Fire in the East wor-1

by Harry Sidebottom

  Two legionaries pulled the boy upright and held on to him as the other two hit him repeatedly in the face and stomach.

  'We're going to have some fun with you, boy. Then we're going to put a stop to your games for ever.' There was a flurry of blows, then they let him go. He fell to the ground. Now they took it in turns to kick him.

  Bagoas curled into a ball. The kicking continued. He could smell the leather of their military boots, taste the sharp iron tang of his own blood. No, Mazda, no… don't let this be like the tent-dwellers, no. For no reason that he could follow, a fragment of poetry came into his mind. I sometimes think that never blows so red The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled.

  The kicking paused.

  'What the fuck are you looking at?'

  Through his bruised, half closed eyes, the Persian boy saw Calgacus outlined at the end of the eavesdrip.

  'Oh, aye, you are hard men – the four of you on one boy. Maybe you think you could take on one old man as well.'

  To the Persian boy's eyes, Calgacus looked younger and bigger than ever before. But it could end only one way. The youth wanted to shout, wanted to tell the old Caledonian to run, tell him that it would do no good him being beaten, maybe killed, as well, but no words came.

  'Don't say we didn't warn you, you old fucker.' The legionaries were all facing Calgacus.

  There was an exclamation of surprise and pain. One of the legionaries shot forward, tripping over the Persian boy's outstretched legs. The other three looked stupidly down at their friend. As they started to turn the youth saw Maximus's fist smash into the face of the legionary on the left. The man wore an almost comical look of shock as he slumped back against the wall, his nose seemingly spread right across his face, fountaining blood.

  The legionary that Maximus had knocked forward had landed on his hands and knees. Calgacus stepped forward and kicked him sharply in the face. His head snapped back and he collapsed motionless, moaning quietly.

  The two legionaries still on their feet glanced at each other, unsure what to do.

  'Pick up these pieces of shit and get the fuck out of here,' said Maximus.

  The soldiers hesitated, then did as they were told. They supported their contubernales down the eavesdrip. When they reached the road, the one with the badly broken nose called back that it was not over, they would get all three of them.

  'Yeah, yeah,' muttered Maximus as he bent over Bagoas. 'Give a hand, Calgacus, let's get this little bastard home.' I sometimes think that never blows so red The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled.

  The fragment was running through the Persian boy's thoughts just before he passed out.

  At a gesture from Ballista the soldier again knocked on the door. So far it had been a very trying day. Ballista had set out at the second hour of daylight accompanied by Demetrius, two scribes, three messengers, Romulus, who today did not have to carry the heavy standard, and two equites singulares. As the ten men had walked to the southern end of Wall Street, some legionaries in the distance, far enough away not to be recognizable, had howled like wolves.

  Ballista and his party were inspecting all the properties near the western desert wall that would soon be destroyed, encased in rubble and mud. The complaints voiced at dinner the previous night by the caravan protectors were on the lips of all the residents. This morning they seemed to have added meaning. They were being voiced by the priests whose temples would be torn down, whose gods would be evicted. They were being voiced by the men whose houses would be razed, whose families would be made homeless. Some of these were defiant; others fought back tears, their wives and children peeping round the doors from the women's rooms. Whether they saw him as an irresponsible imperial favourite, a power-drunk army officer or just a typically stupid barbarian, none of them saw Ballista's actions as anything but a cruel and thoughtless whim.

  With some irritation, Ballista again gestured for the soldier to knock on the door of the house. They did not have all day, and they were only at the end of the third block out of eight. This time, as soon as the soldier finished hammering, the door opened.

  In the gloom of the vestibule stood a short man dressed as a philosopher: rough cloak and tunic, barefoot, wild long hair and beard. In one hand he held a staff, the other fingered a wallet hanging from his belt.

  'I am Marcus Clodius Ballista, Dux-'

  'I know,' the man rudely interrupted. It was hard to see clearly, as Ballista was looking from the bright sunlight into the relative darkness, yet the man seemed very agitated. His left hand moved from his wallet and began to fidget with his belt buckle, which was shaped like a fish.

