Beyond the Wall Read online

  “I…”

  Before she could say more he interrupted.

  “Clumsy girl! Did you fall in the river again?” He turned to the soldiers, jerking his thumb in her direction. “Pretty enough, wouldn’t you say? But shit for brains.” He looked at her once more. “Have you got the thyme?”

  “What? I don’t know…”

  “Idiot! Thyme! The herb he sent you to pick? By all the gods on Olympus, you haven’t kept the wits you were born with!”

  One of the soldiers asked, “You know this girl, Aquila?”

  “Oh yes. I’ve known her a long time. And surely you saw her pass this way earlier? Or are your powers of observation weakened by last night’s ale? Tansy is the niece of Quintus Hortensius. I’m going there now. I’ll see she gets home safe.”

  The lie was so smooth, so shamelessly told that Cassia herself was almost convinced by it. For a moment she thought her prayers in the forest had been answered; that her soul had been lifted from her own body and dropped into another form. Somehow she’d been transformed into a Roman.

  The soldier clapped the man he’d called Aquila on the back. “Take her then. Get her away from here before she causes more trouble.”

  The stranger took her by the arm. Aquila. The name meant “eagle”, did it not? The symbol of Rome. Of might. Of Empire. Of conquest. He was the living embodiment of it. His hand grasped her through the cloak’s cloth so his palm was not in contact with her flesh and for that she was grateful. To feel his skin on hers would have been unbearable.

  He didn’t hurt her, but there was no escaping his grip. They’d gone perhaps twenty paces along the road before she found her voice.

  “You’re mistaken…”

  He stopped, brought his face within a hand’s breadth of hers and said softly, “I know a woman in trouble when I see one. I couldn’t let you get arrested by those two. I know how they treat their prisoners. The female ones, at any rate.”

  She couldn’t miss his meaning. “Thank you.”

  “How did you get so wet?”

  “I don’t want to say.”

  “Well, then… Where are you from?”

  Did he take her for a fool? “I won’t tell you.”

  “And I suppose you won’t tell me why you’re here either?”

  “I am here … to live. To work.”

  “To work? At what?”

  “At anything. That is … anything honest.”

  “Ah, well, there I can help you.”

  “You? Why?”

  He smiled at her again. “Why not? Let’s just say it pleases me. Besides, I happen to know a man whose joints are failing him. He could use a younger pair of hands.”

  “For what?”

  “He’s a pharmacist. Cures. Remedies. Potions to heal the sick. He’s a fine man. And he won’t ask questions.”

  He seemed honest. There was something appealing about him: a charm that drew her. She was about to thank him again when a breeze from the river carried the scent of his skin to her nostrils. Juniper. The same oil favoured by Titus Cornelius Festus. Her eyes narrowed. She could not forget he was a Roman. An enemy. “And what would you want in return?”

  “What do you think I might want from you?” He looked at her. She didn’t answer. And so he said, “Ah … you think I’m in search of a mistress?” His tone was a little mocking. “No… You’re a delight to look at, but I’ve never needed to force a woman into my bed. I’ll help you for the same reason that I’d save a bird from a cat. I have a soft heart.”

  “I can’t accept.”

  “You’d refuse my introduction to Gaius Quintus Hortensius?”

  “I would. I do.”

  “And where will you go? You’re alone, aren’t you? No food, no money, no place to sleep. Night’s coming on. There’s nowhere you can go. No honest employer would take you looking like that. There are inns and taverns by the docks but you don’t look like the kind of woman who’d want to end up in a whorehouse. But if you don’t accept my help, believe me, spreading your legs is the only way you’ll get by.”

  The hopelessness of the situation overwhelmed her. Was that her only choice now? Had she run from Titus Cornelius Festus only to become a whore to any passing sailor?

  She looked at the stranger in front of her. He didn’t meet her eyes, but stood, staring down at the road, waiting for her to make up her mind.

  Perhaps the gods who had preserved her from the wolves, who had steered her feet to the river and melted the captain’s heart, had also sent this man?

