Not prepared enough.
The stone facing that remained on the shattered towers and extant stretches of wall showed shattered blocks and great cracks and rents where the defences had been pounded relentlessly by siege engines. Plainly the stretch of wall closest to the gate had been the first area to fall. Salonius shook his head sadly at clear oversights that had been made by the military architect; a wide stretch of wall with no buttressing and no support from towers. No amount of earth embankment was going to help there though. The thoughtful architect had added a ditch that was far to close to the wall to allow for the wall’s footings. The first half dozen blows on that wall had probably brought the stonework crashing out into the ditch, handily filling one obstacle whilst collapsing the other and leaving a sloping earth embankment as the only defence. Once inside that wall, the siege would be over in minutes.
Varro’s fears of the decayed condition of the building were only partially founded. The military defences of the place were thick and heavy and, though they had fallen to a clever enemy, were withstanding the ravages of time surprisingly intact. The palatial building within, however, had fared less well. Constructed for form rather than for function, the weak and delicate architecture had rotted and crumbled, leaving a mass of sad stone that was now largely held together by ivy and brambles.
“Best stay away from that central building” he called ahead to the others.
Varro turned in his saddle and nodded. As Salonius caught up with them, the three riders dismounted and led their horses to the great gatehouse that retained its strong walls and towers, though the portal itself had long since gone.
Salonius tethered the three horses on the grass nearby and padded off quietly among the ruins with his sling, while Varro began gathering dry sticks and building a fire and Catilina set about excavating food and various necessary items from the kit bags.
Within half an hour they had a pleasant little camp site formed beneath the massive, protective, arched roof of the gatehouse just as the last light of day faded over the horizon, leaving the scene in the shattered ruin dark and eerie. Various timbers that Varro had located had created a screen across both sides of the gatehouse, shielding them from the mounting evening wind and hiding their small fire from view for any passersby on the road. Salonius had returned with two rabbits and was currently turning them on a spit above the flames, watching hungrily as the juices dripped down with a hiss into the fire. A thought occurred to him and he looked up at the captain across the dancing flames.
“You need to take your medicine.”
Varro grumbled once more, but nodded. As he wandered off toward the horses, where his medicine bag was still hooked, Salonius turned to Catilina, who was staring off into the dark ruins.
“We need to find a way to get Varro to Cristus without the prefect’s guards. And in front of witnesses.”
Catilina nodded.
“We need to find a way to get my father there.”
“That’s a problem,” Salonius sighed. “Varro wants to send Cristus to the Gods personally. Your father wants it all done according to military law, with a trial and an execution, if necessary. He’s never going to let Varro have Cristus, and Varro’s never going to let your father have him.”
Catilina frowned.
“So what we need to do is to make sure we get Cristus to a specific place, then Varro a few minutes later, and father a few minutes after that. Tricky…”
Salonius laughed. “Tricky? Impossible, I’d say.”
The elegant lady, wrapped up against the night air, pulled her cloak tighter.
“Nothing is impossible, Salonius. It’s all in the timing. Father will know we’re gone by now. It’ll take him perhaps half a day to put everything in order and follow on, and I doubt he’ll set forth at sunset, so we’ve got the best part of a day on him.”
“So what do you suggest?”
“Well…”
Catilina stopped, mid-sentence, as Varro came hurtling out of the darkness, crouched almost double.
“Wha..?”
Before she managed to voice her thoughts, Varro clasped his hand over her mouth and, turning to Salonius, raised his eyebrows. Salonius frowned and, very slowly and very quietly, began to draw his sword from its sheath. Catilina pushed the captain’s hand away and pointed out into the darkness. Varro nodded and held up three fingers.
Salonius frowned again and tugged out part of his black tunic, pointing at it? Varro shook his head and pointed at the lush, green grass by his feet. Even in the flickering light of the fire, Varro caught the curse his companion silently mouthed. As he slowly drew his own blade, Catilina drew a narrow and wicked-looking dagger from her belt.
Varro held up his hand to indicate that she should stay by the fire and the two soldiers moved off into the darkness at a crouch. Salonius paused for a moment and looked into the darkness. Varro glanced at him and then used his free hand to motion around the back of the villa ruins. The young man nodded and they both moved off once again.
The terrain within the walls was rough and difficult, consisting of the rubble of collapsed or demolished ancillary buildings long overgrown with grass and weeds, all interspaced between hidden rabbit holes that lay in wait for unwary feet and thick brambles and thorns. Some care was required to pick a clear way through the ‘open’ ground.
Salonius stumbled among the rocks for a moment, almost losing his footing as he felt his ankle wrench, when Varro suddenly grasped his shoulder and hauled him to the ground where he landed painfully among ruined brickwork. The captain pointed ahead and Salonius raised his head to look over a fallen lintel. In the pale moonlight, two men were stepping slowly and deliberately among the tangle in their direction.
Salonius swallowed and held up two fingers. Varro nodded and made indicated that the third figure had likely taken the other direction and was moving around the back of the ruined mansion. All to their advantage, since it gave them even odds; better than even, given that their prey were not expecting them.
