In the Shadow of Heroes Read online

  He showed it to her.

  ‘You’ll have to say it out loud. Can’t read, remember?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Sorry.’ Cadmus scanned the whole thing. It was in shorthand, a sort of code that Silvanus and Tullus had taught their slaves, for transcribing notes at speed. To any other readers it would have been completely indecipherable. ‘It says: Greetings from Athens, old friend. I wish I had more space to write, more time to explain. I am not long for this world – that’ll teach me for sticking my nose into matters of the gods. I won’t say you didn’t warn me.’

  Cadmus looked up.

  ‘Strange,’ he said. ‘Drusilla said they had worked together in the past, but Tullus never mentioned it to me.’

  Tog shrugged. He went back to reading the letter.

  ‘I know you wished to leave all of this behind you, but I thought this was something you needed to know. I have found it, Tullus. Medea’s grave. In an abandoned shrine near Athens. I’m amazed we never discovered the site earlier, it seems too obvious! It wasn’t mentioned in any of your notes, but I have found someone who is an even better guide than you. She is a prophetess. I can hear you laughing now – a prophetess indeed – but this young woman is different. She claims descent from Medea herself.

  ‘We have hit a snag, though. The slaves have been digging for days, but the fleece is nowhere to be found. Nor the trials mentioned in the historia Brutorum. I returned to the prophetess to ask for more information, and I am sorry to say I lost my temper with her. I should have known not to be so forceful – and now here I am, confined to my bed, staring Death in the face.

  ‘But I am choosing to see this as a blessing. A sign from the gods. While work has stopped, I am asking you to pick up where I have left off. This is your chance to find the Golden Fleece before the emperor does – a blessing, like I say. I have destroyed my notes here, so they do not fall into the wrong hands, but much of the research you gave me is still in Rome. It is hidden in the Aemilii family tomb, watched over by the gorgon. I need not remind you what a disaster it would be if Nero were to claim the fleece first.

  ‘I am sorry I will not be there to take these final steps with you – but then, it is only fitting that you should be the one to enjoy the fruits of our labours. A word of caution, though: if you choose to visit the prophetess, take great care. She is more dangerous than she seems.’ Cadmus paused again, before continuing. ‘Reward this slave, she has suffered a great deal. Love to my wife. See you in the world below.’

  He looked up at Tog, whose face was strangely blank. ‘A reward?’ she said. ‘That’s good. Wonder what it’ll be.’

  Cadmus scanned the letter again. He couldn’t help feeling slightly betrayed. Why hadn’t Tullus said anything? Here were two of Rome’s most renowned scholars, convinced that the Golden Fleece was not only real, but within their grasp. Why was it so important that Nero not get his hands upon it? Surely they didn’t subscribe to the same superstitions as Nero?

  There was only way to find out, and that was to read the research that Silvanus had taken such pains to hide.

  ‘Tog,’ he said, starting to fasten his broken sandal, ‘it looks like you and I have a date with the dead.’

  VII

  It was the final day of the Megalesia, and the Via Appia was almost at a standstill. Somewhere along the road a cart had broken down and in the blazing midday sun nobody was in the mood to be patient. A fight had already broken out at the bottleneck. Slaves and journeymen shoved and shouted, while patricians leant from their brightly painted litters and demanded to be let through first. To make matters worse, the entire community of beggars from the Porta Capena had now descended upon the gridlocked road to ply their trade, bringing with them their various exotic smells and afflictions.

  Tog went ahead and forced a way through the compacted bodies, Cadmus following in her wake, grateful for the human shield. Once they were through the Porta Capena and beyond the city walls, the air seemed to immediately freshen, and even though the road was almost as busy, people were noticeably more subdued. Out here, travellers kept different company.

  The route was lined with the tombs of the great patrician families, whose long-dead ancestors watched the living come and go from the city. Rich or poor, citizen or slave, everyone leaving or arriving at Rome did so under their stern, marble gaze. The imposing facades of the tombs demanded silence. Their doors yawned open. They seemed to invite passers-by out of the summer heat and into the cool, blue shade of death.

  ‘This was the road I came in on,’ said Tog. ‘From the coast.’ Her mouse was perched on her shoulder. Only the gods knew how she’d got it to stay there.

