Beyond the Wall

“I’m hungry.”

  “I will fetch you something,” said Cassia.

  “No,” he said. “He can. Go on, Roman. Tell Flavia you’re taking her home. Then bring me food. I need to talk to my sister.”

  Greatly disconcerted, Marcus did what he was told. He found Flavia and told her to prepare for a long journey. The old woman wept, taking his hands in hers and pressing her forehead to his knuckles, thanking him over and over again in her foreign tongue. He would have found her gratitude touching if his mind had not been so full of Rufus.

  As he’d left the hut, Marcus had caught a movement out of the corner of his eye. It looked as though Rufus had pressed something small into Cassia’s hands. And then brother and sister’s heads were together, and they were whispering. Of what, he could not hear. But Cassia had glanced in his direction, and he guessed he was the subject of their conversation.

  “What happened to your brother?” Marcus asked later.

  “He’s a seer. A shaman.”

  “Was he always this way?”

  “No,” she sighed. “He was always something of a dreamer. But things changed for him when I ran away. And since we rescued him… All those days he was a corpse, unable to move, unable to see? And then the bear… Rufus looked into the heart of death. The boundary between this and the spirit world has dissolved for him. He knows things. Sees things.”

  “Like my arrival?”

  “Yes. And…” Her words dried up. She would not meet his eyes. What had Rufus seen that made her skin flush scarlet? There was a brief silence and then she said, “He tells me our fates are intertwined. That I must learn to trust you.”

  Marcus smiled. “For that, I’m grateful.” He would have pursued the matter but Cassia seemed reluctant to discuss it. So he asked instead, “Does Rufus spend all his time at the hut?”

  “No. Sometimes he is just a boy.” She smiled sadly. Her eyes were bright, as though she was on the verge of tears. “Once in a while he is still my baby brother. He plays. He wrestles. He tells stories. But at other times? He moves far beyond me to somewhere I can’t see. When the spirits whisper to him, he must sit in the dark and wait for the visions they send.”

  “And does he always see true?”

  “It’s hard to say. Visions come through smoke. The shapes, their meaning – they’re not always clear.”

  It was too disturbing a subject. Marcus turned his attention to more practical matters. “So we are to take Flavia to her people. It will add to the length of our journey.”

  “We must do as he says.” Cassia looked at him enquiringly. “Does that disturb you?”

  “No, not at all.” He sounded confident, but his guts churned. He wondered how the barbarians of Germania might react to having a Roman walking on their soil.

  XI

  The Fisher People dwelled on the coast, two days east of where Cassia’s tribe had their home.

  It seemed they were content to carry the travellers across the sea but it was a full week before they judged wind and weather right to make the crossing.

  It was a week in which Marcus did nothing much more than let his beard grow. He knew how his father would see the place. Stinking nets, stinking hovels: a stinking barbarian village inhabited by stinking bog-dwellers. But he was flexing the muscles of his newfound freedom and was delighted to find how much he enjoyed the company of savages.

  He passed the time engaging in contests with whoever challenged him. Boys. Girls. Old men. Women. Cassia.

  Who could throw a stick furthest? Who could make a flat stone bounce off the surface of the water the most times? Who could flick a knife into a target with the most accuracy?

  Every time he faced Cassia in competition, she beat him. And in between, when they sat together on the shore and looked to sea, day by day she prised the truth in pieces from him.

  He told her everything about himself until at last his soul lay at her feet naked and exposed. But hers? He had no idea how she felt now she saw him for what he was. He was on trial, he supposed. He must prove himself.

  When the wind changed direction and the sea calmed, they finally set sail. The weather could not have been better, the Fisher Folk said. The sea goddess herself was easing their way.

  When Marcus had first come to Britannia, the crossing had been a relatively short one at the place where the channel was at its narrowest. The coast of Gallia had disappeared from view at almost the same moment that the cliffs of Britannia poked their heads above the horizon. To go from the wilderness north of the wall to Germania was a longer and more hazardous journey.

