‘Now,’ he hissed at Magnus.
Grabbing the torch from Ziri, Magnus thrust it at the bottom of the tent flaps. The flames caught immediately, eating their way up the dry, coarse linen until the opening of the tent was a rage of fire. Ziri stood at the entrance, spear in hand; the first Marmarides, dressed only in a loincloth, hurled himself through the blaze, straight onto its razor point. With a thrust and a twist Ziri gutted him, then kicked him back into the fire, his spilled, moist intestines hissing and steaming in the heat.
Screams rang out as Magnus and those townsmen who had managed to retrieve a torch moved around the ring, fire-raising as they went. The bolder townsmen, shouting encouragement to each other, as the attack was no longer a secret, surged forward to deal with the other sentries, battering them down under a hail of blows and jabs.
All around the outer ring tents were ablaze as the townsmen used the Marmaridae’s torches against them. Urging his men forward, Vespasian moved into the inner ring; but here fewer tents were burning and the tribesmen, now fully alerted to the danger, had roused from their sleep and were now dashing to defend themselves. The terrified bellows of the hobbled camels unable to move away from the fires merged with the shrieks and howls of the wounded and the dying into a raucous dissonance.
Standing to the side of a burning tent’s entrance, Vespasian brought his spatha slicing down as the flaps burst open, but he mistimed the blow and severed the escaping man’s outstretched hands. Leaving him to roll away in blood-spurting agony, Vespasian swiped his sword back at the tent’s opening, slashing it across the chest of the next man out as a Marmarides, burning like a beacon, hurtled past him to plunge with a scream and a hiss of steam into the pool at the camp’s centre.
Vespasian despatched the last man to emerge from the tent and then swiftly looked about; Magnus and Ziri were meting out the same treatment to the occupants of a tent nearby. All around the camp similar scenes were being played out as the enraged townsmen, brandishing clubs, farming implements and daggers, fell on the unprepared slavers who had been so long a cause of fear to them and a threat to their peaceful way of life; now with thirty-two of their compatriots to save from a living death they took to their task with ferocity. Smoke billowed all around as the torched tents turned into fierce infernos; blazing men flung themselves from them to be impaled on pitchforks or mown down by scythes. The tang of their crisping skin blended with the acrid smell of burning natural fibre.
Through the chaos of the thickening fumes and flames Vespasian could see that a few knots of Marmaridae had managed to group together and were now mounting a vigorous defence; the ill-armed and inexperienced townsmen facing them were beginning to fall beneath the vicious slashes of their long swords and their taste for the fight against more organised defenders was leaving them.
‘Magnus, with me,’ he bellowed, leaping over the pile of corpses at his feet. Pulling his pugio from its sheath with his left hand, he sprinted towards a group of three Marmaridae advancing steadily, with swords flashing, upon a thin line of wavering townsmen. Crashing through a gap in the unsteady line, Vespasian ducked under a wild sword swipe, headbutting its perpetrator in the belly while plunging his spatha deep into the groin of the tribesman next to him. The three of them went down in a flurry of sand as the townsmen took advantage of the remaining slaver’s momentary surprise at Vespasian’s sudden arrival and set upon him with a renewed confidence. Rolling off his opponent as they landed, Vespasian thrust his dagger down into the man’s ribcage, puncturing his lung.
‘I thought you were calling for assistance,’ Magnus said, hauling Vespasian to his feet by his sword arm as Ziri thrust his spear into the throats of the two stricken men.
‘I was,’ Vespasian panted; his heart was racing. ‘Some of them are starting to form up; let’s keep working our way round until we link up with Corvinus’ lads.’
Passing two collapsed, flaming tents, whose trapped and screaming occupants were being mercilessly battered to death, they were faced with a mob of fleeing townsmen who brushed them aside, almost toppling them into a burning tent in their anxiety to escape the terror behind them: Grey-beard.
‘Fuck!’ Magnus swore as all three of them came to an abrupt halt; the heat of the burning tent singed the hair on their arms and legs.
