‘I was twelve, and Cniva a couple of years older. Did you know he was, or is I suppose, my brother? There were three of us, all boys, and the two girls, children of our father’s sister, who was a priestess of the white goddess. He was a great man, and it’s the same out there among the tribes as it is in the empire, or up here – great men make lots of enemies. Men came at night.’ He laughed grimly. ‘Of course it was at night. Burned our farm, killed his remaining men, and took us as slaves. Those were bad years and they seemed to go on forever and ever. Yet hard work makes you strong and we grew into men. A slave cannot be bold, so you have to hide your spirit, burying it deep within you and letting no one see.
‘We kept together, and that was something, although we lost sight of the girls often enough. Somehow, they always came back. Three times the farms where we toiled were raided and burned, and so we found new masters. Burgundians, Goths, Lemovii, each came in turn and we went to lands far from Rome and our homeland. We survived. Good, hard-working slaves have a value, but as we grew into manhood we were strong and people saw it. The last chieftain to hold us got a good price selling us to a man from Gaul out buying slaves. He sold us to the Usipi because they were raising the cohort for Rome and so we became soldiers of the emperor. Might have been good ones, too, if they’d put decent officers in charge of us instead of the vicious and the weak. That camp near Deva became a nightmare.’
Something splashed on the lake over to their left. They froze, watching and listening. There was more splashing and flapping and then a bird rose into the air. They kept watching for a long while, but there was no more movement or noise.
‘Easy, lads,’ Ferox said at last. He leaned his arms on the barricade again. ‘That’s the problem with authority. Too often ends up with the wrong people.’
‘Yes.’ Probus agreed. ‘But who are the wrong people?’ He drew his sword and felt the edge. ‘Needs a bit of work.’ The merchant reached for a whetstone before he continued.
‘It probably would have happened anyway. There is something inside Cniva. He has hates that are not quite human, but seem to have a force of their own. All three of us hated. How could we not? But he seemed to enjoy it. Over the years he always had plans for escape and revenge. Sometimes it was just revenge, telling how he would die over the mutilated corpses of our tormentors. Then the girls came and found us again. The gods only know how they managed that. It all must have been worse for them. It always is for women. And they were women now, beautiful in spite of it all, and filled with their own power. They dreamed and saw the future, looked into the souls of men. They made things happen. Men would do things and not know quite why.
‘Cniva wanted them both, and had them too, in the same tent we shared with five contubernales, all of them Harii. His seed took in them and they soon told us that they were with child. When a woman like that tells you something, you know it is true. They had us afterwards as well, but the optio found them and had them thrown out of the camp. They kept coming back, and each time they were thrown out, the beatings they were given became more brutal. The last time the centurion said he would have them flogged, but first he had them bound and brought to his tent.
‘That was the night we killed them all. The whole cohort rose as one man. I have said how those women could make men do things. Once it started all the resentment at our treatment spilled over. There was a lot of killing. The sisters had us drive stakes through the centurion’s limbs, pinning him to the ground. Then one of us held open his mouth and they took turns pissing down it. I guess he drowned or choked. I’ve heard people say that they ate his bowels, but that isn’t true. All that came later.
‘You probably know the rest. The convoy, and seizing the warships. Cniva wanted revenge on the whole world. He didn’t care about living, not then, for he was so filled with hate. My brother and I saw a chance for freedom and a good life somewhere, but all he wanted was to kill and burn. The money in the pay chests was nothing to him. While we got some men to bury and hide it, he was tearing the captured tribune apart. I do not know whether it was madness or a plan to bind us all to him, but that was when he ripped out the man’s entrails and ate them, urging others to join him. Even the women were shocked, at least at first. Our brother yelled at him when he found out about it, and Cniva killed him without blinking an eye. He did not hesitate, did not seem to think, he just stabbed him in the belly. I thought for a moment that he was going to feast on him as well, but after the killing he had some sort of fit. The older sister declared that he was blessed by the gods to lead us to vengeance.
‘That night I ran, taking the younger woman with me. She was always the milder of the two, so had suffered more in the years of slavery. It was a hard life at first, hiding from the soldiers out looking for the mutineers, but we managed to go south and finally bought passage on a ship to Germania Inferior. I got work as a butcher. I’d learned how to do that over the years. Genialis was born in a tiny room behind the shop, and my cousin died in the act. I was sure you could see her power passing into the baby, and when it was gone she was just an empty husk. I worked hard and my master took to me. He adopted me and then died a few years later. It was nothing to do with me, although I know people say otherwise. He caught a fever and died. Genialis was only four, slow at talking, but you could see he was special. When I had him with me life seemed to fall into place. It was like luck, but stronger and less fickle. The hidden money was still there when I went back for it. From being quite well off, we became rich, and that let us grow richer.’
‘The noble Ovidius had a slave,’ Ferox said.
‘I was sorry about that. I remember the shock of seeing him in Londinium. Knew his face at once, even though he was cruelly scarred and withered by what he been through. Genialis knew who he was too, and that puzzled me because he cannot ever have seen the man. As he grows, more of his mother’s power comes to him.
‘But I could not take the risk. There was the money of course, and the fact that I was a mutineer. Rome does not forget that sort of thing. I guess even being a slave who enlisted in the army would be enough to get me executed.’
‘I think in your case the blame would be on the man who gave you to the army claiming that you were freeborn.’
‘Well, that’s a relief.’ Probus gave a grim laugh. ‘It was a risk for me, but it was the boy I did it for. Genialis is innocent and I did not want him to suffer.’
‘And now?’
The merchant stared out at one of the enemy sentries. ‘Can’t see his face from so far away, but wonder if I know him.’ He peered at the man, as he went on. ‘And now? Could you prove any of this in court?’
‘Perhaps,’ Ferox said. ‘Perhaps not.’
‘I’m not going back. The lands, all the rest, none of it matters. If we live through this I’ll go to Hibernia and stay there. I have some friends. Genialis can come with me, unless he wants to stay in Britannia. Be nice if he could keep at least some of the estates. Still, I know that that is not for you to say.’
‘No. All I know is that you have fought with us and for that you have my thanks. I know you came for your son, but you have helped us as well.’
‘He isn’t my son, though, is he? That bastard out there – my brother – is his father. Genialis has brought me good fortune and I have loved him as if he was my own, but he isn’t, much as I loved his mother.
‘I know what he is like,’ he added in a softer tone. ‘There’s a vicious streak in him. Maybe I was too kind. When you’ve been a slave you are desperate to give something better to a child. I have indulged him too much, or botched it all when I tried to be firm. It isn’t just that. He’s different to everyone else, just like his mother and aunt – and even his brute of a father. From early on he sensed it. He has dreams and sees things. And there is the luck. That’s why Cniva wants him, more than anything else. I’m guessing he wants more than this island, and whatever he wants will come through fire and slaughter.’