by Jack Ludlow
It was Gadoric who replied. ‘He doesn’t need to be untied. All I ask is that you follow the advice he and I give you.’
Tyrtaeus scratched thoughtfully at his hooked nose. He must have guessed that Gadoric, in his weak state, would leave everything to Aquila. Pentheus certainly seemed to, being quick to shake his head in disapproval. The leader examined the boy closely, struck by the maturity and assurance so evident in one so young.
‘May I be allowed a question?’ said Aquila. Pentheus shook his head again, but Tyrtaeus nodded. ‘I would guess that, normally, soldiers never bother to pursue you very far into the mountains.’ Another sharp nod. ‘I mean no disrespect when I say that they don’t think you’re worth it. What are a few slaves, scratching an existence in the hills, to men who have so many?’
‘One day we’ll show them,’ snapped Pentheus, jabbing the spear.
‘Some have already. They’ve started attacking the outlying farms and either stealing or destroying crops. The governor and the owners are preparing a sweep through the mountains, in strength, to catch them.’
‘We have done none of these things!’ said the Greek. Aquila indicated the sacks of grain they had been carrying and Tyrtaeus answered the implied question. ‘A pittance and always taken far from our base.’
Aquila smiled. ‘That won’t save you. Not that it will make any difference. At this pace, Flaccus will catch us all tomorrow.’
‘He’ll give up,’ said Pentheus.
‘He’s not chasing you, idiot. He’s chasing me.’
It was Pentheus’s turn to smile. ‘Then why don’t we just tie you to a tree so that he can find you?’
‘No!’
Gadoric pulled himself upright with some difficulty, his single eye flashing in anger. Tyrtaeus looked long and hard at both Gadoric and Aquila. He could leave them all, given it was the progress of these sick men that slowed them down, but no runaway slave could do other than help a fellow-escapee and in a clear recognition of Aquila’s altered status he addressed his question to him.
‘What do you suggest?’
The boy did not hesitate; for all his lack of years he knew exactly what he thought they should do. ‘First, we can’t afford to stop for the night. We must carry on.’
‘Your friends aren’t up to it.’
Aquila shrugged. ‘They’ll just have to be. None of us will survive if we don’t.’
Tyrtaeus did not reply for quite some time, while everyone stood still waiting on his decision. ‘Untie him, Pentheus.’ The younger man opened his mouth to protest but he did not get the chance to speak. ‘Do it!’
The night seemed endless as they slid and slithered through the mountains, partly in clear moonlight, but more often in pitch darkness. Aquila used all the skills that Gadoric had taught him, laying false trails to frustrate Flaccus and his soldiers, while obscuring their real destination by the use of a leafy branch, tied to the rear horse, when they took to the paths. They kept moving throughout the whole of the next day, with Tyrtaeus giving Aquila general hints of the direction they needed to go. The boy was not fooled, knowing that his guide was taking them in a wide arc, avoiding their true destination until he was more sure of his companions.
To the south, now that they were high enough, the smoking volcano of Mount Etna acted as a fulcrum for their route, appearing every time they entered an area clear of trees. There were constant diversions into the forests as they cut through from one trail to the next and every stretch of water and every rock or scree-covered slope was put to use. After two days, Aquila and Tyrtaeus, dropping back to check the progress of the pursuit while the others rested, could report that Flaccus had given up and turned back towards Messana.
Tyrtaeus finally set them on a straight course and Aquila, using the most prominent peaks and the position of the sun to fix his location, knew that after a slight trek to the west, they had turned north into the range of hills that abutted Flaccus’s inland farm. He also knew, since he was told so often, that Pentheus had escaped from there, the place where he had toiled with his family, before the arrival of Flaccus and his murderous new regime. Revenge for what had happened then consumed the man as he harped on about the fate of his loved ones. The words made Aquila think of Phoebe, so gentle and kind, and of the rest of Flaccus’s mercenaries, who were anything but. He missed her more than he did them, yet he had lived with those men for nearly two years, eaten with them, drunk with them and been trained to fight by them. They were cruel but so was the world and for all Pentheus’s litany of the abuses visited upon the slaves, Aquila could not bring himself to condemn them.
