After Rome (6 page)

She jumped up and caught his arm. “Don't go, don't leave me! What if they're still out there?”

He pushed her away. “Throw the bolt when I'm gone. You do remember how to do that, don't you?” he added sarcastically.

When he went to the door she tried to prevent him from drawing the bolt.

Cadogan swore under his breath.

He opened the door on a sloping meadow studded with tree stumps and bordered by forest. The grass nearest the fort was badly trampled. Cadogan walked all the way around the building, studying the ground, while Quartilla clung like his shadow. When she saw the charred remains of last night's fire she pursed her lips.

“I almost wish those devils had broken in,” Cadogan said. “If they had found any valuables maybe they would have left my horse.” Putting two fingers into his mouth, he gave a piercing whistle.

Quartilla clapped her hands over her ears. “Stop that awful noise!”

Not as awful as your voice, he thought. He whistled again. Waited. Heard no answering whinny, no tattoo of trotting hooves. Hiding his dismay behind an expressionless face, he resumed searching for tracks.

“Was it a good horse?” the woman asked.

“
She
was a very good horse,” he replied, deliberately stressing the feminine pronoun.

“There are plenty of other horses.”

“Not like her. My uncle used to raise horses on one of his country estates; exceptionally fine animals. He even had two desert-bred stallions imported from Egypt to sire mounts for Roman cavalry officers. When the Romans left the business ceased to be profitable and he gradually sold off his herd. My mare is the last of his breeding stock. The horse Dinas rides is her son.”

“That dark brute?”

“That dark brute. I told you they knew each other.” Cadogan found the mare's tracks, leading in an erratic line away from the fort. There had been men on either side of her, and in several places a struggle had occurred. She had not gone willingly.

He swore again, loudly this time, and broke into a run.

“Wait!” shrilled Quartilla. He heard her pounding after him.

The trail extended the length of the pasture and into the forest. As Cadogan entered the shadowy realm of the trees he realized he had no weapon with him. He slowed to a walk, wondering whether to return to the fort for one or keep going. Before he could decide the woman caught up with him.

She bent over with her hands braced against her knees. “I told … told you … to wait!” she gasped.

“I didn't know you could run so fast.”

“I can do anything,” she said as she fought for breath.

“Turn around and go back. I'm going on.”

“Then I'm going with you.”

Plague take the woman! Cadogan thought. This time he did not repent. He broke into a trot, dodging trees and plunging through undergrowth. Let her keep up if she could.

She could. Moaning and complaining and gasping for breath, she stayed with him.

The second time he stopped, he knew he was defeated. If he outran Quartilla and left her alone in the forest the marauders might come back and find her. Or some other disaster could befall her. He had to choose between a woman and a horse and there was only one choice he could make.

“We're turning back,” he said. “The forest is so dense it's impossible to find their trail, and they're long gone by now anyway.”

“Are you sure? I can still…”

This time he interrupted. “No, you can't. Here, give me your hand and watch your footing.”

As they walked he discovered they had gone farther than he thought. The trees loomed over them. The sun was climbing higher in the sky yet it seemed to Cadogan that the day had grown darker. It was cold under the trees.

“Londinium,” Quartilla mused aloud. “Imagine your father going all the way to Londinium. I don't know anyone who's been there.”

“He used to go at least twice a year.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really.” Did she think he was lying? Everything the woman did was irritating. “While he was still a relatively young man my father was appointed chief magistrate of Viroconium and its hinterlands by the provincial governor. He took his position seriously. After the Romans left he went on meeting his responsibilities: holding court, making judgments, meting out punishment for wrongdoers. He has a powerful sense of civic duty, my father,” Cadogan added sourly.

A sudden crashing in the undergrowth made them both jump. A large red deer, as startled as they were, bolted past them and disappeared.

Cadogan gave a shaky laugh. “That's the last time I ever go out my door without a spear in my hand.”

“If Dinas was here we would have had fresh meat tonight,” Quartilla said.

“We can't be certain of that.”

“You don't like Dinas very much, do you?”

Cadogan rubbed his chin. “I don't dislike him. We grew up together, we even had the same tutor, but we're not what you would call friends.”

