She will give me strength, thought the girl. She lay back on the ground, leaving belly and throat exposed.
The pack leader, padding towards her. Stopping two paces short. The animal’s breath billowing, clouds rolling over her skin.
And then the others. The air shimmering with their heat. They were close, fur brushing her flesh. She would feel their teeth. Soon. One heartbeat more. Another. Soon, soon, it would come.
But no.
A nose was pressed into her face. Another sniffed her hair. They were licking her neck, her face, her throat. Licking, not biting. As if she was one of their number.
When one snarled she opened her eyes. Its teeth were bared, yet its gaze was not fixed on her but on something beyond.
It seemed to Cassia that the wolf smiled.
When it leaped, it was not to pin her to the ground, but to soar over her head. For a moment it blotted out the sky. Moon, stars, Great Bear – all were gone.
When the wolf landed, the dogs were thirty paces away. Twenty. Ten. They entered the clearing.
Four hounds. One man. One boy.
A dozen wolves.
The keeper of dogs and his lad had come in pursuit of a runaway girl. They were not armed for battle.
The fight was as brief as it was unequal.
At its end, man, boy and four of the best hounds in the kennels lay dead.
Cassia was unharmed.
Her heart raced. Was she dreaming? It was fantastical. Impossible.
She, a girl. A slave. A nothing. She was of less importance than a strap on her master’s shoe. Why, in all that carnage, had she alone been saved?
For a moment she wondered if the gods had preserved her for some purpose? But the idea was absurd – she dismissed it at once.
VII
Time had fractured. Broken apart. The two halves of Cassia’s life – Before and After – were separated by a chasm. She could never go back. But there seemed no path forward. Nowhere to go to.
She sat at the edge of the clearing leaning against the trunk of a tree, her back pressed so hard into the bark it pierced her skin. Looking up at the stars, she prayed and prayed again. She called her mother’s name. She listened for the strange women’s voices.
There was nothing.
The fear and panic that had driven her suddenly evaporated. She was exhausted. Drained of emotion and of energy. She tried to force herself to stand. To move. But she could not. Sleep overtook her like a rising tide. Cassia fell into a doze, waking with a start shortly before sunrise.
Some strange compulsion then drew her north, towards the river. The forest thinned, the pitch sky faded to pewter then smoke grey. She crested the hill as the sun edged over the horizon, streaking the sky with flames of red and amber. The river was below her, gleaming gold in the morning light. A vast mass of water flowing east.
And there! At the jetty was the ship bound for Londinium, heavily laden but still moored. Silvio had driven the ox-cart in her place the day before and he had obviously been slower to make the journey. The ship had missed last night’s high tide but was even now making ready to leave.
Londinium. By all accounts a splendid city, teeming with people. If she could only reach it – could she not lose herself in the crowds?
She had come to the rutted track but it did not run directly down to the river. The hill was so steep that the weight of a loaded cart would have pushed the oxen off their feet. Instead it ran first one way and then the other, gradually descending the slope in a series of wide, sweeping bends.
But she was on foot. She took the most direct route, slithering down through bracken and brambles, scratching and scraping arms and legs, snagging the rich silk dress that was meant to please the master’s eye.
She reached the jetty just as the last rope was about to be slipped, so out of breath she couldn’t speak for a moment.
The captain regarded her with some surprise. Though a native Briton, he was a free man in name at least. But Titus Cornelius Festus had him so tightly bound in chains of debt that he was really no more his own man than the steward or the keeper of hounds.
Yesterday, when Cassia had not come with the cart, he’d asked after her. Silvio had flushed scarlet. Mumbled a reply that the captain couldn’t hear. But he’d deduced where she’d been sent and why.
Her appearance could mean only one thing: she’d run away. Curse her! She must be returned to the villa. Now. At once. For his own sake, for that of his crew. He must give the order. Come on, man. Speak.
What was stopping him?
One, two, three heartbeats.
Her eyes.
He could read the outrage in them. The horror. The desperation.
He’d seen a look like that before.
A stab of sorrow slid under his ribs and pierced his heart. He recalled his daughter, violated by a Roman soldier and nothing he could do about it.
His crew were watching him. They were rough, unvarnished men, given to drinking and whoring come pay day. This girl had removed herself from any protection the master had once given her. She was alone. At their mercy.
But each and every one of them had mothers. Aunts, sisters, wives. Some had daughters. Women that not a man of them could protect if they happened to catch the eye of a passing Roman.
The captain felt the stirrings of rebellion in his chest.
“I expected you with the cart yesterday,” he said. “Sent to the villa, were you?”
“Yes.”
“Filthy old bugger!” He spat on the deck. “What are you doing here? Run away?”
She held her chin up. “Yes.”
A smile passed like a shadow across his face. She was a fighter, this girl. Did she not deserve a better fate? He asked, “Did you kill him, girl?”
“No.”
“More’s the pity. Would have saved me a lot of money if you had.”
“He’s maimed. Missing half his ear.”
The captain raised an eyebrow. “You cut him?”
“Bit him.”
