by M. K. Hume
Trufo followed the direction of the adjutant’s pointing fingers and there, on the cracked interior wall of wattle and painted daub, the bloody handprint of a man could be seen in the torchlight. A small puddle of the same dark, viscous liquid seemed to be drying on the coarse flooring.
‘That’s blood!’ Trufo hissed to Paulus, as the whole tenor of this mission changed.
These legionnaires’ commander was now in grave danger.
The oil lamp was removed from the whore’s shaking hands before she could throw it at Constantinus. Forced to restrain her, Paulus took great care to avoid her filthy, hooked claws in case they broke skin and infected him with disease. In the process of binding her and dragging her down the steps, the drab’s grey bush and loins were exposed and Constantinus marvelled that any intelligent man could be so desperate that he would risk his life and his health to slake his desires inside her grimy flesh. Then, as she tripped over some large stones in a corner of the muddy roadway, she began to scream and curse, so Paulus cuffed her around the ears to shut her up.
With typical Roman efficiency, the legionnaires began to strip the house of all potential threats and arrest the occupants of the building.
Three more women were roused and dragged out of the building, as well as two large men who were obviously the house’s bodyguards. One of them had the pegged teeth and blurred features of an unfortunate who had been born with few wits. Like a child, the huge man wailed and wept until the centurion ordered him to be gagged.
The other bodyguard was smaller, whipcord thin and dark-haired, although a large bald spot on the crown of his head marked him as middle-aged. Even though he had been sleeping in his filthy underwear, Crispus soon discovered that this man was heavily armed. With brutal efficiency, the legionnaire stripped him of two wicked throwing knives, one in a scabbard at the small of his back, the other strapped to his left calf.
Two more women, obviously worn-out old whores who were now working as slaves, were found in a tiny, locked room adjacent to the grimy kitchens. But there were no signs of Marcus Britannicus and his two guards, other than those ominous bloodstains.
‘Crispus! Get yourself back to the stables and rouse the rest of our legionnaires,’ Constantinus ordered briskly. ‘They must don their armour and march here at speed. Once here, they will wait in the street until such time as I issue further orders. Then leave the men to their officers and go to King Aeron’s apartments and inform him personally that Marcus Britannicus is missing. The king is to be woken without any demur from his servants. Tell him that I will speak with him as soon as I have clarified the situation with the vermin who inhabit this place. There’s one final task! I’ll need my horse, so have it saddled and brought to me.’
‘Aye, sir! But is it a little late to be rousing the king and his household?’
Constantinus’s glare would have frozen milk.
‘Until such time as Marcus Britannicus is found, I’m in total command of this detachment. I don’t countenance anyone questioning my orders. Ever! Is that understood?’
The adjutant had spoken in his normal conversational voice, so perhaps it was this total lack of emotion that chilled the legionnaire’s blood. Suddenly, waking the king of the Dobunni seemed not only reasonable, but vitally important.
‘Bring more torches!’ Constantinus added. ‘Marcus must be found before first light.’
Crispus took off in double time. By the time he had returned with reinforcements, horses and blazing torches, the brothel was being torn apart. But their best efforts were ineffectual.
‘King Aeron will join us shortly. He was abed and asleep when my message concerning our commander’s plight reached him,’ Crispus informed the adjutant as the troops were ordered into small squads to begin a door-to-door search of the outskirts of the lower town. The noise of the searchers had already roused the citizenry, who huddled at their windows and listened to the complex orders being issued to the legionnaires while trying to appear unobtrusive. But Constantinus understood all too well that a leaf couldn’t fall in this outer community without one of the civilians hearing or seeing it drop, so he had no hesitation in sending small, three-man squads from door to door with instructions to question, search or torture any citizen who might have borne witness to the fate of the luckless Marcus Britannicus.
