Shadows in the Night (17 page)

“Ready? For what?”

He looked abashed, as if he’d said too much. “Why—ready for anything!” he finished with his winning smile, and rushed on to tell me about the bear hunt.

When the meal was over, Vitalis stretched and stood up and declared he needed some exercise, and was going out riding with his friends, so he hoped we’d excuse him. I for one was glad to; after the suspicions I’d been mulling over about his anti-Roman activities, I’d have been very uneasy discussing the native unrest in his presence.

Silvanius suggested we move next door to one of his sitting-rooms. Yes, he did actually say “one of my sitting-rooms.” Nobody asked how many there were altogether. As we seated ourselves on ornate chairs round a citrus-wood table that must have cost a consul’s ransom, I saw Vedius looking at me doubtfully.

“Is Aurelia staying for the meeting too?” he asked.

Silvanius nodded. “Yes, of course. Why should she not?”

“Well, it’s just….” He turned to me. “You know, this isn’t really women’s business, is it? Planning how to stop a band of barbarians murdering our citizens—too upsetting for the fair sex, surely. There’s no need for you to be concerned.”

“I am concerned, whether I want to be or not. One of the victims, the only one to survive, appeared on my doorstep.”

“Yes, and it must have been very unpleasant for you. But you can leave matters to us men now.”

I bit back my instinctive comment; this wasn’t the bar-room at the Oak Tree. I saw Felix wiping his mouth with a handkerchief, hiding a smile. Dear gods, I should be used to this sort of nonsense by now. But however often it happens, it always infuriates me. Well, this time I’d show the old idiot. I’d got something to tell the meeting that would make them all sit up and take notice. I had a government investigator under my roof, looking into the devious depths of Roman treachery.

“I think you’ll find, Vedius Severus,” I said, in what Albia is pleased to call my “honey-sweet” tone, “that it’s worth including me in your discussions. I’ve got some important information to impart. Still, if you want me to leave….” I half-rose.

“Of course we don’t,” Silvanius interrupted. “I’m sure your information is extremely valuable, and we all want to hear it. Don’t we, Severus?”

“It’s a bit irregular,” Vedius muttered, but not very loudly.

“Being irregular won’t hurt for once,” Balbus commented. “Aurelia’s got her head screwed on.”

“She certainly has,” Felix added. “Of course she must stay.”

Oh, me and my big mouth! What had I been thinking of, boasting like that? I couldn’t tell them about Quintus Antonius, could I? For one thing, I’d promised not to, and for another, he was investigating Roman treachery, and had made it abundantly clear he needed to remain incognito.

You idiot, Aurelia, you complete fool. What are you going to do now? You’ve told them you have important information. So think of something!

Silvanius said, “Before we discuss anything in detail, let me make one point. Our discussions here today must be kept absolutely private, just between us five. I assume we’re all agreed on that?” He surveyed each of us in turn.

“We should take an oath of secrecy,” Vedius suggested, “just to be on the safe side.”

“Surely that’s going a bit far,” Felix objected. “We’re all friends here.”

“I think it’s a good precaution,” Balbus said. “We don’t want any tittle-tattle.”

“It can’t do any harm,” Silvanius put in, “as we’ll be discussing weighty matters.”

“Oh well, if you all insist on playing cloak-and-dagger!” Felix suddenly sprang up from the table, ran over to the door, and pulled it open with a flourish. “Pssst! Anyone listening out there?” he asked in a loud stage whisper, and stuck his head into the corridor.

“Empty as a beggar’s purse,” he cried, retracting his head and closing the door. “How disappointing! So we
really
don’t need to take an oath now.” He sat down at the table again.

Typical Felix! Silly, childish, but it broke the tension and it made me smile, and Silvanius and Balbus were amused too; not Vedius though. “I wish you’d all take this seriously,” he complained. “Men are being murdered. Secrecy here may be a matter of life and death.”

