by Paul Capon
“Could be either, but I — ” began Tom, then broke off as two heralds marched out of the main entrance of the palace and advanced to the top of the steps. They raised their trumpets and blew a long and elaborate fanfare.
The crowd became silent. The heralds moved to one side, and three officials in white togas came out, taking up positions at the top of the steps. They were followed by the Vice-Emperor, a rather insignificant figure in spite of his purple toga, the golden wreath on his head and the golden staff he carried on his shoulders. When he appeared, a strange, anguished sigh went up from the crowd.
There was a pause, then the slaves bowed, humbling themselves before the representative of all they hated and feared. The effect was like a cornfield suddenly assailed by a gust of wind.
The Vice-Emperor thrust out his arm as though blessing the assembly, and Jane and Tom could see his lips moving although his voice did not reach them. He spoke briefly, then with an abrupt gesture handed his golden staff to one of the three toga-clad officials. He removed his golden wreath and handed it to the second official, then took off the purple toga and threw it over the arm of the third official. Standing before the crowd in a simple tunic and kilt, his arms at his sides, he had hardly more dignity than a dummy advertising men’s underwear.
“Why did he do that?” asked Jane.
“I imagine it means that during the Saturnalia he will put aside all his imperial authority.”
The crowd seemed hesitant, as if uncertain what to do next. A murmuring broke out among them, and they resisted the efforts of the soldiers to shepherd them toward the arena. The struggling increased, then a huge bearded giant broke his way out of the crowd and lumbered toward the steps, stopping only when two guards had the points of their spears against his chest.
“Oob es nosh livrachor?” he roared in a voice that echoed around the valley, and the cry was quickly taken up by the crowd. They chanted it, stamping their feet in rhythm, and the Vice-Emperor hastily retreated into the palace. The howl that followed him must have sounded to him like the knell of doom.
“What are they yelling about?” asked Jane.
“They’re shouting for their liberator,” said Tom, whose ear was getting attuned to pidgin Latin. “That last word may not sound much like liberator, but I think that’s what it’s meant to be.”
The door opened, and Charles came in, followed by Marcia. They carried bundles and were hot and breathless. Marcia’s palla was torn and soiled, her hair disheveled, and both she and Charles had patches of whitish powder on their hands and faces.
Charles’ expression was far from amiable. “You silly kids!” he said between clenched teeth. “What do you think you’re doing on the veranda?”
“We wanted to find out what was going on,” Tom told him.
“In those clothes? If the slaves had seen you, they’d have besieged the building! We would never have got away. Anyway, you were supposed to be in bed.”
“I’m sorry.”
“All right. Forget it.” He threw Tom the bundle. “You’ll find tunics and kilts in there. Wake up Boyd, and both of you change just as quickly as you can.”
Tom vanished into the bedroom, and Marcia slipped her arm through Jane’s. “Come on, Janie,” she said. “I have clothes for you and Ruth.”
Tom was fastening his sandals before Boyd had even decided which way his kilt should go.
“What’s all that hollering?” he asked sleepily.
“The slaves, but I can’t explain. Jane and I have been watching them.”
“You might have wakened me.”
“Lucky for you we didn’t. Charles nearly skinned us alive.”
Tom dived back into the other room, and Charles greeted him with a forgiving smile.
“Good,” he said. “Let’s have a look at you.”
He walked around Tom, tugging the tunic into place, tightening its belt and straightening the kilt, then, as Marcia emerged with Jane, he asked if she had a comb.
She gave him one from the reticule that hung from her girdle, and Charles combed Tom’s hair forward above his ears and down over his forehead.
“You’ll do,” he said finally. “Cornelius could be your middle name.”
He turned his attention to Jane, who was wearing her palla. She was self-conscious, as if she had suddenly found herself on a stage before an audience.
“It suits you very well,” Charles told her. “Marcia, what can we do about her hair? I’ve never seen a Cornelian girl with a pony tail.”
“No,” agreed Marcia, smiling. “Well, there’s not much we can do. We haven’t time to curl it.”
