The Mistletoe and the Sword: A Story of Roman Britain Page 13

  It was very late. There was no sound from the sleeping men; only a dog barked over by the north portal, and a whinny came from the stables.

  As they drew near the heavy wooden door that led to staff quarters, Titus suddenly turned and said, “There you are! Old Jumbo Postumus is in there. Good luck and good-by. I don’t suppose I’ll be seeing you again.”

  “Why not?” snapped Quintus, staring.

  “Because nobody’s seen the other two, since we took ‘em in here.”

  “Other two what?”

  “Messengers from the governor. Leastways they said they were. I wouldn’t know.”

  Quintus whirled and put a firm hand on Titus’ arm. “Listen sentry! I can’t make head or tail of this. If you’ve had two messengers, they came to summon the legion, as I do. And why hasn’t it gone? What in the name of all the divine gods is the matter here?”

  “I expect you’ll find out,” answered the sentry, with a tinge of sympathy. “Us, we’re not here to speculate. We do our duty and obey orders.” He banged the heavy iron knocker and called out a password.

  After a moment the door swung open, a sleepy guard held up a torch and, peering at the sentry, said, “What’s up, Titus?”

  The sentry jerked his chin toward Quintus. “Messenger. Wants to see the prefect right now.”

  “Oh,” said the guard without expression, inspecting the stubble of black beard on Quintus’ chin, the tattered native clothes. “Pass in.”

  Quintus entered the sparsely furnished vestibule of the post commander’s quarters and was faintly relieved to see the usual little altar to Mars in the corner. So peculiar had been his reception, that anything which indicated normal legionary life was reassuring.

  The guard, who was a middle-aged man with shrewd grey eyes, put the torch in a bracket and said without interest as though he knew the answer, “You have credentials and identification?”

  Quintus held out the letter. “This is the governor’s dispatch, under his personal seal. Arouse the prefect, Postumus, at once!”

  The guard did not look at the seal; his eyes flickered over Quintus with the same mixture of embarrassment and what seemed like hidden sympathy that Titus had shown. “The prefect’s not asleep,” he said tonelessly. “It is seldom that he sleeps these days. Come with me.”

  In the next hall they passed the great iron-barred door to the strong room which was marked with a large ‘II Augusta’ to show that there the legion’s treasure was kept and its standards and emblems also, when they were not in use.

  “Aren’t there any guards in here by the strong room?” asked Quintus, in surprise.

  “I--Balbo--am the guard,” answered the man quietly. “The prefect doesn’t want others around.” He raised his hand to pull aside a heavy leather curtain that screened the commandant’s private room from the hall and paused involuntarily as they both heard a strange sound. It was like laughter, peals of it, mirthless, high-pitched as a woman’s and yet somehow masculine. It came from somewhere to the left and ended abruptly, as a heavy voice from behind the leather curtain shouted, “Stop it! Stop!”

  Quintus’ breath was cut short; he stiffened against the shiver caused by that uncanny laughter, but Balbo gave him no time to think. He pulled the curtain roughly aside and said, “Poenius Postumus, O Exalted Prefect, here is a messenger!” Balbo dropped the curtain and disappeared.

  A man sat at a table, alone in the room.

  Quintus by now was prepared to be confronted with almost any peculiarity in the prefect. But he had not expected what he actually saw. An enormous man with a shock of flaxen hair was sitting at a completely bare table with his head bowed on his clenched fists. He raised toward Quintus a stolid peasant face from which round blue eyes stared out with an expression of ox-like misery.

  “Messenger?” said the prefect in the thick guttural accent of the Rhineland troops. “I want no more messengers. Leave me alone!”

  “Impossible, sir!” cried Quintus. “The whole east of Britain is in revolt, the governor is fearfully outnumbered by the native forces. He commands that your legion march this instant to his aid. Here is his dispatch.” He put the parchment on the table in front of the prefect.

  “It is perhaps a trap,” said the prefect dully. “How do I know that it is not a trap!”

  “By Jupiter Maximus, sir--READ IT!” Quintus cried. “And that is the governor’s own private seal.”