The last few days had been harder on Hypolitas than Gadoric, who was a much tougher physical specimen. Hypolitas had spent the last three days lashed to the saddle, his face becoming more and more grey. He was too exhausted to show any relief when they finally arrived at Tyrtaeus’s little settlement, six badly constructed wicker huts alongside a stream in a barren upland valley which made Aquila look around in wonder. The soil was rocky and shallow, hard to plough and near impossible to grow food on, and the grass was sparse, providing indifferent pasture. No wonder they had to steal grain. How did people survive in such a place, especially in winter? When he saw the inhabitants, emaciated men, scrawny women and bow-legged children, he knew that they could not.
The three newcomers were put in the most dilapidated hut, which had apparently belonged to a runaway who had failed to survive in this harsh landscape. Aquila tended to the two men and, given back his weapons, with permission to seek food, he was able to increase the diet of the entire settlement. Gadoric mended quickly and was soon able to join him, and as they hunted, they talked. The Celt showed no surprise when the boy told him that Clodius and Fulmina were not his real parents, while the eagle round his neck fascinated him. He questioned Aquila closely, and seemed frustrated by the younger man’s inability to shed any light on its provenance, frequently taking it in the palm of his hand to examine it minutely.
‘There was a time when every charm had a special meaning, a story of its own. But this!’
‘That had a meaning,’ said Aquila, sadly.
He was thinking of the day he had first set eyes on it. The Celt nodded, his look grim, and he too remembered Minca as he turned the charm over. Gadoric was a superstitious soul, convinced that he could feel a strange power emanating from the object in his hands. Aquila had felt that too, ever since the first time he had worn it, but it was something he was reluctant to admit, even to someone so close. That would mean explaining Fulmina’s dreams, as well as the old crone Drisia’s prophecies. It was not that Gadoric would laugh at him for giving credence to such tales, quite the opposite; the Celt would believe every word he said, but his young friend did not want to speculate about the nature of dreams and fortune-telling. He had done too much of that already. If Gadoric could have given him some kind of answer, some clue, perhaps where it had come from, that would have helped. It was clearly of Celtic origin and obviously related to his true parentage, but Gadoric could not help, so Aquila took it back and placed it round his neck, deciding that a change of subject was to be welcomed.
‘You’ve never really told me how you came to be lashed to that stake?’
Gadoric was good at telling stories, and this one was no exception. Working with Hypolitas, he had tried to engineer a mass escape, after two years of surviving, half-starved and regularly whipped, on the loading wharves of Messana. He and the other ringleaders had been betrayed. Hypolitas, the only other survivor, and by Gadoric’s testimony the moving spirit behind the attempt, was an ex-household slave, adept at magic, who had so displeased his master that the man had sent him to the wharves instead of selling him.
‘You’ve no idea how brave that fellow is,’ said Gadoric. ‘Or how he can inspire men. I’ve spent half my life as a fighting man. Hypolitas has never raised a sword in his life, yet there was never any doubt who the others would follow. He has the gift and he can find the words that touch a man’s heart and move
him to great deeds.’
‘We’re going to have to move soon.’ Aquila had said this so often that he could not keep the note of petulance out of his voice.
‘A few more days could make all the difference.’
Gadoric was speaking of the health of Hypolitas; Aquila was thinking of the governor and his militia, of a still enraged Flaccus and his men, sweeping through these very hills. The note of petulance turned to one of anger. ‘Very true. They could see us all dead.’
‘They won’t have moved so quickly,’ said Gadoric dismissively.
Aquila frowned, well aware of one thing: only Gadoric stood any chance of persuading Tyrtaeus to abandon his huts and move to the south. Anything he proposed would be derided by Pentheus.
‘There are women and children here. If we’re shepherding them they don’t have to move too quickly to catch us.’
Gadoric hauled the horse’s head round to face the boy. ‘What if I say we should stay and fight?’
