Something exploded from a ledge beside me. Brushing my face, I felt air, heard noise, knew abject fear. An old, squalid, horrible grey pigeon had flown up, disturbed, from a window ledge.
Petronius and I stayed motionless until our panic died.
I raised my arm. He signalled back. If they were going to rush us in the alley, it had to happen now. But nothing moved.
Petronius walked silently to right outside the bar. He paused again. He tried the door handle. It must have given. He pushed gently, so the door swung open. A dim light flowed out around him. Still nobody aimed a spear or threw a knife.
'Florius!' Petro had let out an enormous bellow. It must have been heard three streets away, but nobody dared peer out to see who was challenging the mobster. 'Florius, this is Petronius Longus. I'm coming in. I have a sword but I won't use it if you keep faith.'
Desperately nervous, I kept my eyes swiveling everywhere for trouhle. Now, I thought, now they will emerge from cover, trapping him. I waited for the thonk of an arrow or the streak of a shadow as some unseen watcher jumped. Nothing moved.
The door to the wine shop had begun to swing closed. Petronius pushed it open again with his foot. He looked back at me. He was going in. This could be the last I would ever see of him. Stuff that. Keeping close to the wall, I set off down the alley after him.
Petro had disappeared inside. Suddenly he was back again, outlined in the doorway, close enough to see me coming. 'There's no one here. Absolutely nobody. I bet Maia's never even been here. We've been set up like idiots -'
Hardly had he spoken when he knew how true that was. Like me, he must have heard that sound we knew so well from the old days: the well-oiled hiss of many sword blades, drawn from their scabbards simultaneously.
Neither of us supposed for a moment that this was a convenient rescue.
LIII
If there's one thing I enjoy, it's being stuck up a blind alley in a grim province on a gloomy evening, while an unknown number of the military prepare to disembowel me.
'Shit,' muttered Petronius succinctly.
'Shit on a stick,' I qualified. We were in big trouble. No doubt of it.
I wondered where in Hades they were hiding. Then I didn't bother. They came swarming out of nowhere until they filled the alley. The big boys in red raced up in at least two directions. Others piled in on us through the back of the bar. Some leapt over barrels showily. A few squirmed around on their bellies. None of these tough lads felt it necessary to drop from the eaves or swing on a lintel, though to my mind it would have made the picture prettier. Why be restrained? With only two targets – both of us caught out and startled – their officer had had scope for dramatic effects. Properly stage-managed, the demise of M. D. Falco and L. P. Longus could have been a feast of theatre.
Instead of which, lazily, the soldiers just flung us back against the wall, yelled at us, and made us keep still by applying swords to places we preferred not to have cut. I mean, all over us. Petronius and I endured it patiently.
For one thing, we knew this was a big mistake on their part, and for another there was not much choice. The legionaries were menacing; they all clearly hoped for an excuse to kill us.
'Steady on, lads.' I cleared my throat. 'You're making asses of your whole damned cohort!'
'What legion?' Petro asked the nearest one.
'Second Adiutrix.' He should have been told not to communicate with us. If he had, he was shamefully forgetful. Still, every cohort carries some dopey boy who spends his entire service on punishment, eating barley bread.
'Very nice.' Now Petro was being sarcastic. They were amateurs. Amateurs can be very dangerous.
Whatever their outfit, they knew how to invest a quiet night in a dead end town with the urgency factor. Petronius and I watched and felt like jaded old men.
Our back-up arrived. Helena Justina had emerged angrily from her chair and was demanding to speak to the officer in charge. Helena did not need to mount a tribunal to sound like a general in a purple cloak. Petronius turned to me and raised his eyebrows. She weighed straight in: 'I insist you let these two men go at once!'
A centurion emerged from the scurrying mass: Crixus. Just our luck. 'Move along there, madam, or I shall have to arrest you.'
