The Return Page 5

  ‘We are too late,’ Tatius said. ‘Come on, we need a house to ourselves.’

  Alcimus was staring up at the girl.

  Tatius cuffed him. ‘Come on, you lascivious rustic. No time for that. When we are rich, we can have any women we want.’

  Outside in the street, Paullus thought he could smell burning.

  The door of the next house was locked. It took all three of them to kick it open. It robbed them of any element of surprise, but that was not something they needed.

  There was a fountain in the courtyard. Columns lined all four sides. Nothing had been disturbed.

  ‘Very nice,’ Tatius said.

  The men must have been hiding behind the pillars. There were two of them. One had a hunting spear, the other a sword. Tatius was not wearing mail, just a chest plate. Although he tried to twist out of the way, the spearhead caught him in the left shoulder. Instinctively Tatius doubled up and clutched the wound. For a moment he was at the mercy of his assailant. As a civilian might, the Greek hesitated. Just long enough for Paullus to get between them.

  Off to his right Paullus heard the rasp of steel as Alcimus fought the other man. Paullus did not take his eyes off the fiendish point of the spear. The Greek feinted at Paullus’ face, then jabbed down at his stomach. Gripping his sword two handed, Paullus deflected the blow. The momentum of the attack drove them together. Paullus brought his hobnailed boot down on the man’s sandaled foot. The Greek grunted with pain. Paullus smashed the palm of his left hand into the man’s nose. He felt the crunch of delicate bones breaking. The Greek staggered back a couple of paces. In one motion Paullus recovered his blade and lunged. The steel snagged on the man’s ribs, then was hilt deep in his chest. For a moment they gazed into each other’s eyes in a horrible intimacy. Then Paullus pushed him away and he fell to the floor.

  The quiet in the atrium was unnatural. Apart from his own breathing, all Paullus could hear was the water playing in the fountain. Alcimus had killed the other man.

  ‘Fuck!’ Tatius started swearing monotonously. ‘Fuck!’

  Alcimus moved to tend to his injured companion. The injury was painful, but superficial.

  Paullus walked to the fountain, put his sword on its lip and started to wash the blood off himself. He felt tired, and strangely drained.

  The old woman appeared like an apparition. Bent over the seated Tatius, Alcimus had his back to her. She flew at him, a long kitchen knife in her hand.

  As if trapped in a dream, all Paullus’ movements seemed sluggish. His fist grabbing the hilt, his legs propelling him forward, his mouth opening to yell a warning.

  Alcimus straightened and started to turn.

  Somehow Paullus was there. He knocked the knife aside with the edge of his blade, drew the sword back and stabbed her in the throat. The hot blood blinded him. Automatically he crouched, got his weapon out in a guard, wiped at his eyes with the back of his left hand.

  When his vision cleared, she was down. Her body convulsed as she choked out her life. Her long hair was bright with blood.

  They all stood, as if turned to stone.

  ‘Fuck!’ Tatius broke the spell.

  Somewhere in the house a child was crying.

  Paullus scanned every corner of the yard. No other threat was concealed there. He bent and cleaned his sword on the old woman’s dress. When it was spotless, he sheathed the weapon, then went back to the fountain to carry on washing.

  Tatius walked out of sight.

  Alcimus joined Paullus at the fountain. Neither spoke.

  The child stopped crying.

  The water in the pool at the base of the fountain was discoloured.

  Tatius came back out. He was carrying an amphora. They all drank as Tatius dressed his wound.

  ‘Now to work,’ Tatius said.

  They only took items that were valuable and easily carried: coins, jewellery, small statuettes of precious metal from the household shrine. Even so, back in the street, each had a sack or pillowcase of plunder. Now there was a strong smell of burning. By accident or design someone had fired the city. The drunken shouts of others looting were much closer.

  ‘We need to move fast,’ Tatius said.

  They ransacked two more households. Their inhabitants had fled. No soldiers challenged them. When they emerged from the second they were heavily encumbered. The street was full of smoke. Soot, like black snow, eddied in the backdraught of the fires.

  ‘One more house,’ Tatius said.

  ‘We have enough,’ Alcimus coughed. It was getting hard to breathe.

