“I weep every night for my husband,” the young mother protested. “You just do not hear me.” She turned to Cadogan. “Why did you not bring some servants with us?”
“We brought the people who wanted to come. You can’t blame the servants, Pamilia; they saw a chance for freedom on their own, and they took it.”
“They may all be dead by now!” she wailed.
“Perhaps.”
“When this is over can we look for them and reclaim them?”
Regina was disgusted. “This is not going to be over, you simpleton,” she told the girl. “It already is over; it ended when they sacked Viroconium. We have a new life and we must learn how to live it. You can start by washing your own clothes in the river.”
Pamilia was aghast. “I had rather die.”
“Die, then,” said Regina. “Die in dirty clothes and that is how we shall bury you.”
After some sniffling and a few feeble protests that Regina ignored, Pamilia gathered up her soiled garments and those of her children and headed for the river.
Cadogan had known it would not be easy dealing with the disparate personalities of the refugees. Mistakenly, he had expected the recalcitrant Esoros to be his aide and ally. Instead the position was ably filled by a small grandmother who tolerated no nonsense. Regina had little physical strength but great mental energy. She was the first one awake every morning and the last to go to bed at night. During the day she knew where everyone was and what they should be doing, as well as what they really were doing. Any person who shirked was given an embarrassing tongue-lashing.
Cadogan assigned the tasks; a challenge in itself. Some of the men he put to work at construction were unable to perform simple carpentry. They could not see how the pieces must fit together, and only recognized a mistake after things fell apart. Others were too impatient and insisted on forcing the materials, which resulted in considerable breakage. Any person who claimed he knew exactly how to do a job had to be watched closely. Braggadocio usually disguised ignorance.
Recognizing his own early mistakes, Cadogan had a sneaking sympathy for all of them. But there was more to be done than building cabins. Even as he worked his mind was busy laying the foundations for the next step, the next series of actions that seemed inevitable to him if to no one else.
He formed the habit of talking things over with Regina at the end of the day, after the children had been put to bed and before the fire was banked for the night. At his invitation Regina and her family had remained in his house after the others moved out. Vintrex, Esoros and Quartilla were also sharing the house—Vintrex had been given his son’s bed—but Cadogan wanted someone he could talk to; someone with an orderly mind. Regina listened intently to his ideas, asked intelligent questions and offered constructive criticism. Best of all, she made valuable contributions.
“The number of people you brought here would populate a sizable village,” she observed. “Did you not say the Saxons are targeting towns? Is it wise for us to live so close together?”
“It’s the obvious thing to do,” said Cadogan. “We can look after one another and share the work.”
“Who said obvious is better? There will be no work to share if a horde of Saxons swoop down and slaughter us all at the one time. Could we not spread out a bit?”
Cadogan immediately saw the wisdom of her suggestion. He could envision a handful of cabins scattered seemingly at random through the forest, well out of sight of one another. “We won’t look anything like a town,” he told Regina. “We won’t even have roads. We’ll only use the trackways the deer use.”
Regina agreed enthusiastically. But when Cadogan tried to explain the idea to the others he was showered with arguments. They could not visualize how it would work. Everyone saw something wrong with the plan; no one could see anything right. At last, exasperated, he selected one of his treasured books, unwrapped the scroll of papyrus, thrust the end of a thin stick into the ashes until it was covered with soot, and began drawing a detailed map on the back of the precious manuscript.
“Your houses will be spaced well apart in a sort of giant wheel, with a hub of cleared ground at the center where we can grow grain. The greater our self-sufficiency the less likely we’ll be to attract attention. It would be madness to troop off to the nearest town to buy supplies in any great number.
“The houses should be as inconspicuous as possible. This is hilly country, so we can tuck them into the contours of the land. They’ll be built low to the ground and surrounded by timber stockades like this, see? From a distance a house will look like part of a woodland. Their exact location will depend on the nearest water supply. People are too vulnerable if they have to travel a long distance for water. We’ll dig wells and divert water into ponds when we can. We’ll also need sheds and pens for livestock”—he was warming to the topic as he went along—“because we should have at least one milk cow for every family, and a couple of pigs. And oxen for the plows. And hens for eggs and meat. We should plant orchards and…”
“Where will we get seed for an orchard?” a man wanted to know.
A woman protested, “I have never milked a cow in my life!”
Another pinched her nose with her fingers. “Pigs. How very disgusting. What do you think we are, peasants?”
“We are now,” Regina said in a voice that brooked no argument. “But at least we’re living peasants. If we want to go on living we need to make intelligent plans.”
Reluctantly they gathered around Cadogan and watched as a sooty stick traced the outlines of their future. Barns and sheds and workshops and storehouses. Livestock pens. Pits for tanning leather. Pits for burning charcoal.
“You are talking about a large expenditure here,” a man warned. “Who is going to pay for the cows and pigs and oxen and plowshares? Unless I am mistaken, not all of us got out of the city with our money.”
There was a rumble of agreement. No one wanted to admit they had any money with them.
Including Cadogan.
Why does everything come down to money? he wondered. Is that our heritage from Rome? If so, it’s a blighted heritage.
