The old man seemed to realise the fight was lost. He drew a deep breath, and bellowed out, ‘Greens for ever!’
One of the fans at the back of the crowd finally heard, and turned. ‘Euprepes!’ he screamed in anguish as Silus sliced deep into the famous man’s neck. Blood jetted forward, the liquid splashing into the dirt and swirling in red eddies in the puddles.
‘He’s killed Euprepes!’ yelled the fan, a balding man with wall eyes, a broad chest and a paunch. Silus’ hood had slipped back in the tussle, and he hastily pulled it forward to protect his identity, just as all heads swivelled towards him. For a moment, the crowd stared in disbelief at the tableau, Euprepes face down in the dirt with a lake of blood spreading around him, Silus on his back with a dripping knife in his hand. Then cries of outrage broke out, and they surged towards him.
Silus leapt up, spun on his heels and ran.
He had a ten-yard head start on the foremost of his pursuers, and he was quick, but he had just been in a fight and had been injured. What was worse was that he was in unfamiliar territory. He sprinted, pistoning his arms and legs, taking deep lungfuls of air. He didn’t turn round. He could hear the furious yells of the chasing crowd.
‘Stop him! Murderer! He killed Euprepes!’
The streets were narrow in this part of Rome, the Transtiberim on the far side of the Tiber. Packed with immigrant populations such as Jews and Syrians, as well as warehouses and docks, it had a very different feel to that of the Subura in the centre of the city, but like the Subura, had the houses of the wealthy nestling up against insulae-filled slums.
Silus ran, mud and shit splashing as his boots landed, not sure where he was headed, just desperate to stay ahead of the baying mob. He had no doubt that if he faltered, if he fell, if one of them caught him, they would rip him to pieces, like hounds on a fox, and no agility or fighting skill would save him. Speed now was his only defence.
He rounded a corner and collided with a woman carrying a basket of clothing back from the fullers, beautiful stolae and pristine togae, no doubt for the household of someone important. The basket tipped, and the clean clothes fell into the dirt, soaking up the ordure. The woman screamed curses at him, likely in for a beating for this, but her curses trailed off into surprise, then redoubled in pitch and volume as the mob appeared, trampling the clean laundry into the shit.
Silus hurdled a pig snuffling in a pile of rubbish, trod on the tail of a cat that let out a spine-chilling screech, kicked a chicken that was too slow to get out of his path, and shoved a little toddler so the child landed face down in the muck and immediately started wailing.
He risked a look back. He was extending his lead on his pursuers, none of whom were too anxious to get ahead of their fellows, but he was conscious that one wrong turn down a dead end could finish the chase very quickly and very finally. Also, the numbers of those pursuing had grown as the crime was shouted to onlookers, who joined the lynch mob to assuage their righteous fury. He took another corner, a left, breathing heavily now, sprinting past curious traders, sailors, labourers and dock workers, then another right.
And there was a mob at the end of the street in front of him. Someone must have had the sense to split the crowd, and with their better local knowledge, had outflanked him. He came to a halt, but the sounds of pursuit immediately grew louder.
The mob before him saw him instantly, and with a collective howl, rushed at him, many holding makeshift weapons such as hammers, legs of stools, and butcher’s knives. The street was flanked on either side by tight rows of shops and dwellings with no gaps between them. He chose the nearest one, a bakery, and ran in through the open frontage.
In the front of the shop, laid out on a long table with depressions for containers to hold the freshly baked bread, were the wares for sale – the oval panis quadratus with its two perpendicular grooves for easy division; the round lentaculum; panis nauticulum for sailors; artolaganus, a luxury bread made with honey and spices; and even panis furfureus, a tough bread reserved for feeding to dogs.
Silus hurdled the counter, his trailing leg sending ceramic dishes and baked goods crashing to the floor, and rushed into the back room. Here the baker looked up from where he had been bent over his charcoal-heated oven, an angry curse on his lips. When he saw the knife in Silus’ hand, he backed away to the far wall, eyes wide with fear.
