Free Cast Not the Day by Paul Waters Page B

smoke pluming from the outlying farmhouses; then, when they were done with that, they burned the fine suburban villas on the south side of the river, which lay beyond the walls.
    Next day, one of their black longships appeared on the river. We watched as it put in at the deep-water dock and carried off from the warehouses what they could bear away, setting fire to the rest. The flames were fuelled by oil from the jars they smashed; there must have been a few sacks of spices among them. All that day, wafting over the city with the smoke, came the exotic scent of coriander and roasted cinnamon.
    One of the Roman ships, a large merchantman, had not managed to get away, its captain being too fearful to run the Saxon gauntlet to the open sea. Nor could he move upriver to the safer waters of the city dock, where the walls would protect him, for the keel of his vessel was too deep. He stood with the rest of us and watched grim-faced as the barbarians, their sport at the warehouses done, turned their attention to his ship. It was, he said, his own property, a lifetime’s investment. Now he waited to see the first flames lick the rigging.
    But no flames came. Then someone, one of his deckhands, cried, ‘Look, she’s casting off!’
    We stared out. A band of Saxons had swarmed on deck. They cut the ship’s moorings, and slowly the vessel parted from the quayside, drawn by the tidal current.
    The Saxons began jumping about, waving their swords in the air, howling and barking out threats in their uncouth tongue. (There had been a large store of wine in the warehouses.) The captain of the merchantman cried, ‘What fools are they? They are bringing her up to the city. Can they not see there is not the depth?’
    At this, a shiver of fear spread along the crowd on the wall. The city was weakest from its river side.
    But the Saxons had put out before they had mastered the rigging or the steering oar. As the distance from the quayside grew, the current strengthened. Their wild cries died in their mouths. They ran to the starboard rail, scrambled around, then cast out the lanyard to their friends on the shore.
    Yet already they were too far out. The lanyard fell short, dropping limply into the water. Slowly the ship yawed out into midstream, gathering way as it was seized by the full force of the current. For a moment they gaped – at the water, at one another, at their barbarian friends gesturing wildly from the shore. Then one leapt, and in quick succession the others followed, dropping into the swirling water like stones, still clad in their heavy furs and sword belts.
    Some made it to the far bank; but most we did not see again. Like many seafarers, Saxons are poor swimmers. And then it was our turn to howl and whoop and cheer.
    The Council took charge, distributing food from the municipal granaries, organizing work-gangs to pull down derelict buildings for their bricks, which were used to patch up the neglected city wall.
    Word was that an old aristocrat by the name of Quintus Aquinus had been recalled from retirement, and Balbus told me it was owing to this one man that the city continued to function at all, for the rest of the Council, the ruling magistrates and the decurions were, he said, incompetent.
    I listened to all this with half an ear, not knowing that this man Aquinus would later bring so many changes to my life. At the time I merely reflected that, although Balbus had no good word for the city government, yet he himself had contrived not to serve; and Lucretia had plotted that Albinus, when he came of age and was made a priest, would not have to serve either – Christian priests being exempt from public service by order of the emperor. Little wonder the government was incompetent, I thought, if all men did as he.
    Balbus was not a man who was able to cope with leisure. There was no trade, there were no ships, the market was empty, and the gates were closed. He went from the house to the office, and from the office to