After Rome (23 page)

“How can you be sure?”

“It stands to reason. The barbarians aren't urban, they won't stay in the city. They'll take their plunder and leave.”

“Move on to their next victims, more like,” said Godubnus. “With my mules in their bellies.”

Regina spoke up. “Any plan is better than no plan. What we must do now is accept our situation and make ourselves comfortable for the rest of the night.”

Vintrex struggled to his feet. “Allow me to assist you,” he said gallantly.

*   *   *

The night was interminable. The dark stole the light little by little, as each exhausted lamp surrendered and died. At last the children fell asleep. From time to time the adults spoke to one another in hushed voices to be certain they were not alone. After an eternity Cadogan thought he heard footsteps outside, but they faded away. Another eternity and more footsteps. Going … gone …

Quartilla was shaking his shoulder. “Cadogan!” she said in a loud whisper. “It's light outside.”

Swimming up through layers of wool. Layers of clouds. The cushion of unconsciousness. Don't want to wake up. Don't want … “I'm awake, Quartilla. Did you say it's light outside?”

“I did.”

“How do you know?”

“You fool, I went and looked, of course. The sun's just coming up, and…”

He was fully awake now, skin prickling with alarm. “And what? What else did you see?” He leaped to his feet and began adjusting his clothing.

“Wait for me,” said a gruff voice as Godubnus heaved himself off a bench.

*   *   *

Before the two men reached the entrance hall they could smell what waited outside. Viroconium stank worse than burning fish oil. A pall of smoke hung over the city; the air was thick with ash and soot. As Cadogan and Godubnus left the bathhouse a layer of carbonized detritus crunched under their feet.

The ironmaster said, “Should we go back for the others?”

“Not until we know what we're facing,” Cadogan replied grimly. “They've finally fallen asleep; let them have a few more moments of peace.”

It did not take long to discover the source of the crash they had heard. In some unimaginable fashion the Saxons had succeeded in dislodging, though not fully toppling, one of the marble columns that were the pride of the civic complex. This had rendered the pediment above unstable, until the whole structure collapsed into the porch of the courthouse. The Doric capital atop the column miraculously had survived its fall and lay to one side; a thick square abacus, not as elaborate as the Corinthian style, yet beautiful in its way.

Cadogan stared down at it. “I'm surprised the barbarians didn't smash that.”

“Why would they?”

“It's what they do.”

The two men walked on.

Cadogan was right; the Saxons had left Viroconium—or what remained of Viroconium. But not before making the city unlivable. In some districts anything that could burn had burned. Many buildings had been reduced to scorched walls, their interiors devoured by fire. Even the precisely pruned trees in the residential insulae had been charred beyond recovery.

“I didn't realize so much of Viroconium was built of timber,” Cadogan remarked. “I always thought of the city as brick and plaster.”

“And iron,” added Godubnus. “You'll notice that the iron posts for the streetlamps are intact. Last forever, these will.” He reached out to touch one and snatched his fingers back. “It's still hot!”

The amount of debris strewn across the streets and down the laneways was appalling. At first the two men paused when they saw an intact article and picked it up—a blackened bowl, a single shoe miraculously unburned. They carried the objects for a short time and then dropped them again. There was too much and they had no idea what to do with it. Salvage must come later, if at all. On this smoke-stained morning it was all they could do to take measure of the catastrophe.

Some districts appeared to have escaped the fire but not the looting. There was no observable pattern. The Saxons had run back and forth, some dragging their carts, others attacking whatever caught their eye, wreaking havoc at one location and hardly touching the next. They had rampaged through the city like mindless animals. In their wake, the sense of order that had characterized Viroconium was totally destroyed.

Dazed survivors had begun wandering through the city. Some recognized Cadogan; spoke to him, expressed relief that he was still alive or asked about his father. Others ambled past him, blank-faced. The disaster was ongoing for them. Their morning had not yet come.

Over all lay the smell of the fire. And cooked flesh.

“There are people in those ruins,” Godubnus said.

“I know.”