He laughed so loudly that the waterbirds nearby took flight. And then, in one smooth movement, he leaped from ship to jetty, took off his cloak and threw it about her shoulders. “Come aboard. Let’s get you away before they catch up with you.”
He could do nothing for his daughter now, but by all the gods in heaven he would assist this girl. As he helped her onto the deck, he said to his men, “Listen, and listen well. We have none of us seen her. Not hide nor hair. Understood?”
He was not a man to be argued with. There were nods, grunts of assent. He gave the command, the last rope was slipped and the ship was underway.
Cassia tried to find the words to thank him but he silenced her with a look. “Keep out of sight,” he said.
She tucked herself into a corner where she would not be underfoot and where no one on the far banks could see her.
She had never been on a ship. Had never seen the country that lay beyond the jetty. All was strange and startling. Weary though she was, she drank in this new, wide world.
It was only many hours later – when they had journeyed the length of the river, skirted the coast and entered the mouth of the Tamesis which would carry the vessel to the city of Londinium – that Cassia’s heart missed a beat. Her stomach heaved. She had to ball her hand into a fist and press it to her mouth to stop herself crying out.
In the heated rush of her flight, she had quite forgotten Rufus!
Rufus. Her brother. Her only family.
Eight years old now, a redhead like his sister, pale of skin, blue of eye: a small, slight boy, something of a dreamer. Since their mother’s death he’d slept each night with his face pressed against his sister’s neck, his head on her shoulder.
How could she have run without him? She’d given him no thought. Not once!
It didn’t matter that Rufus knew nothing of where she was going or what she would do. It wouldn’t stop the master giving orders to the steward. It wouldn’t stop the steward trying to extract info
rmation that her brother simply didn’t possess.
There on the deck of the ship Cassia felt as though she had been punched in the belly. She couldn’t draw breath. Couldn’t inhale, let alone gather her wits.
She would run back to him. Would offer herself up to the master – would do anything, endure anything, just so long as she could be with her brother.
But the vessel was midstream on a broad river and she couldn’t swim. She leapt to her feet, she cried out, wept, wailed and keened until the captain took her by the shoulders and shook her. He begged her to calm down, to come to her senses.
“There’s nothing to be done,” he said. “Nothing. You can’t go back. You do that and I’m in danger. Me, and all my crew. He’d have us killed if he knew we’d helped you. Is this any way to thank us?”
“Sorry. Sorry.” Cassia slumped back to the deck and huddled tight down into a miserable heap. The weight of awful knowledge settled so heavily on her shoulders that she thought her bones would break: she was alone now.
As was Rufus.
VIII
The captain wouldn’t take her into the city itself. Londinium heaved with people, he said. A vast population and from all the corners of the Empire. With luck, and if she kept her wits about her, she could remain hidden from her former master. But at the dockside there were too many eyes and ears, too many desperate souls who might seek to buy favour with Titus Cornelius Festus by telling him of the human cargo that had been transported to the city along with a load of stone.
The walls of Londinium were barely within sight when they lowered Cassia over the side of the ship. She was knee-deep, waist-deep, chest-deep in freezing water, the silk dress billowing around her, the ship dangerously close to running aground, before her feet found the river’s silt bed.
She had returned the captain’s cloak to him but he had bundled it up and now pressed it into her upraised hands.
“Take it, girl. And good luck to you.”
A brief nod. That was all. They sailed on. She struggled towards the shore.
It took her some time to reach it, and when she did she found she was on an island, riddled with channels. She had to splash through mud, wade through streams and inlets, cross from one piece of marsh grass to the other. When at last she came to terrain that could claim to be called dry land she was sodden and chilled, her teeth were chattering, her skin was blue with cold. Wringing what water she could from her dress and hair, she wrapped the woollen cloak around her shoulders, pulling the hood up to conceal her face before starting the long trudge to Londinium.
What had she done?
As she walked towards the city she felt as though she’d swallowed lead. It made her heavy and dull-witted.
Until this moment, she’d never set foot on land that didn’t belong to the master. And, until last night, she’d always known precisely where she was going and what was expected of her. Now she was heading towards an unknown destination and an unknown future, with a past that was a rope around her neck, tightening with each step.
The ship’s captain had put Cassia down on the southern side of the river. Before long she came to a stone road that ran straight towards the city. If she turned to the left, she could have gone back to Rufus.
But there could be no returning.
Much though it pained her, she turned to the right.
It was late afternoon and there were plenty of people moving to and from the city. Ox-carts trundled slowly in both directions and were overtaken by horses, mules, even pedestrians. So many of them! Such an array of faces! In her fifteen years she’d never encountered anyone who didn’t know she belonged to Titus Cornelius Festus. But now she was one among a crowd. Merchants and farmers, nobles and peasants: no one knew her, but they all stared. She moved so slowly – as if she was sick or simple or drunk. What was wrong with her?
The protective charm of being marked for the master’s son had vanished. She was elbowed. Pushed. Yelled at. She felt herself slipping through her own fingers. She was nothing. No one.
Her courage almost failed her. Take heart, she muttered to herself. Keep calm. No one knows what you’ve done. No one will guess you’ve run away. No one will imagine you abandoned your brother to save your skin.
