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

by J. B. Lucas

  “What do you want?” he asked again, more directly. A moment’s silence, then Marcan’s eyes changed. It was a new face, thought Balthasar, as if his old soul had come to rest at last. The realisation made his morning ritual a distant memory. Unexpectedly his foot was dancing without consent. He got angry at this candid unease, of the loss of control Marcan had enforced without a word.

  “Damn!” growled Balthasar. “Speak, you idiot. Do you think I can read minds?”

  Marcan stood with dramatic speed, snapping crisply to attention. He moved elegantly nearer to the squatting figure and crouched down in front of him.

  “Who do you think I am?” he asked calmly. “I already know, but you need to say.”

  Balthasar couldn’t answer. Thousands of small conversations and responses ran through his head.

  “Who,” repeated Marcan, “do you think I am?”

  “You are the missing emperor, you fool,” whispered Balthasar angrily. “Marcan of the New Kingdom. The leader of the armies, the husband of Alba, the son-in-law of the late Augustus himself.”

  Marcan felt a coolness run through his veins, watching Balthasar squirm like a rodent before a predator. Gone were the laughter lines, the boyish tics, the charming readiness to laugh. “I wanted to keep you safe whilst you regained your sanity,” Balthasar explained to the stranger. “If you weren’t ready, why would I expose you to a hundred assassins as an innocent man?”

  “You kept me like a prize animal in the zoo,” replied Marcan, his voice quiet and determined. “You kept me at your pleasure.”

  Balthasar’s body spasmed at the prospect of this judgement. He was immediately shrunken, stress thumping inside his head.

  “Do the other men know?” Marcan asked.

  “Everyone sees it every time we walk past an imperial clay portrait. No-one believes it as far as I am aware. It’s too bizarre.”

  Silence. Marcan examined Balthasar, catching the lines and the silver hair, the fear and the stress.

  “Why should you know and they not?”

  “Because I had a visit from my old boss at the last performance. He brought Loreticus the Intelligencer,” stated Balthasar.

  Another moment of silence. Then in his newly adopted swiftness, Marcan stood again.

  “If Loreticus believes in you, you could be the most powerful man in the world,” said Balthasar. “Whether you are Marcan or not.”

  Marcan walked to the door, and before he slipped out, he said, “Find me later to prepare for my return to the capital.”

  Balthasar told Jed and Samwer to sit in front of him. They were away from The Psittacis, hidden in the edge of the wood. Everyone else was eating or sleeping during the lunch rest. The birds were singing, noisily, their calls echoing between the trees. The clearing smelled of ancient mulch and moss, the duff kicking up fungal scents as they walked.

  “It’s off,” said Balthasar, stress squeezing his voice. “No,” said Samwer, looking over to Jed.

  “Yes,” replied Balthasar. “What you don’t know is that the real Demetrian and Loreticus came to watch our last performance. They want their prince back.”

  “So what? He’s not even the real Marcan,” said Jed. “But if Loreticus says he is, then there’s gold in it. Let’s tell Saguinas that we want more. We’ve got proof now.”

  “Jed, you’re starting a game I don’t want to play. These are not the men you tease,” warned Balthasar. He sucked the hair of his beard. It wasn’t a pleasant taste, carrying sweat, old food and wine.

  “I have no intention of teasing them. We give a figure and then take what we are offered.”

  “It’s not like that. They have me responsible for his return.”

  “Then we do it, and you protest your innocence.”

  “I can’t do that,” said Balthasar, putting his face in his hands. “You don’t know these people. They scare me. If you anger Loreticus, you vanish from the street or you die in your sleep. I’ve seen Demetrian slaughter five men on his own. We are actors. Don’t confuse us with the real generals.”

  “You were a veteran,” said Samwer.

  “Still am, son,” replied Balthasar. “That makes me wise, not invincible.” He leant forward, catching the gaze of both of them. “It’s off. If they even find out that we were plotting to do this, we’re dead. If we don’t deliver him untouched, we’re dead. If we don’t protect him from Saguinas, we’re dead. Do you see how this is going?”

