After Rome (19 page)

This was the warning that alerted Esoros.

The remaining inhabitants of Viroconium soon poured into the streets. Men—and not a few women—snatched up whatever weapons they could find. Men and boys seized hunting spears and garden pitchforks; they pried stones from the cobbled streets to use as missiles. Women who once had bathed in asses' milk and anointed their flesh with oil of roses now drew the silver bodkins from their hair and prepared to do battle. They were Britons; they were Celts.

Leaning heavily on his steward's arm, Vintrex followed his son out of the house. Although his residence was a fashionable distance away from any of the gates, he could hear the roar of the crowd. Buoyed on a rising tide of belligerence. Inciting each other to combat. They were Britons; they were Celts!

There just were not enough of them.

Cadogan realized this as they entered the via principalis, the wide avenue that ran from the forum to the main gate. Some of the would-be defenders had turned around already and were heading back, looking frightened. It did not take long to discover the reason.

A mighty boom of thunder reverberated through Viroconium. Cadogan glanced upward. The clear sky was a cold winter blue.

“Battering ram,” Vintrex said through tight lips. His voice did not sound like his own. Cadogan had never seen fear on his father's face before but there it was, clearly limned in every feature.

“What should we do, my lord?”

Vintrex did not answer Esoros. Instead he threw back his head and began marching toward the gate as if he thought he could turn back the others through sheer willpower. After a startled pause, his steward and his son went with him.

Dinas never goes anywhere without a sword, Cadogan recalled. What a good idea. Why didn't I think of it?

Too late now.

The men who were running away parted like a river to let the chief magistrate through. A few even turned to follow him. As they neared the eastern gate a second thunderous crash announced the mighty force pounding them from outside. The oak timbers bulged inward slightly; the massive crossbeam creaked, but did not give. A cry went up from the townspeople. Part anger, part despair.

Vintrex felt the assault on Viroconium as an assault on himself; an attack he personally could not hope to repel. But if he was going to go down he would go down fighting. He squared his shoulders and raised one fist in a defiant gesture.

In that moment Cadogan was proud of his father. He reached to put an arm around the bravely squared shoulders.

“Sounds like they're climbing the poxy walls!” cried Esoros, abandoning his efforts at formal diction. “Where'd those shitholes get any poxy ladders?”

“In the same place they found timber for a battering ram,” Vintrex said testily. “Even my fool of a son knows how to fell a tree.”

Cadogan's arm dropped to his side.

Recovering himself, Esoros urged Vintrex, “You must take shelter, my lord. They'll be on us in another minute.”

Cadogan said, “Can we hide him below the floor?”

“With the furnace?” said Esoros. “No, it is winter now and far too hot down there for an old man.”

“Who are you calling an old man!” Vintrex demanded.

The invaders began dropping down inside the wall.

Vintrex cried out in horror, “Saxons!”

Cadogan saw a swarm of thickset figures, taller than the Romans but shorter than the average Briton. Some of the Germanic marauders wore bronze helmets with noseguards and cheek pieces. All had full beards, though none was dyed purple. Absurdly, Cadogan thought, I should tell Quartilla—then realized she was still back at the house. With the Saxons coming.

Cadogan flung his arms around his father and tried to drag him away from the gates. With the aid of Esoros he got the old man moving, though every step was a struggle.

“I know he looks frail,” panted the steward, “but my lord is really as strong as an ox.”

“I believe you,” Cadogan said through gritted teeth.

“Let me go!” cried Vintrex. Squirming, kicking, almost sobbing. “You must let me go!”

“To die? No, Father, we're taking you home.”

When the first scream rang out Cadogan scooped Vintrex up into his arms and ran. He was surprised that he was not frightened. His brain was functioning coolly; analytically. Later he might feel fear, but for now he could trust himself to do what had to be done. That meant getting back to the house, gathering up all possible weapons, putting the women in the safest place and barricading …

The roar behind them mounted in intensity. There was more screaming, then the terrifying crash of gates made of solid British oak finally giving way. If they can climb over the walls, Cadogan asked himself, why do they need to break down the gates?

