The Londinium File

by Gavin Chappell

  ‘Master, it is almost time for you to go to the dining chamber,’ Flaminius said, nodding in the direction of a water clock. The first watch of the night was almost complete. ‘Let me finish reading and then I must return to my duties.’

  He realised what it was that had been troubling him. It was night. The Guard was changed at the beginning of the first watch. And it was the duty of the tribune of the Night Guard to change the password. Unless Flaminius could somehow find out what it was, he would have to work out some other way of departing the imperial palace—assuming he could access the secret archive and complete his mission.

  Antinous made a moue of disdain. ‘Maybe I will be late for dinner,’ he said. ‘Because I want you, Ganymede. I am determined to have you.’

  ‘I am under orders to inform the emperor if you make any advances on me,’ Flaminius warned him.

  Antinous threw up his hands. ‘I’m not allowed any fun,’ he snarled, red faced, and flung himself down on the couch.

  ‘Will that be all, master?’ Flaminius asked pointedly.

  Antinous looked up. ‘You wish to continue your original duties?’

  Flaminius nodded. Antinous gave him a grin.

  ‘You were trying to get into that archive under the library,’ he said. ‘Cyprian was berating you when I took you on to carry my books.’

  Flaminius nodded again. ‘I am supposed to check the grain requisition records,’ he said tiredly. ‘They are in that archive. Cyprian, if that’s his name, has been no help.’

  ‘You won’t get in there,’ said Antinous. ‘The library will be closed now. But even if it was open, it would be impossible for you to get across the gap and into the archive. Still… I happen to know that the mechanism for that drawbridge is in the porter’s lodge. I’m allowed everywhere. I could access it…’

  ‘You could?’ Flaminius gulped.

  ‘Yes,’ said Antinous, ‘and I will. But I can’t do it now, I’ve got to go to dinner. And besides, I would expect payment.’ He looked Flaminius up and down. ‘If I do this for you, will you join me in my bedchamber tonight, when all are asleep?’

  — 7—

  Flaminius hurried down the lamp lit corridors of the House of Flavius, wondering if he had made the right decision. Whenever he heard the tramp of toga-clad guards, he went to ground in one or other deserted chamber. To his relief, none of the Praetorians spotted him. Not one of them challenged him. But how in Jove’s name could he hope to learn the new password? Surely slaves and freedman of the imperial staff were told it, or were they all under curfew?

  When Antinous had accused him of being the emperor’s spy, it had given him a nasty jolt. At first he had wondered if the Bithynian youth knew more than he ought to. But that was impossible. Wasn’t it? He mulled the idea over in his mind as he made the journey back to the House of Tiberius. He had to confront the fact that he was no longer an imperial agent. This matter was purely private, between Probus and him.

  Something had gone wrong. The entire Commissary had been replaced, or at least those based in the Peregrine Camp had. Presumably they would be phasing out all the Probus loyalists as and when they returned to Rome. Flaminius’ early return had been unexpected, he supposed, and they had been wrong-footed. Otherwise they would have done a better job of neutralising a potential enemy.

  Outright murder might be difficult to explain, but by simply cold-shouldering Flaminius, they had effectively created a rod for their own backs.

  As he passed out into the moonlit gardens, he rubbed at the weal in his flank. That vicious Bithynian brat had been enjoying himself! Even if he had spared Flaminius a one way ticket to the Colosseum, he had had his sadistic way with him—and he hoped to go further. Flaminius shivered, and not just with the night’s chill.

  When he was growing up, one of his favourite authors had been Petronius. The Satyricon had kept him entertained in his student days, when he should really have been reading dry legal treatises. The desperate adventures of Encolpius and Giton had struck a poignant chord with a student trying to get by on nothing more than a stingy allowance from his family. But the idea of living that kind of life had lost its appeal since he joined the legions. Now—was he to make the ultimate sacrifice? And not even in the name of Rome, either—in the name of Probus. He’d never wanted to go down in history. It was asking a bit too much! Oaths taken under duress were not binding, and he hadn’t even sworn to share Antinous’ bed.

