Get Out or Die (4 page)
Albia was in the bar-room, checking that we’d enough clean jugs and beakers, but her mind wasn’t on the crockery. “You know,” she remarked, “I hope that man in the guest-room really is the new cousin. He’s pretty fanciable.”
“Oh? I can’t say I noticed.” I was looking at a nasty lamp-black stain, high up on the whitewashed wall.
“Oh, of course not, Miss Couldn’t-Care-Less.” She frowned at a chipped mug and put it to one side. “So you didn’t notice his nice eyes?”
“No,” I answered, but too quickly. She knows me well, my sister.
“Unusual shade of dark green, I thought,” she persisted.
“Dark blue,” I corrected, and she laughed when I blushed.
The bar-room was filling up fast, so I escaped more teasing by chatting to the customers and making sure they were all happy, while the maids fetched jugs of wine or beer and brought plates of stew in from the kitchen. I like to supervise the bar myself when I can. Not that I need to, with Albia there, but it’s such a wonderful place to pick up the latest news. Couriers ride in from Eburacum or Derventio, locals bring the gossip from the surrounding woods and farms, the occasional long-distance traveller arrives from Lindum or Londinium, or even across the sea in Gaul. We get them all, and their news as well. Today, we were giving out as much news as we were getting, thanks to our mystery traveller.
But eventually there was a lull, and I signalled to Carina, one of the senior maids, to take charge, so Albia and I could go into my study to talk privately.
“Well then,” I encouraged, as we sat down on the reading-couch. “Come on, you’re dying to tell me about the new cousin. Quintus Antonius Delfinus, you said?”
“Are you sure you’re interested?”
“Definitely. Passionately…just get on with it, can’t you, before I die of curiosity!”
“Well, if you insist. He’s from Italia. Campania somewhere, I think. I met him when I was down in Lindum, last summer, you remember? For Claudia’s wedding.”
“I remember all right.” She’d gone for ten days and stayed a month. But I’d already done my share of moaning on that score.
“Claudia’s sister introduced me to him at a dinner party. I remember because she fancied him, but he was flirting with a flashy Greek girl in red ear-rings and didn’t give her a second look.” She sniffed. “Didn’t give
me
a second look either, come to that! Anyhow, he said he was a surveyor, inspecting bridges. But really…” she dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “…he’s a spy, on secret work for the Emperor.”
“Half of the Empire’s doing secret work for the Emperor.…”
“…Spying on the other half.” She joined in the punch-line. “I know. But this one’s different. He’s not just a palace hanger-on. He gets sent into the provinces to hunt out traitors. He works alone, not with the usual military investigators, or the Governor’s agents. Claudia’s sister was sure of it.”
“And you really think he’s the cousin Lucius mentions in his letter?”
“Of course. Which is why someone tried to kill him.”
“Yes, it could be. But—look, you know what Claudia’s sister is like. She’s got a pretty lively imagination, and she’d much rather have been turned down by a mysterious secret agent than a boring bridge surveyor any day.” The same went for Albia, of course.
Then I realised I hadn’t got round to locking away his precious money-belt. “Maybe we can settle it,” I suggested, and fished the money-belt out of my own belt-pouch.
She raised an eyebrow. “Aurelia Marcella! You’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking?”
“I’m thinking,” I said, “that it must be our duty to find out as much as we can about this new cousin.”
“Oh it must. And there’s no escaping one’s duty, is there?”
It was just a standard purse sewn into a narrow belt, worn and discoloured now, but made from good soft leather with a pattern of stars on it. “He certainly seemed very anxious about it,” Albia observed, as we spread the contents carefully on my desk. “Notes for a book, I ask you!”
There was a wax note-tablet, blank, a stylus, a folded square of papyrus, and a small slim case, like a flattened cylinder. This was made of some very dark wood inlaid with ivory. I picked it up and examined it. It was light in weight, and didn’t rattle when I shook it.
“Well open it,” Albia encouraged, and I pulled off the case’s top. Inside I found not one but
two
travel permits, beautifully written, and each bearing the imperial seal. They were identical except that one was in the name of Quintus Antonius Delfinus, and the other was for Quintus Valerius Longinus.