I know the people who followed me from Viroconium. Some have been guests in my father’s house. Others have appeared before Vintrex in his official capacity. I can’t help knowing aspects of their lives that they would not like to have made public, and there’s not a man among them of whom I could say with certitude: He would not steal my money if he knew where it was.
Sometime during a sleepless night—and Cadogan was growing used to sleepless nights—a solution came to him. There was one person whose money no one would dare to steal.
In the morning he explained the idea to Vintrex, who roused enough from his torpor to listen. Cadogan was pleasantly surprised when his father approved. “You want to tell our friends that I am lending them money to buy what they need? I had no idea you were so clever, Cadogan. How can I object, since you will not really be using my money anyway, but your own. I assume you have it here someplace?”
“I have enough here, yes.”
“You were always financially prudent, whatever your other failings,” Vintrex said. “Of course you learned it from me.” The old man’s rheumy eyes gleamed with a telltale smugness. Cadogan knew that expression of old. His father used to wear it after he had been with Gwladys.
When he had a chance to speak with Esoros alone, Cadogan asked, “Does my father have money hidden away that no one else knows about?”
The steward’s face was a closed book. “My lord Vintrex does not tell me everything.”
“But you are privy to his personal finances. Is that not one of the responsibilities of a steward?”
“Are you questioning my ability to discharge my responsibilities?”
The steward was deflecting and Cadogan knew it. The man’s refusal to answer was an answer in itself. “I would not insult you so,” Cadogan said politely. Leaving Esoros and the fort behind, he walked out into the forest. The trees.
&n
bsp; Thinking, in peace among the trees.
In the dying years of the empire unscrupulous officials stole everything that was loose. My father proved he had no scruples when he seduced his brother’s wife. If he did amass a dishonest fortune in those days, he would have been far too clever to keep it at home. But where then? Not in the city, where everyone knew everyone else’s business.
A place like this, perhaps. Remote but not too remote.
Before they quarreled, my uncle’s country estate would have been the perfect hiding place.
Suddenly Cadogan smiled.
Dinas has been roaming the countryside for years, sniffing out buried treasure. Suppose the first hoard he discovered had belonged to the chief magistrate of Viroconium?
The irony was delicious to contemplate.
* * *
Cadogan asked Godubnus to accompany him when he went to purchase livestock. The ironmaster, who had lived outside the walls and was never a citizen of Viroconium, was easier to trust than the urbanites. He was rough and ready and spoke his mind, but Cadogan was almost certain he did not say one thing and mean another.
Still, one could not be too careful.
The day before they were to set out Cadogan waited until the others had left the fort, then quietly barred the door. Using one of the andirons, he pried up a hearthstone. Beneath it was only innocent earth, as blank as a baby’s face. Anyone else would have put the stone down again. Cadogan used the sharpest point on the andiron to scratch a hole in the earth, into which he thrust two fingers and a thumb. He felt around until he caught hold of a tightly woven string. A little twitch; a firm tug …
The carefully prepared soil fell away to partially reveal a sheet of scratched and battered tin the length of a man’s forearm. An abandoned object of no value. Lying flat on the floor, Cadogan ran his fingers along one edge of the sheet until he found a tiny catch. A flick of his forefinger and the catch released. The tin lid opened wide on concealed hinges, revealing a hidden vault containing a timber box bound with iron.
He sat up long enough to brush himself off, then knelt and reached down with both hands. It took considerable strength to open the chest that contained his personal fortune: a gleaming hoard of gold and silver coins, most of them Roman, enough to support a man for several lifetimes. In the world as it had been.
In that world Cadogan had prepared his treasury carefully, still trusting—almost trusting—that such precautions would be unnecessary.
Now he knew that no precautions would be enough.
The following morning he met Godubnus and Trebellos at the edge of the forest. Both men had packs strapped to their backs. “I thought we’d need an extra pair of hands,” Godubnus explained, indicating his companion. “Did you say we’re going to a market a half day’s walk from here?”
“A fair up in the hills,” Cadogan corrected, “and if we’re fortunate we’ll ride back. I hope to purchase a couple of horses, an ox and a milk cow to start with.”
Godubnus turned to Trebellos. “You can ride the cow,” he told the Silurian.
Twice a year, in the spring and the autumn, a great fair was held at major crossroads in the hills. The purpose of the fair was to attract people from afar to purchase local produce, and to bring items for sale that were not available in the area. It was also a wonderful opportunity for a festival.
When farmers drove their animals a long distance to sell them they hoped to get a good price, so they brought their best livestock. If Cadogan was going to find a replacement for his stolen horse, the fair would be the place. Unless, by some miracle, he might find the mare herself.
Perhaps the barbarians didn’t eat her after all.
Before they set out the three men armed themselves from the ironmaster’s supply of weapons. Godubnus took an axe, plus four knives of various sizes that he thrust through his belt. “You bristle like a hedgehog,” Pamilia teased him. An unsuspected sense of humor was beginning to surface in the shy, quiet young woman.
The Silurian’s weapon of choice was a butcher’s cleaver capable of dismembering an ox, which he strapped to the pack on his back.
