The Burning Stone

by Jack Whyte

  “Send someone trustworthy to bring it here and place it under guard until its contents can be checked and a receipt issued to me for delivery in full. It contains four cases. They are for you, dispatched from Eboracum two weeks ago. There were two other cases. They contain my personal kit, including my dress armour, but my men will already have taken care of those along with their own kit.”

  A slow smile was flickering on Strabo’s face as he listened, and when Cato fell silent he nodded encouragement. “Go on, then,” he said. “Don’t stop there, now that you have us all wondering about it. What’s in the four cases for me?”

  Cato was silent for a moment, enjoying their suspense. Then he said, “Money to pay your troops for the next half year.”

  The stillness that settled on the room was sudden, so he knew he had stunned them, but it lasted no more than a few heartbeats before everyone started to speak at the same time.

  “Gentlemen!” Strabo’s raised voice quelled the others instantly. “Forgive us all,” he said to Cato. “That might have been the very last thing we expected to hear. How, and why, would you bring us such a large volume of money all the way from Eboracum?”

  “Because three of the last five shipments of that kind, from two paymasters’ offices—one in Londinium and one in Eboracum—have been intercepted and stolen, on the road and under heavy escort. The three garrison posts they were destined for were Lindum in the north, Camulodunum, and Aquae Sulis.” He looked from one to the other of the watching officers, all of whom were eyeing him in astonishment. “We arrived here safely,” he said. “Whether or not the official paymaster’s train will do the same remains to be seen. It was dispatched five days ago, I believe. But there’s an official investigation under way and I’m a part of it, and I’ll be happy to tell you all I know after I’ve washed and had a glass of wine.” He looked at Strabo again. “Can you wait that long? Will you?”

  “Of course we will. There is no hardship involved in waiting for the rules of hospitality to be satisfied before we question you further. Absolutely none.” Strabo almost seemed to shake himself and then started rattling off instructions again. “Thaddeus, delegate a junior duty centurion to collect Cato’s men and look after them. Tell him to have two of his men bring the tribune’s baggage here, directly to my attention, and instruct him to personally billet the tribune’s men in the prime barracks space closest to the kitchens. And tell him to make sure they have extra bedding. But first have him take them to the bathhouse. I’ve little doubt they’ll appreciate some hot steam and a good rubdown, too, after what has evidently been a long, tense journey. And tell Yarro I’ll have need of him immediately.” He cocked his head. “Is there anything else you need, Rufus?”

  Cato smiled. “Nothing I can think of, other than to see my sister.”

  Thaddeus Galban cleared his throat. “Done, sir,” he said. “I’ll send Yarro to wait on you before I do anything else.”

  “Now that I think of it,” Strabo said to his officers, “we all might benefit from a change of clothes and some time to let the day wind down, and I want all three of you to hear what Rufus has to say. So we’ll meet again in an hour from now, in my personal quarters.”

  The primus pilus smiled slowly. “My tongue’s already tasting the wine.”

  “Good man,” Strabo said. “An hour, then. Valerius, did we finish off that last amphora of Falernian, or is there enough left for us to enjoy?”

  “Oh, there’s no shortage,” the adjutant drawled in the manner of an aristocratic Roman aesthete. “That was far from being the last amphora.” He bowed ironically, but winked at Cato as he did so. “Never let it be said that Alexander Strabo’s friends went thirsting for nectar while a Valerius was within call. I’ll be there in under an hour.”

  As he strutted grandly away, Strabo grinned at Cato. “That was for your benefit. He doesn’t really talk that way and he’s a staunch friend. Maria dotes on him. But his family estates lie on the Faustian slopes of Mount Falernus, where the very finest wines are made, and his four younger brothers keep him well supplied with their best product. Which means that we, his brother officers in Isca, benefit from being his friends.

  “As for seeing your sister,” he added, as though it were an afterthought, “well, that’s another matter altogether. Maria’s not here, and she is not going to be happy when she returns to find you came to visit while she was gone…I don’t suppose you could stay until she gets back?”

