Yet the Romans themselves were not blameless. A vestal virgin who broke her vows was buried alive. It could be argued that she brought her terrible death on herself. But in times of crisis it was not unknown for the priests of Rome to announce that the gods must be propitiated by the taking of lives. Two couples, a man and woman, one pair Greeks, the other Gauls, were buried alive. No guilt attached to them beyond their race.
Not unduly perturbed by his reflections, Paullus got to his feet. It was about the middle of the night. Time to get moving. Having been quiet for some time, he was reasonably sure that there was no one else in the trees outside the perimeter wall, or those within. He glided down the slope, keeping to the shadows, taking care where he placed his feet. His soft leather boots made no sound. Under his cloak he wore only a tunic and sword belt. So that they neither rattled nor caught the light, he had removed all the ornaments from the belt, even his lucky theta charm.
The outer wall of the sanctuary was not high, more intended to demark the sacred from the profane than act as a physical barrier. Paullus hauled himself to the top, lay there a moment, then dropped down inside. Crouched down, he waited, listening. In the distance a deer barked. Around him, all was still.
Like a ghost, he flitted between the trees until he came to the huge, ancient olive that he remembered from his childhood. Hundreds of years old, perhaps older than the archaic temple itself, the tree overtopped the roof of the building. His cloak would be an encumbrance climbing, so he took it off, rolled it up and secured it under his belt.
The ascent was no more difficult than it had been all those years before, until he reached the top. He was heavier than he had been. The bough that reached out almost to the roof groaned under his weight. He had no problem with heights, but knew that if he stopped it would be hard to force himself to get moving again. Scrambling along the branch like a monkey, there was a sharp crack. The branch swayed ominously and began to droop. Before he reached the end, Paullus launched himself outwards and down.
He landed on his hands and knees on the tiles. The pitch of the roof was not steep, but enough to make him slip. Behind yawned the black drop. It was so far down that it would break his bones like twigs. Finally, his boots found the guttering and stopped his descent. He lay, spreadeagled, waiting for his heart to stop its panicked hammering.
Be a man! He was unsure if he had spoken aloud.
The landing had not been noisy, but in the quiet of the night anyone alert in the temple, or nearby outside, would have heard the impact. It could not be helped. He had seen Ursus lock both doors of the shrine, and breaking them down would have made a noise to wake the dead.
Somewhat calmer, Paullus edged, crablike, along the roof. At every step, he half expected the gutter to give way. If it did, nothing could prevent him falling. It was a long way down. It was hard to believe that he had taken this risk as a child. After an age, he reached the parapet of the facade. The relief left him gasping. But there was no time for reflection. Using the solid stonework, he made his way up to the apex.
The trapdoor was where he remembered. It was locked. The woodwork around the lock was old and rotted. There was no need for the entrenching tool, and Paullus drew his dagger. The soft wood came away in chunks. It took no time to lever the lock open with the knife.
The hinges of the trapdoor squealed, horribly loud, as he pulled it open. Paullus waited, every sense alert. There was no outcry. The silence of the night buzzed in his ears.
Steep stone steps spiralled down. The first few were just visible. Beyond was nothing but blackness. Paullus sheathed the dagger and started to descend. After the first couple of turns, he could see nothing. He put out his hands to touch either wall, and groped for the next step with a boot. There was something primordially frightening about descending blind into the dark. He moved awkwardly, his muscles tense and beginning to lock up with fear. Sometimes divine sanction was not enough protection for the offerings stored in a temple. There were stories that priests set traps: a concealed pit or a missing step. Surely old Ursus was not such a priest? There was little of value in the sanctuary of the Hero of Temesa. Paullus forced himself to keep moving.
