Legion of the Undead

by Michael Whitehead

  “It’s your choice,” he said to her. “What do you want to do with him?”

  Lucia stared down at the bloodied, beaten figure for what seemed like an age then walked over and took up Vitus’ sword from where it lay on the roof. She hefted it, feeling the weight in her hand.

  “What did you say you’d do to me?” She asked the figure curled up on the floor. “Stab me in the stomach and then fuck me? That was it, wasn’t it?”

  “Please...” was all the man could manage.

  Lucia, stepped over to him, seeming less like the sixteen year old girl she was than ever before. She put her foot towards her attacker's throat.

  Vitus wanted to warn her to be careful, but there really was no need. She pushed down with her foot, and he instinctively reached his hands up to stop her. This left his stomach unguarded and she slid the sword into his fleshy gut without hesitation. She stepped back to see the blood pooling between his fingers as he tried to cover the wound she had inflicted.

  “I’d say you're well and truly fucked now,” She said to her attacker before turning to Vitus and saying, “Let's go.”

  Vitus nodded and followed her from the roof. He couldn’t help looking back at the bleeding man and shaking his head in wonder at the strength of his companion.

  They reached the bottom of the stairs and found Regulus being tended by Tatius. The boy was senseless and obviously hurt. A large and angry lump was swelling on the back of his skull and he couldn’t talk or stand properly.

  They couldn’t stay in one place too long, through fear of being discovered and cornered. If they were not in danger from the Risen, then by another group of thugs like the one upstairs.

  Vitus took Regulus under the arm and half carried him as best he could, while the legionary took the lead, and Lucia took the rear. In a fight, Vitus would have to put Regulus down but he wouldn’t permit either of the other two to shoulder the weight of his friend.

  They had skirted the main roads, and so came towards the gate from the side. The outer streets were freer of people and for almost ten minutes they saw no Risen at all.

  Regulus tried his hardest to keep his feet but Vitus found himself bending under the weight of him. They stuck to the smaller roads and alleyways as much as they could and took every chance to rest.

  It was as they got close to the gate that the people got thicker on the ground. Some were on foot, while others were trying to move everything they owned by cart.

  The gate was only big enough to allow passage of one cart in either direction. No-one wanted to allow anyone else the room to leave first.

  The huge crowd milled and swayed. People began to get more and more frustrated. Vitus shouldered Regulus and led his party around the outskirts of the crowd, as close to the wall as he could. No sooner would a space open up in front of them, than it was filled with people.

  A fight broke out further into the crowd just at the edge of Vitus’ sight. Angry voices were followed by the sound of things being broken and then fighting. Women screamed and men began to shout. Vitus took advantage of the diversion to move his group further through the crowd until they were surrounded by a press of people.

  Suddenly the noise behind them changed. Where there had been angry voices, there were now shouts of panic. The crowd began to swell and surge. Vitus found he was unable to control his own motion or direction. He felt Regulus being pulled away from him and held on with every drop of his will and strength.

  Behind him, Lucia began to scream and Vitus tried but was unable to turn enough to see her. He hooked his arm under Regulus’ armpit and pushed himself against the swell of the crowd.

  For a moment he found space to breath and Lucia fell into the space in front of him, he turned and saw Tatius being pulled further away from him. Vitus was sure he had been responsible for Lucia finding him again. Before he was lost from view, Vitus saw the man nod at him, and then he was gone.

  “Hold on to me,” He shouted above the noise of the crowd. The screams of panic were reaching fever pitch and suddenly Vitus saw the cause. A Risen flew over people's heads about 30 yards from where he was, landing on the crowd. He was followed by a dead woman whose white stola fluttered out behind her as she crashed into the people below.

  Vitus turned back to Lucia and gestured his head.

  “The gate is that way. When I lift you, I want you to climb over the crowd. Kick them, punch them, I don’t care. You get to that gate and out. Get to the horses, I'll find you.”

  Lucia had pure terror etched on her face but she nodded. He got his free hand under her backside and heaved. She was thankfully light, and she helped him by scrabbling onto the people next to them. The crowd was so tightly packed that she was out of sight in seconds.

  With only himself and Regulus to think of, Vitus began to fight against the crowd with more abandon. He kicked and elbowed blindly against anything that got in his way. A man went down under the weight of the crush, and Vitus didn’t hesitate to step over him and into the space he had occupied.

  The heat was becoming oppressive and breath was harder and harder to fight for. He began to smell a rancid, acrid smell of faeces and urine as people began to lose control of their bodies in the crush.

  A woman was carried past him in the crush. Her eyes were blank and lifeless, her lips were blue. She was past him and gone almost as soon as he saw her.

  Vitus began to doubt his own chances of getting out alive. He held on to Regulus, using the boy as a reason to keep fighting.

  Sweat made flesh slippery, one minute letting him ease through a gap, the next making his hands lose grip as he tried to gain purchase.

  The noise grew louder and louder as more of the crowd found out why the crush was happening. Vitus didn’t have time to imagine the slaughter that must be happening on the outside of the crowd.

