“Would you like a hand with that down to the laundry, sir?”
Varro puffed and panted and tried unsuccessfully to straighten. Natural. That was the key. Be natural! He grumbled.
“No, you’re alright. Should have let him come and get his own stuff. We might be a while, looking at the amount of shit he carries. He can carry it back up, while I go to the garrison surgeon for back repairs!”
He turned and stomped off down the corridor toward the laundry and palace bathhouse area, grumbling about the young engineer as loudly and convincingly as he could. He left the corridor with the sound of the guards laughing at his misfortune ringing in his ears. Good. As long as they were concentrating on the humour, they wouldn’t think too hard.
Continuing to grumble about Salonius, but this time for real, he turned the corner and, once out of sight, ducked away into a side passage and headed toward the stables.
Varro glared at Salonius as the young engineer stumbled through the doorway into the stable. There was no one here yet, though in an hour the stable hands would be here feeding the horses. Salonius blinked.
“What’s up?”
Varro growled and pointed to the large collection of freshly-stolen saddle bags on a nice sleek grey horse near the door.
“How the hell do you carry all…” He stopped mid sentence. It sounded so foolish saying something like that to a person who was carrying two dead bodies at once.
“Never mind.”
He gestured around.
“The grey’s yours and all loaded up. Let’s get these two covered up and secured on that bay over there.”
A quiet, lyrical voice from the second doorway said “Don’t bother with that.”
They turned to Catilina, who strolled in as though they were going about everyday business.
“Good. I see you’ve got the horses ready. I take it the chestnut’s mine?”
Varro coughed.
“Yes. What’s all that?” He pointed at the bundle of clothing in her arms.
Catilina smiled like a mother indulging an errant child. When she spoke it was in a slightly condescending tone.
“Boys, did you really think this through? How are you expecting to get out of the fortress? Just ride at the gates and hope they let you through?”
Salonius turned and looked at Varro.
“I presumed you had a plan?”
Varro grinned at him.
“I was expecting that something would turn up. If we’re fated to do something, surely, it’s going to happen anyway?”
Salonius sighed.
“I’m not sure it works quite like that.”
Catilina smiled benignly.
“And that’s why you two need me. Here.”
She tossed articles of clothing at them one at a time.
Varro stared at the tunic in his hand.
“This is the tunic of a soldier in your father’s guard!”
“They both are.” Catilina kept throwing items at them. “Full uniforms, in fact. The way I look at it, if you just keep the hoods up, you should be able to move around without being questioned unless you happen to bump into a captain or sergeant, and that’s not likely between here and the gate.”
Salonius blinked. “That’s brilliant.”
“Why thank you.” Catilina fumbled in her deep pocket, withdrew all the goods she’d stolen from the office and began to write on the two official papers with the charcoal pen. As she wrote, she looked up at the other two.
“Well? Get changed, then!”
As the two of them hurriedly changed into the black uniforms, Catilina finished her writing, placed the two lead discs on the floor and brought the hammer down on them, creating official seals. A moment with her flint and tinder and she melted the wax blobs onto the papers and added the lead seals.
Extinguishing the flame, she blew on the wax and as soon as it was dry enough, passed the two papers to Varro. He examined them.
“How the hell did you get all this?”
“What are they? Enquired Salonius adjusting the black cloak and pulling his boots back on.
“They’re dishonourable burial orders. They give us permission to take those two out and bury them in an undisclosed location. Strange, as there’s probably one of these papers already floating around somewhere with Corda’s name on it. These are really rare. They…”
He stared at the papers and up at Catilina.
“Very clever. No one’s going to stop two soldiers escorting bodies for burial with all the appropriate paperwork.”
Salonius nodded and, unfastening his tool roll, removed a shovel and a pickaxe. With a grin he tossed the pick to Varro who caught it and examined it.
“You do know that it’s not normal for digging tools to gleam that much!”
The young man laughed.
“We’ve got the uniform, the tools and the paperwork. Varro, we’re now a burial detail.”
Varro turned to Catilina.
“What about you?”
She smiled.
“I’ll meet you at the ford about a mile east. I’ve got my own papers, and it’s a determined guard who questions the daughter of the marshal. Now get going and I’ll see you in about an hour.”
“At the ford, then.” Said Varro as he helped Salonius load their burned onto the spare horse. “Burial detail: forward!”
Chapter Thirteen
The sun was now well past its zenith. Varro clicked his tongue irritably and stared up into the sky trying to estimate the time. Salonius sat astride his horse, stoic as usual.
“No amount of getting irritated is going to bring her here any sooner.”
“Shut up.”
Varro shaded his eyes and stared off down the wide vale to the distant tortoise-shaped lump that was Vengen.
“Someone’s coming.”
Salonius shaded his own eyes and followed the captain’s gaze.
“Dust,” he agreed, “but that could be her or someone else; or even several someone elses. If she’s been stopped, the marshal’s likely to send some of his men after us. He’s going to be pissed at you. I think we should get out of sight.”
