by Ruth Downie
Cass was muttering something that sounded like ‘Oh dear, oh dear …’
Tilla said, ‘I hope this Phoebe serves breakfast.’
They were barely past the first warehouse when she stopped.
‘Is it here?’ Cass was gazing around her. ‘I can’t see it.’
‘Something else.’
The sight of chained slaves was not unusual. What Tilla had not expected was that the grimy and dejected figures slumped on the dockside ready for loading would be dressed just like the people she had left at home. She hurried forward, ignoring the guard who was busy chewing and examining his own teethmarks in a hunk of bread.
Kneeling by the nearest woman — the trader had at least had the decency to chain the men separately from the women and children — she whispered in her own language, ‘I am Darlughdacha of the Corionotatae amongst the Brigantes. What is your name, Sister?’
The woman’s sunken eyes held no expression.
‘We are nobody,’ said the girl chained next to her. ‘We are prisoners. Leave us alone.’
‘You must have a tribe. Your accent is — what? Selgovae?’
‘We have no tribe.’
‘Of course you do! Selgovae? Anavionenses?’
‘What does it matter?’ demanded the girl. ‘In a few days we’ll dock in Ostia, and they’ll put us up for sale like cattle.’
‘What is she saying?’ demanded Cass, crouching beside Tilla. ‘Does she know my brother?’
The girl looked at them both, asking in British, ‘What does that one want? Why are you here?’
‘Tilla! What is she saying?’
Tilla put a hand over Cass’s. ‘She doesn’t know your brother. She has her own troubles.’ She turned back to the girl. ‘I cannot help you,’ she said, ‘and our own gods cannot hear you from here. But I have found out there is a great god who is everywhere, a god with no name who answers if you call him Father.’
Several of the nearby slaves were paying attention now. The guards were watching too.
‘My friend needed to travel to this place, and straight away this Father God sent a man with a cart to bring us,’ continued Tilla. She glanced round before adding. ‘He is more powerful than the Emperor. He has a son called Christos, and the Romans tried to kill him, and he came back to life. You should try praying to him.’
The girl held out both palms. ‘We have nothing to give.’
‘He does not want your gifts. He likes …’ Tilla paused, wondering exactly what this God the Father did want. ‘He likes songs and long prayers,’ she said, ‘and sharing food and — oh, you must stop doing sins and you have to forgive people, and then Christos will come back from heaven and fetch you.’
‘What are sins?’ asked a woman.
‘Forgive which people?’ demanded one of the men.
Tilla, who was not exactly sure what sins were herself, said, ‘People who need forgiving, I suppose.’ Somehow this new way of life did not seem as attractive here as it had in the company of the other believers.
‘So,’ said the woman, ‘if we honour this Father God and forgive the guards, will he help us escape?’
‘I don’t know,’ admitted Tilla. ‘But they say that if you love this god and obey him, he will take you to live with him in the next world when you die.’
‘Huh,’ retorted the man. ‘We’d like a bit of help before then.’
Tilla got to her feet. ‘You will never know till you try,’ she said. Turning to the girl, she said, ‘Courage, Sister. I have been a slave to a Roman. He is a good man. It may not be as bad as you fear.’
‘I hope not,’ agreed the girl, ‘because what I fear is very bad indeed.’
As Tilla and Cass began to walk away the man called after them, ‘Oi! What tribe did you say you were?’
‘Corionotatae. Of the Brigantes.’
‘I might have known!’ retorted the man. ‘Trust a Brigante to be playing both ends against the middle.’
‘That’s enough!’ called the guard, putting his bread down. ‘No more talking!’ He turned to Tilla. ‘If you’re not buying, don’t interfere with the stock.’
Tilla sighed. ‘My people,’ she said sadly, gazing out between the masts to where a lump of driftwood was swirling on the current. ‘Always the same.’
‘What is the matter with your people?’
‘Nothing,’ said Tilla, setting out once more along the wharf. ‘They are clever and brave. But when you offer them something good they can always find a reason why it will not work. I tried to tell them about Christos.’
