The Black Stone: Agent of Rome 4 (The Agent of Rome)

by Brown, Nick

He dashed forward and grabbed Gutha’s tunic, then pulled him down and kissed him on the cheek.

  ‘I heard it, Gutha,’ he whispered. ‘I heard it. I knew you had it. It’s been speaking to me for days.’

  Ilaha abruptly let go and yelled at the men. ‘Where are those logs and ropes? Get it inside at once!’

  Gutha was sleeping when the guards came for him. He swiftly dressed and followed the pair back through the town to the inner gate. They escorted him as far as the cavern, then silently joined the other sentries there. Gutha peered inside, at the rows of mounted torches that narrowed into the passageway beyond. The scent of blood – rust and rot – breathed out into the night. He took a last gulp of fresh air and entered.

  After fifty paces, the passageway reached the high-roofed chamber that Ilaha now referred to as the temple. Braziers had been lit, casting a fuzzy orange glow. Gutha smothered an oath as he realised that what he had taken for statues were in fact Ilaha’s priests. All ten of them were there, heads bowed, each man wearing an identical scarlet cloak and cowl. They stood in a circle around the rock. Gutha knew he should have kept walking to the passageway opposite but he still hadn’t taken a good look at the thing. The priests – who were allowed to speak only to Ilaha – did not react as he walked over, stopped between two of them and gazed at the black stone.

  It seemed small: the conical top no more than five feet high, the rounded base no more than six across. The composition was unlike anything he’d seen: a honeycomb pattern topped by a grey, almost metallic sheen. Etched upon the surface was marking upon marking but every time he thought he saw a familiar word or letter or image, the lines seemed to shift. He moved around it, past another priest, and the very colour and shape of the rock seemed to change. He blinked; and put it down to tiredness or a trick of the light.

  Gutha looked down. The rock was mounted on a plinth surrounded by a circular basin filled with water. Connected to the basin were four channels that ran out to the chamber’s walls, each ending below a large iron hook. Gutha saw the blood in the water and went to see which animals had been sacrificed to the sun god.

  He found a calf, a goat and a lamb; and smelt the shit they had voided when their throats had been cut. Having traversed the whole chamber, he approached the last hook.

  The yellow-beaked eagle was still breathing. It had been tied on by its wings, its neck merely nicked to ensure a slow death. The bird’s chest was twitching weakly, but as Gutha came nearer, its talons scraped the air, vengeful claws desperate for something to tear into.

  Gutha watched it a while longer, then continued on towards Ilaha’s quarters. He passed two closed doors. The third was open.

  ‘Gutha?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Come in.’

  A small, sparsely decorated cavern. Ilaha – now barefoot and without the cloak – was sitting at a hexagonal table. In front of him was a jug and some fine glasses.

  ‘Please, sit.’

  Gutha did so and cast a wary glance towards the rear of the room. The old woman was sitting in a chair by the hearth, facing away from them.

  Ilaha called her ‘Mother’ but Gutha couldn’t believe she was a day under eighty and as Ilaha couldn’t be much more than thirty, he reckoned she was actually his grandmother. Gutha was glad she was well away from him. Apart from the fact that she stank, he hated even looking at her. Her face was more lines than skin, her eyes opaque and yellowed, yet her white hair was as thick as his and hung down as far as her waist. Despite her age, she was never ill and always available to advise and guide her ‘son’. To Gutha, her very existence seemed unnatural.

  ‘Wine?’ said Ilaha.

  ‘No, thank you.’ As Gutha settled into the chair, the frame groaned under his weight.

  Ilaha looked tired and pale but those dark eyes somehow still shone. ‘Did you feel it? Did you feel its power? I believe I can hear it beating like a heart.’

  ‘I am relieved it is finally here.’

  ‘Reyazz did well?’

  ‘Exceptionally. He thinks the real stone is lighter than the one we practised with – that’s why they were so quick. Twelve minutes in and out. There was a little trouble getting the frame on but the rollers and the ramp worked to perfection.’

  ‘So everything went to plan?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘I’ve warned you before about lying.’ The crone sounded like a little girl with hands around her throat. ‘What about the man who spilled the blood of horses and then his own?’

