The country was deserted here; the inhabitants must have fled to the hills in terror of the enemy. Castus did not blame them – it was illegal for private citizens to own or carry arms, so they would have had no way of defending themselves – but it felt eerie to find this settled country so empty. He skirted the silent villages and passed the shuttered farmhouses, riding slowly with sword in hand. But still there was no sign of the Picts – they must have kept their force together, aiming for larger targets.
He travelled more slowly after that, watching the trees and the fields, wary of ambush. It occurred to him that he had no idea how to find the villa without getting back onto the main road and retracing his steps to the turning. Evening was com shy;ing on when he reached a small village in a fold of a wooded river valley, houses of wood and stone and thatch around a large central tree with broad-spreading leaves. From one of the houses, vague in the dusk, Castus could make out a rising thread of hearth-smoke. He rode closer, sword in hand, watching the other buildings. The silent empty village was unnerving, and as the light faded the surrounding woods appeared ominous.
‘Hey!’ he called as he sat his horse beneath the tree. ‘Come out! I’m a Roman soldier.’
The door of the house opened a crack, then wider, and a woman stood on the threshold. She was old, around fifty, with a creased face and grey hair, but her back was straight and she stood proudly, almost defiant.
‘Thanks be to Brigantia Dea,’ the woman said. ‘Are you with the relief force?’
‘I’m not with anybody, I’m by myself.’ Castus glanced around at the other houses. All were closed up, no smoke rising.
‘They’ve all gone away,’ the old woman said coldly. Her voice was tightly clipped, her Latin fluent, with only the slightest taint of accent. ‘Off to the hills when they heard the news of the battle. I told them I wasn’t leaving – I won’t abandon my hearth and the shrines of my ancestors. Are you a deserter?’
‘No,’ Castus said. He eased himself down from the saddle and stretched his aching legs. ‘I’m a centurion of the Sixth Legion. I’m trying to get back to Eboracum.’ A sudden weariness came over him, and he stretched his mouth in a yawn.
The old woman turned and called out to somebody inside the hut in the British language. ‘Come inside,’ she said. ‘The slave will see to your horse.’ A tangle-haired boy with a slack smiling mouth came from the house, took the reins and led the horse gently towards the drinking trough.
‘What battle?’ Castus asked, as he followed the woman through the door.
‘You haven’t heard? It was two days ago, outside Isurium. The barbarians fell upon a column of the Sixth and destroyed them utterly. They say two thousand men died, and the survivors fled back to the walls of Eboracum.’
Castus felt his head reeling. It was not possible… but the woman had spoken plainly and did not seem the sort to believe the stories of cowards and liars. For a moment he stood in the doorway, feeling the weight of the news sinking through him.
‘How far is Isurium from here?’
‘A good day’s walk. Only four or five hours for a horseman. But it’s too late for you to travel now, if that’s what you’re thinking.’
Numbed, Castus stepped inside the hut. A plain room, white shy;washed walls and rushes on the floor, hearth at one end and a living space at the other, with curtained alcoves for sleeping. Neat and homelike, but he drew his sword and placed it on the table as he sat.
‘There’s no danger here, not now,’ the woman said quietly. At the hearth, a slave girl squatted in the ashes preparing a meal; she looked like the twin of the horse-boy outside. ‘My father was a soldier of the Sixth,’ the old woman said, ‘and my son serves with them now.’ A slight catch in her voice as she spoke. ‘Perhaps you know of him? His name is Valerius Varialus, of the Fifth Cohort.’
‘I don’t, I’m sorry. I’ve only been with the legion a short time.’
‘Ah. I thought your accent sounded strange. You’re a for shy;eigner then. Well, no matter.’
She sat at the far side of table, and in the last light through the narrow window Castus saw her face lined with unspoken grief. A soldier’s daughter, a soldier’s mother. Alone in this abandoned place, too proud to leave or to admit her anguish.
‘I’m searching for a villa near here,’ he said as the slave girl brought food and a cup of beer. ‘It belongs to a Roman named Aelius Marcellinus. Do you know of it?’
The woman frowned, considering, but then shook her head. The slack-mouthed boy came in from the darkness of the yard, and the woman called out a question to him. Her voice was harsh, demanding, and the boy made a strange gesture, half a shrug and an expressive flutter. Then he held up his fingers, counting and pointing. A mute, Castus guessed.
‘Tasca here knows the place you mean. It’s about six miles south and east – but it’ll be dark soon, as I say, and the country isn’t safe. Stay with us tonight and the boy will take you in the morning.’
For a moment Castus wanted to refuse. The thought of further delay now, when he was so close, was almost maddening. But he knew the woman was right: unless he forced the mute boy to guide him at swordpoint, he would soon lose his way and be prey to any danger. Besides, he was tired. Too tired to think properly, or to act effectively.
Once he had eaten he allowed the slave girl to lead him to a dark corner of the room piled with blankets. He lay down, lulled by the hushed voices of the old woman and the twin slaves talking beside the hearth. At the edge of sleep a face appeared to him: Marcellinus’s daughter, speaking silently. Her eyes held the same quiet anguish as the old woman of the house. Another soldier’s daughter, Castus thought as his mind slipped into darkness. Could the girl somehow know that her father was dead?
The sky was light but the sun was still below the trees as Castus prepared to depart. He plunged his head into the horse trough and then flung himself back, spattering water. Wheeling his arms to ease the cramps in his shoulders, he watched the boy saddle the horse and fetch a mule from behind the house. The old woman stood in the doorway with the slave girl.
‘Take this,’ the woman said, passing Castus a bundle wrap shy;ped in greased rag. ‘Hot barley cakes, for the journey.’
‘Thanks,’ Castus said, and swung himself up, wincing, into the saddle.
‘If you get back to Eboracum, please look for my son. Varialus, remember. Tell him Adiutoris and Jucunda, his mother and father, are safe.’
‘I’ll tell him.’ Castus paused, gave a brief military salute, and then turned his horse.
‘May the gods protect you,’ the woman Jucunda called as he rode away.
The mute boy led at a brisk pace, bouncing along on his mule, and soon the sun was striking down through the trees and lighting the strips of tilled ground beside the path. At times the boy turned and twisted his mouth, gesturing and making sounds that Castus could not interpret. He wanted to tell the boy to go faster – now it was daylight he felt the urgency of the situation more clearly. He hardly dared think what he hoped, or what he feared, to find ahead of him.
They followed the loop of the river, keeping to the high ground above the trees on a dirt trail. A mile more, then two, and as they crossed a broad marshy sward Castus looked up and saw crows wheeling over the trees. Then the boy gave a strangled cry, pointing: a body lay in the grass beside the trail. A young man, wearing the clean white tunic of a house slave. Flies gathered on his lips.
Castus kicked his horse forward, swerving around the boy on the mule and galloping on up the trail. Alone now, he rode on between the trees until they broke. Then he saw the villa before him.
The roof had fallen in, the walls were smudged with black, and a thin mist of smoke still rose from the gaping doors and windows. Castus stared, breathing hard, tasting ash in the back of his throat. For a moment he wanted only to die – the shame of the delay, the failure – but he could see no flames, and he knew that the burning had happened more than a day before.