Beasts From the Dark

by Beasts from the Dark (retail) (epub)

  Ahala got them through to the atrium, which had been fashionable in its day, when the Divine Julius lived here. He had quit the place when he was made Flamen Dialis, a High Priest of Jupiter, and was married to the daughter of Cornelius Cinna. The tree in the atrium fountain had been an unseen root then, struggling under the tiles.

  Still, the robbers and raiders had not got to the place, so the columns still had marble and peeling gilding; there was even a mosaic with only a few leprous patches of missing tiles, enough to show an elephant dying gloriously to a single hunter. Drust recalled that the family name of Caesar had originated from some myth of an ancestor single-handedly killing such a beast far out in the Africas – caesai in Mauri tongue. Or so folk said.

  Lying on it, staining the tiles with a slow, insidious shadow of viscous clot, lay a woman, her white hair straggled in gore; insects fluttered and imprisoned themselves in the sticky blood.

  ‘The kitchen slave,’ Ahala pointed out and Kisa bent to study the body.

  ‘Oi,’ said a sharp voice. ‘Leave off there. The Urbans are coming and bringing some official medicus who will study the bodies. I am not going to piss them off by having some amateur fingering around in it. Besides – the one you want to see is over here.’

  ‘You’ll be Scarpio,’ Drust said, and the man acknowledged it with a curt nod.

  ‘You’ll be Drust.’

  He was tall, broad-shouldered and made more martial by the polished leather armour and the crested helmet. He was aiming for efficiency so as to throw that in the face of the Urbans when they arrived and told him to fuck off out of it since he was only a little bucket boy. The Urban Cohorts were the city guards, the only armed unit permitted in Rome besides the Vigiles, but the latter considered themselves good as legionaries and disparaged the Vigiles.

  The corpse Scarpio led them to was on one of the square pillars of the portico. They were stone faced with wood whose red and black paint had peeled, giving them the look of lepers begging in a queue.

  On one of them hung a body. It took them a while to realise it hung there, because it had been nailed to the pillar through the eyes. It took them no time at all to see that the tongue had been drawn out and cut off – the withered discard of it lay like a dead fish in the large pool of Manius’s blood.

  ‘Thought you should see this before the Urbans close it all down,’ Scarpio said. ‘Since this is a message, no mistake. Was your man out on the scout? I never saw the like of this before, but I heard of it in my days with the Fifteenth out around the Parthian capital, which we were burning at the time. We sent scouts out and had to go and chase them; found two of them like that. Message was clear to us, as I suspect it is to you – no eyes to see, no tongue to tell. Send more and we will do them the same way.’

  ‘Fifteenth Apollonaris,’ Kag muttered, not looking at Scarpio. ‘Good outfit.’

  ‘We all thought so,’ Scarpio said, then waved the torch to sizzle away some of the night insects, flocking to drone like priests on their feast.

  ‘Can I look at this one?’ Kisa asked pointedly. ‘I am not entirely without skill.’

  Scarpio nodded, then turned away and drew a wineskin out of his bucket, drank, rinsed it round his mouth and spat it sideways into the overgrown garden. He offered it to Drust, who took it gratefully.

  ‘That’s a sick sight,’ Scarpio said, then nodded to where more torches bloomed like strange flowers. ‘Over there is the porter. Not in the first flush of youth but a fucking big Nubian with a fucking big stick. Dead from a sharp point stuck in his ear. Just like that. Didn’t look as if he knew much about it.’

  Drust spat out the thin wine and nodded, then handed it round, which Scarpio noted with a bilious stare.

  ‘If you have any idea who might have done it,’ Scarpio began, and Drust shook his head and lied, though he didn’t like to do it to this man.

  ‘No.’

  Might have been ‘no, I don’t know’ or ‘no, don’t ask’ or ‘no, I won’t tell you’. Whatever it was, Scarpio decided not to pursue it.

  ‘Once the Urbans are done you can claim the body. They’ll take it to the Mamertine, I suspect – or maybe hand it to us because they can’t be bothered to carry it. Leave it a day and check with me again. Leave it longer and I will have it burned – it stinks the headquarters out by then.’

