Flaminius had a sword and blocked, but he had no aptitude. He was a killer from the shadows, a thumper, a strong-arm. When Drust cut through his wrist and slashed a bloody score across his chest he shrieked, but not from pain, only from seeing his hand hanging by a scrap of bloody skin from his bloody wrist.
Someone collided with Drust then, and he turned, trying to slash, but was foiled, felt someone catch him by the hem at his neck and haul him backwards onto his arse.
He recognised Kisa through a haze of dust, realised that he had tried to slice one of the crowd and let himself be dragged wearily up, almost into an embrace.
‘Easy,’ Kisa panted. ‘Find your head before you hurt someone you know.’
‘Flaminius…’
‘I wouldn’t worry.’
Flaminius was gone, reeling out of the crowd, which parted to let him. He got as far as Castor and Pollux, sank down by the fountain and watched his heart’s blood slowing to a trickle from the stump. Drust lost sight of him as the crowd closed in and blocked him from view.
The noise was ragged and ugly – men were running, women were screaming curses. Ugo had stopped in a circle of bodies, his dolabrae dangling and clotted with gore, all the way to his elbows.
Dog appeared, blew out a short, dismissive breath and grinned. ‘They are broken. That was easy – the crowd are chasing what’s left.’
Flaminius was still alive, kicked and punched and beaten by those he had terrorised; a white-haired harridan who sold cabbages up the street was hitting his head with a stone and fled when Drust moved to him. Flaminius had just enough sense left to know a shadow blotted out the sun. Perhaps he thought it was death…
‘I said it would end badly for you.’
Flaminius spat little blood drops from smashed teeth and lips like blubber. Whatever he said made no sense, but Drust got onto one knee and gave him iron, as neat a stroke as he had been taught years before by the Sardinian in the undercroft of the Flavian. The heart in the throat – when he drew the gladius out, the blood scarcely made a spurt and did not last long.
Quintus had moved to comfort Calida, who was now shaking and weeping. Milo, trembling and pasted with sweat, picked up the pan and turned it this way and that, examining the dent.
‘I shall have to buy a new one,’ he said morosely.
‘You’ll have more money to do it now,’ Kisa pointed out. ‘Think yourself lucky it was not you that made the dent – you can’t buy a new head.’
Milo did not want to look at the broken, leaking ruin of the man who had outraged Calida; he had not realised his bedmate was capable of anything like that, and Drust could see him making plans to sell her as soon as was safely possible.
The crowd had gone, scampering back to the safety of their homes, because they knew the Vigiles would come at a gallop when they heard the word ‘riot’. Riot meant the danger of fire and since they were responsible for controlling both, it would not take long. The Urbans would be close on their heels.
Besides that, the good people of the district had to deal with the shock and shame that would follow the exultation of having struck a bloody blow on the thugs who had terrorised them for so long. Drust and the Brothers knew that sickness like an old friend and rarely let it bother them now – but they saw Calida’s hysterics and heard others vomit as they trailed off.
Yet there was a strange peace on them. Drust felt it and Kag, as ever, found the words for it.
‘We held our own funeral fights to the memory of Manius,’ he said, and the others agreed as they leaned on the bar counter and sucked up conditum.
The Vigiles arrived, led by Scarpio, and only when they had judged it safe, that the riot was done and no fires started. They eyed the bodies and asked the questions, but Ahala was among them and had filled in most of the answers anyway. Scarpio nodded, ignoring the fresh wound-bindings on Ugo’s arm and Dog’s thigh, and the bruises and scratches on everyone else. If they saw the bloody rent in Drust’s tunic and the bandages beneath, they pretended not to notice.
‘Well, there are eight dead men here, Flaminius and Cossus among them, so I am guessing a fight broke out between them. We’ll clean up the bodies and make a report. If the Urbans come, which I doubt, give them some free wine and sausages and let them know the district is in good hands.’
Drust nodded and smiled. He knew what Scarpio meant, but did not want to tell the man, when he was being so helpful, that he had no intention of taking over. That resolve faded when a handful of men appeared later, when day had gone and the bodies had gone and the blood had been dusted over.
