‘I think I almost could. Whoever sent that message knew where Marcus was, and that he’d been invited to stay overnight. Who knew that, outside the mansio, except the man himself? It was a late invitation. Only you, Lyra, because the optio sent a messenger to tell you so — and let you know the coast was clear to come. And who knew I was out shopping near the forum with a slave? Only you again. Not even Marcus knew.’
She twisted in the soldier’s arms and tried to spit at me. ‘I’m admitting nothing, do you hear!’
Her courage was amazing. She must know what lay in wait for her. Marcus had the clearest notions where his duties lay where state security was concerned, and nothing I could say would change his mind. There was no way she could avoid the torturers after this.
I pulled myself up short. Of course there was. I should have guessed that clever Lyra would have something up her sleeve.
‘Search her, guards!’ I ordered, and though she wriggled like a demon, they did as I had said.
They were only just in time. In the split second that they hesitated, waiting for Marcus to nod and authorise the search, she had wrested one hand free, lifted her skirt, found the little bottle and raised it to her lips.
It had not been literally up her sleeve, of course. It was hanging on an inner belt round her waist, suspended by a little loop of cord — a small round-necked phial, made of coloured glass, exactly like the pieces I had seen. She had already pulled the cork out with her teeth and if the soldiers had not forced her hands away she would have drunk the poison at a draught. She wriggled like a demon, fought and bit, but they prised her fingers from the glass and took the phial away.
Almost at once, her whole demeanour changed. She was a prisoner of the Romans now, with no means of merciful escape. The fight went out of her and she stopped struggling at once, though she still glowered resentfully at me.
‘How did you know I had another phial?’
‘I guessed you must have something of the kind. You came in here to poison me, and it was always possible that you’d be caught. Even the optio’s servant knew you were in my room. You might have bluffed your way out of it — I can think of several things you might have tried — but if you failed it was important you should have a quick way out, so that you could not be made to talk.’
I could see the sweat-beads forming in her hair. She was terrified, and with good reason too. ‘Are you going to torture me?’ she said, and her voice was not as steady as it had been before. ‘It won’t do you any good. I’ve told you, I know nothing. And if I don’t reappear they’ll melt into the hills — and then you’ll never find them. That’s what will happen if you don’t let me go.’
‘We’ll pick up those nephews of yours outside the gates. They’re young; it won’t be difficult to make them talk.’
‘If you can catch them,’ she replied. ‘They know drains and culverts that you don’t know exist. And somebody would see you if you did. We have networks of watchers at a time like this. Our people would be in the caves in hours.’
‘We can go down to the bath-house end of town,’ Marcus said grimly, ‘turn out every building and set fire to it, if that’s what we have to do. We’ll flush your friends out somehow.’
‘But as the pavement-maker says, you don’t know who they are. You don’t even know how many. So how can you round them up?’ She was white and shaken but she still had Celtic pluck. ‘And it’s no good attempting to force it out of me — I’ll only tell you lies to make you stop. I don’t know who the others are, so I can’t tell you. They deliberately manage things that way.’
‘We can pick up the butcher, anyway. And the armourer. And Nyros too, if we act tonight.’
‘Not necessarily,’ I said. ‘They’re poised for flight. The first sight of soldiers and they’ll disappear. They have sympathisers through the area — women; children too. We can’t put the whole population to the sword — we’d have riots on our hands, and hundreds more would join the rebels in support. Besides, we might pick up a messenger or two but the real raiders would still be out in the caves. Better if we catch them unawares. I have a better plan. Lyra will write a letter to her brothers, telling them there’s been a change of plan. Her liaison with the optio is about to revealed, and rather than face demotion and disgrace, he is offering to elope with her. He would be a valuable captive: he has a lot of useful information and could be ransomed too, so instead of leaving him she will deliver him into rebel hands tomorrow with as many goods and horses as she can contrive. He plans to go to Isca where they can cross the frontier and escape, but she will ensure that on the way they call in at the roundhouse, where Nyros and his men can deal with him.’
‘And what is the use of-’ the optio began, but Lyra was too quick for him.
‘I refuse to write anything of the kind!’
‘My dear lady, it doesn’t matter if you write the note or not. On a rough wax tablet it is impossible to say who scratched the words. The thing is, it will appear to come from you. Your two nephews will be satisfied, and — when you go out to the forest at first light — I think we can be sure your party will not be set upon by ambushes. Though I’m sure that they’ll be watching for you on the road — so we had better make sure that you are there.’ I turned to Marcus. ‘You’ll have to set off with your escort, too, as though everything was just as usual, though you won’t go further than the marching-camp. Meantime, Regulus, with all the fast men and horses, he can get, will gallop round the back route to the farm, come in across the fields and break in upon the party from the rear. That way, with any luck, we’ll catch them in the act. He’ll still have to broach the defensive palisades and take the place by force, but with sufficient numbers they should manage that, and most of the rebels’ attention will be occupied elsewhere. If this succeeds we can arrest them all — and have the evidence against them too. We’ll have to send a warning to the marching-camp tonight — after Lyra’s little messengers have gone.’
‘They won’t go anywhere. They know better than to trust a Roman trick. They won’t believe that such a letter is from me. Not even if it’s handed to them by the sentry they know. They would have to see me with their own eyes, and have my signal that it was all right. And I refuse to do it.’
‘You won’t say that when you have a dagger in your ribs.’ Marcus had said little up to now, but I realised now that he was going to implement my plan.
‘Oh, you could force me out at sword-point, but what’s the use of that? Or having one of your great guardsmen pretending to be me? That will hardly convince the boys that the note is genuine. And I won’t go to Nyros either, and betray my friends.’
‘As to travelling tomorrow, madam, you may have no choice,’ I said. ‘But if you will not go out to the gate and persuade your nephews to accept the note, there is another lady in the mansio who will.’
Chapter Twenty-eight
It was a desperate expedient, but we were working against time, and the plan worked better than I feared it might. Lyra, realising at last that she was under real duress, was forced to scratch the letter in the wax herself, and if the letters occasionally wavered — the result of a warning knife-point at her back — it was no more than could have been expected from a scribbled note.
I was wary of attempts to send coded messages, so I insisted on dictating exactly what she wrote. I kept it simple, and she wrote it slowly, but clearly and with no mistakes. She was more literate than I would have guessed, and I remembered what Nyros had said about educating his whole family. When she had finished, I sealed the tablet up, and took it in to Gwellia, who had been most unkindly roused from sleep to help.
She did it splendidly. I would never have believed that my respectable wife could have echoed that swaying walk with such success. Gwellia was almost forty and her hair was turning grey, but under Lyra’s hooded cloak it was impossible to tell, and as she flaunted her way to the gate even the optio was gazing goggle-eyed.