Praetorian: The Price of Treason

by S. J. A. Turney

  Rufinus strained his eyes, peering across the river. After some time gazing into the gloom, he began to pick out the path of which Cestius had spoken, and a nervous fart sneaked out at the sight. The path was steep and narrow and clung to the cliff, in places seeming to have crumbled and partially disappeared. No wonder they’d been told to leave the horses here. A mountain goat would soil itself looking at that!

  ‘Come on,’ Merc muttered, dismounting. ‘If we’re going to climb that we need to do it before it gets too dark.’

  Rufinus nodded emphatically, slipped from his horse and retrieved his kit, peering around for a moment before he spotted Acheron milling about, a shadow among shadows. With some regret, even though he had only known this latest steed for one day and it had been just as unresponsive and difficult as all the others had been, he released the reins, stepped to the side where he could be neither ridden down nor kicked into oblivion and slapped the beast on the rump.

  When he’d seen natural horsemen do that in the past, the horse had always leapt into action, pelting away across the grass. His steed remained entirely still, its head turning to him with an expression of faintly irritated surprise. Slightly nervously, he stepped a pace back and slapped the beast’s rump again. The horse’s expression turned into an irate glare and the big, soft lips pulled back from teeth as big as Rufinus’ fingers.

  With a conciliatory smile, he shrugged and retreated. The animal would wander off in its own time, he was sure. Mercator, a few paces away, slapped his horse and watched it whinny and bolt into the trees before turning a smug grin to the younger Praetorian.

  Rufinus sighed. ‘Come on.’

  A short while later they reached the downstream end of the lake and approached the narrow stretch of water. The rocks to either side were easily close enough to jump for an athletic man, but the constant spray of the water soaked them and they glistened in the evening light, suggesting a dangerously slippery surface.

  ‘Looks a bit dubious,’ he murmured, but Merc stepped ahead, tested the rock with an extended leg and then moved to the edge, dropping his heavy kit bag, full of armour and his travelling gear. A quick look down at the seven or eight feet of this mini-cascade and his gaze rose again to the far side. Perhaps five feet away, the left bank awaited.

  ‘Slippery,’ Mercator noted but as Rufinus opened his mouth to suggest they try a little further downstream his friend leapt across the gap. Rufinus held his breath as Merc swayed for a moment on the far rock and slowly straightened, stepping carefully away from the wet edge and onto grass,

  ‘Throw me the bags.’

  Rufinus stepped closer and hefted his bulky kit in both hands. Taking a deep breath, he bent his elbows and threw it. Merc looked panicked for a brief moment as he caught the heavy bag in the chest and staggered back into the scrub before emerging once more with narrowed eyes.

  ‘A little warning next time, dickhead.’

  Rufinus, chastened, reached down for Merc’s bag and hefted it the same.

  ‘Three… two… one…’

  He threw the bag and his friend caught it easily, tossing it down onto the turf. With a nervous gulp, he stepped up to the rock and peered down at the waterfall. Bollocks.

  It was not an elegant jump. He was a boxer, not an athlete. His left foot trailing in the air, his right thudded down onto the slippery rock, the hob nails in his boot scratching and skittering on the wet surface.

  And he fell. His foot had not found flat rock, but rather the wet curve down into the water. Desperately, with a strangled gasp, he tried to turn so that he would plunge down the falls backside first rather than head-first, and suddenly found himself leaning out at a strange angle over the torrent, looking down into the water. He turned his head and swivelled his eyes to see Merc at the water’s edge, his muscles straining, eyes wild, gripping the very end of Rufinus’ scarf. And the young guardsman started to choke, all his body weight being held up by the thing around his neck.

  ‘You can help any time you like,’ Merc grunted irritably.

  Desperately, gagging, Rufinus turned and reached out for Merc’s other hand, which was extended toward him. As their grips clasped, he felt some of the strain taken from his neck and in a moment of true relief, he sensed his balance point change. A moment later he was on the grass, heaving in deep breaths.

