A Forbidden History.The Hadrian enigma

by George Gardiner

  A new voice intruded into the conversation. It called from the jetty's end.

  "As you say, gentlemen, just where is the Bithynian youth Lysias?" It was a deeply modulated, educated voice. The four turned to look towards its source.

  Standing in tall silhouette against the glare of the midday sun at the far end of the wharf was Caesar's onetime Master of the Hunt, Salvius Julianus. Aged about thirty and garbed in a summer-weight chiton suited to the Egyptian climate topped by a broad-brim sunhat, Julianus's tall, gangly silhouette made a striking outline against the blaze. Marcus, a young equerry, stood nearby.

  "Did I hear the name of Lysias of Bithynia being bandied about?" the silhouette called back.

  "By Jupiter! It's the Quaestor, Salvius Julianus. Welcome to our company, senator!" Clarus called aloud gleefully. "We are due to visit your person shortly."

  "In fact, Septicius Clarus," Julianus said, "Secretary Vestinus told me I was due to visit you an hour ago at your chambers. I did so and waited, eventually to be told your team had ventured elsewhere. One of the staff reported you were interviewing the Prefect Governor at The Alexandros. So I've wandered here to locate you."

  Julianus spoke in the clipped Latin of the legal world. Both his roles as Hadrian's leader of the hunt and as the educated investigator of the arcane complexities of Roman Law demanded skill in prosecuting a chase. Yet unlike those of Hadrian's retinue who travelled everywhere in the company a flock of clients, stewards, and assorted hangers-on, Julianus was accompanied only by his solitary equerry.

  Both were armed as a precaution, however, except when in the presence of Caesar. The imperial encampment was relatively secure against undesirables, nevertheless only slaves moved around without protection. At a time when unknown intruders had been circulating within the camp and causing affray, Julianus walked unafraid.

  "The afternoon heat is debilitating. You must be thirsty and hungry?" he commiserated. "I suggest we retire to my apartments at the Companion's stables. They're just at the top of the rise nearby. It will be cooler and private, if you don't mind the smell of horseflesh. Besides I have something very special to show you," the affable Roman suggested. "In fact, two somethings."

  "Two somethings? What would they be, Senator?" Suetonius asked.

  "You'll see soon. They will be useful to you."

  CHAPTER 24

  At first it sounded like a flight of birds fluttering high in the incandescent sky of a blazing African afternoon. But it was not birds fluttering. It was the first indication of an impending assault.

  Julianus and Clarus were sufficiently experienced in war to immediately recognize the fluttering for what it was. It was neither birds in flight nor benign. They immediately peered skywards. A shimmering shower of arrows was flowingly rising, curving, and turning to descend. It was arcing earthwards towards the group.

  "We're under attack!" Julianus cried. "Get to cover immediately!"

  Suetonius, Clarus, Strabon, and Surisca found themselves in an entirely unexpected theater of danger. An attack? On them?! By who? Why?

  With a series of whispering zippps, a shower of thin-shafted arrows feathered the baked earth around the group. One shaft transfixed Strabon's basket of wax tablets and papyrus rolls. Strabon groaned a scholar's grimace as he tugged the offending dart from his precious kit and cast it aside.

  Suddenly Julianus's equerry emitted a sharp cry as another arrow struck his open-laced boot.

  A second wave of arrows rose similarly leisurely into the sky from behind a nearby marquee as the group of six scrambled clumsily up an earthen grade to the safety of the Companions' compound. The first shower may have been the archer's range markers, the second a more accurate positioning of the deadly shafts.

  "Get to the horse yard!" Julianus shouted as he leaped to his equerry's assistance. The missile had pierced the side of the young man's foot but not pinioned it to the earth. The pain was not yet sufficient to disable him, but Julianus grasped him around the torso and heaved the two of them up the slope. They toppled into and under the cover of the horse compound's palm-strewn trellis vaulting.

  Suetonius had the presence of mind to scurry to Surisca's defense, though the nimble eighteen year-old made a speedier advance to refuge than her chivalrous sixty year-old defender.

