After Rome (21 page)

Two wooden cupboards stood against the opposite wall. Between them was a tall bread safe on legs. The bread safe was equipped with a slotted bottom to allow air to reach the loaves and prevent mold. Below this, a pair of shuttered doors fronted a large storage compartment for sacks of flour and meal.

No knives there either.

While Cadogan scanned the room the Saxon had his hands full with Esoros. The steward fought from a combination of fear and fury. Shouting profanities never heard in the front part of the house, he kicked and bit and struck out blindly with both fists. When all else failed to move the obstacle in his path he lowered his head and butted the Saxon in the midriff. The man exhaled a great “Whooof!” and sat down suddenly.

Something touched Cadogan's leg. He gave a start and glanced down. The shuttered doors at the bottom of the bread safe were ajar, and a hand was reaching out with a knife. Holding the knife up to him.

“Sssssst!” a voice hissed from within the cabinet. “Take this!”

He dropped the washboard, seized the knife, and plunged it into the back of the Saxon with an alacrity that surprised himself.

Cadogan had never stabbed a man. It was not as easy as he expected. The knife did not slide into the man's back like cutting into roasted meat; powerful living muscle was more resistant. The tip of the blade barely entered the skin. Cadogan put all his weight behind it and pushed, until he forced the knife into the flesh between the shoulder blades. The Saxon gave a mighty roar. Whirling around, he reached over his shoulder in a vain effort to grab the knife hilt.

Esoros seized the opportunity to close his hands around the Saxon's thick throat.

Locked together in mortal combat, the three men lurched across the kitchen. Crashing into the table and reducing it to splinters. Knocking over cabinets to an accompanying clatter of broken dishes. Grunting, cursing, sweating. When the combatants caromed into the bread safe it swayed dangerously, but remained upright. Blood sprayed everywhere as Cadogan plunged the knife again and again into whatever part of the man's anatomy he could reach, while Esoros held on like a dog at a bearbaiting and throttled him. It took both of them to kill him.

When the strength finally went out of the Saxon he fell facedown on the floor and did not move again. Gasping for breath, Esoros slumped on the floor beside him. Cadogan bent to feel for the pulse in the Saxon's neck but there was none. The man had died like a wild boar at the end of a long and cruel hunt, surrendering to a welcome death.

The wrecked kitchen looked like a slaughterhouse.

“I suppose you expect me to clean this up,” said an irritable voice. Wrapped in a cloak that once belonged to Cadogan's mother, Quartilla scrambled out from the bottom of the bread safe.

“I've never been happier to see anyone,” Cadogan said shakily. “You saved our lives.”

She gave a sniff. “See that you remember it. Where did you come from, anyway?” She took another, deeper sniff. “You smell like a cesspit!”

“That's how we got in; through the sewer. How many Saxons are in the house?”

“I don't know, when they broke down the front door I ran here and hid.”

Esoros said, “Did you bring anyone else with you?”

“Why should I? I knew there was only enough room in the bread safe for me.”

“We had best go out there,” Cadogan said reluctantly, “and see what's happening.”

Esoros replied, “I do not think anything is happening. Listen.”

All three listened. They heard nothing.

“That could be very good or very bad,” Cadogan remarked. Bending over, he picked up the Saxon axe and hefted it experimentally. It was heavier than it looked, but well balanced and satisfying in its implicit cruelty. At that moment Cadogan felt like being cruel.

“Aren't you forgetting something?”

“What, Quartilla?”

“Your shield,” she said mockingly as she handed him the washboard.

He took it.

“Stay here,” Esoros told the woman as he opened the door leading to the main part of the house.

“I'll do no such thing! Why should I hide when I have two strong men to protect me? I'm going with you. Hurry up now.” She gave Cadogan a shove that propelled him forward through the doorway.

They entered a corridor wide enough to allow two servants at a time to carry large trays. The walls were painted in lemon yellow to make the space brighter. A thick mat of woven grass silenced footsteps. Cadogan strained to hear any sound from the rooms ahead. There was none.