  ‘I swear you are the clumsiest bugger I’ve ever known,’ Mercator snorted. ‘You could fall off a floor, you could.’

  There was a gentle splashing noise and the pair turned to see Acheron paddling through the water, straight across the swift current above the low falls. The cold surface never quite reached his belly and he arrived on the left bank happily, mostly dry and circling in anticipation, waiting to move on.

  ‘And it never occurred to either of us to test the water depth above the last fall,’ Rufinus said in exasperation, rubbing his forehead.

  Mercator rolled his eyes. ‘If you tell Icarion about this, I’ll piss in your bed when we get back to the fortress.’

  They turned to look up at the lofty heights of Tibur.

  ‘Come on.’

  Anxiety rising, the two men shouldered their heavy bags and with Acheron padding impatiently along at heel, they made for the path Rufinus had seen. As they emerged onto the track from the undergrowth it occurred to Rufinus to wonder why such a trail existed. Tibur had no walls, barring the old ruinous ones from the days before Rome ruled and the ornamental gates over the roads facing the drop onto the plain, so there was clearly no need for defence. But why would anyone come down here anyway? Surely young lovers could find easier romantic spots? And yet the path was clear and well-trodden. A little further up the slope, the long-dry skeleton of a fish suggested that the trail was the haunt of local fishermen coming down to the river to find their prey. Perhaps the ruling ordo of the town had heavily taxed the high river beside the city for fishermen and so the more intrepid descended this path to save paying the fee. Such a thing was not unknown with local councils, after all.

  By the time his heart, its beat increasing at a faintly worrying rate, had struck its hundredth thump, the path began to throw difficulties at them. The gradient moved from being a low incline to a hard one, then a steep one, and finally a precipitous one, the rocks and vegetation towering above them to their left, similar terrain mirroring it to their right, dropping away into the gorge.

  ‘If you’d only…’ Merc paused to breathe hard, ‘… left your damn dog at home, we could have taken the bridge.’

  ‘Where I go, Acheron goes. He makes himself useful,’ he added, remembering the fight in the tavern at Carnuntum.

  From that point on the going became too perilous to waste attention on conversation, and the pair ascended in strained silence. The trail was as steep as any Rufinus had ever climbed, and treacherous to boot. The surface was of bare rock, occasionally snarled with stray roots from the shrubs and stunted trees across the cliff and peppered with dust and loose grit. More than once he felt his foot slip and had to hurriedly pull himself together, leaning close to the ascending cliff to avoid obtaining a much closer view of the one that fell away below.

  It was a slow job and at some point a little over two thirds of the way up, Rufinus realised that the sun had set without him noticing. Darkness was slowly swallowing the valley like some titan’s maw and even the poor light that had illuminated the path from down the gorge was now slipping into gloom.

  ‘Turds. The light’s fading.’

  ‘Thank you for that little update,’ Merc hissed breathlessly. ‘If it gets dark, do be sure to let me know.’

  Rufinus gave his friend an irritated glance, but his attention was wrenched away sharply as his boot caught on a particularly gnarled root and he felt himself lurch out dangerously toward the drop. Two hundred feet of rock and shrub in an almost vertical descent awaited him and he gave a strangled gasp at the realisation that he was over-balanced and nothing stood in his way.

  A plunge to his death was arrested as Mercator’s weather
-worn yet vice-like grip caught hold of Rufinus’ scarf again. The younger Praetorian felt panic tug at him along with gravity as he slipped again, one foot dangling over the drop until he desperately scuffled with it and found purchase again. It made no difference, though. Merc’s grip on his scarf gave just a little and then a little more, sliding down the material, forcing Rufinus further out over the precipice. Worse, though. Mercator had little purchase himself. Even though he had immediately dropped his kit to the path and grabbed a stray root with his other hand, both grips were starting to slip and any moment the pair of them would tumble away into nothing together.

  Rufinus tried to make peace with his gods, though in the rush and swirl of panic he couldn’t actually think of any of their names.

