by George Green
He didn’t know what to say and he couldn’t say or do nothing, so he reached into his pocket.
‘Here,’ he said.
She looked quizzically at his hand and then her eyes opened wide with delight. She took the leather thong and put it around her neck. The half token lay at her throat. She stroked his hand with a swift gesture. ‘I thought it was lost, that I’d never see it again.’ She touched the token gently with two fingertips. ‘The Romans took it.’ She frowned. ‘How ever did you find it?’
‘Did they hurt you?’ he asked suddenly.
‘Who?’
Serpicus couldn’t speak for a moment. Then it came, a rasping sound. ‘The legionaries.’
She looked puzzled. ‘No. What do you mean?’
His throat seemed to be closing. ‘Cato said that they…’ He couldn’t finish.
She smiled and shook her head. ‘Whatever he said, he lied,’ she said softly. ‘None of them touched me.’
One did, he thought, and his voice returned.
He knew that he was doing something more wrong than he had ever done, and he still did it. The words poured out, with all the pain that filled him.
He felt her body grow cold and tense, as if she had died and stiffened in a moment. She pulled slowly away from him and sat up.
‘You didn’t ask that,’ she said. ‘Tell me again what you just said, and this time lie to me, please.’
Her eyes were soft, her voice filled with tears. For a moment he felt his questions freeze on his lips, then the hot pain inside him melted them and they tumbled out. He tried to sound reasonable and he heard his voice accusing her and he didn’t care what she’d done but he still couldn’t stop. The images and sounds spilt out and flooded over both of them, the scene in the tent, her words, her face, her movements, everything that he had sat and watched in silence in the dark, and which had clawed at his gut like an iron grapnel since that moment. Like blood from a deep wound it poured from him, flowed until he was empty and felt nothing at all except his own anguish.
She didn’t speak for a long time, but looked at the ground. He wished desperately that she would speak.
Then, so slowly he wasn’t sure if she was doing it, she lifted her bowed head. Her eyes were dry, full of anger. She reached up to her neck and took the ivory token in her fist. With one short tug she ripped it from her neck. He felt his heart tear from its roots as she did it, and suddenly he was free. He knew he loved her, how stupid his questions had been, how little it mattered. He closed her open fingers over the token and pressed them gently, sure of himself.
She looked at him as if he was a stranger.
‘Always,’ she said softly.
‘No doubt,’ he said, with emphasis, willing the edges of the torn fabric of their life to meet and join again.
She smiled a little, and opened her fingers. The token fell to the ground and they both looked at it.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he said.
She reached up, her face blank, and touched his cheek with an infinite gentleness. He almost closed his eyes with relief.
Then she stood and started to walk away.
‘Where are you going?’
She didn’t reply. His mind tilted and he moved forward in confusion, and then with a lurch of the heart he ran after her until he was close enough to reach out and hold her arm.
She turned and her expression thrust a knife into his chest. Anger, perhaps pity, but no love.
‘Listen to me well,’ she said, sounding like she was choking, ‘for we will never speak again.’
He opened his mouth to protest, and then shut it again.
She took a breath, calmed herself. When she spoke she was in control, though her voice trembled and stumbled with suppressed passion.
‘That bastard Roman came to our home – my home – and sat at my table… and told me that if I wanted to live, if I wanted… wanted our children to live, if I wanted you to live, I would have to do… do what he told me.’
She seemed to choke, then coughed and spat. She tossed her hair back and looked up into his face, held the words up for him to see.
‘He explained my situation to me.’ She smiled. ‘In detail.’ A tear ran down her cheek. She ignored it.
‘The choice was simple. If I tried to escape, the children would die. If I resisted him, the children would die. If I ever looked anything other than entirely delighted to receive his attentions, if I didn’t scream with pleasure at his slightest touch, the children would die.’
She paused. Her breath was coming in tight short bursts. She stood close to him and whispered into his face.
