‘My old friend,’ Narcissus crooned without a trace of amicability, ‘I am doing nothing of the sort; I don’t need to. Agrippina has made sure that news of his failure has already reached Claudius and Pallas and she has insisted that after such a mistake your family cannot be trusted. Yesterday, at the Emperor’s request, I personally crossed your name off the list of governors for next year; Titus Statilius Taurus will go to Africa in your place.’
‘Africa?’ Gaius blurted. ‘The Emperor was going to reward Vespasian with Africa?’
‘I’m afraid so, but it is not to be. A shame really, such a prestigious province.’
Gaius’ jowls quivered with outrage. ‘You took Africa away from our family?’
‘Calm yourself, senator; I did nothing. I just amended the list at the Emperor’s instructions after he had been advised by the Empress. She really doesn’t like you, Vespasian.’
‘I’m aware of that and of the real reason why; but she likes you even less.’
Narcissus parted his hands and exclaimed in feigned joy, ‘Ah! Back to the subject I can never tire of: me. Yes, she would have me dead; and what’s the best way to avoid that whilst at the same time doing yourselves a great service by removing the block to your family’s career?’
Vespasian glanced at his uncle and realised immediately that he would not be furnishing the answer. ‘Kill Agrippina?’
Narcissus tutted and raised his cup for another sip of wine before thinking better of it. ‘Kill another empress? I don’t think I’d survive that again, no matter how chaotic Claudius’ affairs are. No, gentlemen, the answer is to expose her for what she is.’
It was Vespasian’s turn to be dismissive. ‘You and Pallas both tried to do that with Messalina but Claudius refused to believe you.’
‘Precisely, but this time the emphasis has changed. Then we were trying to get Claudius to believe that Messalina had savoured most men of the equestrian and senatorial classes and gone through the Praetorian Guard century by century, which, despite the truth of it, is a huge claim and easily rebutted on the grounds of impossibility. This time I just have to convince Claudius that his wife is not only sleeping with his most trusted advisor but he’s also being cuckolded by her son whom she has persuaded him to adopt as his own.’ Narcissus leant forward on the desk, looking directly into Vespasian’s eyes. ‘It’s all rather nasty, wouldn’t you agree? And yet again our divine Emperor is looking less of a god and more of a fool. Of course, we’re used to that, but he’s not; I think that the shock will make him very vengeful and all three of his betrayers will, at the very least, live out the rest of their lives on a barren rock, rather like Agrippina’s namesake, her mother, and her two older brothers.’ He twitched the corners of his mouth once again into the closest he ever came to a smile. ‘You could almost say that it runs in the family.’
Vespasian could not but admire the logic of it. ‘With one move you rid yourself of both your rivals, remove Nero and restore Britannicus to the succession with you as the arbiter of the potential regent when the time comes. No doubt you would choose someone of little consequence who was also well in your debt and once more you would be the Master of Rome.’
‘And you would be governing whichever province you wished for; Sabinus’ error would be quietly forgotten and you, my dear Gaius, would have that long overdue consulship.’
Vespasian kept his face placid; he was tempted but he knew better than to trust this Greek. He remembered only too well how Narcissus had been prepared to go back on the promise never to reveal Sabinus’ part in the assassination of Caligula when political expediency pressed.
Gaius, however, took the bait: his eyes glinted in the lamplight. ‘What do you want us to do, my dear Narcissus?’
‘The only people that Claudius would believe are Agrippina or Pallas themselves.’
‘But neither of them is ever going to admit to the thing that’ll bring them down.’
‘Of course not, senator.’ The Greek’s irritation at a statement of the obvious was conveyed by a lowering of his voice.
Vespasian cocked an ear; the noise from the tavern had taken on a different timbre.
Gaius reddened. ‘I apologise.’
Narcissus flourished a dismissive wave, half-closing his eyes. ‘But they will confess to Claudius if the alternative is being accused of treason; palpable treason, for which they will most certainly be executed.’
‘Treason?’ Vespasian asked, his attention now back to the conversation. ‘What’ve they done?’
