The Singing Sword cc-2

by Jack Whyte

  His mind was far ahead of mine, but those words galvanized me. I rounded on him, a thousand thoughts jamming into my mind all at once.

  "The smithy," I told him. "Against the left wall, where the mould was — there are two long-swords leaning there, and daggers and gladia on the table-top. I'll wait for you." He was gone almost before I had finished speaking. I dug my fingers into Andros's arm. "Andros, can you ride a horse?"

  "If I have to, I can."

  "You have to! Get back to the smithy and get your arse up onto my horse." I looked along the valley floor towards the bottom of the new road. Something was badly wrong, but I did not yet know what it was.

  "Look, Andros," I said urgently, "something stinks here. I don't know what it is, but I want you to get up to the fort as fast as you can, by the back way, up the rear of the hill, out of sight of the plain, to the postern door. Do you hear me?"

  He nodded. He had not read the same signs Plautus and I had, but he had read our reactions to them accurately. "Then what?" he asked.

  "Find Tribune Bassus. Tell him I sent you, and where we are. Tell him I smell something rotten. If there are any of Picus's troops in the valley below the gates, I want them contained. In any event, I want a squadron of cavalry down here at the villa as fast as he can get them here. Have you got that?"

  He nodded again. "What's happening, Publius?"

  "I don't know, Andros," I said. "But something stinks. Get up there fast, and make sure nobody sees you. I don't care if you have to tie yourself to the horse, just get there as fast as you can. Will you do that?"

  "I'm on my way, Publius." He was as good as his word, disappearing backwards towards the smithy just as Plautus showed up again, one of the new long-swords in one hand and a wicked-looking dagger in the other.

  "Right," he said. "What's the plan?"

  I stood there, hesitating for a second, staring towards the deserted portico, vainly hoping I was mistaken. "You really think there is something wrong, Plautus?"

  "Horse turds, Varrus. Does shit stink? What now?"

  That was enough. I sucked a deep breath. "What else? We have to go in. But carefully."

  He threw me a look eloquent with unstated scorn. "You think I want to get my arse in a grinder for fun? At my age?"

  Side by side, we ran across the empty space separating us from the main wall of the villa and flattened ourselves against the stone facade. We were about ten paces from the main entrance. He looked at me.

  "What if they've left a guard inside the doors? We're dead. There's eight of the whoresons."

  I grimaced. "Let's hope they haven't. If they'd meant to leave a guard, they would have left him outside to guard their horses, at least."

  He nodded to me, formally. "You know, I've been wondering for years why Britannicus promoted you all those years ago. Now I know. You think. I suppose that's the final difference between an officer and a grunt like me." He was talking purely for effect, attempting to bring us both to the correct frame of mind, but as he said the words Enid screamed, loud and long, from inside the house. The sound made my blood curdle.

  "Oh, shit!" he said. "That proves it. Now!"

  Together we launched ourselves towards the entrance, diving through the open doors and separating just inside, throwing ourselves one to each side of the hallway. The place was deserted. Another scream rang out, agonized and harrowing, undistorted by distance and walls this time, from the back of the building.

  Plautus waved me forward and we ran together again through the main atrium of the villa towards the living quarters at the rear, trying to make our sandals slide silently over the marble flooring of the hallways. In spite of my limp, I was slightly ahead of him as we reached the double doorway leading into the small, tessellated courtyard in front of Caius's day-room. I knew this was where they were and I waved him frantically to the side before he could charge through the doorway and betray our presence. We ended up staring at each other, holding our breath, one on each side of the open doors. He wiggled an index finger at me, indicating that I should take a peek. I inched my head forward, straining to hear and see without making myself visible, and heard an indistinct babble of sound coming from the room. The small courtyard beyond the doors where we stood seemed to be empty. I gritted my teeth and leaned out to look. It was. The doors of Caius's day-room were partially open. I bit my lip. But they were also partially closed — enough, I hoped, to cover our next move.

