The crossroads brotherhood (vespasian)

by Robert Fabbi

  Vitus quickly handed over the loaves.

  ‘Now get out of here and don’t come back unless you plan to behave honestly,’ Magnus said cuffing Tigran around the ear.

  ‘Thank you, Magnus.’ Tigran turned quickly to go, clutching the loaves to his chest with one hand and clasping his money in the other. He pushed through the crowd of onlookers and disappeared.

  ‘As for you,’ Magnus growled, pulling Vitus by the collar so that their faces were nose to nose, ‘I want a list of everyone that you can remember passing that shit on to, plus the name of the person who supplied it, with me by morning, or it will be your last, if you take my meaning?’ He brought his knee sharply up into Vitus’ testicles and then walked away leaving the baker to crumple to the floor, eyes bulging, unable to breathe and with both hands grasping his damaged genitals. The crowd parted for him voicing their approval having witnessed justice well done.

  Magnus and Servius sat at a table in the shadowy, smoky confines of the small room behind the tavern that they used to conduct business. A jug of steaming hot, spiced and honeyed wine stood between them next to a single oil-lamp. ‘So we need to kill a Praetorian Tribune in a way that doesn’t look like an accident and doesn’t look like an obvious murder but is suspicious enough for Sejanus to recognise it as a warning from Antonia,’ Servius summarised.

  Magnus looked gloomy. ‘That’s about it, Brother. How the fuck can we do that?’ He took a swig from the cup of that he held in both hands and scalded his tongue.

  Servius looked on with amusement as his superior called on various gods to curse or strike down the obviously half-witted slave who had prepared the wine. ‘I think that was a good lesson,’ he observed once the tirade had subsided. ‘Drink the wine before it’s ready and it will hurt you; drink when it’s just right and it will please you. So let’s not rush into this…’

  ‘But we have to rush into this,’ Magnus interrupted — the burn had not helped his temper. ‘Antonia wants this done in the next couple days.’

  Servius raised a calming hand. ‘Yes, and it shall be. All I’m saying is that at the moment we don’t know how to approach it. The difference between an accident, death in suspicious circumstances and murder is the situation in which the body is found. A man may die falling from a horse that he rides every day; he may genuinely have fallen off, in which case it is an accident; or the horse may have been spooked on purpose by someone in order to get it to throw the man off, in which case it’s murder. However, if a man is found dead having fallen from a horse but it’s known that he never goes riding, then that’s death in suspicious circumstances; it would be highly unlikely to be an accident because what is he doing on the horse in the first place? And yet you can’t prove that it’s not; nor can you prove that it was murder because people die all the time from falling off horses.’

  Magnus’ face brightened; the pain from his burnt tongue forgotten. ‘Ah! So you’re saying that if we stage an “accident” whilst Blandinus is apparently doing something that he never normally does then Sejanus will suspect it was murder but be unable to prove it.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘So we need to use the rest of tonight and tomorrow to find out all that we can about the unfortunate tribune.’

  ‘Precisely, and then we will have to somehow lure or force the poor man into that unusual circumstance in which he will be found dead.’

  ‘Tricky but not impossible. Get the lads onto it immediately.’

  ‘I will Brother,’ Servius confirmed as a knock sounded on the door.

  ‘Yes?’ Magnus called.

  Marius stuck his head into the room. ‘Magnus, they’re here waiting outside, them Albanians, and a strange fucking sight they are too.’

  ‘I don’t care what they look like, so long as they’ve got the boys.’

  ‘Yeah, they got them all right.’

  ‘Good. Go and tell Cassandros to bring the boy into the tavern, I’ll send for him when I need him.’ Magnus rose to his feet. ‘Shall we go and do business, Brother?’

  ‘I think we should,’ his counsellor agreed following him out.

  Magnus surveyed the four bizarrely attired easterners waiting in the moonlight by the tables outside the tavern. Two pretty youths in their early teens, one with blond hair and one dark, stood next to them, staring at Magnus with frightened eyes, knives held to their throats.

  ‘Who speaks for you?’

