Beyond the Wall Read online

  Sometimes a name burns for longer than the life of the person who carries it. A name can rouse a population to rebellion; become a war cry. But sometimes a person goes to their grave and is forgotten in an instant. And so it was with Lucius.

  His ashes had barely cooled when his father’s eye fell on Cassia.

  Titus Cornelius Festus watched the girl kneel. Watched her squeeze tears from her eyes.

  He’d paid for her rearing, her upkeep. Why shouldn’t he now reap the benefits his son was unable to enjoy?

  Three days after the funeral, Cassia made ready the ox-cart, preparing to drive its stone cargo from the quarry to the river where a ship was waiting to carry the load to Londinium. The captain would already be there, watching the tide, waiting for her arrival.

  But before she could leave, the steward sought her out. He declared that her day’s work was done. Silvio would drive the cart in her place. She must go at once to the villa where a body slave was waiting to assist her. She was to be bathed. Oiled. Scented. Her hair must be brushed and braided in a fashion pleasing to the master. Fresh clothing had no doubt already been laid out for her, although – he added with a laugh – there was little point in that! She wouldn’t be keeping it on for long. Once she was made presentable, then – at sunset – the steward said that he himself would come and get her and lead her to the room in which the master would be waiting. In case she’d somehow failed to grasp his meaning he slid a hand under the folds of her skirt.

  “He’s been waiting too long for a taste of this. Mind you treat him well, girl. For all our sakes.”

  Cassia knew what was intended. There was nothing to be said. Nothing to be done.

  Had Cassia’s mother been alive the girl could, perhaps, have better managed to perform the acts that the master expected. Her mother’s spirit had been broken. She would have whispered into her daughter’s ear as she plaited her hair in preparation for the night ahead, telling her to be meek, to submit, to endure whatever was done without a cry of protest. To fix a smile on her lips as though the master’s attentions did not revolt her. Such words might have carried Cassia through her first encounter with Titus Cornelius Festus. But her mother had joined her murdered sisters in the ground and there was no one to tell her how a slave girl should behave.

  After stroking the oxen’s necks Cassia handed their lead rope to Silvio. He cupped her hands in his for a moment.

  “Courage, my queen,” he said softly.

  It was an attempt to comfort, but his voice cracked as he spoke. Silvio was looking at her with a furious pity, but she would not meet her friend’s eyes or bid him farewell. Any more kindness from him would shatter her.

  Instead she turned and walked slowly towards the villa, thanking the gods that her brother was working in the fields that day. She would not have to face Rufus until it was over.

  It was as though she had been cast adrift on a stormy sea. The ground seemed to heave under her feet, the air was thick and foul-tasting. The cart track, the woods, the stream, the far-distant river – all the familiar scenes she had seen every day of her life, in all weathers and through every changing season – had become as flat and garish as a badly painted fresco.

  The villa ahead was famed for its opulence, for the brilliance of its mosaics, the elegance of its furnishings, the artistry of its painted walls, the wondrous size and splendour of its rooms. Titus Cornelius Festus’s proud boast was that there was no dwelling its equal this side of Londinium.

  Yet Cassia did not see grace or elegance. She saw the violence done to the land in the villa’s creation. Smelled the sweat of the slaves who had suffered during its construction. Her skin seemed chilled by the ghostly breath of those who had gone before.

  The bath-house was on the villa’s westernmost side. Whenever Titus Cornelius Festus, his family or his guests wished to bathe they entered through the house. But they were Romans. Gods forbid that Cassia should walk on the villa’s precious mosaic floors in her unclean state! There was an additional, external entrance at the rear where wood was delivered to fuel the fires and it was there she had been ordered to go.

  The girl was numb by the time she gave herself over to Flavia, the aged body slave who had been sent to help her.

