Wolf in Shadow-eARC (46 page)

Ahead of them was a large square structure. The northern wing towered over the rest of the city, being three or four stories high.

“That’ll be the Basilica and Forum on Lombard Street. It’s like the central market and town hall all in one complex. I think we’ll avoid that, too many people, too many chances of an incident.”

She took her bearings.

“If that’s Lombard Street, then we are on Cheapside, and that must be the Cheapside Public Baths.”

She gestured to a two-story building on her left inside a walled compound that had a rounded white roof like a Byzantine church. A large glass window on the end of the second floor added to the resemblance, although it was not colored.

“If we turn right at the bathhouse, we should hit the river at about the bridge.”

The streets were narrow, with people coming and going in tunics and yellow ochre cloaks. They had to stand to one side to allow an eight-man slave team in loincloths to carry a litter past them. Curtains stopped the curious peering in, but voices suggested at least two passengers.

“I had the Governor in the back of the litter once,” the foremost slave said to his opposite number on the front of the other pole. “He was a fat git and no mistake. I asked him when he was going to do something about paving the streets. How about putting a proper gutter in the middle for sewage like a civilized city instead of letting it run everywhere when it rained, I said. He told me to shut up or he’d cut out my tongue.”

“We’re in a culture with no motors of any kind, but human labor is cheap,” Frankie observed, watching the litter lurch up the street. “That was a London black cab.”

The ground floors of many of the buildings were shops. They sold clothes, leather, wooden and metal items, everything from jewelry to saws. Most of all there were food shops and what looked like bars selling wine, beer, and fast food that stank of fish, even when it wasn’t. Customers perched on stools at the bars or sat at tables, which spilled into the street.

In the middle of it all, Frankie’s phone rang.

CHAPTER 23
SAYING GOODBYE

Rhian moved back a few steps to give Frankie token privacy, as one would on a London street. The conversation grew quite animated, with much arm waving on Frankie’s side. This was largely ignored by those around her, although they tended to give the woman a wide berth. It seemed the citizens of Londinium were no more curious about their compatriots’ foibles than the citizens of London.

“Pssst.”

A hand tugged at Rhian’s sleeve, a hand attached to a short, thin man with dark hair and a goatee beard without the moustache.

“Your mistress is talking to her hand,” the beard said.

“She is highly creative and is often struck by one of the muses,” Rhian said, on slightly dodgy ground as she was not sure what a muse was. The Greek she appeared to be speaking guided the sentence for her.

“Ah yes, ladies and gentlemen of quality are often a little too creative,” Beard said.

It was, Rhian perceived, one of those irregular verbs in English. I am creative, you are eccentric, she is barking mad. Of course, class also played a part. When the members of Oxford University’s Bullingdon Club got merry on champers and smashed up a restaurant, it was held to be high spirits. When youths from Scumbag College, Grimthorpe, got rat-arsed on lager and smashed up a pub, it was three weeks without the option in one of Her Majesty’s Holiday Camps. Still, anyone who expected life to be fair was destined for disappointment.

“My master, Paresseos, trained as a doctor in Alexandria and is well versed in treating highly strung gentlefolk. He has helped the wife of the Governor—not the old one, the new one,” the beard said hastily. “Tell your master, Paresseos, at the yellow house in front of the Forum.”

With that, he disappeared into the shifting bodies.

“What did he want?”

Frankie had finished her conversation.

“Nothing. Who was on the phone?”

“Max, who else, the signal strength isn’t good enough for a call from my mum,” Frankie said somewhat sarcastically. “Apparently Sefrina, the bitch, forgot to warn us that the phones will guide us to moments of high entropic release, as they use the energy to communicate.”

“Oh, right,” Rhian said.

“Entropic release is geek-speak for emotional hot spots, like when lots of people are terrified and die.”

“Excellent!”

Frankie looked around. “It seems peaceful enough.”

“The man I was talking to did imply that the governor had recently changed.”

Frankie shrugged. “Roman governors served fixed terms, so they were always changing. Let’s not hang around.”

