The last few days had been harder on Hypolitas than Gadoric, who was a much tougher physical specimen. Hypolitas had spent the last three days lashed to the saddle, his face becoming more and more grey. He was too exhausted to show any relief when they finally arrived at Tyrtaeus’s little settlement, six badly constructed wicker huts alongside a stream in a barren upland valley which made Aquila look around in wonder. The soil was rocky and shallow, hard to plough and near impossible to grow food on, and the grass was sparse, providing indifferent pasture. No wonder they had to steal grain. How did people survive in such a place, especially in winter? When he saw the inhabitants, emaciated men, scrawny women and bow-legged children, he knew that they could not.
The three newcomers were put in the most dilapidated hut, which had apparently belonged to a runaway who had failed to survive in this harsh landscape. Aquila tended to the two men and, given back his weapons, with permission to seek food, he was able to increase the diet of the entire settlement. Gadoric mended quickly and was soon able to join him, and as they hunted, they talked. The Celt showed no surprise when the boy told him that Clodius and Fulmina were not his real parents, while the eagle round his neck fascinated him. He questioned Aquila closely, and seemed frustrated by the younger man’s inability to shed any light on its provenance, frequently taking it in the palm of his hand to examine it minutely.
‘There was a time when every charm had a special meaning, a story of its own. But this!’
‘That had a meaning,’ said Aquila, sadly.
He was thinking of the day he had first set eyes on it. The Celt nodded, his look grim, and he too remembered Minca as he turned the charm over. Gadoric was a superstitious soul, convinced that he could feel a strange power emanating from the object in his hands. Aquila had felt that too, ever since the first time he had worn it, but it was something he was reluctant to admit, even to someone so close. That would mean explaining Fulmina’s dreams, as well as the old crone Drisia’s prophecies. It was not that Gadoric would laugh at him for giving credence to such tales, quite the opposite; the Celt would believe every word he said, but his young friend did not want to speculate about the nature of dreams and fortune-telling. He had done too much of that already. If Gadoric could have given him some kind of answer, some clue, perhaps where it had come from, that would have helped. It was clearly of Celtic origin and obviously related to his true parentage, but Gadoric could not help, so Aquila took it back and placed it round his neck, deciding that a change of subject was to be welcomed.
‘You’ve never really told me how you came to be lashed to that stake?’
Gadoric was good at telling stories, and this one was no exception. Working with Hypolitas, he had tried to engineer a mass escape, after two years of surviving, half-starved and regularly whipped, on the loading wharves of Messana. He and the other ringleaders had been betrayed. Hypolitas, the only other survivor, and by Gadoric’s testimony the moving spirit behind the attempt, was an ex-household slave, adept at magic, who had so displeased his master that the man had sent him to the wharves instead of selling him.
‘You’ve no idea how brave that fellow is,’ said Gadoric. ‘Or how he can inspire men. I’ve spent half my life as a fighting man. Hypolitas has never raised a sword in his life, yet there was never any doubt who the others would follow. He has the gift and he can find the words that touch a man’s heart and move him to great deeds.’
‘We’re going to have to move soon.’ Aquila had said this so often that he could not keep the note of petulance out of his voice.
‘A few more days could make all the difference.’
Gadoric was speaking of the health of Hypolitas; Aquila was thinking of the governor and his militia, of a still enraged Flaccus and his men, sweeping through these very hills. The note of petulance turned to one of anger. ‘Very true. They could see us all dead.’
‘They won’t have moved so quickly,’ said Gadoric dismissively.
Aquila frowned, well aware of one thing: only Gadoric stood any chance of persuading Tyrtaeus to abandon his huts and move to the south. Anything he proposed would be derided by Pentheus.
‘There are women and children here. If we’re shepherding them they don’t have to move too quickly to catch us.’
Gadoric hauled the horse’s head round to face the boy. ‘What if I say we should stay and fight?’
Aquila looked meaningfully back towards the settlement, even though it was well out of sight. ‘I’d reply that your ordeal has turned your wits.’
‘It’s not just us, Aquila. There are other runaways in these mountains. If we could gather them all together…’
‘Is this Hypolitas’s idea too?’
Gadoric smiled as he nodded slowly. ‘You always did have a brain, but think on this. If we run away, what do we gain? Tyrtaeus and his dependants swap one barren valley for another. They’re not hunters or fighters and this soil won’t support them. In time they’ll either die or be forced to give themselves up. Us, do we settle down and try to farm this landscape? I’m no farmer, nor is Hypolitas and what about you?’
‘If we could get back to the mainland…’
It was a thought Aquila had been nursing ever since they had arrived, one that he had kept to himself until now. Regardless of what little remained there, it represented home.
‘Perhaps you could do that. I have no desire to set foot in Italy ever again.’
‘There are other places, Gadoric.’
‘What do I do? Present myself, a branded slave, to some ship’s captain and request passage?’ They both knew that for a runaway slave, that was no option. He would be lucky to be put back to work in the fields, a death at the oar of a galley being the more likely fate. The ex-shepherd continued earnestly. ‘Aquila, you are a free-born Roman. I was free-born once and so was Hypolitas. We want to be free again.’
Aquila opened his mouth to speak, but there were no words to say, so he dropped his chin onto his chest in an embarrassed silence. Gadoric could never be free in Roman territory, unless Barbinus gave it to him, plainly an impossible prospect. He knew the older man was looking at him with that one bright blue eye, as if waiting for him to draw an obvious conclusion.
‘There is a way, boy,’ he said encouragingly.
‘Against Rome?’
‘Talk to Hypolitas. He has the power to see into the future. Last night, as we talked, he told me of his vision. Of a slave army to make Rome tremble…’
Aquila did not know what made him grab his charm as he answered, but he did, and somehow it gave him the confidence he needed to contest such a wild claim. ‘You trust visions?’
‘With my life,’ replied Gadoric, unaware that the boy was also addressing the question to himself. His face registered a slight degree of shock that anyone should even suggest the opposite. ‘How else would the Gods talk to us?’
‘Do they talk to us?’
‘The day you came upon us, Aquila, tied to those stakes, Hypolitas said that you would come.’
The grip on the charm tightened. ‘Me?’
‘Not you, but he spoke of rescue. I thought it to be the words of a man in despair, yet before the sun went down, I looked up to see you. After such a thing, how can I doubt him?’
‘You may be right, Gadoric. Perhaps the Gods do speak to us, only I wonder if they always tell the truth.’