The Silver Branch Page 3

  ‘A hundred sesterces, Excellency.’

  ‘That is a great price for a very small flask of perfume.’

  ‘But such perfume, Excellency! The cost of such ingredients is very great, and I assure you a hundred sesterces allows me but a very small reward for my time and skill.’

  ‘So. I still think it a great price, but I’ll take it. Seal it up for me again.’

  ‘Allectus is most good and gracious.’ Serapion bowed, and continued his plaint as he warmed the stick of wax he had taken up, and again sealed the neck of the flask. ‘Aye, aye, costly they are indeed, such ingredients as these—sheer liquid gold. And on so many of them one must pay a king’s ransom in duty, to bring them into the province. Ah me, they come hard upon a poor man, these new taxes of the Emperor’s.’

  Allectus laughed softly. ‘Maybe you should lay the taxes at my door, friend. Who else should take the blame if not the Emperor’s Finance Minister?’

  ‘Why of course, your Excellency. See, here is the perfume.’ Serapion handed it over, glancing up under his thin lids as though to judge how far he might venture. ‘But is an Emperor always guided by his Finance Minister? They say in the market-place that sometimes a Finance Minister might be—not altogether at one with his Emperor in all things; that the taxes might be less harsh if—’

  ‘It is generally foolish to listen to market-place talk,’ said Allectus. ‘And generally foolish to repeat it.’ He slipped the flask into the breast of his fine woollen tunic, shaking his head with smiling impatience at the Egyptian’s protestation that he meant no harm. ‘Nay, man, we all let our tongues run away with us at times. Here, take your hundred sesterces.’ And with a courteous goodnight, which included the two young men, he gathered the folds of his cloak about him and was gone into the wintry darkness.

  Serapion the Egyptian stood looking after him, with an expression of sly understanding in his little bright eyes. Then he turned back to the two young men, with a face empty of everything except willingness to oblige.

  ‘And now, young sirs—I regret that you have been kept waiting. Is it some more of the muscle oil?—or maybe a gift for the ladies at home? I hear that you go on leave together in a few days’ time.’

  Justin was startled, for it was only that morning that Flavius had managed an exchange with another Centurion, so that they could take their leave at the same time.

  Flavius laughed. ‘Does ever anyone sneeze in Rutupiae that you don’t know about it within the hour? No, just the muscle oil.’

  They made the purchase, thinking no more of the little scene that was just past, and returned to barracks. And a few days later, when their leave fell due, set out together on the long two days’ ride westward, to spend it at the old farm in the Down Country that was Flavius’s home.

  ‘It is no good pushing on to Calleva,’ said Flavius, ‘because Aunt Honoria will be at Aqua Sulis taking the waters, at this time of year. So we’ll head along the chalk to the farm, and descend on Servius. He’ll be glad to see us—and so will the farm.’

  And then, as Justin looked at him sideways, he grinned, but said seriously enough, ‘The farm is always pleased to see the people it is fond of, and who are fond of it. You can feel it being pleased—like an old wise hound.’

  And when, towards dusk on the second day, with the frost crisping in the ruts of the wagon-way, they came through a little wood of oak and birch and wild cherry, and saw the house with its farm buildings at the head of the long downland valley, Justin knew what he meant. He felt the welcome reaching out to them, and knew that it was for him also, as though, stranger as he was, the place knew him for one of its own, and was glad of his coming.

  Presently there were other welcomes: from Servius the old steward who had been an optio under Flavius’s father; from Cutha his wife, and Kyndylan his son when he came up from the cattle; from the other farm-hands, free men and women, all of them. ‘Aunt Honoria has a few old slaves,’ Flavius said. ‘But we have always farmed with free labour. It makes it difficult at times, but we manage. Couldn’t change.’

  They spent five days at the farm, and it was during those five days that Justin first really discovered Britain. The bare winter woods dappled like a partridge’s breast, the slow, broad voices of the farm-hands, the lapwings on the winter plough-land; the low, long house itself, built on to by succeeding generations but holding still at its heart the smoke-blackened atrium, used as a store-room now, that had been the original houseplace, built by another Marcus Flavius Aquila making a home for himself and his British wife and the children that came after—these were all Britain to Justin.

