I heard the lightning slither of his sword whipping from its sheath, and the expression on his face told me I had little time. I launched myself backwards, kicking my stool away while managing to remain on my feet, and as I did so I heard the hiss of his sword point as it slashed through the air where my head had been. He came after me, around the table, and I kept going backwards, holding the cloth-wrapped cross in my right hand. Another slash, backhanded, brought his arm high for the killing stroke, and as it came slicing down I blocked it instinctively with Alaric's cross. The force of the blow almost knocked the cross from my hand, and I saw his eyes widen in shocked surprise. He had expected the clang of iron, not that solid clunk! And he had expected his sword to spring free! Instead, its tempered edge had struck deeply into the arm of the silver cross and lodged there. He was confused just long enough for me to realize what had happened, and to react ahead of him. Knowing what he did not, I threw myself at him, twisting around so that my right shoulder hit him solidly on the breastbone as I rammed my right arm straight out, away from him, twisting my strong smith's wrist to hold his clamped blade and jerk the sword hilt from his grasp. He went staggering as I took the hilt of his sword in my left hand and worked the blade free from its silver trap.
His friends had not had time to react, but now they came surging towards me, the three who had swords unsheathing them. Then Plautus shouted, "Hold!" and an arrow zipped in front of me and smacked into the shoulder of one of them, knocking him sideways off his feet. All eyes swung to Plautus, who sat on his horse less than six paces away, a fresh arrow already in place and the feathers of a full quiver peeking above his shoulder.
"I think we need no more bloodshed. Throw away the swords, boys. Far away. You! The pretty one! Pick up your friend's sword and throw it over there, too." He looked at me and nodded towards my horse. "Mount up. No names, no recriminations. Let's go."
I knew he was warning me, but I was too far gone in anger to pay any heed.
"No," I said, snarling. "Not yet. This dog meat called me an old man. I want to taste his tripes."
"Forget it. Let it lie. Mount up."
I ignored him, fixing my eyes on our tormentor. Let him show me his power now. I stepped sideways to the table and put down the sword and the cross side by side, and then I stepped away.
"There it is, buck," I said. "The only thing between you and your sword is an old man. Now, either pick it up and use it, or give me the belt and scabbard and I'll leave you to swim in your friends' vomit."
He glared at me and spat into my face, making me close my eyes reflexively as he leaped for me, his fingers spread like talons to rake my eyes. He really did think me an old man! I jumped a step backwards, seizing his right hand in my left, lacing our fingers and using my smith's strength again to jerk him forward and down, off balance. As he sprawled towards me, I took my full weight on my bad leg and smashed my right knee forward into his beautiful, depraved, young madman's face, and felt his nose give way. I released his hand quickly and stepped to the side, placing myself again between him and the table.
I snatched a quick glance at Plautus. He sat motionless, his eyes on the others, his bow half drawn. My antagonist was in no hurry to rise. He knelt on all fours, head down, blood and saliva drooling from his broken face.
"Finished already?" I taunted, and he raised his head slowly to stare at me with more malevolence than I had ever seen on a human face. I could have felled him again at any time as he got slowly to his feet, but I waited.
"Come on, Deus! Kill the old swine!" This, hissed by one of his friends, was the first utterance any of them had made. Deus! I thought again. Short for Claudius? If this buck is a god, he's a god from Hades.
