sitting. He still felt drained of air and he rubbed his chest where the huge paws had thumped into him.
‘You like stroke him?’
Aquila put out his hand gingerly, stopping well short of the animal’s jaws. The huge square head with its pointed ears was not something to inspire him with confidence, even if the enormous brown eyes looked friendly enough. The dog, near black, with lighter brown colouring around the muzzle and lower legs, pushed its head forward to sniff his fingers and Aquila felt the rough tongue lick the tips.
‘You be all right now he know you. You stand up, he will not attack again.’
The man took Aquila’s arm to help him to his feet, as the boy apologised again. ‘I didn’t mean any harm.’
The blond man smiled. ‘You gave me fright.’ He reached out with his free hand to touch Aquila’s hair, a look of curiosity in his one good eye. ‘What you doing in woods?’
‘Just playing.’
The shepherd then touched the edge of Aquila’s smock, so clearly the garment of someone poor. ‘You have benevolent master, boy.’
‘Master?’
The man smiled, then shrugged. ‘A slave boy with time for play.’
‘I’m no slave boy,’ snapped Aquila, in a voice that brought the dog to his feet. ‘I’m a free-born Roman.’
‘Not worry,’ said the shepherd quickly, seeing the boy back away from the creature slightly. ‘Minca as gentle as a lamb.’
This seemed to remind him of his other charges and he let forth with a string of incomprehensible commands that sent the dog running off toward the sound of the distant sheep bells. Then he turned back, looking Aquila up and down before speaking.
‘Free-born Roman, eh?’ he enquired in his bad Latin, fingering Aquila’s hair again. Then he touched his face gently. ‘Your skin take sun well, unlike me. If you Roman, that means your father is free-born Roman too.’
‘He most certainly is.’
He smiled even more at the emphatic way the boy spoke. ‘So father toils in fields, while son runs off to play?’
Aquila puffed out his chest in pride. ‘My father is serving with the 10th Legion of the Roman Army in Illyricum.’
‘Has he same colour hair?’
‘No.’
Aquila frowned, not making any attempt to hide his displeasure; all his life he had been subjected to taunts for his height and his hair, with more than the odd hint as to his dubious parentage. Few dared to let him overhear these days, since he would thump anyone who even suggested that he was different. The girls were the worst, but you could hardly just give them a buffet round the ear. Mind, recently, their remarks tended to be phrased in a way designed to catch his attention, rather than taunt him, and only turned nasty when he treated their interest with lofty disdain.
The one eye did not flicker, holding the boy in its solitary gaze. ‘So your father in legions. Where does mother come from?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She Roman?’
‘Of course!’
‘Father ever been to Gaul?’
Aquila spoke as if he did not understand. ‘Gaul?’
The man pointed over his shoulder. ‘Up there, north.’
‘I know where Gaul is. It’s full of blond giants who fight naked. The legions always beat them…’ Aquila realised he was talking to a blond giant who spoke in a strange tongue and fell into an embarrassed silence as the smile disappeared and the rasp in the voice was less friendly.
‘They not always win, boy.’
Aquila was now glaring up at him. ‘You were taken prisoner?’
The shepherd nodded with some reluctance. ‘So you a free-born Roman?’
Aquila replied defiantly. ‘Yes.’
‘You have name?’
‘Aquila Terentius.’
The man raised his head to look at the sky, as if acknowledging the source. ‘Well, young eagle, I too have name. It Gadoric, and I a slave, though I was once free-born like you.’ Aquila held his hand out and the man took it with a grin. ‘Free-born Roman shakes the hand of slave!’
‘Is that the wrong thing to do?’ asked Aquila, confused.
The shepherd laughed and picked up his battered straw hat. ‘No, boy, that the right thing to do, but it not happen often. Let us go, see if I have any animals left.’
The sheep were huddled in a tight group, with Minca laying right in front of them, paws outstretched and eyes fixed for the least sign of movement.
‘He’s a bit big for a sheepdog.’
‘He bred to hunt stags. Two-week-old pup when I was taken. Kept him inside my coat, next to the skin.’ He called to the dog in his alien tongue and it ran over to join him, to have its ears vigorously rubbed. ‘Now we look after sheep.’
Gadoric issued some more commands to the dog and it ran out of sight. Then he tapped the lead ram with his long staff and it immediately headed in the opposite direction, away from the canine smell.
‘Where are you going?’ asked Aquila.
‘To field over there.’ He pointed his staff to the south of the woods.
Aquila was curious about this man, Gadoric. He was a slave, but he had once been free and with that scar and his empty eye socket, he had probably been a soldier. He might have some interesting tales to tell. ‘Can I come with you?’
‘I just about to ask,’ said Gadoric, clapping the youngster on the shoulder. Aquila might be curious about him, but that was nothing compared to the interest that the flaxen-haired Celt had in the golden-haired child.
As they left the woods the shepherd, with his hat back in place, bent his shoulders, once more adopting the shuffling gait of an old man. Aquila looked at him strangely.
‘Can trust you?’ asked Gadoric, stopping suddenly. Taken by surprise, Aquila did not answer and they gazed intently at each other, until eventually, not sure what to say, the boy shrugged. ‘There be no way knowing, is there?’ Aquila shrugged again. Gadoric leant on his staff, clearly unsure if it was wise to speak. When he did, he sounded just as uncertain. ‘I could ask you swear on your Roman gods, but I not believe in them.’
‘I do,’ said Aquila quickly, silently evoking the name of Sanctus, the God of Good Faith.
‘No. I know men swear on every god in world, plus father’s life, that they not betray something, then watch them do it.’ He put one finger to his scarred face. ‘I prefer to look in the eye, my one against you two, and ask straight. Aquila Terentius, I tell you secret, can I trust you keep it?’
The boy threw his arm across his chest in a soldierly salute and used the words he had been told were appropriate. ‘On the altar of Sanctus and on pain of death.’
‘Not die to keep it, lad,’ said Gadoric with a smile, again touching Aquila’s hair. ‘Just not give it away to whole neighbourhood.’
‘I won’t!’
So Gadoric told him that his shuffling gait was a pretence to keep him here. He had pretended sickness when he was brought south, taking herbs that made him seem really ill. All the others, brought south with him, had been sent to Sicily, to toil on starvation rations in the cornfields. Too weak for such work, he had been kept here as a shepherd for the local magnate, Cassius Barbinus.
‘Cassius Barbinus is a very wealthy man. He’s very important round here. He bought my father’s farm off him, which is why he had to go into the legions. Barbinus owns this wood, too, and it’s rumoured he’s told his overseer to flog anyone he finds taking game from it. Everyone is frightened of him.’
‘I not frightened of him,’ snapped Gadoric. ‘But this part Italy closer to home than Sicily. One day I go back.’