‘Do you… can you… have any idea what that is like? Can you imagine what it means to wish a thousand screaming tortures upon a man, a man who threatens the lives of your children, and to… and to have that man pawing at you, whispering love into your ear, pushing himself into you? And while he does it you must encourage him, cry out for pleasure, beg for more?’ Tears were now streaming down her cheeks. Her voice rose. ‘Try, Serpicus! Try and imagine that! And while you do it, while you try to imagine what that feels like, imagine what more you would yet do to protect your family.’ She stepped close to him and her eyes burned into his. Her voice stuttered with pent-up rage. ‘Tell me that you would not bend over an ox-cart and spread yourself while a whole legion took turns at you, and do it willingly if you thought it would protect your children. Tell me you would not laugh and beg them for more if that was what it took to keep the children safe.’ She was just a finger-length away, spitting her anger into his eyes. ‘Tell me it isn’t true!’
He couldn’t face her. Her words struck him like hammers. He stepped back.
‘Yes,’ he said, almost inaudibly.
She moved forward, leaning towards him, looking up into his face. ‘What? Yes what?’
‘It is true. You are right. I would do it all. Yes, of course. Of course.’
She stepped back from him. ‘I would too,’ she said. ‘I did.’ She paused, looking at him as if he was her enemy. ‘That’s what you saw. What I must live with.’
He sank to the ground. His head was full of noise and he could neither hear nor see. The world no longer meant anything to him.
He lay there for a time that had no length, and then he felt someone shaking him.
He opened his eyes. His head was still unclear, but he could make sense of the world again. He knew who he was, what he felt, what he must do.
Brutus shook him hard. ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘It’s time to move on.’ He looked around. ‘Where’s Antonia?’
Serpicus shook his head, trying to snap himself fully awake. ‘Isn’t she here?’
‘No. I’ll take a look around.’ Brutus looked at him as if about to say something, then didn’t. ‘You stay here,’ he muttered, and stood up. Decius was revealed behind him, looking serious. The two of them went off together.
Serpicus sat on the ground and waited. The memory of what he had done ached like a bad tooth. He lifted and turned it over in his mind repeatedly, as if expecting to find something different under it. Something on the ground caught his eye. He reached out for it. It was the ivory token, lying where she had dropped it.
There was a loud crack nearby as a branch broke. Serpicus rolled sideways and reached for a weapon.
‘It’s me!’ hissed Brutus, running bent double across the clearing towards him. Serpicus started to stand and Brutus put a heavy arm on his shoulder. ‘Stay down!’
‘Where’s Antonia?’
Brutus hesitated and didn’t look at him. ‘Hiding, or gone. Nowhere that I can see. She took one of the horses.’
Serpicus knew from his face that she had spoken to Brutus before she left. He struggled to stand up. Brutus pushed him back down again. ‘Stay where you are. There are people out there.’
‘I don’t care, I have to…’
Brutus knelt in front of Serpicus, took him by both shoulders and hissed into his face. ‘If they’re Romans then what you have to do is absolutely
nothing because otherwise it’ll be the last thing you ever do, understand?’ Serpicus didn’t reply and Brutus shook him roughly. ‘Understand?’
‘Yes.’
They crawled forward to the edge of the clearing, and Brutus lifted his head very slowly. Serpicus watched, and saw his face spread into a wide grin. He stood up without troubling to conceal himself. Serpicus heard a surprised voice nearby, and then running feet. Something that felt uncomfortably like a sharp spear-point was pressed against the back of his neck. He turned very slowly to see who was behind him, expecting to get a blow on the head. Instead he was allowed to turn all the way. One of Drenthe’s four bodyguards was behind him, holding the spear. Two others were quickly scouting the clearing. The fourth was standing next to Brutus, looking at him in a way that suggested that the smile on Brutus’ face was more than just a social pleasantry. She was a handsome woman, hard-muscled and scarred. She wore a yellow boar’s tooth on a worn leather thong at her throat.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘We thought you’d got lost.’