Cadogan chose a knife long enough to qualify as a shortsword. “Kill a man with one thrust to the belly, that will,” Godubnus assured him.
“I don’t want to kill anyone. I actually don’t like to fight.”
“You had better get over that,” said the ironmaster.
“I’m hoping these weapons will be deterrents if we run into any trouble.”
“The only way to avoid that,” Karantec remarked, “would be to stay right here. But then we wouldn’t have any livestock.”
“So sooner or later we would starve to death,” Nassos added helpfully.
The entire population of their little settlement gathered to see them off. Smiling and waving; anxious and worried and trying not to show it.
The youngest children cried.
Cadogan and his companions had to walk for several miles to reach the road that led to the fair in the hills. There were no signposts to guide them, no landmark features. Only moorland and woodland and bog. Wind-ruffled grass, smell of pines, hum of insects. Spring pregnant with the summer to come. “I know the way,” Cadogan told the other two, “because I often went to this fair as a boy. My uncle used to breed fine horses. If he took some to the fair to sell, my cousin and I rode them for him.”
“So you’re an equestrian!” Trebellos exclaimed.
“Hardly that. An equestrian was a knight; an officer entitled by birth or appointment to ride a horse in the service of the emperor. I just enjoyed riding. My uncle liked me because I wasn’t always trying to show off the way my cousin did. Dinas could have a horse in a lather before he got out of the stable yard.” Cadogan gave a reminiscent smile. “In my memory of those days at the fair, the sun was always shining. When I sat on a horse and the crowds looked up at me I felt ten feet tall.”
The other two made no comment. There was no response to such unimaginable privilege, so casually voiced.
The hills rolled on and on like a green sea, climbing toward a particularly dense belt of forest. After they entered its cold shade the little party stopped to catch their breath. Godubnus said, “Are you sure we’re still going the right way, Cadogan?”
“See where the moss is growing on those tree trunks? That’s the north side, and we’re headed north.”
“How do you know about moss?”
Cadogan laughed. “You would be surprised what I’ve learned since I left Viroconium.”
“Do you never regret it?”
“Leaving the city? No,” Cadogan lied.
“It was either a very brave or a very foolhardy thing to do,” the ironmaster said. “You had everything a man could want there.”
Cadogan decided it would be a good idea to be frank about the situation. Starting a new life together, they would learn about one another anyway. “What I had was a father who demanded total control,” he told Godubnus. “He had a hundred sayings he kept hammering into us. ‘Duty above all else,’ ‘Compromise is cowardice,’ ‘Absolute obedience is the most noble virtue.’ We were expected to live by those aphorisms every day of our lives. The smallest misstep resulted in a furious tirade. He was as stern with us as he was with the miscreants who appeared before him in his office as chief magistrate.
“My mother suffered him in silence for the most part, though I recall a few times when she tried to stand up to him—usually in defense of one of her children. Father insulted and humiliated her until she backed down. At last my sisters escaped the old tyrant by marrying, but the only way I could escape him was by running away.”
“The chief magistrate doesn’t seem like a tyrant to me.”
“That’s because you’re not his son. Besides, he’s ill.”
“And you feel sorry for him,” Godubnus guessed.
“Perhaps I do. Sorry for him and for myself. Running away didn’t do any good, I’m stuck with him now in spite of it.”
“I don’t kno
w if we ever escape anything,” said Godubnus. “Our fate is our fate.”
“Are you sure? My cousin Dinas would argue the point with you. He thinks we have a right, almost an obligation, to take our lives into our own hands and shape them for ourselves.”
The ironmaster looked skeptical. “You believe that?”
“I would like to believe it. My cousin certainly does.”
Trebellos said, “Your cousin must be a heathen, then.”
Cadogan laughed.
When at last they came to the road they sought, it was not a road in the Roman sense at all. A wide, weed-fringed, foot-beaten trail through the forest, deeply rutted with cart tracks, never straight because it followed the contours of the land, consisting of numerous curves and bends that could conceal an ambush-in-waiting.
As he walked Cadogan heard again the voice of Dinas: “Life is the sun and the stars, the wolves howling and the rain lashing and the thrill of danger around every bend.” And what was the rest of it? Ah yes. “You will die in the end anyway, we all do.”
Is that the secret of courage, then? Accepting you are going to die no matter what, so you might as well take a risk? If it’s as simple as that I might as well have gone with Dinas.
But if I had, what would have happened to the people I brought away from Viroconium? What will happen to them anyhow?
How can one ever know when making a decision? Or is every decision as potentially dangerous as the forest, dark and full of violence. The smallest mischoice could lead to …
I wish I didn’t have to think.
Look at Godubnus and Trebellos. Striding along without a serious thought in their heads. I’m sure they don’t ask themselves questions they can’t answer. They simply accept whatever the day brings. How I envy their simplicity! Lucius Plautius would call it wisdom.
Is this constant turmoil in my mind a legacy of my Roman education? I wonder … unlike the Greeks, the Romans sought knowledge but not wisdom. Then, as if knowledge were quantifiable and their stores were complete, they abandoned any interest in intellectual pursuits and devoted themselves to the search for material wealth and the prizes of conquest. Like Dinas.
After Rome Page 23