Saviour of Rome [Gaius Valerius Verrens 7] (16 page)

He lay with his back on the ground and stared at the cloudless blue sky. He was alive. His legs shook like winter reeds as he forced himself to his feet, but there was not a second to spare.

‘Tie your end of the rope to the strongest of the posts,’ he called across to Clitus, unknotting the loop from his waist. ‘And throw me my tunic and weapons.’ He’d hoped to find the remains of similar anchor posts on this side, but the only evidence of their existence was two holes
in the ground. Fortunately, a clump of thorn bushes grew nearby and proved strong enough to hold the rope.

‘What now?’ Clitus’s voice shook with fear. The others gathered around him on the far side of the chasm, staring at the sagging single strand of thin rope.

‘Now you cross one at a time.’ Serpentius tried to sound confident. ‘It’s simple. But you have to be quick. They’re coming.’

‘On that?’

‘It held the bridge, it can hold you.’

Clitus shook his head.

‘It’s this or die,’ Serpentius urged him. Still the other man didn’t move.

The Spaniard closed his eyes. Logic said he should leave them, but logic hadn’t made a promise to himself. He dropped to the ground at the cliff edge by the rope and took it between two hands, testing the anchor point on the far side. It looked feeble, but he was certain it was strong enough. Gritting his teeth he lowered himself so he was hanging by two hands and then swiftly pulled himself hand over hand to the far side where Clitus helped pull him up.

‘See?’ He met the men’s eyes one by one. ‘It’s easy. Just get into a rhythm and whatever you do, don’t stop.’

He dropped on to the rope again and made his way back. ‘You first, Clitus. I’ll be here to help you up.’

Clitus glanced at the thin line to safety, then at the trees. He dropped to sit by the rope then tentatively lowered himself. Serpentius saw a line of blood dribble down his chin where he’d bitten through his lip. A momentary hesitation before Clitus’s face set in a scowl and he launched himself forward like a swimmer hauling himself through a heavy sea. By the time he reached Serpentius sweat was pouring from him and when the Spaniard took his hand it shook uncontrollably.

Serpentius looked up. On the far side the rest were staring at each other in consternation. At first he thought nobody would move, but Floro, a thin balding man, dropped to take his place on the rope and hauled himself across with smooth easy movements.

‘That’s the way,’ Serpentius encouraged. ‘Who’s next?’

A dog howled not too far away, and suddenly there was a rush for the rope.

‘One at a time,’ the Spaniard warned. ‘Or you’ll all end up down there.’

Placido fought his way to the front and quickly hauled himself across, but the next man, Elius, was slower and the two remaining escapees, Gentilis and Felix, screamed at him to speed up. They were among the weakest of the former prisoners and Serpentius belatedly realized he should have seen them over first. His eyes scanned the tree line and his heart fell as a group of men emerged into the open. They halted for a moment and he saw them crouch down before two grey blurs streaked across the flat earth.

Wolf hounds. Big and rangy with lithe sinuous bodies and long legs that covered the ground in great bounds. Gentilis let out a scream of fear and fled along the lip of the ravine. Felix leapt for the rope and it bowed alarmingly as he began to cross in a faltering hand over hand movement.

‘Hurry,’ Clitus shouted at Elius, but Elius had felt the lurch as Felix’s weight fell on the rope. Now he looked over his shoulder and howled in terror, losing his rhythm and finally stopping to hang in the air just out of reach of the companions.

The dogs had swerved to follow Gentilis and Serpentius winced as he saw him bowled over and heard the shrieks as the savage beasts tore at him with their fangs, mercifully silenced when one closed its jaws over his windpipe. By now the hunters had been joined by a squad of auxiliaries who emerged from the trees led by a single horseman and trotted towards the makeshift crossing with their spears at the trail.

‘Get back.’ Serpentius ordered his men out of range, while he crouched by the clump of bushes that anchored the rope. ‘Just two more holds, Elius,’ he encouraged. But fear had frozen Elius in place. He hung, sobbing, with his eyes closed as Felix gained on him, screaming for him to move.