  In a voice that was softened by sincerity he said, “I really can’t leave you alone here. Honour forbids it. Please, will you let me help?”

  Cassia weakened and he seemed to sense it.

  “I ask with all respect – will you let me help you?”

  She yielded.

  With a reluctant nod, Cassia put her fate entirely into the hands of an unknown Roman.

  IX

  Marcus Aurelius Aquila was the Roman’s full name. He told Cassia to call him Marcus and – though it felt awkwardly intimate – she did as he asked. He had helped her. How could she refuse?

  As Marcus led Cassia by the arm through the streets, he informed her that he was a trader. In the summer months he travelled the length of the country, all the way to the far north, selling salves and remedies for various illnesses. But with winter coming on, he planned to sit out the cold weather and sell what he could in Londinium.

  A straight road appeared to lead into the heart of the city but he didn’t take her along it. Instead he turned to the right and they walked along the dockside.

  The ship that had carried her to safety was moored, its cargo of stone being unloaded onto the shore. They passed within a few paces of it, but the crew neither looked at her nor made any comment and she carefully avoided meeting their eyes.

  But there were other vessels that drew her interest. There was one whose men were ebony-skinned, whose hair curled tight against their heads. Others who were the same beech-nut colour as Marcus, black hair slicked down on their skulls. They heaved great terracotta jars of oil and what she took to be fish sauce – from the smell of it – off the ship to a cart that waited on the land. The stink brought Titus Cornelius Festus to mind again and her stomach heaved. She missed a step and tripped. The sailors noticed and some whistled. Some called. Some offered her money. They’d taken her for a whore!

  One who’d just set down his jar on the cart approached, swaggering, but before he could speak Marcus stepped in front of her.

  “Don’t you know an honest woman when you see one?” He batted the man away, and Cassia was grateful of his protection. She moved closer to him and he released his grip on her arm, instead placing his hand on her shoulder, pulling her against him. They moved away from the dockside and down a side street.

  Here, things didn’t improve. They’d entered a narrow lane where every second building seemed to be a brothel. The sounds – grunts, cries, curses – that came from doors and windows made the sweat bead and start running down her back. Had she wondered for a moment about the wisdom of escaping from the master, those noises wiped all doubt away.

  Some women leaned through windows, looking for customers. One or two – the young, the pretty – called out to Marcus but he ignored them.

  Aged whores sat in the doorways. Their eyes followed him but they were too tired, too soul-weary to speak or sell themselves.

  Marcus and Cassia went on without a word and she – shocked by the squalid sights – offered up a silent prayer of thanks to whichever god had sent her this stranger. How could she ever have fared in this city alone?

  She’d heard the story of the Minotaur whispered in the huts by firelight. A monster, hidden in a labyrinth so complex that no one could ever find their way out. Londinium seemed to be just such a place. It was as the rumours said: its scale and size was no exaggeration. But to hear a thing and then to see it are two vastly different things.

  Marcus turned a corner. Then a
nother. He walked fast and she had to almost run to keep up with him. They twisted and turned this way and that, finally emerging onto a broad thoroughfare. At one end lay the Forum, a building of such immense size and splendour that Cassia stared, open-mouthed.

  He said gently, “Try not to look so astonished. Your eyes are on stalks.”

  “I can’t help it. I didn’t know there were so many people in the world! Or so many buildings.”

  “Don’t let them take you for a newcomer.”

  “They’d harm me?”

  “I haven’t time to tell you the many ways you’d be taken advantage of. You need to act as though you’ve lived here all your life. As though that building there is utterly ordinary. From now on nothing must surprise or alarm you. Don’t meet people’s eyes. Don’t invite conversation. Don’t try to please anyone. It marks you as a country girl.” He stopped for a moment. “Men here … they’re not respectful. They’ll grab at anything female. Do you know how to protect yourself?”

