The Succession

by Robert Fabbri

  With relief Magnus watched the six brothers who had been delegated to represent the brotherhood set off with their lashed-up hounds and a good part of the local community following. As the end of the parade disappeared down the Vicus Longus, Magnus, picking up a skin of water and a fresh tunic and slinging them over his shoulder, called to Cassandros and Lupus to join him in the back room.

  ‘When Sextus returns, Cassandros,’ Magnus said, putting down his water-skin and tunic and then pointing at the leather satchel on the desk, ‘put what he gives you in this and then before midday slip into Tigran’s room and hide it under the mattress.’ He took a key from the drawer in his desk. ‘This is a duplicate; it’ll get you in.’

  Cassandros looked at Magnus questioningly, his brow furrowed as he took the key and picked up the satchel.

  ‘Just do it, brother; it’s how I plan to stay alive.’

  Cassandros looked down at the satchel. ‘Right you are, Magnus.’

  ‘Good lad. Then, once you’ve done that, make yourself very scarce until at least the eighth hour.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Never you mind.’ Magnus turned to the younger brother. ‘Lupus, go and get the handcart and bring it round to the side door.’

  Without questioning the unusual request, the younger brother went to do as asked.

  Magnus took a ring with three more keys on it from the drawer in the desk, turned and walked towards the door at the far corner of the room. Unlocking it, he passed through into a corridor, with padlocked, double doors leading to the outside world at one end and a couple of smaller doors along its length. Opening the first of these with the second key he stepped into a small cell.

  ‘Good morning, Pansa. How’s your head feeling today?’ A whimper from the other side of the cell caused Magnus to glance left. ‘Good morning to you too, Tacita. I’d like you to watch this.’

  Pansa opened his eyes and looked up from the heap of rags upon which he had been sleeping; his wrists and ankles were bound. ‘Magnus! What the fuck am I doing here? When Sempronius finds out you’ll be dead.’

  ‘I wouldn’t think so, Pansa; in fact, I doubt very much that Sempronius will ever find out that you were here.’ With one fluid movement, Magnus pulled a blade from the sheath hanging from his belt in the small of his back.

  Pansa had barely a moment to react as Magnus grabbed his head and plunged the knife into his chest. The wind was knocked from him and he looked down in horror as Magnus rolled his wrist left and then right, shredding the muscle of his heart.

  Holding the dying man’s hair in his fist, Magnus pulled on the handle; the blade emerged with a slop of blood, staining the front of Pansa’s tunic. A final croak, low and rattling, issued from his throat as he made the transition from life to death. Tacita’s whimpers increased in volume as she watched Magnus wiping the blade clean on Pansa’s hair.

  ‘Did you see just how easy that was?’ Magnus asked in a conversational manner.

  Tacita nodded, her eyes transfixed on the corpse.

  ‘Now, you have a choice: I can either walk out of this room having done exactly the same to you, or you can tell me the real truth as to how Sempronius knew about the charts.’

  ‘But I have, Magnus.’

  ‘No, Tacita, you haven’t. Yesterday when I pointed out that you had given away the location of the charts you said: “But I’d been so careful”. That implies that you had been concealing the whereabouts of the charts from Sempronius for some time. The truth, Tacita, or by the gods I swear your life means nothing to me.’

  Tacita swallowed and then looked up at Magnus, eyes pleading. ‘I told Sempronius about them a few days ago; although I said that I didn’t know where Tuscus kept them as the hiding place wasn’t in the house but I would find out where it was, retrieve them and sell them to him.’

  ‘And you went to him and not me because you knew perfectly well that I would never countenance a wife stealing from her husband.’

  Tacita gave a sullen nod. ‘I thought that I could get my revenge on Tuscus for his whoring by selling the charts and at the same time get enough money to be free of him and still have nice things to wear. But then when he beat me and you refused to help I worked out how to have him killed and keep the charts to sell.’

  ‘So you had been careful to conceal their location.’

  ‘Of course, otherwise I knew that Sempronius would just steal them and I’d get nothing.’

  ‘Which is now what you’ve ended up with because of that little slip of the tongue.’

  Tacita now wept freely. ‘I’m sorry I lied to you, Magnus.’

  ‘No you’re not.’

  ‘What are you going to do with me?’