He and Esoros were not the only people who were running; everyone was running now. The inhabitants of Viroconium fled like rats being pursued by the cats from the forum. The Saxons pounded after them, whooping and laughing. Laughing! For some reason that added to Cadogan's anger.

“Let me go!” Vintrex was still shouting. “I can stop them!”

Lucius Plautius would say he was delusional. Dinas would say he was mad. They would both be right.

As they advanced into the city groups of Saxons broke off from the main party. Rampaging mindlessly, they began trampling gardens and ripping up small trees; kicking dogs who ran out to bark at them and knocking down any unfortunate child who got in their way. Like a river that had burst its banks, they raged without reason.

Others had a reason. With wooden cudgels and iron bars brought for the purpose, they forced their way into private houses and public buildings and began carrying out loot. Their reason for breaking down the gates quickly became clear. The Saxons had large carts on wooden wheels, some drawn by oxen, others pulled by themselves. As soon as the gates were open the invaders brought their carts into the city and began loading them up. They showed no discrimination in their choice of objects to steal. If they could carry it, they took it. If they could not carry it, they smashed it. Furniture, rugs, tools, even marble statuary were piled into the carts with reckless abandon.

A torch was put to the first of the plundered buildings.

The angry shouts of men and frantic shrieks of women filled the air.

Vintrex was muttering something. Cadogan tried to hear him. “What, Father?”

“Vandals, they are like the Vandals. They are not human, they are insane with the lust to destroy. The Angles were never…”

Cadogan shook his head and stopped listening. This was no time to discuss the differences in barbarian tribes; only time to run, to try to survive. He felt the responsibility for his father as a great weight on his shoulders. Yet also—and for the first time in his memory—as infinitely precious.

A large group of Saxons were gaining on them, howling like hounds out for blood. Esoros abruptly ducked into a narrow laneway at right angles to the avenue and Cadogan followed him, thankful to leave the via principalis. When the steward made an abrupt left turn Cadogan stayed close behind. It sounded like some of the Saxons had come after them, but he did not look around. Running with Vintrex in his arms took everything he had.

“Follow me!” Esoros called as he led the way into a veritable labyrinth of squalid alleys whose geography was unfamiliar to Cadogan. This was the realm of slaves: the man-made circulatory system designed to maintain the less attractive functions of the city. Here the sun never shone. A permanent twilight existed.

After a few minutes Esoros ducked under a low brick archway into an alley littered with rubbish and bounded on both sides by a high concrete wall. There were small drifts of dirty snow in the corners but the center of the unpaved alley was clear. Following the steward's example, Cadogan slowed to a walk. The alley smelled as if something had died there recently. Cadogan glanced down at the man in his arms. Vintrex wrinkled his nose in disgust but said nothing. His face was livid.

They came to a long, low, tile-roofed building. The windows and doors were boarded up and lime-washed plaster was flaking off the brick walls, but Cadogan recognized something familiar about the architecture.

At the far end of the building the alley opened onto a service yard traversed by covered tile drains of varying sizes. On either side of the drains were sunken, brick-lined pits. A distinct odor of decay emanated from the pits in spite of their heavy wooden covers.

Setting Vintrex unsteadily on his feet, Cadogan asked, “Do you know where you are, Father?”

“The bowels of Hades,” the old man replied.

“I think this is the servants' wing of the house of Ocellus,” Cadogan said, glancing at Esoros for confirmation. The steward nodded.

Vintrex balked like a mule. “You cannot drag me in there, I will never go into
that
house again!”

The Saxon roar was closer now; not in the alley but on the other side of the wall. Very near indeed; then going past; going on toward …

“My house! We must protect my house, Esoros!” cried Vintrex. He bolted in that direction.

And Cadogan hit him. Hit him squarely on the jaw with enough force to render the old man unconscious.

Esoros gasped. “What have you done?”

“Saved his life, I hope,” said Cadogan. “Remove that cover over there and help me put him in the pit.”

