by Peter Tonkin
‘You made good time,’ said Artemidorus.
‘Thought you’d be further on,’ gasped Quintus.
‘Got distracted,’ explained Ferrata. ‘We found…’
‘Tell them later,’ ordered Artemidorus. ‘What have you got, Quintus?’
Quintus urged his horse forward as he reached into his saddlebag. He brought out a bag bulging with what looked and smelt like bread and cheese. And a wine skin. All of which he passed to Ferrata. Then he reached in a little deeper and produced, with a flourish, an expensive-looking, ornate gladius in a tooled black leather scabbard overlaid with bronze. ‘Bargain,’ he said holding the impressive weapon almost reverently. ‘Stallholder didn’t know what he was selling. Said he got it from a sailor down on his luck.’ He slid the sword out of the scabbard. ‘Look at the work on that blade. It’s superb. The quality of the metal’s excellent too. And, I know it doesn’t match, but…’ he reached into his saddlebag deeper still and produced a pugio dagger. ‘Steel’s almost as good as yours,’ he said. ‘I have no idea where the stallholder got the dagger, though. Maybe from another sailor. Who knows? But the work on both of them looks like it’s from Mauretanian Tingitana to me. North African certainly. Punic, maybe. Though I don’t think either of them’s old enough to have come from Carthage. African for sure but not Egyptian.’
‘Pity they don’t match,’ said Ferrata.
Quintus threw him a look that would have shattered marble. ‘Best I could do!’ he snapped.
‘They’re perfect,’ said Artemidorus. ‘The boy wants to be a soldier. And what soldier doesn’t love exotic weapons? These will be better than anything he’s got…’
‘Unless he’s got a gladius that Caesar gave him, of course,’ interrupted Ferrata. ‘When they were together in Spain.’
‘Ferrata,’ rumbled Hercules, in obvious amusement. ‘Are you just looking to get a whipping? Even if Septem hasn’t got a vinestock on him at the moment, he’ll be happy to use his belt, I bet, if you don’t shut your big mouth…’
Artemidorus shook his head. Hercules was right. Quintus was getting genuinely angry. Ferrata was in danger of going too far with his needling. And, as he did not have the whippy club made of thick oiled vine stems which was one of the marks of a centurion’s authority – and which was also a useful aid to discipline – he nevertheless had his wits. ‘Ferrata,’ he said. ‘Now’s a good time to tell Quintus what we found. There may have been news of missing people in the market.’
With Ferrata’s mouth gainfully employed and peace restored, the four of them rode onwards. While Ferrata’s last crack about Caesar’s sword niggled in the secret agent’s mind.
xii
They caught up with the dead couple’s horses at a mansio staging post late in the afternoon. The beasts were obviously working horses, not fleet stallions. A matched pair of brown geldings, broad in shoulder and haunch. Short-legged and powerful. But by no means built for speed. Though they, like the horses in the field with the corpses, had been ridden into the ground. Were covered in salt sweat and would take days to recover.
‘Do you know who these horses belong to?’ Artemidorus asked the man who owned the stable. A matched pair like that would be expensive, he thought. And, taken with the quality of the dead couples’ clothes, suggested a rich and influential family. From somewhere not too far away along the Via Appia.
‘No. Certainly not to the men who left them here. A right couple they were. Riding horses into the ground like that. Why do you ask?’
‘Just wondering. So, you gave them a pair of horses in exchange for these?’
‘In exchange for these and a fair quantity of coin.’
‘Do you have horses we can exchange for these five – and a fair quantity of coin?’
‘I do. And better horses than I gave those supercilious snot-nosed nothi bastards. I hate to see horses treated like that so I gave them a couple of nags they couldn’t run to death.’
‘That’s perfect,’ said Artemidorus, deciding not to ask how Balbus’ murderous messenger had put the man’s nose out of joint. Other than by their treatment of horseflesh. Happy just to thank Fortuna and his personal demigod Achilleus, hero of Troy, for the good luck. ‘Quintus, would you oversee things here. Then join us in the mansio itself. Just food and wine. No bath this time. And we won’t be staying. It’s going to be another clear night and the moon’s full. We’ll push on as soon as we’re ready.’
