by Ian Ross
‘We didn’t get to hear much about Verona,’ the Pannonian was saying, lowering his voice as he passed Castus a cup of wine. ‘Although a few men came back from the battle. We were told not to discuss it, in case the civilians got to hear too much.’ He glanced around with a suspicious frown. ‘Is it true that bastard Pompeianus changed sides at the last moment?’
‘Not that I know of,’ Castus said. He drank his wine, and tried to keep his hand steady. Now was the moment, he thought.
‘What about the army here?’ he asked. ‘They still got the guts for a fight, do you think?’
The Pannonian snorted. ‘Oh, yes,’ he said. He swilled his mouth with wine. ‘Those bastards from Gaul haven’t seen anything yet. No offence, brother… But let them come down here, then they’ll see some real bloodshed!’
‘The Guard are strong enough,’ the Dacian said. ‘Between you and me, I wouldn’t rate the new levies much, though. The Numidians are good, light cavalry and so on, but these new legions are mostly just half-trained civilians from Africa and Sicily. I wouldn’t call them soldiers myself…’
‘The only proper soldiers are us in the Guard,’ said Philocles the Moesian, waving his cup. ‘And the cavalry boys. The Horse Guards. You can keep the Numidians – they’d quicker run away as fight. The rest are just there to make up numbers, as far as I’m concerned. They’re not even billeted in the city – their commanders don’t trust them enough to bring them here!’
‘Too many Christians among them too,’ the Pannonian said darkly. He swirled the wine in his cup. ‘They’re a plague down there in Africa and the south – the sun makes their brains go soft, I reckon.’
‘Do Christians even fight?’ Castus asked. ‘I thought their god told them not to?’
‘They fight when you flog them hard enough!’ The others laughed, and Castus grinned along with them, letting the information soak in. The wine was strong, and he kept noticing figures moving in the periphery of his vision, men coming and going, listening in. He fought to remain calm, casual-seeming.
‘So, if the enemy got this far south,’ he said slowly, ‘you think they’ll send us out to fight in the field, or try and hold the walls?’
The three soldiers pondered, frowning. There were too many others gathered around them now, Castus thought. He needed to keep a line of escape open.
‘Hold the walls, I’d say,’ one of them decided. ‘Let them camp out there and rot! Winter’s on its way, and we’ve got stores enough to last.’
‘I’d prefer to fight an open battle,’ the Pannonian said. ‘But it’s the will of the gods and the emperor…’
‘Can you trust the people in the city here, though?’ Castus asked them, leaning closer into their circle.
‘Trust them? Not at all! But they wouldn’t dare try anything against us, if that’s what you mean.’
‘And whatever happens,’ another soldier declared, ‘we can be sure the gods will give us victory!’ He grabbed the jug and refilled their cups with wine. ‘Here’s to the emperor, and to the gods!’ he said, and slopped a libation onto the paving. Each of them did the same.
‘Maxentius!’ the Dacian cried, raising his cup. ‘May he be victorious always!’
Maxentius, they all said, and drank. Castus swallowed heavily, praying that the wine might wash away his traitorous words.
When he lowered his cup, he noticed a man staring at him from the edge of the group. A face he recognised, pale and raw-boned, with a coarse rust-coloured beard. For a moment he could not place him.
‘Centurion!’ the Pannonian said, getting to his feet and saluting quickly. The red-bearded man nodded in acknowledgement, but his eyes remained fixed on Castus.
The arena at Verona, Castus remembered. Gods have mercy…
‘Do I know you?’ the centurion said. There was another man with him, a younger soldier with thick lips and a broken nose.
‘I don’t think so, centurion,’ Castus replied, trying to return the man’s gaze and not flinch to obviously.
‘Centurion Sergianus was at Verona too,’ said the Dacian, nudging Castus on the shoulder. ‘He escaped from a prison after the battle… only got back here a few days ago…’
Sergianus, that was the name. Me and my boys won’t turn traitor for you, or anybody. The centurion stared at Castus a moment longer, then blinked and turned away. Castus watched him over the rim of his cup: Sergianus walked a few paces along the colonnade with the younger man at his side, glanced back over his shoulder, then walked on again.
