Saviour of Rome [Gaius Valerius Verrens 7]

by Douglas Jackson

  Another auxiliary raised his spear, but his leader shouted an order and he lowered the weapon. The commander advanced to the very edge of the gorge and stared at Serpentius with pitiless basilisk eyes filled with hatred.

  ‘I have heard of you, the one they call the Snake. Well, Snake, be assured you cannot run for ever. The First Parthorum will hunt you down, and when we’ve finished with you the mine overseers have something special waiting for you. A black hole has been dug in the deepest part of the mine, where you will be walled in and left to starve to death or drown in other men’s shit, whichever comes first. You will die screaming, Snake, and I will visit you every day to listen to your descent into madness.’

  ‘A mouse’s fart holds more threat than you do,’ Serpentius laughed. He pointed to the rope. ‘Why don’t you cross and we’ll see who dies screaming.’ He flicked his sword into the air, so it spun five times before the hilt settled back into his hand and his eyes never left the Parthian. ‘I’ve killed Parthians and it gave me almost as much pleasure as slaughtering Romans. Bring any four men you like.’

  The auxiliary officer spat into the gorge. Serpentius took a step to his right and drew his sword edge down to sever the rope so it flopped to fall down the wall of the Parthian side. He backed away to join Clitus and the others.

  ‘My name is Claudius Harpocration, prefect of the First Parthorum, remember it. We will meet again,’ the officer shouted.

  ‘I will count on it,’ Serpentius assured him.

  XVI

  The accommodation provided by Severus was part of the upper portion of a flat-roofed town house, all fine mosaic floors and walls painted with lifelike hunting scenes and mountain vistas. It was close to the main baths Valerius had passed the previous day and he quickly discovered it had the disadvantage of being very difficult to enter or leave without being seen. Severus had also ensured the house was well supplied with his own staff. Clearly the identity of anyone Valerius brought here would be reported to their master, or his oddly disturbing wife.

  Still, he had to find a way to meet Pliny’s contact, and preferably without being seen. During his tour of the city he’d taken particular note of the alleys and smaller side streets where a man could lose a follower if he knew what he was doing. It didn’t take him long to identify his latest shadow. Saco had replaced the young slave with an older man who had a shock of grey hair and a limp. In fact he was so obvious that Valerius took even greater care in case his presence was designed to draw attention away from the real thing.

  He purposely timed his excursion for the hottest part of the day when the Asturian sun seared the eyeballs and the furnace heat bounced from the walls of the more exposed streets. Heat multiplied the stench from the underground sewers, particularly noxious if you walked close to a drain cover. Competing with the sewer reek were the smells from butcher shops and tanners: blood and offal and the shit evacuated by terrified beasts awaiting slaughter, the contents of the piss pots where the leather workers collected the urine necessary for their trade, boiling tubs of fat and the rotting carcasses of dead cats and dogs in the cess pits, occasionally offset by the welcome aroma of a perfume stall.

  Valerius took his shadow on an entire circuit of the city. He managed to lose the old man when he began to wilt in the heat, by darting up the alley behind the mansio. The house he’d been told to look for was at the other end of the city, a modest affair located between the Temple of Jupiter and the eastern wall. A servant answered the door and said he would carry Pliny’s introduction to his master. Valerius waited for him to return. Instead, it was a large cheerful-looking man who appeared calling out a welcome.

  ‘I am pleased to call any friend of Pliny a friend of Marcus Atilius Melanius,’ the big man growled. ‘Please, come inside, that dolt of a servant of mine should never have left you standing out here. How is the old devil? I haven’t seen him for five years. Still up to his knees in bones and tusks and decaying manuscripts?’

  Tall and broad with a vast belly, Melanius had a round face topped by a shining bald dome of a head, but any hint of threat from his scale was more than offset by the mischievous glint in his pale blue eyes. Valerius felt he was in danger of being washed away by his host’s exuberance, but he grinned in return. ‘I believe it has reached as far as his waist and it’s growing every day, sir.’

