The Ghosts of Glevum (15 page)

I tried to move to ease my aching back. It was impossible. The slightest movement rocked the boat, and anyway there was no room to stir an inch.

‘Sit still!’ hissed Tullio. ‘You’ll have us overboard. Keep down. It’s dark and there’s still a bit of mist, but there’s a light wind getting up so it won’t last for long. We won’t be the only boat that’s out tonight. Besides, we’ll soon be passing near the dock. There may be torches on the quay and we can’t have you seen. Keep still, don’t make a noise and – here – put this over you.’

He raised one buttock as he spoke, and – at the risk of oversetting us – extracted what was obviously another sack and draped it over my face and feet so that I was swathed in sacking from head to toe. I was momentarily grateful for the extra warmth – I was by this time almost numb with cold – but like everything else aboard the boat, including the boatman and my outer tunic, the sack smelt horribly of eels. That, combined with the movement of the boat, was almost too much for me. I retched.

‘You be sick in my boat, and I’ll pitch you overboard,’ Tullio muttered fiercely.

The power of necessity is an amazing thing. I was cold, cramped, and seasick, but somehow I managed to survive the whole long aching while – it seemed like hours – until we had travelled safely past the town. Our passage was not wholly without incident. Several times I heard the splash of oars, and once there was a sudden jolt and then a glow of light. I couldn’t see any more than that from underneath my sack.

‘Who’s there?’ A whisper.

‘It’s Tullio and his eel-traps,’ Tullio whispered back.

‘Ah – I can see you now. Catch anything tonight?’

‘Not much. Found a sack of something in the marsh and picked it up.’ Through the sacking I felt Tullio’s hearty slap around my thigh, as though he were demonstrating his find. If I had not been so tightly wedged I might have jumped. ‘Probably useless, but I’ll dry it out and see. You?’

‘Nothing much about, this time of year. What are you doing now?’

‘Thought I’d try downstream a bit.’

A grunt. Then, ‘Well, more fool you. I’m giving up. I think it’s going to rain. Mind how you go past the quay, there’s a wine boat in from Gaul. Night, Tullio. Don’t get swallowed by the river gods.’

‘I won’t.’ Then the muffled splash again, and silence as we wallowed in the wake. Only the swish and creak of our own passage then. Time passed more slowly than an undertaker’s cart. After a bit it did begin to rain, softly but persistently, and creeping damp was added to my miseries.

Then all at once the sack round my head was lifted back and Tullio leaned forward to peer into my face. ‘Are you still alive?’

I grunted something.

‘We should be out of danger now. We’re past the town. You can sit up a little if you like . . . Careful!’ This as I moved and narrowly failed to capsize the boat.

I was still lying underneath his knees, but tried to edge myself a little more upright and discovered that the air was calm and fresh, despite the intermittent rain. Around us the river glimmered with greyish-silver light, and dark trees bowed leafless heads down to the waterside. I crawled up in the boat and propped myself with my head over the side, and was – at last – copiously and comfortingly sick. Then I plunged my hand into the river, scooped the chilly water up and rinsed my face.

I turned back. Tullio was watching me, unmoved.

‘I’m not used to boats,’ I whined.

‘That’s exactly why it was such a good idea. No one was going to look for you in this. Clever of your ugly friend to think of it.’ He gave the oar a lazy twitch. ‘Now, we’ll go a little further on, and once we’re safely past the
territorium
, I’ll let you out on to the river bank.’

I nodded. The territorium was official land: the fertile area which bordered Glevum to the south and east. It had been annexed by the legions when the colonia was built, and originally apportioned to the founding veterans as part of their retirement settlement. Now, more than a hundred years later, it had become effectively an area of farmland, interspersed with semi-managed woods, and administered by the authorities to supply the garrison. It was crossed by the military road which was the quickest way to Marcus’s estate, but much as I longed to be back on solid ground this was still official land, and it would be safer if I avoided it. Yet as we went downstream from here, we were getting further from my roundhouse all the time. Despite the threat that the guards would find me there, it seemed a refuge of delight. I only hoped that Gwellia was safe.

I tried not to think about the long walk through the night – possibly beset by wolves and bears – which would now lie in front of me. ‘And you’ll row back again?’ I said, anxious to think of other things.

He laughed. ‘Of course, it’s possible to row,’ he said, ‘even when you don’t flow with the stream. Across the narrows, certainly – I’ve ferried goods or people that way once or twice.’

