until you meet them?”

Martial groaned as the slave’s hands dug into his spine. “Don’t rub so hard! Well, what do we do? Sit cross-legged in a circle and tear at beef with our hands?”

“They will end up tearing at you with their hands if you behave like this and believe me, Martial, I would sooner face a lion’s claws than the anger of that family. When were you last at court?”

“Three weeks ago, when the emperor returned. He did not approve of my verses and told me so, which of course ensures that they will be repeated all over the city. I had commented on the empress’s crow’s-feet.”

“Then I am surprised that you did not see my Gladys. She is the emperor’s darling.”

Martial whistled and sat up, waving the slave away. “So it is
that
barbarian! And already she is ‘my Gladys.’ It looks as though I am going to be the only eligible bachelor left in Rome. Whatever will Lucia say?”

“It is none of her business.”

“True. Pass her on to me, Rufus, if under your indulgent hand she has not become too unruly.”

“Perfume, sir?” the slave enquired, and Martial spread his arms wide.

“Of course. Let me know when I am to appear on the hill, Rufus. I really am delighted to be of such interest to foreigners.”

Pudens smiled at him. “I will see you in a day or two, Martial, and I will ask Lucia whether she wants to join your household.”

The poet cocked an eye at him. “You’d better wait a while. Your little barbarian might disappoint you.”

“Never.” Pudens picked up his towel and went out.

For two days he visited Gladys, walking with her in the garden, sitting with her in the shelter of the cloister while a swift squall of rain combed the roses free of their wilting petals. On the second night, Martial came to dinner and charmed them all with his scathing wit. “I am a satirist,” he told Caelte after hearing him sing. “You are the true poet,” but Caelte disagreed.

“We are brothers and besides, sir, I am more musician than poet. Melody comes to me more easily than words.”

The third day was cold, for summer was almost over, and Pudens had to spend it sitting in the senate chamber. Gladys wandered through the house touching this and that, looking out at the windy garden, caught in the seemingly timeless lull between the seasons. The slaves had stoked the hypocaust, and warm air followed her in and out of the halls, up and down the stairs. Eurgain kept to her room and talked quietly with Chloe, her body servant. Llyn had disappeared soon after daylight, and Caradoc and his wife sat in the triclinium with Caelte. As Gladys drifted past the archway she heard her mother say, “But there must be news. Someone is keeping it from us, that is all,” and Gladys’s steps slowed until she halted, reaching out to lean against a pillar with her eyes closed. News. Day follows day. We eat, sleep, and laugh, we dress and go about the city, while in Albion’s forests children die, and the struggle for survival goes on. Beneath the masks that we prepare for each passing hour are gargoyle faces of longing and despair, and my emperor knows this and holds all news close to himself, to punish us. Shall I take you at your word, Rufus Pudens, and marry you, and cast another warm cloak around my own small unhappiness? What agonies of love and regret must have torn you, my aunt, as you fought to decide whether to give your freedom for Plautius or sink it deep back into Albion’s soil. I do not believe I could make that decision. She walked on, melancholy and slow-thinking, out under the windy sky.

The evening meal was eaten in near silence, and Llyn had still not appeared when the family finally left the triclinium to the slaves and scattered. Gladys, passing through the deep shadows that always lurked in the corners of the atrium, on her way to her rooms, caught the movement of a darker shade beyond the lamps’ glow, and paused, stiffening. The shade moved again and a hand came out of the gloom, beckoning to her. With her fingers on her little knife she turned toward it. A man waited in the covering shadow behind the pillars—short, bulky, dressed in a ragged tunic. His feet were shod in dirty sandals, and his face was covered by a black, greasy beard. As she approached him he reached out and pulled her deeper into the dimness. “Who are you?” she said loudly. “How did you get into the house?”

He put a finger to his lips. “Quiet, Lady. I come from Linus. He is in trouble. He is gambling tonight with strangers. He has lost all his money, and the men he is with will not take a promise of payment tomorrow. They are holding him until you bring it.”

