The Burning Stone

by Jack Whyte

  The first of the outhouses, though, around the western corner of the house, contained an anomaly, though not a mysterious one. The building was not large, a single space approximately eight paces deep by twelve wide, and had the appearance of a jailhouse. A wall facing him as he stepped inside was pierced by two solid, heavy-looking doors, each of which stood open, showing the darkened interiors of windowless cells beyond. Three cots were ranged along the wall to his right, behind the entrance door, and he glanced idly at them, wondering briefly why the three mercenaries should all be sleeping side by side in one corner when there was nothing else in the room but a heavy wooden table with a stained, deeply scarred top. The fireplace was on the same side of the room as the cots, though, and that in itself might have been sufficient reason. The nights were, occasionally, still cold. He wasted no time speculating, though, and took no more than a few moments to glance into each of the remaining outhouses. He retraced his steps quickly, pulled the main gate closed behind him, collected his riding horse from the stable across the road, and rode into the city.

  An hour later, as he was sitting at a curbside stall, eating a bowl of chicken stew flavoured with powerful, tangy garum and mopping up the delicious juice with fresh-baked bread, he saw Endor’s tall, black-clad steward walk by, tilted now against the weight of his laden basket, and he watched him moving towards the outer gates until he was lost to view. He finished his meal, returned the earthen bowl to the stallholder with a nod of thanks and appreciation, and asked where he might find a decent mug of ale. Then he untied his horse from the post by which he had been sitting and made his way to the sign of the Bull, where the ale turned out to be as fine as promised.

  Two hours after that, in the middle of the afternoon, he returned to the Villa Carbo and introduced himself, using his alias of Gaius Blixus, to the man called Albus, explaining his encounter at the mansio with Master Carbo and the request that he present himself at the villa to assume his responsibilities. Albus agreed, albeit with a hint of wary skepticism, to provide a tour of the premises.

  The steward was aloof and disdainful, but his disdain seemed born of naivety rather than cynicism. His sole function, he said, was to exercise stewardship over his master’s home: to maintain the house and hire staff as was necessary from time to time in order to accommodate his employer’s needs whenever he came to town, which was not often—perhaps three times in any given year, and seldom for more than ten days at a stretch.

  Passing the outhouse that he knew held the three beds, Cato asked what its purpose was. Magister Carbo, Albus told him, was a prominent merchant, and as such he frequently had need of certain types of retainers—bodyguards and such—to protect him in his dealings with certain of his more unsavoury customers. Whenever he did have a need for such men, he brought them in and lodged them in the outhouse. There they remained until their work was done, and Albus had no contact with them, or they with him.

  Not even to feed them? Cato had asked, and had earned himself a scandalized glare of disapproval. They fed themselves, the steward inferred, at hostelries in the town whenever they were hungry. Such things were none of his business, he claimed, and Magister Carbo had made that very clear when Albus had come to work for him, eight years before. He was expressly forbidden to have anything to do with any of the outhouses—he called them warehouses—or with any of the activities being conducted therein, or to communicate in any way with the occasional hirelings brought in by Carbo or his agents. They, in turn, were forbidden access to the main house.

  Cato concluded that the major-domo had to be either blind or stupid not to have guessed, after eight years, that his master might be less than the upright merchant he believed him to be. And yet, in fairness, Appius Endor had kept his identity and the scope of his activities concealed from Rome’s finest investigative resources for more than a decade. Small wonder, then, that he could deceive an aging housekeeper obsessed with pleasing his master and retaining a highly lucrative position in which he had to please no one but himself for much of the year.

  Albus showed him to the dead Ritka’s quarters and left him there, and Cato unpacked his kit with the ease of long practice and stowed his few belongings on the shelves above the bed before stuffing the bag itself into the footlocker at the bed’s end. Soon afterwards he heard a noise from the courtyard. He moved quickly to the passageway that ran in front of the sleeping rooms on the upper floor, where he stopped and leaned backwards, careful not to be seen. The three mercenaries were back, two of them pulling a long, narrow handcart as they crossed the cobbled forecourt towards their quarters. Taking care not to reveal himself, he crouched and moved cautiously along the passageway to keep them in sight between the railings of the walkway. They stopped in front of the entrance to the outhouse, peered about them suspiciously, then one of them raised the pole at the front of the cart and held it tilted while his two companions pulled the cloth-shrouded body of a man out of it. One glance at the shrouded form had convinced Cato that the man in the cart was dead, but as he was being pulled out of the cart bed the heavily muffled man convulsed and kicked out several times before he was hammered into unconsciousness by one of his captors. The man who had hit him then stooped and took the body over his shoulder, straightened up with a heave, and carried the inert shape inside. His two companions followed him in and closed the door.

  Returning to the main house, Cato found Albus in a tiny cubiculum that he assumed to be the steward’s official workplace. It was set off to one side of the formal dining room, reinforcing his impression that it was the steward’s personal domain.