‘Oh!’ That surprised me. I had supposed I was the first passenger ever to be crammed into his boat.

He ignored me. ‘But upstream? Depends upon the tide.’

‘Tide? I didn’t know rivers had a tide.’

‘Then you don’t know much. All the way from the Hibernian sea, they say. That’s why these boats are made the way they are – you can take them upriver, drop them in the stream, and travel with the current while you fish or bait your traps. Of course you can use the oar to steer and speed your way. Then, when you’ve finished, you can put the whole thing on your back, pick it up and take it home again. I carried it to you tonight – you were upstream of me.’

He made it sound simple, but the idea of walking several miles with the weight of that contraption on one’s back seemed utterly impossible to me. No wonder Tullio had the strength and muscles of a god.

I was about to say something in reply when Tullio raised his hand. ‘Hush!’

There was a gentle hooting, like an owl.

Like an owl, but not an owl at all. Tullio pulled on the oar again, applying real pressure to it now, and the little boat bobbed and circled to the bank. I saw at once why he had chosen to come here; it was clearly a spot known to fishermen. A long length of timber had been driven horizontally into the mud, presumably for hanging those long woven fish-traps from. The bank was flattened around it and a small path led away into the woods. Tullio caught an overhanging branch and pulled us in.

‘Here!’ said a voice. Tullio took up the rope that was affixed to one of the boat’s cross-withies, which had been lying looped up on his lap. To my alarm I saw three figures detach themselves from the shadows on the shore. One took the line and secured a loop around the tree before handing the rope-end back to Tullio. Another reached out and pulled the coracle in hard against the mud.

My heart was thumping. Was I after all to be betrayed?

The third figure came down to the water’s edge. He had an awkward, loping gait. ‘Right. Out then.’ He was outlined against the dark: small, squat, square and unmistakable, with no neck and one misshapen foot.

‘Sosso! How did you get here?’

‘Walked.’ The youth who had been handling the line came scrambling round the tree, out of the shadows and down on to the bank where it was comparatively light. I saw with a shock that it was Lercius. ‘We came the quick way, through the town and down the road. Nobody was looking out for
us
. No one tried to stop us. I’d have had their eyes out if they had.’ Now that my status was agreed, he was suddenly talkative and willing to explain, as though he’d never threatened me at all.

The man holding the coracle looked up. It was Cornovacus. ‘Don’t look so startled, eel-eater. What did you expect? We weren’t going to let you disappear. You haven’t paid us yet.’

That was a problem yet to be resolved. I changed the subject. ‘How did you get through the town gates? They would have been firmly closed just after dusk.’

‘There are ways,’ Sosso said.

‘Sosso’s clever. He got us in with a funeral procession returning from the pyre, and out underneath a military cart. He wouldn’t let me . . .’

‘Lercius, enough! Now are you getting out?’ Cornovacus extended his free arm, and I struggled to my feet. It made the boat rock crazily again.

This time I did succeed in falling in.

For a moment my whole life flashed before my eyes, and I floundered, spluttering. But I did not drown. For all my frenzied splashing, I had merely fallen into the shallows and the water was no higher than my thighs. Feeling rather foolish, I struggled to my feet, but the ground was slippery and I slithered in again. Strong arms seized my makeshift tunic, as I came up for the second time, and Sosso and Lercius hoisted me upright and dragged me up on to the bank.

Even in the misty moonlight I was a sorry sight, soaked and streaked with mud from head to foot. One of my ungainly boots had fallen off and sunk. It hardly mattered: I was so tired and cold and shaken that I could not stand. I could do nothing but lie exhausted and shuddering on a pile of sodden leaves underneath the tree, convinced that I was going to die. In fact, I decided I would welcome it, as a sort of numb warmth spread slowly over me.

Sosso’s voice seemed very faint. ‘Great Jove! He’s drifting. Quickly! To that hut we saw!’

They must have lifted me and carried me for miles, but I have no real memory of that. I found I was sliding into shivering sleep. I dreamed.

In my dream my father had me on his back and was running with me to the stone-built roundhouse that was my childhood home. I wanted him to run. It would be warm there by the central fire, and my mother would sing songs to me while I curled up on my bed of furs and slept. Then I seemed to be hanging upside down, suspended by my arms and legs, like a rabbit hung to cook above the fire. Then even that faint sensation dimmed and I surrendered entirely to unconsciousness.

