In the Shadow of Heroes Read online

  The heroidai – all but one – marched forward in their coloured armour, spears, swords, clubs raised. Cadmus looked at Tullus’s face and then at Nero’s, the one ashen and the other murderous, and knew there was no point in appealing to either of them.

  Accept your fate, said that stern, philosophical voice at the back of his head. Accept your suffering with equanimity.

  And then another voice, the voice of a fourteen-year-old boy with pale skin and one shoe replied firmly: Run like hell.

  He bolted to one side as the first sword stroke landed, sending chips of mosaic flying into the air. He leapt up on to the couches, over the heaps of flesh drunkenly snatching at him, and disappeared into the darkness of the garden.

  Outside the sweaty fog of the dinner party, the night air was a cold thrill. Cadmus felt suddenly very awake, his eyes watering, his one bare foot pounding the damp earth in time with his heart. The garden was enormous, cluttered with the dim shapes of trees and statues and fountains. There were plenty of places to hide, but no way to escape.

  Behind him he could hear the rest of the diners baying for blood. Amid the cacophony he could distinguish Nero’s scream and Epaphroditus’s clipped instructions. What was he doing? A good Stoic wasn’t meant to run from death; neither was a slave.

  Cadmus was halfway to the other side of the garden when the ground suddenly disappeared beneath him, and his leg, followed by the rest of him, plunged into one of the garden’s artificial lakes. His world went cold and silent for a moment, and then he struggled to the surface, thrashing and choking and feeling like his tunic was pulling him to his death. Tullus had taught him a great many things; swimming was not one of them.

  He squirmed and flailed until his feet touched the slimy bottom. When he waded to the bank on the far side, he found one of the heroidai waiting for him. The giant picked him up with one hand and threw him on to the grass.

  Cadmus curled up, too terrified to cry. He waited for the feeling of freezing steel in his belly.

  ‘Get up!’ said the giant.

  He opened his eyes. He stopped shivering.

  ‘Cadmus, it’s me!’ Tog lifted her mask. ‘Come on, we can get up on the roof!’

  He got to his feet, and now there really were tears in his eyes, but tears of relief rather than fear. He shook the water out of his ears and ran with Tog to the corner of the portico. Behind them the other heroidai drifted through the dark garden, like phantoms in their coloured armour.

  Tog got down on one knee and interlaced her fingers to give him a boost. ‘You go first, then pull me up.’

  Cadmus thought of Tullus, said a quick prayer, and stepped into Tog’s waiting palms. She lifted him up and he gripped on to one of the roof tiles. It came loose in his hand, and he tumbled back down on top of her. He heard her swearing in her native language.

  Second time around, the displaced tile had created a convenient hole in the roof that he could hang on to. He hauled himself on to his stomach, and then, still lying flat, dangled an arm for Tog to use. She didn’t need it. With the heroidai a few paces behind, she ran, kicked off one of the columns and caught the edge of the roof with both hands. She swung herself up as a spear shattered the tiles next to her head.

  ‘Where are we going?’ said Cadmus. His lips and fingers were still numb from falling in the lake.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Tog. ‘Just run. Think later.’

  They hobbled unsteadily over the ridge of the roof, tiles loosening with every other step, showering terracotta on the pursuers below. At the top Cadmus paused briefly, overcome by the sight that greeted him: the whole palace, and beyond it, Rome, its streets and corners sketched out in firelight.

  Something was strange about Tog’s breathing. It was loud and irregular and ragged. It was a moment before Cadmus realized she wasn’t panting. She was laughing.

  ‘Hey, Cadmus, wait,’ she said. She took off the mask and helmet and tossed them back into the garden. There was a satisfying clang as it struck one of the other guards. ‘Look what I got.’

  She put her fingers down inside the enamelled breastplate, and pulled out a corner of what she was wearing underneath. Her neck and face reflected a golden light.

  The fleece. She’d stolen it.

  Before Cadmus could reply, another pair of missiles rained down on them. Something snagged on the shoulder of his tunic and he cried out in pain. Both of them lost their footing, slid down the other side of the roof, and fell off the edge. Cadmus hit the ground and began rolling, out of control, over the rocks and the roots on the steepest side of the Palatine Hill.

