The Sacrifice Stone (7 page)

But then so was the farm.

Uncle Titus rescued me. Remember him, the one who tried to make me go and work for him in his one-man administration of the entire city of Arelate? I don’t want to go into details — I’m not proud of the wreck I’d become when he found me. Those who have not lost a child could never understand, those who have won’t want reminding. Enough to say that Uncle Titus’s compassion probably saved my life.

Good old Uncle Titus. From my brief acquaintance of him, I’d thought he was a big-headed, self-important, self-indulgent old fart. He may have been all those things — he was, in fact — but he also had a kind heart. Informed on the family grapevine of the state I’d fallen into, he came to Aesis and took me away.

*

If, as some of my well-meaning friends back home said, I needed a complete contrast, Arelate provided it. On the farm, I’d spent long days out of doors, alone unless Marcus was with me, in intimate communion with the land and its generously given bounty. I’d watch the weather, observe the smallest change in the condition of the soil, and I became as keen an omen-watcher as any soothsayer. The little town of Aesis I’d visit only when I couldn’t help it, and even then its modest population would send me hurrying back for the peace of my fields.

Now suddenly I was slap in the middle of what seemed the biggest concentration of people and buildings I’d ever seen. Arelate was a thoroughly Roman town and had been for decades, quite long enough for its every institution to be a faithful replica of the best model the Empire could produce. The people were fun-loving and bright, eager for the entertainments put on regularly in theatre and amphitheatre (especially the amphitheatre); it was an affluent community, with many thriving businesses based on the Wealth of the great alluvial marshes to the south of the town, where the Rhodanus flows into the sea. The vines of the delta yielded wonderful amber-coloured wine, the olive trees faithfully produced bumper crops, and the cereal output was so vast that the enormous storage cellars under the forum were always full: even when another cargo was dispatched to Rome, carts would be standing by to fill the crypt up again.

Titus had found me a post in the Procurator’s Office. I was a sort of financial secretary — that was my official title — and the duties were well within my capability. I suspect that Titus had called in a favour in obtaining the job, since the Procurator could have managed perfectly well without me. But that’s Roman life for you — without a recommendation you don’t stand a chance, whereas with it anything’s possible. I did my best to show willing, and did what work I was given as diligently as I could, and nobody complained. After a couple of years I’d saved enough money to build myself a modest villa in the hills outside the town and, with such a light workload, I found I could spend quite a lot of my time away from my desk. I got a couple of small fields under cultivation, and I decorated my new house; I even got in some specialists to lay a mosaic floor and paint inspiring scenes on the walls.

All things considered, life wasn’t bad.

And then Theo came along.

7

I was finishing a long and tedious list of facts and figures for the Procurator to dispatch to Rome when a commotion outside my office made me lose count at the penultimate item.

I swore and threw down my stylus.

‘Keep the noise down!’ I shouted, striding out into the vaulted passage. ‘What’s going on?’

A fat sweaty man in a toga had hold of a young boy, twisting his arm up behind his back. The boy was clearly in pain, biting his lip to stop himself crying out.

‘Ease off,’ I said to the man. ‘No need to hurt him.’

‘No need?’ the man bellowed, purple with rage. ‘This little shit’s just broken into my warehouse! He had his hands full of amber beads — my very best, too, a special consignment from the Mare Suebicum! He knew just where to look, I watched him. Not the first time you’ve dipped your thieving hands into what doesn’t belong to you, is it, you filthy bastard?’ He gave the boy’s wrist a twist, and this time the cry burst out of him.

‘I told you not to do that,’ I said. ‘You’ll break his arm.’

‘I should break his neck, never mind his arm!’ The man, yanking the boy with him, came closer, putting his pasty, large-pored face right up to mine. ‘Thieving’s a capital offence. I demand you lock him up till the next games day, then throw him to the wild beasts!’

The boy made a sound, quickly curtailed. Glancing at him, I saw the fleeting terror before he resumed his attempt at disdain.

The eyes in the dirty, tanned face were grey-blue. They met mine. It could have been my imagination — probably it was — but I felt he was reaching out for me.

‘We don’t throw even boys to the beasts without at least a minimal trial,’ I said lightly, trying to defuse the situation. ‘Why don’t we all sit down calmly and I’ll listen to both sides of the story?’

‘You fool!’ the fat man spluttered. ‘I tell you, I’ve just caught him red-handed! Ask him anything you like, he’ll lie through his teeth! Stands to reason, he’s not going to say “Yes, I did it,” is he?’

I had to admit, it seemed unlikely. ‘Perhaps not. But nevertheless, I doubt whether we can justify a capital sentence for one theft. One attempted theft — you have recovered your property.’

‘This time, yes.’ Once again the man wrenched at the boy’s arm. ‘But the good Jove alone knows how much of my stock he’s had away before — half a warehouse, I shouldn’t wonder, and enough amber to bedeck a hundred empresses!’