  ‘I’ll think about it.’ Magnus slipped back out into the corridor and unlocked the padlock on the doors at its end.

  Lupus was outside waiting with the handcart.

  ‘Good lad,’ Magnus said. ‘Get Pansa in that and cover him up.’

  ‘How am I meant to do that, Magnus? He won’t want to co-operate.’

  ‘He will, trust me. Now hurry up; I’ve got a timetable.’ He handed Lupus the keys. ‘Lock up when you’ve finished and put the keys back in my drawer. Get the tunic and the skin of water by the desk and bring them with you. I’ll meet you at Lampmakers’ Street as soon as I’ve done one thing, which will not take long.’

  ‘But that’s on the Viminal.’

  ‘You’re getting to know your way around, I see. Good lad. From an alley off it we can see Sempronius’ house; I want to know when he’s gone.’ With a pinch of Lupus’ cheek, Magnus left him to his work.

  ‘In an hour’s time, Magnus? I don’t know if that can be organised.’ Senator Pollo looked apologetic. ‘Especially not with the Punishment of the Dogs going on at the moment. What makes you so sure that this is the right place?’

  Magnus sat down opposite his patron. ‘Sempronius organised Tuscus’ death; Tacita admits that and admits that she was to pay for it with the charts that she was originally going to sell to Sempronius – although she never handed over the payment. Now, Tacita told me that she watched the killers come to Tuscus’ door; he answered it and then let them in immediately, so he must have known at least one of them not to feel threatened by them. Also, Barbatus reckons that he was killed from behind, which is another reason to think he knew them as he was comfortable enough in their presence to turn his back on them. Now you said something that got me thinking: you said that most of the prominent people on the Quirinal had consulted Tuscus and probably from the Viminal as well.

  ‘So who would Tuscus have been familiar enough with from the West Viminal Brotherhood to let them in after dark? My guess is only Sempronius himself; he’d been consulting Tuscus along with the other prominent people on the Viminal and Quirinal. When he heard about the charts from Tacita he would have, like you, been very anxious to get his back. Now, Tuscus wouldn’t have found it unusual that Sempronius came after dark because that would be the normal time he came to consult him, not wanting to be caught out in the open by my lads. He would have been relaxed enough in Sempronius’ presence to turn his back on him. Killing Tuscus would have been a mixture of business and honour for Sempronius, seeing as the astrologer had made a copy of his chart with the probable intention of using it for blackmail.’

  Senator Pollo contemplated all that for a few moments and then slowly nodded. ‘Added to the fact that Tacita states that Sempronius had been very insistent she was to take the charts to his house, that makes it reasonably certain they are still in there; if it was him who stole them, of course.’

  ‘Of course it was him; no one else knew about them at the time. It has to be Sempronius and I’ll bet that he thinks he’s going to have a lot of fun with them.’

  ‘But Barbatus hasn’t got any jurisdiction on the Viminal; how is he going to organise a raid there with Quirinal Vigiles?’

  ‘I think this has just got bigger than the Quirinal aedile. I think that you should get him to approach the prefect of th
e city and get him to raid the place with Urban Cohort lads.’

  ‘Lucius Volusius Saturninus? But he and Sempronius have an understanding, as you well know; it was the prefect whom Sempronius bribed after he’d been condemned to the beasts when you managed to get him caught taking delivery of that ballista a few years back. How will we persuade him to do anything about it?’

  ‘He’s as worried as the rest of you. He was a part of that group that Barbatus was talking to outside the Senate House yesterday; you saw him.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right; he was, wasn’t he.’

  ‘I’m willing to bet that he has been consulting our little underground astrologer as well and therefore has a vested interest in getting the charts back as soon as possible before the Emperor finds out about them and he loses his nice cosy position. He’s not going to let Sempronius’ financial considerations to him compromise that. I would get Barbatus to see him now and have him act before Sempronius moves them somewhere safer; like out of the city.’

  ‘Hmm, yes, I see what you mean. I’ll send a message to Barbatus now before I go to the Capitoline for the ceremony.’ The senator pushed himself up onto his feet and then paused. ‘What about that raid on your premises that you wanted me to order?’

