Defender of Rome

by Douglas Jackson

  THEY ARRANGED TO meet back at the water castle early the next morning and Valerius hurried to look in on Olivia before he gave his orders to Marcus and his men. When he reached the house he was surprised to find a slave holding a scroll which invited him to call upon Fabia Faustina.

  By the time he returned home the sun was coming up. For reasons he didn’t understand the encounter had left him with the same feeling a blind man has on hearing the final piece slapped into place on a gaming board, not knowing whether he has won or lost. He had learned long ago in Britain not to ignore these instincts, but within minutes of reaching the house it was driven from his mind by a new crisis.

  Olivia was gone.

  He found Julia weeping on the bed and at first he feared the worst. The slave girl saw it in his face.

  ‘No, master, not that. It is …’ She shook her head, almost overcome with emotion, but Valerius didn’t have time to allow her tears. He took her by the shoulders and forced her to look into his eyes.

  ‘Tell me, Julia. What has happened to Olivia?’

  She sniffed and blinked her eyes clear. ‘Your father … took her. He said she would die otherwise. I didn’t know what to think. He said, “This way, we will both be saved and gain entry to the Kingdom of Heaven.” What did he mean?’

  Valerius felt his face harden. The old fool. But he had to be certain. ‘Those were the exact words he used, Julia? We will both be saved? You are certain?’

  She nodded. ‘Certain, master.’

  The exact words. The same expression Ruth had used to describe the rite of baptism. Lucius must have been driven mad by Olivia’s plight if he believed that to dip her beneath a freezing waterfall would save her. Now he had even more reason to track down Honorius’s water thief.

  By the fifth hour he was back at the water castle with Honorius glowering like a man who had better things to do. Valerius had been tempted to go directly to the site of the former baths, but when he considered the matter further he couldn’t see any reason why the water should not have been siphoned off before the Glabrian link ended, and several reasons why it should.

  ‘The water flows down through that closed channel just below the parapet,’ he told Marcus and Serpentius, whom he had asked to accompany him. ‘You can see that it runs above ground for about two hundred paces down the hill before it disappears among the houses. I’ve had a look and there’s no set pattern to its course. Sometimes it’s buried beneath the street and runs under the buildings, sometimes it’s a mini-aqueduct and passes over or even through them. It depends on the terrain. That’s why we have to follow it. The only way we’ll know if the water’s still running is to check at one of the inspection hatches.’ He showed them a key Honorius had given him to help lift the big capping stones. ‘So we’ll inspect at regular intervals when we get the opportunity. There has to be a fair chance that the channel has collapsed somewhere along the line, so it may be quite close. But if it isn’t we’ll follow it to the end.’

  ‘What happens when we get there?’ Serpentius asked. ‘Maybe it’s time to be Praetorians again?’

  Valerius shook his head at the Spaniard’s sudden enthusiasm for what he had once despised. ‘We have no idea what we’ll find. If it’s what I think it is, it will be hidden in some kind of building, but probably not a public one. We may have to knock on doors or we may have to go through windows. You wouldn’t want to do that in armour.’

  Marcus grinned. ‘I doubt he’d mind one way or the other. It’s never stopped him before.’

  ‘Honorius will have men here if, for any reason, we need the supply cut off. If we have time, we’ll send someone back with word, but if not we use the old legionary signal system.’ Valerius pulled a polished metal disc from the sleeve of his tunic and raised it in the air so that it caught the sun. ‘Very simple. One flash for off, two flashes to restore the supply. The people here will give one flash to confirm. Understand?’ They nodded. ‘The tower is in direct line of sight from the south slope of the Viminal Hill, so that is where we’ll make the signal. The two water men in the tower have been told to watch for it and they’ve rigged up a new mechanism to open and close the gate.’

  With a bow to the commissioner they set off down the track that ran alongside the conduit. This was a mere side line of Old Anio, but it had been built to last, with arches of mortared stone ten feet tall carrying a single channel two and a half feet wide. It was also in remarkably good repair, with signs of recent masonry work that made Valerius ever more certain they were on the right track. They found it simple to follow the undeviating course down the slope of the hill, but then their problems started. Once among the houses the aqueduct maintained its line, but sometimes between the apartment blocks and sometimes directly through them, where the builders had made the water channel part of the structure itself. At last they came to a halt.

