The Ides of June

by Rosemary Rowe

  ‘We shall have to find a Celtic name for you,’ I said to her, as at last we turned onto the major road and I urged the lumbering ox away from Glevum and towards our destination in the south. ‘I can hardly call you “lady” while we are travelling, you are supposed to be a member of my family.’

  Julia was sitting squashed up by Gwellia, clinging grimly to the bench as the ox-cart rattled and lurched along the road. Here on the military road the wheel-ruts were deep, and the homemade plaustrum did not fit exactly into them, so she had to clench her teeth and her words came out in little bursts with every jolt. ‘But why not simply … call me Julia? Lots of Celtic people use … Roman names these days … indeed, you do yourself … Oooh!’ She broke off as we bounced across a specially violent bump. The year had been a wet one and even the Roman military roads were suffering.

  ‘Because someone might have heard the name of Marcus’s wife,’ I pointed out. ‘He’s a very famous man. They’ll have heard of him in Aquae Sulis, I am sure, and possibly of you. I don’t want people making awkward connections.’

  ‘I see …’ A little silence. Then: ‘But … why not Cilla then?’

  ‘Calling you Cilla would confuse your sons,’ I replied with a smile. ‘Besides, it’s almost certain that one of us would get it wrong; it’s much more difficult to misapply a name than learn a different one. A Celtic one is best. We’ll call you Kennis – that means “beautiful”. You heard that boys?’ I called back to the slaves. ‘The lady Julia is Kennis from now on. Though you can call her “mistress” as you always did. It’s Gwellia and I who have to watch our tongues.’

  ‘A good choice, husband,’ Gwellia agreed. ‘Kennis is as much a description as a name and easy to recall. As long as Julia remembers to respond to it!’

  The new-named Kennis nodded, taking the compliment as no more than her due. ‘I’ll do my very best. And we’ll tell Marcellinus … it’s polite for us to use … that designation while we are travelling … He’ll understand … he’s used to his father … being called by different titles … in different company. And of course he won’t have to … call me that himself … I am simply “mater” as far as he’s concerned. It won’t … matter that we speak no Celtic … you don’t think?’

  ‘Lots of Celts speak Latin for preference nowadays,’ I said, wishing that I really felt as confident as that. ‘Take Junio, my adopted son, for instance. He is half-Celt, of course, you can see it in his face – probably his mother was a household slave – but he never spoke anything but Latin in his life.’

  ‘So if anyone asks, you used to be a slave.’ Gwellia had adopted an instructive tone, exactly as if she were the mother-in-law she was supposed to be. ‘It makes good sense – you have the manners of a Roman house, but if you’d served a great lady as special handmaiden, it’s just what you’d expect.’

  ‘Rather like Cilla?’ the new Kennis enquired.

  If there was irony in this (Cilla had been maidservant to Julia at one time but had not acquired many Roman airs at all) Gwellia did not acknowledge it. ‘Exactly like Cilla – though, of course, you’re more refined. And you’re supposed to have married our adopted son, so you should call me “mother”,’ Gwellia went on.

  ‘And Libertus “father”. I suppose?’ My newfound daughter leaned forward on her bench and looked coyly up at me from underneath her pretty eyelashes. ‘Forgive me, Father … I’m sure I shall forget.’

  It was almost flirtatious and I saw Gwellia frown. Julia had always had the ability to charm – it was how she asserted influence over people close to her – and it was not unpleasant to be in receipt of it, but if this expedition was to succeed, I had to stop it now.

  ‘Then do not call me anything at all.’ I made sure I sounded brusque. ‘In fact, speak as little as possible when anyone’s around. Your Latin is so perfect that it might cause remark and your accent is an educated one. Just remember to treat us with apparent deference. The safety of your children may depend on it.’

  Kennis – as I must learn to call her now – looked humble and rebuked. ‘I’m being foolish …’ she muttered contritely. ‘Of course I’ll play my part … as best I can. Though you might sometimes have … to remind me what to do … But it won’t be hard for me to show respect to you …’ She turned her warmest smile on Gwellia. ‘You’ve both earned it. If this enterprise succeeds … our whole family will owe our lives to you.’

