Marcus looked extremely vexed at this. ‘And leave my carts and carriage to be a target on the road? You can report back that we are entirely safe and that we are going to the farmstead to interview the owner of these pigs. There must be a farm track somewhere. Two of you must go back and guard the vehicles while we complete our business.’ He scowled. ‘How did you find us, anyway?’
The horseman almost smiled. ‘We tracked you through the trees. It wasn’t difficult.’ He saw the look on Marcus’s face and added quickly, ‘Where is this house, Excellence?’
Marcus looked at me. ‘Libertus?’
But Subulcus had already understood. ‘On the outskirts of the forest, down this track. You come to the main track, where the big oak is. .’ He gabbled directions in such garbled Celtic that I could hardly follow them.
I nodded. ‘I think you should come with us, Subulcus, and show us where it is. We’ll leave some soldiers here, to guard your pigs.’
Subulcus looked most disturbed at this. ‘My master told me I must stay here all the time.’
‘You left here yesterday,’ I pointed out.
‘But that was different. The soldier told me that my master wanted me. And even then look what happened when I left the pigs. But you have to do it, if a soldier says.’
I saw what was required. I turned to Regulus. ‘Would you tell him, very slowly, that he has to come with us? He’ll only do it if he’s asked by someone with the right authority. I think your uniform might do the trick.’
Regulus looked doubtful, but he did as I asked and it worked exactly as I’d hoped. Subulcus reluctantly agreed to leave his precious charges in the care of the optio’s men, although he was clearly very dubious about this. It was almost laughable. Instead of shambling Subulcus, there would be a party of professional soldiers guarding them with their daggers drawn. Rarely could a herd of pigs have enjoyed such good protection in the whole history of swine.
The crash of military sandals through the undergrowth alerted us to the arrival of the larger troop. Marcus was for dispatching them straight back to guard the carts, but the optio argued fiercely that half of the company should come with us, and the rest should be left behind to guard the carriages and the pigs. Before he could be briskly overruled, there was a rustle in the trees — which might have been an ambush, but was probably a bear — and Marcus abruptly changed his mind. Subulcus, the optio and I would lead the way, while he, his bodyguard and a score of the foot guard would follow on behind, along with the ten remaining outriders.
In this military formation we set off down the track. The appearance of so many Roman uniforms had reduced the poor swineherd to uneasy silence now, and despite my best attempts at questioning him about his master and the nature of the tribe, I couldn’t get another sentence out of him until we reached the oak.
‘There it is,’ he said. ‘Just as I told you.’ He gestured to a massive tree, set back a little from the road. It was partly screened by lower bushes, but there was a clear space carefully maintained around the bole, and even from here I could see the sacred mistletoe in the upper fork and the strips of tell-tale rag tied and left hanging from the boughs.
I caught my breath. This was not a simple marker on the corner of a lane, as I had thoughtlessly expected, but a proper sacred oak — a Druid shrine. As we reached the entrance to what was effectively a grove, I could see that there were statues planted in the ground and that the great trunk was daubed with something red and darkening. I gulped. I had not seen a sacred tree like this for many years, but when I saw one last, the branches were adorned with severed human heads. The gruesome spectacle had haunted me for years — though of course my own ancestors would once have worshipped somewhere very similar, hung with the heads of their enemies.
Thankfully, there was nothing of the kind in evidence this time, at least from where we stood — although I did not care to wonder what the daubs might be. I knew already what the little statues were: symbolic faces made of rock or wood, some with cat-like ears and furrowed brows — a sort of substitute for proper heads. I debated for a moment what I should say and do. Druidism is forbidden under Rome on pain of death, and if Marcus realised what this tree signified he would set the soldiers on to it at once, to cut down the rags and hew the branches off, and order that the countryside be searched for devotees.
I glanced at Subulcus. It was obvious that he was one of them. He was edging past the grove with awe, and I knew that any desecration of the shrine would not only cost us any trust he might have had in us, but terrify him into speechlessness as well. He would not help us if we touched the tree.
I tried to strike a note of bored contempt. ‘Some sort of local altar, Excellence. You know these people worship streams and trees.’ I gestured down the track. ‘I imagine the homestead is along this path.’
‘Then lead us to it,’ he said icily. He didn’t glance again towards the oak.
It was a good deal easier marching on the lane, but it was still some time before we reached the limit of the trees and saw the farmstead nestling on the raised ground opposite: a small gathering of roundhouses, perhaps ten or twelve — almost a tribal hamlet — built of stone and protected by a stout fence of triple stakes within a ditch, the smoke of wood fires rising through the thatch.
The place was almost fortified and had clearly been constructed for defence, but today there was no guard in evidence. A pair of tethered dogs set up a bark at our approach, and a tall thin woman in a shawl came out to gape suspiciously at us. Subulcus called something that I could not catch — it sounded like a password — and she scurried off, returning in a moment with one of the most striking men I’ve ever seen.
He was clearly a person of importance in his tribe. He was not tall — no taller than myself — and was no longer young, but he had enormous presence. He wore old-fashioned Celtic dress: plaid trousers, belted at the waist, and a jerkin of the same fine-woven coloured cloth, adorned by a single mighty silver brooch of intricate design. His hair, which had been shaved to halfway over his head, was long and flowing at the back, bleached fair with lime, and though he wore no beard the length of his moustache was wonderful.
He looked at the company outside his gate. ‘I am Kiminiros, keeper of the fire and by the grace of the gods of tree and river elder of this tribe. What do you want with me?’
Chapter Fifteen
I glanced back at Marcus and the optio to see what their reaction was. To appear cowed or threatening would be a mistake. However, I need not have been concerned. Already my patron was striding forward through the ranks of guards and coming to address the Silurian elder face to face.
This meeting of two representatives of different ways of life was an imposing sight: Marcus magnificent in his spotless toga (the gods alone know how he managed to keep it so effortlessly white — mine would have been stained with grass and travel long ago), his rank emphasised by the width of purple stripe, and the bevy of armed men at his back; and the thin old man in his tribal plaid standing with a simple dignity quite alone on his side of the gate. Even the woman had slipped away and gone back to the dwelling huts by now.
I had been ready to translate for this minor chieftain, as I had done for Subulcus before, but when he spoke it was in faultless Latin — his deep voice as impressive as his appearance was.
‘You come in peace, I trust? It is many, many harvests since my tribe fought with yours, and longer yet since there were swordsmen at my door.’ We were a large group and our troops were armed, but he behaved for all the world as if he were favouring us by granting audience. He gestured towards Subulcus. ‘I see you have my swineherd with you. I hope he has not contrived to offend you in some way?’