  “Albus,” he said, leaning into the tiny room and ignoring the man’s petulant frown. “Magister Carbo told me to wait for him here, but he couldn’t say when he would arrive. We were near Lindum at the time and he was due to meet with another merchant there. I have a reason for being curious. My brother lives fifteen miles south of here, and I have not seen him in years. I would like to visit him if I have time. The magister himself told me I’ll have little free time once he returns—not for another year at least, he said—so I would like to take a day or two now, if that is possible. So would you know when he is due to arrive?”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” Albus said, contriving somehow to look annoyed and pleased to be asked at the same time. He turned away, nodding and muttering to himself, then straightened again, brandishing a flattened scroll with something of a flourish. “I had been expecting him later today or by tomorrow at the latest. When I returned from the market this afternoon, though, I found a mounted courier waiting for me, bearing this.” He wiggled the missive again. “The magister has had to change his plans and was to leave Londinium on Mercury’s Day, the day the courier left to come here. He would then travel west to Pontes, where he would remain for one more day—which means he would have left there yesterday—and would return here directly from there, passing through Londinium again. So I expect him to return sometime tomorrow, or failing that, the day after.”

  Cato nodded, solemn-faced. “My thanks, Albus. That means, I’m afraid, that my visit to my brother will have to wait. I have no wish to miss the magister’s homecoming. Not after having come such a long way to meet him.” He began to turn away, then hesitated. “I’m going to have to eat tonight, and I presume you must know the local hostelries. Is any one better than the others?”

  The steward stared at him speculatively for a few moments, then said slowly, “I have to eat, too, Magister Blixus, but I cook for myself, here. You are welcome to join me.”

  Cato smiled, hiding his surprise. “I would be glad to do that, Magister Albus, but not tonight. Not without advance warning. That would be too much of an imposition on your goodwill. Besides, I have to visit the garrison commander’s office in the town, to deliver something I promised to send to an old friend in my former cohort. If I might, though, I’ll be glad to join you tomorrow night.”

  Albus grimaced a little and dipped his head to one side. “The master might be back tomorrow night, in which
case, who knows what might happen?”

  “Of course, but I’ll gladly take whatever comes.”

  The steward nodded. “So be it, then. We’ll take what comes.”

  * * *

  —

  That night after dark, Cato sat alone again in the passageway outside his room, watching the dim outline of the building housing the three mercenaries and their prisoner. When he saw the door swing open, spilling light into the forecourt, he followed the two men who emerged. They strolled towards the gates and then took the road into town. He stayed well behind them, enveloped in the blackness of the night, and when they entered the Bull tavern, he gave them time to settle themselves before he followed them inside. He seated himself at one of the three common tables and ordered a jug of ale and a hot pasty from the woman who came to serve him.

  He had no way of knowing whether the place was unusually busy or not, but it was half-full, with bodies coming and going constantly, and no one paid him any attention as he sat quietly and enjoyed his meal. He sat facing the rear wall, because he remembered from his first visit that the common privy, a foul hole in the ground protected by a rotted, waist-high enclosure, lay at the back of the premises, beyond the rear door that had no other purpose than to offer access to the midden. He finished his pasty appreciatively, carefully sweeping the leftover flakes of pastry into his palm before scooping them up with his tongue, then sat minding his own business, nursing his ale and sucking at a stray piece of meat lodged between two teeth until the two mercenaries stood up and prepared to leave, neither of them apparently having a need to use the privy himself.

  They did, though, as soon as they were outside and clear of the town walls, and Cato stood nearby, in the shadows, and listened to them piss. They returned to the villa after that, and he waited again, this time at the gateway, fingering the weapon that hung over his shoulder beneath his jerkin, until the third man, relieved of his guard duty, came out to go and find his own meal.

  Cato’s weapon was a supple, well-oiled, and slightly flattened tube of thick black leather, almost the length of his arm and divided into five sections that were filled with a mixture of sand and lead pellets. It was flexible, versatile, and lethal, and it hit the third man behind the ear as he walked past, dropping him instantly to his knees, before he folded at the waist and toppled sideways, unconscious. Cato dragged him out of sight, then trussed him expertly with arm’s-length pieces of thin, strong rope that he had brought with him, folded over the belt at his waist. He gagged him with a small wad of cloth, then tied the wad in place with another piece of rope, and left the mercenary lying there against the wall while he went swiftly in the other direction, crossing the road to the stable. He led the packhorse back to where the bound man lay, then manhandled the inert figure with sheer brute strength until he had it draped across the animal’s back. After pausing only briefly to let his breathing return to normal, he led the beast back to its stable, where he unloaded the still-unconscious mercenary, checked his bonds, added a few more for safety’s sake, and made sure the gag was still securely in place. He then covered his prisoner with a horse blanket, covered that with hay, and made his way back to the villa, where he slept soundly for the next six hours.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Cato was astir again long before dawn, knowing that the two remaining mercenaries might not have slept well once they realized their companion had not returned, and so he was watching again when one of them let himself out of the building soon after dawn and set out on the road, presumably to look for the delinquent. He waited until he was sure the fellow had really gone, then made his way to their outbuilding. Now, at the door to the stone jailhouse, he paused with his hand hovering over the hilt of the sword on his right side, then changed his mind and pulled out the lead-weighted weapon he had used the night before. He held it dangling by his right leg, then pushed the door open smoothly with his left hand and stepped quickly inside.

