by Jules Watson
She released him, flustered and annoyed at herself. There was no soft Mamo now with whom to lay down her head and weep.
As she walked back to the cart she slowly exhaled. All that mattered was that the last thread of her family would soon be there to cling to. Perhaps then all this darkness would dissolve, like a dream upon waking.
‘If yer brother kicks ye out on yer bony rump, come back!’ Letitia cried, as Minna donned her pack the next day, leaving the troupe camped on the town meadow.
‘She’s made more money from you in two weeks than in her last two years,’ Cian muttered, striding along the path away from the river. ‘You should have taken it, stupid.’
Minna already felt lighter. ‘I didn’t want the money. The shelter was enough kindness for me.’
‘You won’t make much of a living if you go around thinking that.’
She glanced at him, wrinkling up her nose. ‘And don’t call me stupid.’
Cian stifled a grin and cuffed her on the shoulder as if she were a puppy.
A road ran parallel to the Wall, and they took this as it unrolled eastwards over the hills, sharing the trail with traders and wagons, families trudging on foot and riders trotting briskly past. To their left the Wall snaked away, unbroken across the bare northlands, the grasses burnished by the morning sun. Minna could not stop gazing at it. As high as two men, its grey stone had been levered from the same crags that thrust up through the ridges of heath, making it look as if it were cunningly built by gods, not man. Watchtowers and small forts were set at intervals all along. If she narrowed her eyes she could glimpse the figures of men pacing on top, watching the north.
It soon rained, veiling the land in curtains of grey. Water trickled down Minna’s cheeks and under her cloak, beading her eyelashes, soaking her boots. But the next day the clouds cleared and she stopped watching the road, her attention caught by something else that made her raise her head from her feet. It was the air.
In the wake of the rain the wind blew from the north in a lonely song, lifting the hawks high in a pale sky. It gusted through the emptiness inside her, filling up her hollow chest. She could not remain unmoved by such a wild, haunting breeze, and her soul began to stir with a primal feeling that made her heart skip.
Cian saw her breathing it in. ‘Pretty grim, isn’t it?’ he remarked, shifting his pack. He looked strained. ‘Cold, wet, muddy, windy and barren.’ He shook his head. ‘Hellish place.’
Minna had wrapped a woollen scarf around her mouth and chin, and from behind this she directed a sidelong glance at Cian. She found the cold pricking the back of her nose exhilarating, not grim, like a draught of clear water. He obviously didn’t feel the same, judging by the sour twist of his mouth.
For two days she wandered along with her eyes on the sky, until on the third Cian suddenly called her name. She stopped, shaking herself awake. Away to their left an escarpment reared above a river, and cresting it was a large fort with many gatetowers, the sky above smeared with smoke. Carts and people were peeling off the road towards it. Banna.
‘Come on,’ Cian said, frowning. ‘We have to cross the river further along and head to the milecastle with the gate that opens north: that’s where everyone crosses, barbarians and Romans alike.’
The north gate of the milecastle was set into the Wall, which stretched west to Banna and east across the hills. Atop the exposed tower over the gate, Vabrius of the First Cohort of Dacians squinted into the driving wind. That wind could scour flesh from bone and eyeballs from sockets – he still hadn’t got used to it since his posting from Lindum in the south.
‘Eyes down,’ his comrade Aelius grunted, holding the edge of the wall to peer over. Tufts of grass sprouted from the stone between his hands, nursed by the constant rain. That rain beat at the soldiers on the frontier like blows from an invisible enemy: freezing into stinging hail, driven into eyes beneath helmet guards. Even when the blueskins weren’t in sight, still Alba attacked, with sleet, creeping fog and biting wind.
‘What?’ Vabrius snapped, stamping his feet.
‘That.’ Aelius pointed down at the band of hairy men picking their way up the northern slope to gain admittance through the Wall into the Province. Their shaggy sheepskin cloaks and wind-blown hair obscured their outlines. ‘Those packages on their horses; are they spears? Or those barbaric longswords? I don’t like it.’ Fear was a keen edge in his voice.
