Magnus and the Crossroads Brotherhood

by Robert Fabbri

  Marius nodded and rested the amphora on his shoulders. ‘I quite agree, Brother; besides I’m curious as to whether Servius has found out anything about the contents of that jar.’

  They turned away from the incoming dignitary and stopped abruptly.

  ‘Ah, Magnus, how nice to see you.’ The voice was smooth and affable and laced with genuine pleasure.

  Magnus feigned surprise. ‘Tatianus! I’d have thought that you were far too busy to have time to come to festivals like this.’

  Tatianus was all smiles and teeth. ‘On the contrary, my dear Magnus, I am very fastidious in my worship of all the gods, especially Mercury. I always ask him to hold his hands over my business and I’m usually rewarded for my piety; in fact, he has helped me already today.’

  ‘I’m very pleased to hear it, Tatianus. As a fellow devotee of Mercury it does me good to see that he bestows his favour on such a deserving gentleman of business.’

  ‘Indeed. I look forward to seeing you at the third hour so that we can conclude our deal on such an auspicious day.’

  Magnus sucked his teeth. ‘Ah, Tatianus, there’s a bit of a problem there. I stupidly didn’t take up your kind offer to look after my money in your strongroom the other night and, unfortunately, it was stolen on the way home.’

  Tatianus’ expression of concern would have done credit to the most practised dissembler. ‘I’m so sorry to hear that, Magnus; how awful for you.’

  ‘Yeah, well, it’s my fault. So I was wondering if you would give me a little time to raise the money?’

  ‘I don’t normally discuss business outside my study, Magnus, but as it is Mercury’s day and seeing as he has already favoured me I shall make this an exception. Come tomorrow.’

  Magnus’ look of gratitude was deep and filled with relief. ‘Thank you, Tatianus.’

  ‘Don’t mention it, Magnus, my friend.’ With a hearty slap on the shoulder, Tatianus moved on as from the gates came the first shouts of ‘Hail Divine Caesar!’

  ‘Shit!’ Magnus spat as he turned towards the gate. ‘If that’s the Emperor we’d better stay and cheer him; nasty things can happen to people seen walking away from Caligula. Besides, he did save my life once by stopping Tiberius hurling me off a cliffin Capreae.’

  ‘How did that come about, Brother?’ Marius asked as a litter, high and wide and borne by sixteen slaves, four at each corner, came through the gate. Bearded Germans of the imperial bodyguard lurched to either side of the litter, preventing any of the cheering citizenry from getting too close to their master to whom they showed complete devotion.

  ‘Some other time, Brother, some other time. Hail Divine Caesar! Hail Divine Caesar!’

  Caligula waved his right hand with regal dignity, reclining within the sumptuous cushionage of his litter. With his high forehead, thinning hair and deeply sunken eyes underlined with insomniac’s dark smudges, Caligula would have looked inconsequential, had it not been for his golden Mercurial costume that did little to hide a magnificent erection with which he toyed with his left hand.

  ‘Hail Divine Caesar! Hail our star, our rising sun! Hail Divine Gaius!’ the crowd called out with unfeigned enthusiasm, praising the giver of largesse and holder of games so spectacular that none could recall their like or imagine them being bettered.

  Caligula raised himself as the shouts grew with more and more people coming to line the street, genuinely happy that their Emperor had returned to Rome and hoping that he would celebrate the fact with impromptu chariot racing at the Circus Maximus whose soaring, arched bulk overshadowed the Capena Gate. With a sudden movement he thrust his right hand into a bulging purse and then threw dozens of golden coins into the air to shower down on his adoring subjects. The cheering turned into screeches as everyone tried to get a gold aureus, the equivalent of almost six months’ wages for a legionary. Another expansive gesture released more of the golden rain as Caligula began to work his erection with increased urgency. ‘There, my sheep, there’s your fodder. Feed, my flock, feed,’ Caligula called as he dispensed his largesse. ‘Take your blessings from your god, my sheep, and live under my hands.’ He smiled with benign calmness as he surveyed the chaos caused by the contents of his purse; and then his expression clouded and his head twitched. ‘Stop!’ he screamed, causing his bearers to halt immediately. The crowd froze in whatever position they were in and looked to their Emperor; Caligula pointed a shaking finger at a couple of beggars, with filthy, wound headdresses, scrabbling on the floor and evidently unaware of the change of atmosphere. ‘Pick them up,’ he ordered the nearest of his Germanic bodyguards.