“Can’t she wear a fold of the palla over her head? I’ve seen girls going about like that sometimes.”
“All right. We’ll try it.”
The experiment made Jane look more Roman than American, and then Ruth announced from the bedroom that she was getting into a muddle.
“Coming, dear,” called Marcia, and, turning to Charles, she said, “You go ahead with these two, and I’ll follow with Ruth and Boyd. Four youngsters together might arouse suspicions.”
“What about our rucksacks?” asked Jane.
“You’ll have to leave them, I’m afraid,” said Charles. “It’s a pity, but there it is.”
“But there are valuable coins in them!” Jane protested.
“Don’t worry,” said Marcia. “I’ll look after the coins for you.”
“Aren’t you coming with us?”
“No, Janie, but Charles will explain,” said Marcia, shooing her toward the door. “Now hurry, please!”
Charles walked rapidly as they left the building, and Tom and Jane found it was not easy to keep up with him. They climbed a long flight of steps cut in the rock and came out on a broad, granite road at the foot of the hills below the crater. They had a wonderful view of the palace.
The crowd was milling and scuffling but so far there had been no serious fighting, and the soldiers seemed to have matters under control. In the arena food was being distributed, and this was drawing the slaves away from the palace.
“It looks as if they have nearly every soldier in Sutterranea down there,” said Charles. “Well, that’s to our advantage. The blockhouses must be nearly empty.”
A dull, heavy rumbling came from ahead of them where the road disappeared behind a bluff, and the three stopped and listened. Then they heard the thunder of horses’ hoofs.
“Chariots!” Charles exclaimed. “Get back!”
The first of the chariots plunged into view, its four, huge stallions fighting to break into a gallop. The charioteer, shouting and leaning back on the reins, was exerting all his strength to restrain them while the chariot leaped and bounded as if at any moment it would fly from the rough road and plunge into the valley.
Charles thrust Tom and Jane behind him, and the three of them pressed against the wall of rock to make themselves as small as possible. The nearest horse saw them and shied, tossing its head and threatening to rear, but the momentum of the other three gave him no chance, and the chariot careened harmlessly past, its steel tires striking sparks from the granite.
Chariot after chariot thundered by — sixteen in all, ten with four horses and six with six — and, before half of them had passed, Charles had a new anxiety. The noise had attracted the slaves’ attention, and three hundred thousand faces were turned in their direction. It was unlikely that the slaves would notice the group, but all the same it did not ease the strain on Charles’s nerves.
He warned Tom and Jane not to move. “A lot of people are looking up here,” he told them. “Give them a minute or so.”
“Where are the chariots going?” asked Jane.
“To the arena. I suppose the idea is to distract the slaves. Usually the chariot racing doesn’t start until later in the Saturnalia.”
Tom remarked that he hadn’t realized there were any horses in Sutterranea.
“There aren’t any except in the valley,” Charles told him. “For some reas
on they can’t thrive in the uplands. I suppose it’s because of the mist, which, after the Cornelians, is Sutterranea’s greatest curse.”
“Has chariot racing been going on here since the Romans first came?” asked Jane.
“Oh, no. The ancestors of the horses you’ve just seen were brought here by Cornelius the Forty-sixth, who revived the sport. That sort of thing has happened a lot in Sutterranean history — an emperor coming along and reviving one or another of the ancient customs.”
The gaze of the crowd moved with the chariots, following their wild career round the valley, and Charles decided it was safe to move on. Behind them, about half a mile away, Marcia, Ruth and Boyd had come into sight.
The journey seemed endless. One of Tom’s sandals produced a blister that made him limp. When Jane tried to hitch up her palla by tucking it under her girdle, Charles sternly forbade it.
“Gee, am I glad I’m not a Cornelian,” muttered Jane. “I guess these are about the worst clothes for escaping ever invented.”
The road rolled on and on. They were coming to the break in the hills where the river left the valley. A long, sloping path led down toward the river, and it was so narrow that the three had to walk single file. At the foot of the path stood a squat brownstone building. “It’s a gristmill and bakery,” he explained. “The miller and his wife are risking their lives to help us.”