  ‘Alcimus is right,’ Paullus said. ‘The flames will cut us off.’

  ‘No, one last house,’ Tatius said. There was a strange, mad light in his eyes.

  CHAPTER 5

  Patria

  609 Ab Urbe Condita (145 BC)

  ACROSS THE CLOUDLESS SUMMER sky great flocks of gulls flew inland in serried ranks. The crow flapping its wings on the roof of the barn had emitted two deep croaks, then a long, strident cry. They were both sure signs of rain. The wheat was harvested, but not threshed or winnowed. Although there was not a breath of wind and the day was stifling, the tasks could not be postponed. Eutyches claimed that last night the fleas had bitten more vigorously, had thirsted more greedily for his blood. The old slave was adamant that it meant a coming storm.

  The threshing floor was of well-rammed clay. It was circular, a little raised in the centre so that the rain would run off and the water not stand. While Paullus had been away, Eutyches had maintained it well. He had drenched it with the dregs of the oil harvest, and there were no fissures to make openings for mice or ants, nowhere for the grains to get lost.

  At first light Paullus had gone up to the farm of Junius to borrow his ox. Each family owned one half of the team. It was an arrangement going back to the time of Paullus’ grandfather. Neither holding was large enough to justify keeping a pair of oxen. It had been odd driving it down past the ruin of the house of his neighbour Severus. Paullus had not cared for Severus. But it was strange that the stern old farmer was gone. He was an unlikely man to have killed himself, especially by the woman’s method of the noose.

  They had harnessed the oxen to the threshing sled. Paullus had stood on the sled, guiding the beasts with the crack of the whip. Round and round they had gone, the sharp hooves and the stones embedded underneath the heavy beams of the sled rubbing the grain out of the ears of the wheat. Eutyches had pitched in more sheaves. It was usually a task Paullus enjoyed. There was something soothing about the tread of the oxen and the weighty drag of the sled. But today he had been distracted. His mother had returned to her favourite theme over the last few days. It was time he married. Each evening she had discussed at length the suitability of various families with unwed daughters. This one was wealthy, and the dowry would be worth having, but their women were prone to miscarriages, their natures shrewish. That one had less land, and their girl was ill-favoured, but she was hard working and docile, and their females had a record of fertility.

  Paullus had been taciturn and noncommittal. As his mother talked, the words spoken by Tatius in Corinth had run through his mind. When we are rich, we can have any women we want. For now the serving girl in Roscius’ inn, the lascivious one from Gades, was more than enough to take care of any physical needs. There was plenty of time. Paullus was still young, just twenty-five, and now he was rich. It was not just the items hidden on the farm. Most of the coins and jewels he had left in Rome, deposited for safekeeping with Lucius Aurelius Orestes. The legate of his old legion might carry an unlucky last name, but he was a man of honour. The wealth of Paullus would be safe.

  There was no hurry for matrimony. With the new maid, his mother ran the household well enough. That thought brought another irritation. His mother was full of complaints about the new servant girl. She was lazy and slovenly and greedy. Things had gone missing and there had been accusations of petty theft. The other day his mother had beaten the girl when she could not find a pair of earr
ings. Paullus suspected they were merely misplaced – most likely by his mother herself – but it was not the place of a man to intervene in such domestic affairs.

  By mid-morning the threshing was done. As there was no wind, Paullus and Eutyches fetched the winnowing baskets. Paullus was annoyed. Yesterday the day labourer he had hired in the marketplace had announced he would be working for Ursus instead. The bigger farms were paying more. Of course Paullus could have matched the offer. But he had no wish to fan any rumours of the plunder with which he might have returned. Instead he had punched the impudent bastard in the face, knocked him down and kicked him. The bruises would win no sympathy from Ursus. Should the beating hamper his work, the labourer might find himself laid off without remuneration. An old priest like Ursus was a man of traditional ways, stern and unbending. It would serve the labourer right. A man should stand by his word.