Out, now.
Castus waited, holding his nerve, pretending to drink a little more wine as the three Praetorians talked of some plan to move on to a bar they knew nearer their barracks. He was invited to join them, of course.
‘Sure,’ he said, feigning a grin. He felt the scar tighten across his jaw. ‘Just got to use the pot first.’
Clambering between them, he walked as casually as he could along the colonnade in the opposite direction from Sergianus, then stepped around the corner into the lobby leading to the latrines. Once he was out of sight of the Praetorians he pressed his back against the cool marble wall and drew a long shuddering breath. A heartbeat, then two, and he was moving again.
He had been this way when he had visited the baths before, with Pudentianus. Striding quickly, holding himself back from running, he passed through the long hall of the latrines. A few men glanced at him, but he got through without being challenged. At the far end, through a narrow doorway, he stepped out into the changing rooms. He found his tunic and cloak on the shelf and dressed quickly, fumbling at the straps of his boots; anyone who saw him now would know that he was not a serving soldier, and the penalties for being caught as a deserter were worse than those for a runaway slave.
Cursing under his breath, Castus willed himself to remain calm. He threw the cloak around his shoulders, tossed a copper to the cloakroom slave and strode out into the atrium hall of the baths, heading for the exit doors.
‘You!’
One glance over his shoulder, and Castus saw the red-bearded centurion striding from the changing room behind him, fastening his belt. The younger man was right behind him. No doubt now that Sergianus had remembered him. Putting his head down, Castus kept walking, long hard strides towards the exit door and out into the late-afternoon sun.
Do not run, he told himself. Do not run… But he could hear the sound of his pursuers now, the grate of their nailed boots on the marble floor of the atrium. He had no weapon – he had carried the shortsword concealed beneath his tunic a few times, but at the baths that would have been impossible. Sergianus and his friend would both have military daggers, perhaps clubs too.
He was halfway along the gravel path through the grove of trees, moving fast towards the gates that led from the baths enclosure, when he heard the shout behind him.
‘Thief! Stop that thief!’
At once men were closing in from both sides. Like a shout of fire in a crowded theatre, calling that word at the baths always got a response.
No chance to hide now. Castus pulled up his cloak and wrapped it over his left arm. Then he started running.
He reached the gates before his pursuers; a man stepped up to bar the way before him and Castus shouldered him aside, then he swung himself around the gatepost. Outside was a broad expanse of gravel in blazing sunlight, milling slaves and litter-bearers waiting for their masters, others touting for business. Castus swerved between them, kicking up dust from the gravel as he ran. The route to Pudentianus’s house lay to the left, around the corner of the baths by the old Colline Gate and left along the straight road called the Alta Semita. Castus glanced that way, then turned and ran to the right.
He was out of the crowd around the litters and halfway to the corner of the baths enclosure by the time he heard the noise of pursuit. Sergianus had gathered a crowd behind him, whether fellow soldiers or civilians Castus had no chance to tell. He just kept running, along the wall to the corner, then on across the street and up an al
leyway. The noise of his breath, his own footsteps on the cobbles, was loud. The clatter and shout of the pursuit was louder still.
Down the alley he cut right, then left across a muddy courtyard where ragged-looking children sat around a well. He was entering the web of narrower streets now. A group of men in brown workman’s tunics turned as he approached and called out, trying to bar the way, but Castus just slammed through them and kept running. A dog erupted, snarling, from a doorway and he heard the snap of its chain as he dodged past.
A stitch was burning in his flank. Sunlight lanced hot between the close-packed houses, and Castus felt the sweat running down his spine beneath his tunic.