‘Justinus believed Christos would take him to heaven,’ Cass mused, falling into step with her. ‘But how will Christos find him when his body is not buried?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Tilla. ‘I have only been to one meeting. I think there are some things I have not found out yet.’
62
Ruso woke, stared at the ceiling and remembered why there was no one in the bed beside him. One by one, all the other things he was supposed to be worrying about sidled into his mind and drifted around it like unwelcome guests. Thus it was something of a relief to realize that he had something to celebrate. He was not poisoned.
He swung his feet to the floor, stood up, stretched, then bent and touched his toes, wincing at the stiffness from yesterday’s accident with the horse. He flexed his fingers, shook his head and spent a quiet moment assessing the state of his interior. Then he slapped his thighs, punched both fists in the air and went in search of breakfast.
‘Galla!’
She changed course, eyes wide with apprehension.
‘You promised to give me something. Where is it?’
She swallowed. ‘I cannot, my lord.’
‘While you are part of this household, Galla, you are to do as I say.’
She lowered her head and said, ‘Yes, my lord.’ Her stance as well as her voice betrayed her misery.
‘You might think it doesn’t matter,’ he explained, ‘but you see where all this secret society business has led to with Tilla. If this sort of thing carries on they’ll decide to start rooting out the Christians again. Don’t you think this family’s in enough trouble?’
‘We would never want to cause you trouble, my lord.’
‘Not we,’ prompted Ruso, ‘they. Now what is it, and where is it?’
Moments later Ruso was in the study with the door wedged shut, munching on an apple and running one finger along a line of Greek lettering. When he reached the end of what appeared to be the first sentence, he threw back his head and laughed.
All slaves under the yoke must have absolute respect for their masters.
What a shame it was that Galla could not read this document she had been hiding inside Little Lucius’ mattress. The rest of it was a denunciation of philosophy, a shrewd observation that a fondness for money was at the root of most of the world’s troubles and some sort of rant about fighting a good religious fight in order to win eternal life.
That, as far as he could recall, was the original problem with the Christians, even before they had started enticing women away from home. They saw religion as a fight. They upset everyone else by refusing to sacrifice to the normal gods on the grounds that their own wouldn’t like it, ignored polite requests to be a little more open-minded and then refused to be coerced, in the belief that clinging stubbornly to their faith in this world would win them happiness for ever in the next one.
On the other hand, ‘absolute respect’ surely meant obedience? He would read this to her and translate it before he burned it. As an obedient slave with absolute respect for her master, Galla would do what she was told and stop fooling around with foreign religions.
63
Yesterday’s bread was dry, but cheaper. The two women were washing it down with a jug of watered vinegary wine, leaning over the ramshackle bar that opened on to a side street where two slaves were laying out a great length of fat rope. As Cass explained about the drowned brother, Tilla wondered how the grim-faced woman beh
ind the counter could possibly have managed to lure away somebody else’s husband.
‘The only thing I know,’ said Phoebe, not looking up from stirring one of the huge pots set into the counter, ‘is that the dead don’t come back.’
Cassiana straightened her shoulders. ‘But we can remember them.’
‘What I’m saying,’ continued the woman, ‘is, you don’t want to listen to drunks and layabouts. So if you’re chasing this rubbish about ghosts, you’re wasting your time.’
‘Ghosts?’ Cass’s hands on the counter turned into fists. ‘Who has seen a ghost?’
The woman lifted out the spoon. ‘They all drowned. The captain and the owner and the crew and your brother. Don’t waste your time.’
‘Tell us about the ghosts,’ said Tilla.
‘A couple of fools who reckon they saw the captain and the owner. Late at night in a bar, of course.’
‘What are their names?’ Cass was almost on top of the counter now. ‘Which bar was it?’
‘I told you, it’s rubbish.’
Tilla handed her too much money for the breakfast and said, ‘You knew this captain and this owner?’
