Loreticus: A Spy Thriller and Historical Intrigue Based On Events From Ancient Rome (Lost Emperor Trilogy Book 1)

by J. B. Lucas

“Pello, have we been here before?” he asked, bemused. “I have seen this symbol before.”

  “Not to my knowledge,” replied Pello. He drew a representation of the bird on his paper.

  “And not with me,” stated Selban. “Their parties were always at Iskandar’s place. Maybe a letter that you received?”

  Loreticus shook his head and continued to stare at the small containers. All of them were familiar, but he hadn’t seen any of them before. A spymaster with a memory perforated with age–what a poor choice for the emperor to be relying on. He pulled a face of frustration.

  “You’ll work it out,” muttered Selban next to him, his breath carrying wafts of lunch. Loreticus grunted, straightened, and they continued their search.

  Chapter 8

  The men and women in The Psittacis who came to the old man rarely saw Marcan, and their bodies tended to avoid him as if he were cursed.

  He guessed that he had judged Balthasar well, but not perfectly. He had taken his white hair as a sign of old age but it was instead prematurely white. In the light of the morning, he could see a vitality in every mannerism in his face and the grace of his limbs.

  The troupe leader laid out a map on a makeshift table and smoothed it with his hands. The beaten paper was waxed and creased, but the ink underneath was still crisp. Marcan scoured it for recognisable names or shapes, but nothing came back to him. He turned his head to see Balthasar watching him.

  “Any comments?”

  “No. But I do have a sense that I need to get somewhere. I have no idea where yet though.”

  “Anywhere to avoid?”

  “Only here I think,” muttered Marcan and pointed at a settlement on top of a hill.

  “The scary old lady?” asked Balthasar. Marcan nodded. The old actor slipped a flat crystal lens into one eye socket. Marcan stared at him.

  “Are you some sort of magician?”

  “No,” muttered Balthasar, answering the question for the umpteenth time. “I was born with one eye from my father and the other from my mother. Both true eyes but they tend not to look at the same thing if left to their own devices. This tricks one into matching the other.”

  He slid his finger over the map, a pleasant dry scratch sounding against the dried laminate.

  “This is where we are going. In a week’s time, we shall be staging one of the old plays before they are banned by the incoming emperor, whoever he may be. We are one man short for our full tally but we normally plug the gap with a local. It tends to draw a larger crowd if one of the village studs is on stage. But in this instance, my personal gods have given me you and I’d like to wrap you into the role.” No questions, no requests. Just a simple statement.

  “How do you know what happens in the court?” asked Marcan.

  “We’re mandated to know. It’s our job,” replied Balthasar from where he was sitting, untying a bag in front of him. “We get paid by the palace to educate the country folk. Of course, we never stick to the script. If the emperor truly wanted to make his people happy, he’d employ better playwrights in the palace. I fall asleep reading what they send. Handsome pay for handsome folk though.”

  “I was right about you when I first saw you,” stated Marcan. “You do like your own way.” Balthasar smiled.

  “Just don’t make me want to throw you into that stream with everything else you left in there.”

  Later that afternoon, whilst Marcan had taken off to rest in the shadows of the forest, Balthasar found space behind the carriages, letting the team construct the stage and backdrop, put on their greasepaint and costumes, and to contemplate his luck.

  “As usual, Boss, we find you sitting doing nothing,” smirked Jed as he and Samwer approached Balthasar.

  “I am not doing nothing, you oik. I am staying out of the way,” replied Balthasar in his baritone voice. “What do you want? I think I can guess, but I like to make you work.”

  “What’s the plan with the Marcan actor? He’s similar, but not perfect,” said Samwer.

  “Have you ever seen the emperor in the flesh?” asked Balthasar.

  “No.”

  “Other than the crappy clay portraits, seen him in official pictures or busts?”

  “No.”

  “Then let me tell you, Samwer, that he’s not just similar, he’s identical. To the finest detail,” said Balthasar. “His eyes, the colour of his hair, the shape of him. The only difference is the walk and the expression on his face, but I can beat those in to him.”

  “So he’s a money-earner?” asked Jed.