  ‘It’s gone,’ the Spaniard said, looking at the building in front of them as if he expected the aqueduct to make a surprise appearance. ‘It goes in the back, but it doesn’t come out of the front. Maybe this is it?’

  Valerius studied the insula. It was one of the smaller blocks in the area. ‘I suppose it’s possible, but it doesn’t feel right.’ He walked to the rear of the building, where the aqueduct undoubtedly entered at first floor level, and returned to the front where there was no sign it existed. They were about fifty paces from the Vicus Patricius and he followed what he thought was the channel’s line out on to the street until he found what he was looking for. He took the key Honorius had given him and placed it in the hole in the stone block which covered the inspection shaft. It was heavy, but even one-handed he could lift it far enough to see the water flowing beneath.

  For the next two hundred paces they moved from shaft to shaft, scrabbling on the ground among the stinking open sewers, random dog shit and rotting fruit for the next one, until, without warning, the Glabrian link took to the air again and marched in arched leaps to the lower slopes of the Viminal where it disappeared once more – directly into the hill.

  ‘You think these people are moles?’ Marcus asked.

  Valerius didn’t reply. He led them through the alleys at the base of the hill and round to where Honorius had told him the Thermae Glabrianae, once the pride of one of Rome’s greatest families, had stood. They were on the far edge of the Subura now, on a slight rise where an infrequent, unlikely breeze ghosted its way among the houses to take the jagged edge off the intense heat. Here the apartment blocks were larger and an occasional sumptuous villa clung to the edge of the hill. Valerius turned to study them and his eye settled on one villa in particular.

  ‘That’s it,’ he said. ‘That’s the one.’

  ‘Watch out!’ Marcus made the gladiator’s secret sign that warned of danger to the rear. Valerius forced himself not to look round. ‘The place is crawling with Praetorians and that bastard Rodan is nosing around looking for trouble.’

  ‘Has he seen us?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Then we go back the way we came. Be natural. Don’t make a fuss.’

  A few minutes later they sat together in the shadow of one of the aqueduct’s arches on the opposite side of the hill. ‘How were they waiting for us?’ Serpentius demanded.

  ‘They weren’t waiting for us. They’re looking for Petrus. Rodan knows what we know and he’ll have every rathole in and out of this district sealed tighter than the stopper in a wineskin. We can’t get in and the Christians can’t get out. He’ll scoop them up like fish in a net and then they’ll go the same way as Sulla and Lucina.’

  ‘Does it matter if Rodan gets to Petrus and a few of these Christians burn?’ Marcus asked. ‘The Emperor can’t blame you just because the Blacks got there first.’

  Valerius said bitterly, ‘It matters to me.’ He told them about his father and Olivia.

  ‘Well, you were right,’ Marcus said. ‘We might get in but we’d never get back out with an old man and a sick woman. They have the house watched from eve
ry corner. Anyone who tries to leave will be picked up the minute they stick their nose out of the door.’

  Valerius looked up the hill past where the channel disappeared into the rock. ‘What if I could get in? Would it be possible to create enough of a diversion to allow me to get my father and Olivia away?’

  ‘We could try,’ the scarred gladiator said. ‘But I don’t see how you can get in unnoticed. The place is guarded as tight as a mouse’s arse-hole.’

  ‘There must be another way.’ Valerius began to climb the hill.

  Minutes later they lay flat on the ground looking over the edge of the hill above the villa which had caught Valerius’s attention. The Viminal was occupied mainly by a patchwork of apartments and small allotments, but here, where the hill was steepest and the soil thin and worthless, it had been left clear. The slope fell away sharply, almost a cliff, and the roof of the building was probably fifty feet below them.

  ‘Well, that’s that,’ Marcus said. ‘If you try to get down there, you’ll be lucky if you only break your legs.’

  Valerius had studied the face with equal care and he realized that Marcus was right. This was no conveniently fractured Dacian rock; it was weathered almost as smooth as glass. What was more, it was visible from the streets below where Rodan and his men waited. There had to be another route.

  They searched the edge of the hill for an alternative and Valerius was beginning to despair when he noticed something unnatural in the dried yellow grass. It took a few moments before he recognized it. He was standing over yet another of the inspection shafts.

