Bandits of Rome

by Bandits of Rome (retail) (epub)

  Carbo’s arms ached from the previous day’s work, and his hands were stinging where blisters had arisen and burst, leaving exposed, weeping sores. He gritted his teeth, ignoring the pain, pictures of Meru’s bleeding face swimming before him every time he felt like slacking.

  When Amasis arrived with their water for their first break, he watched them work for a little while in approval, before calling for them to stop. They gathered round him, gulping down the liquid, wiping sweat and dirt out of their eyes and from their mouths.

  “You are working better today,” said Amasis. “More or less on target for your quota. Keep it up.”

  Carbo glared at him. “What choice do we have? Meet the quota or one of us is killed?”

  Amasis looked embarrassed. “I don’t make the rules. I’m a slave too, like you. I’ve been where you are breaking rocks and breaking my back. I was just one of the lucky ones, I survived. You could too, if you work hard, keep your head down. Maybe in a few years, one of you could be a supervisor. Your own room, your own tunic, better food.”

  “You make it sound so enticing,” muttered Curtius.

  “We could be like you?” asked Sica.

  “If you put the effort in, yes,” said Amasis.

  Sica spat on the floor. “Would rather die.”

  Amasis shook his head. “Well, that sort of is the other option.” He clapped his hands. “Back to work all of you, if you don’t want to be drawing lots again tomorrow morning.”

  Amasis took the cups away, and the slaves, with sighs and groans, picked up their tools and returned to work.

  “Tell me what you did for the bandits,” said Carbo to Curtius as they worked.

  “Why?” said Curtius.

  “Because I asked.”

  “It’s a waste of breath. What does it change?”

  “Maybe it will change your destiny. Maybe you won’t get your head smashed into the rock face.”

  Curtius grimaced, but stayed quiet, swinging his pick at the rock. After a while he realised that Carbo’s eyes were still on him, and he put his pick down, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

  “I was what you would call a liaison, I suppose. Between Atreus and Thyestes, and the local gangs, like the one Rabidus runs.”

  “Used to run,” said Carbo. “He’s dead.”

  Curtius raised an eyebrow.

  “Fat bastards heart gave out, I suppose? Serves him right. We fell out over a payment, and Rabidus double crossed me, told Atreus. So here I am.”

  “So Atreus and Thyestes are slavers? They steal slaves and free citizens, and smuggle them to the mines for profit?”

  Curtius nodded. “Among other schemes they have running. But this certainly seems to make them some money, judging by the lifestyle they lead.”

  “The lifestyle? You mean you know who they are?”

  Curtius’ eyes shifted away from Carbo’s intent stare.

  “No. I mean, not really.”

  “You’re lying.”

  Carbo grabbed the string around Curtius’ neck that held the apron on and twisted. Curtius gasped, gripped Carbo’s hand as choking noises came from his throat.

  “Tell me who they are!” roared Carbo.

  “Stop,” cried Amasis. “We don’t have time for this.”

  Carbo looked round, grip not loosening. Sica approached him cautiously, put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Carbo, you ask when the work is done. We need him. Or maybe one of us dies tomorrow.”

  Carbo hesitated, then let go, moving back. Curtius massaged his neck, breathing hard.

  “I can’t tell you. They have men everywhere, if they found out I had talked…”

  “You will tell me. Sooner or later.”

  “Come on,” urged Amasis.

  Carbo glared at Curtius, retrieved his pick and resumed work.

  As the day wore on, Carbo noticed the rock was getting tougher to break, and the chunks he was mining were becoming smaller. The pick felt heavier as he fatigued, but he thought he was still managing to put as much force into each swing. He looked across at Curtius’ rock pile and saw the same thing. Curtius noticed him looking and gestured at the rockface.

  “It’s getting harder,” he said. Carbo nodded, but continued, trying to give each swing as much impetus as he could muster. When Amasis returned with their drinks for the next break, Carbo told the supervisor about the problem.