Serpentius heard a shout and looked up to find the auxiliaries on the
lip of the gorge. There were around a dozen, with more on the way, and they studied the two men on the rope as if they were flies wriggling in a puddle of honey. Felix tried to work his way past Elius, but Elius found one last burst of strength to fight him off. The horseman dismounted and stood for a moment with his hands on his hips before calling out an order. One of the auxiliaries hefted his spear, took a second to judge the distance, and hurled it at the two struggling men. The point took Felix in the spine and he let out a piercing shriek of agony. At the same time his arms closed in a death grip around Elius’s neck. For a moment they hung, swaying gently in the silence, before the extra weight of Felix’s body broke the grip of first Elius’s left hand, and then, an agonizing moment later, the right. Dead and living dropped away accompanied by a wail that seemed to last for ever.

The auxiliary commander stared at the little group of men standing just out of range of his spears and knelt to test the rope. Serpentius, still partially hidden by the bush, knew the calculations that would be going through his mind. Could he cover the far bank with his spearmen long enough to get a small party across? The men he could see weren’t soldiers, they were the filth of the mines. Yet all it would take was one or two determined defenders and he’d suffer casualties. He’d already lost one man to these vermin and he didn’t want to lose more.

He was still tugging at the rope when one of his men caught a glimpse of Serpentius and called out a warning. The officer stood up and Serpentius rose out of hiding to face him. A spear fell in a swooping arc towards the Spaniard. In the space of a heartbeat Serpentius transferred his sword from right hand to left, stepped out of the spear’s flight and flicked out his right hand to catch the shaft in mid-air. It was a simple arena trick, the fruit of many hours of patient exercise in hand and eye coordination, but it never failed to impress. He spun the spear and made as if to return it towards the officer. The man took a step back, but Serpentius halted the movement in mid-throw and grinned at him.

Another auxiliary raised his spear, but his leader shouted an order and he lowered the weapon. The commander advanced to the very
edge of the gorge and stared at Serpentius with pitiless basilisk eyes filled with hatred.

‘I have heard of you, the one they call the Snake. Well, Snake, be assured you cannot run for ever. The First Parthorum will hunt you down, and when we’ve finished with you the mine overseers have something special waiting for you. A black hole has been dug in the deepest part of the mine, where you will be walled in and left to starve to death or drown in other men’s shit, whichever comes first. You will die screaming, Snake, and I will visit you every day to listen to your descent into madness.’

‘A mouse’s fart holds more threat than you do,’ Serpentius laughed. He pointed to the rope. ‘Why don’t you cross and we’ll see who dies screaming.’ He flicked his sword into the air, so it spun five times before the hilt settled back into his hand and his eyes never left the Parthian. ‘I’ve killed Parthians and it gave me almost as much pleasure as slaughtering Romans. Bring any four men you like.’

The auxiliary officer spat into the gorge. Serpentius took a step to his right and drew his sword edge down to sever the rope so it flopped to fall down the wall of the Parthian side. He backed away to join Clitus and the others.

‘My name is Claudius Harpocration, prefect of the First Parthorum, remember it. We will meet again,’ the officer shouted.

‘I will count on it,’ Serpentius assured him.

The accommodation provided by Severus was part of the upper portion of a flat-roofed town house, all fine mosaic floors and walls painted with lifelike hunting scenes and mountain vistas. It was close to the main baths Valerius had passed the previous day and he quickly discovered it had the disadvantage of being very difficult to enter or leave without being seen. Severus had also ensured the house was well supplied with his own staff. Clearly the identity of anyone Valerius brought here would be reported to their master, or his oddly disturbing wife.

Still, he had to find a way to meet Pliny’s contact, and preferably without being seen. During his tour of the city he’d taken particular note of the alleys and smaller side streets where a man could lose a follower if he knew what he was doing. It didn’t take him long to identify his latest shadow. Saco had replaced the young slave with an older man who had a shock of grey hair and a limp. In fact he was so obvious that Valerius took even greater care in case his presence was designed to draw attention away from the real thing.

He purposely timed his excursion for the hottest part of the day when the Asturian sun seared the eyeballs and the furnace heat bounced from the walls of the more exposed streets. Heat multiplied the stench from the underground sewers, particularly noxious if you walked
close to a drain cover. Competing with the sewer reek were the smells from butcher shops and tanners: blood and offal and the shit evacuated by terrified beasts awaiting slaughter, the contents of the piss pots where the leather workers collected the urine necessary for their trade, boiling tubs of fat and the rotting carcasses of dead cats and dogs in the cess pits, occasionally offset by the welcome aroma of a perfume stall.