“Are they slaves?” asked Tom.
“Formerly, but they were freed at the last Saturnalia. That makes their action all the more courageous, since they’ve more to lose than the slaves would have.”
He added that the mill supplied bread to the slaves in the Dark Lands. Grain, mostly millet, was floated down the river on rafts, and at the mill it was ground into flour and baked into bread. Donkeys transported the bread to the slaves in the mines. Charles pointed out the water wheel slowly turning and called the children’s attention to the gentle thunder of the water pouring over the dam.
All this time Tom and Jane had refrained from bothering Charles with questions, but nothing seemed to add up. The river and the fact that Charles had needed their dinghy suggested they were going to escape by water, but to where? Clearly they couldn’t go upstream, since in that direction the river ran right through the valley, while in the other direction, according to Julius, the river disappeared into a tunnel.
At the mill they were greeted warmly by the miller and his wife, who were both elderly, fat and jolly. The man was clean-shaven, as befitted a freedman, and both he and his wife wore white smocks and white hats, so there was no mistaking their calling.
Charles talked briefly with them, then led Tom and Jane through the bakery and down a long flight of stone steps into a large granary stacked with sacks of grain. They passed along the aisle between the piles of sacks, and at one place Charles pointed to an open cache among the sacks.
“That’s where my gear has been stored all these months,” he told them. “While you were getting some sleep, Marcia, Rhodri and I — Rhodri’s the miller — dragged it out and loaded it into the dinghies.”
In the middle of an open space at the granary’s far end was a stone slab with a heavy iron ring set in it. Charles heaved on this ring, and the stone slab creaked back to reveal another flight of steps, running down to a pier in the river.
“Down you go,” said Charles, “but take it carefully. The steps are slippery. Jane, mind you don’t trip over your palla.”
Both dinghies were moored to the pier. Charles had lashed them together, bow to stern, his own in front. It was larger than the young people’s dinghy, but with several sacks of supplies on board, it would certainly not have been big enough for the five of them, too.
“You’ve got enough supplies,” Tom remarked. “How long is this escape going to take?”
“I haven’t a clue,” Charles told him, “but at least I don’t intend for us to starve. We’ve enough food there to last us a month, if need be.”
“A month! Where are we going?”
“Not only food,” Charles went on, ignoring Tom’s question, “but blankets, flashlight batteries, money, and even — ” he dropped his voice to a mock whisper — ”even — a — watch!”
“But where did you get it all?” asked Jane.
“Bide your time,” said Charles, “and all shall be revealed unto ye. Look, Tom, I want you and Boyd to ride in your dinghy, and I’ll take the girls with me. You can start getting arranged while I go up and meet the others.” Just then, however, Ruth and Boyd appeared at the top of the steps, followed by Marcia. Everyone was in a state of suppressed excitement, but little was said until the four children were settled in the dinghies, each grasping a paddle. Then Charles, still on the pier, gave them a quick briefing.
“Listen, kids, sound carries over water, so don’t talk until I say you may,” he warned them. “About a mile from here there’s a point of real danger — a blockhouse on the right bank. When you see me lay my paddle across my knees, stop paddling and get down as low as you can. And keep your fingers crossed. That’s all.”
He turned to Marcia. “Well, this is it,” he said softly. “You haven’t forgotten that telephone number?”
“I don’t think so. Harefield one-seven-seven-three.” Tom and Ruth exchanged glances, but this was clearly not the moment to ask questions.
“Good,” said Charles and kissed her lightly. “Here’s to the Edouard Sept, then.”
This meant nothing to the others, but Marcia seemed suddenly frightened. She clutched Charles’s arm as if to stop his leaving.
“Oh, my dear,” she whispered. Finally she let go of his arm and managed a smile. “Good luck. Good luck, all of you!”
Charles patted her shoulder, then quickly unmoored the dinghies. He climbed into the front one and shoved off. The dinghies floated into the stream, rocking a little, for they were only a few yards below the dam and the water was turbulent.