  As suddenly as the crush had started, Vitus found himself first under the gate and then through it. The crowd spilled out into the open road beyond and Vitus sprawled on the ground, losing hold of Regulus.

  He got to his feet and picked the boy up, before turning to look at the crowd. The sea of bodies he could see from this side of the gate was a boiling mass. He could see dozens of Risen leaping and attacking at the far reaches of the crowd and a few nearer the middle.

  Every ounce of his being wanted to start helping the people out of the crush but his head told him that doing so would only bring the Risen closer to him and that could not happen.

  He turned towards the road and the horses they had left under the legionary’s care. He hoped that Lucia was safely out and hurried to find out.

  The Risen were spreading quicker than any of them could have foreseen, and he doubted he would get to Rome before the plague of the dead, but he had to try. If he could get there in time he would just have to hope that they could prevent a repeat of the fate of Mutina.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Praetor Domitius called through his open study door for his man servant. The evening was drawing in and the man was probably busy lighting lamps and candles, thought Domitius. However, the thin figure of Paulus appeared almost immediately. He clasped his hands in front of him, and looked at the praetor questioningly.

  “Do you have the list with the names of the missing people to hand?” He asked.

  “Sir, I can have it with you in a couple of minutes. I will just have to fetch it from upstairs.”

  The man's voice was high and reedy, very much like his stature. Domitius knew, however, that it was a voice that carried with it an intelligence most men would envy. A slave he may be, but far from feeble was Paulus.

  “As quickly as you can please, Paulus. I believe a more systematic approach to this problem is required.”

  He had spent the time since his fruitless conversation with Prefect Otho mulling the situation over in his head. He clearly didn’t have either the manpower or resources to match the prefect, so a different tack would be needed.

  The one place he was sure he could be a match for him
was brains. While Otho stomped around the city, or shined his armour, Domitius could be taking another approach to the matter.

  The man servant left the room and returned in almost no time at all, carrying a file.

  “Sir, I have the list of missing people,” Paulus said, putting it down on the corner of the desk.

  “Do we have all of the locations of where they disappeared? Also, I need a map of the city.”

  Paulus started scanning the shelves around the study. There were files containing various documents, as well as scrolls, neatly rolled and stored.

  “I think we have one sir. Just a second, ah yes here we are.”

  He unrolled a fine scroll that contained a detailed map of the City of Rome. It was out of date, no map could hope to keep up with the ever changing face of the capital. There was no mention of the Flavian Amphitheatre, for instance.

  Domitius looked down at the rug he was standing on. It had been a present many years ago from his brother-in-law. The man was a merchant of some renown, or so he was told, but his taste was awful. He lived in Germania now, with his daughter but this rug had come from Syria. It was the one thing in his study that he really didn’t like, it was far too gaudy.

  “Paulus, help me move the desk and turn this rug over please,” he said.

  Paulus dutifully did as requested with much puffing and panting. The man was a fantastic servant but was not built for labour of any kind. With that done, and the raffia backing of the rug exposed, Domitius sent Paulus out to find a few pieces of charcoal.

  So it was that Praetor Domitius and his servant spent the evening and a good part of the night copying the map of Rome onto the back of the large rug.

  With that done, they raided the sewing boxes of the ladies of the house and started marking the locations of all the disappearances with pins.

  They started with the first person reported missing and worked their way through, pausing every now and then to step back and look at their work.

  What they ended up with was a city in miniature, that they could stand as gods and look down upon. The people may only be thin metallic pins but the effect was startling.

  The largest bunch of pins, by far, was situated along the banks of the Tiber. Commercial warehouses, whore houses and numerous drinking establishments made the banks of the river easy pickings for all sorts of criminal activity.

  The river was home, in large parts, to the roughest and basest of the inhabitants of Rome as it was in any city built on a river.

  Besides the dock workers, there were always a number of migrant workers. People who didn’t live in the city, but came in on boats, or were brought in as seasonal workers. Slave traders brought foreign slaves in by ship to Ostia and then on to Rome, where the best prices could be fetched.

  After that, the scatter of pins was mainly concentrated on the poorest parts of the city. The slums and tenements were where the vast bulk of the population of Rome lived. The dark streets and darker alleyways were unsafe at the best of times, this was not the best of times.

  The thinning out of pins was noticeable in the richest parts of the city. Almost no pins lay in these parts, with one noticeable exception. There was one pin sitting alone on the Palatine Hill, home to the richest members of society, and the finest houses.

  Domitius looked at that lone pin for a long time. Could there be any significance to this one, or was it just an anomaly, a statistic that skewed the result?

  He looked at the name on the list and had to admit he wasn't familiar with it. Gone were the days of centuries old Patrician families whose ancestors could be traced back as far as Romulus. Once upon a time, those families would be the only people rich and important enough to live on the Palatine.

