Marilyn Todd: Stone Cold

Deep in the dense, dark forests of south-west Gaul, a young woman gathers berries in the afternoon. From time to time she pauses to nibble on brambles that shine like ravens' wings, or clusters of ripe red raspberries that scent the air and show the teeth marks of mice. There is no wind in the forest, and what little sunshine manages to penetrate the aromatic canopy is sprinkled with butterflies and powdered with fine particles that float in the stillness.

Passing slender rowans, their branches heavy with ripening fruits, the girl is reminded that her father uses this bark in his tannery, just like he uses the bark from holm oak and the young branches of sumach. She smiles, revealing dimples in both cheeks. Soon she will be married, and then (praise the Hammer God!) there will be an end to the stench of stale urine that every tanner uses to loosen the wool and hair from the hides.

Brigetia had never grown used to it.

Even though she was born here, she has never grown used to scraping the slime off the skins then shunting the sludge into the river, but, come the next quarter of the moon, she'll be free of all that, andfor ever. Her sister can jolly well take over the task of collecting piss pots from the homesteads and emptying them into cisterns that are sited far too close to the house for her liking. Brigetia will be moving into her husband's house in the village! Then his widowed mother will have to give up her place by the hearth and Brigetia can start raising chickens and children, her hams hanging from the rafters, her stews bubbling in cauldrons without taint from any damn tannery.

Brigetia smiles again, and the dimples in her cheeks turn to pits. Ah, but what a strapping fellow Orix is, with thighs like tree trunks to sire lusty sons and a strong back to make the siring a pleasure! As she tucks rosehips into her basket, she pictures him preparing for their wedding, first looping his long hair into the traditional Santon war knot before donning the tribal Virility Helmet adorned with stout prodding horns. What feasts and celebrations are in store! Stretching on tiptoes to reach an overhang of elderberries, she sees drinking cups brimming over with foaming ale and can almost smell the ox roasting on the spit as the pipes and drums of the marriage dance echo round the forest. The sun begins to sink, and as Brigetia tosses her gold braids over her shoulder, flycatchers trill in the ancient gnarled oaks, turtle doves coo and, in the distance, a woodcutter's axe chops with rhythmic regularity.

Behind a holly bush, eyes monitor Brigetia's every move.

They follow the curve of her ripening breasts, the sway of her pubescent hips, the velvety plumpness of her dimpled cheeks. For a split second, the eyes flicker back towards the village, where coils of grey smoke spiral up from the treetops, testimony that food is being prepared over cooking fires by the womenfolk for men who will not cease labouring until the sun has sunk a lot lower yet. Not that it makes a jot of difference. Nobody walks this woodland path, for it ends at the tannery and there are better — and more fragrant — routes to the river for those who live in the village.

The Watcher's attention reverts to Brigetia.

To the clearness of her complexion and the brightness of her blue eyes.

Every now and again she stops to hold up her left hand and admire the betrothal ring that gleams on her thirdfinger. That the ring has been exquisitely crafted the Watcher can tell from here. The intricacy of the whorls etched in the bronze reflect the skill of the engraver, which in turn reflects the esteem in which her young bridegroom holds her. Quite right, too. The girl is perfect. Perfect in every way.

The Watcher waits until Brigetia bends down to gather a handful of bilberries.

The woodland floor is soft and springy.

The Watcher's feet make no sound.

'Make way! Make way for the Governor!'

It was a testament to the soldier's vocal chords, Claudia decided, that he was able to make himself heard above the jangle of breastplates and the tramp of hobnail boots crunching over the bridge.

'Come on, you lot!' he shouted. 'Move aside, move aside!' An old peasant foolish enough not to have learned Latin in his own country suddenly found himself in the gutter as the chariot trotted past, a triumph in imperial purple and gold, the heads of the pure white horses held appropriately high as their braided tails bobbed and their hooves clip-clopped in perfect harmony over the cobblestones. No sooner had the Governor and his escort passed, however, than the gap was immediately filled again with riders, carters, donkeys and pack mules vying for space amid the swarms of pedestrians entering and exiting the city.

Standing in the middle of the bridge, resting her arms on the warm stonework as she leaned over the side, Claudia watched the bob of traffic in the slow-moving waters of the Carent. As was to be expected, most were Gauls, the women clad in jaunty fringed skirts that fell to mid-calf, their menfolk with long hair whitened with lime and sporting such luxuriant moustaches that they overhung their top lips like the willows that lined this twisting river. But not all the traffic on the bridge was local, nor was Santon the only tongue spoken. Claudia cast her eyes across to the skyline reflected in the shimmering current and drummed her fingers.

Nestling beneath the high wide skies that were so typical of this part of Gaul and surrounded by gentle rolling hills and wooded river valleys, lush water meadows and forests rich in game, Santonum should have been the answer to Claudia's prayers. She watched trout swimming lazily in the shadows of the bridge's pillars and swallows dipping and diving on the water, and thought that, dammit, this is the capital of Aquitania. The authorities should have turned somersaults to help one of their own who'd trekked halfway across the bloody Empire just for this. Instead, what did she get?

'Terribly sorry, milady. The files were destroyed in a fire.'

'Our records were shipped back to Rome.'

'There was a flood…'

'… mould…'

'… mice…'

She'd tried the barracks, the State Records Office, the temples, the tribunals. She'd done the full tour of scribes, secretaries, lawyers and civil servants. She'd bribed and gossiped her way round the basilicas and bath houses that were springing up in this new town like weeds and yet — what a coincidence — every person she spoke to would really have liked to have helped, were it not for the Fates conspiring against them. You wouldn't credit so many natural disasters could have befallen one city, but it seemed there was no limit to the excuses she'd encountered, much less the inventiveness of the excusers. Quite why these people hadn't taken up careers as playwrights she had no idea, but if Officialdom was hoping Claudia Seferius would give up and go home, it might as well wait for the moon to drop out of the sky.

'Stay here,' she instructed her bodyguard.

'But-'

'Butts are for archers, Junius, and whilst they might equally apply to jokes and billygoats, they are not, however, for you.'

The young Gaul's mouth opened and closed as he fumbled for a suitable response, but by the time he'd come up with one, it was too late. He was being skewered by a glare that would make a cheesemaker proud, since it could separate curds from whey in less than ten seconds.

'Here,' she insisted.

There were many reasons why a wealthy young widow might need a bodyguard — protection from bandits, rapists and thieves to name but a few — but there are certain aspects of one's private life that a girl is obliged to keep private and, on those occasions, compromises to safety must be weighed up.