Caveat emptor

72

Dias’s guards lowered their weapons. The Iceni had bunched together around the unlit pyre, spears raised. Ruso was appalled to see Tilla among them, clutching the baby.

“Nobody move!” yelled the decurion in charge of the cavalry, surveying the scene and evidently trying to make some sense of the disparate groups of natives. His men circled their horses, their own spears ready to impale anyone foolish enough to argue.

“Who’s in charge here?”

A bass voice sounded from somewhere among the guards. “I am, sir. Verulamium’s guards are at your service.” Gallonius stepped out into the clearing and gestured toward the Iceni. “These people came to disrupt a peaceful funeral. They should be arrested for carrying illegal weapons.”

“And who are you?” demanded a familiar voice. Ruso looked up to see a shortsighted squint almost hidden beneath the peak of the cavalry helmet.

“Sir, that’s young Firmus! Firmus, sir!” Albanus waved one hand high in the air before the nearest cavalryman made a jab with his spear to remind him not to move. “We’re over here, sir!”

The squint was turned toward Albanus. “Let them approach.”

Glancing at Tilla, Ruso made his way across to where a very cheerful-looking Firmus was stationed next to the decurion. “I’ve always wanted to do something like this,” he whispered to Ruso. “We heard there was an Iceni war band on the move. And since you hadn’t come back when you were supposed to, I persuaded Uncle to let me come and look for you. Why are we at a funeral?”

“You by the pyre!” bellowed the decurion to the Iceni. “Drop your weapons.”

One of his men repeated the order in British just in case they had not understood.

The Iceni glanced at their leader, who remained motionless.

The decurion repeated the order. Still the Iceni refused to move. They were vastly outnumbered and had only their padded jerkins for protection. Tilla, crouched by the pyre trying to cover the baby, had no protection at all.

“Sir,” murmured Ruso, “their sister’s been murdered. They came to her funeral looking for justice.”

Firmus craned to see the pyre between the Iceni riders. “I can make out red-that’s not Camma, is it?”

“Drop your weapons!” repeated the decurion.

Across the clearing, Ruso could see Dias gesturing to his men to take up position behind the unsuspecting Iceni. Gallonius was sidling away, keeping himself out of range.

“Stop!” Caratius was still standing by his dead wife. “Stop, everyone! This is not what any of us wanted!”

“Drop your weapons and you won’t be hurt.”

Ruso noticed that one or two of the cavalrymen seemed to be having trouble carrying their shields in the same hand as their reins. He spotted another familiar face beneath a cavalry helmet. Then another. Gods above: That was the clerk who had issued his travel warrant. This was not a proper cavalry unit. This was a handful of professionals bulked out by a hastily assembled crew of office workers dragged into active service. They might once have been highly trained military men but they were out of practice and out of condition. The Iceni, on the other hand, looked as though they would put up a good fight. They would inflict a lot of damage before they were overpowered by cavalry on one side and Dias’s men on the other. Tilla, caught in the middle, would not stand a chance.

“Sir,” he murmured to Firmus, “the leader of the local guards can’t be trusted. Let me talk to the Iceni.”

Was that relief on the decurion’s face? He must have known even better than Ruso that his men were not fit to fight.

Ruso raised his empty hands into the air and stepped forward across the grass to address the leader of the Iceni, deliberately keeping his voice low so he would not be overheard.

“He is a friend,” Tilla assured them from her position on the ground. “Listen to him.”

The Iceni put on a good show of being reluctant to abandon a skirmish, but finally they agreed to put down their weapons in exchange for a place at the funeral and a cavalry escort back through Catuvellauni territory in the morning.

There was disappointment in Dias’s voice as he ordered his men to stand down. Gallonius, suddenly brave again now that trouble had been averted, repeated that the Iceni should be arrested for carrying illegal weapons.

“I haven’t seen any illegal weapons,” declared Firmus, a statement which was truer than most of his audience knew. “You can send your guards back to town: We’ll keep order here. Now is somebody going to light that pyre, or not?”

