Rosemary Rowe - The Chariots of Calyx

‘I tried to find you, citizen,’ the boatman said, swimming hazily back into my view. I had been dimly aware of him barking orders in the background, and now I could detect the splash of oars and the gentle movement of the barge.

The bargemaster crouched down beside me, his dark beard very close so that I was sure to hear. He spoke very slowly. ‘I went back to where he said he’d left you, but there was no sign of you. I even found my way to the factio , in case you had gone there, but the fellow at the gate told me they hadn’t seen you.’

Liars, I thought. No doubt Glaucus had put them up to that. ‘Go on,’ I murmured through thick lips.

‘I didn’t know what to do, citizen. I wandered around all the streets, and then I caught sight of that fellow you were chasing when you left. He was marching along with a thin slave and pair of big uniformed Blue guards wearing swords.’

He looked at me to make sure I had followed this account. I signalled encouragement as best I could. My brain seemed to be functioning again, but I was having trouble forming words.

It seemed the bargemaster had followed at a distance, reasoning that Glaucus might lead him to me. ‘I kept them in sight, and in the end I saw him turn down into a most unlikely lane. Not the sort of place you would expect a man to go. Nothing but midden heaps and piles of builder’s waste. When I got there he had disappeared, but there was only one place he could have gone, a storage entrance into a deserted house. I didn’t like the look of that at all, but I was no match for four of them, especially since two of them were armed. I came back and got the boys. We had no swords but oarsmen are stout fellows. A broken oar, some grapples and some rope. . we hurried back, and found you just in time.’

‘Glaucus,’ I managed to say, ‘did he escape?’

‘We didn’t see him.’ The bargeman shook his head. ‘Only the two team guards. Like tigers, they were, when they came for us and there was a bit of a struggle. One of my fellows cracked one with the oar and laid him out at once. The other one put up a fight, but he was outnumbered ten to one: someone hit him with a grapple-hook, and he went down screaming like a pig. We had no idea what we would find. We almost fell over your body on the stairs. When we saw what those brutes had done to you, my boys were none too gentle, I can tell you. It will be some little time before those two wake up, if they ever do. We’ve left them in the cellar under guard. We’ll go back and see if they’re alive or dead when we’ve got you to a medicus — and we might as well pick up those slaves as well. We’ll have to return them to their owners some time.’

Beside me I had heard Junio catch his breath. ‘Slaves?’

‘Two of them down there in the cellar,’ said the boatman. ‘Both dead.’

‘Eppaticus has got slaves for sale,’ Junio said. ‘I saw them. I did find out where he was going — he has a big barn just outside the walls. A sort of warehouse. He seems to sell everything in there, from pots to pageboys — though there was no grain that I could see. Were these slaves some of his?’

‘No chance of that,’ the boatman said. ‘We brought them up into the light to have a look at them. One of them was the Blue factio slave I’d seen before. Fallen out with his masters, by the look of it. The other, I’m very much afraid, belonged to Pertinax. He was wearing palace uniform. The governor won’t be very pleased by that.’

‘A palace uniform?’ Junio looked at me. ‘Superbus?’

I tried to explain that I hadn’t actually seen him, but that I was sure it was. What came croaking from my lips was something else. ‘I thought it was you, at first.’ I was shaking again. ‘Lying there.’

Junio squeezed my hand. ‘You did?’

‘All stiff and dead. I almost fell over it. The body. In the dark.’

There was a little pause. Then Junio said, ‘If it was stiff, master, you weren’t thinking straight. You have seen dead bodies many times. If it was already stiff, it could not have been me. I was talking to you only a short time before.’

He was right. I should have worked that out. It would have saved me a lot of anguish, though it made me feel no better now to realise that.

Junio was grinning at me cheerfully, pleased with his deduction.

‘Impudent wretch!’ I muttered, but he only grinned the more. All at once I felt a little more human. ‘More water,’ I commanded, and he brought it to me, supporting my head tenderly while I drank.

I was hurt, shocked and exhausted, but I was alive and so was he. Life was not wholly cruel. I lay back and let the barge take me to the governor’s palace.

The reception that awaited me when I arrived could not have been more gracious and concerned if I had been the Emperor Commodus himself. As soon as Junio got ashore and the events of the day were told, a whole army of slaves, carrying beds, cushions, blankets and reviving cordials, was sent to bring me home. There was even a priest in my room when I arrived, scattering libations to every god in the pantheon, and I heard later that an ox was sacrificed — to the delight of the barge crew, who were invited to eat the parts of it not wanted by the deities.

Junio and the retinue of slaves half carried me to my bed, where I was soon visited by a medicus . He eased and bathed away my bloodstained clothes — a process which almost made me pass out again — and chewed up soothing herbs to treat my cuts. His salves and ointments made me sweat and swear, but once the initial sting had passed I could feel the heat subsiding from my burns. Then he bound up my wounds, dressed me in a spare slave’s tunic from the palace and gave me a strong potion to drink which ushered me into instant oblivion.

When I dreamed, it was of furnaces. I was in a dark cavern full of crawling things, but when I opened my mouth to scream, blessed cool water trickled through my lips — and somehow I knew that it was Junio, giving me a welcome sponge to drink. I sank back in relief, and slept again.

I awoke to find the governor himself at my bedside, with a small regiment of slaves behind him.

‘Good afternoon, my friend,’ he greeted me. ‘I trust you wake a little more refreshed?’

I moved my head and limbs exploratorily. I ached in every fibre, and my chest felt as if it had been carried in a brazier, but my body seemed to answer to my will, and although it was acutely painful, I could move.

‘I think so, Excellence,’ I said, struggling to sit up. It seemed improper to be lying down while the most powerful man in Britain was standing at my feet. My mouth felt like a furnace, and I was grateful for the beaker of water which, at the governor’s signal, one of the house-slaves pressed into my hands. Something occurred to me. ‘Good afternoon, you say,’ I said when I had moistened my lips. It must have been midday when I went to bed. ‘How long have I been asleep?’

Pertinax’s stern face softened in a smile. ‘Only a day or so.’ He must have seen my look of consternation. ‘We have been watching you. The medicus thought you should be left to sleep, but I asked him to fetch me as soon as you awoke. He said that you were stirring, so I came. He will look in again tomorrow, he assures me.’ He looked at me anxiously. ‘For now, if you are sufficiently recovered, I want to hear your version of what occurred. I have heard some of it from my bargeman, of course. That fellow should be whipped for letting you be harmed.’

I drained the rest of the beaker in a gulp. I found that I was hungry, which was an encouraging sign. My recollections of the day before were hazy and confused, but I managed to piece together an account of the significant events. ‘And do not blame your boatman,’ I added. ‘I owe my life to him.’