The Skystone

XV

I was two days out of Verulamium, making my way easily along the road towards the town the British call Alchester, when I ran into trouble. I was still feeling euphoric about my marathon encounter with Phoebe, and I was day-dreaming. In fact, I was lost in my imaginings to such an extent that it was almost too late for me to react when I finally noticed the group of five men drawn up in a line across the road about seventy-five paces ahead of me. I knew immediately that I was in trouble. They had that air of menace about them that stamped them immediately as malevolent. I reined in my horse and looked around me. There was open heath on both sides and nowhere to run to that offered any hope of safety. I glanced behind me then and was unsurprised to see three more men, slightly farther away than those ahead of me. Once aware of the danger, my mind automatically clicked back into legion days. Without even pausing to think, I slung my leg over my horse and dropped to the ground, unhitching my strung bow from around my shoulders with one hand and reaching for an arrow with the other. I wasted no time cursing myself for my carelessness. I merely nocked the arrow, drew, sighted and let go in one motion. Considering the speed with which I did it, I was lucky. The arrow took the central man of the five ahead full in the forehead and hurled him backwards, heels over head.

The speed of their companion's death threw the others into confusion. Two of them held bows, however, and I knew they would begin making life very uncomfortable for me as soon as they recovered from the first fright. Afraid that they might hit my horses, I ran limping to the side of the road, and almost ran into their first arrow in the process. It zipped past, about a foot in front of me. I remember thinking that if they shot that badly, I should just stand still and let them waste their arrows!

I snapped a shot backwards at the three behind me, and again I was lucky; one of them fell with a howl of pain. Now, they decided to treat me with respect. One of their two bowmen knelt to steady his aim. I drew a steady pull on him, bringing the string all the way back to my ear and holding it there before loosing it. The muscles of an iron-smith, I had discovered, are frequently worth more than gold. My arrow skewered him before he had even loosed his own, and in spite of his kneeling position he, too, went flying, testifying to the power of the mighty weapon I was holding.

I swung around again to check on the two remaining men behind me. They had split apart, one to each side of the road, and were running towards me as fast as their feet would carry them. One of them was no more than twenty flying paces from me as my bow came up again. I dropped him in his tracks and reached automatically for another arrow, but his companion screamed, turned and ran like a hare back the way he had come. I let him go and turned back to the others, only to discover that they, too, had taken to flight. I breathed a shivering sigh of relief and went back to lean against my horses, which still stood where I had left them. Sure enough, I saw my grandmother's sad face and I started to shake, and then I threw up.

Four men dead in less than four minutes! I spat to clear the sick taste of bile from my mouth and went to collect my valuable arrows. Three I cleaned with a handful of grass, but I had to leave the fourth lodged firmly in the forehead of the first man I had shot. It was a highly unpleasant task, recovering those arrows, and one on which I don't want to dwell, but I could not afford to leave them there.

The country ahead of me was heavily wooded and made up of rolling hills and valleys dense with growth. Thank God for Roman roads! I continued my journey for another two hours without seeing a living soul, although I was now looking very carefully and no longer day-dreaming. At dusk, I was looking seriously for a suitable bivouac spot when I saw a body of men coming towards me. Light gleamed on metal and I recognized them for what they were — a maniple of infantry. When they rode closer, I saw the standard of the Twentieth Legion, my own regiment, and I drew myself to attention and waited for them. The mounted centurion at their head came trotting towards me and halted several yards away. I gave him the clenched fist salute of the legions. He sat there, staring at me.

"Centurion? Commander Varrus?"

I nudged my horse towards him. "Aye, I'm Varrus. Who are you?"

"Strato, Strato Pompey, Commander. I was with the Hammers in '67."

"Strato! By all the Caesars, lad, you've grown up!" He laughed, and we rode towards each other and embraced. He had indeed grown up. He had been the youngest man in the Hammers, a mere lad of seventeen when they were formed, but already a decurion.

"Where have you been since then?" He drew back and looked at me, and I could see genuine admiration and liking in his gaze.

"Still with the Twentieth, sir. They reformed it after the Invasion. I'm ranking centurion now, primus pilus, as you can see. And I've been hoping you'd stop saying 'By all the Caesars!' to every Pompey that you meet. I always thought it would get you into trouble some day. We Pompeys are a wild crew, and we mislike the name of Caesar, even today." He smiled shyly, conscious of the boldness of such a speech to his old commander. But he himself was primus pilus now. The young Strato was long since forgotten. "We were just about to camp for the night. There's an open stretch of high ground about a mile ahead. Will you join us?"

