Claudia Severa was trying not to giggle. ‘Peace, my friend, you must give poor Ferox a chance.’
‘Why should I, Prima, my friend?’ she said, looking him up and down. ‘He does not appear frail.’
Ferox guessed that she was a year or two past twenty, and the hairstyle she had adopted was even more ornate than Claudia Severa’s with pearls dotted along the green ribbon arranging the coils of her hair and between some of the ringlets. She was quite tall, long boned like most of her tribe, with a slim face and surprisingly full-lipped mouth. More pearls were in her neat ears. Her eyes were pale, more green than brown, and they continued to inspect him. Her Latin carried no accent, and was precise and sophisticated even as the words galloped out. The dress was of shimmering silk, expensive, although modestly cut with a high neck and, like all the other ladies in the room, no sleeves. Her arms were fashionably white, although lacking the slight hint of plumpness considered perfect in a lady. A Greek sculptor would have wept with joy if he had carved limbs like that on the statue of a growing boy.
‘My lady, it is an honour to meet you.’
‘I shall not bother to deny the truth,’ she replied.
Claudia Severa chuckled, and then remembered where she was. ‘You are as mischievous as Cupid, my dear. So to restore decorum I shall formally introduce Flavius Ferox, centurio regionarius, and a friend of mine and of Brocchus, and dear Cerialis and his wife.’
‘I have heard of you,’ Enica said. ‘Still, it may be that the worst stories are not wholly true.’
‘They probably are,’ he said, and thought he saw delight in her eyes.
‘Ferox, yes, now it comes back to me. Your grandfather was Lord of the Hills, or whatever it is you Silures call your greatest chief.’
‘He was, my lady.’
‘And you do not have kings, only princes and chiefs.’
‘Something like that. Now we have Rome and peace, or so I am told.’
‘As have we all.’ Enica smiled. Her teeth were neat and very white against her rouged lips. She put her head slightly on one side as she looked at him. ‘You answer, but you do not ask? Is it then true that Silures simply take whatever they want, not bothering to ask first?’
‘We try our best, my lady.’
The legate’s chamberlain pounded his staff on the flagstone floor for silence and then announced that dinner was about to be served, inviting guests to take their places. There were three triclinia, three sets each of three couches laid in a U-shape, the open side to allow slaves to bring in successive platters. Ferox was unsurprised to find himself with the least prestigious. Arviragus was with Crassus, Sulpicia Lepidina, Ovidius, the three military tribunes and a squat figure he had learned was the procurator of the province. Enica and Claudia Severa were among decurions of Londinium, a number of prefects and a couple more women he did not know. The last group had a couple of senior centurions, neither inclined much to speak, and traders and other local worthies. The wife of one, an elderly lady with a vague expression, was convinced they had met before, and spent most of the meal trying to work out where.
‘Were you ever in Colonia Agrippiniensis?’
‘I fear not, my lady.’
‘Noricum, perhaps. We lived there for a couple of years.’
‘Afraid not.’
‘Was it here in Londinium, oh, a good thirty years ago it must be.’
‘I regret that I was but a child then, my lady.’
‘Of course, of course, my apologies, I meant no offence.’ Her husband, happy to be relieved of the responsibility of amusing his wife, conversed enthusiastically with another trader on the opposite couch.
Ferox listened politely, stole glances at Sulpicia Lepidina, and now and then at the red-haired Brigantian princess, since that presumably was what she must be. Once he looked to see that she was already watching him. She shook her head like a mother disappointed at a small boy surreptitiously dropping food he did not like.
The dinner ended, and Ferox wondered whether Vindex and Gannascus had got into trouble. He had said that it was fine for them to explore, but did wonder whether they were ready for a big town. Or indeed whether Londinium was ready for them. He hoped that he would not have to go looking for them.
Near the end a slave slipped him a small roll of papyrus, tied tight and sealed with unmarked wax. As servants fussed to bring cloaks and the company prepared to leave, for just a moment Sulpicia Lepidina caught his eye.
To his relief, all of his companions were back at the house, smelling strongly of beer and already snoring away. By the light of a lamp he opened the letter.
I need help. Come when I call.
VIII
THE ARCHIVES WERE housed in several buildings in and around an even older fort than the one they had passed on the way into the city. This one had had its walls and most of its buildings demolished, and the rest converted much like the old base at Lindum. The largest building of the archive was obviously two old barrack blocks knocked together, with numbers painted by the door to each room. Inside were rows of shelves, with just enough space to squeeze between them. Greek letters and Latin numbers were painted on the wood so that each slot had its own identity, and held a single folded wooden tablet. On most the original seal was long since broken, and a piece of ribbon fixed, the colour depending on the year it arrived. A notation on the side of the tablet was made each time its content was amended. In theory this meant that it should be straightforward enough to find any document, if you knew what category it should fall into and when it was written. Which was all fine, if only Ferox had had any clear idea of where to start.
The orders from the legate helped a great deal. A gift of an amphora of wine to the speculator responsible for overall supervision of the archives, another slightly smaller one to the beneficiarius who spent most of his days there, and gifts of money to buy a few drinks to the three exacti who actually ran the place had done almost as much to oil the wheels of bureaucracy.
‘Just like being back in Rome,’ Ovidius had said when Ferox suggested that they take this precaution. ‘If only the sun would get warm I could feel right at home! By the way, I had a bright idea during the night. Acco says he is the last of the true druids, does he not?’ In truth that was what others said, and the priest chose not to deny. ‘Well, perhaps I ought to start with the correspondence and especially the reports written by Suetonius Paulinus? After all, he was the fellow who did more than anyone else to crush the cult. Crossed over to destroy their most sacred shrines on Mona – is that how you say it?’
‘Yes, it is. And, yes, that is as good a starting place as any. Agricola went back twenty years later, so you may want to take a look at what he said as well.’
‘Splendid!’ Ovidius seemed genuinely excited by the task. They had decided that the old man would begin searching in the rooms where records on papyrus were kept, since he was more used to such things than the smaller army documents written often on wood and full of the abbreviations and other pieces of obscure military terminology. Ferox suspected that there was slightly more chance of finding something useful among the papyri than in the mundane reports and returns that composed most of the wooden archive. Yet he doubted that they would come across anything. He wished that Ovidius had not mentioned Mona, a dark place even after all these years. A fear had been growing within him that he might have to go there and speaking the name aloud was like hearing the baying of hounds on his trail.