Her brother was held between them, a dark trickle of blood leaking from the corner of his mouth. Eyes shut, insensible, his head lolled to one side. He breathed, though. He breathed.
Flavia had her hand about his waist, his arm around her neck, but it was Silvio who shouldered most of the boy’s weight.
Silvio. Her friend. She’d grieved for him in Londinium, thinking never to see him again. Yet now here he was and there was no pleasure in the reunion. All her attention was on her brother.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.” Silvio let Rufus slide to the ground. He turned to her. Threw her an apologetic smile. “I had to hit him.”
“You did what?”
She was almost ready to strike. Silvio’s hands came up in his defence. “It was nothing. He’ll recover soon enough.”
“You hit him? Why?”
“He wouldn’t come.”
“What…?”
Flavia interrupted. “He’s angry with you.”
“Me?”
“You left him.”
“I had no choice!”
“He’s a child. He doesn’t see it. He’ll come to his senses. In time.”
Cassia looked at her brother. His tunic was torn and in the moonlight she could see his back, marked with lines where his flesh had been cut with a whip. So many of them! Healed now. On the surface. But beneath, the wounds still smarted.
And she was the cause.
She could have wept. But there was no time. She needed to be off the estate now, to be back at the tavern before sunrise, to have Rufus concealed in the pannier before anyone there stirred. But how could she carry him on her own? On her back, perhaps? He would be a heavy burden. But it must be done.
She looked at Silvio. At Flavia. “Go now. And thank you. I’ll take him from here.”
“You won’t.” Silvio bent down and in one easy movement hoisted the boy across his shoulders as though he were a sack of grain.
Cassia’s mind was slow. It was not until Flavia spoke that she realized what they planned.
“You’re going to freedom. And we’re coming with you.”
The plan had been so simple. One small boy – a willing fugitive – could be concealed with relative ease. If they went on their way slowly, circuitously, selling cures and remedies to whoever would buy them in plain and open view, no one would guess they carried a secret cargo.
Slowness would be their salvation she’d told Marcus that night in Londinium. That, and the sheer unlikelihood of a Roman assisting a runaway. No one would suspect him. If they were brazen, if they did not lose their nerve, they would succeed.
But now it was not only one small boy they had to conceal, but a full-grown man and a frail old woman. And her brother had resisted going! He was not a fugitive, but a captive. The plan, such as it had been, was in pieces.
All Cassia could think to do was get back to the tavern. The sky had already shifted from pitch to lead. It would not be long before the sun was up, the world awake, and then all would be lost.
So they followed where Cassia led, crashing through the woods. Speed was of more importance than caution now, she thought, in the last moments of fading darkness. But Silvio was labouring under the weight of her brother. And Flavia’s age and infirmity made haste impossible.
They were free of the trees and onto the grass. It was wet and Cassia was painfully aware that their trail would be clear to anyone who came in pursuit. Yet she could not disguise their direction by doubling back – it would take too long. All she could do was pray that the sun dried the grass by the time the absence of the three slaves was noticed. Or that they would be searched for in the opposite direction first. And so she prayed, not to the gods of her Roman master, but to those strange women she had dreamed of, the whisperers who had told her to run towards the wolves. Who were even now calling her north.
They were watching. She could feel them. Eyes on her flesh. Breath on her neck. Their hands tugging her forward, pulling her on, towards the road where there was no cover, nowhere to hide, but where their footprints would not be seen.
Fortune was with them. It was barely dark but the world slept on. They met no one and soon the inn was in sight.
But what was she to tell Marcus? He had agreed to help her find Rufus. But to help two others? How could she expect him to do that?
There were no signs yet that anyone was stirring. She urged her companions forward in whispers. She would get all three into the stables. If she could bury them beneath the hay stored in the barn, then she could go to Marcus. They could decide together how best to proceed.
He was waiting for her. She’d expected him to be sleeping in his chamber, but as they entered the stables he stepped from the shadows, scaring her almost out of her wits.
