The Burning Stone

by Jack Whyte

  “There’s blood on it,” she said, pointing to where a patch of the cloak had been saturated by gouting blood, glistening like oil in the slanting light of the lane. He glanced down, then straightened up to his full height.

  “Damn! I hadn’t seen that. Is there any more?” He shook out the folds of the heavy garment and held it up towards the sun, and she stepped forward to help him, spreading one side wide with both hands as they scanned the piece together, but there was only the one bloodied patch.

  “There’s a drinking trough inside for the beasts. I’ll wash this off before we go. It’s too noticeable to leave the way it is. What about the rest of me? Can you see any more?”

  “Turn around, slowly.”

  He turned compliantly, holding his hands away from his sides, but she could see no more blood.

  “That’s really surprising, you know,” he said. “There’s none on you, either, and yet it’s thick everywhere else. I’ve never seen so much gore. You’d think it would be black, coming from such creatures, but it’s red like everyone else’s. Stay here, I’ll be right back.”

  She heard water splashing inside the pen, and then he came back to her, wringing the last drops of water from the cloak. He draped it over her, holding it judiciously until she could settle it without chilling her shoulders, then left her to conceal the bareness beneath her torn skirts as well as she could.

  She watched him curiously while her hands were busy with the adjustments to her clothing, restoring herself to a semblance of modest decency. His now-bare arms were heavily muscled, and as he crouched to grasp the dead man by the armpits, she saw that his thighs were solid, too, layered with muscle to match his arms. As she watched him drag the dead man into the animal pen without noticeable effort, she took note of the breadth of his shoulders and found herself wondering at having suspected, even briefly, that he might be a renegade priest. She had never seen such musculature on any priest.

  He returned and, placing a guiding hand on her shoulder, gently steered her back, by the shortest route and without uttering a word, to the crowded marketplace at the foot of the hill by the riverside.

  SIX

  Lydia was surprised that the marketplace looked much as it had earlier, when she had fled from it ahead of the four men who had hounded her. There were more people than before, and there was more noise and bustle, but she was vaguely disappointed to see no indication, anywhere, that anything untoward had taken place there that day. Then she saw one fat-bellied man ogling her, his pendulous lower lip quivering as he stared down at her legs, and she pulled the black cloak tighter around herself and moved closer to Varrus, not daring to glance down to see what had drawn the fat man’s gaze. From then on, very much aware of the condition of her clothing and her own vulnerability to prying eyes, she stayed close behind her rescuer, keeping within arm’s reach of him, her eyes downcast as she tried to move without rolling her hips, willing herself to walk like a sexless doll, her arms motionless at her sides, her fingers clutching the black folds of the man’s cloak so that it enveloped her completely, and walking wherever he led her.

  He stopped without warning, so that she bumped into him. “Are you thirsty?” he asked, and she nodded, immediately aware that she was, though until he asked she had not thought of it.

  “Good. We’ll sit here. It’s central and I know the owner.” He took her by the elbow and guided her towards a rough table at one corner of the junction of the two main roads dividing the marketplace. It was a busy and popular spot, offering access to all four quadrants of the market, and all four corners of the intersection were crowded with chairs and tables to attract customers to the vendors of food and drink whose stalls dominated the meeting place. The south corner, where Varrus had chosen to sit, was shared by the stalls of two vendors, though only one of them sold food and ale. The other sold brightly coloured shawls and clothes for women. Varrus held Lydia’s chair and stood over her until she was comfortably seated and had rearranged his cloak about her, then he went to where the two vendors stood talking to each other and watching him as he approached.

  He spoke to both men, clasping hands with each of them. They were both looking at her now, their curiosity stamped clearly on their faces, and she turned her face away, determined not to look back at them. But every instinct made her want to see their expressions and judge what they might be saying about her. She bit down on her lips and forced herself to take note of the scene about her.

  She had not been to many other towns since moving to Londinium from her home in Eire, but from those she had seen, she knew that the marketplace in Londinium was large and prosperous, drawing vendors, traders, and merchants from far and wide, many even from beyond the seas, in the Gaulish lands to the south and east. Most market towns, she knew, held their largest gatherings once a week, but Londinium’s market was open twice weekly, on the third and sixth days of the week, and on both days the vast space of the open market was completely filled. The site was perfect, laid out in the meadows along the riverfront beside the walls of the fort, with the buildings of the town sprawling outwards from the walled fort to cover the higher ground above and behind the teeming market stalls.

  The two main roads by which she now sat divided the market into four quadrants: the northern quadrant, the oldest of the four, was given over to fresh produce from the farms of the fertile river valley; the eastern quadrant featured livestock and meats from the same farms, offering swine, kine, and fowl of all conceivable kinds for sale and trade, together with the entire range of butchered and prepared meats. The southern quadrant, closest to the riverbank, offered all the goods brought in from the sea and from the rivers and surrounding marshlands. The edges of the south quadrant were lined with wharves and docks, and lading space was hard to come by, so thick was the press of vessels arriving and leaving.

