The clerk shook his head without even looking at the book in front of him.
‘Quite impossible. Spurius Postumus is dead. Has been for years. Very memorable. The case went through the courts in Gortyn and everyone heard about it.’
‘Why?’ Callie asked. ‘What happened to him?’
‘He was found drowned and covered in seaweed.’
‘Why is that memorable for a ship owner?’ Scriptor said.
‘Because he was found in Gortyn and we’re over ten miles from the sea. There was an attempt to bring a case of murder against a businessman, because one of his barrels was found quite close to the body and while it was empty, it had previously been filled with seawater. But one of the man’s businesses was shipping vegetables and they were kept stored in brine – seawater, you see – to preserve them for transport.’
‘So who is the owner of this mysterious ship the Queen of Sheba, then?’ Senex asked.
‘It is registered to one Furius…’ the clerk’s voice trailed off and he went a little pale, his finger tapping the book again.
‘That’s odd.’
‘What is?’ prodded Scriptor.
‘Furius Maleficus. He is the owner of the Queen of Sheba. And Furius Maleficus was the businessman who owned the barrel found near the body of the owner of the Argo. I have to say that this is sounding less and less like a coincidence the more I read. Well done, young lady. You may have uncovered some very messy and illegal dealings here.’
‘What can you tell us about this Furius Maleficus?’ Scriptor asked.
‘I don’t know much. It’s a name that crops up from time to time. He’s a rich businessman with a finger in many, many pies, as they say.’
Senex’s face creased into a smile at the word pie and then he forced himself to focus on the seriousness of the situation.
‘Where is this Furius Maleficus? We might want to speak to him,’ said Scriptor.
‘Oh he doesn’t live in Gortyn. Some of his businesses are here, but he has interests all over the island, including Lebena. He actually lives in a place called Cnossus, in the north.’
Scriptor, Senex and Callie all turned sharply to look at one another.
‘That can’t be a coincidence either,’ Scriptor murmured quietly.
Senex nodded. ‘You suspect this Furius Maleficus, who killed a businessman, stole his boat and some priceless scrolls, and then renamed the boat and made it his own, to be the same collector that the centurion is after right now?’
‘I should never have let Marcus go off on his own,’ breathed Callie with a tone of desperate worry.
‘But,’ noted her uncle, ‘if you hadn’t stayed here, we would never have known this. And now we know that if anyone can tell us what happened to your mother and father, it is this villain in Cnossus. Senex? Get back to the inn, pay our bill and gather all our things. Callie and I are going to buy the three fastest horses for sale in Gortyn and we’ll meet you at the inn shortly. We need to ride fast for Cnossus before the others get themselves into serious trouble.’
Senex nodded and scurried out of the office on his bandy legs, heading for the inn. Scriptor turned back to the clerk.
‘Thank you for your time. You have been most helpful.’
‘My pleasure, sir,’ the records officer smiled. ‘You may have uncovered something very important.’
‘Rest assured that when we catch up with this Furius Maleficus, he will pay the price for his actions. He is wanted by the Prefect of Egypt and the Governor of Crete, now. Can you point me in the direction of a good place to buy horses?’
The man nodded. ‘Head back round the front of the governor’s palace, past the arch and along the street. Turn right when you see the theatre down there and opposite the theatre is ‘Diogenes’ stables. They supply horses for merchant caravans, but also for the races and charioteers in the circus. Best reputation in the city.’
‘Thank you again.’
Leaving the clerk to his business, Scriptor gathered Callie and hurried out of the office.
‘Wait,’ said the girl as they emerged into the forum and turned to the left. ‘We need to visit a temple and make an offering for the safety of the others and our success.’
Her uncle nodded. ‘Good idea. Wouldn’t want to race off into the evening without the protection of the gods. A temple to Mercury, I reckon, since he protects travellers.’
Callie nodded, pointing to the small collection of temples on the other side of the square. ‘And to Jupiter too. I want the gods watching over Marcus until we get there.’
