by Jules Watson
Vacantly, Minna wandered, tossed this way and that by the eddies of the crowd. She bumped into a butcher’s stall, a sheep’s head leering up with glassy eyes. ‘Ho, mistress!’ the butcher called. ‘Knock that over and you’ll have to pay.’
She stumbled from his sharp gaze into the road. ‘Out the way,’ a slave hissed, pulling a handcart with a perfumed lady in the back, veil held across her nose. Minna spun as a man shouldered past, his arms stacked with trays of fresh bread. Panting, she pressed herself against the wall of a nearby shop. A pair of soldiers sauntered by, their hard eyes raking over her beneath their helmets. Minna crept away down an alley, but was too slow to side-step a stream of putrid water thrown from a window, splashing her feet.
She stood blankly before Craccus’s shop for a long time before she realized where she was. The alleyway was now steeped in shadow. Her head ached from the noise and pounding sun. Craccus, fat and florid, flung the door open. ‘Ah, the little villa girl. Come, come. More honey from your grandmother, eh?’ Distantly, she saw herself pull the jars out one by one and put them on the counter, breathing the musty air that was redolent with pepper and wild garlic, passum, coriander, and the tang of fish sauce. Without her opening her mouth, Craccus gave her six numii a jar.
Look, Mamo, she thought, back outside in the darkening alleyway. I got more than five. The thirty coins were so cold they burned her palm.
It was growing late, and her belly ached, so she exchanged three numii for a patty of mutton and herbs frying on a griddle at the back of a butcher’s stall. Then she was sucked back into the river of people before being deposited at the forum, the marketplace.
A crowd was gathered in a rough circle, shouting and clapping, showering the entertainment in the centre with bronze coins. Minna wandered around the edge of the mob until she saw an empty space on the forum steps, warm from the pale sun. She curled up there, absently breaking off pieces of the patty and pushing them into her dry mouth.
Through the legs of the crowd she glimpsed brown bodies tumbling: acrobats. The young men were naked but for leather loincloths, skin oiled so their lithe bodies gleamed. Whooping, they flung themselves about, leaping to each other’s shoulders, then flying into spectacular tumbles. Sweat sprayed from their hair and skin.
Minna brushed her hands clean, crawling down the steps to see better. They must be good, she thought. This was what cities were for; it must be why she came. Why had she come, again?
The acrobats were juggling now, flipping into somersaults then stopping to pluck fruit from their palms and flinging them up. The crowd yelled encouragement.
A black-haired youth danced over to juggle directly in front of Minna, and she stiffened as she felt the eyes of the crowd upon her. She glanced up at the grinning boy, with his tanned skin and fierce blue eyes. Though his comrades had chosen apples, he clutched a handful of figs – harder to juggle and very expensive. Her mind caught on something she would say to tease Lucius. Show-off! An hysterical giggle rose in her, an ache that wanted to become tears.
The acrobat flashed white teeth at her and sent the figs flying, tossing sweat from his black curls as he neatly executed a backwards somersault and caught them. The people laughed.
But Minna was suddenly blinded by the sun, and the crowd’s laughter was like a dozen gnats buzzing around her head. She had to get away. She clambered up, but just then the boy darted forward and, with a wink and flick of the wrist, sent a fig flying straight at her.
She could not think, let alone move. Her joints jammed as she instinctively ducked to catch the fig, but it tumbled through her fingers. She clutched for it, her senses narrowing to that expensive fruit lying on the dirty stones. Mamo liked figs. Didn’t someone in a tale get better from eating a fig? Mamo might get better.
Laughter rumbled through the crowd once more, and above it all soared the peal of the acrobat’s own mirth. Minna’s awareness snapped back, and slowly she straightened.
‘You need some practice, young mistress,’ the youth called, hands on lean hips, blue eyes glittering above a mocking grin that made her chest burn. She welcomed it, that feeling. Anger, yes, anger was safe.
‘Come.’ The acrobat extended one hand. ‘Throw me my fruit … or perhaps bring it closer yourself, and I’ll give you all the juggling lessons you’ll ever need!’ The men in the crowd snickered.