  The western quadrant was Lydia’s favourite, and she was far from being the only woman in Londinium who thought so. Known simply as “the market” to all women, it was the treasure trove for those who took pride in their homes and their persons. This was the place where wonders of all kinds could be found by anyone with the patience to look closely and a discerning eye for the rare and incomparable: bolts and rolls and spools and reels of lush, brightly coloured, and exquisitely woven and wound fabrics and cloth and cords and ribbons, and all the thousand and one things that craftsmen and artisans, painters and dyers and artists of all kinds, could provide to highlight that wealth. And one of the finest suppliers of such goods, one of the most highly regarded, she knew, kept his stall right here, at this junction, outside the bounds of “the market” itself. He called himself by a single name, Dylan, and he was one of the pair with whom her black-clad rescuer had gone to talk.

  Varrus returned now, clutching a tankard of ale in each hand, a large one for himself and a smaller one for her, a thick, woven, bright green garment of some kind folded over one arm. It was clearly a cloak or a cape, rather than a simple shawl, for it was bulky, though beautiful and obviously wondrously thick and soft. It was a beautiful colour, too, a rich and lustrous green, a full shade darker than the torn gown she was wearing beneath his cloak.

  “Here,” he said, offering her the bundle and ignoring the way her mouth had fallen open in surprise. “Try this. If the colour is wrong, or you don’t like it for any reason, you can go and choose another one. The man already has his money.”

  “I can’t take this,” she protested, grasping the thing with both hands and kneading the rich softness of the material. “It’s much too much, too—” She stopped, fighting down a ludicrous sense of panic, then glanced wildly towards the stall at her back, where Dylan was watching. “I can’t accept this. I—It humbles me that you would even think of such a thing. And I thank you most earnestly for the thought, Master—” She hesitated. “Varrus? Is that your name?” He nodded, and she continued, realizing she was gabbling. “Truly, I cannot, could not, accept such a gift. I know that merchant and his goods. His name is Dylan and his clothing
ranks among the most costly in all Londinium.”

  “I know him, too,” he said, his mouth—all she could see of his face—quirked in a half smile. “His brother Rhys was my closest friend for years. He’s dead now, but Dylan and I became friends by association with him. And it’s true that his goods are costly. But that’s because they are the best in all Britain.” He shrugged, looking down at her. He had made no attempt to sit. “I believe in purchasing the best. Always have.” He blew air out through pursed lips and bent to pick up the garment. “I’ll take it back to him if you truly wish me to,” he said. “But I fear I’m going to need my own cloak back soon.” The corner of his mouth twitched, barely perceptibly. “I’ve seen but the merest glimpse of what your gown concealed before it was torn apart and ruined, but if you care to continue displaying it once you have returned my cloak, I’ll be happy to look, along with everyone else.”

  She opened her mouth at the sheer effrontery of what he had said, but before she could say a word he tossed the green robe back into her hands.

  “On the other hand, should you prefer to remain covered, I can tell you truthfully that the cost of that thing will cause me not the slightest twinge of discomfort. Money does not concern me, Lydia Mcuil. I could buy you his entire stock without a thought.” Again a tiny hesitation before he added, “The decision is yours.”

  She wondered if he was laughing at her, but she could see nothing but good-humoured concern behind his gentle smile. And besides, another question—and its own answer—had already formed in her mind: What decision? There is no decision to be made. Refusal of his kindness, for whatever reason, be it pride or stubbornness, would condemn her to the indignities of walking practically naked through the streets to her home, clutching her rags in both hands while vainly trying to protect her most intimate parts from the leering, prying eyes of men like those who had attacked her.

  She nodded demurely and draped the soft green robe over the edge of the table in front of her, spreading its lower half so that it covered her from the waist down. Then she removed his black cloak and held it out to him wordlessly, and as he took it from her she had already begun adjusting the new garment, which looked magnificent on her. He watched, standing hipshot and holding his cup of ale, as she arranged the folds of the new garment to hang exactly as she wished them to, and then he moved to sit in the chair facing hers, where he stretched out his legs and sat back comfortably, sipping pensively at his ale and continuing to watch her, but making no attempt to interfere with her thoughts.

  She was grateful for that, though she would not have said so, for she had much to think about, all of it focused upon this stranger—this apparently wealthy stranger—who had quickly placed her heavily in his debt. But what she returned to over and over, with a rapidly increasing feeling of annoyance, was that she had no idea what the fellow looked like. In the face of all that had happened in the past little while it was a petty concern, she knew, but she was finding it to be intolerably frustrating, and she was on the point of asking him to take off his hood when they both became aware of the approaching tread of marching feet, and they turned together to look in the direction it was coming from.

  “Aha,” he said quietly. “The vigilant protectors of the public peace.”

  A squad of legionaries was marching towards them from the east, where the praesidium, the garrison fort of Londinium that was built on the riverbank, lay. They were the regular street patrol, a ten-man squad, two of them holding long, lethal-looking spears. The remaining eight carried lightweight skirmishing shields slung over their arms and held cudgels rather than the brutally heavy rectangular scuta and short swords carried by regular infantry. Their leader was a bored-looking corporal, and he was followed by a unit standard bearer and a stroke drummer, a boy of about twelve whose rhythmic drumbeat served as an advance warning to everyone that the watch was coming.