“I see the plan’s changed,” he said, looking from Flavia to Rufus and Silvio. He seemed more curious than alarmed and she felt a rush of gratitude.
“They must hide in the hay,” Cassia answered.
“No. It’s the first place anyone will look. Up to my room, now, before anyone sees. Come.”
Distrust and suspicion showed in every line of Silvio’s face, but – after a nod and a shove from Cassia – he followed where Marcus led, Rufus dangling over his shoulder. Flavia went next. Cassia, last. Up the stairs, through a door whose hinges had been oiled, to a room whose bed had not been slept in, and whose occupant had lined his few possessions up with military precision.
Rufus was stirring by the time Silvio lowered him onto the bed. He was dizzied, but his eyes – when they opened – flamed with fury at the sight of his sister. He tensed. But before the yelp of rage could escape from his throat, Marcus was there, his knife in his hand, the point at the boy’s neck. His voice was soft. Deadly.
“I don’t know what goes on here. But if you speak now, if you make another noise, I’ll cut the tongue from your throat. Believe me, I will kill you, boy, before I let you betray us.”
There was no doubting the sincerity of the threat. Rufus clamped his jaw tight shut.
“You’ll be hidden in that chest. It will be uncomfortable. But you’ll not move a muscle unless I give you permission. Do we understand each other?”
A brief nod was the boy’s only answer.
“As for you two,” Marcus said to Flavia and Silvio under the bed. “Press tight against the wall. Do not move, do not stir until I tell you it’s safe to do so.”
They did as he instructed while Marcus went to work on the room.
In a few deft moves the chamber was transformed into one apparently occupied by a lone man who had drunk far too much the night before. A flagon of wine was spilled, a half-finished bowl of stew overturned, its congealed contents spattered across the floor. His pack was opened, his clothes strewn across bed and stool and chest. When the entire room was in disarray he turned to Cassia.
He stood close, so close she could feel his warmth. “Go to the stable. You must seem as though you have slept there all night, yes? I’ll call you soon.”
She expected him to show anger. Fear. This was not, after all, what had been planned and now four slaves’ lives were in peril. But his eyes were gleaming with excitement despite the danger – or perhaps because of it.
Briefly he took her hand. “I play a part today. You must play yours. Let’s make it convincing, or the entire game is lost.”
XXI
Cassia had barely settled herself in the stall when the stable lads began to rise, stretching, yawning, pulling the straw from their hair. Then they were up, fetching water, feeding the animals, mucking out their stalls. Cassia – who had not slept at all that night – did the same, knowing full well that the slaves on the estate of Titus Cornelius Festus would also be stirring. The three fugitives would be missed at once, of course. But she guessed that no one would remark on their absence until the steward himself observed them gone. How long that would be was anyone’s guess. If Livia Tertia called for him, if she sent him on an errand of her own – they might be lucky. He might no
t notice for several hours. Each moment that passed would help. But when he did know they were gone – what then?
Men on horses. Dogs. A hunting party on their trail. And all of them staying here at an inn not three miles away, beside the road, not making any attempt to run.
What had she done, putting herself so entirely into the hands of a Roman? Marcus could turn them over the very moment a search party appeared. Claim a reward. Hadn’t he heard on the bridge how much was offered for her return?
Be calm, she told herself. Be reasonable. He hadn’t betrayed her in Londinium – why would he do so now? All winter long he’d been nothing but a kind and true friend: so why did she continue to doubt him? The smell of juniper. Was that it? Was that all?
Fear and faith wrestled in her mind for the length of that morning.
Marcus did not stir, but slept and slept and slept. The other stable lads remarked on it.
“He must have had a skinful, right enough.”
“Of the landlord’s wine? He’ll pay for it. His head must be splitting.”
“If he sleeps past noon, he’ll get charged an extra night whether he stays or not.”
“Do this often, does he?”