  ‘Let me go,’ he hissed finally. ‘Save Perennis.’

  ‘Don’t be a knob,’ Mercator snapped.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Drop your bag, you moron. You’re too heavy!’

  Rufinus blinked. The weight of his kit and armour was pulling them both out into nothingness. Could he manage to get it onto the track to preserve it?’

  With as little movement as possible, given their predicament, Rufinus tossed his heavy kit bag toward the path – a difficult proposition, given that he was rapidly approaching a forty-five degree angle to the trail.

  He felt a moment’s glowing triumph as the bag hit the path, then one of despair when it bounced off the cliff, ricocheted back and disappeared into the gorge below. He heard a yelp and realised that Acheron had been there. He’d hit Acheron with the bag, and the dog had narrowly avoided following it into the abyss. He tried not to notice the accusatory look on his dog’s face and the way that big lip pulled back over savage teeth in warning.

  Slowly, with difficulty, Mercator hauled him back up onto the path, shaking his head. ‘You are a buffoon.’

  Rufinus, his heart drumming so fast he could hardly hear his friend over the top of it, looked out over the edge. He couldn’t see his bag, but an area of undergrowth was waving around, disturbed by the passage of a large, heavy object.

  ‘Nearly everything I owned was in there.’

  ‘Well I’m glad that Cestius has the coin dies, that’s for sure. And your silver spear’s still in Rome. Everything else is replaceable.’

  ‘At a price,’ grumbled Rufinus, patting the sword and dagger at his hips, grateful that he’d kept them out of the bag at least.

  ‘When we get home, you need to have that scarf gilded and put in the cohort’s treasury. It’s worth a king’s ransom to you. Saved your neck twice now.’

  With a grin, the veteran collected his kit and turned back to the path ahead, stepping carefully in the increasing gloom as the last golden scales of the mackerel sky faded into a deep indigo. It seemed like hours as the climb continued, though it could not be much more than a further half hour in truth. Rufinus felt relief such as he’d rarely experienced wash over him when the path began to level out and widen as it approached the rear wall of a large bakery. The undergrowth at the sides of the track gave way to the building’s stone wall and then to a brick warehouse opposite.

  Rufinus hadn’t realised that he’d been trembling until they moved along the narrow alleyway into the town. His hands went to the reassuring weight of his sword and dagger as they emerged into a tiny, triangular courtyard where three such alleys met. He gave a tiny yelp as Mercator’s arm slapped into him, arresting his movement.

  At the far side, between the other alleyways, two men in Praetorian white were leaning on a heavy stone basin full of cold water, chatting. Just as Mercator and Rufinus spotted them, so the two Praetorians turned, their attention drawn by the sounds in the alley behind them.

  Mercator, quick as always, smiled warmly. ‘Shit but that’s a climb. Evening, all.’

  The two soldiers dithered for a moment, apparently deciding what to make of the new arrivals, but then one of them gasped and pointed at the hairy black beast that padded past Rufinus.

  ‘It’s them!’

  Drawing their swords, the two Praetorians leapt forward into action. Rufinus hurled himself at one of them, right fist pulled back, left, bandaged, hand grasping for his mouth. If they shouted a warning, all could be lost.

  He struck the guardsman just as the Praetorian’s sword came free of the mouth of his scabbard, and the pair hit the ground with a breath-stealing thud. The man beneath him was veteran enough to recognise how useless his sword was while he was trapped beneath the interloper and instead he tried to draw his dagger. Rufinus made sure his hand was across the man’s mouth, but carefully so, remembering all too well how the girl in Carnuntum had chewed a chunk from it in just these circumstances. His other hand, still drawn back and bunched into a fist like a ham joint, plunged forward. But Rufinus’ reactions were a little slow, still shaken and weary from the climb, and the Praetorian turned his head just enough that the boxer’s fist pounded on his ear only and then thudded knuckle-first into the dusty ground.