When a fallen tree partially blocked their way, Quartilla promptly sat down on it. Clasping her knees with both hands, she looked up at him. “Why aren't you friends?”

Cadogan sat down beside her. “Family trouble. You wouldn't understand.”

“There's nothing I understand better,” she averred. “Tell me.”

By now he knew how stubborn she was. It would be simpler to tell her than to try to fend her off. “Our fathers were brothers,” Cadogan began. “My uncle Ocellus was a lion in the house but a fox in the streets, and he made a lot of money early on. My father did well enough as a civil servant but there was always rivalry between them. However, they built new houses on adjacent sites in Viroconium; Dinas and I were raised shoulder to shoulder. At some time in the past my father Vintrex and Dinas's mother Gwladys became lovers. They managed to keep the affair a secret from both their families; I suppose only the servants knew about it. They know everything.

“Five years ago Dinas's father Ocellus gave him a yearling colt, large for its age and nearly black, the last and best animal he ever bred. Dinas was overjoyed. He threw his heart and soul into training that young stallion. When the training was completed Gwladys unexpectedly demanded that Dinas give the horse to me—to please her lover, I suspect. Dinas was furious, he has a hot temper at the best of times. He complained to Ocellus, who took his side. There was a terrible fight between his parents. Gwladys attacked Ocellus with a knife, and he broke her jaw with his fist.”

Quartilla could not surpress a squeal of excitement.

“Gwladys came running to my father for protection. That was the first my mother—Domitia was her name—knew of their affair. Mother had never been strong; she took to her bed that same day and wouldn't see anyone but the servants. She wouldn't even see me, her only son. My married sisters came to the house and tried to advise her by shouting through the door. She insisted they leave her alone, so finally they did.”

“What about Vintrex and Gwladys?” Quartilla asked breathlessly. “Did they run away together?”

“Of course not! Don't you understand? They were married to other people. My father sent Gwladys back to her husband and forbade any member of our family to mention the matter again. A few weeks later Ocellus moved his entire household to one of his country estates, some fifteen miles from Viroconium. Dinas didn't go with them, however. While the porters were loading the baggage train he took the dark horse and disappeared. It was as if the earth opened up and swallowed them.

“In a misguided attempt to patch up things with my father, or perhaps just to placate his own conscience, Ocellus sent the bay mare to me. But it was too late, the damage had been done. The atmosphere was permanently poisoned.

“To make matters worse, Dinas and I had been spending time with two sisters, Viola and Aldina. When Dinas left he didn't say good-bye to Aldina. She decided, probably with some justification, that he loved the horse more than he loved her. She had to blame someone for what had happened, so she blamed my family. Viola sided with her sister and refused to see me anymore.”

“Of course she did!” said Quartilla. “Any man who would choose a horse over a woman…”

“It wasn't me who did that, it was Dinas. I was innocent in the matter.”

“No man is ever innocent,” Quartilla stated with conviction.

Cadogan regretted having told her anything. He stood up and brushed himself off. In the excitement of the chase he had forgotten his weariness and the sleepless night, but now he felt exhaustion waiting for him like a lead cap on top of his head. “I'm going back to the fort,” he said. “Are you coming?”

“Do I have a choice?”

I had a choice, Cadogan reminded himself sourly. I could have tried to save my mare and allowed this wretched woman to be stolen by barbarians or eaten by wolves. Leave it to me to make the wrong decision. “No, Quartilla,” he said, “you don't have a choice. Come on.”

As they walked back toward the fort, with dead leaves crunching under their feet, he contemplated events he wished he could forget. The argument that had begun over a horse—so simple a matter as that!—had grown until, like a whirlpool, it had sucked into its vortex most of Viroconium society.

Viroconium, Cadogan thought with a wince of nostalgia. Sometimes his birthplace was still more real to him than the place he currently inhabited. If some unimaginable catastrophe wiped the city from the face of the earth he was confident he could reconstruct it stone by stone and street by street. In his dreams he often found himself there again; a living part of the Britannia that Rome had constructed. Part of a way of life that surely would last forever.

