army to this place to finish what he had failed to achieve ten years past.
In his mind Titus imagined himself riding at his father’s side again, saw slaughtered men and cattle, for no beast or man would live, and a line of slaves. The women and children they would march into captivity. If the enemy had fields of crops they would be sown with salt, if they had wells they would poison them, forests they would burn so that anyone surviving would freeze in winter for want of the means to make a fire. Each thought of retribution piled on each other, but at the head of it all was the image of that Druid shaman hacking the centurion to death. Brennos he and his father would burn, patiently, over charcoal, and watch as the flesh fell slowly in strips off his pain-wracked body.
His commander was waiting for him as he marched, tired, hungry and covered in dust, into the command tent. That he was standing was unusual, for he was a person to have a care that his rank should be recognised. Just about to make a report, a raised hand stopped him.
‘Titus Cornelius, I have for you some very sad news. Your father, the great Macedonicus, is no longer with us. You are to return to Rome immediately.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Fulmina rubbed her belly again, trying to ease the pain that had been with her for months, getting steadily worse as if some beast was inside her eating at her vitals. The visit to the local healer had done little good: it had cost her a big slice of her meagre savings to be told something she already knew; how to brew an infusion of herbs, something her mother had taught her when she was a slip of a girl. She had asked Drisia to cast her bones and look into the future, but the soothsayer had claimed she could not see anything. Fulmina knew, deep down, that Drisia was lying, though she did not say so since there was nothing to do about it; it would either get better or get worse.
She had a peasant woman’s attitude to life and death, accepting the one with little joy and the other as inevitable, but she had realised that she was lonely; for all his faults she missed Clodius. He was not much of a husband, but he had a good, if wayward nature and he had never beaten her. She wanted him to come home, not just for herself but to take care of the boy if anything happened to her. As she cast her mind back over the last seven years she bitterly regretted the callous messages she had sent back to him. These had been carried by men who had had the money to buy their time off, unlike poor Clodius, who had forgotten to include that provision in his bargain with Dabo. Her mind turned to her own children. Demetrius, the eldest, had opened a bakery in Rome and was doing well.
‘That’s one in the eye to all those doubters,’ she said out loud, pulling herself to her feet. They had laughed at him when he said what he intended to do, but he had been right: city folk were sick of baking their own bread, so they flocked to his little shop, morning and afternoon, to buy it fresh. ‘Maybe Demetrius will take the boy in. He’s only got two of his own.’
There was no chance of her daughter taking care of him. She had eight children already and a constant struggle to feed them and the youngest son was worse than his father, Clodius. He was a true drunkard. Fulmina put her hands over her face, pressing hard. ‘Why don’t you come home, Clodius. Why?’
Aquila raced through the door, early for once, the huge dog Minca at his heels. ‘Guess what Gadoric taught me today, Mama,’ he yelled, and started spouting at her enthusiastically.
Not a single word made any sense, since he spoke in that gibberish she had been told was the shepherd’s native tongue, but it was some kind of poem. All this happened while he poured water over his head, which made it even harder to comprehend, then, in between mouthfuls of food, he was busy with the comb, Fulmina’s wedding present, slicking back his golden hair. The kiss he gave her barely touched her cheek, before he was gone. A stab of pain shot through her lower abdomen, and Fulmina worried over whether it was time for her to speak for it was something she dreaded, but also a matter she knew could not be left to anyone else. Should she wait up for him, or leave it till morning, when the sun was shining and the boy would go out to a day filled with lots to do? That was a way of avoiding endless questions, as well as a dark night for both of them, lots of time in which to feel miserable.
Barbinus’s overseer was not noted locally for his kind heart. He was, in fact, termed a miserable bastard by all and sundry. The fire iron he had in his hand, which was waving close to Aquila’s head, did nothing to dent that reputation.
‘Don’t you think the other female slaves knew what you two were about,’ Nicos yelled. ‘Mooning over each other behind that fence, sneaking off into the woods? I had it out of them at the threat of my whip when I saw you hanging about.’
Aquila did not reply, since there was really nothing to say. Only his own impatience at not seeing Sosia for three whole days, with no response to his taps on her shutters, had caused him to flout the normal rules, and enter the compound to ask for her whereabouts.
‘Just you thank the gods that she was intact. If you’d laid a hand on her, Cassius Barbinus would have strung you up and me as well, for letting it happen.’
The look of incomprehension on Aquila’s face must have registered. The fire iron came down to chest level and the boy felt it nudge into his ribs. Nicos stopped shouting, and instead growled at him. ‘When Barbinus wants a virgin that’s just what he means. Not goods soiled by the likes of you.’
‘A virgin?’ asked Aquila, shaking his head.
‘That’s right, boy. He took her, as is his right, a couple of nights ago. And then, when he’d had her, he shipped her off to Rome. If Sosia’s lucky and does what her new master wants he’ll like as not keep her in comfort but if she weeps, the way she did when she left here, then he’ll send her to the slave market for some other bugger to try, or even flog her to a brothel.’
The overseer had turned away, shaking his head and murmuring to himself about ‘tears, never heard the like’. Aquila was rooted to the spot, his mind and body churning, until he remembered the single piercing scream he had heard that night and realised that it had not, in fact, come from the throat of a terrified fox.
He would have struggled to sleep that night, anyway, but any thoughts he had were driven from his mind as he lay there listening to the painful groans of his mother as she tossed and turned in her cot. Aquila was young and eventually slumber took him, blotting out a misery that only came back to him when he had been awake for several minutes, a feeling that destroyed any desire to eat. He signalled to the dog, up and ready even if it was barely light.
‘Come back here!’ said Fulmina, sharply.
‘I’ve got to go, Mama,’ he replied, listlessly. ‘Gadoric won’t let the sheep out till Minca’s there.’
‘Then he’ll just have to wait,’ she said, favouring the hound with a baleful expression. Minca might be big and fierce, but he knew who was the boss in this hut. Fulmina’s look was enough to cause him to emit a small whine, wag his tail once, and sit down.
‘Oh, please,’ pleaded Aquila. ‘It’s nearly full daylight already.’
Fulmina ignored him and went to the big chest in the corner of the room and opened the lid. ‘I’ve made something for you. A gift.’
The prospect of a present dented Aquila’s impatience a bit. ‘For me?’
‘Yes.’ With her back to the boy, bent over the open chest, Fulmina clutched at her stomach, her eyes shut tight. The pain was terrible and she fought to control her voice so Aquila would not notice. ‘And I want you to have it now, before it’s too late.’
‘Too late?’ he asked, confused.
She snapped to cover her mistake, turning round to berate him. ‘When do I ever see you. You go off before dawn, you’re here for all of a minute before you go off chasing girls, and you come back after darkness. I wonder that you still count this as your home.’
He blushed slightly at the mention of girls, but stayed silent, just staring at her with a hurt look. Fulmina melted, unaware that Aquila was concealing a pain of his own. ‘You’re young. Enjoy it while you can.’
‘I’m sorry.’
