‘Some have already. They’ve started attacking the outlying farms and either stealing or destroying crops. The governor and the owners are preparing a sweep through the mountains, in strength, to catch them.’
‘We have done none of these things!’ said the Greek. Aquila indicated the sacks of grain they had been carrying and Tyrtaeus answered the implied question. ‘A pittance and always taken far from our base.’
Aquila smiled. ‘That won’t save you. Not that it will make any difference. At this pace, Flaccus will catch us all tomorrow.’
‘He’ll give up,’ said Pentheus.
‘He’s not chasing you, idiot. He’s chasing me.’
It was Pentheus’s turn to smile. ‘Then why don’t we just tie you to a tree so that he can find you?’
‘No!’
Gadoric pulled himself upright with some difficulty, his single eye flashing in anger. Tyrtaeus looked long and hard at both Gadoric and Aquila. He could leave them all, given it was the progress of these sick men that slowed them down, but no runaway slave could do other than help a fellow-escapee and in a clear recognition of Aquila’s altered status he addressed his question to him.
‘What do you suggest?’
The boy did not hesitate; for all his lack of years he knew exactly what he thought they should do. ‘First, we can’t afford to stop for the night. We must carry on.’
‘Your friends aren’t up to it.’
Aquila shrugged. ‘They’ll just have to be. None of us will survive if we don’t.’
Tyrtaeus did not reply for quite some time, while everyone stood still waiting on his decision. ‘Untie him, Pentheus.’ The younger man opened his mouth to protest but he did not get the chance to speak. ‘Do it!’
The night seemed endless as they slid and slithered through the mountains, partly in clear moonlight, but more often in pitch darkness. Aquila used all the skills that Gadoric had taught him, laying false trails to frustrate Flaccus and his soldiers, while obscuring their real destination by the use of a leafy branch, tied to the rear horse, when they took to the paths. They kept moving throughout the whole of the next day, with Tyrtaeus giving Aquila general hints of the direction they needed to go. The boy was not fooled, knowing that his guide was taking them in a wide arc, avoiding their true destination until he was more sure of his companions.
To the south, now that they were high enough, the smoking volcano of Mount Etna acted as a fulcrum for their route, appearing every time they entered an area clear of trees. There were constant diversions into the forests as they cut through from one trail to the next and every stretch of water and every rock or scree-covered slope was put to use. After two days, Aquila and Tyrtaeus, dropping back to check the progress of the pursuit while the others rested, could report that Flaccus had given up and turned back towards Messana.
Tyrtaeus finally set them on a straight course and Aquila, using the most prominent peaks and the position of the sun to fix his location, knew that after a slight trek to the west, they had turned north into the range of hills that abutted Flaccus’s inland farm. He also knew, since he was told so often, that Pentheus had escaped from there, the place where he had toiled with his family, before the arrival of Flaccus and his murderous new regime. Revenge for what had happened then consumed the man as he harped on about the fate of his loved ones. The words made Aquila think of Phoebe, so gentle and kind, and of the rest of Flaccus’s mercenaries, who were anything but. He missed her more than he did them, yet he had lived with those men for nearly two years, eaten with them, drunk with them and been trained to fight by them. They were cruel but so was the world and for all Pentheus’s litany of the abuses visited upon the slaves, Aquila could not bring himself to condemn them.
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…’