At a gesture from Varro, Salonius shuffled as quietly as possible down the mound of rubble, being sure to remain out of the enemy’s sight behind the jumbled stonework. The enemy were still around twenty yards away from them and all sounds of movement were somewhat disguised by the twittering of the bats and the shuffling of the ruin’s resident wildlife. At the base of the rubble heap, the young man looked up. They were now at the outer wall of the crumbled residence itself; the wall along which the two men were creeping and closing on them.
Here, the residence’s outer wall had collapsed in the centre, leaving a ‘v’ shaped breech. The room beyond had once been magnificent, a grand hall of some kind, colonnaded along both sides and with a decorated façade at the far end, with friezes and carvings above a pair of now long-tarnished bronze doors. The roof had fallen in many years ago and the moonlight playing among the columns of the colonnades created interesting patches of starkly lit faded glory among the stygian gloom.
Varro pointed up to the breech in the wall, back at his own chest, and nodded. Salonius’ eyes followed his finger up to the crumbling masonry and went wide. He returned his gaze to the captain, who grinned at him. He mouthed the word ‘seriously?’
Varro nodded and slipped over to the fallen wall, grasping the stonework and climbing with care and held breath. Salonius watched nervously as small flecks of plaster and showers of dust dropped to the grass. What the hell was he doing? Swallowing, he shrank back behind the protection of a huge piece of fallen lintel. The two men were getting tremendously close now and both he and Varro were aware that they had to dispose of these soldiers silently and quickly. Sighing gently, he drove his sword point-first into the grass.
He raised his eyes once more and saw Varro about twelve feet from the ground, leaning around the crumbled edge of the wall. He was levering a large, loose stone from the wall. As the stone came away in a small shower of mortar, he grinned in triumph and hefted the heavy block. Moments passed as the two men came ever
closer and finally, after what seemed like an age passing in slow motion, they drew level. Salonius glanced up once more and, at a nod from Varro, tensed and leapt.
The captain released his grip on the heavy stone he held and with deadly accuracy, the missile plummeted around ten feet and hit the front most soldier square on the top of the head. There was a quiet but audibly sickening noise and the man’s skull exploded under the weight, shattering his spine in multiple locations and killing him instantly. The remains of the body collapsed to the ground with a gently thud.
His companion did not have time to register the impact, let alone scream. As the stone his the first man, so, from his perch among the rocks, Salonius landed on the back of the second man, his left hand going round the man’s head and muffling any sounds he might try to issue. The hand was, in the event, unnecessary, as the impact drove the man to the floor and knocked all breath and sense from him. Before the soldier could recover, he placed his right hand on the back of the man’s skull and repositioned his left on the jaw. Heaving with all the tremendous strength in his powerful arms, he twisted the man’s head through one hundred and eighty degrees with a nasty cracking noise, staring in disgust at the strange sight of the glazed eyes now settled on him accusingly. He dropped the body and, retrieving his blade, stood and walked over to the wall. Varro descended the first few feet slowly and then dropped the last distance to the ground, landing with his knees bent.
“We’ve got to get that other one before he gets round to Catilina” the young man said quietly, pointing through the ruins of the building to the imagined figure of the third soldier creeping through the undergrowth. Varro nodded and gestured along the wall.
“You go round; I’ll go through” he whispered. “Hopefully we can catch him by surprise.”
Salonius frowned.
“Do we need surprise all that much now?”
Varro gestured for him to lower his voice.
“There’s more out there. If Cristus sent men out to find us, there’ll be at least a squad out there; probably more.”
Salonius nodded. Of course, he was completely correct. With a last glance and Varro, he began to pick his way quietly along the ruined wall in the direction from which they’d come. Varro watched him go and then turned into the darkness of the ruins.
“You’ve stayed up for twenty years,” he addressed the mouldy walls of the great vestibule quietly. “Try not to fall on me tonight.”
With a deep breath, he set off through the wide, colonnaded room. Fragments of masonry and broken roofing tiles lay scattered here and there among the dark grass and shrubs. Picking his way as carefully as he could, he thanked the Gods for the moonlight that made this a less than life-threatening trip. At the far end a set of wide, shallow steps led up to the great bronze doors. Trying to picture the palace as it had once been, he realised that this must have been the grand entry way into the villa itself. The various doorways that led from this room to either side, beneath the arches of the colonnade would open onto waiting rooms, cloakrooms and other public spaces. The façade before him at the top of the steps heralded the entrance to the private areas of the villa.
Climbing the five steps, he was impressed at the quality of the marble used in their creation. The porphyry alone would be worth a year’s wage for a merchant of even above-average means. Sadly, many steps were now missing. Any place where marble was going to waste, some enterprising folk would remove it and burn it down for more useful lime.
The doors had, in their time, been magnificent. When burnished they must have shone in the sunlight from the high windows, situated above the colonnade, much like the golden gate of Vengen. Now, sadly, they were decayed and blue-green. One door miraculously remained in position, rusted shut many years ago. The other hung at an awkward angle, the central and lower hinges having long since given way.