Varro made growling noises, but nodded and turned his horse.
The two men walked their mounts slowly and quietly between the trees that stood above the river bank. The sound of water rushing over the stones and cobbles of the ford would mask any inadvertent noises the horses or their riders might make. Once they were safely back among the foliage, they halted the two beasts and sat, breathing shallow breaths and waiting tensely for any sounds.
After a couple of minutes, Varro turned to Salonius and cupped his ear dramatically and held up one finger. Salonius strained to hear and then nodded.
“Varro?”
Catilina’s voice called out from the road, amid the pattering of hooves on compacted mud as her horse pranced impatiently. The two men looked at one another for a moment and then slowly walked their horses back out into the open.
“You took your bloody time!”
Catilina gave the captain an infuriatingly calm smile.
“Captain Iasus came to find me. He’d been asked by my father to check up on me. You know Iasus: he’s efficient and thorough. He followed me for half an hour while I tried to think of things to do. In the end I had to go to the baths to get rid of him.”
Salonius smiled.
“I can imagine he thought twice about following you in there…”
Varro gave him a sharp look and then the three of them walked their horses slowly down the slope and into the shallow water. Catilina heaved a satisfied sigh.
“So what’s the plan then?”
Varro frowned. He’d been thinking about this for some time and, though many conflicting ideas rattled around in his head about how he could handle this, there was a flaw in every plan he came up with.
“I’m not entirely sure. I need to get to Cristus, but there’s more than that. I need to face off against him in a fair and level situation, where I’m no
t at risk from his men and where there are reliable witnesses. That’s not going to be easy.”
Salonius furrowed his brow in thought.
“What ideas have you had?”
“Riding straight to the fort was my first thought. He can’t have the entire Fourth Army in his pocket. But the problems with that are: getting to Cristus past his personal guard and unreliable witnesses.”
Salonius nodded. ”Placing your head in the lion’s mouth. Always a little on the risky side.”
“Then there’s luring him out somewhere. We could probably manufacture a situation that would get Cristus to come out, say, to one of the local towns. Plenty of witnesses. No problem there. The problem there is that he’ll still be surrounded by his guard.”
“True.” Salonius sighed. “I’m not sure that Cristus is going to be the type of man who will subject himself to danger without his guards, though.”
“So…” Varro growled, as they reached the far side and climbed out of the water onto the dry, dusty road. “That leaves me with the best option of the three: find a way to sneak into his personal quarters and do away with him there. Won’t be easy though.”
Salonius shook his head.
“Not just that, but also there’d be no witnesses. No one would see him confess and beg, which I presume is your intention.”
Varro nodded.
“Perhaps we just can’t have everything, eh?” the captain grumbled.
Salonius glanced past him at Catilina. The two of them stared at each other for a moment and then nodded.
“We’ll find a way. Let’s just concentrate on getting there with you in one piece. How are your wounds now?”
Varro glared at him.
“I’m fine, thank you, mother.”
Catilina laughed out loud.
Daylight was beginning to wane as the three riders crested a low hill. Ahead the sky had already turned a deep mauve and only the tops of the trees before them reflected the quickly diminishing rays of the sun.
“We should find somewhere comfortable to camp,” Salonius noted, “or perhaps an inn for the lady?”
Varro shook his head.
“Two villages and one town on this road before we get to Crow Hill, but it’ll be long after midnight before we reach the nearest one. We’ll definitely have to camp.”
Salonius frowned.
“There are Imperial courier stations? We’ve only passed one quite a way back, so there must be another close ahead.”
Varro shook his head.
“There are, but at courier stations, all guests must log in and out and non-military or administrative personnel have to provide proof of identity. Sabian would hear about it long before we were safely out of the way, I can assure you of that!”
Catilina sighed and pointed off some way to their left.
“How about there?”
Salonius looked across at Varro and shrugged. Varro pursed his lips.
“That place has been ruined since the civil wars. I used to ride past it on my way to and from Vengen. It’s got twenty years of decay about it. Could fall down on our heads.”
Salonius nodded.
“True, but it’s also got walls for warmth and protection.”
Varro continued to look unsure, but Catilina clicked her tongue irritably.
“You two are worse than a pair of old women.”
Shaking her reins she turned her horse and rode off toward the dark shell that rose eerily from its bed of scrub and bramble. Varro glared at her retreating form for a moment and then gave a sigh and followed her. Salonius smiled as he left the track himself.
As the ruined shell of the manor loomed closer, more details became apparent. It had been more than a manor house in its time; more even than a great villa. This place had been a fortress of considerable strength, protecting a sumptuous, palatial residence within. This place must have belonged to a strong lord, or perhaps even an Imperial councillor.
Catilina admired the shattered remnants of architectural grandeur as they approached, her eye picking out elegant curls and delicate tracery. The lord of this place must have belonged to a wealthy line. The decoration was old; not four or five decades old, from just before the civil wars, but centuries old, from the early days of Imperial settlement in these cold, northern provinces.
