Destiny's Children - Coalescent. Part 5

"But he didn't mean to kill himself."

Aetius cupped Regina's face. "No. He wouldn't have left you behind, little one. And anyhow he probably thought that even if he did die he would be resurrected, just like Atys . . . Well. Your father even now is finding out the truth of that. And I suspect he may not be sorry to be gone. At least he won't have to face recalcitrant farmers anymore. It was all getting a little difficult for him . . ."

"Grandfather?"

It was as if he had forgotten she was there. "Whether he meant it or not, he is gone. And you, little Regina, are the most important person in the family."

"I am?"

"Yes. Because you are the future. Here-you must take these." Now he opened his hand, and, to Regina's shock and surprise, he showed her thematres , the three little G.o.ddesses from thelararium , the family shrine. They were figures of women in heavy hooded cloaks, crudely carved, little bigger than Aetius's thumb. Aetius shook his head. "I remember when my own father brought these back-they are just trinkets, really, produced in their thousands by the artisans along the Rhine-but they became precious to us. The family is the center of everything for all good Romans, you know. And now you must take care of our G.o.ds, our family. Give me your hand now."

As she opened her palm to take the G.o.ddesses, Regina couldn't keep from flinching. She thought thematres might burn her flesh, or freeze it, or crumble her bones. But they were just like lumps of rock, like pebbles, warm from Aetius's grasp. She closed her fingers over them. "I'll keep them safe for my mother."

"Yes," Aetius said. He stood up. "Now you must go with Carta and pack up your things. Your clothes- everything you want to take. We're going on a journey, you and I."

"Is Mother coming?"

"It will be exciting," he said. "Fun." He forced a smile, but his face was hard.

"Should I take my toys?"

He rested his hand on her head. "Some. Yes. Of course."

"Grandfather-"

"Yes?"

"Why did you make those men put my father facedown in the coffin?"

But he wouldn't reply, saying only, "Be ready first thing tomorrow-both of you."

Excited, clutching the G.o.ddesses, Regina tugged at Carta's hand, and they began to make their way back to the villa.

It was only much later that Regina learned that laying a corpse facedown in a coffin was a way of ensuring that the dead would not return to the world of the living.

The next day, not long after dawn, Aetius sacrificed a small chicken. Seeking omens for the journey, he inspected its entrails briskly, muttered a prayer, then buried the carca.s.s in the ground. He cleaned his hands of blood by rubbing them in the dirt.

A st.u.r.dy-looking cart drew up in the villa's courtyard.

Of course Regina was only half packed, even with Carta's help. When Aetius saw the number of boxes and trunks that lay open around her room, he growled and began to pull out clothes and toys. "Only take what youneed , child! You are so spoiled-you would never make a soldier."

She ran around picking up precious garments and games and bits of cheap jewelry. "I don't want to be a soldier! And Ineed this and this-"

Aetius sighed and rolled his eyes. But he argued until he had reduced her to just four big wooden trunks, and, in the final heated stages, allowed her a few more luxuries. A beefy male slave called Macco hauled the boxes out to the cart.

Carta helped her dress in her best outdoor outfit. It was a smart woolen tunic, woven in one piece with long sleeves and a slit for her neck. She wore it over a fine wool undertunic, with a belt tied around her waist.

Aetius stood before her stiffly, clenching and unclenching a fist. Then he knelt to adjust her belt.

"Beautiful, beautiful," he said gruffly. "You look like a princess."

"Look at the colors," Regina said, pointing. "The yellow is nettle dye, the orange is onion skins, and the red is madder. It's all fixed with salt so it willnever fade."

"Not ever? Not in a thousand years?"

"Never."

He grunted. He straightened and glanced up. "Cartumandua! Are you ready?"

Carta was wearing a tunic of her own, of plain bleached wool, and she carried a small valise.

Regina asked, "Is Carta coming, too?"

"Yes, Carta is coming."

"And Mother-shall I go and find her?"

But Aetius grabbed her arm. "Your mother isn't coming with us today."

"She'll come later."

"Yes, she'll come later." He clapped his hands. "And the sun is already halfway across the sky and I hoped to be a speck on the horizon by now. Hurry, now, before the day fades altogether . . ."

Regina ran outside and clambered onto the carriage. It was a simple open frame, but it had big wooden wheels with iron rims and complicated hubs. She was going to ride in front, with Aetius, so she could see everywhere she went. Cartumandua would be in the back, with Macco, the burly slave, and the lashed-down boxes.

Regina noticed Macco strapping a knife to his waist, under his tunic. She snapped, "Put that down, Macco, right now. n.o.body is allowed to carry weapons except the soldiers. The Emperor says so."

Macco had a heavy shaven head, and broad shoulders his loose tunic couldn't conceal. He was a silent, gloomy man-Julia had always called him "dull" and ignored him-and now he glanced up at Aetius.