  ‘A glutton for knowledge and a mind that forgets nothing, unless of course you count dinner when he has his nose in a book.’ Melanius led the way, talking as he went. They passed through a room decked out with shelves filled with leather scroll cases that seemed to indicate he was as well read as his friend the proconsul.

  ‘I fear he isn’t as active as you’d remember him,’ Valerius said. ‘When I last saw him he was laid up with an attack of gout. I think he would have come himself if he hadn’t been indisposed.’

  ‘A pity then.’ Melanius’s wide brow puckered in a frown where his eyebrows would have met. ‘It would have been good to see him. I don’t travel so much myself these days, so I doubt I’ll be visiting Tarraco. I was surprised when I heard he’d been appointed proconsul – pleased, of course – but not your natural authoritarian bureaucrat. Mind you, he was as good an officer as I ever served with. You have been a soldier yourself unless I miss my guess?’

  ‘I served in Britannia, Armenia, and most recently in Judaea.’

  ‘You were with Titus.’ Melanius’s tone took on a measure of awed respect. ‘I’d be pleased to hear about Jerusalem if you feel disposed to tell the tale. In fact, I insist you stay for dinner. Judging by Pliny’s letter there’s a fair amount I have to tell you.’

  Valerius bowed his agreement.

  ‘Good,’ Melanius grinned. ‘I never got any further than Germania during my service. All swamps and murderous savages. Pliny and I had to listen to tales of Vespasian’s triumphs at the head of the Second, who’d been based just down the Rhenus from us.’ They took their seats in the main room and he called for wine, which came in clay cups, but was of excellent quality. ‘How do you find Asturica?’

  ‘A little claustrophobic.’ Valerius smiled as he told him about the men who’d followed him.

  ‘Yes.’ Melanius nodded solemnly. ‘That would make sense. You have to understand, Valerius, that this is a place of secrets where everyone has a position to defend. I decided to settle here for my health when I retired as camp prefect of the Tenth. Did you know this was originally their camp?’ He smiled at Valerius’s evident surprise. ‘Yes, this is why I chose this house. It stands exactly where the principia of the first camp would have been. I once saw the original plans. Double ditches filled with water, would you believe. They’d never countenance that now. But to get back to the subject in hand, I retired here. Although I have taken no part in local politics or business, I considered it wise to make myself acquainted with what went on. On the surface, Asturica is just another Roman provincial city, but beneath there are many different currents at play. Have you met anyone of significance?’

  ‘Proculus, who commands the contingent of the Sixth at Legio, suggested I call on Aulus Severus, duovir of Asturica’s ordo.’

  ‘Quite right,’ Melanius nodded. ‘An opportunity to present your credentials as someone not to be ignored, but with a reason to be in Asturica not associated with Pliny’s main objective. Severus is enormously rich and his position on the council gives him a certain power, but he is regarded as something of a figure of fun. He’s in thrall to his new wife the way only an older man can be with a much younger woman. Not a fool by any means, and certainly worth cultivating, but not a man to be feared.’

  ‘The name Aurelius Saco was mentioned in connection with one of my followers.’

  ‘Now there is a dangerous man.’ Melanius frowned again. ‘Rich as old Croesus and with an iron in every forge. There have been murmurings for years about how he came to make his money.’ A pause of significant silence. ‘Sometimes the people who did the murmuring ended up with their heads broken. You must be doubly careful, young
man, if Saco is taking an interest in you.’ The frown melted into a smile. ‘Now, I am a man of regular habit and, as you can see from my fine figure, one of large appetite. This is the time I normally dine.’

  Later, they lay back on couches and picked at plates of flaky white carp and succulent pork brought by Melanius’s servants, and drank cups of a fragrant, light wine – ‘Falernian, no less,’ Melanius announced – and then he devoured two whole chickens in a short sitting, reminding Valerius of the gargantuan appetites of Aulus Vitellius. When he was finished, Melanius released a delicate belch.

  ‘Pliny asks me to assist you in any way I can, but he doesn’t give any detail?’