  He waited until two patrolling Praetorians passed along the portico, then shot inside.

  His sandaled feet rang loud on the mosaic floors of the House of Tiberius. Lamps guttered in marble corners, throwing eerie shadows across the veined walls. Busts of forgotten emperors looked darkly down at this interloper, the shadows giving them sardonic stares, as if they knew full well that they viewed scenes of skulduggery.

  At last he reached the north wing, and the entrance to the library. Antinous would be going to the porters’ lodge after dinner. That would be sometime during the third watch.

  The doors of the library were shut fast. Optimistically, Flaminius rattled them. Of course, they were locked. The librarian, Cyprian if that was his name, had not become a freedman for being negligent on the job.

  Back when Probus was been coaching Flaminius for the Commissary, he had learnt all the finer points of lock picking. Unfortunately, the first requisite was some kind of lock pick, and his slave tunic was fresh out of them. Where in Hades was he going to find or fabricate a lock pick?

  He tried all the neighbouring doors, hoping to find a room where he could find… some wire, maybe? Something he could use to trip the lock. All the doors along this corridor were locked. Well, naturally. Now, all he needed was a lock pick (and some patience) and he could open them all, and find himself the wire he needed to make himself a lock pick… No, hang on, that just wasn’t going to work.

  He went back to the library doors and studied them pensively. He could think of no way of getting in that wouldn’t create the kind of racket that ought to bring Praetorians running, swords miraculously appearing from underneath their togas. Brute force would have been the answer if only he wasn’t in an imperial palace.

  He was lucky no passing patrol had already picked him up for loitering.

  He leant his sweaty forehead against the cold wood of the door and tried to think. How else could he gain access into the library? It was only a library, after all, not a high security vault. The vault was down below, but if Antinous came through, the high security side was catered for. As for getting into the library in the first place, however… Flaminius was at an absolute loss.

  He tried to picture the interior. Even though he had only been in there once, his training came to the fore, and he could picture the scene as well as if he was on the other side of these wearisomely solid doors. The whole chamber was circular, large enough to be a small to medium sized temple, and lined with stacks containing pigeon holes in which any number of mundane volumes were kept. To one side stood the librarian’s desk. Opposite that, hidden by the stacks, was the staircase leading down to the doorway beyond which was the chasm over the sewer. Past that was the drawbridge. It should be lowered sometime soon.

  All Flaminius needed to do was get in there.

  In his mind, he trudged back up those steps and stood in the library. Shadows lay everywhere, moonlight stained the veined marble a mottled silver. Everything was in silence. Except for the moonlight, darkness was total—no torches would still be burning in there. Silence reigned in the library of the House of T…

  Moonlight?

  Where was it coming from? There was a skylight in the roof, of course, but also there was a window overlooking the Roman Forum, giving a particularly good if potentially prurient view of the House of the Vestals. It would be shuttered by now, but the slats would still permit moonlight to enter, and maybe they’d be just as generous to a desperate spy…

  Pushing himself away from the door Flaminius turned, grinning. That was it! That was how he
would access the library after hours.

  He heard feet tramping towards him from the south wing, and headed north. He didn’t know where he was going as such, but he wanted to get out onto the north wall of the building and work his way along. The shutters would take some negotiating, but they would be the least of his worries. His tiny figure would be visible to anyone in the Roman Forum below.

  The cold wind struck Flaminius as he stepped outside to find himself at the top of the abutments that loomed over the Forum. Down below, a thousand lights of torches and lamps and fires transformed the City into a fallen zodiac of night, and his nose twitched at a myriad of stenches: cooking fires, temple incense, the pungent reek that rose from the Cloaca Maxima, covered as it was. Though sweeter than it was in high summer, Rome stank so much it was a surprise Jove didn’t send a thunderbolt to destroy the whole festering swamp.

  But Jove, if there was such a gentleman, was far away from this reeking quagmire of corruption, if Flaminius’ epicurean philosophy could be trusted.