“Often enough,” replied Cassia. Recalling the way Marcus had behaved on the bridge, she fell into conversation with them. Aping the soldiers’ tone and manner, she started grumbling about her master’s drunkenness and lazy habits. She seemed perfectly at ease, but with each moment that passed her apprehension grew. Each footstep, each hoofbeat might be the steward approaching. She had to go about her tasks as though she had no concern other than the horses she tended. When she mucked out their stall, she had the presence of mind to accidentally spill the trug of manure before she reached the muck heap, dropping it by the door to the inn, masking the scent, she hoped, of those who had taken refuge inside.
She fed the animals, and groomed them until their hides gleamed. It would perhaps have been more convincing had she taken advantage of her master’s state by sitting in the sunshine, enjoying a little unexpected leisure, but she could not keep still.
It was almost halfway to noon when the yelping of dogs heralded the steward’s arrival.
He was mounted on the master’s fastest horse, three hounds preceding him, panting and barking as they came along the road. He had two other men with him.
They didn’t ask permission to search but went straight into the barn, seizing pitchforks from the rack on the wall and ramming the spikes into the store of hay and the animals’ straw bedding.
Hearing the commotion, the landlord came out to see what the matter was. When he was told about the runaway slave, he shrugged and told them to look wherever they pleased.
They began with the outbuildings, poking into every nook and cranny that might conceal a fugitive. And when no one was discovered they moved into the tavern itself.
It was then that Marcus – apparently disturbed by the noise – woke and opened the shutter of his window. He blinked at the light, then yelled into the yard, “Boy! Get up here. Shift your lazy arse!”
His voice was slow and thick, his tone petulant, pained, as though wine had dulled his tongue and his head ached from the excesses of the night before. He seemed a man in thrall to a hangover and when Cassia did not cross the yard at a run, he cursed loudly until she arrived outside the door to his room.
The first and the second man were searching the tavern on the ground floor, but the steward was close behind her. As she crossed the threshold, his hounds barged past. For a moment she thought they’d caught the fugitives’ scent but no, they were attracted by the stew that Marcus had spilled across the floor and at once began to squabble over it.
He was standing unsteadily, pissing into the pot beside the bed. The blanket hung half off it, concealing those who lay beneath.
He looked appalling, Cassia noticed with shock. His skin was sallow, his eyes reddened, dark shadows beneath. He appeared to be shaking. What had happened in the hours since she’d last seen him that had made him so unwell?
He didn’t speak to her but jerked his head, silently commanding her to empty the pot. Then he squinted at the steward and asked, “What goes on? Have you lost something?”
“Three slaves.”
“Runaways, eh?” His face brightened at the thought of a chase. “Can’t have that.”
The dogs were licking the last of the stew from between the floorboards. One had already begun to nose at the corners of the room.
Heart in her mouth, Cassia had picked up the brimming pot and was heading for the door when Marcus walked towards the steward as if eager to help in the search. All three were close together when his legs buckled and he stumbled.
Marcus saved himself from a headlong fall by clutching the steward about the shoulders, but in doing so he knocked into Cassia, who upset the pot’s contents. Hot piss splashed over the steward’s feet.
“Clumsy oaf!” Marcus’s hand caught Cassia under the chin. It was not a hard blow, but her teeth snapped shut on the end of her tongue.
For the briefest of moments her temper flared. She would have brought the pot crashing down on his head, but a glance from him reminded her she was a slave boy. Defeated. Her spirit crushed.
And so she cowered, cringing away from him, mumbling an abject apology, edging out of range in case he hit her again.
Her eyes were on the dogs. One was sniffing the air, its tail up, the hair on the back of its neck standing to attention.
She glanced at Marcus in panic. But he had other things on his mind. His colour had suddenly worsened. His skin was ghastly pale and his eyes looked as though they might at any moment burst out of his head. His arm was still about the steward’s neck and the man was looking at him with some alarm when Marcus began to retch. He clapped a hand over his mouth, but the noise in belly and throat announced the impending eruption.
