Loreticus: A Spy Thriller and Historical Intrigue Based On Events From Ancient Rome (Lost Emperor Trilogy Book 1)

by J. B. Lucas

  And now he sat in their empty home, a house which he hadn’t slept in since she had died. His promise to keep the city safe was the only thing that stopped him from leaning his face against the cool wood of the table and exhaling his last breath. He would make her proud.

  But he sat there, a deep and crippling emptiness behind his ribs as he pushed back the water swelling in his eyes. He knew that Marcan was dead, and he had lied to Pello to keep this secret to himself for just a little longer. He had seen the shape of the corpse, the colour of the hair, the shape of the fingernails. It was his job to recognise someone disguised.

  So why couldn’t he just join Dhalia now? Because he would be a failure forever, and although she would love him, she would not be proud of him. And with that small turn of logic, he stood up and wiped his eyes before the tears fell messily, and he closed the window shutters, and he left and locked the door.

  The night was colder than when he had come from the party. The torches were burning and the two guards marched quietly behind him as they made their way along the wide avenue. He had a solution, but it would be possibly the greatest crime in the history of the empire, and he needed a royal accomplice for his plan to work.

  Loreticus paced the lanes of the palace early the next morning, when the air was still moist from the dawn. He knew the layout of the palace in detail from the vantage point of where he now lived and worked. Hours had been spent poring over the feuds between generations of builders below as they scattered perspectives and angles in between the gardens and squares of the palace grounds. He could have easily walked to the princess’s apartments through the private routes, trailing the corridors and the walkways. But today an inexplicable fear made him want to enter from the less toxic environment of the public street. By the door was a vast circular portrait of the Emperor Marcan, the sharp family nose honed slightly to fit. It had been carved at the start of his reign, two summers ago, before the constant anxiety stole his hair and left him wrinkles as payment. A tall, bronzed guard stood impeccably to attention by the emperor’s face, and he nodded as he recognised Loreticus.

  The guard knocked with the heel of his hand, and Loreticus peered through the keyhole as he waited. Framed against a pale vanilla sky was the dome, his own tower just behind the metal edge. This was the start of the reign of his third emperor, and the trend was downhill. He hadn’t started with a high benchmark, but Loreticus now longed for those easier, earlier days.

  Another guard, quite interchangeable with his colleague outside, let Loreticus in. They walked down a shaded path between sets of columns and under a grand arched ceiling, the floor paved in giant grey and white squares.

  Then under the towering arches which formed the terminus of other tunnels, and out on to a flat lawn which was peppered with gnarly, warped trees. Under one stood Alba, the princess of the empire. She was slender and tall, her hips cocked as she contemplated something in her hands. As usual, she was alone.

  His footsteps must have alerted her to his arrival and she turned, dropping the leaf that she had been skinning with her nails. A smile played out across her face. Loreticus stopped, folded his arms and watched her fondly, admiring the way her eyes curved when she smiled, the way her lips revealed a little too much of her gums. She walked over to him.

  “It seems that people always tend to leave us,” he said. “What can we do?” Alba asked. “He’s gone, someone else won and if he ever comes back the generals will kill him. There is a healthy chance that they’ll kill you too in the next day or two. If you don’t get to them first of course.”

  They smiled.

  “Sun, silence and happiness,” she said with a broad reach of her arms.

  “Well, let’s see about that killing bit. You have your father’s gift for paranoia and drama.” He pulled out a chair for her. “Life is very disordered. Should I offer you condolences or . . .” She shook her head. “Do you know what helped me through the last year on my own?” Loreticus sat opposite her. “Continuing to act in a way Dhalia would have wanted. I always wanted a glorious capital where people were safe and wealthy, and families could grow up without the fear of violence.” He smiled, an expression which this morning was rich in disappointment. “I don’t think that these three fools will help me to that end. I’m looking for a way to correct the situation.”

  “I’m surprised that you helped my father for so long then.”

  “Because he made a bad choice at the end?” he asked, surprised.

  “Because he was a messy ruler,” she replied.