Swinging an enormous two-handed sword, the Marmaridae chief, flanked by four of his followers, strode towards them, vengeance in his eyes. At the sight of the Romans Grey-beard snarled and ran forward with his sword raised above his head, bearing down upon Vespasian; his men followed, the two to his left spotted Ziri and hurled themselves screaming at him.
With a deft flick of his spear, Ziri heaved the burning tent into the air to land over the two men as Vespasian parried Grey-beard’s crushing downward blow, which slid along his blade in a grating spray of sparks to come to a jarring halt on the oval guard. He was just aware of Magnus, next to him, throwing himself to the ground at the feet of the men to Grey-beard’s right, tumbling them over, as the Marmaridae chief put ever more downward pressure on his spatha, forcing him to one knee; screams from the men struggling beneath the burning tent rang in his ears. In a swift double movement Grey-beard slammed his foot into Vespasian’s chest, sending him crashing onto his back, and raised his sword, growling, his teeth bared, with the effort; as it reached its zenith the motion suddenly stopped and blood spewed from his mouth. Grey-beard stood immobile for a few moments, as if frozen in time, then his sword fell behind him and he turned his head to look at Ziri whose spear was embedded in the side of his chest. With a slow nod to his killer, which seemed to Vespasian to be a look of understanding, the Marmaridae chief collapsed to the ground.
The sound of fighting next to him forced Vespasian to take his eyes off the dying Grey-beard and look round. Magnus was astride a tribesman, each had their hands around the other’s throat. Just beyond them a second tribesman, with blood gushing from an empty eye socket, raised his knife and aimed at Magnus’ exposed back. Vespasian whipped his sword arm round, letting go of the spatha’s hilt and sending the weapon spinning through the air to crack side-on into the man’s midriff, winding him. He leapt to his feet and, hurdling Magnus, jumped on the one-eyed Marmarides, pummelling his face with his fists as the two of them fell to the blood-stained sand. Blow after blow he dealt in a frenzied attack that carried on after the man’s nose was flattened and his jaw shattered, until a hand grabbed his hair and he felt a blade at his throat.
‘Relax, quaestor,’ Corvinus’ voice shouted in his ear; Vespasian froze. ‘Someone should warn you about losing control in combat.’
‘I already have,’ Magnus said, getting up off his freshly dead, bulging-eyed opponent. ‘It seems that he’s forgotten that that’s how you end up dead.’
‘Let go of me, prefect,’ Vespasian ordered, coming back to his senses and shaking Corvinus off.
‘I could have slit your throat, which I was very tempted to do,’ Corvinus snarled as he dropped his sword, ‘had it not been for him.’
Vespasian turned round to see Ziri holding his blood-drenched spear to Corvinus’ neck. ‘It’s all right, Ziri,’ he said, gesturing slowly for him to lower his weapon.
Ziri nodded and pulled away.
Vespasian got to his feet and looked around; tents still blazed, up-lighting the surrounding palms that stood motionless in the windless night with a soft amber hue, but the sound of fighting had died down. Groups of townsmen and auxiliaries walked through the carnage; every now and then one would raise a weapon and bring it down to despatch a wounded tribesman.
‘Did any escape?’ he asked no one in particular as he picked up his spatha.
‘I don’t know but I doubt it,’ Corvinus replied. ‘The slave corral is secured; some of my men are guarding it.’
‘Good, let’s go and have a look at them.’
‘Time to see if Capella will give you his woman in grateful thanks for all your effort,’ Magnus commented. He did not see Corvinus frown at his remark.
As Vespasian and Magnus turned to go they noticed Ziri looking down at the still burning bodies; he speared them both in the heart.
‘Come on, Ziri,’ Magnus said, tugging at his sleeve.
Ziri shook his head. ‘They Ziri brothers,’ he said matter-of-factly.
Vespasian looked aghast at the young Marmarides and, with a sense of foreboding, pointed down at Grey-beard. ‘And him, the man you killed to save my life,’ he asked, recalling Aghilas’ words: especially against the Marmaridae.
Ziri looked at him with no emotion in his eyes. ‘He Ziri father.’