The searching troops found little of interest, except for a ragged trail of blood-splashes that stood out blackly against the cobbles and mud of the roadway. When an innkeeper was questioned near to one of the small bloodstains, Trufo applied a minimal amount of persuasion to convince the pasty-skinned host that he should reveal all he knew.
‘I looked out from behind the shutters when I heard a group of men dragging three Romans down the street. One of the Romans seemed to be bleeding and he wasn’t able to stand without help from his friends. I thought he might have been unconscious or drunk. But he could have been dead. Who knows? The fat one was blubbering and he was trying to scream but they shoved a dirty neckcloth in his gob. He was gurgling and crying like a babe. He made a run for it, but his fat legs weren’t suited for any kind of flight. They caught up with him real quick, so they cuffed him about to let him know who was boss. When I was younger, Romans were real men. They were a different breed than this coward.’
When the adjutant was called to the square, he eyed the thin innkeeper with scarcely concealed disgust.
‘Didn’t it occur to you to call for the watch to help these men?’ he asked.
‘The five men who took the Romans away were all bullyboys. I’ve seen them around Corinium for weeks and they’ve been ripping silver out of decent businessmen like me. But we don’t get any protection from the watch or the king’s men. Any one of those bastards could break me in two with one hand tied behind his back.’
‘You could have made some sort of effort to help your fellow citizens, couldn’t you?’ Constantinus spat. ‘If Marcus Britannicus should die because you kept your tongue firmly trapped between your teeth, I might be forced to remove it personally.’
The innkeeper blanched at the threat and the name of one of the men who had been unceremoniously dragged through the streets. The king arrived at that very moment, so the villain thanked his many gods, hoping that the Roman adjutant with the wintry eyes might just forget his existence during the course of the continuing hunt.
Left momentarily to his own devices, the innkeeper took the opportunity to dart back into his inn while the searchers were discussing the situation with King Aeron. He scooped up a bag containing gold and silver coins, a rusty sword and a rolled sleeping pallet, before darting out through one of the rear doors, having decided to make an instant departure from Corinium.
Every Roman legionnaire and an increasing number of native troops were soon being added to the search parties scouring the streets and lanes of Corinium for some sign of Marcus Britannicus and his two guards. Constantinus had already concluded that Marcus might never return to his own comfortable bed, a fate brought on by his own stupidity.
But if Shit-head had been murdered, the Romans must find the killers and make them pay. A blow against a Roman was always reciprocated by blows against the perpetrators . . . and their families. Rome was a cruel master when her rules were flouted.
Meanwhile, the search parties had been instructed to bring each and every citizen out into the street so that suspicious persons could be found and interrogated. But the adjutant was becoming increasingly frustrated as their search came to naught. The earth seemed to have opened up and swallowed Marcus Britannicus and his two guards. As a further hour passed by, Constantinus accepted that his superior might never be found, as capture for ransom seemed like an unlikely prospect.
‘This abduction might be some political ploy if these British curs aren’t holding Marcus for ransom. Any number of tribal kings would be smiling if a potential union between Marcus Britannicus and Severa shoul
d come to nothing. Damn and bugger! We’re probably looking for his corpse!’
Although Constantinus had whispered the words to himself, he took pains to avoid being overheard by those troops who were in earshot. Yet, for all his care, he could feel the wise eyes of King Aeron boring into the side of his face with grim attention.
He knows! Oh, shite! Why did Marcus have to be such a stupid, lascivious sod?
The search parties had reached the edge of the old town by now and were investigating the areas that lay beyond the last of the town shanties. Banking fires were just visible under the piles of stinking rubbish in the town midden. Constantinus knew, as did King Aeron, that the midden would have to be searched from end to end, regardless of its vile contents. As Constantinus began preparations for the task, the white moon stared down enigmatically from small gaps in a bank of charcoal clouds.
CHAPTER IV
Out of Death Comes Life
Each man is the smith of his own fortune.
