The Eagle of the Ninth Read online

  ‘The sheath was made by a British craftsman,’ Marcus said stubbornly. ‘I bought it at Anderida when I first landed.’

  ‘By a British craftsman, yes, making a Roman pattern. One who had lived so long under the wings of Rome—he and his fathers before him—that he had forgotten the ways and the spirit of his own people.’ He laid the shield down again. ‘You are the builders of coursed stone walls, the makers of straight roads and ordered justice and disciplined troops. We know that, we know it all too well. We know that your justice is more sure than ours, and when we rise against you, we see our hosts break against the discipline of your troops, as the sea breaks against a rock. And we do not understand, because all these things are of the ordered pattern, and only the free curves of the shield-boss are real to us. We do not understand. And when the time comes that we begin to understand your world, too often we lose the understanding of our own.’

  For a while they were silent, watching Cub at his beetlehunting. Then Marcus said, ‘When I came out from home, a year and a half ago, it all seemed so simple.’ His gaze dropped again to the buckler on the bench beside him, seeing the strange, swelling curves of the boss with new eyes. Esca had chosen his symbol well, he thought: between the formal pattern on his dagger-sheath and the formless yet potent beauty of the shield-boss lay all the distance that could lie between two worlds. And yet between individual people, people like Esca, and Marcus, and Cottia, the distance narrowed so that you could reach across it, one to another, so that it ceased to matter.

  VIII

  THE HEALER WITH THE KNIFE

  MARCUS had said ‘Come when you like,’ and Cottia had said, ‘I will come tomorrow.’ But it was not so simple as that, after all. Kaeso would have made no particular difficulty, for he was an easygoing and kindly man, very eager to stand well with his Roman fellow-Magistrate. But Aunt Valaria, always so careful to follow the custom of what she called ‘civilized Society’, was very sure that it was not the custom for gently nurtured Roman maidens to take themselves into other people’s gardens and make friends with the total strangers they found there. It was not as though Aquila had ever shown himself in the least friendly.

  Marcus of course knew nothing of this; he only knew that Cottia did not come tomorrow, nor the day after. And he told himself that there was no reason why she should. It had been to see Cub that she came in the first place, and having seen him, why should she come again? He had thought that perhaps she wanted to be friends, but it seemed that that had been a mistake, and it did not much matter.

  And then on the third day, when he had sworn to himself that he would not look for her coming any more, he heard her calling his name, softly and urgently, and when he looked up from the spear-blade that he had been burnishing, there she was, standing where he had first seen her, among the wild fruit-trees.

  ‘Marcus! Marcus, I could not get free of Nissa before,’ she began breathlessly. ‘They say that I must not come again.’

  Marcus laid down the spear, and demanded, ‘Why?’

  She glanced quickly over her shoulder into her own garden. ‘Aunt Valaria says it is not seemly for a Roman maiden to do as I have done. But I am not a Roman maiden; and oh, Marcus, you must make her let me come! You must!’

  She was hovering on the edge of flight, even while she spoke, and clearly it was no time for needless talk or long explanations. ‘She shall let you come,’ Marcus said quickly, ‘but it may take time. Now go, before they catch you.’ He made her a swift half-laughing obeisance, palm to forehead, and she turned and dropped out of sight.

  Marcus returned to his burnishing. The whole incident had come and gone as quickly as the flight of a bird across the garden, but behind it he was suddenly happier than he had been for three days.

  That evening, after talking it over with Esca, he laid the whole problem before Uncle Aquila.

  ‘And what,’ inquired Uncle Aquila when he had finished, ‘do you suggest that I should do about it?’

  ‘If you could make a few neighbourly remarks to the Lady Valaria the next time you cross her path, I think it would help.’

  ‘But Jupiter! I scarce know the woman, save to bow to her as Kaeso’s wife.’

  ‘Which is exactly why a few neighbourly remarks seem indicated.’

  ‘And what if she becomes neighbourly in return?’ demanded Uncle Aquila in blighting tones.

  ‘She cannot invade you here in your stronghold, at all events, since there are no womenfolk to receive her,’ Marcus pointed out, quite unblighted.