  The vessel was well constructed, but seemed such a small thing to be afloat on the vast sea. The mountains vanished and there was nothing but water. Marcus felt like an ant riding a leaf across an endless lake.

  He lost all track of time. One day melted into another as he sat with Cassia and Flavia hunched in the stern, keeping out of the way of the ship’s crew.

  As they crashed from wave to wave, the years seemed to peel away from Flavia. She talked, telling them of her people, her childhood, her village. Of how she’d been taken by slavers and sold. She was more reticent about describing what had followed afterwards, whether out of consideration for his own feelings, or simply because she had no words with which to describe it, he didn’t know.

  She told stories too. Saxon myths, legends. Men and monsters. Warriors. Heroes. The tales poured out and he was gripped by them. He’d always been told that the barbarians of Germania had no culture, no art, no imagination. That Rome had offered them the benefits of civilization and they were too ignorant and too foolish to accept it. Yet now he was glimpsing a world that was as vibrant, as pulsing with life and energy as his own.

  Occasionally Flavia would shift into the Saxon tongue and Cassia would reply. It seemed she’d not only learned to ride and throw a knife that winter. Holed up in the huts when the snow lay thick on the ground, Flavia had taught her enough of her own language for the two women to converse in words he couldn’t understand. Sometimes they laughed, and he wondered if they were discussing him but Cassia’s eyes gave nothing away.

  The cold, grey expanse of water heaved and surged. The sail slapped and cracked in the wind. Marcus observed Cassia’s every mood with the same intensity that the ship’s captain studied sky and sea.

  Extraordinary, he thought, that returning Cassia to her people had so transformed her. She’d not known the place existed until he’d taken her there. But somehow it was in her veins, in every muscle, every sinew of her body. As Flavia’s homeland was in hers.

  As for himself? He thought of the dry heat of Italia. The dappled shade of olive groves. Lemon trees in blossom. Azure seas. Home.

  But thoughts of it were tainted now by the corruption at its roots.

  Where did he belong? What land was his?

  He’d made himself an outcast. In the darkness of the nights at sea he prayed he would be strong enough to endure it.

  XII

  One morning they woke to see that at last land was in sight.

  Flavia was on her feet so swiftly that she set the boat rocking. She looked almost as though she would jump ship and swim the few miles distance to the shore. She fidgeted and squirmed like an impatient child the length of that morning. And when the boat’s hull scraped against shingle, the old woman scrambled unaided over the side. On the beach she fell to her knees, gathering up handfuls of silt and grit, pressing them into her cheeks. And then she howled: a guttural, involuntary cry of long-suppressed suffering and its final release.

  It twisted like a knife in Marcus’s guts. Tears flowed down her face. But that smile of hers? He’d never seen anything like it. Only a statue could not have been moved.

  He understood nothing of what was said to the coastal tribe they had landed among. The captain of the ship that had carried them across the sea was clearly well known. People came running from their huts to greet him. When he pulled Flavia forward as if to introduce her to them, there was an eruption of sound as her st
ory became known. It was all noise and chatter and wailing cries. Marcus – who could understand not a single word – felt gravely disadvantaged. Despite the beard he’d grown, despite the native garments Cassia’s chief had given him – he stood out so clearly as a Roman. Eyes darted sideways at him. All faces bore a look of deep and profound suspicion.

  It was odd to be at the mercy of foreign people. To know they could hurt him. Kill him. Enslave him. He could not prevent it. Nothing, he thought, could be more unnerving than to have no control over his own fate.

  Cassia seemed to guess some of what he was feeling. While Flavia continued to chatter in her peculiarly leaden-sounding tongue, Cassia said, “This is hard for you, I think? To be surrounded by strangers? And all speaking a language you don’t understand.”

  “I can’t deny it.”

  “Rest easy. Flavia is telling them how much she owes to you. You’re perfectly safe.”