Time and distance lost all meaning. Down and down he went, one hesitant step at a time, down through the dark. The air was cool and damp, and smelt of dust and mice. Suddenly Paullus stumbled. He jerked back and jolted his spine against the steps. Reaching out with one foot, he probed downwards. There were no more steps, just a level floor. Finally he was at the bottom, but somehow it was even more frightening than what had gone before. It took an effort of will to leave the security of the solid steps. Paullus inched forward – one hand held out, the fingertips of the other still brushing the wall – half expecting the flagstones to give way with each footfall.
When the outstretched hand touched wooden planks, he recoiled as if he had touched a viper. Be a man. This time he knew that he had not verbalised the command. Like a blind man, he ran his hands over the door until he located the handle. It turned, but it was no surprise that this door too was locked. Tracing the hinges, he discovered that the door opened towards him. Unlike the trapdoor, the woodwork was solid.
Paullus congratulated himself on bringing the entrenching tool. Pleasure in his own foresight calmed his nerves. Working by feel, he slid the steel into the gap between lock and doorframe. Once again he was master of his own destiny. Getting the door open would make a noise. There was no way the girl would not know that someone was coming. But there was nowhere she could run, nowhere she could hide.
Using the tool as a crowbar, he wrenched with all his strength. The frame splintered and, at the second attempt, the door swung towards him. The noise echoed away through the cavernous building. Paullus waited until all was quiet. He listened, but could hear nothing. Putting down the tool, he drew his sword. It might be that he was already too late.
Windows high up under the roof admitted the moonlight. After the staircase the main hall seemed nearly as bright as day, although the shadows cast were black as pitch. Wide columns ran up to the rafters around all four sides, creating a walkway around the edges. There were offerings, mainly antique weapons and armour, hung on the walls. Otherwise the space was bare except for statues. There was one of the Hero, larger than a man, in the centre. Smaller marble statues stood between the columns: figures from myth, including the boxer who had driven the Hero into the sea.
The steps had wound down to emerge next to the huge main door. The walkway running off to either side was empty. Paullus could see there was no one in the central area. He walked first one way, then the other, to check the two side corridors. Satisfied that the girl must have retreated to the storeroom at the rear, he went directly across by the cult statue.
As he expected the internal door was unsecured. He pushed it open, then stepped back. There were no windows in the smaller inner room. He paused to let his eyes adjust. This storeroom was crowded with offerings – not just statues relegated from display, but all manner of things. The smaller ones were heaped in piles everywhere. She had to be hidden among them.
‘Minado.’ In the breathless quiet, Paullus did not have to raise his voice.
There was no response.
‘Come out,’ Paullus said. ‘There is no time for this.’
Again only silence came back.
Paullus rasped his sword down the wall.
As the harsh grating sound died there was a noise, as faint as a mouse, from near the rear door. Paullus went towards it. A stirring in the dead air warned him. He leapt backwards, collided with a stack of amphorae. One smashed, the rest went rolling across the floor. Recovering his balance, he saw the ancient blade she wielded. Her wild lunge had not missed by much.
‘No!’ Paullus backed off, shards crunching under his boots.
Her eyes wide with terror, and very white in the dim light, she stepped after him.
‘Minado, put the sword down.’
She gave no sign of hearing, but gathered herself to strike
again.
Paullus took several quick paces backwards. ‘Stop! I have not come to harm you.’
‘Then why have you got a sword in your hand?’
‘I will put it down.’ Moving slowly, as he would around a nervous horse, Paullus crouched, placed the blade on the floor and straightened up.
The girl did not move, but her sword remained poised.
‘I have come to protect you.’
‘With your skin darkened like the Hero?’
‘I did not want them to see.’
‘Who?’
‘The men who will try to kill you.’
The tip of her sword trembled, but she kept her control. ‘And who are they’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Why should I trust you?’ she said with suspicion.
‘You know who I am – Gaius Furius Paullus, a friend of your father.’
‘You pay my father to do your dirty work, to risk his life acting as a decoy for brigands. All you Romans treat us Bruttians like dogs.’
‘You have to trust me. Whoever they are that want people to believe the Hero has returned will have to come tonight. They will kill you, mutilate your body, make it appear the work of the daemon.’
