Saviour of Rome [Gaius Valerius Verrens 7] (25 page)

Someone had been stealing gold the Romans claimed as their own, though it came from the earth Asturians had hunted, ploughed and lived upon for a thousand generations. Someone had decided Serpentius made a convenient scapegoat for the banditry and murder.
He’d been meant to die deep in the mine at the hands of Cyclops. And there his crimes would have died with him, leaving the true perpetrators to find new, more subtle avenues to satisfy their avarice. Now he was on the loose, a hunted beast in the mountains he had once called home. That same someone knew exactly how dangerous he was, both as a warrior and as a threat to the conspiracy. The Parthian auxiliaries were scouring the hills for him, but how much more appropriate to send a friend, equally dangerous – a sword masked by a smile – to draw him out?

Yet the Serpentius who had ridden at Valerius’s side struggled with this logic. Honour and loyalty were Gaius Valerius Verrens’ code. A code not just to live by, but to die for. Serpentius had been his slave, his tentmate and his friend. He couldn’t believe a man like Valerius would betray that friendship.

Unless it was in the greater interests of Rome.

It came to him in a tumble of half-formed memories. At one of their meetings Petronius had let slip that the man he reported to was the most important official in Hispania Tarraconensis. Just after he arrived in Asturica, Serpentius had heard a whisper that a man called Gaius Plinius Secundus had been appointed proconsul of the province. Plinius Secundus had been one of the few men prepared to speak for Valerius at his trial for treason after the death of Vitellius. Serpentius remembered him as a man of patent honesty and intelligence. When Pliny’s eyes and ears in the north ceased to function what would be more natural than that he call on the man most capable of replacing them: Valerius.

‘You did the right thing,’ Serpentius told his son.

His father’s praise seemed to make Tito grow a little taller, but he was still wary. ‘Is this man’s presence enough to make you change your plans?’

‘It’s possible,’ the Spaniard said thoughtfully. ‘But it depends
why
he’s here in Asturica. Perhaps the Parthians were trying to kill him, but there is always the possibility they only wanted us to think that. Whatever we decide he must be watched. I want to know his movements, who he
meets, where and when. You were right. He is a dangerous man, probably the most dangerous I have ever known.’

‘So you do know him?’ Tito’s voice held a hint of irritation: why not just say it?

‘I was his slave—’

Tito gave a snort of disgust. ‘Then I should have killed him—’

‘—but he gave me my freedom and I became his friend.’

‘There is no friendship between us and them.’

‘Nevertheless, it is true. He saved my life, more than once, and I his.’

‘Then you owe him nothing.’

Serpentius laughed at his son’s certainty. ‘There are no debts between friends,’ he corrected.

‘I still think I should have killed him.’

The Spaniard smiled. ‘You couldn’t kill me. What makes you think you could kill a man who won the Gold Crown of Valour. A Hero of Rome who fought his way from the northern fastness of Britannia to the desert wastes of Africa and Armenia. A man who broke a legionary battle line and opened the way for his men to take their eagle?’

For a moment Tito looked almost impressed. He understood that to take a legion’s eagle, the standard placed in its care by the Emperor himself, was to take its soul and bring dishonour to every man who allowed it to happen. The look vanished as quickly as it appeared. ‘Just stories,’ he said. ‘Campfire tales that turn men into giants.’

‘Not stories,’ Serpentius shook his head. ‘I was with him every step of the way when he broke that line.’

‘You sound as if you admire him.’

‘He is a certain kind of Roman.’ The older man seemed to look inside himself. ‘I learned to hate the Romans. Oh, how I learned to hate them, as they howled at me to take the next life or spill the next blood. I hated them as they laughed at the agonies of a man crawling through the sand with his guts trailing behind him. Or a gladiator staring at the stumps of his wrists and his life pouring out of his veins. Let us be entertained, they would cry, and I would lust to be among them with a
sword in my hand, hunting them like chickens and sending their heads flying.’ He sighed, a deep, aching sigh as if it pained him to admit what followed. ‘Yet there is another type of Roman, rare as a phoenix egg. Stern and unyielding, but brave to the point of foolishness. A Roman prepared to purchase the burned-out shell of a gladiator to save him from certain death in the arena. To treat him like a man. To give him his freedom and to offer an Asturian outcast his friendship. Valerius is that kind of Roman, Tito, the kind that allows you to understand how they could conquer the world and then rule it when they were done. Titus, the Emperor’s son, is another. But with a harder edge. Fail him and you will end up hanging from a cross. There is no hatred or malice in Valerius. He thinks he can kill without conscience, but the shades of the men who die by his sword weigh heavily on his mind.’