  Gutha was never quite sure how she did that; was she really a sorceress or just exceptionally well informed?

  ‘Centurion, I think. Ambushed us on the way out. Lost a few men but they didn’t slow us down for long.’

  ‘There’s no possibility that someone could have followed you here?’ asked Ilaha.

  ‘Not a chance.’

  ‘I want them to know I have the stone, but at a time of my choosing.’

  ‘The Emperor will have heard of it by now. He is coming east to put down the Palmyrans himself.’

  ‘He knows,’ said the old woman. ‘He knows what he has lost.’

  ‘It was well guarded,’ said Gutha. ‘I imagine he’ll do whatever’s necessary to get it back.’

  Ilaha looked irritated. ‘I believe we have been through this before.’

  ‘We have. But there can be no turning back. You have started along a dangerous road now.’

  ‘I?’

  ‘We.’

  Ilaha leaned forward onto the table. ‘There will be no turning back, Gutha. It is good that the Emperor comes east now. The invincible god of the sun aids us by bringing him here. It will only hasten his demise.’

  Gutha didn’t like the sound of that. The man wasn’t just becoming more unstable and more arrogant; he was becoming more ambitious.

  ‘I have been busy while you’ve been away,’ Ilaha continued. ‘Our allies have been summoned.’

  ‘Potential allies.’

  Ilaha ignored him. ‘They will gather here on the last day of the month; and when I show them what I have, every last one will pledge himself and his men. But even before then we must show them that the tide is turning, that Rome has already lost control. We must stay in the shadows no longer. All of Arabia must see that our time has come.’

  ‘You wish to send another message?’

  ‘I do.’

  Gutha didn’t much like the sound of that either but they both knew he would do as he was bid. Ilaha did pay well. Unusually well.

  ‘I’m sure we can come up with something.’

  Ilaha glanced at the door. ‘You came through the temple. How’s the eagle?’

  ‘Still alive.’

  Ilaha grinned. ‘Not for long.’

  I

  Bostra, capital of the Roman province of Arabia, April AD 273

  ‘Damn you, Simo. Damn you, damn you, damn you.’

  Cassius Quintius Corbulo sighed and shook his head. The helmet’s bronze was greasy and dull, the crest needed combing and there was a dead spider stuck to the cross-piece.

  ‘Sir?’ Muranda appeared in the doorway.

  ‘Didn’t I ask you to clean this?’

  The chubby maid hurried forward and took it. ‘I thought I had, sir.’

  ‘By the gods, look at it, woman. You must polish it – I want to see my face in there.’

  ‘Yes, Master Cassius.’

  The housekeeper waddled out of the bedroom, sandals slapping on the floor. Cassius was convinced that if she worked a bit harder she might lose some weight off her bottom half.

  ‘Just come back soon, Simo,’ he whispered. ‘Please.’

  His Gaulish attendant had finally taken the leave long promised to him and journeyed to Antioch to visit his father. The Syrian capital was a week away so Cassius had allowed him three weeks in total. But twenty-four days had now passed. He knew Simo had arrived safely yet he had heard nothing since. Cassius felt as if his entire life were in utter disarray.

  Seeing t
he state of the hourglass did nothing to improve his mood.

  ‘And why didn’t you wake me sooner?’ he shouted. ‘The meeting is in a quarter-hour!’

  After only a couple of days without Simo, Cassius had grown tired of putting all his clothes and belongings away, so in order to find things he’d decided to leave them all out where he could see them. Muranda occasionally popped in to take some washing but she seemed to have a gift for missing the dirtiest items.

  So far that morning, the only clean item Cassius had managed to locate was a long-sleeved scarlet tunic. He looked around for a cape but the only one in view had a stain down the front.

  ‘Tunic’ll do,’ he said to himself. ‘Now, er … sword belt, sword belt.’

  This at least was easy to find: it was lying on a chair by the doorway. Cassius grabbed it and lowered the strap onto his right shoulder, more at ease with the weight of the weapon now. The regular lessons with Indavara were really starting to pay off and he was almost beginning to enjoy handling the blade, though the bodyguard continued to insist it was too big for him. Cassius inspected the ornate eagle head at the base of the hilt and tutted: it too was unclean. He grabbed a loincloth and gave it a quick rub.