  ‘It’s no more than our duty,’ Gwellia said with a sniff, but she sat back, satisfied. I own I was relieved. My wife is genuinely fond of Julia, who has shown us many signal kindnesses, but she is not entirely immune to jealousy. I didn’t want to prejudice this journey from the start.

  Soon though, I had other things to think about. The road, which had been largely empty until now, was filled ahead with a line of heavy wagons either side. There is room on a Roman road for two carts to pass, with care, but there seemed to be some sort of obstruction now in front of us, and as we drew nearer I realized what it was.

  The first of the approaching vehicles was filled with timber baulks – great trunks of forest trees which overhung the back and side – some of which had worked against the ropes, escaped their lashings and fallen off onto the road, where they now lay in a haphazard heap, completely blocking it. The driver had unhitched his animal and was trying to use it to move the trees aside, while other wagons had banked up behind; some of their drivers were trying to assist, others stood cursing and railing at the gods. Meanwhile those travelling on our side of the route were forced to leave the track and, one by one, take to the muddy verge beside the ditch to pass the obstacle.

  If it had been a legion marching past, of course we would have had to leave the road and do the same, so it did not especially bother anyone, although of course it slowed us down. After a considerable wait – and a little assistance from Minimus, who got out and led the ox – we took our turn and edged around the blockage, at the price of violent bouncing which make Julia squeal aloud. One of the lounging wagon-drivers opposite looked up at her at this, and gave an appreciative whistle through his teeth.

  ‘If you want to marry off your daughter, carter, let me know,’ he hollered, his broad smile showing a set of broken yellow teeth. ‘I am looking for a wife. I lost the last one in an accident – and she’d do very well. Young and strong and pleasant on the eyes.’

  I tossed my head at him. ‘You’d better ask her husband,’ I called back to him. ‘He’ll want a hefty dowry, because he’s very fond of her.’

  Several of the other drivers laughed aloud at this. The fellow, finding himself the object of a joke, turned away and spat into the ditch, while I urged the ox and the plaustrum back on to the road and we joined the queue of wagons that had formed and were now lumbering south.

  I was pleased with my prowess with the ox and said aloud, ‘Well, that seemed to be no problem, although it slowed us down, of course!’

  ‘No problem!’ I saw that Julia’s dust-stained face was white with rage. ‘How can you say that? It is preposterous! That man insulted me, though I held my tongue as you required me to!’

  ‘I’m sorry, Kennis,’ I said, gently. ‘Cart-drivers talk like that. There’s nothing meant by it. He intends it as a compliment to you, if anything.’

  ‘Compliment!’ She sounded horrified. ‘He was impertinent. He impugned my dignity. Marcus would have had him taken off and flogged! And why did you not make people move aside and let us through?’ She was genuinely outraged. ‘They can see this is a carriage – even though it’s primitive – and there are people in it, not just logs and turnips and smelly fowl in crates.’ She gestured to the line of wagons still in front of us.

  Of course! She was used to outriders having to clear a way for her! I was about to point out tactfully that such priority is a privilege of rank, when Gwellia spared me the necessity.

  ‘You’re not travelling in a fancy carriage now,’ she said. ‘You’re supposed to be a Celt. And that is what the wagon-driver took you for. People don�
�t cede precedence to common folk like us – or think that we have any special honour to impugn.’

  Under the dust I saw Julia blanche. ‘I’m sorry, Mother.’ She sounded penitent. ‘You mean that every time you travel … you are liable … to be spoken to like that? And caused all this delay?’

  ‘Most people are,’ I told her. ‘It’s not unusual. And if we met the army, we’d have to wait for them – though I expect that, knowing Marcus, he would produce a seal or an imperial warrant and be given precedence?’

  Julia nodded. The whole experience had clearly sobered her. She sank into silence and nothing more of consequence was said until the sun was dropping in the west and we reached the outskirts of a little hamlet – scarcely more than a scattering of buildings at a crossing in the road – but where a bush suspended on a pole outside a door announced the presence of a public tavern on the premises and a range of window-spaces on the upper floor suggested the possibility of accommodation for the night.

