Patrick Read online

  “No,” sniffed Scipio, feigning disinterest. “What did he say?”

  “He said, ‘No son of mine will be seen riding a broken-down plow pony. It is Boreas for you, my boy, or I shall never be able to hold my head up in the council again.’” I reached down and patted the proud black’s shapely neck. “So, here we are. But where”—I glanced around—“is Julian?”

  “He should be here,” agreed Rufus. “We have waited long enough. I say we go.”

  “Leave without him?” said Scipio. “We can’t do that. Besides, we’ll need his luck if we are to win back our losses from last time.”

  “It is because of his inscrutable luck that we lost so much last time,” answered Rufus. Snatching the reins from Scipio, he made to mount his horse.

  “Here!” shouted a voice from across the square. “You there!”

  I turned to see Hywel the butcher charging out into the square. He was a squat, bull-necked Briton, as wide as he was tall. “Greetings, my good man,” I called, adopting my father’s tone of breezy condescension, “I trust that the gods of commerce have blessed your tireless industry with the wealth you deserve.”

  He glared at me dismissively and shook his fist at us. “You know you cannot bring horses into the square! Clear out!”

  Little Bannavem Taburniae entertained ideas far above its humble station. It seemed someone had heard that a few of the great market towns had, for purposes of cleanliness and decorum, banned horses from their squares and marketplaces, and so the practice was instituted for our village, too. We, of course, happily ignored the prohibition.

  “Just look at that!” shouted Hywel, pointing at the pile of fresh dung Scipio’s brown mare had dropped onto the dusty flagstones. “Just look!”

  “What, have you never seen horse shit before?” inquired Scipio idly.

  “You are going to clean that up!” cried the butcher, growing red in the face. “We keep an orderly square in this town. You are going to clean it up now.”

  “Since you put it that way…” said Rufus. He glanced at me, and I recognized the wicked glint in his eye. Stooping to the green clods of manure, he took a soft, ripe ball into each hand, then straightened, and, with a quick flick of his wrist, lobbed one right for the butcher’s head.

  “Here, now!” squawked Hywel, ducking as the first missile sailed past his ear. The second struck him on the chest just beneath his chin. “Here!”

  “Stand still, rogue,” said Rufus, stooping for more dung. He sent two more handfalls whizzing straight to their target. Each left a satisfying green splat on the butcher’s round chest.

  Hywel back-stepped quickly, hands waving before him. “Here! Stop that, you!”

  Scipio quickly joined in. The dung flew, and the little butcher could not elude the stinking clods swiftly enough. He dodged one missile, only to have another strike him full on the face. “Now! Now!” he spluttered, wiping muck from his cheek. “I warn you, I am telling the council about this!”

  “My father is the council,” I replied. “Tell him whatever you like. I am certain you will find a sympathetic ear for your complaint despite a distinct lack of witnesses.”

  Another clod splatted onto his mantle. Realizing he was beaten, the butcher beat a graceless retreat under a heavy hail of horse manure. He disappeared into his stall, cursing us and shouting for someone—anyone—to witness the outrage against his honest and upright person.

  “Let’s leave,” said Scipio, glancing guiltily around the square.

  “You can go around smelling like a stable hand if you like,” replied Rufus coolly. “I am going to wash.” He pulled up the leather bucket from the well and proceeded to wash his hands in it. When he finished, he dumped the water into the street, then mounted his horse and, with a snap of the reins, cried, “Last one to Lycanum buys the beer!”

  “Wait!” shouted Scipio. Caught flat-footed with the leather bucket halfway down the well, he dropped the rope, vaulted into the saddle, and pounded after us. Rufus reached the archway first and galloped through. I followed, emerging from the square and onto the track just as Julian came ambling up on his brown mare. “After us!” I shouted. “We’re for Lycanum. Scipio’s buying the beer!”

  Julian slapped life into his mount and fell in behind me, ignoring Scipio’s cries to wait and allow him to catch up. We struck the single track leading out from the village and flew toward the high bluff on the edge of the town where it joined the coast road. Upon gaining the top of the hill, we came in sight of the sea, gleaming like beaten brass beneath the clear, cloudless sky.