Very carefully, Varro stepped between the doors, being certain not to touch the precariously-hanging portal.
The interior was almost pitch black. The roof above this small octagonal chamber had remained largely intact, though the stars were visible here and there in places. Squinting into the dark, he made out the glow of moonlight through the doorway ahead. Stepping as carefully as he could in the darkness, he made his slow way toward the light.
The next room was wide and long. Most of the roof was missing, allowing the moon to clearly light his path now. The grass and weeds here were patchy, leaving areas of rich mosaic faded but clearly visible. This must be a great reception area or dining room. Varro could imagine the parties that had been held in this great space. A shallow granite bowl had been a fountain, clearly once decorated with a number of statues. A peculiar sense of sadness and loss settled on him as he traversed the room, his eyes now locked on the great aperture at the far end that had once been an ornate window.
As he approached the outer wall at the far end, he began to tread lightly and quietly once more. Creeping up to the window, he carefully edged his head past the stonework and glanced left and right. The figure of a man was moving along the wall, almost invisible in the moon shadow.
With a frown, he realised that the man would likely reach the corner before Salonius. Racking his brains, he suddenly grinned. Reach down to the floor, he collected a small pebble and hefted it, testing the weight. Squinting along the wall at the retreating form of the soldier, he swung his arm back and cast the stone out into the undergrowth roughly halfway between them but further out away from the building. He held his breath.
The soldier stopped dead in his tracks and turned. The shadow in which he was standing obscured his face, though Varro could imagine his expression. Very, very slowly, the man began to move away from the walls in a half crouch, toward the source of the unexpected sound. Varro nodded to himself in satisfaction.
Waiting until the man was at a good distance and facing away, Varro quickly and quietly climbed onto the ruined windowsill and dropped lightly to the soft, springy grass in the shadows outside. Something moved out of the corner of his eye and he glanced sharply along the wall to see Salonius echoing his steps from the corner. He nodded toward his companion and pointed at the figure now lurking by the undergrowth and Salonius returned the nod, drawing something from his belt and waving it at the captain.
Varro frowned. What the hell was the lad up to now?
He stopped in the shadows and tried to discern what Salonius was doing as the young man rummaged and fumbled until suddenly he lifted his arm above his head and began to swing it. Varro jumped. What the hell did he think he was doing? He waved his arms frantically, trying to get Salonius’ attention. The building ‘whoop, whoop’ sound of the sling as it completed each circuit would easily attract the attention of the lone figure.
And yet, while he was still trying desperately to get the young man to stop his noisy attack, Salonius let go of the strap and the stone flew with a gentle whistling sound. Sure enough, the man by the undergrowth turned at this new sound, but not fast enough. Before he ever saw the two darker shapes lurking in the shadows by the wall, the lead shot took him in the side of the head and knocked him clean from his feet.
Varro blinked, impressed despite himself.
With a quick glance at the young marksman, he jogged across to the prone soldier. The side of his head had been staved in and was oozing dark matter onto the grass. He wouldn’t be crying for help any time soon. The captain jumped at Salonius’ quiet voice by his shoulder.
“Bigger than a coney and considerably slower moving.”
Varro turned and grinned at him.
“That’s some bloody aim you’ve got there.”
“Almost a year assembling and dismantling catapults, bolt throwers and so on. That was my principle job. Every time you do it you have to check the aim and adjust to new conditions. After three months, it’s second nature. I could hit a sparrow with a siege engine, given a couple of minutes to sight.”
Varro laughed quietly.
“Come on. Let’s check the lie of the l
and.”
Catilina sat hunched up against the wall of the gatehouse, staring off into the gloom in the direction Varro and Salonius had taken. Her night vision was being seriously hampered by the dancing flames of their small fire and, after a few moments, she shuffled along the wall so that the fire was behind her. If she really strained her eyes, she could just about make out the shapes of her two companions moving like ghosts among the rubble and ruin near the centre of the complex.
She smiled. The noble women and the other girls she’d grown up with at Vengen and at the Imperial court in Velutio had always treated her with an aloof and distant attitude. It was, of course, no mystery why that was the case. Her brother was studious and interested in politics, history and rhetoric; her mother had been a fascinating woman, though. Catilina was always saddened when she thought of that beautiful, mysterious figure that had passed away when she was still a young girl. She knew what her mother had been like though: a genteel court lady, with hobbies and habits as befitted her station, but with a hidden side that only came out with her husband and children. Her mother had loved to ride and to explore; she had travelled with her husband on campaign in those early days of the Imperial restoration. She was no wilting flower, and neither was her daughter.
That was why the court ladies were never sure what to make of her: she had never settled into the sedate court life. Indeed, the only time she had spent any real length of time in a courtly situation was at Vengen those few years ago, and that had been when she’d met Varro and her life had changed forever. Her father had pleaded and cajoled, then demanded and shouted and finally, in the end, gave up and let her be who she wanted to be. He would never change her and, since he’d obviously come to realise that, she was sure he was just that smallest part more proud of her for it.
Ironroot (Tales of the Empire) Page 28
