The only light came from an ill-vented fire on the stone hearth beside the door. At the other end of the low-beamed room was a board, behind which stood a tall, thin man with a sour face, who frowned when he saw us. Julian took one look and refused to stay. “I will not be seen in here,” he said. “I am a priest of the church, for God’s sake.”
“Too good for you?” inquired Rufus mildly.
Julian rolled his eyes and grunted, and I said, “It is a fine evening. We can sit outside.”
As Rufus hurried off to bespeak the necessaries, Julian and I went out to drag together some of the stumps in the yard. We settled in a corner beside a low stone wall separating the inn from the lane by which the farmers drove their livestock to market.
“I heard about the battle,” Julian said. “They are saying you are a hero for saving the vicarius. Is that true?”
“If that is what they are saying,” I replied, “it must be true.”
“You know me better than that, I hope,” he said with a sniff. “So tell me, what really happened?”
“That is what happened,” I allowed, “but I am no hero. I had a horse when a horse was needed, that’s all.”
Julian accepted this. “I suppose heroism is little more than that anyway.”
“You would know, Julian.”
“And what do you mean by that?”
“Pay no attention to Succat,” said Rufus, arriving just then. He carried a basket of black bread and salt and three leather cups. Behind him came two rangy hounds and the innkeeper’s woman bearing two dripping jars in her hands. “He has had a bee in his boot for the last few days.”
“I see.” Julian shrugged. “You might have warned me.”
The woman poured the cups and left us to ourselves. We drank a little, and the hounds, hoping for morsels, settled close by to wait for us to notice them. Save for the stench of the urine-soaked yard, it was a pleasant enough evening—until more soldiers arrived and wanted to hear from the “sole survivor” himself about what had happened and how I had escaped alive.
“I was not the only one to survive,” I told them bluntly. “Vicarius Columella survived, too.”
“But only because you rode into the battle to rescue him,” they insisted.
“The battle was over. We were fleeing for our lives. I had a horse and gave the vicarius a ride. If that makes me a hero, then every soldier is a hero who has a horse.”
They stood and gazed at me, uncertain what to make of what I had told them. Rufus saw the disappointment forming in a cloud above their heads. “Forgive my friend,” he said. “He came fresh from the fight, and we have been on the move ever since.”
This they understood, and they were happy to ascribe my sour reticence to the rigors of the road. Generously they hailed me, poured beer into my cup, and drank my health. They slowly moved off to another part of the yard then, but others came, and the discussion began all over again. It went much like the first, and when the soldiers had gone, Julian said, “Is it going to be like this all night?”
“I cannot see why tonight should be different from any other,” I replied.
“It is like this wherever he goes,” agreed Rufus. “You cannot prevent soldiers from talking.”
“Well, I have better things to do,” Julian said. He drained his cup and laid it on the ground. One of the hounds began licking out the little that remained. “I must go. The bishop will be looking for me.”
“We might as well go, too,” said Rufus. “We’ll get no peace here tonight.”
Leaving the inn, we moved off into the darkened lane toward the garrison, which lay near the center of the city. “How long will you stay in Turonum?” asked Julian as we arrived at the bishop’s lodgings.
“Another day or two at least,” answered Rufus. “Maybe more. It depends on how long it takes the vicarius to conclude his affairs.”
“Ah, yes,” said Julian, “his family is here, I believe. And then—where will you go?”
“To Rome,” said Rufus. “The vicarius is making a report of the massacre to the senate. He hopes to be in the city before September.”
“I see.” Julian paused thoughtfully. “Well, let me see you again before you go.”
We left him there and returned to the garrison. Next day it was Julian who came looking for us. “I told the bishop about your departure for Rome. It is most providential, truly. He respectfully requests that we be allowed to travel with you.”
Rufus ran a hand over his close-cropped scalp. “I don’t see any difficulty myself,” he replied. “But it is not for me to say. It’s Vicarius Columella’s decision. You will have to ask him.”
“It shall be done,” said Julian.
“Why do you want to go to Rome?” I asked.
“I do not wish to go at all,” Julian informed me, “but Bishop Cornelius has requested the honor of taking the documents which have been prepared both here and in Britain to the patriarch of Rome.” He delivered himself of small sigh. “Unfortunately, it seems this honor has been granted.” Bidding us farewell, he turned and strode away, his robes dragging in the dust behind him.
We did not see him again until we were preparing to depart two days later. The horses and wagons were assembled, and we were waiting in the garrison yard for Vicarius Columella to appear with his family when Julian, the bishop, and two other priests arrived, leading their mounts and mules. Rufus welcomed them and told them where they should ride in the train.
Next, a servant of the vicarius appeared to say that Columella and his family would meet us on the way. “The road passes by the estate where the family lives,” the servant explained. “They will be ready by the time you arrive.”
The day was fine, the sky high and bright and fair. We rode out in a long double rank, followed by our wagons and pack animals. Two soldiers rode behind to guard the rear and keep the mules together. The road from Turonum was in good repair, and we soon left the town behind, moving through fields green with beans and corn.
