‘Like I said,’ the Roman forced a smile, ‘just scrolls.’
The pirate captain flashed him a shrewd look. ‘Just scrolls? I don’t think so.’
He stood up and turned towards his crew. ‘Get this chest and the rest of the loot on to our ships! Get moving!’
The pirates bent to their task at once, hurriedly transferring the most valuable items of the cargo on to the decks of the two liburnians tied alongside. The bulk of the cargo was marble; valuable but too heavy to load on to the pirate vessels. It did have one immediate use, the pirate captain thought, smiling. It would take the ship straight to the bottom when the time came.
‘What are you going to do with us?’ Secundus asked.
The pirate captain turned from supervising his men, and saw the sailors watching him closely, making little effort to hide their fear.
Telemachus scratched the stubble on his chin. ‘I’ve lost some good men today. Too many good men. I’ll make do with some of yours.’
The Roman sneered. ‘What if we won’t join you?’
‘We?’ The captain smiled slowly at him. ‘I have no use for a pampered Roman aristocrat. You’ll be joining the rest of them, the ones who won’t be coming with us.’
‘I see.’ The Roman squinted towards the horizon and the distant lighthouse at Ravenna, calculating the distance.
The captain suddenly laughed, and shook his head. ‘No, you don’t see. There’ll be no help from your navy. You and the others will be dead long before they could send a ship out here. Besides, there won’t be anything left for them to find. You and this ship will be going down together.’
Telemachus didn’t wait for a response, but swiftly turned away, striding back across the deck and swinging himself down on to the deck of his vessel with well-practised ease. The chest was already waiting for him at the foot of the mast, but he spared it only a brief greedy glance as he stopped to give his orders.
‘Hector!’
The grizzled head of a stocky giant loomed over the rail of the merchantman. ‘Yes, chief?’
‘Prepare to fire the vessel. But not before you pick the best of the prisoners. I want them taken on board your ship. You can kill the rest. Leave that arrogant prick of a Roman till last. I want him to sweat a little before you deal with him.’
Hector grinned, and disappeared from sight. Shortly afterwards there was a series of splintering crashes as the pirates cut some timber to build a pyre in the hold of the merchantman. The captain turned his attention back to the chest, squatting down in front of it again. Looking closely, he became aware of just how fine a piece of craftsmanship this was. His fingers stroked the rich sheen of the surface and bumped lightly over the gold and onyx cameos. Telemachus shook his head again. ‘Scrolls…’
Using both hands, the captain eased the catch open and gently raised the lid. He paused for a moment, and then reached in and lifted out one of the scrolls. It was far heavier than he had thought it would be, and for a moment he wondered if there might be some gold hidden inside. His fingers worked away at the thong, and he raised the scroll up to see the knot better, and was aware of a faint citron odour emanating from the book. With a little effort the knot came undone and he shook the thong to one side, holding the end of the parchment in one hand as he unspooled the first few pages of the scroll with the other.
It was written in Greek. The script was old-fashioned, but legible enough, and Telemachus began to read. At first his features registered a sense of confusion and frustration, as his eyes steadily scanned each line of text.
There was a sudden scream of terror from the deck of the merchantman, cut short abruptly. A brief pause and then another scream, followed by a shrill voice babbling for mercy, before it too was cut off. The captain smiled. There would be no mercy. He knew his subordinate, Hector, well enough to realise the man thoroughly enjoyed killing other men. Inflicting pain was an art he excelled in, even more so than the skill of commanding a sleek pirate vessel, manned by some of the most bloodthirsty men he had ever met. The captain turned back to the scroll and read on, even as more screams split the salty air.
A moment later, he found a phrase that made it all come clear. With a chilling flood of realisation he understood what he was holding in his hands. He knew where it had been written, who it had been written by and, more importantly, he knew how much these scrolls might be worth. Then it occurred to him: there was no price he could not ask for these, once he approached the right customers.
Abruptly, he dropped the scroll back into the chest and snapped upright.