Silanus was there, sporting bruises and a cut; Scaeva was untouched and smiling about it. The rest were also men the Brothers knew – some of them the ones Drust had pointed out earlier – all standing and shuffling from one foot to the other.
‘Thing is,’ Silanus said awkwardly, ‘now there is a hole where Flaminius was and no one can seem to fill it proper like, not without a fight which we don’t want. If left, someone from outside will come and you might get this shit all over again. Not good.’
‘Not for you,’ Dog growled, and Silanus flapped a hand.
‘I knows it. Thing is, though – you beat him. Killed him and Cossus dead. You are from the old times and knows how matters work. You keeps what you corpse. Unwritten law, isn’t it?’
‘And if we do?’ Kag demanded. ‘We are supposed to keep you lot on? Trust you, who just tried to kill us?’
‘Business,’ Scaeva answered flatly. ‘Earning for that wife you got Vatia and the kids that came with it. All our other bad habits.’
That brought laughter and nodding.
‘Fact is,’ Silanus said, ‘that’s why we’re here. You knows it, knows how it works. We’ll be your men now and it will be better – like you said, Flaminius was a carter and no more. He didn’t know… the way of it. He has no wife, no son, no family left, just a whore he liked who has fled. The Place is standing empty, save for us. Besides…’ He broke off and shuffled, twisting his nervous hands this way and that. ‘They say you is his son. Old Servillius Structus.’
It wasn’t true and Drust thanked the gods daily for it – but it seemed it was a legend set here.
* * *
They followed Silanus and the others up to the Place, stood at the gates of it. Drust took a deep breath as if about to plunge underwater.
The Place was achingly familiar, all high blank walls and one large main gate with double doors to allow the four-wheelers in. It had big raised warehouses, four in all, and stabling for twenty or thirty muscled horses, quarters for slaves and freedmen workers. It had a domus, with an atrium and a peristyle and all the rest. A shed for Servillius Structus’s fancy litter which made everyone grunt, recalling how life had started to turn that night in Subura when they’d escorted him from the annual Ludus Magnus dinner.
They knew it well, were almost brought to their knees by it; here was where they had come to get their orders from Servillius Structus, where they had slept and eaten. Here was where the tally-men had worked, where the little empire in Subura had been administered. Here was where the Fat Man of Subura had ruled.
‘Fuck me,’ Kag said, looking round. No one spoke, no one said it – but it was like coming to their old home, though the shade of Servillius Structus still flitted through it. They spent the night there trying not to feel like thieves and, by the morning, had realised what they had fallen into, had bowed to the skin-prickling workings of the gods, who had clearly arranged for them to sit at the centre of their old boss’s spiderweb.
In the slanted morning rays, they sat round a familiar, scarred table and looked at one another.
‘What now?’ Kag asked, and Kisa looked up from the scrolls he had been poring over. Next to him was a square, solid wooden box with iron bands and at least three locks; the sight of it had made everyone queasy, reluctant to touch it, never mind open it. They knew it well.
Kisa, who had no qualms, found the keys and cracked the locks. Inside were neat
ly rolled scrolls, leather purses heavy with coins, and even more coin – in gold – stacked sideways in neat rolls.
‘Surprised this lot didn’t sack the place,’ Kisa muttered.
‘It’s the same for them as us,’ Drust answered. ‘This is their home, the only one they know.’
‘Well,’ Kisa said after a while, ‘Flaminius has contracts – so we have contracts – for carrying grain and sand for the harena here. Meat too, and animal feed. I am guessing all this was carried over from when your old boss worked it, and I suspect the folk needing their goods hauled won’t put up much of a fuss if we now do it. There’s also a tally of what he had been milking from the locals.’
‘Do we carry on?’ Kag asked. ‘With this?’
‘The contracts are all the ones old Servillius Structus had – Flaminius just strong-armed his way into them when the Fat Man died. Kisa can sort out all the scrolls of what needs doing,’ Drust said, seeing it clearly as for the first time. ‘We can all make it work. Rather us than more strangers, more bad arses on old Servillius Structus’s seat.’