The thought doubled her over with pain. Rufus! He’d know she’d gone by now. Was he crying? Was he afraid? Was the steward even now taking his stick to her brother’s back?
A pair of bare feet stopped in front of Cassia. Rough hands pulled her upright. A peasant woman, her face lined with concern, asked, “What’s wrong, girl?”
Cassia didn’t want to talk. She pulled the cloak tighter around herself to conceal her sodden dress.
“Bad meat,” she said. “Stomach-cramps, that’s all. It will pass.”
Bidding her good afternoon, the peasant woman went on her way. Cassia tried to gather her wits but it was no easy task. Her guts churned with misery and regret, her head ached with thoughts of Rufus.
She’d gone half a mile or so more when she passed a graveyard that stood outside the city’s walls. A funeral procession was coming towards it from out of the city and she stepped aside to let it pass. A small corpse wrapped in a winding sheet was laid out in a cart. A child. A string of mourners followed behind. A woman who Cassia took to be the child’s mother could barely walk. Two slaves were half carrying her in the cart’s wake. Her grief was so overwhelming she made no sound, but the wailing cries of the others seemed to echo Cassia’s own sorrow.
She shivered, chilled, watching the procession enter the graveyard. Other passers-by hurried on their way, eyes to the ground, faces turned aside, not looking at the mourners. Sorrow, ill fortune: it could be caught as easily as a disease. Cassia turned her back on them and went on her way.
She neared the timber bridge that spanned the Tamesis. On the northern shore the city walls loomed high, taller than three men, wider than an ox. Titus Cornelius Festus’s forebears had made their fortune supplying the stone to build them. But now perhaps, maybe, if the gods were with her, that fortified city might give her shelter.
The water was ebbing as she stepped onto the bridge, tugging at the posts. Through the slats beneath her feet she could see churning movement. Each step felt unsteady, as though she was still on the deck of the ship.
An arched gatehouse was at the end of the bridge. Two sentries in helmets and shining armour stood, one either side.
Red Crests.
People were coming and going, a human tide flowing in and out of the city. She forced herself to take a deep breath. The soldiers wouldn’t pay her any heed amidst this throng, would they?
But they were bored and looking for entertainment. Someone advancing slowly, unsteadily – as if afraid, as if they didn’t know where they were going or what they were doing – instantly caught their attention.
And they were Roman soldiers. And she was a woman. In truth, they needed no more reason than that.
Cassia approached the archway. Keeping her head down, she felt the soldiers’ eyes on her. Every muscle tensed, every sinew tightened.
One stepped forward. Blocked her way. She dodged sideways. Straight into the arms of the second man.
“What have we here? See, Probus? Women can’t help throwing themselves at me.”
The violence of her reaction terrified her. She wasn’t Cassia, she was Boudica: warrior queen. If she’d had a knife she would have disembowelled him without a moment’s hesitation. She wanted to cut, to wound, to inflict damage. His arms were around her, pinning hers to her sides. She struggled, turning her head to bite, but the woollen hood was over her face, in her mouth.
Holding her so tightly, he couldn’t fail to notice that underneath the cloak her dress was wet. “She’s soaked to the skin! What have you been up to, girl?”
“Nothing!”
“Let’s see your face.”
“No!”
The second soldier jerked her hood back and recoiled at the savagery of her glare. Her teeth were bared like a wolf’s!
“Hair wet too.”
“No honest woman would walk around in such a state.”
“Where are you from, girl?”
“Where are you going?”
When Cassia didn’t answer, one of the soldiers said, “We should take her in.”
The two men exchanged a glance. This girl was unaccompanied. Unprotected. She had aroused their curiosity and more besides. Cassia saw the lust in their eyes and fear inflamed her fury.
They tried to tie her wrists, to take her captive, but she fought like a wildcat, scratching, hissing. Yet there were two of them and she was alone. It wasn’t long before they’d succeeded in pulling her arms behind her back.
It was then that a third man stepped forward.
Standing motionless in the shadows, he’d blended so perfectly into the background it was as though he’d emerged out of the stone wall. He might have been a painting, or a carved relief, come to life. The effect was so startling that Cassia stopped struggling.
They regarded each other. For a moment time itself seemed to pause and take a breath.
He was younger than the Red Crests, perhaps four or five years older than herself, she guessed. Tall, muscular, his features as perfect as a statue’s. High cheekbones, black hair that curled at the nape of his neck, oiled skin the colour of a beech nut.
His eyes – that flicked from Cassia’s wrists to her ankles, taking in the tattooed marks – were a brown so dark they were almost black. He had a pleasing mouth that was curled into a reassuring smile inviting her trust. Even so, there was something of the predator about him. He’s like a cat, she thought. Purring at me, but ready to bite if the mood takes him.
His curiosity was self-evident. Brows contracted, he seemed to be making a decision. His expression changed. Mouth splitting into a wide grin, he said words that were so peculiar Cassia had no idea how to react.
“Where’ve you been, Tansy? Your uncle’s been screaming for you since noon.”
Tansy? What was this? Had he mistaken her for someone else?