The Furies of Rome

by Robert Fabbri

  Vespasian, with Titus and Sabinus to either side of him, gripped the flanks of his horse with his thighs, feeling the ease of its movements whilst enjoying the wind on his face; his mind was now off the funeral of his mother whose ashes were still too hot to collect. His bow and ash-shafted hunting-spear rattled in their holsters attached to the rear of his saddle and his cloak flapped behind him, pulling at his throat as he watched the two hounds disappear under the eaves of the wood with the two hunting slaves in close pursuit. He followed them in; moisture, collected on the naked branches, dripped down upon him as he slowed his horse to a trot, mindful of its footing amongst the tree roots. From further ahead came the deep-throated barks of Castor and Pollux, although the dogs themselves were now out of view. Seeing that the undergrowth was still thin and the lie of the fallen-leaf-covered ground was clear, he urged his horse into an easy canter, following the direction of the dogs’ noise, across the line of the hill, deeper into the wood as Titus whooped with excitement next to him. The hunting slaves could just be glimpsed through the cover, fifty or so paces away, expertly weaving their horses between the trunks as they tried to keep pace with the dogs. Glancing back, Vespasian could see Magnus and Domitian, who was struggling to keep up on his pony, passing under the first of the trees. His horse navigated its own twisting path through the obstacles with Vespasian just guiding it in the direction of the barking. From up ahead came a shout followed by a human cry of fear. Vespasian could see the hunting slaves change direction and head downhill as Castor and Pollux’s barks became fiercer with growls rolling in their throats.

  Vespasian tugged on the left rein so that his mount followed the slaves downhill, a sense of urgency growing unbidden within him as he ducked and dodged overhanging branches; Titus and Sabinus came with him, their heads low about the horses’ necks.

  A guttural, rattling snarl accompanied by a human howl of pain followed by the growl-barks of dogs fighting caused Vespasian to lose all caution and accelerate his mount forward as something unseen fizzed past him. He crashed through the wood, branches whipping about him, as the canine frenzy became increasingly more savage; the hunting slaves had dismounted, at least that’s what he assumed, as he glimpsed their horses running off unaccompanied. Breaking out into a small clearing he saw a flurry of shiny black fur twisting and writhing on the ground on what looked to be, at first glance, a red mattress but after a moment he realised was the bloodied body of a horribly mauled man; the sheen to the dogs’ pelts was his blood. Just next to the carnage, one of the hunting slaves knelt over his companion who lay on his back; an arrow protruded from his shoulder and another was stuck in his gut. As Vespasian jumped from his horse and rushed forward, the kneeling slave juddered and went suddenly rigid, his eyes wide open; he dropped his companion’s hand and, with a slow start that quickly accelerated, keeled over to lie on his side exposing a shaft buried in his temple as yet another unseen object hissed within a couple of paces of Vespasian’s head.

  ‘To your left, Father!’ Titus shouted.

  Vespasian glanced in that direction to catch glimpses of a couple of figures, dressed in the colours of the forest, pelting away, bows in hand, jumping obstacles and swerving around trees. ‘After them, Titus,’ he ordered as he ran towards the dogs, hoping that there may be a little life left in the victim; enough, perhaps, to answer a few questions. But whether there was or not he could not tell and he did not dare risk coming between Castor and Pollux and their prey, so reluctant did they seem to desist from their ravaging; one, although Vespasian could not tell which, so covered in gore were they, had an arrow embedded in its hind left thigh.

  ‘I’ll sort them out, sir,’ Magnus called, jumping from his horse and putting two fingers to his teeth as Sabinus went crashing through the wood after Titus. A shrill whistle rent the air, changing note up and down; the dogs reacted immediately, the snarls tailing off and their bloodied teeth leaving the fresh meat of their victim who was, much to Vespasian’s annoyance, obviously dead. They turned to look at their master and immediately the one with the arrow wound began to whine. ‘What have they done to you, Castor, you poor boy?’ Magnus said, getting down to his knees and taking his wounded dog’s head in both hands. He looked down at the mangled corpse of the dogs’ victim and spat at his ripped face. ‘Whoever you are you deserved what you got for shooting one of my dogs, arse-sponge!’