Chapter Seven
Marcus looked around him as he descended the hillside towards the ruins. The ancient complex was no more than half a mile from the edge of the town, and the Minoan’s villa lay in between, so the centurion had decided to head down towards the river and take a wide route around the rich man’s house. No point in warning the villain there were soldiers near his home, after all.
The slope was actually fairly gentle once away from the town, and the stream at the bottom was barely deserving of even that name. It was more of a mobile puddle than an actual flow of water. Marcus could stand with one foot on each bank without stretching his legs too much.
They were not precisely following Dion’s directions, but at least this way they avoided any chance of bumping into the Minoan’s men around his villa.
After some time, they caught sight of the palace ruins up the slope, away from the river. They had learned something of the palace from other travellers in the inn. The main complex was several thousand years old, and had been built before Rome was more than a small collection of farmer’s huts and before even his home city in Egypt had been founded and named by Alexander the Great. No one seemed to know much about the people who lived there other than supposedly King Minos and his minotaur. It had once been the capital of a state that had been the richest and most powerful on Crete until Gortyn became so big.
There were actually a lot of other ruins of this ancient place as well as the main palace buildings, and bits of them poked out of the grass wherever you looked. Even as they made for the main ruin, they passed a smaller building with two floors, the bottom one now half full of earth and several columns and a piece of roof of the upper fallen in.
Ahead, Marcus could see the fence. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but it appeared that the Minoan was serious about trying to keep people out of the ruins that he “sort of unofficially” owned. The fence was of good solid timber, with gaps only a hand wide between the slats so that not even a dog would fit through. The tops of the slats had been sharpened to a point so that it would be painful to climb over, and they were six feet tall, making it a difficult proposition, anyway.
Centurion Gallo grumbled close by.
‘Doesn’t want visitors, does he?’
‘No,’ Marcus agreed. ‘But there are ways in. We just came a little further around than I expected. Follow me.’
Turning back up the hill, he followed the fence towards the villa and the main road. As they moved, he turned round and put a finger to his lips. Gallo nodded and passed on the message to the rest of the men so that after a few moments the only sound was the steady crunch of their footsteps in the grass.
Each man wore only his tunic and his belt and boots, with his sword strapped to the belt. They had left all armour, shields, helmets, dangling jingly aprons and anything else that made too much noise back in the inn. With men on guard at the Minoan’s villa and probably a watchman in the ruins, they were better off being quiet than well protected. If this man was as dangerous as the people here seemed to think, then he probably had a lot of brutes to rely on. Rich men often hired gladiators or ex-soldiers as guards, so there was every chance the Minoan’s men were as tough as the legionaries.
As quietly as possible, Marcus led them back up the slope. Once or twice as they followed the fence, he thought maybe he saw a loose slat or a gap almost wide enough to squeeze through. But he’d been given very specific directions by
Dion and even though he didn’t really trust the boy very far, they were his best chance. Besides, he couldn’t imagine Dion tricking him yet, when there was still the chance to make good money out of him.
Back up the slope a way, the fence began to curve around to the left, and Marcus could see the villa just above them with its strong perimeter wall. Almost shrinking out of sight of it, as if he could feel the guards’ eyes watching him, he shuffled off south along the fence, wishing the silvery light wasn’t quite so bright.
The moon was full and was now almost at its peak in the southern sky, putting midnight maybe half an hour away at most. They had to hurry. He couldn’t afford to arrive too late only to find this mysterious African boy gone. He was starting to worry that his directions had been wrong when he found the place. After all, his instructions had accounted for him coming from another direction.
Ahead, he could see the path down from the town and the villa, which entered some ancient driveway of flat stones, which was cut deep enough in the ground to have been a tunnel if it had a roof. The fence passed it, and a set of heavy gates had been built in the cutting. But closer, just in front of Marcus, stood the tree for which he was looking.
