Phoebe was a bitch. A two-faced, treacherous, self-serving whore who’d knowingly tempted his father. Willingly turned her back on Marcus.
She’d made her decision. She must live with it. She was no sister of his.
He’d not spoken to her again. If he’d chanced to pass her, he’d looked through her as if she was invisible: like any other slave.
Piece by piece, stone by stone, the boy was remade. Rebuilt in his father’s own image.
By the time he encountered Cassia on Londinium’s bridge, Marcus Aurelius Aquila was a true and perfect son of Rome.
II
The night he left the Wolf People, turning his back on Cassia and striding into the night, Marcus had never felt so disturbed.
He could not keep still. He had to get away. To walk and keep walking. A plague of wasps was buzzing in his mind, ants were crawling through his blood vessels, some idiot demon was tightening every nerve.
How could he have so misjudged the situation?
By Jupiter and all the gods of Mount Olympus! How could he have got it so wrong?
How could he have so completely misunderstood her?
It was not possible. He could not have made a mistake so monstrous, so colossal…
He thought back to the first time he’d seen her.
There on the bridge: those marks on her wrists.
What more evidence had he needed?
He’d seen dots and whirls like that before. At the wall. Prisoners, captured by patrols. Warriors, brought in for interrogation by his superiors.
Not that they’d revealed anything. The bastards would rather die than talk. But he was well aware that there was a tribe somewhere in the wilderness beyond the Empire’s furthest limit where mothers pierced their children’s skin in just that way. Barbarian savages who hid in the hills and plotted against Rome. Whose lair was unknown, undiscovered.
Two years he’d been stuck on this wretched island. Damp. Cold. Forsaken by the gods. He should have stayed in Italia. Accepted the role his father had carved out for him. He could have been playing at politics in the city of Rome all this time but instead he’d wanted to forge his own future, to stand on his own feet. Two years he’d been away, hoping to make his father proud of him, desperate to show he was a worthy son and deserving of the family name. Perhaps, even, trying to prove himself an equal to the man who’d sired him.
And where had it got him?
Oh, he was a good salesman. He’d served Gaius well. But that was a mask that concealed his true purpose. Posing as an itinerant trader, he’d travelled the length of the wall, backwards and forwards, befriending barbarian drunkards who’d deserted their own people for an easier life in the taverns and whorehouses of the frontier towns. Not just posing as a trader, either. He’d adopted disguises. Taken pseudonyms, play-acted different parts. He’d worked so hard, extracting names, gleaning fragments of gossip, gathering information to pass to his employer.
But he hadn’t told Constantius Scipio anything he didn’t already know. Each time he made a report he could feel his superior’s contempt growing. He felt more like a messenger boy than a spy!
The rumours had been running wild that year. In every tavern, in every flea-bitten inn he’d heard tales of native tribes forging alliances both among themselves and with Saxons from across the sea. Soon it was common gossip. He’d returned to Londinium to tell Constantius Scipio.
And there on the bridge, he’d seen Cassia.
She’d arrived in the city just when the rumours of barbarian conspiracy were at their height. He’d known she was an enemy agent the moment he’d laid eyes on her. The way she’d bared her teeth like a wolf at the guards on the bridge. She’d looked ready to bite their throats out! And she was so well muscled, so tanned. He’d had no doubt at all: she was a warrior. He could have arrested her right there, but self-interest had stayed his hand. She’d come south for some particular reason. If he could find out what it was, what a coup that would be!
Constantius Scipio had believed him when he said she was a spy. In fact Scipio had ordered him to dispose of her right away. A dark corner, a knife: he could have ended it the day she arrived in the city.
But by the time Marcus had reported to Scipio, he’d touched her. Standing there in Gaius’s house: the feel of her palm against his had overwhelmed him. What was it? Lust? No… He’d felt desire before now. It was more than that. Something else. Something dangerous. And as a direct result of that he’d persuaded Scipio to let her live.