That sobered us, and Silvanius went out to fetch from the family shrine the statues of his household gods to witness our oath. The other three began a desultory discussion about the beauties of the citrus-wood table we were sitting at, but I wasn’t listening. My mind was racing, trying to come up with something I could use to impress this high-powered meeting. I’d boasted that I had something important to contribute. If I couldn’t produce anything, I’d never hear the end of it.

Perhaps I could tell them just a little about Quintus Antonius, drop a few hints about having an important guest staying who wasn’t all that he seemed to be? But no, I’d given my word. Holy Diana, I prayed silently, help me. I know I’ve got myself into this pickle, but please help me out of it….I had a sudden vivid image of Quintus on the morning I found him, lying as still as death, with blood matting his fair hair. I remembered how we’d all speculated about why he was attacked, and decided it couldn’t be a robbery, because of his emerald ring. And Albia had said…what was it now?….In a sudden lightning-flash of understanding I remembered her words, and realised I
had
something important enough to impress the meeting. As Silvanius returned with the precious statues, I sent a quick prayer of thanks to Diana.

We each took a strong oath of secrecy, and Silvanius then made a short and pompous speech about Romans standing together to resist a Campaign of Terror, which I won’t bore you with.

“Now,” he continued, “we should try to establish the facts of this very unpleasant situation. There have been seven attacks so far. Can we identify the victims?”

Between us we could. Of that day’s casualties, we’d all seen Casticus the foreman, and they’d heard the sad news about old Ulysses. Of yesterday’s victims, we all knew Marcus Terentius, the innkeeper at the Kingfisher, and Vedius had recognised Flavius Nepos, the retired soldier. When it came to the corpses found the day before, the man on the Eburacum road was apparently a naval contractor called Hirtius, carrying papers about harbour construction. That left Quintus, and his servant Burrus. They accepted my explanation that Quintus Valerius Longinus, bridge builder and surveyor, and his German servant had been attacked; the servant was killed and his master was recuperating at the Oak Tree.

“Good,” Silvanius said. “Now can we work out what the victims had in common?”

“Being Roman, of course,” Felix commented. “Yes, my dears, I know it’s obvious, but in view of the horrid messages….”

“But all from such different walks of life,” Silvanius pointed out. “A freedman, an old soldier, an innkeeper, a pedlar…a naval contractor, a bridge surveyor, and his servant. What could such a mixture of people possibly have in common?”

“Perhaps Aurelia can suggest something,” Vedius challenged. “Does your important piece of information help us here, perhaps?”

I looked the old fool straight in the eye. “It does, yes. They all have one very obvious thing in common.”

“Indeed?” Vedius sounded sceptical.

“They were all on the roads.”

“Well, as it happens, yes, but….”

“No, Vedius, it’s not a case of ‘as it happens.’ That’s the point. I believe this Campaign of Terror is aimed at travellers. To scare us all off the roads, and make everyone feel it’s not safe to go on a journey.”

They were impressed. There were nods and murmurs of agreement. Silvanius said, “Of course!” and even Vedius conceded, “It’s possible.”

“More than possible,” Balbus answered. “It makes good sense.”

“The road system,” Silvanius declared, “is one of the great civilising influences that we Romans bring to the provinces. It makes military conquest possible, and then it encourages the founding of new settlements, the spread of Roman culture….”

“And trade,” Balbus added. “Don’t forget trade. Trade unites a province like mortar holding together a wall.”

“A good phrase, Balbus,” Silvanius smiled. It was, and it would probably re-appear in a future Romans-standing-together speech.

“So if you want to disrupt Roman rule,” Vedius said, “and you haven’t the military force to take on the legions in battle, you destroy communications.”

“Civilised life would be impossible without road transport,” Felix put in. “Imagine, not being able to visit friends, or go to the theatre. Not being able to buy imported wine or food. What an appalling prospect!”

“Roads are our life-line,” I agreed. “In my particular business, catering for travellers, they’re our life-
blood.
”

There was more of the same, but you and the Governor don’t need anyone to tell you how important the road network is.

While I had everyone’s full attention, I reported the scraps of information I’d collected about the Shadow-men and their leader. All the others admitted they’d heard the war-band mentioned, but had not, until now, taken it very seriously.