  Allfather, here we go again, thought Ballista. Let's try and deflect this before he starts ranting.

  'Which school of philosophy do you follow?'

  'What?' The man looked blankly at Ballista as if the words meant nothing to him.

  'You are dressed like a Cynic, or possibly a hardline Stoic. Although, of course, the symbols are appropriate for almost all the schools.'

  'No… no, I am no philosopher… certainly not, nothing of the sort.' He looked both offended and frightened.

  'Are you the owner of this house?' Ballista pressed on. He had wasted enough time.

  'No.'

  'Will you fetch him?'

  'I do not know… he is busy.' The man looked wildly at Ballista and the soldiers. 'I will get him. Follow me.' Suddenly he turned and led the way through the vestibule into a small, paved central atrium. 'Inspect what you will,' he said then, without warning, vanished up some steps to the first floor.

  Ballista and Demetrius looked at each other.

  'Well, one cannot say that philosophy has brought him inner peace,' said the Greek.

  'Only the wise man is happy,' quoted Ballista, although in all honesty he was not certain where the quote came from. 'Let's have a look around.'

  There was an open portico off to their left. Straight ahead they entered a long room which ran almost the length of the house. It was painted plain white and furnished only with benches. It looked like a schoolroom. There was an almost overwhelming smell of incense. Re-entering the atrium, they looked into another room, opposite the portico. Empty but for a few storage jars in one of the far corners. Again the room was painted white. Again the almost choking smell of incense masked every other.

  There was one final room on the ground floor, separated from the vestibule by the stairs up which the man had vanished. Entering, Ballista stopped in surprise. Although, like the rest of the house, almost empty of furniture, this room was a riot of colour. At one end was a columned archway, painted to resemble marble. The ceiling was sky-blue and speckled with silver stars. Under the arch was a bath, big enough for one and, behind it, a picture of a man carrying a sheep.

  Ballista gazed about him. Wherever he looked there were pictures. He found himself staring at a crude painting of three men. A man on the left was carrying a bed towards a man on the right, who was lying on another bed. Above them a third man stood, holding his hand out above the reclining figure.

  'Fucking odd,' said one of the soldiers.

  Just to the right of this picture, a man dressed as a peasant was hovering over the sea. Some sailors looked at him in amazement from a well-rigged ship.

  'Greetings, Marcus Clodius Ballista, Vir Egregius, Dux Ripae.' The speaker had entered quietly behind them. Turning, Ballista saw a tall man dressed in a plain blue tunic with white trousers and simple sandals. He was balding, hair cropped close at the sides. He sported a full beard and an open smile. He looked very familiar.

  'I am Theodotus son of Theodotus, Councillor of the City of Arete, and priest to the Christian community of the town.' He smiled pleasantly.

  Annoyed with himself for not recognizing the Christian priest, Ballista grinned apologetically and thrust out his hand.

  'I hope that you will forgive any rudeness in welcoming you on the part of my brother Josephus. You understand that, since the persecution launched by the emperor Decius a few y
ears ago, we Christians get nervous when Roman soldiers knock on our doors.' He shook Ballista's hand and laughed heartily. 'Of course things are much better now, under the wise rule of Valerian and Gallienus, and we pray that they live long, but still old habits die hard. We find it best to remain discreet.'

  'No, if anything I was unintentionally rude. I mistook your brother for a pagan philosopher.' Although Theodotus seemed amiably enough disposed, Ballista thought it best to forestall any trouble if he could. 'I am very sorry, so very sorry that it is necessary to destroy your place of worship. I assure you that it would not happen were it not absolutely necessary. I will try my utmost to get you paid compensation – if the city does not fall, obviously.'

  Rather than the storm of protest and complaint that Ballista was expecting, Theodotus spread his hands wide and smiled a beatific smile.

  'It will all fall out as God wills,' said the priest. 'He moves in mysterious ways.'

  Ballista was going to say something else, but a waft of incense caught the back of his throat and set off a fit of coughing.