Aquila looked meaningfully back towards the settlement, even though it was well out of sight. ‘I’d reply that your ordeal has turned your wits.’
‘It’s not just us, Aquila. There are other runaways in these mountains. If we could gather them all together…’
‘Is this Hypolitas’s idea too?’
Gadoric smiled as he nodded slowly. ‘You always did have a brain, but think on this. If we run away, what do we gain? Tyrtaeus and his dependants swap one barren valley for another. They’re not hunters or fighters and this soil won’t support them. In time they’ll either die or be forced to give themselves up. Us, do we settle down and try to farm this landscape? I’m no farmer, nor is Hypolitas and what about you?’
‘If we could get back to the mainland…’
It was a thought Aquila had been nursing ever since they had arrived, one that he had kept to himself until now. Regardless of what little remained there, it represented home.
‘Perhaps you could do that. I have no desire to set foot in Italy ever again.’
‘There are other places, Gadoric.’
‘What do I do? Present myself, a branded slave, to some ship’s captain and request passage?’ They both knew that for a runaway slave, that was no option. He would be lucky to be put back to work in the fields, a death at the oar of a galley being the more likely fate. The ex-shepherd continued earnestly. ‘Aquila, you are a free-born Roman. I was free-born once and so was Hypolitas. We want to be free again.’
Aquila opened his mouth to speak, but there were no words to say, so he dropped his chin onto his chest in an embarrassed silence. Gadoric could never be free in Roman territory, unless Barbinus gave it to him, plainly an impossible prospect. He knew the older man was looking at him with that one bright blue eye, as if waiting for him to draw an obvious conclusion.
‘There is a way, boy,’ he said encouragingly.
‘Against Rome?’
‘Talk to Hypolitas. He has the power to see into the future. Last night, as we talked, he told me of his vision. Of a slave army to make Rome tremble…’
Aquila did not know what made him grab his charm as he answered, but he did, and somehow it gave him the confidence he needed to contest such a wild claim. ‘You trust visions?’
‘With my life,’ replied Gadoric, unaware that the boy was also addressing the question to himself. His face registered a slight degree of shock that anyone should even suggest the opposite. ‘How else would the Gods talk to us?’
‘Do they talk to us?’
‘The day you came upon us, Aquila, tied to those stakes, Hypolitas said that you would come.’
The grip on the charm tightened. ‘Me?’
‘Not you, but he spoke of rescue. I thought it to be the words of a man in despair, yet before the sun went down, I looked up to see you. After such a thing, how can I doubt him?’
‘You may be right, Gadoric. Perhaps the Gods do speak to us, only I wonder if they always tell the truth.’
‘They talk in riddles, Aquila, but men like Hypolitas can see the true meaning.’
‘Always?’
Gadoric smiled. ‘Not always, otherwise he would have known we were to be betrayed.’
‘And if he’s wrong again?’
‘He will tell you what I would. That for us, it is better to die than be a slave.’
‘If you fight Rome you will most certainly die.’
Gadoric laughed, just as he used to when they had hunted in the woods together at home. ‘We might win.’
Aquila threw back his head and laughed too, but his was not the laughter of mirth, more a hoot of derision. ‘I was right, your ordeal has turned your wits.’
There was something about Hypolitas that made disagreement near-impossible. It was easy, out of his presence, to say he was a dreamer and quite possibly, with his spells and potions, a charlatan, but once he started talking he reduced everything to such simple ideas that the difficulties inherent in the solution seemed diminished as well.
‘There are ten times as many slaves on the island as Romans.’
‘The locals,’ said Tyrtaeus.
‘Hate them as much as we do!’
Aquila cut in. ‘They won’t fight Rome. They can’t!’
‘We don’t want them to fight. We want them to stand aside.’
The voice was low and compelling, the eyes large and unblinking. His head was bald through nature, not because, as Aquila first supposed, he had been shaved. The large nose and prominent chin dominated the elongated face and his hands, with long bony fingers, never still, seemed to weave a spell as he talked. Aquila had discovered that he hailed from Palmyra in Syria, without having the faintest notion of where the place was.