  Magnus got to his feet. ‘Don’t worry about that any more, senator. I’m just about to do something that will ensure that, after Sempronius’ place is turned over, mine will be next in line.’

  Magnus smeared mud over his tunic and mixed it with the blood on his face in an alleyway just off Sempronius’ side street, about a hundred paces from his house. ‘How do I look?’

  Lupus studied him for a few moments. ‘I couldn’t recognise you.’

  ‘Good. Now take off your South Quirinal amulet in case some sharp-eyed bastard notices it.’ Magnus pulled his over his head as Lupus did the same. ‘Are you ready?’

  ‘As I’ll ever be.’

  Magnus slapped his shoulder, checked the horoscope chart and amulet were securely tucked in his belt, then bent down and pulled on Pansa’s lifeless wrist, heaving up the body from the handcart and getting its arm around his neck. Lupus did likewise so that the corpse was slung between them.

  With two quick glances, Magnus checked both directions of the side street. ‘Good, it’s busy. Hang on!’ Looking up the street Magnus saw a couple of the West Viminal brethren leaving Sempronius’ house with dogs tied to poles. ‘I thought you said that Sempronius left home half an hour ago.’

  ‘He did; I saw him leave.’

  Puzzled, Magnus watched the two men disappear up the road with their burdens, one struggling and howling while the other, a sizable beast, seemed to have accepted its fate and remained still. ‘Right, they’re gone. Go!’

  They tore out of the alley, the corpse lolling between them. ‘Get out the way! Get out!’ Magnus bellowed at the top of his voice. ‘Wounded man! Wounded man!’ Barrelling along the street, forcing pedestrians aside, knocking more than a few to the ground, creating a wave of panic in their wake, they approached Sempronius’ house at full tilt. ‘They’ve got Pansa! Pansa!’ Magnus shouted at the burly shopkeepers, lifting the corpse’s head so that they could identify him. ‘One of you help us get him inside and the other run for the doctor; it might not be too late.’

  Both men leapt over the counter; one sprinted up the street as the other banged on Sempronius’ front door. The viewing slat opened. ‘Let us in, Quintus; they’ve got Pansa. We might be able to save him.’

  The slot slammed shut, locks and bolts clunked and the door swung open. The shopkeeper stepped aside and Magnus and Lupus crashed in, dragging the corpse, whose toes left a trail of gore, through the vestibule and along the mosaic floor of the atrium. ‘We’ll put him on the desk in the tablinum!’ Magnus shouted at a shocked-looking steward.

  Without waiting for a yea or nay, they thundered on through into Sempronius’ study at the far end of the atrium and heaved the body onto his desk, scattering styli and wax tablets. Bending down, with one hand pressing on the wound, Magnus opened the bottom drawer a fraction and, pulling the horoscope from his belt, slipped Britannicus’ chart and his amulet into it. ‘How is he?’ he shouted at Lupus, louder than necessary.

  ‘Not good.’

  ‘Those East Viminal cunts. I’ll have them; we’ll both have them, right now.’ Together they turned and ran out into the atrium, past the shocked steward and then again through the vestibule and back out into the street, heading in the direction whence they had come. With his chest burning and breath rasping, Magnus just managed to keep up with his younger colleague. They turned into the alley where they had started as a column of Urban Cohort legionaries jogged, quick-time, from the Vicus Patricius towards Sempronius’ house.

  Skidding to a halt next to the handcart, Magnus doubled over and then took a huge breath, standing back up and leaning against the brick wall, his chest pounding. He pointed with one hand to the water-skin in the cart as he undid his belt with the other. ‘Quick.’

  Lupus grabbed the skin and burst into hysterical laughter. ‘That was seriously good fun!’

  Magnus joined his laughter, coughing and spluttering as Lupus sprayed water from the skin to wash the blood and mud from his face. ‘I may be sixty-one, Lupus, but there is still plenty of fight and fuck left in me. Watch and learn, lad, watch and learn.’ He slipped the stained tunic over his head, wiping his face as he did so, and then threw it away.

  ‘I do, Magnus.’ Lupus handed Magnus the fresh tunic, still shaking with laughter and with a wild look in his eyes.

  ‘A keen lad like you could go far. Bring the handcart.’ Doing up his belt, Magnus walked out into the street, looking the part of a respectable citizen.