  'We burn a lot of incense for the glory of the lord,' said Theodotus, patting the northerner on the back. 'As I came in I saw you looking at the paintings. Would you like me to explain the stories behind them?'

  Still unable to speak, Ballista nodded to indicate he would. Mercifully, today he was not attended by the Christian-hating trooper.

  Theodotus had only just begun when a soldier burst through the door. 'Dominus.' A quick-sketched salute and the legionary rushed through the army greeting. 'Dominus. We have found Gaius Scribonius Mucianus.'

  XI

  Gaius Scribonius Mucianus was dead.

  Violent unexpected death in peacetime always draws a crowd. A dense throng of soldiers and civilians, old and young, clustered under the eastern wall by the entrance to one of the old water tunnels.

  Romulus shouted something in Latin, then Greek, and finally Aramaic and reluctantly the crowd shuffled sideways, opening a small path to let Ballista and his entourage through. Mamurra, Acilius Glabrio and a centurion from IIII Scythica stood over the body. They turned and saluted.

  Ballista looked inquisitively at Demetrius, who leant close and whispered 'Lucius Fabius' in his ear.

  'Lucius Fabius, would you get the crowd to move back, at least thirty paces?'

  The centurion rapped out orders and his legionaries used their heavy javelins as herdsmen use their crooks to herd the bystanders away.

  Scribonius Mucianus lay on his back, arms and legs sprawling, head twisted sideways at an unnatural angle. His clothes were stained with long-dried blood and green mould. His face was a mottled yellow-green turning black. Ballista had seen more corpses than he wanted. Five years earlier, the siege of Novae had given him the unwanted opportunity to observe the dead decompose. In front of the walls defended by the northerner and his general Gallus thousands of Goths had lain unburied under the summer sun for nearly two months. Ballista guessed that the tribune had been dead for at least two months. Quietly he asked Demetrius to fetch a local doctor and an undertaker to make independent estimates.

  'How do you know it is him?' Ballista directed the question to all three men still close to the corpse.

  'Of course it is him,' Acilius Glabrio replied. 'Not that his looks have improved.'

  Ballista said nothing.

  'One of the soldiers recognized his seal ring,' said Mamurra. The praefectus fabrum thought for a while. 'And he wears the gold ring of an equestrian, the sword belt is fancy, the clothes expensive… There were thirty silver coins near the body.'

  'Near the body?'

  'Yes, his purse had been cut from his belt, the coins tipped out on the floor.' Mamurra handed over the purse.

  'Not robbery then.'

  'No, not unless they were disturbed.' Mamurra slowly shook his head. 'He was searched. The seams of his tunic and his sandals were slit. Searched but not robbed.'

  There were stentorian shouts, loud military oaths. Again the crowd, which was growing by the moment, reluctantly nudged apart. Through the narrow passage opened to the corpse strode Maximus and Turpio.

  'Well, he did not burn our artillery magazine,' said Maximus straight away. All the group, except Ballista and Turpio, turned to look intently at the Hibernian. 'Come on, it must have crossed everyone's mind. Now we know he didn't do it. He has been dead too long. By the look of him he was dead before we even reached Seleuceia.'

  All the time his bodyguard was talking, Ballista was watching Turpio. The latter's usually humorous, mobile face was very still. He didn't take his eyes off Scribonius Mucianus. Finally, very low, he said, 'You poor bastard, you poor fucking fool.'

  Ballista got down on one knee by the corpse and studied it intently, starting at the head and working down, his nose inches from the corrupt flesh. Demetrius, his gorge rising, wondered how his kyrios could bring himself to do such a thing.

  'He was robbed of something if not of money.' Ballista pointed at the ornate sword belt. 'See – here and here, two sets of thongs which have been cut. These ones secured this purse.' The cut ends he held up matched. He picked up the other thongs. 'And from these hung a -

  'A writing block,' said Turpio. 'He always had a writing block with him, hanging from his belt. He was always fiddling with it.' A wry smile passed across the ex-centurion's face. 'He was always opening it to do sums and write figures down.'

