The Red Serpent

by Robert Low

  His big hobnails came down, slid on the grains of grit like it was a slick of oil. He crashed down, feeling the ankle break, slamming the amphitheatre wall; he lost his grip on the shield and heard it clattering free. Dazed for a moment, he tried to get up and the pain made him howl, though no one could hear it for the roaring.

  Then he looked up and saw the gladiator.

  Drust batted the spatha away with the remains of his fuscina, did it again and again until Aurelios realised he wasn’t getting anywhere. There was a sudden silence, even louder than the noise that had gone before, it seemed.

  Aurelios climbed onto his one good foot and stood. His shield had skittered away, too far to recover. His spatha was still in one fist but he couldn’t move forward to attack.

  Drust stood, watching. Someone yelled ‘missio’ and others took it up. Drust looked up and round at the crowd, then back at Aurelios, who had decided to forego a referee. He held the shattered fuscina just below the tines.

  Then he stepped in suddenly, so close the long sword was useless, though Aurelios tried to flail a strike, rasping uselessly off the arm protector

  The fuscina went up under Aurelios’s chin, the centre tine right up into his mouth, through his tongue, the force of the blow spearing it up behind his nose. The other two scored huge grooves in his cheeks – one, because it wasn’t a perfect strike, cracked through the jawbone and went in under the eye.

  Aurelios screamed and gugged. Drust gripped the last of the ruined shaft and turned, hauling Aurelios like a man trying to shoulder a sack of grain; the legionary burbled out bloody screams and fought to hobble on his good leg, trying to take some of the tearing weight off his face.

  Drust dragged him right into the middle of the sand and flung him away like a useless bag; Aurelios fell and choked and gurgled and died, noisily and painfully. The crowd bellows started to sound ugly as Drust turned to where Attalus was sitting and raised one arm in salute and message. Even so, he felt veiled from it, as if he walked alone in the middle of shadows – until something grabbed his arm and started pulling him.

  ‘Move yourself,’ Kag spat, ‘before they tear you to pieces.’

  He didn’t move. There was a dust cloud round him and all voices seemed to come from underwater – but he felt Kag drag him and then call out Ugo’s name. The next second, Drust was floating until he vaguely realised he was being carried by the big German, grunting with the effort as if he hefted a bale of cloth.

  There was a roaring and figures appeared – Drust saw Dis coming for him, but it was the harena one, who stopped and hesitantly looked round while his assistant, the one with the great cruel hook for dragging off the bodies, started to crouch and whimper. Shapes were dropping off the amphitheatre wall and Kag was screaming for Ugo to move his big fat arse…

  They came in through the Gate of Life, crossing from blinding light to the balmed confusion of shadows and shapes running and shouting. Drust heard Quintus bawling for Sib to help him close the gates, and the heavy wooden batten slammed down a moment later.

  There was a pinch on one cheek, a bee sting that made Drust raise a hand whose fingers seemed to belong to someone else. A second sting was sharper. The third was a clear slap that made him jerk away, and before the fourth arrived, he had caught Kag’s wrist.

  ‘You have sense now?’

  Drust nodded. Now there were people running back and forth in the dim undercroft and Sib, his eyes white as eggs, thrust his face close.

  ‘You fucking killed him – what did you do that for?’

  It was the harena, you Stupidus, Drust tried to say. That’s what we do… but his mouth wouldn’t work and it was Quintus who slapped the back of Sib’s head and told him exactly that. Kag gave a sour grunt.

  ‘You might have poked him a bit, made him squeal or beg. His mates would have hated him for it almost as much as they hate you. But you stuck that fucking big fish-fork up his nose – do you hear how they feel about it?’

  There was a mad hammering on the door and the thin threnody of a voice gone past fear into mad panic, demanding to be let in. It was Dis, or the one with the hook. The voices drowned in the hammering and howling.

  ‘A missio was not an option,’ Drust finally managed and no one argued with the look on his face.

  ‘They will be in through the Gate of Death,’ Stercorinus pointed out, looking warily at the dark that led in the inevitable circle back to where they were.

  ‘We cannot stay here,’ Praeclarum added and had a scathing look from Sib at this statement of the obvious.

  ‘I have a way,’ Kisa said.

