Roman Boy, page 4
“You will not escape me, boy,” the man said softly. “Yield, and I promise it will be swift and painless. Struggle, and it will hurt more than you could imagine.”
Lucius tore his eyes from the dagger blade, and desperately looked for a way out – then realized there was a door in the wall to his right. A lantern hung over it, the glow falling on a wooden sign showing a pair of eagles in flight, one bigger than the other. In Rome such a sign would probably mean that beyond the door was a tavern. But for a confused instant Lucius could only think of the omen at Hadrian’s palace…
Suddenly the man with the dagger leapt forward. Lucius dodged out of the way, the blade flashing past his face, close enough for him to feel the air beside his cheek sliced by its razor-sharp edge. He ducked under the man’s arm and made a dash for the tavern door, praying it wasn’t barred shut. The Gods must have heard him, for he crashed through, landed face-down on a rush-strewn floor and slid across it.
He rolled over and tried to get to his feet, sure that his pursuer would follow him inside. But now someone else was standing over him; a tall woman with her hands on her hips. She had a strong face and piercing blue eyes, and her long black hair was tied back in a ponytail. Her ankle-length dress was dyed emerald green, and she wore a necklace of red and yellow glass beads around her neck.
“Now that was quite an entrance, my lad,” she said, staring down at him with an eyebrow raised. “Were you trying to impress us, or are you just thirsty?”
Lucius could hear other voices, and he glimpsed tables and benches, the legs and boots of men. He opened his mouth to reply, but someone grabbed his arm from behind. It was his pursuer, although Lucius soon saw that the dagger was back in its scabbard. The man’s grip was painful, his bony fingers digging deep into Lucius’s flesh. He resisted, struggling to pull himself free.
“On your feet, boy,” the man hissed at him. “You’re coming with me.”
“Get off!” Lucius yelled, making a fist with his free hand and lashing out. It was a lucky blow, his knuckles crunching into the man’s jaw, knocking him back. The man growled, whipped out his dagger again and came for Lucius with murder in his eyes. But the tall woman stepped forward and stood squarely between him and Lucius, the boy scrambling to his feet behind her.
“Only one man is allowed to draw a blade here at The Two Eagles, and you’re not him,” she said to Lucius’s pursuer. “So I think you should go out the way you came.”
“Is that right?” sneered the man. “What if I don’t want to go? And who is this hero with a blade? I can’t believe it’s one of these useless drunkards.”
The room was lit by smoky oil lamps, and there were a couple of small metal braziers filled with burning coals for warmth. A wooden counter stood in front of the wall opposite the entrance. Customers, most of them men, were seated at the half dozen tables with jugs and cups, game boards and dice before them. But none were drinking or playing. They were all staring hard at the man with the dagger.
Behind the counter was another door. It was open, and now somebody else came through, a man ducking under the counter and into the room to stand beside the woman. He was tall and had a rugged face, and he was wearing a white apron over an old brown tunic with short sleeves. But he looked strong, his arms bulging with muscle. And in his right hand he was carrying a short, wide-bladed sword.
“Ah, now that would be me,” the newcomer said. “So, are you going to leave quietly, or shall I feed you to the fishes in the Tamesis? I’ll have to cut you into little pieces first.”
There was a deadly silence for a moment, the two men’s eyes locked on each other. At last the man with the dagger pointed it at Lucius, then sheathed it, held up his hands palms outwards, and slipped out of the tavern door, vanishing into the night.
The tension in the tavern evaporated, the customers gradually resuming their talking, drinking and games. The woman went up to the door and looked out.
“Good riddance, and don’t come back!” she shouted. She had been speaking Latin until then, but now she switched into another tongue to yell something else.
“Calm down, Arwenna,” said the tavern-keeper in Latin. “Don’t upset the neighbours again with your swearing. And what was all that about, anyway?”
“He chased the boy right in here, Valerius,” she said. “I wasn’t going to stand there and watch him carve up a lad who’s not much younger than our Marcus.”