  The day was warm, and it was good to let the horses run and feel the wind on our faces. Rufus led a spirited race all the way to Lycanum, stopping only when he reached the town gates. Unaccountably, one of the doors was closed, and there were soldiers from the garrison standing in front of the other.

  “What goes here?” called Rufus to one of the legionaries.

  “There is report of a raid last night near Guentonia,” replied the soldier.

  “Guentonia?” wondered Rufus. “That is miles away.”

  The soldier shrugged. “The magistrate has warned everyone to be on guard.”

  “Well, we saw nothing on the way just now,” put in Julian. “Guentonia is full of old women.”

  “Just so,” replied the soldier, waving us through.

  “Come to the Wolf later,” called Rufus, moving on. “We will give you a chance to win back your losses.”

  The soldier laughed. “If your purse is that heavy, friend, you can count on me to help lighten the load, never fear.”

  We clattered through the gate and into the town. Because it was market day, the streets were thronged with buyers, sellers, and their various wares. We moved through a herd of sheep being led by an old man and a ragged boy. Oblivious to what was going on around him, the toothless yokel stepped right into the path of Julian’s horse and was knocked down. He rolled on his backside and came up shouting unintelligibly and waving his stick.

  “Imbecile,” scoffed Julian. He wheeled his horse and scattered the sheep, which sent the old rustic into a paroxysm of rage. His boy darted after the panicked beasts, and we rode on deaf to the shepherd’s ranting.

  The market square swarmed with cattle and pigs making a foul stench in the hot sun, so we did not linger but went straight to the Old Black Wolf for the first of many good pots of beer that day. The revered institution was owned by a Briton named Owain, a jovial fellow who knew neither stranger nor enemy in all the world. Possessed of a naturally tolerant and magnanimous nature, his fat, round face beamed with good pleasure on all that passed beneath his serene, slightly nearsighted gaze. Fond of barking halfhearted orders and threats to his hirelings, he governed his tumbledown empire with all the bluff and bite of a hound grown comfortable and complacent in its warm place by the hearth.

  His wife, a sturdy matron of indeterminate years, wielded the real power behind the throne. She clumped around the Old Wolf in wooden shoes, her long gray hair bound in a dirty white cloth, deploying her sloven brigade of gap-toothed handmaids. With a word or a wink, cups and bowls were swiftly filled and loose order maintained within the rowdy precinct of the inn. Her name might have been Bucia, or perhaps Becca—I never knew which—and though she had a face like a ripe prune, she also brewed the incomparable black beer, which made her a goddess in our eyes.

  We arrived, as was our custom, clamoring for drink and sausages. “Good lads!” cried Owain, wiping his hands on the damp, greasy scrap of apron hanging from his broad belt. “Splendid to see you again. There is beer aplenty, of course, but sausages we have none.”

  “No sausages?” wondered Rufus in feigned anguish. “Man, what are you saying? We have ridden all the way from Bannavem on the mere promise of one of your incomparable sausages. What are we to do?”

  “What am I to do?” countered Owain genially. “They come from Guentonia, you know. And there has been no sign of a delivery today.”

  “But it is market day,” offe
red Julian, as if trying to help the misguided fellow see the error of his ways.

  “My point exactly, sir,” replied the innkeeper. For some reason, even though we were all of an age together, Owain always regarded Julian as the elder and more sensible of the four. In truth, he was neither. This disguise of respectability masked a dissident spirit; it was one of Julian’s best deceits. Nevertheless, Julian was “sir” while the rest of us were “lads.”

  “They come from Guentonia, as you—”

  “As you never tire of telling us,” said Rufus.

  “Right you are! They are saying the fortress there was attacked last night,” continued Owain.

  “We saw no sign of any trouble along the way,” Scipio informed him. “No doubt the gatemen saw their own shadows and pissed themselves with fright.”