  They both nodded.

  “At least he has brought us a profitable summer,” sighed Balthasar. “Count the small blessings.”

  The two men nodded and grumbled unconvincingly as they wandered back towards the fires. Balthasar watched them. For good actors, they were terrible liars and he knew that they had a contingency plan.

  e looked over at the satchel he carried close everywhere. In that bag was a written promise from the imperial spymaster, a promise which matured on the safe delivery of Marcan. That piece of paper would change Balthasar’s life, and make him a moneyed man. He was damned if those two idiots would take a share. He had spent the summer training that boy to act, talk and behave like the emperor.

  Balthasar was the best that money could buy. Jed and Samwer would have to find their own riches.

  Chapter 14

  Loreticus watched the door in the massive red wall. He sat, drinking the ale from the street stall, enjoying the bouncing shadows of leaves twenty feet in the air. The walls were elegant, distant with their enormity, robust and ancient.

  The culture of the market was split in two by the corda barrelling through the middle of it. On one side, everyone was friends, with laughter and conversations rife. Over the other side, each person wore their dark hood up in the traditional style, covering their face, demonstrating the right to privacy. Hardly a word was spoken, with each interaction engaged through economical gestures of merchandise or offered coins.

  The traffic on the corda was the stream of chaos. Cart drivers were yelling at anyone they could find to swear at, often gesticulating passionately but not even looking at the subject of their insults.

  As a merchant or a buyer crossed the corda from the darker side and was subjected to the ignominy of the drivers’ tongues, he quickly became animated and joined the cheerful whole.

  A rigid figure sat down at his table and Loreticus gently settled his drink on the wooden surface. He looked carefully at the newcomer, feeling himself prepare for a violent attack. Blood was being spilled on the streets now, as if the capital was suffering referred pain from the court. Loreticus had wondered how long it would take for his threat to outweigh his value to Antron. His reputation had always been his currency; now it was a target on his back as Marcan’s loyalists whispered his name as their saviour. But the figure drew his hood back, revealing the dry face of Selban, warped with age and whatever disease sat on his bones. Whenever Loreticus saw that face, there was a certain sympathy. An intelligent man cursed by a broken body. It was Selban’s own flaw however that had let him stain his morals.

  “Hello, Loreticus.”

  “Selban.” Loreticus gestured to the maid, who brought out another cup.

  “Rain on the horizon,” Selban muttered with his gaze fixed on the mountains, which sat in the frame of the long straight street. Loreticus looked down, between the tottering buildings to the plum clouds breaking over grey mountains.

  “Grim, indeed,” he said. He wished he had his pipe. On occasions like these, he felt he was in for a long wait until Selban was ready to talk. “Did you find me easily enough?” “Rather, seeing as you didn’t tell me where you’d be,” replied Selban with a yellow smile.

  “No, there wasn’t an invitation, was there?” He gave up his struggle and gestured for a hawker with a basket to come over with a pipe and tobacco. He prepared it in silence and took a refreshing first draw. “Where’s Darcy?” “Off tickling someone’s testicles, I should imagine. Offering a favour now for one ‘to be cashed in the future’.” He mimicked Darcy’s mock-
aristocratic tones. For a terrible moment, Loreticus thought he might cup his hands and stick out his tongue in demonstration, but Selban was simply removing something from his line of sight.

  A slightly uncomfortable breeze came from the clouds, down the mountains and along the road to their table.

  “What exactly might I do for you, dear Selban?”

  Selban nodded at the high red wall. “I’ve been gathering information on your boy as well,” he said. “We need to talk.”

  Between their table and the red walls, dozens of people crossed every moment. Heavily armoured palace soldiers stood lazily nearby, their stance relaxed but their eyes vigilant under the polished brass of their helmets. They used to be Demetrian’s men. Now, in their new silver and dark-red doublets, they were as strange and threatening as an invading army.

  “Have you met with the generals yet?” asked Loreticus. “Yes. You?”