  ‘There is truth in that, admittedly. Why do you want the chit to come?’

  ‘Oh—because she and Cub understand each other.’

  ‘And so I am to be thrown to the lions in order that Cub may have his playmate?’

  Marcus laughed. ‘It is only one lion, or rather lioness.’ And then the laughter left him. ‘Uncle Aquila, we do need your help. I would contrive to play Perseus for myself, but at this stage nothing I could do would in the least avail to rescue Andromeda. It is a job for the head of the household.’

  ‘It was peaceful in this house before you came,’ said Uncle Aquila with resignation. ‘You are an unutterable nuisance, but I suppose you must have your own way.’

  Marcus was never quite sure how it was brought about. Certainly Uncle Aquila never appeared to bestir himself at all in the matter, but from that time forward there began to be more of surface friendliness between the two houses, and before the woods below the old ramparts had thickened into full leaf, Cottia had become a part of life in the Aquila household, and came and went as it pleased her, and as it pleased Marcus.

  Esca, who was by nature silent and withdrawn with anyone save the young Roman, was somewhat prone at first to stand on his dignity as a slave, where she was concerned; but he lowered his barriers to her little by little, so far as it was in him to lower them to anyone who was not Marcus. And Marcus tyrannized over and laughed at her, and was content in her company; he taught her to play ‘Flash the Fingers’, a game beloved of Legionaries and gladiators; and told her long stories about his old home in the Etruscan hills. Telling Cottia about it, conjuring up for her the sights and sounds and smells, seemed somehow to bring it all nearer and ease the ache of exile; and as he told about it, he would catch again that first glimpse of the farmstead from the corner of the hill track where the wild cherry-trees grew. ‘There were always a lot of pigeons strutting and fluttering about the courtyards and the roofs, and their necks would catch the sunlight and shine iridescent green and purple; little white stock-doves, too, with coral-pink feet. And when you came into the courtyard they would all burst upwards with a great deal of fuss, and then come circling down again round your feet. And then old Argos would come out of his kennel and bark and wag his tail at the same time; and there would be a wonderful smell of whatever was for supper—grilled river trout, perhaps, or fried chicken if it was a special occasion. And when I came home in the evening, after being out all day, my mother would come to the door when she heard Argos barking…’

  Cottia never tired of hearing about the farm in the Etruscan hills, and Marcus, homesick as he was, never tired of telling her. One day he even showed her his olivewood bird.

  But towards the summer’s end he began to have more and more trouble with the old wound. He had grown so used to the dull ache of it that often he could forget about it altogether, but now there was a jangling sharpness in the old ache, that could not be forgotten, and sometimes the scars were hot to touch and reddened and angry to the sight.

  Matters came to a head on a hot August evening, when Marcus and his uncle had just played out their usual game of draughts. It had been a blazing day, and even out here in the courtyard there seemed no air. The evening sky was drained of all colour by the day’s heat, a bleached and weary sky, and the scent of the roses and cistus in the courtyard jars hung heavy in the air, as smoke hangs in misty weather.

  Marcus had been feeling sick with pain all day, and the heavy sweetness of the flowers seemed
to stick in his throat. He had played a thoroughly bad game, and he knew it. He could not lie still. He shifted a little in search of an easier position, and then shifted again, pretending that he had only moved to look at Cub—half grown now, and superbly handsome lying sprawled on the cooling turf beside Procyon, with whom he had long ago made friends.

  Uncle Aquila was watching a yellow wagtail on the bath-house roof, and Marcus shifted yet again, hoping that he would not notice.

  ‘Wound troublesome tonight?’ inquired Uncle Aquila, his eye still following the yellow wagtail as it scuttled after flies on the warm tiles.

  Marcus said, ‘No, sir. Why?’

  ‘Oh, I merely wondered. You are quite sure?’

  ‘Perfectly.’

  Uncle Aquila brought his eye down from the yellow wagtail, and fixed it on Marcus. ‘What a liar you are,’ he remarked conversationally. Then, as Marcus’s mouth tightened, he leaned forward, crashing a huge hand on the draughts-board and scattering the pieces broadcast. ‘This has been going on long enough! If that fat fool Ulpius does not know his craft, I have an old friend in practice at Durinum who does. Rufrius Galarius. He was one of our field surgeons. He shall come and take a look at that leg.’

