The Skystone

by Jack Whyte

  “By the Christ, Varrus, I have seldom been so frightened. If he had recognized me I would have been dead meat, primus pilus or not. Let’s go back inside, before you die. Luceiia would kill me more painfully than Seneca could if you were to expire of cold before the wedding.”

  When we were seated again by the glowing brazier, he continued.

  “It was the night before I left. I had been out inspecting the guard on the south wall for the last time that afternoon, and when I got back to the fort I found the courtyard filled with strange soldiers. Seneca had arrived! I’ve been scared badly several times over the years, Publius, but never as badly as I was when I saw those soldiers of his. I thought — I was convinced — they were going to arrest me and haul me in front of the swine right then and there, and I’d be tried, condemned and executed before the sun set.

  “I scuttled for my quarters, keeping my head down, but no sooner had I got there than a soldier came to my door with a note from the Legate, Cicero. It was an invitation — a command — to dine with him in his quarters that night, to meet his other guests. There wasn’t a thing I could do but accept.

  “I dressed carefully for that dinner, you can be sure. Seneca had seen me only once, dressed in rough, peasant clothing and wearing three days of beard. Tonight I would be in formal, full-dress uniform. Even dandified, every inch the fighting Roman, I still wasn’t sure, and before leaving for the Legate’s quarters I went by the baths and looked at myself in the big, bronze mirror on the wall there. That made me feel a little better. To have recognized me as the man from the mansio yard, even Seneca would have needed magic powers. I’ve heard a lot of stories about the whoreson, but none of them said he was a sorcerer. I sucked in my gut and went to dinner.

  “Everybody else was already there by the time I arrived, and Tonius made a great ceremony of introducing me as the pride of the garrison, his primus pilus, who had been honoured with a transfer to Londinium, to the training school for officers there. Seneca had his back to me at first, I remember, but just as we reached him he turned and looked me up and down with an expression on his face that made me feel like a pile of dung. I was gritting my teeth, trying to look like nothing and nobody, trying not to think of what would happen if he recognized me. He nodded and held out his hand and I shook with him, and as our skins touched, he smiled. I swear, Publius, for the space of a heartbeat, that smile of his had me wondering if this was the wrong man. But it was only for a second. His teeth had escaped permanent damage in our fight, but his nose was a mess — flat and crunched and scarred. Then he said something pleasant — can’t remember what, but it didn’t mean anything — and I mumbled something back. And then he was being introduced to someone else.”

  Equus and I were both fascinated, and Plautus looked from one to the other of us, knowing he had a rapt audience. There was no sign of drunkenness now as he continued his tale.

  “I tried to keep my eyes off him all through dinner, but I couldn’t. Twice he caught me staring at him, and each time I had to pretend to be looking off over his head. But I wasn’t afraid of him any longer, because I knew who he thought I was. When he looked at me, you see, he saw only the uniform, the primus pilus. I began to relax, even though I’d never sat at table with Tonius Cicero and his Staff officers before. I knew he was watching me, Cicero I mean, watching to see how I was doing. He must have noticed I had begun to relax, because after a while, he didn’t look at me nearly as much.

  “And then he started baiting Seneca. Of course, nobody knew what he was doing except him and me. But he went right for the throat. ‘You know, Procurator,’ says he, ‘I have been curious about the outcome of your misadventure here in Britain a few months back. We had the pleasure of being hosts to some Household Troops who were here in town about your business, or at least on business connected with you. They were searching for the ruffians who attacked you while you were on embassy for the Emperor. That would be, what? Three months ago? Four?’

  “I swear to you, Seneca went rigid in his chair.” Plautus’ voice was exultant. “’Course, Tonius pretends not to notice, and keeps right on going. ‘Anyway,’ he says, ‘you will forgive my curiosity, I hope, Procurator, but I never did hear the end of that affair. What happened? Did you find the men? I find it unbelievable,’ says he, ‘that such a thing could happen to an envoy of the Emperor. Especially in my district. Of course, the fact that you used the Household Troops to search for the criminals cut off any possibility of our following the matter up from here, even though it was a local affair.’

