by George Green
The silence was broken only by Decius’ muted grief.
Galba stood beside Serpicus and looked around the clearing. ‘Too many people have died here,’ he said quietly. Serpicus nodded but didn’t speak.
The lines in Severus’ brow deepened. ‘Now what will you do?’ he asked.
Serpicus didn’t reply immediately. He fingered the handle of his sword and looked out over the trees to the south. Then he looked at Severus with a decisive set to his face.
‘We’ll bury the dead. Then I’m going back to Rome.’
Severus nodded. ‘Us too. We’ll all travel together then. It’ll be safer.’ He hesitated. ‘Then what?’
Serpicus looked to the sky again. ‘I’m going to find that bastard Cato, and I’ll kill him and see if that satisfies me, and if it isn’t enough then I may just kill Blaesus as well.’
Chapter Thirty-Five
Severus raised both eyebrows. ‘You’ll have a job to do that, with the number of guards he goes around with. But if you manage it they’ll probably declare a public holiday in your name.’
‘You won’t stop me?’
The centurion shrugged. ‘Blaesus can take care of himself, and if you don’t kill him then there are plenty of others who will try. You have as good reason as any.’
‘And Cato?’
Severus frowned. ‘Do what you want with him. I don’t approve of assassins, or spies, or liars, or people who hurt the families of my friends. I never liked him even before I knew he was all those things.’
‘I don’t ask for your help. There’s no need for you to be implicated. All I ask is that you don’t try and prevent me.’
‘None of us will.’ He glanced across at Decius. ‘What about the lad?’
‘It’s his choice.’
At that moment Decius laid Drenthe’s head gently on the ground. He stood up, pushed something inside his shirt, and then faced them.
‘I’m coming back to Rome with you,’ he said, his face drawn with pain. The innocence of his face was gone. He had aged in a day.
‘You don’t have to,’ said Serpicus.
‘Yes I do. Cato and Blaesus killed her as much as Consilius. I want to be there when you kill them.’
Severus coughed and shook himself, then smiled. ‘Looks like we’ll have a good party then. Let’s get going.’
Severus went off to arrange things. Serpicus stood still, looking into the forest. Galba reached out to put a hand on his shoulder and then moved away.
Decius spoke from behind him. ‘You loved her too.’ Serpicus said nothing. Decius came beside him, standing very close. ‘She’s dead. Why don’t you care?’
Serpicus felt as if he was standing on the edge of a cliff on a moonless night. He’d lost his wife through Cato’s malevolence and his own lack of faith, and he’d just watched the first woman he’d ever loved, who perhaps he still loved, die in front of him. Any normal person would surely be stricken with grief, but all he felt was a deep numbness, a cold polished space where the pain ought to be. It was as if the death that had followed his every step since his first meeting with Blaesus, that had killed almost everyone around him, had now entered his heart and set hard and cold, formed a dark lack inside him. Only one thing made sense. He knew what he had to do. He didn’t know if Cato’s death would make anything better; it didn’t matter. The life he had loved was over. Only revenge was left. Everything else was meaningless.
And yet, as he stood staring silently and unseeing into the forest, he knew that in the dark, far below him, and out of sight at the bottom of the great cliff in front of him, a small boy remembered lying on his back to look up at the trees and wondering how it was that she was able to creep up on him and not be heard until she laughed to startle him, and knew that now all that was left of her to him was the memory.
Decius saw something in Serpicus’ face and stopped asking questions. They stood together and gazed without seeing into the dark.
* * *
They were tired and the ground was hard, and so it took them the rest of the day to bury Brutus’ and Drenthe’s bodies. When it was done they stood back in a circle around the graves and there was silence for a while. Then Decius looked up at Serpicus with a face wet with tears.
‘Please say something,’ he whispered. ‘They both deserve it.’
Serpicus looked down at the two mounds of earth.
