The Pillars of Rome

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Fulmina was getting older and was finding it harder and harder to control Aquila; not, it has to be said, that she had ever tried very hard, for the gods had spoken through her dreams, as well as the musings of the old soothsayer Drisia. A simple soul, Fulmina believed that fate was pre-destined, hers as well as that of the boy, so the gods would take care of Aquila without her going out of her way to chastise him. And really, the things he got up to were those that all youngsters of his age indulged in, just more so. Now ten summers old he was taller than his peers by a good head, stronger by far and leagues-away the most daring. He climbed trees faster, swam quicker and fought better without ever being a thug. Other mothers, who needed their sons to help in the fields were given to complaining heartily when Aquila, freed from such labour by Dabo’s deliveries of household necessities, turned up and tempted them off to play in the woods.

Many days he was left to his own devices, which did not please him much. It was no fun following wild boar tracks alone; it could be tedious laying still on your belly for hours watching the weasels come and go from their burrows, often with a dead rabbit or bird in their mouths. Besides, there was greater danger in being alone; boar with young could kill if provoked; you had to listen out too for wolves in winter, though the bears were rarely seen now. They had long since retired from this cultivated part of the world and moved into the forests, higher up the mountains that stood tall and majestic to the east. The occasional big cat would come hunting in the lowlands and they were the most dangerous of all.

Sometimes Aquila would sit up a tree at the edge of the wood and look towards the distant mountains, which ran north and south like a great barrier. The eagles, his namesakes, nested there, ranging far and wide on the hot air currents in search of food. Occasionally one would come into view and he would sigh, thinking that it must be wonderful to be able to fly and to look down on the world from such a height. Like a god really. Perhaps those birds could comprehend the size of the world; he could not, never having been more than half a league from the hut he called home.

He was often lonely, but days spent in the woods gave him an affinity with nature, even if he did not quite know what to call the plants and trees. He knew the birds and the animals for they were a constant subject of discussion and pursuit amongst the locals. Birds you could eat, and the same applied to some animals and these, notwithstanding the fact that the woods were private property, provided most of the meat in the poorer families’ diet. Occasional boar hunts were organised as winter approached, but that was an event for men, not boys. Other animals were identified as inedible but dangerous; they killed chickens, geese and the smaller livestock. He would lie still and listen to the hum of the forest, and in time he could sort out the sounds of the birds from those of the other creatures. He learnt to recognise the silence that fell when a larger predator entered the vicinity, then he too would fall quiet and seek a place of safety, usually in a tree.

The boy thought about and asked about Clodius all the time. Seven years his papa had been gone now with only the occasional word related to Fulmina by a passing soldier on leave. The toy uniform hung on the wall of the hut; too small now, yet a constant reminder of his absent parent. Even in the woods he missed Clodius, for he knew things that Aquila did not and would have taken much pleasure in teaching his son how to trap the birds and the smaller mammals. A father would have told him the stories that Fulmina avoided; she told tales of goodness and upright behaviour, or, if she thought he had been particularly wayward, of youths turned into donkeys or pigs. Tales of heroism she avoided, for her gods were all pastoral deities; Clodius would have told him of the lives of warriors and heroes. Other fathers were happy to include him when they were storytelling, but it was not the same as being curled up beside your own papa, with a fire blazing in the pitch dark forest on a chill night, and listening to the sound of a voice you loved tell you of myths, magic and martial deeds.

At times his meanderings took him close to the big villa by the road that ran south from Rome, but not too close in daylight, for he feared that those employed to keep the likes of him out of the woods, to stop the poaching, would come after him, and being distinctive had its drawbacks. He could only go into the compound in winter, when the nights were dark early, and he had become adept at getting to the rabbit hutches and grabbing one to take home for the cold-weather pot. His mama would happily eat what he brought home, but she would not be happy to see the steward of Cassius Barbinus at her door, the owner of the villa being the man she most hated in all the world.

‘If you see him, Aquila, you will know right away it is he. Fat as a pregnant sow, he is, from too much good food stolen from the likes of us. All that land for his cattle and sheep, our old farm included, and him so full-bellied I would not be surprised if he eats them all himself.’

‘Have a care Cassius Barbinus does not hear you, Fulmina.’ She turned to see Piscius Dabo in the doorway, a bag of wheat in one hand and a bundle of kindling strapped to his back. He looked at the birds hanging head down on the line, and added, ‘And if he sees those it will be even worse.’