"Happily, my friend. I passed the place a little while ago. I would have stopped there myself, but I had some trouble with a few of the locals earlier and I was hoping to find an easier place for one man to defend. I take your point about the Caesars, however. Some of them are highly unpleasant people."

He was frowning. "What kind of trouble have you had, sir? Where?" I nodded backwards. "Back there. About eight to ten miles. Some fellows wanted to relieve me of my horses — and my life."

"Are you all right?"

"Oh, I'm fine, but I left four of them lying in the road. You'll find them in the morning, I suppose, if their friends haven't come back for them."

His eyes grew wide. "Four of them?"

"Four." I grinned. "But not hand-to-hand. I shot them from a distance. With this." I held up the bow.

He looked at it, and his lips pursed in a silent whistle. "That's impressive shooting, nevertheless. Four of them!"

As we were talking, his maniple had marched on and were now a good hundred paces down the road.

"Come, Commander. We'd better catch them or they'll march right past the campsite."

I swung my horse into place beside him. "Where are you headed, Strato?"

"Nowhere in particular, sir. Just a routine patrol. We've been having trouble with bandits in this district. Don't know who they are, but they're making a nuisance of themselves and we have to patrol the whole area regularly. What about you?"

"Ah..." I had been on the point of telling him where I was going, and my hesitation seemed to me to be very obvious. "Just travelling, Strato, looking at the countryside and taking my time. Getting away from life for a few days."

He grinned with delight and was still grinning when we caught up to his maniple, who were already beginning to deploy on the campsite. Again. I saw no signs of any preparations to fortify the camp, but this time I felt free to comment upon it.

"An unfortified camp, Strato? I thought we taught you better than that."

His face creased into a frown. "You did, sir, and I never feel right about it. But that's the way it has to be in the Twentieth these days. Everywhere else, too. The legate commanding the legion doesn't want trouble with the men, and he would have it if they had to dig a ditch and build a wall every night."

"Even in hostile territory?"

He nodded. "I'm afraid so, Commander. It's not like the old days."

"Obviously." I looked around me. The camp was being set up in the orderly fashion that I knew so well. There just weren't any fortifications.

"You ever get caught with your britches down?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "Not yet, thank God. We use more sentries than we used to."

"You mean the men would really rather do extra guard duty than build a safe camp?"

"That's the way it is."

It was my turn to shrug. "Well, Strato, I hope you are never in the situation of having to wish you'd insisted on what you know to be right."

"So do I, Commander."

"Where can I set up? Officers' area?"

"Why, right here, sir, in the tribune's spot. I'll detail a man to put up a tent for you."

"No, Strato, that you won't. I'll put up my own. That way I know it won't fall down in the middle of the night. You'd better see to your duties. I'll get myself settled and wait here for you. Come back when you're able to relax."

He snapped me a salute and went off to supervise the evening's arrangements.

At dinner that night, he introduced me to his fellow centurions and junior warrant officers, and the evening passed very pleasantly, with many reminiscences of the fighting retreat from the Wall in '67 and '68. I rolled into bed around ten and slept like a log until the bugle sounded. I set out early the next morning on the last leg of my journey into Alchester. I found it to be a pleasant place, little more than a permanent camp with a marketplace, but it did boast a mansio, where I managed to get a hot bath and a steam as well as a surprisingly excellent meal. Then, refreshed and revitalized, I visited the market, where I found some remarkably fine pottery work done by a local craftsman. There was one beautiful vase finished in a blue glaze on jet black that for some reason suggested Britannicus so strongly to my eyes that I had to buy it for him, knowing it would please him. It had a long, slender neck and a delicately fashioned bowl, but it was heavy and very solidly made.

By that time, it was late in the afternoon, so I went over to Alchester's main camp and introduced myself to the commanding officer. He was a stranger to me, but he knew who I was, thanks again to Antonius Cicero, and he invited me to dine with him and his officers that evening. I accepted gladly and spent a very pleasant evening with them, managing to evade their casual curiosity about my destination and leaving them with the firm impression that I would be heading south-west to Portus Adurni, or Portchester as men were calling it, where I would take a ship to Gaul to search for exotic weaponry and indulge myself in indolent pursuits, as wealthy men do the world over. By the time I left the dining table to return to the mansio, it was dark.