He paused for a moment in a wider street, heaving breath as he listened for the sounds of the chase. The glint of light caught his eye: an array of knives, displayed outside an ironmonger’s shop, ranks of blades hanging from a rack and spread across a table. He could snatch one and run – better to be armed… Then he saw the eyes watching him from the open doorways on all sides, the suspicious faces. No, he had enough trouble already without another mob at his back.
A cry echoed down the alleyway behind him, and Castus looked back to see Sergianus and three more men coming after him. The others from the bath must have fallen away… He drew a long breath, then shoved himself from the mouth of the alley and bolted across the street into a narrow cleft between the buildings on the far side.
He was moving downhill now, with the sun almost directly ahead of him. Castus tried to get his bearings: he had never been in this part of the city before. The narrow street he was following dropped into a valley packed with small houses, walled yards and blackened old apartment buildings. The road divided: narrower paths on two sides. Castus paused at the corner, looking back again. The younger soldier was there, Sergianus’s friend with the thick lips; he spotted Castus, shouted and began to run.
Up the crooked alley, crumbling brick on either side, Castus cut left and then right and found a blank wall ahead of him. He turned, breath caught: he was in a courtyard between apartment buildings, the ground slimy with rotting food scraps and the stink of hot clogged drains filling the air. No exit. A woman with dirty hair peered down at him from a high balcony.
Doubling back, Castus reached the turning of the alley and threw himself against the wall with his cloak bunched around his left fist. At once he heard the approaching footsteps of the soldier chasing him, rapid at first but then slowing. Castus pressed himself against the bricks, not daring to breathe, willing the young man not to glance around as he passed.
At the last moment the man turned, his eyes widening over the bridge of his broken nose as he saw Castus behind him. His mouth opened, but before he had a chance to cry out Castus surged forward and swung his fist into the man’s face. The blow crunched against his jaw, but the man did not drop; he had a blade in his right hand, and his left hand whipped out and grabbed Castus by the shoulder. Twisting, Castus trapped the blade in the folds of his bunched cloak, then grappled the man by the neck and tried to break his grip. Just for a moment he was aware of the woman still watching them, impassive, from the high balcony.
The soldier snarled in his ear; Castus heaved against him and swung him back against the bricks. Still he could not break the man’s hold, and in a few moments the other pursuers would be upon him… Castus dropped his arm quickly, seized the man’s right wrist and twisted it, angling the dagger back towards him. Three tight thudding breaths as they wrestled together, then Castus threw his weight against his opponent; he felt the man’s arm buckle, and the blade punch back into his side, just beneath his ribs. The soldier stiffened, gasping through clenched teeth.
For a moment Castus held the soldier in his grip as the life flowed out of him. He could feel the blood spattering the front of his tunic. ‘Sorry, brother,’ he said.
Then he flung the dying man away from him and ran once more.
*
Pudentianus’s house stood on the slope of the Quirinal, with high porticoes looking out over the valley towards the Forum and Palatine beyond. The main door was up on the Alta Semita, but there was a secondary entrance that led to the kitchens and the private bath suite, at the top of a flight of steps that climbed from the valley. Castus came up that way as the last of the afternoon faded into evening. He was exhausted, and knew he looked harried. His cloak was pulled around his body to hide the bloodstains on his tunic.
‘Oh, you are injured!’ the cook’s wife cried, throwing up her hands as Castus passed the kitchen door. She came after him into the passageway.
‘Just a disagreement at the baths,’ Castus told her as he stripped off his cloak and flung it aside. ‘I’m not hurt.’ The woman was already fetching him a cup of watered wine. She was a slave, heavy-bodied and flat-faced, but Castus liked her. He sank down gratefully onto a stool in the kitchen courtyard, took the cup and drank deeply.
‘Dominus,’ the woman said, leaning closer. ‘Please, you must go up… the Young Dominus and the Man from Gaul are arguing! We’re worried they’ll fall out badly!’