  “No, it was all to the same result. The generals know nothing about earning, only about taking. They’ll bankrupt the kingdom within a year and we’ll have a barbarian on the throne soon after. We need a wiser man in charge.”

  “Someone you can control? I have no respect for Antron,” she said, in quiet tones. “I’m told all the fun people were at his party, and yet he somehow managed to turn it into a very dull affair. So who would you have rule us now, dear Loreticus?”

  “Marcan.”

  She beheld him with a blunt anger. “You wanted him gone as well, and don’t pretend that you didn’t. If it wasn’t for you and me, I’d have pinned you as the first suspect. And now Marcan is gone, probably dead, and you have no idea where he is,” she said. “Anyway, he is certainly not deserving.”

  “We always think badly about the person running things. I know that you two were at odds towards the end, we need Marcan on the throne, but a more commendable version of the old one.”

  “Why can’t we just find someone deserving?” she asked. “If my father had been the wise man everyone claims he was, I should have been allowed on the throne. But none of these generals are ready for that.”

  “No,” said Loreticus, turning to look away. “They’re not ready for that. We’ll find a deserving Marcan.” He pinched and twisted his fingertips together, as if screwing something up. “Everyone thinks that it all hangs on the fate of a single person– the king, the emperor, the general . . .”

  “The spymaster,” she said. He smiled and shrugged.

  “If I brought back someone more deserving, would you trust my choice?”

  “I would have to, I suppose,” she said. “So you already think that I am a widow?”

  “No,” he replied. “I don’t think that you need to be.”

  Alba folded her arms, crossed her legs and looked at him. He could hear her mind moving, following where his logic led.

  “What a strange option to offer,” she said. “I presume that you expect my approval in that decision?”

  He nodded, then stood and delved into a pocket.

  “Do you recognise this?” He held up a small gold necklace with a broken centrepiece; a significant sliver had been cut or carved out of it and wings spread symmetrically either side of the gap.

  “No. Should I?”

  “I don’t know. It was found near a murdered man. I think that it was dropped by a zealot. Ugly business.” He pushed it back into his pocket.

  “Well, Loreticus, ever the cheerful visitor with a few black clouds in his pocket. Tell me something to cheer me up, and not something I already know.” She examined him quickly, checking that she hadn’t been too insensitive. “You do like the chance to wallow. Tell me something to cheer us both up.”

  “The Lady Durring sprained her buttock with her lover. She told her husband that it was a horse that he had given her as a present and therefore it was all his fault. The poor man was distraught with guilt,” he concluded, shaking his head. “I didn’t know whether to let him in on the secret or to let him suffer as recompense for being such a fool.”

  “He doesn’t know?”

  “No, he doesn’t. Nobody does.”

  “But for you and your minions,” said Alba with a smile. “Which one of you was her lover?”

  He was distracted for a moment by a gardener lighting a small pile of leaves. A fine line of white smoke rose unbroken in the air, whisked away where the breeze dashed over the
palace walls. Something in the acrid smell had brought him out of the moment and he had forgotten what they had been talking about.

  “How are you?” he asked.

  “Sick of everything,” she said. “I am so damned lonely. You know the old phrase – if life is hard, blame your parents?”

  “Don’t swear.”

  “Sorry. But I am lonely. At least when he was here, I was living in some vicarious fashion. Now I am both unwelcome and unavailable. I am the widowed empress and I’m not even twenty-five. Can you imagine such a curse?”

  “What can I do? You know that I am completely at your disposal. You’re my only family left in the world,” said Loreticus.

  “And you the same,” Alba continued. “It’s in my blood to help the families of the empire prosper. There’ll be a way for me to be involved before too long. Your peers prefer political fist fights to empire building. Just so pedestrian.” She punctuated the last three words with a melodramatic flourish. “And what of your two little friends?”

  “I don’t call them friends. They are the people I have known the longest. And who are still alive. And life does go on for so damned long.”