  ‘Of course you have, little man,’ Quintus declared and slapped him hard on the shoulder, grinning that big white grin. ‘Lead on.’

  ‘You must remove all your gladiator armours,’ Kisa warned, ‘and wrap weapons in cloaks or tunics.’

  They saw the sense in it, even though Kag cursed the loss of decent fighting gear, bawling out what he would do to any fuck who stole it while they were gone. Drust did not think anyone would be waiting around to do that – but these were trouser-wearing Persians, so anything was possible.

  They followed Kisa, throwing aside panicked animal handlers and slaves until they reached a door, already flung open – a man dressed as the Atellan Manducus was forcing his way through the rest of his fellow actors, beating at them with his painted sword.

  ‘The Actors’ Gate,’ Kisa explained, and Ugo grabbed Manducus by his tin armour and hauled him back out of the way like a terrier with a rat; they piled through.

  Outside, people were scattering, others frantically gathering up the contents of shops and stalls and moving them to somewhere with a lock.

  ‘This is the Street of Baths,’ Ugo yelled out.

  ‘You are correct,’ Kisa replied, ‘though it remains a mystery how you know. Keep close, do not linger.’

  He led and they followed, dodging fleeing people, seeing the produce-laden dye seller and the spice merchant collide in a massive explosion of colours and then, astoundingly, simply get up and run off without argument or spilled goods. A speeding donkey, an ever-present threat in the streets of Dura, came rippling along at a fast trot, the rider swaying precariously. From somewhere close came the sound of shouts and breaking pottery.

  ‘A riot,’ Quintus said and grinned at Drust. ‘You have started a riot in the city…’

  They followed Kisa up a narrow alley between high, mud-wall houses to where an even taller wall loomed, with a single door in it. Kisa rapped loudly and the small grill in the centre flicked open, then closed; there was the sound of a locking bar sliding and the door opened for them to spill through.

  They stopped short after two or three steps, gaping like yokels at what they saw – a square atrium with painted colonnades, open to the sky and with a tessellated floor, at the centre of which was a column statue of someone – something – with many breasts.

  ‘Jupiter’s hairy cock,’ Kag swore, turning in circles.

  ‘Jupiter never put it anywhere near here,’ Quintus declared, not smiling for once. ‘This is Artemis, whose priests are self-inflicted eunuchs.’

  As if summoned, figures appeared, slippering softly over the tiled mosaic – a representation of Diana, Drust saw, hunting with bow and arrow. The figures were in white and saffron silks and linens, turbans and heavy eye make-up – priests, they all thought, though they were not sure if there were women among them.

  ‘Are they all cut slaves?’ Ugo wanted to know in a too-loud voice. Kisa opened and closed his mouth once or twice, caught between his innate desire to show his knowledge and not wanting to offend the saffron-robed figures.

  ‘Some are,’ said a voice. ‘All are slaves, women and men – the young men petition to join the rite of the Goddess once a year and most are granted. There they remove their own testicles with sharp knives.’

  Uranius stepped from the shadows of the colonnade and crossed the tiles to them, while everyone looked at the priests with a new sense of awe and dis
gust; Sib hissed and made warding signs.

  ‘Hecate,’ Stercorinus growled, though it was hard to say whether it was approval or not. Uranius smiled and stretched his arms to encompass the place; for the first time Drust and the others saw a second statue, built into the wall under the columns, a great arch with a carving of a serene woman with long, rippling locks, surrounded by images of people offering her tribute. There was a pond of fat fish in front and somewhere a cote of doves fluted.

  ‘The temple of Artemis Azzanathkona,’ Uranius declared, as if he had personally built it. He wore bronzed lappet armour over a white tunic and the red cloak was flung over one shoulder. He wore breeks, padded on the inside thigh for riding.

  ‘There is a wall cutting it off from the main barracks – the amphitheatre and the buildings beyond belong to the 20th Palmyran Cohort.’

  ‘Wait – what?’ Kag demanded and turned angrily to Kisa. ‘You brought us into the legionary camp? Home of those who want to tear us to bits?’