Over her shoulder, the old door porter nodded his agreement. Castus groaned, and tipped his head back against the wall. The ‘Man from Gaul’ was Nigrinus; to the slaves of the household, everyone from outside Rome was an exotic foreigner. Castus, of course, was ‘the Illyrian’ to them; he had no idea what they called Felix and Diogenes.
‘All right,’ he said, hauling himself to his feet again.
A narrow stairway climbed from the kitchen courtyard to the residential area on the upper floor of the house. Castus could hear Pudentianus’s raised voice when he was only halfway up the stairs. He jogged up the last flight, crossed the portico of the garden court and joined the knot of slaves at the open doorway of the main reception chamber.
‘The senatorial order of Rome,’ Pudentianus was saying, his voice high and cracked, ‘is not some tradesmen’s fraternity that can be summoned upon demand! They are the servants of no man! They are the very custodians of the state, the living embodiment of the majesty of Rome itself, of our oldest and proudest traditions—!’
‘Exactly,’ Nigrinus broke in. ‘Which is why I was sent here to meet with them. Which I cannot do if you continue to prevaricate like this.’ He was speaking quietly, in his usual bland singsong tone, but Castus could hear the tense rage simmering in his words.
The two men were facing each other across the chamber, and the contrast was telling. Pudentianus paced angrily, turning on his heel, striking the air with his fingers; Nigrinus was completely still, his face blank beneath the grey-brown bowl of his hair. Beyond them was an open window giving a view over the evening skyline. Diogenes sat beside the window; he raised an eyebrow at Castus.
‘I am not prevaricating!’ Pudentianus fumed. Castus could almost hear the young man’s teeth grinding. ‘I am engaged in complex and delicate negotiations! Which will be ruined if you insist on blundering into everything I try and do!’
Castus leaned against the doorpost and folded his arms.
‘Complex and delicate negotiations?’ Nigrinus said, almost whispering. ‘What would you know of that, boy? I was sent here by the emperor himself to conduct this mission. I have placed myself and those with me in grave danger. I have spent days descending into the slums of this city, seeking out criminals and unsavoury men, even talking to Christians. And yet I must bide my time while you dance attendance on your betters, is that it?’
Pudentianus glared back at him, fists clenched at his sides, speechless. Castus had seldom seen the notary so obviously angry, but he gave very little sign of it. The young nobleman’s more apparent rage appeared puny and ineffectual by comparison.
‘I remind you,’ Pudentianus said, ‘that you are guests in my family’s home!’
Nigrinus wafted a slight bow, but his expression did not alter. ‘Get me an audience with the senators,’ he said quietly. ‘Or I shall arrange one myself. That is all.’
The young nobleman hissed between his teeth, then stormed out o
f the room. He gave Castus only the briefest glance as he passed, his eyes widening slightly at the sight of his bloodied tunic, then he was gone.
‘Oh, there you are,’ Nigrinus said, noticing Castus standing in the doorway. His jaw cracked as he yawned. ‘Our man at the baths didn’t show, I take it?’
Castus shook his head as he crossed to the window, exchanging a quick glance with Diogenes. Behind him he could hear the notary’s slippered footsteps leaving the room. Outside, the valley was falling into darkness under a smoky grey sky. The temple porticoes blazed with torches, and all across the city, tiny embers of lamplight were appearing in the shadowed streets and huddled buildings.
The city was a maze. And somewhere, Castus thought, far away across the horizon, the war was drawing closer every day.
Chapter XX
‘You’re certain you understand what is required?’ Pudentianus asked for the third or fourth time. ‘You remember everything I told you? Let me do all the talking at first, and only speak if you’re addressed directly…’
‘I remember, yes,’ Castus said, not caring to hide the annoyance in his voice. The young man’s nervous agitation was wearing at his patience.
They were walking together down a long gravel path. To either side were clipped bushes, occasional glimpses of fish ponds, mossy statues lost in the vegetation. Ahead of them the straight path was enclosed by a box trellis thickly grown with ivy. It was morning, only an hour after dawn, and the air in the Gardens of Sallust had a misty October dampness.