‘Then he is a fool.’

‘No, just a man. Leave me now, I must think. He is to be watched, but make sure our friends in Asturica keep their distance. I want names,’ he repeated. ‘I want to know who he meets. Only then will I know why he is here.’

‘What if—?’

Serpentius’s voice hardened. ‘If he cannot keep himself alive he is not the Valerius I knew. Now go.’

Left alone in the home he had shared with his wife Serpentius’s shoulders slumped. He studied the walls of grey stone with their niches and shelves, the hearth in the centre of the floor with the smoke swirling up into the roof space, and the bed – not their bed, but similar to the one they’d once shared. Once this house had been vibrant and alive, filled with the sound of a woman’s laughter, a child’s hungry cries, and the contented silence of a man who wanted nothing more than what he had. Now it was sterile and soulless. Just an empty space. The very thought of it had sustained him through the long years of exile. So why did he feel a stranger here? A tear ran down his grizzled cheek, the first suggestion of weakness in many months.

Was he still the Serpentius Valerius had known?

He lifted his hand to his shaved head and his fingers explored the
depression the width of his thumb just behind his right ear. Explored, but did not probe. Titus’s
medicus
had warned him against interfering with the wound, suffered as he’d tried to save the Emperor Vitellius’s son during the sack of Rome. He no longer experienced what Alexandros had called his
absences
. The
medicus
had drilled into his skull to release the fluid that had gathered there. Serpentius had been under the influence of distilled poppy during the operation, but Alexandros took great pleasure in describing every detail of the procedure. The
medicus
had laughed as he’d explained how even a slight blow near the wound would certainly result in the Spaniard’s death.

Then there was the panic that had unmanned him in those early moments after he’d regained consciousness in the mine. If Valerius had come to Asturica Augusta for the reason he hoped, was he even capable of providing the help he would need?

And was the Roman truly aware of the danger he faced?

When the invitation to dine with Aulus Severus was delivered by a servant, Valerius’s first reaction was suspicion. This was certainly no social invitation. Severus had been complicit in wiping clean Petronius’s lodgings and destroying his papers, if he hadn’t actually ordered it. He must be aware by now that Valerius was a threat to his position, possibly even his life. The only explanation could be that he wanted to know how much progress Valerius had made. Calpurnia Severa could have told him that, and more. Had she arranged the invitation? The thought sent a guilty thrill through him. For all his good intentions and fine words she was a remarkably attractive and persuasive woman.

That conviction returned when he was shown into the dining room and he was met with an amused smile from where she lay among the reclining figures on the cushioned divans around the low table. She wore a dress of aquamarine blue and her neighbour was the only other female in the company: a slim, dark-haired girl who barely glanced at the newcomer.

One or two of the other faces were familiar. Severus, of course, the host, and head of Asturica’s
ordo
, lying back with a dreamy smile on his lined features and a silver cup held loosely in his right hand. The
man to his left couldn’t have provided a greater contrast. If his scowl and the twitch in his right cheek were anything to judge by, Tiberius Claudius Proculus would rather have been anywhere else. As the dishes came and went, the camp prefect of the Sixth barely touched the sumptuous food. When he raised his cup Valerius noted that it seldom made contact with the thin lips. A man on edge. A man for whom a banquet was an unwelcome distraction from the other cares in his life.

In the background, a male slave played a simple melody on a lyre. The music meant voices were necessarily raised to make themselves heard over the music. Valerius did his best to ignore Calpurnia and found himself in conversation with two other guests, both of them long-serving members of the
ordo
and therefore potentially members of the conspiracy. Atilius Rufus owned a brickworks and the tile factory Valerius had noticed on his first day in the city. The other man, Lucius Octavius Fronton, bought and sold grain, which was milled and turned into bread to supply the mines. He also had a wagon business that transported both supplies and gold. The girl beside Calpurnia Severa was Fronton’s daughter. Valerius attempted to draw him into conversation about his mining activities, but he was a nervous, taciturn man, tall and spare as a spear shaft. After ten minutes of evasion and forced silences the Roman decided to look more closely into Fronton’s background on another day.