She stood for only a moment, swaying, then she dropped the fig and, with a dazed deliberation, stepped on it. Purple juice and pips spurted over the dirty marble.
The youth’s grin faltered, and the whoops of laughter then were louder than any before, as Minna turned away.
Dusk came and with it a bitter wind, the crowds thinning as shopkeepers swept out their stalls. Shutters were pulled closed, and, as Minna wandered by, she saw the glow of lamps being lit inside the houses. The remaining people hastened along, their heads down, the wind blowing scraps of rubbish and fallen leaves around their feet. Soldiers marched past in hob-nailed boots, their quick eyes scanning the darkening alleys.
As the streets emptied, Minna’s heart began to beat faster. But it was only when horns blared from the walls that she realized she had forgotten the curfew. The soldiers shouted as they marched: ‘The gates will shortly be closing! Conclude your business. The gates are closing!’
She could not stay here in the city. The urgent thought tapped on the blankness in her mind. It wasn’t safe. She raised her chin to the dying sun. That glimmer of dusk would be soft on the river outside the gates. There were copses of alder and hazel there, and bushes lining the banks.
Her feet were already turning, her head down.
The shadows of the trees along the riverbanks were still and cool after the chaos of the city. Beneath a lavender sky, the last sliver of sun edged the dying grass with gold. Other people had come through the gates with Minna, following the road home. One by one they disappeared until she was alone.
She stopped to touch her cheeks, grimed with sweat. She thought of the river running clear from the eastern hills above the city. Her hills, her stream. Before she realized it, her feet were thudding down the bank, her pack bouncing on her back, until at last she collapsed by the river. Chest heaving, she flung her pack aside and plunged her hands in.
Frantically Minna splashed her face, pouring the icy water over her head so it trickled down her neck. She scooped more, drinking to drown the ache in her chest. Then she sat there dripping and trembling, gazing out over the darkening water.
‘Trying to drown yourself?’ someone drawled.
Chapter 4
Minna grew very still.
‘That’s not how you do it, sweetness. Just jump in, clothes and all.’
Slowly, she turned. The speaker was lying in the river grass, a long, lean shape in a faded red tunic. She summoned up a dim echo of anger. ‘What did you say?’
‘Drowning. Better to do it with style. Off the bridge, say.’ The youth leaned up on his elbows, and she could see he was tall and slim with a crop of black curls. She stared at him as water dripped down her cheeks.
He squinted, cocking his head, then suddenly sat upright. ‘Why, if it isn’t the little tiger! No wonder you growled at me just now.’
Minna struggled to her feet. A spark of life, of indignation, ran along her nerves. ‘You!’
The young acrobat grinned. ‘Yes, me.’
‘You made a fool of me.’
With fluid grace the youth was instantly on his feet. He bowed theatrically. ‘I’m an acrobat, an actor, an entertainer. That’s what I do.’ She could see now that there was an odd dislocation between his smiling mouth and his eyes, which remained intense, watchful. ‘And you ruined my fig.’
She peeled wet hair from her cheeks. ‘That’s the least I could do after you made them all laugh at me.’
‘Well, you are a shockingly bad catcher.’ He cocked his head the other way, glancing at the water. ‘And swimmer, I’ll bet.’
Minna plucked at her tunic, realizing it was stuck to her s
kin. Her face burned, the anger and embarrassment slicing through her daze. ‘I wasn’t going to drown myself.’
‘Could have fooled me.’
She edged towards the yellowing alder trees, her mind scrambling. ‘Thank you for your assistance,’ she said coolly, ‘but I don’t need it.’
‘Oh, really?’ Those intense blue eyes flitted over her dusty boy’s clothes, taking in the pack with its winter cloak and rolled sleeping hide. ‘Surely you know that nice young ladies don’t venture to this part of the riverbank when the troupe is in town?’ He waved a hand over his shoulder. ‘Our camp is just over there. It’s not a place for pretty girls. Unless,’ he raised one brow, ‘you’re a boy after all, a street urchin running from the watch – or a runaway slave.’
