Lions of Rome

by S. J. A. Turney

  Dionysus shook his head. ‘How long is a piece of rope, Prefect? It depends on the fluctuations in population, the mood of the poor, the effects of the plague, and small hiccups like fleet prefects requesting extra grain for their ships.’

  Rufinus huffed. ‘So we have no idea of a timescale for any of this?’ he grumbled.

  ‘Of course we haven’t. We must just keep carefully squeezing and nudging and tweaking until things finally happen. This was never going to be a job that was over in a month. The idea, Prefect, is that we’re moving so slowly with the entire thing that no one is noticing anything happening at all, even the suspicious chamberlain and his network of men. The only thing that would make a sudden difference would be the failure of the grain fleet to arrive at all for a month. That would put us in trouble and strain the reserves. But short of war, pirates, disastrous storms or sea gods jumping up and down amid the ships, the notion of the entire fleet failing is preposterous. Too many safeguards are in place.’

  ‘There are pirates,’ Rufinus mused. ‘Whatever the great Pompey did in Cilicia did not entirely remove their taint from the seas.’

  ‘But the Cilician pirates are far from the grain routes, as are the Euxine pirates. The only known haven of piracy anywhere near us is the Mauri to the south of Hispania, and they are kept in check by the Africa fleet.’

  ‘Not very well,’ Rufinus snorted. ‘They continue to raid the Hispanic coast. But yes, they pose no real danger to the grain fleets. And my own ships keep the coasts of Italia safe. Only two possibilities to change that lie open. If the African fleet could be drawn away, perhaps the Mauri might cut off our supplies. Or if we could somehow seal off the channel between Africa and Sicilia, the fleet would be forced to use the Strait of Messana, and we all know how perilous that can be. Even Odysseus knew about Scylla and Charibdis. No one uses those straits if they can be avoided.’

  Dionysus shook his head. ‘Stop trying to push this cart, Prefect. It is rolling slowly downhill of its own accord. It is moving slowly enough that no one cares. If you give it a shove someone will try and stop it. Don’t you have your own orders from Severus to deal with?’

  Rufinus shook his head. ‘Not yet. I’m just twiddling my thumbs and watching nothing happening.’

  ‘Then what you need is a hobby. But stop trying to push things. The governor knows what he’s doing. We’ll know what we need to when the time is right.’

  The visitor hovered, impatient, irritated, while Dionysus signed and sealed the orders for the grain release, and then held it out.

  ‘Good day, Prefect.’

  Rufinus pursed his lips, wishing there was something he could say to change things, but clear in the knowledge that there wasn’t.

  ‘Good day.’

  He left the office feeling no less tense and impatient than when he’d entered, and stormed back to his litter with the marines in tow. During the uncomfortable journey back to the house, he decided to try and persuade Senova to let him get involved with whatever she was doing. Right now, it seemed that she was the only one of them actively making a difference, and perhaps in offering to help, she might explain precisely what it was she was doing.

  The litter lurched to a sudden halt and Rufinus slid off his cushion, clacking his teeth together painfully as his head hit the side.

  ‘Can you lot not manage to walk straight for one damn day?’ he snapped, pulling open the curtain.

  His brow creased as he realised they had stopped because the road was blocked. Praetorians stood in lines, keeping the crowd at bay, and Rufinus slipped from the litter and strode across to an optio who was dressing the lines.

  Rufinus’ eyes shifted from the ranks of Praetorians the moment he had confirmed with relief that he did not know any of them personally, and to the street beyond.

  A small heap lay at the centre of the street, two Praetorians standing close by. The body was someone important, for it lay wrapped in a toga that had been white before it became soaked in blood. This was no robbery or street murder, though, for the two Praetorians were busy cleaning their blades. Rufinus felt a cold stone of worry settle in his belly. Once, years ago, he had bloodied his own weapon as a guardsman, killing a young toga-clad man and saving his beats. But this? The emperor was nowhere to be seen. A suspicion formed in his mind and he felt his lip twitch sourly.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked the optio.