  ‘I do,’ a middle-aged man said stepping forward. He wore a long-sleeved, saffron tunic, belted at the waist, that came to just below his knees, half covering a pair of dark-blue baggy trousers bunched in at the ankle to expose delicate, red-leather slippers. His oiled hair was jet black and fell to his shoulders framing a lean, high-cheek boned face dominated by a sharp, straight nose. Two dark, mirthless eyes stared back at Magnus; his thin mouth was just visible beneath a hennaed red beard that came to an upwards-curling point.

  ‘And you are?’ Magnus asked, trying to keep the contempt that he felt for this outrageous-looking whore-boy master out of his voice. Behind him Sextus and Marius led half a dozen brothers, armed with knives and cudgels, out of the tavern

  ‘Kurush,’ the Albanian replied resting his right hand on the hilt of a curved dagger hanging at his waist. ‘And you must be Magnus?’ His Latin was precise and with little trace of an accent.

  ‘I am. Let’s get this over with; show me the two boys.’

  ‘They have not been harmed or even interfered with; I can assure you of that with my word.’

  ‘I’m sure you can but, nevertheless, I wish to see them closer.’

  ‘A man who won’t take another man’s word is not worthy of trust himself. Let me see my boy. His condition will determine the state of the other two.’

  ‘Sextus, tell Cassandros to bring him out,’ Magnus ordered, keeping his eyes locked on Kurush.

  They waited in silence, staring at each other, for the few moments that it took Cassandros to appear with his charge.

  ‘Bring him here,’ Magnus said as the Greek dragged the struggling youth through the tavern door.

  ‘This man raped me,’ the whore-boy shrieked at Kurush, pointing an accusatory finger at Cassandros, ‘and paid nothing.’

  Magnus spun round. One look at Cassandros’ face confirmed that the boy was telling the truth: he could not meet his eye.

  ‘It would seem that we have a problem,’ Kurush observed. ‘I don’t take kindly to people making free with my property.’

  Magnus grabbed the youth from Cassandros’ grasp with his left hand and cracked his right fist into the Greek’s face, felling him. ‘I’ll take care of it once we’ve done the exchange; he’ll be punished, I give you my word.’

  ‘Why should I take your word when you wouldn’t take mine just now? But I’m not interested in him being punished, you can do what you like to him; I’m interested in a fair exchange.’

  ‘This is a fair exchange, more than fair, I’ve already given you one of your boys, let’s complete the transaction and then we need have nothing more to do with each other.’

  Kurush smiled icily and turned to his three companions speaking to them in their own language. The blond-haired boy was brought forward. Kurush took him by the neck and propelled him towards Magnus. ‘There, an untouched boy in payment for the one you sent me earlier.’

  The boy stumbled and fell at Magnus’ feet. Marius stepped forward, hauled him up and pulled him away.

  Kurush looked back at Magnus. ‘Now that leaves us with another untouched boy to exchange for a soiled boy; I don’t consider that fair.’ He barked a command in his own language.

  The dark-haired boy was forced down over a table. He started to shriek as two of the Albanians grabbed his arms, holding them firm, at the same time pressing their weight down on his back, pinning him. The third Albanian, a young, effeminate looking man with a wispy beard, barely out of his teens, pulled up the boy’s tunic and ripped off his loincloth, raised his own tunic and opened the flap in the groin of his trou
sers, his gaze never leaving the boy’s exposed buttocks. The boy screamed as the Albanian forced himself into him. The screaming stopped and the boy stared down at his white knuckled hands gripping the table’s edge as the Albanian took to his task with all the savagery of the abused that has become the abuser.

  Magnus stood and watched in silence, indicating to his men that they should do so too, knowing that to interfere would jeopardise the deal; Kurush was not a man to lose face and besides, it was nothing to him whether the boy was raped or not, the important issue was to get him back to Terentius unmarked, his value intact if not his dignity.

  ‘Is this absolutely necessary, Kurush?’ Magnus asked as the Albanian quickened his pace and grunted to a climax.

  ‘Yes Magnus, for two reasons: firstly to show you that whatever is done to me or mine will be repaid in full, and secondly, to demonstrate that my men do as they’re told.’ He pointed down to Cassandros still lying prone on the ground. ‘Unlike yours.’