‘The timing and the source of these reports from the East and then the recent trouble in Armenia have led me to believe that Agrippina has precipitated a crisis that not even Pallas knows of. If my instincts are correct, it is connected to the Parthian embassy that your brother so carelessly lost; but as yet I have no proof. But both of you could help me with that. Now, if this treason comes to light, it will certainly be assumed that Pallas was a party to it and will be executed along with—’ A woman’s shriek from the tavern cut him off and he looked to the door in alarm.
Vespasian jumped to his feet; masculine shouts and bellows erupted, joined by the crashing of wooden furniture. Agarpetus pulled a sword from beneath his cloak, opened the door a fraction, looked out and then quickly stepped back.
Magnus came barrelling in. ‘We’re under attack!’ he yelled as he raced across the room to a wooden chest. ‘The bastards have used the celebrations to slip past our security.’ Throwing open the lid he pulled out a sword and lobbed it over to Vespasian; another two followed for Gaius and Narcissus as Sextus crashed in. ‘Take these into the tavern, brother,’ Magnus said as he scooped out the remainder of the box’s contents and jammed them into Sextus’ arms, keeping one back for himself, ‘and then pull back here with the lads. We’ll stop them in the corridor.’
‘Who’s attacking you?’ Vespasian asked, pulling the sword from its scabbard with a metallic ring.
Magnus rammed the tip of his blade between two floorboards. ‘Fuck knows, but they’re serious.’ With a grunt he pulled back on the weapon and sprang a board up.
Vespasian realised just how serious they were as the first whiff of smoke came through the door.
‘They’re torching the place!’ Narcissus shouted, drawing his sword and looking at the blade in disbelief.
‘That’s why we need to fight our way out of the back door,’ Magnus said, hauling a strongbox out from under the floor.
The clash of iron against iron rang above the yells; then a wail added to the noise, rising in pitch and fearful realisation – someone had been hideously wounded.
‘Uncle, help Magnus with that box.’ Vespasian pushed past Narcissus and Agarpetus and stuck his head around the door to see a couple of whores burst through the leather curtain from the bar; smoke wafted in with them. They turned down the corridor and then caught sight of him, screamed, doubled back and disappeared up the staircase at the other end. Vespasian ran along to the curtain and carefully pulled it back a fraction. Flames raged behind the bar where the cooking fire had been fed some incendiary liquid; a body writhed on the counter, its wails weakening as its flesh charred. Dozens of figures struggled in the blaze’s glow, in pairs or groups, wrestling hand to hand or stabbing at close quarters, screaming, cursing, growling as they fought for their lives. The bodies of the dying squirmed in agony on the floor, entangling the legs of friend and foe alike as men strove to keep their balance and their chances of survival. Over their heads and beneath the thickening pall of smoke Vespasian could see that the door at the narrow end was barred by two hulking shapes with staves – no one was leaving by that exit.
Sextus, bellowing like a goaded, chained bear, hacked and cut downwards onto a smaller opponent’s upturned sword, forcing it ever lower as his brothers slowly gave ground around him, under pressure from weight of numbers and the growing strength of the flames. There was no way forward, only back.
‘Sextus!’ Vespasian yelled into the room. ‘Now, before it’s too late!’<
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Sextus roared and sliced his blade down again with a force that dislodged his opponent’s from his grip. With a speed that belied his bulk, Sextus changed the stroke from vertical to horizontal, slicing through the exposed throat with an explosion of blood, black in the flicker of the flames, before backhanding the sword into the upraised arm of the intruder next to the dying man, taking the limb off at the elbow and sending it spinning, spiralling gore, over the heads of his comrades, weapon still in hand and glinting with firelight.
Vespasian backed away from the doorway as the South Quirinal Crossroads Brothers took advantage of the moment of extreme violence to retreat a few more steps. As he went back along the corridor the first of them pushed through the leather curtain.
‘Are they coming?’ Magnus asked as Vespasian ran back into the room.
‘As fast as they can,’ Vespasian replied.
Narcissus looked at him. For the first time Vespasian saw a genuine expression on the freedman’s face; it was fear. ‘I’m the imperial secretary; I can’t be trapped here. I must get out!’
