The Ghosts of Glevum

XII

Sosso had instructed me to wait and see. I waited. I seemed to have been a long time waiting, but there was little I could see. The night was getting colder all the time and the fire was reduced to embers now. Those who had not brushed away the ashes at the edge and settled themselves where the ground was warm had slipped away into the dark.

Sosso and the wraith remained immovable. I was still huddled against the wall where I’d been put. At last through the muffled mist I heard a sound. A dull plash of oars came from the waterside and a muttered conversation reached my ears. Then a figure materialised through the gloom, and the man with the burned face was standing there.

‘Tullio’s here,’ he said to Sosso. ‘Down with Cornovacus on the bank.’

‘He’ll do it?’

‘For the price.’

Sosso gestured to the wraith to raise me to my feet. ‘Come on,’ he said to me. He had his knife aimed somewhere near my heart.

‘Come where?’ I rubbed my arm. Where the wraith had gripped it, it was bruised and sore, and all my other injuries ached too.

‘You’ll see!’ Sosso said again, and urged me forward with his blade.

I stumbled down the lane, my shapeless boots making me seem slower and more clumsy even than I was. We reached the waterfront. We had no torch, and at first I could make out nothing in the mist, but then I detected movement, and at last I saw.

Cornovacus was standing by the shore holding something on a length of rope. It seemed to be a sort of giant snail. As I moved closer I realised what it was.

It was a bent man with a boat upon his back. Scarcely a boat at all — more of a shell, a soft wood frame covered with the skin of animals, and painted with a kind of home-made pitch. I’d seen such things before: the river folk of the Dobunni tribe use them for catching eels and fish, and occasionally for ferrying goods across when the Sabrina isn’t running very fast. They’d always looked as fragile as a leaf.

As I watched the man rolled his burden free and launched it silently into the stream. Then, as Cornovacus held it by the rope, the boatman stepped aboard, holding a single paddle in one hand. He looked like a river god himself, outlined against the sky — long hair, long beard, long robe, bare feet: that was all of him that I could see.

There seemed scarcely room for him to sit and the little craft was rocking crazily, though he remained standing and seemed unperturbed, holding himself upright with his oar. A terrible premonition came to me that all this was part of Sosso’s plan, and that another such boat might be found for me. I hate boats. I have always hated boats, ever since I was chained aboard that ship — and I have never handled one. I knew that if I attempted to do it now, I’d drown.

I turned to Sosso. ‘You don’t expect me to row in one of these?’ I was whispering, but the sound seemed very loud. Something rustled in a clump of reeds nearby.

‘Of course not. It’s Tullio’s boat. He steers.’ I was sure that Sosso’s ugly face was grinning in the dark.

That so alarmed me that I almost squawked. ‘Surely you don’t mean that I’m to get in there as well? There isn’t space. I’d tip it over, getting in.’

‘Don’t think so,’ Sosso said. He took the rope from Cornovacus and pulled the boat in close against the shore, then bent and steadied it with his other hand.

‘But. .’ I began. Cornovacus caught me from the rear, and clamped a firm hand across my mouth.

‘By all the powers in Dis,’ he muttered in my ear, ‘keep your confounded voice down, or you’ll have half Glevum coming for a look. Now, do you want to get out of here or not? You know what’s happening. They’re looking for you in the town, there are guards on all the gates, and no doubt there’ll be a lookout on the roads by now. That leaves the river. How else are you gong to elude the guards?’

He was right, of course, Glevum is a fine colonia but it isn’t Rome — they say there are close on a million people living there, and it is easy for a man to hide in such a crowd. Here it was different. Without a home, a patron, friends or family to shelter me, it was only a matter of time till I was found. But in that flimsy little flat-bottomed craft?

Cornovacus had no patience with my doubts. He put his weight behind me and steered me forcibly to the waterside; half carried me, in fact, with his hand still firmly round my face so that I could not protest. Even so, when we reached the very edge and I looked down into that tiny craft, I baulked.

Who knows how long I might have hesitated there, but the boatman said briskly, ‘Get him in, before I change my mind. We haven’t got all night.’