He came at me again, more cautiously, and I felt the effect of those muscles of his. He was obviously used to fighting with cestes, the armoured gloves of the gladiators, for he used his bare fists like hammers. I took one solid blow on the shoulder that would have beheaded me had his aim been better. As it was, I went reeling, and he was on me like a wildcat, intent on ripping off any part of me he could lay hold of. He was well trained, but so was I, and in a far rougher school than any he had attended. I set out then, methodically, to thrash him badly enough to mar his beauty forever, and I succeeded. I cannot recall another occasion when my anger exceeded the rage I felt that day. At one point, when he stood swaying and helpless on his feet, his tunic covered with blood and sputum, his face a broken, bloody mess, I knew that I was overdoing it, but I was in the grip of some elemental fury. I heard Plautus shout to me to leave him, that he had had enough, but again I ignored him and measured out one last, sledgehammer blow. All my resentment, my anger, my fears and my disgust went into that blow, and the man went down as though I had used a real iron maul — and I was still angry. I took his sword from the table and flicked the edge with my thumb. It was very sharp. I used it to cut away his tunic from neck to hem, and then the fine woollen shorts he wore beneath it, so that he sprawled naked, and then, God forgive me, I carved a great "V" on his hairless chest.
"You'll remember meeting me, you whore's spawn," I muttered. "Be thankful I didn't cut off your dick and stick it in your mouth." I rounded on the others, who were all white-faced. "Well? Will you remember me? And leave old men in peace in future?" They flinched away from me, and suddenly I felt sick. I spat at their feet and left them, taking the still-wrapped cross and mounting my horse to follow Plautus away from the place. The doors of the mansio remained shut. Nobody sought to hinder our departure.
We rode in silence for more than half an hour, and for most of that time I shook as though palsied. And then the reaction set in, and I dismounted and was violently sick. When I had finished retching I still felt miserable, but with a different kind of sickness. I felt unclean, soiled inside.
Plautus waited, still mounted, until I was done. I led my horse to a convenient stump and got back onto its back, nodding to him to lead on. Again we rode in silence, and when he kicked his mount to a gallop, I followed without asking why.
A long time later we came to a stream, and Plautus dismounted and drank from it. I sat and watched him with-out really seeing what he was doing until I became aware of the foul taste in my own mouth. I slid to the ground and bent my head to the running water, rinsing my mouth and gargling and spitting until my mouth tasted clean again. I felt that, inside, I would never again be clean. I straightened up and stared out into the stream, which was quite wide. The sun still felt warm on my shoulders, but the strength was gone from its heat. I walked slowly out into the water until it rose to my knees and then I sank down into it, letting its coldness chill me.
As I rose to come out again, I saw that Plautus was sitting watching me, his back against a tree. His eyes never left mine as I walked to the bank and stood looking down at him.
"Feel like talking about it?"
I shook my head. He shrugged. "I think we should camp here tonight. Anyone looking for us isn't likely to come this way."
I looked around. "Where are we?"
"You're asking me? We're lost, that's where we are. Couldn't keep going south. That's where the uncle's villa is, remember? Anyway, he heard us saying we were headed south. So I turned east as soon as we were out of sight of the place. We headed east for over an hour and then I turned north. That's where we are now. Anybody looking for us would have to know where we were going. Since we don't know, they can't either. There should be fish in that big pool down there. I'll see if they're willing to eat hooks."
He got up and left, and I lay down, enjoying the cold clamminess of my soaked clothing. Minutes later, it seemed, I awoke, chilled to the bone, and stripped and rubbed myself down with my cloak. Plautus was still fishing. By the time he returned, carrying four fair-sized fish, I had a fire going and we spitted the fish and cooked them. I was hungrier than I had any right to be, and the fish were good. We ate in silence. Finally, lying comfortably in a hollow in the bank, I felt I could talk about it.
"How did you know who he wa
s?"
"I didn't, at first." Plautus's answer was immediate, as though we had been talking about it all along. "It only came to me when somebody called him Deus. Unusual name for a living man. I'd only heard it once before, when somebody was talking about him. Then I remembered that the same person had said that he was related to Quinctilius Nesca. I remember thinking at the time that was appropriate. Have you ever met Nesca?"
"No, I've never even seen the man."
"Well, that's your good fortune. He's a nasty package. Lives in Constantinople at the Court most of the time, but he has estates outside Rome, one estate here, obviously, and an island in the Aegean where he's supposed to have nothing but pederasts and catamites. No women anywhere. The word is that he likes to eat human flesh. Babies, broiled whole and flavoured with spice and cinnamon."