  “Well, of course,” said Amasis. “Yesterday, the rockface was freshly firecracked. Now you are getting into the tougher, uncracked rock.”

  “But that makes it harder to meet our quota.”

  “Yes it does, though the overseers aren’t fools. Quotas are a little less for inexperienced teams. The one you missed yesterday was really very generous. If you had all pulled your weight all day, you would probably have made it without a problem.”

  Carbo glared at Curtius, who looked down.

  “So, keep up your workrate, and you will make your quota. Probably. Yes, I’m sure you will. And tomorrow, they will likely set a fire and crack the rockface again. Right, break over.”

  Publius wandered the villa disconsolately. Quintus was gone, father was still out. The huge place was completely empty, if you discounted the slaves, which he did. He took a deep draught from his silver goblet, feeling the warmth slide down his throat into his stomach. It helped a little. Not much.

  He should never have told Quintus. What good would come of him knowing the truth? And yet, he was his brother. He had a right to know the circumstances of his birth, the reality of his heritage. He thought of his father, and waves of fear and anger rolled over him, pulling and pushing him. If father had kept his temper, if Uncle Gnaeus had lived, they would never have left Rome, they wouldn’t live in this boring backwater. He hoped Quintus wouldn’t talk to father about what he had found out. It could only have come from Publius himself, and he quailed at the thought of his father’s wrath if, despite what had been promised, he knew that Publius had revealed the family secret.

  He found himself walking past his father’s sleeping chamber. His father’s current favoured bedslave, Ipy, was reclining on the bed, asleep. She lay under a light blanket, eyes flickering in some dream, breathing irregular. He thought about taking her, his father’s plaything, there in his father’s bed. Would that show he wasn’t scared of him, give him some measure of satisfaction?

  He sat on the edge of the bed, drew back the blankets and looked down at her. She was naked except for a small loincloth, and he admired the swell of her small breasts, the soft curves of her waist and hips. He put a hand on her leg, and felt himself become aroused. She stirred as he stroked the dark skin of her thigh up and down, rolled onto her back. Her eyes opened, slowly at first, a sly smile on her face, then they flew open as she realised who was touching her. She sat up abruptly, arms crossed in front of her breasts, staring at Publius in fear.

  “Master? What is it?”

  Publius squeezed the thigh firmly, looking at her with eyes narrowed, lust and anger and fear warring inside him. Then he turned away from her, disgusted with himself, though whether the disgust was for what he had been about to do, or for being unable to follow it through, he wasn’t sure.

  “Get out,” he snapped.

  Without a word, she grabbed a robe, and fled.

  Publius groaned and let himself flop back onto the bed. It was comfortable, the slightly greasy smell of duck feathers enveloping him, competing with the scented candles that Ipy kept lighted. He stared at the ceiling frescoes, semi-naked gods and goddesses cavorting with willing mortals. A wave of drunken dizziness swamped him, and he rolled onto his front with a groan, feeling suddenly hot, reaching beneath the mattress to find somewhere cool to put his hands.

  He felt something solid, gripped it, retrieved it. An iron key. He looked at the chest in the corner of the room, and back at the key.

  It fit easily, and he opened the lid. Inside were two masks.

  Tragedy and Comedy. He picked up
the Comedy mask, rotated it to examine it, inside and out. There were flecks of dark blood on the exterior. The leather strap that held it in place was sweat stained. He made to put it on, fiddled with the strap. As it opened, he saw some hair had been trapped in the bronze buckle. He plucked a strand free.

  A deep fury shot through Publius. After all he had just shared with his brother, to find he was keeping a secret like this from him.

  He rolled the dark, curly hair between his fingers.

  Quintus.

  Carbo estimated the passing time by the water breaks. By the time each one arrived, he felt he was at the physical limit of what he could do. But around him all the others continued to work, labouring for themselves and for each other, and Carbo kept going. After several water breaks, Carbo felt the day must be drawing to a close, and he asked Amasis how they were doing.