  The junior officer turned angrily, ready to berate this civilian for interfering, but the sight of a small force of marines backing Rufinus up spoke eloquently of his military rank. The optio cleared his throat.

  ‘Praetorian business, sir.’

  ‘I am the prefect of the Praetorian fleet, soldier. What happened.’

  The optio dithered. Despite the name that gave them a connection, he would be well aware that Rufinus had no authority in the actual guard, but he was still an important officer in the Roman military and might have the ear of the emperor or his chamberlain. Caution won out.

  ‘We have apprehended a traitor to the empire, sir. Marcius Quartus.’

  Rufinus remembered the man from social engagements. An ex-prefect of the Urban Cohorts who hadn’t lasted long, probably because he was too outspoken against Cleander. Actually a very distant cousin, though at a distance even Jupiter himself couldn’t cover with a thrown bolt. He’d seemed a nice enough fellow. A little too serious for his own good, like most of the distant branches of the family. Certainly didn’t seem the sort to plot against the throne. But then did Rufinus and his companions have the air of conspirators? Yet here they were…

  ‘Take the body away and clear the road,’ came a commanding voice with a faint slur, and Rufinus turned to see a centurion marching towards the optio. ‘We’re causing a hold up for everyone.’

  Rufinus’ eyes narrowed. The long, drawn face. The blotchy nose. It was the same centurion he had seen in the tavern, talking to his father.

  ‘Yes Centurion,’ the optio answered, and immediately began to move everything, four men collecting the body and carrying it, dripping, from the street. Rufinus was just about to return to his litter and move on, when a man in a Praetorian tribune’s uniform appeared on the scene from some side street, gesturing at the centurion.

  ‘Arvina, this should have been kept off the streets,’ he admonished angrily.

  ‘He ran, sir. We had to chase him down.’

  Rufinus heard nothing more. He turned his back and hurried to his litter, clambering in, his guard forming around him once more. As they moved again, his marines and litter bearers taking a wide arc around all the blood, he peeked out between the litter’s curtains. The centurion was still there, defending his actions to his superior. The tribune Rufinus didn’t know, but that horse-faced centurions name had fired off connections in his memory.

  Arvina.

  Gaius Hostilius Arvina.

  The centurion in charge of security on the Palatine. One of the two remaining murderous cavalrymen on Rufinus’ list. To think he’d been right next to him in the tavern. He began to fret and think and plan. Arvina would be hard to get to, Cestius had said. He spent most of his time on the Palatine, where he was based, and the rest of the time he would be in the Castra Praetoria. In both places he would be untouchable. So he had to be caught somewhere in between.

  He was a drunk.

  Rufinus remembered his red nose and cheeks from both occasions he had met the man. The first time he had been drinking neat wine as though it were water. The second, just now, he had a noticeable slur to his voice. That was his weakness. That was where he would be found.

  ‘Stop.’

  The litter lurched once more and Rufinus banged his head again. He peered through the curtain. They were quite some way down the street now with the populace in between, but he could still just make out the scene. The tribune had vanished and Arvina was directing his men in the cleaning up of the scene.

  Rufinus slipped from the litter. ‘Go home,’ he told them. ‘All of you.’

  The
optio of his guard gave him a frown of disapproval, but saluted. He was a soldier, given an order by his commander, and no matter how much he might not like it, he would follow the order. As soon as the litter and its guard were on the way, Rufinus turned and made his way back up the street. The Praetorians were still at it, and the small crowd of grimly-fascinated onlookers had not yet dispersed. It was a simple matter for Rufinus to join the small gaggle of people, at least half a dozen of whom wore togas.

  He watched Arvina. The man might have been drinking, but he was compos mentis and clearly in charge. By the time he’d had six buckets of water thrown across the blood to wash it into the sewers, only half a dozen soldiers remained on the scene with him. Rufinus watched, tense. He would get few opportunities at Arvina.

  ‘You,’ the centurion said, jabbing a finger at two of the guardsmen. ‘You two come with me. I’ll have to report this to the prefect at the fortress before we can head back to the palace. Bloody reports. I’ll have half a dozen to write up tonight, now.’