  XI

  Tog pulled him out from under the legs of a mule, idling in the street at the foot of the hill. Annoyed at the disturbance, it flicked its ears and kicked him in the stomach as he was standing up. The festival-goers pointed and laughed.

  ‘Are you all right?’ said Tog, grasping him by his shoulders.

  ‘Guh . . .’ said Cadmus.

  ‘Good enough for me.’

  The mule continued to dance irritably on the cobbles.

  ‘Hush,’ Tog said, turning and patting it on its flank. She rummaged in a leather bag that was hanging from its back, found a flask of water and took a swig. She offered some to Cadmus, and while he drank she removed the leather pack in its entirety.

  ‘Oi!’ came a shout from mule’s owner. ‘What are you— That’s mine!’

  Tog snatched the bag and ran, Cadmus gasping in her wake. His shoulder stung, and from elbow to wrist his skin felt hot and sticky. They pushed through the crowds of revellers, through priests, musicians, dwarves, troupes of actors plying their trade on street corners, through alleyways that stank of meat and stale wine and fresh urine, until they collapsed outside the back of a two-storey shop where a couple of dogs were fighting over something that looked and sounded a lot like miscellaneous entrails.

  ‘We’re . . . in . . . the Subura,’ said Cadmus, in between pained lungfuls of air. ‘Bad . . . place to be.’

  ‘It’s fine. We’re not staying,’ said Tog.

  ‘That’s . . . damn right,’ said Cadmus. He took a few more ragged breaths and prodded at the wound in his arm. It gaped like a fish. ‘We can’t even . . . stay in Rome now. Nero’s going to find us and kill us. Very slowly. Very painfully.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ said Tog. ‘I didn’t want to stay in Rome anyway. I’ll just head for home. It’s a bit earlier than expected, but no time like the present.’

  ‘And what about me?’

  She shrugged. ‘You can go home too.’

  ‘I can’t just go back to Tullus’s house, they’ll find me!’

  ‘Not that home, your real home. Wherever you came from.’

  For a moment, a vista opened up before Cadmus’s eyes. He imagined himself walking the streets of Athens at liberty, with his own house, his own library, his own little garden. Maybe a plot of land with some vines outside the city walls. And then, as usual, the dream was muddied with rational thoughts. How would he find any money? How would he convince anyone he wasn’t a slave? How would he even survive the journey? His skin was so pale he couldn’t leave the house at midday without getting sunburnt.

  Next to him, Tog had started removing the bronze plate armour and piling it on the floor.

  ‘What was all that about your shoe?’ she said.

  Cadmus came back from his reverie. ‘What?’

  ‘Your shoe. Why was the emperor so worried you only had one shoe?’

  He looked at his bare, bruised foot. ‘It’s an omen.’

  ‘Omen?’

  ‘Something that predicts the future. In the myth of Jason, his uncle, King Pelias, was told to beware of a traveller wearing only one sandal. It was said that such a man would unseat him from the throne. When Jason turned up at his palace, one of his sandals was missing. That’s why Pelias sent him away to get the fleece – he thought the mission would kill him.’

  ‘But what does that have to do with you?’

  ‘My thoughts
exactly. Nero must think the omen is still relevant. I imagine that soothsayer has been pouring poison in his ear. And his brain is addled enough as it is.’

  Tog removed the intricately decorated breastplate. As the clasps came undone, she peeled the Golden Fleece away from her body. She threw it to Cadmus, who caught it in both hands. The fibres of the fleece were like nothing he had ever felt before. They were cool and supple and flowed like water over his fingers. Looking at its otherworldly sheen, he thought he could start believing all the things that Tullus had said.

  ‘Maybe this omen,’ Tog said, pronouncing the word slowly, ‘is true. I mean, look. You are his enemy. You took his fleece.’

  ‘Me? I wasn’t the one who stole it!’

  ‘No, but you’re the reason I did.’

  Cadmus looked at her in mute disbelief.