  He walked back to the far side of the hill and did his best to work out the course of the aqueduct. When he was satisfied, he stood for a moment with his head bowed. He tried to visualize the interior of the channel below his feet. Could it be done? When he looked up, Marcus saw the same look in his friend’s eyes as he had seen in gladiators making their final appearance in the arena: a confused mix of fear, resolve, certainty and confusion. Valerius handed Marcus the polished bronze disc and reached down to place the key in the capstone. ‘Signal the water tower to cut the supply.’

  The two gladiators looked at him in disbelief.

  ‘You can’t—’

  ‘Just do it.’ Valerius barely recognized his own voice. He knew that if he hesitated for even a second he would turn and walk away. With Rodan’s Praetorians surrounding the villa there was only one way into the baptism chamber – through the subterranean passage ten feet below him. He was more frightened than he’d ever been in his life. More frightened even than in the final suffocating hours of the Temple of Claudius. There, he had persuaded himself he was already dead. Here, he had to live. For Olivia and for Lucius.

  Reluctantly, Marcus used the bronze mirror to send the single flash that warned the men in the water castle to stop the flow.

  ‘Help me with this.’ Serpentius hesitated and Valerius’s fear made him snarl. ‘Help me or by the gods I’ll send you down there instead.’

  The Spanish gladiator scurried to Valerius’s side and together they heaved the stone aside. Serpentius took an involuntary step back as the shaft opened up at his feet.

  Valerius stared into the dank black opening. The inspection holes they’d checked at ground level had been perhaps three feet deep, with the water clearly visible at the bottom. This disappeared into the darkness like a wormhole leading to the River Styx. It was two feet in diameter with rough steps cut into the rock to allow a man to descend safely.

  ‘A lamp and a rope, at least,’ Serpentius pleaded. ‘I will fetch them quickly.’

  ‘We don’t have time. If the Christians finish their ceremony they’ll walk out into a trap and my father and Olivia will be taken.’

  Valerius stripped to his loincloth and handed his clothes to Marcus, but took the belt with his dagger and hung it from his neck. He sat on the lip and closed his eyes. His father had talked of faith in his God. Now Valerius called upon his own faith. Faith in himself. Faith in his courage. He was a Hero of Rome, he wasn’t frightened by a little dark passage. Messor had given him the idea. Messor, the skinny legionary his comrades had nicknamed Pipefish, who had shown more bravery than all the rest put together when he had slithered into the soot-blackened hell of the hypocaust below the Temple of Claudius. The attempt had been doomed, of course, and poor Pipefish had died nailed to the temple door as the flames of Boudicca’s fire ate at his flesh. But he had got through the hypocaust and that was what gave Valerius hope.

  Hope, but how much? Pipefish had been whip thin and greased with olive oil. Valerius was probably twice his breadth and his shoulders were heavily muscled from his daily training with sword and shield. How wide was the tunnel? How deep? He heard the water sound change below him from a violent rush to a musical gurgle. Soon. How wide? How deep? He wouldn’t know until he got down there. At least if it was too narrow he would be able to turn back, with his honour and his conscience intact. His father and Olivia might die, but he would have done his best. He tried not to hear the voice in his head willing the shaft to be impassable.

  The gurgling faded to a whisper. It was time. He turned and his foot searched for the first step.

  ‘Wait!’ It was Marcus. What now? ‘The diversion. How will we know when you are ready to come out of the villa?’

  Valerius cursed himself. Of course he should have thought of that. One more mistake that could kill him. He cast his mind back to the front of the villa. It was a large building, surrounded by a walled garden, with a heavy door set back from the street. He remembered three windows at first floor level, all of them visible from the alleyway where he would have to make his escape.

  ‘Give me my cloak and tunic.’ Marcus handed over the clothes and Valerius bundled the heavy cloak into a ball with the tunic at its centre. ‘I’ll wave the cloak at the window above the doorway. Count to one hundred and then start the diversion. I don’t care what you do, just get them away from the alley, but don’t set the city on fire.’

  Though the sun was high above them, he had never felt so cold; chilled to the very centre of his being. With a last glance towards his companions he climbed into the shaft.