  ‘Er … satchel, satchel.’

  The deer-hide bag was hanging from a candelabra. Cassius undid the buckle and checked he had some paper and a stick of charcoal. He seldom made notes at these meetings with the governor but it always paid to appear conscientious. He slung the bag over his left shoulder and hurried out into the atrium.

  The curtain to Indavara’s room was open; an empty plate left on the bed. Wondering where he’d got to, Cassius hurried into the kitchen, expecting to find Muranda there. But, apart from the mangy cat that had taken to wandering in, the room was empty.

  ‘Muranda!’

  She came shuffling in from the courtyard. ‘Here, sir. Sorry. I needed the light.’

  Cassius took the helmet from her. ‘Well, at least the spider’s gone.’

  As Muranda stroked the cat – which had jumped onto the bench beside the kitchen table – Cassius did his best to straighten out the rough bristles of the crest. He couldn’t fault the maid’s manners but she really was a useless creature.

  ‘Shall I prepare a dinner for later, sir?’

  The very mention of the word made Cassius long for the innumerable dishes Simo could conjure at speed, every one adapted to suit his palate. By contrast, Muranda seemed unable to invest any foodstuff with a pleasant taste.

  ‘No. I’ll eat out.’ He aimed a finger at the cat. ‘And keep that wretched thing out of here. Yesterday I found a hair in my dates.’

  ‘Yes, Master Cassius.’

  He strode back across the atrium to the front door. Mounted on the wall close by was an oval, silver-framed mirror. After a few hurried adjustments to his hair, he looked at his nose. Simo kept telling him the break had reset perfectly and Cassius had almost believed him until Indavara cracked a joke about it one night. Now he could barely look at his face without fixating on the knob of bone. Apart from cosmetic considerations, he hated the fact that he’d been left with an inescapable reminder of his last assignment: a brutal confrontation with a rogue centurion.

  Muttering curses, he stepped outside, only just resisting the temptation to slam the door.

  The villa faced onto the Via Cappadocia, the wide street which – a stone’s throw to the left – led straight into Bostra’s legionary fortress. Beyond the marble arch of the gatehouse and the high wall lay the sprawling complex: headquarters of the Third Cyrenaican, Arabia’s only standing legion. Two sentries holding spears and in full armour flanked the gate. Above them a large red and gold standard hung limply from its pole.

  ‘Afternoon, sir,’ said one of the men as Cassius reached the pavement.

  ‘Afternoon.’

  Given the villa’s location, Cassius had come to know the faces of the sentries and this fellow was unusually cheery. The second soldier just about managed a nod. Cassius imagined he – and most of the others – weren’t overly concerned about impressing an officer of the Imperial Security Service, long-standing rival of the regular army.

  Setting off along the street in the opposite direction, Cassius realised he no longer worried as much about such things. The attitude of his compatriots, ranks and officers alike, was something he could do little about; and the benefits of a life free from the punishing grind of conventional soldiering still outweighed the disadvantages, for the time being anyway.

  The morning was bright and windless, his light linen tunic ideal. This was Cassius’s third spring in the eastern provinces and it was a pleasant time: little rain and plenty of sun, but without the stifling heat of the summer.

  He, Indavara and Simo had arrived in Bostra three months earlier. Though the city lacked the grandeur and history of Antioch, there was a fine theatre, several excellent baths and some decent inns. The occasional appearances of the desert folk – the Saracens – added something to the place, as did the myriad colours of the native clothing and the exotic smells of the spice market.

  All in all a reasonable posting, except that much of the province’s army had been despatched to assist with fresh rebellions brewing in Syria and Egypt. The Third Cyrenaican was now down to just six cohorts; fewer than three thousand men. Worse still, the Tanukh – a confederation of Arabian tribesmen traditionally allied to Rome – could no longer be relied upon; rumours abounded of dissent in the south.

  ‘Officer Corbulo. Officer!’

  Over the wall of the villa he was passing, Cassius spied a familiar figure bustling along the path. He stopped outside the gate just as Mistress Lepida opened it, already smiling.

