Dragon's Child (20 page)

His voice had the magisterial ring of one of the old lawmakers of ancient Rome, for all that this doughty man was half-Celtic by birth.

‘Let no stone stand on another stone when the flames have cooled. And let the ground be sown with salt to cleanse this poisoned earth.

‘The Severinii woman will be strangled immediately, and her body thrown on the city midden. Her callous cruelty deserves a worse fate ... but I don’t have the stomach for it.

‘As for Severinus and Antiochus, let them be crucified, like the criminals they are, at this very hour. And they shall hang outside the gates of Aquae Sulis, so that all good citizens shall see the fate of those fools who sell their souls to the Darkness.

‘And, lest their mouths spew poison, they will die in silence, with their tongues removed from their heads.’

The magistrate was a prudent man, and Artorex couldn’t suppress a grimace of respect and black humour.

‘I have spoken! So let it be done!’

CHAPTER VII

 

Artorex would have gladly ridden away with Targo, who had been charged with returning Brego to his father. He longed to climb upon Coal and escape, like Llanwith pen Bryn and Luka who were returning to the Villa Poppinidii to ensure that peace had settled within its walls. But he must take charge of the pitiful terracotta urns, each numbered in the Roman fashion but not yet filled with ash. He must take hanks of hair to grieving mothers, and watch the final death of their long and useless hopes.

Such was his penance for achieving freedom for Caius. Such was his self-administered punishment for lending his name to a lie.

The forecourt filled with smoke from the roaring fires that had been lit to consume the small, abused bodies of the sacrificed children. One by one, and still wrapped in their pitiful linen sheets, their remains were cremated.

Myrddion had stayed with Artorex and, together, they searched out what food could be found in the kitchens, eventually settling on cheese and a heel of bread as the simplest repast they could stomach on such a day as this. Around them, the villa boiled with activity as the servants systematically ransacked it for items of value, showing surprising strength as they loaded a wagon and several handcarts with all that they could carry. Before the three prisoners were chained and led away, the old spokeswoman for the servants didn’t hesitate to tear the golden earrings from Severinii ears and prise rings from their manacled hands. Then, with grave deliberation, she spat in the faces of each of her erstwhile owners.

Neither Artorex nor Myrddion could deny that she had earned the right to perform this last vengeful act.

By mid-afternoon, the old women could load and carry no more. What items were left were worthless or too heavy to move. Even the villa’s finest horses would be departing with the women.

‘Will they be safe with all of their scavenging?’ Artorex asked Myrddion anxiously, for it seemed unjust that these ancient women should fall foul of thieves and villains after all their years of suffering.

Myrddion walked up to the spokeswoman.

‘Where will you go, good woman?’ he asked. ‘My young friend fears for your safety.’

‘I am of the Dobunni, and I was born near Corinium,’ she replied, as she tied her hair up in a scrap of fine linen. ‘Perhaps there are some of my kin who are still alive. If not, then we old ones will be safe if we can come under the protection of the King. We’ve survived far worse than a week’s journey through strange places.’

‘Go safely, then,’ Artorex called after her, as she flicked the reins on to the backs of the horses drawing her wagon.

‘And you, young master. Verily, your coming to the villa was a fortunate day for us.’ She laughed shrilly, and turned her back on her erstwhile home for the last time.

The two men watched the dust cloud of the little cavalcade as it descended the hill and turned on to a back road leading to the north. It was little more than a rough track.

‘She is clever, that one.’ Myrddion smiled his admiration. ‘They will stay far from the main thoroughfares and likely find the sanctuary they seek.’

‘I’ve no taste for further bloodshed, Myrddion, and I’m glad the magistrate will execute the Severinii outside the walls of Aquae Sulis. Crucifixion is a vile and a lingering death. I’ve never seen it and I don’t want to.’ Artorex sat on his heels and rubbed his reddened eyes with the heel of his hand.

‘The Severinii have earned their fate, Artorex, but I grant you that I, too, take little pleasure in such necessary affairs. Let the mob howl for their blood. I prefer the quick ending of a sword.’

‘May the gods grant that such is our fate,’ Artorex sighed.

