Requiem for a Slave (12 page)

‘There is a turning on the left-hand side three miles or so down here, and half as long a stretch of gravelled track before we reach my door,’ I murmured to the driver at my side. ‘A full half-sestertius if you get me there in half an hour.’ (I had struck the deal for just a little less, with precisely this intention in mind.)

‘Provided we don’t meet any soldiers on the way, we should do that with ease,’ he told me with a grin.

He was right to make no promises, of course. If we did meet a contingent of legionaries on the move, we should be obliged to pull over on to the muddy margins and wait until they passed, with all their supplies and followers as well – and that could take a considerable time. Even a training party from the local garrison engaged on their daily eight-mile exercise could cause us some delay.

We were lucky. We did not encounter any marching troops. In fact, once we had gone a little way from town, there was very little traffic of any kind at all. We did see one official messenger, riding hell for leather with the imperial post, and, of course, we ceded priority to him, but he was past us in an instant and we moved off again.

It was a comfortable journey, as such journeys go – the body of the gig was hung on leather straps to minimize the jolts – and normally I would have quite enjoyed the ride, but I was very anxious to be home. We were passing through darkening forests by this time, and my mind was full of Minimus. I wondered where he was – supposing that he was anywhere at all. I only hoped that he was unhurt and not too terrified. If he was being held captive in this very forest now, I wondered whether he could hear the clatter of the gig. Or was I foolish to suppose that he was still alive?

I wished again that there was something I could do to look for him, but I had no idea at all of where to start. None of my enquiries had told me anything. My only hope was that if the rebels had him, they planned to ransom him, in which case they would doubtless send me a demand. There had been nothing of that nature at the shop, but perhaps it would be waiting for me at my home, since Minimus could obviously tell them where I lived. Then, at least, there would be a place to start. I was increasingly impatient to get there and find out.

I clung to the leather strap beside my seat as we jolted from the major road on to the country lane which led past my roundhouse to my patron’s large estate, and so on to the distant farms beyond. The roadway was much narrower and darker here, though it was kept in good repair, and the last half-mile seemed agonizingly slow.

The driver was anxious for his extra money too. ‘I’m sorry, citizen, I’m doing what I can. At least it’s better than the other route.’

I nodded. There was another way into the town which cut off several miles, but that was an ancient farm track, twisting and precipitous, full of rocks and roots and sudden gradients, and far too treacherous for horse-drawn vehicles to use.

At last we reached the junction with that other lane. My roundhouse had been built not very far away – we were already at the corner of my enclosure fence. I was leaning forward in my open seat, craning to see the welcome glow of firelight through the door and smell the cooking on the central hearth. But, to my amazement, there was no sign of life, not even a wisp of smoke curled from the chimney hole.

The driver drew up at the gate where I had told him to and turned to me. ‘Doesn’t seem as if they are expecting you,’ he said. ‘That’s a pity – I was hoping you could light my torch for me.’ He gestured to the bundle, ready dipped in pitch, which he carried in the torch-frame at the front corner of the gig. ‘It will soon be really dark, and it will take a lot more than half an hour to get back again.’

He was clearly mentioning the ‘half an hour’ as a way of reminding me that he had earned his fee – as probably he had – but, of course, I had no accurate way of measuring the time. My promise had only been a way of ensuring he made haste, as we were both aware.

I gave him his coin and took the torch from him. ‘Wait here a moment. I will see what I can do. I don’t imagine that they’ve entirely put out the fire.’ As soon as I had said that, I felt a shiver of alarm. I was reminded suddenly of my cold hearth at the workshop earlier. What was awaiting me in my roundhouse now?

My heart was thumping as I went in through the gate. I knew that Maximus, the other red-haired slave that Marcus had lent me, was in Glevum with my son, but the lad who tended the animals and the garden should be here. He helped in the kitchen when there was no other slave to spare. ‘Kurso?’ I shouted, but there was no answering sound of running feet. ‘Gwellia?’ I called more urgently. My wife did not reply.