  Plautus was watching me intently. I held up my open hand towards him, fingers extended, and mouthed, "In five!" He nodded, and I began to count, flexing my fingers with every beat. "Five — four — three — two — go!" Together, we eased ourselves around the doors in front of us and slipped sideways, each against the wall on his side, moving swiftly and silently, sidling towards the partly open doors that screened us from the people inside the room. As I came to rest with my back against the wall, my eyes fixed on Plautus's own, the voice of the speaker came clearly to my ears and I recognized it with a chill of horror. Plautus knew it too; I could tell from the way his eyebrows shot upwards. Caesarius Claudius Seneca was speaking.

  "... would want me to look after his poor old father and his only son, knowing that he had been so badly wounded. I wish I could tell you how distraught I felt when I heard the news. Claudius, I said to myself, your duty is clear. You must attend to the family, the poor afflicted kin of the Legate Britannicus. He is the son of a senator, after all is said and done. Under these tragic circumstances, his family should be cared for. How will his noble father feel, I asked myself? And his beloved wife? And, I said to myself, if it should happen that the unfortunate Legate should be recalled by Heaven from this place of earthly sorrows before he has the chance to repay his debts to you, Claudius Seneca, it should be your right, your pleasure and your honour to ensure that his much-lauded first-born son, his only heir, should be absolved of all his father's debts and should earn his father's honours and his rewards from your hands. So here I am, come at all speed to remind all of you that the ways of God are great and strange."

  My stomach was heaving with disgust and revulsion but I could not move, and Caius answered him. His voice sounded placid and normal, almost relaxed, although disgusted.

  "I once heard Publius Varrus call you a sorry pederast, among other things, Seneca. You disgusted me then and you disgust me now, although I believe you are now degenerating even beyond description. Your voice grates on my nerves. It reeks of that unmistakable femininity that marks the true degenerate. It sickens me to know you are a senator of Rome. Let's get this over with and have done with it. I am no play-actor. You came here for me, to be revenged on me for the defeat you suffered at my hands in front of Flavius Stilicho. So be it. But let the woman and the child go free. They have not harmed you and they do not even know who you are."

  "Now!" Seneca's voice was almost strident, and he was obviously speaking to his minions. "There speaks the voice of Rome! Do you hear that clarity? That ringing tone? That is the voice that made Rome great! The voice of Cicero! Of Marcus Antonius! The cultured notes that made the mob forget they hated Caesar! That is the voice of Reason! Now you must all forgive me, while I peer aside, into my heart of hearts, and find my human goodness. And when I have done so, we will stand aside and let this poor, mute, heart-broken widow and her son depart, to nurture hatred in their hearts for us!" The tone of his voice changed again, abruptly and drastically, and I realized with a chill, although I had known it from the start, that I was listening to the ravings of a madman.

  "Publius Varrus! Where is he? The guest of honour at our little gathering! Publius Varrus? Here? Never! you say. But I, who know so little of the fine things of your life here in your petty Colony, know more than that. My people have told me. If the famed Publius Varrus be not there within the villa, they have said, then search for him among the ashes of his forge, where you will find him labouring, his manly brow bedewed with sweat from his honest labours!"

  Seneca fell silent and I glanced at Plau
tus. His face was grim. He jerked his head in a negative. Not yet. We might be listening to a mad dog raving, but there were seven others in there with him who were sane. Slowly, hardly daring to move at all, I put my eye to the crack of the door.

  Caius stood over to my left, his back against the table that held his books. He was being held close by two men, one of whom, the one closer to me, held a gladium pressed against his neck. Enid knelt in the middle of the floor, her back to me, her head hanging. She, too, was being held by a pair of men. On the far left of my restricted view I could just make out a part of another man standing close to the doors. He was standing at parade rest, as far as I could see, so I assumed another man to be standing across from him where I could not see.

