Rufinus cast the latest in a long list of prayers to Aesculapius that his friend was now sitting upright in his hospital cot, grinning and confusing the medical staff.
The medicus had snorted derisively when Rufinus had muttered about his own wounds, taking a quick glance at shoulder and neck, swilling away the blood with a bowl of water and then passing the job of stitching and binding to one of his capsarii.
No Dexter, then, but still there were four of them.
Vibius Cestius seemed to have changed subtly since the revelation that he was no ordinary tribune. As though shedding a costume and a theatre mask, his skin seemed less sunken, his bones less angular, his age considerably younger. Even his slight susurrating speech impediment had vanished – the man was clearly a consummate actor. But then Rufinus could remember Dis at the Villa Hadrianus. That other frumentarius had seemed to Rufinus a man with a hole in his soul, consumed by an endless evil hunger. He doubted that had been anything like the true Dis. When the man had reported back to his camp, had he undergone a similar transformation from hollow villain to professional agent? Certainly the sight of the new vital, healthy, engaging Cestius suggested so. Rufinus wondered how the frumentarii could train men to be so incredibly subtle and ingenious, or whether perhaps those who were recruited were already like that by nature.
A call by the ship’s second officer drew his eyes past the mast and the oar benches to the dock ahead as the ship passed through the harbour walls. Cestius gave a small grunt as he leaned over the side rail, looking ahead across the rise and dip of the oars.
‘Something wrong?’ Mercator asked quietly.
‘Trouble, I think.’
The others tried to identify what it was that had alarmed the tribune – the frumentarius, Rufinus corrected himself. All Rufinus could see was a mass of workers across the dock, though the afternoon light was already fading into evening and his vision was not quite so clear as it would be at the height of the day.
‘What is it?’
‘A mix of tunics on that quay,’ Cestius replied quietly. ‘Military red and naval blue.’
‘What of it?’
‘Do you see any ships of the fleet in port?’
Rufinus frowned. No. There were no military ships there, and now that Cestius mentioned it, there did seem to be a lot more soldiers and sailors than one would expect on a dockside devoid of most of its trade in late winter. Cestius had sharp eyes and an even sharper mind. Something was wrong.
‘What is it?’
‘The chances of there being that number of men and it not being connected with us are quite small.’
Mercator frowned. ‘How would Glabrio know we were following him?’
‘He knows that you are not dead, and that could be enough. But this might not be Glabrio’s doing. Remember that Cleander is in control of much of the military now. The ports and border posts have probably been alerted to our approach one way or another.’
Rufinus felt his heart sink.
‘And if that’s the case, what do we do?’
Cestius straightened. ‘The first thing we do is find out more. Our main advantage is that this is not a military ship, and that Glabrio cannot know that I am with you yet. You three stay down and keep Acheron out of sight.’ He turned to the trierarch. ‘I am afraid that our arrival has just been made more complicated. When we dock, you and your crew need to go about your business as if the others were not on board. No mention of them. Have the word passed down to every man aboard.’
‘And what do I say to those men then?’ the trierarch asked, pointing at the dock.
‘Leave that to me.’
As the ship slowed, pulling across the harbour toward the dockside, Cestius disappeared below to where the bags were kept and returned a few moments later in an expensive, but rather worn, green tunic of a Greek cut and pattern, a tan cloak across his shoulders and a bronze circlet on his head. Somehow, his skin seemed to have darkened a few shades, though that might just be new contrast brought on by the change of clothing colour. Suddenly he looked anxious, careworn and entirely unmilitary.
‘Your manifest, trierarch, has by necessity conveniently ignored our presence. I would be grateful if before you hand the records to the authorities you add the passage from Pietas Iulia of one Posidonius Siculus, trader in Achaean wines. He has paid you handsomely to bring him to Ancona for a business deal.’
The trierarch, looking rather nervous, nodded his understanding and summoned his second officer to make the appropriate amendments.
‘What do we do?’ Rufinus murmured.