  'Was it found?' Ballista asked. The centurion Lucius Fabius shook his head.

  'Would someone get me some water and a towel?' Ballista didn't look but heard someone moving away. Allfather, power is corrupting me, he thought. I give orders and expect them to be obeyed. I do not even know or care who obeys. The corruption of power is as certain as the natural corruption in this corpse.

  Steeling himself, fighting his natural repugnance, Ballista gripped the decaying corpse with both hands and rolled it over on to its face. He resisted the impulse to wipe his hands. Life in the imperium had taught him not to show weakness.

  'Well, at least it is easy enough to see how he was killed.' Ballista pointed to a savage wound to the side and back of Scribonius Mucianus's left thigh. 'That brought him down. He had his back to his killer. Maybe he was running away. A sword cut from a right-handed man and, from the size of the wound, probably a standard military sword, a spatha.'

  A pitcher of water and a towel were placed on the ground. Ballista shifted to look at what was left of the back of Scribonius Mucianus's head. The mess of congealed flesh and brains was totally black. Liquid oozed out. The wounds resembled coal tar and seemed to have its faint iridescence. Ballista was beginning to feel sick. He forced himself to tip water on the wounds, to wash them with his bare hands.

  'Five, six, seven… at least seven sword cuts to the back of the head. Quite probably the same sword. What every master at arms likes us to do – get your man down with a leg wound, on all fours, on the ground, then finish off with as many hard blows to the head as it takes, as many as you have time for.' Gratefully Ballista let one of his scribes, the one with the Punic accent, pour water over his hands. He thanked him and took the towel. 'Who found him?'

  The centurion waved a legionary forward.

  'Gaius Aurelius Castricius, soldier of the Vexillatio of Legio IIII Scythica, century of Lucius Fabius, Dominus. We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready, Dominus.'

  'Where did you find him?'

  'Dominus, in a side gallery of this disused tunnel. Dominus, down there.' He pointed to some steps leading down to a black hole.

  'What were you doing down there?'

  'Ordered to search all the side passages and galleries, Dominus.' The legionary looked vaguely embarrassed.

  'Castricius here had the skills for the job,' his centurion interjected. 'On account of his having plenty of experience in tunnels before he took the sacramentum, the military oath.'

  The legionary looked more embarrassed. No one went down the mines by choice. As a civilian, Castricius mus
t have been convicted of something bad to end up there.

  'Well, Castricius, you had better show me where you found him.' Telling Maximus to attend him and everyone else to wait above ground, Ballista followed the legionary. Just inside the tunnel they paused to light lamps and let their eyes adjust. The soldier was making small talk. Ballista was not listening; he was praying.

  This tunnel was worse, far worse, than the other one. The footing was rougher and more slippery. There were reasons it had been boarded up. Several times they had to climb over piles of rock fallen from the ceiling or collapsed from the walls. Once they had to crawl through a gap little wider than the northerner's shoulders. It must have been hell getting the corpse out of here. Down and down. It was very dark. It was very wet. There was water underfoot, water running down the walls. It was like a living descent into Niflheim, Misty Hell, the bitter-cold realm of unending winter, the realm of the dead, where the dragon Nidhogg gnawed at the roots of Yggdrasill, the World Tree, until the end of time.

  'Here. I found him here.' They were in an abandoned side gallery, a dead end, too low to stand up in.

  'Exactly where was he?' Ballista asked.

  'Just here.'

  'What position was he in?'

  'On his back. Arms outstretched against the walls. Feet together.'

  'Maximus, would you mind lying down in the position of the corpse?' Filthy as all three men already were, the bodyguard shot his dominus a look that suggested he minded quite a lot. Nevertheless, the Hibernian got down on the floor and let Castricius arrange him in precisely the right position.

  'Scribonius Mucianus was certainly not killed here. Maximus, would you get on your hands and knees?'

  The bodyguard looked as if he were going to make a joke, but decided against it. Ballista drew his spatha. He tried to mime a cut at Maximus's head. The ceiling of rock was far too low.