“Fair enough,” said Valerius, shrugging. He turned to Lucius and looked at him closely. “Well, it seems the Goddess Fortuna was smiling when she led you to our door, my young friend. The question is – what do we do with you now?”
“Don’t be daft, Valerius,” said Arwenna. “We take him in and feed him.”
That first evening Arwenna did just what she’d said – she took Lucius into the back room of the tavern and fed him. He sat at a small table, spooning up bean stew from a bowl, the best he had ever tasted, along with as much fine white bread as he could eat. Arwenna stayed with him, offering him more food and talking non-stop at him. Before long he knew a lot about her and her husband Valerius.
He was an ex-soldier, originally from the city of Lugdunum in Gaul. He had joined the Eagles at the age of eighteen, done his twenty-five years’ service, and ended up retiring in Britannia. There he had used the money he had saved from his pay to buy the tavern. Arwenna was a Briton, of the Atrebates tribe, and they had three sons following the Eagles, all with the Twentieth Legion based in the great northern fort of Deva.
“Marcus is the youngest,” said Arwenna. “He joined up last year, and the truth is that I miss him and his brothers,” said Arwenna. The only light in the room was coming from a couple of small oil lamps, yet Lucius could see the wistful expression on her face. “But I’m sure you don’t want to listen to some old woman chattering away like this,” she said suddenly. “You probably just want to go to bed.”
Lucius had to admit he was very tired. His eyelids felt as if lead weights were hanging from them, and every part of his body ached. Arwenna took a lamp and led him out of the back room, then up a narrow staircase to an even smaller room with a low bed covered with a striped blanket and a wooden box a boy might keep his clothes in. Lucius guessed this had been Marcus’s room.
“I’ll leave you the lamp,” said Arwenna, putting it down on the box. “Just be sure to blow it out before you go to sleep. I’ll see you downstairs in the morning.”
“But wait, please,” said Lucius as she turned to go. A sudden terrifying thought had just occurred to him. “What if that man comes back for me in the night?”
“Don’t worry,” said Arwenna, smiling. “He would have to get past Valerius and me first, and I don’t reckon he’s got the guts for that. You’ll be safe here.”
Lucius relaxed, but only a little. Then another thought occurred to him. “You haven’t asked me who I am, or why he was chasing me,” he said.
“All in good time,” Arwenna said softly. “Sleep first, talk tomorrow.”
After she had gone, Lucius took off his cloak, lay down on the bed and blew out the lamp. Darkness filled the room, and for a strange moment he wondered if he might actually still be in Rome, fast asleep and simply having a terrible dream.
But his aching body told him it was all too real.
SEVEN
ONE SHALL FALL
LUCIUS WOKE WITH a start at dawn and saw there was a small window in the room, light seeping in round the edges of the closed shutters. For a moment he wondered where he was, but then the events of the night before came flooding back into his mind and he felt the shadow of fear fall across him again.
He lay in the bed brooding on what had happened, his head full of questions. Why did Gaius want him killed? How could he possibly be a threat to a man with such enormous power and influence? And did his mother know her husband had ordered the murder of her only son?
The more Lucius thought about it, the worse he felt. A chasm seemed to open in his mind, and he felt himself tumbling deep into its darkness. Hadrian and his stupid prophecy had so much to answer for! Everything had gone wrong since that day at his palace. Now Lucius was far from Rome, trapped in a province of which he knew nothing, his life in mortal danger – and with no idea what to do next.
He clutched his bulla and prayed to Jupiter for guidance. Then he heard Arwenna’s voice downstairs, followed by a reply from Valerius. Lucius couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but they both sounded cheerful, so he didn’t think the man with the dagger had returned. Jupiter’s message seemed clear – it was time Lucius got out of bed and sought the advice of the couple who had saved him last night.
“So you’ve decided to get up at last, lazybones!” said Arwenna when he arrived downstairs. “Right, carry this jug to that table over there for me, will you?”
