by M C Scott
The gods were smiling, it seemed. Lucius had sent word that the spy, Pantera, had come to Rome disguised as a centurion and had just been seen to enter the house of the oak leaves on the widows’ row. Sadly, that was the limit of his information. He hadn’t been able to give any suggestion as to how long our target might remain inside or where he might go when he left.
I nearly broke my fingers throwing on my sword belt, gathering my team, setting them to run down the road, but even so I feared we were going to arrive to an empty house and spend the next few days chasing shadows.
Running, I prayed to Jupiter Best and Greatest, and, miraculously, my prayer was answered, for as I turned the corner I saw Pantera himself being summarily ejected from the house with the oak leaves by a small, dark-haired woman with a voice like a harpy.
I skidded to a halt and signalled the men to spread out into the crowd. I had Juvens with me, plus Artocus and Saturninus, two solidly reliable men of the IVth Macedonica, whom, with Lucius’ agreement, I had commandeered for the duration of our hunt. We had all fought together in the recent past; we knew each other’s signals and likely movements as well as we knew the marching patterns of our morning parades.
Within two paces, each of us had slowed to a walk and were threading through the men, women and children who filled the street.
Juvens was nearest the door: Juvens, the least predictable of our team, who treated this entire undertaking as if it were a new and exciting adventure, which, as I frequently said, only showed how utterly he had failed to grasp the situation.
I was in command of this unit, though, not him, and so I pushed slowly through the heaving, sweating mass of humanity, and peered through a tangle of acrobatic limbs, and saw that Pantera was now out on the street.
I sound as if I was sure it was him, when in truth I hoped it was, which is different. It might have been Pantera, but then again it might not; I had no idea how accurate was Lucius’ information, and in my experience, if you pay good coin for something as intangible as a sighting of a stranger few people can recognize, there will be a great many such sightings for exactly as long as it takes you to come up with some valid system of verification.
Lucius was far from gullible, but he did have an air of hurried desperation about him and desperate men often listen closest to those who tell them what they want to hear.
The man who might have been Pantera fell forward, shoved by the woman in the house. As the door slammed behind him, he tucked neatly, rolled forward and came up on his feet, like one of the acrobats.
He looked furtive, but not theatrically so, if you get my drift. He had a quick look round in case anyone had seen him doing something that wasn’t the usual act of a drunken man, but when he found that the crowd was apparently still absorbed with the show he spat out a mouthful of dust, brushed himself clean and sauntered off down the street towards the Inn of the Crossed Spears.
I got a decent look at him then and became more hopeful we’d got the right man. Certainly he had the right build and height and his hair was the colour of old leaves, just as I remembered it. It had been burnished a little by the summer’s sun, but then if he’d been in Judaea that made sense.
The others were looking for my lead so I signalled with the flat of my hand stretched out straight like a javelin, which means ‘Follow’, and we all four began to thread our way through a crowd that didn’t want to move, even for Guards.
Particularly, you might think, for us, the newly made Guards, newly brought here, newly prone to pillaging the city that had become our home. The officers of our new Guard were Roman, mostly, but the men were from the provinces and to them Rome was just another city under occupation.
I’ll accept that the Urban cohorts and the vigiles of the Watch were doing their best to keep order, but they were four cohorts each against four legions and, worse, they were led by Flavius Sabinus, Vespasian’s brother, and he had quite enough difficulties of his own to contend with. Being brother to a traitor meant he had to spend his every waking hour proving loyalty to Vitellius, and calling his cohorts on to the streets against the emperor’s new Guard was hardly going to help his cause.
The end result was that here, in Rome herself, the pax Romana hung by an absurdly fine thread, and this evening in particular, hot, sultry, with a crowd on the edge of a riot, there was a sense of unfocused danger that gnawed at my guts.
Around me, the acrobats were finally running to the end of their repertoire and the crowd was reaching a peak of uncontrolled rapture.