  Flavia had been born among the wild tribes of Germania. But she had been captured by slavers and carried to Londinium for sale in the market there. A flaxen-haired girl with eyes as blue as cornflowers, she’d been purchased by the present master’s father when she was scarcely old enough to be counted a woman. She’d borne his child but her body had been too young to make the birth an easy one.

  She survived. The baby did not. And she was torn so badly by her labours that her body then repelled the master’s father. It was a blessing of sorts. She was demoted from concubine to house slave before her fourteenth summer was out.

  There was nothing Flavia had not seen. Nothing could surprise or shock her.

  Except this.

  This girl.

  Cassia.

  Flavia knew of her. How could she not? It had been the talk of the household when the mistress banished the girl from villa and gardens. From a distance, she’d watched her grow.

  Cassia stood before Flavia, tall, sturdy, naked. Her muscled arms and legs were tanned from the sun but beneath the tunic the skin was so white it had a tinge of blue. Her hair copper-coloured, her eyes green, her wrists and ankles marked by her mother. She was so silent. Seemed so strong. So proud.

  But she would be broken.

  The thought burned through Flavia’s head like a hot coal on ice.

  Cassia must get on with it. Endure as best she could. She was young. She would recover. In time.

  And if she was torn, hurt, bruised, beaten… If she bore a child? Well, then. It was the will of the gods, was it not? What could any woman do against them?

  Flavia worked deftly, with the reverent care of a priest preparing an animal for sacrifice. She washed the girl. Rubbed her with scented oils. Dressed her hair. Fastened on a silken robe.

  The very moment Flavia had finished, the steward was by the door, waiting.

  Cassia had neither looked at Flavia nor uttered a single sound. Her mind had gone. Fled far away into the dark. She would be safe there. Nothing could reach her.

  But Flavia was seized by a sudden impulse. She took the girl’s face in her hands and pressed a kiss to her forehead. In her native tongue she uttered a blessing, a prayer, an invocation for Mother Earth to protect this daughter.

  It was the kiss that pulled Cassia out of the cold, distant place she had retreated to.

  One kiss made all the difference.

  IV

  Meekly, head bowed, Cassia walked towards the master’s chamber. The steward led the way, his eyes bright, lips wet, his skin tingling with the thought of what Titus Cornelius Festus would do.

  And tomorrow … afterwards … oh yes! When the master had finished with her she’d be ripe for picking by any man who chose to have her just like her mother had been. And he’d be first in line. Before long he’d find a way. Against a tree, in a doorway.

  Wasn’t he owed that much? A lifetime’s bowing and scraping to Titus Cornelius Festus, a lifetime cowering and cringing? Whatever he could swipe from under the master’s nose he’d take. A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, a slice of beef.

  A girl.

  As he left her, a broad smile spread across his face.

  * * *

  Cassia was resigned to her fate, or so she thought. Titus Cornelius Festus was already reclining on a couch. He rose and padded across the floor, wasting no time in talk, but letting his eyes roam every inch of her flesh. He walked around her once. Stood behind her. Then his arms snaked about her waist, pulling her against his thighs, her back against his belly.

  While her eyes were tight shut, his fingers pressed and squeezed. The scent of his oil was thick in her nostrils: the essence of juniper, the stench of Rome.

  He turned her around, face to face, his lips trying to latch o
n to hers. But he had just eaten and his fish-stinking breath was too much. She turned her head, and that small act of resistance, that small display of revulsion, incensed him.

  A glancing blow. The back of his hand across her face. Then his palm under her chin, fingers and thumb against her throat, holding her still, his lips once again seeking hers. He expected no more trouble.

  But Flavia’s kiss had awoken Cassia. And the master’s blow sent a wild wolfish rage coursing through her veins. It bunched her hands into fists, made claws of her nails. Raking. Digging. Piercing flesh.

  His scream was high-pitched, girlish, comic, coming from so large a man. She laughed. As he turned to escape her nails the side of his head smashed into her mouth. In reflex, her teeth closed about his ear.