  Cato grimaced. “Unlikely. Unless you’re talking of a few days. Where is she?”

  “Not close by.” Strabo waved a hand vaguely. “By this time, she should be somewhere between Italy and Illyricum, probably crossing the Adriatic with my parents now, headed for Salona in Dalmatia. I’ll tell you all about it later.” He turned away and scanned his desk, taking in the piles of tightly rolled and sealed cylinders, and grimaced. “This can all wait until later. In the meantime, let’s go to my quarters and get rid of some of this armour.” He hesitated. “That’s right. You’ve never been here before, have you?”

  “Not here here, no. I’ve been in Isca, but never in the legate’s private quarters.”

  “Aye, well, don’t let it awe you. It’s quite a lot like other officers’ quarters—only bigger and far more luxurious.” He laughed. “I mean it. Once you stop gawping around and your eyes return to their normal size, you’ll see it’s just a place like any other. Besides, there’s a large fire burning in the grate and I think you, at least, might be glad of it. Bring your helmet with you. Yarro can look after both of us, and my robes will fit you. You’ll feel much better once you’re dry and warm again. But I don’t want you falling asleep before you finish telling us all you have to say. Come.”

  A man was waiting for them in the sumptuous dressing room, and Strabo introduced him as his steward, Yarro, and informed him that their visitor would need to borrow some clothing temporarily.

  “Of course, sir,” Yarro murmured to Cato, his eyes flickering over him, measuring him for height and bulk. “You and the legate are of a size, so I can see no difficulty.” He turned then to help the legate shed his light garrison armour, and it was clear that their routine was long established. Strabo held himself erect and extended his arms, allowing the steward to unbuckle and unclip his harness with the minimum effort. Then, while Yarro was hanging the armour on its pegs on the wooden stand in the corner, Strabo crossed to the floor-length closets that lined one wall. He selected a long, white robe of snowy cotton and threw it to Cato, then chose another for himself.

  “Magister Cato will bathe, Yarro,” he said to the steward. “He has been on the road from the north for weeks and is in need of some pampering. So take him to the steam room and show him where everything is, and he can have a cold plunge and a hard rubdown. Then visit the cooks and arrange a small dinner for five in my private quarters. Nothing too elaborate, perhaps something left from last night. You know what will serve best. Then you can collect Magister Cato and bring him to my study. We’ll dress again then.” He turned to Cato. “In the meantime, I can finish some of the work on my desk. Don’t take too long in the steam room. A quarter of an hour in my masseur’s hands should bring you back to life. He can undo knots you weren’t aware of, in muscles you never knew you had.”

  * * *

  —

  When Yarro led a renewed and refreshed Cato back into Strabo’s personal quarters, he found the legate deeply absorbed in work, the desk in front of him still piled high with cylinders and the air heavy with the distinctive, slightly acrid smell of atramentum, the dense black ink used on official documents, overlaid with the warmer, more mellowing aroma of the melted wax used to seal those documents. Strabo held up one hand, stopping their approach. “Your timing’s perfect,” he said. He signed the piece of correspondence in front of him, sprinkled sand on it to dry the ink, and rolled it expertly into another cylinder that he held tightly in one hand while he melted the end of a stick of reddish wax in the candle burning in front of him. He dri
pped hot wax onto the seam of the cylinder, then pressed the small metal die that registered his insignia on the rapidly hardening wax, before blowing on it to set the wax and seal.

  He pushed away from the desk, spreading his hands to indicate the documents piled in front of him. “That is a week’s paperwork, right there, right now. And I’m so glad it’s done. I think I deserve a cup of wine to celebrate.” He stood up and reached out to grasp Cato’s shoulder. “Valerius should be here directly with a fresh amphora of Falernian, and the others should be arriving any moment.”

  He led Cato from his office into another, much larger room, and through that into a far less formal and more comfortably furnished chamber. “This is Maria’s favourite room,” he said, beckoning him towards the fire in the large iron grate in the centre of one wall. “That’s her chair on the left of the fireplace. Mine’s on the right. Sit down, sit down.”

