I laughed. “Flavus spoke to you?”
“He did,” Gochan said. “Told us you were weeping.”
“I was not!”
“I am not blaming you if you did!” he roared.
He got in, and I got up to crush him in a hug. He nodded to the doorway. “I've got some forty men. All good, at least proper fighters. Chains and leathers, bows and swords, and some surprises.”
There were bags on huge horses, shapeless and odd.
“They are pirates?” I asked and watched the party of men outside.
“They are sailors of sort,” Gochan said. “And there are a few men I never fought alongside with either. They say they know you. Picked them up on the way here.”
I saw Wandal coming in.
He was blind in one eye, and as old as Hulderic had looked once. New scars adorned his old skin, and he smiled as he saw me. I stepped forward, and he came to me, and leaned his head on mine.
We wept. It was embarrassing to Tudrus, and to Bohscyld, who both came in. The latter was missing teeth, and fingers, and Tudrus had no hair, but they looked like they were ready for a fight.
“How are you?” I asked them, stupidly, as Gernot went to fetch wine he had spotted in the corner.
Wandal spread his arms. “Rich in Dacia. Four boys. Tudrus had only two. He remarried. She…”
I watched him. He looked down. “Winter took her.”
“I am—”
“So am I,” he told me. “And we have been sick as well, the lot of us. Aches, ills, and too much peace. Happiness makes you unhappy. That is why you look so full of joy, no?”
He joined us, and like four maidens in a family meeting, we huddled around a table, exchanging news of Bohscyld’s heroics in past wars, of his wife, and of his eight girls, and of Tudrus’ bid for the Quadi which failed. We sat there, gossiping, and Gochan was eating the last of my food, Gernot drinking hard, when I heard commotion in the yard.
There, two men were riding in.
One was Agamemnon. The other one, was the Pig.
Both stared at the unsavory crew around them, like a bear might regard a pack of starving wolves.
I lifted walked out.
Agamemnon nodded at my brother. “He told us you are going to visit a ludus. Invited us to the party.”
“I am going to visit a ludus,” I agreed. “How are you, and you, Pig?”
The Pig grunted and shrugged. “Your brother set me up in his business. I have been happy enough. Agamemnon too. Fine ludus he has.”
I looked at Gernot. “You saved them all?”
He smiled. “We saved each other. And now,” he told me, “I think we are most all old enough to risk one more fight. Just to celebrate together? Yes?”
I grinned and nodded.
“And if we get him out,” he said, “where will you go?”
“I will take him far, to the lands not yet taken by Rome,” I said. “Albion. But I cannot ride there though the Alps.”
“You will go from Ostia,” he told me. “It is all arranged. You will spend a year or two in Hispania, and then through Gaul to Camulodunum. We will see. Depends on what happens in Rome. The rebels and malcontents are not able to kill Gaius, despite all.”
I grunted. “They will.”
“A problem for a day other than today,” Gochan said. “What is the plan?”
I smiled. “I was going to climb in and get him out.”
“A good plan,” Wandal said. “Let us go.”
CHAPTER 24
“Six men,” said Wandal. “We take only six. We have no idea where they hold him. We do not even know what he looks like. What if there is someone who looks like Armin, and we take him out, and he turns out to be a damned pig farmer forced into fighting for amusement? Would be embarrassing.”
The Pig grunted. “Nothing wrong with pig herders. My father’s one.”
“Sorry,” Wandal grinned, as he looked at the wall and the gatehouse with the tower on top of it. “Ten or more men in that tower. More?”
“We go past the tower,” I said. “The soldiers are asleep. There will be a guard somewhere in the gut of that place. The ones on the walls will be alert, the one below, never. That guard will tell us where the soldiers are staying, and where Thumelicus might be found.”
Tudrus grinned. “Go in, find a guard, torture him, and then free a slave, while not tripping on spears.” He shook his head. “Things really haven’t changed for you in this regard. You still hatch up damned mad plans.”
“Aye,” I agreed. “The men will come after us. Take the gate or at least the wall around it, and keep it, and we retreat to them. Ladders?”
“They have them,” said Gernot.
“You lead them up, brother, after we have gone,” I told him. “I will climb up first. No ladder yet. Might make too much noise. I have to see first.”
His one arm would not be helpful in the castra. Besides, he was never a fighter.
“Don’t get killed,” he murmured. “Go.”
And so, we went.
Slowly we crept on and came to the bottom of the wall. Up on the tower’s top, a man was singing, and another laughing. Fires were burning up there and I guessed they were having a small feast of their own and risking their centurion’s wrath.
I got to the wall and started to look for the cracks. I got up to my full height, and my fingers found broken tiles and mortar, and I slowly began pulling myself up, and then step after step, up more. There, six feet high, I nearly lost my grip.
I hung there, and then, slowly, pulled myself back up.
I was silent and looked down.
Many pairs of eyes were gleaming in the night, all shaking their heads.
I cursed them, and found a tile just in my reach, and pulled myself up again.
And then, I could see on top.
The wall was as dark as night.
Below, in the former castra, or outpost, gladiator barracks had been built. On two opposing sides, they ran along the wall.
