Virgin Territory

XI

The man Melinno threw down his pack and leaned forward, hands on his knees, until his breath came back. He’d thought that climb up Mount Tauros was tough-by Janus, this bugger made Tauros look like a pimple. He wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand and took a swig from his canteen.

Strictly speaking, it weren’t his canteen, mind. He’d swiped it from a legionary who’d passed out cold back in Zankle. It had been full of that cheap sour wine them footsloggers seemed so fond of, but Melinno had flushed out the field flask and filled it with sweet, fresh mountain water. He shook it and replaced the bung. Getting low, but he’d passed enough streams, there’d be another one shortly. Wouldn’t there?

Defiantly he shook some into his cupped hand and sluiced his face. Howay, man, there’s bound to be water up here. Stands to reason. Mountains? Water? Why, aye.

Melinno hefted his pack on to his shoulders and resumed his trudge along the narrow path. It were only a goat track, slippy and slidy, and he’d only another hour of daylight at best. Frustrating for a man who needed to cover ground, but that was the price you paid for October. There was more hours of dark than day, and it were worse up here, because for much of the afternoon the sun had been blotted out by the Great Burning Mountain on his left. It were doused at the moment, this forge of the fire god, but a bloke could never tell. Word was, nineteen summers back and just before sunrise, some old shepherd actually saw with his own eyes the mighty Vulcan hobble up to his forge and start fanning the flames. The whole mountain had burst into fire, rivers of living red hell burning everything in their path. Aye. Well. Melinno didn’t want none of that. The quicker he did his business and left, the better, as far as he was concerned.

As the light began to fade, his footsteps became more urgent, his eyes more vigilant. He wanted to make his shelter down there, in the valley, where there were trees and where there’d be water. Water and safety. Turning the corner, he heard himself gasp. Right in front of him was this huge cave. He dodged back. It could be, you know. It were big enough.

Mouth dry, he peered round the corner, but as his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he realized that what he had mistaken for a cave was nothing more sinister than the shadow of an overhang. It was the way these rocks was up here, you’d think a bloke would’ve gotten used to them by now, wouldn’t you? Nevertheless, his heart was pounding as he passed underneath. And he didn’t feel daft, neither. Cyclops lived in caves up here, them giant one-eyed cannibals what kept sheep, and Melinno knew they were close, he could hear bleating.

A bush of yellow broom blocked his way and he had to tread warily not to slip over the precipice. Aye, he were a fool to come this way, thinking he knew best.

‘Take my advice, lovey,’ the fuller’s wife had told him, running plump hands invitingly over her hips, ‘follow the coast to Katane, then cut across. It’s safer.’

His eyes had lingered on her tits, which seemed fit to burst from her tunic. Big, ripe, floppy tits, more than a man could hold in one hand.

‘If I go round the Great Burning Mountain,’ he swallowed the build-up of saliva forming in his mouth, ‘it’ll save time.’

She laughed in the back of her throat. ‘Ooh, I like a man in a hurry,’ she said, handing him the string of her girdle. ‘But you’ll make good time on the coast road.’

‘Talking of good times…’ he’d said thickly, with a sharp tug on the string.

She charged eight asses, but he’d given her ten on account of the way she pouted her lips. Aye, that were a mistake, because she were older than she made out and her tits weren’t so much floppy as sagging like half-empty flour sacks-and he’d forgotten, till he mounted her, that the way fullers cleaned clothes was by treading them in vats of stale piss.

The memory of the way that old whore stank was as good a reason as any to do the opposite of what she said, but Melinno thought he knew best and could save time cross-country. Then he found himself in the Lands of the Cyclops…

With little light left to see by, he was forced to make his descent without even the goat track to guide him. Hey now, he weren’t no more superstitious than the next man, was he? Had he been scared by them fields of bubbling mud, them entrances to the underworld? Nah. And hadn’t he crossed the pastures where the Oxen of the Sun grazed without trouble? But let’s be reasonable. Them Cyclops do enjoy the succulent taste of human flesh, it made sense to steer clear of them.

Suddenly his foot slipped and he tumbled noisily down the mountain, thirty or forty paces before he righted himself, and when he did, his left foot was paining him.