  ‘The Via Appia,’ Cadmus said. ‘Longest in Italy, I think. Definitely the most important.’ They wandered slowly along the road, looking up at the names on the tombs. Cadmus already had a crick in his neck.

  ‘I thought these were houses,’ said Tog. ‘They’re so big!’

  ‘Oh, yes. Just because you’re dead doesn’t mean you don’t have to keep up with the neighbours,’ he laughed.

  ‘You bury your dead right here? Next to the road? Where everyone can see them?’

  ‘The rich families do, yes. After they’ve been cremated. Poorer people have to make do with being chucked in the river.’

  ‘I’d rather that. Not very peaceful here, is it?’

  ‘I think that’s the point. Keeps the dead fresh in everyone’s mind. And gives them a bit of company, you know? Look.’ He pointed to a more modest tomb a little further up the road. ‘Some people still have dinner with them.’

  In the small paved area in front of the monument was a table set with bread and oil and a jug of wine. There were flowers scattered among the meal too.

  ‘Oh, I wonder if—’

  ‘Don’t even think about it, Tog. You can’t feed your mouse with offerings to the dead. The gods below will not take it kindly.’

  ‘That wasn’t what I was thinking . . .’ she said, but trailed off. ‘He’s had too much to eat anyway. I think he’s a bit sick.’

  Cadmus looked at the dormouse and laughed. She was right, somehow he did look a little green around the whiskers, and was moving very sluggishly around her broad shoulders.

  She stared at the food and looked up at the bust of the tomb’s owner. Then she moved on, as though lost in thought. The mouse crept under the golden-silver tumble of her hair.

  ‘I think it’s odd,’ she said quietly. ‘At home we buried them under the ground.’

  ‘That’s the third time you’ve mentioned home. Where exactly are you from?’

  ‘Britannia.’ She pronounced it slowly and deliberately. ‘That’s what you call it anyway. I don’t like the way it sounds in your language.’

  Britannia. Just the name sounded like fantasy. Like myth. She may as well have said she was from Mount Olympus, or the Elysian Fields. A rain-soaked island of monsters, cut off from the rest of the world by a cold and frothing sea, where the inhabitants painted their naked bodies in blue woad and never cut their hair. Whose priests sacrificed their fellow men and wielded strange and unnatural magic.

  Or so he’d been told. Tog didn’t quite fit the description.

  ‘I see,’ he said, swallowing hard. ‘And those things you told Bufo in the house . . . were they all true?’

  ‘Yes. My grandfather was our king. So was my father, but by the time he had the throne things were . . . changing. He led the fight against the Romans when they invaded, but he was captured. My mother and sister too. I don’t know what happened to them. I assume they’re dead.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Cadmus.

  ‘I thought we agreed not feel sorry for each other?’ she said. ‘Anyway, I hardly knew him. I just know the stories my aunt told me – she looked after me and my cousin when the others had gone. Then, three winters back, there were rumours of another uprising against the Romans. A queen from the east passed through our village, looking for people to join her. My aunt forbade me to go, but I saw it as my duty, after wh
at had happened to my father. So I joined the queen.’

  ‘Boudicca,’ said Cadmus.

  ‘You know her?’

  ‘She made quite an impression on us, here at Rome. Obliterated the settlements. Brought the province to its knees.’

  ‘No thanks to me . . .’ She hung her head in shame. ‘I got captured before I’d even seen my first battle.’

  ‘And then what? How did you end up in Athens?’

  ‘They took me back to Rome and put me up for public auction, like I said. Some businessman bought me and shipped me to Greece. I only worked in his house for a few days before he realized I wasn’t going to behave. That was when he sent me to work in the mines.’

  Cadmus had heard about the conditions in the silver mines of Greece. Slaves rarely made it out alive. It only added to his impression of Tog as a being not quite of this world.

  ‘Your Greek is very good,’ he said, because he couldn’t think of anything else. Tog shrugged.

  ‘Had to learn quickly. All the other slaves were Greek. And nothing gets you whipped faster than not understanding your master’s instructions. You probably know that.’