  ‘He brought you, at my bidding, into the headquarters of the 20th Palmyran,’ Uranius answered levelly. ‘The garrison of Dura-Europos. Every other Army clod here is a vexallation from somewhere else – the only garrison is us. We are auxiliaries. Worse than that, militia. You have nothing to fear from the 20th – they hate the Roman Army incomers more than they hate Persians.’

  He turned, expecting them to follow and they did, whispering a way across the tiles on their calloused soles.

  ‘My tribune has taken most of the 20th out into the streets to effect some order. You know we are all archers, a mixed unit of horse and foot?’

  ‘And twenty camels,’ Praeclarum added, which made Uranius smile as he reached another small door set in a wall.

  ‘A turma, so there should be thirty-two. Illness, losses – no unit is ever full.’

  He rapped on the door and it opened instantly – by someone waiting behind it for just such a task, Drust thought.

  ‘The temple is cut off from the camp but open to the city. There are many worshippers here,’ Uranius explained. ‘The 20th are mostly Syrian and Azzanathkona is a huntress – the Greeks say she is Artemis in another guise. The Romans claim her as Diana the Huntress. Archers, you see – so the 20th venerate her.’

  ‘We are safe here?’ Drust asked and Uranius nodded.

  ‘For now – but we must get you out of the city. There are provisions waiting at a spot beyond the Palmyra Gate.’

  ‘Provisions?’

  ‘Water and food enough for your journey.’

  ‘Wait,’ Kag growled. ‘We have camels and herders for them. We have just thrown away all our fighting gear…’

  ‘We will rescue all once the 20th has restored order,’ Uranius declared, then looked grim. ‘That will hopefully be before some drunken arsehole finds a slather of purple cloth and throws it over the head of Attalus or someone else.’

  He looked round them all. ‘That is what I am sent here to watch for. The garrisons here are sloppy and degraded, ripe for any foolishness, including declaring one of their own as a new Emperor.’

  ‘Is Attalus a Stupidus then?’ Praeclarum demanded. ‘Enough to accept such a thing?’

  ‘It is an honour few can refuse,’ Uranius answered. ‘If you accept, you are a traitor to Rome, and you all know how that ends. If you refuse, then the ones who offered it will be offended, and you all know how that ends.’

  ‘I can hear it,’ muttered Ugo, looking towards the faint sound of breaking. Uranius nodded.

  ‘Attalus must be rescued before such a choice is offered – my tribune and the bulk of the 20th are doing just that.’

  ‘Authentēs,’ Kisa said warningly. ‘Time.’

  Uranius nodded; Drust realised, with a sudden shock, that Kisa was not working for the Shayk, but for Uranius.

  ‘Kisa will take you to where you can find tunics and cloaks and helmets. You will each take a camel and ride out as men of the 20th. At the meeting point there will be camels provided by the Shayk. After that, you are on your own.’

  He paused. ‘When you return, contact me. No one else – the Shayk cannot be trusted and he offers this caravan with motives of his own. Also, do not trust the Praeses Mesopotamiae, who is no true friend to the Emperor.’

  Drust had no idea who the assistant governor of Mesopotamia even was, and said so as he cautiously took Uranius’s proffered arm in a wrist grip of farewell.

  ‘Gaius Julius Verus Maximinus,’ Uranius said as they filtered off, one by one, following Kisa. ‘They call him Thrax because he was born there, a barbarian from Moesia. You will not miss him when you see him…’

  The last slithered after Drust like an echo and was lost in the soft babble of the others arguing over too-short tunics and too-large helmets, while patient men of the 20th watched impassively, saying nothing, but listening to the sound of riot and wondering whether the world was indeed falling.

  By the time they were out of the Palmyran Gate, urging dirty-white camels towards a distant, vague meeting, Drust’s look back at the city only confirmed what appeared to be everyone’s worst fears. Threads of smoke feathered the sky from where the rioters had started burning and the gate was choked with people fleeing with the detritus of their lives.

  The world was falling.

  Chapter Five

  The country beyond Dura was as graceless as a dead lion, a tawny slump where they rode between the ridges of its ribs, shuffling up the powdered grit, scattering the little stones from a well-worn trail. The ribs they moved over were striated, as if by the claws of the jnoun which killed this great beast. They had travelled other deserts, from Tingis to Palmyra and now beyond, but all were agreed – this was a carrion land.