'I think not!' Helena was so definite I saw him backstep slightly. 'I am Helena Justina, daughter of the senator Camillus and niece to the procurator Hilaris. Not that this entitles me to interfere with military business – but I advise you to be cautious, centurion! These are Didius Falco and Petronius Longus, engaged on vital work for the governor.'
'Move along,' repeated Crixus. He failed to note that she had noted his rank. His career meant nothing, apparently. 'My men are searching for two dangerous criminals.'
'Florius and Norbanus,' Helena sneered. 'These are not them – and you know it!'
'I'll be the judge of that.' Cheap power makes for obnoxious cliche.
'He knows damn well,' drawled Petronius loudly. 'Don't worry about us, sweetheart. This is men's business. Falco, tell your bossy wife to hurry along home.'
'That's right, love,' I agreed meekly.
'Then I'll just go and feed the baby, like a dutiful matriarch!' sniffed Helena. 'Don't be late home, darling,' she added sarcastically.
As if huffiness was in her nature, she stormed off. Disposing of a senator's daughter was a problem the soldiers had not pre-considered and even these renegades balked at it. They let her go. More fool them.
They were waiting until she was off the scene before they dealt with us. I watched her leaving. Tall, haughty, and apparently self-possessed. No one would know how much anxiety she felt. The soldiers had now brought up torches, so light gleamed on her fine, dark hair as she stormed past them, with a toss of her head, flinging one end of a light stole back over her shoulder. An ear-ring glinted, her garnet and gold drop. It had caught in the delicate fabric; impatiently she freed it with those long, sensitive fingers that our daughters had inherited.
My own stomach was in a brutal knot until she left safely. If this was the last time I ever saw her, our life together had been good. But my heart ached for the grief she would feel if she lost me now. If I were taken from Helena, my ghost would come raging back from the Underworld. We had too much living left to do.
It was never going to happen. Petro and I were finished. The mood had turned even more ugly. Young faces, dark with fright and false bravado, stared at us. These troops knew they were in the wrong. They could not meet our eyes. Crixus, the mad bastard in charge, must realise that if Petro and I survived and told the governor what went down here tonight, the game was up. He came and stood in front of us, baring his ugly teeth. 'You're dead!'
'If you're going to kill us, Crixus,' Petronius said quietly, 'at least tell us why. You're doing this for the Jupiter gang?'
'You're sharp!'
'Paid or pressured by Florius? So did he tell you to kill us? I thought that he wanted to finish me himself.'
'He won't object.' I reckoned Crixus was making up his mind as he went along. That meant rash decisions. Decisions that could only be bad for us.
It was no use consoling ourselves that if he killed us, he could never get away with it. Helena had gone to fetch assistance. In a moment even Crixus would work out that letting her go was a fatal error.
The centurion was crazy, and his youthful, inexperienced men were becoming hysterical. The Second Adiutrix were a new legion, cobbled together from scratch using naval ratings; they were a Flavian creation rushed into service to fill urgent gaps in the army after other, older legions had been massacred or corrupted to the point where they were past saving. These raw, mad boys were now jostling each other in what they mistook for camaraderie; then they barged forward and started pushing us around. We tried not to retaliate. They laughed at us. Disarmed, we stood no chance. They were taunting us to make a move so they could tear us to pieces.
We knew better than to hope for escape now. Sure enough, the situation grew a great de
al worse. We heard the measured approach of yet more soldiers, and lest it raise our spirits, the Second Adiutrix greeted these newcomers cheerily. Crixus swore affectionately at that other lag of a centurion, Silvanus. Silvanus and his men scowled at Petronius and me.
And then the unexpected happened. I never heard an order given, but the new boys all whipped out their swords and fell on the careless bastards who were holding us. Next moment, we were being grabbed once again, but this time to be thrown from hand to hand up the alley, until we were clear of the conflict.
The fight was disciplined and dirty. The Crixus century gathered their wits and fought back. It all took longer than it should have done. Slowly, however, the Crixus men were rounded up and stripped of their weapons. Crixus himself, fighting like a beer-crazed barbarian, was overcome, grounded, and placed under arrest. Silvanus read him the order, which came straight from the governor. Crixus was the defaulter who had 'lost' Splice. He had been on the loose ever since, carefully avoiding barracks, but his good times were over. There are centurions who survive for years, famous for corruption and bribe-taking, but he had overstepped the mark by a mile.