  She’d seen dogs fight: one clamping its jaws around the throat of another, and though it was shaken – though its back broke with the violence of the struggle – it did not release its grip. So it was with Cassia. There was no battle fury in her now, but simply a blinding terror that made her jaw seize. He threw her against the wall, the weight of his body crushing the breath from her, but her teeth stayed clenched. He writhed and twisted, howled in pain and still her teeth were locked. He stumbled. Both fell. Her head cracked on the floor. She lay, too stunned to stir. And now, only now was he free from her. Not because she had released him, but because the lower half of his ear was severed from his head. She had bitten clean through it. It was in her mouth, on her tongue. She spat it to the floor. Heaved, ready to vomit.

  There was a sliver of stillness. She saw his blood, hers, on the mosaic, pooling in the cracks between tiles … mingled.

  He was panting. Shocked. As was she. For one breath, two, he made no move. Then he lunged. She rolled sideways. Before he could lay another hand on her she was on her feet running, fleeing from the chamber, from the villa, past the astonished Flavia, through the garden, into the night. Into the woods. The untamed forest. Where – though her breath was torn and ragged, and fear seemed to ring loudly in her ears – she could still hear the distant sound of wolves howling at the moon.

  V

  Running.

  Terrified.

  Weeping.

  Blood on her lips.

  Blood on her tongue.

  Oiled skin and braided hair. An unfamiliar garment catching around her ankles.

  There was a moon, although in the dense forest it gave little light to see by. But Cassia had played in this place with the slave boys. She knew every part of it, every tree, every glade, every rock. Her feet found their way with no conscious thought of hers guiding them. She ducked under branches, skirted hollows, picked a path between the badger setts that dotted the ground with holes deep enough to break an ankle.

  She did not fear to die. But the thought of punishment – of the pain that would be inflicted before she passed from one world to the next – suddenly filled her with such bowel-loosening terror that she had to stop and squat.

  She had seen slaves burned with firebrands, their skin bubbling like a roasted boar. She’d heard of men staked to the ground and whipped, cut into pieces, chests opened up, their beating hearts fed to the dogs while they looked on. Men nailed to a wooden cross by their hands and feet, crucified, left to die by the sides of roads. And this for no more than spilling wine or dropping a platter of food.

  And she had maimed her master! He would carry the mark of her rebellion for ever.

  The taste of his skin, of his blood, was in her mouth. She spat and spat again, but could not rid herself of it. Neither could she wipe away the feel of his hands on her flesh, his fingers probing, pinching, taking possession. The smell of that oil in her nostrils. She wept. Vomited, the retching so violent it left her dizzied and weak.

  When at last she went on she stumbled and had to lean a moment against the tree. Under her fingers was rough bark. Soft moss. The feel of it brought a recollection from childhood.

  The steward had sent her with a message for the woodcutter. She’d been told to run, to hurry, but it was a bright spring morning, the bluebells thick on the ground. She’d ambled along slowly, breathing in their sweet smell.

  A mist had been rising from the river and, while she walked towards the sound of the woodcutter’s axe, it had begun to wind through the trees, slowly, quietly, with the stealth of a hunting cat. Suddenly there was nothing but dull greyness. She could hear the chopping still, but the mist distorted sound. She couldn’t tell which direction it was coming from. Frightened, she’d started screaming.

  The woodcutter had come at once, striding through the trees. He’d plucked her from the ground, holding her in his arms until she’d calmed herself. When she’d recovered from her fear he’d pressed her hand to the bark of a tree. He’d pushed it across the rough surface until her fingers met something cool and soft and damp, like fur, or hair. Cold, dead hair! She’d recoiled but the woodcutter had hushed her and said, “You can’t always take your direction from the sun or the stars, child. Feel here. It’s only moss. It hates the sunshine. If a tree is out in the open, moss will grow only on the northern side. Even here, where the woods are dense, it grows thickest there. The river lies north of the villa. Remember that, and you’ll always be able to find your way, even in the dark.”