“Should we start pulling them out?”

Cadogan shook his head. “Once we begin we'll have to keep on, and the two of us aren't enough to make a difference. First we need to organize a search team and see what conditions are like in the hospital. It's going to be … it's all such a…” He waved his hand in a helpless gesture.

But he could not afford to be helpless. He was no longer one man alone in a fort of his own construction. He was one man at the heart of an unfolding nightmare, and the only way out was through.

Cadogan turned back before they reached the house of the chief magistrate. He could not bring himself to see it yet. To see a broken smoldering ruin, with the fire's red eyes still peering balefully out from piles of rubble.

 

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

In the depth of winter they celebrated the Feast of Christ's Birth in the cabin on the mountain, though Dinas did not pray. Saba filled the room with candlelight from a store of beeswax candles she had saved for the purpose. They ate roast mutton and boiled vegetables from the root cellar and sang Christian songs of joy, though Dinas did not sing. Soon Saba and Meradoc fell quiet too, content to listen to the pure, clear voice of Pelemos.

“He might almost be an angel,” Meradoc whispered to Saba.

“If people can believe in devils they can believe in angels,” she replied. She glanced at Dinas but he had not heard the exchange. He sat wrapped in thoughts he did not share. When she reached out and lightly touched his arm he gave a start, looked around, forced a bright smile. “Sing some more, Saba.”

“It wasn't me, it was Pelemos.”

“Oh. Yes.”

Then he was gone again; gone into that place in his head where she could not follow.

Later, as Pelemos was helping Saba to bank the fire, he said softly, “Why do you love Dinas?”

The question startled her; she had never asked it of herself. After a pause she said, “I guess I love Dinas because he makes me … uneasy. He is a fleeting shadow on the mountain, neither one thing nor the other.”

Pelemos was not enlightened.

*   *   *

The following morning dawned cold and bright. The late-rising sun cast a roseate glow on the snow. The air was so sharp it hurt the throat. When animals and humans had been fed Saba suggested, “Walk with me, Dinas. This is the sort of day I love best.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Enjoy freezing, do you?” he asked as he reached for his hooded cloak. The heavy winter cloak she had woven for him.

When she whistled for the dogs, they left Meradoc reluctantly and slouched out of the cabin behind Dinas and Saba.

Skirting the shoulder of the mountain, they angled their way downslope, crunching through brittle, thigh-deep heather, not dead but asleep in the snow. The sheepdogs were content to follow the trail the humans broke for them until they came to a narrow valley with a frozen lake in its lap. The dogs set off to the explore the area; to discover who or what had been there recently. The head of the valley was blocked by a tumble of gray boulders. They had been thrown there long ago by the ancient gods, according to the old people. Saba selected one, pushed the snow off, and beckoned to Dinas to sit down beside her. As she always did.

As he always did, Dinas lifted his head to gaze toward the highest peaks of Eryri.

“I feel humble here,” he said. The first words he had spoken since they left her cabin.

“Kings aren't humble,” commented Saba.

“I said I felt humble,” he said testily. “I didn't say I am humble.”

“No.” She gazed out over the frozen lake; at the deep blue shadows lying on the snow. Chafed her bare hands together. “It's very cold this morning.”

Dinas said, “You know I never feel the cold.” He caught her looking at the goose bumps on his forearms. “Did I tell you that a man called me a liar recently?”

“I hope the poor fellow had lived a full life before he made his fatal mistake.”

“It wasn't fatal. My horse tore a chunk out of his shoulder, that's all. He won't be using his right arm for a long time.”

Saba clucked her tongue. “No wonder you have such a fierce reputation.”

“Do I?” he asked innocently. Pleased.

“Perhaps I should say your horse has a fierce reputation. When you leave here you had best go by a different route.”

“I was planning on it anyway. We'll take the pass of Llanberris; I should be able to find more recruits in that direction.”

“You never made plans before; you always went where the wind blew you.”

“For which you should be grateful,” said Dinas.

