Vindolanda

XXIV

SULPICIA LEPIDINA LAY on one side, head on a cushion, watching him. ‘The sun has risen.’ Her voice was sad. ‘I guess that is no longer Samhain and the world will soon return to how it was.’

Strictly speaking the festival lasted until dusk, so it was still Samhain, but the daylight hours were a time for placating spirits set loose the night before and persuading them to return to the Otherworld and not haunt the realm of the living. There were more fires and more sacrifices and dances, but these were less of a celebration and the mood was always different, little better than that among the hundreds of hung-over Batavians who began the task of clearing up the debris of their own revels.

Ferox reached out to touch her hair. For a moment her smile grew warm, although there was something brittle about her in the pale light that came into the room through the cracks in the high, shuttered window.

‘I am glad to have a good memory,’ she said. ‘Its sweetness will carry me through the days to come.’ The lady took his hand and kissed his fingers.

‘I am glad that you are safe,’ he said. ‘Last night I was…’ He struggled to finish, but then she leaned forward and he pulled her to him. They kissed for a while, until more might have happened if she had not pulled away.

‘You are a good friend,’ she said. ‘Someone I can trust.’

‘I have been from the start,’ he said, wanting to believe her in spite of his instincts that told him no fine lady would bother with a mere centurion unless she needed him for some dark purpose. ‘If you just want a friend, you did not need all that business last night.’

She sat up, the covers slipping down so that she was naked to the waist. Her face was a mask except for the anger smouldering in her eyes.

‘What do you really want from me, lady? I am a nobody, and you have thrown yourself at me from the start.’

‘Bastard!’ she hissed the word. ‘I must be a fool to bother.’

‘As a matter of fact you are. I’m really not worth it.’

The slap caught him by surprise. The lady swung her arm and hit him across the face with enough force to sting. ‘Bastard!’ she said again, but now her eyes were glassy, and Ferox still did not know what to think.

There was a knock on the door before it opened and Flora appeared with the news that a carriage and escort was on the way to collect the lady. She hurried Ferox out, and he knew that there was nothing to be said even though he wished that there were. They left Sulpicia Lepidina to get dressed – her maid had appeared and must have spent the night in the place. From the next room Ferox heard Flora telling the soldiers that the prefect’s lady would be with them soon, and informing the decurion in charge that Flavius Ferox had stood guard all night outside the lady’s room, so that it was just moments ago that she had sent him off to sleep. The lie added to the sense of unreality, and it was already feeling like a dream save for the lingering taste of her lips and the smell of her hair.

He stayed at Flora’s for an hour, for the sake of form and to help the story the brothel owner had told. One of her girls was a good barber and she shaved him, and it was strange that having a pretty and flimsily clad young woman fussing over him brought only mild arousal. He had not felt like this for many years, and even though any love was hopeless, even dangerous, it was still as if life was breathed into him, and all his suspicion and doubt could not quite hold it back. There was happiness in the world, even for him and even here near the edge of the world. It might be fleeting, already past, and was probably taking him down a dangerous road, but he had the memory to cherish and warm him. Better yet a vague hope of contentment was welling up within him, and when he glanced at the copper mirrors covering all of one wall he saw that he was smiling.

Flora provided him with clean tunic, trousers and socks, so that he was more presentable when he went to the fort, heading for the principia. He forced his face into its usual impassive mask, but suspected that he walked with a jauntiness reflecting his mood. The sight of pale-faced and nauseous Batavians standing guard at the main gate added to his high spirits. He could guess how they felt, but sympathy struggled with amusement and lost. Others responded in the same way. A party of Tungrians marched out of the fort to go on patrol and the soldiers stamped louder than was necessary, while their commander yelled with all his might when he asked permission to leave the base.

‘You’re up then?’ Vindex appeared as he approached the big archway leading into the principia. He looked the centurion up and down and burst out laughing.

‘What?’

‘Nothing.’ The Brigantian fell silent apart from the occasional snigger, but then stopped and clapped his hands on the centurion’s shoulders. ‘It is good to see you again.’

‘Huh.’ It was not a question. Ferox did not want to talk, but the scout ignored his mood and began to tell him what had happened. Three slaves and a freedman found dead in the praetorium, along with a sentry at the western gate. Another soldier wounded, along with Longinus, who was coming along well.