  There was a mocking edge to her voice. He replied sharply, “I’m on foreign soil through my own choice. I know perfectly well that Flavia never had that luxury.”

  Cassia didn’t answer. But she did smile.

  * * *

  He couldn’t fault them for their hospitality. These people gave freely of the best they had, plying the new arrivals with food and drink not just on that day but for several days afterwards. Though he itched to be moving on, it seemed they were not permitted to leave the village until the code of honour the savage enemies of Rome abided by had been satisfied.

  When they were finally allowed to leave, they were given horses and a guide to take them to the next village, where they had to undergo the same ritual of cheerful welcome and noisy astonishment that Flavia had escaped from bondage.

  It was days and days of travelling and stopping, talking and eating and drinking before they finally arrived in the place that Flavia had once called home.

  And then…?

  He had seen imperial processions in Rome. Horses, elephants, chariots driven through the streets. Displays of imperial grandeur. Of power and might. He’d seen chariot races and gladiatorial battles.

  What happened when they entered Flavia’s small village was not disciplined. There were no columns of soldiers marching in perfect unison. No salutes. No bread or circuses.

  But by all the gods of heaven and earth, there was joy. So much he could taste it. He breathed it in as word spread from hut to hut that a lost daughter of the tribe had returned, as people came, incredulous, to touch Flavia, to embrace her.

  There was feasting that night. The mead ran like a river and with each mouthful the declarations of love and gratitude grew louder and more passionate. The chief swore eternal kinship with Cassia and all her people. And Marcus – a Roman who had turned against his own kind – was hailed as the noblest and bravest of men. The mead had taken effect by then. Marcus felt a sense of comradeship with every soul in the hall. The women’s tears flowed as freely as the drink. Tales were told. Heroic. Sentimental. Songs were sung.

  And when the tribe’s musicians were done, they turned to him.

  “They want a song from you,” Cassia told him. “A song from Rome.”

  Reluctant though he was, there was no escaping it. He stood. Cleared his throat. But then found his mind had emptied. He could think of nothing at all. No tune, no words, nothing. He reached into the recesses of his mind and plucked out only one: the song Hera, Phoebe’s mother, had sung to them both when they were very small. He’d not heard it since she’d been sold.

  The crowd were watching him. Cassia’s face was full of encouragement. She was looking kind. Soft. Wonderful. He could make a home in those eyes. If she would be his country, he wouldn’t need another. He would tell her that. Just as soon as he’d got this song out of the way.

  He began. A soft, lilting tune. It brought back a time of innocence. Of sweet, straightforward friendship. A time when his only love and loyalty were for his sister, not his father. Not his country. Not his Emperor.

  He sang.

  And was surprised to find that, at the song’s close, his cheeks were wet with tears.

  XIII

  Mead made fools of all men, he thought when he woke the next morning. It was late and his head pounded, but he was determined, nonetheless, that he and Cassia would be out of this place and on their way as soon as horses could be made ready.

  But when he ventured out of the roundhouse and into the bright sunshine, a war seemed to have broken out. There were two warriors wrestling, cheered on by a circle of onlookers. Not far from them two more men were going at each other with great sticks. In the distance a group of women on horseback were galloping at full pelt across the valley as if in flight from some deadly attacker, and yet no one was in pursuit as far as he could see.

  It took him a few moments to realize that this was no enemy attack. Briefly he then wondered if all the sentiment and good humour of the night before had turned into aggression. Had they started fighting among themselves?

  No … there seemed no petulance in it. There was more an air of honest competition. Of excitement. Gods! Were these part of the celebrations of Flavia’s homecoming? Were the tribe indulging in their own form of the Games?

  By the time he finally caught sight of Cassia, he’d reached the far end of the village. There were a few people standing near the hut walls on the outskirts but she was alone with a sword in her hand. A few feet away from her, a warrior – twice as large and twice as wide as Cassia – threw down his own weapon and gave her a low bow.