‘You get down into the hold, change out of your Praetorian whites and dress like members of the crew. And put all our kit into the spare barrel at the hold’s fore. There’s no real reason why the authorities should search the ship but if they do there needs to be no blatant evidence of Praetorians. If you have no nondescript clothes, borrow some replacements. It is standard maritime practice for a ship such as this to carry a few spare, dry clothes. And when you are just ordinary sailors you stay down here until I return. If the ship is boarded and searched, you do what the trierarch tells you and try to act like natural sailors.’
‘But what can we do then? We’re still trapped on the ship.’
Cestius nodded. ‘The first thing is to make sure there is no reason for the authorities to believe that it is us who have docked today. The second is to find out what we are facing. Thirdly, we will find a solution, though I already have several possibilities in mind.’
I’ll bet you do, Rufinus thought to himself.
As Cestius straightened and took on an officious look, standing close to the trierarch, the other three disappeared into the low, narrow space afforded for cargo and began to carry out the frumentarius’ instructions. Rufinus was clambering into his grey, nondescript sleeping tunic as the ship alighted at the dock with a bump that sent him staggering sideways. Hurriedly, the three of them carried their kit toward the bow, located the empty barrel, pushed their armour and weapons and bags into it and then replaced the lid.
Somewhere above, muffled by the timber and the sound of waves lapping against the hull, they could hear somewhat sharp, officious shouts from the dockside, and defensive, offended-sounding replies from a voice that had to be Cestius, though it sounded nothing like him, cloyed by a thick Illyrian accent with trailing vowels. Rufinus shook his head in wonder and the three of them returned to the rear of the cargo space and crouched, waiting, as the shouted conversation above turned briefly argumentative, then petulant, then finally subsided as the ship’s officers, and Cestius in his mercantile guise, were permitted off the deck and onto the dockside.
Time passed.
*
Darkness had enveloped Ancona for almost an hour when Rufinus and his companions were woken from their dozing by a cough. Coming awake alert and ready for trouble, Rufinus’ hand went to the hilt of a sword that was no longer there now that he masqueraded as a sailor.
‘Very sharp,’ Cestius muttered, ‘but if I’d been one of the enemy from the shore, that little move just gave the game away that you were no ordinary sailor and that you were nervous with something to hide. If you’re ever going to be able to perform feats of subterfuge, you’re going to have to pay more attention to the small things.’
Rufinus bridled. ‘I spent a year undercover at the villa of Hadrianus spying on the traitor Lucilla and I’m still here, while she isn’t.’
‘Yes. And you got one of my comrades murdered and your fingernails pulled out for your troubles. Surviving is not enough. Success means more than mere survival. Success means coming out on top. Winning.’
The frumentarius sighed and shrugged off his cloak.
‘Anyway, the situation is as dire as I suspected. Worse, even.’
Rufinus rubbed his tired eyes. ‘How so?’
‘The ports and border crossings all have our descriptions and orders to stop us on the authority of the imperial chamberlain, and that’s the sort of authority that even my cr
edentials are going to fail to shift. How my description ended up added to the list is troubling, but I have to put that down to Glabrio. Perhaps he saw me intervene in your brawl at the inn and put two and two together. Whatever the case, my initial idea that I might be able to send you back to Pannonia and go on alone has been sunk with that fact. And it gets worse. Ancona, Ravenna, Ariminium, Pisaurum and Spina are all full of legionaries and sailors waiting for us, and the garrisons of at least Patavium and Hatria are watching for us, probably others as well. Whether or not this has all come directly from Cleander, or from Glabrio using his name, I cannot confirm, but the effect is still the same. If it is Glabrio, then his letter of authority is genuine enough to scare the local troops into line.’
‘Then how do we get past here and onto the Via Flaminia?’ Rufinus asked.
‘We don’t. Glabrio will have made his way straight from Ancona to Rome along that route and that means that every mansio and garrison between here and the capital will be looking for us. I trust I don’t have to explain to you how bad it would be to fall into Cleander’s grasp right now?’
The others shook their heads in the dimness of the hold.
‘So what do we do?’
