After breakfast, Demetrios led the household in paying their respects to Marcus, whose body now lay in a splendid lead sarcophagus arranged on a stout table in the garden. Julia stood with her arms wrapped round Aurelia, wiping her eyes. Demetrios explained in halting words how the master had insisted on having the coffin made to his design some time ago, when Julia told him his illness would be terminal. His funeral and interment in the Aurelianus cemetery near the river would take place in a few days, when friends and associates from Lindinis and the neighbouring estates would be able to attend.
Julia was grateful for one thing. The ceremonial structure of the funeral process that would deliver her brother into the loving arms of his ancestors and the gods was something she could share with Aurelia. It would channel the grieving the bereft girl badly needed. Aurelia was crying openly now. It was so hard to know how to comfort her. So difficult to convince her the world would still turn without her father. Julia wanted to cry too, overwhelmed by the terrible loss of the brother she had loved so much. How could Julia put the crushed world back together for Aurelia? While Aurelia sobbed in her arms, Julia asked herself if now was the right time to tell her daughter about her true parentage.
Absolutely not. I have to let her mourn Marcus unreservedly as her true father, the man who loved her from the moment he set eyes on her. It’s what he deserves, and what she needs. Much better for Aurelia if she believes I am still her loving aunt. Marcus, wise and fore-sighted, has gifted me a continuing guardian role in her life. I’ll always be here for her, whatever she calls me.
They sat together in the sunny salon, Aurelia with legs curled up on the sofa and her head laid on a cushion in Julia’s lap. Julia spoke gently to her about Marcus, how much he loved Aurelia, how proud he was of her, his hopes and plans for her future. As Julia added that she would always have her aunt, the thin shoulders gradually ceased shaking. Julia realised Aurelia had sobbed herself to sleep. She left the exhausted girl, knowing Aurelia would sleep for hours more. It was the start of her recovery, she hoped.
Later in the afternoon Quintus called a meeting.
‘This is how the fire started, I believe. Lucius, having killed Marcus and knowing Marcus’s body would be found at dawn when the servants stirred, left the office by the bronze door. He threw a lit oil lamp against the door to set a fire that would cover his tracks. I also believe he was not lost in the fire. He got away quickly, probably leaving by the garden exit in the north wing. He’s long gone now, I fear.’
Julia, Britta and Demetrios were all sitting in the garden behind the villa, gathered in consultation with Tiro and the frumentarius. It was an absurdly beautiful day, balmy and still with all the promise of a warm spring. Only the occasional waft of smoke and glimpses of the crumbled west wing and ash-strewn courtyard hinted at the horrors of the previous night.
Julia watched the bees, busy among the opening spring flowers. Quintus followed her gaze.
‘Where does white wax come from?’ he asked abruptly.
‘What?’ He had shattered her train of thought, still focussed on Marcus.
‘Where does white wax come from? How is it made?’
He seemed intent. She paid attention.
‘White wax. Well, it’s quite rare. The vast bulk of wax is yellow, as bees naturally produce it from coloured pollen. To make it white you would have to boil the beeswax in salt water, according to Pliny. I’ve never bothered to do that, as I find the yellow wax from our bees here makes excellent candles and wax finishes.’
‘You don’t make any white wax here, then?’
‘No. I just explained. It’s a fiddly business, for little purpose other than snob value.’
‘I see.’ He said no more. She knew him well enough not to press him. Even when she first met him Quintus had preferred to keep matters to himself until he was sure of something. And now? He was so difficult to fathom these days, almost as if he had been smitten silent by the gods.
Tiro broke in. ‘Sir, what about that Fulminata? Shouldn’t we be trying to find her?’
‘I’ve set matters in hand about her. She won’t get far. But I heard something at Lindinis last night that puzzled me. You might know, Tiro, as it concerns Londinium —‘
Demetrios broke in respectfully, ’Sir, we have a visitor. Decurion Sorio, I believe.’
Sorio entered the garden, accompanied by his son. The councillor looked sorrowful and ashamed. In the bright sun Drusus looked hangdog and very young.