‘We must all get out, but not that way.’
‘This way,’ Magnus said, unbolting the door on the far side of the room as Gaius struggled with the strongbox, ‘there’re two back doors, well, three actually.’
Narcissus and Agarpetus dashed past him into the darkness beyond.
The first few of the brothers scrambled into the room, wafting in thick smoke as they did. The noise of fighting in the corridor carried on, fierce and unremitting, as the rest of Magnus’ brethren gave ground slowly with Sextus’ voice booming above the rest.
‘Whoever’s attacking didn’t just come for tonight’s takings,’ Vespasian observed as he took one end of the strongbox from Magnus.
Magnus shook his head, both eyes glaring, one sightlessly. ‘No, and that makes me think that we’re in the middle of a commercial takeover.’ Sword in hand he headed back to the corridor door. ‘We’ll get all the lads in here first, secure the door and then make our break for it together; if this is a move by a rival brotherhood they may well know about the exits. Fall back, lads!’ Pulling a few of the brothers out of his way he made it to the corridor as the smoke intensified. ‘Sextus, get them all in here.’ He turned to an easterner, complete with pointed beard and trousers, and an old Greek with an ugly scar on his left cheek where his beard grew rough. ‘Tigran, take half the lads to the south exit and wait for me to give the go-ahead before you pull the bolts. Cassandros, take the rest to the northern one and don’t forget the sledgehammers, just in case. We all go together. And get the lads to relieve the senators of that strongbox; what the fuck are they doing manual labour for?’
Tigran and Cassandros moved off, marshalling the brothers, two of whom took the strongbox from Vespasian and Gaius, as Magnus pulled more in from the corridor until there was just Sextus’ thrashing bulk preventing him from securing the door. ‘Now, Sextus!’
Sextus leapt backwards and, with a lightning thrust, rammed the tip of his blade into the shoulder of the nearest intruder; the man fell back into his comrades and Magnus heaved on the door, slamming it shut just as Sextus extracted his sword. He jammed the bolt into its socket as Vespasian ran forward and retrieved the iron bar that barricaded the door; within an instant it was firmly wedged in its housings.
‘Time to go, sir. Well done, Sextus, my lad.’ Magnus turned and crossed the room with his brother following as the reinforced door started to shake with blows from the far side. ‘They’ll have to pull back soon because of the smoke.’
Vespasian went to the desk and blew out the last lamp left burning in the room, leaving it lit only by the dim light coming in from the escape route. Magnus was waiting for him and bolted the door behind him as he slipped into another corridor even longer than the last as the building widened in accordance with the diverging lines of the Alta Semita and the Vicus Longus. He followed Magnus across and into a small room. From beyond an open door at the far end came the sound of fighting.
‘The stupid bastards have tried to go before we’re all there,’ Magnus hissed as they ran towards the sound.
An instant later they burst into a storeroom, the width of the building; a dozen or so of the brothers were struggling to heave shut a door leading out to the Vicus Longus. A honed-muscled giant with scars on his forearms stood in the narrow opening, one foot on the body blocking the door from closing, lashing out with a bloody sword at all who fell upon him, his movements a blur of fluid motion.
‘Fucking ex-gladiator,’ Magnus cursed as he too threw his weight against the door. ‘Pull that body clear!’
As Tigran and another brother took it in turns to trade blows with the fighting machine trying to gain ingress, Vespasian bent down between the two brothers and caught hold of one of the dead man’s wrists. He pulled, using all his strength, and the dead weight slowly shifted. A ringing clash above his head made him instinctively jump back; Tigran had blocked a downward blow meant for his neck. The easterner parried again and Vespasian held his breath and grabbed the arm once more. This time he pulled with the desperation of a doomed man; the corpse slid, lubricated by its own blood. As the impediment cleared the opening, Magnus’ brethren slowly forced the door closed, compelling the ex-gladiator to retreat or risk losing an arm in the narrowing gap.
‘Who the fuck gave the word, Tigran?’ Magnus snarled as the door finally shut and the brothers slammed the bar across it.
‘He did, brother,’ Tigran shouted, pointing at the corner. ‘He and his freedman opened the door.’
