Marilyn Todd - Black Salamander

‘Among the pigs, actually,’ Orbilio murmured. ‘Each household keeps a menagerie: ducks, geese, dogs, sheep…’

‘And interbreed with them, by the looks of it.’ Maria sniffed. ‘Do you see the hair on the fellow they’re talking to? On his chest, his back, that ugly moustache-I refuse to believe he’s wholly human.’

Many more people had emerged from their homes, shuffling, suspicious, clutching their children tight to their hips, and it was obvious that whole clans resided in these thatched roundhouses, leaving Claudia to ponder whether it was sheep or goats which made the softest pillows, or perhaps it was a Gaulish custom to sleep standing up? All the villagers had long hair and dressed in shapeless woollen tunics dyed russet red from madder root or olive green from elder, some with stripes, others squared. The women braided their hair, while the men wore headbands and torques-bands of twisted bronze, which fitted round their necks, open to expose their Adam’s apples. Droopy moustaches seemed compulsory. Perhaps it was the only way to differentiate the sexes in the dark.

A faint smell of sawdust and boiled leather clung to the village, and woollen garments hung stretched over hazelwood frames to drip dry. An old woman, bent double and supporting her weight on a stick, stirred butter in a churn.

You’d think it would be simple, wouldn’t you, asking the villagers if you could buy some food while they pointed out the road to Vesontio, but no. From the preponderance of theatrical hand signals, Junius and Theo were experiencing difficulty in getting their message across, and Claudia settled down with her back against an oak tree while they thrashed it out. No doubt the Gauls had dialect problems, too-and if these were anything like the communication cock-ups which occurred so regularly in that melting pot of nations, Rome, then the wait would be considerable. She closed her eyes, and heard the distant echo of an axe.

Of course, the forest was these people’s living, they tapped its vast resources. They were expert carpenters, churning out everything from fruit presses to canoes as well as providing timber for house building and charcoal for burning. The forest would have other uses, too. Game would be hunted, and heaven knows the Gauls bred the very best in hunting dogs. They cultivated trees (nothing beats a good Gaulish cherry, black and firm and slightly sour), and these oak woods are perfect for herding swine. Seeing great heaps of withies, Claudia was reminded that the women here were expert wicker workers, too, weaving panniers and chairs, and didn’t someone tell her Sequani war chariots bore basketwork panels?

Claudia’s eyes shot open. These old hags would also weave the wicker man! A giant basket in the shape of a human, in which a living person would be burned alive to propitiate their brutal, heathen gods.

‘Isn’t this fun?’

Claudia stuffed her knuckles in her mouth to stifle the scream which rose up. ‘Iliona.’ She tried for a smile. ‘I didn’t hear you approach.’

‘Then you’re going deaf.’ Iliona laughed, stretching out her arms and rattling the bracelets. More than just Titus’s eyes picked up on the fact that, with the action, her breasts wobbled provocatively and while the men were disappointed when she sat down, out of view, their wives were not. ‘This whole trip is turning into one thrill after another.’

Claudia grunted noncommittally and tried not to think about the screams of men trapped inside a blazing wicker effigy…

‘Wait till we reach Vesontio and the others hear about our adventures.’ Iliona sighed. ‘Won’t they be jealous! And the fact that they’re rich merchants and patricians won’t stop them envying us, either. Mind you, the chap who I feel really sorry for is, oh what’s his name…you know, the one who turned back in Bern because he’d been robbed.’ Her pretty tongue clucked as she tried to recall a name which escaped her. ‘The perfumer. Began with a G or something. Had his samples stolen from his lodgings and, with no incentive to continue, he hightailed it home instead.’

Effigies began to recede from Claudia’s thoughts. ‘Why?’ she asked. ‘Why did he have to turn back?’ Surely a perfumer could set up his trade anywhere? It’s knowledge he needs, rather than samples.

‘Who knows what goes through people’s minds in a crisis?’ Iliona said. ‘That’s why I feel sorry for him, he was young, making his way in the world, desperately in search of adventure, and look at him. Back in Rome, where he started, flat broke.’

A little bird fluttered inside Claudia’s ribcage. ‘Broke?’

‘Borassic apparently. Boasted that this trip would make him a rich man, but he fell at the first hurdle, poor soul. Oh, what was his wretched name?’

Down in the village, geese honked noisily as Junius and Theo made their way back to the body of the group. Claudia didn’t know the perfumer, had never heard of him until-today, but without a shadow of a doubt, that boy had been carrying a yellow deerskin pouch. She knew that, as surely as if Iliona had just told her and the little bird inside her fluttered harder. Clemens was carrying a pouch, Claudia was carrying a pouch, and Orbilio was talking about pieces of a map…

Suppose the chinking was a ruse? Suppose she was supposed to believe she was smuggling gemstones to a dealer in Vesontio, when in reality they were a blind to conceal the map inside? Suddenly it made sense. Why else would the Salamander buy her entire production of last season’s wine? All too often it had troubled her that he was paying more for the stones than they could possibly be worth. The pieces were starting to add up ‘We’ve got a problem.’

Tell me about it! But the voice had not come from inside Claudia. The voice was male, and belonged to a boyish-faced soldier.

‘It would appear, ladies and gentlemen, that we have a choice,’ he said. ‘We can either spend the night with the villagers, and try and make sense of their garbled instructions regarding the road to their capital city, and I have to tell you, neither Junius or I can guarantee the directions, since no two villagers seem to agree upon the matter, none of them actually having visited Vesontio-’

‘Or?’ Maria said impatiently.

‘Or we can take that track there,’ Theo pointed to a path through the trees, ‘which leads to a roundhouse a mile or so away, home to a man they call the Silver Fox. He’s a woodsman, and the chieftain assures us he will be able to guide us to Vesontio.’

Chieftain? Head of six miserable little huts, and he calls himself a chieftain? Then Claudia remembered how feudal the Gauls were, still, and in isolated communities like this it made perfect sense. No matter how small or how large the populace, we all need some kind of structure. Without it, there’s only anarchy and chaos. A chill ran through her as Orbilio’s voice echoed in her memory. Assassinate Augustus…reinstate the Republic. Anarchy and chaos.

‘Why can’t we do both?’ Titus asked. ‘Spend the night here, then take the guide in the morning?’ With daylight fading fast, it seemed a reasonable question.

‘Something to do with contravening their law-you explain, Junius. You understood far more than I did.’

‘The thing is.’ The young Gaul stepped forward, hands on his hips. ‘This guide, the man they call the Silver Fox, has been shunned by the village. They don’t say what the original offence was, but the case was tried before the Druids, who pronounced sentence. It is Celtic law,’ he said solemnly, ‘that those who do fail to abide by the Druids’ verdict shall be shunned.’

Claudia noted that the word he used was Celtic. Celtic law, he’d said, not Gallic. Then she remembered that only the Romans called these people Gauls. Junius, she realized, had come home.