[A Dream of Eagles 01] - The Skystone

by Jack Whyte (ebook by Undead)

  "I'm going to count to three, and then your nose is gone and we start on your ears. One."

  It was as far as I needed to go. He was babbling, "Hired! Hired! We were hired to kill you! Ten gold auri!"

  "Hired by whom? How did you know me?"

  "We didn't we didn't we didn't! We were looking for a grey-haired man with a limp! A strong man! We saw you in Verulamium."

  "You saw me?" I returned my grip to his filthy hair, twisting it violently. "Are you telling me that I might not be the man you were hired to kill?"

  He was terrified, nodding his head and grinning as though an admission of mistaken identity would get him out of this situation. I felt disgust swelling in my gorge. I twisted harder.

  "How long have you been looking for this man?"

  "A week! More!"

  "A week? You must be mad, as well as murderous." I let him go, abruptly. "A week, you say? Who wants this man dead badly enough to set a price as high as that on his head?" I asked, though I already knew. "You say you have no name for him? The victim?"

  He shook his head, relieved to be released. "No. No name. Just a description. As I said. Grey hair, grey beard, lame leg. Like you."

  "Like me. Do you know how many men there are like me in Britain, you imbecile? There must be hundreds! All veterans. All capable of eating your kind alive and spewing you into the gutter." I thumbed the edge of the dagger. "I want to kill you, you animal, and I haven't felt that way in years. I'd be doing the world a favour, too." I brought the point against his throat, watching his eyes narrow with fear. "You have one chance of living. Who offered the price?"

  I knew he was going to lie even before he spoke. I saw it in those eyes of his.

  "I don't know."

  I transferred my grip again, quickly, seizing his ear and slicing half of it off, holding the severed piece up in front of him. He stared in disbelief.

  "You want to keep the other half? You expect me to believe that you would not know where to go to collect your blood money? Who made the offer?"

  He swallowed, hard, and whispered a name. I didn't catch it. As I reached for his other ear, he shrieked it.

  "Quinctilius Nesca!"

  "Quinctilius Nesca." The blood surged in my ears. I felt the tension draining from me, to be replaced by a cold anger. "You could have saved yourself an ear by spitting that out sooner." I released him and then hauled him to his feet, pushing him back against the wall. He was bleeding copiously from both nose and ear, but he made no move to staunch the flow. He never took his eyes from mine.

  "You're not going to kill me?"

  I looked him up and down. "Why should I kill you now? I'm going to hand you over to the army. They'll hang you." I pulled him away from the wall and spun him around, then prodded him in front of me at dagger point to the mansio, where I sent the owner's son to fetch a patrol from the camp.

  Afterwards, when all the official inquiries were over, I was stopped on my way to bed by a young soldier.

  "Commander Varrus?"

  I looked down at him wearily. He looked very young.

  "Yes, what is it?"

  "Pardon me, sir, but is this yours? We found it on the street outside."

  My vase was still intact, a testament to the workmanship that had gone into the making of it. I thought about taking it back in the morning and exchanging it for another — one with no blood on it. I changed my mind immediately, however. It had served me well, and without it Britannicus would have lost a friend and his reputation.

  I went to my bed that night depressed and despondent at the virulence of the Seneca family's hatred and the personal power that each of them enjoyed. A man who could reach out, through his family, to kill anywhere in Britain was a man to be wary of.

  I spent ten more days on the road after that episode, taking care now to appear as nothing more than a humble traveller. I unstrung my bow and wrapped the shaft and my quiver of arrows in a cover of cloth and carried them thereafter strapped along the side of one of my pack horses so that they looked like part of my bedroll or an extra tent. I travelled quickly for the first four days, covering a lot of miles, and then, when I estimated that I had removed myself from the ken of those who might recognize me, I permitted myself to relax and enjoy the road.

  As I approached the country Britannicus lived in, the scenery changed. The massive, dense woodlands changed their character. The trees lost their height and girth and the forest grew more bushy.. To my left, to the south, the rolling hills dropped gradually towards the coastal lands, while on my right they grew from uplands to high hills, hills which I came to know as the Mendips. And to the south and west of the Mendip Hills, the farmlands became more abundant and more prosperous as I drew closer to my destination.