  He had that other Marcus Flavius Aquila much in mind during those days while, with Flavius, he poked happily about the byres and barns, or helped old Buic the shepherd in the lambing-pens. It was as though, because he also was of Marcus’s blood, the old house, the whole downland valley was a link between them.

  He was thinking about that Marcus the last evening of all, as he and Flavius leaned side by side on the wall that kept the Downs from sliding into the vine terraces on the warm southern slope. From where they were, they could see the whole farm lying clear down to the shores of the forest that closed the valley at last, all quenched and quieted in the first faint thickening of the winter twilight.

  ‘It is queer, you know, Justin,’ Flavius said suddenly, ‘I’ve never been here for more than a few weeks at a time, since—since I was very small; but ever since I can remember it has been home to me.’ He propped himself more comfortably against the old dry-stone wall. ‘The place looks well enough, all things considered.’

  ‘What particular things?’ Justin asked.

  ‘Me being away with the Eagles, for one thing,’ Flavius said. ‘I ought really to have stayed at home and helped Servius run the farm. But you know how it is with us; the old Service is in all our blood; look at you, you’re a surgeon, but you couldn’t break away from the Eagles, even so. Luckily Servius is a better farmer than I could ever be—but it isn’t an easy world for farmers and the small estates nowadays. Things must have been so much simpler when my namesake first cleared this valley and made his home here.’

  They were silent a few moments, and then Flavius added, ‘You know, I’ve so often wondered what lay behind the starting of our farm.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  Flavius hesitated a moment. ‘Well, see now,’ he said at last. ‘He—Marcus—was only a very junior Centurion, if family accounts be true, when he was lamed in some tribal rising or other, and invalided out; and yet the Senate gave him the full land grant and gratuity for a time-expired Centurion. That isn’t like the Senate.’

  ‘Maybe he had a powerful friend on the Senate benches,’ Justin suggested. ‘Such things do happen.’

  Flavius shook his head. ‘I doubt it. We aren’t a family that collects powerful friends.’

  ‘A reward, a special p-payment of some kind, then?’

  ‘That seems more likely. The question is, what was it for?’

  Justin found that the other had turned his head to look at him, clearly hesitating on the edge of saying something. ‘You have an idea about that?’

  ‘I’m—not sure.’ Flavius most unexpectedly flushed up to the roots of his fiery hair. ‘But I’ve always wondered whether it could have been anything to do with the Ninth Legion.’

  ‘The Ninth Legion?’ Justin said, a little blankly. ‘The one that was ordered up into Valentia in the troubles, and was never seen again?’

  ‘Oh, I know it sounds far-fetched. I wouldn’t speak of it to anyone but you. But his father disappeared with the Ninth Legion, remember; and there’s always been a vague story in the family of some sort of an adventure in the North in his wild young days before he married and settled down. It’s just that, and a sort of—feeling I have—you know.’

  Justin nodded. He knew. But he said only, ‘I wonder … You know most of this is quite new to me. You must have the family history at your finger-tips.’

  Flavius la
ughed, the odd seriousness of the moment dropping from him as swiftly as seriousness generally did. ‘It is not me. It is Aunt Honoria. Nobody sneezed in the family for two hundred years that our Aunt Honoria doesn’t remember all about it.’ He leaned forward to call to Servius, who had appeared on the lowest of the three vine terraces. ‘Sa ha! Servius, we’re up here.’

  The old man looked up and saw them, and altered course toward them, marching up between the trained vines with a long legionary swing that seemed to carry with it the unheard jingle of accoutrements. ‘I see you.’ He halted just below them. ‘Cutha has the supper almost ready.’

  Flavius nodded. ‘We are coming,’ but he made for the moment no move, lingering as though unwilling to abandon his vantage point and come indoors on this last evening of his leave. ‘We were saying that the farm looks good,’ he said after a moment.

  ‘Aye, none so bad, all things considered.’ Servius unconsciously echoed Flavius’s words of a short while before. ‘But it is in my mind that we are falling behind the times. I’d like fine to see one of those new-fashioned water-mills down below the pool; we’ve enough head of water to turn the wheel.’

  ‘I’d like it too,’ Flavius said. ‘But it cannot be done.’