  “So, ‘friends’ then. I don’t know many people who like their friends. And don’t swear.” She took a drink and then fixed him with the same stern expression that she had used when she used to call him Uncle Loreticus. “So, we rebuild this mess before it collapses completely?”

  “Exactly,” he said. “Do you trust me?” “Of course.”

  “Then be patient a little bit. I would do anything for this empire,” he stated and drew one hand in a sweep which took in the hidden buildings behind the wall.

  “Would you, Loreticus?” She regarded him. “Be careful of offering that. I’m furious at Ferran and his buddies and I’d have their heads on spikes if I could. Would you kill them all for me?”

  Loreticus gave her an uneasy look. “Well . . . If the situation called for it, I’d do what needs to be done. You really can’t ask those questions as the princess, even in jest. I really don’t care for violence. It ruins my appetite, which is meagre enough already.”

  “Of course, I was joking,” she said. “Anyway you don’t kill people. You make them disappear. Much cleaner! Much more elegant, as befits the famous Loreticus.”

  He clapped his hands as if dusting them off and smiled broadly. He said, “It allows me to keep my morality. What the eyes don’t see, the heart can’t judge.”

  Chapter 4

  Last night’s damp wood smoke sat in the man’s nostrils, sending him an uncomfortable sensation even before he had opened his eyes. His mind didn’t want to process the smell, pushing it away like a toddler.

  Eyes scrunched shut, he rummaged around to identify the source of his fear. As his thoughts reached out, he realised there was nothing to touch, no structure, no memories, no name. The more he probed, the colder and deeper the void in his skull.

  His chest tightened, his breathing quickened. A cold, stern fear bloomed inside his torso, denying him full use of his arms and legs. He lay paralysed by his own reaction, dead but for his rapid, dry pants. The fear rose, strangling his throat, cutting off the air as it struggled to his lungs.

  The man sat up, eyes wide, sucking in a breath and staring around for something to repopulate his mind. Nothing. He recognised the smooth ache of bruising on his ribs, and when he drew up a blood-spattered tunic he winced at the sight of layered welts. With a certain amount of foolish pride, he realised he must have an impressive tolerance for pain, given they weren’t the first things he noticed. The man continued to explore his abdomen under the dirty garment, seeing the long, clean scars from sharp blades at random angles. Most were old and flat, and the skin was elastic again. Nothing else on his body gave him any evidence as to who, what or where he was.

  He got to his feet as quietly as he could. Unexpectedly he broke wind, then realised with a fright he might not be alone in the room. The fear returned and his head swivelled painfully from side to side, the spine between his shoulder blades rebelling with a deep stiffness. No-one was there. If fact, almost nothing else was in the room but for the table he had woken on, a few frames with pictures and a circle of sunlight in the middle of the space, which fell from the chimney through the roof. A sturdy door muffled various intermittent sounds from the other side.

  He walked unhurriedly, noticing that his pedicured toes belied his thick-soled feet. A shadow of his face appeared in a beaten bronze plate, which he at first passed in hope of a mirror further along. But the frames contained nothing but cheap silhouettes of gods. He returned to the plate, picking out the shape of his face and his eyes and hair. He was tall, his complexion dark, his eyes wide. He had a bigger nose than he expected. How strange it was to feel so familiar on the inside and yet find such anonymity in your own reflection, almost as if you could choose to ignore it. His hair was short and felt clean, and he had all his own teeth. This presence of mind and judgement indicated he was from a wealthy family, he considered with a smirk. He amused himself at least, and he took his humour as a positive sign.

  Peeking in the gap of the open door and the wall into the street, he saw a simple pedestrian scene which didn’t look intimidating. It was time to venture out and to find help. He didn’t know what had happened, or where he was, but he was sure there was a quick solution to get him home. He took a deep breath, opened the door and cautiously stepped through.

  The street poured its people around him, no-one taking notice of this new entrant into their midst. His confidence slowly started to return until someone glanced up, then turned to stare. Two dark eyes rested on his face, their hinterland devoid of judgment and logic as they flooded with damnation and excitement. They darted to the wall next to him, then back to his face.