  After a few moments collecting his breath the Albanian withdrew and wiped himself clean on the boy’s tunic, grinning at Magnus as he did so.

  ‘Very educational I’m sure, you’ve made your point. Now take your boy and give me mine.’

  Kurush barked another order and the boy was immediately released, grimacing with pain and clutching his loincloth. Magnus pushed Kurush’s boy towards him and as the two passed each other they paused for a moment, sharing a look of mutual sympathy, before carrying on back to their enslaved lives over which they had no control or say and in which the best that they could both hope for was to get through each day with as little misery as possible.

  ‘Now get out of my area by the quickest route,’ Magnus growled at Kurush as the boy passed him. ‘The offer of safe conduct doesn’t extend to any sightseeing. If you ever go near Terentius’ house again you’ll be a dead man, no matter who protects you.’

  ‘I think Terentius understands, well enough to make a second visit unnecessary, that there is only room at the top end of the market for one of our establishments.’

  ‘I know he does,’ Magnus muttered under his breath as the Albanians turned and left. ‘And so do I.’

  ‘DO WE HAVE anything interesting on our Tribune yet?’ Magnus asked Servius. They were making their way in the crisp and clear dawn air up the Via Patricius, one of the main thoroughfares of the Viminal. Cloaked and deeply hooded to avoid being recognised, they had especially chosen this chill time of day so that their attire would not stand out as suspicious.

  ‘Nothing yet,’ Servius replied from within the depths of his hood, ‘but it’s only been one night; give the lads time. I’ve got quite a few of them going round and asking questions, one of them should come up with something soon enough.’

  ‘It needs to be today.’

  ‘Then I suggest that you help matters by going to see Senator Pollo after you’ve met with your mate from The Cohort. He may know something about him.’

  Magnus muttered his agreement as the Viminal Gate came into sight.

  ‘It’s just up here on the left before the junction with the lamp-makers street,’ Servius informed him. ‘We should get onto the right-hand side of the road.’

  They crossed at the next set of raised stepping-stones, designed to keep pedestrians’ feet free from ordure but also to allow the passage of wheeled vehicles, and disappeared into the throng of people opening shops, buying bread, firing up braziers, visiting patrons, clearing drowsy beggars from doorways. Pushing through the crowd, Servius led Magnus to a tavern with an outside bar.

  ‘Two cups of hot wine,’ he ordered, placing a small denomination coin on the wooden counter.

  Once they had been served, Servius turned and nodded to a large two-storey, brick-built house. ‘That’s the Albanians’ place. As you can see it has no windows opening onto the street, no shops in its facade, it’s just a blank wall and a door.’

  Magnus looked at the two huge, bearded doormen in eastern garb, armed with cudgels and knives, guarding the entrance. ‘Is that door the only way in and out?’

  ‘Fortunately not.’ Servius pointed to a small street that led off from the Via Patricius two houses up from the Albanians’ establishment. ‘That’s the Lamp-makers’ street. There’s an alley that runs from it along the rear of all the buildings opposite; I sent Cassandros to have a look at it last night after the swap; he says that the wall is only ten-feet high and we could easily scale it and get up onto the roof.’

  ‘He’s making up for his mistake.’

  ‘I gave him a dangerous assignment and he understood why.’

  Magnus grunted approvingly. ‘We need to teach the randy sod a lesson; but that can wait. Do they keep a guard in the alley?’

  ‘Cassandros said that there was no one there last night, we’ll walk past in a moment and see if there’s one during the day.’

  ‘So, we get in and out over the roof, but we’ve still got those two brutes on the door to deal with. When they hear noise inside at least one of them will come in — that’ll make it easier.’ Magnus took a sip of his wine. ‘So if we have a group of our lads close by they could deal with the remaining one and then take the door; that sounds like a job for me and Marius, he’s not much good at shinning up walls in a hurry with just one hand.’

  ‘Yes, but you’d have to be quick to get the door before it’s bolted again on the inside.’