‘Save for the milking,’ Quintus said. ‘We should stop that – you saw what happened.’
‘Halve it,’ Dog growled. ‘Sheep need shearing – Flaminius got that right. Halving it will have people cheering and they know whoever is here needs to have their beaks wettened. They like us, at least for now. Get rid of it entirely and you’ll cause trouble with the other district bosses.’
They worked it out through the rest of the morning, until another of the old crew, called Papa, came up with bread and chickpeas, hot mushrooms and wine.
‘From Milo’s,’ he said, beaming, and everyone looked at one another; this was the way of it, then. The district had accepted it and suddenly, without warning, they were men of substance and virtually the law here.
‘Got a man at the gate,’ Papa went on, sorting out the tray. ‘Came to Milo’s and was sent on here. Name of Stolo. Says he’s found who you are looking for, boss.’
Chapter Thirteen
Stolo was amazed. He turned this way and that in bewildered, slow circles, and said it so often that they eventually told him to shut up and tell them what he had found.
‘But look at this,’ he enthused, spreading his arms wide. ‘I went away and you were all sharing one room in that taberna. Now look… it’s amazing.’
‘Not nearly as amazing as you coming back,’ Kisa declared morosely. ‘Now I owe a big German a fistful of coin.’
Stolo shrugged and then unfolded himself from the top of his toga and helped himself to drink and olives and bread. ‘I thought about it,’ he admitted, ‘but where would I go? What would I do? Not much call in Rome for being able to march in step for thirty miles and throw a straight javelin at the end of it. Not much call for my Army talents – save with you.’
‘What talents are they, then?’ Quintus demanded sourly. ‘All the animal attributes of a warrior – a chicken heart and legs like a hare.’
‘Ha. I was eighteen years in, you lanky fuck. I got drunk, got some bad tattoos, got the vine stick a few times, won a few big pots at dice and lost far too many more. I fought shoulder to shoulder a lot of times and never ran until that day…’
He wiped his mouth with the back of one hand. ‘Wouldn’t have that day, either,’ he muttered, ashamed, ‘save that Tubulus ordered it. He outranked me – remember?’
‘And you always obey an order…’
‘Enough,’ Drust said. ‘What did you find?’
‘Do I get a billet here?’
‘Depending on what you found,’ Drust answered, and Stolo chewed bread and swallowed it with wine.
‘Well, I went back to Caesar’s house and started asking around about a pale man with white hair. Had to sleep in doorways, and a temple once – thought I would end up throat-slit.’
Drust looked at Stolo with a new and grudging respect. ‘What did you find?’
‘There had been comings and goings all week at that place – not just the Nubian porter and the scraggy old cook. The baker had seen a pale man and one black as night, or so he said – I am guessing that was your Manius – but no one knows where the pale man is now. Or even who he is. So I thought I would try around the baths – a man like that would need washing at some point, if only to get all the blood off. I wasn’t keen, mind you, seeing as what happened to your lad.’
‘What did you find?’ Kag demanded, and Stolo looked sideways at him.
‘Do I get a billet here? Regular coin? Food and all that?’
‘What the fuck did you find out?’ Dog demanded menacingly, and Stolo stopped chewing, then swallowed with difficulty.
‘Long story short – and, believe me, this took a lot of doing – I discovered your pale killer is looking for someone called Lentulus. So I found out where this Lentulus was, thinking you can stake him out and grab your pale man when he comes.’
‘Not bad,’ Ugo said admiringly and laughed. Stolo grinned.
‘Where is Lentulus? At what baths?’
‘Baths? No baths. He’s trying to bury himself as a sparsore for the Greens.’
‘A chariot driver? Him?’ Quintus exploded incredulously. ‘He’s a barber.’
Not a driver, Drust thought, but a sparsore. It meant ‘sprinkler’ and the job entailed caring for the horses. The worst part of that was positioning yourself during a race so as to dash water in the faces of your team’s horses as they rounded a turn – it cooled them and got rid of the choke of dust, making breathing easier. Added a stride or two and that was worth it to a driver.
‘Is this the same Lentulus?’ Dog wanted to know. ‘A primper of hair and beards?’