‘Tough old bugger, that one,’ Vindex said, and then explained that everyone else was safe. ‘The prefect’s got a bruise the size of an apple on his cheek from when he fell. Longinus’ men carried him to a barrack room and watched him all night.’

‘Attacked?’

‘No, beer.’

‘A couple of slave girls are missing, but that lad Privatus reckons they’ll have been out with soldiers during the night, so they’re probably just drunk or bow-legged by now.’

A thought nagged him for a while, and it was only as they walked across the courtyard that he remembered Flora telling him that the Batavians abstained from women during their festival. Perhaps the women were just too drunk to return to the house.

Morning reports were a good deal more subdued than usual, with less stamping and shouting. Flavius Cerialis sat at the table, chin resting on his hands, and apart from the bruise on his face his skin had a greenish pallor and his eyes were glassy and red-rimmed. His servants had done their best to tidy him up, but there were stains on his boots and trousers. Ferox wondered whether they had brought the commander directly from the barrack block to the headquarters. Of all the men assembled for the parade he looked the one closest to death. Several of the ordinary soldiers were turned out as perfectly as on any other day, even though he was sure they had drunk as much as anyone else. He had known a fair few soldiers like that, who could spend all the night drinking, get no sleep, and yet still look ready to parade in front of the princeps himself. What was the old tag? ‘Iron stomach, iron head, iron heart.’ Ferox wanted to smile at the thought, and it took an effort to keep his face rigid.

The bad news came in gradually, and it was as if enemy soldiers were undermining the rampart of his good mood. An optio from the Tungrians came first, marching smartly and noisily into the hall and shouting out a request to deliver an important message. Cerialis winced as if the sky had fallen on his head. He struggled to speak, then satisfied himself with a beckoning wave that was meant to give permission.

‘The centurion Pudens regrets to report that cohors I Tungrorum has a number of men missing.’

Cerialis gave a weak smile and coughed to clear his throat. ‘I dare say there are fifty or sixty of my men unaccounted for at the moment.’

The optio did not smile. They had found two soldiers killed, the bodies dumped inside a workshop. Three soldiers were gone. ‘We fear that they have gone over the wall.’

‘Deserted?’ Cerialis was brutal in his reply, not sparing the junior officer’s shame. ‘I suppose you know who they are.’

‘Yes, my lord. All from the new draft that reached us back in the spring.’ The optio spotted the questioning look. ‘Yes, my lord, all three are Britons.’

Cerialis nodded. ‘As before.’

‘I fear so, my lord. And the sentry wounded at the gate says that they were attacked from behind. Some men in uniform approached them. They were not men he knew, but he did think one was from the cohort. Then half a dozen men in trousers and tunics sprang out from the shadows. He heard them speak and thought that they were Brigantes.’ There was a murmur at that. ‘Britons at the very least.’

‘My lord! My lord!’ The shout came from the courtyard. Other voices answered in anger, but the man persisted. ‘My lord! I must speak with you.’

Cerialis gestured to one of the soldiers. ‘Bring him in.’

It was Privatus, the head of his household, and for once he did not display his habitual calm assurance. He ran past the soldiers and crouched beside his master, whispering in his ear.

‘She is not an early riser.’ Cerialis frowned as he spoke. The chamberlain whispered again, and although he spoke louder and with more force Ferox could not catch the words.

‘I did not see her last night,’ the prefect said, his face scanning the men around him in case they could offer an explanation. ‘She can drink a lot. Probably sleeping it off.’

‘She has gone, master. The Lady Fortunata is nowhere to be found.’ Privatus must have decided that he needed to speak out loud if the message was to get through. ‘You should see the room. Her slave is dead.’

‘We’re humped,’ Vindex muttered under his breath, but Ferox was more concerned when the prefect turned towards him.

‘I would be glad of your company, centurion.’

Cerialis said little as they went to his house, and only once was there real emotion in his voice. ‘Do you know they slaughtered three of my dogs? Chopped ‘em up. Bastards.’

