The next few hours passed in a dreadful dream. Pertinax had been as good as his word, and an imperial gig was waiting to transport us. Gigs are a light, swift, open form of transport, and can rattle along the cobbled roads quicker than any closed carriage ever invented. On the other hand, any open carriage is at best a draughty affair, even if there is not a stiff breeze blowing, and ‘rattle’ is the operative word. We bounced and lurched northwards the whole long afternoon, through a countryside busy with agriculture. None of the wild lands that surrounded Glevum, here. Little hamlets had sprung up around the road for miles, and even when these had been left behind, much of the woodland had been cleared, and every valley seemed to have its little farm — sometimes a Roman villa, sometimes a Celtic roundhouse — each with its own assortment of animals, crops and fields of next year’s grain.
On we plunged, terrifying ox carts and mule waggons as we passed, swaying wildly up hills and still more wildly down them, while I clutched my narrow wooden bench with both hands and Junio crouched miserably at my feet.
And then, just when I thought that I could endure it no longer, we stopped at little mansio, an official staging post. But not for long. Time enough to change the horses and swallow a welcome drink of watered wine, and off we went, to repeat the whole bone-juddering experience again.
Even so, it was dark before we got to Verulamium. There was a brief argument at the gatehouse before they would admit us, but a glimpse of the governor’s seal and warrant, even by the uncertain light of a flaming torch, was enough to have the guards change their minds in a panic, and not only let us in, but organise stabling for the horses and have Junio and me escorted personally, and with fulsome apologies, to the commander.
Verulamium, like the capital, has maintained a small garrison-fort inside the town ever since the Boudicca uprising more than a century ago, and it was there that we were taken. The commander was in the praetorium having a supper party in the privacy of his home, but the official seal worked its charms again, and he did his best to offer hospitality at the garrison. I have a dim memory of being seated on a wooden stool beside a fire, and given a hearty meal of warm army bean-stew and coarse brown bread, before I was shown to a small, sparsely furnished chamber in the barracks, usually reserved for passing messengers.
A small brazier and an oil-lamp were promised, but I stretched out on the clean bunk bedding at once, pulled a blanket over me, and, with my young slave lying in another bunk at my feet, had closed my eyes and was fast asleep before anyone had time to return with the expected items. It had been an exhausting day.
Even so, one image haunted my sleep. The floor in Caius Monnius’ study had been lifted, and in my dreams I could see clearly what I had only glimpsed in those few moments before I had been interrupted. The secret hiding place beneath the floor was crammed almost to bursting with bags of silver coins. I did a rapid calculation. There must have been five thousand denarii at least: that is to say, at current market rates, roughly twenty thousand sesterces.
‘What was it doing there?’ I murmured as I slept. ‘And what becomes of Annia’s theory now?’ But my lost Gwellia, who always stalked my dreams, only smiled mysteriously and vanished like smoke before I could touch her with my hand.
Chapter Eleven
The next morning we were woken by a soldier, a double-pay officer in full uniform, who brought us a breakfast of hard wheaten biscuits and thin wine.
‘Standard army rations,’ he told me, with a smile, ‘though the commander has sent you some fruit in too, seeing that you come from the governor. Oh, and I am to give you his apologies, citizen. He didn’t want to rouse you early, but I think you said you wanted to attend the chariot racing? It is already an hour after dawn, and if you and your servant want to be sure of a seat…?’
We did. Junio was on his feet almost before the optio had finished speaking, and was already splashing cold water enthusiastically from the jug beside the door into a large bowl which he had found on the stone bench. Very cold water, I suspected, since the promised brazier had never arrived, and I eyed these preparations rather reluctantly from the comfortable warmth of my bed, while the optio bowed himself out with promises to return as soon as I was ready to leave. He would personally escort us to the stadium — on the commander’s express instructions.
I was dressed only in my tunic, but I rose and stood shivering on the stone floor while Junio rinsed my hands and face. Then I gnawed my way through some breakfast and allowed myself to be dressed once more in my toga, though Junio was so excited by the prospect of the day ahead that he had to make two attempts at draping the cloth. He was so eager and anxious to be gone that I took pity on him in the end and fastened my own sandals, while he crammed food into his mouth. When I looked up he was standing ready at the door, before he had really finished swallowing. Army biscuits are said to breed hard men — certainly they exercise the jaws.
I clapped Junio on the shoulder and we set off together.
The optio, true to his word, was waiting outside the door, and as soon as we made an appearance he took up a place beside me, gesturing for two other members of his company to bring up front and rear. Junio had naturally stepped deferentially behind me, so I found myself forming the central part of a little procession as we walked out of the barracks. The guards at the gate of the fort moved smartly to let us through, and in the streets outside, the townsfolk stood even more hastily aside, abandoning their business to whisper and goggle at us as we went by.
I am not used to being stared at, and I found myself falling into step with the soldiers and marching along rather importantly, the townsfolk in the busy streets parting before us like cheese under a cook’s cleaver.
‘Wonder what he’s done, poor fellow,’ I heard a trader mutter, as he and his laden donkey tried to squeeze themselves into a doorway to let us pass. I suppose I did look as if I were under some kind of military arrest. I walked the rest of the way to the stadium in a more chastened frame of mind, and my feet deliberately out of time with those of my marching escort.
The stadium had been set up just outside the town walls, at the foot of a small hillock, and was obviously large. A high wicker fence surrounded the enclosure, with an impressive entrance gate at one end through which the public were currently pouring.
As we made our way to the head of the jostling mob, I noticed a large and heavily built guard using a cudgel on an unfortunate youth in an ochre tunic who was trying to scale the fence, although entry to the stadium was free. I grimaced in sympathy, but the boy had been taking an obvious risk. The organisers of race meets always take a dim view of visitors who attempt to get in without running the gauntlet of fast-food sellers, wine and water vendors, souvenir stalls, soothsayers and official betting booths which have been granted expensive licences to operate inside the fence.
If the people in the streets had not known who we were, here we were certainly expected. The same cudgel-bearing guard appeared, and wielded his weapon — rather indiscriminately I thought — to open a path for us among the throng. People do not argue with a cudgel, and we were soon inside.
My patron, Marcus, would doubtless have thought it nothing, after the Circus Maximus in Rome, but compared to the races I had seen in Glevum this was a revelation. The stadium was huge. The slope of the hill itself formed a natural grandstand on one side of the track; a wooden framework had been erected on the other side, with tiered benches on top of it, while at the further end, behind the turning post, was a covered viewing box for town officials and any visiting dignitaries.