Silvio – tall and well muscled from his days labouring in the fields – would be less easy to transform. True, he could pass as an athletic youth – the kind of wealthy noble’s son used to spending his days hunting and wrestling and whoring. But his face: nothing could alter that jaw, that nose, those blue eyes. If they were to pass along the street in broad daylight as they intended, he would be seen. The chance of him being identified was too great…
But Marcus, it seemed, had been working on Silvio during the hours of their confinement. The Roman’s silver tongue was very persuasive.
Silvio’s yellow hair was also cut to show deep mourning. His face was painted white and red. And then he donned the garb of a woman. The second length of cloth was fashioned into a robe. The second cloak was thrown around his shoulders.
Silvio was transformed into the boy’s older sister.
He looked at Cassia with a rueful smile. “Our places are reversed. Now you are the warrior. And I am the queen.”
She stifled her laughter. Said only, “Marcus – he is too tall to pass for a woman.”
“If he stays crouched in the far corner of the cart beside the corpse, he’ll get away with it. He’ll be hidden by the canvas. In shadow. Silvio, you must seem to be bent double in grief. Can you do that?”
“I can.”
“Well then, take your place.”
Marcus was to pass as uncle to the dead boy. Brother to his mother: the man charged with returning the corpse to its final resting place.
His hair was cut almost to the scalp. He too applied a little cream – not the thick caking mask of the women, just sufficient to give his skin the pallor of grief. Charcoal was smudged under his eyes to form deep, weary shadows. Such efforts would not be enough, Cassia thought – he was still recognizable as the man who had spent three days and nights drinking in the tavern. Someone was sure to know him.
He looked at her, reading the doubt in her eyes. In response he moved his shoulders, bringing one a little higher than the other, hunching his back so he was lopsided, uneven. When he walked towards her, he took on a gait that lurched slightly, one leg dragging awkwardly behind him. He seemed to have aged twenty years, and when he addressed her, it was in the irritable, impatient tone of a man who had spent too long on a journey and was sick to the heart of travelling.
“Get on with you, boy. We’ve a lot of miles to cover before nightfall.”
Only Cassia now remained to be transformed. She, he informed her, was already playing her part. She would be the family’s slave. Taking his knife, he hacked her hair yet shorter, and then pulled a different coloured tunic from a pannier. It would be sufficient. What Roman ever stared at a slave for long enough to remember their looks? The innkeeper wouldn’t give her a second glance. As long as the stable lads didn’t notice her – and they would surely be too busy to even observe their passing – a change of clothing was all that was required.
As for the animals – the smaller pony and the packhorse were turned loose. There were enough people in the region who’d snatch up a stray and take it along home, no questions asked. The panniers were stowed in the cart.
Only the finer horse was kept – a mount suitable for a Roman. It too received Marcus’s attention. A star was painted on its forehead. A sock on its right foreleg. When it was done, he vaulted onto its back. But he did not sit upright, as he had done before. Instead he hunched and twisted a little at his waist. His shoulders were rounded, giving him an aged and weary air.
They were ready to start the journey.
The party’s transformation exceeded Cassia’s wildest expectations. It was all so ingeniously contrived by Marcus. So practised. So easily and swiftly done that they were on the road before sunup.
Cassia felt exhilarated. Optimistic.
But as she looked sideways at Marcus, questions pricked at the corners of her mind. When had he done such things before? Where? And why?
XXIV
They were on their way, cart wheels creaking, hooves thudding on the hard road and the stench of death thick in their nostrils. Marcus had said they would no doubt get used to it but that hope seemed forlorn. As the sun rose higher and the day warmed, the decayed animal stink only grew stronger.
Cassia, walking at the oxen’s heads, was at least some distance removed. For Silvio and Flavia sitting in the covered cart it must be unbearable. For Rufus – lying inside – gods! How was he to survive?
They passed the inn without incident an hour or so after sunrise. Any curious looks were averted as soon as the watchers realized a party of mourners was on the road. Death was a disease that no one wished to catch.
They reached the fork where the road divided, one branch heading towards Londinium, the other to the villa of Titus Cornelius Festus. This too they passed without anything untoward happening.
They were two or more miles west of the estate and Cassia had almost begun to relax when she saw ahead a number of dogs in the middle of the road. Amidst them was a man on horseback yelling orders to half a dozen harried slaves.
Cassia knew that voice. Had she been blindfolded, she would still have recognized the steward. Their way was blocked.
She missed a step. Her hand tightened on the oxen’s lead rope. Softly – so softly that she could barely catch his words – Marcus murmured, “Courage, my love. Hold firm. We get past this and we are home and dry.”
The dogs came running towards them, drawn no doubt by the reek of rotting flesh. The cart was suddenly surrounded by hounds, slobbering, sniffing, yelping. All was noisy confusion as the steward attempted to get them under his control. When they were leashed and held by the slaves he’d brought with him, the steward raised a hand and greeted Marcus, his tone respectful and courteous as he addressed the man he took to be a wealthy Roman noble.