  Magnus eased Castor around and examined the entry wound, pulling gently on the shaft; the hound whimpered but made no move to savage its master for causing it more pain. Looking relieved, Magnus hugged the dog and kissed its broad shoulders whilst tightening his grip on the arrow. ‘You’ll be fine, Castor; it went in at an angle and hasn’t touched the bone.’ Castor yelped, brief and high-pitched, as his body stiffened; his head turned, jaws open, and began to lunge at Magnus. But Magnus held up the arrow and the hound checked itself, recognising that its master had done it a service and not a mischief and, rather than attack Magnus, it licked his face before turning its tongue’s attention to the open wound. ‘That’s a good boy,’ Magnus said as if talking to a favoured slave or a small child.

  A groan from behind him took Vespasian’s attention away from Magnus and his dogs as he remembered that one of the hunting slaves was still alive. He lay, breathing in ragged gasps, lying on his back staring up at the canopy, a hand clutching each of the arrows piercing him.

  ‘What happened?’ Vespasian asked, kneeling down next to him.

  The slave turned frightened eyes onto his master. ‘The dogs got their scent, master. There were four of them butchering a wild boar carcass. But they ran when they heard us. Three escaped.’ He indicated with his head to the savaged man. ‘He was the fourth. As the dogs brought him down, Gallos and me went after the other three but …’ He looked miserably at the two shafts piercing his body.

  Vespasian squeezed the slave’s arm. ‘Lie still; we may be able to save you if we get you back soon, before you’ve lost too much blood.’

  The slave nodded, smiling faintly, evidently aware of the remoteness of that possibility as Vespasian suddenly realised that there was somebody unaccounted for. ‘Where’s Domitian, Magnus?’

  Magnus stood and looked around. ‘I don’t know, sir; the last time I noticed him was when the dogs went crazy, he was behind me.’

  Vespasian looked back in the direction whence they had come; there was no sign of his young son or his pony. Hoof-beats from down the hill to his right gave him a moment of relief until he saw Sabinus returning, alone and at speed.

  ‘Where’re the boys?’ Vespasian asked.

  Sabinus pulled his mount up to a skidding halt. ‘Titus is fine; he had his horse shot from under him but not before he brought one of them down; he’s stayed with the bastard. You need to come quickly as we have rather a delicate situation on our hands.’

  ‘Shit!’ Vespasian swore as the reality of the predicament that Sabinus had explained to him became apparent. He stood at the eastern edge of the wood looking down the slope to the gully that was the limit of the Flavian lands.

  ‘You see?’ Sabinus said, dismounting next to him.

  ‘The bastards!’ Magnus growled, hauling a straining Pollux back by the lead; Castor stood gingerly on three legs next to him, shivering slightly and making no attempt to pull his master away down the hill.

  ‘What do we do, Father?’ Titus asked; his left hand had a firm grip of the hair of a man kneeling in front of him and his right hand held a blade to his throat.

  ‘Nothing hasty; keep your prisoner alive and safe and in full view of those cunts.’ Vespasian stared at the two men, just a hundred paces away; one held a bow ready to release an arrow at him whilst the other held a squirming small figure by the throat and grinned. Domitian’s shrieks of fear and protest echoed around the valley; his pony lay dead halfway down the hill close to the body of Titus’ horse.

  ‘Give us one good reason why we shouldn’t fillet the boy,’ the man holding Domitian shouted.

  Vespasian stepp
ed forward and held out his hands to show that he was unarmed. ‘If you do then things will go badly for your friend here.’

  ‘What if he ain’t our friend? What if we really don’t like him?’

  ‘What if we really don’t care for the boy? What if we could well afford to lose a slave born on the estate? A slave we haven’t even had to pay for.’

  ‘Slave? If this is a slave then you’re far too generous with your clothing; his tunic is very finely spun.’

  ‘I like my boys to be well dressed; now I suggest we have a simple exchange of prisoners and be on our separate ways.’

  ‘I’m not a slave,’ Domitian shrieked; his high voice sharp with indignation. ‘Tell them to let me go, Father, and then crucify them.’