Whether Silvanus himself had ever been on the take was unclear. He had made a choice today. We could only see it as a good one.
There seemed to be a reason for it. He came up and spoke to us. 'I hear you were in the Second, Falco.'
I took a breath. This was the big question, the embarrassment I had avoided when I first met him. Owning up to service in the Second Augusta, during the Rebellion, could lead to bitter accusations. 'Yes,' I said levelly.
But Silvanus gave me a rueful grin, full of shared grief. Wearily he put out an arm to grasp wrists in the soldiers' salute first with me, then with Petronius. This was something I had not allowed for: Silvanus was in the Second Augusta too.
It was one of those moments when all you want to do is collapse with relief. Petronius and I could not even consider it. We still had to find and rescue Maia.
Petronius marched up to the prostrate Crixus. 'Do yourself a favour. Tell me what you were told to do. I am supposed to be a hostage exchange for Falco's sister. The whole point was for Florius to capture me and make me suffer – so why did he send you to do the job?'
'He knows I'm more competent!' sneered the centurion
I elbowed Petro aside. He was too angry; he was losing control. 'You're so competent you're now in chains, Crixus,' I pointed out. 'So what was the intention here tonight?'
'I don't know.' I stared him out. He lowered his voice. 'I don't know,' he repeated.
I believed him.
LIV
We paused to reconsider. 'So where now?'
'Caesar's Bar, after all?' Petro suggested.
'They are not at Caesar's,' Silvanus broke in. 'I just got dispatched from there by the governor after Falco's wife rushed up.'
Petronius grinned. 'Falco knows how to pick a woman with character.'
Silvanus pulled a face that told me the high style of speech my girl had addressed to Frontinus. 'What's she like if you fart in the bedroom or leave muddy boots on the table, Falco?'
'I've no idea. I don't try it. So where to?' I reiterated to Petronius.
The choice was decided for us. A soldier rushed up to tell Silvanus of urgent developments at the wharf. The customs men had spotted activity by the warehouse they were watching, the one where the baker was beaten to death. It had looked as if loot had been hastily assembled, ready to be shipped out, and they reckoned the gang were planning to flit. When they investigated, the gang had panicked and rushed them, seriously wounding Firmus. Then the gang had invaded the customs house, which was now under siege.
We went the way I knew, so we never did find out if that alley by the Shower of Gold really was a dead end. I wasn't going back there. Places where I have so nearly been killed repel me.
It was a short step. I wished we had come here first.
Down on the river, soldiers quickly took over from the embattled customs force. A long stretch of dockside was made off-limits to the public. They started moving ships out from their berths. Stores were searched. The ferries were beached. The bridge was cleared. Little boats in daily use for nipping about were taken upstream and moored. In streets all around the wharves, more troops arrived and waited patiently for orders.
Petronius and I stood on the heavily piled and banked wooden quay. We had our backs to the dark rippling water of the great river, facing the long row of packed stores. Soon there was no shipping moored; it had all been moved off, both from the deep water docking points where cargoes were unloaded, and even from out in the channel. We were staring at the customs house, a handsome stone building. Nothing there moved.
Silvanus was deploying men, some along the warehouse frontages, some on the forum road, some shinning up and clambering all over the roofs. They were silent and quick. Once on position they froze. The Second had always deserved better than their recent reputation. They were the Emperor's old legion, and it showed.
Now we had the place surrounded, every exit covered. 'Something bothering you?' I nudged Petro as he stood in a reverie.
'We were set up at the Shower of Gold,' he answered warily. 'I'm still wondering why.'
'You think there was more to it than Florius paying the Adiutrix to do for us?'