  Varrus murmured, “They don’t look very victorious, do they?”

  “I know the one in front, the decanus,” Lydia responded, sounding worried.

  “You know him? Personally?”

  “No, but I recognize him. His name is Nerva. My brother Shamus locked horns with him a month ago, over a girl in a tavern. They fought, and Shamus left that fellow bleeding in the street.”

  “You were there?”

  There was a rising inflection in his voice, betraying his surprise, and she flashed him a scandalized look. “In a tavern? No, of course I wasn’t there. Shamus told me about it later, when I was attending to his cuts.”

  “But if you didn’t see the actual incident, how do you know that’s the same man?”

  “Because we saw him again the next day, in uniform this time, at the gates of the fort. Shamus pointed him out to me. Until then he didn’t know he had hit a soldier. The decanus had been off duty and out of uniform when they fought.”

  “Hmm. And did they speak again, fight again?”

  “No. He didn’t see us, and we moved away.”

  “So he would not recognize you, were he to see you?”

  “Me?” She shook her head emphatically. “No. Not at all. He’s never laid eyes on me.”

  The soldiers were about thirty paces away when the corporal shouted a command and they swung left, marching northeast as though they had some firm destination in mind.

  As they passed out of view, Lydia turned back to Varrus. “Why should they look victorious?”

  He smiled. “It was a joke, nothing more. The garrison here in Londinium belongs to an auxiliary unit of the Sixth Legion, based at Eboracum, nowhere near here. Don’t ask me why. That’s military thinking at its finest. Anyway, their legionary designation is the Victorious Sixth. Do you know Eboracum?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve heard of it, but I know nothing of it, other than that it’s north of here.”

  “It is. It’s in the far northeast, more than a hundred miles from here. One of the oldest Roman-built towns in Britain, and the fortress there was established by the emperor Hadrian to house the Sixth Legion, which he brought here from Iberia when he started building his wall. They were already called the Victorious Sixth, having won the distinction years earlier in Hispania, and they’ve been serving here ever since—more than two hundred years now—along with the Twentieth Legion, the Victorious Valerians, and the Second Legion in Isca. Together, they’re called Britain’s legions. The Twentieth has been based in Deva, or Chester, for almost as long as the Sixth has been in Eboracum. It was always Deva to the Romans, but the local Celts have been calling the place Chester since soon after the original fort, the castra, was built there, about three hundred years ago…” He checked himself suddenly. “You haven’t heard a word I’ve said, have you?”

  She answered with an impatient shake of her head. “I was thinking about those four dead men. Will they be found soon?”

  He shrugged. “Probably, as soon as whoever owns that pen goes to visit his goats.”

  “And what will happen then?”

  “They’ll be disposed of, like other refuse,” he said, his tone dismissing the entire matter as unimportant. “Whoever finds them will call the local watch, and they’ll summon the garrison unit that patrols that district. And whoever turns up to look at the scene will probably arrange to have the corpses carted away and buried.”

  “But won’t anyone come looking for us?”

  He smiled. “Why would anyone come looking for us? They’ll find four dead men and they’ll have little difficulty seeing them for what they were. They might even recognize them, for I would be much surprised if this was the first time those four ever tried anything like that. And as for you and me, no one saw us, as far as I could tell.”

  “How can you say that? You weren’t there until the very end, but I was running through crowds of people most of the time they were chasing me. Hundreds of people must have seen me.”

  His smile did not falter as he shrugged one shoulder. “Aye, perhaps, but how many paid any attention? People seldom pay attention to what g
oes on around them. And what would they have seen, even had they looked? A young woman running, perhaps even a terrified woman being chased by four ruffians and running for her life—but in that case, fearful for their own lives, they would have wanted no part of what was happening to her.

  “Even fewer people would have noticed me, because I look like a beggar, and who looks closely at a beggar? They’re afraid they’ll be asked for money.” He shook his head again. “Besides, even if they attracted any notice, neither of those people, young woman or beggar, would appear likely to be the killer of four men. And believe me, no one is likely to step forward to say they witnessed what happened yet made no effort to intervene. That would put the onus on the army to find the killer or killers, and while the garrison patrols might be corrupt and incompetent, they are lazy and vindictive, too. They will have no wish to waste time searching for what they will believe to be a dangerous band of killers, long since vanished. So if anyone were to step forward with a tale of having seen what happened, that person would probably be silenced. Ergo, no one will come looking for us.”

  Lydia believed him, for everyone knew the street patrols—ordinary legionaries from the garrison seconded for policing duties to the office of the aedile, the local magistrate—had no interest in doing anything beyond the minimum required of them. They would never volunteer to hunt for a criminal whose crime had been killing other criminals.

  She continued to stare at him, a strange look on her face, until he asked, “What? What is it?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “I was thinking, that’s all.”