‘Barbinus come here, Dabo? That won’t happen, and he would not get through the door if he did.’

‘I can get through the door any time you like, day or night.’

Aquila saw Fulmina pull a face and he wondered at the look on the face of Dabo, yet he could not comprehend. All he knew was that Dabo came only second to Fat Barbinus in the ranks of those Fulmina loathed.

He laid down the sack of wheat and took the kindling off his back. ‘Must be lonely without old Clodius here.’

Fulmina stood behind her boy and put her hands on his shoulders. ‘Not when I have Aquila.’

‘That ain’t the kind of company I reckon you need.’

‘Well you ain’t the kind of company I want.’

Dabo looked disappointed and slightly angry. ‘Suit yourself. Send the boy over tomorrow and I will fill your pitcher with milk.’ Then he glared at Aquila. ‘And try not to get into a fight with my lads, this time.’

‘They start it.’

‘That’s not what my boys say. Maybe you should come over and do some work, like they have to, then you wouldn’t have the energy to scrap.’

‘The day Aquila works for the likes of you, Piscius Dabo, is the day the heavens will fall in.’

‘I know, I know. He’s going to be a great man.’ Dabo laughed as he departed, the sound echoing inside the sod hut. ‘The only person who’ll ever get on their knees to him is you Fulmina, and that’s to tie the straps on his sandals. Great man, my arse.’

‘Is Papa ever going to come home?’ Aquila asked as Dabo disappeared from the doorway.

‘One day, boy. He will be home one day.’

‘I’ll go with him to the woods, the day he returns.’

‘Of course you will,’ Fulmina replied, wondering how her husband, after such a long absence, would react to a boy now nearly as tall as himself.

He was alone again, barefoot and seeking animal tracks, when the forest, quite suddenly, went totally silent. Aquila was up like a flash and headed for the nearest large tree. His sandals were tied to his waist and being barefoot he shinned up the gnarled oak easily, his heart pounding. If it turned out to be anything like a bear or a large cat, they could climb trees better than any ten-year-old boy. He lay flat along a thick branch, his dark brown tunic and tanned skin blending in with the tree bark and when he heard the bells, he laughed, pushing his face into the wood to suppress the sound. A shepherd! He, Aquila, had run for cover to avoid sheep. He lay still, listening, as the sound of the bells grew louder, watched as the lead animal entered the clearing and walked right under his perch. As it left the clearing the shepherd entered from the other side. The man was tall and had long, near white hair poking out from under a battered straw hat. He shuffled rather than walked, head down and supported by a long staff, following his flock, paying no attention to his surroundings. An old man, doing an old man’s job.

The boy realised he would pass right beneath him and with a delicious thrill of impending mischief he decided to deliver the shepherd the fright of his life. As the man came under the tree, Aquila slipped off the branch, and with a wild yell dropped right behind him, missing his back by an inch. The speed with which his victim spun round surprised him, as did the guttural cry that shot from his lips. Aquila had dropped to his knees to break his fall and found himself, frozen for a split second, staring up into the most alarming face; as he had turned, the man’s straw hat had flown off. Underneath the huge mane of flying, flaxen hair, the skin was bright red, peeled in places where he had suffered from the sun. The mouth was open in a snarl, but it was the great gash, stark and scary across the empty eye socket, which frightened the boy most; that, and the plain fact that the shepherd was not an old man.

He tried to escape, standing up and turning as he did so. The huge dog was pounding across the clearing, fangs bared as it made straight for him. Again he froze, trying to decide which way to jump and mentally cursing himself for a fool. The forest would not have gone silent for sheep or a shepherd: it was the presence of this enormous dog that had made them still. With the speed at which it came for him there seemed no escape. The staff took him right on the ankles lifting his feet to near waist height and Aquila dropped flat on his back, the wind driven in a gush out of his lungs. He could hear the man shouting, though he could make no sense of the words he used. The staff came down at speed and was pressed across his throat just as the dog leapt. The paws hit him in the ribs causing him even more pain, but the huge teeth, instead of entering the soft flesh of his neck, hit the wooden staff.