Frankie seemed to know what she was talking about, so Rhian let it go. But she was uneasy nonetheless. The doctor’s slave had been quick to disown any connection with the old governor.

They moved through the winding streets heading for the Thames. An alley dumped them into a paved courtyard surrounded by the windowless backs of buildings and high walls. The path ran along the edge to an exit under an arch. At the back of the courtyard was a blocky flat-roofed building fronted by Doric columns like a Victorian city hall. The two tall, brilliantly white marble doors in the entranceway were firmly shut. A single engraving cut into the doors depicted a giant warrior, naked except for a helmet and holding a bull by the horns. Muscles bulged as the warrior strained to break the powerful animal’s neck.

The courtyard was empty of people and silent. The sparrows squabbling over spilt food had vanished. Rhian hadn’t consciously taken note of the friendly little birds until they were conspicuously absent. The sterility of the courtyard had a disquieting quality, like an empty, disused morgue.

Rhian and Frankie were halfway across the yard when the doors slowly opened with a noise like boulders being hauled across rock. The interior was dark and gloomy, lit only by flickers of deep red. The mouth of the temple expanded like a window on a smart screen except that it stayed the same size. Something propelled Rhian and Frankie inside—despite them not moving. The basic laws of space-time distorted under some powerful enchantment, and the temple enveloped them.

Lava flowed from pools of boiling magma. Flames writhed over molten rock, illuminating the cave in flickering light that cast red and orange shadows. Hot air shimmered in the heat, distorting outlines so the very stones seemed to dance in partnership.

Heat radiating from the magma should have burned off her skin and boiled the blood in Rhian’s veins, but she felt nothing. She was a ghost observing hell. A gleam of yellow-brown metal in the distance caught her eye. It came closer, expanding into a giant made from highly polished bronze, except that it didn’t move like a robot or any kind of machine. It flowed like living liquid metal.

The giant held a round shield on his left arm and a sword in his right hand. Silver and gold leaf patters radiated out from the center of the shield like a stylized sun. It gazed at them and its mouth curled.

“Women, the weaker vessel, in my sanctuary. What vile heresy is this?” it asked, voice booming and echoing off the walls.

Golden flames sprung along the sword as if someone had turned on a gas tap. Frankie dropped to her knees, pulling Rhian down beside her.

“Great Mithras, we beg pardon. We are travelers from a far country on an important errand for your worshippers,” Frankie said.

“My worshippers are soldiers, merchants, men of power and substance. What need have they of help from weak and feeble womanhood. Back to your homes and children, to await your husband’s pleasure.”

“There’s someone looking for a smack,” Rhian said under her breath.

“But we bring a gift, Great Mithras. To enhance your majesty and glory, we bring the gift of northern fire,” Frankie said.

“Show me,” the giant said.

Frankie’s lips moved in a soundless chant and she cupped her hands. When she opened them, blue flames sprung from a white ball resting on her palms. She threw the ball clumsily with both hands, like a schoolgirl. Rhian expected it to drop to the ground after a few feet, but it floated weightlessly across the courtyard. The ball splattered on the statue’s shield, cascading blue fire over the surface. The statue tilted the shield, seemingly mesmerized by the crawling flames.

“Come on, while it’s distracted. Don’t look back”

Frankie jumped up and pulled on Rhian’s arm and they were outside the cave, back in the courtyard.

They made a run for the courtyard exit, even the motherly witch managing to put on a fair turn of speed. Outside the courtyard Frankie stopped and bent over, panting and holding her side.

“What, in the name of all the sexist pigs rotting in hell, was that?” Rhian asked.

“That was a god, or a daemon if you prefer, Great Mithras by name.”

“God of what, women-hating?”

Frankie laughed, the laugh turning into a coughing fit as she was still out of breath. Rhian thumped her on the back. Eventually Frankie pushed her off and carried on.

“Mithraism was another of those Middle Eastern monotheistic religions, like Christianity or Islam. You may have noticed none of them is exactly keen on women, but Mithraism took it to its logical conclusion and banned them altogether. The Mithraics also prohibited slaves and even men from the lower orders joining. They had ranks and degrees, like Freemasonry, so were popular with the army for a while. They lost out badly against Christianity, which took anybody and everybody indiscriminately.”