‘No man is so rich in friends that he can afford to lose two like these,’ he said. ‘They both died as they lived, freely choosing their own paths. It is too late now for us to tell them that we loved them, or to thank them for their company. It is too late to do anything but remember them, to keep their names fresh in our hearts, and to hope that we may meet them again one day.’ He looked across the graves at Severus. ‘They did not ask that we avenge them. Any debt we feel is our own, not theirs. Anything that is to be done is by our own choice and decision. They expect nothing of us, except that which we feel we owe. We will honour them, each in his own way. There is nothing more to say.’
The words sounded hollow to Serpicus, but Decius was right, they deserved more than silence. Everything Serpicus cared about was gone, dead or lost to him. Only finding Cato made sense, meant anything. Serpicus bent down and picked up his weapons and his pack. He started walking south without looking back.
Chapter Thirty-Six
To Aelius Sejanus, from his Servant:
I trust that your mission to Sicily has met with every success. I regret that I was not able to return in time to inform you of those matters that need to be drawn to your attention, notably the failure of General Marcus to prevent the loss of the camp at Gelbheim. I shall prepare a dossier for your return.
I regret to have to inform you of the death of Consilius, your nephew, who died fighting heroically against barbarian rebels in Germany. A great funeral games will be held to do suitable honour to his memory.
We have received confirmation of the death of the rebel leader Drenthe. She appears to have lingered for some days before succumbing to the wound I gave her. All obstacles are now cleared, as you ordered.
Rome awaits your return eagerly, as does your Servant.
The path back to Rome took them the way they had come. The men recognized where they were; it was the hill above Gelbheim where they had waited for Serpicus and Brutus to return on the day they arrived. Severus, who was leading the small column, raised a hand wearily.
‘We’ll camp here,’ he said, looking around him for a suitable place on the grass to put his equipment, with the air of someone to whom the idea had just occurred. Serpicus and Decius exchanged glances, and waited for him to look up. When he did his face was innocent of guile, as if there was no significance to it.
‘Thanks,’ said Serpicus. Severus looked a little surprised and shrugged his shoulders.
Decius and Serpicus rode side by side down to where the village had been. Parts of it were still smouldering. As they approached a dog trotted out. It looked like the same dog that had greeted them the day they arrived. It heard the horses and hesitated, one paw off the ground, then decided to join them.
The Romans had burnt everything before they left. Their tracks were easy to follow, a brown rutted scar on the green turf running towards the setting sun.
They rode into the village. The Romans had burned it but they hadn’t stayed to make sure it was destroyed. They looked around and found a little food, some usable clothes, even a few coins. The Romans had piled their own dead onto a pyre and burned them but there were the remains of Treveri bodies that no one had returned to claim still on the ground, their eyes gone to the crows. The survivors would wait in nearby villages and return once the Romans were gone. Until then, the crows had it to themselves.
Serpicus watched as Decius reached into his shirt and took something out. He opened his hand and showed Serpicus a blue amulet, the one Drenthe wore around her neck. Serpicus smiled as he recognized it. Decius got off the horse and walked to the centre of the smoking village. He knel
t down and dug a hole with his hands, then dropped the amulet in and covered it again with the earth. He stood nearby for a minute, silently watching, then got back on his horse. The dog trotted up to the fresh earth, sniffed it, then took up position at Decius’ horse’s heels. The horse kicked out irritably and the dog fled with a yelp of pain.
‘She would have liked it that something of her lies here,’ said Serpicus, looking away from the young man’s face.
They rode back and stopped at the top of the hill. Decius dismounted and stood on the edge where it overlooked the river, just where it rose to a slight peak before falling away to sweep down to the bend where the village had once stood. His head was raised so that his hair fell off his shoulders and straight down his back. As Serpicus got close to him he could see that Decius’ eyes were closed and a slight smile lit up his face. Serpicus started to say something, but didn’t get as far as speaking. He stood beside the young man, standing still and silent, waiting without knowing for what.