  He didn’t, actually, and again felt faintly ashamed. He’d never been whipped in his life. Tog had endured things that were beyond the realms of his imagination.

  They continued along the verge of the Via Appia, searching the inscriptions for Silvanus’s family tomb. They passed the Metelli and the Sergii, their bones laid to rest in edifices larger than Tullus’s villa.

  ‘Do you miss it?’ asked Cadmus.

  ‘Of course.’ She paused to let her mouse nibble at her finger. ‘You know what I miss most? The weather. The rain, the wind. You don’t have proper skies here. Your skies are dead. I miss the greens and the blues. You Romans—’

  Cadmus cleared his throat noisily. ‘Careful, Tog. I’m not a Roman any more than you are.’

  ‘Fine. These Romans are always going on about their land. How much they love their countryside. But, to me, this whole country is just dirt. It’s hot and it’s yellow and it’s dusty. Like nothing wants to grow. My home . . . Everything wants to grow. The whole world is leaves and grass and streams. And trees. Mighty trees, not like these little things.’ She pointed at a poplar growing between the marble monuments. ‘You should come with me, when I go back there.’

  ‘When you go back?’

  ‘Yes. When. It’ll happen. One day.’

  Cadmus knew that feeling. ‘We just need to be patient,’ he said. ‘It’ll happen. Tullus is a good man.’

  ‘What does that have to do with anything?’

  ‘I mean I think he’ll free us. In the future.’

  ‘I don’t need his permission. I just need enough money and provisions for the journey.’

  ‘I don’t think it would be wise to just run away. Not with the collar on.’

  ‘I knew you’d say that. You think too much.’ Cadmus went quiet and chewed his lip. She was right. Always worrying and thinking instead of doing. Suddenly he was full of regrets for not acting faster in the last two days.

  ‘Let’s just keep looking,’ he mumbled. ‘Whatever’s in this tomb might be our route back to Tullus.’

  They continued along the Via Appia in the broken shade of poplars and pines. The air was so hot it hummed with a sound all of its own. Still the men and women streamed towards Rome, beating heart of the world.

  ‘Aha!’ Cadmus pointed to the opposite side. ‘Look. Tombs of the Aemilii Lepidi. And the Aemilii Scauri.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘They’re branches of the same family. The Aemilii Silvani aren’t as important as them, but I bet they’ll have built their tomb nearby.’

  They were some way from the road, and its traffic seemed a distant murmur, when he finally saw it. A small house about the size of Cadmus’s cubiculum, perhaps slightly bigger, fronted by two pillars and the graven heads of three men in togas. The inscription beneath them was badly worn, but Cadmus could make out, ‘DIS MANIBUS’ and, ‘AEMILII’ and, ‘SILVANI’.

  ‘You’re not superstitious, are you?’ Cadmus asked.

  ‘Superstitious?’

  ‘Afraid of ghosts. Spirits.’

  Tog shook her head and stepped inside. She had to duck under the lintel.

  The interior of the tomb was cold and dusty, but not unpleasant. There was no smell of death; just a smell of nothing at all. The marble of the exterior was only for show, it turned out – the walls themselves were made of brick, and there were alcoves built into them where urns had been placed and the busts of those whose ashes were inside. Underneath them were oil lamps and dishes for offerings. They were empty.

  ‘Oh, dear,’ whispered Cadmus, shivering. ‘Looks like Silvanus hasn’t been taking much care of his forefathers.’

  ‘What exactly are we looking for?’

  ‘I don’t know. Silvanus just called it his work. Maybe a scroll or something.’

  ‘Didn’t it say someone was guarding it?’

  ‘The gorgon. I’m not sure what he meant by that. It’s a monster, from a Greek myth. I don’t think he meant the real thing.’

  He waited a few moments for his eyes to adjust to the darkness, then started exploring the abandoned shrines. Tog let the mouse run down her arm and on to one of the ledges, where it circled the dishes warily.

  ‘What was that?’ she said suddenly, straightening up and banging her head on the ceiling.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I think there’s someone outside.’ Tog shook the dust and plaster out of her hair, and went to the door, where the sun was painfully bright. She looked around. A bee buzzed lazily into the tomb and quickly left, as though aware it had taken a wrong turn.