‘You got into the temple,’ her tone was decisive, ‘so we can get out.’
‘It would do no good. People would say that we had cheated the Hero of his offering. I would be gaoled, and you would be returned to the temple.’
‘So we just wait?’
‘I need proof.’
She snorted with derision. ‘Or they kill both of us.’
‘There is that risk,’ Paullus said, ‘but in the last couple of years I have proved very hard to kill.’
She stood, weighing her options. At last she sighed and, as if it had assumed a terrible weight, lowered her sword.
Picking up his weapon, Paullus led her out of the storeroom and across to the stairs. Her decision made, she seemed calm. Paullus guided her to sit where the steps first began to turn. He would be below, by the door. She still had her sword, but, if they got through him, Paullus doubted it would do her much good.
Before settling, Paullus prepared himself. He found the entrenching tool and placed it to hand. Then he took off his cloak and wound it around his left forearm, leaving a foot or two hanging down. Finally, he sat down, placing his blade behind him in the darkness. Now there was nothing to do but wait.
From the light coming through the windows it was hard to judge how much of the night had passed. There must be three, perhaps four hours of darkness remaining. Paullus was certain that they would come.
It was odd, but in the gloom, and the tension of their encounter, he had not really looked at Minado. From a distance yesterday she had appeared as beautiful as Lollius said. Tonight all he had seen were her eyes. But the eyes are the windows on the soul. Terrified as she had been, her eyes had been those of a brave and resourceful woman.
The statue of the Hero loomed in the middle of the hall. He was depicted as a man, but bigger and stronger than any human. The skin of a wolf was draped around his shoulders, the head pulled up like a hood. He was empty handed, but the taut muscled arms and the talon-like fingers, indicated what would have happened to those set upon by the Hero of Temesa. The inscription on the plinth named him not Polites, but Lykas, wolf-man.
The Greeks called the Romans ‘Ausonian beasts’ – Ausonian from an ancient name for Italy, and beasts from the suckling of Romulus and Remus by a she-wolf. The Greeks were correct. The Romans indeed were the children of the wolf. Just how ravening and insatiable, Paullus had not learnt until Corinth. Perhaps not even then, but later, when he had watched with horror the awful death of the Achaean general Diaeus and listened to his final words.
Paullus thought of the wolves in the Sila. They were padding through the trees with their heavy-shouldered, distinctive gait. Their mouths were open, their teeth white, their lolling tongues the colour of blood.
A nudge. Paullus must have fallen asleep. Minado’s foot nudged his back again. Thank the gods! Fresh air drifted through the temple. It brought the smell of the sea, the scent of wild herbs and the rich odours of the night. The back door of the temple must be open. They were here.
Paullus’ hand closed on the hilt of his sword. His palm was sweaty, his heart knocking against his ribs. There was no time for second thoughts.
At first he heard nothing. Then there were muffled sounds from the storeroom. The sounds of a man, perhaps two, carefully searching among the accumulated offerings. It would not take them long. And then they must come to where Paullus waited. He would have liked to whisper reassurance to the girl, but it was impossible. Like him, she would have to fight alone in the dark against her apprehensions.
The sharp snap of breaking terracotta, the crunching as it was ground to dust under their boots, showed they had reached the inner door. Any moment now they would come through into the main hall. Paullus grinned, a weight lifted from his shoulders. The Kindly Ones could not touch him now. Kill or be killed. When every other pleasure was vitiated, that was what it meant to be alive.
A movement by the door. An indistinct figure moving beyond the columns and statues, heading away towards the right. No sign of another one. The figure returning, going to check the other long passageway.
Come on, come on, Paullus silently pleaded. There’s nowhere else she could be hiding, don’t keep me waiting.
The figure emerged into the central space. He walked slowly, but directly towards the steps. The floor was banded with moonlight and shadow, and the man went from one to the other. He was tall and powerful, and clad in the pelt of a wolf; a smaller simulacrum of the statue of Lykas, except in his hand was a broad-bladed Greek falchion.
