After Rome (4 page)

When he smelled salt on the wind Dinas halted the horse. He dropped the reins on the stallion's neck and sat immobile. Savoring the warmth of the sun on his bare head and legs. Smelling the pungent odor of the sweat on the stallion's flanks. A warm, animal smell, as familiar to him as his own.

He gazed across a reed-studded marshland to a faint line of yellow hills and wondered what lay beyond them. Reached for the reins; withheld his hand. Returned his eyes to the rustling reeds. He recalled hearing about a half-brained scheme to drain the marsh and create more arable land, but the plan had come to nothing when the local government collapsed.

“No tracks show in marshland,” Dinas remarked aloud.

The stallion swiveled an ear to listen. Dinas often talked to his horse. He believed that people did not know how to listen, but a clever animal would detect the subtlest changes of tone and pitch and respond accordingly. The dark horse was clever. Interpreting his master's voice to indicate the possibility of forward motion in a direction he did not like, he took half a step back instead.

Dinas reached forward to scratch the base of the horse's ears, where the sweat gathered. “I hear you, my friend. You don't want to wade into that, eh? Don't trust the footing? Neither do I, but remember this place. This could be our escape route if we're pursued by fools who want to put my head above the gates. I've heard some strange tales about Deva.”

The horse waited.

Dinas gathered up the reins. “I think we've scouted the territory long enough. Let's have a look at the town. Who knows what we might find, eh? Surely the bloody-boweled Romans didn't take everything with them when they left.”

The dark horse felt the eagerness in his rider's body; the sense of expectation. Waited for the magic words that would release him to action. “Forward. Now.”

He sprang forward.

For several days Dinas had been circling the City of the Legion at a distance. He had stopped to discuss the weather with farmers in the fields. Paid fulsome compliments to aging women drawing water from a well. Feigned astonishment at tales told by other travelers who loved to hear themselves talk. It was his habit to listen to everyone he met while divulging nothing about himself. A lean, sinewy man in shabby clothing, Dinas might have been any of the dispossessed who now wandered the countryside. Certainly not a person worth robbing. He would have drawn little attention except for the magnificent stallion he rode.

When Dinas was a boy their tutor had told them about the great black warhorse that carried Alexander of Macedon to victory. The relationship between the two was legend. “The horse was called Bucephalus,” Lucius Plautius had told his two eager students. “After Bucephalus died Alexander could never hear his name without weeping.”

Dinas had never named his own dark horse. He would have fought to the death to protect him, but if the stallion died he did not want a name to grieve over. He had no fear the animal would be stolen. If a stranger came too close, the horse pinned his ears flat against his head and gnashed his teeth until foam flecked his jaws. His hooves pawed chunks out of the earth. With eyes rolling and nostrils flaring, he looked ready to fling himself on the nearest victim. The most ardent admirer soon lost interest. “I'd have that brute killed if I were you,” Dinas was sometime advised.

At night he pillowed his head on the warm silky neck of the dark horse.

Having made up his mind to enter Deva, Dinas followed the most direct route. The road to the northern gate was as straight as a spear shaft and broad enough for five men to march abreast. The closely fitted paving stones were set on a low causeway to facilitate drainage, and bordered with stone curbs. Dinas rode to one side, keeping his horse off the hard surfaces. Bare earth was easier on unshod hooves. Occasionally Dinas found part of an iron Roman horseshoe lying half hidden in the mud, and spat on it.

When Deva came into view Dinas halted the horse and sat very still, exploring the atmosphere with senses he could not name. They lay just beneath the surface of his skin. At the backs of his eyes. In the hair on his forearms.

They detected old dangers. And new possibilities? Perhaps. He could not be certain without a closer inspection.

Deva Victrix had been built as a statement of naked power. As such it was not a city in the defined sense; not a municipal center entrusted with civilian governance, but a large military garrison encompassing an array of auxiliary services. It covered over sixty acres and was bounded by an immense wall of rubble stone and flint, set at intervals with watchtowers. The pillars on either side of the gates were made of ruddy brick. The northern gates themselves, made of British oak, stood wide open.