  “You’re a fool, Jed. The question you should be asking is why Marcan is more valuable as an actor than as a reward we’d get from Antron.” said Samwer.

  Balthasar eyed him.

  “Because,” replied the older man. “If we tell the wrong person, we could be hanged as kidnappers. If we tell the ones with the most to gain from him not being found, we are most likely to disappear as well.”

  “I know someone who works for one of the generals. I trust him. Want to meet him?” asked Jed.

  “I don’t know. Which one does he work for?” “Antron,” said Jed.

  “We’d be selling a man to a murderer with a lot to gain.”

  “We’d be rich,” stated Jed.

  Balthasar nodded slowly. “Talk to him and ask him the reward.”

  Chapter 9

  Loreticus sat in front of a stiffened corpse. Despite his fearsome reputation, death and violence were infrequent tools in Loreticus’s bag. He left the greater bloodshed to the warlords like Marcan and Antron, who revelled like harvesters in an autumn field. The vision in front of him was so horrific, he had been warned to come alone and he appreciated the advice now. Pello would have fainted.

  The body had been beaten thoroughly. Twelve stabs across the torso, but the violence was most evident in the damage to the head and face.

  “My theory is that they were trying to hide his identity,” stated the physician, wax blocking his snoutish nose. “They totally destroyed his face. And they didn’t kill him with the first few stabs when perhaps they could have done.”

  “Twelve stabs, Sempus. Twelve. I’d say either the attacker couldn’t get close enough or the dead man was wearing armour.”

  “Um, yes, true. A well-brought-up grown man. Nice teeth, decent height, kept in rude health. Very few scars.”

  “Could it be anyone we know?”

  “If you’re asking, dear Loreticus, whether this is the body of Marcan, I have no idea,” Sempus stated. He had obviously been hoping to avoid that response. “This corpse belonged to someone important, but I don’t know who.”

  Much as Loreticus liked the physician, he found his penchant for drama in his work a little disturbing.

  “No scars, birthmarks?”

  Sempus whisked back the cloth covering the torso. “Take a look – the body is so bruised that any superficial traces have disappeared under the black. I don’t see anything that I would recognise.”

  “Did you attend on the emperor at any time?” asked Loreticus, watching the physician’s face.

  “No. He always used his family doctor, even for the worst injuries.”

  Loreticus looked back at the body and drew off the cloth until it lay completely naked on the slab. He leant in close, peering at the wrists and the ankles.

  “I didn’t see any military insignia,” stated Sempus, slighted by the suggestion that he might have missed a tattoo. But Loreticus wasn’t looking for such a mark. He paused as something caught his eye, stood up and pulled the cloth over the full stretch of the man.

  “Burn him today,” he said. “I don’t want any rumours or gossip about this spare body.”

  “I couldn’t get it arranged today,” said Sempus, flustered. “The ceremonies, the pyre, the professional mourners–” His voice drifted off as he saw Loreticus’s expression.

  “I’ll have someone take the burden off your back then. Two of my men will collect the body within the next hour or so. For the sake of th
e imperial family, I’d like you to forget that you ever saw this victim.”

  “Yes, Loreticus.”

  “Don’t worry, Sempus,” the spymaster sighed as he looked at the man standing before him, his apron spattered with blood, knives sheathed in pockets around his waist. “You’re not in trouble with me.” Loreticus paced back to the desk, where Sempus had started a sketch of the body to record the death. There was the bloodied tunic, folded and resting on the man’s shoes. Three rings with dried blood sat next to the pile. Loreticus took the chain with the chisel mark from his pocket and held it up for Sempus to see.

  “Tell me about this necklace that was found with the soldiers’ bodies.”

  “Well, I don’t know the insignia on it but I do know the jeweller’s stamp,” said Sempus, regaining his confidence. He had obviously been looking forward to that particular reveal.

  “Who?” asked Loreticus, wearying of the physician’s manner of relaying information.

  “Magna the Zealot.”

  “Oh,” said Loreticus. He stood straighter, the cogs of his thoughts clicking together as the logic took shape. “That is interesting. The zealots do have a hand in this. Is she still in the city?”