  Claudius Seneca was seated at Caius's work-table, but because Enid and her guards were between him and me I could only see one, outstretched, sandalled leg. The eighth man was the only one I could see clearly, and I knew him. I had not seen him in more than sixteen years, not since that first confrontation at the mansio, but I recognized him immediately. He was the beautiful catamite who had worn the kohl on his eyes. Now he was older and no longer beautiful, and he wore the uniform of a military tribune, but his face still wore that petulant, feminine sneer. He stood with his back against the farthest wall, facing me, his arms folded on his chest, his eyes moving ceaselessly from Caius, to Enid, to Seneca and back to Caius.

  Seneca had fallen silent, and no one else felt compelled to speak. Now he gathered his legs beneath him and stood up, looking directly at me. I thought for one panic-stricken moment that he could see me there, behind the door, but he spoke to the man I had correctly assumed to be there, out of my line of sight. His voice this time sounded normal — the clipped, professional tones of a soldier.

  "You, Marius, and you, Dedalus. Somewhere in the grounds here you will find a smith's forge. The occupant will be Publius Varrus. Bring him here to me." The two men began to move but his next words stopped them. "Listen to me! I do not want him alarmed, or harmed. Make sure he has no suspicions. Be pleasant to him, and courteous. Salute him, and tell him the Legate Picus has come home and that he is here in the villa with his wife and his father. Say that the Legate is still convalescent and would like to see him. I don't care what you tell him after that, but bring him here without arousing his suspicions. I want to see his face when he sees me. If you disappoint me you will answer for it. Now go."

  I heard the sound of two punctilious salutes and then two men marching in step towards the half-open doors. Plautus and I tensed, prepared to be discovered then and there, but the men marched out looking neither to left nor right and kept on going. That made the odds a little better, although they would soon be back.

  I heard a scuffle and another scream and spun back to the crack in the door. Seneca had moved to the crib that held the baby and Enid must have moved to try to prevent him. Now she lay whimpering face down on the floor. Seneca was looking down at her, his nostrils wrinkled in disgust.

  "I would have liked a son, you know," he said to no one in particular. "But I could not defile myself by stooping to such filth as has to be to get one. Ugh!" He shuddered. "Get the evil-smelling sow away from me. Get rid of her. Shut her mouth once and for all time. Not here, you fool!" This last was a shout at one of his men who had brought up his sword. The man hesitated, wondering what he was supposed to do, as Seneca leaned over the baby's crib and appeared to be tickling the child under the chin. Seneca spoke without looking again at either Enid or her captors, using that silly tone of voice people use when making noises at babies. "We don't want her filthy, evil-smelling female blood all over the floor, do we? Take her somewhere else, and do what you have to do. Just be sure to keep her silent." He straightened and turned to face them, his voice again the crisp professional's. "You may find you want to use her." He sniffed. "If you do, be quick about it and get back here immediately afterwards. But keep her quiet and make sure that she is dead. Hold her upright!"

  They hauled Enid to her feet, side-on to my gaze. Her lips were split and blood dripped from her nose. Seneca drew his sword and cut the clothes from her fastidiously while Caius struggled futilely against the men who held him. When she was naked, Seneca looked her up and down, his features twisted in disgust. Her beauty was magnificent, but it held no allure for him.

  "Look at this!" Enid's breasts, heavy with suck, were oozing milk around the nipples. He prodded one of them with the point of his sword, drawing blood, and turned towards his friend who still leaned against the wall. "A cow," he said. "A great, ungainly, unhygienic cow! Ugh!" He shivered with loathing and Enid spat on him. He turned back to her and punched her brutally in the stomach, and she grunted with pain and would have collapsed had she not been held.