He put the paddle on the shore, and, steadying himself on one of the wooden posts which had been driven in along the river bank, he reached up with his free hand and seized me round the knees. Cornovacus caught me at the same time from behind and between them they tumbled me into the centre of the boat. I lay there, paralysed with fright as it tipped wildly from side to side, but, with Sosso firmly holding it, it did not overturn as I was sure it would.

I was just beginning to believe that the Sabrina would not swallow me that night after all, and was preparing to raise my head a little and look round, when I heard a splash and realised that Tullio had the oar and Sosso had let go the rope. We were adrift on the river in this cockleshell.

‘Keep down and in the very middle of the boat,’ the boatman said, and I tried hard to comply. ‘Further,’ he muttered, ‘or I’ll have to sit on you.’ I crammed my nose against the woven frame, with my knees drawn up against my chest. My nose was pressed against a strake which reeked sickeningly of eels and pitch and something I did not care to think about, which he’d obviously been baiting his woven eel-traps with. The boat had begun to rock again, and I was certain that this time we would drown, but Tullio insinuated himself somehow into the space, and sat down by sitting over me, folding his legs in and over mine as if I were a kind of cushion for his knees. Thus wedged he pulled the paddle in — he had been using it to steady us, with one end forced against the bank — and began to ply it slowly to and fro, using it as a kind of rudder at the rear. The crazy pitching stopped and the boat took up a steady rolling rock.

I tried to move to ease my aching back. It was impossible. The slightest movement rocked the boat, and anyway there was no room to stir an inch.

‘Sit still!’ hissed Tullio. ‘You’ll have us overboard. Keep down. It’s dark and there’s still a bit of mist, but there’s a light wind getting up so it won’t last for long. We won’t be the only boat that’s out tonight. Besides, we’ll soon be passing near the dock. There may be torches on the quay and we can’t have you seen. Keep still, don’t make a noise and — here — put this over you.’

He raised one buttock as he spoke, and — at the risk of oversetting us — extracted what was obviously another sack and draped it over my face and feet so that I was swathed in sacking from head to toe. I was momentarily grateful for the extra warmth — I was by this time almost numb with cold — but like everything else aboard the boat, including the boatman and my outer tunic, the sack smelt horribly of eels. That, combined with the movement of the boat, was almost too much for me. I retched.

‘You be sick in my boat, and I’ll pitch you overboard,’ Tullio muttered fiercely.

The power of necessity is an amazing thing. I was cold, cramped, and seasick, but somehow I managed to survive the whole long aching while — it seemed like hours — until we had travelled safely past the town. Our passage was not wholly without incident. Several times I heard the splash of oars, and once there was a sudden jolt and then a glow of light. I couldn’t see any more than that from underneath my sack.

‘Who’s there?’ A whisper.

‘It’s Tullio and his eel-traps,’ Tullio whispered back.

‘Ah — I can see you now. Catch anything tonight?’

‘Not much. Found a sack of something in the marsh and picked it up.’ Through the sacking I felt Tullio’s hearty slap around my thigh, as though he were demonstrating his find. If I had not been so tightly wedged I might have jumped. ‘Probably useless, but I’ll dry it out and see. You?’

‘Nothing much about, this time of year. What are you doing now?’

‘Thought I’d try downstream a bit.’

A grunt. Then, ‘Well, more fool you. I’m giving up. I think it’s going to rain. Mind how you go past the quay, there’s a wine boat in from Gaul. Night, Tullio. Don’t get swallowed by the river gods.’

‘I won’t.’ Then the muffled splash again, and silence as we wallowed in the wake. Only the swish and creak of our own passage then. Time passed more slowly than an undertaker’s cart. After a bit it did begin to rain, softly but persistently, and creeping damp was added to my miseries.

Then all at once the sack round my head was lifted back and Tullio leaned forward to peer into my face. ‘Are you still alive?’

I grunted something.

‘We should be out of danger now. We’re past the town. You can sit up a little if you like. . Careful!’ This as I moved and narrowly failed to capsize the boat.

I was still lying underneath his knees, but tried to edge myself a little more upright and discovered that the air was calm and fresh, despite the intermittent rain. Around us the river glimmered with greyish-silver light, and dark trees bowed leafless heads down to the waterside. I crawled up in the boat and propped myself with my head over the side, and was — at last — copiously and comfortingly sick. Then I plunged my hand into the river, scooped the chilly water up and rinsed my face.

