The Chicken's Curse

by Frances Watts

  ‘This wine has come all the way from Rome, you know,’ said the delivery driver as they ferried the amphorae from the cart to the tavern’s cellar. ‘There are merchants over west in Lutetia who import it and then ship it all over Gaul.’

  It cheered Felix to know that the clay containers were from Rome; it made him feel a little bit closer to home.

  When they were done, the man said, ‘Well, thanks for your help. Do you and your chicken want a lift back to town?’

  Felix considered this, then decided that while he was here he might as well ask the tavern owners if they had any odd jobs that needed doing.

  ‘No thanks,’ he said to the driver. ‘We’ll stay here.’

  ‘Okay,’ said the man with a shrug. ‘Er, do you take your chicken with you everywhere you go?’

  ‘I have to,’ Felix said. ‘He’s—’ He stopped, realising how odd it would seem to be travelling with a sacred chicken. The man might think he’d stolen it. He finished, ‘He’s my friend. And I’ve promised to take him to Rome.’

  The delivery driver gave him an odd look along with a handful of coins.

  As he counted the money he’d collected that morning, Felix wondered how long it would take him to earn enough for a seat in a carriage. Or two seats, if the chicken insisted on having its own. It would probably take a lot more than eleven coins.

  He was about to enter the tavern when the sound of hooves made him turn. Two men were pulling up in a chariot. Perhaps he should offer to hold their horse? He had started towards them when, with a shock of recognition, he drew back.

  ‘It’s the governor’s men,’ he whispered to the chicken.

  ‘Who?’ said the chicken, scratching at the dirt in an uninterested way.

  ‘Beefy and Reedy – the ones who caught Livia.’

  ‘Who?’ said the chicken again.

  Felix sighed. ‘Never mind. I’m going to follow them and see if I can find out what happened to her. You wait here.’

  He entered the tavern. It was dim inside – dim enough that he doubted the two men would recognise him if he slipped past them without a word. Maybe he could find a quiet corner nearby in which to stand and eavesdrop on their conversation.

  The governor’s men had seated themselves on benches on either side of a wooden table. Felix was preparing to slip past when one of them gestured to him.

  ‘You, boy,’ said Beefy.

  Uh-oh – had they recognised him? Would he be in trouble with the governor for helping Livia?

  But Beefy hardly spared him a glance. He just clicked his sausage-like fingers and said, ‘Fetch us some ale.’

  Felix looked around. He was the only boy in sight.

  ‘Who, me?’

  ‘It’s your job, isn’t it?’

  ‘Uh … yes! Yes, it is!’ Felix said, realising that this was his chance to find out what had happened to Livia without having to lurk in dusty corners.

  Approaching the counter, he said to the innkeeper, ‘The men at the table near the door would like two tankards of ale. I can carry them over for you, if you’d like.’

  When Felix returned with the ale, Beefy took a long drink, which he followed with a long belch. He squinted at Felix and said, ‘You seem familiar. Have we met before?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Felix, hoping his voice didn’t sound too nervous.

  ‘You’re thinking of that boy we saw in the forest with his chicken,’ Reedy piped up. ‘There’s a bit of a resemblance, but this boy has red hair; the other one had hair the colour of mud.’

  Keen to change the subject, Felix said, ‘Is that your chariot parked outside?’

  Beefy took another big slurp of his ale, burped and nodded.

  ‘It’s a beauty!’ Felix enthused. ‘You must be pretty important to have a chariot like that.’

  Beefy puffed out his chest. ‘We’ve been on a mission for the governor of Nemetacum.’

  ‘Wow, you’ve come all the way from Nemetacum? I could have sworn I saw you driving past yesterday. I always notice the finest chariots. Surely you can’t have gone all the way to Nemetacum and back in that time.’

  ‘Ha – we’re fast but not that fast. We’ve been to Noviodunum though.’

  ‘And we’re hungry,’ added Reedy. ‘What are today’s specials?’

  ‘What took you to Noviodunum?’ asked Felix, ignoring Reedy’s question.

