Chapter 1
The summons arrived in the red leather pouch along with all the other tag-ends of parchment that fly back and forth among the emperor’s overworked officials. One of these was my father, Tullius Paulinus, magistrate of Venta Silurum which, I am in the habit of reminding people, was once a very important civitas on account of its central southern location and thriving market. While it may be true that Venta no longer enjoyed the eminence it possessed of old, the market was still busy, still thriving, and the magistrate was still an important official in the ranks of regional government. As magistrate, it fell to my father to decide what to do about all those scribbled messages delivered in the dispatch pouch: the grievances, petitions, appeals, demands, and reports. Who owed what in taxes; the price of grain in Londinium; the sorry state of some silted-up port or falling-down bridge; property disputes . . . and so on and on without end.
Each and every one of any of a thousand concerns arrived in that red bag and passed through my hands before ever they reached my father. This is how I learned to read and write, and how I got word of the world beyond the hills surrounding our small southern town. This is also how I learned about the summons that was to change my life.
The rider who had brought the bag had already departed by the time I came into the magistrate’s chambers—one of two rooms facing the street at the end of our house. The larger of the two rooms was where official business was conducted; the smaller was where documents and such were kept and where I had a table to do my work.
I greeted the appearance of the dread bag with a sigh and resigned myself to spending the rest of the day reading those tedious, tight-scrawled messages until I became cross-eyed and numb with boredom. Of all my customary chores, this was the one I accepted, grudgingly, rather than enjoyed. Once read, I would then have to shepherd all these scraps into rough order for my father’s attention. These tasks, among all the others of our busy little outpost, were duties my mother had once performed, but which I inherited when she died.
Morning had all but gone. Father was out and Augustus—his aging adiutor, his chief assistant—was about other business, so I had dawdled as long as I dared. I entered the work room to see the red dispatch bag on the table, waiting for me, taunting me. My heart sank. Not only had I missed the rider—a fine-looking young fellow who always had a word or two of gossip to brighten my day—but now I had a long, dull chore ahead of me.
With a reluctance bordering on despair, I loosened the straps and dumped the bag’s contents onto the table. The tight-folded packets spilled everywhere—a spreading heap of monotony. As the little parcels scattered, I glimpsed a slash of red ink. Well, well, what have we here? I wondered. For, I had seen that mark on messages once or twice before and I knew them to be from somewhere high up the ladder of rank—higher, at least, than a magistrate’s office.
Heart beating with anticipation, I Reached into the pile and pulled out the special packet and held it up for closer examination. My father’s name was written on the outside and, below it, a beeswax seal. I slid my finger under the seal, broke it, and carefully unfolded the parchment square. The rough-cut edges were marked in red ink and the writing was neatly penned. Ordinarily, I would have carried the message directly to my father. As I was alone, I read it instead. My father was being invited to join a delegation formed by Proconsul Esico to attend some sort of council in Viroconium. I gleaned little more than that, but the official tone and the detailed directions given made it clear that this was one invitation the magistrate could not refuse.
I knew that Esico was the chief administrator of our patch, the proconsul, and he commanded from the Civic House in Glevum, the largest town near us, bigger even than Isca. My father had dealings with him in one capacity or other often enough that it was not at all uncommon to receive messages from him or someone in his office. But, a red-edged summons—that was unusual.
I smoothed out the sharp folds and read the invitation again more slowly, stumbling slightly over the word “Viro-con-ium.” I had heard of it, yes, though all I knew of the place was that it lay somewhere in the north and was considered a large and thriving town—a proper civitas in the grand old style. Why anyone would want to hold a council there was beyond me, but if it got my father out of the house and gave me a few days free from the incessant demands of the magistrate’s office, I supported the idea entirely. Placing the message atop the pile of those he would read first, I set about sorting the rest.
“This is serious business,” my father declared after he had returned and settled back into his chair. He picked up the red-edged message. “It’s from Esico—the procurator himself will be there.”
“It doesn’t say that,” I pointed out. “You knew about this already?”
“A marketplace rumor only, and you know how unreliable such things are. But this,” he tapped the summons with fingertip, “ . . . this confirms it.” He gazed at the message again, nodding thoughtfully. “It could not have come at a better time.” Then, looking up, he said, “I want you to go, too.”
“Me!” The suggestion took me by surprise. My hopes for a few blissful days of freedom began to shrivel on the vine. “But, I cannot—” I protested, hardly knowing where to begin.
“You can and you will,” he told me. Then seeing the stricken look on my face, he added, “Aurelia, listen, it’s not good for you to shut yourself away behind these four walls all day. I want you to get out and see something of the world. Viroconium is a big town; they have markets—three of them. One just for clothes and shoes alone. You could buy a new pair of shoes.” Unwilling to be bribed so easily, I crossed my arms over my chest. Tullius waved the summons at me. “See here, it is to be an official conclave—and those are rare. It’s a chance to meet some important people, learn how things are done, gain some experience. It will be good for you.”
“I don’t want to meet important people. I want to stay here.”
“Out of the question,” he replied, dismissing the suggestion without a second thought. “I’m going and you’re going with me. That is the end of it.”
He picked up another scrap of parchment from the carefully-arranged piles before him and began reading.
I watched him for a moment, then said, “Why?”
“Hmm?” he said without glancing up. “Why what?”
“Why is it out of the question?”
“Because I want you there with me.” He put down the letter and looked at me. “Aurelia, my heart, the last thing I want is for you to sit here idling your life away in fusty little Venta with your nose stuck in a book.”
“I like to read—is that a crime now?” Truly, I did like to read. In fact, I owned two books: one a history of Rome left in the house by a previous magistrate, and the other given to my mother by an aunt or someone as a wedding gift—a collection of Jesu’s sayings and the Gospel of Mark the Apostle. I cherished both.
“You know what I mean,” he said. “You were born for better things.”
“Oh, was I?” I snapped, fire leaping up in me. “Then why was I born deaf? Tell me that!”
“You’re not deaf,” he sighed. We’d had this discussion many times before. “Hard of hearing is not deaf, darling girl. An impairment, perhaps—”
“Definitely!” I sneered. “An impairment, definitely. You don’t know how hard it is.”
I stormed from the room. Was I being unfair? Disrespectful? Selfish? Perhaps. Yes. But remember, I was only fourteen summers old and still very unsure of myself—all the more since my partial deafness made closed spaces and strange places with unfamiliar people very difficult for me. I had to concentrate so hard on everything just to understand what was being said, and often as not I mistook what I thought I heard and came away confused.
Attending a noisy conclave, whatever that was, could not but deepen the humiliation I felt almost daily. I liked our little Venta—I knew the people and they knew me. Safe behind the walls of our southern town, I could come and go as I pleased without forever having to apologize for or explain my lack of hearing. It was a place where everything was familiar and people accepted me for who I was.
All I wanted was to be left alone to do . . . what? I don’t know. If you had asked me then, I could not have named what it was I wanted to do—but travelling a hundred miles and more to a boring old council meeting in a strange town somewhere up north was not it.
Something else I did not know—that the person who went to Viroconium would not be the one who returned.