Hibernia (Veteran of Rome Book 2)

by William Kelso

  Corbulo cleared his throat uneasily.

  "I have a contract with your office to supply stone. We met when you signed the deal."

  "Ah yes," Classicus exclaimed with a nod, "I remember you now. Corbulo isn't it, ex Legionary of the Twentieth with a house across the river." He paused and a little crooked smile appeared. "Now fuck off citizen and do not interfere with state business again."

  Corbulo glanced at the armed men holding their torches. Without another word he started up the street towards the Forum. Classicus may be a complete dick and all the merchants and businesses along the waterfront may be afraid of him but he did keep corruption and fraud to a minimum and his efficient management meant that taxes did not need to rise.

  Corbulo had only gone a dozen or so paces when he saw another corpse. The man had been nailed to the front door of his house and his head was resting on his chest. A small wooden cross dangled from his neck. Close by a child lay in a pool of blood. Corbulo took a deep breath and carried on walking. State sanctioned pogroms happened now and then for beneath the veneer of the Roman peace, Britannia was a lawless, violent place. If it wasn't Christians it would be the Jews or some other religious sect that had fallen out of favour. Corbulo had seen religious persecution before and it filled him with disgust. The officers who commanded the Legions and who were tasked with maintaining the peace only cared about threats to the state. They didn't give a shit about the daily dangers faced by the populace such as rape, murder and extortion. The Legions couldn't care less whether the strong and powerful stole from their weaker neighbours. The only way a man could protect himself was to place himself under the protection of a powerful patron. Corbulo muttered something under his breath and carried on walking. The actions of the Procurator may be distasteful but whatever that man was looking for it had nothing to do with him. He needed to be careful. The accountant could cancel his contract at any time and then how would he feed his wife and daughter?

  Corbulo's boots crunched over the gravel. The Forum loomed up out of the darkness. The rectangular stone building with its elegant stone columns and red roof tiles looked out of place amongst the lines of densely packed wooden houses with their thatched roofs, that crowded around it. The Forum was the second centre of Londinium after the harbour, and in the central courtyard the farmers and craftsmen would come to sell their wares. The whole lower floor of the Forum was taken up by banks and lawyers offices. It was here too, in a long beautiful hall on the second floor that the city council would meet to manage the running of the town. Only a month ago these councillors had announced that a new much larger Forum was to replace the old building. The plans for the building were rumoured to make it the largest Forum north of the Alps. Corbulo had been delighted for it would guarantee an insatiable demand for stone. But now in the darkness the Forum looked deserted and forgotten apart from a single armed Legionary on fire watch duty outside the front gate.

  The Mule tavern was just off to one side of the Forum. A sign above the door read Cum Mula Peperit but Corbulo had always known the place as The Mule. It was a repository for his life for he had been drinking in this tavern on and off for nearly twenty-five years. The place was full of memories, of good and bad times, of friends found and lost long ago. He pushed through the door and entered a warm dimly lit room. A fire was crackling in the hearth and a few men were sitting at crude wooden tables. They looked up anxiously as he entered and then slowly turned back to their conversations. Against the far wall a narrow staircase led up to a second floor and a young prostitute was leaning against the wall beside the stairs examining her finger nails.

  Corbulo caught the eye of the fat woman behind the bar. She was serving another customer and for a moment he hesitated. Against the far wall the prostitute glanced at him but her gaze did not linger long and as she looked away Corbulo felt a pang of dismay. He had noticed this before. The whores had stopped seeing him as potential business. He opened his mouth and touched his tooth. It was definitely loose and his shoulders slumped. His body was beginning to fall apart.

  The fat woman had finished with her customer and Corbulo greeted her silently as he came up to the bar. The woman was old with grey hair, which she had tied into a ponytail and fixed with a fibula. She smiled and he pecked her on the cheek. He'd known her for over twenty years. The woman was the owner of the tavern now that her husband had died. She and her husband had been running the Mule for as long as Corbulo had been drinking in it.