  ‘The letter,’ she said, casually tying her hair back. On the nape of her neck Cadmus saw the mouse, somehow safe and sound and untroubled by their escape from the palace.

  ‘What about the letter?’

  ‘The secret letter said Nero shouldn’t have the fleece, didn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That it would be a disaster?’

  ‘Yes . . .’

  ‘So I took it.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘And you were the one who showed me the letter. So it is sort of your doing.’

  Cadmus blinked.

  ‘What?’ said Tog. ‘That was what you wanted, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Well . . . I suppose so.’

  A strange, joyless laughter exploded from the building behind them.

  ‘Someone’s coming,’ said Tog. ‘Throw it here.’

  Cadmus tossed her the fleece. It was stained red where his bloodied fingers had touched it. Tog quickly stuffed it into the leather bag she’d taken from the mule, just as a red-faced woman appeared on the doorstep.

  ‘What are you two doing here?’ she said in Greek.

  ‘Come on,’ said Cadmus, getting up. ‘We should go.’

  ‘Hey!You!’ The woman wasn’t giving up. ‘Yes, you, with the collar! Where’s your master? If he’s one of our customers then you should be waiting round the front, not skulking back here.’

  ‘No, he’s not here,’ said Cadmus.

  ‘Then where is he? Who do you belong to?’

  ‘No one,’ said Tog, before Cadmus could reply, and strode off into the night.

  The Subura was a cramped and dirty labyrinth. It was only April, but the air felt unbearably hot, and it was heavy with incense and sweat and cheap perfume. Cadmus took them in the direction he thought was north, trying to move as quickly as possible without seeming suspicious.

  They fought their way up the Vicus Longus, against the tide heading towards the Forum and the Circus. Cadmus’s shoulder throbbed, and his one bare foot was getting bruised and swollen.

  The Quirinal Hill rose gently out of the mess of the Subura, and they came to the imposing brick and marble of the city walls. All of Rome’s gates had been thrown open for the festivities of the Megalesia, and the watchmen had better things to worry about than two young slaves heading out of the city. Cadmus and Tog passed under the nearest of the arches and suddenly Rome, with all its dark corners and dangerous alleyways, was behind them. From the top of the hill they looked out on the plain of the Campus Martius and saw the silver seam of the Tiber meandering through it.

  ‘What do you think we should do?’ said Tog.

  ‘You said run now, think later.’

  ‘It is later,’ she said. She wasn’t even out of breath.

  So Cadmus thought. The situation seemed hopeless. They would be outlaws, barred from Rome, without even a roof over their heads. And no one would care if two slaves died of exposure.

  ‘We should cross the river. Get as far from the city as possible. Head west to the coast and find somewhere to hide out. Maybe Ostia.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Next town along. Rome’s main port.’

  ‘Maybe I could get a boat to Britannia from there.’

  Cadmus looked at her scarred, hopeful face. He didn’t have the heart to disappoint her.

  ‘Maybe,’ he said.

  They walked quickly down the hillside and crossed the Campus Martius to the river. Over a footbridge they left the road entirely and disappeared into the fields, soft and furrowed from the rain and the plough. On the edge of a copse of ash trees, Cadmus turned and looked back at Rome. The city was bright with lamps and torches, but it didn’t look festive any more. From where they stood, it looked like Nero had set fire to his own city in a fit of rage.

  XII

  They lost themselves in the darkness of the woods. Once Rome was out of sight they stumbled into a hollow in the earth, surrounded by a nest of thick roots, and decided to rest. For a while they didn’t speak. Underneath their panting, the trees and the earth continued to rustle with the sounds of animals going about their secret nocturnal lives.

  ‘Do you have wolves here?’ said Tog.

  ‘Um . . . I don’t know. Maybe?’

  ‘What about bears?’

  ‘I don’t know that either.’

  ‘How can you know so little about your own land?’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘I’m going to make a fire. If I don’t come back, the wolves got me.’