I turned back. Tullio was watching me, unmoved.

‘I’m not used to boats,’ I whined.

‘That’s exactly why it was such a good idea. No one was going to look for you in this. Clever of your ugly friend to think of it.’ He gave the oar a lazy twitch. ‘Now, we’ll go a little further on, and once we’re safely past the territorium, I’ll let you out on to the river bank.’

I nodded. The territorium was official land: the fertile area which bordered Glevum to the south and east. It had been annexed by the legions when the colonia was built, and originally apportioned to the founding veterans as part of their retirement settlement. Now, more than a hundred years later, it had become effectively an area of farmland, interspersed with semi-managed woods, and administered by the authorities to supply the garrison. It was crossed by the military road which was the quickest way to Marcus’s estate, but much as I longed to be back on solid ground this was still official land, and it would be safer if I avoided it. Yet as we went downstream from here, we were getting further from my roundhouse all the time. Despite the threat that the guards would find me there, it seemed a refuge of delight. I only hoped that Gwellia was safe.

I tried not to think about the long walk through the night — possibly beset by wolves and bears — which would now lie in front of me. ‘And you’ll row back again?’ I said, anxious to think of other things.

He laughed. ‘Of course, it’s possible to row,’ he said, ‘even when you don’t flow with the stream. Across the narrows, certainly — I’ve ferried goods or people that way once or twice.’

‘Oh!’ That surprised me. I had supposed I was the first passenger ever to be crammed into his boat.

He ignored me. ‘But upstream? Depends upon the tide.’

‘Tide? I didn’t know rivers had a tide.’

‘Then you don’t know much. All the way from the Hibernian sea, they say. That’s why these boats are made the way they are — you can take them upriver, drop them in the stream, and travel with the current while you fish or bait your traps. Of course you can use the oar to steer and speed your way. Then, when you’ve finished, you can put the whole thing on your back, pick it up and take it home again. I carried it to you tonight — you were upstream of me.’

He made it sound simple, but the idea of walking several miles with the weight of that contraption on one’s back seemed utterly impossible to me. No wonder Tullio had the strength and muscles of a god.

I was about to say something in reply when Tullio raised his hand. ‘Hush!’

There was a gentle hooting, like an owl.

Like an owl, but not an owl at all. Tullio pulled on the oar again, applying real pressure to it now, and the little boat bobbed and circled to the bank. I saw at once why he had chosen to come here; it was clearly a spot known to fishermen. A long length of timber had been driven horizontally into the mud, presumably for hanging those long woven fish-traps from. The bank was flattened around it and a small path led away into the woods. Tullio caught an overhanging branch and pulled us in.

‘Here!’ said a voice. Tullio took up the rope that was affixed to one of the boat’s cross-withies, which had been lying looped up on his lap. To my alarm I saw three figures detach themselves from the shadows on the shore. One took the line and secured a loop around the tree before handing the rope-end back to Tullio. Another reached out and pulled the coracle in hard against the mud.

My heart was thumping. Was I after all to be betrayed?

The third figure came down to the water’s edge. He had an awkward, loping gait. ‘Right. Out then.’ He was outlined against the dark: small, squat, square and unmistakable, with no neck and one misshapen foot.

‘Sosso! How did you get here?’

‘Walked.’ The youth who had been handling the line came scrambling round the tree, out of the shadows and down on to the bank where it was comparatively light. I saw with a shock that it was Lercius. ‘We came the quick way, through the town and down the road. Nobody was looking out for us. No one tried to stop us. I’d have had their eyes out if they had.’ Now that my status was agreed, he was suddenly talkative and willing to explain, as though he’d never threatened me at all.

The man holding the coracle looked up. It was Cornovacus. ‘Don’t look so startled, eel-eater. What did you expect? We weren’t going to let you disappear. You haven’t paid us yet.’

That was a problem yet to be resolved. I changed the subject. ‘How did you get through the town gates? They would have been firmly closed just after dusk.’

‘There are ways,’ Sosso said.

‘Sosso’s clever. He got us in with a funeral procession returning from the pyre, and out underneath a military cart. He wouldn’t let me. .’

‘Lercius, enough! Now are you getting out?’ Cornovacus extended his free arm, and I struggled to my feet. It made the boat rock crazily again.

This time I did succeed in falling in.