  “Lagging behind a little, I believe, but not far. There is just an hour left to work, so if you put your all into it, you should be fine.”

  Knowing how little time for which they still needed to toil helped, and they attacked the rocks with renewed vigour. Their chests heaved, lungs working hard to draw breath from the heavy air. Hands and knees bled, eyes stung and mouths and noses were choked up with dust. As they worked themselves to the point of exhaustion, Carbo wondered how he could possibly pick up his tools and do this all over again tomorrow. But right now, all that mattered was the finish line, the quota, succeeding and knowing they would live for another day.

  Phraates let out a loud cry, and Carbo turned quickly to see what had happened. The large slave was gripping his wrist and shouting what were no doubt curses in his alien language. Orobazes was looking pale. Carbo went over to them. He saw immediately what must have happened. They had been breaking the same rock, and Phraates must have reached out when Orobazes wasn’t expecting it, or Orobazes’ blow had been badly aimed. Either way, Phraates’ forearm now bent at an unnatural angle.

  Sica peered round Carbo and stared at the injury.

  “Broken,” she said. “Bad.”

  Phraates was slumped backwards against the wall now, breathing hard and trembling as the full force of the pain and the realisation of the extent of the injury set in. Orobazes babbled to Carbo, face anguished. Carbo looked around, realised suddenly that everyone had stopped and was staring in horror.

  “Back to work everyone. We don’t have much time. Come on.”

  His words seemed to snap them all out of their trance, and they resumed their labour. Carbo swung his pick with all his might, sending chunks of rock flying. Curtius did the same. Orobazes returned to smashing the rocks, and when the pile that Curtius and Carbo were producing grew too large for the man on his own, Carbo stopped mining and helped him with the rock breaking. Agamede and Sica scurried like worker ants to and fro with their baskets of rubble. Carbo’s heart thumped in his chest. He wanted to lie down and die. But he kept on.

  Amasis entered. “Your shift is over.”

  They all slumped to the ground, with groans and whimpers.

  “Is it enough, Amasis?” breathed Carbo.

  Amasis shook his head. “I don’t know.” He noticed Phraates nursing his broken arm. “Ah, I see why you slowed down at the end. But you are close, I can see that. Let’s just trust to Fortuna. Come on, back to the hut.”

  Pamphile was already back at the hut when they returned from the mines. When they entered, she didn’t look up, just sat in a corner, knees pulled up to her chin, arms tight around her shins. Her face was bruised, her bottom lip split and swollen and bloody. Agamede rushed over and put her arms around her, but Pamphile pushed her back, and turned her face away. When the guards came into the hut to reattach her chains to the rest of the group, she flinched when they came near, though made no effort to resist.

  They all sat, exhausted. Curtius eyed Carbo from the far side of the room.

  “Tell me who they are,” said Carbo in a low voice.

  “I can’t,” said Curtius. “They will kill me.”

  “Do you really think you are in more danger from unknown informers, or from me?”

  Curtius looked into Carbo’s eyes and knew the answer.

  “Atreus was a man named Blaesus. A wealthy man, has a villa outside Nola. His brother, the one going by the name of Thyestes, is called Lucius.”

  Carbo gaped.

  “You know them already?” asked Curtius.

  Carbo nodded. Then a horrible realisation settled on him. If Blaesus was the father, who was the son? Could it be Quintus?

  “Who is the one called Menelaus?” asked Carbo.

  Curtius looked confused. “Never heard of him. It’s just Atreus and Thyestes.”

  “Thyestes is dead. I killed him.”

  “Ah,” said Curtius. “That explains a lot.”

  “Now Atreus has a companion called Menelaus, who I think is his son.”

  “At the time Atreus sold me here, there was no Menelaus. So you think it is his son, Publius?”

  “Or his other son, Quintus. He came back from a long stay in Greece recently.”

  Curtius looked momentarily interested, then sighed.