  Cassia turned at that moment, a triumphant smile on her face, and saw him.

  “Marcus! Are you awake at last? Come. I’ll fight you next.”

  His mind was working slowly. The tip of Cassia’s blade was dripping scarlet – with blood, he thought – but then he saw it was too thick, too dark for that. Dye then. And her sword sheathed in cloth to blunt it, as was the weapon the warrior she’d apparently beaten now thrust into his hands.

  To fight a woman was alien to him. Unnatural. But bets were already being made, coins were changing hands. He could hardly withdraw without looking like a coward. The intention seemed to be to mark, not wound each other. Ah well. He would go easy on her.

  Raising his sword, he swung half-heartedly. Cassia dodged. His swaddled blade cut nothing but air. She laughed aloud and the sound provoked him.

  He’d prove himself! The moment their blades met, his sheer power would overwhelm her.

  But Cassia made no attempt to strike him. Her own sword was in her hand untried, unused. He came at her again. She danced out of the way. She was so light on her feet! There was laughter from the crowd and it annoyed him still further.

  Marcus didn’t think she had a plan. He assumed she was merely reacting to whatever move he tried against her. He admired her agility – albeit reluctantly – but she couldn’t keep this up. Sooner or later she’d be exhausted. He’d beat her then: it was inevitable.

  His wits were too addled for him to realize that each time he swung at her, each time she evaded his blow, she moved a little further to the left. Once, twice, three times more. It was so small a move he hadn’t noticed that she was steering him. Moving him into position. Slowly, slowly, one hand’s breadth at a time, she was turning him towards the east.

  She dodged again, evading the swinging sword and then moving to the left. He was ready to strike, but at that precise moment the sun broke over the roof of the roundhouse. Dazzling bright light hit him full in the face.

  And now, only now, did she use her own weapon, slicing it down across his chest. Had it not been blunted she might have killed him. Instead she left a streak of red dye across ribs and belly.

  There was a great roar – a cheer of approval – and the contest was at an end. While Cassia accepted the congratulations heaped on her, Marcus stood with his mouth hanging open.

  He was astounded. It seemed Cassia had not simply learned a foreign tongue in the dark winter months. She had learned to handle a sword too. How much more could she
do that he didn’t yet know about?

  Strange! Fate was turning her into the very thing he’d once imagined her to be. A thing he’d feared and despised. In the months of his absence Cassia had become a warrior queen.

  And he was delighted by it.

  The night before they left Flavia’s village, there was more feasting. The laughter was as long and loud as it had been on the night they first arrived.

  But Marcus was subdued and preoccupied. Phoebe filled his head. He’d had all winter to dream of her rescue. But now the reality was nearer, he was plagued by self-doubt.

  There was something odd too, between Flavia and Cassia. He’d seen them whispering earlier that day, heads close together. Cassia had pressed something small into the old woman’s hands and he had the impression that whatever Rufus had given his sister had now been passed on. Whatever it was had made both women look in his direction.

  He glanced over to where Cassia was now sitting beside the chief, talking with him quietly. A dog lay at their feet, snoring. The flies that had been circling its head, that it had been snapping at with only occasional success, had come to land and were now crawling over its hide.

  The chief nodded his head towards Marcus and said something in his own tongue.

  Cassia looked up, looked away and replied in words he couldn’t understand. The two conversed a while longer. And then Cassia poked the dog with her toe. It roused itself. Stood shaking, sending the flies buzzing through the smoke-filled air. It snapped at them again, catching one and knocking another into the fire. The chief grasped Cassia’s arm in his vast hand.

  Later, Marcus asked Cassia what had been said.

  “He asked if I liked you.”

  “And what did you reply?”

  “That I did. I do. Then he asked if I trusted you.” She smiled.

  “And?”

  “I said not entirely. You are a Roman, after all.”

  “Ha! What else did he say?”