‘Yes, lady, it is a good start.’
That was Sosius, the warrior thought ruefully, sell anything or anybody if the price was right. He still could not fathom why he would be worth the trouble of catching.
‘There is another one with the horses, about a quarter of a mile back in the trees. Follow the brook and you’ll find him. Bran had better deal with him.’
‘Aye,’ the boy said, striding away, and without being asked the girl in the tunic followed.
‘What now?’ the lady asked – or the woman since the warrior could not help wondering whether this killer was a fighter from the arenas in disguise. She was beautiful though, even with the blood, so Sosius had not lied about that, but it seemed odd that a proper lady would speak with such respect to a slave.
‘He will give me the name of the man I need.’
‘Bugger I will. Why don’t you go hump yourself? I’ll entertain the slut.’
Sosius swung the cudgel against the man’s kneecap, and the warrior dropped.
‘He will tell me,’ Sosius said, ignoring the groaning man beside him. ‘Then as agreed I will take the boy and the lass and we will find that man and learn what we can. If all goes well, we will take him alive and bring him back.’ Almost absent-mindedly, he slammed the club down onto the man’s other knee. ‘Will take a month, perhaps two or more and we should be back. I may send them to you if I am needed elsewhere. Then you should send word to my master.’
‘It is agreed.’
‘My master is a good ally, lady.’
‘I said it was agreed. Now I had better get to the fortress before we are missed.’
‘Are you sure, lady? These roads are not safe and I am taking your two warriors away.’
‘I shall manage with Achilles to defend poor little me. And I do not care to see what comes next.’
‘Very wise, lady.’ Sosius swung the club again. After a little while the coachman’s whip cracked and the warrior heard the wheels grating on the stones of the road as it drove away. Above him Sosius drew a long dagger in his other hand. ‘Now,’ he said. ‘Do you want to make this hard or difficult?’
The warrior spat his contempt, so Sosius hit him in the mouth with the club.
‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘We have plenty of time.’
-
BRASUS WAS THE first to see the riders, and they were not the ones he was expecting. They were Romans though, drinkers of wine and unclean of soul, and they were soldiers. He whistled softly and one of his warriors looked up. They were below, two on either side of the gaping hole where the gate and the wall for ten paces on either side had been demolished, hiding behind the mounds of rubble. From down there they could see much less than he could from the window in the tower. The riders were a quarter of a mile away, only just over the brow of the ridge and invisible to the warriors. There were two of them in sight, leading two horses, and so far no sign of any more. They were too far away to hear his whistle, but he did not want to risk gesturing from the window and had to trust that his men would do the right thing now that they were alerted to trouble.
The Romans stopped and Brasus wondered whether to climb down to join his men, before deciding that it was better to watch the enemy. They were staring at the tower and the ruined walls around it. For the moment the driving rain had stopped, and Brasus sensed that the storm had passed and that the night would be dry. He doubted that the Romans understood the land well enough to realise this, and with little more than an hour left before nightfall, they were surely wondering whether the tower offered safety and shelter. Were there more of them? As far as he knew no patrols had come this high up towards the pass since the early autumn, which did not mean that one had not come now.
After an age, with Brasus regretting not having climbed down to join his men, the riders walked their horses forward again. They did not seem agitated, but one had a spear and the other had drawn his sword, and they moved with care.
There was no one behind them, or if there were, they were staying too far back to be of any help. Never before had the man come with soldiers or sent them to carry his letters. Perhaps he would not come today, delayed by the storm or wary if he had seen the cavalrymen. Brasus thought back to the solstice and the sending of the Messenger, when the Roman merchant had knelt as a captive with the two legionaries. For years the man had helped Decebalus, bringing him information, much of it secret and carrying letters back and forth so that the king could speak to Romans of high rank. Their treachery was contemptible, but useful, and perhaps no more than could be expected of such vermin, eaters of red meat and drinkers of wine. The merchant was paid for all this, paid with gold for the risks he ran and the shrewdness with which he performed his tasks.
Brasus wondered whether Decebalus had ordered the fat man taken to the ceremony to frighten him. Yet that was a risk. There were three captives because there were three Messengers prepared to carry word of the world of men to the Lord Zalmoxis. Yet there was risk, for as many captives were fated to die as Messengers, and the Second might have failed the test so that Brasus would become the Third, which meant that he would end his life on this earth to travel to the Heavens and also that the merchant would have been killed.
Less than fifty paces from the old gateway one of the Romans stopped, holding both the riderless horses, as his comrade trotted forward.
Brasus wanted to believe that fate and the will of the Lord Zalmoxis had decided that night, but the doubts kept bubbling up as the months had passed. The merchant was too valuable to the king to be killed, unless he wanted to prove his devotion by the worth of the offering. Brasus had liked to think that he was chosen by the god because of his own merit. Although only twenty, he was a chieftain, a proven warrior and leader of men, head of a family loyal to the king and pure of life and heart. He had been flattered to be chosen as Messenger, and though passion was vanity, he had to admit that there had been a thrill at the thought of transcending this body to join the god. Such a death was more blessed even than a death in battle.
The Roman was coming closer. Brasus saw his men waiting, weapons in hand. One was an archer and as he watched the man reached into his bag for an arrow. If there was a fight, then Brasus would shout down to him to shoot the one left behind and stop him getting away.
Brasus knew the tower well, which made it a shame to see it abandoned and in disrepair. His father had held this place for the king for many years. He remembered parting with the old man and sensing how strongly he yearned to defend it against the invaders in the last war with Rome. For the first year he was frustrated, until in the second the Romans came and his father fought them and held them for seventeen days before they breached the wall. As his men died fighting, his father had taken his own life in devotion to the god. That too was a good death.
Fate and the will of Zalmoxis, those were the drivers of men’s lives, and the pure accepted this truth and embraced their destiny. Yet now he struggled. He had been chosen as Messenger and yet not chosen to go to the god. The other two men were brave warriors, but neither was pileatus, neither a noble or leader of a clan. As reward the king favoured him, even promising to give Brasus one of his daughters in marriage. Instead of passage to the Heavens, he would receive land and power and a royal bride. Accepting this as his just fate might have been easier if it had not seemed so convenient. A loyal nobleman was honoured and rewarded, his devotion to the king confirmed, and the only Roman of value was spared to serve Decebalus. Was that simply the will of the god? If so, then the Lord Zalmoxis was very obliging. The thought was disturbing, gnawing away at his old certainties like a worm burrowing into fruit, but would not go away. He had seen too much in battles and all the little fights of the last war to be certain about anything. So many of the pure failed to act as they should, while other lesser men outshone them like comets – and even Rome and its creatures sometimes showed true purity.