  "Whoreson," I thought. "For that alone, you'll die." "Get the bitch out of here. She defiles my sight!" As the two men began to turn her around, I leaned backwards and looked across at Plautus, who nodded, holding up two fingers. We pressed our backs to the wall and waited. Enid was a big girl and she fought hard, in spite of the pain she was in. It took long moments for them to wrestle her to the doors. I heard Seneca say, "Close those doors behind them," and I hoped Plautus had heard it too and would wait. They came through the doors, both men giving their full strength and attention to controlling Enid, who was struggling like a demented thing. As they left the room, somebody pulled the doors closed behind them. Plautus and I both sprang at the same time and the two men died before they even knew they had been taken. They died quietly, too, but before we could lower their bodies to the floor, Enid fell heavily, and the two men who had gone to search for me came back into the atrium. There was no point in silence now. We dropped both corpses with a clatter and a voice inside the room said, "What was that?"

  "See to Caius. I'll take these whoresons." Plautus had already dropped into a crouch and was moving forward. Enid lay motionless where she had fallen. I swung back towards the closed doors just as they were flung open and I slashed Excalibur sideways in a hissing sweep at the first man who came charging through. Its tip sliced through the front of his neck as though it had encountered nothing. His eyes and his mouth went wide in disbelief and his momentum kept him coming. I side-stepped onto my bad leg, following the direction of my swing, and whipped a backhanded slash at the second man in the doorway, who had not had time to recover from his surprise. Again, it was the tip, the last six inches of the blade, that caught him. He was still almost seven feet from me and had just drawn his gladium, so his arm was bent upwards in the slashing position. My blade took him on the wrist, severing his hand completely before clanging against his helmet. From behind me came a clash of blades as Plautus met the others, and I threw myself forward into the day-room, slamming my skystone dagger to the hilt beneath the handless man's still upraised arm in passing, and jerking it out again with the weight of my forward momentum.

  The scene that confronted me stays stuck in my mind like a memory of a mosaic picture. Seneca still stood beside the crib, frozen in consternation, his eyes and mouth wide open in anger and surprise, his hands raised in front of him, fingers pointing towards me. Caius had launched himself across the floor in a stumbling run, either to attack Seneca or to try to save the child, I do not know which. The Catamite, as I thought of him, was leaping towards Caius on an intercepting course, a dagger in his right hand, his left reaching for Cay. As I absorbed this, the two men met and the weight of the younger man took Caius over backwards, off-balance and falling. The Catamite, however, had more strength than I would have thought. His left elbow hooked around Cay's neck and held him up until they crashed together against the wall. Before I could react the Catamite had Caius pinned firmly in front of him, his back arched against the pressure of the stranglehold, the point of the dagger pressing into Caius's neck below the ear.

  I hesitated and lost the initiative. I heard the slither of Seneca's sword come hissing from its sheath and his voice filled the room: "Kill the old man! This is the one we want!" And then Caius
gave me back the initiative. He brought up his knees and let his whole weight jerk his captor forward, away from the wall. As the Catamite stumbled towards me off balance, I went for him, swinging my new sword high and bringing it down like an axe across his back. It caught him across the shoulders, slicing clean through the leather cuirass that he wore, but it lodged there, caught in the toughened armour for the space of two heartbeats.

  I saw a flash of whiteness and jerked the blade free, whirling towards the movement. Seneca was snatching the baby from its crib, holding it by its bunched swaddling clothes, and Enid, beautiful, naked Enid, was throwing herself on him. Their bodies came together and my insides screamed as I saw the blade in his hand strike upwards. She convulsed, her whole body seeming to hunch around the point of impact, and then he pushed her away violently and stood there wild-eyed, like a demon straight from Hades, the blood-stained blade in one hand and the screaming child, soaked with its mother's blood, in the other. Enid fell heavily on her back, her arms across her bloodied belly, her legs scissoring convulsively. Nearby, almost unnoticed by me, the Catamite began to crawl away from the huddled shape that was Caius.

  "Stand away!" Seneca's eyes were glaring with that same sickening, empty intensity I remembered. "Back! Stand back or the brat dies now."

  "If the baby dies now, you will take months to die, Seneca, I swear to you on his mother's blood."

  "Then save him! Save the little bastard!" He hoisted the child high in the air above his head so that it dangled, red-faced and screaming. His other hand, raised high beside it, pressed the bloody blade to the child's gut.