As he sat at the mansio’s largest table, with Ferrata and Hercules opposite, Artemidorus laid the gladius and pugio that Quintus had bought on the table. They made an impressive sight, even though they did not match. He eased the pugio out of its sheath and tested the point against his thumb. Then sucked the blood off his wounded skin when the blade sank in as though his flesh was cheese. ‘Sharp,’ observed Ferrata.
The secret agent nodded. And pulled his own dagger from its sheath. Laid it on the table beside the sword. Ferrata gave a low whistle of astonishment. ‘Yours is a much better match,’ he said. ‘They could almost be a set.’
‘That’s what I was thinking,’ said Artemidorus. But the conversation stopped there with the arrival of food and wine. To make room for which the weapons had to be cleared away.
They were in the saddle again before sunset. And discovered with some pleasure that the stableman had not lied. These were four fast horses, and a pack animal strong enough to keep up with them as they thundered southwards into the brief darkness between sunset and moonrise.
*
Two days later at sunset they pulled their mounts to a stop immediately outside the gate of Capua city, just as they would have in Rome, and put their swords into the saddlebags. This was a civilised Roman town. There would be rules of conduct, aedile magistrates to see them enforced. Patrols of vigiles constables to back them up. So, armed only with their daggers, they entered the city and found the forum. It was easy to do so because although Capua was an ancient Etruscan and Samnite settlement, the Romans had laid it out in the Roman way when they took over its governance. The central square of the thriving metropolis was full of people going about the last of their daily rituals. Men and women strolling from the baths to their villas, planning cena dinner and their evening’s entertainment. Going to and from the temples of Diana Tifitania and Hercules, both popular local deities. The markets, shops and stalls were still open, though business was easing off. Above two or three welcomingly open doorways, lamps in the shape of winged penises burned, draped with garlands that emphasised the fact that they were at least taverns, and probably hospitia.
‘See?’ grumbled Ferrata, who was tired, saddle-sore and increasingly mutinous. ‘We could have come straight down the Via Latina. And it wouldn’t have made any difference. Saved some time, that’s all. And a good few blisters on my backside…’
For much of the afternoon they had been riding through increasingly populous country past the point where the Via Latina rejoined the Via Appia. Through great fields that would be green with spelt later in the spring. Past copper mines in the distant hills; foundries and workshops nearer at hand. And, lingeringly, past the infamous schools that produced the greatest gladiators of all.
‘Didn’t you do some training here?’ asked Quintus. ‘During the Third Servile War? Before you became Scorpius, scourge of the arena?’
‘Just before you slaughtered Spartacus, you mean?’ asked Artemidorus.
‘That’s only a rumour,’ snapped Quintus.
‘Can we at least pause here for long enough to get some feeling back on my culus arse?’ demanded Ferrata. ‘It feels as though Spartacus and half his army have been…’
‘Very well,’ nodded Artemidorus. But then he said, ‘Wait! Look.’
Crossing the square towards one of the garlanded doorways, oblivious to the common bustle of their surroundings, strode the murderous soldier and his patrician companion. The setting sun struck across the square of the forum, lighting their faces and blinding them. Seeming to cast the pair of them in bro
nze. There could be no mistake.
Praying, aptly enough, to Achilleus that his legs would work properly, Artemidorus slid off his horse. ‘Hercules, look after the horses,’ he ordered. ‘Quintus. Ferrata. With me.’
xiii
The atrium of the hospitium was almost as busy as the forum outside. The three companions stood for a moment at the inner end of the vestibulum entrance hall looking around. Lingering here, they were three steps above the level of the atrium floor. And that was just about the only difference between this and the hospitium of Campoverde. Though this was, if anything, larger and more sumptuously appointed. Just the sort of place for the short-tempered soldier and his supercilious associate.
A swift glance round was enough for Artemidorus to make out the pair of them as they shouldered their way to a table at the far side of the room. Pushing past clientis clients and servi waiters alike. The spy was in action at once, running down the steps with Ferrata at one shoulder and Quintus at the other in a tight arrowhead formation. It took the three of them a little longer to cross the room than the two men they were following. Artemidorus and his men did not shoulder the other clients, and the men and women serving them, so rudely out of the way. They did not push past, swagger by or stare down the quieter patrons. But they turned heads. And by the time they arrived at the inner table, almost every eye in the place was watching them. Except for those belonging to one or two preoccupied groups. And those of their two suspects, who were talking quietly to each other, apparently oblivious. Even when Artemidorus stopped, towering above them.
