"Cato!" I yelled. "Bring me that boy's blue tunic!" He brought it at a run. "Rip me a strip off that and bind it round Vegetius's brow. Be quick." He did as I ordered. "That's better. Now help me to move him up onto this pile of straw." As we moved him, I wondered idly why the straw had not burned, and then I really looked around me for the first time. Most of the buildings were intact. Only three had burned: the villa itself and two others. It made sense that the stables would have survived, since the raiders had ridden horses. As I looked around me, Cato spoke.
"Here come the others, Commander."
I turned to see Picus and Bassus emerge with their troops from the edge of the trees that surrounded the rear of the yard. They saw us and cantered towards me ahead of their men.
"Is that Vegetius?" Picus nodded towards the activity by the wall.
"Yes. Not dead, just unconscious."
"Where was he? Where did you find him?"
"Right here, against the wall, but don't ask me how he got here."
"I don't have to. He came alone, ahead of everyone else. He led the infantry into place and then disappeared. He must have been trying to reach his family."
"Aye. Well, he didn't find them."
"How did you make out? Did you catch them?"
I grunted my disgust. "No. We lost them. Their mounts were fresh. They outran us. What about you? Much trouble?"
He grinned, totally without humour. "Worked like a sorcerer's spell. They ran like cattle, out through the trees at the back there, where they thought we couldn't follow, and smack into the spears of our infantry. It was slaughter, and we didn't lose a man. A few of the foot-soldiers were wounded, but none of them seriously."
"Any prisoners?"
"Seventeen."
"How many were there, altogether?"
"About ninety."
"Any idea who they were?"
"Aye. Apparently they're Franks."
"Franks?" I was astonished.
"Aye, Franks, or Burgundians."
"But what about the horses?"
"What about them? They brought them with them."
"In boats?"
"Apparently, unless they swam behind." Picus dropped down from his horse and began to knead his buttocks. "God, I could eat my weight in something."
"How in Hades can you be hungry with so much blood around? I wonder where Vegetius's family went to? They're not here. Did you leave orders with the infantry about the bodies?"
"The prisoners are digging a pit to bury them."
"It'll take a deep pit to hold ninety corpses."
"That's their problem. They've nothing better to do."
I turned to Bassus. "I want you to pick twenty of your best men and follow the horsemen who escaped. They left a plain trail. Find them and destroy them, then return to the Villa as quickly as you can."
He saluted and left, moving quickly, and I left Picus, still massaging his buttocks, and went about the disposition of my men. It is always the same after every action — reaction, then inaction. By the time I had organized the preparation of a meal and set my men to clearing up the shambles of the farm, Picus was busy with his own six men, and I went back to where Vegetius Sulla was now being tended by one of our medics. As I approached, his eyes opened and I saw him look at me and recognize me, his lips forming my name as I knelt at his side.
"Vegetius. How are you feeling?" Stupid damn question, but what else can you ask, even though you know the truth?
His eyelids fluttered, closed, fluttered again and opened. He was looking directly at me. I watched his eyes focus on me, brighten and then start to glaze. It was the strangest thing I had ever seen. Then he spoke my name, his lips barely framing the syllables. I leaned in to him.
"What is it?"
"The stable cellar. Tried to get them..." His voice trailed off into a slur, but he had solved the mystery of his family's whereabouts.
I took one of his hands in mine. "Don't worry, Vegetius. They're safe enough. We'll get them out."
His fingers tightened suddenly, convulsively, on mine and he arched in agony. I leaned forward to squeeze his shoulder, but my hand never reached him, for suddenly blood ran from his ears and from his mouth and the life went from him in a rush. I froze there in mid-action, stunned by the speed of it. The medic kneeling on the other side of him leaned over and closed his staring, agonized eyes.
"What happened?" I asked him. "He wasn't that badly hurt."
"Something must have burst inside his head, Commander. I've seen the like before with bad head blows."
I lowered Vegetius Sulla's hand gently onto his chest and tried to find a prayer for him, but I had none; my soul was empty. Feeling very old quite suddenly, I rose to my feet with a sigh and looked towards the entrance to the stables. Stella and her children would emerge from the blackness of that cellar into a lightless world. "Cato," I said. "Bring two of your men and come with me." I led them into the stable and started kicking at the straw on the floor.
"What are you looking for, Commander?"
"A trapdoor in the floor."
"Over here, sir." The words had barely left my lips before the answer came, and I felt my stomach lurch in awful anticipation at the speed of the response. I turned to see one of my young troopers pointing at a rectangular area of the floor that was free of straw. I walked towards it slowly.
"Open it."
They were all dead. Almost twenty of them, women and children. All of the females had obviously been raped, irrespective of age. The male children were all at the bottom of the pile. They had been killed and thrown into the hole and then the women and girls had been used, finished and thrown in on top of them. Sulla's wife, Stella, lay sprawled on the top of the pile, naked, bloody, battered, yet still easily recognizable. Her staring, dead eyes glared accusingly into my own. A vision of the face of the dead boy we had found on the hillside sprang into my mind and I wondered if he had taken any part in this.
I backed away from the horror of the sight, fighting the vomit rising in my throat until the edge of the trapdoor cut off my vision and I was no longer looking into Hades. My mind was recreating what must have happened here. Perhaps they had not thought to leave someone outside to cover up the trapdoor with straw. Or it could have been that one of the children made a noise and was overheard. Or had some late arrival been seen and followed? No one would ever know, now, but they had been found, and their sanctuary had become their grave.
I heard the wet noise of one of my men being sick and realized that it had been going on for some time, but instead of triggering me into a similar upheaval, the sound hardened everything inside me. I spun on my heel and marched out of the charnel-house, blinking hard as I emerged into the brightness of the morning. I called to the first trooper I saw and told him to fetch the Legate Picus at the double, and then I stood there, looking around the yard, my eyes squinting fiercely, unaccustomed yet to the bright sunshine after the gloom of the stable. I lost track of time, standing there so deep in thought that I didn't see Picus approach, and his voice startled me.
"What's the problem, Varrus?"
I pointed with my thumb, over my shoulder towards the stable entrance. "Take a look for yourself, but be ready for it. It's not pleasant." When he came back out, minutes later, his face was pasty white.