  The group tumbled under the cover of the palm fronds in a flurry of toga wools, linens, and Damascene silk. A dozen stable-hands ran to their attention. The compound's trellis cover offered dappled shade to forty horses with their attendant grooms.

  "Get Marcus to safety," Julianus commanded, "and call Damon the Horse Doctor!"

  Two of the younger grooms supported Marcus into the interior of the compound as a large Cretan in his island's distinctive garb ambled to the group. Julianus shouted orders to the others and then the Cretan.

  "We're being attacked! Arm yourselves, and protect the horses! Follow procedures and stand your stations! Send someone to make contact with the nearest Watch to report the attack and call for urgent aid. Tell him to watch his movements; the assailants are unknown. But no stranger is permitted in this shelter or near the horses! And protect our visitors, too!"

  Julianus turned to the Cretan. "Marcus has taken an arrow in his foot. Attend to the wound and assess its risks, Damon. The arrow might have been dipped in soil or shit to encourage infection."

  Damon, a burly horse surgeon-cum-slaughterman, looked to the young man's foot. Pain was rapidly settling into the wound and was evident in Marcus's whitening lips.

  "Bring boiled drinking water, clear vinegar, and fresh oil from the kitchen," the vet instructed a nearby groom. "Clean cloths, too!" He looked to Marcus. "Be calm, lad. We'll snip off the barb and withdraw the shaft, clean. It's through flesh, not vein or bone. The Fates have been kind to you. We'll give it a good cleanse then bind it tight. Later I'll apply a healing salve. You'll be limping for weeks though."

  Suetonius, Julianus, and the others peered from beneath the trellis towards the source of the attack. From its higher ground the compound provided a clear view of the surrounding lanes, tents, and booths towards the river. But no sign of activity was evident in the soporific sun-drenched stillness of the afternoon's siesta time.

  The attackers, who had loosed their arrows from behind the cover of a marquee's wall, had withdrawn back into the camp out of view. Whoever they were, they were nowhere evident.

  "Are you alright, my dear?" the biographer asked his young Syri ward. She nodded her affirmation, if somewhat shaken by the experience.

  "What was that all about?" Clarus demanded rhetorically. "Who was targeting us? And why?"

  "Somebody doesn't like us, I think," Suetonius offered weakly.

  He saw the nipped head of the arrow from Marcus's foot drop to the beaten earth under Damon's crisp shear with a flensing knife. Suetonius picked it up and surveyed it.

  "It's not Roman, it's not a Legion arrow-head. The shape and style are wrong. Is it Scythian, Alexandrian, Egyptian, or Nubian?" the Special Inspector asked of all around him.

  Only Damon responded.

  "That's Europa barbarian, I'd say," the horse doctor offered. "It's German or maybe Gaulish. Yet it could be a re-used sharp from almost anywhere in the Empire. They're too precious to use only once."

  "Who has archers in the camp other than the Legion? The Scythians? The Praetorians? The Alexandrian mercenaries?" Suetonius enquired of the group. "Are any among them German?"

  "The Horse Guards are mainly from Germania," Clarus reminded the group. "Caesar holds the Germans high in his estimation for their warrior skills and reliability. As his personal bodyguard they are steadfastly loyal and fierce fighters to boot. But they're also very German." Clarus, being a former Prefect of the Praetorian Guard a decade earlier, knew these things.

  "Very German? Meaning?" enquired Julianus.

  "They have a fixed mindset. They're stolid, they're not imaginative. One could say they're obsessive. Once they get their teeth into a matter they cling on like hyenas brin
ging down victims in the arena," Clarus opined.

  "But who were these archers trying to kill? Me? You, Clarus? Julianus?" Suetonius asked in a hurt voice.

  "Perhaps each of us, my friends," Julianus offered.

  "Each? Why so?" Clarus queried with barely suppressed alarm.

  "Well, I imagine each of us here could possess something or some knowledge which others would like to see eradicated?" the jurist speculated.

  "Eradicated? You mean something someone wants silenced?" Clarus asked.

  "Certainly. I'm sure each of us here, possibly even your scribe and female attendant too, is party to information someone at Court wants erased," Julianus calmly proposed.