CHAPTER V
‘STATILIUS CAPELLA! STATILIUS Capella!’ Magnus shouted over the wailing of the terrified female captives and the crying of their children as he, Vespasian and Corvinus wove their way through the tightly packed slave corral, carrying torches.
‘Over here,’ a voice eventually called out as they approached the centre.
‘Corvinus, release the freeborn and freed,’ Vespasian ordered, ‘but keep bound all those who were slaves before the Marmaridae caught them. And get some of your men to round up the camels; I’m going to have a little chat with the idiot who dragged us all the way out here.’
‘Does that mean you’re going to talk to yourself for a while, then?’ Magnus asked with a grin as Corvinus walked off.
‘Very funny. If you want to do something useful, make sure the townspeople are burying the dead and getting the corpses out of the lake; we should leave no trace of this camp. And then go and search what’s left of the chief’s tent; I imagine that there will be quite a bit of money stashed away there, Capella’s purse for a start.’
Magnus nodded to his slave standing a little way off in quiet thought; his face registered no emotion. ‘I won’t ask Ziri to help, considering the circumstances.’
‘How is he?’
‘He seems to be fine; as I’m sure we all would be having committed a double fratricide followed by a patricide.’
‘Well, there’s no doubting his loyalty to you and me after that.’
‘Yes, that’s true, but what a way to prove it. I don’t know what gods the Marmaridae have but it’s going to take a lot to appease them if he doesn’t want to live the rest of his life under a curse.’
Vespasian glanced at Ziri, taking in his youth. ‘Do you think that he’ll know how to do that?’
‘I don’t know; but he’ll have to find a way. What he did ain’t natural and nothing good can come out of something that ain’t natural.’
‘Apart from saving our lives, you mean?’
Magnus grunted and stalked off.
Vespasian made his way towards Capella, wondering just what sort of death Ziri would have suffered at the hands of his father and brothers, had they captured him, for him to have been able to kill them so easily and apparently without feeling.
‘I am Titus Flavius Vespasianus, quaestor of this province, and you, Statilius Capella, are an imbecile,’ Vespasian informed Capella upon finding him.
‘That’s a very quick judgement to come to about someone whom you’ve only just met, young man,’ Capella replied; he had his hands and neck bound to the post that he was sitting against. He was much older than Vespasian had expected, early- to mid-forties, but still with a good head of curly, black hair, a lined but handsome face and a trim physique. He was surrounded by a strong smell of faeces; he had been obliged to defecate where he sat.
‘Who else but an imbecile would go off into the desert with a small escort in search of a tribe of slavers in order to buy camels off them?’
Capella smiled. ‘Ah, you’ve been talking to Flavia. Well, release me then, seeing as she must have sent you all this way to rescue me; she’s very persuasive, I know.’
‘All in good time; first of all we have to discuss the terms of your release.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning that over a hundred men, expensively trained Roman auxiliaries, have lost their lives in finding you; not to mention the loss of over a hundred and twenty horses and another thirty mules and all the equipment that they were carrying. That amounts to a good few thousand denarii, which, seeing as you are the cause of all that financial loss, it would seem only right that you should reimburse.’
‘And you no doubt think that I’m also obliged to you personally?’
‘Naturally.’
‘And if I refuse?’
‘Then the whole enterprise would be a tragic and colossal waste of time and money. We came all this way and couldn’t find you.’
Capella burst into laughter despite the rope constricting his throat. ‘You’d leave me here?’
‘I wouldn’t leave you tied to that post, no; but yes, I would leave you in Siwa to make your own way back and more than likely fall into the hands of the Marmaridae again. What would give you the right to enjoy my protection on the journey back to Cyrene if you refuse to pay Rome for the damage that your reckless actions have caused?’
‘I see your point, quaestor, if you look at it that way and assume that my actions were reckless; which indeed they would have been had I really been trying to buy camels from slavers.’
‘You weren’t, then?’
