The Man Beneath the Roman Road
Year of Our Lord 557
Recorded by Brother Gildas
There are roads in this land that belong to no man now.
The people who made them are gone, and the stones have been taken from them for walls and hearths, yet still they run beneath the grass, straight as an arrow where no living man would think to make a road.
We followed one such road three days east of Eoforwic.
Brother Wilfrid complained that my choice of path was poor.
Brother Ystradwel said nothing.
He rarely does when Wilfrid and I disagree.
It was near sunset when we came upon the old milestones.
There were three of them, though only one remained standing.
The stone was worn almost smooth. I could make out no letters upon it, though I knew there had once been writing there.
Ystradwel stopped.
He looked at the stone for a long while.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Nothing.”
He took out his book and began to draw.
I left him to it.
We made camp some distance from the road, beside a stand of ash trees. There was little wind that evening, yet sometime after the fire had burned low I heard the sound of footsteps.
I thought at first it was Wilfrid.
Then I remembered that Wilfrid was sleeping beside me.
The footsteps came along the old road.
Slowly.
One after another.
I woke him.
We watched the darkness together.
A man came into the firelight.
He was dressed as a soldier.
Not as any soldier I have seen among the men of Eoforwic, nor as any warrior of the northern kingdoms.
His clothing was strange, and beneath his cloak I saw a short sword at his side.
He stopped when he saw us.
“Have they come?” he asked.
“Who?” Wilfrid said.
“The others.”
His voice was tired.
I stood.
“There is no one else here.”
The soldier looked beyond us, towards the road.
“They said they would return before nightfall.”
Wilfrid asked him where he had come from.
The man pointed south.
“From the wall.”
I looked at Wilfrid.
He looked at me.
There are still men who speak of the old wall in the north, though few who have seen it with their own eyes. The Romans built many things in this land, and much of it has fallen into ruin.
“What is your name?” Wilfrid asked.
The soldier looked at him strangely.
Then he smiled.
“I have told you.”
“You have not.”
“I told the other priest.”
Wilfrid’s face changed.
“What other priest?”
The soldier seemed confused.
“The one who was here before you.”
There was silence.
Then Ystradwel spoke.
“What did he look like?”
The soldier turned towards him.
For the first time, I saw fear upon his face.
“He looked like you.”
Ystradwel stopped drawing.
The fire cracked.
I heard something behind us.
A stone striking another stone.
When I turned, there was nobody there.
The soldier had gone.
There were footprints in the ash beside the road.
I counted them.
Six.
They began where the man had stood.
They ended at the old milestone.
There were no footprints beyond it.
In the morning we searched the road.
We found nothing.
Ystradwel showed me what he had drawn the previous evening.
It was the soldier.
But there was something wrong with the drawing.
Behind the man stood another figure.
A man in a long robe.
I asked Ystradwel who it was.
He looked at the page.
“I do not know.”
“Then why did you draw him?”
Ystradwel closed the book.
“I did not.”
I have written these words because Brother Wilfrid says that we should not forget the dead.
I am less certain.
Some things, I think, are better left beneath the road.