Black Salamander (10 page)

The invalid nodded solemnly as the trio continued their tour of the gallery. Below, where the central hall of the basilica was divided into three naves separated by pillars of black, red and white marble, throngs of noisy shoppers milled around, shoving their way between the clamouring crowds intent on visiting the law courts, shops and offices which opened straight into the street. Slaves in gaudy tunics, merchants in white woollen togas, red-booted senators and magistrates with purple stripes on their robes, hardly an inch passed between them, they looked for all the world like multi-coloured crystals moving round inside a kaleidoscope.

‘Of course I’m behind it,’ the thin man reiterated, clasping his hands. ‘With Augustus out of the way, the three of us can make a huge difference to the Empire. No more namby-pambying with the Germans, cut right through, I say, and sod leaving them to administer their own bloody territories. That’s where he,’ he shot a glance over his shoulder to his marble Imperial Majesty, ‘has failed us. Allowing the likes of the Gauls and the Egyptians to police themselves.’

‘I quite agree.’ A pudgy thumb made a positive gesture. ‘Autonomy is not the answer. Never mind taxing the buggers, it’s our bloody land, chum. We fought for it, we conquered it, the provinces are ours by right.’

‘Absolutely,’ Squint said. ‘And with the technology we have at our fingertips today, we can work those lands far better than a few backward yokels and with the Gauls, the Africans, the Balkan tribes, the whole bloody lot under our Republican yoke, we’ll have an endless source of cheap labour and by the gods how rich we’ll be. Both personally, and as a nation, and this,’ his arm swept round the basilica, ‘will look like a flea-ridden farmstead in comparison. Gold pillars, gold ceilings, I tell you, gentlemen, when we’ve
finished, Rome won’t be a city of bricks and stone, not
even a city of marble. Every temple, every public building, every rooftop will be gold, between us we shall create the eighth wonder of the world where even the great pyramids will be dwarfed in comparison.’

‘Hear, hear,’ Fatso said.

‘But I still ask the question,’ Squint continued, ‘are the rebel tribes to be trusted?’

The fat man wiped his bald and sweating pate with the hem of his toga and steered his colleagues to a quiet corner, ostensibly to admire the frieze. ‘I can understand why you’re both jittery,’ he said. ‘It’s been three weeks since our last conference, and we promised to meet only occasionally and in public so as not to draw attention to ourselves.’

Three heads leaned at a forty-five degree angle, as though venerating the artist’s interpretation of the rape of the Sabine women.

‘Now, since I am co-ordinating the plan and have access to the most information, let me reassure you as to the security both from within Rome and as regarding the tribes. As you know, we have set the assassination date for the Ides of July—’

‘Our neatest touch yet.’ The invalid laughed. ‘The old Republic was swept away when the Divine Julius was murdered on the Ides of March. Now history will recall the occasion when it was restored. On the Ides of the month named after Caesar.’

‘Quite.’ With self-satisfied smiles, three heads turned to lean forty-five degrees the other way, as though to admire the frieze from the opposite angle.

‘Obviously it’s not just Augustus who’ll have to go. You both have a full list of the generals, senators, magistrates and servants who’ll have to be despatched that same night, and that should not prove too much of a problem. We have sufficient loyal allies here in Rome and, as agreed, poison will be our chosen method. A silent killer, requiring the minimum number of assassins—any problems so far?’

‘Only that my brother-in-law is on the list,’ said Squint.

‘Does that present an obstacle?’ the fat man asked.

‘None whatsoever.’

‘Good. Now once the Ides of July hits home, chaos will break out, and this is where our last few months of sucking up to the likes of the Treveri come into their own. We can’t hope to restore the Republic without external assistance. Already since we’ve sown our little seeds of unrest, two legions have been despatched to the trouble spots and as of today, sporadic fighting will break out in another four places, five tomorrow, and rather than leave the German border unprotected, Augustus is bound to remove troops from Italy and Gaul.’

‘With such a sodding great hole in our defences, the tribes we’ve bribed will sweep through the Alps and lay siege to Rome in a week,’ said the thin man.