  Drust nodded. He was stunned, bewildered, felt rushed – was rushed, because Scarpio warned that the Urban Cohort was arriving and it might be best if Drust and the others weren’t here; he didn’t want to have to admit that he had summoned these strangers.

  They slid off, silent and stumbling a little, back down to Milo’s. He and the others were up and about, bread was baking, and the kitchen slave worked sausages in a large pan, smiling cheerfully at them.

  They sat, chewing on bread and tasting ash. Manius was gone. Another branch from the withering tree – Drust wondered if there was anyone in the City who was a mavro like Manius, who could sing his song.

  Once, when they had dipped down as far south in the Africas as Romans had ever gone and tried to hide there, hunting strange beasts, Manius told them of his people. Round the fire he revealed that the date of birth of a male child is fixed, not at the time of its arrival in the world, nor in its design, but much earlier: since the day the child is thought of in his mother’s mind.

  When a woman wants to have a child, she settles down and listens until she can hear the song of the child who wants to be born. She sings it up as a boy, because girls are a lesser breed. And after she has done this, she comes to the man who will be the father of the child and teaches him the song. When they make this child, they sing the song, to invite him into the world.

  When the mother is pregnant, she teaches the song of this child to the rest of the women of the village, for all must know it and sing the song to welcome the boy’s arrival.

  If the child gets hurt, gets ill, gets sad, he always finds someone to soothe him and sing his song. And when he is ready to die, all the villagers sing, for the last time, his song.

  Drust told them all this, quiet and in the dark; he heard Calida softly weeping and Kisa cleared his throat.

  ‘I do not know the song he was made with or born with, but I know the one he sang in my heart. It was dark and made me afraid – yet now that it is fading, I miss it.’

  Chapter Twelve

  They waited a day, sullen and talking quietly about what they had seen and what it might mean.

  ‘He was hit hard on the back of the head. Knew little of it and when he woke up it was because he was nailed up alive through his eyes,’ Kisa told them. ‘He died from blood loss. To do all that was done requires skills and instruments – the marks of pincers were on that tongue, used to pull it as far from his mouth as possible before it was sliced off. And who carries crucifixion nails, casual as a money purse?’

  ‘No one normal,’ Kag growled. ‘But a man like Verus would. Those are torturer’s implements – I knew him for a bad one the first time I laid eyes on him. You remember, Drust?’

  It was not something you forgot, that dark shadow at the back of Julius Yahya, sinister as a wraith, white as new bone and with the eyes of a leopard.

  ‘Did no one hear?’ Ugo demanded. ‘Even with no tongue a man can scream.’

  Kisa lowered his head and spat, which was a foul obscenity from such a fastidious little man.

  ‘His throat was cut, just enough to ruin the voice. He would have no breathing either.’

  They were all silent, thinking on what had been done and what kind of man would do it. Everyone had a different tale to tell about Verus – that he was born of an egg from a manticore, that he was a Parthian from some sect of trained killers, that he was not right in the head. That last everyone could agree on – what had been done to Manius was not for information but to silence what Manius had obtained; Drust had to assume that whatever Manius had learned Verus now knew. There was a message, for sure, but there was more – a sick delight.

  �
��Why does a man like Verus kill Manius? Are we not on the same side?’ Kisa demanded.

  ‘It is a clear message to stop looking,’ Quintus pointed out. ‘Is this from Julius Yahya, who now does not want Antyllus found? If so, could he not have sent a note?’

  ‘It is from Julius Yahya,’ Drust answered. ‘Manius saw something, heard something, was on his way back to tell us and was killed to prevent it. Verus knew that Julius Yahya would not want it known, so there is something here that can hurt him.’

  He paused, wiped his mouth and thought about the sort of skill that could take the likes of Manius unaware. He had lost the Colour, for sure and now he was far away…

  He took a breath. ‘But much of what was done here was done for the pleasure it gave him who did it.’

  ‘This stinks like a week-old corpse,’ Ugo growled, then realised what he had said and fell sullenly silent with embarrassment.

  ‘It means,’ Dog said, ‘that Julius Yahya can’t be trusted. Something has changed. We have to assume that he has set his pale hound to find us too.’

