Buried Too Deep (4 page)

“And was he brave too?” I couldn’t help asking Spurius.

“He didn’t yell, but he swore like anything.” The boy giggled. “I’d never heard some of the words before. I expect they’re
very
bad.”

“Don’t let the Master catch you using them,” Phokas warned.

By late afternoon it was raining, and the bar-room was almost empty. The horse-boy Malchus rode in, soaking wet but pleased with himself, having delivered my message for Lucius safely into the hands of Petreius. I gave him a beaker of wine and a small tip, and listened to him enthuse about the fortress at Eburacum, and how wonderful a soldier’s life must be. He’d watched a batch of new recruits practising throwing their javelins, and then battering at fence-posts with sticks as part of their sword training. It sounded pretty dull to me. If I’ve got to watch soldiers training, I prefer cavalry exercises, at least there’s the occasional good laugh when somebody falls off. But Malchus had been thrilled, and I made a mental note that yet another of our lads might be off into the army soon.

We had just two overnight guests, a lead mining engineer, who had a bona fide government travel permit, and his lady companion, who didn’t, but we take private travellers too, and they were no trouble. They weren’t looking for company, being wrapped up in one another, and they retired as soon as they’d eaten.

The bar was very quiet, and I was tired, so I took the chance to have an early night.

Chapter IV

A loud hammering on my bedroom door woke me up when it was barely light.

I called, “Who is it?” But I knew the answer, and was already out of bed, sleepily reaching for my day-tunic and sandals.

“It’s Phokas. My master says please hurry if you want to talk to Belinus. He’s awake, but he’s very poorly.”

“I’m on my way.” I dressed quickly, still only half awake, and went out through the side door into our private garden. The cool dawn air roused me like a splash of cold water in my face. I broke into a run along the path to Timaeus’ house. My prayer at Apollo’s shrine was extremely short, but none the less heartfelt.

Even before I went in, I could hear shouting, and I hurried to Belinus’ room. The wounded man was not only awake, but sitting on the edge of his bed. He was dressed in nothing but heavy bandages round his left leg, which was swollen like a tree trunk from ankle to hip. His body glistened with sweat as if he’d just run a race, and he panted noisily. His eyes were too bright in his flushed face. Timaeus and Phokas were struggling to hold him still, while he fought to shake them off, shouting “Let me go! I’ve got to find Aurelia Marcella! I’m going to the mansio, so
let me go!”

“Here she is now,” Timaeus said loudly, and his relief was palpable. “I told you she’d come. This is Aurelia Marcella. Aurelia, Belinus is very anxious to…”

“You’re Aurelia Marcella?” The sick man tried to get up, but his injured leg made him stumble and cry out. Timaeus and Phokas still held him fast. I was glad they did, because he looked more than half mad.

“I am. I came as soon as I could. It’s good to see you awake. How are you feeling?”

“I hurt all over, especially my leg, and I can’t breathe right. But never mind that. I need to talk to your brother Lucius Aurelius. Can you send for him please? I’ve got important information for him. He wanted me to find out something. But it’s for his ears only. How quickly can you get him here?” He stared at me hard, as if he was trying to see into my mind. It was unnerving, but at least he wasn’t shouting, although his voice was strained with effort.

“I’ve already sent him a message. The doctor said yesterday that you were asking for him, and I realised the matter was urgent.”

He relaxed a little. “Thank you. When will he be here?”

“I don’t know, Belinus, I’m afraid. I don’t know where my brother is at present, so I can’t say how quickly he can get here.”

“You don’t
know?
” He was shouting again. “But surely you must have some idea.” With an obvious effort he lowered his voice. “I’m sorry. It’s just that…well, this is important. I’m one of his informers, and he’ll want to hear my report. He told me you’d be able to contact him.”

“I’ve sent him one message,” I answered, “and when we’ve had our talk I’ll send him another. I’m afraid that’s the best I can do. As you know, if you’re one of his agents, he works for the provincial Governor, and that means he gets sent all over Britannia. But if the gods are with us, he’ll be here soon. Meanwhile you can make your report to me, then if—if Lucius arrives while you’re asleep, I can pass it on to him.”

“I don’t know. Do you help him in his work?”

“Oh yes, often.” Occasionally would have been more truthful, but less reassuring.

“I suppose that’ll have to do.” He sighed and then coughed, and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his hand. “I’ll tell you. Just you. Send these two away.”

“You can trust them, I’ll vouch for that. They’re doctors.”

“Send them away! I’m not having Lucius say I blabbed our business all over the province.”

Timaeus shook his head. “We can’t leave you without a doctor, the state you’re in. But we’ll both take an oath…”

“
Go
away, I tell you!
Or I’m saying nothing.”