I swam up into a half-waking world.

‘You will be all right here,’ my father said, and his voice was very odd and deep. My mother rubbed my aching limbs with balm and lifted a bowl of hot broth to my lips.

‘Drink this,’ she crooned.

The brew was hot and bitter. I felt the warmth course through me like a flood. I forced my eyelids open, expecting to gaze into my mother’s eyes, but the beloved features melted and dissolved and I was looking instead at a wrinkled, toothless face surrounded by wispy tufts of thin grey hair.

Yet I knew I’d seen the face before. And some of my imaginings were true. There was the fire, and I was lying on a bed, though not my own. It was dark, except for the firelight, but there were some things I could discern. I was lying on a simple pile of reeds with a patchwork coverlet made of pieces of fur skin – they might have been from weasels – draped over me. I did not recognise the tiny room in which I lay. I gave up trying to make sense of it and shut my eyes again.

More liquid was forced between my lips. ‘Citizen Libertus, you must stay awake.’

I opened my eyes stupidly. The wizened face pressed very close to mine. ‘Don’t you recognise me, citizen? I knew you at once, despite that dreadful sack they’d draped you in.’

‘Sack?’ Fragments of memory were drifting back. I moved my hand beneath the covering of skins to find the sack, but under the furs I was as naked as the day I was born. Then my fingers, moving on my chest, touched something sticky, thick and warm. Blood? I snatched my hand out and gazed at it, though the flickering fire was all the light there was.

The old woman laughed. ‘Goose-grease,’ she said. ‘Plenty of it too. Best thing there is for warding off the cold and for preventing tightness of the chest – though you’ll be lucky to escape that altogether, chilled and soaked through as you were. Still, that hot remedy of mine should help. I sent the same thing to your patron once, when he had a fever and a nasty chill. Now, Citizen Libertus, drink the rest of this.’

This time, I recognised my name and I realised who and where I was. I was an old man on the run and this . . . ‘You’re the firewood-seller’s wife,’ I said. ‘I am in your hut.’

She nodded. ‘Lucky for you, citizen, that your friends brought you here. Another hour of that wet and cold, and I doubt if even I could have helped you.’

‘My friends?’ Apart from Junio – and Marcus, I suppose – I had no one to whom I could apply the term. A tradesman who has been first a nobleman and then a slave is not in a position to acquire ‘friends’.

‘The men who brought you here,’ the woman said. She gestured to the door. There was a shadowy figure sitting there, which I recognised as Cornovacus. He seemed to be asleep, propped up against the wall, his knees drawn up underneath his chin and his head resting on his folded arms.

I stared. ‘Where are the other two?’

‘Gone to your roundhouse, to see what they can find. I told them the way.’ She peered into my face, and added, ‘I hope I did right. I thought you’d wish it, since they saved your life. In any case, I had little choice. They had a knife.’

This mention of my house made me struggle up. ‘My wife . . .’

‘You needn’t worry, citizen. Your wife and slaves are safe.’

I sank back. ‘Jupiter be praised!’

‘My husband saw them on the road. They’d gone long before the soldiers came.’

‘Soldiers! So Junio was right. They came.’ Once more I tried to sit upright, but this time she pushed me gently down again.

‘Lie back. There is nothing you can do tonight. Perhaps in a day or two, if you are strong enough . . .’

‘But I have chickens, possessions, grain. Gwellia cannot have taken all of them. There will be beggars, thieves . . .’

‘Citizen, try not to distress yourself. If there is anything of value there, no doubt Sosso will bring it back to us. He’s gone to have a look.’ She turned away and busied herself with something on the fire. ‘For now, try to get some rest.’

To see if there was anything to loot, no doubt, but by now I was too worn to care. Gwellia and Junio were safe, and so was I. That was the most important thing. The rest would have to wait until the dawn.

All the same I found I couldn’t rest. A hundred questions tumbled through my brain. I wondered where the firewood-seller was now, since it was long past the middle of the night. He must have visited his home since he saw Gwellia, since he had managed to tell his wife all this. Where had Tullio and his boat gone, and what had happened to Sosso and Lercius? Where could I find the money to pay Sosso now? Above all, was Marcus innocent or guilty – and how, in the present situation, was I ever to find out?