  A third soldier brought across a horse for the prefect. Rufinus fretted still. He was going to have to follow Arvina, and see if the opportunity arose to move on him. But the man was going to be on horseback and with two or three guardsmen as escort. And Rufinus stood out a bit in his white toga, too. As soon as they moved away from the centre into the poorer areas towards the Praetorian fortress he would be horribly visible. His gaze zipped this way and that, and then settled on an old man in a drab cloak with a wide-brimmed straw hat keeping the summer sun from his brow. Rufinus hurried over to him.

  ‘How much for your cloak and hat?’

  ‘Ain’t fer sale,’ the old man drawled.

  ‘Come on, man,’ Rufinus hissed, grabbing his purse and lifting it, opening the string. The old man’s eyes lit up. ‘How much?’

  ‘Oi’s got a pale ‘ead, see. Burns easy.’

  Irritably, Rufinus tipped out enough coins to buy the man five brand new hats.

  ‘An’ it’s an hair-loom, y’know.’

  ‘Handed down through the generations, was it?’ grunted Rufinus sarcastically, adding two more coins to his palm.

  ‘Oi loiks that one,’ the man grinned, pointing at a shiny coin still in the bag. Rufinus gritted his teeth and added the coin to the payment. The man nodded and took the coins, removing his hat and passing it over. Rufinus took it, noting with distaste that half the heirloom generations seemed to have had almost critical dandruff and must have left half their heads in the lining. Shuddering, he plonked it on his head.

  ‘Now ‘bout moi cloak…’ the old man said.

  ‘That was for the hat and the cloak,’ Rufinus snapped.

  ‘No, that was fer moi ‘at. Cloak’s a good ‘un.’

  Rufinus unwound his toga with some difficulty and threw it into the man’s wooden trolley. ‘That’s worth a fortune.’

  ‘Not ter me. Not loik money.’

  Rufinus glanced around. Arvina was already moving off down the street with his men. The prefect turned back to the old farmer. ‘Here.’ He dropped five coins into the man’s hand.

  ‘It were an hair-l…’

  ‘No it bloody wasn’t and you’ve already made a month’s money from me in a dozen heartbeats, now give me the cloak and sod off.’

  The old man seemed to weigh up his options for a moment, but finally shrugged and passed over his cloak. ‘Noice doin’ buzzy-niss with yer.’

  Rufinus gave the man the blackest look he could muster and then, donning the smelly cloak, scurried off in the wake of the Praetorians. Before long they were in the wide thoroughfare of the Vicus Patricius, the street that ascended the Viminal hill to the vast fortress of the Praetorians. As they moved, Rufinus kept to the edges of the pavement while the centurion and his men trotted along the centre of the road with an air of ownership. Rufinus became steadily less enchanted with his disguise as he went, his head itching from the acres of scalp previous owners had left in the hat, and smelling unpleasant thanks to the cloak and its distinctive odour of bovine urine.

  He was starting to wonder what he would do when they got to the fortress. He would have to wait somewhere, quietly, for Arvina to finish his report and emerge once more. And what then? Would he just go straight back to the Palatine? Rufinus chewed on his lip, wishing for an answer, praying in fits and starts to Fortuna and Nemesis, the goddesses of luck and vengeance.

  The divine pair must have heard his entreaty, for the centurion suddenly thrust out a finger and he and his three men crossed the street to a tavern called Nero’s Torch. Rufinus shivered at the reference, and wondered how the city’s seemingly growing Christian community felt about such reminders of their darkest hour.

  At the door, Arvina dismounted and handed his reins to one of the men, who stayed outside with a bored, resigned expression while the centurion and his other two men entered. Rufinus sniffed and looked down at himself. He doubted he would be welcome in there looking and smelling as he did, but as luck would have it – thank you again, ladies – he happened to be standing outside a store that had tunics and cloaks for sale.

  Discarding his in one of the refuse piles at an alley’s entrance, he entered the shop, ignored the sniffs and pulled faces of the staff, and bought a new tunic and cloak. At a temporary stall nearby he purchased some rosewater perfume and a comb, and with just moments in that alley raked his hair clear, doused himself enough to hide the cow piss stench, and dressed like a normal citizen.