  Beefy wiped the moustache of beer foam from his upper lip. ‘We brought in a runaway, delivered her to the prefect. They’ll keep her there till the governor’s steward arrives from Nemetacum to take her back.’

  ‘Oh, right,’ said Felix casually. ‘I heard the governor’s daughter was missing. Livia, was that her name?’

  Beefy gave a short laugh. ‘The governor has a daughter called Livia all right, but it wasn’t her that was missing.’

  ‘It was her slave,’ Reedy chipped in. ‘Ran off in the night – took all her mistress’s jewels too.’

  For a moment Felix couldn’t speak; he was struggling to make sense of the men’s words. ‘The runaway you captured was a slave?’

  He felt a slow burn building inside his chest. It was fury, he realised.

  Turning on his heel, he headed for the door.

  ‘Hey, boy, where are you going?’ Beefy called after him. ‘I want another ale.’

  ‘And I want something to eat,’ Reedy reminded him.

  Felix kept walking. The blood was boiling in his head. How dare she? All that hoity-toity attitude. The scornful way she talked to him. When all along she was nothing but a lowly slave. A slave and a thief!

  The grand house she’d hinted at? She’d lived in that house as a slave! She’d probably never eaten a dormouse in her life.

  To think he’d been polite to her. Almost in awe of her!

  Storming out of the tavern, he kicked a bucket and sent it clattering across the stones. What a fool she must have thought him.

  As if to prove her right, he promptly tripped over the bucket he’d kicked and fell face-first into a puddle.

  Dripping, muddy and angrier than ever, he stalked over to where the sacred chicken sat in Beefy and Reedy’s chariot.

  ‘Come on,’ said Felix. ‘We’re leaving.’

  ‘I’m tired of walking,’ the chicken said. ‘Let’s take this chariot.’

  ‘We can’t do that – it’s not ours to take.’

  It had taken Livia away, though …

  Hmph, he thought, kicking one of the chariot’s wooden wheels. She’d probably been laughing to herself the whole time.

  Though she didn’t laugh often, now that he thought about it. She was mostly quiet and serious and determined to the point of bossiness. It had made those rare times when she did laugh all the more special. And she was generous, he reminded himself. She had shared her bread with him and the chicken. Even if those jewels in her basket were stolen, she hadn’t hesitated to suggest using them to buy passage to Rome for him as well as herself when they got to Durocortorum.

  He closed his eyes, trying to banish the memory of his last sight of her, bound and gagged at the bottom of the chariot. The broken voice in which she’d begged, Please.

  When he opened his eyes, he found to his surprise that he was standing in the chariot.

  He picked up the horse’s reins.

  A voice from behind yelled, ‘Hey! What are you doing? That’s our chariot!’

  Turning, he saw Beefy and Reedy advancing towards him.

  ‘It’s the boy from the forest,’ shrieked Reedy. ‘The one with mud-coloured hair and a chicken. I knew I recognised him!’

  As he’d seen Beefy do the day before, Felix flicked the reins.

  At once, the horse set off towards the road at a trot.

  ‘We’ll be in Rome in no time,’ said the chicken happily.

  ‘Stop!’ thundered Beefy.

  Felix flicked the reins again, harder this time, urging the horse into a canter as they joined the road.

  But instead of turning south towards Rome,
he turned north.

  ‘Wait,’ said the chicken as they clattered along the flagstones. ‘Where are we going? I thought Rome was the other way.’

  ‘We’re not going to Rome yet,’ Felix said grimly. ‘First we’re going to rescue Livia.’

  Chapter 6

  It was late afternoon when they arrived in Noviodunum. Caesar had won a battle here, Felix remembered, not long before the Battle of Gergovia – one of the rare battles Caesar had lost …

  He stopped at a sausage stall by the side of the road. ‘I have a message to deliver to the prefect,’ he told the sausage seller, trying to sound important. (The delicious smell of sizzling sausages was very distracting.) ‘Could you direct me to his house, please?’

  The sausage seller looked at Felix and then the chicken, which was napping beside him.

  ‘Do you always travel with a chicken?’

  ‘Uh, yes,’ Felix replied. ‘It’s a sacred chicken. It … it brings me good fortune.’