Far across, there was a three storied building of stone. There, the lanista used to live, and the men eat.
Lamps and torches burned on the doorways, and on the large building’s doorway, a guard walked back and forth.
And then, suddenly, before me, a man came from the tower’s doorway, walking unsteadily. Sick or drunk, he came to stand just before me, muttering.
“She is mine, not yours,” he murmured, and shook his head angrily, preparing for an argument with a fellow guard over some female of ill repute.
Then he turned to look out over the land and placed his hand over mine.
He hesitated, his fingers ran over mine, and he turned to look down at me, bending over me.
His eyes grew huge.
Then an arrow struck his skull, and he fell on the stone, eyes open, dead.
I looked down, and saw Agamemnon putting down a bow, still shaking his head.
I grinned and climbed up. I landed on my feet and looked around.
The wall to the right had a guard. He was standing, apparently half asleep inside his cape, and walking back and forth twenty feet away.
I pulled out a pugio and walked that way, singing softly.
He glanced at me, and then turned away, not alarmed. Below me, the roof of the rightmost barrack stretched to the other end of the ludus, just under the eastern wall.
I looked down as I approached the man.
He turned to look at me.
He frowned.
And I slashed my blade into his throat, and through it.
I caught him and looked around, as he struggled out of the lands of the living.
Silence. Somewhere on the eastern wall, a guard was coughing. The corner towers no doubt housed men, but were dark.
I turned and walked back and looked down at my friends.
I was leading them to the jaws of death.
But this time, they were happy to follow. I waved my hand, and a ladder was lifted, very slowly and carefully. I grabbed at it, manag
ing to stop it from banging on the stone, and held it, as men climbed up.
Wandal came first. I whispered to him. “The roof for the end of the castra. Go to the dead guard. We climb all the way down and sneak forward below. There is a guard near the door to the central building.”
He went that way, and one by one, Gochan, the Pig, Agamemnon and Tudrus came forward. Tudrus was carrying those terrible sacks, and they were hauling more and more of them up the wall.
Tudrus was whispering to the last man, Bohscyld, who went to look at the tower.
They would try to take it.
Below, I could faintly hear the forty or so men coming to hide beneath.
I watched the gate tower, a dark, fat brute.
We had no idea where the enemy was sleeping, the soldiers, and how many there truly were. They could be anywhere, or everywhere.
I turned to go, grasped Bohscyld’s hand, and endured his horrifying grin.
I got over the roof of the barracks, and tying a rope from Tudrus to a crenellation, I slipped down, and all the way to the side of the barrack, on the sand.
I listened, and heard men snoring inside.
I waved at the others, who followed, and then, like a pack of thieves, we sneaked forward under the darkness, the wall above us, the barrack to our left.
We went to the end, and there, we saw the guard on the doorway of the main building, not far.
“Let me,” Gochan grunted.
“It’s a ludus,” said Agamemnon. “Let me.”
He slipped to the night and we saw him near the edge of the main building, hiding behind the corner.
“He’ll get us killed,” Gochan murmured.
“He might,” I said.
He was staring at the man from the corner, and then tossed a coin on the sand near him.
Then another, and they clinked together.
The guard turned his head. He squinted. Then he spotted the silver and his mouth opened in astonishment.
He walked brisky forward and bent down to pick them up.
And at that, Agamemnon took the soldier by the neck and wrapped his arm around his throat.
Then he dragged the man to us.
The face of the man was horrified, when he saw many shadows rising above him, and hands grasping him. He also saw the flash of a falx and went quiet when I placed it under his chin. “One uninvited word, and I’ll wet the blade.”
He shook his head, panting slowly.
“There are no gladiators here?” I asked him.
He was silent.
“Speak!” I hissed. “I heard there are none.”
He was nodding, and then shaking his head. “They were taken…away. The lanista was told to leave under the cover of the night, weeks ago. The troops stay. They are here to…” He swallowed hard.
“Baiting a raven?” I said.
“Yes, the Raven” he told me, and closed his eyes.
He suddenly knew who I was.
“How many men are here?” I asked him. “And most importantly,” I asked, “is there one very particular gladiator in here?”
“There is one,” he whispered. “In the main building. With the centurion. He sleeps near him, at all times.”
“Centurion, eh?” I asked. “In this building?”
“Fifty men each in the barracks,” he said softly. “Twenty in the main building. We are the 1st and 2nd centuries of fourth Praetorian Guard Cohort. I know you, sir.”
“What’s in the main building?” I asked. “How is it built?”
He swallowed. “Well. It is on the first floor, where the Centurion Cassius sleeps. They eat there, but have some cells as well.”
“Cassius…”
“He is here,” they said, “for they said he was sure you would come here. Princeps himself ordered him here. We are just guards, really. Nothing more. It is a terrible trap, isn’t it?”
His eyes were gleaming, and he was extremely nervous.
“You have the keys to get inside?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m alone, because they are having a small feast at the gate tower. My friend went there.”
I saw he was pulling out a set of keys.
I took them.
Wandal grunted and grasped his mouth, and Gochan stabbed down on him, twisting the blade.
