The names were old and all of them long gone to the dust, and only the State-sponsored teams – Red and White – were mentioned, though he might equally have included the Blue. Milo was short and still skinny, though not as muscled as he had been in his day, when he was lashed by the reins to a four-horse, with only a whip and his skill to get them round the turns and a dagger to cut himself free if a pile-up happened – the ‘shipwreck’, as every driver called it.
But he had made money and made it to freedom, then bought an entire insula – three floors, twelve dwellings and the street level reserved for his taberna.
It was like every other such establishment – a block of counter on two sides, holed to take amphorae, a fire and oven for making flatbread and sausages in the back, which was all the food the drinkers needed as they bellied up to the counter and ordered albanum, dry or sweet, or massilitanum – called ‘smoke’ because of the taste – which was cheaper and reputedly healthy but an acquired taste.
The biggest difference was that it had a cellar, converted into a decent dining area with tables and benches, where you could eat quality food if you had the money. It had three fireplaces giving light and heat when they were used and both the Vigiles and the charioteers loved it; both had money to afford it. The Brothers ostentatiously swaggered down into it, making the slave girl smile.
Milo was there attending to a trio of Vigiles in a corner. He saw them, stopped, then grinned and spread his arms, making noises like a welcoming friend even though they had not seen him in a long time, preferring to stay away from where Servillius Structus had been strongest before he died – their old headquarters, The Place, was a spit away up the street. As they filed in, Milo lost the smile and a V appeared between his brows; he took Drust by the hand, clasping it between both his own.
‘I am sorry for your loss.’
News travels fast, Drust thought, but he nodded and said nothing.
‘He was a good driver in his day and might have been something, save that he liked an easy life too much. Broke my heart when he joined the Reds, fuck them. What happened?’
Drust and the others realised that Milo was talking about Sib; he did not know of Drust’s wife or her death. Manius scraped a chair across the worn tiles and sat.
‘Drifted when he should have gone straight,’ he answered blankly. ‘Shipwrecked.’
Milo spread his arms and said ‘What can you do?’ then beamed again and asked them all what they’d like to drink.
‘Falernian,’ Drust said, knowing the inevitable answer.
‘In your dreams,’ Milo replied. ‘I have some calenum, though – four assēs with some bread and sausage thrown in.’
‘Ho – I want a drink, not to own the vineyard,’ Kag responded and Milo laughed.
‘Conditum,’ Drust said, and everyone nodded agreement. Milo stroked his stubbled chin.
‘I heard you had been out east – acquired a taste for it, I see.’
Conditum was a wine mixed with pepper, honey and seawater – mainly a Greek affair, though Milo was right about it being a favourite of the desert dwellers. The slave girl brought it and Quintus found her name was Calida because of her red hair. Or, as Kag suggested later in a whisper, because she had a rash.
‘Now, lads,’ Milo declared like an avuncular grandfather. ‘You will want food. I have a beautiful suppli, which you can have white or with a garum sauce.’
They ate and drank and talked, sharing a few asides with the three Vigiles their buckets and axes neatly stacked, enjoying the cool of the cellar. Above, the rattle of chatter drifted down, clattering with the red plates and cups.
‘Do you have rooms?’ Drust asked and Milo frowned.
‘In the building? No. Fully stocked, I am glad to say. And no temporary Games tourists either – long-term renters with decent jobs.’
‘Point taken,’ Kag answered wryly, and Milo apologised.
‘I did not mean you lads, though you are inclined to up and leave in an eyeblink. It was better when you were with old Servillius Structus.’
‘Speaking of that – who controls it now?’ Quintus wanted to know and Milo made a flap of weary hands.
‘Many. It’s all broken up. Marcus Flaminius has this crossroads and the streets down it for about a mile. And The Place.’
‘Flaminius? Didn’t he used to be a carter?’ Dog asked. ‘Servillius Structus employed him and his wagons from time to time.
