Rome's Lost Son (7 page)

‘Who’s attacking you?’ Vespasian asked, pulling the sword from its scabbard with a metallic ring.

Magnus rammed the tip of his blade between two floorboards. ‘Fuck knows, but they’re serious.’ With a grunt he pulled back on the weapon and sprang a board up.

Vespasian realised just how serious they were as the first whiff of smoke came through the door.

‘They’re torching the place!’ Narcissus shouted, drawing his sword and looking at the blade in disbelief.

‘That’s why we need to fight our way out of the back door,’ Magnus said, hauling a strongbox out from under the floor.

The clash of iron against iron rang above the yells; then a wail added to the noise, rising in pitch and fearful realisation – someone had been hideously wounded.

‘Uncle, help Magnus with that box.’ Vespasian pushed past Narcissus and Agarpetus and stuck his head around the door to see a couple of whores burst through the leather curtain from the bar; smoke wafted in with them. They turned down the corridor and then caught sight of him, screamed, doubled back and disappeared up the staircase at the other end. Vespasian ran along to the curtain and carefully pulled it back a fraction. Flames raged behind the bar where the cooking fire had been fed some incendiary liquid; a body writhed on the counter, its wails weakening as its flesh charred. Dozens of figures struggled in the blaze’s glow, in pairs or groups, wrestling hand to hand or stabbing at close quarters, screaming, cursing, growling as they fought for their lives. The bodies of the dying squirmed in agony on the floor, entangling the legs of friend and foe alike as men strove to keep their balance and their chances of survival. Over their heads and beneath the thickening pall of smoke Vespasian could see that the door at the narrow end was barred by two hulking shapes with staves – no one was leaving by that exit.

Sextus, bellowing like a goaded, chained bear, hacked and cut downwards onto a smaller opponent’s upturned sword, forcing it ever lower as his brothers slowly gave ground around him, under pressure from weight of numbers and the growing strength of the flames. There was no way forward, only back.

‘Sextus!’ Vespasian yelled into the room. ‘Now, before it’s too late!’

Sextus roared and sliced his blade down again with a force that dislodged his opponent’s from his grip. With a speed that belied his bulk, Sextus changed the stroke from vertical to horizontal, slicing through the exposed throat with an explosion of blood, black in the flicker of the flames, before backhanding the sword into the upraised arm of the intruder next to the dying man, taking the limb off at the elbow and sending it spinning, spiralling gore, over the heads of his comrades, weapon still in hand and glinting with firelight.

Vespasian backed away from the doorway as the South Quirinal Crossroads Brothers took advantage of the moment of extreme violence to retreat a few more steps. As he went back along the corridor the first of them pushed through the leather curtain.

‘Are they coming?’ Magnus asked as Vespasian ran back into the room.

‘As fast as they can,’ Vespasian replied.

Narcissus looked at him. For the first time Vespasian saw a genuine expression on the freedman’s face; it was fear. ‘I’m the imperial secretary; I can’t be trapped here. I must get out!’

‘We must all get out, but not that way.’

‘This way,’ Magnus said, unbolting the door on the far side of the room as Gaius struggled with the strongbox, ‘there’re two back doors, well, three actually.’

Narcissus and Agarpetus dashed past him into the darkness beyond.

The first few of the brothers scrambled into the room, wafting in thick smoke as they did. The noise of fighting in the corridor carried on, fierce and unremitting, as the rest of Magnus’ brethren gave ground slowly with Sextus’ voice booming above the rest.

‘Whoever’s attacking didn’t just come for tonight’s takings,’ Vespasian observed as he took one end of the strongbox from Magnus.

Magnus shook his head, both eyes glaring, one sightlessly. ‘No, and that makes me think that we’re in the middle of a commercial takeover.’ Sword in hand he headed back to the corridor door. ‘We’ll get all the lads in here first, secure the door and then make our break for it together; if this is a move by a rival
brotherhood they may well know about the exits. Fall back, lads!’ Pulling a few of the brothers out of his way he made it to the corridor as the smoke intensified. ‘Sextus, get them all in here.’ He turned to an easterner, complete with pointed beard and trousers, and an old Greek with an ugly scar on his left cheek where his beard grew rough. ‘Tigran, take half the lads to the south exit and wait for me to give the go-ahead before you pull the bolts. Cassandros, take the rest to the northern one and don’t forget the sledgehammers, just in case. We all go together. And get the lads to relieve the senators of that strongbox; what the fuck are they doing manual labour for?’