‘Hector! Hector!’
Once again the man’s head reared over the side of the captured ship. He rested his hands on the rail, one still holding a long curved dagger, from which blood dripped in to the sea between the two vessels.
‘That Roman–’ Telemachus began–‘have you killed him yet?’
‘Not yet. He’s next.’ Hector grinned. ‘You want to watch?’
‘No. I want him alive.’
‘Alive?’ Hector frowned. ‘He’s too soft for us. No fucking use at all.’
‘Oh, he’s going to be useful, all right! He’s going to help make us richer than Croesus. Bring him to me at once!’
Moments later the Roman was kneeling on the deck beside the mast. His chest was heaving as he stared up at the pirate captain and his murderous henchman. There was still defiance in his manner, the captain noted. The man was Roman to the core of his being, and behind his cold expression no doubt contempt for his captors outweighed even the terror he must be feeling as he waited for his death. The captain tapped the chest with the toe of his boot.
‘I know about the scrolls. I know what they are, and I can guess where you are taking them.’
‘Guess then!’ The Roman spat on to the deck at his captor’s feet. ‘I’ll tell you nothing!’
Hector raised his dagger and lurched forward with a snarl. ‘Why you—’
‘Leave him!’ the captain snapped, thrusting his hand out. ‘I said I want him alive.’
Hector paused, looking from his captain to the Roman and back again with murderous eyes. ‘Alive?’
‘Yes…He’s going to answer some questions. I want to know who he’s working for.’
The Roman sneered. ‘I’ll say nothing.’
‘Oh yes you will.’ The captain leaned over him. ‘You think you’re a brave man. I can see that. But I’ve known plenty of brave men in my time, and none of them has held out for long against Hector here. He knows how to inflict more pain, and make it last longer, than any man I have ever known. It’s a kind of genius. An art, if you like. He’s extremely passionate about his art…’
The captain stared into the face of his prisoner for a moment, and finally the man flinched. Telemachus smiled as he straightened up and turned to his subordinate.
‘Kill the rest of them, quick as you can. Then fire the ship. Once that’s done I want you on board here. We’ll spend the time it takes to get back home with our friend here…’
As the afternoon light slanted across the rolling surface of the sea, a thick swirling cloud of smoke engulfed the ravaged merchantman. Flames licked amid the smoke as the fire below the deck took hold and spread throughout the vessel. Soon it flared up and the rigging caught light, a fiery tracery of ropes, like infernal decorations. The crack and pop of burning wood and the roar of flames was clearly audible to the men on the decks of the two pirate vessels as they bore away in the opposite direction to the shores of Italy. Far over the eastern horizon lay the coast of Illyricum, with its maze of deserted and remote inlets and islands. The sounds of the dying ship slowly faded behind them.
Soon the only noise that cut across the serenity of the ships sliding through the sea was the demented screaming of a man being subjected to the kind of torture he had never conceived of in the most hellish of his nightmares.
CHAPTER TWO
‘Rome…bollocks…’ Centurion Macro grunted as he eased himself up from his bed roll, wincing at the terr
ible pain in his skull. ‘I’m still in Rome.’
Through the broken shutter a feeble shaft of light cut across the dingy room, and fell fully upon his face. He closed his eyes, clenching the eyelids shut, and slowly drew a deep breath. The previous evening he had drunk himself insensible and, as usual, he silently swore an oath never to touch cheap wine again. The previous three months were littered with such oaths. Indeed, their frequency had increased disturbingly in recent days as Macro had begun to doubt that he and his friend Cato would ever find a new posting. It seemed as if an age had passed since they had been forced to quit the Second Legion in Britain and returned to Rome. Macro was desperate to return to military life. Surely there must be some vacancies in one of the legions spread along the vast frontier of the Empire? But, it seemed, every centurion on active service was in distastefully good health. Either that, Macro frowned, or there was some conspiracy to keep him and Centurion Cato off the active service list and still waiting for their back pay. A complete waste of his many years of experience, he fumed. And a poor start for Cato, who had been promoted to centurion not even a year ago.