The wails of the Iceni rose with the crackling of the flames as the fire blazed once more, sending Camma on the way to whatever kind of next world awaited her. Ruso adopted a respectful silence. He itched to explain to Firmus that Dias and Gallonius were the ones who should be arrested, but the attempt would stir up the trouble they had just managed to avert. Yet again, Dias had slithered out of his grasp.

Dias knew it too. He directed a practiced salute at Firmus and the decurion, then smirked at Ruso before turning his men to march them back toward the road. Gallonius went with them. Ruso was still wondering how he was going to explain any of this to the procurator-let alone to Metellus-when Valens appeared and announced that he and his wife wanted to get the boys home by nightfall. Firmus decided the cavalry could escort the Iceni tomorrow without his help, and turned to Ruso. “I’ll ride back with you,” he said, adding ominously, “You can explain everything to me on the way. I can inspect the milestones at the same time.”

Tilla had not been included in any of these conversations. She had produced the feeding bottle from somewhere and was sitting on the grass, wailing with the Iceni women. After several attempts Ruso managed to catch her eye and point toward the carriage that was still waiting over by the road. She said something to the redhaired woman next to her, and got up to leave. The woman stood too, and Ruso realized there was some sort of argument going on. Tilla began to walk away. The woman went after her.

Firmus was still talking, but Ruso was not listening.

There was some sort of struggle. The feeding bottle fell and landed in the grass.

He ran across the middle of the clearing, crouching to shield his face from the heat as he ran.

“Stop!”

The Iceni woman was tugging at the baby. Tilla was trying to kick her away. The baby was crying. The funeral wailing ceased as the other Iceni tried to intervene.

“Leave her alone!” he shouted. The struggle paused, but neither woman let go. The baby was still crying. He had never seen Tilla look so desperate.

“My wife has looked after this baby since he is born,” he explained in awkward British over the noise to anyone who would listen. “He knows her. She likes him very much.” He looked around. The Iceni were grimfaced. “We can give him a good home,” he promised. “We will teach him and look after him and-” What else could he promise?

“He will never go hungry,” put in Tilla.

“What will you teach him?” demanded the redhaired woman.

Tilla’s chin rose. “I will tell him the story of his beautiful mother,” she said, wresting him out of the grasp of the woman and patting his back to console him. She leaned her cheek against his swollen red face and his cries began to die away. “Little one, I will tell you about your father from the Dobunni and your mother from the Iceni and your ancestors who were wronged by Rome and how they took a terrible revenge. And when you grow up, I will tell you about an old woman who was still afraid of them sixty years later and about her son who tried to make things better by a marriage, and how it did not work, and how your family came to this place afterward to make sure you were safe.”

“We will bring him to visit his people,” added Ruso, putting an arm around Tilla and gazing around at the fierce faces of the family who had come here to rescue a sister and did not look as though they were inclined to leave empty handed.

“What will you teach him, Roman?” demanded their leader.

“Medicine,” said Ruso. “Healing.” What the hell was the word in British? He switched to Latin for “Surgery.”

“In Latin?”

“He will speak Latin and British, like you.”

“How to give orders and demand tribute?”

“My wife was a friend to your sister,” Ruso tried. “She delivered this baby. Camma trusted her.”

“She trusted both of them,” put in another voice. Ruso had forgotten that Grata was there. “They are good people.”

“Another foreigner!” declared the redhaired woman. “What does she know?”

“More than you,” retorted Grata. “And I’m not foreign.”

“Don’t argue with them!” pleaded Tilla. She turned to the leader. “I am begging you, sir, let me look after this child. Do not take him away from us.”

“We want to-” Ruso stopped. How did the Britons say adopt? He didn’t even know if they had a word for it. “We will make him our son.”

He knew from the man’s eyes what the answer was going to be. He barely heard the words: just Tilla’s anguished cry and a brief and rapid exchange in British. The leader seemed to be asking Tilla something. When she did not answer, the woman stepped forward and took the baby out of her arms.