The name lurched Drust in his seat. Marcus’s father, Clodius Flaminius had outraged Servillius Structus and he had set Drust at him. It was the first time I killed for him out of the harena, Drust remembered. He also remembered how he had made a mess of it, failed to neck-slice the man cleanly, who had fallen to the ground and let go the reins of his big dray horses, which had jerked the cart to motion. No one could stop it – the iron wheels ground Clodius’s lolling head; the crunch and splinter and blood spurt had made a slave throw up.
‘He died,’ Milo said and did not elaborate – which means my involvement is a common rumour, Drust thought.
‘So the son has ripped out a living from the ruins of old Servillius Structus, eh?’ Kag mused, then glanced at Milo. ‘Fair, is he? A shepherd who fleeces rather than one who skins?’
‘The latter,’ Milo growled morosely. ‘And the one he sends, Cossus, is a fuck. He always asks for more, which he keeps for sure. And a free go at Calida. And he pisses where he chooses, rather than in the fuller’s bucket outside.’
It was not new and not surprising. This was the way of it in Subura and Milo would pay or the entire insula would burn to the ground and the Vigiles would tear down the rest to prevent it spreading.
‘Well, we need a place to sleep,’ Drust said, ‘so we had better find one.’
‘You can sleep here for a few nights,’ Milo said, indicating the cellar room. ‘When we close, you can push the tables to one side and I have some straw pallets you can use. Not much…’
‘But welcome,’ Drust said, and they clasped wrists; Drust leaned in so the Vigiles could not hear. ‘Now tell me what you know of Caesar’s house.’
‘The old villa?’
‘The same. Occupied, is it?’
‘Not since the owner got his liver pierced in a dozen places on the floor of the Senate. Been abandoned for decades.’
‘No one lives there?’ demanded Kisa, and Milo frowned and shrugged.
‘No idea – I haven’t been around there for years, though there was a decent baker I used to go to, but the journey isn’t worth it. I am too busy. Ask the Vigiles; they have the power to enter any building, to make sure the proper fire prevention is in place. They can impose fines, so no one gainsays them.’
Drust did not want them to know, but Milo did not know that and turned, beaming, then repeated what Drust had asked. The men were a stubbled, rough-looking trio – the entire Vigiles was one step above thug and not a big one. The oldest of them, who claimed to be called Ahala – ‘armpit’ – nodded sagely.
‘Went there once with some of the lads, oh, a year back at least. Old porter at the gate by the name of… wait, it will come to me. And a woman who cooks. Might have been his wife. No one else I saw – just enough to stop the scum coming over the walls and camping out in the garden.’
‘So there are people there?’
‘Slaves, like I say,’ Ahala confirmed. ‘Carbo, that was the porter’s name.’
It meant ‘charcoal’ and Manius stirred.
‘Mavro was he?’ he asked and grinned his white grin. ‘Like me?’
‘Darker. Nubian, I thought. Big, bald and old, but he looked capable of using the club he had. Otherwise folk would have moved in from the surrounding insulae and made it a home for many, ignoring the spirits.’
‘Spirits?’ Ugo demanded, and Milo nodded.
‘The Divine Julius’s ghost walks the atrium, they say.’
There was a clatter, a crash of breaking pottery and loud voices from above; Milo hurried to see. Kag sent Kisa to order some wine
for the obliging Vigiles a move which went down well.
‘Well, since we have a place to bed down,’ Kag said softly in Drust’s ear, ‘I am supposing the next task is to go and talk with Caesar’s ghost.’
‘Do not even say such a thing,’ Ugo growled, close enough to overhear.
‘The first task,’ Drust said firmly, ‘is the baths and a barber. Trim or lose those beards, get the braids off. Start to look like a Roman freedman and citizen – that is, nothing at all to anyone who cares to glance our way.’
Calida came down with cups for the Vigiles, smiling back at the comments; she had just gone back upstairs when Milo clattered down, flustered and uneasy. He went into the back of the cellar room and came out with a fat pouch, which he tossed in one hand while he smiled laconically.
‘Payday,’ Kag said as he passed. ‘They causing trouble?’
‘The usual,’ Milo answered over his shoulder. Calida came hurrying down the steps and launched herself into Quintus’s lap; she trembled like a rousted rabbit.