  Cadmus opened his mouth but she was already gone, tramping through the undergrowth. He said prayers to Jupiter and to Diana while she went about finding flint and firewood, and then watched in amazement as she conjured flames, like magic, out of nothingness. The sudden warmth on his cold face was a miracle. She went foraging for berries and mushrooms too, and brought them back a rabbit, which she promptly gutted in front of him.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ said Cadmus, his stomach turning as she emptied the intestines on to the forest floor. ‘You seem to have a rather ambivalent attitude to fauna.’

  ‘A what attitude to what?’

  ‘I mean – you want to take care of them, but you also seem quite happy to kill them.’

  ‘I’m not happy to kill them,’ she said, frowning in the firelight. ‘Out here, I have to kill them, if I’m hungry. And I accept that they might have to kill me, if they’re hungry. It’s about mutual respect. I’ve seen the way Greeks and Romans treat their animals. They could learn a few things about respect.’

  She spitted the body of the rabbit and balanced it on two pairs of sticks over the fire. Soon the skin was charred and sizzling. She tore off a haunch and handed it to Cadmus with thumb and forefinger.

  He lifted the rabbit to his mouth and winced as the wound in his arm opened again. Tog saw and immediately stood up.

  ‘Oh, your arm,’ she said. ‘Wait.’ She disappeared into the trees again.

  When she returned she was holding something delicate in between her fingers. It looked like several fine silk threads, glittering in the firelight; though how she had found them in middle of the forest he had no idea.

  ‘Turn that way.’ She pointed. He did as he was told, showing her his shoulder. She laid what she was carrying over the gash where the spear had caught him. It felt cold, and tickled where it met the flesh.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked.

  ‘Spiders’ webs,’ she said. ‘They’ll stop the bleeding. And when they—’

  She made a motion with her fingers.

  ‘Shrink?’

  ‘Yes. They’ll get smaller and close the wound. Don’t touch it.’

  He looked down at the network of tiny fibres, then up at her, and said: ‘Thank you.’

  She just nodded, and tore into her own portion of rabbit, fat spurting from around her teeth.

  ‘Who taught you how to do all of this?’ he asked after a moment.

  She swallowed her mouthful. ‘My aunt. Everyone in my tribe learns how to make the most of the land around them. You Romans—’

  ‘Stop saying that, Tog. I’m not a Roman.’

  ‘Sorry. Those Romans just want to stay in their big houses a
ll the time. Getting other people to feed them, to clean them. Why would you want that? You don’t feel proud. There’s no . . . what’s the word?’

  ‘Dignity?’

  ‘That’s it. There’s no dignity in shutting yourself off from the world.’

  ‘Most Romans would say there’s no dignity in hunting for your dinner. In a society without baths. They think you’re all barbarians. Monsters.’

  ‘We think the same about them. Can’t both be right.’

  ‘No, but you could both be wrong.’

  She snorted.

  ‘The Romans think they’re so civilized, but they know nothing about the world. At home, in Britannia, you get taught how to take care of yourself. You learn about plants and animals, which ones will help you and which ones will harm you. I was taken hunting when I was eight years old. I could ride a horse before I could walk. That’s what my aunt said.’

  Cadmus felt that creeping shame returning, about how sheltered his life had been. He was glad he had Tog with him – he wouldn’t last a day on his own under the open sky. What good were all the books he’d read, all the teachings of the Stoics, when it came to keeping himself alive?

  Tog manoeuvred a bone out of her mouth and spat it into the fire. ‘You haven’t told me anything about your family.’

  ‘You didn’t think to ask,’ Cadmus said, deliberately repeating her words from the day before.

  She looked at him over the flames and made a noise that was halfway between a sniff and a laugh. ‘Well, I’m asking now.’

  Cadmus sifted through the tatty fragments of his memory and found them blank.

  ‘I’m sorry to disappoint, but I don’t have any family,’ he said. ‘Apart from Tullus.’

  ‘But before him?’

  ‘There wasn’t anyone before him. He found me, when I was a baby.’

  ‘Found you?’

  ‘Abandoned. On a road outside Athens. It happens more than you think. One too many mouths to feed. I don’t blame them, really.’

  ‘You should,’ said Tog gruffly.

  ‘Why? Look at the size of me. My skin. My eye.’