At last Decius took a deep breath and brought his head upright again. He looked out over the river valley.
‘Do you remember how the boys used to come up here every day to practise throwing?’
Serpicus smiled. ‘Yes. Sticks with dried balls of clay on one end to make them fly further.’
‘And remember how sometimes you could persuade a girl to slip away from the camp fires and come up here with you? When you were so young you didn’t know what to do with her, but just sat here holding hands and looking down at the fires burning in the village, at the dancing, at the light around your home, where your family was?’
‘You started young,’ Serpicus said. ‘When I was that age I didn’t like girls. I only started inviting them up here after I realized what they were for.’
Decius looked into the distance, narrowing his eyes slightly against the breeze. ‘I was never that age here. By the time I was old enough to find out what girls were for, I was a hostage in Rome.’ He paused and looked down at the blackened ruins of the village.
‘Can you smell the roses?’ he said.
Serpicus breathed in. The wind, and a faint smell of burning, nothing more.
‘What roses?’
Decius gestured to where the fires set by the Romans had reached down to the riverside.
‘The roses that used to grow here.’
They stood for a long time, looking down at the valley.
Serpicus remembered a night, a night like the one Decius described; not long before he left Gelbheim. He remembered dark hair in firelight and the clasp of slim fingers; wet grass on bare feet and warm lips on his, tentative but unafraid. He remembered looking into eyes so close that he could see the flecks of gold in them. He remembered how everyone knew the Romans were coming, perhaps tomorrow, and how there might not be a day after that for any of them. He remembered how nothing mattered except that she was next to him, the cool night air on their skin, nothing between them.
The memory was like a story that had been told to him by someone else; he felt numb, with no connection to it. But he was still able to smile; it was a good story. He didn’t dwell on it long: the shadow of Cato was not far behind it. Perhaps there would be time for lingering on memories one day, but not yet.
He wondered if Antonia and his children were still alive. He felt as though he ought to know the answer, as if he should be able to sense their existence like warmth from a fire, but he had no idea at all. He wanted to feel in his heart that they were well, but there was nothing.
Serpicus became aware of someone calling his name, and looked around. Severus and his men had come half-way down the hill and were standing next to a clump of trees. Severus waved him across. High above the trees Serpicus could see a small dark shape hovering, suspended against the setting sun.
When Serpicus got close he saw the men standing by the trees in a half-circle, swords and spears in their hands. They were crouched and tense like men expecting attack. Severus waved them back and they moved warily away.
‘What is it?’
Severus gestured to the centre of the trees. ‘Thought you’d want to see this.’ Serpicus took a step forward and Severus put a hand on his arm. ‘Here,’ he said, holding out his sword.
Serpicus took the sword and walked cautiously into the circle of trees.
The bear lay stretched out on the ground. The off-white coat was stained dark red with its blood in a dozen places. Arrows stuck up from its sides and several others lay on the ground beside it. A deep cut showed the bone in its shoulder, and the jagged end of the shaft of a broken javelin protruded low in its chest. Serpicus could hear its breathing, rasping and bubbling in his throat. The bear wasn’t dead yet, but it was dying.
Serpicus came closer, moving slowly and carefully. The only sign that the bear was alive was its stertorous breathing and the dry lids moving slowly across the dull eyes. Serpicus put out a hand and touched its huge head, then slid down to its neck. The white coat which looked smooth and soft was harsh and felt as if it had been oiled, but it was warm and he could feel the muscle underneath tremble under his fingers. It let out a deep groan. A slow thin trickle of blood seeped from its nose and pooled on the ground under the scarred muzzle. A single fly settled on it. Serpicus waved the insect away.
He sat up and reached for the sword Severus had given him. He knelt beside the bear and put his empty hand on its great flank. He felt the deep thump of its heart against his palm. He placed the point of the sword between the two ribs just below the heart.
‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered, and pushed suddenly with all his strength.