  Lupus jogged to catch up with him, the laughter slowly being replaced by a look of disbelief. ‘That really was seriously good. They didn’t know what to do, the arseholes. In and out, just like that.’ He shook his head a few times and then looked quizzically at Magnus. ‘But tell me, Magnus: why did we do it?’

  Magnus glanced over his shoulder to where two Urban Cohort legionaries had taken up position outside Sempronius’ house as the aged Urban prefect, accompanied by Barbatus and the Viminal aedile, made his way up the steps to the front door. ‘Never you mind, brother. Suffice it to say that we did.’

  Magnus stood at a street counter on the Alta Semita, halfway between the Colline Gate and the South Quirinal’s tavern, which he studied with interest while gnawing on a chicken leg.

  ‘What are you waiting for?’ Lupus asked next to him, wiping grease from his mouth with the back of his hand.

  ‘The inevitable, brother.’

  ‘What’s the inevitable?’

  Magnus tore off a goodly hunk of flesh and, chewing on it, began to count down from a hundred in his head. ‘That is,’ he said, pointing the chicken leg towards his brotherhood’s headquarters, having only reached thirty-seven.

  From the direction of the Viminal came Barbatus and a contubernium of Urban Cohort men.

  ‘They’re going into the tavern!’ Lupus exclaimed, outrage in his tone. ‘When was the last time we were raided?’

  Magnus swallowed a mouthful and washed it down with unwatered wine. ‘Ohh, it’s been a while; at least ten years, I should say. It hardly ever happens; the authorities generally leave us alone.’ Magnus turned to Lupus, putting on his best perplexed face. ‘I just don’t understand it because, just as we were leaving Sempronius’ street, I could have sworn that I caught a glimpse of the Urban Cohort lads raiding his house. They seem to be very busy today.’ He carried on enjoying his chicken leg, watching the tavern as the Urban Cohort sealed off the front. ‘Here they come,’ he observed as further down the Alta Semita a door opened and a dozen or so of the brethren streamed out, splitting up and blending into the crowds in ones and twos.

  An Urban Cohort soldier appeared in the doorway, looked left and right, and then pulled the door closed.

  As Magnus finished off his second leg, Barbatus came out of the front of
the tavern, his escort behind him with two familiar figures in custody: one male, the other female.

  ‘They’re taking Tigran away,’ Lupus said, his voice incredulous. ‘We can’t let that happen, can we, Magnus? And that’s Tacita.’

  ‘It would seem so. Time to go. We’ll follow them down to the Vigiles depot and sort it out.’ Magnus tossed a couple of bronze coins onto the counter but the stall-holder held up his hand. ‘Very good of you, Festus.’ Magnus scooped up the coins and strolled off down the street.

  The Forum Romanum was bustling with spectators watching the annual ritual taking retribution on the canine inhabitants of the city for their great-sires not bothering to warn their masters that the Capitoline was under attack. Hundreds of the animals of all sizes were being held aloft, tied to their poles in great pain, in preparation for the procession up the Gemonian Steps to the shrine to Juventas, the goddess of youth and rejuvenation, which was situated in the Temple of Minerva. After sacrificing to the goddess the procession would move on to the Temple of Summanus on the lower slopes of the Aventine in the shadow of the Circus Maximus. None of the dogs would survive the ordeal.

  But it was not the welfare of the animals that concerned Magnus as he and Lupus made their way through the throng: it was the timing of his day, which had started to go horribly wrong as soon as Barbatus had dropped Tacita at the Quirinal Vigiles depot and carried on down the hill with Tigran. Magnus had realised at once what that implied.

  With the people of Rome in a carnival mood, the progress through the crowd was easier than normal since there was no need to push forward in order to hear someone’s words as they declaimed from the rostrum or the front of the Senate House. Today traffic was far more free-flowing as the individuals moved around the Forum looking up at different dogs and laughing at their distress and agony as their front paws began to break under the strain.

  As Magnus reached the Senate House, its members were just coming outside, having adjourned the morning session. They congregated around a goose, seated in state upon a deep cushion and covered in a silver cloak, waiting to lead the unfortunate dogs in their punishment, as a reward for its forebears honking and alerting the Romans defending the Capitoline to the nocturnal, Gallic assault.