  ‘I hate that Parthian fuck,’ Ugo growled, shaking his head, his hands clenched into fists. ‘If I get my hands on his scrawny neck…’

  Quintus laid a soothing hand on the big man’s shoulder. ‘First – let’s deal with Manius.’

  They all trooped off to find Scarpio, who released to them the swaddled body of Manius.

  ‘The Urbans’ medicus found sod all as to who might have done it,’ he told them. ‘They have listed it as “unsolved murder”, and since it was in Subura, that’s the way it will stay.’

  He handed Drust a wax mask. ‘I got this made for the funeral, after the nails were taken out. Smoothed it round the eyes so it doesn’t look too bad…’

  Drust took the pale wax, the swaddled body and a deal of coin up to the Grove of Libitina on the Esquiline, found a funeral arranger and handed over the body and the coin – almost all they had left of the latter.

  It was enough for a simple funeral, at night and accompanied by a pyre and the ashes in an urn with the face mask fixed to it. No wailing procession of horns and banging cymbals, no weeping ‘mourners’, nor herald to announce the name of the deceased.

  ‘Wouldn’t be his song,’ Ugo noted, remembering Drust’s tale. The funeral arranger tried his best to sell them more – it was two days before the official start of the Ludi Romani and the City was already well into performances of plays and music, so actors of all sorts abounded and could be got cheap.

  The pyre, soaked with fragrant oils, was expensive enough, and when it was burned out on the second day, they went back and collected the urn. Drust could not help but think that if this had happened out in the desert, as Sib’s death had, Manius would have been rolled in a hole, with a rock scratched with his name and some epigram to show a Roman lay there.

  Instead, he was shoehorned into the same niche as Praeclarum, because they only had the one space in in the crowded niches of the Collegiam Armorium.

  ‘Won’t matter to either of them,’ Drust said. ‘In life we shared the same floor space. Death is no different to the Brothers.’

  It was different, though. Coming so close after Praeclarum, the death of Manius seemed like Fortuna had finally forsaken the Brothers of the Sands, so it was a sombre crew who trooped wearily down the dawn street to the taberna.

  There was a big crowd, for all that the sun wasn’t yet over the horizon, and that stopped Drust and the others in their tracks. Then they saw Cossus and slowly the mosaic formed.

  The crowd had been dragged out of their insulae and shops – mostly women and kids because the men were away working unless they had a business here. They were sullen and growling, but hemmed in by thugs with clubs and knives – about twenty of them, Drust assessed – and Cossus himself was armed with a meat cleaver, held at the neck of an angry Milo.

  ‘Cossus,’ Drust said wearily. ‘We have been through this. It will turn out badly for you – what will Flaminius say?’

  ‘Ask him,’ Cossus sneered, and men parted to allow the big boss through. He was built like a brick temple – solid pillars for legs, a basilica for a body and a tiny votive offering of a head. He wore a gold medallion on a chain; the Twins Castor and Pollux, Drust saw. He was exactly what he had been brought up to be – a haulier, working at heaving horses in and out of traces, loading and unloading four-wheelers.

  ‘Wait for me,’ Ugo shouted suddenly and trundled towards the entrance to the taberna, catching everyone by surprise. A man stepped in front to stop him and Ugo gave a bear-growl and smashed him sideways with a shoulder, then vanished into the dark maw of the entrance. Cossus laughed.

  ‘Well, one less of an already pathetic band.’

  ‘Get off me, you keg of shit…’

  Milo’s struggle and rage were cut off by a crack on the head from the flat of Cossus’s cleaver. Flaminius stepped forward and raised his hands.

  ‘All of you here,’ he began, turning in a slow circle to encompass them all, ‘all of you have heard how these men defied me and think they are heroes, saviours that will prevent me from taking my rightful dues, prevent me from imposing punishment. Look on now.’

  He stopped for effect, started to speak, and had it cut off by a series of crashes from inside the taberna, followed by a shriek and a body flying through the door to hit and roll, scattering others like pins.

  ‘I am here to show you what happens when you defy me…’ Flaminius began again, and Drust had had enough. The funeral, Praeclarum, the sleepless night – he’d had enough.