  The German pushed his way through the crowd to the two beggars and hauled them up by the grimed collars of their tattered robes. As they realised their predicament, the beggars ceased groping for coinage and stared with wide eyes at the Emperor, terrified by the wrath on his face.

  ‘Bring them here,’ Caligula hissed.

  The German hauled the two men forward and then threw them to their knees before the litter. They mumbled entreaties for mercy into their long, ill-kempt beards, in heavily accented Latin.

  Caligula surveyed them for a few moments and then addressed the crowd: ‘Look at their noses, look at their headdresses. They take the money I dispense and yet they refuse to recognise me for what I am.’ He looked down at the beggars and sneered in disgust. ‘What are you?’

  ‘B-b-beggars, Princeps,’ one replied, not raising his eyes.

  ‘I know that! But what sort of people are you, what religion?’

  ‘We, we are Jews, Princeps.’

  ‘Jews! I knew it. Call me by my title.’

  ‘I have, Princeps.’

  Caligula smiled a smile that would have frozen Medusa herself. ‘Vespasian,’ he called, not taking his eyes from the two visibly shaking beggars now grovelling piteously.

  A stocky man in a senatorial toga stepped forward from the entourage of senators and Praetorian officers following the litter. ‘Yes, Divine Gaius.’

  ‘They seem to think that I don’t notice their lack of respect for my godhead.’

  ‘Indeed, Divine Gaius; they must be amongst the most stupid of your sheep.’

  Caligula frowned as he considered this statement. ‘Yes, they must be. Remove any coinage they might have gathered and have them thrown out of the city. I’ll not have unbelievers amongst my flock. It’s time to get a proper understanding of these people’s way of thinking. Have the Alexandrian embassy brought before me after I have received the welcome of the Senate.’

  As Vespasian obeyed his god and Emperor’s orders, Magnus caught his eye. ‘Philo and his mates are being kept out of trouble, sir.’

  ‘Thank you, Magnus. Meet me at the Senate House in a couple of hours.’

  ‘Put it down there, Marius, and don’t get too close,’ Servius advised as Marius put down an earthenware bowl in the middle of the floor of the backroom in which Magnus transacted the brotherhood’s business. ‘You’ll notice, Magnus, that there is nothing in this bowl but wet rags.’ Servius pulled out a dripping bundle just to emphasise the point. ‘Not the sort of thing that you would normally expect to burn.’

  ‘That’s a fair point, Brother,’ Magnus said, leaning back on his chair and folding his arms. ‘But, no doubt, you’re going to surprise me.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘Because you wouldn’t be making such a fuss about damp rags not burning otherwise.’

  Magnus’ counsellor’s lined face took on a disappointed aspect as he opened the jar taken from the intruders’ sack. ‘I was hoping to astound you, not just surprise you.’ He took a single wet rag and dipped it into the jar; it came out smeared with a dark, viscous substance that seemed to be halfway between solid and liquid. He dropped it into the bowl and then took a dry rag and dangled it over the flame of an oil lamp. As it caught fire, Servius threw it after the impregnated rag. There was an immediate puff of flame and within an instant the damp contents of the bowl were burning as if they were tinder-dry.


  ‘I am astounded,’ Magnus affirmed. ‘What is it?’

  ‘It comes from the East but it’s very rare here in the Empire and therefore very expensive. The contents of this jar, if it were full, would have cost as much, if not more, as what we were prepared to pay for the Scorpion.’

  ‘That is impressive. What’s it called?’

  ‘I’ve heard it called the River-god’s fire but what its real name is I don’t know. However …’ Servius looked at his patronus and raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Ah!’ Magnus exclaimed, understanding.

  ‘We know someone who does,’ they said in unison.

  Magnus stood, as was every citizen’s right, at the open doors of the Senate House watching, with wry amusement, senators struggling to outdo one another in outrageous flattery as they welcomed their Emperor back to Rome. The fact that he had only been absent for ten days did not seem to dampen their enthusiasm for their reunification with their divine ruler.