‘These hills are full of men, all runaways and all in small groups, easily destroyed. I have looked into the future. I see them combined.’
‘With or without arms?’
Hypolitas ignored Aquila’s sceptical tone. ‘They can be made, or even better, stolen and these men trained to use them. Likewise food to sustain them. The farms are full of it and instead of sitting still waiting to be attacked piecemeal, what if we take the offensive?’ The fingers darted about as though the entire island was set out on the hard-packed earth of the hut. ‘First here, then there, striking by day and night, never still, always on the move from one side of the mountains to the other, with every slave we free another soldier in the fight.’
‘Rome won’t sit still,’ said Aquila, leaning forward to make his point. ‘You’ll face an army one day.’
The eyes gleamed, the fingers joined together in front of them. ‘We will be an army one day.’
His hand shot out, catching hold of the golden eagle that swung loose. ‘There is power here, I can feel it. Perhaps one day, Aquila, I will ask the spirits to tell me where this came from, for I can see the past as well as the future.’
‘You believe he’s mad?’ Aquila nodded, as Gadoric put his hand on the boy’s shoulder. ‘Yet you will go along with him.’
‘You say you have no future, Gadoric, only that of a slave. Neither have I. I’m not a free-born Roman any more. I was outside the law from the day I freed you.’
‘So you will join Hypolitas and me?’
Aquila turned and faced his friend, his heart heavy. ‘There is one thing I must say to you, something you must pass on to Hypolitas. You cannot win, but I will join you, even if I am a Roman.’
‘The reason?’
He had thought long and hard, feeling for the first time like a fully grown man who had to make his own decisions. The process and the conclusion were equally uncomfortable and he knew the words he wanted to say, just as he knew he would never say them. How could he tell Gadoric he loved him; that he was the only family he had. For all he had discovered and witnessed he could not condemn Flaccus and his mercenaries, nor Rome. He looked at Gadoric closely. The Celt probably thought his sole interest was a hope that Hypolitas spoke the truth; that he could, with his spells and incantations, see into the past as well as the
future; that one day, he would put Aquila on the path to finding his true parents.
Then there was Phoebe, still a slave and in the hands of a man who had become his enemy. He could not admit that he missed her company, feeling that his friend would laugh at him. Deep down, he knew it had something to do with his own destiny, without being absolutely sure what that destiny was. Those words he could not say, even if Gadoric, with his faith in the Gods, would swallow it whole, so he gave an answer that would satisfy the Celt without enlightening him.
‘Ever since you first taught me to cast a spear, it seems everything I’ve done has been designed to train me for war.’ He looked straight into the single, blue, unblinking eye. ‘Would you believe me when I say that I cannot resist a fight?’
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Flaccus, when he woke, was still very drunk; he had been since his return from Messana, able to recall every word of the bawling out he had received, a tongue-lashing his employer had chosen to deliver before the entire group of overseers, so adding humiliation to the brew. No one had addressed him like that since he was a common ranker and because Barbinus had it in his power to dismiss him from this farm, to throw him back to a life of relative privation, he had had to stand still and swallow it whole. His grovelling apology, plus his vow to kill Aquila, had stemmed the tide of abuse as well as removing the threat to his prosperity.
The retching sound outside his window made him even angrier, realising it had been that noise which had woken him. The old centurion pulled himself off his cot and staggered to the window, yelling abuse at the culprit. As his head came out into the cool morning air, Phoebe spun round to look at him, her hand automatically going to her lips to wipe off the last of her vomit. To Flaccus, her face was like a red rag to a bull.
‘You,’ he growled.
‘I’m sorry, master,’ replied Phoebe quickly. The girl had done everything in her power to stay out of the way since Flaccus had returned alone. She was unsure what had happened, but since he had sent all his mercenaries out, yelling orders at them to find and kill her man, there was little doubt that Aquila would not be coming back. She tried to walk away, but a sharp word from Flaccus halted her.