  When there was a breeze winnowing was not too bad. You took a shovel or a fan shaped like an oar, and tossed the threshed crop high in the air. The lighter chaff blew away on the wind, and the heavier grain fell to the ground. On a still day the task was more unpleasant. Paullus and Eutyches loaded their baskets, rotated them like a sieve, occasionally flipping the contents, then they had to pick out the chaff from the top. It was a slow process, basket after basket. Almost at once they were working in a choking cloud of dust. Despite the sweat, their hands soon became dry, the skin on their knuckles began to crack. They were breathing chaff. It clogged their nostrils, irritated their eyes, worked its way under their tunics. It was everywhere, itching and scratching.

  Paullus was not sure how long they had been working when he saw Kaido. The old wise woman was by the tree stump in the lower field. She was burying something at its base. Paullus felt his anger rise. He threw down his basket and rounded on Eutyches.

  ‘You know my orders. There is to be no meddling in forbidden things.’

  The slave looked sly but unrepentant.

  ‘No consulting fortune tellers, astrologers, magicians, certainly not that old witch.’

  ‘It was good enough for your father,’ Eutyches said. ‘Kaido has powers.’

  ‘Superstitious nonsense.’

  ‘It can do no harm.’

  ‘It is against the law.’ Despite the firmness of his words, the anger of Paullus was ebbing away.

  ‘Who will tell the magistrates?’ Eutyches said.

  The question was rhetorical. Paullus’ resolve faltered. It was not that he doubted the powers of the old woman, more that he feared them.

  ‘What did you promise her?’

  ‘Some food, a few coins if her spell succeeds.’

  Paullus did not reply, but bent to retrieve his basket and resumed work.

  Her arcane ritual complete, Kaido sat by the tree stump and watched them.

  After a time, Eutyches nudged Paullus.

  The leaves at the very top of the chestnut and beech trees by the road were stirring. As Paullus watched, the thin very uppermost branches were beginning to sway slightly. There could be no doubt that a west wind was getting up, moving in off the sea and up the valley.

  There was a look of self-satisfaction on the ugly face of the slave.

  ‘Nothing but coincidence,’ Paullus said, but his voice lacked conviction. The sun was directly overhead. It was very hot, and Paullus’ throat was parched and raw. ‘We will take a break.’

  Paullus went to the well and drew up a bucket. He stripped to his loincloth and sluiced the water over his head and body. The wound on his left forearm that he had taken in the Sila was still pink. The old scar was white against his tanned thigh.

  Eutyches was stretched out in the shade of the barn, eating, as passive as the oxen stalled behind him. After he had swilled out his mouth with watered wine, Paullus drank deeply. He picked up a loaf and a hunk of cheese, and carried them with the flask over to Kaido.

  As he approached, he saw the old woman put her thumb between her first two fingers.

  Paullus put the food and drink down by her.

  Before she reached for the meal, quite deliberately she spat on her own chest.

  ‘You think I carry bad luck?’ Paullus said.

  She started to eat, not looking at him. ‘Your hands reek of blood.’

  ‘I was a soldier.’

  ‘You bring death to the valley.’

  Paullus said nothing.

  ‘It will take more than blood and water, more than a shaven head, to purify your pollution.’

  Still Paullus did not speak.

  ‘I have seen the ones that hunt you like hounds after a wounded fawn: Tisiphone, Allecto and Megaera.’

  As she uttered the ill-omened names, Paullus could not stop himself looking around. The farm slumbered in the haze of the midday heat. There was no sign of the three dark sisters.

  ‘What should I do?’ Paullus asked.

  ‘Only the Hero of Temesa can turn them from your steps.’

  Paullus turned away.

  ‘Your man promised me money.’

  Paullus walked to the well, where he had left his belt. The theta-shaped ornament shone in the sunlight. He took some coins from his wallet, then went back and crossed Kaido’s palm with silver.

  She did not thank him, but her face creased into a senile smile.

  ‘Intercede for me,’ Paullus said.

  ‘Only you can save yourself.’ The coins vanished into her grubby dress. She drained the last of the wine and, with no further valediction, clambered to her feet and limped away.

  Paullus roused Eutyches. They collected the winnowing fans from the barn and returned to work. As the afternoon wore on the gusting wind cooled their labours, pulling the plumes of chaff off the threshing floor and high out over the fields.

  They did not talk. The thoughts of Paullus took their own unhappy course.

  Kaido had named the Furies. Safer to call them the Kindly Ones. To utter their names ran the risk of summoning them. But, mercifully, they had not appeared.