  ‘Senator Titus Flavius Vespasianus has the floor,’ Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo, the presiding Consul, announced, looking down his long nose that dominated an equinesque face.

  ‘My thanks, Suffect Junior Consul,’ Vespasian said, rising to his feet and bringing a smile to Magnus by stressing the full title of Corbulo’s rank. Corbulo bristled in his curule chair, adding to Magnus’ amusement for he considered him to be even more pompous than Philo. ‘I would also like to make my joy at the Emperor’s safe return to Rome a matter of record. Although I have had the good fortune to be escorting him on his journey and, therefore, never far from his radiance, it is still a relief for me to know he is back at the heart of the Empire in his rightful place, guiding our lives. And I hope that he will spare us as much of his precious time as he can before he sets off on his divine conquest of Germania.’ Vespasian turned to Caligula ensconced on his litter, which had been placed in the centre of the chamber. ‘On a personal note, I would like to thank the Emperor for the splendid dinner he invited me to only last night. The food was exquisite, the music sublime, the conversation riveting and the entertainment highly amusing.’

  Caligula shrieked a high-pitched laugh at the memory. ‘Yes, it was fun; we should do it again this evening. Cancel the Alexandrian embassy later – I’ll see them in the morning at the fifth hour – and have a dozen condemned prisoners brought up to the palace.’

  ‘Indeed, Divine Gaius.’

  Magnus could see Vespasian straining to keep a delighted expression on his face.

  Caligula’s anticipation of the evening revelries was evidently enough to distract him from the business of being flattered and he signalled his bearers to set about their duty. ‘You will come, Vespasian?’

  ‘With utmost pleasure, Divine Gaius.’

  ‘Excellent.’ He turned to Corbulo. ‘And perhaps you too, Corbulo? Wait, no, no, what am I thinking? You’re far too dull.’

  Dullness was, plainly, an attribute that Corbulo in this instance was very grateful for, Magnus assumed, judging by the expression on the Junior Consul’s face.

  Caligula was swept from the chamber before the senators could even hold a vote on whether to commission another bronze statue in thanks for his safe return.

  ‘Thanking the Emperor for inviting you to dinner,’ Magnus said as Vespasian and Gaius joined him at the bottom of the Senate House steps, next to Vespasian’s lictors, ‘that was sycophancy of the highest degree.’

  ‘Yes,’ Gaius agreed, ‘and very good it was too. And you managed to get yourself another invitation for this evening. Excellent work, dear boy.’

  Vespasian closed his eyes and massaged his temples with a thumb and a middle finger. ‘There is nothing excellent, Uncle, about dining with a living deity who finds the dismembering of criminals amusing entertainment between courses.’

  ‘Then you shouldn’t have said it was amusing,’ Magnus observed.

  ‘Magnus, have you any idea what it’s like trying to please the Emperor just so as to stand a chance of still being alive at the end of the day? Sometimes I think that the only reason I’ve escaped his purges is because he doesn’t consider me rich enough to execute.’

  Gaius’ jowls wobbled in agreement. ‘Yes, poverty, or at least the appearance of it, can be a life-saving condition.’

  Vespasian scowled at his uncle, ordered his lictors to proceed to the Palatine and then turned back to Magnus as they started to move. ‘So, have Philo and his embassy escorted to the Palatine tomorrow just before the fifth hour. I’ll meet you there – if Caligula doesn’t confuse me with a criminal and I survive dinner, that is – and, hopefully, by then I’ll know where Caligula will receive them.’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ Magnus affirmed. ‘In the meantime, sir, I’ve got a favour to ask in return.’

  Vespasian looked wary but could not refuse his friend. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Well, as one of the Urban Praetors could you use your influence with the Urban Prefect to take some action over a highly illegal piece of equipment that would have recently come to his notice?’

  ‘What have you done, Magnus?’

  ‘Now that’s not fair, I ain’t done nothing. No, it’s Quintus Tullius Tatianus …’

  ‘He who can procure any weapon ever conceived and have it smuggled into the city?’

  ‘That’s the one,’ Magnus said, shaking his head. ‘You all seem to know about him. Well, I believe that he is just about to supply Sempronius, the leader of the West Viminal, with a Scorpion. I mean a bolt-shooter, not those nasty little things with a sting in their tail.’