  FOURTEEN

  Kennis was horrified when I pulled up outside the tavern and made it clear I was ready to get down. ‘Are we not going on to find a mansio?’ she said, in distress. ‘We’ve already been travelling for hours. There must be a proper place not very far away.’

  ‘A military inn?’ I shook my head. ‘Not in an ox-cart, Kennis, I’m afraid. The next mansio will be twenty-five- or thirty-thousand paces from the Glevum one. We’d scarcely cover that, if we’d been on the road all day. In any case, they’d want a warrant, saying who we are, before they’d let us in.’

  ‘We’re carrying a letter under Marcus’s seal,’ she said. ‘I’m sure that would suffice. Anyone of consequence would recognize his name. Apart from the officers in charge who run the inn, important people always use these places when they’re on the move. There’s certain to be someone who has heard of him.’

  ‘Exactly why it’s vital that we stay somewhere else. You might encounter someone who’s met you at some time – been entertained to dinner at your villa, even, or seen you at the games. And what would happen to your safety, if you are recognized?’

  Julia’s face was eloquent but she said nothing more, and I was about to get down and make enquiries for a room when all at once there was a whimper from the back.

  ‘Dear Juno!’ she exclaimed. ‘The babes are waking up! They’ve been rocked by the motion of the cart all afternoon, and now it’s stopped, they’re stirring. I hoped that they would stay asleep till we were somewhere safe.’ She tried to stand up and climb across the seat to get to them, but the remorseless miles and unyielding wooden bench had left their mark on her. She sat down with a groan and clutched her back. Meantime the protests from the rear were rising all the time.

  ‘Juli … Kennis …’ Gwellia murmured urgently. ‘The baby doesn’t matter, however loud she wails, but we must make sure that Marcellinus is kept calm. I’ll comfort him, if you’re too stiff and sore – or get the slaves to do it – but something must be done. If he starts shouting for his toys, or for his nursery-slave, he’ll sound so clearly a patrician’s son that he’ll give us all away.’

  Julia stood up stiffly. ‘You’re right. I’ll see to him myself.’ She climbed – with difficulty – back towards the rear and lifted her still sleepy son into her arms. Her face, when she smelt him, made me realize that it was not something that she’d often been required to do – normally the child would have been washed and dressed before he was presented to his parents for the day. Gwellia meanwhile had scooped up the baby girl and was pacifying her by gently bouncing her against her knees.

  ‘Mater!’ Marcellinus’s piping voice was slurred with poppy juice. ‘Where are we? Where’s Nourissa? Why are we in a cart? Where’s the servant with my breakfast? I don’t like it here.’

  I stiffened, thinking we’d have a noisy tantrum on our hands, but his mother murmured soothing noises in his ear and he slowly quieted.

  ‘He’s hungry,’ she informed us. ‘And frankly, so am I.’ She sighed, resignedly. ‘Is it likely we can get some food in this dubious place? And something for the baby, if it is only milk and wine?’

  ‘Time for action, slaves!’ I called and they scrambled from the back. Tenuis helped me to the ground – slowly, since I was travel-sore myself – while Minimus went round to check the mule.

  ‘Arlina’s fine – though very tired and thirsty, I am sure.’ He popped back to report. ‘I’ve been watching through the wickerwork to keep an eye on her and she hasn’t started flagging until the last few miles. But now she needs some water. I’m giving her some straw!’ He showed me a handful that he’d taken from the mattress in the cart and hurried off to offer it to Arlina.

  He was proving good with animals so I left him nuzzling her neck and standing guard over the ox and cart while I took the smaller slave and went inside the taverna.

  As these places go, it was acceptable – no sign of prostitutes or thieves or drunken tramps, for which such inns are famous in the larger towns – only a one-eyed fellow and a scruffy youth who looked up from a plate of nuts and cheese and stared as I came in. They both wore sweat-stained tunics and – apart from the blank eye-socket – were so alike that they could only be father and his son. Their dusty cloaks lay close beside them on the bench, together with a tray of ribbons, trinkets and small goods. The three eyes watched me as I crossed the room.

  There was a moment’s awkward silence and then the old man spoke. ‘If you want the owner, he has gone outside to oversee the stabling of our horse.’ He had been speaking Latin but suddenly he switched. ‘You looking to stay here?’ he asked, in Celtic.

