by M. K. Hume
‘He was the thin one, Anti . . . Anti . . . something. And another man gave me some milk to drink - and I fell asleep.’
‘Who was the other man?’
The boy furrowed his brow. ‘He was a servant. The master wasn’t very nice to him, and kicked him when he spilled some of the milk.’
‘The steward,’ Llanwith pen Bryn recalled grimly. ‘I’m pleased now that I broke his neck - although, on reflection, perhaps he deserved a slower death if he was involved with these murderous creatures.’
‘What happened when you woke up, Brego?’ the magistrate asked gently. He smiled down at the young boy. ‘Don’t cry, my lad, for you will soon be safely back with your father once again.’
‘It was dark when I came here, and I was tied with ropes. I was thirsty and hungry, but nobody came for the longest time. And when they did come . . .’ The boy began to sob uncontrollably.
‘Sir,’ Targo protested. ‘This boy is exhausted. We may inflict lasting damage on him if he is questioned further.’
‘I agree. I’ve heard enough.’
The magistrate turned to a soldier, while Targo picked up the boy and carried him back to the kitchens.
‘Bring the servants to me, all of them!’ he ordered.
With much wailing and sobbing, five women were dragged to the outer door of the atrium. They were all old - none under forty - and their grey hair and haunted eyes were proof of the hard service they had performed at the Villa Severinii.
The magistrate addressed the servants sternly. ‘You are commanded to tell me what you know of the crypt. And do not think to tell me you know nothing, for no one could live in such a house and be ignorant of what has been happening here.’
One of the women, who seemed less terrified than the others, stepped forward from the huddled group and spoke for them all.
‘We are slaves, sir. The master loathed all women, except for his mother, and she wouldn’t permit young maidservants to enter the house. She was the only woman permitted to be young and beautiful.’ The old woman smiled and revealed two broken teeth. An ugly, puckered burn that covered her jaw also marred her features. But, for all her ugliness, her eyes were a clear, clean hazel. They’d seen too much, and no longer feared anything, not even death.
The magistrate waited impatiently, one foot tapping on the tessellated floor.
‘I’ve lived too long and heard too much in this place to care what happens to Master Severinus or to his mother. While the old master was still alive, the villa was a clean and contented house. But when he died ten years ago, it became a bad and frightening place.’
‘Get to the point, woman,’ the magistrate ordered, but not entirely unkindly.
‘We never knew precisely what the young master did when he was in the secret places. We didn’t want to know. And Longus, the steward, locked us in the kitchens whenever the master had his entertainments.’
‘What of the crypt, woman? Surely you knew of that place.’
‘Yes, sir, we knew of it. Workers came and dug it out, and then the master paid them to leave Aquae Sulis and move to other towns. I was the only servant who was permitted to clean the scriptorium, only me, although I was threatened on pain of death never to open the trap door that led down to the crypt.’
‘Did you ever open the trap door?’
The woman shook her head so fiercely that Artorex had a sudden hysterical thought that she would shake her old head clean off her scrawny neck.
‘But if I pressed my ear to the joint between the trap door and the floor, I sometimes thought I heard weeping coming from below the floor. The master caught me once and beat me half to death. I felt his cruelty and I was careful never to listen again.’
She pointed at her burned face.
‘When I was a younger woman, Severinus Major took me to his bed. Mistress Severina didn’t care overly for the touch of any man, so I became her husband’s amusement in her stead. But when he died, mother and son made sure that no one would ever want me again. All of the servants in this house have been brutalized. We know that we belong to Severinus and he can do whatever he wants with us. These poor old women can show you their tears. No, sirs, we heard nothing. And we saw nothing.’
‘You can speak now, woman,’ the magistrate said quietly. ‘Did you ever see children here?’