Britta and Demetrios tactfully withdrew.
‘Good afternoon. If it can be called “good”, at a time of such sorrow. Lady Julia, we heard about the fire and your brother. We came to bring our commiserations on your huge loss, and to offer what help we can.’
Sorio, despite his flashy tastes, was a good-hearted man and a friend of long-standing. Julia took his hands and pressed them, willing back the fresh tears pressing behind her eyelids. Sorio’s few kind words had released the dam of her emotions again, and she was swamped by feelings of loss. She thought of Aurelia, and made the mistake of looking over at Quintus. So much pain, the waste of years. The tears came hot and unstoppable now. She let them fall.
Sorio was muttering, ’Oh my dear Julia. We’re all so sorry, so sorry…’ She withdrew her hands from his, lifted her head, and forced herself to say, ‘Decurion, you have met the Frumentarius Quintus Valerius?’
‘Indeed. I am relieved to find you here, sir. Although sadly not in time to prevent the death of my great friend Marcus.’
They sat in the seats Julia offered, Drusus still unwilling to raise his eyes. Quintus looked at Julia, who nodded.
‘What can you tell us about the meeting last night, Drusus?’ His voice was not unkind.
The boy looked up, coloured, and began to stutter. At first it seemed he had little new to tell, and Quintus had to patiently drag the facts out of him. He eventually confirmed Lucius had bragged of being part of a gang stealing a pile of silver. He’d told Drusus, laughing, that he’d squirrelled away a handsome share for himself. Some silly boy’s notion of using it to fund a life of honeyed bliss in a love-nest with the red-haired Fulminata, away from his controlling father.
‘Can you tell us why Lucius went out on his own in Londinium, against his father’s wishes?’
Sorio scowled, and the boy muttered something inaudible.
‘Again, louder please.’
‘He told me he went to visit the whorehouses a couple of times. But not once he’d met Fulminata. He said she’s high-class, with important and powerful friends. He met her at some meeting in a very big house, a palace, and that was when he agreed to help set up the rebellion among the Durotriges. When he got back home, he called all us boys from the big estates together. He said —‘ Drusus swallowed and shot a look at his father, who was black-browed ‘— he said we young men should stand against our old-fashioned parents. That the White Ones would help us, we should take control, rouse the tribe against the tax-collectors and the civitas council…’
‘Yes?’ Quintus’s voice was low, but Julia heard the new firmer note. She began to feel sorry for Drusus Sorio.
‘He promised us there would be money and weapons, a chance for glory, and that if we backed him and Fulminata at the forum meeting, we could be part of the big victory to come.’
Tiro leapt to his feet, tipping over the chair he sat on. His hand strayed to the long dagger strapped to his side. Quintus waved him back down. His voice was harsh and peremptory.
‘The big victory? A battle, then? When, and where?’
‘I don’t know, sir. Truly I don’t.’ The boy’s voice cracked. He looked up, frightened, flicking away the fair hair drooping over his forehead. ‘Just somewhere up north, and soon. That’s all I know. He said once the final payload of silver had been shipped there would be an armed uprising of all the western tribes, and we should get ready for the call.’
‘Did he say where the silver was being shipped? Think, boy!’ Quintus was standing now, facing Drusus
. ‘Did he name a port?’
Drusus looked desperate. Perhaps he understood at last how dangerous the position really was.
‘Yes — no. That is …’ A bead of sweat rolled down the boy’s flushed face. ‘I’m not sure, I’m trying to remember -‘
Now Quintus spoke very quietly. It was almost a whisper. Julia felt the flesh on the back of her neck crawl.
‘Was it Isca Silurium, Drusus? Was the silver being shipped from Iscalis to the fort at Isca Silurium?’
‘Yes, yes, that’s it. That’s what he said.’ Drusus looked immensely relieved to have told the Imperial Investigator what he wanted to hear. Quintus had one more question.
’That meeting in the palace, where was it? Where in Londinium?’