Saba's eyes were following the contours of the valley. Every inch of it known to her, as familiar as her own body. Softened by snow now, but waiting to burst forth in spring to the summons of the sun. “King Dinas,” she mused. “King. Dinas. How strange that sounds. It must be exciting for you.”

“I'm not doing it for the excitement. The past is gone and there's no point in thinking about it, so I'm making plans for the future.”

“You never did that before, either.” Saba blew on her hands and rubbed them together again.

Dinas reached out and imprisoned them in one of his own.

They sat shoulder to shoulder then, watching the dogs. One had discovered some tiny mammal under the snow and was trying to dig it out. The other joined in enthusiastically. They were a team.

Dinas said, “I have my reasons, you know.”

“I'm sure you do.”

Anger flickered across his features like summer lightning. “What do you want of me, Saba? Should I go back to Viroconium and wait for the barbarians like an ox waiting for the axe? Or do you expect me to stay here with you until my muscles turn to strings and the teeth fall out of my head?”

“No,” she said in a low voice. “I don't expect that.”

It would be a relief to tell her, Dinas thought. Part of him had wanted to tell Cadogan; his cousin was the sort of man to whom one might make such a confession. But could Cadogan possibly understand the storms that swirled through him night and day?

Saba at least was familiar with his passions.

“I could be a good king,” he said. Testing the waters. “And you would be a splendid queen.”

She turned to face him. “Long ago we agreed that we were content the way we were; me raising sheep on the mountainside, you roaming the land in search of treasure. You never spoke of being a king then, and I never asked to be a queen.”

“Things change.”

She could hold back no longer. “Stop it, Dinas! That's no answer. You come riding in here with two strangers and tell me you're changing your life from top to bottom and want to change mine too. I won't be picked up and shaken like a lamb that refuses to breathe! Tell me what's going on or you can just ride out the way you came in.”

He tried to make a joke of it. “Not that way, surely. I'd have to go through the village where my horse attacked a man.”

“I mean it, Dinas. And turn loose of my hands! You're always grabbing my hands.”

“Maybe I'm holding on.”

“Why? Because change frightens you? Don't look at me like that, everyone's afraid of something. I am; I'm afraid of leaving here. I was born here and I want to die here when my time comes, and be buried with my people. I don't belong in a place with roads and towns and comings and goings. I don't want to learn a different way of living. Nothing ever changes here except the seasons and the shadows of the clouds on the mountain, and that's the way I like it. That's all I want.”

He said reproachfully, “I thought you wanted me.”

“Sometimes I do.”

“Listen to me, Saba. I'm offering you a chance to—”

“No,” she interrupted, “you're running away from something and trying to make me go with you. Perhaps I will and perhaps I won't, but first I have to know what it is.”

Dinas knew when he was beaten. It had not happened very often. When he spoke again the look on his face was so intense it frightened her.

“Last spring,” he said, “I found myself riding across some of my father's land; the farm where he used to raise horses. You might say I was blown there by the wind. Ocellus had made the estate his permanent residence some years earlier and I hadn't been there in a long time. When no watchmen challenged me on the approach road I thought my parents must be away, and I was glad. It meant I could ride on by without seeing either of them.

“Yet I didn't ride on by. Perhaps I was just curious, I wanted to see what had become of a place where I spent many happy days as a boy. But as I approached the villa I felt uneasy. Everything looked the same as I remembered it—yet not quite. I tried to halt my horse. He seized the bit in his teeth and wouldn't obey me. He felt like he was about to turn and run away. Suddenly an intense cold flooded my belly. Then the stallion began to tremble under me, and I knew.”

Saba knew too. There were horrors coming, but she could not stop her ears.

Dinas continued, “The front gate to the grounds around the villa was ajar, which was unusual in itself. Ocellus always kept that gate closed. The stables and outbuildings looked deserted. There was not a person to be seen anywhere; no servants, not even any dogs barking. The very air seemed frozen. I had to force my way through it. I didn't want to enter the house, yet I could not help myself. I tied my horse to a post and went in.