Lucius was briefly taken by surprise, but Arwenna didn’t wait for him to argue, and he did what he was told. The tavern was busy, people constantly coming in from the street for a cup of wine and something to eat. Arwenna laughed and joked with the customers, and Valerius stood behind the counter, doing the same. Lucius helped wherever he was needed, and it felt good to stop thinking, if only for a while.
Many of the customers seemed to have come to Britannia from different parts of the Empire. Lucius heard Latin, of course, but also Greek and some tongues he didn’t recognize, although he thought a couple of men at one table might be Syrians. Arwenna spoke to several people in the tongue she had used the night before, and Lucius soon realized it must be the language of her tribe.
Eventually the tavern began to empty, and soon there were only a couple of customers quietly playing a game of knucklebones at a table in the corner.
“That’s the morning rush over,” said Valerius. “Time for breakfast.”
They sat in the small room behind the counter, from where Valerius and Arwenna could keep an eye on the tavern. There was plenty to eat – goat’s cheese, freshly baked bread, apples – and Lucius was hungry. So he concentrated on eating, but eventually he realized Valerius and Arwenna were watching him, both silent and smiling. Lucius put down his bowl and looked from one to the other.
“Thank you for helping me last night, and for giving me shelter,” he said. “You have been very kind to me, and I only wish I could repay you in some way.”
“You already have,” said Valerius. “You worked well for us this morning.”
“Yes, it was good having you here,” said Arwenna. “You can stay as long as you like. It’s been much harder without the boys around, hasn’t it, Valerius?”
“Hold on,” said Valerius. “Don’t you think we should find out a bit more about the lad before he moves in? I mean, like why he was being chased, for instance?”
“Give him a chance, will you?” said Arwenna, frowning at her husband. “He was going to explain it all last night, but I told him to wait till this morning.”
“It’s all right, I want to tell you,” said Lucius. “In fact I’m hoping you can give me some advice about what I should do. My name is Lucius Caecina Placidus…”
He paused, not quite sure where to start his tale, and took a deep breath. Then he told them everything that had happened since the day he had asked Gaius to adopt him. Arwenna and Valerius listened, glancing at each other from time to time.
“You actually met the Emperor?” said Valerius when Lucius had stopped speaking. “I’m impressed. I was in the Army for years, but I never even saw an emperor.”
“Emperors come and go,” said Arwenna. “But a prophecy is always powerful. We have an old saying in my tribe – one shall rise, and one shall fall. Sometimes the fates of two people are tangled together. The Gods decide that if one succeeds, then the other must fail. This stepfather of yours clearly believes that’s what the prophecy revealed. It’s no wonder he wants to have you killed.”
Lucius sat in silence for a moment, trying to absorb what Arwenna had just said. He could feel that dark chasm beginning to open in his mind once more.
“What if I write a letter to my mother, or even to the Emperor?” he said. “If I told everybody what Gaius has done, that would change things, wouldn’t it?”
“You could try,” said Arwenna. “But it doesn’t sound as if your mother would be much help, and your letter might never even reach the Emperor. Besides, your stepfather has power and status. You don’t, so who will believe you?”
“And that means I’m doomed,” Lucius murmured, his heart sinking. “Gaius will keep trying to have me killed until he knows for sure that I am dead.”
“Perhaps … but who can tell what the Gods have in store for us?” said Valerius. “Yet I know something for certain – they always help those who face their fates with courage. You might be the one who rises, and then it will be your stepfather who falls.”
“Valerius is right,” said Arwenna. “You must fight to stay alive, Lucius.”
“And how am I to do that?” he said. “Callistus knows that I’m here, and he’s bound to send that man back. Next time there will probably be others with him, so you two might be in danger as well. I can’t let you get hurt because of me.”
“Oh, don’t worry, we can take care of ourselves,” said Valerius. “Arwenna is pretty useful in a fight, and I’m as good with a sword as I ever was in the Army.”
