“My friend won’t want any money himself,” Eukairios explained, with some embarrassment. “Not when I tell him there’s a child’s life at stake. But hiding runaway slaves… well, you know how it is.”
“Hercules, Eukairios!” exclaimed Facilis, greatly amused. “Anyone would think you know how it is!”
“Eukairios,” I said, “do you have the tablets we were given yesterday?”
He nodded, becoming all at once very tense and unhappy. “Yes, my lord. I… looked at them last night. They… they contain at least one very unpleasant surprise.”
“Fetch them now,” I ordered.
He went off. Facilis looked at me suspiciously. “This is the result of the ‘plotting with strangers’ your men were so worked up about last night?”
“Yes. You have authority, you say, to pursue inquiries. I have information that might help. I cannot give it to you directly, though. I swore on fire that I would not show these tablets to the authorities, as most of the people whose names are written on them are innocent of any wrongdoing but would still suffer if their sympathies were known.”
“Whose are the names, then?”
“I have not had time to read them. It is a list of known druids, together with those who have helped them and the places they have hidden.”
“Jupiter Optimus Maximus! How on earth…” He stared at me in disbelief. “Is it from Siyavak?”
I shook my head. “When I hear from him, I hope to end the contest. This merely begins it.”
Banadaspos’ eyes lit up.
“Then how in the name of all the gods…”
Eukairios came back with the tablets. He stood holding them under one arm, looking at Facilis apprehensively. If Facilis used the list openly, the druids would probably realize where it came from, and then Eukairios and the Christians would suffer in turn.
“Very well,” Facilis said, swallowing his astonishment. “I won’t ask how you got them. I won’t ask to see them. I won’t charge anybody just because they’re on that list. I’ll simply go and visit them privately, with you, if you like, and use my authority to search for evidence. There’s no point me swearing it on fire, because I’m no Sarmatian, but I promise you solemnly not to abuse your sources, and may the gods destroy me in the worst way if I do. Does that satisfy you?”
I nodded. I didn’t trust him not to break his oath, but I did trust him to honor mine and to avoid cruelty.
“What’s the nasty surprise, then?” Facilis growled, turning to Eukairios. “Who’s on the list?”
The scribe opened the tablets and looked down them, and set his finger against one entry. When he spoke, it was in a low voice that even the rest of our party, eating their bread and drinking their milk a few feet away, could not hear. “There is the name of a man believed to be from the city of Lindum, who came to Eburacum about a year ago, and has been active among the druids there on occasions since. The name, as reported here, is Comittus son of Tasciovanus. He is described as a young man, and believed to be an army officer.”
“Hercules!” whispered Facilis; “Marha!” exclaimed Banadaspos.
“The only thing I’m not sure of is the patronymic,” said Eukairios. “ ‘Javolenus’ is, of course, a Roman family name, and would not be used for… religious purposes. Lindum as origin is, I believe, correct, and the time matches.”
“It makes sense,” whispered Facilis. “He’s had one foot in the British camp all along, his cousin got him his place, and he admires her. He always swears by the divine Mothers and Maponus and the other old gods of the Britons. It fits horribly well.”
“Do the tablets say if he follows the extreme sect?” I asked.
“No,” replied Eukairios, closing them. “That detail’s been included when it’s known-but usually our… informants… wouldn’t know that.”
Lucius Javolenus Comittus. You can call me Comittus, because you’re not a Roman either. I remembered him smiling as he praised Bodica, and weeping over the Picts. I also remembered him lending me his horse, and making room for me on his couch in Dubris, and vouching for me to the legate-and arriving at River End Farm with Leimanos, overjoyed to see me still alive. And I remembered, with sudden uncomfortable vividness, his misery when the news of the cursing tablet reached Cilurnum, and his hesitant attempts, repeated attempts, to talk to me about it-attempts I, in my distress over Pervica, brushed impatiently aside.
“He is not a follower of the extreme sect,” I said. “He did not know what Bodica had done until news of it reached the whole camp, and he was distressed when he learned it.”
“I think you may be right,” said Facilis grimly, “but I think he’s got a few explanations to make to us, nonetheless.”
“I pray to all the gods that he is innocent,” said Banadaspos. He spoke softly and with passionate sincerity. But his hand was on the hilt of his dagger, and it was perfectly clear what would happen to Comittus if he were guilty.
I looked at him levelly and said, “You swore to me that you would stay quiet and do no violence until I gave you leave to strike.”
Banadaspos looked back, then let his breath out unhappily through his nose and took his hand off his dagger. He nodded.
“I think that he is innocent,” I consoled him.
We made the journey back as quickly as we could-though this was no great improvement on our time for the journey down, given the short days and the appalling weather. Eukairios and I went over the list of names and passed on to Facilis a few whom the Christians of Eburacum had considered ringleaders. He did not press us for more; he in fact seemed very relaxed, and more cheerful than he had been since I’d known him. He rode beside the wagon and talked to Vilbia, he played with the baby-whose thin cry grew stronger and louder by the day-and in the evenings he chatted with my men, making no further attempt to disguise his knowledge of our language. It emerged that he’d learned it much as I’d learned Latin, from a settled farmer on our side of the Danube whom he’d paid to teach him when he was still a private soldier, hoping to make himself useful enough to his superiors to win promotion. He genuinely was what he had told Valerius Natalis and Julius Priscus, a legionary expert on Sarmatians, and he had been advising his superior officers on us for years.
“Well, what did you expect?” he asked me, when I expressed my surprise at this. “You knew that the emperor had appointed me himself. Your three dragons were the first to be sent west, and two of them were considered particularly likely to be difficult. Naturally the emperor looked for an officer with some experience to put in charge of you. He made a mistake, and I botched the job-but he chose sensibly on credentials.”
“Why was Lord Gatalas considered likely to be difficult?” asked Banadaspos, who was with us during this discussion.
Facilis gave him a snort and a bob of the eyebrows. “Gatalas wasn’t. He never looted the villa of a governor of Asia, or drank from a centurion’s skull. Even when I decided to follow you lot to Britain, I was more worried about your own commander than either of the other two. It’s why I asked for Cilurnum.”
We arrived at Corstopitum around noon on the fourth day of the journey. When we reached the bridge, I arranged that Facilis and Eukairios would go into the city to see if they could arrange a place for Vilbia. Kasagos and his squadron would stay with the wagons and, when somewhere had been found for the girl, take them on to Cilurnum. I and my bodyguard would ride at once to River End Farm. I was very anxious to see Pervica.
I found the farm this time without difficulty. I reined in my horse at the top of the hill and sat looking for a moment. There had been snow during the night, and the fields were white and smooth; the river beyond flashed icily silver in the fitful sunlight. The farm buildings nestled in their hollow, whitened thatch above gray walls, kitchen smoke rising in a thin blue column from the back. It was a scene of such peace that my eyes stung to look at it. I’d been afraid that when I crested that hill I’d see only blackened ruins.