  “Whore!” screamed an angry old woman, separating her from the crowd. “Whore! Whore! Marcan the whore!” With a swift step, she moved forward and slapped him hard across his cheek with a big-knuckled hand. “Whooooooooore!” It was an animal cry, which echoed down the road. People stopped and turned to look.

  He searched for what they were staring at. On the wall behind him was a vivid portrait of a man in his early middle age, with short curly hair, beautiful and elegant features, and a remarkably long proboscis. He absently touched his own nose.

  “You bastard,” roared a man deep in the crowd which was congealing around the crone. Spittle bounced on the man’s lip, his fury kindling within him. He launched something with a gleeful heft. It struck Marcan on his right cheek, a sharp piece splitting his skin. It was then Marcan reacted. He grabbed the old lady by her arms as she came in for a second attack, swinging at his purple ribs. Marcan lifted her and threw her with all his panicked strength into the bubbling mob. She was so light she bounced off the taut belly of a merchant and fell on the cobbles. A shocked silence paused the entire scene. Marcan watched her, lying crumpled on the floor. The mob gaped at her, mouths open.

  “Whoooooore!” she began, pushing herself up using the strength of her wrinkled triceps.

  “Sod this,” Marcan muttered and dashed back into the hut as, like a damn bursting, the inertia restraining the mob disintegrated. Bodies started to cram through the small entrance behind him.

  In through the front door they flowed toward the front door, the first attacker a round-eyed middle-aged man. One punch, two and he staggered. Marcan pushed him like a plug into the door, then dashed to the back of the hut, hurdling on to the table, and exiting through the window. He landed hard in a curled roll on to the slops and broken pottery behind. Footsteps sounded down the paths either side of the hut, so he twisted and galloped in the opposite direction.

  In front of him, the edge of the town petered out in to a sweeping golden hayfield, its young corn looking tender amongst the dark soil. The noise closed in on him, and instinct drove him forward, his sandals catching rocks and mud, tripping him. And then he lost the ground, falling face, then shoulders, then back first, as his burning legs catapulte
d him over the lip of a steep decline. He was up running again, one sandal folded back under itself, the smell of mud in his nose, his breath frightened. Tiles and rocks had bounced near his feet as the burghers launched their insults.

  Their voices faded, and Marcan was away. He continued to run, a nauseous cocktail of wanting to sob and needing to shout occupying the front of his thoughts. He fell into a trot, and kept going.

  Marcan sat, nursing a bleeding elbow and bruised knee. Both had been incurred on his flight out of wherever he had been, a village now at a safe distance. A seed, from a dandelion or a thistle, floated contentedly in the breezeless air, and he watched it as it danced indecisively out of arm’s reach. Marcan wondered whether it was as grateful for the warm sun as he was. He felt its equal at that moment as it moved to silent music, opposite an invisible partner.

  Who the hell was he? An inherent entitlement gave him a strange sense of purpose. But until that moment, he was insubstantial to everyone. Perhaps he represented a stain in the society. Nothing occurred to him, nothing felt familiar. Thirsty, hungry, bruised, dirty. These hands weren’t his, these legs were someone else’s.

  He wasn’t sure that he was a whore despite the old woman’s conviction. He must have been a particularly bad one to have fuelled such anger. He didn’t feel like a whore but then he didn’t relate well at all to this rumpled body. He tidied his hair distractedly, as if it were an old habit.

  Marcan stood, unfolding a body of strange proportions, and brushed the dust from the butt of his tunic. Birds that had been shouting at each other in the branches stopped, and a sense of dread came back to him. Slowly, he turned to walk as his ears and his eyes strained open. He heard a deliberate noise behind him and turned to see a pair of richly dressed horsemen, faceless behind polished helmets, their pendulous cavalry swords already drawn, move their mounts gently around the bend of the road. Marcan watched the shadows in the eye holes, hoping for some sign. Immediately he was prey again, and his mind switched off. His stomach and legs tensed, he crouched slightly and lurched as the two soldiers dug in their heels, snapping their mounts into a practised charge.