  Cato sat, and stretched out his hands to the leaping flames. Strabo then launched straight into a description of the three men they were waiting for—everything he thought Cato might need to know, and how and why they had become the most important and highly trusted men in his command.

  Gaius Valerius’s claim to his position, he explained, had been staked since boyhood. The two boys had been bosom friends since early childhood, their families closely related on several levels of blood and kinship. Although Gaius’s family home was in Italy, he and Strabo had spent much of their boyhood close by each other in the densely developed villa area around the spa town of Aquae Sulis, just south of the Sabrina Estuary, where the Britannic elements of the influential Valerian family’s business empire were centred. The Valerians were immensely wealthy, their influence potent and far-reaching. The two boys had joined the legions in Britain together on the same day, and though they were posted to different stations to complete their training as staff officers, they had been reunited when Strabo took command of Legio II in Isca and asked for Valerius specifically as his adjutant.

  Regulus Culver, on the other hand, had never known Alexander Strabo before Isca, but he and Strabo had developed an immediate liking for each other on first meeting, and that had soon blossomed into a deep and committed friendship based on shared values, deep mutual respect, and a wholehearted commitment to the welfare of every aspect of the legion they served.

  Thaddeus Galban—and Strabo was grinning as he spoke of it—might have appeared to be the odd man out among the trio, because he was very young, much younger than any of the others, and his position within the legion’s hierarchy was that of a very junior, inexperienced underling. But no matter how it might appear to be, Strabo said, that was emphatically not the case. Galban had earned Strabo’s highest regard within the first six weeks of taking up his new position as the legate’s senior clerk. The young newcomer had gone straight to the heart of every assignment, assembled and examined whatever evidence he found available, and delivered his conclusions clearly, concisely, and fearlessly to his legate. In every instance his findings had been meticulously researched and were accurate and unbiased, and Thaddeus Galban had soon become one of Alexander Strabo’s most trusted subordinates.

  When he had finished talking about Galban, Strabo shifted in his chair. “I’m glad you came today, Rufus, because I had decided to speak to these fellows tonight. We need them, urgently. I think you should know, before we go in, that we’ll be speaking of the brotherhood tonight. But don’t be surprised when I tell them that we haven’t got time to prepare them as we normally would.”

  Cato’s face showed his surprise. “Why not? That’s highly unorthodox, is it not? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone going through the raising unprepared.”

  “You haven’t, but there’s little I can do to change anything. The main thing is, they’re good men and I’ve had them vetted. Exhaustively. Now I need to raise them and put them to work, and quickly. You’ll understand why once you’ve heard what I have to say.”

  Cato nodded. “So be it, then. I won’t argue or even look surprised. Thank you for the warning.” They sat in unhurried silence staring into the leaping flames, and Cato decided that he might not find a better time to ask the question on his mind. “So,” he said. “Why is my sister in Italy, and with your parents? Did you two quarrel?”

  Strabo glanced sideways at him, a tiny frown between his brows. “No,” he said seriously. “It might be easier if we had—quarrelled, I mean—but we haven’t really had a fight since we were wed, and that’s the truth. No harsh words and no injured feelings. And we’ve been wed for almost four years, so that’s something of an achievement.” He hesitated. “But we—Maria—lost another child last year. Eight months ago. That was her third time in less than three years, and it…it affected her badly. We had both been ridiculously careful in our behaviour from the first moment of knowing she was with child again, because we were painfully aware of the danger of losing it. But it happened anyway. Five months into her term.”