Solem
Paulus saw the hand first. He had grown to manhood in Old Gallia and watched as Rome was driven back from the north, yard by bloody yard, until his eyes became as sharp as those of the eagles atop his standards. This hand was bloodless and very white against the blackness of rotting rubbish. A single scar, darker than the leached flesh, snaked across the knuckles.
‘It’s Eugenius! A Pict almost took his fingers off his hand with an axe some years ago, so I’d know that scar anywhere. What a place for a good legionnaire to meet his fate!’
Constantinus grunted in reply and ordered Paulus to retrieve the body from the midden. Reluctant, but prepared to show he could dirty his own hands, the officer waded into the foul mess.
And then he almost tripped as his boot soles slipped on Marcus’s corpse.
The commander’s body had been thrown by one arm and one leg as far into the putrid midden as possible, but Marcus was heavily fleshed and his assailants would have had some difficulty in casting the remains into the centre of the rubbish mound. Naked, and with gaping knife wounds to the belly, the groin and the throat, the corpse of the would-be High King was sprawled on top of a pile of broken furniture, food scraps and the carcass of a dead dog.
One by one, all three bodies were found.
The two guardsmen had been despatched with military precision, but Marcus must have screamed shrilly after each stroke of the killing blade from thrusts that were designed to wound rather than kill. Constantinus found some dour amusement at the manner of Marcus’s end. Regardless of his status, Marcus had been a vile man who was unworthy of the advancements that came his way with such regularity. His patrician blood and family gold had eased his way into preferment.
Then Constantinus recalled the face of the young woman whose beautiful eyes and quiet demeanour had gained an unusual influence on his untrusting heart. The poor woman had been betrothed to Marcus for less than a day, but her intended spouse had been assassinated and his body was now lying among the city’s trash. Who would be the next suitor to drag her to the altar – with or without her consent? He wondered if he had the gall to scorch his hands against her dangerous flesh.
Was it a traitor’s voice that rang inside Constantinus’s head? The adjutant knew he was attracted to Severa, but would he be prepared to risk his own life in an attempt to possess her? The dice had been cast by Fortuna, so Constantinus guessed that Marcus had died because he had offended someone important among his peers, or he was considered by the British kings to be a threat to their aristocracy. But, in spite of the adjutant’s doubts, the words of the hermit refused to be silenced. The old man’s tremulous voice grew louder in Constantinus’s memory.
‘Constantine . . . Emperor that will soon be!’
The hermit had been crazed by silence and by his many years of loneliness. The old man’s unfocused eyes had seemed to contemplate some inner world which mere humans could never hope to see or understand.
‘Take care who you wed,’ he had chanted with his cracked voice. At the time, Constantinus had laughed at the ridiculous prophecy, for how could a common soldier who had been elevated from the ranks and possessed neither birth nor gold hope to rise through the hierarchy of the legions? Raw talent had taken the centurion as far as he could go. Common sense told him that there would be plenty of shit-heads like Marcus who would climb higher and faster than him on the ladder of promotion. To dream of the throne was grotesque delusion, and Constantinus had never been a fool.
The adjutant shook his head to clear it of all dangerous thoughts, for treason could get a man killed even faster than the stupidity and character weaknesses demonstrated by Marcus Britannicus. He turned his attention back to the murder of his senior officer.
Was this assassination initiated by Rome? Or did it come from Britannic sources? One of the hierarchy wanted Marcus dead, so would a centurion fare any better if he decided to pursue Severa? In Rome’s estimation, Constantinus was lacking in breeding. The adjutant was aware that a previous Roman claimant, Magnus Maximus, had at least possessed whispered links with his namesake, the first and most glorious Constantine, a linkage that had proved a powerful asset. Few comparisons could be drawn between himself and Maximus, except for youth and desire. But his mind refused to obey him as he struggled to focus on the three corpses at hand.
As Constantinus pulled himself together and leaned against a discarded table that was missing one of its legs, Marcus seemed to be staring derisively at the centurion from a hastily constructed stretcher on which the bloodied corpse had been laid.