As chief magistrate of Viroconium and a large surrounding area, Cadogan's father Vintrex represented the law in the region. The peace and prosperity of an extensive municipality depended on his ability to maintain order. The magistrate's brother Ocellus was the largest landowner, a man who relied on the law in his frequent disputes over property. When the vicious quarrel broke out between them the brothers had been like two cats fighting with their tails tied together. No holds barred and nothing forgiven.

The inhabitants of Viroconium had enjoyed the feud between their leading families. No matter how Romanized the townspeople became, they were descended from Celtic warriors with the love of battle in their blood. Sides were taken and factions formed—even among the servants. Opinion was evenly divided. While women gossiped over garden walls, in the taverns and alehouses their menfolk laid bets on the outcome of the argument. They were distracted, for a while, from the larger problem looming on the horizon.

In the fourth century Jutes and silver-haired Angles had begun migrating to the temperate climate of Britannia from the colder region identified by the Alexandrian geographer Ptolemaeus as Germania Magna. Their numbers were swelled by Franks from Gaul, whose ancestors had been displaced by the Roman conquest. At first the authorities had tolerated the foreigners, seeing them as a possible addition to the labor force. But when hostile Picts and their allies, the Scoti from the north of Eire, began marauding in the territory of the Brigantes, the Roman governor of Britannia grew alarmed. He could not afford to lose the goodwill of the Brigantes. Theirs was a very large tribe, and collecting taxes from them required their willing compliance.

When the legions failed to defeat the invaders the governor had sent a request to Aëtius, commander of the Roman forces in Gaul, for additional military help. Aëtius had failed to respond. Fortunately the Brigantes had proved up to the task themselves, driving their enemies back into the vast wilderness of Caledonia. A thankful Hadrian had built his wall to contain the problem and the matter seemed to be settled. For a while.

No sooner had the legions begun to pull out than more northern foreigners arrived. Many brought their families. They walked along the roads like stray cattle looking for pasture, or followed the rivers in boats piled high with household goods. The women had clenched faces; the children had huge eyes and bloated bellies.

If they occupied land the Britons deemed unfit for farming the immigrants were tolerated—at first. Alien settlements sprouted like mushrooms in impenetrable forests or sodden marshland. Gradually the newcomers established trade with their British neighbors, and their customs and languages filtered into common usage.

The aggressive Saxons who plagued the eastern coast were a different matter. Seaborne marauders, they terrorized and disrupted shipping in the Oceanus Britannicus. A Roman official was given the title “Count of the Saxon Shore” and empowered to deal with the problem, but the office was vacated when the holder was slaughtered by the Saxons.

Many critical posts were abandoned by 410, when the last legion, the famous Twentieth, departed.

In the decade that followed, civic government had continued to function for a while, thanks to its elite cadre of Romanized Britons. But inevitably, social discipline disintegrated. Episodes of domestic violence became common. Young men from good families grew increasingly unmanageable. The rate of robberies and burglaries rose alarmingly.

Native Picts and their allies, the Scoti from the north of Eire, came over Hadrian's Wall and began attacking isolated settlements. Worst of all, the Saxons had come ashore, seeking both land and plunder. Establishing settlements of their own. As their numbers expanded in the east the native Britons began to retreat westward. So did the Jutes and Franks and Angles. The old Roman roads offered easy mobility for native and foreigner alike. A perfect storm was bearing down on Viroconium.

Viroconium Cornoviarum was an administrative center, one of the civitates, or tribal capitals. The majority of its resident population comprised a middle class known as the curiales, members of the city council, their sons and relatives. Initially a rough frontier town during the Roman advance westward, Viroconium had served as a supply depot for Deva Victrix and Isca Silurum, then grown into a cosmopolitan city with a broad central avenue, the via principalis, lined with sweet chestnut trees imported from Iberia by the Romans. The avenue bisected a grid of paved residential streets that divided the city into sections of ascending prosperity. The amenities of urban life included a large civic complex with a marble courthouse in the Doric style adjoining a colonnaded forum; a lavish public bathhouse equipped for both men and women; a famous and well-subscribed theater; a hospital fully equipped with Athenian medical instruments; an assortment of taverns and alehouses; numerous shops and markets, and the customary brothels, all to a high standard. Viroconium's citizens were accustomed to luxury.