  By the time I had reached the town of Aquae Sulis itself, I was ready to enjoy the famous waters the town was named for. I arrived on a quiet day early in the week and found the place thronged. Everyone in the west, it seemed, came to Aquae Sulis for the baths, and for the marketplaces that teemed with the produce of the countryside around. When I remarked on the quality of his goods to a stallholder, he boasted that there was no farming country in the world to equal this, and I soon came to realize that this was true.

  I took a private chamber in one of the local hostelries and spent much of each afternoon of my first three days in the town merely walking around the markets, sampling the foodstuffs offered for sale. Now that I was here, having travelled across Britain, I suddenly found myself unsure of my welcome. Caius was not in Britain, and I knew neither his sister, Luceiia, nor his brother-in-law, Varo. My thoughts went, time and again, to the unwelcome reception shown by my own family when I'd arrived, unannounced, in Colchester to claim my inheritance.

  I was thinking exactly about that when I returned to my lodgings on the afternoon of my third day in town. I had bathed earlier in the day and eaten well in the marketplace at various stalls, and I had bought myself a new and rather fine tunic, some leather breeches and a new pair of sandals. On the previous day I had bought a rich cloak lined with the soft fur of a large number of rabbits and trimmed with ermine pelts. Wearing it that evening, even for just a few moments, I had seen just how shabby the rest of my clothes had become. Now, in an attempt to rid myself of the depression that haunted me, I changed into my new finery and went into the common tavern of the mansio for a pot of ale.

  The place was noisy and crowded, but as I entered the room a momentary stillness settled over everyone, and I felt a hundred pairs of eyes taking in every detail of my appearance. I hesitated for a heartbeat, feeling the silence palpably, and then, as I made my way to the counter at the back of the room, the conversation began again and I was ignored. A crew of three men were kept busy pouring ale for the thronging drinkers. I bought myself a large flagon of brew and turned back to the room, sipping at it as I looked from face to face. Only one man was paying any attention to me, staring at me with a frown on his face. As I caught his gaze he shook his head slightly, as though startled, and his frown deepened. Then he stood up, unnoticed by the others at the table, and moved directly towards me, obviously intent on speaking to me.

  I watched him come closer, my mind trying frantically to place his face, knowing him a total stranger and wondering what his business could be with me. Had he mistaken me for someone else? It hardly seemed likely. The only other possible alternative was that he was a Seneca spy and had been looking for me. But then why would he approach me so openly? I held myself ready for anything.

  As he drew closer, I saw that he was of medium height, well dressed, stout and red-faced with a bald head and a fringe of iron-grey hair that was short and trimmed in the Roman fashion. I saw that he wore a tunic of good, heavy wool beneath a sleeveless leather coat, the sides of which overlapped in front and were fastened by a broad leather belt with a finely crafted, heavy silver buckle.

  Finally we were face to face, staring each other in the eye in silence for what seemed like a long time. Then he tilted his head sli
ghtly to one side and spoke in a deep, gruff voice. "Your pardon, but is your name Publius Varrus?"

  I blinked, trying to conceal my astonishment. "It is. How do you know me? Who are you?"

  "By all the old gods, I knew it! Recognized you the minute you stepped into the room." The frown was gone, replaced by a wide smile as he reached for my hand and grasped it in a strong grip. "Varo. Quintus Varo. Cay's my brother-in-law. He told me all about you. Talks about you all the time. Told me you might be coming out this way some day and made me swear to treat you well. Welcome! Welcome to Aquae Sulis. Have you come to stay? Luceiia's going to be angry at me for meeting you first. Strong-minded woman, Luceiia. Have you eaten yet? By the gods, you look exactly as Cay described you. Amazing. When did you get in? What are you drinking? Ale? I prefer wine, myself. Come and join me. I have an excellent red from central Gaul that will amaze you, and the house here serves the finest beef. Damn me to Hades while I live, you look exactly as Cay said you did. Come, come, join me. I have a table."