‘I’ve seen them once or twice. They reckoned they were too good for us in here.’ The woman counted the coins and did not offer to return any change.
‘And these two were the only ghosts anyone saw?’ asked Cass again.
‘Copreus and Ponticus.’
‘Tell us what these men looked like,’ urged Tilla. When the woman looked her in the eye she handed over another coin. At this rate they would be walking home.
Moments later a fat man who walked with two sticks rolled up to the bar and manoeuvred himself on to the stool. The woman abandoned her attempts to describe the missing Copreus and Ponticus, and moved away to greet her latest customer by name.
Tilla said, ‘One last question. Where do I find someone who has seen these ghosts?’
‘One of them cheap whorehouses downstream,’ said Phoebe, without turning round. ‘I wouldn’t know which. I’m a decent woman.’
Evidently the time Tilla had bought had run out.
Beside her, Cass murmured, ‘How can we go into places like that? What will Lucius say?’
‘It is not going in that is difficult,’ said Tilla, gathering up the two extra loaves she had bought to give to the chained slaves. ‘It is getting out. Besides, in a town this size we could spend all day finding them all.’ She weighed the purse slung around her neck. ‘We will have to buy more bad wine and make do with talking to bar girls.’ She glanced at her companion. ‘We will find out everything there is to know, Cass. Now we know that Captain Copreus is a muscly man with tattoos, and that this Ponticus wears a bronze ring with a ruby set in it. If they are alive, we will find them. I promise. Don’t cry.’
‘I am not crying for myself.’ Cassiana rubbed her fist across her eyes. ‘I am crying for my brother, here alone with all these wicked people.’
64
Outside the gladiators’ barracks, groups of rival supporters had taken to trading insults and chanting the names of their favourites in an atmosphere that suggested a party rather than a fight. Inside, half a dozen men Ruso did not recognize were sparring with wooden practice weapons under the eye of a trainer. The yard smelled of beef stew, grease and fear.
He made his way across to the surgery, where the assistants were ripping up linen rags and rolling them into bandages. Gnostus was perched on the operating table by the window, running one finger along the script of a writing-tablet. At the sight of Ruso, he leaped up and thrust the tablet under his nose. ‘Anything I’ve missed off?’
Sponges, plenty of ligatures, splints, needles … Ruso scanned the list, mentally rearranging it into a more logical order. It would be no good remembering something vital tomorrow.
‘There could be as many as twenty casualties in here,’ pointed out Gnostus. ‘And we’ll have to patch up the animal hunters, too. But of course some will go straight to the undertakers.’
Ruso nodded. ‘Looks fine to me,’ he said, handing the list back. ‘As long as your boys know where to find it all.’
Gnostus glanced round to make sure there was nobody but the slaves in earshot, then admitted, ‘I’ve never done anything as big as this before. Any advice?’
Ruso watched a slave chase a long strip of linen along his knee until it became a fat roll of bandage and wondered what he could possibly offer that would help. ‘Talk to your men beforehand,’ he suggested. ‘Make sure everybody knows who’s doing what. Split the roles into examination, surgery and dressing, get the porters organized and delegate the simple stuff.’
‘That’s how they do it in the Legions?’
‘That’s how I do it. Once things hot up, you just have to try to keep going without yelling at the staff or falling asleep over the patients. So, what do you want me to do?’
Gnostus thought about that for a moment. ‘Right now,’ he said, ‘look confident while I get the team together for a briefing.’
‘Do they know I’m the town poisoner?’
‘You haven’t met my lads,’ said Gnostus. ‘You’ll fit in nicely.’
Ruso spent most of the briefing wondering what was happening to Tilla and Cass, and the rest trying not to speculate on the tales that could be told by the half-dozen scarred and ragged individuals summoned to support the medical staff. Gnostus introduced him as a veteran surgeon from the Twentieth Legion. If any of them had heard anything else about him, their faces did not betray it. Despite looking as though they had just been scraped out of a gutter, they also seemed to know what they were doing.