The Wall soldiers never lost those nerves, held constantly taut as bowstrings. There had been enough ambushes by screaming Picts over the years to tighten the neck muscles of every man who ventured forth on patrol. The land seemed empty but it wasn’t, for Vabrius always felt the eyes on his back, as if the hills themselves watched him.
The unpainted Dalriadan tribe in the west had signed treaties; the Picts in the east had signed none. This should have made Vabrius feel better, posted to a western fort. However, he had seen the faces of the Dalriadan warriors who came to deliver their taxes of grain. Stripped of swords and pride they should look less dangerous, but they did not. They might take a cup of wine with the commander, bow and smile, but the sullen hatred was still there in their eyes.
‘I don’t like it,’ Aelius muttered. He took up the bronze trumpet on his belt and blew one blast into it. A row of white faces looked up from the winding path below, pinched and bony.
‘You! Halt right there!’ Aelius turned to Vabrius. ‘Come on. We’d better search them before they get to the gate. I can smell their stink from here.’
The milecastle was small and cramped, just four walls with two opposing gates and twin barrack blocks. Minna and Cian crowded in through the south gate and joined a motley line of people waiting to be admitted through the Wall to the north.
Guards pacing the walkway looked down on the crowd, faces cut into tense lines by the helmets with their cheek and brow-guards. The civilians kept being forced back as soldiers marched in and out, and once a band of cavalry trotted through, their horses tossing their heads, swords and spears clattering against iron mail. Minna stared up at each horseman, but none was Broc.
Some traders in the line looked like those at Eboracum, with their different skin hues, hair and clothing. Others were obviously barbarians, with white skin and ruddy hair, and pale blue eyes that did not change expression when they moved over Minna.
The soldiers were also mixed; some fair and grey-eyed, others swarthy and dark. Minna had imagined the Wall soldiers in polished, gilded armour and scarlet wool, just as the old tales said. Like those in Eboracum, however, these men wore sturdy mailshirts, unadorned helmets and plain tunics – though here the mail was battered and the hide trousers stained. She felt oddly disappointed, until she noticed that every iron ring of the mail was oiled, the straps and buckles of helmets, boots and weapons triple-sewn. Swords were fast-bound to sides, leather hilts shiny with the imprints of fingers. The men looked infinitely worn and desperately wary, and every face bore the same drawn cheeks and hard mouth.
All of a sudden, a trumpet pealed and soldiers poured down from the walkway and streamed through the north gate to challenge a party on the barbarian side. Roman swords were unsheathed, spears braced. The queue of people at the south gate crowded forward, necks craning.
Minna could just see a group of ragged men with pack ponies. They put their hands up, babbling something she couldn’t hear. Beside her, Cian’s eyes narrowed. The soldiers prodded the voluminous cloaks of the Albans and swarmed around the ponies, tugging packages off saddles and tearing them open. Inside there were only bundles of wool, rolled hides and furs, and one which held tines of deer antler. Trade goods, that was all.
The tension flowed out of the soldiers. With sharp words they thundered back up the stairs to their posts, leaving the scowling Albans with their belongings scattered in the trampled mud.
Minna’s shoulders lowered, and she swayed back as the line reformed.
‘Watch it!’ a voice growled behind her. She turned to stammer an apology and saw a stocky,
broad-shouldered man with skin like cured leather. His dark hair was pulled back in a tail, his short beard threaded with silver. In one ear he sported a gold ring, though his tunic and cloak were plain.
But before her curiosity could take any more in, someone barked, ‘Next!’ and it was their turn.
Annius rocked on his stool by the gate, hawking a gob of spit into the mud. Stinking Alban scum. He wished they had found forbidden goods on the bastards, for it would give him something to report to the Dux, and then the garrison might get an increased measure of ale. The Christos knew they needed it. Or better yet, cloaks that actually kept the rain out, though the fat little administrators in the south seemed more interested in cutting costs.
The next in line were a young woman and man of close age. Annius tapped his pen on the table before him, as his guards patted them down for weapons with grimy hands and searched their packs. One guard looked at him and shook his head. Annius’s tax tally this month wouldn’t look too healthy to the commander. Sourly, he swung the stool back, leaning against the wall. ‘Business?’