  ‘Father, eh?’ the man holding Domitian said with a leer, picking the boy up off his feet and looking closely at his face. ‘Well, well; looks like we’ve struck lucky, Tralles.’

  ‘It certainly does, Cadmus,’ his bow-wielding companion agreed, ‘it certainly does.’

  ‘So that leaves us in a very interesting position, I’d say. I wonder what those fine gentlemen up the hill think.’

  Vespasian took another few paces forward. ‘Where do you come from and what do you want?’

  ‘I don’t think that you’re in the position to be asking us questions,’ Cadmus observed, allowing Domitian’s feet to touch the ground again. ‘But seeing as you did ask, we want you to release our mate and then we’ll start talking about how much you’re prepared to pay for this little runt.’

  ‘If you think that I would be that stupid then we could be here for quite some time. Here’s what I’m prepared to do: you release my son and I’ll release your mate.’

  ‘And how do we profit from that?’

  ‘With your lives. Harm my son and you’ll be dead within a hundred heartbeats; sorry, you’ll be caught in that time and then you’ll start dying. You’ll be dead within five hours, perhaps a few more.’

  Cadmus laughed, hollow and without mirth. ‘You’ll not catch us; once we’re across the gully and on that hill we’ll travel much faster than you ever could.’

  ‘I’m sure you will if you get across the gully; but can you do that before the dogs catch you? Unless I’m completely mistaken, you’re on foot; you won’t make it and you’ll suffer a very unpleasant last few hours.’

  Cadmus looked at his companion whose bow began to waver as if he were not sure where to aim it.

  Vespasian pressed his case, taking advantage of their uncertainty. ‘So, it’s like this: touch the boy and you’re dead, release him and one of you will live whilst the other will have a swift death.’

  The two brigands stared back up the hill frowning as if they had not heard correctly.

  ‘That’s right,’ Vespasian said, ‘my terms have just gone up; because you seem unable to come to a sensible decision one of your lives is now forfeit and that’ll be the slowest of you.’ He pointed to Pollux still straining on his leash. ‘I’ll tell you what: I’ll make things easier for you. Titus, bring our friend here.’

  Titus brought the prisoner to his father who, without hesitation, pulled his knife from his scabbard and, yanking the man’s hair back, ripped his throat open and then stood, holding him up so his companions could see as the blood poured forth. ‘He was lucky,’ Vespasian shouted, ‘because that was an easy death.’

  This was too much for the brigands who turned and fled, dropping Domitian on his arse and loosing a wild shot that buried itself in the ground ten paces in front of Vespasian.

  Magnus slipped Pollux’s leash and the hound bounded off down the hill, barking deeply and accelerating at a considerable pace as Vespasian, Sabinus and Titus reached for their horses’ reins, remounted and moved off in a single motion. Magnus hurtled after them on foot.

  One glance at the four-legged hunter behind them was enough for Cadmus and Tralles to start hauling at one another, trying to make the other fall behind. With Vespasian, Sabinus and Titus in pursuit, Pollux sped past Domitian, who was threatening all manner of high-pitched retribution to his erstwhile captors, and quickly gained on the two fleeing brigands, now just twenty paces from the gully.

  With a backhanded swing, Tralles brought his bow crashing across the bridge of Cadmus’ nose, sending him, with a terrified howl, tumbling to the ground and, within a few quickening heartbeats, right into the jaws of Pollux.

  Whether the hound had sensed, and therefore been angered by, the worry that Cadmus had caused his master and his master’s friends or whether its canine mind had set itself on some course of revenge for the harm done to its companion or whether it was just that its blood was up after the fury of another chase was uncertain; what was certain, however, was the viciousness with which Cadmus was attacked. Not even in the circus had Vespasian witnessed such a blur of claw and jaw as the brigand was bitten, torn, mauled and ripped to the accompaniment of human and bestial cries of pain and anger, respectively, that were so similar and intense as to meld perfectly until it was impossible to tell man from hound as one complemented the other in macabre harmony.