The shepherd, still shouting, swung the pole and pulled the snarling animal to one side. As that huge canine face had come close to his, Aquila had shut his eyes in fear. They stayed shut and he listened as the voice, still speaking in a strange tongue, went from angry shouts, to normal tone, then finally to a soothing litany. When he opened his eyes and turned his head, the dog was sitting, panting slightly, its great tongue lolling out of its mouth.

‘You hurt?’ the shepherd asked in heavily accented Latin, kneeling down to look him over. The face, now that it was not reacting to a sudden assault, and was not quite so close, seemed a lot less frightening, though it was hard to avoid gazing at the empty eye socket.

‘I’m sorry,’ gasped Aquila, one eye still on the dog.

‘I think you are. Minca killed you nearly. He protect his master, like good dog should.’

The voice was quite gentle, deep and rasping, but warm and friendly. He said something in the other tongue, patting the animal on the head and the dog whined and nuzzled his hand. Aquila pushed himself up until he was sitting. He still felt drained of air and he rubbed his chest where the huge paws had thumped into him.

‘You like stroke him?’

Aquila put out his hand gingerly, stopping well short of the animal’s jaws. The huge square head with its pointed ears was not something to inspire him with confidence, even if the enormous brown eyes looked friendly enough. The dog, near black, with lighter brown colouring around the muzzle and lower legs, pushed its head forward to sniff his fingers and Aquila felt the rough tongue lick the tips.

‘You be all right now he know you. You stand up, he will not attack again.’

The man took Aquila’s arm to help him to his feet, as the boy apologised again. ‘I didn’t mean any harm.’

The blond man smiled. ‘You gave me fright.’ He reached out with his free hand to touch Aquila’s hair, a look of curiosity in his one good eye. ‘What you doing in woods?’

‘Just playing.’

The shepherd then touched the edge of Aquila’s smock, so clearly the garment of someone poor. ‘You have benevolent master, boy.’

‘Master?’

The man smiled, then shrugged. ‘A slave boy with time for play.’

‘I’m no slave boy,’ snapped Aquila, in a voice that brought the dog to his feet. ‘I’m a free-born Roman.’

‘Not worry,’ said the shepherd quickly, seeing the boy back away from the creature slightly. ‘Minca as gentle as a lamb.’

This seemed to remind him of his other charges and he let forth with a string of incomprehensible commands that sent the dog running off toward the sound of the distant sheep bells. Then he turned back, looking Aquila up and down before speaking.

‘Free-born Roman, eh?’ he enquired in his bad Latin, fingering Aquila’s hair again. Then he touched his face gently. ‘Your skin take sun well, unlike me. If you Roman, that means your father is free-born Roman too.’

‘He most certainly is.’

He smiled even more at the emphatic way the boy spoke. ‘So father toils in fields, while son runs off to play?’

Aquila puffed out his chest in pride. ‘My father is serving with the 10th Legion of the Roman Army in Illyricum.’

‘Has he same colour hair?’

‘No.’

Aquila frowned, not making any attempt to hide his displeasure; all his life he had been subjected to taunts for his height and his hair, with more than the odd hint as to his dubious parentage. Few dared to let him overhear these days, since he would thump anyone who even suggested that he was different. The girls were the worst, but you could hardly just give them a buffet round the ear. Mind, recently, their remarks tended to be phrased in a way designed to catch his attention, rather than taunt him, and only turned nasty when he treated their interest with lofty disdain.

The one eye did not flicker, holding the boy in its solitary gaze. ‘So your father in legions. Where does mother come from?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘She Roman?’

‘Of course!’

‘Father ever been to Gaul?’

Aquila spoke as if he did not understand. ‘Gaul?’

The man pointed over his shoulder. ‘Up there, north.’

‘I know where Gaul is. It’s full of blond giants who fight naked. The legions always beat them…’ Aquila realised he was talking to a blond giant who spoke in a strange tongue and fell into an embarrassed silence as the smile disappeared and the rasp in the voice was less friendly.

‘They not always win, boy.’

Aquila was now glaring up at him. ‘You were taken prisoner?’

The shepherd nodded with some reluctance. ‘So you a free-born Roman?’

Aquila replied defiantly. ‘Yes.’

‘You have name?’

‘Aquila Terentius.’

The man raised his head to look at the sky, as if acknowledging the source. ‘Well, young eagle, I too have name. It Gadoric, and I a slave, though I was once free-born like you.’ Aquila held his hand out and the man took it with a grin. ‘Free-born Roman shakes the hand of slave!’