She peered at him warily. “Then go to my father.”

“Linus does not want your father to know. He said that your father’s anger would be great if he knew.”

Gladys stared at him, suspicious and alert. It was no use asking for a note from Llyn, some written confirmation of the man’s gruff words. Llyn had never bothered to learn to write, though he now spoke Latin with great fluency, and she knew that she could not put money into these grimy hands and send the man away. She had never plunged into the maelstrom of humanity that lined the banks of the river as Eurgain had, and she thought of asking her to go, but then dismissed the idea. Eurgain would argue as the man waited, his glance probing the huge, deserted hall. “Very well,” she said, uneasiness filling her. “Wait here. Can you guide me to him?” The man nodded and she left him, climbing the stairs, walking the landing, turning in at her own door with a feeling of danger churning around her.

She went to her box, lifted the lid, and her body servant came to her. “Do you want to play a game, Lady?” she enquired, as Gladys drew out her leather money purse and strapped it to her waist.

“No, not tonight, and if anyone seeks me, tell them I have retired early.” Picking up her cloak she went out softly, and the girl closed the door behind her.

The man still hovered in the corner of the atrium, and when he saw her coming he slipped toward the cloister and out into the garden. Gladys ran down the terrace steps behind him, seeing him vault the the wall and disappear into the trees below. Of course. No guards did duty there.

Gladys determined that she would ask her father to request more sentries from Claudius, then in spite of herself she smiled grimly. She did not think the emperor would want to grant any more Catuvellaun requests. She scrambled over the wall, tumbled into the rough grass on the other side, and sped after the man. He moved surely ahead of her, glancing back now and then to make sure that she was following, and one behind the other they cut across the smooth width of the Clivus Victoriae and on down the hill, skirting the walls of other estates, jogging down alleys, until the Palatine loomed behind them. The man did not cross the Forum directly. He zigzagged on the periphery and Gladys fought to keep him in sight. Then he angled down through the blocks of apartment houses half-hidden in trees to where there were shops and an occasional expensive drinking house. It seemed that he was being careful to stay in sight, yet he obviously did not want her to walk with him, and she padded after him, her breath coming short, realizing for the first time how soft she had become with her litters and her host of slaves to escort her about the city. Now there were no gardens, no trees, and the streets narrowed and began to twist. Taverns and brothels lined them, bringing to her a low murmur of a life she had never known, and as she flitted past, there seemed to be in the dark doorways the unmoving huddles of a dozen grubby secrets. Llyn, how could you? she thought. There is so much gay strength in you, so many alternatives. Why this? Is it a deliberate denial of your captivity, a calculated choice?

The man strode on in the odorous darkness, often cutting from one street to another through an alley, and she stumbled on, sweating in spite of the chill wind. She was about to call to him to go more slowly, to wait for her, when she ran around a corner and he was not there. She halted, leaning against the rough stone, straining into the gloom, but no footsteps rang out under the laughter and oaths that spilled from the tavern at the end of the tiny street. She cursed to herself and shouted, “Where are you? Wait! Wait for me!” But there was no answer. She stood there panting, and the moments went by. She was about to call again when out of the corner of her eye she saw a man emerge from a doorway on the opposite side of the street. It was too dark to see more than his silhouette, but she knew that he was looking at her. She glanced away and saw another shape detach itself from the shadows ahead of her and come pacing slowly toward her. There was still the length of the street between them—it was still beyond the light-limned door of the tavern, but it drew closer with a determination she could feel. It was then that she knew, and her heart stopped. I am in a trap, she thought incredulously, and I am going to die. Trapped like the witless, lazy Roman wench I have become, trapped here in the bowels of the city, and they will say that I was carousing with Llyn, they will say that the sailors killed me, or the thieves and drunkards who roam these streets. The man facing her came on unhurried, sure of an easy prey, and the one standing in the doorway stepped out onto the paving. I cannot live! she thought, panic stricken. I have forgotten much, I have forgotten it all, I am lost and there is no moon to shine between the trees and tell me which way to go. The intestines of this city twine about themselves forever, dark and corrupt. Father! Help me! Then sense returned. The tavern. Better to face the dangers of a room full of curious men than the certainty of imperial knives. There might even be a Praetorian or two, Llyn himself might be in there.