  "Did you come across the Procurator and his men?" she exclaimed glancing warily at the doorway. "We heard the screams. They say he is searching people's homes. What's going on?"

  Corbulo nodded.

  "Yes I saw him," he muttered lowering his eyes, "He's killing people too. He's gone after the Christians. Fuck, I didn't even know we had any in this town."

  The woman raised her eyebrows and for a moment she looked thoughtful. "That's probably because you spend all your time on that boat of yours." She turned to look at him. "Efa allright? You want a drink?"

  Corbulo glanced at the barrel of wine behind her. Then he shook his head. "You know I don't drink anymore," he replied with a sheepish smile.

  The woman nodded. "You aren't a very good customer are you," she replied, "but I will let you off. How are Efa and Dylis?"

  Corbulo ignored her question and leaned towards her.

  "Listen," he said quietly, "I ran into a bounty hunter today, a real arsehole called Bestia. He told me that the Governor is looking for Quintus. He told me that Quintus has vanished and that there is a price on his head." Corbulo gave the woman a questioning look. "Is Quintus in trouble, have you heard anything? Have you seen him recently? They say his farm is all locked up."

  The woman straightened up and glanced around her tavern but no one seemed to be paying them any attention. Then slowly she shook her head.

  "I haven't seen him for a while," she said quietly, "but I bet you that his disappearance has something to do with what the Procurator is doing out there."

  Corbulo was staring at her intently.

  "What are you saying?" he replied with a frown.

  The woman sighed. "Don't you know," she whispered, "The last time that I saw Quintus he told me that he had become a Christian."

  Corbulo froze in surprise and for a moment he seemed lost for words.

  "What?" he exclaimed.

  The woman smiled. "Yes he told me. He converted after his retirement. He said the teachings of Jesus had given him a new perspective on life. He was very serious about it all."

  "Well fuck me," Corbulo muttered looking away in confusion. "I served with him for over twenty years and I never suspected." Corbulo paused and then shook his head in disgust. "A Christian? What a load of bollocks. That is no faith for a soldier. No the only thing that a man should care about is Jupiter, greatest and best and the fucking honour and dignity of the Legion. Everything else is just superstitious crap."

  "Well Quintus has become a Christian," the woman replied firmly, "and if you ask me they aren't all that bad. The Emperor seems to tolerate them."

  Corbulo muttered under his breath and glanced at the prostitute.

  "Well if you see Quintus let him know he needs to be careful. There are a whole load of bad people out to get him. What the fuck has he done anyway?"

  A sudden glint appeared in the fat woman's eye. "I don't know," she said, "but I remember now, when I last saw him, he said something strange. He said that he may be going away."

  "Where to?" Corbulo said sharply as turned to stare at her.

  "Hibernia," the woman whispered.

  ***

  Corbulo stumbled out of the Mule and into the fresh, cool night air. There had been a time when he'd liked to drink until he would throw up but those days were long gone now. He hadn't touched a cup of wine in over three months, ever since the feast of Saturnalia that marked the start of the New-Year. He strode passed the solitary guard on duty outside of the Forum and headed up the main street that led to the eastern ed
ge of the city. Londinium was quiet and there were few people about. A stray dog padded past him and in one of the alleys he could hear a drunk singing to himself. He paused at the intersection with the street that led to the bridge and peered into the darkness but there was no sign of disturbances. The Procurator and his men must have called it a night.

  He moved on up the street holding his oil lamp before him. The drains on either side of the road smelt of stale urine, rotting garbage and shit and here and there the town's folk had laid wooden planks across them so that they could reach their front doors without getting their feet soiled. Corbulo blew the air from his cheeks as he tried to make sense of what he'd learned and the more he thought about it the more uneasy he began to feel. Maybe the woman was right, maybe the Procurator's pogrom against the Christians was connected to Quintus's disappearance. The Procurator had been looking for something or someone. But why? What the fuck could be so important to arouse both the Governor's and the Procurator's wrath. Quintus after all was just a retired soldier, a small farmer of no consequence. Corbulo looked baffled. And why Hibernia, why of all the places in the world would Quintus want to go there? The island lay across the western sea and beyond the imperial frontier. There was nothing there apart from rain, poverty and hordes of miserable inhabitants who were as hostile and treacherous as any he'd come across.