  “Just. Nothing new there,” he stated. “I’m expecting a blade between the ribs from them in the not too distant future. There’s no match at all.”

  “No, although Iskandar isn’t his normal sunny self, even considering his wife’s holiday.” Selban gestured to the maid with his empty cup. “I had my morning meal with Darcy earlier and asked him whether he had been summoned by the Big Noses. He said he hadn’t.”

  “It’s coming, I’m sure. They’ll do the rounds of the loyalists and the troublemakers,” said Loreticus.

  “Well, the thing is, my dear spymaster, that the generals let me know they had already met our third wheel.” They eyed each other, Loreticus concerned and Selban smug. “I thought he might mean he hadn’t committed to anything with them, or he hadn’t had a decent conversation with them, yah-de-yah. But as the conversation went on, I became more skeptical of his story.”

  “Do you trust him?” enquired Loreticus.

  “Generally, or with the generals?” Selban folded his arms. “Honestly, I fear he is as loyal as the wind blows. If we find Marcan, there is a fair chance he trades him in for security with Antron’s mob. I don’t think our Darcy has the stomach for a fist fight.”

  “I give Darcy credit. He’s made a clever line out of that business that most of us find unprofitable – the art of living very well.”

  “And my thought is that he wouldn’t like to risk that.” You think he’s turned?” asked Loreticus slowly.

  “The generals aren’t smart enough to engage in bluffs and double-play. They get their answers and stab you if you give the wrong one. So yes, I think our little friend has turned.”

  “Hmmm,” Loreticus mused and sent javelins of smoke through his nostrils. “I don’t blame him. Even my own guard seems to be nervous at the generals’ brazen tactics. Three of Marcan’s bankers have been slaughtered and their estates taken, all using the authority of the throne. Every person who supported the missing emperor, or at least doesn’t declare newly found loyalty to the generals, is prey. No, it’s certainly not their cunning we should worry about. Darcy’s smarter than all three put together, so for them it truly was a coup. Selban, you really do complicate my life. Ever the carrier of bad news and disappointment.” “Well,” replied Selban, “you should have seen my mother when she first saw my ugly face.”

  “What of the matter of the necklace?” asked Loreticus. “Have you and Pello found anything out?”

  “More concrete news there. This wasn’t the only piece to go missing. Apparently, the man was carrying a box of Iskandar’s private coins somewhere when he was bashed and cut. The murderers made off with the box,” said Selban.

  “And went on to murder another ten people?” “Doesn’t make sense, does it? Separate attacks.”

  “No, the same hand certainly,” stated Loreticus. “Zealot hit squads on a random raid? Barbarians? It really doesn’t click.”

  Let’s presume that this was the first attack in a planned series,” said Selban, levelling his finger at his colleague. This was the genius of Selban, the ability to find the raw red thread which ran through random events. Loreticus watched him with an eager anticipation. “What does the box of gold then become?”

  “Payment for the night’s work.” Loreticus’s head started swimming. The chatter and ruckus from the street buried a lot of his thoughts; Selban was waiting to start again. Loreticus focused on the taste of his apple smoke to bring him back.

  “Indeed. The box transfer was a setup. Only Iskandar could order the transfer of such a collection of his valuables.” Selban stuck his finger in the air. “Or perhaps his wife’s valuables.”

  “Unless a thief took it out past the guards. But that’s near impossible and it doesn’t make sense. Why rob a general when you could burgle a merchant? So, no zealots, no pending invasion,” concluded Loreticus, blowing his smoke into a thin line. He looked up at the thunder clouds over the mountains. “It can’t be. This must have been planned from within. Maybe I was wrong and the generals have been bluffing me with their gormlessness all along.” “If Iskandar knew what was coming and was moving his wife’s jewellery out of the house, why have it stolen?” Loreticus shrugged. The question was valid. “Because he’s broke,” he said. “He’s got no cash.”

  “Indeed,” agreed Selban. “And rather his wife’s valuables than his own. My guess is that he didn’t know that any had the family mark on it. He didn’t organise this on his own though. Antron needed to have pulled them all together.”