By dusk, the soldiers had finished the grisly task of burning the small bodies, pounding the longer bones to splinters and placing the remains in the numbered urns. As he stared at the pitiful strands of hair, also numbered in the same fashion, it seemed to Artorex that the terrible night, and the day that had followed it, had been without end.

Yet, before they left the silent villa, the magistrate and the full complement of councillors returned, in company with a troop of soldiers and field workers who carried hammers and torches. Artorex shuddered, for the cruel day was still holding sway over the darkness.

‘I see you gentlemen are still here,’ the magistrate noted, as the two men continued to stow the urns in a pannier hung over the withers of Artorex’s horse.

‘We’re about to leave, sir,’ Artorex replied, and bowed low.

‘The execution of the Severinii has been carried out. The son and his catamite hang on the road leading into Aquae Sulis. Both are still alive, and will continue to suffer. The mother died before their eyes.’ He smiled in the direction of the stables. ‘I see that the servants have departed - and not on foot.’

‘They took all that they could,’ Myrddion replied with an ironic laugh. ‘Perhaps their spoils will bring them good fortune.’

‘That old grandmother will have chosen carefully,’ the magistrate stated with a smile. ‘She has a deep store of vengeance in her heart, and I shouldn’t care to cross her path.’

He patted Myrddion across the back to show his appreciation for the satisfactory outcome of what could have developed into a disastrous political scandal.

‘The time has come to burn this pest hole to the ground,’ he ordered without further discussion.

The group of workmen carrying the torches leapt to do his bidding and soon the building was ablaze from end to end. As Myrddion and Artorex rode away, they could feel the heat of its destruction on their backs and, long after night had fallen, the black sky was lit by a hellish redness as the villa on the hill crumbled into hot ash.

Two very tired men returned to the Villa Poppinidii shortly after moonrise. Myrddion decided that the hour was too advanced and Artorex was too exhausted to complete the final, sad task of delivering the urns to the villages. The parents of those children who had vanished had waited for months, even years, to learn the fate of their children; another night wouldn’t matter, especially when it would end in tears and grief.

Artorex was almost asleep on his horse as he rode into the stables at the villa. The strong arms of the servants assisted him as he climbed down from the horse cloth, while other hands respectfully unloaded the urns from the pannier on Coal’s back.

How could word have spread so quickly? Artorex wondered in his dazed state, before remembering that Luka and Llanwith had returned before him. Bad news always travels fast.

Stumbling and ashen, Artorex hastened to the baths where he cast aside his cloak, tunic and loincloth. He stepped out of his sandals and fell bodily into the cleansing waters. When a servant peered cautiously round the doorway, Artorex ordered that every stitch of his clothing should be burned, and new robes brought to him.

He finally emerged, cleansed, shaved and in fresh clothing, but his grey eyes still spoke volumes of matters no man should have to contemplate.

Artorex ate in the kitchens with Myrddion, the household having already gone to its rest, and even though fresh apples, nuts, cheese and milk were wholesome food and pleasant to the palate, he was not hungry. He could still feel the poison of the Severinii family working through his veins.

Myrddion laid a narrow hand upon Artorex’s forehead.

‘It’ll pass, my friend. It’ll pass.’

‘Will it? Can it? I feel as if I’ve lived in a safe bubble my whole life. I wasn’t able to recognize evil when I saw it. Severinus was just an annoying, patronizing pig. And what of Caius? What can I do about my foster-brother?’

‘We’ve done all that we can, Artorex,’ Myrddion replied. ‘Caius has been given one last chance, for the sake of his mother. What he does with the rest of his life is up to him. My advice is that you should ignore him, if you can.’ The older man paused before continuing in a soft voice.

‘Sometimes, when a wound must be cleansed, the pus and corruption fills the nostrils with a rank odour that seems to endure forever. But new flesh eventually grows to replace that which was rotting. The Severinii have now been amputated from this world and they will soon be forgotten, and all will be healed again.’

‘Until the next monster appears,’ Artorex replied with a weary sigh.