  Cassia smiled. The Boudica game had served her well. She’d wrestled and fought often enough to know exactly how to defend herself. “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  On they went. Sights and smells and sounds assailing her. Oil and steam thickened the air around the public baths, the amphitheatre reeked of sweat and blood. They passed countless villas that dwarfed that of Titus Cornelius Festus.

  Eventually they came to a quiet street that was wider than most and lined with trees. The dwellings were elegant but did not scream of wealth and power and seemed more designed for comfort than for show. As they went on the houses got smaller and were spread further apart. Were it not for the city wall that hemmed them in, Cassia would almost have believed they were entering the countryside.

  They had reached almost the very last building when Marcus stopped outside a modest villa. Square-built, of Roman style, walls enclosing a garden that was once neat and orderly but now overgrown and choked with weeds.

  Marcus knocked on the door but did not wait for an answer.

  “Wait here,” he told her. Pushing the door open, he walked inside.

  Cassia stood on the threshold.

  She could run. The Empire was broad, wasn’t it? She could go anywhere.

  But she’d seen enough in the streets of Londinium to terrify her. She wanted to be let in. To shut the door against the world. To be safe.

  The men’s voices were low. She couldn’t catch anything of what they were saying, but knew it must concern her. The conversation was brief. After a very short time, she was told to step inside.

  X

  Gaius Quintus Hortensius, renowned pharmacist, was a most incurious man. Herbs and their healing properties were his consuming passion. Cassia had never encountered anyone who showed so little interest in his fellow creatures. A person was a body, that was all. A body that may – or may not – have a specific ailment that he may or may not be able to cure. He gave no thought whatsoever to the mind or soul of any particular patient. Or to that of his new assistant. For, the minute she stepped over the threshold, that was what Cassia became.

  She’d entered a large room and it took her eyes a moment or two to adjust from the street to the dark interior. When they did, she saw a man hunched over a pestle and mortar, peering inside as though the bowl contained the secret of immortality.

  He’d already lost interest in Marcus and didn’t even seem to notice that Cassia had come in: he was too busy reaching out a finger and thumb to sample the mixture he’d worked on.

  “Too coarse,” he muttered. He cursed and began to grind again, but his fingers were stiff, his knuckles swollen. Holding the pestle clearly pained him.

  Marcus cleared his throat noisily. Reluctantly the pharmacist lifted his head.

  “Didn’t I say I’d find you help?” Marcus pulled Cassia forwards. “See. I’ve brought you a pair of strong and willing hands. She’ll help you for as long as you need her.”

  Gaius Quintus Hortensius pointed a gnarled finger at her. “I’ll not have my house filled with women’s gossip.”

  “Oh, she knows how to hold her tongue.”

  The pharmacist asked Cassia only one question: “Are you healthy?”

  “Yes.”

  He seemed disappointed. Without asking her name, he hobbled across the room, pressed the pestle into her hands and told her to grind the herbs he’d been struggling with. Where she’d come from, why she was alone, what her connection was to Marcus – he never asked. He didn’t seem to wonder about her sudden appearance at all.

  The job she’d been given wasn’t a hard one, yet Cassia had never used a pestle and mortar in her life. She’d worked out of doors, alongside men, and was unfamiliar with women’s more usual tasks. While she worked clumsily at the sage and thyme the two men talked.

  “Your joints still trouble you, I see,” said Marcus. “How goes the search for a remedy?”

  The herbalist cursed again. “A physician should be able to heal himself, should he not? I wish it were that simple. I know many things. But how to ease these joints of mine? It eludes me still.”

  “I’m sorry to hear it.”

  “Not as sorry as I am to feel it.”

  The smell of crushed herbs drifted to him across the room. He hobbled back to Cassia, sampled the mixture and declared himself satisfied.

  “I’ll leave her with you then,” said Marcus. “She’ll need feeding, remember. And a warm place to sleep.” He walked over to Cassia, took her hand in his, and bade her farewell.

  Their palms touched.