  Through this flood of words I stood gaping at him. open-mouthed, absorbing all of his questions and able to answer none of them, so quickly did they crowd together. Without waiting for me to speak, he grasped me firmly by the forearm and began pulling me behind him in the direction of the table at which I had first noticed him. I followed willingly enough, clutching my pot of ale and wondering just what it was about me that Britannicus had been able to describe so graphically and, obviously, so accurately. When we reached the table, he introduced me to the men already there as his brother-in-law's best friend, and they all nodded and spoke to me, making me welcome and making room for me to join them. Afterwards, they returned to their own conversations, courteously leaving the two of us to become acquainted. All of them were farmers, come to town for the annual cattle sale.

  And indeed, by the end of an hour I felt as though I had known and liked Quintus Varo for most of my life. He and Luceiia Britannicus had married a brother and sister. The brother had died some years earlier, leaving Luceiia a widow. Varo's wife's name was Veronica, and, as I already knew, his estates bordered those of Caius and Luceiia. When I commented, questioningly, on Luceiia's ability to manage the estate in Caius's absence, Quintus quickly left me in no doubt as to her qualifications. Although he spoke of her with a genuine and unmistakable fondness, according to him, Luceiia Britannicus was not hampered by, with or from womanly weaknesses. She was a fine-looking woman, he said, but in fairness she should have been born a man, for there was little that was feminine about her. She ran the estate with a barbed, iron tongue and she knew her business. In fact, he opined, she knew more about all kinds of business than any female had the right to know.

  I marked Luceiia Britannicus mentally as a woman to be courteous to and to avoid, and our talk moved on to other things, among which was the shocking information that Caius had lost his wife, Heraclita, and his three youngest children to a pestilence during their first year in Africa. I had never met the Commander's family, but I knew of his love for all of them, and in particular for his wife Heraclita, and I mourned for his grief, years old as it was by now. I recalled clearly and in detail the loving way he had spoken, while we lay immobilized together, of his family, and of his belief in every man's need for the love of a good woman. I wondered how he had coped with his loss.

  We drank deeply and at length that night, between mourning for Caius and his loss and celebrating our own meeting. Varo was staying in the same lodgings as I, and I have no idea what time we staggered off to sleep, but we arranged to breakfast together the following morning and then to travel together to Quintus's home, and thence to Caius's villa.

  XVI

  The villa that Quintus Varo called home was enormous, far bigger than anything I had ever seen around Colchester. In fact, when I first saw it from the top of a small hill as we approached from the east, I almost took it for a small, walled village. I was to discover in a very short time, however, that the Villa Varo was, in all honesty, a modest establishment for this part of the country.

  Later, when I had had time to gain some kind of understanding of the values that applied in this region, I realized that the villa suited its owner. Quintus Varo was an honest, open man of simple tastes and unsophisticated ideas. He was a fanner who had been a soldier for a time, and the fact that he was a noble and titled citizen of Rome was a matter that bothered him but little and only very occasionally, when self-important visitors demanded to be entertained and courted. His villa was a family place, dedicated to cultivating the land and raising children in a loving atmosphere. It was a compliment to me that he did not treat me as a mere visitor, but chose instead to honour me by accepting me as a fellow soldier and an honest, unpretentious guest in his home.

  We had ridden south and east from Aquae Sulis on a misty, beautiful morning that soothed the ravages of the previous evening's drinking. By the time the sun had risen high enough to burn away the mists, I was feeling euphoric. Accompanied by the singing of a hundred different kinds of birds, we made excellent time on the arrow-straight road and penetrated deeper by the mile into the lushest farmland I had ever seen. The healthy fullness of fast-ripening crops of barley and oats was evident everywhere, and besides these I saw other crops that were totally alien to my eyes. Fat, healthy-looking oxen browsed knee-deep in rich grazing, and huge haystacks baked and browned in the warm, autumn sunlight. Throughout the entire day, Quintus Varo was never silent, and not once did I wish he would be. He talked endlessly and fascinatingly of the countryside, his family, his estates, his crops and his brother-in-law. And when he was not talking, he sang in a deep, strong, pleasant voice.