A minute later, a big shadow blocked the light from the stairwell and some muscle with a blade came down, walking slowly. He glanced at the Vigiles, who pretended not to see him, then at Calida, who clearly did not want to see him.
‘Come on, you. Don’t fuck me about.’
‘I won’t fuck you at all,’ she spat back.
He reached out a hand to grab her arm and had it slapped away by Quintus, which made muscle-man smile.
‘I am Cossus. You’d do well to stay out of this – all of you.’
The Vigiles were willing, noses in their wine cups and pretending to discuss the chances of the Greens at the next meet. Cossus glared round the rest; he thinks he has the measure of us, Drust thought, and who could blame him? A bunch of salt-haired people with no barbering and bad clothes, more worn than old shoes. Looked like a threadbare patch, unravelling slowly.
Cossus thought about it again when Ugo lifted one of his dolabrae and thumped it naked on the table. It was a brute, the shaft of it all in one piece and carved round the knotholes to keep the integrity of the wood; it made it appear crude and vicious, which was all of the truth.
Cossus saw what he thought was some ex-Army on their uppers – or more Vigiles. Either way, he was still not impressed enough to back off and the smirk proved it. He said, ‘Dug a few holes with that?’
‘I will dig you a new arsehole,’ Ugo answered, which made Cossus stop, then grin. He stood, legs apart and one hand at his belt, from which dangled the vicious smile of a sica, black with old sin, the wooden handle worn smooth.
‘You diggin’ any holes here?’ he demanded.
‘We don’t get paid to dig holes,’ Drust said.
A pause, another grin. ‘What do you get paid for, then?’
‘Keep order.’
‘Do order need keepin’ here?’
‘You tell me,’ answered Drust and brought up the gladius, laying it on the table with a soft thump, echoed by the others slapping their own edges out on the tables. Cossus did not like it and neither did his friends, peering over his shoulder on the steps.
‘At this range I can rip you through your belly, backbone and beyond,’ Drust said. Cossus blinked and his teeth stuck to his lips, but he did not want to back down.
‘If you manage such a strike,’ he pointed out, and Drust shrugged.
‘Oh, I will manage it. We are all of the harena here, so once you are dead one of us will use his blade to kill that one with the red scarf. Then him with the big belt. We’ll dice to see who kills those left. We aren’t fussy about that sort of thing.’
He leaned forward a little, aware of the men he had mentioned edging away.
‘No matter who is left standing,’ he said, looking Cossus straight in the face, ‘you will not be.’
‘Never hesitate over killing,’ he heard the lanista as if he stood at his shoulder. ‘Don’t look as if you were forced into it, look as if you can’t wait to do it, as if only the gods above and below can stay your hand. Look as if those gods are of no account in it at all. Look as if you are a son of Dis.’
There was a scrape as the Vigiles moved away; Cossus was aware of it, but he plastered a smile on and raised his hands. Gladiators was something he had not considered and he was rightly wary.
‘Hey, ho – what’s all this? No one is causing trouble here. Are we, lads?’
‘Jupiter’s hairy cock,’ Drust said thoughtfully. ‘I thought you were. Hey-ho…’
‘There are two ways to bend people to your will,’ he heard the lanista say. ‘Love and fear. In the short term you have in the harena, you cannot make folk love you…’
A tongue flicked Cossus’s teeth and the smile wavered slightly. ‘I did not come here to have some steel pointed at me. I think I prefer it down the street.’
‘I imagine so,’ Drust answered, and watched Cossus back up the steps to join his men. They made a lot of noise as they sauntered out, but were less jaunty than when they had come in. The silence hung for a moment, like the end of a play. Cue applause, Drust thought.
‘That went well,’ Kag said, and the others laughed. The Vigiles scraped back their chairs and got up, pretending they had important fires to fight.
Milo came down, wiping his nervous hands on his apron and smiling in a twitched coney sort of way; he eyed the hurrying Vigiles sourly. ‘That will be all round the neighbourhood in an hour. Cossus won’t like the way you made him look.’
‘No, he won’t.’
‘It is likely he will come at you again.’
‘He will.’
Milo looked from one to the other.
‘What will you do when he does?’
Drust looked Milo steadily in the eye.