“That old farmer with one eye told us they've blocked up the east gate completely,” Dinas said to his horse. “So why is this one open? Could it be a trap?”

Through the man's buttocks and legs the stallion communicated his answer: The horse was alert but relaxed. Sensing no trap, he pricked his ears in the direction of Deva and waited.

Dinas shifted weight. “Forward. Now,” he murmured. The stallion obeyed. Although horse and rider remained calm, they both knew Dinas could spin the animal on its haunches in the blink of an eye and gallop away.

As they approached the gates Dinas scanned the nearest watchtowers. They appeared to be unmanned. Part of the roof on the right-hand tower had collapsed. The ladder to the left-hand tower was missing altogether.

Through the open gateway Dinas could see two middle-aged men engaged in conversation. A shorter, somewhat younger man stood listening to them with his hands clasped behind his back. Dinas squinted, focusing on details. Knee-length homespun tunics over checkered woolen breeks identified all three as native Britons. The more animated of the talkers also sported a mantle sewn of otter skins. He and the silent listener wore their hair in the elaborate braids favored by men of the Deceangli tribe. The third man had no braids, only a sparse gray fringe that clung to his otherwise bald head like a high-water mark. A wooden cross depended from a cord around his neck.

“Aha,” Dinas said under his breath. Recognizing the badge of a man who believed what he was told. A man who sought to be good and hoped to buy his way into heaven with coins laid on the palm of a priest. An almost imperceptible current ran through Dinas's body.

The dark horse gathered himself.

As they came through the gateway the trio turned toward them. With a disarming smile, Dinas addressed the wearer of the cross in formal Latin. “I wish you good morning, brother. I am a poor pilgrim on a pilgrimage.”

The three stared up at him. Stared at his unruly mane of hair and his worn clothing. His magnificent horse.

“We don't get many pilgrims here,” said the balding man. His Latin was colloquial; the accent rustic. His cheeks were chapped and his jowls were sagging but his face was friendly.

The man in the otter-skin mantle had narrow eyes peering from beneath an overhanging brow, like weasels peeping from their hole. “Deva is a bit out of the way these days,” he remarked. “Even the Hibernian slave-catchers aren't coming this far inland—though of course we bar the gates at night. This is the only one we keep open during the day.” He waved one hand toward the northern gateway.

The stallion flattened his ears.

Dinas raised one eyebrow—dark and sharply peaked—but maintained his friendly smile. “In my experience,” he said in a polite tone, “any place worth visiting is usually out of the way. I understand you've converted the old Roman amphitheater into something you call a martyrium?”

The wearer of the otter skins gave him a hard look. “You know about that, do you?”

“I've heard of nothing else since I crossed the Severn.”

The balding man fingered his cross. A beautifully carved wooden cross hanging on a leather cord. “Surely you exaggerate. Our small efforts here are not that noteworthy.”

“Speak for yourself,” snapped the other. “You know perfectly well how long and hard I've worked and how much I've accomplished.” He turned back to Dinas. “You say you crossed the Severn? You came from the south, then? Where are you going?”

Dinas plucked a name out of the air. “Mamucium. I believe that is northeast of Deva? I've never been there before. Perhaps you can give me directions when I leave here?”

While he spoke, from his vantage point atop the stallion he was surveying Deva Victrix. Garrison no more, it was reduced to a dilapidated town inhabited by less than two thousand people. Once it had boasted a famous racecourse and a guesthouse with a hypocaust for the warmth and comfort of visiting dignitaries. Now whole areas were totally deserted.

Facing Dinas across a weedy parade ground was the former headquarters of the garrison, an impressive building some two hundred and fifty feet square. Nearby was the armory, of almost equal size and designed to hold prisoners, hostages and booty as well as weaponry. Behind these stood a third structure with a central block of offices surrounded by corridors leading to a number of storerooms and workshops for the carpenters, smiths, masons, wheelwrights and other workers needed to keep the garrison functioning.

All unnecessary now.

Some of the materials used in constructing the headquarters complex and the commander's private residence had been cannibalized for less pretentious buildings. The wooden hospital and the granary had collapsed into heaps of rotting timber. Some of the long rows of timber barracks had been turned into housing but more were standing empty. Yet amid a welter of disorganization it was still possible to discern the former precise geometry of streets and squares.