“Cut her down and others will spring up to take her place,” he’d insisted. “We’ll never know what they’re planning. Better for me to befriend her. I’ll see where she goes, what she does. That way we’ll know what the enemy intends.”
Scipio had been sceptical. And so, in desperation, Marcus had invoked his father’s name. Used the power of his parent’s reputation to add weight to his own argument. Even so, it was with reluctance that Scipio had agreed.
Nothing had happened all that winter. For months he’d played the part of a lovestruck fool. It hadn’t been difficult. He’d burned to touch her. But he’d been so very respectful, not wanting to lay a finger on her skin without her consent. And it had never come.
Why not?
He knew how to charm a woman. It was the one thing he did know how to do better than his father. His looks alone often carried the day, and women were so generally overlooked, so thoroughly despised by the men they lived with, that they succumbed easily to his attentions. Women were so hungry, so desperate, that the smallest crumb of kindness was enough to satisfy them. He needed only to listen to what they had to say, to respond as though their words mattered to him, to murmur that their thoughts were intriguing and original, to look as if their company gave him great pleasure. He had plucked many men’s secrets from their wives and daughters with a sympathetic smile and tender look.
Yet Cassia had been a challenge of a different order. She was polite. Courteous. Sometimes she’d seemed positively pleased to see him. Yet there had always been that distance.
And she had told him nothing. Nothing at all. He’d never known a woman so self-contained, so self-controlled. He’d put it down to her skill. He’d thought that she was a consummate professional.
But then there’d been her plan to rescue the slave boy. When she’d turned to him that day and asked for his help, triumph had overwhelmed him. All that watching, all that waiting had been worth it.
He assumed the slave lad was of noble family. Royal, perhaps. He’d heard how much these people prized their bloodlines. He’d guessed that Rufus would be a figurehead, a name who men would rally behind, who would unite armies of savages against Rome.
He’d gone to Constantius Scipio at once. Told him of her plan. Been ordered to go with her, to assist her in any way.
“See where she flies. Find out where her nest is. Then we’ll know where to strike.” Those had been his orders, and he’d followed them to the very last word.
The fact that when Rufus had come away he’d been accompanied by a pair of Saxons – Flavia’s blue eyes and Silvio’s blond hair meant they could be nothing else – had added to his conviction that he’d uncovered a plot of immense significance.
He’d written as much to Constantius Scipio: set it all down in writing and made her carry the tablet to the spymaster herself. How pleased he’d been with that! How clever he’d thought it, to use her courage against her!
They’d got Rufus out. But – aside from their encounter with the bear – that had been the only part which had been truly dangerous. Once they’d reached Londinium, their path had been smoothed for them every step of the way. He’d delivered her to her tribe. The Wolf People: rumoured to be the most fierce, the most warlike, the most dangerous to Rome.
He had discovered their stronghold! That, at least, was useful information. He should have felt triumphant.
But – for him – things had fallen apart.
He’d known who Cassia’s tribe were.
&nb
sp; She had not.
How was that possible?
No, no, no! It was incredible. He could not have made such a huge mistake. Not him. It could not be, it could not be that all these months he’d thought she was something she wasn’t, that he’d given her credit for a streak of animal cunning that did not, in fact, exist.
And yet there seemed no other explanation. He’d spun an elaborate web of supposition and ensnared only himself. What an idiot! He’d seen conspiracy where there was none. Janus wept! What would Constantius Scipio say when he told him?
What a disaster! So much money spent. So many soldiers paid to look the other way in Londinium and at the wall. So many bribes passed from hand to hand.
And all for what?
Cassia had never been a spy! There had been no plan to rescue a barbarian princeling! Restoring Rufus to his people had been a happy accident.
An accident that he himself had brought about.
He had never felt so idiotic. So ignorant. So stupid. Not since—
No. He would not think of that.