  Drust did not know much of it for the first three days, but he came to it at last, round the comfort of a camel-dung fire with the soft gurgle of the beasts and the low murmur of conversation. The only spoiling in it was Praeclarum, grinning ruin down on his naked body.

  She stopped smiling when she saw he was awake and the others saw the change in her face.

  ‘There you were,’ Quintus said, grinning his wide, white grin, as if to show Praeclarum’s fault in a worse light, ‘dreaming of that Gaulish girl in Milo’s and you get that.’

  ‘Perhaps you can ease his hurts better than me,’ Praeclarum replied flatly, going on with the delicate touch of expert fingers. Drust squinted down and saw the midnight colour of his side.

  ‘Ahh,’ he managed and Kag squatted by him, nodding admiringly to Praeclarum.

  ‘You carry on, girl, and ignore that long-legged lout. No one knows the secret of bruise healing like you.’

  ‘Unwashed wool, dipped into a mixture of pounded rue and fat,’ she said, sponging gently. ‘Plus prayers to Fortuna and Asclepius.’

  ‘There’s always a fucking Greek in it somewhere,’ Sib murmured, turning something sizzling on a grill over coals; the smell made Drust’s mouth water but he wanted more than food.

  ‘What happened? Where are we?’

  ‘Up Fortuna’s arse, trying to duck Jupiter’s fat cock,’ Quintus replied sourly.

  ‘Three days out of Dura,’ Kag answered, throwing a quick scowl at Quintus. ‘On the caravan trail to Singara, where we are to meet a man called Narseh. This is not a place you want to be if you have offended powerful deities.’

  ‘Narseh-dux,’ a voice corrected and Kisa thrust his smiling face into Drust’s eyeline. ‘He is one of the Shayk’s men.’

  ‘Like you,’ Kag growled and Kisa’s face closed like a stone clam. Not true, Drust wanted to say. He is the creature of Uranius, he wanted to say. But it all seemed such an effort, so he said nothing.

  ‘No matter his name,’ Sib said from beyond Drust’s sight. ‘Let’s hope he can get us decorated. Our own camels and herders are gone. Our equipment is gone. We have only a dozen Army camels now. Just about enough water to reach the next oasis, which we would be in now except…’

  He stopped and busied himself with the meat and the fire.
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  ‘Except,’ Kag finished, looking at Drust, ‘you kept threatening to fall off the camel and Praeclarum stopped us all before you did.’

  ‘If not, it might have made matters worse,’ Praeclarum interrupted; Kag acknowledged it with a flap of one hand.

  ‘All well and good,’ Sib argued, ‘but the oasis will have other trains and their guards. We have already lost almost all we possess, and if anyone is on our trail, we will lose even more.’

  ‘There will be folk on our trail,’ Kag grunted in reply. ‘If you are leaving tracks, someone always is – but we left riot behind us and that will gain us a few days.’

  ‘If there is pursuit it won’t be by the dromedarii,’ Kisa soothed. What he did not add, Drust thought, trying to ease the throbbing ache of his ribs, was that Attalus wouldn’t trust Uranius’s camel-soldiers. He’d send riders, all the same.

  Drust looked round as best he could without moving more than his head. Almost everyone had filched a red cloak and a tunic that, stained though it was, was better quality and cleaner than the ones they’d worn to fight in the harena. His thoughts were drowned out by arguments, the voices low and urgent growls; Praeclarum stopped sponging and got Stercorinus to help her raise Drust to sitting so she could bind him, a process of shrieking agony that slowly paled to a dull red glow of pain. The binding was tight and made it hurt to breathe deeply, but it let him stand on wobbling legs.

  ‘He smacked you hard,’ Kag said, breaking off from growling at the others. ‘Still – that Army boy didn’t deserve a trio of daggers in the face.’

  ‘It is done,’ Drust answered curtly, not wanting discussion or even thought on it, because he remembered what he had done, could watch himself doing it and did not like the wash of shame and revulsion he felt. Yet the man had been set to kill him…

  ‘Done well,’ Quintus put in. ‘That greyback was set on sixing you for all that no deaths had been paid for.’

  ‘Expensive all the same,’ Sib spat back, ‘considering that we have lost everything we owned and are now pursued into the desert.’