Privatus led them through the entrance to the left wing of the house, where the rooms were better decorated and furnished. The wife of Vegetus had been given a room on the ground floor, away from the family. Sulpicia Lepidina waited by the door, wearing a spotless dress in the pale blue she favoured. The corridor was in shadow for the sun had not yet risen high enough to reach into the courtyard alongside it, and yet she glowed. Long ago Ferox had served with another centurion who was devoted to Isis and the man had spoken of the goddess appearing in visions, a perfect statue of ivory and gold, and for the first time he understood something of the man’s ecstatic description. Seeing such splendour was thrilling and terrifying at once. Mixing with gods rarely ended well for a mere mortal.

‘My lord,’ she said to her husband.

‘My lady,’ he replied, inclining his head. ‘It is good to see you safe.’ He pecked her on the cheek with no great suggestion of warmth.

Yet there was even less hint of real affection in her brisk and formal ‘Good morning, my dear Ferox. I trust you are well.’

‘My lady,’ he replied. ‘You are most kind.’ He looked for some sign to show whether she now hated or trusted him, but there was none, only the noble Roman lady and dutiful wife walking beside her husband.

Cerialis hesitated in the doorway, breathed deeply, and then went in. Before Ferox could follow, Lepidina stepped after him.

‘My lady,’ he said, ‘it is probably better if you remain outside.’

She turned, every inch the high and mighty aristocrat. ‘Centurion, I am grateful for your concern for my welfare, but this is my house and I am not one of your soldiers to order as you please.’

Privatus was standing behind her and Ferox saw the chamberlain give an approving nod. The freedman could not see his mistress wink. He hoped that it was a sign of forgiveness and the simple gesture brought memories of the night flooding over him again. Ferox could tell that all his natural suspicion and scepticism would not be enough whenever he was near this woman, for there was something overpowering about her. As he followed her through the door he looked down at her shoulders, the smooth white skin barely covered by her light dress, and he longed to pluck off the brooches holding it up and see it rustle to the floor. As if she could read his mind, the lady turned her head and gave him a cold stare.

The smell brought him fully back to grim reality. There was the usual odour of a bedchamber in the morning, before the slaves had come to empty the vase of night soil. It was the scent of the human body, tinged with sweat, and if this was fainter with a woman it was always there. The damp, musty smell so common at Vindolanda and especially on the ground floor of the praetorium lingered in the background, even when Privatus got a pole and opened the shutters on the high windows, so that bars of sunlight speared into the room.

Over it all was the smell of death: not the violent butcher’s yard stink of the dismembered dogs, but a subtle, insidious cloud that seeped into the nostrils and throat. The girl lay on the bed, and now that the windows gave them more light Ferox could see that what he had taken to be a necklace was a deep cut around her throat. Someone had covered her up in blankets, so that it would look as if the guest was asleep in her bed.

‘It is her maid,’ Privatus told them. ‘Her name was Artemis and she was a silly little thing, but worked hard and was faithful.’

Cerialis sighed. ‘I’ll organise a search. Ferox, would you mind taking a look and seeing if you can work out what happened?’

‘Of course, sir.’ One thing Ferox knew had happened was that he had failed. He had saved the golden woman in this room, but the price had been the death of this unfortunate slave girl and maybe her mistress as well.

‘I shall stay and assist.’ Cerialis looked surprised when his wife spoke. ‘In case the centurion needs to ask about the household,’ she explained.

The prefect stared at her for a while and Ferox could not read his thoughts. Then Cerialis gave a gentle nod. ‘That is prudent.’

After he had gone Ferox went to the side of the big wooden bed with its high canopy.

‘Ugly old thing,’ Lepidina told him. ‘It was left behind by the previous commander and his family – and no doubt by everyone else back to the fool who bought it.’

The girl was young, fourteen or fifteen at a guess, and she had an unremarkable face. Her hair was dark brown and a little thin, her staring eyes small and grey in colour. Drained of blood her skin was white, but her lips were dark and mottled and stains on the bed beside her showed that she had frothed at the mouth. Ferox leaned over and sniffed, and heard his boot crush something. It was a piece of mistletoe, and when he smelled it there was the trace of other things as well. He guessed that one was nightshade, and that meant they had forced poison into the poor child.