The youth melted into the shadows, whistling, so he fixed his eyes on the girl. She gulped. ‘I’m going to join my brother,’ she faltered. ‘He’s a scout, just been posted up here.’ She spoke better Latin than most of them.
‘Name?’
‘Broc … of the Aurelius family … at Derventio. Near Eboracum.’
‘Last detachment of new scouts from Eboracum went to Fanum Codicii. You’re on the right road.’
The young woman glanced at the youth with relief in her curious, light eyes. Annius rapped his pen on the table, making her jump. ‘But he should have notified us of any such visitors. You are aware the road to the Codicii fort is a restricted area?’
The girl ran her palms down muddy trousers. ‘Well, I’m a surprise, actually.’
‘A surprise.’ So here were the trade goods. Her brother, my balls. Annius glanced over to the tall youth. ‘Plenty of whores up there already, boy. Every barbarian girl within ten miles of here gives it up for a bit of bread and a warm bed.’
There was a muffled exclamation from the girl as the young man stepped forward. ‘We’ll take our chances.’
Annius cocked his head. This youngster was brimming with an oily confidence that irritated him. All three legs of the stool thudded into the grass as he sat forward. ‘Your name?’
The cocky youth grinned, though his eyes were hard. ‘Cian the acrobat. We’ll pay you a tax on the way back. We’ve got nothing right now.’
With a grim purse of his lips, Annius scribbled on a wooden tag. ‘There’s a watchpost on the road. Try to impress them a bit more than me, boy, or they might not let you through.’
*
Shoved through the arch of the north gate by Cian’s firm hand, Minna stumbled from shadow into light. She was about to turn and rebuke him when the words died in her throat. Behind them, the ramparts of the Wall loomed up sternly, but in front a path wound down a slope to a pale track that led north.
Rust-red moorland. Bleached gold heath. Bent, wind-scoured trees.
Alba. She was suddenly speechless, her legs almost nerveless.
Cian ran into the back of her. ‘Come on!’ he grumbled, ducking around and stomping down the path.
Minna, however, was held there. She should have been daunted by the bare plain, which swung low to marsh and then rose again to hills; by the shreds of mist which hung in that scoop of moorland like an Otherworld veil through which she must pass.
But she was not at all afraid. Instead, the further she and Cian travelled from the safety of the Wall, the more her heart soared, like a great bird lifted higher with each beat of its wings. Swifter her blood ran, until she tore her wrap away and stretched her chin to the wind. She felt suddenly as if she could fly free of all fetters here, under the upturned bowl of this endless sky.
Cian turned and barked something, but she could not hear his words. She could only stumble along behind him, quivering, the land under her feet drawing her in with its song.
Chapter 7
By the end of the day, Minna’s sore feet and runny nose had drained some of the poetry from her soul.
The land rose to a plateau of heath, the grasses bleached by cold, gold-tipped in the lowering sun. It seemed uninhabited. And why would people live here? she wondered, with one of the odd insights that had been entering her mind ever since she crossed the Wall. This land, pounded by the hooves of Roman horses, raided by Picts, was no safe place for a little hut, a wife and babe.
The road was not deserted, though. The rough-looking man behind them at the fort had passed them earlier with a party of men leading mules and a few carts, their sharp eyes scanning the land ahead and then pausing to study Cian and Minna. Cian stared boldly back, but Minna dropped her eyes. It was not only the air that had changed. She was no longer in the Roman Province, part of the Empire. She was beyond all law now.
They had started out late, and at length Cian decided not to push on in the dark. The sky glowed with the embers of sunset as they left the road to seek camp. The heath was now a misty, purple sea, broken by clumps of ghostly white birches.
‘Do we have to go so far? I’ll break my ankle.’
Cian stopped and turned. ‘Tiger, the watch doesn’t like people skulking about after dark. They would shoot first and ask questions later.’
She blinked. ‘I thought you said there were treaties, that everything was safe in the west.’
Cian gazed down at her, though she could not see his eyes for shadows. ‘Did I?’ he said softly. ‘But the night is always full of enemies.’