"Ach!" I shuddered. "That's obscene! How can you even give ear to such rubbish?"
He shrugged his shoulders. "Wouldn't surprise me if it's absolutely true, every word of it. Wouldn't surprise me at all. I told you, he's a nasty man."
"How do you know him?"
"I don't. My brother did. He worked for him before he died."
"And this Deus is his nephew?"
"No, not a nephew, but related in some way. Perhaps a cousin."
"But the man at the mansio said that two of that gang were Nesca's nephews."
"So? Must have been two of the others. That probably explains why the whoreson's here in Britain. Visiting the family."
"Family?" I shuddered again. "A family suggests home and hearth to me. Values. Worthiness."
"Oh, they have values. They're just different to other people's. One of their ancestors, I forget his name, was actually removed from the governorship of a province for cruelty. Not unprecedented, I suppose, except that it was Caligula who recalled him. Caligula! Can you believe that? How bad must he have been?"
"Do you think they'll search for us?"
"The Senecas? You tell me. You carved your initial on one of them, the family favourite, with his own sword! Of course they'll be looking for us. But they won't know where to start. He can have no idea who we are. since no names were mentioned. Were they? Did you give them your name while I was away?"
I shook my head.
"Well, then. How can he find us? He'd never think of looking for me in a centurions' mess, and I doubt if he visits too many smithies. He knows you by your hair and beard. Shave them off for a month or two. Go bald and barefaced. You'll probably look years younger if you do. Remember, he thinks you're an old man."
"What about you, Plautus? What made him take after you?"
Plautus spat into the fire. "Who knows? I told you, he's mad. It's one of his well-known attributes. He just likes to kill people. Let's get some sleep and be on our way before dawn. We're still a long way from Verulamium."
"Verulamium!" I felt uncomfortable. "Do you think we should still go there?"
"Why not? That's where we're headed for."
"Only to deliver the cross, and it's ruined. I think we should head home to Colchester."
He looked at me speculatively. "Are you sure?"
I thought about it. "Yes. I'm sure. I think you're right. He and his people will be looking for us, and if he's as wealthy as you say he is, he can afford to hire a lot of people. I want to shave off my hair and beard."
Plautus smiled and shook his head. "You look bad enough normally to frighten a child, but you're going to be appalling when you're bald."
I grimaced. "Sorry I ruined your furlough."
"You didn't. That other whoreson did. What was it you called him? A whore's spawn?" He laughed. "You got your sexes mixed up, but not as badly as him."
I blinked, wondered, and said nothing.
XIV
I had been partially correct in my assessment of the reaction of the Senecas, but they did not hire just any group of soldiers to search for us; they hired the Roman army. For a week after our unexpected early return to Colchester nothing happened, and we said nothing to anyone except Equus. Then, leaving my house early one morning to go to the smithy, I was abducted. I remember a cloth of some description being thrown over my head and arms pinioning me, and then nothing.
When I opened my eyes again, I was lying on a couch in the private living quarters of Antonius Cicero, commander of the military district. I did not know where I was at first, but Cicero himself was standing over me in full uniform. I blinked at him, surprised.
"Cicero?"
He nodded in acknowledgement. "Varrus. How do you feel?"
How did I feel? Confused. I moved to sit up and my head informed me immediately that it, at least, felt far from well. Wincing and groaning, I managed to struggle up.
"What happened to me? Where am I? What's going on?"
"Here, drink this." He handed me a cup of something hot and steaming. "You are in my quarters. You are in custody."
I took the brew, making no attempt to drink it. "In custody? For what? Are you serious? In custody for what offence? On whose authority?"
"Deadly serious. I authorized it. You are here under arrest."
Wonderful! My head was pounding. I reached up tentatively and found a very painful area at the base of my skull.