  He shifted his weight and rubbed his eyes, and Cato watched him in silence, deeply troubled by his evident grief. “It was no one’s fault,” he continued. “Least of all Maria’s. But she believed she must have done something wrong to cause it, and she simply…stopped. Stopped everything, as though she had given up all interest in continuing—in living. And I believe she had. I thought I was going to lose her. She wouldn’t get out of bed, wouldn’t eat, wouldn’t talk, and wanted nothing to do with me.” He sucked in a great, shuddering breath. “I was at my wits’ end, and so I wrote to my mother—she was my last resort. As soon as she read my letter, she travelled down here with the old man in tow, at forced march speed, and took over Maria’s care. It took them more than a month, but eventually they brought her back to living, and after that they convinced her to go home with them to Aquae Sulis, to the baths there.” He paused, gazing into the fire. “Of course, I couldn’t go with them. But several weeks after they left, a letter came from Maria, telling me she was feeling better, and I could see it was true, simply from reading the letter. And from then on we wrote to each other regularly.” Again he stopped.

  “Then, three months ago, my father was summoned to Dalmatia, to a meeting in Salona, with you-know-who. The call was unexpected, and clearly urgent, but the invitation included my mother and my sister Clara, which was surprisingly gracious. Clara’s married now, though, and no longer living in Aquae, so the mater and pater thought it would be good for Maria to go in her place. And so they wrote, informing me—there was no time to ask my permission, since they had to set sail immediately from Glevum—and promised to take care of her and bring her back safely in a few months’ time.” He shrugged. “So here I am, wifeless, and lacking even a mistress to console me.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Alex. I didn’t know.”

  “How could you? I meant to write and tell you at the time, or soon after, but as matters went from bad to worse, I lost track of things…”

  Cato leaned forward and squeezed his forearm. “Don’t even think about that. It’s water under the bridge. And there was nothing I could have done, other than fret, so you did me a service. But I’m glad you haven’t taken a mistress to console you.” He grinned. “I had a friend who did that, and soon he had to take a mistress to help him forget he had a mistress. Believe me, no matter how lonely you might be, a mistress is the last thing you need. A whore, perhaps, once in a while. But a mistress? Far too much trouble and responsibility.” He changed topics seamlessly. “You say they sailed from Glevum. They went by sea all the way?”

  “Gods, no, that would take forever. No, they sailed directly south to the tip of Gaul, then down the western coast to land at Burdigala. From there they were to travel overland to Masilia on the eastern coast, and then sail from there to Corsica, Ostia, and Rome. About four weeks, perhaps five in all, in good weather.”

  “And the weather was good, I take it?”

  “Good enough. We have heard nothing to the contrary. But that took them only as far as Rome. I don’t know what my
father might have had to do there, but I suspect he’d have avoided the city if he could have and gone directly east to the Adriatic coast, where he could buy passage on a ship to Salona. And if my calculations are correct, they should be crossing the sea about now, if they’re not already in Salona.”

  “Hmm.” Cato knew that the best thing he could do now was to mind his own business and say nothing more on the topic of his sister, and just then he heard Yarro announcing the arrival of Strabo’s three guests.

  “Wait,” Strabo said, raising a hand to detain Cato as he started to stand up. “We haven’t finished here, so let those three wait a little. Show them into the dining room, Yarro, and tell them we’ll join them in a moment. Is the fire lit?”

  Yarro bowed slightly from the waist, his pained expression suggesting that the legate should know better than to ask such a patently insulting question.

  Strabo watched Yarro depart, then turned back to Cato.

  “How are you, Rufus, and I mean how are you, really? I’ve just realized that you haven’t said a word about Rhea or Nicodemo since you arrived, and that’s not like you—although the way I’ve been going on, you haven’t had much chance. They are both well, I hope?”

  Cato looked away. “Aye,” he said softly. “I hope so, too.”

  “What? What are you saying? What am I supposed to make of that comment?”

  “She left me, Alex. Months ago.” Cato’s voice was barely audible, and he stared into some private distance, avoiding his brother-in-law’s eye. “Took the boy and vanished one day while I was away from home.”

  “No!”

  Cato, not watching him directly, was aware that Strabo’s mouth was opening and closing and that his fingers were clenching and unclenching spasmodically. Finally, Strabo dropped his hands to his sides and asked, quietly, “Where is she now?”

  “I have no idea. She simply vanished, leaving no trace of herself or the boy.”