Drusus looked puzzled. ‘Umm, he didn’t say. Just that it was a meeting of important people in a big fancy building. He said it was all a big secret, and he and his father were honoured to be in their company. He only told me about Fulminata because she was coming to Lindinis.’
There was a moment of silence. Quintus pushed his bronze ring round his finger, unseeing.
Sorio broke in, looking lost. ‘Does it matter, Frumentarius?’
‘Yes, Decurion. It matters very much.’
Julia drew a ragged breath. Her eyes were fixed on Quintus. She’d rarely seen a more distressed look on his face, not even on that day in Eboracum when they’d parted in mutual anguish. He thanked the Sorii, dismissing them back to Demetrios to confer on the help their estate could bring its neighbour.
Then the Imperial Investigator walked out of the garden, leaving Julia and Tiro to stare after him.
Chapter Twenty-one
The battlefield feels empty. It seems to the young officer that he is alone, in a valley enclosed by bare bleak hills. And yet there is movement all round, flashes of brightness sliced by sound. Listen, listen…
Yes, there it is, the cut of swordsong carving the air round him into jagged chunks. Or is it just his own breath he hears? Ragged, gasping, getting louder. And with each breath, the increasing thud of his heart.
Next to him is a sudden swirl of movement. It’s another young man, lithe, leaping, darting his sword around in attack. His segmented cuirass is wet with hill mist, and Quintus watches as a cluster of droplets join and roll into one, a thin channel of silver flowing down the man’s armour into his elaborate leather belt. The man’s dance is a frantic one, designed to stop the enemy’s weapons reaching him. His intricate footsteps, swerving left and right, weave a magic pattern. A Roman defence against the northern barbarians. The young man dances on, while the light dims. His armour is drained of its brightness to a dull sheen.
Who are you? I know you.
The young man makes no answer, and now Quintus sees the enemy confronting them. Many men bursting out of a hidden defile, spilling out to range up against the young man and himself. Could this be Flavius? Flavius, his brother—wiry like Quintus, but a little shorter, a little younger, a little less experienced. Flavius, who was mad to join the Praetorians like his big brother. Flavius, who Quintus begged his commander in the Second Augusta to appoint as a junior aide-de-camp so he could keep an eye on his eager little brother.
He sees that a superior officer, his friend Gaius Trebonius, is now at his side. As should be. He knows that Justin is somewhere on this battlefield too, leading a company of the Praetorians. Tall, calm, cutting the Caledonians down with measured deadly swings of his spatha.
A small wedge of the Second Augusta legion moves about him now, his new British colleagues. They pass him by and surge ahead. He frowns. A sudden barrier of enemies emerges from his left and separates him from the armoured Romans. A sideways manoeuvre of northern tribesmen: bare-chested, tartan-breeched, long hair swinging. All barbarian cries and long heavy swords. They come from nowhere and everywhere, flowing down the sides of the wet-grassed hills, filling the little glen with a deadly rising tide.
He yells to his colleagues. They take no notice, moving further away beyond the screaming barbarians, out of sound and reach. And now he can’t find his brother. The clamour of battle deafens him as he uselessly shouts his brother’s name. He cuts and slashes, pushing forward, frantic to regain sight of Flavius.
Then he sees him, holding his oval shield up. The Capricorn insignia glimmers through the rising hill mist. Flavius has outstripped his fellow soldiers, gone too far forward. The young man is alone, forlorn, with a circle of warriors closing round him like wolves. Quintus cries out, ‘Flavius!’ but still his voice fails and only the noises of battle and death answer. His brother has disappeared into the mists again. Then the curtain parts for a frozen moment. He sees one of the plaid-cloaked wolves slash at Flavius from behind, slicing into his brother’s hamstring so he falls, landing heavily on his knees in the mud.
Quintus leaps forward. Gaius advances with him, covering his sword arm. Quintus cracks the metal edge of his shield hard against a naked back covered in blue circles. The Caledonian falls away, and Quintus reaches his brother. Flavius, still on his knees with a puzzled searching expression on his face, looks up and opens his mouth to call to Quintus and then jerks, as a spear is thrust through his body from behind. A gush of bright blood rushes out of his mouth and down his chest. Flavius seems to look down to study it. His body is pinioned by the blade of the man who has just killed him. Quintus gasps, unbelieving. Time freezes. Silence blankets the field once more.