‘No, sir. I swear. You may do with us what you will, sir, but we didn’t dare to look once Longus had locked the kitchen doors behind us.’ She raised her grey head and looked squarely at the magistrate. ‘We’ve washed and fed the little fellow who was brought up to us tonight, and we know now what’s been done to him. We know he was raped. If we were to be blamed for what has happened to the children, then I’d rather die than live in this villa another day. We wear the collars of slaves, but we’re women, and some of us were mothers once.’
The magistrate rubbed the stubble on his chin and thought hard.
Finally, he came to a decision.
‘You shall go free, all of you. I don’t believe that you are guilty of any crime. Further, your collars shall be struck off, and you shall cease to be slaves from this day on.’
‘Then we shall die, for we’re too old to find new masters to care for us,’ the old woman replied with dignity. ‘It would be better that you should kill us now rather than force us to starve to death.’
‘You may take anything of value that you can carry from the villa, as long as you depart before sunset. The contents of the villa are forfeit and before this day is over I’ll order it to be burned to the ground and its foundations obliterated.’
The women bowed low, then scrambled away from him. The susurration of their bare feet on the tiles was the only sound in the atrium.
‘Bring the Severinii woman to me,’ the magistrate ordered.
The matron was dragged in. Her wig had fallen off in her struggles, and her bare, shaved head seemed pathetic in the morning light. The cosmetics on her face were almost blasphemous in their provocative ugliness.
One soldier took off her gag. She spat at him.
‘Control yourself, woman, or you will be gagged once again.’ The magistrate’s voice was like ice. He had shared a dining couch with this woman in other, better times, but he had never seen such depravity in any female eyes before, or such cruelty, as he now observed in this woman.
‘I have done nothing wrong. I am the widow of Lucius Severinus, a noble name even in Rome. How dare you let servants touch my person.’
‘How dare you sanction the rape and murder of children in your house!’ the magistrate thundered.
‘I did not touch them,’ she snarled at the magistrate. ‘It was all my son’s doing, under the influence of Antiochus, his perverted little catamite.’ She paused. ‘There are other fine gentlemen who have enjoyed the pleasures of the Villa Severinii,’ she stated, her eyes alive with cunning. ‘They are powerful men who will protect us.’
‘You will be gagged, woman, so that I need not listen to your lies,’ the magistrate ordered, for he was reluctant to deal with the wider ramifications that her loose tongue might unloose. ‘I’ve heard enough from you.’
Two soldiers quickly applied a gag round the woman’s mouth.
‘I will now see Antiochus,’ the magistrate continued. ‘Since he has been accused of being the ringleader and perpetrator of these crimes.’
Antiochus was a pitiful figure when he was dragged before the magistrate and the councillors. His ragged cloak was still wrapped about his narrow body to hide his nakedness, while the cosmetics that had been smeared round his eyes had begun to run from his constant weeping, and served to make him appear as a pathetic figure in the raw light of morning. The blackening bruises on his face were evidence of the rough handling inflicted by his captors.
The magistrate looked at him with disdain. ‘I’m told by the mistress of the house that you are the principal instigator of this vile cult.’
‘That’s not true, my lord! I’m merely the lover of Severinus - and nothing more,’ Antiochus pleaded.
‘We met soon after the death of his father and he invited me to enjoy the pleasures of the villa. I’ve never touched any children - I can’t stand the vile little creatures.’
‘But you did prompt the worship of Osiris in the crypt, didn’t you?’ The magistrate’s disgust was tangible. ‘Come, Antiochus, you come from Asia Minor, whereas Severinus has never left these shores. How else would he know of the Mysteries of Death?’
‘When it first started, it was only a game,’ Antiochus howled. ‘But I couldn’t stop the master from slaking his desires. When he began to take his pleasure with the boys, he no longer wanted me in his bed. I had no choice.’
‘But the mistress of the house swears that she had no part in the murders, and the blame should be placed firmly on your shoulders,’ the magistrate told him.
‘She’s a lying cow!’ Antiochus shouted hysterically, his voice rising to a womanish shriek. ‘She believes that the dying breaths of children will preserve her youth and her beauty. No, she never touched them, but she watched them die of starvation so that she could kiss away their last breaths. The woman is demented.’