“But walking metal giants waving flaming swords?”

“This is the Otherworld, honey, reality is mutable.”

“How did you know it was Mithras, so you could placate him with flames?”

“There were certain clues: the death of the sacred bull, the underground cave, but, most of all, the fact Mithraism’s London temple was discovered ages ago off Queen Victoria Street. I recalled Mithraism involved flame-worship. We need to press on.”

“Are you up to it?” Rhian asked.

“Oh, sure, I was just a bit winded from running. The magic was nothing, just a conjuring trick really, but I’m glad it worked. I would not have relished a thaumatological duel with a god.”

“If you’re ready, hotpants,” said the daemon in the phone. “Follow the brook.”

“I didn’t notice you offering much help in there,” Frankie said.

The mobile blew a raspberry at her.

The brook was the Walbrook, another of London’s lost underground rivers. It split Londinium in half. The women walked down to a wooden footbridge and crossed to the other side. They reached the Thames by the side of a complex of buildings in a low-walled compound. Clerks in tunics, soldiers with the wide military belts, and the odd official in a toga signified that they had found the governmental heart of the city. It was a sort of Roman Whitehall.

The riverbank was lined with wharves used by river boats, everything from a one-man coracle to a flat-bottomed sailing barge. The Thames was so much wider than in modern London, even allowing for the fact that the tide was in, and Southark, on the south bank, seemed to be an island among mud flats.

They stayed clear of the bank, which was an anthill of activity. In amongst the loading and unloading of river boats, slaves and masons were building a city wall along the river. Carts full of white Kent stone crossed the Walbrook by a wooden bridge on their way to the building area. Nobody paid the slightest attention to health and safety protocols.

“The riverside wall was put up much later than the land side, at the end of the third century,” Frankie said, half to herself. “That was an unsettled period.”

“Yeah,” Rhian said. “It would be. I mean you don’t spend money on military defense in peaceful times.”

London Bridge was downstream a hundred meters or so. The parts above water were made entirely of wood, even the pillars supporting the structure being layers of stout logs. The bridge was wide enough for carts to cross. High railings, supported on crossbeams, lined each edge. Only the entrance ramps at each end were stone, or more probably earth banks lined by stone.

The tide was on the ebb, and the river swirled around the wooden supports angrily as if Old Father Thames was trying to remove the interloper from his domain. Heavy wood piles broke the water in front of the supports.

The protective rails were essential, as there seemed to be no road rules, and carts and people jockeyed for position. While she watched, two carts collided amid much yelling and fist waving that took the attention of a small detachment of soldiers to resolve. They did this by beating both carters indiscriminately with the hafts of their spears.

To reach the bridge they had to walk back into the city to the start of the ramp. Crossing involved some fancy footwork to avoid pedestrians, carts, and the occasional bodyguards clearing the way for someone important and his hangers-on.

Larger fat-bodied ships, half as wide as long, were moored on the seaward side of the bridge in the main channel. A single mast in the center supported a crosspiece for the main sail. A smaller mast projected over the bows, holding a smaller crosspiece. The ships were decked and a large rectangular hatch gave access to the hold. Rhian was fascinated by the vessel’s alienness.

Two steering bars, connected to the side rudders, projected into a railed wooden platform at the stern. No doubt Master and helmsmen navigated from this position. Rhian noticed that the furled sails were dyed a pale browny-green that blended with sea and sky.

The ship immediately behind the bridge carried white Kentish stone. A gang of men unloaded the cargo into flat-bottomed river barges to ferry the blocks to the wharf. They swung the stone over the side of the ship slung under a wooden crane rigged on a temporary tripod. The work looked hard and dangerous.

“Okay, phone, we’re on the bridge, now what?” Frankie asked.

“Go to the Southwark end and place me on a vacant display pole, then you can bugger off.”

The south end of the bridge had spears lashed to the railings, upon which were stuck rotting heads. The first head looked at them, but not with eyeballs. They had long since rotted away or been pecked out by crows. Little orange sparks flickered deep in the blackened sockets.