The riverbanks were deserted. Charles, setting a fast stroke, steered the dinghies across the river, straightening them out when they were in the shelter of the far bank. Here the current was slow but powerful. Presently the strange little flotilla came to a bend in the river, and Tom and Boyd had to work hard to prevent their dinghy from swinging into midstream.
The blockhouse came into view and the foursome kept their eyes on Charles, waiting for him to stop paddling. The blockhouse overlooked the river, stark, ugly and lifeless, and Tom had just decided there was no one about when he caught sight of a man fishing from the riverbank.
Boyd saw him, too, and the boys exchanged anxious glances. The man was certainly a soldier, and he seemed to be doing something with his hands. It was impossible for him to miss seeing the dinghies. Why, they would pass right under his nose!
Tom looked at Charles, expecting him to back-paddle, but instead he carefully laid his paddle across his knees. The children stopped paddling and lay back, making themselves as insignificant as possible. Tom could see nothing except the riverbank, and from second to second he expected to hear the soldier shout or the sound of a spear whistling through the air.
Yet nothing happened, and the dinghies drifted silently on. The soldier, still almost motionless, came into Tom’s field of vision, and now Tom could see that he was a very old man in a ragged dirty uniform. He was sitting on a little stool, cleaning vegetables, and he rested one foot on the butt of his fishing rod. Tom could see the float bobbing in the water; it had a little spring bell attached to it.
Tom gazed at that float as though hypnotized. Whether it would or would not hit the side of the second dinghy was a matter of touch and go.
So far the soldier had not noticed a thing. He mechanically took a vegetable from a basket, scraped it, washed it in a bucket of water that stood between his knees, then dropped it into a second basket. Boyd caught Tom’s eye, and it was clear they were both suffering the same suspense.
Their dinghy drifted nearer and nearer to the float. Tom dared not put out a hand to push it away for fear he would make t
he little bell ring. He could only watch as it bobbed inch by inch past the dinghy’s side. At last there came a moment when he felt sure they would clear it, and feelings of relief surged within him. Then, to Tom’s horror, the dinghy’s backwash caught the float, spun it around and started the little bell to tinkling faintly.
The soldier grabbed the rod and leaped to his feet, reeling in the line. As he did so, his face was turned directly toward the dinghies, and yet he seemed to be neither interested nor surprised. Then, when the float touched the tip of the rod, he ran his fingers deftly down the remaining line and felt along the leaders to the baited hooks, Tom suddenly understood — the man was blind.
Tom broke into a sweat of relief and raised himself a couple of inches. Charles was sitting as still as an idol, and it wasn’t until they were a good hundred yards beyond the blind soldier that he at last put his paddle in the water and indicated that the others should do the same.
No wonder the Sutterraneans called these the Dark Lands. On either side of the river there was nothing except a desolate waste of sooty-looking rock with a distant background of derricks and industrial gear on one hand and of remote and craggy hills, half-hidden in mist, on the other. Ahead lay a great ocean of darkness into which the crater’s light did not penetrate; already the shadows of the dinghies on the water grew paler.
“All right, kids, you may talk,” said Charles at last, “but keep your voices low. I expect you found the blind soldier rather nerve-racking, didn’t you?”
“I sure did,” said Jane. “Didn’t you?”
“Well, I recognized him,” said Charles. “He’s a well-known character in Sutterranea. He was blinded years ago when an oil lamp flared up in his face. Nowadays he wanders round from blockhouse to blockhouse, doing odd jobs and still pretending he’s a soldier.”
“Where are we going?” asked Ruth.
“I don’t know,” Charles told her. “I only know where we’re supposed to be going. As I remarked earlier, when I first came to Sutterranea I had the idea that escape would be easy. Then as the years went by and I came to realize how difficult it would be, I began to think I would never escape. Those were dark days, and, if it hadn’t been for Marcia, I don’t know what would have become of me. She used to come to the University for history lessons, and little by little we fell in love. She has never been happy in Sutterranea, and our dream was that I should escape so that we could get married and live happily ever after.”