“Their leader, this Shadow of Death, is presumably an outsider,” Felix said. “Not from this district. I mean. If he were local, we’d surely have an inkling who he is.”

“Not necessarily,” Vedius countered. “The man must be a Briton, obviously, as he’s attacking Romans. And some of the older families keep themselves very much to themselves.”

“Even so—” Balbus drained his wine—“whoever the leader is, if he’s powerful enough to run a war-band, he couldn’t conceal the fact for long. He can’t be anyone we know.”

“But the war-band itself, the Shadow-men—they are presumably from hereabouts,” Silvanius mused. “If there had been any large influx of natives into our area, we should have heard of
that
.”

“Not necessarily,” Vedius said again. “The countryside is full of small settlements, just hamlets with a handful of houses. If some of them acquired a few more tribesmen, would we notice?”

“Let’s approach it from the other direction,” Silvanius suggested. “If we don’t know who the Shadow-men are, can we deduce how they choose their victims? Do we assume they’re picking their targets quite carefully? Or do they attack any Roman traveller they find—anyone who just happens to be, so to speak, in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

Balbus frowned. “If they’re picking out their victims personally, they must be very well-informed about them, to know how and when to ambush them alone.”

“You’re right,” Vedius said. “Their intelligence network would have to be superb, and very widespread.”

I wanted to add my agreement, when I thought of how Quintus had been deliberately ambushed by men who knew him, but I had to hold my peace.

Balbus’ frown deepened. “And does this war-band have any serious following? Because if so, then most of the natives in the area could be passing them information. Not just the farmers and country people, but our own workmen, our slaves even. I’ve got a pottery workshop full of Brigantian slaves! As far as I know they’re all completely loyal, but…how can we be sure?”

“We can’t,” Vedius said bleakly.

Silvanius fetched the wine-jug, and poured us all a refill. “It’s a most alarming possibility,” he said, “but still only a possibility. It could just as well be that the Shadow-men are killing travellers more or less at random.”

“Is that supposed to be comforting, dear boy?” Felix remarked. “Whether one is deliberately chosen, or murdered at random, one is still decidedly dead.”

Vedius looked round the table. “So the Shadow-men are attacking Roman travellers. Roman roads may no longer be safe. Now what can we do about it?”

There were several suggestions for action, ranging from quite good to completely ludicrous. Silvanius proposed compiling a list of known anti-Roman sympathisers in the area, “so we can be watchful and try to observe if they are involved.” He found a note-tablet and jotted down entries as everyone threw in names of natives who were thought to be anti-Roman, or just very strongly pro-Brigantian, which, as I pointed out, wasn’t necessarily the same thing. We soon had a score of people listed. The only name I contributed was Segovax—in fact the Segovax clan, several of them, one of whom had land adjoining ours. Like the other suggestions, they were men from the old aristocracy. Most of the names meant very little to me, as I’ve never moved in those circles. The same should have been true of Felix, but he was such an inveterate gossip that he knew everyone, and joined in eagerly as Silvanius, Balbus and Vedius enthusiastically named names. I suspected, as the list grew longer, that a few old scores were being paid off.

“I’ll have my secretary make copies of the list,” Silvanius said. “I suggest you all notify me if you have any more names to add, and I’ll circulate up-to-date lists as needed.”

Balbus proposed we should infiltrate observers into some of the suspect households—spies who would report back if anything sinister was going on. There was some rather disjointed discussion about how this could be done, and also the ethics of bribing slaves to inform against their masters. Everyone agreed to think about it.

Next Vedius suggested that he and his town watch should patrol the roads all around Oak Bridges during the hours of darkness. I almost laughed out loud at the silliness of this, but he meant it quite seriously. He actually thought his handful of men and their one fire-cart were a match for the Campaign of Terror. “I’ll recruit a company of volunteers,” the old man said, sitting up straight on his chair. “They won’t need much training; just to be observant, and to be seen to be everywhere. If the killers know the roads are being patrolled and unusual movements reported, they won’t be so free to travel around themselves.”