‘Fuck!’

He dropped the pack and rubbed his ankle.

‘Fucking, fucking rocks!’

There was no way he could walk, he’d have to spend the night up here. He daren’t risk starting a fire in case it were seen and there wasn’t much by way of cover either. Great! No cover, no fire, and unless he was very much mistaken, it would rain within the hour. Winds were piling up the clouds at an alarming rate-he’d be drenched to the skin in no time.

‘Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!’

By accident his good foot sent a boulder crashing down the hillside. Janus, would nothing go right for him? He limped painfully across to a hummock and hunched down as far as he could, back to the wind, his ears alert for the sound of the Cyclops. He opened his pack and found only a few hard biscuits and a bit of bacon. Better than nowt, he supposed. Better than nowt.

The rain began almost immediately, driving icy trickles down the back of his neck. His cloak was useless. Absolutely bleeding useless. Being wool, it soaked through in minutes, about as much use as a pen to a blind man. What he needed was a beaverskin cloak. Aye, like he’d seen in, where was it, Ostia? At the time, mind, it seemed bloody expensive. Another fucking mistake, and he was wrong about something else, too. The only water up here was bloody rainwater.

Shit, his ankle was throbbing. He ought to put a poultice of some sort on it, only he didn’t know what. Sulpica used to slap bonemeal on to bring out a bruise, but he’d never twisted a joint before. Not since he were a bairn, anyroad. Melinno looked at the biscuit in his hand. Aye. Well. Why not? He didn’t know how sodden it ought to be, but he softened two more, enough to make them pliable, and plastered them round his ankle. She used plantain, too, but he didn’t know where plantain grew and it was too dark to look. In this rain, with his weak ankle, he might end up down a ravine. But fennel was everywhere, so he wrapped that round the soggy mess and tied it in place with his handkerchief before hunkering down as low as he could, trying not to think of the shelter down in the valley. Or the fact that, had he taken that old whore’s advice, he’d have been halfway to Sullium by now.

‘Fuck!’

Oaths came easy of late. He knew why he did it, to spit in the eye of them three old crones, the Fates, because on the odd occasion when he swore at home, Sulpica would laugh and say, ‘Melinno, was that a swearie word I heard?’ and he’d remember where he was and beg a hug of forgiveness. Sometimes he’d swear just for that and oh, those hugs! He’d wrap her in his arms and she’d say, ‘You can squeeze me tight, pet. I won’t break, you know,’ and he’d squeeze and she’d squeeze until all the breath had come out of them both. Then they’d sit there by the fire, talking of all the things they wanted to do together, how many bairns they’d have, whether Melinno ought to open a bigger shop for his baskets-and then they’d catch each other’s eye. Sulpica would come over and sit on his lap and she’d whisper, ‘Why don’t you blow that candle out?’ and he’d reply, ‘I want to see what I’m getting’, so she’d inch up her tunic and ask, ‘Is that enough?’ and he’d say no, and this would go on till she had no clothes left and they’d both be rolling naked on the floor, and even when it was over, they’d be panting for more.

To Melinno’s surprise, although the rain had stopped, his face was streaming with water. He blew his nose with his fingers and blinked the rest of the tears back inside.

Now, because of some murdering bastard, Sulpica was cold and in her grave.

Melinno felt himself tense. Janus, that bastard would pay dear, mind. Slow and painful, if he could, but death for a death it would be. He owed her that.

He knew the killer’s name, knew he were an important man and that he moved around a lot, but he didn’t know where to look until an armourer told him the bloke had gone to Sullium. It had cost Melinno time, his basket-making business and every ass of his savings and even then, more often than not, he’d been reduced to stealing. Worst of all, when it got really bad, he turned to whores. Fat whores with huge hips and yellow hair. Older women who looked nothing like the girl with dark, springy curls and breasts like small, sweet figs who was his wife. Had been his wife.

Dawn had not broken when Melinno wrung out his cloak, broke his fast with the last of his bacon and biscuits and drained his canteen. He was not surprised, as he untied his handkerchief, that his ankle was fully recovered.

Sulpica never let him down in life. She’d certainly not let him down in death.