“Told you so!” Albia was triumphant. “Only a spy would be using two different names. And these are very high-powered passes he’s carrying.” So they were: the bearer could use any and every facility of the public service, requisition the best horses, eat the best food, sleep in the best accommodation, and generally be treated like a consul at every mansio and mutatio in the Empire. They even included a command that all Roman citizens should give him “any necessary help in the course of his work.” It looked as if Claudia’s sister had been right.
“I must admit I’m impressed, Albia. We don’t see many passes like that—in fact I don’t think I’ve ever seen one with this much clout, let alone two of them! Should we move him into a grander room, do you think?”
“He’ll probably requisition the whole place when he wakes up, and us with it. Or you, anyway. Come on, let’s see the paper. Maybe that’ll tell us more.”
I unfolded the square of papyrus, expecting at the very least a citation from Caesar. But there were only a few lines on it, and they made no sense at all.
L’s list
PGATT
SSFCV
CVBFS
“What a let-down,” Albia grumbled. “Just a jumble of letters. I presume it’s a code of some sort?” She brightened up. “Pass me a note-tablet. Let’s try and work it out.”
“It’s none of our business….”
“It’s a bit late to worry about that now….”
“…And besides, we’ve got a mansio to run.”
But she wasn’t giving up. “L’s list. Now who’s L, when he’s at home? It could be Lucius. Our Lucius, do you think? After all, if Cousin Quintus was on his way here….”
“There are thousands of men called Lucius. Or it might be Lollius? Lepidus? Or how about Lugotorix?”
“Ah, Lugotorix! Now why didn’t I think of Lugotorix, that world-famous compiler of coded lists! All right, I know we’re never going to puzzle it out. Pity though. Maybe he’ll drop some hints when he wakes up again.”
“And if he does,” I warned, “we haven’t seen any of this, remember.”
I put everything back in the money-belt, and locked the lot in the strong-box, safely hidden under its loose floor-board. Then we went back to the bar-room.
I moved among the customers again, saying a few words here and there. They were nearly all people I knew, a mixture of Roman settlers and native farmers. Most of them had heard about our wounded traveller, and several also knew of the murder on the Eburacum road. But despite the grim topics of gossip, the atmosphere was cheerful. Everyone enjoys a good market, whether they’re buying or selling. Beer and wine sales were going nicely, and the cow’s meat stew was appreciated.
At a corner table I spotted an unusual group of five young natives, dressed as old-style Brigantian warriors. We get plenty of native customers, but they’re either peasants in serviceable dull homespun, or if they’re a shade richer, they dress like Romans in tunics and travelling cloaks. These were different, so impeccably turned out that they seemed to be making some kind of deliberate statement. They wore their fair hair whitened with lime, and had plenty of blue skin paint on their faces and arms; and they were dressed as fighting men, in leather kilts, greaves, big boots, studded sword-belts and leather jerkins reinforced with bronze across the chest. Their colourful checked cloaks were piled up in a corner with their helmets. They weren’t foolish enough to be carrying weapons, but all the same they were unmistakably trained fighters, exuding an aura of excitement, a strung-up feeling of waiting for something to happen. They were drinking mead, too, which can get men into a warlike mood quicker than wine or beer.
Their leader sported several bits of gold jewellery, a couple of bracelets on his right arm and a heavy gold collar round his neck. The others had smaller ornaments, mostly silver or bronze. The only jarring note in their appearance was that the leader was clean-shaven, so he must be from a family that had some pretensions to Roman status, with parents who wouldn’t tolerate any barbarian beards. He looked vaguely familiar. In fact, as I walked over to their table I realised they were all familiar, all young men from local families, including Segovax, the son of our native neighbour. And the leader was none other than Vitalis, the son of our chief town councillor, Publius Silvanius Clarus. I hadn’t seen Vitalis around for a while; now I remembered, he had been away somewhere in the west of Brigantia, staying with relatives in the hills. His father was one of the modern type of native, born in Britannia but now proud to be a Roman citizen, and living a thoroughly civilised life. His new villa wouldn’t have looked out of place in Italia, neither would the clothes he wore, and his Latin was more grammar-perfect than mine. I wondered if he knew what company his only son was keeping.
Vitalis didn’t acknowledge me, so I just addressed the group as a whole. “’Morning, gentlemen. Can I get you something to eat? We’ve a delicious beef hotpot today, with fresh bread.”