  “Why do you care? Blaesus will go on doing exactly what he has always done. Terrorise, kill, enslave. And we are going to die here.”

  The food when it came was the same as the night before, stew, with two bowls. They ate hungrily, but quietly, lacking energy for conversation, for anything apart from the things they needed to do to stay alive - breathe, eat, drink, excrete. When the food was gone, Sica shimmied up to Carbo, and fell asleep lying against him. For a short moment, sleep eluded Carbo. He wondered whether they had made the quota, and if not who woud die the next day. He wondered too how it was possible to go on for any length of time. How had Amasis survived so long? Carbo, physically tough as he was, albeit his body worn out from his years in the legions, had struggled to make it through the first two days. How could he make it through a week, a month, a year? And how could someone as delicate as Sica hope to survive?

  That was just it, though, he realised. This wasn’t about survival. It was about how you died, and when. Blaesus hadn’t sent him here to atone for the murder of his brother, to undergo punishment before his return to society. Blaesus had sent him here so that he would die in torment. As sleep gripped him, Carbo realised that was what was going to happen. And as he drifted into a land where Rufa would admonish him, and fallen comrades from the battlefields would haunt him, and Germanic priestesses would threaten torture on him all over again, he realised he didn’t want to die.

  Publius had already been drinking steadily for most of the day when his father returned home. He reclined on the top couch in the triclinium, picking olives from a plate and sipping from a silver goblet of Falernian.

  “Good evening, father,” he said. “Had a pleasant day?”

  Blaesus regarded him steadily.

  “P…pleasant enough.”

  “Been doing anything interesting?”

  Blaesus looked at the goblet, then flicked his fingers. Pharnaces, who had accompanied him, appeared at his shoulder. “Bring me one of those,” said Blaesus. Pharnaces inclined his head, and headed for the kitchen. Blaesus sat on the edge of a couch and regarded his son steadily.

  “I had some business to attend to in town. Why do you ask?”

  Publius took a draught of wine.

  “Just showing an interest. A son can be interested in his father’s comings and goings can’t he?”

  “Publius, you’re drunk. As usual.” The tone was that of a father unsurprised to be disappointed again.

  “Does it surprise you, father? Stuck in this backwater, no culture, no career. No opportunity to take my rightful place on the cursus honorum.”

  “You’ve never shown any ambition before, son. And as for culture…” Blaesus gave a mocking laugh.

  Publius threw his goblet hard against the wall. It clattered to the floor, rolled in a circle, and was still. Pharnaces returned with Blaesus’ drink, took in the
scene, and froze in the doorway. Father and son ignored him. Publius reached behind him, and drew out the comedy mask.

  Blaesus’ eyes narrowed.

  “You have been in my r…room. You broke into my chest.” It wasn’t a question.

  “There’s a tragedy mask in there too.” Blaesus regarded him steadily, nostrils flaring with each breath.

  “So, the bandits who have been terrorising people around here these last years. You are tragedy, correct? The one calling himself Atreus?”

  Blaesus inclined his head. It wasn’t quite an acknowledgment, but it wasn’t a denial.

  “And Thyestes? That was Uncle Lucius wasn’t it? Is he dead?”

  “Yes,” said Blaesus flatly.

  “And now they say Atreus has a new partner. Menelaus. His son?”

  Blaesus said nothing.

  “Father!” The word came out as both a cry of anguish and a plea.

  Publius turned to Pharnaces. “Get out, slave.”

  “Stay, Pharnaces.” Pharnaces looked from one to the other, then remained where he was.

  “What is it you want, Publius?” said Blaesus.

  Publius stared at him for a moment. “Answers. Explanations. Why do you do this? You have no need of money. Do you?”

  Blaesus shook his head. “Does it matter?”

  Publius slammed his fist onto the table before him, causing the plate of olives to jump, some of the fruits rolling onto the floor. “If it didn’t matter, I wouldn’t ask,” he said, voice tight.