She took three awkward steps, and then the tavern door opened and another man came out, hitching up his belt. She drew breath to cry to him but before she could make a sound there was another sound, and she saw that he had drawn a knife. “Take her!” the one coming down the street shouted, and the other two sprang into life. Gladys screamed, spun on her heel, and fell forward into the labyrinth that waited, leaving all light and sanity behind. It was an alley. At the end of it, looming high, there was a wall, and with near hysteria she prepared to turn at bay, but she saw the tiny path that began at its foot and she stumbled up it, squeezing between wall and wall, hearing the heavy thud of their footsteps. Hurry, she sobbed, oh hurry, hurry, then she was out in another street. No friendly lamplight fell on this one, nothing but shadows and silence, and she had no time to try the doors. She sped along it, hearing another shout as the three men saw her go. She did not know where she was, and as she ran she tried to think, but the clean stateliness of the Palatine and the Forum could have been a thousand miles away, in another world. Something rushed by her head and fell with a clink and she screamed again, knowing it to be a knife well thrown. She came to the end of the street and turned, ripping off her cloak as she did so, tearing at the belt that held her stola to her body. She dropped cloak, belt, and overgarment to race on, freer, in her white, thigh-short tunic. White! she groaned. Ah, mother! Must I go naked to my death? The sandals, flimsy things with golden buckles, pinched her feet and she kicked them off, feeling as she did so the shedding of her ill-fitting Roman self, feeling the ability for coherent thought come seeping back to her. “Sword-woman, sword-woman,” she heard the voice of Cinnamus whisper, as though she were once more his pupil, weapon in hand, eyes on his face as he admonished her. “Make them run, make them sweat,” and she sobbed as she drove into yet another alley drowned in night, the assassins fleet behind her. Dear Cin, it is I who run, I who sweat, I whose muscles are flaccid from too much good food, too little care. I haven’t a chance.

She could smell the river now, and in her imagination she tried to picture it flowing through the city under its lordly bridges, curving as she stood in the garden and looked down upon it. Then suddenly it was there, starlight reflected on its smooth surface, the shadows of the warehouses rippling dark. Watchmen, she thought. Watchmen, but she dared not shout for help. Upstream or down? Camulos, where am I? She ran into an alcove and tried to get her breath, one hand over her mouth to stifle the sound, her head hanging, her ears tensely straining. Then she heard them step out of the maze of dockside streets and knew that she must move or be cornered. She flung herself from her hiding place, but not before the glimmer of her tunic had betrayed her. A man lunged for her, with arm raised, shouting to the others, and the impetus of her start carried her against him, faster, harder than he had thought. She could not have drawn back if she had tried. He stumbled, and his arm was driven back against the stone wall of the warehouse. Before she realized what had happened, Gladys saw the knife fall. She pounced on it, fell to her knees, and drove it into the man’s chest with both hands, as hard as she could. The other two were almost upon her. She got to her feet and ran. First blood, she sobbed to herself. The first blood of my life, and she turned downstream, not caring that she could be seen, for now the city had relented and voided her out of its stinking bowels like a tiny white worm. Ahead and to her left the Capitoline hill bulked, and beyond it, far, oh heartbreakingly far, the Palatine mocked her with its lights. I learned once how to run, she told herself. Now obey me, my body. Falling into the graceless, ground-eating gait of her people, she sprinted, as the river lapped beside her, and the pounding feet and labored breath came on behind.