The main entrance to the mansio was in a narrow thoroughfare that was more of an alley than a street, but it was well lit with flaming torches, which surprised me. I was about forty paces or so from the entrance to the mansio when I saw two men approaching me, weaving drunkenly, their arms about each other. I started to draw aside to let them pass just as the light from one of the torches fell on them, and a series of things happened all at once. I recognized the face of the knife-wielding cutpurse from the theatre at Verulamium. I also recognized his companion as one of the men who had attacked me on the road, the one who had fled screaming when I dropped his companion less than twenty paces from me. And I knew without even turning around that there were two others behind me, because four had been left alive.

I was still clutching the long-necked vase I had bought earlier in the marketplace. Now, without stopping to think, for I knew that I was absolutely right and was about to die if I didn't do something immediately, I leaped towards the two "drunkards, " swinging the vase like a club. It took the cutpurse high on the side of the head and sent him smashing senseless into the wall on the other side of the alley. His friend was taken completely aback and froze, slack-jawed, for just the length of time it took me to shift my weight and kick him full in the balls with my good leg. As he bent double, I brought the still-unbroken vase down on the back of his head and heard his vertebrae crunch. I kept the impetus of the swing going and spun to face behind me, where the other two would-be assassins hung paralysed in surprise. I swung my pottery club high over my head and charged them with a roar. They turned and ran, and I chased them, knowing I had no hope of catching them. I knew I was a cripple, but they had apparently forgotten.

Shaking with rage, I finally stopped and returned to the two I had downed. The second one I had hit lay full in the middle of the narrow street, stone dead, the base of his skull crushed. I crossed to the other one, the cutpurse, as I had thought him. He was unconscious, but he was still alive and his pulse was strong. I looked up and down the street. There wasn't a soul in sight. Who were these people? It was obviously no accident that I had encountered them three times in three days, over a distance of some fifty miles.

I bent over the unconscious one and hauled him to a sitting position. Then I began to slap his face, trying to bring him back to consciousness. I had no worries about being discovered there; no one would question a guest at the officers' barracks. The man did not respond to my slapping. I drew out my skystone dagger and knelt beside him on the ground, picking up his hand and pressing the point of the dagger into the half-moon of his thumb-nail. He responded to that, quickly. As soon as I saw that he was regaining consciousness, I left him to open his eyes naturally. When he did, and saw my face bending over him, his eyes flared with fear.

"You know me, don't you?" I took a handful of his hair and inserted the point of the dagger into his nostril. "Well, I don't know you. But I do know that you have been trying to kill me, and I don't like that. I can think of better ways to die than at the hands of a dung pile like you." My voice was calm and level, showing none of the anger, horror and revulsion that were rioting through me now that the danger was over. I twisted my hand tighter in his greasy hair, pulling him up so that his face strained in discomfort as he tried to pull his head back and away from the point of my dagger in his nostril,

"You're an ugly son of a whore, but you're not going to look any better if I have to lay your nose open on both sides. And I will, friend, if you don't tell me what I want to know. And if you are really strong and can stand the pain and still not tell me, then I'm going to cut your ears off. one at a time. And then I'll carve you a new mouth. One without lips." I pushed and sliced, and the dagger blade passed cleanly through the sensitive flesh of his nostril, bringing a gush of blood and a scream of pain. I inserted the point in his other nostril. "I learned this trick from the tribesmen in Africa. It works well — don't you think so?"

His eyes were starting from their sockets and he was gagging on his own tongue in his terror. I took the knife point away and shook his head by the hair, brutally, and then jammed the point back again.

"Now! Why are you trying to kill me? Why me?"

His mouth worked frantically, but nothing came out. I released his hair and grasped him by the front of his tunic, pulling him up to me and smelling the rancid foulness of his breath.

"I'm going to count to three, and then your nose is gone and we start on your ears. One."

It was as far as I needed to go. He was babbling, "Hired! Hired! We were hired to kill you! Ten gold auri!"

"Hired by whom? How did you know me?"

"We didn't we didn't we didn't! We were looking for a grey-haired man with a limp! A strong man! We saw you in Verulamium."

"You saw me?" I returned my grip to his filthy hair, twisting it violently.

"Are you telling me that I might not be the man you were hired to kill?" He was terrified, nodding his head and grinning as though an admission of mistaken identity would get him out of this situation. I felt disgust swelling in my gorge. I twisted harder.

"How long have you been looking for this man?"

"A week! More!"

"A week? You must be mad, as well as murderous." I let him go, abruptly. "A week, you say? Who wants this man dead badly enough to set a price as high as that on his head?" I asked, though I already knew. "You say you have no name for him? The victim?"

He shook his head, relieved to be released. "No. No name. Just a description. As I said. Grey hair, grey beard, lame leg. Like you."