  “I tell you, Varrus, Seneca was blue in the face! I was watching him so hard that it took me a while to realize that all talk around the table had come to a halt. Nobody was speaking. Everybody was staring at Seneca. While I’d been watching him, his face had gone from blue to white as a death-mask. He was gripping the edge of the table so hard I expected him to break a piece of it off. His knuckles were as white as his face.

  “Anyway, Tonius lets it stretch out as far as he can without being too obvious and then he starts up again, being the plain, blunt soldier. His eyebrows go up and he starts looking from face to face as though wondering what on earth he could have said to cause such a reaction. But as he starts in to apologize or something, Seneca cuts him off in mid word.

  “‘No! He was not apprehended,’ Seneca says, in a voice that sounds as though he’s talking through a mouthful of sand. ‘But he will be. Believe me, the whoreson will answer to me some day for his sins.’

  “Tonius is still playing the innocent. ‘He will be? You mean there was only one? And you still expect to find him? After all this time?’

  “If a look could kill a man, I swear Tonius would have dropped dead there and then. ‘There were two of them,’ Seneca snarls, ‘but one of them, at least, will die some day at my pleasure. He will be found, Legate. Trust me in that.’

  “‘Ah! There were two of them,’ says Tonius. ‘I thought there were. Which of them are you searching for?’

  “‘The old one.’ I could hardly hear him. His voice was a whisper, but as though he was being strangled. ‘There were two of them,’ he says. ‘But one of them marked me! Look!’ He screams like a madman and leaps to his feet, ripping his tunic open to show the scar you carved in him. ‘He branded me!’ He was still screaming, and everybody at the table’s squirming by this time, except for me and Tonius.”

  Here Plautus paused, and both Equus and I hung on that pause until we could bear it no longer.

  “And then? What happened then, Plautus?”

  “Oh. He changed. As suddenly as he had lost control of himself, he got it back again. It was almost as though a light had been put out behind his eyes. He stopped moving, holding his tunic open, and looked around the table at each of us. And then he laughed, pulled his torn tunic together again and sat down, picking up his goblet as if nothing had happened. ‘Your. wine is excellent, Antonius Cicero,’ he says, in a perfectly ordinary voice. ‘And so is your kitchen. Gentlemen, I propose a toast to our host.’ I swear, Varrus, he’s crazed. That was it.”

  Equus and I sat silent, absorbing this strange tale, and I, for one, did not want it to end like that.

  “Is that all?” I asked Plautus. “Was there no more to it?”

  He shook his head, pursing his lips. “That was it. I got out of there as quickly as I could, though. I was ready for a good night’s sleep and I had to be on the road next morning. Oh, there was one other thing. Gave me a smile, anyway.” He turned and grinned at me, the shadows from the dying brazier making black hollows in his face. “One of the fellows there had a bad limp. Nobody noticed it until the poor whoreson had to get up to go and relieve himself. He had almost got to the door when Seneca noticed him. ‘You there!’ he yells.

  “‘Procurator?’ The poor fellow didn’t even know if he was the one being yelled at.

  “‘Where did you get that limp?’

  “Tonius spoke up. ‘Tribune Scala was wounded in action, Procurator. During the great Invasion, year
s ago.’

  “Seneca wasn’t impressed. And he wasn’t charming. He was drunk and he was hostile and he was scowling. ‘I don’t like people who limp,’ he snarls. ‘They offend me. Where are you going?’

  “‘To relieve myself, Procurator.’ I could hardly hear Scala’s answer. He didn’t know how he’d offended the whoreson but he knew that he had.

  “Seneca sneered and I wanted to throw my knife at him. ‘Relieve your limp, too, you dung pile!’ he says. ‘Either get rid of it, or don’t come back!’

  “He definitely doesn’t like cripples, Varrus. I’d drink to cripples, but I’ve had too much already and I’m tired. Where do I sleep?”