  The sausage seller raised his eyebrows. ‘If you say so.’

  ‘Sorry to rush you,’ Felix said, casting an anxious glance over his shoulder, ‘but I’m in a bit of a hurry.’

  ‘Urgent message, is it?’ said the sausage man. He turned the sausages on the grill one at a time before saying, ‘Now, what was it you wanted? Oh yes, the prefect’s house. Well, you head straight—’ He stopped. ‘There’s something wrong with your nose.’

  ‘Huh?’ Putting a hand to his nose, Felix realised it was twitching. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘It’s been a while since I ate. Perhaps I could have one of those …’

  ‘If I were you I’d eat the chicken,’ the sausage seller advised. He held out a sausage, waving away Felix’s meagre handful of proffered coins, and described the route Felix should take.

  As he ate, Felix urged the horse into a walk and, following the sausage seller’s instructions, headed towards the centre of town, past warehouses and workshops and small houses, before reaching a street of larger houses snaking off to the left. The largest house of all belonged to the prefect. Felix would have recognised it even without the sausage man’s description. Unlike the structures of timber and thatch around it, the prefect’s house looked Roman, built of stone and brick.

  As Felix slowed the horse to a stop outside, the chicken woke up. ‘Where are we?’ it asked.

  ‘The prefect’s house,’ Felix replied.

  ‘I’m coming in with you,’ the chicken announced. ‘This looks like the kind of place that has cake.’

  ‘We’re not here for cake,’ Felix said. ‘We’re here to rescue Livia.’

  ‘Who?’ said the chicken.

  ‘The question is,’ Felix muttered to himself, ignoring the chicken, ‘how will we find her?’

  He directed the horse to follow the wall enclosing the house and garden to the back entrance, where deliveries were made.

  ‘Stay here,’ he told the chicken, ‘and keep quiet.’

  He left the chariot under a tree and pushed tentatively at the big wooden gate set in the wall, hoping he might be able to pass through unnoticed. Unfortunately the gate was locked.

  He scanned the wall, looking for handholds and toeholds, but it was too smooth to climb. Frustrated, he walked back to the chariot and sat down. Think! he urged himself. There must be a way to get in.

  Glancing up at the tree under which he’d parked, Felix saw that the lower branches brushed the top of the wall. Aha! He stood and carefully stepped up onto the edge of the chariot. Then he reached over his head and grasped a bough. He heaved himself onto the branch and slid along it until he had a view over the wall into a cobbled courtyard.

  The afternoon light had faded into dusk, and his view was slightly obscured by leaves, making it hard at first to get his bearings, though he thought he could make out stables on the far side of the yard from the back door of the house. He could hear chickens clucking and squawking, too, though he couldn’t see them. He only hoped the sacred chicken wouldn’t feel compelled to join in.

  As he watched the yard, the back door opened and a slender woman in a plain tunic stepped out to empty a bucket of water. Behind her, Felix saw a kitchen hearth.

  He waited a few minutes then, when all was quiet, he lowered himself from the branch to the top of the wall, teetered for a moment, and jumped down into the courtyard.

  He landed heavily. ‘Oooph!’

  ‘Who’s there?’

  The kitchen door opened and someone stepped outside with a lantern.

  Felix, trapped in the middle of the courtyard with nowhere to hide, froze.

  The lantern was raised, catching Felix in its circle of light. It was the woman he’d seen earlier – a kitchen slave, he presumed.

  ‘What is it, Sulpicia?’ a man’s voice called from inside.

  Felix opened his eyes wide, silently begging the woman not to cry out.

  The woman frowned, opened her mouth.

  Felix’s legs began to shake.

  ‘There’s nothing here,’ she called. ‘Only the rooster, making a nuisance of himself as usual.’ As she said it, she was pointing towards the stable across the courtyard. Was that where the rooster was?

  ‘But I heard an oooph,’ the man inside objected. ‘Roosters don’t go oooph.’ His voice was getting closer.

  The woman jabbed her finger towards the stable and finally Felix realised that she was signalling to him to go there – and fast.