‘Take what you want. I don’t have much.’
‘How do I get out of here? Quick!’
‘There is only the front way in. Or that way to the upper floors and roof.’
The baker gestured to a side door and Silus ran for it, wrenching it open and dashing through.
‘But the stairs—’ said the baker, and the rest of his sentence was lost as Silus ran, taking the steps three at a time. The boards looked dry and rotten, and his pounding on them was making them groan and crack ominously. But below him he heard the sounds of the mob entering the bakery, demanding to know where Silus had gone, starting for the door.
Silus passed the apartment above the shop on the first floor, then the second. The board on one step split and he stumbled to the next as his foot went through. He steadied himself against the apartment wall for the briefest of moments, then heard shouts as someone lower down caught sight of him, and he forced himself onwards, heart pounding with the effort of the climb straight after the headlong flight.
He rounded a turn on the staircase that brought him close to the roof, and this time the poorly maintained woodwork, rotted in the sun and rain, let him down. The step split in two, and he plummeted straight through, stopping his fall by grabbing on to the next step. The staircase ripped from the wall and swung wildly around. He looked down and saw the mob leader, one of Euprepes’ bodyguards, just a single floor below. In moments he would be on him, and Silus would be done.
The staircase swung back inwards, bringing him in reach of the next step, which was still attached to the intact staircase that led to the roof. He grabbed it with both hands and pushed the broken stair away from him with his feet. He hoped it would break, but it just wobbled around a few feet away from where he dangled, a fatal drop below him.
The bodyguard reached the top of the lower staircase, looking down uncertainly as it shook beneath him. He gestured to the other pursuers to stay back in case they brought the whole structure down with their weight. Then he looked at Silus’ predicament and smiled.
‘I don’t know who you are, or why you killed our greatest living sportsman. But now you die. There is no way out from here.’
Silus tried to pull himself further up, but he was exhausted, and his left arm was still weakened by the blow from Euprepes. He dangled helplessly, hearing the roars of the mob below him cursing him and appealing to the gods that he fall. He looked down, and the world started to spin. His grip on the stair weakened.
A hand grasped his wrist. Then another hand grasped his other wrist. He looked up into the face of Daya, staring down at him, teeth gritted with effort as she pulled.
‘Help me, you stupid bastard,’ she hissed. ‘Climb.’
He reached out with his feet to gain a purchase on the wall, and with Daya tugging on him like a dog playing tug with a bone, he stretched a hand up. He got a grip on the next step up, then the next, and then he got a knee on the lowest step and used it to lever himself up.
The bodyguard let out a roar of frustration at the possibility of Silus escaping. He took one step back, then leapt across the gap in the broken stairway.
He clutched the lowest step, elbows and chest on the stair, and began to struggle his way up. The stairway groaned its protest at this new level of abuse, and there was a cracking sound. Silus started to climb, hauled upwards by Daya. The bodyguard hooked an ankle onto the stair and pulled himself higher. Daya nimbly leapt off the stairway onto the roof, still holding Silus’ wrist, dragging him with her. Silus got a hand on the edge of the roof overhang just as the bodyguard grasped his ankle.
And then the stairway fell away.
Screams echoed up as the heavy wooden structure fell from a great height on the mob who had waited below.
The bodyguard yelled in anger and fear, hanging onto Silus’ ankle with both hands. Silus in turn gripped the edge of the roof, trusting desperately in Daya’s grip and the workmanship of whichever roofer had placed the beam that overhung the wall.
But for all Daya’s skill and agility, she did not have the strength to support the weight of two men, and Silus’ arms were rapidly fatiguing. He kicked at the hands on his ankle, but he could not get the right angle to impart enough force to loosen the grip. So he kicked down, and his heel connected with the bodyguard’s face.
He felt the tightness on his ankle relax a little, and he kicked down again. One hand came loose, and Silus could see the bodyguard swinging around in mid-air, arm flailing. He kicked down one more time.