Without thinking, I’d spoken in British, which surprised them. Vitalis said “Yes, please, and another jug of mead,” also in British.
I signalled one of the slaves to bring it. “Are you going far?” It was the standard question, but it never fails, and I must admit I was curious. We don’t get many old-style warriors at the Oak Tree, even kids like these who were just playing at it. At least I hoped they were just playing.
“Not far today,” Vitalis answered, “but soon we’ll be going all the way.”
The tall lad Segovax reached for the mead jug and poured. “All the way! From here to there and back again, till we’ve chased all our enemies over the sea. Right, lads?”
They all nodded and grinned, and Vitalis said, “Then we’ll vanish like shadows in the night,” and they laughed outright.
What in Hades was all this about? When in doubt, make a joke. “I’ll have to be sure you don’t run out of mead then. I don’t want to be included among your enemies.”
“The Chief says that all of you Romans…” the tall lad began, but Vitalis cut in swiftly.
“…All of you Romans seem to be getting a taste for mead now. It’s a good drink.”
“Yes, it is,” I agreed, wondering what the youth had been intending to say. Surely not “All of you Romans will be killed”? No, you’re getting paranoid, Aurelia. Snap out of it.
I soon forgot the lads, because across the room were a couple of farmers I wanted a word with about some extra grazing for our horses. They were both called Cavarinus, father and son, and they had land on the opposite side of our little river.
They greeted me cheerfully as I pulled up a stool, and we chatted for a while about the pasture I wanted. I’m trying to expand the horse-breeding side of our business. The native ponies are tough, but small, and there’s always a market for good Roman horses. I have half a dozen excellent mares and two good stallions, and…sorry, you don’t want to know all that.
After some friendly haggling we made a deal and shook hands on it. They were simple men who’d never be more than peasants, the father stoop-shouldered and worn out before his time with hard outdoor work, but their word was to be trusted.
“What’s the news in town?” I asked them, refilling their beer-mugs.
“The price of pigs is down again,” the father answered. “Hardly worth rearing the beasts, it ain’t….” He went on at some length. Did you ever meet a farmer who didn’t moan about prices?
Eventually his son cut in. “There was one bit of excitement. Not very nice either. In the forum. You know the big marble statue of old daft Claudius?”
“The late great conqueror of Britannia? What about it?”
“Well you know Balbus has his pottery shop right opposite that statue. Except he don’t live behind the shop no more, it’s not grand enough for him now he’s on the town council. His foreman lives there, and seemingly last night, just before dawn, he hears a noise in the forum and comes out to see. And there’s a man out there, just by old Claudius, with a funny sort of mask thing on.”
“If you ask me that was just the drink talking, or the hangover,” his father remarked. “He’s normally legless by bedtime these days. Terrible thing is too much drink.” He swigged his beer.
“That’s as may be. The man ran off anyway, but lying there, by the base of old Claudius, was a body. A dead body. With no head on him.”
I felt a shiver down my back. “Another one? Are you sure?”
“Certain sure. I went and had a look at the place, although they’d shifted the body by then. They said he was a big German, with a green snake tattoo on one arm. Been badly knocked about, and stabbed to death, and his head cut off. But you know the strangest thing—there weren’t a drop of blood anywhere. I’d have expected the place to be swimming in it.” He sounded quite disappointed.
“And you haven’t told her the weirdest thing of all,” Cavarinus senior continued. “Pinned onto his cloak was a sort of medal thing, made out of bone, with a message written on it.”
“Message?” I could hardly get the word out.
“About all Romans being killed if they don’t go home. So he must have been a citizen, I suppose. He certainly wasn’t from round here.”
“Something like this?” I took the bone disc from my purse and held it out. They both stared at it, and young Cavarinus said, “Where’d you get that?”
When I told him, they looked worried. “I wish I knew what it meant,” I said. “I suppose you haven’t any idea who could be behind it?”
“No,” they both answered, though from their grim expressions, I guessed they knew more than they were saying. But I couldn’t get anything else out of them, and pretty soon they went on their way, leaving me with a nasty taste. I’d always thought of our neighbourhood as a peaceful one, yet this was the third brutal attack I’d heard of today, and the third sinister message. I remembered Quintus Antonius’ disjointed words: “It’s beginning…what we’ve been afraid of….” What was beginning? Whatever it was, I was starting to be afraid, too.