‘Young man, if I’d wanted to do that, do you really think that I would have come all the way out here when I could have sailed a hundred miles along the coast from Apollonia to the Marmaridae’s grazing grounds and bought camels from them there, negotiating from the safety of a ship as I have done many times before? Of course not, that would be imbecilic.’
‘Then why did you tell Flavia that?’
‘Cut me loose and you may get an answer.’
Vespasian had little choice; feeling slightly stupid, he took his sword to the ropes. All around, the wails of the captives were turning to shouts of joy as Corvinus’ auxiliaries moved through the corral cutting the bonds of the free and freed; only the slaves were left sitting glumly against their posts to await their fate.
‘That’s better,’ Capella said, rubbing his sore wrists and walking back towards the corral’s entrance. ‘Now I’m going to wash my arse in the lake and then I would appreciate a clean tunic, a loincloth and something to eat.’
Vespasian followed him. ‘You said that you’d answer my question.’
‘I said that I might, but fair enough; I told Flavia that I was buying camels because I couldn’t tell her what I was really doing. I told her that I would be back in forty days because I knew that if I wasn’t she would persuade someone like you to come and find me. And I was right because here you are; she is very hard to refuse, as you’ve evidently found out.’
‘I’m here because I was told that a Roman citizen had probably been taken as a slave,’ Vespasian replied airily.
‘Bollocks; you’re here because you wanted to impress Flavia.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous, it was my duty,’ Vespasian blustered.
Capella smiled at him. ‘Don’t feel ashamed about it, I don’t blame you one bit and, who knows, if you impress her enough she might even leave me for you, and I wouldn’t blame her either.’
‘She struck me as being very loyal to you.’
‘Oh she is, and will continue to be so until someone else can command her loyalty. She likes to make sure that her loyalty is well rewarded, shall we say. Anyway, she’s done her job and saved me from a very unpleasant end to my life.’
‘Which you must pay for; as well as recompensing me for my efforts.’
‘Quaestor, I’m sure that my patron for this trip will be only too delighted to pay out a measly few thousand denarii, if you bring me back to Cyrene with what I’m carrying for him. As to what you want, you’ll have to ask her yourself.’
Vespasian frowned and glanced at Capella, wondering if he really had made his desire for Flavia so obvious. ‘You’d give Flavia to me; why?’
‘Because I’m tiring of her; she’s a big drain on my income and very demanding – although her charms go some way to making up for that. If you’re rash enough to take on the expense
then you’re welcome to her, but I couldn’t give her to you; it would have to be Flavia’s decision. So let’s take that as agreed, then, and get going once your men have retrieved my possessions.’ Capella stopped by the corral’s entrance and proffered his forearm, smiling genially.
Vespasian took it, stunned that Capella would so easily give up such a woman. ‘You’re very generous, Capella.’
‘Am I?’
‘Quaestor, you’d better come and look at this,’ Corvinus called from over by the tents, interrupting them.
Vespasian turned and walked towards him. ‘What is it?’
‘Magnus has uncovered a chest buried beneath the chief’s tent.’
‘Ah good,’ Capella exclaimed, following, ‘that’ll be mine.’
They found Corvinus watching Magnus and Ziri heaving a small wooden chest out of a shallow hole in the sand.
Vespasian pointed at Ziri. ‘What’s he doing helping?’
‘He insisted; showed me where to look, as a matter of fact,’ Magnus replied as they put the chest down next to a pile of valuables retrieved from the tent; two keys were tied to a handle.
‘Yes, that is mine,’ Capella confirmed.
‘How can you prove it?’ Corvinus asked him, as Vespasian bent down and untied the keys.
‘That’s simple. I could tell you what’s in there and then let you open it, but I don’t think you’ll thank me if I did.’
Vespasian slipped the keys into the locks at either end of the chest. ‘Why not?’
‘Because the chest may be mine but the contents belong to my patron. I’d completed his business here in Siwa and was on my way back to Cyrene when the Marmaridae caught me. If my patron were to find out that you’d seen what I’m carrying for him, he would be obliged to kill you.’
Vespasian looked at Magnus. ‘What do you think?’
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