"Like me. Do you know how many men there are like me in Britain, you imbecile? There must be hundreds! All veterans. All capable of eating your kind alive and spewing you into the gutter." I thumbed the edge of the dagger. "I want to kill you, you animal, and I haven't felt that way in years. I'd be doing the world a favour, too." I brought the point against his throat, watching his eyes narrow with fear. "You have one chance of living. Who offered the price?"

I knew he was going to lie even before he spoke. I saw it in those eyes of his.

"I don't know."

I transferred my grip again, quickly, seizing his ear and slicing half of it off, holding the severed piece up in front of him. He stared in disbelief.

"You want to keep the other half? You expect me to believe that you would not know where to go to collect your blood money? Who made the offer?"

He swallowed, hard, and whispered a name. I didn't catch it. As I reached for his other ear, he shrieked it.

"Quinctilius Nesca!"

"Quinctilius Nesca." The blood surged in my ears. I felt the tension draining from me, to be replaced by a cold anger. "You could have saved yourself an ear by spitting that out sooner." I released him and then hauled him to his feet, pushing him back against the wall. He was bleeding copiously from both nose and ear, but he made no move to staunch the flow. He never took his eyes from mine.

"You're not going to kill me?"

I looked him up and down. "Why should I kill you now? I'm going to hand you over to the army. They'll hang you." I pulled him away from the wall and spun him around, then prodded him in front of me at dagger point to the mansio, where I sent the owner's son to fetch a patrol from the camp.

Afterwards, when all the official inquiries were over, I was stopped on my way to bed by a young soldier.

"Commander Varrus?"

I looked down at him wearily. He looked very young.

"Yes, what is it?"

"Pardon me, sir, but is this yours? We found it on the street outside."

My vase was still intact, a testament to the workmanship that had gone into the making of it. I thought about taking it back in the morning and exchanging it for another — one with no blood on it. I changed my mind immediately, however. It had served me well, and without it Britannicus would have lost a friend and his reputation.

I went to my bed that night depressed and despondent at the virulence of the Seneca family's hatred and the personal power that each of them enjoyed. A man who could reach out, through his family, to kill anywhere in Britain was a man to be wary of.

I spent ten more days on the road after that episode, taking care now to appear as nothing more than a humble traveller. I unstrung my bow and wrapped the shaft and my quiver of arrows in a cover of cloth and carried them thereafter strapped along the side of one of my pack horses so that they looked like part of my bedroll or an extra tent. I travelled quickly for the first four days, covering a lot of miles, and then, when I estimated that I had removed myself from the ken of those who might recognize me, I permitted myself to relax and enjoy the road.

As I approached the country Britannicus lived in, the scenery changed. The massive, dense woodlands changed their character. The trees lost their height and girth and the forest grew more bushy.. To my left, to the south, the rolling hills dropped gradually towards the coastal lands, while on my right they grew from uplands to high hills, hills which I came to know as the Mendips. And to the south and west of the Mendip Hills, the farmlands became more abundant and more prosperous as I drew closer to my destination.

By the time I had reached the town of Aquae Sulis itself, I was ready to enjoy the famous waters the town was named for. I arrived on a quiet day early in the week and found the place thronged. Everyone in the west, it seemed, came to Aquae Sulis for the baths, and for the marketplaces that teemed with the produce of the countryside around. When I remarked on the quality of his goods to a stallholder, he boasted that there was no farming country in the world to equal this, and I soon came to realize that this was true.

I took a private chamber in one of the local hostelries and spent much of each afternoon of my first three days in the town merely walking around the markets, sampling the foodstuffs offered for sale. Now that I was here, having travelled across Britain, I suddenly found myself unsure of my welcome. Caius was not in Britain, and I knew neither his sister, Luceiia, nor his brother-in-law, Varo. My thoughts went, time and again, to the unwelcome reception shown by my own family when I'd arrived, unannounced, in Colchester to claim my inheritance.

I was thinking exactly about that when I returned to my lodgings on the afternoon of my third day in town. I had bathed earlier in the day and eaten well in the marketplace at various stalls, and I had bought myself a new and rather fine tunic, some leather breeches and a new pair of sandals. On the previous day I had bought a rich cloak lined with the soft fur of a large number of rabbits and trimmed with ermine pelts. Wearing it that evening, even for just a few moments, I had seen just how shabby the rest of my clothes had become. Now, in an attempt to rid myself of the depression that haunted me, I changed into my new finery and went into the common tavern of the mansio for a pot of ale. The place was noisy and crowded, but as I entered the room a momentary stillness settled over everyone, and I felt a hundred pairs of eyes taking in every detail of my appearance. I hesitated for a heartbeat, feeling the silence palpably, and then, as I made my way to the counter at the back of the room, the conversation began again and I was ignored. A crew of three men were kept busy pouring ale for the thronging drinkers. I bought myself a large flagon of brew and turned back to the room, sipping at it as I looked from face to face. Only one man was paying any attention to me, staring at me with a frown on his face. As I caught his gaze he shook his head slightly, as though startled, and his frown deepened. Then he stood up, unnoticed by the others at the table, and moved directly towards me, obviously intent on speaking to me.