  ‘And well I know it. With the corn tax gone up to where it is, it is as much as we can do to hold our own, let alone rise to any new thing that we can do without.’

  Flavius said soberly, ‘Don’t grudge the corn tax. If we are to have a fleet and coastwise forts to keep the Saxons out, we must pay for them. Do you remember before Carausius took command, summer nights when we saw the coastwise farms burning, and wondered how much farther inland the Sea Wolves would come?’

  ‘Aye,’ Servius growled. ‘I remember well enough; no need that you remind me. Nay then, I’m not complaining at the corn tax, for I see the need of it—though mind you they do say that that right-hand man of the Emperor’s who sees to such things is none so much of the Emperor’s mind in the matter of taxes, and would find ways to ease them if he might.’

  ‘Who says?’ Flavius said quickly.

  ‘Folks. One of the tax-gatherers himself was talking about it at Venta a week or so back.’ Servius pushed himself off from the wall. ‘See, Cutha has lit the lamp. I’m away down to my supper, if you aren’t.’

  And he went swinging off into the softly gathering dusk, toward the light that had sprung up marigold-coloured in the houseplace window.

  The two cousins watched him for a moment in silence, then turned, as by common consent, to look at each other. There it was again, that vague half suggestion that Allectus and not Carausius was the man to follow, the man who had the people’s good at heart.

  Justin, with a little cleft deepening between his brows, was the first to speak. ‘That’s the second time,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ Flavius said. ‘I was just thinking that. But he shut Serapion up firmly enough.’

  Justin was thinking back over that little unimportant scene in the shop under the walls of Rutupiae, realizing something that he had not noticed at the time. ‘He did not deny it, though.’

  ‘Maybe it was true.’

  ‘I don’t see that that makes any d-difference,’ said Justin, who had his own rigid code of loyalty.

  Flavius looked at him a moment. ‘No, you’re right, of course it does not,’ he said slowly, at last. And then in sudden exasperation, ‘Oh Hell and the Furies! We are getting as fanciful as a pair of silly maidens up here in the dusk! First it was the Ninth Legion, and now … Come on, I want my supper.’

  He shook himself off from the wall and went striding down the steep path through the vine terraces toward the light in the window below.

  Justin followed, forbearing to point out that it was not he who had had the idea about the Ninth Legion.

  III

  THE HOUSE ON THE CLIFFS

  DURING their time at the farm, the weather had been gentle, green winter weather shot through with the promise of spring, but no sooner were they on the road than winter swooped back with the snow on its wings. That meant hard travelling, but there were still two hours of daylight left when, on the second day, Justin and Flavius changed horses at Limanis and set out on the last stage. The road skirted the forest of Anderida, and they rode with their ears full of the deep-sea roaring of the wind in the branches, heads down against the stinging sleet. And when, a couple of miles farther on, the road dipped to a paved ford beside which squatted a little forest smithy, the red glow of the forge fire seemed a kind of shout of warmth and colour amid the grey moanings of the storm-lashed woods.

  Through the sleet scurry they could make out a small group of dismounted cavalry before the smithy; and Flavius said, ‘Someone’s horse has cast a shoe, by the look of things.’ And then with a low whistle, ‘Name of Thunder! It’s the Emperor himself!’

  The Emperor it was, sitting very composedly on a fallen tree-trunk beside the way, with the sleet in his beard and the eagle-feathers of his helmet crest, and sleet whitening the shoulders of his purple cloak; and a small cavalry escort standing by, holding their horses, while Nestor, his big roan stallion, slobbered at the shoulder of the smith, who held one great round hoof between his leather-aproned knees.

  The Emperor looked up as the two young men drew rein, and raised thick brows under his helmet rim. ‘Ah, Centurion Aquila and our Junior Surgeon. What brings you riding these wintry roads?’

  Flavius had already swung down from his horse, slipping his arm through the rein. ‘Hail, Caesar. We are on our way back from leave. Can we be of any service, sir?’

  ‘Thank you, no. Nestor has cast a shoe, as you see, but Goban here has the matter well in hand.’

  A stinging blast of sleet whipped their faces, making every man shiver in his cloak, and causing the horses to swerve sideways, turning their heads from the gust. And the Decurion in command of the escort said beseechingly, ‘Excellency, will you not take one of my men’s horses and ride on? The man can bring Nestor after us.’