"Did they have to hit me so hard? What is this? Am I considered too dangerous to simply approach and take into custody? What am I supposed to have done?"
He turned and walked away from me, picking up another steaming' mug from a table and seating himself in a chair opposite me. From there, he looked at me in silence for a while as he sipped from his cup. I waited. Finally he spoke.
"What would you say if I told you a story about a brutal and unprovoked attack on an important visitor to Britain? A young man who had come here to visit his family — his very powerful family — and who was engaged in the personal business of the Emperor at the time of this attack? What if I were to add that this young man is not only a senator and a friend of the Emperor but one of the wealthiest and most influential people in the entire Empire, and that his immediate family, his brothers in particular, rank among the most senior officers of the army in Britain? What would you say if I were to tell you that this man was savagely attacked and mutilated, here in my jurisdiction, less than fifty miles away in a common mansio, in broad daylight, while on a visit to some equally wealthy and august, although slightly more distant, relatives? Tell me, Varrus, how would you respond?"
I was gingerly touching the bump on the base of my skull, but my mind was racing. Unconvincingly, I tried prevarication.
"What kind of response do you want? What are you talking about, apart from far too much power and influence?"
"Don't be facetious, Varrus, you know what I'm talking about. I want an answer."
"To what? My skull is coming apart. I didn't hear the half of what you were saying. Tell me again."
I drank the warm beverage — a spiced wine — while he repeated himself. I grimaced.
"I would say you might be in trouble indirectly, because this happened within your military district, but I cannot see how you can be held accountable for every madman in the country. Unprovoked assault and mutilation of a senator? Whoever would do such a thing would have to be insane. What does this have to do with me?"
"Drink up, Publius, and I'll tell you." He sipped again at his own spiced wine before continuing. "This entire town is being turned upside down at this moment in a search for a grey-haired, grey-bearded man with a pronounced limp. A very strong man. The search is being conducted from house to house by a cohort of the Emperor's own Household Troops from Londinium. They arrived here yesterday, late in the afternoon, and their Commander was here in this room last night, informing me of his mission and formally requesting my permission for his men to search the town. His orders are to find this man, no matter how long it takes or how far his search may take him."
"Oh. I see. Do they have a name for this man?"
"No. No more than a description."
"Who was the man he attacked?"
"Caesarius Claudius Seneca."
"Oh."
"Is that all you have to say?"
"What else is there? You arrested me because of the description."
"That, and the fact that I knew you were in that area when the attack occurred, accompanied by my own primus pilus, who just happens to fit the description of the second man perfectly."
"Plautus." I went cold with dread. "Where is he now?"
"He is where he should be. Out on the streets of the town with the Household Troops, coordinating the search."
I took a deep swallow of the spiced wine to cover my confusion. "I don't understand."
"Why not? It's very simple." He stood up and walked to the door of the room, opening it casually and looking out into the passageway in both directions before closing it firmly behind him and returning to his seat. "Plautus told me the entire story this morning. I could not think of a safer place for him than co-ordinating the search in his official capacity, in full uniform. You were the one I had the problem with." He shook his head. "Good God, Varrus. It's one thing to get angry at a man, but did you have to carve your initials on his chest? Knowing he was a Seneca? How would it look for Caius Britannicus if you were charged with this crime? It would put him on a par with Primus Seneca — someone who hires assassins to do what he dares not do himself. Caius would not thank you for that."
I was abashed. His assessment was absolutely accurate and, until that point, it had not occurred to me that I had endangered the Commander's reputation. I took refuge in truculence.
"He's not a man," I muttered, "he's a sick animal. And it was just one letter, 'V'. It stands for Vae Victis. Don't you think that appropriate? That he should carry that warning — Woe to the conquered?"
There was silence for a few moments, until I continued. "But you are right. It was unforgivably stupid of me. I acted without thinking."
[A Dream of Eagles 01] - The Skystone Page 21