“My apologies, sir! May I speak with you?”
“If you must.”
“Where did you come by the cart? It looks familiar.”
Marcus shrugged, an expression of extreme indifference on his face. “I don’t know. My boy obtained it.”
“Have you travelled far?”
“From Gallia.”
“Your destination?”
“The north.”
“I doubt the cart will last that long.”
“Then we will buy another.” Marcus sighed irritably. “We must be on our way. We have many days’ travel ahead.”
“I won’t detain you long. Sir, we’re looking for three runaways.”
“We have troubles of our own.”
The steward had been so intent on his manhunt he’d paid little attention to the inside of the wagon. It was only then that he noticed the shrouded corpse. When the stench reached his nostrils, he paled a little. “You’ve seen no one?”
“We have seen many people. Seen and not seen. In truth the living are like ghosts to me.”
“Sir, I’m a desperate man. May I speak with your slave?”
“Why?”
“They sometimes see things their masters do not.”
“If you must.”
Marcus gave a wave of the hand, urging Cassia to walk forward towards the steward. She did so, feeling as though her feet were carved from wood.
But he didn’t immediately ask her about the runaways.
“Who lies dead?”
“My master’s nephew. He fell from his horse a month since.”
“You’ve carried him all the way from Gallia?”
“Indeed.”
“Why didn’t they bury him there?”
“They’re Christians, sir.”
“So?”
“The boy’s dying wish was to be laid beside his mother. When the Good Lord calls for their resurrection, they’ll ascend to heaven hand in hand.”
The steward spat onto the road in response. “Crackpots.”
“I couldn’t say, sir.”
The steward turned his attention to more pressing matters.
“Have you seen anyone, boy?”
Cassia avoided his eyes. “No.” Her voice had faltered. Even to her own ears, it sounded like a lie.
As, indeed, it was meant to.
The steward turned his back to the wagon so that Marcus couldn’t see his next move. Reaching into his pouch, he produced a coin. “I’ll give you this. Slip it into your hand and your master won’t even see.”
She accepted it. And then whispered, “There was a fire. Smoke, in the woods, some five miles from the coast. It could be your fugitives are there.”
He would have questioned her more, but in the wagon Flavia had begun a soft, keening cry. As if in response Silvio gave a whimpering groan. It spoke of distress, of unbearable grief. The steward winced.
In a flat, dead voice Marcus announced, “We must be on our way.”
No further command was necessary. Cassia took her place by the oxen. She clicked her tongue. They moved on. She forced herself to set one foot in front of the other, made her shoulders relax, ordered her legs to move naturally. The steward’s eyes seemed to bore into her back, she felt the heat of his gaze on her flesh. It seared into her and when she could bear it no longer, she turned. But it had been Marcus’s eyes on her. When she looked back, the steward was already mounted on his horse, urging the slaves to hurry, to run, to head towards the coast.
Marcus wore his mask of misery. But for a brief moment he grinned at her. She could not return it – what slave would ever grin at their master? – but inwardly she felt a thrill of triumph.
The many years she’d worked under the steward’s command his eyes had been on her so often! And yet he’d looked her full in the face without a glimmer of recognition. It seemed little short of a miracle. She sent prayers of gratitude to the gods before she realized with bitter amusement that in truth it had never been her face that had held the steward’s attention. She dismissed him from her mind and began to consider a different matter entirely.
Marcus had called her “my love”. She had to pull the hood of her cloak right down over her face, for no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t entirely erase her smile.
XXV
Oxen are strong and steady, but their pace is woefully slow. They didn’t make as much as fifteen miles that day and there was no town or tavern in sight when the dark began to gather. Only a house, whose owner couldn’t be persuaded to give them lodgings for the night – not even in the barn – when she realized they were transporting a supposedly month-dead corpse. She feared contagion and Cassia could hardly blame her. But she did at least sell them bread and cheese, and they made camp, such as it was, by the side of the road.
In the dark, Rufus’s shroud was unwound: an ungainly grub released momentarily from his cocoon.
Cassia tried to embrace him, but he pushed her away and in the moonlight would neither look at nor speak to his sister.
Yet to Marcus he displayed a dog-like devotion. When the Roman gave him bread, Rufus took it eagerly. Then he sat at Marcus’s feet, watching his face.
Cassia had seen beaten hounds, cringingly grateful for the smallest kindness shown by the owner who’d whipped them. Dogs who’d whimper and wag their tails in a desperate attempt to please. She’d known slaves behave in much the same fashion, yet she’d never thought her brother would be among their number. She was exasperated by it. Furious with Rufus. Enraged by his lack of dignity and irritated beyond belief that Marcus encouraged her brother’s abject loyalty. The Roman was feeding him scraps. Any moment now he’d be ruffling his hair, scratching his ears, petting him. And Rufus would roll over and beg like the most brainless puppy.
She turned away from them towards Flavia. She longed for the old woman’s reassuring wisdom. Flavia pressed her hand, told her, “All will be well, in time,” but was too tired to talk any further. Too tired to do anything but eat a little and then fall into an exhausted doze. She looked smaller asleep. Weaker. Cassia felt suddenly unsure about whether she would survive their journey at all.
