She handed him the tablet as she had been told. Holding the purse in her hand, she jiggled it up and down so the coins clinked together. From the corner of her eye she studied his expression while he read.
She expected curiosity. Surprise. A little distaste, perhaps. She braced herself for a comment about the folly of carrying a decomposing body with them all the way to the north. Some mention of likely disease.
And yet Constantius Scipio said nothing. His face remained perfectly immobile. Not even an eyebrow was raised. He asked no questions. Not one. And this in itself made her wonder what was written on the tablet.
She had no reason to doubt Marcus and yet, and yet … something didn’t feel right. What? What was it? Perhaps that it was too easy? Too straightforward?
A few coins in his palm was all it took.
He wrote a reply, accepted the bribe, said everything would be arranged and that was that. He instructed her to wait on the far bank of the river until after dark. Then they could pass without arousing undue attention. Sentries would turn a blind eye to the corpse being carried through the streets. He would see to it all. They would travel unhindered, he assured her.
She was turning to leave when her eye fell on a sculpture – a marble relief in the shadows hanging on the wall. It showed a woman being forced to the ground, dress torn, breast uncovered, face frozen in a silent scream. A soldier was standing over her – a Red Crest, in armour, holding her by her hair. His intention was plain.
“What’s that?” she asked.
Constantius Scipio glanced at it. “My predecessor’s taste. It’s a copy, I believe. The original was carved to commemorate the conquest. It’s the Emperor Claudius, vanquishing Britannia. Do you like it?”
She ought to say she did. Or perhaps shrug. Feign lack of interest. But she could not. The marble made her so angry her head was reeling.
“No. I don’t.”
The Roman smiled glibly and waved a hand, dismissing her. “Ah well. Each to his own.”
Cassia left Londinium unchallenged, unremarked, unnoticed. Pausing only to buy food and drink at market, she walked back to join the funeral party.
It was as Constantius Scipio had promised. They travelled through Londinium entirely without incident. Long before the sun rose, they’d passed through the Moorgate on the northern side and the city lay behind them. By the time the sky lightened, they were well clear of it and Cassia felt the grip of Titus Cornelius Festus loosening with every step.
Her face was to the north and to freedom.
XXVII
Thereafter the days fell into a pattern. Though they itched to travel as fast and as far as they could during the hours of daylight, nothing could be more suspicious than a party of grieving people moving rapidly. And so the oxen plodded slowly, and they maintained their masks of sorrow.
They were not the only travellers on the road, and, as Cassia soon discovered, travellers liked to talk. Many of them were on horseback, or in light two-wheeled carts, and so word of the runaways’ escape travelled north far faster than the runaways themselves. There was mention of them in each wayside tavern, each village or town they came to. As the days passed and they were still not found, the accounts of the escape and of the generous reward that would be paid for their capture grew wilder and more fantastic.
The strain told on all of them. Had they been able to converse freely, they might have been better able to support each other. As it was, they were each trapped in their own silent hell. Silvio: ashamed of his fear. Flavia: terrified that she would be the burden that broke them all. Rufus: lying in the dark, day after day, his mind coming loose from its mooring, drifting he knew not where.
As for Cassia: she knew that Titus Cornelius Festus would not forget or forgive the fact that so many of his slaves had escaped him. The hope that they would be free was harder to bear than the dread that they would not. Freedom was a concept that filled her with a dizzying lightness of head. She bore the journey better by letting her mind run along dark lines. She imagined capture. Punishment. Not liberty.
Some nights they stayed at taverns, Cassia sleeping with the animals, freeing Rufus from his winding sheet for the hours of darkness so that he could relieve himself and take food and nourishment. Total silence and absolute stealth were all that stood between them and capture. They could not speak. And each night he shrank from her touch and looked only at the ground. The boy who’d slept with his head on her shoulder was dead to her. She had to trust what Flavia said: that he would come around, given time. She hoped it was true. She feared it was not. Her greatest dread was that she’d left him abandoned for too long, and that now her brother’s heart and soul were irretrievably lost to her.
* * *
As they journeyed northwards, the land became flatter, the weight of sky oppressive and heavy. Another week more and hills began to rise. The countryside grew wilder, expanses of moor alternating with vast swathes of thick, untamed forest.
Gone was the gentle heat of early summer in the south. Here the land seemed to be only just shaking off the grip of winter. Though buds were bursting into life, the trees were crusted with frost every morning. Settlements were more sparsely populated. Small hamlets of roundhouses containing Britons who clung stubbornly to the old ways were half-hidden in folds of the land. The people would come out to stare as the grieving Romans passed by, their faces impassive, but their hostility making the air feel thick and clammy, as though a storm was about to break.
Cassia knew Britannia was at peace. There had been no fighting in her lifetime, nor, as far as she knew, in her mother’s. Living on the estate of Titus Cornelius Festus, she had swallowed the belief that the entire country was settled and at ease under Roman rule.
But as she walked beside the oxen, she began to feel that the appearance of calm was nothing more than a thin skin drawn over a seething pit of discontent. She could not help but notice that the further they went, the more heavily guarded the forts were and the soldiers more ruthlessly drilled. There was something brewing. An edge of menace that Cassia – even though preoccupied with her own concerns – was increasingly aware of.