“You cannot put my lord in…”

“I can and will, whether you help me or not. It's one place the Saxons will never look for him.”

The expression on the steward's face said more plainly than any words: I do not condone this and am no part of it. Yet he helped Cadogan double up the unconscious Vintrex and lower him gently into the pit. There he lay on a bed of decomposed vegetable matter and animal bones while the two men replaced the heavy wooden lid.

“Pull it slightly toward you,” Cadogan told Esoros, “to let in some air. Not too far … that's better.”

“What if my lord comes to and tries to get out?”

“He's not strong enough to lift the lid from the inside,” Cadogan said. Hoping it was true. “Don't worry, I'll come back and get him as soon as we have his house secured. Am I right in assuming we're not far from there now?”

“Of course,” Esoros replied huffily. “Why do you think I came this way?”

The two men continued down the alley, walking as silently as possible. In near darkness Cadogan tried to avoid the pipes beneath his feet but they did not seem to be a problem. “Just a little farther,” Esoros muttered. Then, “Here…”

And there they were. At a brick wall twelve feet high, sealing off the alley. A ledge of snow topped the wall. At its foot was a pile of rubble left by the builders.

From the other side of the wall came a muted roar of Saxons.

*   *   *

Vintrex awoke with the worst headache of his life—and he was prone to headaches. He lay very still, trying to locate the source of the agonizing throb. Temples? Forehead? No. The pain was emanating from his jaw. Strange; he never had a headache in his jaw before.

Nor had he ever experienced a dream like the one he just endured. He had dreamed he was being folded up like a woman's handkerchief and put into a box. Demeaning! He attempted to stretch his legs to prove that he was not in a box. With a jolt of alarm, he discovered he could not extend his legs.

His eyes snapped open in darkness. Not quite darkness; there was a triangular sliver of light somewhere above his head. When he reached out with his hands he felt, at arm's length, a curving surface of disgustingly slimy bricks. And what was this underneath him?

Bones!!!

Vintrex screamed.

*   *   *

“You've led us into a trap,” Cadogan growled at Esoros.

The steward remained calm. “Not a trap, merely a slight difficulty. Shortly after his brother left Viroconium my lord had this wall erected between their insulae, though he was careful not to close off any drains.”

“I don't understand.”

“The wall was built over the sewer,” Esoros explained. “You could not be expected to know that, Lord Cadogan. The houses in the theater district have their own sewer system.”

Esoros searched through the snow-covered rubble until he found a large brick. Lying prone on the ground at the foot of the wall, he pounded on the earth with his brick until something under the shallow layer of soil broke with a loud crack. The steward pounded some more, then got to his feet and began stamping on the ground. A hole the size of a man's head opened in the earth, the sides collapsing downward. By scuttling in the dirt like a hen giving itself a dust bath, Esoros soon was able to crawl inside. He disappeared under the wall. “Follow me!” he urged, his voice echoing strangely.

Cadogan crossed himself and cast a wild glance around. Hoping for a miracle.

There was no miracle, nothing to do but follow Esoros. Drawing a deep breath, Cadogan tried to squirm through the hole the steward had opened. It was too narrow for his wide shoulders.

“I can't make it, I'll get stuck,” he called in an urgent whisper.

“Come or I'll leave you,” the answer floated back.

Cadogan pawed frantically at the earth until he had enlarged the hole sufficiently to force his body through. He dropped head first into a large concrete sewer with a stream of viscous liquid running through the bottom. The smell was nauseating. Ahead he could dimly see the soles of the steward's feet.

“How do you know so much about sewers?” Cadogan wanted to know.

Esoros responded with a noise that might have been a laugh or a death rattle; an eerie sound that reverberated weirdly in the narrow confines. “When I was a boy,” he said, grunting as he propelled himself forward with knees and elbows, “My job was … unh … cleaning drains. Small slaves are forced to crawl through them … unh … to keep them open.” He paused to catch his breath. “That was the life your father rescued me from.”