Seeing the door to the stairs open, the figure paused.
Paullus remained very still, his breathing shallow. He caught the feral stink of the wolfskin and a faint whiff of perfume.
Cautiously, the man stepped towards the black rectangle of the doorway.
Not yet, not yet! Paullus stifled an impatience fuelled by fear.
The broad shoulders filled the doorframe.
In one motion, Paullus rose and thrust. With an agility unlikely in such a substantial frame, the wolf-man pirouetted. The steel missed by an inch. As Paullus drew back to recover, his opponent chopped downwards. With a clangour of metal on metal, Paullus deflected the blow. The heavy curved blade almost slammed Paullus’ weapon from his grip. Pushing his free hand to the man’s chest, Paullus heaved him away.
They stood a couple of paces apart, both crouching, but balanced. Paullus could not see the man’s face. The mask of the wolf was tied under his chin, leaving only the eyes and nose exposed.
The man swung without any preliminary movement. Distracted by the bestial disguise, Paullus was slow reacting. Only swaying back at the last second, he felt the disturbance of the air as the blade whistled by his head.
Watch the blade, watch the blade!
Paullus jabbed towards the face. The man brought his sword up. Paullus pulled the attack and cut down towards the left thigh. The man sidestepped away. Paullus followed up with a thrust to the groin. Awkwardly, the man got his weapon in the way.
The man was quick and strong, no stranger to violence, but he was not a trained swordsman. Yet there was the likelihood that he had an unseen accomplice. Paullus had to finish this quickly.
As if reading his thoughts, the man took a pace backwards.
‘Harder to fight a man than murder a girl,’ Paullus taunted him. ‘Harder still if you are a coward.’
The man took another step away.
‘Is that piss trickling down your legs?’ Paullus goaded. ‘You had better run.’
Quick as a flash, the man jumped forward, angling a mighty overhand blow down at Paullus’ head. Catching the blade on the edge of his sword, Paullus rolled his wrist. Grabbing the elbow of his assailant with his left hand, Paullus brought his knee up into the underside of his forearm. The man yelled in
pain. His falchion dropped from his grip. It clanged on the flagstones.
Disarmed and in pain, but the man was not finished yet. Fingernails clawed at Paullus’ face. They missed his eyes and raked down his cheek. Paullus reared back, and the man had turned and was running.
Paullus raced after him, between the columns, out into the open space. The man only had a lead of a couple of paces.
The missile sliced by Paullus’ ear. Then he recognised the thrum of an arrow. Out here he was a sitting target. He hurled himself to one side and dived back behind a pillar. Not stopping, he bundled back into the doorway.
For a split second, he wondered if the girl might not realise it was him. She still had a sword. Instead of attacking, she whispered, ‘What do we do now?’
‘Listen.’
Low voices from the storeroom. Two men speaking. No words or accents clear.
Then silence.
Paullus’ thoughts were tumbling over each other: stay here, keep watch; or stalk after them, they can’t get a clean shot in the gloom; no, get to safety up the steps, no arrow can fly around a spiral staircase.
The silence stretched.
‘Up the stairs!’ Paullus did not wait to know if she heard or obeyed, but started to scramble up the steps. Round and round in the darkness, like a dormouse in a jar, until there was a faint glimmer ahead. He saw her legs disappearing through the trapdoor and dragged himself after her into the open.
The night air was like stepping under a cold fountain – clean and almost intoxicating.
Paullus peered into the dark.
‘There!’ She pointed.
Two figures glimpsed between the wild olives. One was big and wide, the other slighter and less tall. They were making off into the hills.
CHAPTER 19
Patria
609 Ab Urbe Condita (145 BC)
WHAT IF THEY RETURNED, bringing accomplices? What if there were more of them already in the temple? A third man – any number of men – might have been in the storeroom, and by now be waiting in the darkness at the foot of the stairs.
The Return Page 16