  The poets and artists were wrong. The Furies did not have the heads of dogs, nor did they possess the wings of bats. They had no scourges in their hands, and their hair was not full of snakes. They looked like old women with dark faces and ragged clothes. But that made them no less terrifying.

  Kaido was right at least in part. On the long journey home from Corinth, Paullus several times had sacrificed a pig, had dug a trench, and let the blood flow into the black earth for the ghosts. Afterwards he had washed his hands in running water. In Brundisium he had shaved his head. None of it had bought more than a few days respite, sometimes no more than a few hours.

  In the old stories the Furies had pursued Orestes for years. Orestes had killed his mother. The Furies had driven him insane. Paullus envied Orestes. The matricide had a loyal companion, and the goddess Athena had annulled the curse. There were neither gods nor man to help Paullus.

  To seek absolution at the shrine of the Hero of Temesa, the priest would have to know what happened in that last house in Corinth, both the crime and the curse. Paullus had not told anyone, and he could not tell Ursus. The aged priest could not be trusted with such awful secrets. The curse echoed in his memory, like a stone in a dry well.

  Hades, hear me – Furies hunt him across the face of the world.

  CHAPTER 6

  Patria

  609 Ab Urbe Condita (145 BC)

  THE MONTH OF AUGUST. Thirty-one days. The nones fall on the fifth day. The day has thirteen hours. The night has eleven hours.

  Junius was illiterate. It did not matter. Years before someone had read to him the calendar inscribed on the wall of the forum in Temesa. Junius had a good memory.

  The sun is in the sign of Leo. The month is under the protection of Ceres. The stakes for the vines are prepared. Cereals are harvested, likewise the wheat. The stubble is burnt. Sacrifice to Hope, Safety and Diana. Celebrate the Volcanalia.

  The festival to Vulcan had been the previous day. Junius knew more than the words on the stone. In August
the ides were sacred to Jupiter, and there were also festivals to Portunus, Venus, Consus, Ops Consiva and Volturnus. A man of traditional devotion, on the correct day Junius offered a small libation to each divinity. If he was not too busy, and if he had the energy, he walked into town to watch the processions. A lifetime of piety had brought him few rewards.

  At the start of the day Junius would have liked porridge to eat. But it was summer, and not worth lighting a fire. He rummaged in the meagre store cupboard of his hut. Yesterday’s flatbread and a piece of cheese would suffice. The dog sat at his feet as he washed down the food with a cup of his own wine. As a tiny indulgence, he let the dog have the last of the bread. Its teeth took the morsel delicately from his fingers. The once black muzzle of the hound was silver. It appeared nearly as ancient as its owner.

  Life had not been kind to Junius, or to his family. One of four children, he had inherited just the five iugera of land where his hut stood overlooking the valley of the Sabutus. His wife, from a similarly large family, had brought the same amount. The dowry land was over the crest of Mount Ixias, two hours walk to the south. The path was steep, flanked with holm oaks, and invaded by brambles.

  They had had a son. Mindful of the previous generation, Junius had employed the method peasants had always used to ensure the boy was an only child. The birth had been difficult. For all her herbs and lore, old Kaido had nearly lost both mother and baby. Junius’ wife had wanted no more children. The boy had gone east into the Sila to work in a logging camp. He had not returned. Junius had never discovered the fate of his son. Most likely he had been killed by brigands. It had been too late to think of starting another family. Five winters ago Junius’ wife had caught a fever. Junius had given the few coins he had hoarded to the Bruttian wise woman, but her ministrations had done no good.

  After his wife died, Junius had not felt too lonely. There had been his neighbours. Some evenings he had walked down to see Severus or Furius, or they had come to him. The three old men would sit and drink their wine, talk of the weather and the crops, complain of the lack of respect and the indolence of the younger generation. Then Furius had died. Junius had little time for Furius’ son. Even before he went with the legions, Paullus had been too full of himself. Junius blamed the Greek schoolmaster in town. His friend Furius had paid good money to give the youth ideas above his station. Since he had returned, Paullus barely deigned to talk. Having won the corona civica, Paullus was yet more stiff and proud. There were stories that he had returned with his saddlebags bulging with gold.