Suddenly the boy broke his silence. Defiantly, he cried,
‘No
!’

I looked down at him. ‘You deny it?’

‘Yes! I never took his rotten amber, not till this time. I —’ He clamped his lips together as if to stop what he was about to say.

I don’t know why, but I believed him. Yes, he’d been in the fat man’s warehouse, he wasn’t denying it, but he hadn’t got away with anything. And the accusation that he’d regularly been stealing could easily be a product of the fat man’s over-heated imagination.

‘You keep records, I presume?’ I asked the man. ‘You can prove you’ve lost goods before?’

‘Yes!’ He hesitated. ‘Sort of.’ He paused again. ‘No.’

Suddenly he looked wary. I wondered if he had some scam going that wouldn’t bear close scrutiny by one of the Procurator’s financial secretaries.

‘Well, what is it?’ I put a tinge of impatience into my voice. ‘Are you going to —’

Abruptly he changed tack. ‘I demand to see someone in authority!’ he said loudly. That put me in my place. ‘This boy must be thrown into prison, then executed! I’m a hardworking citizen, I’ve got my rights, I don’t have to see my goods trot out of my own stores in the hands of the likes of him!’ He lifted the boy’s arm violently, and the boy screamed. Twisting round — maybe he was hurting so much that he no longer feared worse pain — the boy wriggled his wrist out of the man’s grip. Then, so fast that his movements seemed to blur, he bent down and, fisting his other hand, swung forward and punched a short stabbing blow right into the fat man’s testicles.

The man’s eyes rolled up. Moaning, he slumped against me. Grabbing at the boy with one hand, I tried to support the dead weight of the man with the other arm.

Something had to give: I let the fat man slide to the floor.

‘Ulpius! Lucullus!’ I shouted, wondering for the first time why none of my colleagues had come to see what was happening. But the two of them arrived so swiftly that I guessed they’d been peering out from behind one of the columns along the passage.

The fat man was opening his eyes. His hands going to his crotch, he moaned again.

‘This man wishes to register a complaint against this lad,’ I explained briefly. ‘Will you see to him — give him a glass of wine from your special bottle, Lucullus — then, when he’s recovered, take him along to the magistrate.’ I fixed the lad with a glare. ‘I’ll see to this young man.’

He wriggled again, and I tightened my grip on the collar of his tunic. The material was rotten, and the collar ripped off; I grasped his shoulder instead.

I felt him tense, so I squeezed harder. He winced. ‘None of your tricks,’ I muttered, bending down to speak right in his ear. ‘I’m not like Fatso over there,’ — I nodded towards the fat man, half-walking, half being dragged off along the passage — ‘I’ve been in the Legion for twenty-five years, fighting hairy-arsed Britons who stiffen their hair with bird-shit, and I’m more than a match for you.’

He subsided. Still holding him, I led him into my office, where I pushed him down on a bench and sat myself down next to him.

He said after a moment, ‘What are you going to do with me?’

His voice was just breaking: I guessed he was about thirteen. ‘For the moment, I’m going to talk to you.’

The light eyes widened. ‘Talk?’

I smiled. ‘Yes. You know, you say something, I make a reply, and you say something else.’

Briefly he grinned. His teeth were white and even — he didn’t look like a child who’d always lived the life of an urchin.

‘What do you want me to say?’

‘Your name would be a good start.’

‘Theodore.’

I waited, but he didn’t add anything else. Still, it was better than nothing.

‘I’m Sergius Cornelius Aurelius.’

‘Oh.’

We weren’t getting very far. ‘Why were you in the fat slob’s warehouse?’

He looked at me in surprise. ‘Don’t you like him?’

‘I hardly know him, but on first acquaintance he doesn’t impress.’

‘I thought you’d be on his side,’ Theodore muttered. ‘Thought you’d take his word and —’ He shivered briefly. ‘And do what he told you to.’

‘Wrong on two counts,’ I said quickly; I could feel the sudden horror in him, and wanted to dispel it. ‘For one thing, I resent being told what to do by some sweaty merchant with too much money for his own good.’ The fat man’s toga had been of finest linen, and he’d worn a heavy gold brooch on his shoulder. What with his well-fed obesity and his rich clothes, he’d made a startling contrast to the boy. ‘For another, I don’t approve of chucking human beings into the amphitheatre so that the crowd can get off on watching them being torn to bits.’

Slowly he shook his head. ‘You’re not like the rest, are you?’

I smiled, understanding all too clearly what he meant by the rest. ‘No, I don’t suppose I am.’ I sincerely hoped not,
anyway
.

He was staring around my room. ‘Is this where you live?’

‘No, it’s where I work. I’m a secretary to the Procurator.’ He looked blank. ‘I help the man who reports to the Emperor on money matters here in the province.’

He frowned. ‘I thought you said you were a soldier.’ Quite clearly, a soldier ranked far higher in his estimation than a secretary.