  XXXIV

  THE CHAMBER STANK of damp and the steps under his bare feet felt as slippery as if they were coated with ice. He had to grip tight with his single hand until his toes found and secured each foothold, whilst holding the bundled cloak in the crook of his right arm. At least he had the comfort of the circle of light above him and the anxious faces of Marcus and Serpentius that almost filled it. He reached the bottom of the channel, identified by thick, oily weed between his toes. The fear was more palpable now, as if someone was gripping his legs and pulling him downwards. He filled his head with Olivia’s face and fought the feeling with all his strength. Carefully, he manoeuvred so that he was facing in the direction of the villa, before dropping to his knees. There was just enough space left to allow him to wriggle his legs backward into the opposite section of the tunnel. His nose was two inches from the brick face of the shaft and still he couldn’t bring himself to break free from that life-giving circle of light. For a moment he felt a wave of claustrophobic terror and his bladder filled with ice water. Rope. Serpentius had been right, he should have waited. With rope he could have tied a line round himself and they would be able to pull him back if he became jammed. If he went without rope he might be trapped down here for ever. He could go back.

  Coward. He heard the word Ruth had never spoken ringing in his head. He closed his eyes. ‘I call on Messor and the spirits of Colonia to aid me.’ The whispered words sounded hollow in his ears, but the very act of saying them had the effect of the herb-infused ale the Britons drank before a battle. He felt warmth again, and his courage returned. He lowered his head and inched his shoulders forward into the pitch black of the tunnel mouth.

  It was tight. Very tight. He had to hunch his shoulders to avoid being wedged against the ragged masonry. But was it tight enough to give him a reason to turn back? He wriggl
ed to make himself more comfortable. How far? Maybe seventy paces to the villa. And what then? But he knew there was no use thinking about what then, because that could drive a man mad. What then meant the channel narrowing to a tiny pipe, or diving deep underground where a man would die screaming with no hope of ever being heard. He felt for the hilt of the knife to make sure it was still attached. If …? Don’t think. Just go.

  At first, he tried to use his hands to haul himself along, but the walnut of his right could gain little purchase on the weed-covered stone and he made slow progress. Eventually he discovered that by pushing the bundle of his cloak forward, then digging his elbows into the walls and wriggling as if he were a snake, he was able to create a rhythm that gained him a few precious inches at a time. The tunnel roof was so low he felt it pressing down on his back and he suddenly realized that there truly was no going back. From nowhere the raw acid of panic filled his throat and poured like liquid fire into his chest. His head roared. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move. His limbs thrashed helplessly in the confined space and he knew that if he didn’t stop now he would truly go mad. Think. His mind screamed the word. Think. His brain frantically clawed for some memory that would save him. A face. No, faces meant people and people died. Faces meant Ruth and Maeve and Cornelius and Publius Sulla and the girl whose baby he had promised to save. Faces meant people he had failed. Suddenly he was in a battle line, his shield tight against the next man’s, a sword firm in his hand. Death was all around him, but it meant nothing here, for this was the brotherhood of the warrior. The brotherhood of the shadow. And, in the shadow, he felt calm return. He was still trapped in a dark, airless tomb, but he was Valerius again, a Hero of Rome. He gritted his teeth, rammed his elbows into the walls and edged another six inches.

  Time and space meant nothing in the dark. Even the urgency to save his father and Olivia was diminished to a distant white spot at the entrance to a half-forgotten world, where light and air and life actually existed. All that mattered was effort and motion. Push the bundle, dig in the elbows, squirm, push. He was chilled to the bone, but the sweat coursed from his brow into his eyes. He imagined a galley slave hauling interminably at massive oars, the muscles of his arms fiery bars of glowing iron, knowing that his agony could only ever end in death. Push the bundle, dig in the elbows, squirm, push again. Something whirled and danced in the dust storm that was his brain and men came from the darkness to greet him. Legionaries who would tear a man’s throat out with their teeth and then share a bloody wineskin with you. Men you could despise for their depravity and love for their loyalty. Lunaris, who had stood beside him to the very end at Colonia. Laughing Zama, who had taken a returned Roman pilum in the eye in Boudicca’s last battle. Even Crespo, who had hated him more than any man before or since, yet had earned his respect for his fearless savagery in a fight. Not so tough now, pretty boy. Soldiers. And from each of them he took a soldier’s strength and a soldier’s ability to endure, an ability he had all but forgotten. Push, dig, squirm, push.