Brutus smiled down at his new friend. ‘Not a bit of it,’ he said. ‘We thought we’d take a rest and let you find us.’ His new friend laughed with a cheerfulness and enthusiasm that the comment didn’t really deserve.
‘Like we found this one,’ she said, and pointed at Galba, who was sitting on the ground nearby looking sheepish.
‘Are you all right?’
Serpicus turned. Drenthe was in front of him. Her leather armour was stained with blood and smoke and her hair was in matted ropes around her head, but she looked unharmed.
‘Yes,’ he said, without inflection.
She opened her mouth to speak but then said nothing, as if something about him had told her that there was nothing to be said. She looked around and spoke to Brutus.
‘We must keep moving. The Romans will not be far away.’
‘Where to?’
She shrugged. ‘Any direction will do. Our people are all around us.’
Brutus frowned. ‘And will they take us in? Even after what happened at Gelbheim? Would they risk the same?’
The woman beside him looked as if she had only just prevented herself from reaching up and ruffling his hair. ‘This is not Rome,’ she said gruffly. ‘You have been away from Germany for long enough to forget, or you would know that what happened at Gelbheim makes it more likely that they will take us in, not less.’
Brutus looked almost ashamed. ‘Of course.’
Decius appeared from some nearby bushes. He had worked his way back up the hill until he was close enough to see who the new arrivals were. Drenthe looked at him and smiled in welcome. He blushed and looked down, then up again.
‘That boy’s growing up,’ said Brutus.
Drenthe and Brutus inspected the horses.
‘What do you think?’ Drenthe said.
Brutus looked at the animals and shook his head. ‘So long as we just walk then they’ll be able to carry someone. Try and gallop them and they won’t get over the next hill.’
‘I agree.’ Drenthe directed her bodyguards to take up positions around them. ‘You ride slowly, in a straight line. Our horses are fresher. We will circle around you and warn you of anything ahead.’
Brutus started to protest, then stopped. There was no other sensible course of action. They set off with Drenthe at the front and Decius and Galba just behind her. Serpicus sat inert on his horse like a sack of damp corn, feeling their eyes upon him. They all knew Antonia, yet none of them had commented on her disappearance. There was only one explanation; she had spoken to Brutus before she left, and he had told the others. There was nothing for them to say, so they stayed away from him.
The horses picked their way carefully forward, their heads low with exhaustion. Drenthe’s bodyguard formed pairs and rode one in front and one behind, with the other two acting as outriders, riding a bow-shot either side of them, back and forth just below the horizon. The pairs changed over every half-hour so that the horses could rest.
The bodyguard who had Brutus’ special attention galloped up from behind them, her hair streaming out behind her like a banner. The outriding pair came in from either side to meet her and escort her in. Drenthe turned at the sound of the horses’ hooves behind them and called out, ‘What’s wrong?’
The bodyguard sat tall in her saddle and looked back from where she had come. She pointed behind them and a little to the west.
‘Romans. Coming this way. They saw me.’
Drenthe looked around. They were on an open stretch of grassland between two areas of thick woodland, without cover or natural defences. The horses were exhausted. The Romans would just ride them down. ‘How many?’
‘Twenty, perhaps more.’
Brutus looked around. ‘Not good odds,’ he said.
Drenthe looked at Serpicus and then at Brutus and shook her head slightly. ‘The forest begins again on the other side of the hill.’ She pointed west. ‘Make it to the trees and you will be able to hide there.’
Decius drew his sword. The chipped and scarred edge rattled as it left the scabbard. ‘And what about you?’
‘I thought I would see Rome.’ Her voice was wistful. ‘It seems my visions were wrong.’ She smiled and gave a little shrug as she drew her sword. ‘Not for the first time.’
‘No.’
Drenthe looked up in surprise. Her bodyguard looked at the other two women, saw their expressions, and then repeated it. ‘No.’
‘You have an alternative?’