  North.

  There was something in the sound of the word that stirred another memory. She reached for it, but it melted like the mist. And then she heard barks. Yelps. The faint sound of baying hounds.

  The master had called for his steward, and the steward had called for the dogs.

  Cassia panicked. Four legs could move so much faster than two! She could not outrun them. If there had been a stream close by, she would walk along it, hoping they might lose her scent. But she knew the lie of the land. There was no water for a mile or more. They would catch her long before then.

  As she had when she was small, she spoke her mother’s name aloud. She begged for help. To be drawn into the clouds or to melt into the earth. Could some goddess not transform her into an animal? A bird? A tree? Into something, someone else? Where was she to go, what was she to do?

  She prayed to mighty Jupiter.

  Yet it was not mighty Jupiter who answered.

  There are not words strange or subtle enough to describe the sensation Cassia had there in the forest.

  She could not hear the voices but rather felt them. She could not see the speakers and yet knew them to be women. They surrounded her, and yet had no form. They were not flesh, not of this world, and yet neither were they divine. Not living. Not dead. She did not understand their words. She had never heard their voices before. And yet they were familiar.

  “Help me!” she cried. “Help me!”

  The women were gone as suddenly as they had come. Cassia was alone again. They had given her no answer. And yet she knew what she must do.

  At her back, the baying of hounds, distant, but growing ever louder. Ahead – her skin prickled with awareness. The whisper of wolves. Fur against bark. Paws on leaf mould. Near, and coming nearer. A pack. Hunting. Scenting prey.

  If she crossed their path, if she yielded to them, if she did not struggle or fight, they would kill quickly and cleanly. One bite to the throat would be all she would know. Oh, she would be torn apart. She would be consumed. But she would know nothing of it. Better to die now than live and endure torture at the hands of Titus Cornelius Festus.

  Cassia started running towards the wolves.

  VI

  Do wolves mourn for their dead?

  Does grief make them howl to the moon?

  Who can say? A shaman, perhaps. But shamans keep their secrets to themselves.

  I will say only this: the year before Cassia fled, Titus Cornelius Festus had entertained two merchants of great wealth and power. After days of feasting and whoring, the Romans began to crave a different sport. They went hunting in the forest with Titus Cornelius Festus’s men and hounds. Hunting for wolves.

  But a wolf is no easy thing to track and kill, no
matter how many hounds run with you. A wolf is indifferent to the weight of your purse or the size of your ego. And the merchants were not the fine young warriors they imagined themselves to be.

  They found only one animal – a she-wolf who had recently whelped and was nursing her cubs. Full of wine-fuelled bravado, they dug her out from her den. She fought, killing two of the master’s dogs before succumbing to their teeth. Her cubs were slain – all but one, who was brought back to the villa for the further entertainment of the master and his friends. Teased and tormented by them, the cub had not survived the day.

  Do wolves know when one of their own is slain?

  Given a chance of revenge, would they take it?

  Cassia ran towards the pack fully intending to die, finding her way by instinct. With each step the hounds at her back drew nearer. They had her scent. And this time they were not running with corpulent, middle-aged merchants but only with the dog keeper and his boy, who were as fleet of foot as their animals.

  They did not want this chase. To hunt a fellow slave? A woman? Their hearts recoiled. But they had their orders. They knew the price of disobedience. And so on they ran.

  They were some fifty paces away when the girl reached a clearing. There was a small break in the canopy where the moonlight had broken through and lit the forest floor in a near-perfect circle.

  Eyes glinting. A dozen pairs. Fixed on Cassia.

  The deer the wolves had been hunting was forgotten. She walked to the centre of the circle. Knelt down. A human sacrifice. She turned her face to the sky. Waited for the bite.

  The constellation of Callisto, the Great Bear, was directly above her. Callisto. Raped by Jupiter. Turned into a bear. Swept into the stars. Callisto looking down on Cassia.