  ‘I’m looking for a man called Petronius.’ Valerius studied his host carefully for any reaction. ‘An engineer who was carrying out an investigation into certain irregularities in the gold mining operations around Asturica. Have you heard the name?’ Melanius shook his great head and Valerius continued. ‘Pliny suggested Petronius might call on you for help if he encountered any difficulties.’

  ‘If he had I would have certainly done all I could for him, but unfortunately he did not.’

  ‘Unfortunately?’

  Melanius gave him a shrewd look. ‘You would not be here, Valerius Verrens, if Pliny didn’t think something unfortunate had happened to Petronius.’

  Valerius held his gaze. This, he decided, was not a man to be trifled with. Clearly Marcus Melanius was far from the jovial buffoon he liked to portray. Pliny had left it up to Valerius how much of his mission he revealed to his old friend. During the journey his inclination had been to keep most of the information to himself. Now he was in Asturica with enemies on every hand he could see the situation from a different perspective. If Melanius didn’t know the detail of what he was trying to achieve, how could he help him achieve it? And who else could he trust in this snake pit?

  ‘My first task is to find Petronius,’ he said. ‘Or discover what happened to him. Once that is completed, or it becomes clear I can do neither, I am to continue his investigations.’

  Melanius leaned back on his couch. ‘Perhaps if you were to enlighten me a little further I could advise you what kind of assistance I might be able to provide?’

  ‘The Emperor believes that someone in Asturica is stealing his gold.’

  A snort of disbelief burst from Melanius. ‘Surely no one would be so foolish? A lingering death would be the best of it.’

  ‘Nevertheless,’ Valerius continued, ‘that is what he believes. It is undeniable that the flow of gold from Asturica has dropped dramatically since the civil war. Pliny estimates by half.’

  Melanius’s features twisted into an almost painful grimace at the astonishing extent of the losses. ‘I’d heard rumours that the yields from the mines were down, even that the seams were close to being worked out. There’s no doubt the war caused difficulties.’ He toyed absently with a gold charm at his neck. ‘There were loud complaints about Galba’s decision to strip the province of its finest young men for his new legion and Asturica suffered proportionately. As I understand it, those were the very men who carried out the most important tasks in the mines. And leaving the country so poorly defended encouraged a new and more dangerous breed of bandit to flourish. If it is out and out thievery you suspect, then perhaps that should be your first avenue of investigation?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Valerius admitted. ‘But for the moment Petronius must be my priority.’ He hesitated. ‘There is one other thing you should know. I will be acting in an unofficial capacity in order not to attract attention, or worse, to scare the people behind this into covering their tracks. But when the time comes to act the Emperor has conferred on me the full powers of a legatus iuridicus metallorum. No mining area will be closed to me and no document remain sealed.’

  Melanius struggled to hide his astonishment. ‘But this gives you the power to decide who runs the mining operations and every contractor who provides the supplies for them. You can make or break any man in Asturica.’

  ‘That’s true,’ Valerius acknowledged with a wry smile. ‘But only a fool would try to wield such power without knowing what he was doing with it. I’m no mining expert, Melanius. I’m a soldier who happens to be a lawyer and that’s why I was chosen. I need to understand what is happening here before I present Severus with my warrant. Even then all I will use it for is to bring the guilty to Pliny’s justice.’

  ‘Wise words, my young friend.’ Melanius stood and clapped Valerius on the shoulder as if he were an old comrade. ‘One that surely shows why Pliny and the Emperor selected you. Another man might have been so intoxicated with his new authority that he wielded it regardless of the result. But you do understand it could also place you in great danger were it to become known you possess the Emperor’s warrant?’ His voice dropped and he looked over his shoulder towards the kitchens. ‘Rich and powerful men like Saco and Severus have their spies. There may even be some amongst my own household.’

  ‘You’re right,’ Valerius said. ‘I was careless. But I can’t take the words back. All I ask is that you keep the information to yourself.’