Revolted, the steward moved swiftly, freeing himself from Marcus’s clutches, stepping through the doorway and whistling to his hounds. He had not yet shut the door when Marcus brought up a copious quantity of vomit.
The stench was foul to human senses, but to the hounds it was ambrosial. The one who had caught Rufus’s scent was the first to start lapping at the fresh-formed pool.
The sight made the steward blanch. Seizing the animal by the scruff of its neck, he hauled it from the room, kicking the other two hounds ahead of him.
The door was slammed shut. They were alone.
Her relief was so strong Cassia had to lean against the wall. She took a breath to steady herself, but the stink of vomit only made her head reel. With a glance at Marcus she left and went in search of a rag and bucket. She forced herself to behave as though cleaning up after a drunken master was an occurrence so common it was scarcely worth mentioning.
It was only when the task was done, and sufficient fresh air had passed through from window to door to carry away the unpleasant reek, only when the steward and his men and dogs had finally gone from the tavern to continue their search further along the road, that she asked what had caused his sudden illness.
She was expecting him to reply “rotten meat” or “bad wine”. Instead he smiled weakly and took a vial from the chest beside his bed, which he placed into her hand.
“A little trick I learned from Gaius,” he whispered. “A powerful emetic. It’s served me well many times before. But gods, the effect is vile. Let me lie here awhile.”
The door was closed and barred but the window was left open. For the benefit of the innkeeper and the lads outside in the yard, Marcus lay in his bed groaning and occasionally berating his idle slave, ordering Cassia to do this and that, loudly cursing when she was too slow. But under his breath his instructions were different. The runaways could not talk or move about freely, but they could breathe more easily for a while. They could stretch their limbs and eat what little remained of the food in Marcus’s pack, even if the very thought of eating made the Roman gag once more.
That he would have willin
gly made himself so ill moved Cassia beyond words. That he would have gone so far to help Flavia – a woman he had never even met, one who was old and frail and would be nothing but a burden to them as they travelled – showed such generosity of spirit! Cassia had had no choice but to attempt to free her brother but Marcus was under no compulsion to do the things he did. She was overwhelmed by it. By him.
When Rufus was allowed to emerge from the chest he glared at her. She longed to talk to him, but could utter not a word. How were they to make the long journey north with a lad who would fight them every step of the way?
As for Silvio…
Silvio.
Enforced silence and stillness these last hours had stretched his patience tight as a drum skin. She remembered seeing him this way in childhood, creeping through the undergrowth, pretending to be the mightiest of Boudica’s warriors, freezing, keeping still until his nerves could stand it no longer. Then he’d erupt into action at the wrong moment, spoiling the game. She hoped he was a better master of himself now than he had been.
There was nothing to be done until Marcus was recovered. No plans could be made, nothing could be decided.
The day passed agonizingly slowly.
Late in the afternoon, Marcus sent her running to the kitchen, ostensibly in search of food and drink to settle his stomach. When she returned, he told her to distribute it among the others, for he could still hold nothing down.
Flavia accepted hers gratefully, her hands closing around Cassia’s for a moment, a gesture that the girl found immensely comforting.
Rufus snatched his food without meeting her eyes.
But when she offered Silvio his portion, he bowed from the waist and said softly, “I thank you, my gracious queen.”
He remembered the game, then. His thoughts had been running in the same direction as hers. She felt a pang of affection for him.
“My faithful warrior. I will not make you kneel before me,” she said, smiling. “Not here, not now.”
Cassia was between Silvio and Marcus, so the Roman did not see Silvio’s answering smile or the wink that followed her words. When she turned she caught a flash of something on Marcus’s face that alarmed her. It was that same look she’d seen when she first met him. The look of a cat hunting a mouse: watchful, alert. But it was gone the moment their eyes met and she was left thinking she’d imagined it. Anticipation of the journey ahead was making her see things that were not there.