I watched him come closer, my mind trying frantically to place his face, knowing him a total stranger and wondering what his business could be with me. Had he mistaken me for someone else? It hardly seemed likely. The only other possible alternative was that he was a Seneca spy and had been looking for me. But then why would he approach me so openly? I held myself ready for anything.

As he drew closer, I saw that he was of medium height, well dressed, stout and red-faced with a bald head and a fringe of iron-grey hair that was short and trimmed in the Roman fashion. I saw that he wore a tunic of good, heavy wool beneath a sleeveless leather coat, the sides of which overlapped in front and were fastened by a broad leather belt with a finely crafted, heavy silver buckle.

Finally we were face to face, staring each other in the eye in silence for what seemed like a long time. Then he tilted his head slightly to one side and spoke in a deep, gruff voice. "Your pardon, but is your name Publius Varrus?"

I blinked, trying to conceal my astonishment. "It is. How do you know me? Who are you?"

"By all the old gods, I knew it! Recognized you the minute you stepped into the room." The frown was gone, replaced by a wide smile as he reached for my hand and grasped it in a strong grip. "Varo. Quintus Varo. Cay's my brother-in-law. He told me all about you. Talks about you all the time. Told me you might be coming out this way some day and made me swear to treat you well. Welcome! Welcome to Aquae Sulis. Have you come to stay? Luceiia's going to be angry at me for meeting you first. Strong-minded woman, Luceiia. Have you eaten yet? By the gods, you look exactly as Cay described you. Amazing. When did you get in? What are you drinking? Ale? I prefer wine, myself. Come and join me. I have an excellent red from central Gaul that will amaze you, and the house here serves the finest beef. Damn me to Hades while I live, you look exactly as Cay said you did. Come, come, join me. I have a table. " Through this flood of words I stood gaping at him. open-mouthed, absorbing all of his questions and able to answer none of them, so quickly did they crowd together. Without waiting for me to speak, he grasped me firmly by the forearm and began pulling me behind him in the direction of the table at which I had first noticed him. I followed willingly enough, clutching my pot of ale and wondering just what it was about me that Britannicus had been able to describe so graphically and, obviously, so accurately. When we reached the table, he introduced me to the men already there as his brother-in-law's best friend, and they all nodded and spoke to me, making me welcome and making room for me to join them. Afterwards, they returned to their own conversations, courteously leaving the two of us to become acquainted. All of them were farmers, come to town for the annual cattle sale.

And indeed, by the end of an hour I felt as though I had known and liked Quintus Varo for most of my life. He and Luceiia Britannicus had married a brother and sister. The brother had died some years earlier, leaving Luceiia a widow. Varo's wife's name was Veronica, and, as I already knew, his estates bordered those of Caius and Luceiia. When I commented, questioningly, on Luceiia's ability to manage the estate in Caius's absence, Quintus quickly left me in no doubt as to her qualifications. Although he spoke of her with a genuine and unmistakable fondness, according to him, Luceiia Britannicus was not hampered by, with or from womanly weaknesses. She was a fine-looking woman, he said, but in fairness she should have been born a man, for there was little that was feminine about her. She ran the estate with a barbed, iron tongue and she knew her business. In fact, he opined, she knew more about all kinds of business than any female had the right to know.

I marked Luceiia Britannicus mentally as a woman to be courteous to and to avoid, and our talk moved on to other things, among which was the shocking information that Caius had lost his wife, Heraclita, and his three youngest children to a pestilence during their first year in Africa. I had never met the Commander's family, but I knew of his love for all of them, and in particular for his wife Heraclita, and I mourned for his grief, years old as it was by now. I recalled clearly and in detail the loving way he had spoken, while we lay immobilized together, of his family, and of his belief in every man's need for the love of a good woman. I wondered how he had coped with his loss.

We drank deeply and at length that night, between mourning for Caius and his loss and celebrating our own meeting. Varo was staying in the same lodgings as I, and I have no idea what time we staggered off to sleep, but we arranged to breakfast together the following morning and then to travel together to Quintus's home, and thence to Caius's villa.