  ‘Listen to me, Marcus Flaminius. You are a cart driver, no more. You got lucky when old Servillius Structus died and you grabbed the least little part of what he owned, and now you think you’re the Emperor. I know a lot of your lads… Silanus there. We dragged grain carts down to Ostia. Marcus. Gaius. Bubulca – did that rash ever clear up? Vatia – I introduced you to your wife.’

  ‘Yeah – thanks for that,’ the man shouted back sullenly, and the crowd laughed.

  ‘Scaeva,’ Quintus called out. ‘We played dice with those seamen from the Flavian that night and won enough money for you to pay off your debts.’

  ‘I found more,’ the man shouted back, and again the crowd laughed. Flaminius turned this way and that, sensing things were slipping. He raised his hands again and started to speak, but Drust shouted over him.

  ‘You know who we are. You know what we are…’

  ‘You killed my father,’ Flaminius snarled, and that silenced Drust because it was true.

  ‘Hearsay,’ Kag spat back. ‘Rumour.’

  Dog had slipped his toga to puddle at his feet, revealing a length of wicked gladius. He smiled his Dis Pater face at Flaminius and winked.

  ‘I heard it was one of his own wheels. Turned his head into broken egg.’

  Flaminius worked his mouth like a gaffed fish, his face flushing. He was on the point of screaming his way to Dog when someone burst from the door of the taberna with screams of her own. The man pitched out of it moments before was still finding his feet as Calida shrieked her way to him, swung the monstrous copper pan she carried and smashed it into his face with a noise like a temple bell.

  Women in the crowd cheered, knowing instinctively what must have happened inside and why the man had been pitched through the door by Ugo. Men spilled away from Calida uneasily, but one stepped forward, club raised. Then Ugo burst from the doorway, a dolabra in either hand. The first blow took the club swinger low on the back, the crack of it like a pry-bar on a locked door. The second, with the mattock head, split him from crown to neck.

  ‘You can start now, lads,’ he yelled, waving his picks.

  The crowd burst like a nest of wasps. Cossus thrust Milo out at arm’s length and raised the cleaver, only to reel back when Dog sprang at him; he let Milo go and frantically flailed with the cleaver to try and keep Dog off.

  It was futile. Dog leaned sideways a little, slashed, leaned the other way and stabbed. Cossus, hamstrung and wonder
ing why one leg was pitching him to the ground, had time only to see the inside of him spill in a blue-white rush from his belly as he fell. He rolled sideways, whimpering and trying vainly to put the coils back.

  Drust went for Flaminius, ducked a slash from another man and saw Kag stab the same man in the throat. Quintus came in from behind him, a long, lean wraith flailing his unshrugged toga like a net. It slapped a thug in the face, made him reel back, and before he could recover, Quintus had stabbed him in a flurry of blows that flushed red over his tunic.

  Another snarling man stuck himself in the way, right in Drust’s face, so close he could see the pockmarks on his nose and that it was no one he knew. He also saw the cudgel with the nail in it, poised to strike, and managed to slip a shoulder. It wasn’t enough and the nail raked through tunic and skin, a searing pain like a brand.

  Drust howled, fell to his knees, grabbed the man’s ankle and hauled hard; the man fell backwards in the dust, yelping and trying to scrabble away through the haze and milling legs, but Drust swarmed after him like some giant spider. He had lost the sword, but his hands found the man’s neck, his knee drove the wind out, and he leaned his whole weight on the delicate bird-flutter he felt in the man’s throat.

  The man kicked and gasped, managed to roll Drust off him and half crawled away. Drust scrabbled in the opposite direction, was kicked hard in the ribs and stuck out a hand to balance himself; he felt something hard in the dust, closed fingers on it and wrenched his gladius out of the dirt.

  The man saw it, shrieked and turned to run, but Drust banged his way past a struggling pair and fell on the man, working his elbow furiously, feeling the tug as the blade went in and out.

  He crawled over the man when he had stopped moving, wobbled wearily to his feet and came face to face with Flaminius. The world seemed to slow; Drust closed in like a relentless wind, his head howling like a blizzard wind. Enough. He’d had enough…