  ‘Well?’ called Cadmus.

  ‘Nothing,’ she said, coming inside and making sure she ducked this time.

  ‘I thought you said you weren’t afraid,’ said Cadmus. She gave him an unimpressed look.

  ‘So this monster . . .’ she said.

  ‘I think I’ve found it.’

  In the back corner of the tomb was the head and shoulders of a heavy-browed, serious man – to be honest, they all looked serious – who wasn’t wearing a toga but a military uniform. He must have been a distant ancestor because, as far as Cadmus knew, the Silvani were a family of scholars and lawyers. On the front of his breastplate Cadmus could just make out the carving of the gorgon’s face, teeth bared, snakes writhing wildly around her head.

  ‘Right. So where is this scroll?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Cadmus looked around and behind the bust, even in the urn itself, but found only dust and ash.

  ‘Looks cleaner, this one. Doesn’t it?’ said Tog. ‘Look at the others. Covered in cobwebs.’

  At the same time as she said this, her mouse came scuttling along the ledge, and disappeared into a crack at the base of the marble that seemed barely wide enough to fit a finger in. It was so small Cadmus hadn’t even seen it.

  ‘Hey!’ cried Tog. ‘Where are you going?’

  She pushed Cadmus out of the way, and grasped each side of the bust.

  ‘I’m not sure . . .’ said Cadmus feebly, but before he could reason with her, the muscles in her back and shoulders were taut and she was heaving the huge carving to one side so the grizzled face of old Marcus Aemilius Silvanus Probus was facing the wall.

  And there it was. Beneath his image, maybe half a dozen bricks had been removed to create a sunken recess, and in it Cadmus could see a parcel of leather, about the size of his writing tablets. Tog’s pet was perched on top of it, his tail curled around one of the strings holding it together.

  ‘Well,’ said Tog. ‘Looks like you wouldn’t have achieved very much without us.’ She held out a finger and the dormouse ran up the length of her arm.

  Cadmus reached in and drew the package carefully out of its hiding place. The leather was a little damp and faded at the corners, but it was otherwise in good condition. It looked well used. It was also heavier
than he had expected. After watching Tog lift the marble bust without so much as breaking a sweat, he felt utterly feeble having to cradle it in both hands.

  ‘This must be what Silvanus was talking about,’ he said.

  He walked back towards the light of day, blew the dust from the top and unwound the strings. Inside were hundreds of pieces of loose papyrus, yellowed and curling. Each page was crammed with text, written horizontally, vertically, diagonally, in long lines and in small clusters, to the margins and beyond. There were short passages in Greek and in Latin, and symbols that Cadmus didn’t recognize as any language. The handwriting looked slightly crazed, but most of it without doubt belonged to his master. There were maps and diagrams too, sketches of pottery and statues and ruined buildings.

  ‘What is it?’ Tog asked.

  ‘Tullus’s notes. Everything he knew about the Argonaut myth. And it’s not all about Jason and Medea – he’s followed Heracles, Orpheus, Theseus . . .’ He squinted. ‘Hold on, I need a better look.’

  He stepped out of the tomb and suddenly his eyes throbbed with a blinding whiteness, not from the sunlight, but from an explosion of pain on the back of his head.

  Tog’s shout came too late. He remembered the taste and smell of soil, and then nothing.

  VIII

  When Cadmus came round, he couldn’t see anything. Then, out of the nothingness, a Roman face, a man’s, ancient and furrowed. It stared down at him, as though in judgement. For a moment he thought he was still in the tomb. Then the face spoke.

  ‘Cadmus! Are you all right?’

  It was Tullus. Cadmus stood up, an instinct from when he was back in the villa and roused from sleep by some emergency.

  ‘Master,’ he burbled. ‘What is it?’

  He collapsed and Tullus caught him in his bony arms.

  ‘Thank the gods you’re awake!’ The old man gently, awkwardly, lowered him to the ground in a half-embrace. ‘I thought you were dead when they brought you in.’

  ‘I think I might be.’ He rubbed his head. ‘Where are we?’

  ‘The Domus Transitoria,’ said Tullus. Cadmus squinted. It took a huge amount of effort to understand what his master was saying.