  ‘That would be a very illegal transaction. When did the item arrive?’

  ‘Last night.’

  ‘Then I assume that the Urban Cohort centurion has already informed Lentullus, wouldn’t you say, Uncle?’

  ‘Undoubtedly, dear boy; unless he’s grown tired of his wife and children.’

  Magnus shook his head again. ‘Ain’t nothing secret?’

  ‘Not when it comes to a dangerous man like Tatianus,’ Vespasian said. ‘So what would you like me to get Lentullus to do?’

  ‘Well, I assume that now he knows about the Scorpion he will take steps to confiscate it?’

  ‘I’m sure he will.’

  ‘In which case could you ask him to do it at the third hour tomorrow morning?’

  ‘Why so precise?’

  ‘Let’s just say that I’ll be in conference with an interested party at that time and that type of information would be exactly the sort of thing that I could use to bring him down a bit.’

  Vespasian sighed. ‘So I’m supposed to get the Urban Prefect to enforce the law at a time that suits your criminal agenda, is that it?’

  ‘Well, if you put it like that then I suppose so, although there’s nothing criminal about it.’

  ‘I doubt that very much.’

  ‘And then, what happens to things like Scorpions when they’re impounded?’

  ‘That’s up to whoever is in charge of the raid.’

  ‘The centurion?’

  ‘No, a centurion will lead it but a magistrate will oversee the whole thing.’

  ‘An Urban Praetor, perhaps.’

  Vespasian raised his eyebrows. ‘It has been known. I’ll see what I can do. You just make sure that Philo’s there at the fifth hour.’

  ‘That I will, sir,’ Magnus said, taking his leave. ‘I wonder what the punishment is for being caught in possession of a Scorpion? Whatever it is it’ll give Sempronius quite a sting, if you take my meaning?’

  ‘There they go,’ Magnus said, looking down at a wagon being unloaded by torchlight in a narrow side street off the Vicus Patricius. ‘I knew the bastard would do it.’

  ‘Do what, Magnus?’ Sextus asked, pulling his cloak tighter around his shoulders as the temperature fell with the deepening of night.

  Magnus did not bother to answer his bovine brother as he felt sure that the short answer would prove too baffling and a longer explanation would be beyond his attention span. Instead he counted the number of co
mponents brought out from beneath the leather covering of the wagon until he was satisfied that it was indeed the Scorpion being delivered to the back door of the West Viminal Brotherhood’s headquarters.

  Magnus eased the weight off his cramped buttocks, which had transferred most of their heat to the flat, tiled roof on which he and Sextus had been concealed for their three-hour vigil, and then ran his eye over the building that housed his bitter rivals. Unlike the South Quirinal, the West Viminal chose not to base themselves in the tavern built at the junction of the Vicus Patricius and the Carpenters’ Street, the road leading to Magnus’ territory, but, rather, in a four-storey building built around an inner courtyard some fifty paces from the crossroads. It was a wise decision, Magnus conceded: apart from the minor inconvenience of the Crossroads’ lares altar not being a part of the building, it was far better situated than his own tavern as it only had one wall facing the main street, with the other three backing onto narrow side streets, in one of which the wagon was being unloaded. This meant that it was that much harder to attack as the narrow streets on three sides could be blocked to prevent access, leaving only the possibility of attacking through what would be a very well-defended front door. As he rued the ease with which his defences had been breached the previous night something stirred within Magnus’ scheming mind and he raised his gaze to the roof of the building, some ten feet higher than his position: it was, like the one that he was crouched on, flat. However, there was a structure built atop it, a structure that Magnus knew to be solid because it was where the West Viminal liked to keep their captives. ‘Unless one had a Scorpion,’ Magnus muttered to himself.

  ‘What’s that, Brother?’ Sextus asked.

  Magnus smiled in the dark. ‘I meant, Sextus, that I’ve just seen a less lucrative but more satisfying use for a Scorpion.’

  ‘I didn’t think we had one any more on account of the money being nicked and such.’

  Magnus began to ease his way back, keeping low so that his silhouette would not rise above the parapet. ‘Never you mind, Brother; you just kill who I tell you to and leave the thinking to me.’