  “No doubt you are right.” The innkeeper sighed. “As for the sausages…well, the little darlings were to have been here this morning, and I am still waiting.”

  “A sorry state of affairs,” agreed Rufus.

  “There will be chops later, if you like,” said Owain, moving to the back of the inn. “But now I will send the beer.”

  He disappeared into the fuggy darkness of the kitchen, and we heard him calling for someone to come and serve his thirsty guests. A few moments later a round-hipped young woman appeared with a pottery jug and a stack of wooden cups. She dropped the jug onto the board with a thump and clacked down the cups, eyeing Julian with a peculiar warmth in her cowlike gaze.

  “Why, hello, Magrid,” Julian said. “And how is my buxom, broad-beamed beauty?”

  She smiled with dumb modesty. “Hello, Julian,” she said, pouring a cup and pushing it toward him. “I’ve missed you these past days.”

  “For me the absence has been torture beyond enduring. But pine no more, my dainty flower, for the love of your life is here.”

  His flattery was as thick as it was insincere. Nevertheless her smile broadened, and the light came up in her eyes. She glanced around furtively and bent nearer; her bosom threatened to spill from the top of her dress. “Will you come to me later?”

  Julian reached out and took the top of her low-cut bodice and pulled her toward him; one overample breast bobbed free for all to see. “Not even wild animals could keep me away, heart of my heart,” said Julian, cupping the wayward breast.

  She slapped at his hand and straightened, rearranging her clothing. “Wait until tonight.” She gave him a seductive smile and moved off.

  “Would you bed that blowzy cow?” wondered Scipio incredulously.

  “Life is short and youth shorter still. Take your pleasures where you find them,” replied Julian with a superior shrug.

  “The trouble with Scipio is he finds no pleasure in anything but his own company,” said Rufus. “Not so, my virgin son?” He ruffled Scipio’s hair.

  “Better a crust in humble solitude than a banquet with barbarians,” muttered Scipio. Reaching for the jar, he filled his cup and one other, which he shoved across to me. “Succat understands, if you do not.”

  “Of course,” I said, raising the overflowing cup. “I have been known to utter the same sentiment myself from time to time. But tonight, my friends, it looks like a banquet with barbarians. So fill the jars, I say! And let the doxies beware!”

  Rufus laughed and raised his cup to mine, adding, “Let chaos reign!”

  “To chaos!” shouted Scipio.

  “Chaos and rebellion!” cried Julian, lofting his cup.

  We drank until the beer flowed down our chins, and smacked the empty cups on the board with a solid thump. Then we filled the cups and drank again. After a fair time Owain returned with a pile of chops on a wooden plate. We sent Magrid for two more jars and set about working our way through the chops, tossing the bones to the dogs as we went along.

  We were just finishing when the first of the legionaries came into the place. There were three of them: Darius, a tall, rangy fellow with short curly hair and a scar that puckered the side of his face; Fillipio, a squat, square-headed, bluntly good-natured trooper; and Audager, a large brooding lump of a man, a Saecsen and member of one of the many auxiliary cohorts which now supplied the British legions.

  We had seen them before and diced with them on occasion. “Hail, Legioni Augusti!” called Rufus when he caught sight of Darius stooping under the lintel. “Come! Bring your cups and sit with us.”

  We made room at the table, and the soldiers joined us. “So,” said Fillipio when he had settled himself on the bench, “the ala of Bannavem honors us with its exalted presence.” He looked at each us in turn. “What are you doing here?”

  “Where else should we be?” answered Rufus. Of the four of us, he most imagined himself a legionary—a general perhaps, or the commander of an elite cavalry troop. “A fast ride in the hot sun raises a thirst which nothing but the Black Wolf’s best will slake.”

  “You heard about the trouble at Guentonia.”

  “We heard,” said Rufus. “What of it?”

  “Two cohorts departed as soon as word reached the garrison,” Fillipio said. “They have not returned.”

  “Sleeping off their wine beside the road, I should think,” offered Scipio.

  “Guentonia is a fascinating place, of course,” Julian said. “Perhaps they decided to stay and take in the cultural amenities.”