  ‘If it’s clean enough,’ I answered, using the same tongue. His dialect was slightly different from my own, but we could understand each other reasonably well.

  A smile. I had obviously passed some kind of test. The fellow nodded. ‘Clean enough,’ he said. ‘They change the bedding straw at least three times a moon so you won’t find bedbugs – though there are sometimes fleas. Depends on who you’re sharing with and who was there before.’

  ‘You come here often?’

  ‘Always, if we’re travelling this way. I’m a merchant and I’m always up and down to Glevum with my goods – and this the best inn for miles either way. There’s even a wash-pot provided in the yard and a latrine right opposite the sleeping-cubicles.’

  By ‘merchant’ he meant ‘peddler’, that was obvious – the tray of trinkets was evidence of that. But I wasn’t quibbling. I was glad of his advice.

  ‘Separate rooms for women?’ I enquired. ‘I’ve got my wife and family with me – including a toddler and a babe in arms.’

  He grunted. ‘I wouldn’t bring my own here, if I had a choice. But I dare say you will cope. There’s not a separate room. They’ll get an area which is curtained off, that’s all. So leave your slave on guard. And if the women have any gold and jewels at all, make sure they lie on them. You never know who might be passing through.’ He’d reverted to Latin for this last remark, but I did not realize at once what he was hinting at.

  ‘Perhaps I’ll let the women have the bed,’ I said, falling into the same tongue automatically. ‘And I’ll sleep in the stables with the infants in the cart …’

  ‘Traveller, you will do nothing of the kind. I’ve just come past the ox-cart and I saw your family there.’ I whirled around to see who had come in behind me, unobserved – as the peddler had been trying to warn me earlier. This was clearly the woman of the house: a dumpy little person, as wide as she was tall, dressed in a stained green tunic – obviously home-spun – with a leather apron draped around her waist and with a pair of wooden clog-shoes on her feet. Her wispy hair was straggling from its plaited coils and her fat face was lined and worn, but wreathed in knowing smiles.

  ‘That little boy’s a charmer. Your grandson, I suppose? I can see the likeness. He’s got your nose.’ This was so preposterous I could not answer her, but there was little need. The woman was burbling, in bad Latin, like a leaking tub. ‘I’m very fond o
f children – I never had my own – so I stopped to speak to them. The little fellow bowed and greeted me – it almost made me laugh. Like a little emperor, he was – the gods forgive me if that’s blasphemy. Father a high-born Roman, I suppose?’

  The peddlers were both goggling by now and again I was considering how best to answer this, and account for the boy’s manner – but I need not have worried, the woman had not paused.

  ‘Free your daughter, did he, and let her keep the child? Well, that was good of him! Most masters would have had him killed at birth and kept the mother to use another time. And now she’s got another babe, I see.’ She shook her tangled greying locks at me. ‘Find a husband for her, did he, once he let her go? I presume she wasn’t caught consorting with another of the slaves or her master would have had them whipped to death, not simply thrown her out.’

  ‘They are both his children. He is very fond of them. He has relinquished Kennis back into my care,’ I said, with more truth than she could possibly have guessed. Her imaginary version of Julia’s past was safer than the truth.

  ‘Ah! I wondered why the husband wasn’t travelling with you! But now I understand. Her owner must have been very fond of her indeed. I suppose that he is married? Otherwise he would have freed this one and married her?’

  ‘He is. And you are right, in part. She does have her freedom – and both her children too – and so, in fact, do we. My wife and I were both in bondage once, but I was made a free citizen of Rome and all my family share my status now.’ If she was so interested in Marcellinus, she might well have noticed that he wore a child’s toga praetexta underneath his cloak – but this would explain it, perfectly. Tomorrow, however, I vowed we’d take it off and leave him just his tunic, like a proper peasant child.

  The woman’s face had lit up with delight. ‘Three proper citizens? With rich connections too. Dear Jupiter! This is an honour, sir. Well, don’t you worry, citizen. I’ll take good care of them. I’ll tell my worthless husband he can have a cubicle for once, and the women and children can share our room with me.’ She cocked her head at me. ‘Supposing you’ve got money to pay for it, of course.’