The two girls, one dark, one fair, were lifted by the two tallest men and hurled high in the air. Blazing torches followed them, spinning in the soft moth-light of dusk, and were caught, each at the apex of its arc, so that the girls hurtled down again, a torch in either hand, to be caught in their turn, lightly, by their menfolk. The applause was wild, chaotic and deafening.
What can I say? You’d have to be made of stone not to have been dazzled by such a display, not to imagine what it might be to take the girls, one or both, there on the street, or at the very least, to lift them high and carry them into one of the upstairs rooms of the tavern.
They would have been compliant; you could just see how their bodies screamed it. And the expression on their faces, alight with the joy of the throw, was so like men in the afterglow of battle, full of what they have achieved, or women in the afterglow of …
I bit my tongue and wrenched my gaze away – and Pantera was gone.
‘Fuck. Where is he?’
‘Vanished while we were distracted,’ Juvens said, grimly. ‘You might even think that last show was put on for his benefit.’
‘He’s not far,’ Artocus grunted. He was one of the few who had paid scant attention to the acrobats. Uncharitably, I thought that if it had been a boy who had been tumbling high in the sky he would have found it less easy to keep his gaze averted.
Still, he was a reliable man on the battlefield and now he said, ‘Your man turned left at the head of the street. The lane there runs back up the hill to where the senators live.’
We were moving before he’d finished the sentence.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Rome, 3–4 August AD 69
Trabo
SO THERE YOU have it; I came to the inn to deliver a letter and what should I find but a man running from Vitellius’ Guards, which was, if you’ll forgive me, of more immediate interest.
I didn’t know they were following Pantera and his name wouldn’t have meant anything to me if I had heard it, but I knew this man had led Jocasta into that cottage and come out without her and that was interesting in itself, never mind the four Guards trying to catch him.
Jocasta? Yes, I knew her from the first moment in the inn. Even dressed like a whore, she shone like a peacock amongst sparrows. I’ve known her all my life: I grew up with her, played with her in my grandfather’s gardens on the heights of the Quirinal, me and her against our brothers, or the other way about.
She was turbulent even then, prone to scathing verbal attacks and wild, dangerous play. That day, seeing her play-acting the whore, I realized there was a level at which she was not playing at all, that I was seeing her as she really was: wildly dangerous.
And she’d been left inside the widow’s house while the fake centurion she had entered with was laying a trail away from it, in the way the hind lays a trail away from her fawn, leaving it safe in the long grass.
I did wrestle for a moment with my conscience, but Otho had said it was of utmost import that his letter be delivered discreetly and there was nothing discreet in walking up to a house the Guards were watching, so I stepped out of the courtyard and followed the stranger up the Quirinal towards the more prosperous residential area.
Here the streets were broader, and slave-carried litters drifted slowly up and down; white ships becalmed on the sea of dusk. With wider streets and no crowds to hide in, the Guards had to become more tactful, less bullish. They slid up the sides of walls, making the most of the shadows,
and separated, so as not to move in bulk.
But it was the fake centurion who led the dance and I tell you, it was a masterclass in distraction. I watched that man weave round statues, duck into doorways, walk freely up the street and then pause and dive into side streets and out again before turning and retracing his steps while the odd, disjointed tail of men following him never quite caught up.
It was growing dark and each of them made the most of it. The Guard became shadows, hunting a ghost. Up ahead, halfway up the Quirinal, a brazier glowed red in the centre of a small walled courtyard set bang in the middle of the street; a shrine to the cult of Isis that stays active through the night, as you know.
The courtyard had gates at each of the four directions; Pantera could have cut straight across from the lower gate to the upper, but if he’d done that he’d have been caught in the fire’s glare while everyone else remained hidden in the dark. To avoid that, he had to go round one side or other; or so we all thought.