The bodyguard let go, and his scream as he fell three floors was blood-chilling until cut off abruptly by impact.
Silus breathed heavily for a moment, then with Daya’s help, struggled up onto the roof, where he lay on his back, gasping for air.
‘How…?’ was all he could get out.
‘You run fast,’ said Daya with a chuckle. ‘But so do I. I was with the mob, of course, shouting for your head. Then, when I saw they had you trapped, I took another stairway to the roof to help you up here. Or, if necessary, come down there and fight with you.’
‘You would do that for me?’ asked Silus.
‘Of course,’ said Daya, looking puzzled. ‘We are Arcani.’
From street level, the screams of the injured, the howls of those grieving over the newly dead, and the cries of anger of those who still wanted vengeance and justice reached them.
‘Come on,’ said Daya, holding her hand out. ‘It’s time for us to disappear.’
Silus took it and let her haul him to his feet. Together, they jogged along the rooftops until they judged they had put enough distance between themselves and the mob to descend to the streets once more.
Silus tossed his hood back and Daya and he blended into the crowds heading across the Tiber and back into the centre of the city.
Chapter Ten
Dio Cassius grabbed Titurius’ arm as he left the Senate meeting and dragged him into the shadows behind a pillar.
‘I heard a whisper that you are hosting a party for Antoninus,’ said Cassius, without preamble.
‘Maybe that should be a warning to us both that little stays secret in Rome,’ replied Titurius. ‘Who told you?’
‘Festus.’
Titurius gave Cassius a hard stare.
‘You associate with him? His job is to terrorise and blackmail the likes of us to toe the Imperial line.’
‘He serves the Senate and people of Rome, and he sees Geta as the superior of the two Augusti.’
‘The question is highly debatable.’
‘Is this your answer then? You have picked your side?’
‘Absolutely not,’ said Titurius. ‘This is a favour for a friend.’
‘Cilo? What is he playing at?’
‘He is playing at peace, Cassius. Maybe we should all be following his example.’
Cassius shook his head. ‘Cilo’s influence is on the wane. Without Severus to protect him, he is just an old man living off past glories. He will not succeed.’
‘Maybe not, but who can fault him for the attempt? You said you were going to speak to Papinianus.’
‘Pah. There is another who cannot make his mind up and take a side.’
‘If these good men think the best way forward is a rapprochement between the two Emperors, do you really think to know better?’
‘Titurius, my friend, I am a historian. My great work starts with the founding of Rome, and tells the stories of the end of the Kings, the Gracchi, Sulla and Marius, Caesar and Pompey, Octavian and Antony and the year of the Four Emperors, and when I eventually reach more recent history, the year of the Five Emperors and the rise of Severus. Rome is no stranger to civil war, and neither am I. Each time of internal strife left Rome stronger than before. Brutus ended the Kings and led to the foundation of the Republic. Caesar took the Empire to a power it had never had before. Octavian stabilised the Empire and made it strong, well-defended and peaceful. Severus reigned long and was a great leader. I have no doubt that the right victor of the current struggle will glorify and strengthen Rome further.’
‘And by the right leader, you mean Geta? Your argument seemed to favour the stronger, more military candidate for power.’
‘Not so. Look at Octavian. Not a good physical specimen, not a great military leader, but he had strong advisors and generals such as Agrippa, and he was arguably our greatest ever Emperor. With the exception of Severus, of course.’
‘Of course.’ They might be talking treason and ran the risk of being hurled from the Tarpeian Rock if their conversation was overheard, but there was still no sense in showing disrespect to the recently deceased Emperor. His shade should have long departed, after his interment, but maybe he was still prowling the curia, raging impotently at the senators and his feuding sons.
‘Refusing to take a side is a dangerous path, Titurius. Will you support Geta?’
‘I’ll think on it more,’ said Titurius, uneasy with the conversation, especially in such a public place, although he constantly checked no one was near enough to overhear.