‘I have secured us a second vessel – a small fishing boat belonging to a very nice – if rather avaricious – fellow by the name of Ampelius. It is a speedy little vessel that I suspect gets used rather more often for smuggling and avoiding the imperial tax officials than for the catching of tuna and sprat, but that I am happy to overlook as it will be greatly to our advantage tonight.’
‘A fishing vessel?’
‘Yes. We need to move out of here unnoticed by those watching for us. And by sea, since they will have our descriptions at the city gates. If the Via Flaminia is closed to us we need to seek the next best route. Our sleek little smuggler will take us to Aternum, where we can take the Via Valeria across the mountains toward Rome.’
‘But it’ll be, what? Two days, I reckon, from here to Aternum?’
‘Ampelius thinks he can do it in a day if we leave at dawn and are not worried about arriving in the dark. I suspect that he is quite accomplished at arriving at places in the dark. The whole detour will cost us two days, by my estimation.’
‘Two days?’ Rufinus exclaimed. ‘And we are already a day behind. Perennis could be dead two days before we even reach Rome.’
‘That is a possibility,’ Cestius admitted. ‘Though we will move faster this way than if we take the Via Flaminia and have to leave the road and hide in thickets every half hour. At least they will not be looking for us on the Via Valeria, so we can move at speed. As for your prefect, we must hope that the authorities are slow in moving. The emperor will not leap into precipitous action, I can assure you.’
‘Alright,’ Mercator said quietly. ‘I concede your points. How do we get from here to the boat of this smuggler?’
‘How’s your swimming?’ Cestius asked.
‘I hope that’s a joke.’
In answer, Cestius led them back up top, near the steering oars where the few men who had stayed on board for the night slept, wrapped in blankets against the cold. There was still movement over on the dock, though in the gloom Rufinus could not tell whether it was the same sailors and soldiers as earlier or just ordinary dock workers. Either way they could not afford to be seen. Cestius kept close to the rear rail and pointed down a rope ladder. Rufinus stared. At the bottom was a small raft, no more than four or five feet across, bobbing about, loosely tethered to the rope ladder.
‘We can’t all fit on that,’ he whispered.
‘Of course not. The raft is for the kit. You can hardly swim carrying armour. I will go down first. You three retrieve the kit and a coil of rope and start lowering it down to me one bag at a time. We will have to be very quiet. I wish the clouds had remained – this is not the most convenient time for a clear, moonlit sky, but we must work with what the gods send.’
Rufinus stared in disbelief as the frumentarius disrobed of everything barring his tunic and subligaculum and began to descend the rope ladder at speed.
‘Come on,’ Icarion whispered, scurrying back below to retrieve their kit.
The next quarter of an hour was among the tensest in Rufinus’ life as they ferried the kit up to the rear rail in virtual silence. The whole port was so quiet that if they strained they could hear laughter as the night-time denizens of the dock told one another jokes to while away the dark hours. Slowly, very carefully, the Praetorians attached the coil of rope Merc had located to the ties of Rufinus’ kit bag, now crammed to bursting with everything but his tunic and underwear.
Acheron paced back and forth as though he knew what was coming. He probably did. Despite the size and ferocity of the great hound, he seemed to Rufinus to be remarkably intelligent. Far more so than his father’s hunting dogs in Hispania, anyway, who had once tried to eat a rock because it happened to be vaguely rabbit-shaped. The whole pack of them couldn’t form a coherent thought if they had a week to work on it. Acheron, though, sometimes seemed almost human in his intellect. Or perhaps his instinct was more the thing. After all, when the four Praetorians had been languishing in Pannonia, fretting over the motives of Vibius Cestius, Acheron it seemed had already decided that the frumentarius was trustworthy. Rufinus had never seen his dog so readily accepting of a stranger.
He trusted Acheron’s instincts. And Acheron looked distinctly uncomfortable as he paced along the rail, eyeing the water nervously.