Every man in the room was appalled. The mistress Severinii felt their sickened eyes upon her and her arrogance finally deserted her like ice before fire. She began to sob through the gag.
‘It was Severinus! It was all Severinus! He always wanted newer pleasures. I warned him that rumours of his entertainments would boil over, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He’s turned into a monster, and I can’t believe that I once loved him.’
Antiochus would have continued bleating, his eyes darting from stony face to stony face, had the magistrate not cut across his gabble.
‘But you stole the children for him. You brought them here. And you were the one who took them to the crypt and tied them down, ready for your master - unless I’m mistaken. You’re also a monster, Antiochus, and as a monster you shall be treated. Gag him!’
Finally, Severinus was dragged into the atrium. He was stark naked and streaked with blood from grazes and cuts all over his body. Yet, in a flash of arrogance, he shook his black curls back from his face and stood as easily and as proudly as if he were welcoming important and valued guests to sample his hospitality.
‘You shouldn’t bother to implicate others, Severinus, for I will simply gag you once again if you do, no matter how convincing you seem to be,’ the magistrate stated mercilessly. ‘However, in deference to your father, who was a man of honour and decency, I’m giving you this one last opportunity to explain yourself. Can you justify your actions?’
Severinus appeared to be a magnificent specimen of manhood, for all that his body was too short and hairy for true beauty. His pride was a tangible and living element that was an essential part of Severinus the man. Artorex could easily imagine that this was the way that Mark Antony had stood as he faced his Egyptian and Roman enemies in the last days of the old Republic - immediately before he fell on his sword.
But when Artorex looked into the eyes of Severinus, the spell of nobility was immediately broken, for something filthy oozed behind the black pupils of the man’s expression.
‘I don’t recognize the right of any of you to judge me for I am Roman!’
The magistrate smiled slightly and reflectively.
So smiled the old senators who sent Caligula and Nero to their ignominious deaths when their vices finally affronted the last vestiges of Roman pride.
‘Is this bravado to be your only defence? Truly, you’ve made my task easier through your refusal to speak,’ he stated. ‘When Rome first rose out of the mud, she came to greatness through her courage, her piety and her strength. By all such standards, you’re not Roman - and you never could be. You shall be punished like a common felon.’
The magistrate paused, knowing that he had the full attention of all persons present.
‘Hear my words. The Villa Severinii is forfeit and will be burned, except for those items of usefulness that the servants can carry away on their backs or in the villa’s wagon. All else will be consigned to the flames.’
His voice had the magisterial ring of one of the old lawmakers of ancient Rome, for all that this doughty man was half-Celtic by birth.
‘Let no stone stand on another stone when the flames have cooled. And let the ground be sown with salt to cleanse this poisoned earth.
‘The Severinii woman will be strangled immediately, and her body thrown on the city midden. Her callous cruelty deserves a worse fate ... but I don’t have the stomach for it.
‘As for Severinus and Antiochus, let them be crucified, like the criminals they are, at this very hour. And they shall hang outside the gates of Aquae Sulis, so that all good citizens shall see the fate of those fools who sell their souls to the Darkness.
‘And, lest their mouths spew poison, they will die in silence, with their tongues removed from their heads.’
The magistrate was a prudent man, and Artorex couldn’t suppress a grimace of respect and black humour.
‘I have spoken! So let it be done!’
CHAPTER VII
THE AFTERMATH
Artorex would have gladly ridden away with Targo, who had been charged with returning Brego to his father. He longed to climb upon Coal and escape, like Llanwith pen Bryn and Luka who were returning to the Villa Poppinidii to ensure that peace had settled within its walls. But he must take charge of the pitiful terracotta urns, each numbered in the Roman fashion but not yet filled with ash. He must take hanks of hair to grieving mothers, and watch the final death of their long and useless hopes.
Such was his penance for achieving freedom for Caius. Such was his self-administered punishment for lending his name to a lie.