Tigran and Cassandros moved off, marshalling the brothers, two of whom took the strongbox from Vespasian and Gaius, as Magnus pulled more in from the corridor until there was just Sextus’ thrashing bulk preventing him from securing the door. ‘Now, Sextus!’

Sextus leapt backwards and, with a lightning thrust, rammed the tip of his blade into the shoulder of the nearest intruder; the man fell back into his comrades and Magnus heaved on the door, slamming it shut just as Sextus extracted his sword. He jammed the bolt into its socket as Vespasian ran forward and retrieved the iron bar that barricaded the door; within an instant it was firmly wedged in its housings.

‘Time to go, sir. Well done, Sextus, my lad.’ Magnus turned and crossed the room with his brother following as the reinforced door started to shake with blows from the far side. ‘They’ll have to pull back soon because of the smoke.’

Vespasian went to the desk and blew out the last lamp left burning in the room, leaving it lit only by the dim light coming in from the escape route. Magnus was waiting for him and bolted the door behind him as he slipped into another corridor even longer than the last as the building widened in accordance with the diverging lines of the Alta Semita and the Vicus Longus. He followed Magnus across and into a small room. From beyond an open door at the far end came the sound of fighting.

‘The stupid bastards have tried to go before we’re all there,’ Magnus hissed as they ran towards the sound.

An instant later they burst into a storeroom, the width of the building; a dozen or so of the brothers were struggling to heave shut a door leading out to the Vicus Longus. A honed-muscled giant with scars on his forearms stood in the narrow opening, one foot on the body blocking the door from closing, lashing out with a bloody sword at all who fell upon him, his movements a blur of fluid motion.

‘Fucking ex-gladiator,’ Magnus cursed as he too threw his weight against the door. ‘Pull that body clear!’

As Tigran and another brother took it in turns to trade blows with the fighting machine trying to gain ingress, Vespasian bent down between the two brothers and caught hold of one of the dead man’s wrists. He pulled, using all his strength, and the dead weight slowly shifted. A ringing clash above his head made him instinctively jump back; Tigran had blocked a downward blow meant for his neck. The easterner parried again and Vespasian held his breath and grabbed the arm once more. This time he pulled with the desperation of a doomed man; the corpse slid, lubricated by its own blood. As the impediment cleared the opening, Magnus’ brethren slowly forced the door closed, compelling the ex-gladiator to retreat or risk losing an arm in the narrowing gap.

‘Who the fuck gave the word, Tigran?’ Magnus snarled as the door finally shut and the brothers slammed the bar across it.

‘He did, brother,’ Tigran shouted, pointing at the corner. ‘He and his freedman opened the door.’

Narcissus stood, cowering, looking down at the dead man at Vespasian’s feet. ‘I have to get out! I can’t die in a hole like this.’

‘You could have killed us all!’ Tigran shouted, lunging at Narcissus with his blade aimed at his throat.

Narcissus howled.

Vespasian grabbed Tigran’s wrist and arrested the stroke a thumb’s breadth from the Greek’s quivering flesh. ‘He stays alive!’

Tigran tried to force his arm forward but Vespasian held firm; with a nod and a shrug the easterner pulled back.

Narcissus spouted tears of relief.

Vespasian looked at the Greek who had ordered so many deaths; in disgust he kicked the corpse at his feet. Its head lolled into the light: Agarpetus.

Magnus wasted no time on recriminations. ‘Tigran, stay here with a couple of lads and keep an eye on the door. The rest of you, come with me.’ He ran to the other side of the room, but there was no exit to the Alta Semita, only a small window; he turned left up a further corridor.

Vespasian grabbed the sobbing Narcissus by the sleeve and hauled him away after Magnus.

At the far end of the corridor they came into a final room; there was one door to the Alta Semita but no other exit. It was crammed with at least a score of men.

‘I thought I’d be safer down here,’ Gaius told Vespasian as he pushed his way through to him. ‘I could see that Narcissus ordering Agarpetus to open the door before we were ready was a bad idea.’

‘What if they’ve blocked this exit too, Uncle?’

‘The prognosis wouldn’t look too favourable. There’s no other way out except for going back.’

‘I have to get out!’ Narcissus bleated.

But it was not the door that Magnus headed to; it was the blank wall on the opposite side. ‘We won’t risk the obvious way. Cassandros, you got the hammers?’