  The soldiers grunted and dashed down the contents of their cups. I took up the jar to pour them each another drink, but Fillipio stood. “No more. We are back on patrol soon.”

  “Well, then,” I said, still holding out the jar, “just a small one to keep your tongues wet.”

  Audager took the jar from my hand and placed it firmly on the table. “You should go home.” His words were thick in his mouth, but the warning was clear.

  “When we feel like it,” Rufus replied, rising to the implied threat, “and not before.”

  The big Saecsen looked at him, then turned on his heel and walked away.

  “Audager is right,” Darius told us. “You should not be on the road after dark.”

  “Go home, lads,” said Fillipio, moving away. “If you leave now, you can be back in Bannavem before nightfall. We will drink and dice another day.”

  We watched the three soldiers out the door, and then Rufus said, “Afraid of their own shadows.”

  “Obviously,” replied Julian. His agreement lacked force, I noticed, and Scipio did not voice an opinion at all.

  “Are we going to let them spoil a good night’s roister?” I said, pouring more beer.

  In the end, however, the revel was spoiled. Although we waited long, few people came to the inn: just some merchants and a heavy-footed rustic or two stopping for a drink before heading home from the market. There were no more soldiers and, to my particular disappointment, none of the local girls of easy favor whose company we often purchased for the night. Even the promise of Magrid’s bountiful charms failed to ignite our damp spirits.

  As dusk fell, so, too, did a pall. The effort of forcing mirth and merriment into the increasingly dull proceedings grew too much at last. Julian disappeared after a while, and the rest of us sat clutching our cups in the gathering gloom as a dank uneasiness seeped into our souls. Finally, I grew weary of the squalid drear and rose. “Friends,” I said, “let us bury the corpse of this stillborn night.” I drained my cup and tossed it aside. “Misery and woe I can get at home for nothing.”

  I called for our horses and bade farewell to Owain, who said, “The rumors have everyone frightened, is all. Come again another night, and you will find us jolly enough.”

  “Don’t worry,” replied Scipio, “we’ll return another day to redeem this misspent night.”

  “Until then,” said Rufus, “farewell.”

  We went out into the yard and waited for our horses to appear. “Where has Julian got to?” wondered Scipio. “Why are we always waiting for that laggard.”

  “I’ll fetch him,” I said, and walked around to the back of the house, where I foun
d him and Magrid leaning against one of the outbuildings. Magrid had her mantle up around her hips, and Julian was pumping away, his face buried in her mounded bosom.

  I gave a little cough to announce my presence, and Magrid pushed Julian’s face around. “What now?” demanded Julian, his voice thick with lust.

  “We are leaving,” I said.

  “In a moment,” he replied.

  “Now.” I turned on my heel and walked away. “Good night to you, Magrid.”

  I returned to the yard, where the stable hand brought our horses, and Julian joined us soon after. We gave the boy a denarius for his trouble and then rode out; the guards at the gate were not for allowing us on the road, but Rufus told them they were behaving like fretful maidens, and they grudgingly opened the gate and let us go.

  The dying embers of a fiery sunset still glowed in the western sky, gleaming dull red and gold in the dark clouds sailing in from the sea. We turned onto the coast road and urged our horses to speed. Evening deepened around us as we rode; stars kindled and began to shine through gaps in the clouds. After a while we slackened our pace and continued in silence. The road was well known to us, the hills were quiet, the air warm and calm; it was a fine and peaceful night to be out in the world beneath the stars.

  Then, as we crested the last hill and turned inland toward Bannavem, I halted.

  “What is it?” said Scipio, reining up beside me.

  “Can’t you smell it?”

  “Smell what?”

  “Smoke.”

  “There!” said Rufus, joining us. I looked where he was pointing. A faint ruddy glow stained what appeared to be a dirty fog hanging just above the hilltops.

  “Christ in heaven…” I murmured; then, with a slash of the reins, I lashed Boreas to speed.

  Julian, last to join us, called after me. “Succat, what are you doing?”