Atilius was much more prepared to talk, but the mining industry was of little interest to him apart from providing his clients with the wherewithal to add to their properties. A former soldier, he was interested in Valerius’s military achievements. Where had he served? Did he know this tribune or that? It turned out Atilius had been with Corbulo in Armenia and they had acquaintances in common from Valerius’s time in Syria. Eventually the talk drifted back to the local situation.

‘I hear the Sixth may soon be replaced by the full-strength Seventh,’ Atilius said. ‘That will quickly put these bandits in their place. No more poorly guarded convoys.’

‘Excuse me.’ Fronton abruptly rose from his couch and dashed from
the room. His daughter looked up in alarm and, whispering her excuses to Calpurnia, followed him out.

‘A minor indisposition I hope.’ Atilius frowned. ‘You were about to speak, prefect?’

‘I guard the convoys with as many men as I can afford.’ Proculus had only caught the last part of the conversation, but he was visibly incensed at any slight against his soldiers. ‘What did you say about the Sixth?’

‘That the Emperor will soon be replacing your detachment with a full legion. Our lads from the Seventh Galbiana, though now we must call them Gemina. My apologies if it is supposed to be secret.’ Atilius bowed his head. ‘I learned of it from a trader recently arrived from Tarraco. Perhaps you heard something too, Verrens?’

Valerius shook his head, but he saw the look of consternation on Proculus’s face and the glance he shared with Severus. Clearly if there was any truth in it this wasn’t welcome news. Which raised the question why?

Gradually, Valerius became aware of intense scrutiny from the other two men at the table, as if they were assessing him in some way. One was Proculus’s aide, Calpurnius Piso, an aristocratic young tribune of the Sixth who seemed to believe a conversation wasn’t a conversation unless it included the sound of his own voice. The other was a man of great interest to Valerius, but one he’d spent the evening studiously ignoring: Julius Licinius Ferox.

He barely noticed Fronton return to the table with his daughter holding his arm, his thin face the colour of a time-worn sheet of papyrus. Instead, he let his gaze drift to the other end of the table. Ferox and Piso continued to stare at him. Piso’s puffy features were twisted into a sneer and he was whispering into the other man’s ear. Ferox was tall with dark hair styled in ringlets that fell to his neck, protruding front teeth and an elongated horsy face that matched Piso’s for arrogance. The
praefectus metallorum
had provided the escort of Parthians Valerius strongly suspected had intended to kill him. He held overall authority for the gold output from Asturica and his responsibilities included its
safe transport to Tarraco. He was also the source of the excuses that bandit attacks and lack of manpower, of which Valerius had yet to see any evidence, were to blame for the shortage. Despite Melanius’s assurances, Valerius was certain of one thing. If a conspiracy did indeed exist to steal Vespasian’s gold, Ferox was up to his elongated neck in it.

Valerius met the other man’s gaze and smiled, but the smile froze on his face as Piso’s overloud whisper reached his ears.

‘Of course, a man with only one hand is only half a man.’ He’d heard the opinion often enough, although seldom quite so blatantly, and learned to ignore it. Yet for some reason this irritated him beyond measure. Perhaps it was the young tribune’s dismissive tone or the mocking look in his eyes as he said it, but Valerius felt a heat burning at the centre of him that threatened to explode into outright violence. ‘And good officers do not lose their hands. Good officers direct their soldiers like true equestrians. It is our birthright to command,’ Piso finished with condescending certainty.

Valerius studied the young officer for a dozen heartbeats. A stillness seemed to settle over the room and he knew without having to look that Calpurnia Severa’s eyes were fixed on him. ‘Not to fight?’ he asked eventually.

Piso blinked, unaware he’d been overheard. Valerius’s voice betrayed no emotion but some instinct made the young aristocrat shift on his couch. ‘To fight?’