Two miles from the city, we came to another road leading off to a nearby estate. Here the vicarius waited with his family and various retainers—a group of nine people altogether, including his wife, son and daughter, their tutor, a secretary, and three menial servants. The family and tutor were conveyed in a covered carriage driven by one of the servants; another drove the provision wagon, and the third rode one of the pack mules, leading three others. The secretary was mounted and followed the carriage.
Columella hailed us and cantered out to join us on the road. “Splendid!” he said. “The weather augurs fair for the next month. We will make good time. I will introduce you to my family later.” He wheeled his horse to return to his retinue. “Lead on, my friends. We will fall in behind the soldiers.”
As the day was good and the vicarius anxious to make as much of it as he could, it was not until we had stopped for the night that we met the rest of our fellow travelers.
The vicarius’ wife was a tall, handsome woman named Helena Constantia. She was part of Rome’s ancient and venerable aristocracy—a fact that could be seen in her countenance and bearing. She looked like a larger rendering of the votive statues dedicated to justice or victory. She was grave without seeming dour, and she was delighted to see that we had been joined by a churchman of some distinction.
Columella’s son was a boy of eight or nine, who suffered from an acute fascination with the soldiers’ weapons and equipment. He adopted Rufus as his personal bodyguard and pestered the long-suffering centurion to allow him to wear his sword, his dagger, or one of the helmets or some other piece of armor. His name was Gaius and, whenever set free by his tutor, he made for Rufus like a whippet on scent. In camp Rufus could not move without tripping over his diminutive shadow.
Once Rufus tried to foist him off on me. “You know,” he told the boy as we sat by the campfire one night, “Succat here was the one who saved your father, not me. I did not even fight in the battle. Succat is a real hero.”
“I know,” re
plied little Gaius indifferently.
“You should give Succat some of your attention.”
“My father said I was not to bother Centurion Magonus Succat.”
“So you bother me instead?”
“I like you,” Gaius confided happily.
“Cheer up, Rufus,” I said. “He likes you.”
The boy’s tutor was a prissy old Greek called Pylades. He dressed in a long gray tunic which he wore unbelted and sported a long wispy beard that constantly wafted around his chin. He was given to complaints, which he couched as reminiscences of travels with his former employer, the Consul of Epirus, such as “We always had hot water to wash. Know you, the consul would never allow one day to follow another without a bath.” Or “Consul Grabbus absolutely refused to eat anything boiled. Anyone who boiled meat, he often said, committed a crime comparable to treason.”
Sometimes these observations, aired for his audience’s edification, roused the listening soldiers to ire, and they undertook to educate him in rude Latin; mostly he was roundly ignored. This treatment did not dissuade him in the least; he still muttered and spluttered away, but over time we ceased hearing him at all.
Besides the servants and secretary—functionaries with few distinguishing characteristics—the only other member of the vicarius’ company worthy of mention was his daughter. I did not see her that first night; complaining of a headache, she remained in the carriage.
The next morning, however, a voice disturbed my rest; I awoke to see a young woman with long brown hair standing over me. “Are you the one they call Magonus?” she asked, her voice shrill in my sleep-filled ears. “You don’t look very famous.”
“Do I look asleep?”
“Papa says you saved his life, so I suppose I should be nice to you.” She seemed to consider the various implications of this course, rejecting them one by one. “But you look like a tiresome pleb to me.”
“My name is Succat,” I said.
“I am Oriana,” she replied, turning away abruptly. “You may call me Lady Columella.”
“Your mother is Lady Columella,” I pointed out.
“Well,” she sniffed, “so am I.”
This was my first glimpse of Oriana. Like her mother, she was tall and thin—too thin, it could be said—with a prominent jaw and a high, smooth forehead. Her eyes were dark and fringed with thick, dark lashes. At first glance she appeared severe, proud, and willful—and older than her twenty years; her mouth, however, was wide and generous like her father’s. If allowed to form anything but the petulant pout with which she habitually greeted the world and everything in it, then her features shone with a light to rival the radiance of the sun. It was, unfortunately, a secret she guarded close and kept well hidden.
She made of the carriage her dwelling, emerging only infrequently. Nevertheless over the next few days I learned a fair number of her manifold dislikes—most of which clustered around her keen aversion to travel and its attendant discomforts: The road was too lumpy, the carriage too cramped and stifling, the weather too hot or too cold, the sun too bright, the clouds too dark, the food fit only for making swill for swine. The soldiers were dull, coarse, and contentious minions. Gaius was a very plague and Pylades a tiresome bore. Soldiering was the most tedious and uninteresting occupation ever imagined. The dust would certainly kill her if the monotony failed to do so…and on and on.
“Do you think Gaius is especially intelligent?” she asked me one evening. The sun had gone down, and the heat of the day was beginning to abate; this had drawn her from her stuffy carriage. She strolled around like a queen reviewing her troops as they made camp. She stopped to watch me preparing the picket for the horses.
“Gaius?” I wondered. “You brother seems clever enough to me.”