‘Gaius Valerius Flaccus, I believe,’ said Artemidorus. His tone icy.
‘What’s that to you?’ sneered Flaccus, looking up.
‘To me? Nothing. But it would have meant a lot to the young couple and their driver who you murdered as you stole their horses because you could not steal ours.’
Flaccus erupted, sending the table skittering back across the floor, reaching for the vacancy on his belt where his gladius should have hung. Finding instead the hand of his young companion on his forearm, restraining him. ‘I am Marcus Fulvius Nobilitor,’ the young man said quietly, his cultured tones carrying over the hush. Clearly trained by a master of elocution. Planning on a swift ascent of the cursus honorum ladder to political power. ‘Can you prove this ridiculous accusation?’
‘We found the horses you abandoned beside the carriage you rolled off the Via Appia. In which were the bodies of the couple you stabbed. With the gladius you are reaching for even now. Forgetting, in your anger, that you are forbidden to carry it within the city walls.’ Artemidorus continued to speak to Flaccus, ignoring Nobilitor for the moment.
‘But can you prove it?’ insisted the young patrician, sounding unsettlingly like Cicero.
‘My companion here saw as much as I did,’ said Artemidorus, stretching the truth.
‘So. It’s your word against ours. Two against two. A couple of common soldiers’ words against an eques Roman knight and a patricus patrician with an ancient name.’ Nobilitor laughed and shook his head, dismissing the three men.
‘Two honest Roman soldiers against a murderous horse thief and his supercilious accomplice,’ answered Artemidorus. His voice carrying as far as Nobilitor’s. And trembling with passion. Ringing with truth.
Flaccus lost his temper then. Even more quickly than Artemidorus had calculated that he would. He threw aside the table and the stunned Nobilitor along with it, launching himself straight at the centurion. Who stepped aside and let the enraged man barge past him. The three companions closed ranks behind Flaccus, presenting a solid wall as he swung round, knocking over two more tables and spraying water, wine and food over everyone nearby.
‘Shall we take this outside, Gaius Valerius?’ suggested Artemidorus, calmly. His voice steady. His tone reasonable.
‘So you and your companions can dispose of me together, three against one?’ snarled Flaccus. ‘I think not!’ He launched himself at Artemidorus again, knocking over yet another table as he did so. Spilling an amphora of wine and a jug of water over the three men who were sitting at it. Locked in quiet conversation. Apparently unaware of the events unfolding around them. Until now. They leaped up as though they were one person. Stepped back, shoulder to shoulder. A tight defensive unit, like the spy and his two companions.
Artemidorus froze. Stunned. As though the huge blow that Flaccus aimed at him had actually landed instead of whipping past his nose. He stepped back and, when Flaccus sprang forward swinging his fist in once again, the secret agent caught it in both hands and held the raging man still for just a moment as he spoke, his voice lowered but still carrying over the stunned silence. As he looked the young man standing in the middle of the wine-soaked trio straight in the eye.
‘Centurion Eques Gaius Valerius Flaccus, may I introduce you to the man you have come searching for? Gaius Octavius Julius Caesar. Or, more properly, I believe, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus. And his companions Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa and Quintus Salvidienus Rufus.’
‘What?’ Flaccus was as stunned as Artemidorus. ‘Is this true?’ He pulled his fist free, stepped back and turned. Glared accusingly at the three men.
Who were, suddenly, the centre of attention. Everyone in the atrium seemed frozen, staring at them while they tried to comprehend what on earth was going on.
‘May we discuss this outside, as you suggested?’ said the young man Artemidorus had called Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus. He turned decisively and walked towards the steps leading up to the vestibulum and out into the forum. Flaccus stood, as though he had lost the power of movement. He did not object when Artemidorus pushed his shoulder gently, simply swung round and followed on almost mindlessly. Artemidorus looked back at Nobilitor, who had actually been knocked to the floor by his raging companion. The patrician picked himself up, dusted himself down, straightened his clothing and began to catch up with the little group as they moved towards the door. Artemidorus followed Flaccus up the steps across the short vestibule and out into the forum.