‘Until the next,’ Myrddion agreed. ‘Perhaps men such as we are born for nothing else but to bear witness, and then crush those human horrors, so that simple men, women and children may sleep safely in their beds.’

‘Then it would be better to be a simple man,’ Artorex whispered, exhausted almost to the point of tears.

‘Of a certainty,’ Myrddion agreed. ‘But we rarely choose our own fates. Something else - something more powerful than we frail creatures of flesh and bone - does the choosing for us, and a man is measured by how well he bears the weight of the travails with which fate burdens him.’

‘Is the whole world so simple then, Myrddion? Do the evil ones balance against those who would only do good? The magistrate of Aquae Sulis is a good man, but he knows that Severinus and his mother were merely the leaves of a noxious weed that is only seen above the ground. Too many evil men lurk where they can’t be seen, and their roots are too strong to be easily dug out. The magistrate didn’t even try to find all the malefactors associated with the Severinii. Is the earth, and all things that live upon it, bound in shades of grey, neither good nor bad, but just muddling on as best it can?’

‘If I knew all the answers, I would be Emperor of Constantinople and all wars would cease at my command. But chance, I know, is not the balance of which you speak. Men and women choose how to live with what fate has given them. Did Mistress Severina always hide a streak of cruelty in her nature? Or did fear of old age create her viciousness? Does her motive matter? All I know is she chose to act as no man or woman should, and she paid the price for that decision.’

‘I’m too tired for riddles, Lord Myrddion,’ Artorex replied, and he rose to his feet and staggered away to his simple bed. He slept in little more than an alcove near the kitchens and the triclinium, at the heart of the house, where he could feel the beat of its pulse. Now, exhausted, he wished he were the meanest field worker, billeted in the servants’ quarters and far from Livinia’s cold body, the grief of Master Ector and the problem of Caius. Not surprisingly, on his lumpy pallet, Artorex’s sleep was disturbed by unspeakable, half-remembered nightmares.

He woke shortly before first light but exhaustion quickly drew him back into dreamless sleep.

He slept long past his usual hour for waking and old Frith set herself on a stool before the door to his small bedchamber. She allowed no man or woman, not even Master Ector, to disturb his rest.

‘The boy is tired to the bone, master, what with setting all to rights in your household. Let him sleep as long as he’s able and then old Frith will help him to break his fast.’

Wisely, master and servants permitted the old woman to have her way.

The morning was well advanced before a stray beam of light angled through the shutters, causing Artorex to stir in his bed. In an instant, Frith was aware of his movement and a servant was dispatched to the kitchen to prepare his meal. Soon, Artorex was faced by a huge selection of food.

‘I’m a man with a healthy appetite, Frith, but only an Atlas could eat this excellent repast.’

‘The village has sent it, boy, so you must try to eat a little of everything. The women who prepared these dishes will expect a report from me on what you eat.’

‘But why?’ Artorex asked, his confusion clearly written on his open face.

‘Last night, you brought the children home, young master. The villagers know that you, above all men, were responsible for their return.’

‘But there were other men at the villa - Myrddion, Targo, Llanwith and Luka. We all did what was required of us.’ Artorex was quite shocked at the idea that his small part in the events that had unfolded at the Villa Severinii should assume such huge proportions in the eyes of the villagers.

‘Get on with you, my little lordling,’ Frith admonished him with the familiarity of long custom. ‘Was it not Lord Llanwith himself who described how you went back into that nasty pit to bring the little ones home? You may gull some people in this house but you can’t fool your old Frith.’

Artorex knew that it was pointless to argue with the old servant, so he tried, heroically, to eat as much of the meal as he could. Then, when he’d dressed and washed, he took himself off to find Lord Ector.

Ector and Caius were seated together in the scriptorium, and both faces were etched in lines of grief. Father and son had been checking the household accounts when Artorex entered, although they sat some distance apart from each other, locked away in their separate, lonely silences. Neither man knew how to speak to the other, and Ector’s face bore the puffiness of weeping. Caius was unable to meet his father’s eyes, and he stared at the scrolls with painful intensity. Ector gave Artorex a small smile of welcome, but Caius couldn’t look at his foster-brother and stared fixedly at the wall.