Quintus never sees the warrior who trips him, slashing open his right thigh from knee to groin. Gaius Trebonius tells him much later of how he rescues Quintus, how his brother’s body is snatched up by the retreating legion. They leave the mountains and glens to the swirling fogs, to the half-naked savages and their curved calyx war horns.
Quintus struggled in his sleep to ward off the scene, fighting to open his eyes and return. How long, oh you gods? How many times will you inflict this horror on me? I thought my punishment was over.
He lashed out, seeing with the eye of dreaming while knowing himself to be awake. A hand, smooth and firm, gripped him by the elbow.
‘Quintus! Quintus, come back. None of it is real. Let it go, Quintus …’
His head swam. Now there was bright light on his face. The mists had withdrawn. The sounds of battle were gone too, along with the dreadful metallic stench of his brother’s hot blood. Instead there was a faint scent of roses.
He was sitting on the ground, back propped against the stable wall in Bo Gwelt. Now he remembered: he’d wandered out here after leaving the garden. He’d sat down, just for a moment; must have fallen asleep.
He drew a hand unsteadily across his eyes, and when he opened them, Julia was there. She released his arm, and sat down on the muddy grass next to him, heedless of her pale robe. She looked at him intently.
’Still the nightmares after so long, Quintus?’
There was nothing to say. These visions, sent by the gods as waking trauma too —these were his punishment. Ever since Flavius was butchered in front of him in Caledonia he had denied the truth. He had tried to flee his guilt as he rode the long boundary roads of the Roman Empire. If he turned his back on anyone who tried to get close to him, surely they would know his unworthiness and leave him alone.
Julia was watching him with an uncertain look on her face as if she didn’t know him. What did that matter? She’d abandoned him, left Eboracum without a backward glance, never replied to his letters. He was alone in the world, alone with his duty to his work and to his Emperor.
Yet she kept watching him.
‘Quintus, you can tell me. Maybe I can help.’ There was a look on her face of …what? Pity, of course.
He stood abruptly. He needed to get away. But she trapping him there with her coaxing hand and low voice.
‘Quintus, come to the Sacred Spa. There is healing there.’
What could he say that she would understand?
‘I can’t walk away. It’s my sworn duty to uncover the plot and bring the culprits to justice.’
Quintus stared at her. She had no idea, of course. How could she know about the blow that had just fallen, bringing the ghosts of his past back to life?
He turned to leave.
She called after him in a breaking voice, ’What about Aurelia? She needs her father, more now than ever. You can’t leave her!’
‘Aurelia had a father, who she will never stop loving. She has you, and all her establishment here to help her. What she doesn’t need is a damaged man, someone who can never be a proper father to her.’
He left, not looking back. She must see now that he had failed all his life. He was worthless. Wounded too deeply to heal. There was only his duty left: to reveal the ultimate betrayal, and finish the mission. If he survived. And if he didn’t? No-one would care.
He hurried into the stable. The chestnut whickered on seeing him. Someone else saw him too.
He should have known. If he’d thought about it, he might have supposed that Aurelia was sleeping, as Julia thought. Or sitting mourning the man she loved as her father. But here she was, arms flung round the rough neck of her pony. The puppy Cerberus crouched at her feet. Her slight body shook with sobs. He was struck by the naked sorrow on her face.
‘Aurelia. You shouldn’t be alone. Does your aunt know you’re here?’
She lifted her head.
’Sir?’
‘Quintus. Just Quintus.’
She stumbled across to him, falling on her knees at his feet.
‘I had to be with the horses and Cerberus. Now Father has gone, they are all I have. Mother died when I was little, and since then Father has been everything, both parents at once and my best friend. And poor Aunt Julia, who has her own busy life in Aquae Sulis—now she’s stuck with me to care for. I c-can’t do that to her, sir. But how can I go on without my darling father? I’m so alone!’
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