  He followed a narrow ledge along the top of the abutments, the House of Tiberius looming above him. The wind whispered in his ears, tugged at his threadbare tunic as if it was as lascivious minded as the lusty young Antinous, and chilled Flaminius until he felt he would never be warm again. When he got out of this situation, he promised himself, he would drink wine until he no longer knew his own name. But that would have to wait for later, if there ever was a later.

  He reached the windows of the library.

  They were secured, as he had known they would be, with shutters of cedar wood. These had been exposed to the wind and the rain, the snow, and the sun of Rome in every season. Every night they were subjected to the battering of wind and storm, rain and sleet. In summer, Rome was hot—although the heat was nothing by comparison with the balmy climes Flaminius had grown accustomed to in recent years. All the same, a Roman winter could be as miserable as Eboracum on any day of the year. And the shutters, when Flaminius tested them, felt like they had not been replaced since the Divine Tiberius had died raging at an edict of the Senate.

  Flaminius slid his fingers under the slats of one shutter, his muscles standing out on his arms in a way that would no doubt excite young Antinous as he heaved at it. And heaved.

  And heaved.

  The crack, when it came, rang out loud and harsh—across the whole torch-lit city, he was certain. Shaking with fright, Flaminius seized hold of the broken wood, trying to muffle the sound, earning himself a splinter in the thumb for his pains. Wincing, he squeezed it back out, one eye on the streets below.

  He waited for the inevitable tread of sandaled feet and the appearance of anonymous looking citizens, toga clad and with suspicious, sword shaped bulges under their arms. But no Praetorians emerged, and Flaminius turned to survey the results of his barbaric manhandling of the venerable shutters.

  There was a definite hole and through it could be seen the library floor. Good. He worked swiftly and silently at enlarging it. Moments later, he was slipping his entire body through the hole; his feet clattered down on the marble window sill beyond, loud enough to send echoes racing across the shadow shrouded library.

  Scrambling down to floor level he crouched in the cover of a stack, waiting for Praetorians to enter, glaring angrily about them. Again, nothing happened. Singularly negligent, he told himself. If he’d had such slipshod men under him when he was tribune of auxiliary cavalry…

  But anyway. He was in. And that was what mattered.

  Like a silent shadow, he slid across the slippery marble floor to the librarian’s desk, and searched about blindly to lay his hands on the keys. After a while, he gave up. It had been expecting too much for Cyprian to have left them there overnight. No doubt they were somewhere secure.

  All he found of any use was flint and a fire steel.

  The yawning mouth of the steps resembled the entrance to a grave in the gloom of the library. He trod the stairs gingerly as he made his way down. After busting into the library, the door should be simple enough to break open.

  And so, to his relief, it proved. A single, well placed kick shattered the silence, and the door sprang smartly open to emit a waft of cold, stinking air. Flaminius crouched silently in the stairwell for some time, waiting for the library doors to burst open and Praetorians to flood in.

  Nothing happened. He edged forwards. To his infinite surprise, he did not plummet with a splash into the reeking sewer. Instead, his feet clattered on the wooden planks of a drawbridge.

  Antinous had done it! The Bithynian brat had come through! Now Flaminius owed him. But it was not a price he was willing to pay.

  Hastily, he hurried back up into the library, and after some searching found a lamp in one corner. Lighting this with the aid of the fire steel that he had found on Cyprian’s desk, he held his hand cupped round its flame as he returned to the steps. Shadows loomed and leapt on either hand as he came back down to the doorway. The drawbridge lay across the gap like the tongue of some monster of ancient days. Beyond it gaped the dark vertical rectangle of the secret archive entrance.

  Flaminius sighed with relief. He was almost there.

  The drawbridge resounded to his footsteps like the drums of a barbarian army, but he didn’t care. The place stank to high Olympus but he didn’t care. He was almost within sight of his goal. As he entered the secret archive, he lifted his stolen lamp high.

  The yellow light illuminated a long vault, so long it must reach as far as the granite abutments of the palace. On either side stood more stacks. He paced along, looking for the relevant shelf. Here it was, this year. Now, a bit further down. There was the code for Africa… Arabia… Asia… Britain… Cyrenaica… Dacia… Dacia! Junius Italicus’ report was finally within his reach.