  The big flaxen head wagged uneasily from side to side. “I do not know the governor’s private seal. I will not read it--it is addressed to General Valerianus. So I must not read it. You see it’s addressed to my general?”

  This is incredible, thought Quintus, feeling as though he were fighting shadows in a nightmare. “By Mars, of course it is! But since you are in command, you must read it and act, now!” The big man hunched his massive shoulders, as though to shut out the voice of Quintus which cried out suddenly, “Where IS General Valerianus? I demand to know!”

  Quintus knew that his tone was highly improper coming from a lowly standard-bearer to the commander of a legion, but he did not care-what discipline might be given him if he could only penetrate this baffling fog.

  There was a silence. The prefect stared at the dispatch with unseeing eyes. He seemed to have forgotten Quintus when suddenly there came a sound from the left--a snatch of song and a high laughing wail.

  Quintus whirled around and gazed at a door covered by another leather curtain. “What’s that?”

  The prefect lumbered clumsily to his feet; a colossus, six and a half feet tall, whose tow head grazed the low ceiling. He thrust his underlip out and made a gesture to Quintus with a ham-like hand. He trod heavily to the curtain and raised it. “There,” he said in a hoarse dragging voice, “is General Valerianus.”

  Quintus looked into a small room that was lit only by a tiny wall lamp. He saw a man in a white shirt crouching on a pallet. The man was pulling straw out of the pallet and arranging it on the floor in six neat little piles. He was emaciated; his cropped hair was grizzled on a knobby skull head. His hand, like a yellow eagle’s claw, carefully placed the straw now on this pile, now on that.

  Quintus’ mouth went dry, for, in the second that he took in the scene, the man began to snicker. He flattened out a whole pile of straw and burst into a peal of metallic laughter.

  “The gods take pity on him, he’s mad,” whispered Quintus, starting back.

  The prefect dropped the curtain. “Not always,” he said dully. “Only sometimes. The legion doesn’t know. I tell them he’s gone off to visit the western fort at Caerleon.”

  “They know, all right,” said Quintus in a hushed voice. “Or at least they suspect. It’s a terrible thing, and now I understand what was so puzzling--but Poenius Postumus, this tragedy does not affect THIS!”

  He picked up the governor’s message and thrust it at the prefect. “Don’t you understand? Our whole army’s in fearful danger. You’ve got about seven thousand men here, nearly as many as Suetonius’ whole force, since my legion--the Ninth--was wiped out by Queen Boadicea. Your legion must start tonight, straight east, and pray we’re not too late!”

  He spoke vehemently but distinctly straight up into the huge ox-like face, trying to reach through the barrier of doubt and indecision.

  It was no use. Apparently Postumus took in only one sentence, for he said, “Your whole legion was wiped out?--yes. You see? If this should happen to us--what could I tell my general when he is himself again? No, messenger, we stay here at Gloucester, as my general has ordered.” Quintus gasped. “But he ordered it before he knew this --and he’s mad--” he began, and stopped. The round blue eyes were blank as pebbles. There was no reasoning with the stubborn, closed, and obviously frightened mind behind them.

  The tribunes! Quintus thought. The six ranking officers of a legion must be quartered somewhere near. Surely if he could get to them with the message, they would dare to override this dangerous fool with his misguided loyalty to a madman. Get myself out
of here, somehow, find the tribunes, Quintus thought.

  “No, no,” grunted the big man, shaking his head as though Quintus had voiced his plan. “I am commander of this post. I know what to do. I will not be bothered all the time, worried, badgered ... I have decided.... Balbo!” he called suddenly.

  The guard rushed in with his sword drawn, as though he had been waiting for this. “Yes, sir.”

  “Put him with the others.”

  “No!” cried Quintus. “I’ve imperial protection from the governor! You can’t touch me!” and cursed inwardly that he had no sword, nothing but the native spear which he could not use at close quarters. It was hopeless. The giant German strode across the room and picked Quintus up as though he’d been a child. He pinioned his arms, tossed the spear in a corner, and carried him out to the hall.

  Balbo pulled the bolt on the great oaken door of the strong room, and Postumus threw Quintus inside. The bolt grated back into place.