"What's this? Wearing weapons? Quite right, Regina. But I am a commander in the army, and if I say it's all right for Macco to have a knife, the Emperor isn't going to mind."

Regina pulled a face. "But he's aslave ."

"He's a slave who would lay down his life for yours, which is why I've chosen him to come with us.

Now hush your prattling."

She flinched, but subsided.

So it was in a stiff silence that the little party finally set off. Aetius sat beside Regina, a mighty pillar of muscle, his face as rigid as an actor's mask. Regina looked back once, hoping to see her mother, but n.o.body came to wave them off.

That minor disappointment soon faded, as did her sulk over being ticked off in front of Macco, because the ride, at the beginning at least, was fun. It was another fine day. The sky was cloudless, a pale blue dome, and the horses trotted comfortably along, snorting and ducking their heads, the musky stink of their sweat wafting back to Regina.

Soon they reached the broad main road, heading east. The road cut as straight as an arrow across the green countryside. It was built by and for walking soldiers, and was uneven, and the ride was b.u.mpy.

But Regina didn't care; she was too excited. She bounced in her seat, until Aetius, horse switch in hand, told her to stop.

Aetius tried to explain that they would travel east, all the way to Londinium, and then cut north.

"When will we see Londinium?"

"Not for a few days. It's a long way."

Her eyes widened. "Will we ride through the night? Will we sleep in the cart?"

"Don't be silly. There are places to stay on the way."

"But where-"

"Never mind your prattle."

They encountered little traffic. There were a very few carriages, pulled by horses, donkeys, or bullocks, a few horse riders-but most of the traffic was people on foot. Many pedestrians carried heavy loads, bundled in boxes or cloth, on their heads or shoulders. Aetius pointed to one rider in a bright green uniform whose horse trotted at a bright clip, quickly overtaking the carriage. Aetius said he was from the Imperial Post, thecursus publicus . Along the roadside there were many small stations with stables and water troughs, places where a post rider could change his horse.

Sometimes the people walking along the road would peer at the carriage with an intensity that frightened Regina. At such times Macco was always alert, gazing back with his blank, hard face, the hilt of a weapon showing at his waist. Regina would stare into the faces of the people, hoping to glimpse her mother.

They pa.s.sed one girl who couldn't have been much older than Regina herself. Walking with a group of adults, she was bowed down under a great bundle strapped to her back. She had heavy-looking black leather boots on her feet; they dwarfed her thin, dirty legs.

Regina said, "Why doesn't she get a carriage? She could put her stuff in the back. I certainly wouldn't like to carrymy luggage along the road like that . . ."

Aetius grimaced. "I doubt if anybody other than Hercules could carryyour luggage, child. But I'm afraid she doesn't have a choice."

"Because she's poor."

"Or a slave. And look, over there." A group of people, shuffling behind a slow-moving carriage, were bound together by ankle chains. "Carriages and horses are faster, but not everybody can afford a horse."

She frowned. "Are slaves cheaper than horses?"

"Yes. Slaves are cheaper than horses. Look at the countryside. I bet you've never been so far from home before, have you?"

She had no idea if she had or not. She looked around at fields and hedgerows. There were a few buildings scattered here and there, small square huts and a few roundhouses with timber frames and thatched roofs; in the distance she saw the bright red roof tiles of something bigger, probably a villa.

It was farming country. Much of the Roman diocese of Britain was like this. n.o.body knew for sure how many people lived in Britain south of the Wall, but there were thought to be at least four million. Only perhaps one in ten of the population lived in the villas and towns. The rest worked the land, where they cultivated wheat, barley, oats, peas, beans, vegetables, and herbs, and raised their cattle, sheep, and goats. Many of them had worked this land for generations, since long before the coming of the Romans: Regina might have been traveling through the landscape of five centuries earlier.

It was this way from end to end of the Empire, across two thousand miles, from Britain to the Middle East. The Empire was the most materially sophisticated civilization the western world had yet seen-but the overwhelming majority of people lived off the land, as they had always done.

Aetius spent a long time trying to explain some of this, but he got stuck on the meaning of the wordmillion . Regina's attention drifted, distracted by the sway of the horses, the clatter of the wheels, the buzzing of flies.

"Oh, stop fidgeting," Aetius snapped. "If only I could justorder you to sit still . . ." He pointed with his switch at a little cylindrical pillar set beside the road. "Well, what's that? Do you know?"

She knew very well. It was a waystone. "It tells you how far it is to the nearest town, and who the Emperor is."

He grunted. "Somehow I doubt that poor Honorius has gotten around to painting his name on the stones . . . But, yes, that's the idea. Now, the stones are set every thousand paces or so along each main road. And if you count them, you'll know how far we've come, won't you?"