  He paused to survey this shelf, sweat standing out on his brow despite the cold. His eyes fell upon the neatly inscribed code: DAC: AVC: DCCCLXXVIII: CAL. IAN, and he snatched the scroll in its scroll case from the pigeon hole with one hand, still holding the guttering lamp high in the other. He slid the scroll case under his arm, and hurried from the vault.

  As he reached the other side of the drawbridge, his lamp, almost at its last ebb, shone upon the shadowed face of a silently waiting figure, its arms folded in seeming boredom.

  ‘So you got here,’ came Antinous’ voice. ‘I knew you would. Now let’s see just what it was that was so important that you would go to such lengths to locate it.’

  A slender hand reached out to snatch the scroll case.

  — 8—

  It had been a trap.

  Realisation dawned in Flaminius’ mind even as he snatched the case away. As he moved backwards, there was a rumble from behind him and the drawbridge shot up to reveal the yawning chasm. A stinking breath of wind caused goose pimples to crawl across Flaminius’ skin.

  Antinous grabbed his tunic and hauled him back. As he did, he grabbed the scroll case, taking advantage of Flaminius’ distraction, and peered at it.

  ‘I thought so…’ he breathed, reading the code. ‘The report from Dacia. We let you do this so we could learn what was so urgent that you came here disguised as a slave…’

  ‘We?’ said Flaminius. ‘You and the emperor?’

  Antinous looked puzzled. ‘The emperor…?’

  He broke off as Flaminius sprang forwards, seizing the scroll case in one hand and shoving Antinous backwards with the flat of the other. The youth sprawled back against the steps, glaring petulantly up at Flaminius while rubbing at the back of his head.

  ‘I’d like to stay and chat,’ Flaminius informed him, ‘I’m sure it would be interesting. But I think it’s high time I was gone.’

  Antinous used the sides of the stairwell to help himself up, shouting for the guards.

  With a feeling of deep satisfaction, Flaminius hit him on the jaw and he dropped like a stone to lie unspeaking, eyes closed, on the steps. Flaminius stepped over his unconscious form and ascended the steps. If any Praetorians had heard the youth’
s cries, he needed to get himself out of here as soon as possible. With luck, though, that soft voice had not carried far enough.

  As his head bobbed over the top of the flight of steps, he halted. It was silent in the library except for the hoarse breathing of the unconscious youth. The main doors stood slightly ajar. This must be how Antinous had got in. He had lowered the drawbridge from the porter’s lodge, then come straight here—to find out what Flaminius was after. This beardless boy had been onto him from the beginning.

  As Flaminius hurried up the remaining steps, two sheeted phantoms appeared from the stacks on either side. Flaminius froze. These were no ghosts, he realised. Both drew swords from beneath the folds of their bone white togas and advanced grimly.

  ‘Stay where you are!’ shouted the first of the Praetorians, voice ringing out in the musty stillness of the library.

  Flaminius looked wildly about him. The Praetorians had cut off every avenue of escape except one. His mind racing, he retreated back down the steps, his sandaled foot connecting with something soft yet firm—Antinous’ fallen form.

  Moving like the apparitions they resembled, the Praetorians reached the top of the steps, swords glinting in the dim light from the window.

  ‘He’s murdered the emperor’s bum boy!’ cried the second Praetorian. ‘Get the bastard!’

  They rushed down the steps, which were so narrow they could only go one abreast. Flaminius halted by the open door, the breeze from the sewer plucking at his threadbare tunic. Reaching Antinous’ fallen form, the lead Praetorian crouched briefly and checked him for signs of life. He looked back at his comrade.

  ‘Still alive, but he’ll need a medic. Go and get help. I’ll deal with this spy.’

  The second Praetorian ran back up the steps, vanishing into the darkness. As the clatter of his sandaled feet was swallowed by the oppressive silence, the other Praetorian advanced, sword firm in his hand.