  Vespasian sped down the hill. ‘See to your brother, Titus,’ he shouted as he passed his younger son whooping and clapping at the sight of the blood and flesh flying from the two beings joined in the frenzied and savage dance of hunter and prey. ‘Call Pollux off, Magnus!’

  Magnus whistled as he ran, the notes rising and falling, but to no avail as they did not penetrate the noise emanating from the hound and its victim. It was Sabinus who got there first but, as he dismounted, Pollux briefly took his attention away from a writhing Cadmus to turn and roar a warning at him not to interfere; Sabinus did not need to be told twice nor did Vespasian, once he arrived, feeling it wise not to try to do anything whilst waiting for Magnus to get there other than watch the beast gnaw, with satisfied guttural growls, on the forearm of the screaming Cadmus as he held it over his face to protect what was left of it.

  ‘Off, Pollux! Off!’ Magnus yelled as he came panting down the hill; he tried another shrill whistle that this time seemed to penetrate the hound’s consciousness as it began to cease. ‘Get off him, you disobedient dog.’ Magnus reached down and grabbed Pollux’s collar, hauling him off the mangled Cadmus who, apart from his boots, was now as good as naked, his clothes bloody rags and his skin shredded and smeared in gore; he was, though, unbelievably, still alive and stared in horror, with his one remaining eye, at the dripping jaws of Pollux who was being reprimanded as if he were a puppy who had peed on his master’s foot.

  ‘You do as you’re told next time, you bad boy,’ Magnus scolded, smacking his dog on the muzzle causing it to whimper and hang its head, looking up at its master with sorrowful eyes.

  Sabinus looked to where Tralles was making his way swiftly up the hill and away. ‘Do you think Pollux could catch him, Magnus?’

  ‘Don’t,’ Vespasian said before Magnus could reply. ‘I gave my word that one of them would live.’

  Sabinus grunted. ‘As you wish; it was your son that was in danger.’

  Vespasian knelt down next to Cadmus and asked conversationally: ‘What were you doing on my estate, Cadmus?’

  Although obviously in great pain, Cadmus formed his ruined face into a sneer.

  Vespasian sighed, irritated; he stuck a finger into a rip in Cadmus’ cheek and pulled, tearing it open even further. ‘Do you remember what I said just now about you having a very painful last few hours? Well, there’s a taste of it. Now, I’ll ask you again: what were you doing on my estate?’

  ‘Hunting.’ Cadmus spat out the word.

  ‘An expensive and painful trip.’

  ‘As it will prove to be for you.’

  ‘I doubt it.’

  ‘Oh, but I don’t; not once the Cripple comes back to this area and hears of this. He’ll avenge me and he’s a very patient man the Cripple is; he doesn’t mind if things don’t move fast because he can’t either. So speed is never an issue for him, you see; he’ll take his time.’

/>   ‘Which is more than you will,’ Vespasian observed as Titus arrived with Domitian.

  Immediately the boy leapt forward, not towards his former captor but at Vespasian, landing on his back and beating him about the head and shoulders. ‘You would have let them kill me! You didn’t try to buy my life!’

  Titus pulled him off as he shouted accusations and tried to claw at his father’s face.

  Vespasian stood, turned and slapped the boy about the ears until he stopped his noise. ‘Listen, son; it was your pride that put you in the greatest danger. I could have made them believe that you were an unimportant slave despite your dress, but you just couldn’t bear it, could you? No, you just had to let them know how important you were and in doing so upped the stakes. We could have had a very neat little exchange of prisoners if you had kept your mouth shut but you just couldn’t, could you? You couldn’t see beyond the immediate present and your pride wouldn’t allow people, people who don’t even matter, to think that you were a slave. Therefore, you forced me into a position where I had to out-bluff them and that could have gone very, very wrong and you would have been the first to die, you stupid little boy. You’ve as much sense of strategy as one of Magnus’ dogs! And that’s being kind.’

  The vehemence of the diatribe shocked Domitian into silence.

  ‘I hope that one day you’ll be able to look back at this and learn from it.’ Vespasian turned back to Cadmus. ‘I’ll forego the pleasure of your lingering death because I think that you might just have been instrumental in teaching my son an important lesson.’