Is it a trap? Are the Saxons lying in wait? That doesn't seem likely, there's nothing subtle about their mode of attack. But still … I wish we had Dinas with us right now. He has an instinct for this sort of thing.

One careful step at a time, the three made their way toward the dining room. They entered through a small anteroom used for last-minute preparations. The only visible damage was a broken serving dish on the floor. “Perhaps we have been lucky?” Esoros suggested hopefully.

“We heard screaming,” Cadogan reminded him.

The scene in the dining room was shocking. The invaders had overturned the marble banquet table, broken two of its carved pediments and hacked and slashed the surrounding couches. Velvet elbow cushions were ripped open, spilling their coiled woolen stuffing like intestines. The tapestry wall hangings that Vintrex had given Domitia as a wedding gift had been ripped from the walls and trampled underfoot. Anything of value was either destroyed or gone. But there were still no bodies; no blood.

Cadogan had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

The hall was next. Here they found what he had feared. The two old servant women lay in a single bloody heap with their heads bashed in.

Quartilla cried out involuntarily, then put her hand over her mouth.

The beautiful room, once Domitia's pride and joy, testified to the extent of Saxon violence. The smaller items, including the basket chair, were missing. The statues had been pulled from their niches and carried away, and someone had tried to hack the painted frieze from the walls with an axe. Everything remaining in the room had been battered to pieces.

There was human excrement on the floor. The whole room stank of it.

God alone knows what the Saxons eat, Cadogan thought in disgust. “Where's the other one, Esoros?”

“What other one?”

“The other house servant.”

“That young one? Maybe she's hiding somewhere.”

“You can look for her while I go back for my father.”

“Are you going to bring Vintrex here?” asked Quartilla.

“This house is probably safe for now. They've finished with it and moved on.”

“How can you be certain they won't come back?”

Cadogan gestured at the wreckage. “What for? You stay here with Esoros while I—”

“I'm going with you,” Quartilla insisted.

“No, you are not,” said Esoros. “You heard Lord Cadogan. We must obey his orders.”

“I'm going with him!!!!” the woman screeched.

Esoros looked to Cadogan, who merely shook his head. “We might as well let her, she does what she likes anyway. But if you get killed, Quartilla, I won't bury you.”

“Then I will not stay here either,” the steward announced. “My place is with my lord Vintrex.”

Cadogan gave a sigh. “I won't bury you, either.”

*   *   *

The trio left the house by the servants' exit near the stables. Cadogan was glad they would not have to attempt the ghastly journey through the sewer again; there was no need. When they stepped outside cries and screams from the distance told them the Saxons had indeed moved on.

Once again Esoros, knowledgeable about the back ways of Viroconium, took the lead. Quartilla seized Cadogan's arm and clung like a limpet when he tried to shake her off.

They followed a circuitous route that led them through Domitia's medicinal herb garden, now gone to seed and weed, and into a fruit orchard belonging to a neighbor. They saw neither the neighbors nor their servants. Cadogan's little party reached the cobbled street and made their way to the former home of Ocellus without encountering any Saxons, either, though they could track the barbarians' progress by the tumult of their passing.

“They have entered the artisans' district,” Esoros commented.

“Not much plunder there,” said Cadogan. “Tinsmiths and potters.”

“And jewelry!” Quartilla added enthusiastically. A moment later she released his arm. “Who lives in this big house, Cadogan?”

“Dinas did, for one. No, don't try to enter, we must go around to the back for my father.”

“What's he doing there?”

“Sitting in a pot,” said Cadogan.

The service yard was just as they had left it, with no sign of life. Cadogan was afraid Vintrex might have smothered or had a heart attack. He ran to tug at the heavy wooden lid. When he had displaced it enough to see inside, he discovered Vintrex glaring up at him. “As soon as I find a quill and something to write on I'm disinheriting you.”

“You already did, Father,” Cadogan reminded him. “Let's get you out of here now.”

This proved more difficult than putting him in. Vintrex refused to help in the slightest, becoming a dead weight. The two men had to crouch down and haul him out by the shoulders. Cadogan muttered, “This must be what it's like to wash linen in a sunken tub.”