  Quintus lay dazed for some moments on the stone floor. When his wits returned, he found that there was a light burning, and two men’s faces were peering down at him curiously. Both were young, both were dressed in army fatigues, their leather jerkins bearing the number and emblem of the Fourteenth Legion. One was dark, short, and snub-nosed, with merry brown eyes; the other who looked older, about twenty-six, had freckles, crisp reddish hair, and a determined chin, also a deep half-healed cut across his cheek.

  “I see you’re coming to, after the prefect’s truly hospitable reception,” said the small dark one to Quintus. “Welcome to our select company. Have some wine.” He held out a cup. Quintus drank thirstily and sat up, rubbing his head where a large egg was forming.

  “Messenger from Suetonius Paulinus, no doubt?” stated the grave, freckled young man. As Quintus nodded, he added, “So are we. Dio here arrived first, about two weeks ago. The governor sent him off from Wales as soon as we got news of the rebellion. I was sent later when we arrived in London and there was still no sign of the Second. I had a spot of trouble getting through the Atrebate country--somebody’s spear did this.” He fingered the wound on his cheek. “But I made it. Five days ago. We’ve kept count.” He indicated a row of scratches on the wall. “And here we are. Where’d you get sent from, and what’s happened since we’ve been here?”

  “Let him eat first,” said Dio. “He’s still groggy, and the gods know we have plenty of time.” He held out a handful of hard wheat cakes to Quintus, who murmured thanks and started to eat.

  “You from Rome?” continued Dio cheerfully. “I thought so, could tell from the classical way you muttered ‘thank you,’ though you sure aren’t a very trim-looking citizen of the imperial city right this moment.”

  Quintus smiled faintly. He sensed that Dio was rattling on to give him a chance to recover, and he was soon to learn that a great deal of judgment lay beneath the young man’s light manner.

  “I’m from Naples,” continued Dio. “I’ve got a lot of Greek blood. While Fabian”--he punched the other messenger affectionately in the ribs--”he’s a blasted Gaul--but not a bad fellow for all that. We’ve come to know each other quite well.”

  “I should think so,” said Quintus dryly. Looking around their prison, he noticed several iron-bound triple-locked coffers. Dio was sitting on one of them. As Quintus went over to examine them, Dio explained that they contained the legion’s money, the imperial coins which paid the troops. The sacred emblems, flags, and standards were neatly stacked in a corner. There was nothing else in the way of furnishing in the small stone room, and no window. But fortunately there was a tiny grilled fresh-air shaft to prevent the accumulation of dampness. And there was a lamp beside the wheat cakes and wine.

  “Balbo sees that we get light and enough food; as far as prisons go it’s not so bad,” Dio added. “We might have been thrown in the dungeon.”

  “Postumus couldn’t do that without exposing the whole situation to a lot of other people, I guess,” said Quintus slowly. “I think in his own way he’s as crazy as that poor general.”

  “No,” said Fabian, his lean freckled face growing thoughtful. “The prefect’s not crazy, but he’s scared, scared of responsibility. It’s a certain type of German mind. I’ve fought beside lots of them and seen it before--splendid at obeying orders and giving them, as long as there’s someone over them to tell ‘em what to do.”

  “Governor Suetonius is telling him what to do,” protested Quintus.

  “Yes, but Postumus has never seen the governor and has no more imagination than a bull. All he really knows and cares about is his own general and his own legion. He loves and is protecting Valerianus, who, I have heard, grew up in the same Rhineland village with him.”

  Quintus considered this and nodded. “That’s all very well, and I think from the look in the prefect’s eyes he’s suffering in that stupid gnat-sized mind of his--but what are we going to do now--and more important--what will Suetonius be able to do without this legion?”“That,” said Dio, curling his legs up under him on the coffer, and quirking one eyebrow, “is precisely what Fabian and I’ve been wondering. But I’d suggest, before you join our fascinating and so far quite useless discussion, that you get some sleep, my friend!” He indicated a strip of stone flooring next to the pile of standards. “That elegant accommodation is--so far--unreserved. I say ‘so far’ because we never know, of course, when some other messenger from the governor may not arrive and be ushered into Postumus’ unique hotel! Here,” he said, interrupting himself with brisk practicality, “put my cloak under your head, which I see from the wince you just gave is still aching.”

