A sudden roar of collapsing masonry and timber made her look round. The roof of the kitchen had caved in, taking a section of the wall with it. An explosion of sparks and flames leaped into the evening sky and a fresh wave of heat drove everyone back several paces.
‘By the gods . . .’ she muttered as she recalled her last sight of the decurion and his men. ‘Oh no. No.’
A harsh shout broke into her grief and she saw a group of men approaching. They stopped a short distance away, one side of their bodies lit up by the lurid light of the flames consuming the villa, the rest shadowed. Their leader stepped forward, a length of rope in his left hand. He gave it a sharp tug and a small figure lurched out from between his companions and stumbled to his side. Claudia felt her heart quicken with anxiety as she recognised the face of the boy who had gone missing the day before. His eyes bulged and he trembled as he stood beside the leader of the band that had attacked the villa.
The man gestured at the grime-streaked faces of those who had escaped from the kitchen.
‘Is she among them?’ he demanded.
The boy’s gaze flitted over the group and fixed on Claudia, and he nodded.
‘Which one, boy? Point her out.’ He let the rope run through his fingers as the boy walked slowly towards Claudia. Her eyes pleaded with him and she gave the slightest shake of the head. But he came on, stopped in front of her and reached his small hand out to touch her arm, then lowered his head in shame and let his hand drop. Claudia took a deep breath and gave his shoulder a gentle squeeze.
‘It’s all right . . . I’m sorry they put you up to this.’ She reached to his neck and loosened the rope, slipped it over his head and threw it aside. ‘Join the others.’ Then she stepped past him, drew herself up and glared at the man with a mixture of defiance and contempt.
‘You are Claudia Acte,’ he stated.
‘I am. What of it?’
‘You are the emperor’s whore.’
‘Not any longer. He exiled me to the province. You are misinformed.’
‘Maybe. Maybe not. But Nero will not want you to die at our hands.’
She could not help a bitter smile. ‘He might not, but those who advise him would celebrate news of my death. I’m no good to you as a hostage. You’re here on a fool’s errand. My men died, along with yours, and you destroyed my home, all for no reason. I am worth nothing to you.’
Now it was his turn to smile as he spoke in a soft, rasping voice. ‘You’d better pray that you are wrong, Claudia Acte.’
He picked up the rope she had removed from the boy and approached her. He forced the noose over her head, and before she could protest or react against him, he had yanked the rope so the noose tightened about her neck, permitting only a shocked gasp to escape her lips. Then he grabbed her shoulder, spun her around and pulled her hands behind her back, crossing the wrists over and tying them together. When she was securely bound, he eased the noose fractionally and took a step back. ‘You are coming with us.’
‘Where?’
‘To our king.’
‘King? What king? There is no king on this benighted island,’ she sneered.
He slapped her hard across the cheek. ‘Silence. You are not to speak until spoken to. You are not to escape. If you try to defy me, I will have you stripped and flogged.’
He turned to face the slaves before she could respond. He looked over them briefly before addressing them.
‘You are free. You can choose to come with us and join our people. Or you can take your own path. If you choose to follow my band, you must keep up. We will not wait for stragglers. And when we reach our lands, you will swear an oath of loyalty to our king. If you break your oath, you will be put to death. Make your choice now. We are leaving.’
He shouted an order and it was relayed around the parties of brigands surrounding the burning villa. They formed up with the horses they had captured tied to the saddles of their own mounts. A handful of carts and their mule teams had been taken from the stables and piled with what loot had been gathered from the villa before it was set on fire. As darkness gathered, the leader barked an order and the motley column moved off.
Claudia had been placed in the charge of a rider in the middle of the column. He attached another length of rope to her bindings and looped the free end around one of the horns of his saddle. As the raiders marched away, the slaves stood still for a moment, before the first of them, a man, strode after them. Several more followed, while the rest looked on in silence. The column crossed the enclosure, bathed in the light from the blaze, and left by the main gateway before turning east, disappearing into the night.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Centurion Massimilianus’s mounted force reached the fort at midday, two days after the main column had arrived. As soon as they were sighted by a sentry, Cato was alerted, and he rode out to meet the horsemen, reining in while they were still twenty paces off and raising his hand to halt them.
‘Good to see you, Centurion.’
‘And you, sir.’
‘Before you get any closer to the fort, I have to ask, have any of your men been sick or shown signs of the sickness?’
‘Yes, sir. I had to leave five men behind in Carales.’
‘What happened to them? My orders were for your men to keep their distance and turn people back.’
‘Yes, sir. One of the men knew of a good brothel in the town and talked some of his mates into sneaking inside the walls one night. By the time I heard of it, they had already left the camp. I was waiting for them when they crept back. I told them I’d have them speared if they tried to rejoin their comrades and ordered them to report to the fort at Carales. I let them know they’d be up on charges once this is all over, if they’re still alive.’
‘Good. Anyone else?’
‘The rest of my lads are fine, sir. I’ve told them to report any sign of sickness. But there’s been nothing. Not even a sprained ankle.’
‘Well done.’ Cato nodded and urged his horse forward. ‘What was the situation in Carales when you left?’