Due to the ground dropping away sharply and rising the same from the tree, the fence had been butted up against one side of the trunk and began again at the other, rather than just passing by inside or out. The low branches had been removed, but an energetic and lithe man or boy could reach up to the one above and pull himself up to the top of the fence, dropping over without too much trouble. Better still, two of the wooden fence’s points had broken off, making it flat and comfortable to cross.
He pointed to the tree, and Gallo nodded, so he reached high, gripped the branch and hauled himself up with a grunt. Peering over the fence, he could see the ruins well enough, almost as well as they had been able to from the road up the valley side. The stone path that led from the town continued on inside the fence and then ended in a square area of stone seating.
So far, Dion’s instructions had been spot on.
Waving to the centurion, he tensed himself, peering this way and that. No sign of a watchman patrolling, so he swung his feet over the fence and dropped down the other side onto the grass. That was it. He was committed now. For a moment he kept an eye out for the sudden appearance of the Minoan’s man, but then he was watching his companions arrive. First Gallo came over, then Potens, then the other eight legionaries, one by one. Not Brutus or Maximus, though. They had been left at the inn, guarding everything of value. Between the two of them they could handle any trouble there, and while they were big and strong, neither was particularly clever or stealthy. The break-in would have been a lot noisier and more noticeable with Maximus and Brutus present.
Once all eleven of them were in the palace grounds, Marcus nodded to Gallo and set off down the gentle slope to the square of seats. What this place had once been was beyond him, though it did most closely resemble a theatre but with squared-off seats. Hurrying across, he hopped up the crumbling, gravel-scattered steps, trying to keep his feet as quiet as possible.
Gallo seemed to have had the same concerns over noise, as he led the rest of the men off around the left hand side of the stepped area, through troublesome thick grass to avoid the noise of hobnailed boots on stone. Marcus reached the top of the steps and peered ahead. The door to the room of which Dion had spoken stood directly in front of him. Waving and pointing, he showed Gallo, who was struggling to catch up, stomping through the thick scrub beside the ruins.
Marcus hurried over to the broken door and peered through the hole in the top half. The room was pitch dark within and he could just make out several columns by the weak moonlight from outside. His mind filled with pictures of monsters and ghosts and, not surprisingly, of the minotaur – that great horrific bull-headed man-monster that legend said had lived in the maze beneath this place until the hero Theseus had killed it. He felt frightened suddenly, for the first time since they had arrived.
What if the legends were true? What if there had been more than one minotaur? Or if Theseus hadn’t really killed it? What if ghosts or monsters lived here? What if that was why it was fenced off and patrolled?
He almost jumped out of his skin when something touched his shoulder and, shaking like a leaf, he turned to see Centurion Gallo standing beside him, the other legionaries beyond, walking very slowly and carefully so that the studs in the soles of their boots were quiet on the stone.
‘Is that it?’ whispered Gallo.
He nodded.
‘Lead on.’
Marcus was about to refuse, panic beginning to rise in him again, but the centurion suddenly produced a soldier’s dagger and slapped it into Marcus’ hand. The weapon seemed to have a magical effect. As his fingers closed on the handle, his fears evaporated and he felt confidence returning. He was a trainee legionary – a tiro – and no ghost or monster could frighten him. With pride coursing through him, he stepped forward and moved the broken door aside.
He paused just inside the room, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom of the interior. Perhaps sixty feet by thirty feet in size, the roof was held up by two rows of five pillars, each painted red, though that paint was now dirty and had peeled off in many places. Several doorways led off and he moved around the place, peering carefully into each one. The three others on this wall led into tiny alcoves. One ahead disappeared into a long, dark corridor clogged with rubble, and the one to the right, which would lead to the main area of ruins, was sealed with a thick, heavy door that had a modern lock on it. There was no feasible way in or out other than the one he’d used.
He returned to the doorway and gestured to the centurion that all was clear.