They were five days short of the wall by Marcus’s reckoning. Though they had planned to reach the next town by nightfall, the oxen were tired. One was starting to go lame and could not be pushed. Hour by hour the prospect of hot food and a dry place to sleep receded as the weary beasts’ pace slowed to almost nothing.
As the sky darkened, so did the mood of the company. Trudging in silence – the wind gusting, the clouds hurling handfuls of hailstones at them – they were passing through a stretch of woodland, trees crowding either side, when the oxen stopped dead and snorted in alarm.
Marcus was riding close behind, hunched over his horse’s withers to keep out the worst of the cold, when the animal threw up its head so sharply it almost cracked into his face. It too snorted, hot panicked breath billowing from its nostrils. Quarters bunched tight, it was poised for flight. Only Marcus reining it in tight, turning in circles, crooning softly between his teeth, stopped it bolting headlong back down the road.
The oxen stood twitching nervously, eyes rolling, lowing in distress. What had alarmed them Cassia could not at first tell.
There was no cry of wolves. Yet – there on the breeze – was the faint scent of something. An animal smell. Large. Carnivorous. Getting stronger.
And then there was the sound of something heavy padding over dry leaves.
It seemed that the stench of rotten flesh that had protected them for so long was now attracting unwelcome attention.
In the gloom Cassia caught a glimpse of an animal. Large as an ox. Thick fur. Teeth. A bear. Awake now, after its long winter’s doze. Desperately hungry, and looking for an easy meal.
There were no other travellers in sight. No soldiers marching from one fort to the other, no well-armed merchants. No one at all within hailing distance. And they had no weapons, save the knife at Marcus’s waist.
To Cassia it seemed s
uddenly vital to unwrap Rufus. To discard the rotting creature that had been his companion these last weeks. If she could throw it into the trees it might distract the bear for long enough to get them clear.
She had no time to explain. Indeed she had no time to consciously think what she was doing. Instinct alone made her abandon her place at the oxen’s heads and run towards the back of the cart to free her brother.
But she had gone no more than two paces when the bear was on them. With no Cassia to calm them, the oxen panicked, roaring in distress, one trying to flee, the other trying to turn to face its attacker, both pulling in different directions, swinging the cart around, sending the wheels sliding down the road’s camber and into the ditch. The oxen were screaming now, their harness twisting, the axle groaning. The shaft that held them splintered, cracking along its length, and the sharp end pierced the first ox between the ribs as the whole cart toppled onto its side. Silvio, clinging to the struts, lost his grip and was thrown bodily onto Flavia. Rufus – who could not even put out a hand to save himself – was flung to the very end of the cart, within easy reach of the bear.
It seized the conveniently wrapped parcel of human flesh in its great jaws and dragged Rufus from the cart, across the road and into the forest.
Cassia felt its heated breath, its force and, even in its weakened, hungry state, its overwhelming power. The stink of carrion, of blood and death filled the evening air.
She could not hope to defeat the creature. And yet without a thought she followed, shouting in fury, not words that any human could understand, but a noise from the throat, a primal howl of rage that it should dare to take her brother.
Her cloak impeded her as she ran so she tore it off, wrapping it around her hand.
A bear could easily outrun her, but this one did not intend to lose its meal. It lumbered steadily but slowly, the shroud snagging on roots, catching on branches. What it had thought would be easy pickings was not a simple thing to drag through thick undergrowth. And so Cassia gained on it. It had reached a small clearing when it stopped, released Rufus from its mouth and turned its attention on her.
There were no bears in the south where Cassia had been born and raised, but enough tales of them had been told around the fire to make an impression.
“Don’t let them go thinking you’re a meal. But don’t go making them angry either. Respect each other. Pass each other by. That’s the only way to deal with a bear.”
And yet here she was, facing it. Standing within striking distance, ordering it to be off, to leave her brother alone, to go find itself something else to fill its belly.
It stood on its hind legs. It would strike her, she knew it. But better she should die than let Rufus be eaten. She stood her ground. Faced it. Shouting, bellowing, roaring at the thing, whirling the cloak above her head to make herself look bigger.
It was incensed. But it was also confused. What was this strange animal that looked human but sounded wolf? It had not quite made up its mind to attack when there was a crashing from somewhere behind her. A horse, trying to find its way through bramble and bracken at speed, being urged on. Struggling to obey its rider.
And then there was Marcus, his knife held out. Riding at the bear, yelling at Cassia to stand aside, to move. She did. But only to move closer to the beast, walking towards it to drive it back, to drive it away from her brother.
It swiped at her. But in its confusion it misjudged and when she ducked, its claws did not even graze the top of her head.
And then – instead of tackling these two roaring, screaming creatures – it chose to flee, lumbering through the undergrowth and into the night.
Marcus was off his horse.
It happened so swiftly that afterwards she wondered if she’d dreamed it. His arms were around her, he was holding her tight to his chest. His cheek was pressed to hers and then his lips found her mouth.