Minna was silenced, and they resumed walking. ‘What about tomorrow?’ she eventually whispered. The sounds were making her jumpy: the trickle of a stream, something cracking twigs in the underbrush. ‘Will they let us through then?’
‘Oh, aye.’ Cian’s voice turned dry. ‘Then they’ll see we’re just a girl and a swordless boy.’
Dark had fallen in a damp veil all about them when Cian grunted, ‘Over there is a likely place, out of the mist.’
Minna stumbled along behind him in the blackness as they trudged up a slight rise. But just as he was about to speak again the ground fell away and they saw the glow of a campfire that had been hidden by the hill.
Cian swiftly shoved Minna behind him as two men stepped out of the dark trees on the edge of the hollow. ‘Who goes?’ one growled.
‘No one,’ Cian returned. ‘Just travellers on the road, forgive us. We’ll be leaving now.’
After a cough from the other man, the first voice softened into gruffness. ‘You are a long way from the road, friend, so you may as well join our fire. There are many of us, only two of you. Or are there more?’
Before Cian could answer, another man came from the fire, striding up to the lip of the dell and peering at them in the ruddy glow. ‘Well, well,’ he drawled, in a gravelled voice. ‘If it isn’t the little whore and her boy.’
Tucked behind Cian’s shoulder, Minna squinted at the man. ‘You were behind us at the fort. And you passed us on the road.’
The man with the gold earring unveiled a startling white smile in his swarthy face. ‘Why, yes we were, and yes we did, little lady. What a good memory you have.’ Minna could not place his accent. He spoke Latin, but with an exotic lilt.
Cian eyed him warily. You have misjudged us. She’s no whore. We’re just on our way to see one of the soldiers – family.’
The man shrugged. ‘As you say.’
‘Well.’ Cian nudged Minna backwards again. ‘Sorry to startle you like that.’
‘But wait!’ The man stepped forward, hands spread. ‘Do not be so hasty! I am Jared, leader of our little band of travellers. There are wolves around these hills, marauding blueskins and Roman soldiers. Surely you would be safer staying here this night, with us?’
Wolves, Minna thought, every nerve tingling. That was new.
Cian’s breathing was heavy in her ear. ‘No disrespect, friend, but
I think not.’ He glanced at the others, who had left their fireside seats to gather close by. There were around fifteen, with patched clothes and sun-burned faces, though each sported pleasant expressions.
‘Please, I insist.’ Jared took Minna’s arm and drew her firmly from behind Cian, his eyes twinkling. ‘You know, lady, in these parts it is considered a grave discourtesy to refuse hospitality.’
The ranks of men parted like gates opening, and she threw a look of confusion at Cian as she was gently marched between them. His face was set in grim lines.
They were seated on bundles of hides beside the fire, and given bowls of steaming mutton stew with hunks of dark, nutty bread that Cian did not touch until their hosts had been eating for a time, Minna copying him. His knee was squashed against hers, so she could feel the tension in him.
‘What’s your business away up here, anyway?’ Cian asked boldly, after a long silence.
Jared swallowed ale from a horn cup. ‘We bring the soldiers valuable goods, boy. Better wine than they can get from Eboracum; finer flour for bread; trinkets for their sweethearts.’
Cian frowned, his ale untouched. ‘How can you afford to bring grain this far north, and still do a better deal for the soldiers than the local tribes?’
‘Ah!’ Jared grinned at his men. ‘Hark to the boy! He’s got a sharp business mind, eh? Should we invite him to join us?’
Laughter rumbled, and Minna glanced over her shoulder at the camp. She couldn’t see their carts or mules any more.
‘Let us say,’Jared went on, ‘that after a lot of hard work and travel, we’ve forged some very favourable relationships.’ He caught her eye and winked. ‘Bribing, cajoling, charming – with perhaps a little threat here and there – we have used every advantage open to us, as honest traders.’ He laughed.
Minna stared into his black eyes, thinking this Jared might be lots of things, but honest wasn’t one. The gold earring winked and her imagination ran riot, seeing him on a ship, squinting into the bright eastern sun as it glided into some perfumed port of painted women and dark-eyed men.