‘Big fan of the Greens,’ Stolo said. ‘And hiding out.’
‘Not well, if you found him,’ Kisa muttered and Stolo bridled.
‘I have been wandering for days on the trail of him, sleeping rough, eating shit. I could have just jogged off, but I thought Drust here might actually honour his pledge. I thought I might actually have friends,’ he finished bitterly.
Drust nodded and called Scaeva, told him who Stolo was and what he had done. ‘Find him a bed and treat him equally with you all. If he fucks up, tell me.’
Scaeva nodded grimly, and Stolo got up and glanced sourly at Kisa, who was bent over, noting his name on the list.
‘What now?’ Quintus asked, and Dog fetched his cloak and drew it round him, for all that it was a sultry day.
‘We are off to the Circus, lads.’
* * *
The City heaved like a poked ants’ nest – this was the first day of the Ludi Romani and everyone, it seemed, was heading in skeins of barely contained riot towards the Flavian and the gladiators.
There had been plays and recitals in venues all over the city for a week at least, while the athletes had been running and jumping in the Circus Agonalis, a stadium built by Divine Domitian nearly two hundred years before.
There were athletes now at the Maximus too, the long-distance lads who were built like spotted panthers and could run on and on forever. They swaggered, half-naked, cloaks thrown over one shoulder to show off ridges of muscle and long legs, and even the Circus Agonalis couldn’t hold them – the Maximus was the venue for their endurance races, in honour of some Greek.
Not today, though. The Circus races didn’t start until ten days after the Ludi Romani, but the fever was already intense and each faction got their chance to practise, to acclimatise horses and work the chariots a little. Today was the turn of the Greens, and the fans, the hucksters of faction merchandise, the odds-makers all swarmed in; when Drust and the others got close, it seemed as if a patch of Elysium’s emerald fields had fallen on Rome.
They got in because they knew people – and it was clear word had spread about the Brothers of the Sand taking over the Dioscuri district from Flaminius. It seemed no one had liked that haulier and thug much.
‘Isn’t that how everyone starts off?’ Dog growled aside to Kag.
They came down track
side, to the starting area which was already thick with horses and chariots being tacked, un-tacked or up-ended for more work. They found a familiar face – Caepio, the conditor.
He had a face like an old burned boot and no more than three teeth set in a jaw of silvered stubble. His eyes peered out from the furrows of a ploughed field of face, and he had been a slave of the Greens for as long as anyone could remember. Slave or not, he was a valued conditor, a builder and fixer of chariots; he looked up from slathering foul-smelling grease on an axle and grinned as if he had seen the Brothers only the day before.
‘Drust. Kag. How goes it?’
‘Well enough, old one,’ Drust said, squatting down and offering a skin of decent wine they had purchased on the way, together with bread and olives. Caepio drank, passed it back and Drust drank from it too – he did not wipe the neck first and he knew Caepio had seen that.
‘Looking for a lad called Lentulus,’ he said mildly. ‘Barber by trade who now works as a sparsore, it seems.’
‘I know him,’ Caepio answered. ‘Popular lad – you are not the first to ask.’
‘Who asked – a tall man? Strange hair, strange skin, strange eyes?’
‘Nix – a little man trying to wear a toga the way he used to wear armour. Shifty look to him.’
‘Stolo,’ Kag muttered out of the side of his mouth. Old Caepio scooped up another slather of evil-smelling brown-black grease and started working it into the hub.
‘There was yet another – Brasus the Dacian.’
‘Who in the name of Jupiter’s hairy cock is Brasus the Dacian?’
‘Retiarius,’ Caepio said, absently smearing black streaks down his filthy tunic. ‘One of the familia of the Ludus Ulpius Ralla. Won a few and is highly rated, or so I hear.’
‘Ludus Ulpius Ralla?’ Kag queried, squinting with bewilderment. ‘I never heard of that School.’
‘There was a Senator Gaius Ulpius Ralla,’ Drust said. ‘Got himself executed under the old Emperor Severus. His son got himself sixed under Caracalla, as I remember.’
Beasts From the Dark Page 19