  His hand was warm, dry, unexpectedly rough. She’d thought it would be soft, smooth, oiled like the master’s and found his callouses strangely reassuring.

  She opened her mouth to thank him but before she could speak he dropped her hand as if he’d been scalded. A pained expression crossed his face and then he turned on his heel and walked out of the door without another word.

  XI

  For what remained of the day there was plenty to occupy Cassia’s mind and body.

  Following the pharmacist’s command, she crushed the sage and thyme into a smooth, green paste.

  “Now this,” he said, pushing a pot of honey across the counter towards her. “Not too much, mind.”

  When that was done to his satisfaction he handed her an onion. “Chop.”

  She obliged, cutting the thing clumsily into chunks, her eyes beginning to stream as the juices were released.

  “Add it to that. Crush it. It must be smooth. No lumps.”

  He watched the contents of the mortar like a hawk, oblivious to the fact that now Cassia’s nose was streaming as freely as her eyes.

  Last to be added was the juice of a lemon. She sliced it in two. Squeezed each half in her hands, the juice stinging the cuts she’d received during her flight through the forest.

  When the task was done at last he commanded her to pour the mixture into a jar. He sealed it himself and gave no explanation as to what or who the remedy was for.

  Snapping “Come along,” he then led her into a garden that was badly in need of weeding. He couldn’t bend to do the task himself, but neither could he bear the sound of slaves’ chatter. “You must work silently,” he said, “Or not at all.”

  Cassia simply nodded mutely and he rewarded her with a sniff.

  He informed her in his querulous voice which were herbs and which were weeds and stood watching to make sure she did not tear up any of his valuable or beneficial plants.

  But Cassia already knew which herbs were which. Titus Cornelius Festus never sent for a doctor to cure a slave. A physician’s fees were so high, he reasoned, and able-bodied replacements could be bought so easily! It was cheaper to let sick slaves die. To have them smothered if they lingered too long in the process. Among the huts the slaves had developed their own cures. Cassia knew what would soothe an upset stomach, what would ease a headache or prevent a sore from festering, even if she had not brewed the remedies herself.

  This was work she
understood. Gaius leaned upon a stick and watched her pull away weeds, allowing his precious herbs room to breathe. When the sun sank below the horizon, he ordered her to light lamps and prepare his meal. Thankfully no cooking was involved, for this, again, was something she’d never learned to do. Bread. Cheese. Olives. Wine. When it was arranged to his satisfaction, she was permitted to sit in the corner like a dog and watch him eat.

  She’d had no food since the day before but didn’t wish to mention it. Yet her stomach betrayed her, rumbling loudly before he’d taken his first mouthful. He looked at her. Seemed to think for a while. Then he threw her a crust.

  “There’s more in the kitchen. Take what you need, but don’t stuff yourself.”

  Ravenous though she was, she forced herself to take only a little and eat the food slowly, quietly. The hiding place Marcus had brought her to was perfect: she didn’t wish to offend her new master.

  When she’d finished her meagre meal Gaius told her she could make herself comfortable on the floor of the kitchen. He’d expect her to rise before first light and be ready to work. She curled up on bedding that was musty and damp but she was scarcely aware of any discomfort. Sleep overwhelmed her suddenly and completely; all thoughts of Rufus were rubbed out by exhaustion.

  For most of the night, she didn’t stir. But as the sky began to lighten a dream curled its way into her head, subtle and slight as a wisp of smoke.

  She was standing in a strange landscape – on the lower slopes of a broad valley that seemed to have been scraped out of the hills with a gigantic spoon. It was edged on both sides by mountains so high that if she climbed them she’d only have to reach out a hand to brush the clouds. The plants that grew at her feet were unfamiliar. Wiry, purple-flowered, interspersed with peculiarly coarse grass. In the distance was a lake, still and silvered, a mirror to land and sky. A rushing stream close by flowed into it. There was a boulder in its middle and an ancient rowan clinging to a cleft in the rock. She had never seen these things in her waking life.