‘Don’t take too long. Soon it will be too late.’
Dio Cassius patted Titurius on the shoulder, looked around furtively, and strode away.
A sick, heavy feeling of dread rose in Titurius’ gorge.
* * *
‘It’s just not fair,’ said Geta. ‘He has all the advantages. He is older, bigger, stronger.’
‘But not wiser, cousin,’ said Aper. Gaius Septimius Severus Aper liked to refer to Caracalla and Geta as his cousins, although in reality they shared not a grandfather but a great-great-grandfather. Many of their relatives used familiar terms closer than they deserved to exaggerate their own status as kin of the Imperial family. Geta didn’t mind – Aper had been a good friend to him over the years, and a close supporter. He also had a tendency to say the right thing to make Geta feel better.
‘He has the army,’ said Geta. ‘He has the military experience. Further – and I am confessing this to you in private and in confidence – he has the greater boldness.’
‘Which is not necessarily a strength. Charging into battle stark naked, holding only your cock as a weapon, is bold. It is not necessarily wise. Boldness can lose battles, and lose Empires.’
‘Still, his boldness has made me look weak. I hate him, but in a way, I have to admire how he feels he can kill Euprepes, one of the most beloved men in Rome, and fear no repercussions.’
‘And he is right, isn’t he?’ asked Aper. ‘He will get away with it.’
Geta paced his private chamber, hands clasped behind his back, taking small, rapid steps. If he let this pass, it would weaken his own position further. And he could not have that.
Father elevated me to co-Augustus, he thought, and named me as co-Emperor as his dying wish. To rule is my right. And my brother would deny me this, because he feels he is so much better than me. But I know he is wrong. I know I would make the better Emperor. And I will not disappoint my father’s shade. Or my mother.
The thought of failing his mother brought a flush to his face, and he turned away from Aper to hide it. He adored her, and hated how close she was to Caracalla, even though he wasn’t her real son. He gritted his teeth and turned back to Aper.
‘What can I do?’
‘Maybe you should do away with one of his supporters.’
Geta shook his head. ‘I’m not killing a charioteer or gladiator. That would make me look petty.’
‘What about one of his spies?’
‘You know someone suitable?’
‘I have my sources. Oclatinius is not the only man in the city with secret connections.’
‘Oclatinius. Hades take h
im.’ Geta’s tone was sour. ‘Why is he so loyal to my brother?’
‘I don’t know, cousin, but I can tell you who killed Euprepes.’
‘What? Who?’
‘Silus, the Arcanus.’
‘Him! Always him! How do you know this?’
‘The Commander of the Sacred Bedchamber discovered it through his network and passed it on to me.’
‘Festus? I’m not sure where his loyalties lie.’
‘You can trust him, cousin. And anyway, I understand this Silus has been a problem to you in the past.’
‘Ever since I first encountered him in Britannia. I believe it was his fault that the barbarians rebelled a second time after we had pacified them.’
‘So, there is your answer. Have him killed.’
‘Could I?’ Geta stroked his chin. ‘It is a sweet thought. Get my vengeance for all the problems he has caused me, and kick my brother in the balls at the same time.’
‘Say the word, cousin. I have a skilled man who works for me – he could take care of the matter in such a way that no evidence points at you, while making it clear why he has been killed.’
‘Maybe your man would be better employed taking care of my brother.’
Aper’s eyes widened. ‘Is that what you want, Augustus?’
Geta hesitated. He saw a fork in the road ahead, and he knew that if he chose the darker path, he would not be able to turn back. Caracalla gone, himself reigning as sole Emperor. All the authority, all the respect. All the love and attention from his mother.
But he couldn’t. The temptation was strong, but…
He was scared. Scared of his brother if he failed. Scared of Oclatinius if he didn’t. And scared of disappointing his mother. There was no one in the world that he could admit that to. Not Aper. Not even his dear mother herself.
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