Instead he scanned the others gathered around the imperial party, all at a distance, some attending to the horses while the rest just waited for the emperor’s pleasure. The huntsmen were dressed in patched green clothing and sheepskin capes. Castus had noticed that several of them carried a bow mounted on a stock – they reminded him of the weapons used by the Picts, but Sallustius had said these crossbows were common hunting tools in Gaul…
His eyes stopped, drawn to a single figure, a single face.
‘Who’s that man there?’ he asked in a tight-lipped whisper. ‘Standing with the group between the saplings. Hair like a bowl.’
‘Him?’ Sallustius replied quietly. He shrugged. ‘One of the notaries, I think. The short man he’s talking to is Zeno, their primicerius. He must be here assisting his chief. Don’t know his name, though.’
Castus nodded, but his mind was racing back through the years. Back in Britain, he had known this man. A slow heat stirred through his blood: a memory of anger. Julius Nigrinus, that was the name, and the man had conspired to start an uprising among the Picts that had killed all of Castus’s men and almost killed Castus himself.
Yes, he remembered clearly now. And here the man was again, at the margins of the emperor’s inner circle of power. As Castus stared at him, the man looked around. Just for a moment, their eyes met and a slight flicker passed across the face of the notary. Something close to recognition, but not quite.
Then a slave brought bread and cheese for the Protectores, with warm spiced wine, and when Castus looked back again the notary was gone.
‘You know the story about the old emperor Diocletian,’ Sallustius said, ‘when he was a tribune here in Gaul?’ They had ridden for another mile or two beyond the glade where the emperor had breakfasted. Castus shook his head.
‘They say he was passing through just this area when he met an old woman. One of these old witch women, I suppose, with the power to see the future…’
Castus noticed Victor quickly making a sign against evil. ‘Anyway,’ Sallustius went on, ‘the old woman accused him of being stingy – he always kept a tight purse, old Diocletian, so they say – and he told her that he’d be more generous when he was emperor.’
‘Ha!’ said Castus, smiling and nodding.
‘No… that’s not the funny bit,’ Sallustius said with a frown, and hooked one leg casually over his saddle horn. ‘The woman told him that he’d only become emperor once he’d killed the Boar… So from then on Diocletian went out hunting every chance he got – slaughtered a hecatomb of boars everywhere from here to Armenia. But he still wasn’t emperor…’
‘These old women are all liars!’ Victor broke in. From the corner of his eye Castus saw a flock of crows rise from the treetops of the wood to his right. He drew in the reins and turned his head, listening.
‘Anyway, by this time Diocletian was chief of the Protectores of the emperor Carus. But Carus died in Persia and his son was murdered on the way home. And it so happened that the Praetorian Prefect, who was next in line for the throne, was called Boar…’
Three short blasts of the hunting horns, and frenzied barking from the dogs deeper in the trees. The horsemen away to the right broke into sudden motion.
‘There they go!’ Victor shouted, but Castus was already dragging his horse’s head around and kicking with his heels, and then all four Protectores were riding at the gallop across the snowy flank of the hill towards the line of the forest. The emperor and his party had vanished.
Into the wood the horses plunged. Castus ducked his head to avoid a low branch thickly pelted with snow; ice showered over him and spilled down his back. Beneath the trees it was dim as twilight, and he stayed low and clung tight to the saddle, trusting the animal to forge its way through. There were other riders around him now, and men running on foot, shouldering their hunting crossbows – they shouted at first, but then fell silent as they approached the sounds of the conflict.
Dogs were howling, whining – runners, Castus saw as he drew nearer. They were hanging back from the boar and keeping it at bay, while the other dogs, the mastiffs, had closed in to attack. One already lay wounded, its rear leg ripped, while two more circled and pounced. The clearing was wide, carpeted with a black mulch of dead leaves dusted with snow. Nets hung from the trees all around; the boar was trapped as the hunters closed in.
Sallustius seized Castus’s bridle, dragging the big horse to a halt. ‘Stay back,’ he said. Castus pulled the reins tight and the horse circled, pawing the dirt. He could make out the others now: the emperor and the other mounted men surrounding the trapped boar, some dismounting, spears in hand. The huntsmen with the crossbows formed a loose cordon around them.
The boar was a monster, waist-high at the shoulder, with long ridged tusks and a thick black hide covered in welts and scars. It dashed in a tight circle, tossing the attack dogs away from it, letting out a low groaning bellow. Its flanks were streaked with gore: its own, or the dogs’, Castus could not tell.
‘A beauty!’ Sallustius said, dropping from his horse and dragging its head down. Castus remained in the saddle, his own horse blowing a fog of breath in the tight air. The footmen were whistling, trying to call back the mastiffs; one dog slunk back, wounded, but the other had fixed its jaws in the boar’s hide and was clinging on, claws raking the scarred black flank of the beast. As Castus watched, the boar seemed to shrug and lunge, swinging one great tusk, and the mastiff was jolted loose. Another lunge, and the dog lay in the dirt with its throat pumping blood.
Now the hunters closed in, their big spears held low. All of them were dressed alike in brown mantles, and for a moment Castus could not make out which of them was the emperor. He saw Maximian to one side, his massive bulk and beard marking him out, then another man rode in close on horseback, raising a javelin. Castus recognised him too: Priscus, the emperor’s young legal advisor.
The boar remained still, only lifting its snout as the rider approached. Priscus swung back in the saddle, then hurled the javelin; it was barely out of his hand when the boar charged. The javelin went wide, the horse reared, and Priscus was tumbling from the saddle, the rushing boar almost upon him. Crossbows snapped – one dart jabbed into the animal’s shoulder. Priscus was on the ground, lying flat and face down with his arms across his head. The boar kicked at him, butted him with its snout, but could not get at him with its tusks.
Castus had been so diverted by the scene that he had not noticed the shouts around him, the men crying out to Priscus to stay on the ground, keep himself covered. Now the shouts changed to cheers: Constantine, the emperor himself, was closing in on foot to tackle the boar in person.
A clever bit of theatre perhaps, Castus thought. But Priscus could still be badly hurt. Constantine edged closer, gripping the levelled spear in both hands, his legs firmly braced like a wrestler in the ring. Castus saw the emperor’s face, raw and red from the cold, his heavy jaw set hard, eyes fixed on his prey. The boar turned its head, snout twitching, then swung to face the new threat. All around the clearing, the shouts and cheers died to breathless silence. For a few long heartbeats hunter and animal faced each other, and then with a keening squeal the boar charged.