Macro cracked open one eye and glanced across the bare boards to the other side of the small room. Cato’s dark, unkempt curls poked out from under several layers of cloaks and blankets that overflowed the cheap bed rolls. Stuffed with straw and stinking of mildew, the threadbare bedding had been almost the only item on the inventory when they first rented the room.
‘Cato…’ Macro called softly, but there was no reply. No movement at all. The lad must still be asleep, Macro decided. Well then, let him sleep. It was late January and the mornings were cold and there was no sense in getting up before the sun had risen enough to bring some warmth to the densely packed city. At least it wasn’t like that mind-numbing cold they had endured last winter in Britain. The endless misery of the damp and chilly climate had worked its way into the very hearts of the legionaries and set them to melancholy thoughts of home. Now Macro was home, and the terrible frustration of eking out his life on dwindling savings was driving him mad.
Raising a hand to his head, Macro scratched at his scalp, cursing the lice that seemed to breed in every corner of the crumbling tenement block.
‘Bloody lice are in on the act as well,’ he muttered. ‘Has everyone got it in for me these days?’
There was some justice to his complaint. For the best part of two years he and Cato had fought their way through the savage tribes of Britain and had played their part in defeating Caratacus and his Celtic horde. And their reward for all the dangers they had faced? A damp room in a crumbling tenement block in the slum district of the Subura as they waited to be recalled to duty. Worse still, due to some bureaucratic nicety, they had not been paid since arriving in Rome and now Macro and Cato had all but run through the money they had brought back with them from Britain.
A distant hubbub of voices and cries carried across from the forum as the city shuffled to life in the bleak glow of a winter dawn. Macro shivered, and pulled his thick army cloak about his broad shoulders. Grimacing at the rhythmic pounding in his skull, he eased himself to his feet and shuffled across the room to the shutters. He lifted the cord off the bent nail that secured the two wooden panels and then pushed the broken one out. More light spilled into the room as the worn hinges grated in protest and Macro narrowed his eyes against the sudden glare. But only for a moment. Once again the now-too-familiar vista of Rome opened up before him and he could not help being awed by the spectacle of the world’s greatest city. Built on to the unfashionable side of the Esquiline hill, the topmost rooms of the tenement block looked out over the insanely crowded squalor of the Subura, towards the towering temples and palaces that surrounded the Forum, and beyond to the warehouses that were packed along the banks of the Tiber.
He had been told that nearly a million people were crowded within the walls of Rome. From where Macro stood that was all too easy to believe. A geometric chaos of rooftiles dropped down the slope in front of him, and the narrow alleyways that ran between them could only be divined where the grimy brickwork of the upper levels of the apartments were visible. A shroud of woodsmoke hung over the city and its acrid stench even overwhelmed the sharp tang from the tannery at the end of the street. Even now, after more than three months in the city, Macro had not grown used to the raw stench of the place. Nor the filth that lay in the streets: a dark mixture of shit and rotting scraps of food that not even the meanest beggar would pick through. And everywhere the dense press of bodies that flowed through the streets: slaves, traders, merchants and artisans. Drawn from across the Empire, they still bore the trappings of their civilisations in an exotic medley of colours and styles. Around them swirled the listless mass of freeborn citizens looking for some form of entertainment to keep them amused when they were not queuing for the grain dole. Here and there the litters of the rich were carried above and apart from the rest of Rome, their owners clutching pomades to their noses to catch a more fragrant breath in the ripe atmosphere that embraced the city.
That was the reality of life in Rome and it overwhelmed Macro. He wondered at the mass of humanity that could tolerate such an affront to the senses and not yearn for the freedom and freshness of a life far removed from the city. He felt sure that Rome would soon drive him mad.