The scarred Greek nodded and indicated to a brother who lifted two weighty tools and handed one to Cassandros.

‘Get on with it then, lads.’

Magnus moved back and the brothers took their places next to the wall facing each other and hefted their hammers over their shoulders. In the dim light Vespasian could see a faint line, door-shaped, drawn upon it.

‘We keep this for special occasions,’ Magnus informed Vespasian and Gaius. ‘Never had to use it so let’s hope the bastards don’t know about it.’

The first blow hit with a resounding crack; on the other side of the room the tell-tale glow of flame flickered in the narrow gap between the ground and the door.

‘Soon as you like, boys,’ Magnus said as Tigran and his two lads came pelting up the corridor. ‘Don’t even say it, Tigran, I can guess. Just bolt that door.’

Tension in the room escalated as smoke began to creep under the door to the street and the flames on the other side grew. The hammers worked with fast alternate blows, soon knocking away all the thick plaster.

Vespasian’s heart sank as a solid wall of thin bricks was exposed; he looked over his shoulder to see that the fire was quickly gaining.

‘All right, lads, a few good blows each at the very base should do it.’

Vespasian watched, ever mindful of the danger eating its way through the wooden door, as the hammers beat at the lower bricks. To his great surprise the blows sent them shooting out; they had not been mortared. After three or four strikes there was a foot-high gap; an instant later two of the lower bricks fell to the ground and then the rest followed, tumbling, chinking down in a cloud of dust.

‘Clear it, lads,’ Magnus ordered.

Half a dozen brothers stepped forward and began heaving and hurling the bricks out of the way. After less than fifty heartbeats the mound was low enough to scramble over and the brothers streamed out. Vespasian found himself in the corner of a delta-shaped courtyard, stinking of rotting refuse and faeces, sandwiched behind the last tenements on both the Alta Semita and the Vicus Longus; to his left flames from the tavern at the apex of the junction could be seen rising to the sky, to his right were the backs of another couple of tenements divided by a narrow alley.

‘Quickly through there, lads, then split up and slow down; lose yourselves in the alleys on the other side.’

As the South Quirinal Brotherhood dispersed silently, Magnus had a quick word with Tigran and the brothers carrying the strongbox and then looked at Vespasian and Gaius. ‘I’d say that I’m going to have to rely on one of you for hospitality tonight.’

‘And maybe a few nights to come, my friend,’ Gaius observed.

‘I don’t think so, sir. If that was organised by who I think it was, then I’m a dead man if I stay. I’m out of Rome as soon as I can.’

‘What about me?’ Narcissus asked, some of his haughty dignity returning to his voice. ‘I can’t risk going to find my carriage. You must protect me; this was meant to be a safe place for a meeting.’

Magnus frowned at that statement and then led the way across the courtyard.

Vespasian looked at the Greek and wondered whether he would feel gratitude for saving his life or the opposite because his latent cowardice had been exposed.

He decided he had nothing to lose and would probably have more to gain by aiding him. ‘You’d better come with us.’

Speed was the issue, or, rather, lack of it, as Magnus guided Vespasian, Gaius and Narcissus through the unlit alleys and yards that separated the insalubrious dwellings, built with little thought of civic planning, between the two diverging major roads of the Quirinal. It was not Gaius’ girth nor was it Narcissus’ inability to run more than ten paces without gasping for breath that impaired their progress; it was the refuse, both solid and slimy, scattered on the dirt ground already laced with unseen potholes. Magnus cursed as he led them, single-file, stumbling forward, arms outstretched and feet taking unsure steps, through gloom that was only occasionally alleviated by guttering light from a candle burning in a window or a torch sputtering in a holder next to a door. From all around came shouts and cries, not the sounds of escape and pursuit but the noise of the inhabitants of this underbelly of the city arguing and fighting amongst themselves in an environment where contentment is a far-off dream.

Vespasian glanced over his shoulder; the end of the alley was faintly illuminated by the glow of the fire raging through the tavern, two hundred paces away. There were no signs of their attackers nor of Magnus’ brethren who had split up into small groups and fanned out in different directions, blending into the neighbourhood and losing themselves. But that was easy for men dressed in the rough woollen tunics and cloaks favoured by the
urban poor; their passing would cause no more notice amongst the footpads and cut-throats than that of one of the mangy dogs that infested these lawless lanes.