As the men shuffled out, Gnostus grinned at Ruso. ‘I s’pose this is like tying your bootlaces to you, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, gods above,’ muttered Ruso, glancing out of the door and seeing Tertius approaching across the yard. Then, in answer to Gnostus’ question, ‘No, not really. No, it isn’t. I’ve never done anything quite like this before either. Excuse me a minute.’
Tertius stopped and stood to attention as Ruso approached.
‘Tertius, I’m sorry — ’
‘I’d like to thank you for trying to help, sir,’ said Tertius stiffly. ‘And to request a small favour.’
While Ruso was hoping a small favour would not mean smuggling him out through the gate, the lad held out one fist, turned it over and opened it to reveal an iron ring and a couple of fat sestertius coins on his palm. ‘I’d be grateful if you could give the ring to Marcia and the money to my aunt, who works at the amphora factory of Lollia Saturnina.’
Ruso took the ring and the coins and slipped them into his purse. ‘Of course.’ He pulled out the writing-tablet that was tucked into his belt and said, ‘Marcia asked me to give you this.’
The youth took the writing-tablet that Ruso had eventually accepted from Marcia late the previous night and refrained from unsealing and reading. Initially she had been so unrepentant over the ‘come home’ letter that he had refused to take it. But she had pointed out that Tertius had done nothing wrong and he might be dead in two days’ time, and did Ruso want to make his last hours on earth even more miserable than they already were? Didn’t he want to make him happy and confident and give him the best possible chance in the arena?
Tertius snapped the thread and ran his finger along the lines of text, his lips forming the words as he deciphered them. He swallowed hard, then held out the tablet to Ruso.
‘I want you to know that your sister’s letter is completely respectable, sir.’
‘I’m sure it is,’ said Ruso, motioning it away with his hand. In the circumstances he felt the lad deserved something passionate rather than respectable, but preferably not from his own sister. ‘I wish I could help.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘We haven’t got the money,’ explained Ruso, feeling irrationally guilty that he had not tried to raise it. ‘At the moment, nobody would want to lend it to me.’
‘That’s all right, sir,’ declared Tertius,
raising one arm in a good imitation of a military salute. ‘I wish you good fortune.’
‘And I you,’ said Ruso, returning the salute and noting how much more mature Tertius seemed to be now that there was no hope of escaping the arena tomorrow. He said, ‘I hope we’ll be in a position to discuss this again in the future.’
Tertius dropped his arm. ‘You can count on it, sir,’ he said, his face lighting up in a grin that would have broken Marcia’s heart.
65
‘I hear you young ladies are looking for Copreus.’
The grin was predatory, and the breath stank of cheap wine and onions, but he had the deep tan and the muscled forearms of a mariner. Tilla resisted Cass’s tug on her arm. There was a chance he might know something.
‘We are looking for anyone who knows the crew who sailed with my friend’s brother,’ she said, reaching along the counter and pouring him a drink from their own jug. They had worked their way down to the seediest of the side-street bars now: the sort where nobody bothered to sweep up the cockroaches after they squashed them.
Cass had grown paler and quieter with every place they entered. Tilla was beginning to feel more and more light-headed despite her efforts to drink mostly water. ‘The brother was lost on the Pride of the South,’ she explained, glancing across to judge the distance to the door. ‘We want to raise a memorial.’
‘A memorial, eh?’ Dark creases of embedded grime appeared on the man’s neck as he raised the cup and drained a long, slow draught of wine. ‘Next time I see old Copreus, I’ll tell him. He’ll like that.’
Tilla felt Cass’s fingers dig into her wrist. She tried to keep her voice calm as she said, ‘You have seen him?’
He held out his cup. When he had drunk the refill the foul breath wafted closer until their heads were almost touching. ‘Large as life,’ he whispered. ‘Sitting over in that corner there.’
Both women turned to peer into the dingy corner, where an old man was hopefully not as dead as he looked.