‘Not good. They were bringing the bodies out each morning and tipping them into a mass grave. Over a hundred a day, I’d estimate. Once word got round that we were turning people back, at spear point if necessary, they eventually stopped coming. We caught some who were trying to get past under cover of darkness and sent them back. But there’ll be some that got through. Maybe the same ones who passed the pestilence on to a handful of the nearest villages. I had a word with their headmen not to let anyone leave until they’d had no deaths or sickness for ten days. I didn’t have enough men to cover the villages as well as Carales, so all I could do was threaten them with dire consequences if I discovered one of them had allowed any of their people to spread the pestilence to another village.’
‘That was the best you could have done in the circumstances. Come, let’s ride on to the fort.’
Cato tugged his reins and waited for the centurion to fall in alongside him before clicking his tongue and walking his horse on.
‘We’re not going to be able to contain the pestilence, are we, sir?’ Massimilianus said quietly.
There was no sense in pretence or misplaced optimism, thought Cato. That only ever made a man look a fool when a crisis was over and people looked back and asked questions of those in authority. ‘I doubt it. We might have had a chance early on, if Scurra had quarantined people as soon as he heard they were sick. It’s too late now. Carales will have to be left to its fate, and those villages where the sickness has spread. And since we have too few men to control people’s movements and deal with the enemy, the sickness will make its way throughout the island eventually. And then it’s just a question of burying the bodies.’
Massimilianus considered his words briefly and then nodded. ‘It’s just bad timing. The sickness and this business with the brigands happening all at once.’
‘True, but that’s how the Empire is run. Every unit on the frontier or garrisoned in the quieter provinc
es is stretched thinly. We can deal with one crisis well enough. But any more than that . . .’ Cato shrugged and gestured vaguely at the surrounding landscape. ‘That’s how it goes. Which makes it more urgent that we deal with the enemy before the pestilence spreads to Augustis, as I am sure it will.’ He shot Massimilianus a warning look. ‘Keep that to yourself, by the way. I don’t want men deserting for fear of the sickness, or out of worry that their families might be at risk. They won’t understand that the best thing is to stay where they are for now. So not a word to anyone. Clear?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘I’ll need twenty of your men ready to ride at first light tomorrow. We’ll be heading out to inspect the forward outposts that Plancinus has been constructing. Make sure the men and horses are fed well and have a sound sleep tonight.’
As evening settled over the forested landscape, Apollonius returned from his first patrol with his scouts and immediately made his way to headquarters to report to Cato. He wore a simple dull brown tunic with a sword belt customised with small sheaths for his dagger and throwing knives. A linen bandana of the same colour protected his head and neck from the sun and helped him to blend into the dry grass and shrubs of the terrain. The only concession to military attire was the thick woollen breeches and sturdy army boots he wore. His face and exposed flesh were streaked with grime and he stank of his own sweat, mingled with that of the horse he had been riding.
Cato, professional soldier that he was, could not help regarding him with a touch of disdain. ‘You could attempt a more military demeanour now that you are serving with the army, you know.’
‘I could, but I won’t.’
‘It might mean something to the men you command.’
‘Do you think my scouts look any different? The first thing I did was order them to leave unnecessary kit in their barracks and get hold of some clothing that blends in with the landscape. You won’t find them any more military in appearance than me.’
Cato tried not to wince at the prospect.
‘We’re not scouting ahead of an army, Prefect. Our job is to be as unobtrusive as possible in order to track down the enemy’s lairs. It’s up to me to provide you with intelligence the best way I see fit, and for you to make use of it.’
‘Well, thanks for explaining my job to me,’ Cato responded acidly. ‘So what intelligence do you have? Take a seat.’
Apollonius smiled briefly at the barbed question, registering acknowledgement rather than amusement. ‘Mind if I stand? My arse is still suffering from being too long in the saddle.’
‘As you wish. Well?’
Apollonius reached into his sidebag and took out a roll of parchment, which he opened across Cato’s desk. Instead of the usual itinerary maps used by the army, with distances marked between locations rather than any attempt to reproduce the features of the landscape, Apollonius had marked out the terrain in considerable detail, depicting prominent hills, rivers with crossing points, roads, tracks, settlements and other notations. Most of the space on the parchment was blank, however. Still, Cato conceded, it was impressive how much information the agent had gleaned in a matter of days.
Tapping the simple symbol of a fort at Augustis, the agent traced his finger across the parchment to where a ridge was marked, some distance to the east. ‘That’s the position I chose for our camp. There’s one of the old towers there. It’s been abandoned for a long time, judging from the condition, but it was possible to climb the stairs inside and reach the top. I had the men keeping watch from there. It makes a fine observation post; you can see for several miles in every direction. It was even possible to see this fort from there. I’d recommend that Plancinus and his men pay a visit to the tower and put up a palisade. It’s well sited for signalling as well as observing. I left two of my men there to keep watch over the area. I’ll be taking the rest back there in the morning, and then we’ll push on deeper into the enemy’s territory.’
‘Very well, I’ll tell Plancinus to fortify the tower when I catch up with him tomorrow.’
Apollonius raised an eyebrow. ‘Tomorrow?’