Yet if Cassia had been born a slave, as she said…
He could not doubt it! There in that wretched hill fort there was no benefit to her telling anything other than the truth. And her people had not known of her existence. They had embraced her as a long-lost daughter of the tribe, but one they had never laid eyes on until he had delivered her into their arms.
Slaves were made servile by the will of the gods. Inferior creatures, born only to serve. Did not the Greek philosophers agree on that? Aristotle, Plato? All the great thinkers of both Greece and Rome. His own father had drummed that knowledge into him.
As for the Britons, the Saxons, the warring barbarian tribes – they were savages with neither the wit nor wisdom to bow before the might and majesty of Rome. Uncivilized brutes, no better than beasts.
And yet he had seen nobility of heart and mind these past weeks not only in Cassia, but in Flavia too. Flavia – so stoical. Enduring every pain, every discomfort with silent dignity. Women! Who were only set on earth to be used by men.
So how was it that Cassia’s courage matched that of any Roman soldier?
Her nerve was unparalleled. He’d seen her facing down a bear. Unarmed. Unafraid. A gladiator would have quailed. Yet she’d stood there and commanded it to leave Rufus alone!
And then afterwards – gods! – she’d kissed him back. He’d felt the ground under his feet being pulled away. Reality had skewed sideways. He was in danger of losing himself to her.
Venus be cursed! – the girl had wormed her way into his heart. He had caught her like a disease. Affection had grown like a tumour.
But a disease could be cured with the right remedy. A tumour could be cut out.
And it would be.
He was his father’s son, was he not? If he could not master this one flaw, he was scarcely fit to be called a Roman.
III
He walked the length of that night entirely alone but soon after sunrise, Marcus quite literally fell into company.
Coming down a steep slope, eyes blurred with exhaustion, he missed his footing and tumbled, head over heels, rolling down an expanse of scree and landing at the foot of the hill.
It took some moments for his head to stop spinning. When he opened his eyes, there was a man standing over him, outlined against the sky: a muscled torso, a mass of hair and beard, the stink of horse.
Marcus was in enemy territory. He had no protection here. For a moment he thought his end had come and in his distressed state he would almost have welcomed it. But then the stranger spoke.
“Marcus Aurelius Aquila.” The tone was faintly mocking. “What brings you into the wild lands?”
The speaker was known to him. A horse trader. An informer. Marcus had often pressed coins into his hand in the quiet corners of dark taverns in exchange for gobbets of information. He went by the name of Tertius south of the wall but no doubt used a different one north of it. When Marcus got to his feet, he simply extended a hand in greeting and said, “Well met.”
“Indeed.” A small group of shaggy ponies was clumped a little way off, the lead mare hobbled so she couldn’t run away. Marcus fixed his gaze on the animals while the trader eyed him with more than a little suspicion. “You are alone?”
“I am.”
He sniffed. “Then you are a very brave man. Or a very foolish one.”
Marcus didn’t reply. Foolish, he thought. Foolish. The word banged from one side of his head to the other like the clanger of a bell.
“Where are you headed all alone?”
Marcus thought of Cassia. Part of him longed to turn back. To retrace his steps. To explain. To unburden himself to her. Didn’t the Christians do such things? Confess. Repent. Beg forgiveness.
But – though his father had changed the family’s religion with each Emperor – at heart Marcus was no Christian. And he couldn’t bear the thought of how her face would change if he told her the truth. He couldn’t see her again. His only task now was to smooth over the catastrophic mess he’d made of things. “South, ” he said. It sounded flat and dull. Deathly.
“Ride with me, then,” Tertius said. “I could use some help. My boy was kicked in the head by that colt there two days back. I had to send him home to his mother. This many horses are hard to manage alone.”
It was easy to believe the gods had directed their paths to cross. Easy to fall in with Tertius, to accept the mount he was offered and to ride south, towards Roman territory. Easy to keep an eye on the horses. To ride and not to talk. To ride and not to think.