A single great sigh came from it, as if Serpicus had lain his full weight onto its chest. Serpicus pulled the sword free. The bear’s eyes were still open but there was a dull glaze over them. Serpicus stood up. ‘I brought you here,’ he said. ‘I can’t change that. But I owe you a life.’ He looked at the blood on his sword and at the wounds on the bear’s body. He felt a great pressure in his chest, as if death had a weight.
He breathed deep, easing the pressure. It wasn’t over. One more was required to set the balance straight. Perhaps two. He looked up into the sky. It was too dark to see if the hawk was still there.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The journey south was by night, slogging and cursing through marshes and along sheep tracks. By day they rested the horses and did their best to plan the journey to avoid the legions who were marching to the war as well as the German tribes who were marching to meet them. By the time they reached the Hinterrhein Pass they were exhausted, filthy and saddle-sore, but were far enough out of the area of insurrection to be able to travel by day without it being automatically assumed that they were invaders or deserters. The men who had escaped the Roman attack on Gelbheim by taking to the river were waiting for them. They all had colds, but were otherwise unharmed. The weather was unusually warm and wet. They waited a day for the rain to lift and then slogged through the mud over the pass and down into Italy.
There was argument about whether to ride all the way south to Rome or to take ship at Genoa. Severus settled it. He had some questions to ask in Genoa.
The reunion with Graptus was short. The harbour-master was sitting in a tavern on the dockside, where it soon became apparent he had been for some time. He was surprised and pleased to see them.
‘I was told,’ he said, ‘by the Governor of Genoa himself, no less, that I was getting a new assistant. Normally of course the Governor wouldn’t even know I existed, let alone take the trouble to find me an assistant to replace the perfectly adequate one I already had, so I knew something odd was going on straight away. But you learn not to ask too many questions if you make it to my age – in fact, that’s how you make it to my age. I was told to carry on as if everything was normal, and that’s what I’m good at. My usual assistant was sent away on holiday for a few weeks, and Cato appeared the next day. He didn’t know much about boats, but he learnt the job in no time and I had nothing to complain about. Obviously he was w
aiting for someone to arrive but I had no idea who it was, or why. He’d been here just a couple of days when you lot turned up. I had no idea it was you that he was interested in until he told me he was leaving that night. Obviously I’d have warned you about him, but I never saw you after that.’
Serpicus remembered how Cato had arranged to join them as they were leaving Genoa. When Cato told Graptus he was leaving, they were already on the road north. He hadn’t taken the chance that Graptus might tip them off.
Severus wasn’t happy.
‘I don’t believe him.’
Serpicus found himself defending the harbour-master. ‘He had nothing to gain by lying.’
‘Apart from avoiding my sword in his guts and a long sleep in the harbour,’ snorted Severus.
‘Perhaps he was frightened.’
‘He said he knew something was up. He should have told us anyway. That’s what I’d have done.’
Galba looked thoughtful. ‘Not everyone is as brave as you, Severus.’
The centurion opened his mouth and then closed it again. Even he could see that there was nothing to be done. Graptus may not have been a good friend, but he wasn’t the enemy. The tide was turning and the ship was ready to leave. Serpicus bought the harbour-master a drink and wished him well, and they boarded the ship for Rome.
Several days of calm sailing later, the clear water around them became stained with the yellow mud swept down to the sea by the Tiber, and they stepped off the pier at Ostia.
Serpicus looked up the river towards Rome and the hills surrounding it. Rome was unchanged, and yet he knew nothing was the same for him. He, Decius and Galba went to Serpicus’ house. The door was barred. Blaesus had obviously possessed it. Serpicus wanted to break the door down and take it back, but the others dissuaded him. The three of them went back to the tenement that Severus and his men were renting and hired a room for themselves. It was stuffy and dirty, but adequate. Serpicus wondered if it was not better from his point of view. His own house would have contained memories that would have confused the issue. He wanted to find Cato, but first he wanted to find his children.