  ‘I should not think for a moment that he will,’ Marcus said. ‘It is a long way from Durinum.’

  ‘He will come,’ said Uncle Aquila. ‘He and I used to hunt boar together. Oh yes, he will come.’

  And come he did.

  Rufrius Galarius, one-time field surgeon of the Second Legion, was a blue-jowled Spaniard with a merry eye, close curling black hair scarcely touched with grey, and a chest like a barrel. But his blunt wrestler’s hands were very sure and gentle, Marcus found, a few evenings later, when he lay on his narrow cot while his uncle’s friend examined the old wounds.

  It seemed a long time before he had finished; and when he had, he replaced the rug, straightened his back and strode swearing up and down the little cell. ‘Who in the name of Typhon searched this wound?’ he demanded at last, swinging round on him.

  ‘The camp surgeon at Isca Dumnoniorum,’ Marcus said.

  ‘Been there twenty years, and drunk as a mule-driver at Saturnalia, every night of them,’ snapped Galarius. ‘I know these passed-over camp surgeons. Butchers and assassins, every one!’ He made an indescribable and very vulgar noise.

  ‘Not every night, and he was a very hard-working soul,’ said Marcus, doing his best for the shaggy and rather pathetic old man whom he remembered with liking.

  ‘Puh!’ said Galarius. Then his manner changed abruptly, and he came and sat himself down on the edge of the cot. ‘The thing is that he did not finish his work,’ he said.

  Marcus ran the tip of his tongue over uncomfortably dry lips. ‘You mean—it is all to do again?’

  The other nodded. ‘You will have no peace until the wound has been re-searched.’

  ‘When—’ Marcus began, and checked, trying desperately to steady the shameful flinching at the corner of his mouth.

  ‘In the morning. Since it must be done, the sooner it were done the better.’ He put a hand on Marcus’s shoulder, and kept it there.

  For a moment Marcus lay rigid under the blunt, kindly hand, then he drew a long, uneven breath, and relaxed, with a rather crooked attempt at a smile. ‘I beg your forgiveness. I think I—am rather tired.’

  ‘It seems possible,’ agreed the surgeon. ‘You have had rough marching lately. Oh yes, I know. But soon you will have it behind you and better things ahead. I promise you that.’

  For a while he sat there, talking of matters that were a long way from tomorrow morning, drifting from the flavour of native oysters to the iniquities of provincial taxgatherers, yarning about the early days on the Silurian frontier, and long-ago boar hunts with Uncle Aquila. ‘We were great hunters, your uncle and I; and now we grow stiff in our joints and set in our ways. Sometimes I think I will pack up and go on my travels again, before it is too late and I am utterly rusted into my socket. But I chose the wrong branch of my calling for that. A surgeon’s craft is none so easily picked up and carried about the world. An oculist’s, now, that is the craft for a follower of Aesculapius with the itch to wander! Here in the north, where so many have the marsh-blindness, an oculist’s stamp is a talisman to carry a man safely where a Legion could not go.’ And he launched out into an account of the adventures of an acquaintance who had crossed the Western Ocean and plied his trade through the wilds of Hibernia, a few years before, while Marcus listened with about half his attention, little guessing that the time was to come when that story would be tremendously important to him.

  Presently Galarius got up, stretching until the little muscles cracked behind his bull-shoulders. ‘Now I go to talk hunting with Aquila until bedtime. Do you lie still, and sleep as well as may be, and I shall be back early in the morning.’

  And with a brusque nod, he turned and strode out into the colonnade.

  With him, most of Marcus’s hard-held courage seemed to go too. He was horrified to find that he was shivering—shivering at the smell of pain as a horse shivers at the smell of fire. Lying with his forearm pressed across his eyes, he lashed himself with his own contempt, but found no help in it. He felt cold in his stomach and very alone.