‘And therein lies my concern,’ Squint said. ‘You may recall, we haven’t actually bribed them. All they know is that the State Treasury has been secretly raided for payment, but the treasure, for security’s sake, is stored at some hitherto undisclosed destination.’

The fat man turned away from the fate of the wretched Sabines to lean his arms on the rail as though observing the colourful surge in the nave.

‘But the map’s on its way, is it not?’ Ripples of fat trembled as his great frame began to heave with mirth. ‘The Helvetii know it, the Treveri know it, every bloody
rebel chieftain knows we’ve sent the effing thing, and that
when it finally arrives in Vesontio, the individual pieces will be handed over to some appointed agent who’ll stitch it together and pass it on, and between them, the tribes can fight over who gets what.’

By now all three senators were mopping tears of laughter from their eyes as the beauty of their double-cross came into focus.

‘Now I ask you.’ The fat man guffawed. ‘What can possibly go wrong?’

XI

By mid-afternoon on their third day in the canyon, Claudia had begun to suspect that the purpose behind the rock fall was not an ambush in order to rob, rape and massacre, rather a ploy to delay the party’s arrival in Vesontio. What other explanation could there be? That they’d be rescued by the army could not be doubted, it was merely a question of time. Since the landslide was a masterstroke of civil engineering, destroying both entrances to the ravine while snowmelts rendered this gorge unnavigable, any efforts to break through would be hampered from all angles, buying time, time, time and more time.

Why?

Perched on a rock, dangling her feet in one of the quieter pools as she dried her hair with a towel, Claudia studied the stranded assemblage. Much to Maria’s social chagrin, more and more clothing had appeared on the shrubbery, vivid scarlets and blues, yellows and white—gaudy blossoms along the green riverbank. Acceptance had now set in, the group was relaxed, almost happy, and even old Hanno was enough of a trooper to know that the best way to mourn his grandson was to be cheerful. So he was back to being the joker again, his prune of a face gurning, his wiry frame mimicking everyone from Clemens to Volso, even Drusilla could not escape his hilarious caricatures. Look at the way he cocked his nose upwards in disdain—the cat might have been looking at a mirror image of herself.

Maybe, thought Claudia, maybe I’m wrong about the saboteur being one of us. Take a look at the carnival atmosphere. Theo, out of armour and looking at least twelve years of age, clowning around with the muleteer, a clumsy stooge to the comedian. Iliona, belting out a tub-thumper of a song about the skill of Cretan archers as the younger wives clapped and danced, their long hair unbound and informal, their skirts whirling and swirling and revealing their knees. A couple of the older matrons smiled benignly as they scrubbed their linens on the rocks and wrung them dry and even the two injured drivers, suffering from the effects of dwindling henbane supplies, made an effort to tap with the lively rhythm. Other men fished or arm-wrestled, played dice or dozed, while Clemens and Volso argued their respective theological professions.

Maybe the landslip was Mother Nature’s work after all?

Steam and the delicious smell of mint tea drifted upstream from the cauldron, crackling over an aromatic fir fire, while sunlight filtered through the trembling aspens to make dazzling patterns on the fizzy waters of this wide rushing river.

Briskly, Claudia rubbed at her hair. Oh yes, a peaceful and contented scene all right, reminiscent of public holidays when city folk crowd into the Alban hills for picnics and bonfires and musical celebrations. Except this was no happy-go-lucky chaplet-and-garland day. The motive behind thirty-two people being trapped in this sweltering valley might be sinister or simply the result of prolonged, heavy rain, but the point is, Claudia reminded herself, whether the saboteur walks among us or not, one of our bunch is a cold-blooded killer.

‘Hey!’ The shout echoed along the ravine. ‘Up there! Look!’

Everyone followed to where Hanno’s gnarled finger was pointing.

‘I can’t see anything,’ Dexter said. ‘My eyes are too weak to see far in the sunlight,’ but nobody heard him, because by now they’d all risen to their feet in excitement and were yelling and pointing and squinting simultaneously.

Upstream on a bend and unable to see what the others could, Claudia felt her legs go weak with relief. The army. At long last, the army had found them. From now on, the convoy was safe.