Back inside, he studied the room more closely. There was an oil lamp on a shelf near the door and a flint and iron next to it. A little further investigation turned up a thick curtain behind the ruined door. Clearly someone used this place at night from time to time. Once the others were in, he pulled the curtain across the door to hide any light, struck the iron on the flint until a spark set fire to the small pile of dried grass on the stone shelf, and then used that to light the oil lamp.
Strangely, the room became much creepier with light in it. Before, it had just been dark. Now the columns threw shadows into the corners and the legionaries each cast a menacing shade on the walls. Marcus gripped the dagger tighter.
They waited for some time and Marcus was once again beginning to think that Dion had tricked him and that there was to be no meeting when suddenly the curtain twitched aside and a figure entered the room.
The African lad’s eyes bulged white as he took in the array of legionaries with their swords in their hands, and he almost shrieked, but Marcus ran across and into the centre, waving his hands.
‘It’s alright, it’s alright,’ he said quietly, but urgently. ‘They’re friends. They’re not here to hurt you.’
He’d not given any thought to the fact that the boy might not speak Latin, but apparently he did, for his mouth closed silently and though his eyes still looked panicked, he straightened and let go of the curtain.
He was probably a slave, looking at the quality of the ragged tunic, but if he was, how could he so easily slip away from the villa.
‘I’m Marcus.’
The boy eyed him warily. ‘You have money?’ His accent was thick, oddly quite reminiscent of the locals at Alexandria.
‘Yes.’ Marcus opened up his purse, now fat with extra money from the centurion to help with this encounter. He produced six silver denarii and held them out. ‘That for coming. One more for every question you answer.’
The boy nodded. ‘I only have a few moments, then I will be missed. I have to go back very soon. Ask your questions and be quick.’
Marcus nodded as he started to fish out silver coins ready.
‘Tell us about the Minoan.’
‘That is not a question.’
Marcus sighed. ‘Alright. What is his name?’
‘Furius Maleficus.’ Marcus dropped another coin in the boy’s hand.
‘Does he buy stolen things?’
‘Yes.’ Another coin.
‘Is he…’ Marcus searched for another question, but Centurion, Gallo with a grunt of irritation, crossed the room to join them. He grabbed the whole purse from Marcus and slapped it into the boy’s hand, who stared at it, wide-eyed.
‘Tell us whatever you can think of,’ Gallo said, flatly.
The boy pondered for a moment, probably weighing up the danger of selling information on his boss or owner against the chance to walk away with more money than he had ever touched. Greed won, and he took a deep breath.
‘He is called the Minoan because he claims to be descended from King Minos who once lived here. He has been digging in the ruins for years to look for his ancestor’s treasure. He collects priceless artworks because he intends to build himself a palace and furnish it like a king of old.’
‘A man with lofty aspirations,’ murmured Potens.
‘Beware the Minoan,’ the boy added. ‘He has many, many dangerous men. Many more than you. And he has very important friends. The old emperor – the one they called Trajan – was a companion of his, and he counts many senators in Rome his friends too, as well as some governors and generals. He does not think anyone will cross him, because he is too powerful. You would do well to leave this place and go home.’
‘Tell us more,’ snapped Gallo.
‘He has his own ships. Not just merchants, but warships. People think they’re pirates, plying the waters of the Cretan Sea and taking valuables from any merchant they find, but they’re not. They’re his men, and they go after only the best stuff.’
Marcus felt a sudden jolt inside. Pirates. Ships in the Cretan Sea. His parents. Had they been the victims of this Minoan?
‘What do these pirates do with those people when they board?’ he asked the boy. ‘Do they… kill them?’
He felt a lump in his throat and almost exploded with relief when the boy shook his head. ‘He’s too shrewd for that. People are valuable. They get sold as slaves. Some few are kept by him, but most go to Cyprus, Judea, Greece or Africa. I was a rope-boy on a merchant ship out of Carthage until his pirates took me two years ago.’
Pirate Legion Page 6