  "They want it so badly they're willing to kill for it?" Clarus queried with unfettered dismay.

  "Think about it, gentlemen," Julianus continued. "What have you learned in the past day which someone might wish you not to know? Have you uncovered something about Antinous's death that sniffs of foul play? Have you reason to suspect someone, somewhere, or some faction of a mischief?"

  "I think to date we've uncovered about half a dozen possibilities, each of them contradictory to the others," Suetonius contributed. "But his death may also have been a simple accident. Until we find out how he spent his final day before his drowning, and with who he kept it, we're at a loss."

  "And your two day time limit expires tomorrow at dawn I'm told?"

  "It does. This is why we wish to interview you promptly on what you may know of the lad's ways or movements," the biographer intimated. "You have shared his company over several years. You must surely have an opinion on the boy's fate, or know his mind, or know of his private companions and other relationships?"

  "Well, as I said earlier, I have something to show you. Two somethings, actually," the former Master of the Hunt clarified.

  "Two of what, Quaestor?"

  A clatter at the rear gateway to the horse compound diverted attention from the conversation. An equerry of the Companions approached the group circled around Marcus. He was followed by an officer of the Horse Guards with six troops of the Watch, all with swords drawn. Clarus moved to greet them.

  "Decurion Scorilo! Welcome!" he called at the sight of the leading officer.

  Scorilo was a mature hulk of a man dressed in the soft woolen tunic and russet mantle of the Germans of the Horse Guard. He bore the double-handed falx sword beloved of the northern barbarians. His hair was bound in the parted plaits of his race with an accompanying sheep-fat glistened moustache above a bushy beard. His ruddy skin displayed the faded remnants of old tribal tattoos typical of his race. These told of his skills in combat and hinted at his fierce possibilities.

  Scorilo approached with a steady, confidant gait. He was followed by others of similar breeding and similar self-assurance. They scanned the lanes beyond the horse compound for signs of the attacking intruders or signs of movement. There were none.

  "We were beset by archers who took cover behind the marquee below," Clarus pointed. "We didn't see them, they used the marquee as a blind, but one of their arrows struck a young equerry of the Companions." He waved to Marcus as Damon was winding a tight bandage cloth around the foot wound.

  Scorilo saluted perfunctorily. "Was anyone else injured?!" he asked. The decurion was wielding his falx scimitar in threatening readiness. A strike from such a weapon would cleave a man in two or bring down a galloping horse in a legless collapse. Clarus shook his head.

  "No, but if we hadn't been so close to these stables and their cover it might have been a different story," he offered. "We've no idea who they were or why they attacked. I'm told unidentified renegades have infiltrated the camp — "

  Scorilo sharply gave an order to his troop.

  "Check the marquee, inside and out. See who's around. Kill opposition only if necessary, but keep at least one alive to interrogate," he ordered in thickly accented Latin. Four of his men scurried off towards the offending tent complex with their short-swords and bill-hooked blades glinting menacingly.

  Suetonius looked the decurion up and down. Scorilo had been the officer who greeted him at Hadrian's tents the day before. Like so many older-generation professional soldiers from the northern climes, his face tattoos denoting tribal fealties, successes in war, or aristocratic status, were a grim sight calculated to strike fear into any adversary.

  "We have one of their arrows here," Clarus offered, taking the shaft which Damon had extracted from Marcus. Clarus passed the missile to Scorilo.

  "Nubian," the decurion stated with unreserved certainty. "Or Egyptian. Crudely made. Primitive. Inferior bronze, feathered with water fowl quill, so it's local. Probably drifts far from its target. Useless thing."

  "We thought it might be from Europa?" Julianus hesitantly suggested. "It seemed well enough made to my eye."

  The decurion was dismissive with a shake of his shaggy head.

  "I'll try to find matches with any of our allies' weapons," Scorilo growled. "We'll also check the bona fides of Nubians or their captains servicing the camp. A household steward was murdered last eve defending his masters from attack. These attackers too were reported to be of Nubian stock."

  "Was it the steward of the household of Antinous of Bithynia?" Julianus asked. Scorilo nodded a gruff affirmation.

  "But who told you the attackers were Nubian?"