  Carausius settled more comfortably on his tree trunk, drawing the shoulder folds of his cloak about his ears. ‘A little sleet will not shrink me,’ he said, and eyed the Decurion with distaste. ‘Possibly, however, it is not so much my health that concerns you as that of your men—or possibly even yourself.’ And ignoring the poor man’s stuttering denial of the charge, turned his gaze back under a cocked eyebrow to the two cousins. ‘Are you two due in Rutupiae tonight?’

  ‘No, Caesar,’ Flavius said. ‘We allowed an extra day, but we have not needed it.’

  ‘Ah, an extra day for a winter journey, that is always a wise precaution. And this is certainly the most wintry of winter journeys.’ He seemed to consider for a moment, then nodded as though in full agreement with himself. ‘Surely it would be a cruel thing to drag ten men on a needless ten mile ride in such weather as this … Decurion, you may remount and take your men back to Limanis. I shall remain quietly here until Nestor is re-shod, and then ride on with these two of my Rutupiae officers. They will be all the escort that I shall need.’

  Justin, who had dismounted also by this time, and stood holding his horse on the fringe of the group, cast a somewhat startled glance at Flavius, who was staring straight before him as though he were on parade. The Decurion stiffened. ‘You—you are dismissing your escort, Caesar?’

  ‘I am dismissing my escort,’ agreed Carausius.

  The Decurion hesitated an instant, swallowing. ‘But Excellency—’

  ‘I bid you farewell, Decurion,’ said Carausius. His tone was gentle, but the Decurion whipped to the salute, and turned away in desperate haste, with the order to his men to mount.

  It was not until the little escort had swung on to their horses and were clattering away with the wind and sleet behind them down the Limanis road, that the Emperor turned back to the two young men, who stood by, holding their mounts. ‘I fear that I forgot to ask you whether you would accompany me,’ he said.

  Flavius’s lip twitched. ‘Does one refuse to ride
with an Emperor?’

  ‘If one is wise, one does not.’ Carausius’s blunt seaman’s face answered the laughter for an instant, harshly. ‘Also, observe; the wind is rising, Rutupiae is all of fifteen miles away, and my house, for which I was bound when Nestor cast his shoe, rather less than five, and once there I can offer you an open fire, and better wine than any they keep in Rutupiae.’

  And so some two hours later, fresh from a hot bath, Justin and Flavius were following a slave across the courtyard of a great house on the cliff edge high above the sea, to the chamber in the North Wing where the Emperor waited for them.

  The great square chamber was bright with lamps in tall bronze stands, and a fire of logs burned British fashion on a raised hearth, so that all the room was full of the fragrance of burning wood. Carausius, who had been standing by the fire, turned as they entered, saying, ‘Ah, you have washed the sleet out of your ears. Come you now, and eat.’

  And eat they did, at a small table drawn close before the hearth; a good meal, though an austere one for an Emperor, of hard-boiled duck eggs and sweet downland mutton broiled in milk, and wine that was better, as Carausius had promised, than anything they had at Rutupiae; thin yellow wine that tasted of sunshine and the south, in flasks of wonderful coloured glass, iridescent as the feathers of a pigeon’s neck, and wound about with gold and inset jewels.

  They were served by soft-footed table slaves of the usual kind, but behind Carausius’s chair, to serve him personally, stood a creature whom they had glimpsed once or twice before, distantly, at his lord’s heel, but never seen at close quarters.

  He was a very small man, lightly built as a mountain cat, his legs sheathed in close-fitting dark hose, his body in a woollen tunic of many coloured chequer that clung to him like a second skin. Straight black hair hung in heavy locks about his cheeks and neck, and his enormous eyes were made to seem still larger and more brilliant in his narrow, beardless face by the fine blue lines of tattooing that rimmed them round. About his waist was a broad strap of crimson leather set with bright bronze studs like a hound’s collar, and into this was thrust a musical instrument of some kind, a curved rod of bronze from which hung nine silver apples that gave out a thin and very sweet chiming as he moved. But the strangest thing about him only appeared when he turned away to take a dish from another slave, and Justin saw that hanging from his belt behind, he wore a hound’s tail.