'Not their style, Falco. Florius knows I'm after him, and he wants me. But it's personal. He needs to see me suffer. Then he wants to finish me himself. He had Maia; he could have taken me. This doesn't make sense.'
Petro was too good an officer to brush aside his qualms. I trusted his instincts.
'Another thing,' I warned him. 'If he did lean on Crixus to finish us off, Florius won't now be expecting to go through with the handover. He thinks we're dead…' I tailed off. If he thought Petronius was dead, holding Maia served no purpose.
Unable to face the thought of what they might do to her, Petro found himself some action. Firmus was lying on the walkway being tended by a doctor. He had a deep gash in the side, from which he had lost too much blood. We did not ask whether he would make it; he was conscious, so we tried to seem optimistic.
Petro knelt beside him. 'Don't talk much. Just tell me who went into the building, if you can.'
'About fifteen or twenty,' Firmus croaked. Someone passed Petro a water flask, which he held to the injured man's lips. 'Thanks… Heavy weapons…'
'Were there women with them, did you see?'
Firmus was passing out. From the look of him, that might be the last he knew of anything. 'Firmus!'
'Couple of camp followers,' croaked Firmus, fading fast.
Petronius stood up.
Silvanus came to report. 'We've staked out the whole locale. We can pin them down for weeks. There's a bivvy set up, two blocks along, if you need a hot drink.' He glanced down at the customs officer, then swore under his breath.
Petronius seemed remote. Silvanus – wide, slow, and now oddly respectful – was watching him. Petro started walking up towards the customs house. I quickly informed Silvanus that the hostage situation had to be resolved. He knew about it from the governor. All the men must be aware that Petronius Longus had volunteered to hand himself over to Florius. They had worked this patch. They knew what the Jupiter gang was like. They knew what fate Florius must be planning for Petronius.
Darkness had set in. The troops assembled torches, flooding the wharf with mellow light for a long stretch in either direction. It flickered out across the nearside of the river. A crane sent a long distended shadow straight across the boards. We were aware sometimes of faces in the pools of darkness beyond our ground. A crowd must have gathered.
Petronius was now standing in shadow on the opposite side of the road from the customs house, across from the entrance. No point in delay. Silvanus signalled his men to the alert, then himself marched openly to the heavy panelled door. He beat on it with his dagger pommel.
'You inside! This is the centurion Silvanus. We have the building surrounded. If Florius
is in there, he can parley with Petronius.'
After a silence, someone inside spoke.
Silvanus turned to us. 'They are telling me to get back.'
'Do it!' Slight impatience coloured Petro's order. Silvanus moved back out of range.
'All right!'
For what seemed an age, nothing happened. Then people inside opened the great door a crack. A head, attached to the man who was holding the door, checked the exterior. Various muscular types ran out into the road, covering the space outside. They had an armoury none of us expected: two full-sized ballistae which they pushed quickly over the threshold and set up to guard the entrance, plus several rare, hand-held crossbows. I heard soldiers gasp. This was staggering firepower. Most legionary footsloggers had seldom been so close to artillery, and never when it was in opposition hands.
'Nobody move!' Their centurion's warning was hardly needed.
A quick-thinking soldier passed Petronius a shield. I doubted that even triple laminate would protect him from ballista bolts at short range. But it reassured the rest of us. In theory.
There was a balcony at second storey height above the customs house entrance. A figure had appeared there. Petronius walked straight out to a central point, about twelve strides in front of the door, looking up. The two fixed ballistae continued to sweep the whole area; they had the usual heavy iron frames, manoeuvred on wheels, and were easily aimed by swinging their sliders around on universal joints. That was bad enough. Meanwhile the men with the tension-sprung manual crossbows threatened Petro. If they let fire, he would be killed instantly.
'Florius!' His voice was strong, virile, and seemed fearless. 'I'm still here, you see. Crixus let you down and he's in custody.'
'You're hard to kill!' jeered Florius, his voice unmistakable. The balcony was in darkness, but our men were bringing torches closer, so his figure and shaven head became eerily outlined against an open doorway.
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