Tertius wanted the animals to arrive at market in good condition. He did not push them hard, and when they came to patches of sweeter grass, he allowed them to graze awhile. He asked no questions, and Marcus gave no information. They moved, they watched the herd, they travelled in a silence that was broken only by the cries of eagles, the grunts and nickers of the horses, the wind through the heather, the babble of a stream.
At the end of the day they made camp. They shared a little of the dried meat that Tertius carried in a pouch at his waist.
When Marcus slept, he dreamed of Cassia.
It was three days before the wall loomed in the distance. It should have been a welcome sight. Civilization lay on the other side. Decent food. Good company. The Baths.
But so did Constantius Scipio. So did confession. Judgement. Punishment. It could not be avoided. He was a loyal son of Rome. He would do his duty.
The night after they arrived on the other side of the wall, he and Tertius went to the tavern. Knowing what lay ahead, Marcus drank too much, said too much and woke feeling as though his skull had been cleft in two.
Memories of the night before came in pieces, drifting into his head and making him groan with shame.
He remembered that he’d wept into his wine. “I had her all wrong! Right from the moment I saw her.”
“Who, Roman?” It was all the prompting that Marcus had needed. Words poured out of his mouth as freely as the wine had been poured down his throat. Dear gods, had he told the man everything?
“Cassia! She was a slave. But I thought… I thought… Gods, what a fool I’ve turned out to be!”
After that he’d utterly abandoned himself to self-pity. Snivelled and whimpered like a child. How could he have behaved so pitifully? And what more had he said that he didn’t now recall?
But what did it matter how much of the truth he’d spilled? His mistake would be known to everyone soon enough.
His reputation – such as it was – would crumble into ruins. He’d lose his job. Go home disgraced. The dread of reporting to Constantius Scipio was nothing compared to that of having to tell his father how badly he’d let him down.
But there was something else too. Something underneath that twisted like a knife in his guts. It was treachery against Rome. Yet there was no evading his fierce, hopeless longing to see Cassia’s face again.
Venus wept! Was this how it felt to love?
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sp; IV
Marcus Aurelius Aquila was not the only Roman in this tale whose mind was mired in thoughts of Cassia. Titus Cornelius Festus could think of nothing else. And he was not without influence. A man with wealth at his disposal could never be ignored.
He’d seen the bitch Cassia right there in his room! Seen the fear in her face. He’d almost had her there in the palm of his hand! And she’d slipped through his fingers again.
He’d decided to remain in the city until she was found. Men had been bought who were ordered to turn over every stick, every stone until she was discovered. She wouldn’t escape a third time.
His purse was large, but even so, it took some time and a great many coins to discover where she’d been hiding these past months. It took even longer to discover who’d placed her there and why.
But by the time Marcus Aurelius Aquila finally arrived back in Londinium ready to confess his mistake to his superior, Constantius Scipio already knew of his error.
He was humiliated. Shamed. Exposed as a fool. An idiot who’d grasped the wrong end of the stick and failed to let go. He was reduced to less than nothing.
Standing before Constantius Scipio – his head down, his eyes on the floor – Marcus felt as though he was ten years old.
Constantius Scipio never once raised his voice. It would have been easier if he had. The long litany of Marcus’s errors seemed to take Scipio most of the morning to recite. The sun was high overhead when he at last concluded, “All this and more. You’ve helped a number of valuable slaves escape. Every master in southern Britannia has felt the effect of it. All across the country slaves are growing unruly and restless. You know how they talk. Gossip spreads like disease. As for Cornelius Festus – his estate is in chaos. This one girl has inflamed them all. She’s given them hope.” Scipio paused, and said heavily, “She can’t be left to run free.”
The sentence hung in the air. It was a few moments before Marcus realized he was expected to give an answer. He raised his head. Met Constantius Scipio’s eyes. Read the challenge in them.