  By this point, Equus was obviously far gone, too, unable to smother his yawns, and I decided to allow them both to get some rest.

  “By the way,” I asked Equus as we got to our feet, “did you visit Phoebe in Verulamium on your way out?”

  Equus was scratching his head and beard. “No,” he said. “We went looking for her, but she changed lodgings, and the old crone didn’t know where she had gone to. I left a letter for her with Bishop Alaric. If she goes back there, she’ll know how to find me.”

  After they had gone to bed, I sat alone by the brazier for a time, thinking about my life and the changes that had taken place in it, and anticipating the pleasant changes that were to occur in the future — the assembly of all the guests for our wedding, and the life of companionship with Luceiia that stretched ahead. The day was close at hand now; less than three weeks remained until the date of our nuptials. I was pleasantly relaxed and ready for sleep by the time I found my bed.

  XXIII

  The arrival of Equus and Plautus and their group seemed to be the signal for our wedding guests to begin arriving daily in ever greater numbers. The majority of them were strangers to me, old friends of Caius and Luceiia, although I did find a few familiar and welcome faces scattered among them. All of them, however, wanted to meet me, to evaluate the man who had won Luceiia Britannicus.

  I was with Luceiia constantly for the whole three-week period leading up to the wedding, but such was the press of people and duties that I can remember spending no time alone with her. Equus and Plautus I neglected completely. In all of the mounting excitement and the constant round of meeting new people, I was unable to take them out to my skystone valley. I knew Plautus was indifferent to that, but I felt occasional pangs of guilt over Equus’ disappointment, even though he gave no sign of it.

  Tonius Cicero and Bishop Alaric arrived fifteen days after the original Colchester party, seven days in advance of the marriage ceremonies, and they were immediately absorbed into the throng of guests who had by then spilled out of the villa and were encamped by the score throughout the grounds. I missed their arrival completely. They came in late in the day while I was away hunting deer in the open woodlands to the south-west, Luceiia having belatedly begun to fear that we might not, after all, have laid in sufficient provisions for the crowd that was still arriving. The sight of the two of them with Equus and Plautus was a welcome surprise when I got back the following day with half a wagonload of freshly butchered venison, but we had no opportunity to exchange much more than casual pleasantries. Only late in the evening, in response to a direct request from Alaric, did I lead them away from the revelry around a crowded campfire and conduct them to Caius’ day-room, which was brightly lit with a profusion of oil lamps and a blazing brazier. Once there, with the doors closed against intruders, I threw myself down onto a couch in mock exhaustion.

  “Now then,” I asked with a grin, “what is so important that you must make me run the risk of my love’s anger for abandoning our guests before they all pass out? Or is it simply that the two of you have missed me so greatly that you are jealous of the throng and must have me to yourselves alone?”

  They glanced at each other with looks of such unmistakable apprehension that my own good humour disappeared at once, to be replaced by a clammy chill of fear that seemed to suck away even the heat from the brazier. I sat upright, bracing myself for evil tidings, even though I had no idea where they might come from. Tonius had seated himself across from me. Alaric remained standing close by the fire-basket.

  “In God’s name, Alaric,” I asked him, “what is wrong?”

  “Varrus.” It was Tonius who answered, and my eyes swung to his frowning face. “We have bad news for you. News that has no place at a wedding feast.”

  “Then damn your news,” I flashed back at him. “I will not hear it.” My mind had immediately thrown up the spectre of Seneca, but I could visualize no possibility of threat from him now. Tonius made to say something more, but I cut him off with an upraised hand.

  “No, Tonius, my friend. Hear what I have to say. My mind is clear. All of my friends are here — every person in the world who is dear to me. There is no threat to any of them, and so I am content. Therefore any evil tidings you bring from beyond this district can have no effect on me between now and my wedding feast. Surely you can see that? That’s why I’ll have none of your news. Not, at least, until I am wed.”

  Tonius grimaced with discomfort at this and looked to Alaric for support. So did I, but I found none.