Varro and Salonius cast their own eyes over the ruins, though their assessment was more military in nature. The place had indeed been heavily fortified. The original early palace had been surrounded by stone walls with two gates at an early stage, presumably when the owner had realised how newly settled this area was, and had seen acts of barbarism perpetrated nearby. These defensive walls had been given towers and what Varro liked to call ‘decorative defence’ some time around a century ago, as was the fashion at the time. But the last defences had been added perhaps forty years ago, early in the civil wars, and these defences were far from decorative. The walls had risen by a further ten feet; the line of the original parapet was clearly visible three quarters of the way up. The bottom half of the towers had been given great, square encasements of tufa for extra strength. One of the double arches of the gate had been blocked to narrow down a point of attack. Finally, as they began to close on the crumbling walls, they could see that the walls had been revetted with a great bank of earth. The lord of this manor had been expecting attacks and had been prepared for them.
Not prepared enough.
The stone facing that remained on the shattered towers and extant stretches of wall showed shattered blocks and great cracks and rents where the defences had been pounded relentlessly by siege engines. Plainly the stretch of wall closest to the gate had been the first area to fall. Salonius shook his head sadly at clear oversights that had been made by the military architect; a wide stretch of wall with no buttressing and no support from towers. No amount of earth embankment was going to help there though. The thoughtful architect had added a ditch that was far to close to the wall to allow for the wall’s footings. The first half dozen blows on that wall had probably brought the stonework crashing out into the ditch, handily filling one obstacle whilst collapsing the other and leaving a sloping earth embankment as the only defence. Once inside that wall, the siege would be over in minutes.
Varro’s fears of the decayed condition of the building were only partially founded. The military defences of the place were thick and heavy and, though they had fallen to a clever enemy, were withstanding the ravages of time surprisingly intact. The palatial building within, however, had fared less well. Constructed for form rather than for function, the weak and delicate architecture had rotted and crumbled, leaving a mass of sad stone that was now largely held together by ivy and brambles.
“Best stay away from that central building” he called ahead to the others.
Varro turned in his saddle and nodded. As Salonius caught up with them, the three riders dismounted and led their horses to the great gatehouse that retained its strong walls and towers, though the portal itself had long since gone.
Salonius tethered the three horses on the grass nearby and padded off quietly among the ruins with his sling, while Varro began gathering dry sticks and building a fire and Catilina set about excavating food and various necessary items from the kit bags.
Within half an hour they had a pleasant little camp site formed beneath the massive, protective, arched roof of the gatehouse just as the last light of day faded over the horizon, leaving the scene in the shattered ruin dark and eerie. Various timbers that Varro had located had created a screen across both sides of the gatehouse, shielding them from the mounting evening wind and hiding their small fire from view for any passersby on the road. Salonius had returned with two rabbits and was currently turning them on a spit above the flames, watching hungrily as the juices dripped down with a hiss into the fire. A thought occurred to him and he looked up at the captain across the dancing flames.
“You need to take your medicine.”
Varro grumbled once more, but nodded. As he wan
dered off toward the horses, where his medicine bag was still hooked, Salonius turned to Catilina, who was staring off into the dark ruins.
“We need to find a way to get Varro to Cristus without the prefect’s guards. And in front of witnesses.”
Catilina nodded.
“We need to find a way to get my father there.”
“That’s a problem,” Salonius sighed. “Varro wants to send Cristus to the Gods personally. Your father wants it all done according to military law, with a trial and an execution, if necessary. He’s never going to let Varro have Cristus, and Varro’s never going to let your father have him.”
Catilina frowned.
“So what we need to do is to make sure we get Cristus to a specific place, then Varro a few minutes later, and father a few minutes after that. Tricky…”
Salonius laughed. “Tricky? Impossible, I’d say.”
The elegant lady, wrapped up against the night air, pulled her cloak tighter.
“Nothing is impossible, Salonius. It’s all in the timing. Father will know we’re gone by now. It’ll take him perhaps half a day to put everything in order and follow on, and I doubt he’ll set forth at sunset, so we’ve got the best part of a day on him.”
“So what do you suggest?”
“Well…”
Catilina stopped, mid-sentence, as Varro came hurtling out of the darkness, crouched almost double.
“Wha..?”
Before she managed to voice her thoughts, Varro clasped his hand over her mouth and, turning to Salonius, raised his eyebrows. Salonius frowned and, very slowly and very quietly, began to draw his sword from its sheath. Catilina pushed the captain’s hand away and pointed out into the darkness. Varro nodded and held up three fingers.
Salonius frowned again and tugged out part of his black tunic, pointing at it? Varro shook his head and pointed at the lush, green grass by his feet. Even in the flickering light of the fire, Varro caught the curse his companion silently mouthed. As he slowly drew his own blade, Catilina drew a narrow and wicked-looking dagger from her belt.
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