Valerius took his shadow on an entire circuit of the city. He managed to lose the old man when he began to wilt in the heat, by darting up the alley behind the
mansio.
The house he’d been told to look for was at the other end of the city, a modest affair located between the Temple of Jupiter and the eastern wall. A servant answered the door and said he would carry Pliny’s introduction to his master. Valerius waited for him to return. Instead, it was a large cheerful-looking man who appeared calling out a welcome.

‘I am pleased to call any friend of Pliny a friend of Marcus Atilius Melanius,’ the big man growled. ‘Please, come inside, that dolt of a servant of mine should never have left you standing out here. How is the old devil? I haven’t seen him for five years. Still up to his knees in bones and tusks and decaying manuscripts?’

Tall and broad with a vast belly, Melanius had a round face topped by a shining bald dome of a head, but any hint of threat from his scale was more than offset by the mischievous glint in his pale blue eyes. Valerius felt he was in danger of being washed away by his host’s exuberance, but he grinned in return. ‘I believe it has reached as far as his waist and it’s growing every day, sir.’

‘A glutton for knowledge and a mind that forgets nothing, unless of course you count dinner when he has his nose in a book.’ Melanius led the way, talking as he went. They passed through a room decked out with shelves filled with leather scroll cases that seemed to indicate he was as well read as his friend the proconsul.

‘I fear he isn’t as active as you’d remember him,’ Valerius said. ‘When I last saw him he was laid up with an attack of gout. I think he would have come himself if he hadn’t been indisposed.’

‘A pity then.’ Melanius’s wide brow puckered in a frown where his eyebrows would have met. ‘It would have been good to see him. I don’t travel so much myself these days, so I doubt I’ll be visiting Tarraco. I was surprised when I heard he’d been appointed proconsul – pleased, of course – but not your natural authoritarian bureaucrat. Mind you, he was as good an officer as I ever served with. You have been a soldier yourself unless I miss my guess?’

‘I served in Britannia, Armenia, and most recently in Judaea.’

‘You were with Titus.’ Melanius’s tone took on a measure of awed respect. ‘I’d be pleased to hear about Jerusalem if you feel disposed to tell the tale. In fact, I insist you stay for dinner. Judging by Pliny’s letter there’s a fair amount I have to tell you.’

Valerius bowed his agreement.

‘Good,’ Melanius grinned. ‘I never got any further than Germania during my service. All swamps and murderous savages. Pliny and I had to listen to tales of Vespasian’s triumphs at the head of the Second, who’d been based just down the Rhenus from us.’ They took their seats in the main room and he called for wine, which came in clay cups, but was of excellent quality. ‘How do you find Asturica?’

‘A little claustrophobic.’ Valerius smiled as he told him about the men who’d followed him.

‘Yes.’ Melanius nodded solemnly. ‘That would make sense. You have to understand, Valerius, that this is a place of secrets where everyone has a position to defend. I decided to settle here for my health when I retired as camp prefect of the Tenth. Did you know this was originally their camp?’ He smiled at Valerius’s evident surprise. ‘Yes, this is why I chose this house. It stands exactly where the
principia
of the first camp would have been. I once saw the original plans. Double ditches filled with water, would you believe. They’d never countenance that now. But to get back to the subject in hand, I retired here. Although I have taken no part in local politics or business, I considered it wise to make myself acquainted with what went on. On the surface, Asturica is just another Roman provincial city, but beneath there are many different currents at play. Have you met anyone of significance?’

‘Proculus, who commands the contingent of the Sixth at Legio, suggested I call on Aulus Severus,
duovir
of Asturica’s
ordo
.’

‘Quite right,’ Melanius nodded. ‘An opportunity to present your credentials as someone not to be ignored, but with a reason to be in Asturica not associated with Pliny’s main objective. Severus is enormously rich and his position on the council gives him a certain power, but he is regarded as something of a figure of fun. He’s in thrall to his new wife the way only an older man can be with a much younger woman. Not a fool by any means, and certainly worth cultivating, but not a man to be feared.’