‘Who is he, can you tell?’ the slipper-maker asked. His profile was slanting lower all the time, marking the company’s descent and Claudia frowned. He? Surely the slipper-maker meant ‘they’?

‘Not Helvetii,’ Volso said, shielding his eyes for a better view. ‘Or Sequani for that matter. They wear pantaloons, rather than tunics.’

They. That’s better.

‘He looks Roman to me,’ Titus said.

He?

‘And to me,’ piped up one of the drivers.

‘And me.’ That was Hanno.

The wooden bridge echoed with the rumble of footsteps running in greeting, but still Claudia couldn’t quite see. Then a bolt of white lightning shot through her. Sweet Juno in heaven, I’m hallucinating. Too much root of burdock, too little wine, those mushrooms must have been the wrong type. I’m seeing things.

But…surely she recognized that long patrician tunic? That mop of wavy, dark hair? A catapult ricocheted all round her ribcage. Someone sucked the air out of her lungs.

‘Trust him,’ she muttered to a brimstone butterfly. Of all the bravehearts sent to rescue us, it had to be him in the bloody vanguard.

Yellow wings fluttered closer.

‘Who?’ Claudia framed the question the little butterfly could not. ‘I’ll tell you who!’ Her voice came out in a hiss. ‘Marcus Fancypants Orbilio, that’s who.’

And I need him around like I need a kick up the bum. With her teeth grinding down to their gums, she launched a rock into orbit. Trust Hotshot to have to prove himself a hero. Him and his bloody ambitions for the Senate.

Still. Claudia scrubbed the feeling back into the two lumps of meat which had once been her feet but which had stayed too long in the icy cold river. When you’re rescued from a shipwreck, you don’t whinge about the quality of the blankets they wrap you in, do you?

As she clambered back over the rocks towards the riverbank, the numbness playing havoc with her ankle joints, she noticed Junius jogging up the road towards her.

‘Have you crated Drusilla?’ she asked. ‘Stuffed our bits and pieces back in the trunk?’

‘Um—’

‘It’s about bloody time the army did something useful for a change.’

Goodbye, outdoorsy life with your fresh air, open skies and whatnot. Roll on Vesontio’s theatres, dinner parties, dress shops and herbalists.

‘Ah—’

Give me stuffy streets and noisy tenements any day. Nothing beats the taste of dust from the hooves of the charioteer’s nags, the racket from a few brawling drunkards, the thwack of boxers’ knuckles connecting with chins. Claudia checked her satchel, the one which had never left her sight, not even at night when she used it as a pillow, and saw the seal of the salamander staring back at her.

‘Junius, why are you standing there with a face like a thunderclap?’ She rubbed at the pins and needles which had set into her feet. ‘Either we’re packed or we’re not, and if you tell me we’re not, you can expect to be served your own liver for tea.’

‘Well, madam—’

Claudia forced the icy blocks into her sandals. ‘Wells are for water,’ she snapped, without looking up. ‘Now what’s the problem? Don’t tell me you want to remain in this godforsaken hellhole?’

He was a Gaul, after all. Maybe one day she ought to check where he came from…

‘It’s not that, madam.’ Ideally he’d have paused, found time to phrase his words, but her glare wouldn’t permit such a luxury and therefore his words tumbled out in a gush.

As the sun dived behind a cottonball cloud, Claudia listened to her bodyguard’s report, only what he was saying didn’t make sense. She made him repeat it, just in case he’d been at the magic mushrooms too, but no. Both accounts, while jumbled, retained the same salient points.

‘Let me get this straight.’ Claudia ticked them off on her fingers. ‘There’s no army here to rescue us.’

‘Correct.’

‘Superman out there’—mobbed by the crowd, Orbilio had all but disappeared in the crush—‘has come here completely alone.’

‘Correct.’

‘Pretending, what’s more, to be part of the delegation.’

‘His story’—try as he might, Junius could not fully disguise the sullenness which spoiled his handsome face as he jerked a thumb in the direction of the man crossing the bridge downstream—‘is that he was taken ill in Bern and spent three days in bed, by which time the convoy was long gone.’