  These days, the Roman elite opened its doors to money and military success as readily as the Tiber accepted the waste of the city. The senate had almost as many foreigners in its ranks as honest Romans. They adopted Roman names and affected Roman customs, but foreigners they would remain to Domitius.

  Gods! They seemed to rise higher than the true Romans, like himself, every year. It was a sign of the times when a true Roman was struggling to become a mere praetor, when non-Romans were becoming Consuls.

  “Tell me, Paulus. What do you think of this pin?”

  Never a man to speak without thinking, Paulus took his time before answering.

  “A mistake on the part of the kidnappers? An opportunity taken but not looked for? Maybe the answer to our puzzle, if we look at it the right way. I would consider the matter worth investigating, sir.”

  “My thoughts, exactly. It may be that there is nothing to it but I would consider it worth our time to find out.

  First thing in the morning I want you to send word to the house of...” He looked at the list again, “Tertius Sextius Colias. Find out if he has any family and make an appointment to speak to them. If not, then whoever is dealing with his estate. If he lives on the Palatine there are sure to be lawyers.”

  They slept then as the first light of dawn started to show in the East. By the middle of the morning Domitius was awake and eating his breakfast when a message came back that the widow of Colias was happy to speak to him at his earliest convenience.

  So it was, that by the middle of a warm and blue skied spring afternoon, Praetor Domitius and Paulus were in a litter heading up the Palatine. The house, when they got there, was huge and showy. Marble and glass in such quantities that it must have needed a quarry dedicated to its building. It was exactly the kind of place that Domitius would hate to live in. His small but elegant town house was exactly the sort of home a public figure should have, as far as he was concerned. Too much wealth made the plebs nervous and distrustful.

  Paulus announced their arrival, and they were shown into the house. A servant offered them a glass of wine while her mistress, Julia, was getting ready to greet the praetor.

  It wasn’t long before she came into the room in a long, dark dress looking for all the world like a woman in mourning. She was in her mid thirties and irrefutably fair. Her dark hair was down around her shoulders and unbrushed in a way that only added to her beauty. Her careworn face was free of makeup. Domitius saw in her a sadness that stirred him.

  She held out her hand to him and he shook it.

  “Welcome to my house, Praetor Domitius,” She said with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. She held out her hand to him and he touched it with a slight bow of the head.

  “Thank you for seeing me at such a sad time. May I say how sorry I am for your trouble. It must be hard.”

  “Thank you, Praetor. I believe you have been offered refreshment. Is there anything at all I can get you?”

  “You're most kind but sadly, I must refuse. I am afraid time is short, and I have much to do. I asked my secretary to inform you of my wishes, I hope he did so, and that you know why I am here.” He gestured to Paulus as he said this.

  “I believe you wish to speak to me about my husband's disappearance. Anything I can do to help. I am most grateful that the matter is being looked into.”

  “It is my honour to have been given the duty of investigating all of the missing persons. Your husband is particularly interesting to us, and I wanted to ask a few background questions, if I may? May I call you Julia?”

  “By all means, Praetor,” she said as she sat a little straighter.

  “How old is your husband and where was he born?”

  “He is 45 years old and he was born in Sicily”

  “Does your husband have any known enmity with anyone?”

  “I’m sure my husband has upset people in the past, what businessman hasn’t? But as far as I’m aware, he was on good terms with all of his associates. I’m sorry I don’t know more.”

  “What business is your husband in, Julia?”

  “He is in shipping. He owns a large fleet of merchant ships. Most sail out of Ostia. He has captains sailing all over the empire. Then there are the smaller vessels.”

  “Smaller vessels?”


  “Yes, he has a number of boats on the Tiber, running goods to and from Rome from various storehouses in Ostia. He does like to bore me with the details.” She smiled as she said it and this time warmth passed over her eyes. If Domitius was any judge, this was a woman who loved her husband dearly.

  “What sort of goods do his boats carry on the Tiber?”

  She shrugged. “As far as he tells me, just about everything. If it will fit on his boat, he will carry it. He was telling me, not so long ago, that he was storing the household goods of a prominent Roman that was threatened with exile. He wouldn’t tell me who, he knows how I love to gossip. He said the gentleman in question was storing it all for shipping to his new home, if the worst happened.

  “Other times, it’s grain or timber or anything else. He’s fond of telling me he is one of the few people in Rome who can make money out of any kind of goods this city needs or produces.”

  “If I were to ask you for the address of the warehouses he uses in Rome, would you be able to tell me? I would just like to look about, if that’s acceptable to you?” She shrugged again but this time it was with a faint smile on her face.

  “I can do better than that, Praetor. My brother is a junior partner in the business, and I’m sure he would be happy to show you around. Although I have no idea what you could gain from the exercise. There is nothing at the offices to give a clue about his whereabouts. If there were, my brother would have told me already. He loves my husband like his own brother.”

  Domitius stood up, as did Paulus and Julia.

  “I’m so grateful that you saw us at such a time as this, Julia. If I could further trouble you to arrange for me to speak to your brother, I would be in your debt forever.” He kissed her hand and gave a little bow.