  “And might stop aching if you’d stop babbling, you little southern wag-tongue,” interrupted Fabian, grinning at Quintus. “I’m not the talkative type myself.....”

  But you’re both mighty good fellows, thought Quintus thankfully. This fact was the one ray of light in a decidedly grim blackness. For a moment before he fell asleep he pondered on the irony of his position. After all the dangers that he had already escaped--from the Britons, from Boadicea, from these last days of perilous journeying through enemy country--how dismal it was to end up now with a banged head, imprisoned in the very heart of what should have been about the safest place in Britain for him --the Roman fortress of the famous ‘Augusta’ Second Legion!

  It was midday when he awoke, but there was, of course, no light in the strong room except the lamp. Quintus raised his head, which felt much better, and saw that Dio and Fabian were playing checkers with different coloured fragments of wheat cake. They had carved the board on the back of a coffer with the little eating knife which Balbo had allotted them after their weapons had been taken away.

  “My game,” said Fabian sternly, picking up and munching one of his men. “Now you owe me forty thousand sesterces. Mark it up!”

  “Oh, but no, Fabian--you cheat yourself,” protested Dio, solemnly scratching a row of M’s on the wall. “It’s forty-one thousand I believe; you forget the wager I lost on our fly race when my fly basely disappeared up the air shaft. . . . Hullo . . .” he added, catching sight of Quintus. “You finally wake up?”

  “Uhmm” yawned Quintus, stretching, then gingerly feeling the bump on his head. “And delighted to find I’ve such rich companions. I should think you could’ve bribed Balbo and the whole legion by now.”

  “Yes--you’d think so,” answered Dio, chuckling. “Only I’m afraid they’d not be impressed by airy numbers on a wall. Our actual material wealth amounts to four pennies between us. How about you?”

  “A bit more than that. I was given a purse for the journey at Chichester, but I--I don’t seem to have used much.”“Tell us your experience from the beginning,” said Fabian gravely. “We’ve just been killing time till you woke up.”

  The two earlier messengers naturally knew the grim story of Roman misfortunes up to the time Fabian had been sent from London, and as they listened intently to Quintus’ account of the forced march south to Chichester, the governor’s speech to
his officers, the massacre in London, and Quintus’ appointment as messenger to Gloucester, even Dio’s cheerful face grew long. “It sounds very bad,” he said quietly. “Only the Fates know what’s happened to Suetonius’ force by now. You say he was going to try and march north to the Thames and wait for the Second to join him? How long ago was it you left?”

  “Well,” said Quintus, counting, “I left Monday noon, and it’s been--let’s see--two and a half days. Today must be Thursday.”

  “But this is Friday,” said Fabian, glancing at the scratches which counted the days.

  Quintus stared at him dismayed. He drew his heavy dark brows together. “All along I’ve had the oddest feeling that I’ve lost a day somewhere. I can’t understand it.”

  “Probably that bump on your head,” said Dio kindly. “Makes one dizzy for a while. And it really doesn’t matter.”

  Quintus knew it was not the bump on the head, but he let it pass. There were far more important things to be decided.

  “What do you think the prefect’s plans for us are?” he asked. “Just keep us here indefinitely until and if Valerianus recovers from this fit of madness?”

  Both young men nodded. “That’s my guess,” said Dio. There was a gloomy silence, then Quintus said, “If we could only get to the tribunes somehow with our messages....”

  Fabian shook his head. “I doubt it would do any good. Most of them are Germans like the majority of this legion. I don’t think they’d disobey their commanding officer--not if Postumus told them he thought these messages weren’t genuine, which I think in a muddleheaded way he’s made himself believe.”

  Quintus sighed, depressed by the soundness of this reasoning. There was another silence. Then Quintus roused himself and cried passionately, “But by Mars and by the spirit of my beloved father, we’ve got to get out of here and back to Suetonius ourselves! We can’t just sit here like toads in a hole when we know what they’re up against. Your own legion needs you two, and my General Petillius needs what small help I can give. Why, they may be fighting Boadicea right now!”