  He shrugged and turned left into a side street. It was time to pick up his wife from Marcella's house and in the morning he would need to be up early for the run down to the stone quarry. The houses along this road looked smarter than the ones along the main street. He grunted as in the dim light he saw that some were made of stone. Only the wealthy could afford stone. Marcella's house was in a well to do neighbourhood where the rich lived, away from the traffic, noise and smells of the main thoroughfares. Finally, close to Aldgate and the earth embankment and ditch that marked the outer boundary of Londinium he halted in front of a stone house and raised his lamp to make sure he had the right place. A stone statuette of Diana, the huntress holding her bow glared back at him from where it stood on its plinth just beside the door. Corbulo knocked on the door and waited.

  It took a while before he heard movement inside the house.

  "Who is it? What do you want?" an irritable sounding male voice cried out.

  "It's Corbulo. I have come to pick up my wife," Corbulo replied.

  There was no reply from inside the house. Then Corbulo heard the metallic noise of sliding bolts and a moment later a man's face peered out into the street. As he recognised Corbulo the man sighed and opened the door wider. He was dressed in his night clothes and it looked as if he had just been woken up.

  "I have come to pick up Efa," Corbulo muttered.

  A woman clad only in her under garments suddenly appeared beside the man. She looked startled.

  "Efa is not here," Marcella replied. "We have just gone to bed."

  Corbulo's face grew pale. "I don't understand. She told me that she was coming here to give your son some of her potions. She said he was ill."

  But Marcella shook her head. "No my son isn't ill and I didn't ask your wife to come round. She hasn't been here tonight, Corbulo. I haven't seen her."

  Chapter Four - The Nine

  It was dark and in the clear night sky the stars blazed brightly. Corbulo's boots crunched across the gravel as he strode up to the front door of his house. He looked furious. Efa had lied to him. Why? Was she having an affair? Had she run away? Had he not been good to her? Did he not look after her daughter? The gratitude of women he thought derisively. Did he not provide? What had he done to deserve this? His hand clenched into a fist but mingling with his rage there was anxiety. Efa never lied to him. She had never been afraid of telling him the truth even when he didn't want to hear it. Maybe something had happened? Had some drunk attacked her and dragged her into an alley? He had searched the streets around Marcella's house and retraced his steps to the Forum. Then he had spoken with Perialis and his soldiers but no one had seen her cross the bridge. There had been no sign of his wife. She had vanished. Eventually, exhausted and dispirited he had decided to go home.

  He wrenched open the door to his house, stamped his feet on the earthen floor and stepped inside. The hearth was still alight and in its flickering light he saw someone standing in the doorway between the front and central rooms. Corbulo felt a surge of anger and relief. It was Efa. His wife stood blocking the doorway with her arms folded across her chest. In the gloom he could not see her face.

  "Where have you been?" Corbulo roared slamming the door shut behind him. "I went to pick you up at Marcella's house but she said that you never came to see her. You lied to me. What's going on?"

  Efa did not reply and did not move.

  "Well," Corbulo bellowed angrily, "Explain yourself woman?"

  "Keep your voice down," Efa snapped and there was no mistaking the tension in her voice, "You are scaring them."

  Angrily Corbulo strode towards her but as he bore down on her Efa refused to budge, blocking his way into the main part of the house.

  "What are you talking about?" he snapped.

  In the flickering firelight he could see his wife's face now. She looked tense, nervous and defiant.

  "Promise me Corbulo," Efa whispered, "Promise me this husband, that you will not turn them away, for if you do I shall leave too and I shall take Dylis with me. I mean it, I really do."

  Corbulo stared at his wife. "What are you talking about?" he growled.