The Guards, seeing their chance, gathered into two pairs. One duo circled sunwise, the other counter-sun, or that was the plan. Pantera let them get halfway, and then ducked through the eastern gateway and doubled back at a dead run across the courtyard.
He was getting away. There was no chance they could circle back and catch him now. I gave a silent cheer. I still had no idea who he was, but at that point in the game, as far as I was concerned, any enemy of Vitellius’ Guards was a friend of mine.
Which is why I ducked down behind a crumbling wall as Pantera fled fast-footed past, and then dodged out and followed him. I took care not to be seen. I wanted to get close enough to him to ask him questions, to find out who he was and what he knew about Jocasta. I hadn’t thought of her in years; but now, having seen her, I could think of little else.
The broad street that leads down the Quirinal was too open for safety; Pantera could never stay there. Almost at once, I was led in a series of tight turns left and right and left, back into the stews where alleys were narrow and rarely straight and where the populace was less law-abiding than the senatorial worthies who live on the smart part of the hill. Here the streets were poorly lit; splashes of torchlight struggled against the night. The ground was uneven and dotted with unsavoury traps for the unwary. I could smell rancid horse, dog and pig dung laced with fresh human urine.
I stepped warily, hoping for solid ground under each foot, and tried to keep my eye on the man ahead. It was this straining into the night, the sifting of one shadow from others, that let me see the bandits just before they closed on him.
These weren’t Guards, quite the opposite: big fuckers with shaved heads who could have been gladiators, except they didn’t move with the grace of a gladiator but the short, sharp speed of the street thug.
There were seven or eight of them, maybe nine, and they knew whom they sought; someone, somehow, had been a step ahead of his shadow-dance down the street and made sure these men waited ahead of him. They hefted their cudgels and blades and came in slowly, all focused on Pantera.
They had no need to hurry: where could he go? They had him surrounded. In the half-light of a distant lamp, I saw him hug his arms to himself and was disappointed; after the display out on the street, I had expected more of this man.
Then a spinning knife shimmered in the muggy light and the nearest of the attackers was down before the others could react.
I’ve seen a lot of men throw a lot of knives, and this one was exceptional, but it wasn’t enough; the odds stood now at eight to one and that’s still bad numbers in anyone’s book.
I saw him stoop to pick something up from the ground, and in the time it took him to stand up again his enemies had closed in, swinging their cudgels.
I am not the kind to stand by while others have all the fun, and besides, it had been five months since I was last in a proper fight; my blood ached for action.
I had no weapon – a carter does not bear a blade, and I couldn’t risk being searched as I came into the city – but I had my belt, which was full of gold, heavy and solid as a brick. I had it undone and wrapped around my hand before the bandits reached their target, and then – Hades, but it was good to be fighting again! – I stepped in and swung hard at the biggest and ugliest of the attackers.
I felt his skull shatter under my fist like rotten winter ice. His knees buckled and he dropped like a rock. I sidestepped his falling body and swung again, less cleanly this time. I caught the next one on the side of his face; teeth flew free and I saw the shine die in the man’s eye as it split and leaked.
I pushed this one down, sending him into the path of a third, who had seen me by now, and was turning, swinging back his own arm, raising his cudgel high—
And had that cudgel removed at the top of its swing by the light-footed dancer who was my new friend.
He flashed me a grin, a man alive with the joy of battle. I saluted him, I think, certainly he returned it; we were like brothers in the field who have known each other half a lifetime, and then we were at it again, swinging our weapons, two against six, perhaps, and then five as Pantera used his newly acquired cudgel with devastating force, and then threw himself to the ground, rolling, to avoid the blows that rained down on his shoulders, his arms, seeking his head, not yet hitting it, and then not even really aiming because by then they had all realized they were fighting two, not one, and their attention was dangerously split.
I ducked a blow that would have swept my skull from my spine and, stepping in tight to the one I had chosen, slid my left hand up to his face, clawing for his eyes, driving him back to give my gold-heavy right hand a chance to jab short, hard punches at his groin, gut, face and neck until he doubled over and dropped.