Macro leaned his elbows on the worn sill and peered down into the shadowy street that ran along the side of the tenement block. His eyes slid down the grimy brickwork of the wall stretching below his window in a dizzy drop that foreshortened the people passing below into four-limbed insects; distant and just as easily dismissible, as they scuttled along the dim street. This room on the fifth floor of the tenement was the highest Macro had ever been in anything made by man, and the elevation made him feel a little dizzy.
‘Shit…’
‘What’s shit?’
Macro turned and saw that Cato was awake and rubbing his eyes as his jaw stretched in a yawn.
‘Me. I feel like shit.’
Cato examined his friend with a disapproving shake of his head. ‘You look like shit.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Better get yourself cleaned up.’
‘Why? What’s the point? No need to make an effort when there’s nothing to do for the rest of the day.’
‘We’re soldiers. We let it go now and we’ll never get the edge back. Besides, once a legionary always a legionary. You told me that.’
‘I did?’ Macro raised an eyebrow, and then shrugged. ‘I must have been drunk.’
‘How can you tell?’
‘That’s enough of your lip,’ Macro grumbled as he felt his head begin to spin gently. ‘I need some more rest.’
‘You can’t rest. We have to get ready.’ Cato reached for his boots, put them on and began to fasten the leather ties.
‘Ready?’ Macro turned to him. ‘Ready for what?’
‘You’ve forgotten?’
‘Forgotten? What have I forgotten?’
‘Our appointment at the palace. I told you about it last night, when I found you in that tavern.’
Macro frowned as he strained his mind to recover the details of the previous evening’s binge. ‘Which one?’
‘The Grove of Dionysus.’ Cato spoke patiently. ‘You were drinking with some veterans of the Tenth and I came up and told you I had got us an interview with the procurator in charge of legionary postings. At the third hour. So we haven’t got much time to get ourselves breakfasted, washed and kitted up before we head to the palace. There’s racing today at the Great Circus; we have to get out early if we’re going to beat the crowds. You could do with something to eat. Something to settle your stomach.’
‘Sleep,’ Macro replied quietly, as he slumped on to his bed roll and curled up under his cloak. ‘Sleep’ll settle my stomach nicely.’
Cato finished tying his boots and stood up, ducking his head to avoid banging it against the beam that crossed the room; one of the few instances where being a head taller than Macro was a disad
vantage. Cato reached for the leather bag of ground barley that stood beside the rest of their kit, propped up against the wall next to the door. He untied it and poured a measure into each of their mess tins, before carefully twisting the bag and knotting the ties once again, to keep the mice out. ‘I’ll go and get the porridge made up. You can start polishing the armour while I’m gone.’
When the door had closed behind his friend, Macro closed his eyes again and tried to ignore the pain in his skull. His stomach felt knotted and empty. A meal would do him good. The sun had risen higher and he opened his eyes again. He groaned, threw the cloak to one side and went over towards the piles of armour and equipment leaning beside the door. Despite sharing the rank of centurion, Macro had more than a dozen years of experience over Cato. Sometimes it felt strange to find himself obeying one of the lad’s instructions. But, Macro bitterly reminded himself, they were no longer on active duty. Rank was largely irrelevant. Instead they were two friends struggling to survive until they finally received their back pay from the miserly clerks at the imperial treasury. Hence the need to watch every sestertian as they waited for a new posting. Not an easy task when Macro was inclined to spend what little savings he had on drink.
The narrow stairwell was lit by openings in the wall on every second landing and Cato, with his hands full, had to pick his way down the ancient creaking boards with care. Around him he could hear the sounds of other tenants rising: the bawling of young children, the intemperate shouts of their parents and the low sullen murmurs of those who faced a long day’s employment somewhere in the city. Although he had been born in Rome and raised in the palace until he was old enough to be sent to the legions, Cato had never had cause to visit the slum areas, let alone enter one of the towering tenement blocks packed with the capital’s poor. It had shocked him to realise that freeborn citizens could live like this. He had not imagined such squalor. Even the slaves in the palace lived better than this. Far better than this.
The Eagle's Prophecy Page 2