  ‘Of course, but you haven’t said how else I can help. When next you visit, come by the kitchen door. It will always be left open for you. I can put out subtle enquiries about Petronius. I can supply you with a reliable man to act as a guide …’

  ‘Can you get me down a mine?’

  XVII

  When Valerius returned to his lodgings he found Zeno, Severus’s atriensis, awaiting him.

  ‘My master wished you to know we have discovered where your friend Petronius was staying,’ the doorkeeper said. ‘It is in a district favoured by lawyers and the like in the north of the city. I am to take you to the house if that is your wish, or we could wait until morning?’

  There was still more than an hour till dusk so Valerius said he’d accompany the man immediately.

  As they walked through the streets shopkeepers were closing their shutters and clearing their stalls. Valerius would have expected Zeno, servant to an important man in the city, to be well known to the tradespeople. Instead, men and women turned away as he passed, as if to make eye contact was to become tainted. He tried to make conversation, but the atriensis wouldn’t be drawn either on his opinion of Asturica, or how long he’d worked for his master.

  ‘This is it,’ he said, when they came to a green door in an impressive block of town houses. ‘According to his servant he rode from the city with another man on the kalends of August and never returned.’

  ‘May I speak to the servant?’

  Zeno’s face froze in a tight smile. ‘I am afraid he has left the area.’

  Whatever else you are good at, my friend, Valerius mused silently, you are a very poor liar. ‘Do you have a key?’ he said. ‘I won’t learn much staring at the door.’

  ‘Of course.’ The servant reached inside his tunic to retrieve a large key on a leather cord and used it to open the door. They stepped into the entrance hall and walked through to the atrium, with the usual opening in the roof and a rain pool in the centre of the tiled floor. Small bedrooms opened out from the atrium, the interiors hidden behind curtained doorways. Valerius checked both. They were empty of any signs of occupation.

  ‘As you can see the new occupant has yet to take up residence,’ Zeno explained.

  ‘What happened to his belongings?’

  ‘The servant,’ the atriensis shrugged. ‘He was owed wages.’

  They moved through to a room split to create a dining area and an office. Oddly, it contained no writing desk though the far wall was lined with niches for scroll cases.

  ‘His papers? He had an office. He must have had papers.’

  ‘I … I don’t know, sir.’

  The unnatural level of cleanliness struck Valerius as odd in the heat of summer with the wind bringing in dust through every open window, but somehow it had been achieved. The room was so clean even the slightest blemish caught his eye. He bent to look closely at something i
n the crack between two tiles.

  ‘Sir?’

  Valerius took out his knife and scraped a little of the substance away with the point. ‘What do you think this is?’

  Zeno looked utterly bewildered. ‘Dirt, perhaps ink or some kind of pigment?’

  Valerius studied the dark smudge. ‘Perhaps.’

  They went from the kitchen via a rear door out into the garden, where a blackened patch of earth answered Valerius’s question about the fate of Petronius’s papers. He walked around the perimeter and stopped beside a patch of slightly disturbed soil by the wall.

  ‘I’ve seen enough, thank you, Zeno.’

  He could almost feel the other man’s relief as he locked the door of the house behind them.

  ‘I’m sorry, sir, but it is my master’s belief that your friend has been killed by bandits and his body hidden.’

  Valerius shook his head sadly. ‘You’re probably right. I’ll make my own way back to the house.’ Zeno was about to protest, but the Roman forestalled him. ‘Leave me, Zeno, I wish to remember Marcus as he was.’

  Zeno left with a tight nod. Valerius waited till he disappeared from sight then walked towards the darkened entrance of the alley that adjoined the town house. Once in the shade he counted his steps till he guessed he was opposite the disturbed patch of earth on the far side of the wall. A few cracks and areas of missing mortar would make it simple enough for a man to scale the wall. And the tell-tale scratches from the hobnails on a caliga sandal told him someone had done so quite recently.

  Marcus Petronius was dead all right. But he hadn’t been killed by bandits. Gaius Valerius Verrens knew what dried blood looked like. Marcus had been murdered in the house, or injured there before being taken elsewhere and killed.