They began to lower the bag, Rufinus looking down at the dark shape of Cestius on the raft, shaking like a leaf, soaked through from his entry into the harbour’s water from whence he had crawled up onto the raft to secure the kit. With some difficulty they lowered the bag until the frumentarius could grasp it and guide it into place using his own weight to counter balance it. Mercator’s bag came next and was gently shuffled into position opposite Rufinus’. Then Icarion’s, and finally they retrieved Cestius’ kit. Rufinus fought the urge to investigate the bag for what astounding secrets it might contain and, deciding against such a prying, risky move, he sighed with faint disappointment, stuffed the apparel the man had shrugged off on-deck into the top, tied it tight once more and then fed the rope around the top. Once the bag was secure they began to move it, and only as they swung the bag up and over the side did they realise how heavy it was. Once again, Rufinus wondered what lay within, the muscles and tendons on his arms straining and bulging as he and the other two lowered it.
Then trouble struck. Rufinus’ shoulder, still problematical, hit one of the angles that caused him pain and with a yelp his fingers spasmed, the bag suddenly dropping sharply. The hissing rope burned the flesh of their hands as it whizzed through them until it was desperately secured again only a few feet above the water.
Cestius glared up at them as though they had done it on purpose, arching an eyebrow as he guided the last bag into place.
The erstwhile sleeping sailors around them were alert now, roused from slumber by Rufinus’ cry. Indeed, on the dockside he could hear raised voices. He risked a quick look down, to see that Cestius was in the water again, gently pushing the raft toward the ship’s hull where it would not obviously blot out the gleam on the wave tops, betraying its presence. There he stayed for a long moment, as Rufinus and the others shrank down beside the rail.
Someone on land shouted across to the boat, asking whether there was trouble. One of the wakened sailors, catching the look of panic in Rufinus’ face, rose and went to the other rail, drawing attention away from them, where he shouted something about foot cramps. Those on shore laughed at him and things began to calm again. The sailor returned to his blankets and, as he settled, fixed Rufinus with a cold look.
‘Get off the ship,’ he whispered, ‘before you get us all killed.’
Acheron went to a gap in the rail and took a few paces back. Recognising what was about to happen, all three Praetorians on board ran over and threw themselves on him to stop him jumping from the ship. Th
e loud splash that would make would alert everyone in earshot that something odd was happening. Rufinus hugged the dog tight, noting how Merc’s eyes were wide with worry as the veteran stared directly into the muzzle of the great hound they were restraining. Acheron let out a threatening growl, drool dripping from his teeth a hand’s breadth from Mercator’s face. The two veterans swiftly let go and stepped back and Rufinus shuffled round in front of Acheron. He’d never leashed the hound – he wasn’t even sure that Acheron would allow that – but at times like this a collar would be rather handy. As Rufinus held Acheron, comforting him, Icarion and Mercator grabbed the cloak they’d laid out ready and shuffled it underneath the animal’s belly, pulling it out the other side. Lifting it, they wrapped the great dog’s midriff in the blanket and tied the ends to another rope, forming a cradle.
‘Don’t hold a grudge, will you?’ Merc muttered to Acheron as they gently manoeuvred the hound to the edge and began to lower him, forepaws and head dangling from the fore, back paws and tail from the rear, all four legs going as though he were running in the air. It required all the strength of three professional soldiers to take the strain as the big animal slowly descended. There was the faintest of whimpers when Acheron entered the water, and Cestius – who the dog seemed to instinctively trust – swam over and unhooked the blanket, freeing him to swim. Acheron began to paddle around, though the low noises issuing from him suggested that he wasn’t overly happy about it.
Rufinus hauled the rope up and dropped it to the deck before turning back to the ship’s rail. Merc was already going over the side, clambering inexpertly down the ladder. Icarion gestured for Rufinus to go next and, with infinite reluctance, the young guardsman began to climb hand over hand down the ladder, his left shoulder screaming at him with every rung, half-healed bite wound seething with pain, rope burn on his right hand equally insistent in its discomfort. Finally, his bare feet touched the water and he recoiled.
Praetorian: The Price of Treason Page 22