The three young men moved to one side, standing in a shadow. Flaccus crossed to stand in front of them and Artemidorus stayed close with Ferrata and Quintus at his shoulders. Nobilitor limped out after them, his face thunderous. Artemidorus couldn’t even begin to calculate the number of things that had happened recently which might have upset the supercilious patrician. But he reckoned that a good deal of his wrath would be aimed at Flaccus.
Then thoughts about Balbus’ emissaries were suddenly thrust to the back of his mind. For he was being addressed directly.
‘How did you recognise me?’ Octavius’ voice was calm. Gentle. But there was something in his tone that marked him as a natural leader. A confidence that he was equal to any situation. That he would be heeded. And obeyed without question. He stepped towards Artemidorus, bringing his face into the light of the lamp above the door. He had Caesar’s broad forehead with an unruly fringe of thick hair falling forward above it. The eyes beneath delicately curved, slightly overhanging, brows were large, deep, burning with intelligence. Under the wide cheekbones capped with neat ears, the jaw fell away to a pointed chin. Which avoided weakness because it thrust forward into a slight cleft. He had Caesar’s nose. And Caesar’s mouth. Artemidorus thought, I would have known you anywhere, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus. ‘I saw you in Spain, Caesar,’ he answered. ‘When you were with your adoptive father.’
If Octavius was surprised at being addressed by his new title, he did not show it. ‘You were at Munda?’ he asked.
‘I was in Spain,’ repeated Artemidorus. ‘I saw you there.’ He did not add that he had been the boy’s secret guardian, ensuring – albeit almost invisibly – that he crossed the war-torn country safely and reached Caesar’s side alive.
Octavius looked at his companions. ‘And you have been sent to greet me,’ he observed. ‘By whom?’
Artemidorus opened his mouth to answer. But several things happened in rapid succession before he could form the words.
/> Flaccus thrust himself forward, arrogantly taking Artemidorus’ place, saying, ‘I have been sent by Lucius Cornelius Balbus with my companion Marcus Fulvius Nobilitor…’
Somewhere in the distance, Hercules bellowed, ‘Septem, look out! Hey you…’
And, with a sound like that of an angry hornet, a short, black, arrow-shaft whizzed through the space Artemidorus’ head had occupied an instant before. Slammed into Flaccus’ head, which had taken its place. Piercing it completely. Wedging itself from one temple to the other. And smashing him onto the ground at Caesar Octavianus’ feet.
‘Well,’ observed Ferrata. ‘Now we know exactly what he’s got on his mind…’
‘Don’t just stand there spouting jokes,’ snapped Artemidorus, the battle-hardened centurion of the VIIth. ‘Inside. Everybody. NOW!’
IV
i
Aedile magistrate Lucius Claudius Siculus was not a happy man. Artemidorus could tell by the still-damp blotches down the considerable front of his robes that he had been summoned in the midst of a truly epic cena. The stains were of wine, garum and various other sauces, enlivened, if the sharp-eyed spy was right, with morsels of unctuous eel, dark duck and pallid mutton. Olives, egg yolks and pomegranate, all still brightly coloured. Artemidorus’ attention had been gripped by these spots and speckles because they were very like the ones on Nobilitor’s white tunic. Only those were a uniform pinkish red. And had come from Flaccus’ head rather than from Lucius Siculus’ table.
The unhappy law officer had no idea who the men he was questioning about the murder of Gaius Valerius Flaccus actually were. Because no one had told the vigiles constables anything other than that the dead man had been shot with an arrow fired by someone who had escaped into the night. Hercules had described the assassin to them. A tall shape clad in a colourless cloak, carrying a bow with a long central section. Down which a shorter, more powerful arrow or bolt could be fired. With astonishing range and unsettling accuracy. Making Artemidorus certain that it was the same interfector assassin who tried to kill him earlier. A fact he had not yet disclosed. Certainly, whoever it was had used the same weapon. He and Quintus agreed on that. Hercules had seen the figure outlined against the evening sky, taking aim from a roof overlooking the forum. And had seen it vanish into the shadows. Before the vigiles had been summoned.