‘I’m taking the mounted contingent with some supplies for the outposts.’
‘I see. Is it necessary for you to run errands like that?’
‘I’ll do as I damned well like. Besides, I want to inspect the works and see how the land lies. Did you see anything of the enemy?’
‘Very little during the day. Some bands of horsemen, no more than ten at a time. A few parties on foot on the more difficult ground. There was no sign of smoke to give away their camps. We could make out some fires at night, but they were put out long before dawn, so we couldn’t identify the source with any accuracy. They’re smart. They hide their numbers and don’t give away their position when they stop for the night. It’s no wonder they have managed to slip through Rome’s fingers for so long.’
Cato scratched his jaw as he considered what the agent had said. ‘What we need is to take a prisoner. If you and your men can get one, the cohort’s interrogator might be able to persuade him to tell us where we can find their lairs.’
‘I should think we’ll be able to grab one, given a few days to track down one of their bands.’
‘Time is short,’ Cato responded, and related what Massimilianus had told him about the situation around Carales. ‘Find me a prisoner as soon as you can.’
‘I’ll do my best. And when I do, you’d better let me handle the interrogation. I have a few tricks I’ve picked up over the years. I imagine I’ll have more chance of getting a prisoner to cough up the intelligence we need than some amateur from an auxiliary cohort.’
‘I’m not sure I’d express that view too loudly around here.’
‘I’ll make sure to ask the best of my lads to give me a hand with the interrogation. He’ll be happy enough to learn some new skills.’
Not for the first time, Cato wondered about Apollonius’s previous life, which he was reticent about revealing in any great or reliable detail. He felt a cold tremor slink down his spine at the thought of the horrors the agent had in store for the hapless prisoner when the time came. It was a disturbing prospect. He could see the agent was watching him closely, almost as if he was reading his thoughts. He cleared his throat and patted the parchment map.
‘You’ve done well so far. Catch me that prisoner and make him reveal the enemy’s location so we can end this campaign before the pestilence catches up with us. Oh, and one other thing occurs to me. If the enemy gets wind that we have taken one of their men alive, they may abandon their lairs before we can act on any intelligence we get out of the prisoner.’
‘That’s true,’ Apollonius conceded. ‘If that happens, we’ll have to take another prisoner and repeat the process. Even if we don’t find out where they are, we’ll be whittling them down one by one. There’s always a bright side, Prefect,’ he concluded with a dry laugh.
‘If we live long enough to see it. You can take the opportunity to use the bathhouse and find some clean clothes before you get back into the field.’
‘Nothing doing. There’s a chance I might bump into some of the local people while I’m scouting around. I don’t want to look like some freshly scrubbed Roman soldier trying to pass for an islander. The more grime I have on me and the more I stink, the less likely I am to arouse suspicion. Disguises come in many forms, some of them less salubrious than others. I’ll report back again as soon as I have any news, or better still, a prisoner.’
He folded his map and tucked it into his sidebag before nodding a farewell and leaving Cato alone in the office. The light was starting to fade, and Cato called one of the clerks to bring him a lamp. As he sat in its wan glow, he pondered the implications of Apollonius’s brief report. If the enemy were as elusive as the agent said, it was going to be difficult to force them into a position where they must fight. Very well, he decided, if the enemy bands were hard to pin down, he would turn his attention to their weak spot: the settlements of their people. If they could be destro
yed and their inhabitants removed from the campaign area, the brigands would soon start to go hungry. That in turn would force them out of the forests and into the open, where they would more easily be spotted and run to ground. The question was what Cato would do with the tribespeople he removed from their villages. They would need to be kept under guard and fed. The fort at Tharros would serve as a temporary prison. He would need to assign men to guard them and supply them with food and water. There were the Germans guarding Claudia, he thought. Not all of them would be needed to ensure their charge did not abscond. They would do a fine job of terrifying the prisoners enough to forestall any notion of revolt or escape.
Thoughts of the Germans led on to a moment’s reverie over the prospect of renewing his acquaintance with Claudia once the campaign was concluded. That raised a fresh difficulty. She had been sent into exile possibly for the rest of her life, unless Nero relented. Even if she chose to return to Rome, she had made an enemy of the emperor’s mother, and no doubt any future mistress or wife of Nero would see her as a potential rival. For Claudia, Rome would be an even more dangerous place than she had left it. In which case it would be safest for her to remain unobtrusively in exile on the island. If, as Cato hoped, there was any chance of their friendship developing into something more, he would be faced with a choice of spending his life in Sardinia with Claudia, or abandoning her to continue advancing his army career elsewhere in the Empire. Weighing up the options, he found himself yearning for the prospect of an intelligent, honest wife he could share his life with, as Macro had chosen to do with Petronella. Yes, he thought, Claudia was such a woman. He looked forward to returning to her fine villa on the hill above Tharros and sitting with her in that garden she had been working to restore to its former glory. He pictured her in his mind. At this time she would probably be on her balcony, watching the sun set over the sea. He smiled. It felt good to think of her enjoying her peaceful surroundings, far from any of the challenges and dangers he himself was facing.
The Emperor's Exile (Eagles of the Empire 19) Page 23