  Flapping the cloak to clear some of the excess perfume, he made for the tavern.

  Arvina was already at a table with his men. He was the only one with a cup, Rufinus noted, and there was no water in evidence. He bought himself a small, well-watered wine and a bowl of nuts and sat down at a table not far away, where he could watch.

  Had he had any qualms about what he had planned, they would have easily been put aside as he watched the centurion tripping young serving girls as they walked past and making lewd comments about them at which his men dutifully laughed. When a man brought him his second drink and began to water it, Arvina gave him such a back-handed slap that the fellow collapsed to the floor, then hurried away, shaking.

  Rufinus watched him carefully. This was one of the men who had murdered Dis in the villa grounds, mutilating him and hanging him in the trees. This was a cold-hearted killer who had betrayed his vows and signed on with Cleander, gaining influence and power by supporting Rome’s most wicked man. No, there was no doubt that Arvina had to go.

  He continued to watch for almost an hour. Clearly the centurion’s love of the vine had overcome the urgency of reporting to his prefect. So as well as being a murderous arsehole, he was also a poor officer and a bad soldier. Finally, the man began to drain his cup without waving for a replacement, and Rufinus realised they were going to leave soon. Irritably he tried to come up with something, and it was only when he accidentally dropped a nut from the bowl on the table and bent to pick it up that he saw that which decided him.

  Arvina’s leg was shaking. It was not a spasmic thing, he was sure. He’d seen the man enough now to know there was nothing like that wrong with his leg. That was simply a symptom of a full bladder. The centurion picked up his almost empty cup, lifting it to finish, but Rufinus was already moving.

  Private latrines were not common in Rome. Few taverns had them, relying instead on either public ones or the expensive and lucrative privately owned variant. But the better taverns sometimes had them, and Rufinus had already spotted the doorway out back with the sign showing a figure of a man with an unrealistically high arc of urine painted on the wall beside it. Hurrying in order to be ahead of Arvina, he dashed through the door, gripping his crotch as though on the verge of desperation.

  The latrine was cunningly placed around three corners, each with a window into one alley or another which created a through draft that kept the stench of the latrine from filling the tavern. Rufinus hurried past them, aware that Arvina would be close behind. He found the latrine around the last corner
and dashed inside. There was no door, and it was a small room, no more than eight feet across. Very cosy. A three seat latrine lay along the wall, the air above the holes wavering with the heated smell. He forced his lunch back down into his throat from where it threatened to burst free at the stench. On the other walls sat a bucket of water with sponges in it and a bowl of clean water with a jug for the washing of hands. Rufinus paused. There was nowhere to hide. He’d planned to make himself hidden and leap out, but this room and the approaching corridor made that impossible. As he dithered he became aware of the sound of hobnailed boots closing on him.

  He was trapped. There was nowhere to hide.

  Taking a deep breath, he waited in the open, at the centre of the room. He would have to be quick, and keep it silent, for a blood-curdling scream would certainly bring others, and there was no way back out of here except through the bar. He mused, for just a moment, whether a man might fit down the latrine pipe, but decided it would be impossible, even if he considered it.

  He flexed his fingers and biceps. He was still fit and fast, and Arvina would be slowed by the wine.

  Silence first. Then speed.

  The centurion turned the corner, entering the room with his hands already at his belt, ready to free himself for relief. He frowned at the sight of a figure standing in the centre of the room.

  Rufinus hit him just once. His knuckles crunched into Arvina’s throat, breaking bone and cartilage, crushing the windpipe and silencing him instantly. The centurion gasped, eyes going wide. He was dead already. Rufinus knew the blow he’d delivered would choke the man and there was no repairing it. But that wasn’t enough. Arvina needed to be prevented from flight, and he needed to know why this was happening to him.

  Rufinus moved in a slow arc around the stricken man, until he was between Arvina and the exit. The centurion staggered around to face him, eyes bulging, fingers clawing at his throat.