‘I won’t dignify that with an answer.’ She turned on her heel.
A whistle pierced her ear, and suddenly the youth was loping alongside. ‘Jupiter and Mars! There goes that tiger again.’
Minna halted. ‘Why do you keep calling me that word?’ she demanded. ‘Are you insulting me?’
The boy was puzzled, then amused. He spread his hands. ‘A tiger,’ he explained with exaggerated patience, ‘is a creature the gladiators kill in Rome. It is a huge, ferocious cat with stripes.’
‘And how am I … that?’
‘Well.’ The youth stepped around a birch tree, leaning one elbow on it. ‘It has sharp teeth, wicked claws and fierce eyes – just like yours when I threw the fig.’
She turned as he circled her. ‘How do you know of such a beast? You’re making it up, I know you are.’
‘I’m not.’
‘Are you telling me you’ve been to Rome?’
‘Once. And I saw a white tiger there in the arena, with silver stripes, its eyes pale and icy instead of yellow. Just like yours.’
She couldn’t think past a sweet rush of fury. ‘I don’t believe there’s any such creature. You’re just … a gangly boy with no brains and no manners!’
This explosion delighted the acrobat, and, as Minna resumed trudging through the river grass, he loped beside her again. ‘So, do you want to know my name, then?’
She violently shook her head.
‘It’s Cian.’
He stepped in front of her, and she had to look properly at him for the first time.
His hair was so dark and his skin so tanned that at first glance he could have been Egyptian or Greek. But his eyes were a clear blue, and his features not swarthy like eastern men. Instead, the contours of his face all angled upwards: a narrow chin, slanted cheekbones, a cynical mouth, and tilted eyes. Despite his height he was still lean like a boy, and there was something insubstantial about him, as if he were barely chained to the earth. In contrast to his slightly exotic air, his hair was severely cropped into Roman lines.
‘So where are you from?’ she asked sullenly, interest prodded despite herself.
Cian bowed again. ‘Everywhere,’ he intoned grandly. ‘Our troupe is on the road most of the year and travels to all the towns. We’ve stayed too long in Eboracum, but the people were showering us with coin, so it was hard to leave.’ He snorted. ‘Farm clods must have had a good harvest.’
‘It was.’ Her lips moved softly. ‘It was a good harvest.’
‘So, we’re leaving for the north before it gets too cold. The forts along the Wall provide good pickings – all those bored soldiers.’
Minna turned to stone. In the stillness, a realization dropped into the blank pool of her mind. ‘North?’ she heard herself asking. ‘The Wall?’
Of course. Broc didn’t know about Mamo, and so she must tell him. Broc would change his mind when he heard, when he saw that Minna had the courage to travel all the way to him, to the Wall. She would go down on her knees and kiss the hem of his tunic, tell him she would be good from now on, quiet and compliant, if he would only let her stay near him and not make her marry Severus. ‘When do you leave?’
Cian’s brows went up. ‘Tomorrow. That’s why I was here trying to have a rest before … well, before you appeared.’
She leaned back to look up at him. Somewhere she knew she had to return from the shadowed realms in which she’d been wandering, pick up the broken pieces of her wits and use them. ‘Cian,’ she said slowly. ‘My name is Minna and I have business in the north, too.’
Amused, Cian folded his arms and stared down at this unexpected apparition.
She didn’t fit any of the slots in his mind labelled ‘women’: dried-up old hags like the troupe’s herb-woman; painted whores; or the young ladies who looked down their long, refined noses at him. That left a plucky girl fallen on hard times, who’d already learned to open her legs and grow a tough hide. Perhaps, but … no.
Standing in her shapeless tunic, arms braced, head up, she was trying her best to look tough, but her features were almost elfin, and there was no slyness or guile in those extraordinary pale green eyes. ‘You can’t just attach yourself to us and expect us to feed you,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t work like that.’
Those eyes flashed. ‘How does it work?’
He grinned at the change in her, for the vulnerability she showed by the stream had suddenly been checked. This set mouth and firm chin were familiar to her, comfortable. Cian also knew how to don a mask, after all. He understood that.