  “She is, in fact. She didn’t leave. Apparently, she says her god is everywhere, but we all know her client base is here.”

  Magna slouched on her afternoon chair, settling in for an afternoon’s nap amid the remnants of a colossal lunch. Loreticus watched through the window, seeing the fat old jeweller wiggle into comfort. The spymaster gave a signal and a soldier hammered on the door. Magna jerked up, then tumbled back with a scowl folding her zealot’s blue dot on her ruddy face.

  “Closed!”

  The knocks cracked out again, rattling glasses and crockery. Loreticus smirked as she swore, rocked herself upright, and padded over to the door. Magna glanced at the imperial livery through her spyhole, then hurriedly belted her robe and pulled back the bolts.

  Two guards marched in and glanced around the room before letting Loreticus enter. The shop was shadowed and smelled of cooling food. He smiled at Magna as if they were old friends and planted a kiss on her fingers.

  “Madame Magna, doyenne of the capital’s jewellery market,” he said.

  “Yes,” she replied hesitantly. “And who are you?”

  “I’m sorry, my arrogance is my biggest flaw. My name is Loreticus. I work at court.”

  “Oh, Loreticus, yes, sir. I have certainly heard your name. How might I be of help?” she asked in a quiet voice. “This,” he said, offering the necklace. “This is of interest. I understand that it is your remarkable work?”

  “Yes, it is,” she replied, stretching it between her hands and raising a curved, spattered lens to her eye. “But not really. I had a lot of people working for me before the exodus. The market was a lot richer then.” A thought came into her eyes, and she regarded the visitor. “Didn’t I sell you something once?”

  “Honestly, I have no idea,” he laughed. “But I’ve not been to this house before. Who did you make this for?”

  “Well, it’s one of my cheaper pieces so it was done by one of my apprentices. It looks like it had the crest of Dess Oranti or her father on it, but someone has cleft it to try to mask the provenance. Part of a funeral bequest, if I remember well.”

  “Dess?”

  “Yes, but perhaps never collected. This doesn’t look like something the family themselves wore.”

  “But it still looks quite valuable,” said Loreticus. “Nothing I do is cheap, Mr Loreticus,” said Magna proudly. “But cheaper things like this are often in circulation as unofficial currency.”

  “Why so? They are eminently traceable.”

  “Because the buyer has nothing else to give but can prove that it’s valuable,” said Magna. “You should ask those people who don’t offer loans. Hookers, judges, knifemen.” “What a troubling life you must lead to encounter these people,” remarked Loreticus. “And you just a simple artisan.”

  “That source of supply is where I get most of my raw material.”

  “Let me ask one more thing,” said Loreticus. “Why did someone leave this at the scene of a crime? Isn’t that a little blatant for a frame? Isn’t it also a little expensive?”

  “Left? No, I can’t imagine that this was left on purpose. This was dropped by accident. It’s too expensive for a simple stunt but if you had wanted to leave a clue, then there are cheaper options. Your suspect, sir, is a clumsy criminal.”

  Chapter 10

  Marcan, like most of the people who attended plays, had presumed actors were in the trade for want of another skill set. He soon found that he was fundamentally wrong. Before the first day of rehearsals was finished, he realised that to avoid absolute embarrassment he needed to comprehend a whole new dimension. To illuminate a character, it wasn’t enough to understand the role, but he had also to understand how he thought of himself, how the audience considered him and then to fit that into the play. The more Balthasar or Samwer told him to “just be himself”, the more deadpan he became. Jed unhelpfully told him that he couldn’t act like he was falling even if he was thrown off a cliff.

  “Speak clearly, preferably the lines you were given. Don’t knock over the furniture or anyone else. Get off when you’re supposed to,” he said.

  He had never considered how manly or silly his own gestures were; whether they were elegant or brutish; what effects they had on other people with their hints of violence or calm. Extrapolate those miniature messages into the actions of an emperor, and the flick of a fingertip was as terrifying as a thunderbolt.