“He is not my brother. He is my cousin.”
“Indeed?” I turned to observe her; trying to read her expression so that I might guess what lay behind her question. “Then your mother must—”
“Helena is not my mother,” she corrected airily. “My mother was Lucina; she died when I was six. Helena is my aunt; I call her ‘mother’ because it pleases me.”
“Your father married your mother’s sister?”
“It is a common enough practice among Roman aristocracy,” Oriana informed me, “which, if you knew anything at all, you would recognize.”
“As you say.”
She frowned with impatience. “Well?”
“Forgive my lack of prescience, Lady Columella, but what has any of this to do with young Gaius’ intelligence?”
She rolled her eyes. “I should have thought that was obvious,” she replied, strolling off.
I turned to see Julian watching me. He had the reins of his mount and another, and he was waiting for me to take them from him. “She’s a conceited one.” He grinned, holding out the reins. “High tempered.”
“Yes?”
“I brought the bishop’s horse, too.”
“So I see.” I finished securing the picket line and proceeded to tie my own mount to it.
When I made no move to help him, he said, “I thought you would take care of it for him.”
“Oh.” I stroked Boreas’ head. “Is that because I took care of it last night, and the night before that, and the night before that?”
Perplexity squirmed across Julian’s fleshy features. “Are you implying something?”
“Not at all.” I gave Boreas a pat on the neck and walked away.
Taking the hint, Julian quickly tied the bishop’s mount to the picket line and hurried after me. “Have I done something to offend you?”
“Why would you think that?”
“You have hardly spoken to me since we left Turonum,” he said.
“What is there to say, Julian? You are a busy priest, and I am a soldier. We each have our duties.”
He halted and watched me as I walked on. That night, as the priests and the Columella family sat at one campfire and the soldiers sat at another, I thought I saw Julian staring at me from the shadows. I know he felt my displeasure, and I know I should have been more grateful for all he had done for me.
In truth I no longer felt anything at all. I rose each day and went about my chores, I ate and slept and awoke to another day exactly like the one that went before—all without thinking much or feeling anything. I was an empty, hollow vessel; my life had been poured out in the forest. Since the massacre I had been little more than a ghost, even to myself.
What of that? It was not as if I had held any great prospects or ambitions before that day. I was lucky, to be alive. Beyond that? Nothing. I saw only emptiness stretching before me, endless and complete.
The days passed. We moved into southern Gaul, and the mountains in the distance grew imperceptibly larger day by day. We passed through scores of nameless hamlets, holdings, settlements, and market towns; sometimes we were joined by other travelers—merchants and itinerant traders mostly—who wished to take advantage of the soldiers to journey with protection. But the only hardships were heat, dust, and the occasional thunderstorm that filled the half-dry streams through the dry uplands of southern Gaul.
As the road rose to meet the mountains, our journey slowed and stops became more frequent. I had ample time to observe my fellow travelers and overhear their conversations. Thus I eventually learned why Bishop Cornelius was so anxious to reach Rome before winter: the British heretic, Pelagius, had been found and was living on an island off the coast of Tuscia. Cornelius and his fellow bishops were eager that the documents—so painstakingly prepared—should be delivered to the pope while the priest remained within easy reach of the ecclesiastical authorities.
FORTY-SIX
DESPITE ORIANA’S ABHORRENCE of soldiers, on those rare occasions she ventured from the carriage it was to the soldiers she was drawn. She watched them at their chores or engaged them in discussions of questions she had thought up during the day. All treated her respectfully, of course, since to do otherwise with the vicarius’ daughter
would have brought swift, long-lasting, and painful retribution.
“You are not at all like the others,” she informed me one evening. We had stopped for the night in the middle of a high mountain pass, and I was filling the horse trough with buckets of water from a nearby spring while she strolled the hillside above. The air was clean and crisp, the shadows deepening to blue even as the sky glowed like burnished copper.
“They are real soldiers, but I think you are more…” Oriana paused, biting her lip as her brow wrinkled in thought.
“More what?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe it is less.”
“That would be me,” I replied. “People often say I am more or less one thing or another.”
“Less soldierly,” she decided firmly.
“You know a lot of soldiers, I suppose.”
“Enough to know that you are not like any of them.”
“Perhaps not,” I conceded. “I try, of course, but conformity often eludes me.”
“Real soldiers do not speak the way you do. You speak like…” Again she paused, frowning, and then brightened.
“Like a magistrate.”
“Your estimation overwhelms me.”
“You see!” she cried. “You just proved it.”
“Maybe magistrates talk like soldiers,” I suggested.
“Oh, no,” she countered knowingly. “They do not. Soldiers are coarse and vulgar. All the fighting makes them callous and indifferent. They think of nothing but drinking and gambling.”
“That’s true.”
“They are but a short throw from the very barbarians they fight,” she declared. “It is not their fault.”
“No?”
“They have no time for pleasantries,” she continued, pacing back and forth on the hillside, hands clasped behind her. “And they possess none of the finer things, for the life of a soldier is cruel and harsh.”