I wasn’t keen on being alone with him, but it was clear he wouldn’t say what he wanted to say otherwise, and this might be his last chance to report to anyone.

“It’ll be all right, Timaeus. Stay outside in the corridor and I can call if I need you. Now Belinus, before I send them away, will you please lie down on the bed? I’m sure it’s not good for you to be struggling to use that bad leg. I’ll sit here on this stool next to you. Then you can tell me quietly—
quietly and secretly
—what it is I must pass on to Lucius.”

It worked. He lay down on the bed, I took the stool. Phokas propped pillows under his head and shoulders, then he and Timaeus went out. “And no eavesdropping,” I called after them, in case they hadn’t thought of it.

As soon as they’d shut the door, Belinus began talking, quickly but quite lucidly. “There’s trouble in the wolds, over towards the coast. Not just for me, several other farmers, maybe even your sister and her husband, but they’ve got enough men to defend themselves. Which is more than I have.”

“Albia?” I looked at him sharply. I was in regular touch with Albia and Candidus, but they’d made no mention of any trouble. “Do you live near her?”

“We’re neighbours. She and Candidus have been good friends to us. Albia said you and your brother would help us, but we haven’t wanted to call in any outsiders. Only now I think we need to.”

“What sort of trouble is it?”

“Sea-raiders, thieving and making mischief. They’ve set up a camp on the Headland and they say they’re looking for gold, but all they ever do is plague the small farmers. That’s what your brother needs to know about. They’re not local lads, they’re mostly from Gaul. Their captain, don’t know what his real name is, but everyone calls him Voltacos.”

“Voltacos? He has long hair then?”

“That’s right. A big tall man with a mane of brown hair. They say he wears it long because he only has one ear, so he cuts an ear off all the people he kills.”

“Gods, that’s disgusting. Does he kill many people?”

“If they get in his way. They’d have killed me, and young Cattos, he looks after my sheep, only they didn’t have time. While they were attacking us some travellers came riding along the highway, and that scared them off. Otherwise…” He mimed cutting off his left ear, but the effort made him cough. I picked up a beaker of watered wine from a table nearby, but he shook his head. “They’re a pest, always after money to let us alone. But it’s more than that now. Much more, and we need Lucius to…” He broke off suddenly as a violent spasm of coughing seized him. He put his hands over his mouth, and phlegm oozed between his fingers. With horror I saw it was tinged red. I took a cloth from the table and held it to his mouth. He accepted it gratefully, but was still coughing too much to speak.

I said, “I’ll get the doctor. He’ll give you something to ease your chest. Then we’ll talk again.”

“No!” He seized my arm, and his grip was surprisingly strong. “Don’t go. I must tell you this now, it may be my only chance.”

“Timaeus!” I called. He was halfway through the door already. “He’s coughing up blood.”

“Phokas, fetch the strong cough syrup, the one with poppy seed in it.” He took a clean cloth, dipped it in water, and gently wiped Belinus’ face. His touch in itself was comforting, and the coughing fit subsided a little. “I was afraid of that. He has three broken ribs. They must have done damage inside him, and his blood is getting mixed with the phlegm somehow.”

The apprentice handed him a small beaker of thick dark-gold liquid which smelt of garlic, and Timaeus held it to Belinus’ mouth. “Drink this now, Belinus, and then rest for a little. Aurelia will wait till you can talk again, won’t you, Aurelia?”

“Of course I will. This is important information. Take your time.”

“But I haven’t
got
any time.” The words were no more than a soft moan. He drank the syrup, and the coughing became less continuous, but it still racked his body from time to time. As he held the cloth to his lips again, more red stains appeared on it.

“I’m for the Otherworld, doctor, aren’t I?” he asked Timaeus.

“No, you’re a strong lad, you’ll pull through this. But you must rest, let these wounds heal.”

“I know the truth, don’t try to pretend. I haven’t got long to talk. Go away please, so I can finish my report.
Please.
”

“Leave the syrup with me, Timaeus,” I said. “I’ll give him more if he needs it.”

Timaeus and Phokas left the room, a sure sign that Timaeus too thought his patient hadn’t got long to talk. But between bouts of coughing, Belinus managed to gasp out his words in short bursts.

“Make Lucius understand…the Gauls are working for someone else. Someone powerful, someone with a brain. There’s someone wants our land. Trying to drive us out, drive all the small farmers out. Wants the land for himself. Keeps threatening us, making our lives miserable. We can’t fight him on our own.”

“Do you know who it is? There are laws to protect you.”

“There are two it could be. Both rich, greedy, above the law.” He coughed noisily, and I gave him more syrup. If it had poppy in it, it should make him drowsy, but that would take time.