  "Promise me," she hissed.

  Corbulo looked perplexed. "Who? Who are you talking about?" he cried.

  Efa was staring at him and there was no mistaking the defiance in her eyes. She had meant every word she'd said. Slowly she stepped back into the living room allowing Corbulo at last to enter the long narrow room. Against the wall the wood in the hearth glowed, crackled and spat and huddled around the fire were nine children. They looked frightened. Corbulo grunted in surprise as the nine children stared back at him in wideeyed silence. They had been eating soup from wooden bowls and some of the children looked soaked whilst others had blankets wrapped around their shoulders. A little girl with tangled blond hair and pale blue eyes had a leather satchel strapped across her back from which protruded the head of a crude straw doll. She looked around seven years old. The youngsters around her all seemed to be aged between seven and twelve. Dylis was standing close to the fire holding a large pot of soup, which she had been serving to the children. She gave her father a brave little smile.

  "They are Christian children," Efa said hoarsely, "I had to save them. If they had stayed with their parents they would be dead by now. The Procurator would have murdered them along with their families. You must have heard the screams. You must have seen what he and his men were up to?"

  Corbulo was staring at the children. The room fell silent. Then he noticed the small wooden crosses around their necks. Every single child seemed to have one. He grunted and turned to Efa. He had never seen her look as tense and determined as she looked right now.

  "Is that what you were doing?" Corbulo muttered.

  She nodded. "The Christians knew that trouble was coming. They knew that the Procurator was out looking for them. The parents refused to flee but they told me that I should take their children and get them out of the city. I promised to help them and I have." She paused. "I am going to hide these children in our house. I am going to keep them alive. The Procurator will not have them," she said fiercely.

  Corbulo took a deep breath as he remembered the corpses he'd seen in the street and the brutality of Classicus's men.

  "Why did you not tell me the truth?" he growled.

  "I didn't know whether you would agree with what I was doing. You told me so many times that you didn't like Christians," Efa retorted.

  "Oh for fuck's sake," Corbulo said quietly shaking his head. "What kind of man do you think I am."

  The room fell silent as Corbulo turned to look at the children again. They looked terrified and mos
t of them seemed close to breaking into tears.

  "It's a noble gesture Efa," he said at last with a reluctant voice, "But how are we going to feed them? What are we going to do with nine extra mouths? What are they going to do? They cannot stay here forever. It's only a matter of time before someone gets suspicious. By morning there will be a bounty on the head of every Christian left in the city."

  "We have no choice," Efa snapped, "If the Procurator finds them he will kill them all. You know what that man is like. He hates Christians. He is out to kill every last one of them. If we don't hide these children they will die."

  Corbulo took a deep breath. "You are asking me to risk my family for these children," he said, "We do not know these children. Is that fair Efa? I have worked hard to give us a decent life here in Londinium. You are asking me to put all of that at risk. If they find them with us, the consequences will be..."

  "I know the risks," Efa interrupted, "but I am doing it anyway. If you don't want to be part of it then walk out of that door and don't come back."

  Corbulo sighed. Efa was in a mood but before he could reply one of the older boys of around twelve with jet-black hair rose to his feet and stretched out his hand.

  "Sir, I have money," the boy muttered as he looked down at his feet, "My father gave me money, I will pay you to look after us, please Sir, we don't want to die."

  Corbulo stared at the youngster and the small bag of coins in his hand. In the hearth the fire spat and crackled.

  "Allright, allright," Corbulo said raising his hands in defeat, "I am not walking out on my family and I don't want any money." He turned to Efa. "They can stay until we find them permanent homes but they stay indoors at all times and they will make no noise and they will do exactly what I tell them to do. I don't want the neighbours getting suspicious. You know what they are like."

  Efa was staring at him with her large dark eyes. Then silently she came towards him and gave him a kiss on his cheek.

  Corbulo glanced at her carefully. "Anyway, how did you get them across the river? The soldiers at the bridge said that they had not seen you."