‘Is that the wrong thing to do?’ asked Aquila, confused.

The shepherd laughed and picked up his battered straw hat. ‘No, boy, that the right thing to do, but it not happen often. Let us go, see if I have any animals left.’

The sheep were huddled in a tight group, with Minca laying right in front of them, paws outstretched and eyes fixed for the least sign of movement.

‘He’s a bit big for a sheepdog.’

‘He bred to hunt stags. Two-week-old pup when I was taken. Kept him inside my coat, next to the skin.’ He called to the dog in his alien tongue and it ran over to join him, to have its ears vigorously rubbed. ‘Now we look after sheep.’

Gadoric issued some more commands to the dog and it ran out of sight. Then he tapped the lead ram with his long staff and it immediately headed in the opposite direction, away from the canine smell.

‘Where are you going?’ asked Aquila.

‘To field over there.’ He pointed his staff to the south of the woods.

Aquila was curious about this man, Gadoric. He was a slave, but he had once been free and with that scar and his empty eye socket, he had probably been a soldier. He might have some interesting tales to tell. ‘Can I come with you?’

‘I just about to ask,’ said Gadoric, clapping the youngster on the shoulder. Aquila might be curious about him, but that was nothing compared to the interest that the flaxen-haired Celt had in the golden-haired child.

As they left the woods the shepherd, with his hat back in place, bent his shoulders, once more adopting the shuffling gait of an old man. Aquila looked at him strangely.

‘Can trust you?’ asked Gadoric, stopping suddenly. Taken by surprise, Aquila did not answer and they gazed intently at each other, until eventually, not sure what to say, the boy shrugged. ‘There be no way knowing, is there?’ Aquila shrugged again. Gadoric leant on his staff, clearly unsure if it was wise to speak. When he did, he sounded just as uncertain. ‘I could ask you swear on your Roman gods, but I not believe in them.’

‘I do,’ said Aquila quickly, silently evoking the name of Sanctus, the God of Good Faith.

‘No. I know men swear on every god in world, plus father’s life, that they not betray something, then watch them do it.’ He put one finger to his scarred face. ‘I prefer to look in the eye, my one against you two, and ask straight. Aquila Terentius, I tell you secret, can I trust you keep it?’

The boy threw his arm across his chest in a soldierly salute and used the words he had been told were appropriate. ‘On the altar of Sanctus and on pain of death.’

‘Not die to keep it, lad,’ said Gadoric with a smile, again touching Aquila’s hair. ‘Just not give it away to whole neighbourhood.’

‘I won’t!’

So Gadoric told him that his shuffling gait was a pretence to keep him here. He had pretended sickness when he was brought south, taking herbs that made him seem really ill. All the others, brought south with him, had been sent to Sicily, to toil on starvation rations in the cornfields. Too weak for such work, he had been kept here as a shepherd for the local magnate, Cassius Barbinus.

‘Cassius Barbinus is a very wealthy man. He’s very important round here. He bought my father’s farm off him, which is why he had to go into the legions. Barbinus owns this wood, too, and it’s rumoured he’s told his overseer to flog anyone he finds taking game from it. Everyone is frightened of him.’

‘I not frightened of him,’ snapped Gadoric. ‘But this part Italy closer to home than Sicily. One day I go back.’

‘Will Barbinus free you?’ asked Aquila.

‘No boy, he not free me.’ Aquila felt a trace of fear at the look in Gadoric’s single eye. ‘But maybe I cut out stinking Roman heart as souvenir to take home.’

He must have realised he had scared the boy, so he laughed again and patted him on the shoulder, then indicated, with his head, the sheep grazing happily on some long grass. ‘Grass for the cattle, not sheep. The dog need get them moving, eh?’

He whistled. Minca came out of the woods and bounded towards them. ‘You like tell Minca what do?’

‘I’ll be happy just as long as he doesn’t attack me.’

The dog, tail wagging, leapt about excitedly and it was obvious he was not going to attack anyone. ‘So you not want to?’

‘Yes,’ said Aquila eagerly. Fulmina would not let him have a dog, since she held that it would just take the food out of their mouths, and besides they had no work to justify keeping an animal.

‘Minca not understand Latin. You need learn my tongue before you give him commands.’

‘I’m a quick learner,’ said Aquila eagerly.

‘So we try, no?’