  We left the paved road eventually, around mid afternoon, and struck out across the fields along a rutted wagon track that eventually led us to the summit of the green hill from which I saw Varo's villa for the first time.

  As I have said, it was enormous, and it was laid out as a great rectangle of connected buildings, with the villa proper set in an L-shape in the north-west corner and smaller buildings — lesser dwellings, workshops, storage buildings and cattle sheds — stretching out from each wing of the house to the southern and eastern corners and turning at right angles to meet in the south-east. The central stockyard must have measured three hundred paces diagonally, corner to corner, and there was only one entrance to the massive enclosure thus formed, as far as I could see. At first glance, it seemed to me that all of the buildings were made of stone and thatched with straw, although I later discovered that the walls were of mud and timber, thickly coated with some kind of dried plaster and artfully finished to look like stone. The central area, much like a forum, was filled with animals and people.

  At my soft whistle of amazement, Varo threw me a questioning look, to which I felt obliged to respond.

  "It's massive, Quintus. Much bigger than I expected. It's very...," I groped for a word, "... fine!"

  He grunted, half laugh, half scoff. "It's a farm, Varrus, just a farm. Wait till you see Cay's place. That's fine! My wife and I have neither his wealth nor his taste. But it's home, and it's as near impregnable as I can make it."

  "Impregnable?" The word surprised me. "Why does it need to be impregnable? Surely you can't be afraid of attack. Not here."

  He reined in and I brought my horse to a stop beside him. Together we sat for a space, staring at the scene below us. He pointed at a thick column of smoke rising away to our right, its source out of sight to the north-east.

  "Clearing more land over there. Not because we need the arable space, either. The woodland is just too damn close to the buildings." He sniffed loudly, hawked up some phlegm and spat it out. "Not worried about an attack today. Nor tomorrow, either. But if you believe at all in what Cay says, then it's best to be prepared against some future tomorrow. I'd rather be laughed at and ready for anything than be caught unprepared. Anyway, it's land that we'll be able to use. Can always find a use for good farmland."

  Having delivered himself of that, he kicked his horse to a
canter and I followed him down into the valley, where we turned onto a wide, deeply rutted track that led to the main entrance to the villa. On the way we passed several wagons, some two-wheeled and some four-wheeled, all drawn by teams of oxen. All of the drivers and all of the pedestrians we met greeted Quintus Varo courteously and cheerfully, and I noticed that they all addressed him as Domine or Master. He knew each of them by name and spoke to all of them in a tone that made me aware, although I had never doubted it, that the Villa Varo was a friendly, happy and well-run place.

  Our arrival and my unexpected visit threw the entire Varo household into a turmoil, but in the upheaval I had unwittingly created I had time to admire Varo's wife Veronica and the control she had over both her large family and her staff of servants. A seemingly vast brood of children, ranging in age from a boy of about fifteen to a tiny, toddling sweetmeat of some eighteen months, were made known to me individually and then bustled away out of sight. Veronica lost no time in instructing her kitchen and household staff to prepare a welcoming meal and to ready the guest quarters for me. That done, she turned her attention to my immediate comfort and needs, which I tried without success to assure her was unnecessary.

  Veronica was not a beautiful woman, but she was clear-skinned, healthy and attractive, and the evidence of abundant fertility and frequent childbearing was there in her matronly body. She was still young in face and in mind, and she had a sweet and cheerful disposition that made me feel comfortable and welcome immediately. Like her husband, she was fully aware of who I was and of much that I had done, including the story of my first meeting with her brother-in-law in Africa and our campaigns together thereafter. I found her attentions both flattering and gratifying, even though I was a bit flustered, being unused to having a maternal, organizing female force focused upon me personally.

  Varo and I enjoyed a long and delightful session in his opulent bath house under the care and attention of a magnificent masseur named Nemo, who steamed and oiled and pummelled the hundreds of miles of road dust out of my pores and my muscles. When we emerged, a servant was waiting to tell us that dinner would be served in an hour, and Varo clapped me on the shoulder.