  As the kitchen door edged open, he dashed across the courtyard. By the door of the stable he could make out a pile of hay and he promptly threw himself into it.

  ‘By Saturn, did you see that flash of red? The rooster ran away fast enough when he saw me coming! He knows who’s boss, that’s for sure. Strange though—’ the man’s voice was getting fainter now ‘—I’ve never heard a rooster go oooph before. Are you coming?’

  ‘In a minute,’ the woman replied. ‘I just want to make sure the hens are all right.’

  Felix lay in the hay waiting for his heart to stop pounding. He could hear horses whinnying softly and a cat mewing close by.

  After a moment he stood up, brushed the hay from his hair and clothes, and waited for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. The cat was still mewing; it sounded like it was coming from the first stall.

  Peering in, he saw the cat curled up on the earth floor … But no – it was too big to be a cat.

  Livia!

  Just as when he’d seen her last, there was a cloth stuffed in her mouth as a gag and her hands and legs were tied.

  He dropped to his knees next to her. She looked at him, eyes wild and scared.

  He pulled the cloth from her mouth and she drew a few deep, ragged breaths.

  ‘Felix!’ she gasped, when she could speak again. ‘How did you—?’

  ‘I’ll explain later. We have to get out of here.’

  He began to struggle with the rope binding her hands. But it was no good. The knot was too tight and haste was making his fingers clumsy. ‘I can’t do it,’ he said, frustrated. ‘I’ll have to carry you, and we’ll try to find a knife later.’

  ‘Here.’

  A soft voice from behind startled him. Turning, he saw it was the woman from the kitchen.

  She pressed a knife into Felix’s hand. ‘Be quick.’

  Felix sawed desperately at the rope binding Livia’s hands while their saviour used nimble fingers on the knot binding her feet.

  ‘Thank you,’ Livia said in a croaky voice.

  The pair of them helped Livia up. After the hours she’d spent tied up, she could barely stand.

  ‘This way,’ the woman whispered. ‘Quickly. We’ll all be in trouble if the steward catches us.’

  Felix draped one of Livia’s arms over his shoulders and, with an arm encircling her waist, helped her across the courtyard behind the kitchen slave.

  ‘Sulpicia, where are you?’

  ‘Coming!’

  Rather than crossing the courtyard to the gate, Sulpicia led them around the side of the stable to a doo
r set in the wall. She opened it and ushered them through.

  ‘I saw those men bringing her here,’ she told Felix. ‘She was kicking and scratching like a wild cat, she was that desperate. Sobbing about an arena in Rome and lions. It sounds like they must be planning something dreadful for her. I’m glad you found her.’

  The woman was taking a terrible risk by helping them. Felix hoped suspicion wouldn’t fall on her when it was discovered Livia was gone.

  ‘How did you get here?’ Livia asked him in a weak voice as the woman silently closed the door behind them.

  ‘I stole a chariot.’ In the dusky light, Felix led her along the wall enclosing the courtyard until he could just make out the shape of the tree under which he’d parked.

  Livia gave a faint laugh that turned into a cough.

  ‘Where’s the chicken?’ she asked.

  ‘I left it with the chariot. I hope it’s still there.’

  ‘The chicken or the chariot?’

  ‘Both, of course.’

  ‘The chariot would be more useful.’

  Though offended on the sacred chicken’s behalf, Felix was reassured. Despite her ordeal, Livia had lost none of her spirit.

  To Felix’s relief, the chariot was where he had left it, and the sacred chicken was too.

  ‘You’re still here,’ Livia said to it, sounding less than relieved.

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ said the chicken.

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Felix.

  The horse seemed to remember the way, and was soon walking briskly back along the road through town. Felix was longing to go faster, but thought it better not to attract attention.

  ‘I still don’t understand how you found me,’ Livia said as they clopped past the sausage seller.

  Felix explained how he had encountered Livia’s captors in the inn. ‘They said …’ He paused, not sure how to broach the subject. ‘They said that you’re a slave.’

  For a long moment, Livia didn’t respond, just stared straight ahead. Her face was fixed in a frown. At last she said defiantly, ‘I was a slave, but I’m not anymore.’