‘I used to be a soldier, but I did my time and now I do something else.’

‘Are you old?’

I wondered what a boy of his age would consider old, and decided probably anything over twenty. ‘Terribly.’

He grinned. ‘You don’t look it. Old men have white hair, and yours is dark. What did you mean about them putting birdshit in their hair? Why?’

I remembered what I’d said. ‘The Celts of Gaul and Britannia like to present a frightening spectacle, so they paint their bodies with blue dye and put lime in their hair so it stands up in spikes.’

‘Why?’

‘To help them alarm the opposition. They usually need all the help they can get, since they fight naked with just a shield and a long sword and don’t prove much of a threat to a fully armed, disciplined troop of legionaries.’ I leaned towards him, warming to my theme. ‘They’re brave enough, and they don’t lack skills, but they’re wild. They act too much as hot-headed individuals, instead of banding together and fighting as a unit.’ I pictured again his swipe at the fat man’s balls. ‘You’d make a fine Celt.’

He looked pleased. ‘Would I?’

‘Yes. You swing a fierce punch.’

‘It
was
a goodie, wasn’t it?’ He smiled smugly, and belatedly I realized I wasn’t behaving very responsibly for the Procurator’s financial secretary.

‘Look, Theodore,’ I began firmly, ‘we said at the outset that we’d both talk, but so far you’ve done all the asking and I’ve provided the answers. It’s your turn now. Agreed?’ He scowled, and his open expression seemed to close in. ‘Come on, fair’s fair.’

Fairness was obviously something that mattered to him. ‘S’pose so.’

‘We’ll start with where you live. Here in Arelate?’ He nodded. ‘In a house?’ He nodded again. ‘Where? In the centre? By the river?’ Once again he nodded, and a smile spread over his face. ‘Well, which?’

‘I live all over,’ he said, a hint of pride in his tone. ‘I spot houses where the people aren’t there, and I climb the wall or the fence and sleep in their courtyards. Or in their outbuildings. If I can’t find a house, or if they come back unexpectedly, there’s a place down by the river where I’ve made a shelter.’

‘What do you live on?’ I’d noticed he was thin, beyond the normal slimness of a boy beginning to shoot up: he looked half-starved.

‘I know where to find scraps,’ he said. ‘There’s an eating house by the forum where they throw out oysters more than two days old, even when they’re still good, and there’s a baker down by the Baths who gives me yesterday’s bread. Then in the market they always leave a few bits of fruit that’s going soft.’

Gods. No wonder he was thin. ‘When did you last have a hot meal?’

He shrugged. ‘Don’t know.’ Again, his face closed up.

Perhaps he was thinking of home. ‘Theodore,’ I said gently, ‘where are your parents? Are they dead?’

He said quickly, ‘Yes,’ and I knew he was lying. But there didn’t seem much purpose in pressing the point: if he wasn’t prepared to tell me the truth, he’d simply go on lying.

I got up and went to look out of the window. It was late afternoon: we’d be packing up for the day soon, and I wasn’t due to go into the office for the next two or three days. Maybe I could ...

I thought it through. It was irresponsible, and if I got found out it could mean trouble. Still, I’d had worse trouble. And I didn’t think my conscience would lie easy if I turned the boy over to the magistrate — if they were short of animal fodder for the next spectacle, or if Fatso had made a convincing case, Theodore might well end today in a dark, dank cell, where he’d stay till he next saw the light of day in the amphitheatre.

No.

I’d seen death in many ways, but, with the exception of my son — and one other, one that haunted me as much as Marcus’s fall from the tree — death had been in battle, where, even if the odds were usually stacked in our favour, our enemies had at least stood a chance. That was acceptable, and the Britons I’d fought had inevitably been the aggressors. But this business of the games — games! that was a misnomer if ever there was one! — was something else. I don’t believe a man deserves to die purely in order to entertain the crowd, especially in the ways they liked best in the arena.

I wasn’t going to let that happen to Theodore for a crime I wasn’t even sure he’d committed.

Making up my mind, I turned back to him. Until I saw him still sitting there waiting to see what would happen next, it hadn’t occurred to me that he might have slipped away.

I felt unreasonably glad he hadn’t, and it wasn’t just because it would have been embarrassing for me if he’d been picked up outside. ‘Sergius is losing his touch,’ they’d have said, ‘the great soldier can’t even keep a kid in custody any more!’

His expression was questioning, but he didn’t speak. I found it touching — it was as if he knew it was no good appealing to adults, they never listened anyway.

‘I’m going to take you out of the town,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a house in the foothills — nobody ever goes there except my servant, who lives in the nearby village, and the man who comes to attend me in the bath.’

His face was impassive. Expecting relief, even a little gratitude, I was about to protest when suddenly I understood. Even if he hadn’t lived all his life on the streets, he’d surely have come across men offering to help him in exchange for his favours.

There was only one way to meet this, and that was head-on.