My arm ached from the weight of the gold, and my hand was crushed inside my belt. I kicked the body at my feet and stamped on the side of the head as we did in the legions. I wasn’t wearing my nailed sandals, but I felt skull bones crack beneath my foot and spun away in time to hear a shout in guttural Greek and see the last three remaining bandits break off the engagement and back away.
‘No!’
I was beyond reason, in that place of red-veiled madness that takes me sometimes in battle, where to end a fight is almost as bad as to lose it. I was not going to stop now, not going to let them leave with the fight unfinished.
Jocasta was forgotten, Pantera an irrelevance; I was Trabo and I was back in Rome and if I needed an excuse it was that I had an oath to fulfil and a blood lust to satisfy and killing the agents of Vitellius was almost as good as killing the upstart himself.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Rome, 3–4 August AD 69
Caenis
‘MY LADY. I am so sorry …’
I woke sharply into a night that was far warmer than my dream had been, and far less threatening. Matthias was standing over me, mortified that his courteous taps on my door had not been enough, that he had been forced to touch my person to wake me.
I sat up swiftly and pain knifed in my temples; it does that, often, if I rise too fast. I kneaded it away. ‘What news? Has Domitian returned?’
‘My lady, he has not. But the spy is here again.’
‘Pantera?’ The name made me shiver, I don’t know why.
‘Yes, lady. He is hurt, but not mortally. He would speak to you if you allow it.’
Of course I would allow it. He came from Vespasian; how could I not?
Matthias had brought me a new tunic to slip on over my night shift. I took my time, splashed water on my face, combed my hair, settled a loop of silver about my neck. My mirror was kind and did not show my age: the woman who looked back at me was a cool and subtle courtier, not in the least engaged by her late-night company.
Pantera was in the dark of my atrium again, losing himself in the rippling shadows that spun up from the pool. Out of courtesy he moved into the light when I appeared, and I could see that, yes, he had been hit on the head, and probably elsewhere beneath his clothing. Even so, he was sharper now, tighter, just as Vesp
asian used to be after a day’s training.
As I would have done with Vespasian, I crossed to look at him more closely and so saw the ugly wound on his brow. His swollen hands were blotched with bruises. He favoured his left leg as he stood.
I asked, ‘Are you hurt?’
‘Not enough to concern you, lady.’ He smiled, taking the edge off the lie. ‘I am, however, gravely concerned that Lucius knew I was here with sufficient certainty to send the Guards, and that he knew there was a chance I would escape, with sufficient certainty to set a small company of bandits on to me when I did so.’
‘You are sure it was Lucius?’
‘If he has not access to these, who has?’ He opened his palm. On it lay thirty or more silver denarii, each one newly minted. Vitellius’ head was emblazoned on each, a sight which, even now, sets my teeth on edge.
In the markets, the rumours said that Vespasian was minting his own coins in the east, and that they were of gold, not silver. I yearned for the day they were in circulation in Rome.
Pantera said, ‘These came from the men who attacked me: six each. Not the Guards, the bandits who came afterwards.’
Six silver denarii each? And perhaps the same again when the job was done, if they had succeeded. That’s a legionary’s wage for a month, and it was paid for a night’s work.
But Pantera was there, which meant that almost certainly the men who had been sent against him were dead, or injured to the point where they no longer posed any danger.
I said, ‘This isn’t proof. Just because you were attacked by men all paid in the same coin doesn’t mean Lucius or Vitellius or any of their men did the paying. Rome is full of these coins. Every Guard has hundreds burning holes in his purse. They are scattered like grain before chickens.’
‘Not these ones,’ said a voice behind me, and Domitian was at my right shoulder, flushed with the adventures of the night, his eyes burning with an inner light that was normal in his father or elder brother but was, in those days, not normal at all in him.