I glanced into the dye-house and the servants’ sleeping hut, but there was no one there. Apart from the contented clucking of the ducks and chickens in the coop, and the rustle of the sheep and goats within the barn, the whole enclosure was as devoid of life and as sinisterly silent as the inner room of my shop had been this afternoon.

So it was with trepidation that I pushed open the door of the roundhouse that was my modest home. The circular room was empty, but a glance was enough to show me that it was not disturbed. Everything was just as usual. The bed of reeds and rushes was ready to one side, two three-legged stools stood by the central hearth, and a bench beside it held the cooking-pots and food. Even my wife’s loom was standing up against the wall, the stones that weighted down the weft still neatly in a row.

I found that I was almost shaking with relief. There was no sign of a struggle, and – thank the gods! – no corpse awaiting me. The fire had not been strangled either. It had been carefully banked up for the night, though there was no clay cook-pot in the embers, or any sign of Gwellia’s usual baking bread. That was doubly a surprise. There was a naming feast tomorrow and, though it would not be a grand affair as Marcus’s had been, we had invited a good many people to attend. If ever there was time for baking, it was now.

I went across to look more closely at the fire. One or two of the larger half-charred logs were still giving off a glow. I set down the torch-bundle, put some tinder on the hottest portion of the hearth and began to coax the fire back into life with the leather bellows which my wife had made. After a minute, a feeble flame arose, so I thrust the pitch-torch in it until that caught alight, then bore it in triumph back out to the gig. The little victory had somehow cheered me up. ‘I’m sorry that this took a little while,’ I said. ‘There’s no one in. I had to coax the fire.’

The driver put the lighted torch into the rack. ‘I thought the place looked empty. I wonder where they’ve gone? You don’t want to go back into town again? I’d only have to charge you half the price, seeing that I’m going that way in any case,’ he added hopefully.

I shook my head. ‘I am sure there is some explanation of all this, and they will soon be back,’ I said with more conviction than I felt. ‘They’ll expect to find me here.’

He nodded and, saluting with his whip, turned the gig around and trotted off into the gloom. I watched the bright flare of the pitch torch out of sight, then turned back to the house. I lighted a home-made taper at the fire and looked to see if there was a note or any demand to ransom Minimus, but there was nothing of the kind. Not even a communication from my wife to me as there would usually have been if she had been called out unexpectedly.

I found a crust of bread and a small piece of cheese, and prepared to eat them squatting by the hearth, washed down with half a beakerful of water from the jug. I felt suddenly and dreadfully alone.

Then a thought occurred to me. Junio’s roundhouse was only a little further up the lane – his enclosure was right next to mine – and though Junio was out, his wife and child would certainly be there. And, of course, if my urchin had delivered the message that I’d sent, Gwellia would not be expecting me so soon, since she would suppose that I was walking home.

Perhaps she had gone to sit with Cilla and the child, and help with the preparations for the naming day, and taken Kurso with her. Of course that’s what she’d do. Cilla and Junio did not keep a separate slave – indeed, at one time they had been our slaves themselves – and we combined our households for most purposes. Though no doubt we would soon have to think of buying extra help, I thought. Marcus was coming and would want his servants back – supposing I could produce little Minimus, that is – and, with the new child, Junio and Cilla would want attendants of their own.

I hurried to the door and thought I could detect the welcome whiff of woodsmoke drifting down the hill. Absurdly grateful for this evidence of normality, I seized my cloak – for it was getting very cold – lit another pitch-torch for myself and set off in the direction of Junio’s home.

The wind was rising, whistling in the trees. I devoutly wished I hadn’t left my winter cape – a warm woollen
birrus
with a useful hood – hanging in the workshop when I set off this afternoon, and I was glad of the torchlight on the rocky path.

I soon caught the glimmer of firelight through the thatch and the delicious smell of something cooking on the hearth. Preparations for tomorrow’s feast, no doubt, I thought. More than usually anxious to see my family, I speeded up my steps and was soon outside the door, half-expecting to find little Kurso there awaiting me as makeshift doorkeeper. (He was not by nature suited to the task, but he was more hindrance than help when it came to cooking and was renowned for dropping things: his previous owner had treated him so harshly that the lad still shook with nerves and could even now move faster backwards than forwards.)