Then we all froze. The door opened, and a man, swathed in a cloak stepped out. He wore a tall, crested helmet, and was cursing, as he looked around.
He did not see us, or the dead guard.
There was loud laughter in the tower.
He began walking down the courtyard. I watched him go.
“Damned, useless soldiers, and even worse guards,” he was cursing.
It was Cassius, thinking his guards were shirking from duty.
Such an offence could cost one their life. The bastard might run into our boys on the wall, or might not. I hoped he would get stepped on by Bohscyld
“All the pirates have bows and javelins?” I asked.
Gochan nodded. “Know how to use them as well, they do. We’ll make the barracks slightly less threatening. We have caltrops.”
I watched Tudrus and Wandal, who both showed me many bags of very useful contraptions. “Spread them across the doorways,” I whispered. “And Gochan, get the men to the wall. Prepare them well. Arrows, all they have, and make a line—”
“I know how to kill drowsy soldiers,” he snarled. “They might be taking the tower too. Be careful. And fast. Our luck will run out.”
I slapped their backs. They went to their tasks, and I, holding the keys, walked to the door with the Pig and Agamemnon. Both were smiling like skeletons, terrified and excited at the same time.
I pulled the door open with a clank.
Inside, there was a row of sleeping men.
I looked to the left, where a stairway led up, and two doorways to the left and right next to it. One was locked, the other one open.
Cassius stayed in the open one.
And Thumelicus on the other.
One of the guards got up to sit and stared at us.
I snapped my fingers.
Agamemnon was there in a blink of an eye. His sica flashed and the man fell back, gurgling. The Pig jumped amid the other sleeping men and began cruelly stabbing at them too.
One screamed.
Upstairs, men were turning in their beds, and we heard them whispering questions.
I walked briskly forward.
I got to the doorway and turned to the locked door. There, I inserted the key to a lock, and turned the crude thing.
The door creaked open, and a man, twenty-something, muscular, not very tall, but blond and blue-eyed, bearded much like his father had been, but with Thusnelda’s full mouth, turned to look at me.
He was staring at me like he would a monster. “I’ve come for you, boy,” I said. “Come now.”
He shook his head. “I have done nothing—” he began with enraged voice, thinking he would be executed.
“I swore an oath to your father once,” I said. “I, the worst of men, and still the only one who came. I knew your mother well, too. Come. Let us go.”
He got up, shaking his head.
I pulled out my gladiator helmet and pulled it on, and pointed the falx at the door behind me, where the gurgle of dying men could be heard.
“They are coming!” called out the Pig, and indeed, I could hear men running on top. “Hurry, you sullen slug!”
Thumelicus stepped forth, and I growled and pulled him along, and pushed him out. “Arm yourself,” I said. “It will be a bloody night.”
He grasped a sword and then another and jumped forward. The Pig pushed him, and I pulled him and then we were out of the doorway, just as a horde of men came down the stairs.
Agamemnon came last and emptied a bag of caltrops on the floor.
Then we ran.
And I saw Wandal and Tudrus were already running, extremely near the gate.
The barracks on either side of us burst open like
beehives.
There, praetorian guards were pouring out.
Behind as well.
And then they screamed, as they stepped on hundreds of barbed, spiky balls of death.
Men were screaming, for most had no caligae.
They were falling, often on more of the devilish things, and that spelled ill for them, for most did not have armor either.
“Up to the wall, over, and then we escape,” I panted, and saw a line of men on the wall, raising bows. Arrows began striking down behind us, and while out of the tower came some of the foe, they were cut down quickly by Bohscyld. I saw how many of the pirates were rushing the tower, and then I heard Cassius yelling in surprise.
But the archers saved us.
The accuracy of the men was uncanny.
The arrows struck down amid the sprawling foe, the mass of men trying to rush after us, downing one after another.
Thumelicus fell, and I pulled him up. “No time for that now, eh?” I snarled.
“I know you,” he said. “You are Raven. They spoke to me about you. Cassius did. You are a…murderer!”
“We are all killers, and I am trying to hurt them, and you had better survive, you idiot,” I told him as arrows cut down two enemies just behind us.
“They said you killed my father,” he said and ripped himself free. He pushed me aside and ran before me.
I hesitated and closed my eyes. How could Cassius know? Claudius had overheard it at some point?
It was possible.
Bastard Cassius. Shit-toe bastard.
The boy had spirit, though, if not wisdom.
He had been born a slave.
He seemingly didn’t want to die like one. He jumped to a ladder set out on our side and began climbing.
He climbed like a monkey, and I went after him.
Behind us, men were getting shields, and a wall of them was now coming together before the barracks.
We got up, as the archers, laughing gleefully, were making life miserable for some fifty men, approaching the gate. The enemy had swords and shields, but little else.
Bohscyld came from the tower, and grinned.
It was ours.
Tudrus dodged behind him, and looked in. He shook his head. “Where is that centurion?”
And then, a creak answered that question.
Below us, the gate was being opened.
I rushed there, and saw men sprinting to the darkness. Some fell, as Gernot and five men were shooting from the side, and I saw Cassius dodging back in.
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