The forecourt filled with smoke from the roaring fires that had been lit to consume the small, abused bodies of the sacrificed children. One by one, and still wrapped in their pitiful linen sheets, their remains were cremated.
Myrddion had stayed with Artorex and, together, they searched out what food could be found in the kitchens, eventually settling on cheese and a heel of bread as the simplest repast they could stomach on such a day as this. Around them, the villa boiled with activity as the servants systematically ransacked it for items of value, showing surprising strength as they loaded a wagon and several handcarts with all that they could carry. Before the three prisoners were chained and led away, the old spokeswoman for the servants didn’t hesitate to tear the golden earrings from Severinii ears and prise rings from their manacled hands. Then, with grave deliberation, she spat in the faces of each of her erstwhile owners.
Neither Artorex nor Myrddion could deny that she had earned the right to perform this last vengeful act.
By mid-afternoon, the old women could load and carry no more. What items were left were worthless or too heavy to move. Even the villa’s finest horses would be departing with the women.
‘Will they be safe with all of their scavenging?’ Artorex asked Myrddion anxiously, for it seemed unjust that these ancient women should fall foul of thieves and villains after all their years of suffering.
Myrddion walked up to the spokeswoman.
‘Where will you go, good woman?’ he asked. ‘My young friend fears for your safety.’
‘I am of the Dobunni, and I was born near Corinium,’ she replied, as she tied her hair up in a scrap of fine linen. ‘Perhaps there are some of my kin who are still alive. If not, then we old ones will be safe if we can come under the protection of the King. We’ve survived far worse than a week’s journey through strange places.’
‘Go safely, then,’ Artorex called after her, as she flicked the reins on to the backs of the horses drawing her wagon.
‘And you, young master. Verily, your coming to the villa was a fortunate day for us.’ She laughed shrilly, and turned her back on her erstwhile home for the last time.
The two men watched the dust cloud of the little cavalcade as it descended the hill and turned on to a back road leading to the north. It was little more than a rough track.
‘She is clever, that one.’ Myrddion smiled his admiration. ‘They will stay far from the main thoroughfares and likely find the sanctuary they seek.’
‘I’ve no taste for further bloodshed, Myrddion, and I’m glad the magistrate will execute the Severinii outside the walls of Aquae Sulis. Crucifixion is a vile and a lingering death. I’ve never seen it and I don’t want to.’ Artorex sat on his heels and rubbed his reddened eyes with the heel of his hand.
‘The Severinii have earned their fate, Artorex, but I grant you that I, too, take little pleasure in such necessary affairs. Let the mob howl for their blood. I prefer the quick ending of a sword.’
‘May the gods grant that such is our fate,’ Artorex sighed.
By dusk, the soldiers had finished the grisly task of burning the small bodies, pounding the longer bones to splinters and placing the remains in the numbered urns. As he stared at the pitiful strands of hair, also numbered in the same fashion, it seemed to Artorex that the terrible night, and the day that had followed it, had been without end.
Yet, before they left the silent villa, the magistrate and the full complement of councillors returned, in company with a troop of soldiers and field workers who carried hammers and torches. Artorex shuddered, for the cruel day was still holding sway over the darkness.
‘I see you gentlemen are still here,’ the magistrate noted, as the two men continued to stow the urns in a pannier hung over the withers of Artorex’s horse.
‘We’re about to leave, sir,’ Artorex replied, and bowed low.
‘The execution of the Severinii has been carried out. The son and his catamite hang on the road leading into Aquae Sulis. Both are still alive, and will continue to suffer. The mother died before their eyes.’ He smiled in the direction of the stables. ‘I see that the servants have departed - and not on foot.’
‘They took all that they could,’ Myrddion replied with an ironic laugh. ‘Perhaps their spoils will bring them good fortune.’
‘That old grandmother will have chosen carefully,’ the magistrate stated with a smile. ‘She has a deep store of vengeance in her heart, and I shouldn’t care to cross her path.’