The centurion pulled back the covers, grimacing at the stink of excrement. The corpse was naked, save for a bracelet of cheap stones, and there was no other trace of injury. Someone had drugged her, placed her in the bed and then slit her throat. She had not been dead when it had happened, so the cut had bled freely and she had fouled herself.

Sulpicia Lepidina had covered her eyes with one hand and sounded as if she was praying.

‘You should not be here, my lady,’ Ferox said.

She looked up, stern and proud again. ‘This is my house. I must know everything that happens here. Everything. Privatus?’

‘Mistress.’

‘Go and find out who saw the girl and our guest yesterday. We will need to see them.’

‘Yes, mistress.’ The chamberlain left, and Lepidina began to look at the clothes and boxes on a table in the corner of the room. Ferox wondered whether to talk to her about what had happened, but he did not know the right words, so got on with the matter in hand.

He drew the blankets back over the dead girl and closed her eyes. It was the least he could do and did not make him feel any better. He tried to look for signs in the room. There were some scuffs on the floorboards that looked fresh, which suggested the hobnailed boots of soldiers, but that might mean no more than a recent visit by the prefect to his lover. Nearer the window the boards were wet from damp seeping up from the ground and there was a print or two, faint, but showing traces of at least two boots – one markedly smaller than the other.

‘Look at this.’ Sulpicia Lepidina was holding up a writing tablet. As Ferox took it he saw that her eyes were moist. She must have gripped it tightly because her thumbs had left deep smudges in the wax coating on the surface of the thin wooden sheet – made from silver ash by its feel and colour.

He did not bother to read on. He had seen hundreds of similar documents, recording the sale and purchase of slaves. Somewhere there was surely another document announcing her manumission. Until now he had not thought of Vegetus, who had also made the jump from slave to free man.

‘Do you think that she is dead?’ The question was direct and he knew that the lady was not asking about the corpse in the bed.

‘I cannot say. We may find her.’

‘You can forget trust if you lie to me as plainly as that,’ she said.

‘There is not much hope,’ he admitted. ‘We might be able to catch them.’

‘And I might one day forget that you are a pig as well as a good man.’ She waved him down when he tried to speak. ‘I did not like the woman. How could I? Husbands stray and that is the way of the world. I do not take it personally. How could I after last night?’ There was a thin smile. ‘Nor did she commend herself to me in any other way. Just a foolish little whore who flung herself at men – even you if I remember that dinner last month.’

That was a surprise, for he had not thought anyone had noticed.

‘It does not matter.’ Lepidina’s voice was sad. ‘She was a guest in my house and that does matter. Murderers came over my threshold and they killed this child and abducted her owner. Perhaps they have killed her too.’

She began to sob, shoulders quivering. Ferox glanced quickly at the door, was relieved to see that Privatus had closed it behind him and he went and clasped her to him. Her head was on his shoulder and he felt her body shaking. One hand clasped her and the other smoothed her hair.

‘It was not your fault,’ he said. ‘Never your fault.’

Sulpicia Lepidina lifted her head and he kissed her on the cheek and soothed her. ‘It’s all right, it was not your fault,’ he repeated over and over again. Ferox still could not tell just what this clever aristocrat wanted, or what she really thought of him, but she was in his arms and at that moment all he wanted was to comfort her and make her smile again. ‘It was not your fault. I am to blame.’

She stared at him, puzzled and unconvinced.

‘I should have thought more clearly. They were looking for you, and all I wished to do was save you. Your husband as well, for that is my duty, but I could not bear the thought of them taking you, of them…’

‘My husband told me why you think they attacked me in my carriage,’ she said. ‘I assumed they just wanted my jewels – and perhaps my aged body.’ The tears had stopped, and she tried to laugh at her poor joke.

‘Then you know the horror of it all,’ Ferox said. ‘I thought only of stopping them, and when we arrived last night and found the praetorium raided all that mattered was to see you safe. It was my only thought.’

Her smile was a little warmer this time. ‘You had other thoughts once you found me.’

‘Yes, and while we…’ He trailed off for the guilt engulfed him. ‘I should have gone back to the fort. Checked that all was well. Instead I did not and they got away.’

‘How could you have known?’ She reached up and stroked his cheek.