  ”What a fool Iskandar is to get into bed with those two.”

  “Loreticus, my friend, you were born rich and connected. You have lived a life of abstracts. Your ability to persuade is unsurpassed, your charm is legendary and you’ve used it to convince people to put their necks on the line time after time. You are a hypocrite if you’re saying that you don’t understand how people can be persuaded against their better judgement.”

  “But Iskandar is a smart man, not some moneylender we need to squeeze,” stated Loreticus. His pipe had turned cold. He put it down.

  “Yes, he is a smart man, and you are too. But there are people in this world you will never understand because you have soft hands and a lack of compromise.”

  oreticus sat for a while after Selban had disappeared, staring at the tall red walls and considering the damage that had just been confirmed. Of the possibilities for the disappearance of Marcan, this was the worst because it was the most imminent. It also showed preparation and determination by the very men he wanted least as his enemies, and those who already treated him as a threat.

  With a crushing nausea, he realised that the palace guards who were constantly following him weren’t an empty threat from bullies. They truly were waiting for an opportunity to butcher him in the dirt. Loreticus closed his eyes and rested them in his palms. What an arrogant idiot he was, believing his own reputation at the risk of his life.

  He stood and flicked his hood up in the shade outside the bar as he waited for his moment. He had seen some familiar faces enter through Alba’s private entrance and he was waiting for them to leave; when the two men exited, Loreticus caught the chin of Demetrian poking out from under his hood.

  He walked to the door a few moments after they had gone and the soldier once again knocked. He was keenly aware of how close they stood to each other, and he glanced down surreptitiously at the hand which sat on the great hexagonal pommel of the sword hilt.

  The door opened and he bolted through, the skin between his shoulder blades prickling with tenderness, down the columned corridor, spinning right in the direction of Alba’s private chambers.

  She took a double look when he burst in, first surprise, then guilt.

  “Loreticus,” she said, a fragility carrying in her throat. “Alba, my darling.” He drifted over and kissed her on both cheeks, foregoing the usual hug as she instinctively drew her torso into a clench. He glanced down to see what she was looking at–a map of the southern towns and villages with a coin placed on a certain spot. “Planning to travel?”

  “Planning to tell me that you saw Marcan
?” she snapped. He reached down and moved the coin away from the village name, the location at which he and Demetrian had seen the troupe perform.

  “Yes, I was when I eventually saw him.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

  “The actor we saw was not Marcan,” stated Loreticus. “He was a perfect lookalike but a terrible actor and no emperor. He looked like a penniless artist who lives by shagging old widows.”

  “That morality he shares with the emperor must come with that certain face then,” Alba muttered.

  “I thought the same.” Loreticus stared at her. “We have a chance, Alba, to rebuild the throne and to do it better than anyone else. You and I can make this actor the real thing. You and I will run this empire until there is a real heir to the throne.”

  “Don’t talk to me about children,” she muttered. “You expect me to live with an absolute stranger as my husband? You’ve made him sound a fool and a braggart.”

  “Count your options and then get angry at me,” scoffed Loreticus. Everyone seemed intent on setting fire to his plans. Perhaps he should simply let them burn. “You summoned Demetrian without asking me first. What’s going on, princess?”

  Alba walked away from him so that the table was between them.

  “Why do these people promise one thing whilst intent on doing something completely different?”

  “Who?”

  “Cousin Ferran, the others.” “Oh, tradition mainly.”

  “Then why is he called ‘Antron the Brave’?” she asked, exasperated.

  “Because he’s brave.” Loreticus shrugged dramatically. “Don’t be so naive to imagine that means that he’s honest as well.” He was annoyed about her questioning his man; people complicating his plans irritated him. He was setting something in motion and he had no intention of repeating hard work because someone felt left out. “So, what did Demetrian say?”

  “That he met one of Antron’s thugs on the road back.” “Saguinas?”

  “Maybe. Apparently, he’s ‘no longer a concern’. But before he stopped being a concern, he told Demetrian that Antron had put a generous bounty on Marcan’s head.”