by Henry Treece
One of the older slaves said, “What of the harvest, master? That is not yet in, and the rains may come before we expect them.”
The Roman said sharply, “The god will take care of that, Dio. He has looked after us so far. He will not fail us now.”
As he spoke a chill wind blew across the stack-yard and a white owl suddenly broke from a cypress tree in full daylight and fluttered clumsily above the men’s heads. Dio clapped his hands over his eyes and said, “Have mercy, Earth Mother, the Roman did not mean what he said.” Some of the other slaves sank to their knees and touched the ground with their foreheads. Drucus pursed his lips together and turned away from them. He did not want them to see his face.
“Get about your work, men,” he said. “We still have three hours of light for tree-felling and reed-pulling.”
Then he went into the shell of his house and sat at the cracked table with his head in his hands, suddenly feeling very old and lonely.
As dusk was falling, he heard the slaves returning, dragging their heavily-laden cart to the house and singing one of their endless, monotonous work-songs. Drucus thought: If I live in Britain for a hundred years, I shall never get used to this strange music of theirs. It is enough to drive a man out of his mind.
Then he heard footsteps shuffling across the paved floor towards him, and looked up to see the slave Dio standing beside the table and holding out something in both his hands. The light had failed so quickly that Drucus could not see what it was.
“Well, Dio,’ he said, “have you brought something for me? What is it— a cow’s horn or a bunch of harebells?” He tried to laugh as he spoke, but the slave answered in a serious slow voice. “It is a sword, master.”
Drucus bowed his head now in the twilight, not daring to look up. At last he said to the waiting slave, “It is a bronze sword of your own people, is it not? The handle and the blade of one piece?”
Dio said in a gentle voice, “You have described it, master.”
Then Drucus put his hands over his face for a while. “Where did you find it?” he asked.
The slave said, “By the stream, when we went to cut reeds for the stable roof,
master. He who had owned it lay with his lion-coloured hair in the water. You would have thought he was smiling, if you had seen him.”
Drucus said, “Yes, I know. I have seen him. Tell me, was he alone there, by the stream?”
Dio shook his matted head. “No, master,” he said. “There was another there, one of your own folk, in rusted gear and a broken helmet. They must have gone down together. But it is no dishonour to the Roman—he only carried an oak staff. It was not worth bringing to you, hacked and splintered as it was. We buried them together in a grave near the stream. Did we do right, master?”
Drucus got up slowly from his stool and went towards the window. “You did right, Dio,” he said. “What else could you do?”
The slave stood quietly a little while longer, then he said, “This sword, master … where am I to put it?”
The Roman began to move towards the doorway of the room. “Take it back to where it belongs,” he said. “Lay it beside the man who held it in his hand. I refused it when he was alive; I cannot take it from him now. It is not my sword.” So Dio left his master and, being afraid of the dark, called two other slaves to go with him back to the stream with their mattocks and picks.
And as they went, looking back over their shoulders at every creaking of bough or crying of bird, Dio said to his fellows, “Our master is one of the bravest of men, yet I swear that he was weeping when I left him.”
A young slave called Simia because he was so nimble at tree-climbing said, laughing, “These Romans! I do declare, I shall never understand them. You would think that they should rejoice at the death of their enemies—yet they weep like women!”
Dio whispered softy in the dark, “We are only slaves, Simia. Perhaps we do not mean the same thing by our tears as these Romans do, after all. Perhaps they weep out of revenge.”
Young Simia flung the bronze sword into the air and caught it again, very cleverly, because he could scarcely see it in the dusk.
“Yes, Dio,” he said, “that must be it. Otherwise there is no sense in the world.”
Then they came to the place where the sword must be buried. The moon rode from behind a cloud and showed them where to dig. It was just below a hawthorn tree. The red flowers on it looked so gay in the moonlight that young Simia broke one off and stuck it into his dark hair. Then he started one of their work-songs for the others to dig the better by; and it was not long before their work was done, and the sword had gone back where it belonged.
When they returned to the farm they saw the other men working by torchlight at the new timbers, and their master, Drucus Pollio, astride the old roof-ridge, blackened with soot, and flinging
down the charred old thatch like a mad man.
“Come, come, you lazy hounds!” he I called out to them, his red face shining with sweat. “Put your backs into it and we’ll have the new roof up by morning!”
The slaves who had come from burying the sword stood still, staring up in astonishment.
Dio sighed and shook his head. “I tell you, my friends,” he said, “these Romans are not ordinary men. What they are, I do not know; but they are not ordinary men.”
GLOSSARY
Apollo, a very handsome Greek god, borrowed by the Romans.
Apulum in Dacia, a city in Rumania.
Ballistas, big Roman catapults, which flung rocks at the enemy.
Belgica, now Belgium, where many Celts came from to settle in Britain.
Caer Caradoc, a British hilltop fort in Shropshire.
Camulodunum, Colchester.
Cohort, 600 soldiers of a Legion.
Coritani, British tribes living in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire.
Decurion, a Roman officer with ten soldiers under his command.
Deva, Chester.
Demetae, a British tribe, living in south-west Wales.
Diana, a Greek goddess originally, often called the Huntress.
Eburacum, the city of York where the Ninth Legion was stationed when they left Lincoln.
Ermine Street, the Roman military road from London to York.
Gaul, France.
Glevum, Gloucester.
Guletic, a Celtic title, meaning “Leader”.
Iceni, a British tribe living in Norfolk and Suffolk.
Jupiter, the name which the Romans gave to the most powerful of the Greek gods, Zeus.
Lilya and Carthage, two big areas of North Africa.
Lindum, Lincoln, where the Ninth Legion was stationed.
Londinium, London.
Mithras, an Eastern god, who was so brave that Roman soldiers prayed to him.
Nero, the cruel and stupid Roman Emperor at the time.
Parthia, roughly speaking, Persia.
Saguntum, Sagunto, just north of Valencia on the east coast of Spain.
Simia, a name which means “monkey” in Latin.
Tarraco, Tarragona, just south of Barcelona on the east coast of Spain.
Villa, the Roman name for a country house.