‘It’s my job to know, and my job to think. I am tasked with keeping the peace in this region and I have failed. Do you not understand?’ He was surprised at how much this wounded him, striking at a pride he thought long gone.

She gave a slight shake of her head.

‘They thought they had you. It is the only explanation. Here is a big room, with a rich woman in it. They were sent to snatch the prefect’s wife and they found a lady in a big bed in his house. “Blood of king, blood of queen.” Just because you were safe did not mean that there was no more danger.’

She pulled free, as if to think more clearly. ‘There was no attack on my husband.’

‘There was on Longinus.’ It all seemed so simple. ‘If they knew who he really is then that is their king’s blood – though in truth he was too dangerous for them.’ One thought followed another. ‘The mongrel!’ he said angrily. ‘It was him.’

‘I do not follow.’

‘Longinus, or Civilis, or whoever the rogue is. He knew what was happening, got you to safety, protected the children and your husband, but sacrificed the others.’

‘He is a fine man and we owe him much.’

Perhaps the lady had known what he was doing? The idea certainly did not appear to disturb her. Ferox stared into her eyes, but could not read what was behind them.

‘That fine man also staked out Fortunata as a decoy,’ he said. ‘Made sure Privatus forgot to take her to safety, knew your husband would be too careless and then too drunk to bother. He used her to save you.’

‘It is all because of me.’ The tears came again.

‘No, for you. Perhaps I would have done the same if I had to make the choice,’ he said in grudging admiration. ‘It was not your fault or his fault, but mine, to be so besotted that I failed everyone last night.’

A knock on the door ended the conversation. They spoke to the slaves, but learned little more and Ferox remained convinced that he was right. Prolonged searching discovered the remaining maid fast asleep and snoring in an empty box in one of the stables. There was no trace of Fortunata.

‘How could they have got her out past the guards?’ Cerialis asked of no one in particular.

‘Easier last night than almost any other in the year,’ Ferox said. ‘No one saw a cart or anyone carrying something bulky in a sack, so my guess is that she was inside one of the straw figures.’

The prefect went even paler and sent men to look at the remains – before dawn all the effigies were burned as part of the ritual. He was relieved when the men returned to say that there was no sign of anyone hidden within the burned figures, but then another party arrived and said that they had found a big figure of a cow tipped on its side near the edge of the canabae. Ferox remembered it, which made him think that they had got away even earlier than he had guessed.

‘I need to see if they left a trail,’ he told them, but there were more delays before he set out with Vindex and half a dozen Batavian troopers who looked almost sober. They had to wait to leave the main gate as an officer and his escort clattered through into the fort. It was Flaccus and he gave a friendly wave as he passed.

The trail was easy to follow and it took them westwards.

Vindex was not happy. ‘Ten of my lads were at the fort waiting for us to come back, just as you ordered,’ he explained. ‘Now they are told that they cannot leave Vindolanda until the details of the attack are established. What’s up? Are they prisoners?’

Ferox had been afraid of this. He had not yet mentioned to anyone else the potion of mistletoe and nightshade or the double death inflicted on the slave girl. He wondered why they had not added the third death of strangulation to make this a proper sacrifice, but then these people were druids and many other things as well, who invoked Isis and used magic from the east and not everything they did followed the old rules.

‘We really are humped, aren’t we?’ Vindex said when he told him.

Half an hour before they got there Ferox knew where the trail was heading. At last they saw the two standing stones, and between the Mother and Daughter there was a woman.

‘Bastards,’ Vindex gasped when they first saw her, and his anger grew as they came close. ‘Bastards, bastards, bastards.’

Two of the Batavians vomited there and then, and another did the same thing a moment later. The soldiers cursed and swore and screamed out the vengeance they would wreak.

‘Bastards,’ Vindex said again.

Ferox said nothing. This was his failure and his fault. If the thought of this being done to Sulpicia Lepidina was a nightmare too appalling to admit, that was little consolation. He had let this happen. Samhain was not yet done, but he felt as if hope was slipping back to the Otherworld with the rest of the spirits. He had failed. These swine were butchering victims in his territory and he was not stopping them. One hand gripped the handle of his sword and he itched to use it.