  There came a sudden pattering across the floor, and a cold muzzle was thrust against his shoulder. He opened his eyes to see Cub’s grinning head within a few inches of his own. ‘Thanks, Cub,’ he said, and shifted a little to catch the great head between his hands as Cub put his fore-paws on the cot and blew lovingly in his face. It was near to sunset, and the light of the westering sun was flooding into the cell, splashing like quivering golden water on walls and ceiling. Marcus had not seen it come, and it seemed to break singing on his sight, as a fanfare of trumpets breaks upon the ear. The light of Mithras, springing out of the dark.

  Esca, who had come hard behind Cub, appeared in the doorway, sending a great thrust of shadow up the sunlit wall as he came to Marcus’s side. ‘I have spoken with Rufrius Galarius,’ he said.

  Marcus nodded. ‘He will need your help in the morning. You will do that for me?’

  ‘I am the Centurion’s body-slave; who but I should do it?’ Esca said, and bent to disentangle the blanket.

  As he did so, sounds of a scuffle arose somewhere in the courtyard. Stephanos’s old bleating voice was raised in protest, and then a girl’s, high, clear, and hard. ‘Let me pass. If you do not let me pass, I’ll bite!’ The scuffle seemed to be resumed, and an instant later a howl of anguish from Stephanos told all too clearly that the threat had been carried out. As Marcus and Esca exchanged questioning glances, flying feet came along the colonnade, and Cottia burst into the doorway, a burnished, warlike figure, with the setting sun making a nimbus round her.

  Marcus raised himself on one elbow. ‘You little vixen! What have you done to Stephanos?’

  ‘I bit his hand,’ said Cottia, in the same clear, hard voice. ‘He tried to keep me out.’

  The scuff-scuff of hurrying sandals sounded behind her even while she spoke, and Marcus said urgently, ‘Esca, in the name of Light, go and keep him out of here!’ He felt suddenly that he could not deal with a righteously indignant Stephanos at this moment. Then, as Esca strode out to do his bidding, he turned on Cottia. ‘And what is it that you suppose you are doing here, my Lady?’

  She came close, thrusting in beside Cub, and stood looking down at him accusingly. ‘Why did you not tell me?’ she demanded.

  ‘Tell you what?’ But he knew what.

  ‘About the Healer with the Knife. I saw him come in a mule carriage, through the storeroom window, and Nissa told me why he came.’

  ‘Nissa talks too much,’ Marcus said. ‘I did not mean that you should know until it was all over and done with.’

  ‘You had no right not to tell me,’ she said stormily. ‘It was mine to know!’ And then in an anxious rush, ‘What will he do to you?’

  Marcus hesitated an instant, but if he did not tell her, the
unspeakable Nissa undoubtedly would. ‘I am to have the wound cleaned up. That is all.’

  Her face seemed to grow narrower and more sharply pointed while he looked at it. ‘When?’ she asked.

  ‘In the morning, very early.’

  ‘Send Esca to tell me when it is over.’

  ‘It will be very early,’ Marcus said firmly. ‘You will scarcely be awake by then.’

  ‘I shall be awake,’ Cottia said. ‘I shall be waiting at the bottom of the garden. And I shall wait there until Esca comes, whoever tries to take me away. I can bite others besides Stephanos, and if anyone tries to take me away, I will, and then I shall be beaten. You would not like to know that I had been beaten because you would not send Esca, would you, Marcus?’

  Marcus recognized defeat. ‘Esca shall come and tell you.’

  There was a long pause. Cottia stood very still, looking down at him. Then she said, ‘I wish it could be me instead.’

  It was a thing more easily said than meant, but Cottia did mean it. Looking at her, Marcus knew that. ‘Thank you, Cottia. I shall remember that. And now you must go home.’

  She drew back obediently, as Esca reappeared in the doorway. ‘I will go home. When may I come again?’

  ‘I do not know,’ Marcus said. ‘Esca shall come and tell you that also.’

  Without another word she turned and walked out into the golden light. At a sign from Marcus, the slave fell in behind her, and their steps sounded fainter and fainter along the colonnade.

  Marcus listened to them until they faded into silence, lying quiet, with the familiar rough warmth of Cub’s head under his hand. He was still unpleasantly cold in the pit of his stomach, but he no longer felt alone. In some way that he did not understand, Cub and Esca and Cottia had comforted and steadied him for what was coming.