‘You have to pay your way, earn us something.’ He raised his fingers, one by one. ‘We have actors, who put on plays. Acrobats like me, who juggle and tumble.’ He paused. ‘The girls who sell their bodies, of course, though that’s pretty easy.’ Her eyes flickered, pained. ‘Some people trade in ribbon and embroidery, leatherwork, belts, shoes. And there’s the herb-woman—’
Desperation leaped in the girl’s face, startling him. ‘I can do that!’ she cried. ‘I am well versed in herb-simples and remedies, bone-setting and wounds.’
By the gods, an innocent. Cian squashed an unnerving spike of pity. ‘Well, then. Sounds like you could at least give the old dear a hand. Her eyes aren’t so good any more.’
‘I could, I could!’ the strange creature agreed and, forgetting herself, she reached unconsciously towards him, to convince him. Instinct pushed him smoothly back a step, and her hands dropped to her sides.
She tucked her fists under her arms instead. ‘Do you really think the troupe will take me?’
Cian scratched his ear. ‘There won’t be any big council: just come with me and join in. If you pull your weight you won’t get thrown back out.’ Her eyes widened. ‘It’s not that bad,’ he added gruffly, turning away. ‘Come on, camp is quiet at the moment. It will be busier tonight.’
The girl called Minna walked along the riverbank behind him, and though her footsteps were light on the damp earth, her fear was a weight at his back.
Downstream, around a campfire sprawled an untidy scatter of wool and leather lean-tos, moth-eaten tents and painted carts. Colourful items of clothing, harness and costume hung from trees, ropes and poles. The tents were guarded by scrappy dogs that barked as they passed, and on the outskirts, mules were tethered in lines.
There was no leader of the troupe; everyone just mucked in together, Cian said. So it was all easily arranged. The old green-woman, Letitia, who sold the herb-simples, blinked blearily at Minna, her breath reeking of sour ale, and shrugged her acceptance.
As dusk deepened, the actors and jugglers came back from town, arms slung about women with painted faces. Cian had disappeared, so Minna huddled on a log at the edge of the firelight, overlooked in her boy’s clothes and scraped-back hair.
Barrels of ale were opened, and the atmosphere grew more raucous. Men attempted to swallow burning torches as women shrieked with laughter. A group of actors quarrelled, while some of the acrobats practised their tumbles on the damp grass.
Cian came back, shoved a cup of ale in Minna’s hand and carelessly introduced her to a dozen people, none of whose names she afterwards remembered. She was rolling the musty ale on her tongue when a drunken man with his arm about a whore lunged into
the opening of the woman’s dress. The gaudy cloth gave with a loud rip, and Minna was confronted by the sight of painted nipples being jiggled boldly in the firelight.
The whore screamed, while Minna tried desperately to gulp her ale rather than gag on it. But when the man flung himself to his knees and buried his face between those ample breasts, she ducked her burning face away.
Her eye fell on Cian. He wasn’t drinking anything, and his watchful gaze shifted from the antics of the half-naked whore to Minna with a sardonic smile.
‘Welcome to the real world, Tiger.’
Minna had no trouble falling asleep in Letitia’s stuffy tent that night, as the men continued to shout and laugh outside. She had barely slept for days, had walked far in the sun, and was wrung out by the effort of holding her feelings at bay.
But when she woke suddenly before dawn it was to find herself lying rigid among the damp hides, her nails clenched into her palms.
Even in sleep she had guarded herself against the keening grief, which had, after all, flown with her all the way to Eboracum.
Chapter 5
They rode away from the city two days later, and Cian left Minna to make her own way among the wolves.
Wising up fast, she grimly threw herself into work, picking herbs and bottling remedies, standing for hours in rain and shine to urge the people in each steading and village to exchange cures for coin. When the old woman Letitia saw her persistence she left her to it, happily losing herself in drink. Minna didn’t mind. The exotic smells and sounds, the chaos of the camp, and its frightening and amusing people, became a blessed blur through which she walked, untouched by feeling.