"Yes!" She rubbed her nose. "But what if I fall asleep? Or what if it's dark?"

"If you fall asleep I'll count for you. And don't rub your nose. You have to start now. That'sone . . ."

"One." Solemnly she folded a finger back as a marker, and peered along the road for the next pillar. But it seemed an awful long time coming, and by the time she saw it she had forgotten what she was supposed to be doing, and had let her finger fold out again.

Her grandfather seemed determined to keep up her schooling, and as they rattled along he told her the story of the road itself. The soldiers from the army of Emperor Claudius had first come this way, surveying the route. The road had been built by the soldiers themselves, and people drafted in from the countryside.

"How much did they get paid?"

"Paid? Hah! Everybody was a barbarian in those days, child. You didn't getpaid . Look. You put down a gravel core, and lay on a surface of crushed limestone. You use stone slabs where you can find them.

The water drains out into those side ditches-can you see? . . ."

She was good at pretending to listen, while being occupied with her own thoughts. But eventually she drifted asleep, slumped against Aetius's st.u.r.dy form, dreaming fitfully about the little girl in her hobnailed boots.

She dozed through the day, or listened to Aetius's complicated talk, or played word games with Cartumandua. They stopped only to water and feed the horses; the pa.s.sengers ate on the move in the cart, bread with fish and meat.

The last time Regina woke up that day, the cart was pulling into a courtyard. As Aetius and the others jumped down and began to unload, Regina stood up on her seat, stretched and ma.s.saged a sore rump, and looked around. The light was fading from the sky, and high, thin clouds had gathered. To her right she could see a wall, tall and formidable, a great curtain of slate gray two or three times her height that curved away across the ground.

She pointed. "There's a town! Is it Durnovaria?"

Aetius snorted. "We've come a little farther than that. Haven't you been counting the waystones? We pa.s.sed twenty-three-not a bad pace after a slow start. That is Calleva Atrebatum."

"Aren't we going to stay there? . . . What's this place? Is it a villa?"

It was no villa but one of themansiones , a way station designed to support the messengers of the Imperial Post. It was here, Aetius said, that they would spend the night, for it was safe enough, and he would "swim to Hades before I give over any more 'gate tax' to any more swindling landowners in any more towns."

The station turned out to be comfortable enough. It even had a small bathhouse, where Aetius retired with a pitcher of wine and a plate of oysters, bought for a price that made him groan out loud.

After a day spent largely sitting on a wooden board, Regina was too full of energy to sleep. And so, after she had eaten, despite the lateness of the hour, she, Macco, and Carta playedtrigon , a complicated three- person game of catch-the-ball. Regina ran and laughed, burning up her energy, and her voice echoed from the station's plaster walls. Macco stayed as silent as ever, but his smile was broad.

The next day Aetius was again up and ready to go not long after dawn. It didn't take long to reload the carriage, and soon the four of them were on the road again-though not before Aetius sniffed the air and inspected the clouds and the trees and the birds, seeking omens for their journey.

They continued to head steadily east. The road ran straight and true, unchanging, the way markers sliding past one by one. But the landscape changed slowly, becoming more hilly, and some of the plowed-up fields gleamed white with chalk.

Some of the villas looked abandoned, though, even burned out. On one farm, close to the road, Regina recognized a vineyard, rows of vines set out on a south-facing hillside. But though the vines were green and heavy they looked untended, and the nearby buildings were broken down. Aetius did not comment on the abandoned vineyard, and Regina thought nothing of it. If she had, she would have said that things must always have been this way. She did want to go see if there were any grapes, but Aetius ignored her pleas.

That night they again stayed in a way station.

And the next morning, soon after the start, when they pa.s.sed over the crest of a hill, Regina glimpsed Londinium itself. The town was a marvelous gray-green sprawl of buildings contained within a far-flung wall. A shining river ran through it. Smoke rose everywhere, thin threads that spiraled to the sky. Regina thought she saw a ship on the river, a green-sailed boat that sparkled in the low morning sun, but she couldn't be sure.

"Are we going on a ship?"

"No-child, I told you already. We aren't stopping in Londinium. We're going on. Don't you listen?"

Aetius seemed to be getting angry. But Carta put her hand on Regina's shoulder, and he subsided.

They turned their backs on Londinium, heading north. Regina looked back at the city as it receded. "I'll go there one day," she said. "I'll go far beyond it, too! I'll go all the way to Rome!"

Aetius grimaced, and hugged her with his ma.s.sive arm.

For Regina, after the city, this third day turned out to be the most difficult so far. The sky lidded over with gray cloud, and although the sun was gone the temperature rose steadily. They were all soon sweating uncomfortably, and they had to stop frequently to allow the horses to drink.

Aetius, apparently trying to compensate for the absence of Regina's tutors, chose this difficult day to lecture her on the essentials of Roman Britain.