  "It was reported to us by a serving slave, the same one who found the steward's body," the German said.

  Julianus seemed diffident about this response Suetonius thought.

  "The Bithynian favorite is dead, and his two closest companions too have disappeared," Scorilo continued. "We are commanded to locate the ephebe Lysias and the woman Thais of Cyrene by order of Praetorian Tribune Lucius Macedo."

  "Have you considered they may have departed the camp and found voyage on a Nile boat to Memphis or Thebes, Decurion Scorilo?" Julianus enquired with no little impatience.

  Scorilo's face darkened. His eyes darted backwards and forwards between Clarus and the quaestor in a manner Suetonius could not interpret.

  "My lords, this camp has been sealed against entry and exit," the decurion rumbled in his Germanic accent. "All boundaries are secured. This has been so for twenty-four hours, some hours before the last sighting of the pair. I believe they still remain within the camp, probably hiding in fear of their lives."

  "I see," Julianus concluded the conversation ambiguously. "Thank you Decurion Scorilo for coming to our aid. It seems it has not been necessary, the attackers have fled. However I hope you will assign extra Watch around this complex to protect Caesar's horses and grooms against further assault. As a quaestor I can provide you with the necessary document in my own hand and seal."

  "No need, Lord Quaestor. I will have the necessary troops assigned immediately."

  Suetonius was moved to interrupt because his memory had suddenly clinched a query.

  "Decurion Scorilo, I am Suetonius Tranquillus, Caesar's Special Inspector of the circumstances surrounding the death of the youth Antinous. I have a question to ask you," the biographer raised.

  "At your service."

  "Tell me, Decurion, do you or your colleagues know anything about the young man's drowning? Is there gossip among the Guard about what befell the emperor's companion? Do any of you know something about this tragedy?" Suetonius asked formally with a quiet nod aside to his scribe.

  Strabon's move with stylus on a tablet caused Scorilo to hesitate at this double surprise. He realized he was subject of a formal interrogation with an equally formal written recording.

  "Why, Special Inspector, I was on Guard duty the day and night of Antinous's death. I was a captain of the Watch attending to security for the protection of Caesar. I was assigned to a banquet at the Imperial Household. It was a celebration of the arrival of Senator Lucius Commodus at the encampment," the German stated.

  "You attended all evening and night?" Suetonius queried further as Strabon scribbled.

  "From before sunset until very late
, to just before dawn, sir," Scorilo assured the group. He was apprehensive at the surprise questioning.

  "You are certain of that, Decurion Scorilo?" Suetonius labored the point.

  "Yes, Special Inspector. It was my roster duty for the day."

  "Thank you, Decurion. Before you depart please tell us for the record your status, origin, age, and other identifying information," the biographer outlined as Strabon's stylus continued. Scorilo gathered himself for his response. This was unexpected.

  "My lords, I am Scorilo of the Bastarnae Celts," he began in the guttural tones of a former German tribesman. "I do not know my age or place of birth. I am a decurion in the service of Great Caesar's special Horse Guard. I have been an officer of the Guard for ten years. Before being pressed to enter Caesar's service I fought under Caesar's command as an auxiliary to the Legions at Pannonia and Moesia in the wars against the Sarmatii and Roxolani. Caesar admired my fighting skills and recommended me for duty in his special Guard. That's all I have to offer, my lords."

  "It is enough, Decurion Scorilo. But your tattoos, do they have meaning?" Suetonius probed further. "Explain them."

  The Horse Guard was thoughtful for a moment.

  "Special Inspector," he replied, "I received my tattoos early in my life. They are mementos of warfare between The Bastarnae and other tribes in my youth. They tell of victories I achieved against my enemies. We of The Bastarnae treasure our tattoos and the heroism they proclaim. They tell the quality of a man."

  "Very good, Decurion. You may depart," Suetonius concluded.

  Scorilo snapped to attention, saluted, and departed as his men rejoined him from their fruitless search. Suetonius turned to Julianus and Clarus.

  "Who are The Bastarnae?" he asked. "Septicius Clarus, you served in those wars, you know these things. Besides, you know something of Scorilo?"