“I’ll tell Lucius all this. But if you even suspect who it is, you must give me the name. Lucius will expect it.”

He tried to answer, but no words came out, only more coughing. I piled more pillows under his head, but that didn’t seem to help. I waited, not sure what to do, only feeling I couldn’t leave him now.

He took a deep breath and sat upright, as if gathering himself for a supreme effort.

“When I’m in the Otherworld, you and Lucius must help my family fight him off. Illiana, the children….” His breath was coming in rasping short bursts now, with agonising coughing in between. I opened my mouth to call Timaeus, but then he said clearly, “Keep them safe. Promise me.”

“I will.”

“Promise! Swear it!”

“I swear by Diana, and by Taranis and the Three Mothers.” I hoped that invoking the native gods would reassure him, and it did.

“Thank you.” He flopped back onto the pillows. “Now I’ve done all I can.” His body jerked, then went slack, and his eyes closed. He let out a shuddering sigh, and lay quite still.

“Timaeus!” I called.

But even as he and Phokas hurried in, I knew there was nothing more they could do. Belinus had crossed to the Otherworld.

We stood round the bed, none of us willing to break the silence. I felt sad, for Belinus and for Timaeus too, because I knew how discouraged he felt when his medical skills weren’t enough to save a patient.

Phokas looked suitably solemn, but he was young and resilient, and he was the first to stir himself. He walked over to the window and pushed the half-opened shutters right back, letting in more of the thin morning light and a cold breeze. He looked at Timaeus. “Master, I’ll finish off here. You go and get something to eat. Mistress Margarita will have breakfast waiting for you.”

“Good idea,” I said. “I’ll come too.”

But Timaeus didn’t seem to have heard. “I thought he had a chance. It was a terrible leg wound, and with the gangrene, and the broken ribs as well. But he was young and strong, and I’ve seen worse than that heal with barely a scar.”

“If you couldn’t save him, Timaeus, then nobody could. You’ve done the best any doctor could do. It was in the lap of the gods. If they didn’t want Belinus to survive…”

He ran his hands through his chestnut hair. “I don’t know about the gods. I just know I’ve been taught how to heal people, and when I fail, that must be my fault…Sorry, I don’t mean to rant on. I’m just tired, and I hate losing a patient. I can’t help wondering if there was something else I could have done for him.”

“I’m sure there wasn’t. You’re a fine doctor.” I touched his arm gently. I didn’t like to see him so upset.

“I ought to have paid more attention to those broken ribs. Perhaps I should have opened up his chest to see what was wrong.”

Phokas spoke up. “Master, that would have killed him for sure. He had a wound full of poison, and he was as hot as a furnace. He wouldn’t have had the strength for that kind of surgery.”

The apprentice was talking very good sense, and Timaeus seemed comforted. “I suppose not. Once the four humours get too far out of balance…”

“Try not to feel badly.” I cut him short, not being in the mood for a medical lecture on the four humours. “You know my father was an army man. He told me what the military doctors say about medicine. I expect you’ve heard it?”

He shook his head. “Some hoary old saying of Julius Caesar, is it?”

“I shouldn’t be surprised. ‘Patients are like battles, you win some and you lose some. Just make sure you win more than you lose.’”

He smiled faintly. “You’re right, Aurelia. I shouldn’t let it upset me.”

“I’m always right. It’s a well-known fact. Now why not do as Phokas suggests, come to the mansio and we’ll find you something to eat and drink. You look as if you need it.”

As Timaeus and I walked out into the dawn, I felt my spirits lift in spite of everything. It’s my favourite time of day, when the rising sun makes all the world seem fresh and clean.

But the doctor’s mind was still on his patient. “I wonder how he came by those injuries. Obviously he’d been in a scrap, which is no big surprise, those young natives are always getting into fights. Not usually with swords though. Fists and cudgels, that’s more their style.”

“He mentioned the pirates, and some sort of threat to the small farmers. You heard it all, presumably?”

He nodded. “The wold country’s so peaceful as a rule. But you know, I treated three more natives from near the coast yesterday, all fit enough to go home and not stay here the night. Three in one day—and normally I don’t see three weapon-wounds in a month.”

“I saw one of them, Bodvocus’ man Coriu.”

“Yes, his arm was broken, by an axe he said. Considering everything it wasn’t too bad. Both of the others said they’d had accidents with tools in the fields, but both had sword wounds, I’d stake my reputation on it.”

We’d reached the mansio, and he turned aside to head for the kitchen door at the back of the main building.

I stopped. “You go in and get breakfast, don’t wait for me. Tell Margarita I’ll be in soon, but first I’m going to get properly dressed for the day. By the way, that lad of yours is turning out pretty well, isn’t he? How long have you had him now?”