“I would not know,” Esoros replied stiffly. “I do not do laundry.”

When they set Vintrex on his feet he began asking questions and making demands. Where were the invaders, who was watching the house, bring him a cup of beer at once, someone must fetch his heavy cloak. He was as authoritarian as ever though somewhat confused. Cadogan tried to reassure him. “Everything's all right, Father, we're going to take you home now. I'm sure we can find writing materials there.”

“I'm not so sure,” Esoros said, pointing. “Look.”

Pale smoke was rising above the wall separating the two properties.

“My house!” groaned Vintrex.

“We left it only a little while ago,” said Quartilla, “and nothing was burning then.”

“We didn't see anything burning,” Cadogan amended, “but we didn't go into every room. The raiders might have broken an oil lamp or else deliberately…” His throat closed, choking off his words. Stone walls might survive a fire, but he realized that the wooden interior of the house would burn.

Vintrex had the same thought. He made a wild lunge toward the wall he could never hope to climb, and almost tumbled into the gaping hole at its foot.

Esoros and Cadogan dragged him back.

The smoke visible above the wall was beginning to turn dark. Caught by a rising wind, it twisted in the air like a living being.

“We must leave here now,” Cadogan urged. “If the flames spread, all the houses in this district could go. Perhaps that's what they want. They may be setting fire to the city; remember that the barbarians burned Rome.”

“The public bathhouse won't burn,” said Quartilla.

“What?”

“Is it not built of marble? And Roman concrete? With pools full of water and more water in reservoirs on the roof? Once we're inside the Saxons can set all the fires they like, but they'll only scorch the outside. We'll be safer there than anywhere else if we barricade the doors. They're made of bronze; they won't burn either.”

Cadogan and Esoros exchanged glances. Sounding dubious, the steward said, “There is only the one entrance, through the courtyard. We could be trapped like rats.”

“Nonsense,” Quartilla retorted. “The public baths need a lot of servants, don't they? You know better than anyone that servants always have their own secret ways in and out.”

“Like sewers,” Cadogan said drily. “The baths it is, then. Come on, Esoros, give me a hand with my father.”

The two men caught the protesting Vintrex under the shoulders again and began to run, closely followed by Quartilla. Avoiding any of the paved streets, Esoros guided the way through a different set of narrow lanes and alleyways. They came out near the public baths opposite the forum.

Only Quartilla looked back. Only Quartilla saw the smoke rising, thickening, billowing.

Built in the third century, the baths of Viroconium were considered a model of their kind. Entrance was through a large domed hall resembling the basilica of the forum. Once a client had paid the entrance fee he could sit in the hall for as long as he liked, watching young men boxing or wrestling, and being served refreshing drinks by solicitous attendants. Nothing was regimented; ease and luxury were the keynotes.

From the hall one entered the apodyterium, an antechamber where the clothes were removed by more attendants, shaken out, aired and cleaned if necessary. The room was lit by torches in wall sconces that revealed the full beauty of tile mosaics depicting a variety of sports. After the apodyterium came the frigidarium, where surface dirt was washed off with cold water. This was followed by the tepidarium and a second sponging with warm water, and then on to the caldarium, or hot room, where pores opened in the steamy atmosphere. Any deeply ingrained dirt was washed away by a flood of perspiration. The sweat was scraped off with an instrument called a strigil before the bather immersed himself—a separate sequence of rooms was provided for women—in one of several deep pools of hot water.

Afterward bathers retraced their footsteps until they reached the frigidarium to close their pores and be rubbed down with perfumed oils. The entire process usually was accompanied by conversation with friends, an exchange of spicy gossip, and music both vocal and instrumental.

When Cadogan's little group arrived there was no music; nothing but a babble of anxious voices. Quartilla was not the only person in the city who thought quickly in times of stress and seized upon the most probable sanctuary. A score of men and women, a few with children, already had gathered in the entrance hall. Cadogan recognized most of them as neighbors and acquaintances, people familiar with the amenities of the bathhouse.