  Most of the residents on the Via Cappadocia had some connection to the army and Lepida was the wife of a tribune who’d been transferred to Egypt. According to Muranda, her husband had lost interest in her long ago and she freely sought her pleasures elsewhere. Even so, Cassius had resisted her advances. It was rarely advisable to indulge with the wives of fellow officers, and though she was in good shape for her age – which he reckoned was about thirty – the large mole on one side of her nose was singularly off-putting.

  ‘Good day to you, sir.’

  ‘Good day, Mistress Lepida.’

  Cassius was all set to walk on when he saw a younger lady exiting the villa.

  Lepida didn’t seem overly concerned by the speed at which he shifted his gaze. ‘May I introduce my cousin, Miss Helena Umbrenius.’

  ‘Miss Helena.’

  Cassius stepped into the garden and took her hand; and a well-manicured hand it was too. She was rather short but slim with it; and far darker than Lepida. She looked like the local girls, in fact, with jet-black hair and remarkably white teeth.

  ‘Helena arrived from Qottein yesterday. She is staying with me for now because of the troubles. Any news, Officer? There’s talk that the rest of the legion might be recalled.’

  ‘I’m really not sure.’

  ‘I thought you were supposed to know about these things.’

  ‘As you know, I deal mainly with logistics.’ Cassius smiled. It was a running joke between them.

  ‘Come now, Officer.’

  ‘Cassius, please.’

  ‘Very well – Cassius. Enough of this pretence. I have been an army wife for more than ten years and I am fully aware that it is the job of the Service to know things before everyone else.’

  ‘I wish that were true,’ he replied honestly.

  ‘Officer Corbulo was born in Ravenna,’ Lepida told her cousin. ‘He hails from one of the old families and is related to Gnaes Domitius Corbulo, the great general.’

  ‘You are kind, Mistress Lepida, but I’m sure Miss Helena doesn’t want to hear about me.’

  The look on the young lady’s face suggested otherwise. Cassius guessed she was around his age. Almost certainly unmarried or Lepida would have mentioned it by now.

  He continued: ‘Tell me, have you had a chance to look around the city? The t
heatre is really quite impressive.’

  ‘Not yet,’ the girl replied shyly.

  ‘Are you attending the performance tonight?’ asked Lepida.

  ‘Brutus?’ replied Cassius. ‘I thought that had been cancelled.’

  ‘It’s back on. Apparently the governor gave specific instructions that all should continue as normal.’

  ‘Ah. Well, Accius has always been a bit broad for my tastes, but—’

  ‘Perhaps you would escort us?’ asked Lepida.

  ‘Why not?’

  A bell rang out from the fortress, marking the start of the third hour.

  ‘Gods, sorry, I’d better be going.’

  ‘Is that an arrangement, then?’ asked Lepida.

  ‘Certainly. Shall I call in at the twelfth?’

  ‘Perfect.’

  ‘Good day, ladies.’

  They answered together: ‘Good day.’

  Feeling his spirits rising by the moment, Cassius placed a steadying hand on his sword and jogged away along the street. He didn’t like being seen to hurry in public but he liked being admonished for tardiness even less.

  Up ahead, a double line of cavalry had just turned onto the road, bound for the fortress. They were trotting along at quite a speed and several locals had to take evasive action. One unfortunate tipped his little cart onto the pavement. Bounding over a cascade of watermelons, Cassius nodded politely at the cavalry commander. The officer returned the gesture and bawled at the poor vendor, who bowed repeatedly as he recovered his wares.

  Once past the last pair of riders, Cassius crossed to the other side of the street. At the corner, he turned left onto the Via Petra and passed the city’s largest sanctuary. Equipped with an immense central fountain, it functioned as spring, retreat and meeting place. Water-carriers bearing jugs or skins gathered by the numerous pipes while richer folk walked the gardens or sat sunning themselves.

  Another hundred paces took him under the imposing arch commonly known as the East Gate. Squatting in the shadows were a pair of legionaries and four city sergeants. Noting his approach, they whispered warnings, but when Cassius ignored them they returned swiftly to their dice. Turning right up a narrower street, he heard a desperate cry of ‘Dogs? Again?’ Cassius grinned; the gambler had rolled four ones – the lowest possible score.