But there was no sign of him or of my wife when I peered around the door. It had been left half-open to let the steam and smoke escape, and I stood for a moment taking in the scene. The baby was sleeping in a hammock on the wall, and my daughter-in-law was standing with her back to me, bending over something bubbling in a pot, from which the appetizing smells were rising even now.

So the first that Cilla knew of me was when I said aloud, ‘Greetings, daughter. Where is everyone?’

Perhaps I should have given her more warning that I was standing there.

The effect of my words was truly startling. She whirled around and screamed, dropping the spoon that she was holding into the boiling pot. The infant, woken by the sound, screamed louder still.

She snatched up the swaddled baby and clutched it to her breast, crying as she did so in a sobbing voice, ‘Creature of darkness, leave this house at once! I command you! Go back where you belong.’

Ten

‘
Cilla, what is it?’ I thrust the torch into a holder by the door and strode across to her.

But, instead of being reassured, she gave another shriek. She put down my screaming grandson in his hammock-bed and stood in front of it, taking up a sharp knife from the kitchen bench. She brandished it at me. ‘Keep away from us.’ Her voice was low and strangled, scarcely like her own – even the child had sensed her fear and stilled to whimpering.

‘Cilla!’ I said reproachfully. ‘You know you wouldn’t kill me or stick that blade in me!’ But I was not so sure. Her eyes were so wild that I feared she’d lost her wits and at any moment she would slash at me. My heart was thumping hard against my ribs. Slowly, very slowly, I reached out and gently took the hand that held the knife. I was intending to prise the weapon from her grasp but there was no need for that. She dropped it as though my touch had scalded her.

‘Cilla, whatever is the matter?’ I exclaimed, feeling more confident now she was disarmed.

She didn’t answer, only shook her head and moaned, turning her face away and shutting her eyes tight as if she could not bear to look at me. She tried to snatch her hand back, but I recaptured it. I could feel that it was trembling. I squeezed her fingers gently in my own.

‘What’s been happening? Something’s frightened you.’ I reached down with my free hand and picked the knife up from the floor and laid it on the table safely out of reach. To my surprise, I was trembling myself – I felt I had barely escaped without her stabbing me. This day of surprises was getting ever more bizarre.

However, it was clear that she was truly terrified, and the only way that I could think of soothing her was to ask, in as normal a voice as I could muster, ‘Where is Gwellia? With Kurso, I presume? I thought she would be here. I sent a message that I would be late, but I was hoping for a bite of hot supper all the same. All I could find was a bit of bread and cheese, and it has been a very tiring day. I was bending over for at least an hour laying that Apollo piece in place.’ Perhaps these mundane details would bring her to herself.

It seemed to work. She opened one eyelid and said uncertainly, ‘Libertus, father, is it really you?’ She squeezed my fingers briefly, then reached out an exploratory hand and touched my face.

It was my turn to be startled. ‘But of course it is. Who did you think that it was going to be?’ A sudden dreadful thought occurred to me. You sometimes hear of people blinded by the gods. I held her fingers close against my cheek and added quickly, ‘Nothing terrible has happened to your sight?’

She shook her head and disengaged herself. ‘I saw that it was you.’ She sat down very heavily on a wooden stool. ‘That was the trouble. I thought that you were dead . . . and the torchlight made your eyes look glittering . . .’

‘Dead?’ For a moment I was incredulous. Then I understood. ‘You took me for a ghost?’

She looked at me and laughed – a little sheepishly – then gave a wobbly smile. ‘I can see that I was wrong. You are quite warm and solid and obviously real. And I doubt a spirit would complain of eating bread and cheese.’ There were tears of relief in her eyes, though she wiped them briskly on the corner of her robe and said in something more like her normal voice, ‘I’m sorry, Father. I would offer you some stew, but you gave me such a fright I’ve dropped the serving spoon into the cooking-pot.’