Between two sheds a goat stood on its hind legs to chew clothes drying on a line. Nearby a miscellany of scruffy hounds lolled in the sun. Farther on, an old woman shook her fist at a half-naked boy who was chasing a flapping goose.

Not a pretty girl in sight, Dinas noted with disappointment. He dropped his gaze to the men below him.

The silent listener was a small man, but he had a large skull on which his ears stuck out like afterthoughts. His eyes were very blue. He edged closer to Dinas. “I like horses, I've always liked horses,” he confided in a voice hardly louder than a whisper. “I am called Meradoc. What do you call your horse?” He reached out to stroke the stallion's neck.

Dinas deftly reined the horse out of reach. “He doesn't have a name and he's not used to strangers. A stallion, you know. Difficult temperament. Stay clear of him for your own sake.”

“Animals like me,” the little man insisted in his soft voice. He approached the horse again.

Dinas did not move the stallion a second time. Let this fool learn the hard way, he thought.

“I am called Brecon, Brecon the woodcarver,” said the balding man. “My friend here is called Ludno. I'm afraid we didn't hear your name.”

“Dinas.”

“Dinas? Is that all?” Ludno asked suspiciously.

“What more do you want?”

Ludno scowled. The clever retort he sought was eluding him. He settled for, “You ride a fine horse; is he yours?”

Dinas met his calculating eyes with a look of total candor. “This horse belongs to a man in Mamucium; I'm merely delivering him. A poor pilgrim must earn a few coins wherever he can.”

“Oh.” Ludno sounded disappointed.

Brecon said, “I would be pleased to show you around while you're in the area, Dinas. If you want to see the martyrium I can take you to the Coliseum.”

“I can see it from here,” said Dinas. The huge stadium was easily the most noticeable structure in Deva.

Gathering the otter skins firmly around his shoulders, Ludno stepped in front of Brecon. “I'll guide you myself,” he announced. “My knowledge and understanding are extensive; my own ancestors were victims of the vicious games the Romans played.”

“So were mine,” countered Brecon. He pushed past Ludno, who pushed back.

While this took place Dinas was being distracted by Meradoc. The little man appeared to be spellbound by the stallion, and kept sidling closer and closer.

“How much do you know about the history of Christianity in Britannia, Dinas?” Ludno inquired.

Dinas pulled his attention away from the impending disaster. “As much as anyone else, I suppose. My parents were Christians.”

Ludno's eyebrows came together like caterpillars mating. “You speak as if the faith were simply passed to you in your mother's blood. It is not so easy as that. Faith is a challenge. One must work at it. Our Lord died on the cross for your sins, and good men and women have been slain so you could have the privilege of knowing about His sacrifice. You may not know this, but the teachings of Christ first reached these shores by way of
peregrini,
wandering missionaries from Eire. Their Celtic version of Christianity was a sophisticated religion that developed ten different computational cycles just for reckoning the date for Easter.” Ludno glanced at Dinas to see if the other man was impressed.

How can a man be sly and pompous at the same time? Dinas was wondering.

Ludno plunged ahead. “At first the authorities tolerated Christianity as just another cult. The Romans had temples and shrines for so many: Serapis, Isis, Mithras and Astarte, to name but a few. Problems soon arose, however. Priests of the longer established religions grew fearful for their own power. They accused the Christians of cannibalism, claiming they ‘ate the flesh and drank the blood of their god' during the Eucharist. The persecution of Christians became a popular pastime, particularly among the legions. That is why…”

Dinas stopped listening altogether. He had no desire to be lectured by the local fanatic and there appeared to be nothing worth having in Deva. The place was obviously impoverished. It was time to move on and see what lay beyond the horizon. There was always something better beyond the horizon.

He expected his horse to anticipate their departure and gather himself. The stallion remained rooted to the spot. Incredibly, Meradoc was circling around him with perfect confidence in his safety. The little man even patted the glossy haunches as he passed. Dinas braced himself for the mighty kick to follow.