Suddenly Lucius found himself thinking of the chase the night before, and that strange moment when he had caught sight of the sign above the tavern door.
“Why did you call your tavern The Two Eagles?” he asked. “Is there a reason?”
“We didn’t choose the name,” said Valerius, looking surprised. “We bought the place from two friends of mine, veterans of my legion. They’d been Aquilifers, men who carry the Eagles in battle, and they started the tavern. Why do you ask?”
“You can be so slow-witted sometimes, Valerius,” said Arwenna, tutting. “Don’t you see? The boy’s prophecy came from two eagles in flight, then the Gods led him to a tavern called The Two Eagles! It’s obvious he was always meant to meet us.”
“And the prophecy had two parts,” said Lucius. “The Augur believed it meant I would definitely serve with the Eagles, and here I am talking to you, a veteran…”
They sat looking at each other, and Lucius could feel the hairs rising on the back of his neck. He could almost sense the presence of the Gods in the small room.
“Well, there you are, that’s the answer!” said Arwenna at last. “You could join up, and if you used a different name then your stepfather would never find you.”
“Do you think so?” said Lucius, smiling. “Then that is what I will do.”
“Now just hold on a moment,” said Valerius. “Joining the Eagles isn’t easy, as you well know, Arwenna. Are you a citizen, Lucius, and not a runaway slave?” Lucius nodded. “Is there anyone who can write a letter of recommendation for you?” Lucius stared at him, then shook his head. “How old are you? Fifteen? Sixteen?”
“Fifteen,” said Lucius quietly. “I will be sixteen next year, in the spring.”
“That’s too young,” said Valerius. “And as for signing up under a false name… I know that happens, but you could get into a lot of trouble if they find out.”
“And he could end up dead if we don’t help him,” said Arwenna. “All those problems can be solved, Valerius. He looks older, and he doesn’t need a letter when he’s got you to recommend him to your old mates in the fort, does he?”
They argued back and forth for a while, Lucius sitting silently between them.
“All right, I give in!” said Valerius at last. “Are you sure about this, Lucius? Joining the Eagles isn’t for everybody, you know. It’s a tough life. You’ll probably end up having to fight hordes of savage Britons. Just don’t marry one, that’s my advice.”
Arwenna punched her husband hard in the shoulder, but he didn’t flinch.
“I am,” said Lucius. The Gods had spoken, and he was happy with what they had decreed. He liked the idea of being a soldier. He wasn’t sure he would be good at it, but he was willing to give it a try. Arwenna was right, too. The truth was that he didn’t really have much choice, so he might just as well make the most of it.
“Very well,” said Valerius, rising from his seat. “I’ll see what I can do.”
For the first time in weeks, Lucius felt his heart lighten.
EIGHT
CLASH OF BLADES
THE NEXT DAY, Valerius left the tavern as soon as the morning rush was over, whistling cheerfully as he strode away through the streets of Londinium. He was going to see his old Army mates in the fort, those who were still serving with the Eagles. There was one man in particular he wanted to talk to, somebody he had known for a long time. His name was Titus, and Valerius said he could be very useful to them.
“Well, it looks like we’re on our own for the rest of the day, Lucius,” Arwenna muttered as she watched Valerius go. “Once he starts talking to his mates about their campaigns he won’t stop. They gossip with each other like old women.”
“Which Legion did he serve in?” said Lucius, suddenly curious, trying to imagine what Valerius had been like as a soldier. “Did he do any actual fighting?”
“Oh yes, and he’s got the scars to show for it,” said Arwenna. “He was with the Second Augusta out in the west, and he saw a lot of action against the Silures. He started out as a legionary of course, but he was soon promoted to Optio.”
Lucius knew that meant he had been the second-in-command of a century. Legions were divided into cohorts of four hundred and eighty men each, and the cohorts into centuries of eighty men, with commanders called Centurions. They gave the orders, but according to Arwenna, it was always the Optios who made sure they were carried out.