And there was no scent of oil to repel her. The stench of Rome had vanished with each mile they’d spent on the road. She was kissing him back.
But he thrust her away, pushed her so violently from him she tripped and fell over Rufus, who was lying inert and helpless in the leaf mould. Marcus’s arms were folded across his chest, he was almost bent double, as though in pain.
Cassia was hot with confusion, appalled and angry with herself. She’d been so wrapped up in responding to Marcus that she’d momentarily forgotten Rufus. Bending over her brother, she pulled the torn shroud from him.
He was pale as death. Eyes tight shut. Frozen with the shock. His mind almost lost with the horror of being dragged, arms pinned to his side, legs tied together, unable to see or move.
She held his rigid body to her, uttering soothing, meaningless phrases over and over again, smoothing his hair, pleading with him to speak, to say something, to tell her he was all right.
For a very long time he did not respond. But then a cry came from somewhere deep within. He buried his face against his sister’s neck. Holding him tight, Cassia wept as she had done long ago, when their mother died.
XXVIII
The bear had not given up the prospect of a meal. It had fled only as far as the road.
Silvio had been desperately trying to release the surviving ox from the cart’s broken shaft. The first had died, punctured through the chest by a great wooden splinter. As soon as the second was unbound, it swung its head, scraping Silvio with its horns before it fled, footsore and maimed. Bent double, Silvio watched helpless as it lumbered a distance of perhaps fifty paces. And then the bear reappeared.
The predator’s choice was simple. One ox already dead, but too close to humankind to be appealing. The other lamed. Dazed. Stupid.
The bear attacked.
It had eaten its fill by the time Cassia, Marcus and Rufus found their way back to the road.
* * *
Nothing, it seemed, could have been bleaker.
Flavia – though she uttered not one word of complaint – was badly bruised, her ribs aching, possibly cracked by the fall. Silvio was lacerated across the belly from where he had freed the ox. Cassia and Marcus were cut and torn from their wild pursuit of the bear. Astoundingly, Rufus was the only one not physically harmed but his mind was in tatters. He would not speak, but made only strange, animal noises in his throat when he saw what had happened to the oxen. When Cassia put an arm around him, he clung to his sister so tightly she feared he would choke her.
They had lost their mode of transport. The disguise that had taken them safely this far was gone. Even were they to find another cart and pair of oxen, Cassia knew – as did Marcus – that they could not ask Rufus to go shrouded again. He would lose his mind completely if he were to be confined in the dark once more.
Cassia tried to comfort her brother, to soothe his pain away. But he whimpered so pitifully and she felt so helpless that soon she found herself crying alongside him.
It was Marcus who took the boy’s face in his hands and said, “You are back from the dead. You have escaped the Underworld and returned to the living. No more of that winding sheet. You walk with us now. In the open air. Can you do that, Rufus?”
Still, the boy didn’t speak. But he gave Marcus a small nod.
They had now one horse, and some fifty miles to go before they reached the border. Four or five days by ox-cart. Two on foot if the walkers were healthy and strong and they could travel in daylight. Who knew how long it would take with Flavia so weary, Silvio injured and Rufus almost out of his mind?
Cassia was riddled with anxiety, but Marcus seemed relatively untroubled by their change of circumstances.
“It was time to lose this disguise in any case,” he told her. “We could not have carried it off for more than another few days. People in these parts know each other’s business. Any day now the questions would have started. People would want to know where exactly we were going, and where the corpse was to be buried. Who was his mother? His father? Where was his home? We couldn’t have answered without someone knowing we lied. Ye
t now that strange family of foreign mourners are gone. Killed by beasts, their packs looted by bandits. It solves a problem that’s been troubling me for a while: of how and where we were to change our plan. We’ll take the horse. Two can ride, but the rest of us will walk. You must trust me to choose the way. Will you do that?”
“Of course.”
“Good. I know the land here. There’s a river not five miles west. We can follow its path. If anyone should come looking for us, it will mask our trail. It flows beneath the wall. That’s our way now.”
They took only what they could carry with ease. What little food they had. The near-empty purse of money. Such salves as would serve to remedy their own injuries.
Marcus led. With Flavia and Rufus riding double, Silvio and Cassia walked behind in the path the horse cleared through the underbrush. Silvio had changed into his old slave clothes and was a man again. As he rubbed the white paint from his face, a little of his old self seemed to return. He gave her a pained smile, he called her “queen”. There was some comfort in that.
No longer hiding in plain view, they trudged all the hours of darkness. When dawn broke, they found a hiding place on a small patch of shingle under an overhanging bank, where the river curved and the trees grew thick either side. After eating a little, they slept, Rufus with his head on his sister’s shoulder. They took turns watching for danger as long as it was light. And at dusk they moved on once more.
On they went. Sodden, cold. Injured.
Four nights later, when dawn broke they were within sight of the wall.
XXIX
The frontier was as imposing as Cassia had imagined. A wall, taller than five men. Broader than an ox-cart. Manned by soldiers who were used to being harried by the savage tribes on the other side of it. Whose fingers twitched on the hilts of their swords even in their sleep.
Beyond the Wall Page 11