Narcissus stood, cowering, looking down at the dead man at Vespasian’s feet. ‘I have to get out! I can’t die in a hole like this.’
‘You could have killed us all!’ Tigran shouted, lunging at Narcissus with his blade aimed at his throat.
Narcissus howled.
Vespasian grabbed Tigran’s wrist and arrested the stroke a thumb’s breadth from the Greek’s quivering flesh. ‘He stays alive!’
Tigran tried to force his arm forward but Vespasian held firm; with a nod and a shrug the easterner pulled back.
Narcissus spouted tears of relief.
Vespasian looked at the Greek who had ordered so many deaths; in disgust he kicked the corpse at his feet. Its head lolled into the light: Agarpetus.
Magnus wasted no time on recriminations. ‘Tigran, stay here with a couple of lads and keep an eye on the door. The rest of you, come with me.’ He ran to the other side of the room, but there was no exit to the Alta Semita, only a small window; he turned left up a further corridor.
Vespasian grabbed the sobbing Narcissus by the sleeve and hauled him away after Magnus.
At the far end of the corridor they came into a final room; there was one door to the Alta Semita but no other exit. It was crammed with at least a score of men.
‘I thought I’d be safer down here,’ Gaius told Vespasian as he pushed his way through to him. ‘I could see that Narcissus ordering Agarpetus to open the door before we were ready was a bad idea.’
‘What if they’ve blocked this exit too, Uncle?’
‘The prognosis wouldn’t look too favourable. There’s no other way out except for going back.’
‘I have to get out!’ Narcissus bleated.
But it was not the door that Magnus headed to; it was the blank wall on the opposite side. ‘We won’t risk the obvious way. Cassandros, you got the hammers?’
The scarred Greek nodded and indicated to a brother who lifted two weighty tools and handed one to Cassandros.
‘Get on with it then, lads.’
Magnus moved back and the brothers took their places next to the wall facing each other and hefted their hammers over their shoulders. In the dim light Vespasian could see a faint line, door-shaped, drawn upon it.
‘We keep this for special occasions,’ Magnus informed Vespasian and Gaius. ‘Never had to use it so let’s hope the bastards don’t know about it.’
The first blow hit with a resounding crack; on the other
side of the room the tell-tale glow of flame flickered in the narrow gap between the ground and the door.
‘Soon as you like, boys,’ Magnus said as Tigran and his two lads came pelting up the corridor. ‘Don’t even say it, Tigran, I can guess. Just bolt that door.’
Tension in the room escalated as smoke began to creep under the door to the street and the flames on the other side grew. The hammers worked with fast alternate blows, soon knocking away all the thick plaster.
Vespasian’s heart sank as a solid wall of thin bricks was exposed; he looked over his shoulder to see that the fire was quickly gaining.
‘All right, lads, a few good blows each at the very base should do it.’
Vespasian watched, ever mindful of the danger eating its way through the wooden door, as the hammers beat at the lower bricks. To his great surprise the blows sent them shooting out; they had not been mortared. After three or four strikes there was a foot-high gap; an instant later two of the lower bricks fell to the ground and then the rest followed, tumbling, chinking down in a cloud of dust.
‘Clear it, lads,’ Magnus ordered.
Half a dozen brothers stepped forward and began heaving and hurling the bricks out of the way. After less than fifty heartbeats the mound was low enough to scramble over and the brothers streamed out. Vespasian found himself in the corner of a delta-shaped courtyard, stinking of rotting refuse and faeces, sandwiched behind the last tenements on both the Alta Semita and the Vicus Longus; to his left flames from the tavern at the apex of the junction could be seen rising to the sky, to his right were the backs of another couple of tenements divided by a narrow alley.
‘Quickly through there, lads, then split up and slow down; lose yourselves in the alleys on the other side.’
As the South Quirinal Brotherhood dispersed silently, Magnus had a quick word with Tigran and the brothers carrying the strongbox and then looked at Vespasian and Gaius. ‘I’d say that I’m going to have to rely on one of you for hospitality tonight.’
‘And maybe a few nights to come, my friend,’ Gaius observed.
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