stockade where a dozen small sheep with matted brown wool grazed in silence. Agrippa frowned when he saw them.
‘I don’t think we can take them with us. If we release them they’ll just scatter into the forest and the wolves will get them. We should leave them here and send back some cavalry and a stockman to drive them in.’
‘Paullus won’t be happy,’ Rufus pointed out.
Agrippa grinned. ‘Paullus is never happy. I thought you’d noticed that. We’ll need half a dozen trips to get all this to the wagons.’ He shouted to one of the other guards. ‘Cestus, the old men and the woman can still carry something with their hands tied. Get the buggers to work.’
The slaves were already heavily laden. Agrippa ordered them into line with one guard in the van, with Veleda, and another bringing up the rear. ‘We’ll leave a couple of people to keep digging up what’s in the pits. It shouldn’t take us long to get back to the village.’ Rufus nodded and picked up as many sacks as he could carry before following the Roman back into the trees. He felt a spot of cold liquid splash on to the bare flesh of his forearm, quickly followed by another, then a dozen more. In a moment, big droplets studded the earth of the clearing, lancing diagonally from the heavens and creating little brown pools in any indent or hollow. The noise of the rain hitting the leaves was so loud that Agrippa had to shout to make himself heard.
‘This cursed country. Quickly, now. We need to get this into the carts and covered or we’ll lose half of it.’ He sheathed his sword and picked up a sack under each arm before trotting off after the column of slaves and captives, leaving Rufus to make his own pace.
By now the deluge was so fierce the young slave had difficulty following the track. He concentrated on Agrippa’s retreating back and tried to keep his feet moving through the increasingly heavy tangle of wet grass. In the twilight world of the storm-darkened undergrowth, the trees and bushes seemed closer than before, the thorns longer and more persistent. The grasping stem of a dog rose obstructed him and he looked up to discover that Agrippa had disappeared. For a moment he feared he’d be trapped for ever in this frightening green jungle that threatened to bury him alive. Then, as suddenly as it began, the rain stopped, and it was as if a veil had been lifted from his eyes. He was no longer in a threatening, claustrophobic tunnel, just a pleasant green pathway. The thorn bushes were scattered with delicate pink flowers which the raindrops filled like tiny diamonds. He could hear a bird singing a sweet trilling melody, and the rhythmic tap-tap of individual drops falling from the canopy on to larger leaves below. And the sound of clashing metal. Metal? With a lurch his world turned upside down. Now the grass he’d been walking on was in front of his eyes, each individual blade etched sharp on his brain. For a second he was surprised. He must have tripped? Then the grass blurred, and faded, and his vision turned black as night, but not before his mind registered the leather-clad foot which planted itself an inch from his nose.
XI
There are different kinds of waking.
There is the restful waking in a soft bed, or even a hard one, when the brain is refreshed and instantly at the ready for whatever the day brings. There is the sluggish, glue-mouthed waking that is the aftermath of a half-remembered night of revelry that involved one cup of rough wine too many. Then there is the joyful waking, as one’s hand unthinkingly finds firm, rounded flesh, and the mind strays to the wonders of the night before and the body anticipates the pleasures yet to come.
Rufus’s waking was none of these.
He knew something was horribly wrong even before he opened his eyes. What was this unyielding, gnarled vegetable thing cutting into his face from eyebrow to chin? And another, trapping his arm beneath him and eating deep into his flesh. He was half
‘I don’t think we can take them with us. If we release them they’ll just scatter into the forest and the wolves will get them. We should leave them here and send back some cavalry and a stockman to drive them in.’
‘Paullus won’t be happy,’ Rufus pointed out.
Agrippa grinned. ‘Paullus is never happy. I thought you’d noticed that. We’ll need half a dozen trips to get all this to the wagons.’ He shouted to one of the other guards. ‘Cestus, the old men and the woman can still carry something with their hands tied. Get the buggers to work.’
The slaves were already heavily laden. Agrippa ordered them into line with one guard in the van, with Veleda, and another bringing up the rear. ‘We’ll leave a couple of people to keep digging up what’s in the pits. It shouldn’t take us long to get back to the village.’ Rufus nodded and picked up as many sacks as he could carry before following the Roman back into the trees. He felt a spot of cold liquid splash on to the bare flesh of his forearm, quickly followed by another, then a dozen more. In a moment, big droplets studded the earth of the clearing, lancing diagonally from the heavens and creating little brown pools in any indent or hollow. The noise of the rain hitting the leaves was so loud that Agrippa had to shout to make himself heard.
‘This cursed country. Quickly, now. We need to get this into the carts and covered or we’ll lose half of it.’ He sheathed his sword and picked up a sack under each arm before trotting off after the column of slaves and captives, leaving Rufus to make his own pace.
By now the deluge was so fierce the young slave had difficulty following the track. He concentrated on Agrippa’s retreating back and tried to keep his feet moving through the increasingly heavy tangle of wet grass. In the twilight world of the storm-darkened undergrowth, the trees and bushes seemed closer than before, the thorns longer and more persistent. The grasping stem of a dog rose obstructed him and he looked up to discover that Agrippa had disappeared. For a moment he feared he’d be trapped for ever in this frightening green jungle that threatened to bury him alive. Then, as suddenly as it began, the rain stopped, and it was as if a veil had been lifted from his eyes. He was no longer in a threatening, claustrophobic tunnel, just a pleasant green pathway. The thorn bushes were scattered with delicate pink flowers which the raindrops filled like tiny diamonds. He could hear a bird singing a sweet trilling melody, and the rhythmic tap-tap of individual drops falling from the canopy on to larger leaves below. And the sound of clashing metal. Metal? With a lurch his world turned upside down. Now the grass he’d been walking on was in front of his eyes, each individual blade etched sharp on his brain. For a second he was surprised. He must have tripped? Then the grass blurred, and faded, and his vision turned black as night, but not before his mind registered the leather-clad foot which planted itself an inch from his nose.
XI
There are different kinds of waking.
There is the restful waking in a soft bed, or even a hard one, when the brain is refreshed and instantly at the ready for whatever the day brings. There is the sluggish, glue-mouthed waking that is the aftermath of a half-remembered night of revelry that involved one cup of rough wine too many. Then there is the joyful waking, as one’s hand unthinkingly finds firm, rounded flesh, and the mind strays to the wonders of the night before and the body anticipates the pleasures yet to come.
Rufus’s waking was none of these.
He knew something was horribly wrong even before he opened his eyes. What was this unyielding, gnarled vegetable thing cutting into his face from eyebrow to chin? And another, trapping his arm beneath him and eating deep into his flesh. He was half
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