Silvio. Where was he? He, surely, could be relied on? He’d treat her as he always had – with a smile and with mocking, gentle humour.
“Your cry of sorrow,” she said, sitting beside him in the grass at the side of the road. “It was most convincing.”
She’d thought he would retort with a joke. But no. He’d eaten his food in silence and now she saw his face was tight, drawn, as though that day had been one long agony. He seemed ashamed and made no reply.
She realized then that if she’d been scared during the encounter with the steward, he’d been almost unmanned by it. The whimper that escaped him – that she’d taken to be part of their communal act – was the real and genuine sound of terror.
“Some warrior I have turned out to be,” he said bitterly. “I am sorry, my queen.”
She would have comforted him, but he turned his back on her, not wishing to show any more weakness. She could feel him withdrawing into himself like a snail into its shell. Gods! He was near to breaking already. And they were so far from safety. There was Londinium to pass through, the city where Titus Cornelius Festus was – as far as she knew – still searching for her. Word may even have reached him by now that he had lost three more slaves! There would be a price on all their heads.
Could Marcus resist so much money? And if he could – why? Why had he so thrown his lot in with her? Why did he take such risks with his own safety for people that were not his kind?
He had said “my love”. Was that it? Was he truly doing all this for her sake? And if he was … why did he refrain from touching her? She was beginning to think she’d be only too willing to respond. Instead he kept her brother by him – as if Rufus was a human shield.
It was too strange to comprehend. Instead, she turned her mind to more practical problems.
There was no way to avoid or go around Londinium. All roads led to the city and there was but one bridge across the river. How they were to get through the place kept Cassia awake.
There were several burial grounds outside the city walls. But, as she’d observed that long winter, bodies went from deathbed to cemetery in one direction, and one direction only – from the inside to the outside. They did not travel from the outside in. The house owner they’d bought bread from had been terrified of contagion. In the confined streets of Londinium that fear would be so much worse. They would have to go over the bridge, in one gate, cross through the very heart of the city and out through another. They were sure to draw attention to themselves. Was carrying a rotting body through the streets even permissible?
She had no answer to that question. And there was another thing that troubled her. The city was teeming, populous. She should have been safe there. But Fate had made her run headlong into her former master once before. If it happened a second time – if they all came face to face with Titus Cornelius Festus – could Silvio be trusted to hold his nerve?
As for Marcus – she’d seen herself that he was well known by many of the soldiers who guarded the gates. Would his disguise bear the weight of their scrutiny? Suppose it didn’t?
She thought of the marks on her brother’s back.
Whipping would be the very least of it.
XXVI
Cassia slept badly, and was troubled by restless dreams in which the women’s calls sounded more threat than invitation. She was awake long before first light.
As was Marcus.
It seemed the matter of their getting through the city had been giving him as much cause for thought as her.
By mutual consent they strolled down the road a little, out of the hearing of the others.
“This disguise is good,” Marcus began. “It will get us to the outskirts of Londinium unchallenged, I think. But a corpse can’t be carried through the city without permission. I can arrange matters, but it will look strange if I undertake the task myself. When we near the city, I should send my slave ahead, alone. Are you up to that?”
“Of course.”
“Good. I’ll write a message, and you’ll deliver it. And then all our fates ar
e in the hands of the gods.”
The oxen, at their stately pace, took two and a half more days to reach the city. Two and a half more days that stretched everyone’s nerves until they were ready to snap. The mourners could at least cling to each other. Flavia and Silvio sat with heads pressed together and hands clasped. Cassia and Rufus had to manage on their own.
When the walls of Londinium were within sight, Marcus took a wax tablet from the pack and made marks on it – marks that Cassia could not begin to understand. And then he described the place she must go to, and the person to whom it should be delivered.
“There is a man called Constantius Scipio. You will find him in the Forum.”
“You know him?”
“Only by reputation. I’ve heard he’s the kind of man who gets things done. You must appear to be a stranger – say you were given his name in a tavern, or something. Ask directions to the Forum at the gate. We’re foreigners, remember. We don’t know the city or its streets. We don’t know their ways. Take the purse, be prepared to bribe the man. He’ll expect it.”
Cassia manoeuvred the cart onto a stretch of grass by the side of the road. She unhitched the oxen and hobbled them so they could graze awhile. Then, purse banging against her leg, she walked swiftly towards the city.
Alone, without Marcus riding at her back, she felt exposed. Vulnerable. But she did as she was told. Asking for directions at the gatehouse, going to the Forum. Pushing her way between slaves and supplicants. Asking for the man, Constantius Scipio.
She found him eventually in a small room at the rear of the building.
He was old. Grey-haired, balding. But he was lean and fit, and had a stillness to him that she found unnerving. There was something alarming about his eyes, though he barely gave her more than a passing glance. She felt, rather than saw, the close attention he paid her, and tensed, wondering if she was going to have to run.