You’ll join me soon enough, Pretender!
The blued lips seemed to writhe with life, and the imagined horror sent Constantinus staggering backwards with a curse. Then a small rat pushed its way out of the tender gullet where it had been feeding. As it scuttled away from the torchlight, its scaly tail looked, for one ghastly moment, like a length of grey string that was pulling Marcus’s spirit from his body.
Constantinus swore colourfully before reaching out with one trembling finger and pushing up the lower lip to close the gap. The rodent had been gorging itself on the tongue.
‘I hate fucking rats,’ Constantinus swore again with a visible shudder. ‘Get these damned bodies out of this quagmire as soon as possible. Find a cart and have them transported back into the city. You can take them to the guardhouse so they can be prepared for cremation or burial. Best do it now, before the rats decide to carry the corpses away of their own accord. They were Romans and we look after our own, so have them cleaned up by the priesthood as quickly as possible. I don’t want our tribal hosts to see the indignities inflicted on the body of Marcus Britannicus. Everyone in this brothel, including the bitch that runs it and all of its regular patrons, must be rounded up and held for questioning.’
His men obeyed immediately.
Searching for a water skin to wash some of the filth from his person as he made his way back to the town gates, Constantinus struggled to prepare an explanation for Corinium’s king and queen that would prepare them for the ugliness that had been precipitated by Marcus’s stupidity. Although King Aeron had already seen enough to know the broad outlines of the assassination, the centurion was determined that no outsiders should learn the more shameful details of Marcus Britannicus’s death. Why feed the citizens of the town with vile gossip? But even as he scrubbed his hands in a pail of brackish water brought by the gatekeeper, the wounded features of Severa intruded into the thread of the unadorned speech he intended to deliver to the young woman. What would she think of this latest demonstration of Lady Fortuna’s fickleness?
As a serving officer in Rome’s legions, he had no right to aspire to a woman from the household of a native ruler. Nor was her face an appropriate subject for his thoughts at a time when matters of loyalty and honour were at stake. He tried resolutely to put all thought of her doe-like eyes away.
Nursing a headache,
tortured by new and dangerous desires, Constantinus was forced to massage his throbbing temples before he approached the royal apartments as the small troop of Britons and Roman legionnaires returned to the guardhouse with their grisly burdens. He carried difficult and unsettling tidings with him, for he was now the senior Roman officer.
‘It’s likely that I could have commenced the search for my commander a little earlier, Your Highness, so I must take some responsibility for our lack of immediate action. However, I was aware that Marcus Britannicus was in the habit of occasionally visiting such low houses, and I was reluctant to raise an alarm that would humiliate my superior officer. I am aware that he has made similar late returns to his quarters in the past, so his foolish risk-taking wasn’t unusual.’
‘How did you come to know that Marcus could be found at the Bower of Beauty?’ Aeron asked sharply.
‘Paulus, my decurion, had heard whispers from my commander’s bodyguard, Eugenius, who had made the initial preparations for Marcus’s visit to the brothel. Even so, we searched all the bawdy houses in the area in case Eugenius had made a mistake or was lying. It has been a long night, Highness.’
Aeron grimaced and the dangerous moment passed.
When Aeron remained silent, Constantinus was constrained to make a report to the king that detailed the progress of the initial investigation carried out at the premises of the Bower of Beauty. He described the questioning that had taken place in an even, disciplined voice.
‘I’ve taken the liberty of sending men to arrest everyone associated with the Bower of Beauty, a name which is a misnomer if ever there was one. If their appearance at night is the best face they can offer to the world, then I’m prepared to be shocked at what I’ll see in the harsh light of day. I’ve also given the bodies of our dead over to the priests so they can be prepared for the funeral pyre. I’m certain that Marcus Britannicus would have been deeply ashamed if his abused body had been seen by any other persons, especially his betrothed, after his corpse had been abandoned in the filth of the midden.’