The woman pointed with her spear at the hill. ‘We stay here. You push on for the forest. Romans have bad memories of Germans amongst the trees. They will fear ambush, they won’t follow you.’
Galba shook his head. Brutus moved forward, frowning. ‘But there are only three of you. It’s hopeless, you’ll die for no reason.’
She smiled, and took her bow from her pack. ‘One German is worth five Romans any day. We will slow them down, reduce their numbers at least, perhaps even stop them altogether. That’s a reason.’
‘But you cannot hope to win.’
The other two bodyguards nodded fiercely. ‘If you leave now, it will be for a reason,’ said one of them. ‘If we stand here and debate it, it will certainly all be for nothing.’
‘I will come with you,’ said Brutus, looking at her as if he had suddenly found something after searching all his life for it. She shook her head with a smile.
‘No. You must look after Drenthe. Don’t worry, we will kill many Romans and then we will follow you.’ She reached to her throat, closed her hand around the tooth that hung there and pulled hard. The leather cord snapped and she tossed the tooth to Brutus. ‘Keep that for me till I return.’ She swung her horse’s head away to the rear of the small column and the three women galloped hard back down the slope.
Serpicus looked at Brutus, who was staring at the ivory-coloured tooth in his hand.
‘Come on!’ snapped Drenthe. ‘If they are determined to get killed to save us, let’s make sure it isn’t wasted.’
All five horses were exhausted. The hill grew steeper and they had to dismount, dragging the unwilling animals up the slope until they reached the top.
Serpicus saw all three of his friends looking at him surreptitiously. He didn’t know what they were thinking. His memory burned him, the pain and guilt filled him. He had nothing to say. He ignored them.
When they arrived at the top they paused to look back.
At that exact moment a riderless horse galloped through the trees. A red cloth flapped under the saddle.
‘Roman,’ said Galba softly.
In the next few moments two more horses came into view. One was wounded and dragged his foreleg.
‘Recognize them?’ Decius asked.
Brutus shook his head. ‘Might be Roman, might not.’
The wind was blowing into their faces from the direction of the fight. They listened, straining for a sound.
‘I think I can hear something,’ said Galba. ‘Metal
.’
They all heard a high-pitched scream, rising and falling to a whisper.
Then it went quiet.
Men appeared at the tree-line. Serpicus counted them. Eight, nine, ten, about half of them on horseback. A pause. Then two more, both mounted. One was slumped forward in his saddle with an arm hanging uselessly. Two men slid awkwardly off their horses and lay stretched out on the ground, not moving. Another had both hands raised to his head and was held onto the saddle by two companions.
Drenthe stood beside them and looked down at the stricken Romans. ‘Apparently my guard did well,’ she said in a level voice. ‘Once the Romans pull themselves together they’ll follow the tracks. There will be others. Rest a moment. I’ll go ahead, make sure there isn’t an ambush waiting.’ Brutus watched her go.
‘She’s a cold bitch,’ Serpicus said, almost to himself, and spat on the ground.
Decius whirled around and strode towards Serpicus, tugging at his sword, fury on his face. Brutus held out an arm in front of him. Decius tried to push the arm aside but Brutus didn’t move. Decius snapped the sword back into its scabbard and turned away.
Brutus moved close to Serpicus. ‘Don’t think you’re the only one who feels anything,’ he said seriously. ‘There is more at stake here than your domestic problems. If you think she doesn’t care then you aren’t looking hard enough.’ He began to turn away and then looked back. ‘And if you ever say anything like that again, I’ll put you on the ground myself.’
Serpicus looked at him dully. Galba stepped between them and pushed Serpicus away, his face expressionless. Serpicus could see how hard his friends were trying not to judge him. He wondered why he had said what he did about Drenthe.
They heard the sound of another horse coming from the other direction. It was the fourth bodyguard, returned from scouting in front of them. She trotted up to them and looked around. She realized immediately that something had happened.
‘What’s wrong?’ she said.