“Go now,” Avitoria hissed at me. “While they are all distracted.”
She took her own cloak from her shoulders, and pushed it into my hands. It was thick, rough, heavy wool.
“You’ll need it more than me. Go!” She squeezed me into a brief, hard hug, then pushed me away.
I knew I had no time to say anything else to her. I ran. I ducked down beside a cart that had stopped by the river, and dropped down to the riverbank. It was muddy and clammy and cold as a frog’s back.
I remembered, then, how I had tried to swim from the shipwreck. My clothes had dragged me down. I tucked my skirts up and stepped into the river, keeping to the shadows. The shock of the cold was like a sword’s blow to my legs. I had to bite my lip to stop myself shouting out. Then I waded out into the water, pushing ice away with my hands.
My legs ached with pain. I could not stop myself shivering and my teeth chattering. I thought I would die of the cold, but I kept wading, and finally, I pulled myself out onto the bank. My legs were like red lumps of marble. I forced myself to rub some blood back into my legs, though all I wanted was to lie down and sleep forever. Then I began walking, clumsily at first, and finally, as my aching legs woke up, running.
I did not take the road. I knew that if anyone came searching for me, it would be the roads they would search first. Instead, I pushed through undergrowth, flinching at every noise for terror I would wake a wild beast. I did not dare to go too far from the road in case I was lost in the marshes.
That night I spent huddled under a bush, drifting in and out of sleep. If it had not been for Avitoria’s cloak, I think I would have frozen to death. When I woke, I peered out onto the road. Day was dawning and there was no sound of violence from the city. No one seemed to be coming after me, but nor could I see my father.
With no idea what I should do next, I began walking again – away from the city, north, hoping to find the spring. I kept imagining that I heard hoofbeats following me, racing soldiers. I was so frightened that I left the road again, and headed out into the countryside. My legs were humming with exhaustion and I felt light-headed. Snow began to fall again, first lightly and then more and more. The world whirled white ahead of me. I could see nothing, my eyelashes clogged up with ice.
As I stumbled through the snow, I seemed to dream that my mother was walking next to me. I knew it was just a dream, but I let myself enjoy it all the same. I closed my eyes and heard the swish of her dress, the sound of her voice, the distant pleasant home-like sounds of Leptis Magna—
My eyes flew open and I just caught myself as I fell forward. I had been walking in my sleep and I seemed to have climbed a hill. Night was falling and I had caught myself just before I fell face-forward into the snow. I sat down and went to clutch my knees with bruised fingers. That was when I realised I was still holding the snake pot. I knotted it into a corner of the cloak.
I could see far from here. It looked as if the sun was rising in the distance, but I realised that was impossible, for it was setting in the west. I stared at the red light below me, staining the low cloud like blood. It was not the sun. It was a funeral pyre. Soldiers surrounded it, their armour glinting. Golden eagle standards blazed against the bone-fire flames, and the fire cast monstrous shadows onto the snow. Swords clashed on shields, and voices roared. The fire crumpled into ash, and collapsed, like Troy falling into destruction.
As I watched, an eagle circled the burning funeral pyre three times, then lifted into the sky, bathed in gold from the sunset.
“Farewell, Septimius Severus,” I whispered to myself. “Now you are a god.”
22.
Springs of Sulis
I stumbled down from the hill in the dawn, heading still further north. I did not know where I was going, nor did I know how long I could continue. I dreamed as I walked, of voices that had been dead a long time. And I dreamed I was arguing with Avitoria, shouting at her, accusing her of murdering Theodora.
“Camilla! Camilla!” My mother was calling me, in the distance. “This way!”
I blundered after her voice. I almost thought I could see her, like a wisp of mist on the edge of a cliff. If I ran just a little bit faster, reached just a little bit further, I could touch her.
“Ma!”
I flung myself forwards, my arms stretched out to hug her. But the look on her face was so sad. She turned away from me and melted just as my fingers touched her. I fell forwards and my foot slipped on a rock that was suddenly smooth as glass. I found myself slithering down into a gully.
I ended up, bruised and shivering, on the brink of a clear stream that ran through a cool, green cleft. It was still running despite the winter’s cold. Around it, the rocks were frozen with a skin of ice. Icicles had formed, like jewels dripping from the Empress’s neck.
I dipped my hand into the water and drank as deeply as I could. Then I began following the stream downwards, over the steep, slippery rocks, clinging to the bushes that grew out of the cracks to steady myself. I felt as if I had been here before, perhaps in a dream, because I seemed to know the way. Then I
