I swallowed my hot mead in a gulp. ‘That would fit with Glypto’s estimate of the boy whose voice he heard. So perhaps the green man is our red-head after all. He might be Silurian, I suppose, like Minimus himself: lots of Silurians have that red-haired look — just as the Ordovices are tall and fair, like Quintus Severus. And there is nothing to say that the messenger was not a slave. That would explain that part of it — but I wonder how he came to know exactly where I lived?’
She had emptied her own beaker for a second time. ‘Who is this Glypto anyway?’ she said. But before I could reply, we were interrupted by the sound of running footsteps crunching up the path, and, as we looked at each other in surprise, a hooded apparition burst in through the door.
Eleven
I am not by nature a superstitious man, but the creature looked so like one of the evil dwarves our poems speak about that for a moment I was truly shocked, just as my daughter-in-law had been when I arrived. So when the apparition pushed back the heavy hood and revealed himself as Kurso, the little garden slave, swamped in my birrus britannicus from the shop, my first reaction was of sharp relief.
‘Kurso, what are you doing in my cape?’ I said. Alarm had made me sound severe and I regretted it at once. Any reprimand was apt to make him shake so much with fright that he was generally incapable of speech.
But tonight was an exception, it appeared.
‘Master, thank all the gods that you are safe!’ Stripping off the cape, he ran towards me and fell prostrate at my feet, kissing my sandals in an embarrassing display.
‘Now then, Kurso,’ I muttered awkwardly, ‘I’m glad you’re so delighted, but please get up at once.’ I took him by the arm and assisted him to rise.
He was still grinning at me in disbelief, though he was trembling. ‘We went to Glevum — we heard you’d been attacked and might be in danger of your life. There was a message. .’ He looked ready to kneel down and embrace my feet again.
I prevented him by saying, ‘So I understand. I don’t know who sent it, but, as you can see, it was a mistake. I am sorry to have occasioned everyone alarm. I am touched that the household was so concerned for me, but I’m sorry that you and your mistress had a long walk in the dark for nothing, and no doubt in anxiety as well. It must be disappointing to find me boringly at home, safe and well and drinking honeyed mead.’
I meant to tease him, but he did not smile. ‘Not disappointed, master, only glad. Though we already knew that it was a false alarm. We heard in Glevum that you were unhurt. The mistress was so relieved she sent me out for wine and poured it on the workshop altar as a sacrifice.’
Gwellia is no more an adherent of the Roman gods than I am, and I recognized how distressed she must have been to have thought of engaging in this little ritual. ‘I’ve never been the subject of thank-offering before. I must thank her for her care,’ I told him with a smile. ‘She is not far behind you, I assume?’
‘She and the young master’ — he meant Junio, of course — ‘are coming down the old lane this moment with the cart. But it’s difficult and dark.’ He shuffled a little closer to the fire, and I realized that the trembling was partly due to cold. ‘They sent me on to get the fire alight and take them back a torch.’
I nodded. ‘Then I can save you time and trouble. I have already banked the fire, and when I came up here I brought a torch with me.’ I nodded to where it was still burning on the spike. ‘You can take that one. But have a little sip of something warming first.’ I stirred some more hot water into the last few drops of honeyed mead and handed it to Kurso. We rarely gave him alcoholic drink, of course, but he was shivering.
He drank it from the jug with a grimace and you could almost see the warmth come seeping into him.
‘So,’ I said, when he had finished it, ‘they sent you for a torch. What brought you up to Junio’s roundhouse, then? Surely the mistress told you to go home?’
He saw another reprimand in this and backed a step or two but the mead had given him the courage to reply, ‘Master, I was to come and see the young mistress anyway, when I’d got the torch.’
‘Of course — to tell her that I was safe and well, and that the bulla feast could therefore go ahead. I should have thought of that.’
‘To tell her we believed that you were safe, although we were not absolutely sure, because we couldn’t find you in the town. But I thought I heard voices in here, so I came here first — and realized it was you. The mistress will be very glad to learn that you are home.’ Kurso relinquished the jug reluctantly. ‘I ought to go back at once and let her know.’
I nodded. ‘I will come with you and set her mind at rest,’ I said, thinking of his safety as much as anything. Gwellia at least had two young men with her, but timid Kurso would be travelling the woodland lane alone. I had not forgotten the rebel bandits in the wood. ‘And I see you are wearing a thin tunic with no sleeves,’ I added. ‘You’re no use to anyone if you have caught a chill. Put that birrus on again before you go out in the wind.’
My patron would have thought I was a fool, of course, but I felt responsible. It was clear that the poor boy had set off for the town in such a rush that he had not thought to provide himself with a cloak. He threw me an uncertain glance. ‘You won’t want it yourself? That other one you have is only half as thick.’
I shook my head. ‘I’d left it in the workshop, so I could not have used it if you hadn’t brought it here. It was the mistress who told you to wear it, I suppose?’ I saw him nod, and I smiled. ‘So who am I to contradict her words?’
He was still looking doubtful but he put on the cape, and pulled the heavy hood around his ears again. The garment was much too long for him and almost reached the ground, and with his face completely hidden in the hood, he looked again as he had looked when he first came through the door — like some mysterious creature from the underworld. He took down the torch and stood at the doorway, ready to depart.
I turned to Cilla who had been sitting silently, cradling her mead cup and listening to all this. ‘We shan’t be very long.’
Kurso nodded, anxious to be gone. ‘If we don’t hurry, they’ll be almost here. And I was to tell you, mistress, that the young master could not find a calf, but he has managed to buy a whole lamb for tomorrow’s feast.’
I was astounded at this news. ‘But surely there’s not time to cook it now?’ I gestured at the fire.
Cilla nodded. ‘The slaves dug a cooking-pit earlier today and set a fire in it, so that we could buy a butchered beast and cook it overnight — the way that Gwellia says you used to do when you were young. She meant it to be a nice surprise for you. In fact, she promised that you could show us how. There should be time to do it — the pit will still be hot — provided that Junio gets here with it fairly soon.’
I was delighted at the prospect of a Celtic roast. I grinned at her. ‘Then we will go and light him on his way. Come, Kurso,’ I said, and we set out into the night.
I was glad I had my cloak on. It was very cold indeed, and the south wind had blown in heavy clouds which covered up the moon. In the darkness, the forest made alarming sounds: every rustle of a creature and every snapping twig made me think of rebel footsteps in the wood, and the breeze sighed in the treetops like bandits whispering. Even the torchlight did not seem to help: the light sent monstrous shadows skittering everywhere. For Kurso’s sake — as well as for my own — I began to chatter in a cheerful tone.
‘There are a lot of questions that I’ve not had time to ask,’ I said, as we picked our way along, stumbling over tree roots and boulders on the track. ‘Who was it told you that I wasn’t hurt — or dead?’
‘It was the tanner in the shop next door.’ He peered at me from under the darkness of the hood. The torchlight was oddly reflected in his eyes, giving them an unearthly glitter in the shadow of his face.