  And so it was that he stood on a dry evening, his wan skin from a fortnight earlier now dark from the sun, whispering his lines to himself and concentrating on not releasing his bladder into his chalk-white robes. He was to play the emperor, married to the daughter of the last king of kings. The weighted hem of his tunic broadcast shivering knees underneath. The charcoal around his eyes felt sticky. He felt, in short, rather peculiar.

  The stage was an expanse of wooden boards which they carried on the waggon. It was propped up by sandbags, and backed by a thick oil canvas with an imperious domed fortress painted on it. In front of the stage was a map draping down, with the mountains and seas and the names of what looked like countries and cities daubed. The whole thing stank of paint and grease, and it creaked with the slightest weight. In the daylight, it looked a poor effort, boards of different colours and lengths, the quality of the painting rudimentary. But at night, the torches cast their spell, and shadows appeared, along with walls and warmth and luxury.

  Jed, who played his bodyguard Demetrian, oversaw getting him on and off stage before he fainted. The play itself explained and dramatised the politics of the subversive generals Ferran, Antron and Iskandar. They were unlikely partners, explained Jed. Their last play had been about the impending war between Antron and Iskandar, who had always vied for military glory.

  “You don’t understand how other people see the world,” stated Jed with his thick rural accent. “Some don’t like being under the yoke of others, some worry they are missing the chance to be great, some want to be better than their fathers. In Marcan’s case, it was always rumoured that he bumped off the old boy after he’d married the daughter. None of these people are nice. None of them are like us.” He applied a little more charcoal to Marcan’s eyes. “Remember that when you’re on stage - you’re working to your own blind arrogance and ignorant of the generals’ plots.” He stood back and considered Marcan. Marcan turned to look at him. A moment passed. “If you’re going to throw up, let’s get it done, but cleanly.” Marcan nodded and turned to a bush, and his food thundered out of him.

  “Very good,” said the actor playing Ferran from behind them. He was methodically lighting the torches to guide the audience when they started to arrive. Unlike others in the court, Ferran had honey-brown hair which he teased into curls to publicise his foreign blood. The actor was younger than Ferran, but his youth and his swagg
er gave the general believable dynamism. “Once you vomit, you know you respect the audience more than yourself. It is the sign of a real actor,” he announced with a melodramatic flick of his hand. He laughed and patted Marcan on the back in mock sympathy. “Well, the potential to be one.”

  Marcan turned his damp face towards him, hoping they would realise that he couldn’t appear on stage in this state. “Too late,” smiled the actor playing Ferran with knowing glee. “You’re the emperor for tonight at least.”

  The audience was huge, numbering over a hundred. This was a unique occasion in the season for the village; the girls came for the handsome actors, the boys for the glorious military, and the elders for the gossip and the politics. They sat on the floor, some drunk, some impatient and all childishly excitable.

  Marcan stood at the front of the line of actors as they prepared to file on to the stage for the introduction of each character. Balthasar was in front of him, waiting for the perfect moment to catch and harvest the audience’s attention. He turned to Marcan, mouthed “Wait”, then sauntered on to the raised wooden boarding.

  “My fellow citizens,” he started, “thank you for coming out to see our humble play. As you know, we are a troupe of actors called The Psittacis. We are requested by the court to present the histories of our great nation and we have done so for many a year with a deep sense of honesty, which is probably why it’s best that the court don’t see it! But this last year has presented some rapid change around the throne. The king of kings falls, a glorious new hero arises, only to be thrown into scandal, generals clash, and with each parry and cut, they see that the prize is the ownership of the world. But it is not swords that they duel with. It is lives and reputations. Fortunes and curses. They warp the fabric of the god-given world to meet their ambitions.” His delivery was speeding up and he flattened his hand in front of himself as if to calm down. A deep breath. “So, let me ask your indulgence, if I may. We want to help you to understand what has happened in the near past, but we do so under threat from the court. Tell no-one of what you see here tonight. Do not let your family and friends in other villages on our route know, for amongst them there might be an informer to the court. Tonight’s performance is a secret between you and us.” Silence. Not a person moved as coughs were smothered and itches ignored. “Then let me introduce those involved in this terrible affair.”