  The man directly inside, at the table, was asleep, cradling a short-handled blacksmith’s hammer. Whatever his purpose might have been for sitting there nursing the tool, though, the fellow had forgotten it, nodding off in his chair. He startled awake as he heard the door opening, but Cato gave him no opportunity to gather his wits. He lunged forward, swinging his heavy bludgeon in a round-armed swipe that sent the guard and his chair sprawling into the corner.

  Even as he was bending into the swing, though, Cato sensed another, unexpected presence behind him and threw himself forward instinctively, following the man he had hit, and he heard the hissing strike of a hard-swung sword close to his head. Cursing himself for carelessness, he hurled himself down and sideways, dropping the leather flail and using his hand to push himself off the heavy tabletop in a tumbling roll towards the other corner, spinning as he moved and whipping the shorter of his two swords from its sheath as his knee struck the floor.

  The attacker was coming at him again, his gladius held low and angled slightly upwards for the classic disembowelling short-sword slash. But Cato was already below his strike line, on the floor, and by the time the man had changed his grip Cato was rising again, the corner at his back and a sword in each hand. He heard the man he had hit whimpering in the other corner, so he knew there was no danger yet from that direction, and he gave all his attention to the fellow facing him. The two faced off briefly, crouching warily, each taking the measure of the other, aware of the lack of space surrounding them. Then they both lunged again and it was over. Cato caught the other man’s incoming blade on the shorter sword in his left hand, hammering it aside with a vicious backhanded chop, and killed him at the same instant with the longer blade, thrusting the razor-sharp edge of the Hispanic steel through his ribs with the full, lunging strength of his blow. He stood there for a moment, watching the life drain from the wide, surprised eyes mere inches from his own, then pushed the body backwards, jerking his blade free as the dead weight fell away from him.

  He held a deep breath for a count of five, then exhaled slowly and let the tension flow out of him before he looked at the fallen man in the corner, who was curled in a ball, moaning quietly and cradling his injured shoulder. Cato crossed to him in two steps and seized him by the wrist, straightening the arm and drawing a howl of protest. He squeezed the arm, testing it, then wiped his bloodied blade on the fellow’s sleeve and released him, watching as he clutched the injured limb again in his free hand without looking up.

  Cato sheathed his two swords and retrieved his leather club from the floor, then took away the downed fourth man’s sword and threw it against the far wall. He stepped back to the injured fellow, grasped the long hair of his single, greasy forelock, and jerked his head up until he was looking into his eyes.

  “Be quiet,” he growled, and pulled him to his feet. The man moved unwillingly, but once he was up Cato spun him around and hauled his injured arm up behind his back, making him howl like a kicked dog, and used the leverage to propel him through the open cell door. The room was pitch-dark, but enough light spilled through the open door to show that it was bare except for a single wooden chair, and so Cato simply smacked the fellow at the base of the skull with the lead-filled sap and let him fall to the floor.

  He replaced the overturned chair and then picked up the smith’s hammer from the floor and laid it almost absent-mindedly on the tabletop before he turned to look at the body on the floor, aware that his miscalculation there had been inexcusable. He had accepted, without verifying, that there were only three mercenaries in the villa, just as he had accepted, without verifying, that the corpse he had seen a year earlier had been Endor’s. He had been wrong on both occasions and had had no one but himself to blame. The unsuspected presence of the fourth man had come close to costing him his life, and that he had survived was a matter of nothing more than luck. When he was younger it would have been inconceivable for him to commit such a lax, fundamental error, and now he had done it twice.

  The body had fallen beside a pair of buckets that stood against the wall close to
the pleasantly burning fire in the grate. Attracted by the odour they gave off, he looked more closely at them and saw that one of them held four rag torches soaking in liquid pitch that was kept slightly warm by its proximity to the fire. The other was nearly full of drinking water, and he scooped up the attached ladle, filled it, and drank deeply, voraciously thirsty the moment he had seen it.

  He dropped the ladle back into the pail, then squatted down, unfastened the sword belt around the dead man’s waist, and pulled it free. He took hold of the body by the shoulders, straightened up with a grunt and a heave of his thighs, and dragged it into the cell with the other man, where he dropped it against the wall behind the door. Then he went back out and secured the door with a thick plank that slotted into brackets on either side of the frame.

  He looked at the blood on the floor where the dead man had fallen and was surprised to see how little there was. But then, he thought, the fellow had died quickly—close to instantly—and dead men, unlike dying men, don’t bleed much. The small puddle that remained was already sinking into the earth floor, and he knew that by the following morning it would be black, virtually invisible in the darkness of the floor itself. He didn’t really care about it anyway, for he doubted that many people would be visiting the Villa Carbo in the days to come. He then picked up the dead man’s sword from where he had thrown it by the door, sheathed it in the belt he had taken from the body, then threw it on one of the cots.