  ‘Unless we can make them think that some of their own are in danger out here in the street and are running for safety.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I met an easterner last night and he owes me a favour. His name’s Tigran, he lives in the shantytown on the Via Salaria; find him and see if he speaks Albanian or knows anyone who does.’ A well-dressed figure striding up the street with two bodyguards and a woman in a hooded, dark-brown cloak caught Magnus’ attention. ‘Well, well, our friend Sempronius is paying the whore-boys a visit; I wouldn’t have thought that that was his sort of thing.’

  ‘He’s probably just come to check that the exchange went alright last night. But what’s really interesting is who he’s got with him; I think I recognise that cloak.’

  Sempronius’ party approached the two doormen, one of whom immediately knocked rhythmically on the door; it opened and the doormen stepped aside to allow Sempronius in. As the woman followed him in she pulled down her hood.

  Magnus’ eyes widened. ‘Minerva’s wrinkled arse, that’s the new girl, Aquilina! I thought that there was something wrong about her when she offered to let me have her for nothing; nobody does something for nothing.’

  Servius downed the last of his wine. ‘Evidently someone else paid her. It seems that Sempronius has put a little spy in our midst.’

  Magnus slapped his counsellor on the shoulder. ‘I’d say that was a piece of good fortune. I think that’s just solved my last problem.’

  ‘You’re late!’

  Magnus chuckled looking down at the shadow cast by the seventy-feet high Egyptian obelisk on the Campus Martius; it was a couple of inches short of the third-hour line. ‘I didn’t think that anyone had the brains to read the sundial since I left the Urban Cohort, Aelianus.’

  ‘True enough, mate, I’m probably the only one who can, which is why they made me quartermaster,’ Aelianus replied grasping Magnus’ proffered forearm.

  ‘A moment of madness on their part but one that’s proved extremely lucrative for us, eh my friend?’

  Aelianus’ florid, round face creased into a gap-toothed grin and he passed his hand through his thinning copper-coloured hair. ‘And how are we going to exploit their moment of madness this time?’

  Magnus put an arm around the Aelianus’ shoulders and led him away from the tourists admiring the hundred-feet long, curved hour-lines emanating from the base of the obelisk sundial — set up by Augustus a generation before — and on towards the first emperor’s mausoleum on the bank of the Tiber, as it curved back northwards after a brief foray east. ‘Get me twenty Urban Cohort uniforms, minus the arm
our and shields.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘To pay a visit to an establishment that has caused me some grief. Oh, and I’ll also need you to set fire to your depot.’

  Aelianus raised his eyebrows. ‘Just like that?’

  ‘Yes my friend, just like that.’

  ‘And what’s in it for me?’

  ‘Half of what we find in the place, but with a guarantee of at least 225 denarii.’

  Aelianus whistled softly. ‘A year’s pay for a common legionary. Well, the tunics, belts, boots and cloaks will be no problem — I can have those for you by this evening. The helmets, swords and scabbards are slightly harder because I’ll have to wait until all my staff have left for the day — but I could bring them round to you personally by the third hour of the night. When do you plan to do this thing?’

  ‘The day after tomorrow, an hour before dawn when there shouldn’t be any clients in the house; so tonight will be fine, you can bring it all then.’

  ‘Good. But as to the fire, that’s a different matter: I need to think that through very carefully.’

  ‘Well, don’t take too long about it, my friend. I need that warehouse doing its best imitation of a beacon an hour before dawn in two day’s time.’

  ‘Oh it will be, Magnus, don’t you worry.’

  ‘That’s why I’m paying you so well, Aelianus, to take away my worries.’

  The ginger quartermaster grinned again. ‘If only you had more worries, I’d be a very wealthy man. I’ll see you later with the gear; can you send a few of your lads to escort me?’

  ‘Sure, they’ll be at your depot by the second hour of the night.’

  ‘Thanks, mate,’ Aelianus said turning to leave.

  ‘Before you go, Aelianus,’ Magnus said, stopping him. ‘There’s one more thing that I’ll need you to do when you come over tonight.’

  ‘It’s included in the price I suppose?’

  ‘Yes and it’s not negotiable.’