  “Publius,” the Bishop said, “Tonius and I think, no, we believe that Phoebe has been killed. Murdered. We believe she was abducted and killed in an attempt to find you.”

  For a moment my mind was unable to grasp what he had said, so unexpected was his suggestion. Phoebe? Dead? Murdered for me? The idea was preposterous. I knew it to be preposterous because no one could connect Phoebe with me! Not even Equus, her brother. The only other person who knew of our brief association was Plautus, and he would never breathe a word of it. I finally found my tongue.

  “That is impossible,” I said, hearing the strangeness in my own voice. “You must be mistaken. Phoebe could not be affected by me, she does not even know where I am. You are mistaken. You must be.”

  “I pray to Our Saviour that we are, Publius, but I cannot find it in my soul to believe that she lives.” Alaric’s voice was low and troubled. “There is too much evidence to the contrary, and it has been collected by two unimpeachable sources — myself and Tonius.”

  “What…” I had to clear my throat before I could go on. “What is this…evidence? Tell me.”

  Alaric told me without embellishment. Equus had left a letter with him for delivery to Phoebe on her return to Verulamium. The following day, one of Alaric’s own congregation had made a confession that troubled the Bishop. The penitent admitted having accepted money from some strangers in return for information about a young woman. He had thought himself lucky at the time, because the woman was widely known to be no saint and the men would have found her anyway, red-haired and pretty as she was.

  Then, weeks later, he had heard that the woman had been found dead, stabbed and mutilated, the day after he had sold the information. His conscience had troubled him ever since, and now he sought absolution. Alaric had absolved him, even though there was no sin on the man’s part, but the Bishop knew that Phoebe was red-haired and pleasant to look at, and began to worry. He questioned the man closely and learned to his relief that the woman in question was not Phoebe. Nevertheless, he decided to visit Phoebe’s old haunts and speak to anyone who had known her.

  At the bath house where she worked, they told him they had not seen her in more than a month. Not since the evening of the Calends, the first day, of February. The toothless crone who owned the building where she had stayed told him only that Phoebe had disappeared — run off without paying her rent. The rooms she had occupied now housed someone else. Dissatisfied, and growing more alarmed, Alaric paid the old woman her delinquent rent. He assumed that Phoebe was too intelligent and responsible to have intentionally disappeared so casually, leaving no word of her whereabouts for her brother or her friends. He told himself he was being too suspicious, but he set his own people to find out what had happened in the case of the woman “sold” by his penitent.

  W
hat he discovered was far from pleasant. Two women had been found dead on the morning in question, and both had been red-haired and good-looking. Both had disappeared the previous night, on the Calends of February, the same night that Phoebe, who answered the same description, had vanished. Immediate inquiries with the Roman military police had established that the second woman was not Phoebe, either. But apart from being able to tell him that the two — and now, with Phoebe’s disappearance three — women had been abducted for reasons unknown, they had been able to tell him nothing more. That had been just over two weeks before he left Verulamium to come to the west.

  At this point he stopped, appeared to hesitate, and then said that Tonius would continue the chronicle. I did not speak; I merely waited for Tonius. He was deep in thought, and I suspected that he was looking for a suitable starting point for his contribution. At last, he started with a question.

  “Did Plautus tell you about the dinner he attended with Seneca?” I nodded and he continued. “Did he mention Seneca’s outburst about you?”

  “Yes. He also told me that Seneca turned the rough edge of his tongue on another of your guests, one who walked with a limp.”

  “Scala. Yes, he did. Poor Scala started him off again. Seneca must have ranted and raved for more than an hour after the unfortunate man had departed in disgrace, unaware of what he had done to give offence. It was typical Claudius Seneca behaviour — drunken madness and nonsense. He insulted everybody, myself included, and sent his own cronies off in humiliation. And that left me. And him.” His face twisted. “A great honour I could have done without.”

  “Well,” I said, “I presume you were well insulated. You must have been very drunk by that time.”

  Tonius shook his head. “He was. I was not. I drank enough, but I think my fear of the man’s potential for causing grief and chaos kept me sober.”