‘We will kill him.’
‘You do not know what Cossus is like,’ Milo said, and Kag laughed aloud.
‘No – but I know what we are like.’
Chapter Eleven
Exhaustion took Drust at the Baths of Agrippa and he fell asleep after a massage by a slave with expert fingers, kneading his back and his legs. He recalled, muzzily, questions about his wounds and whether he had served, but then it was all grey, heaving sea.
That was what loss was, Drust was realising. Adrift in a grey, heaving sea, watching the swell grow and grow until it crashed on you, took you down, spinning and spinning and gasping for breath until, at the point where you were sure you would die, you were launched back into sunlight and air. Then you floated, waiting for the next wave, almost knowing what would trigger it – a snatch of song, a scent, a comment.
By the time he woke and joined the others, the day was well advanced and the baths were growing busy – these were the oldest baths in Rome, always kept refurbished in gleaming white marble, and close to the Campius Martius. That hallowed field was now built over by temples including the Pantheon, which Agrippa had also commissioned, but there was always a lingering whiff of dank smoke which let people know that Pompeii and Herculaneum were not the only places at risk from the fires of the Underworld.
They were all shaved, shorn and blissed by hot water and the feeling of clean, watching the naked bodybuilders lift lead weights with loud grunts, or playing some game with a ball which involved a lot of arguing. A handful of young boys in loincloths watched while trying not to be seen doing it, but now and then they would put their heads together and giggle.
The only one not here was Manius, who had suffered to be shorn, shaved and briefly soaked, then gone sliding off to Caesar’s house.
‘Think he will find anything?’ Kisa asked.
‘Just what we know already. I don’t think Antyllus is there,’ Drust replied.
‘If not – what do we do?’ Ugo demanded, feeling his head cautiously; he did not like being so close-shorn, for hair was a mark of a warrior, a symbol of respect. He had been a Roman for long enough not to let it bother him unduly, but he was missing his lice.
No one spoke while they pondered on it, but in truth there was nothing muc
h they could do save make it known they were searching for a Marcus Antonius Antyllus.
‘With luck he’ll get to hear of it and flee to Tarsus,’ Quintus observed. ‘Or the City of Sharp-Nosed Fishes, or even further east or south, where Rome’s fingers do not easily pry.’
‘What then for us?’ Kisa asked, and that hung in the air like a fart at a feast. What indeed, Drust thought. Would Julius Yahya be content to know his prey had slipped him? Let it go – let the Brothers go?
He did not like the nag about Antyllus in all of this. He had not looked much like a man determined to assume the Purple and overthrow the boy-emperor and his mother. He had looked, if Drust was truthful with himself, like a man backed into a corner and desperate.
‘Lentulus,’ Kisa said suddenly, and that lifted heads. The little Jew felt the eyes and stared round them all. ‘Didn’t he also escape?’
‘He did, you clever man,’ Kag said, grinning. ‘We forgot about him, because he is only a barber.’
‘That’s what reminded me,’ Kisa said. ‘Getting shaved. I thought he might be plying his trade here in Rome.’
‘Pah,’ Kag declared dismissively, ‘Lentulus is the one most likely to have run for the east or the south. You will find him oiling his way into society in Alexandria, or even Palmyra. Your Ptolemy loves a good primper.’
‘He was fiercely loyal to Antyllus,’ Kisa pointed out and then smiled slyly. ‘Like a bed slave would be.’
‘There is that,’ Quintus agreed, fingering his smooth chin. ‘Perhaps we should look for him too – if we find him here, it is certain he will lead us to Antyllus.’
‘We’ll know more when Manius returns,’ Kisa said, yawning sleepily. ‘Though he is taking his time.’
‘Hunting out some of that leaf he chews,’ Dog growled.
‘He is far away,’ Kag agreed and they laughed.
The noise grew intrusive; barbers, masseurs, the pluckers and preeners vied with their customers in raised voices. The hucksters of sausage and cheese snacks, bread and wine, all roared out their spurious adverts until it made quiet conversation impossible. The middle of the pool might have done for secrecy, but it now had a rainbow sheen of old oil and what looked suspiciously like a turd.
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