  Rufinus gasped, forcing himself not to howl in pain. So far they had been miraculously quiet. He felt the man struggling a pugio free of its sheath and trying to turn it to jam into Rufinus’ side. Ignoring the scuffing of his knuckles, he drew back his hand again and delivered a difficult blow to the man’s temple. It was not powerful, given the lack of room to manoeuver, but it dazed the man enough that the grip faltered and the dagger spasmed.

  Taking advantage of the man’s momentary stunning, Rufinus leaned back and delivered a third and final punch, this time pounding the man’s head with a hammer-like blow, driving the consciousness from him as the eyes rolled up white. He bit down on a yelp as his left arm momentarily caught one of those angles that sent shockwaves of pain through him. Changing angle, it passed a moment later.

  Gasping for air, he struggled up from the prone body. Shuddering with deep breaths and massaging his ruined knuckles, he turned to ascertain what had happened to the other man. His eyes widened as he saw Mercator plunge his dagger into the other Praetorian’s side. The man had been struggling, Merc’s other hand over his mouth and suddenly, eyes wide, he jerked and shuddered.

  Rufinus hurried over as Merc withdrew his blade and stabbed again.

  While the veteran rose from his victim, who tried to shout in agony and alarm but was gagged with a thick flow of blood vomiting up out of his maw, Rufinus dropped next to him, whispering ‘no, no, no, no, no!’

  ‘What?’ Merc grunted and watched with a frown as Rufinus ripped off his lucky scarf and began to wrap it around the wounded man.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Trying to stop him bleeding to death. Come on. Help me.’

  Mercator coughed. ‘What?’

  ‘He’ll die!’

  ‘That was the general idea when I stuck my dagger in him twice. If I’d wanted to tickle him, I’d have used a shit-sponge…’

  ‘He’s a Praetorian. He’s one of us!’

  ‘Bollocks.’

  Rufinus frowned. ‘We don’t know why he’s here. We don’t even know if he’s an enemy. We’re all Praetorians, after all. You told me, after the fight when I killed that cavalryman in the arena. You said “we look after our own”. That’s what I’m doing.’

  As Rufinus struggled to tie the makeshift bandage around the dying man, Mercator crouched and none-too-gently pulled him back away from the man.

  ‘That no longer applies. He’s Cleander’s man now. If he’s in the pay of the chamberlain and trying to see our prefect executed then he’s no Praetorian as far as I’m concerned. He’s a mercenary and a traitor.’

  With a grunt, Merc heaved Rufinus out of the way and drove his knife into the man’s neck, finishing him. He extended a hand and the young guardsman peered at the sodden scarf in his grip for a moment before taking it.

  ‘But Merc…’ he began as the veteran shoved him aside and crouched again, slitting the throat of the other unconscious man.

  ‘Save it. If you let them live, they will tell their friends what happen
ed. What price Perennis’ life then, eh? These men are here with a remit to either capture or kill all of us. Don’t let stupid sentiment blind you to reality.’

  Rufinus stood, his blood chilled with the very thought of murdering their own. But then was this any different to the six cavalrymen upon whom he’d sworn revenge? He’d felt a wrench when he’d killed that man in the boxing match. He knew he’d crossed a line then and would never be able to cross back, and he knew that it was horrible, reprehensible, even perhaps immoral, but he’d still sworn to continue and finish off the rest of them.

  Even as Rufinus struggled with the moral implications of what he – what they – had done, Merc lifted the two dead men by their scarves, dragged them back along the narrow alleyway, then hurled them one at a time over the edge of the path and down into the gorge, where they vanished into the undergrowth. A moment later he was back and, using one of the three small communal wooden buckets at the side of the water trough, was slinging water across the patches of blood, washing them into the gravel. By the time Rufinus’ heart had reached its normal accustomed pace the small triangular courtyard showed no sign of a struggle.

  ‘Right,’ Mercator said, straightening. ‘Let’s hope that’s the last we see of them. Take us to this merchant’s house.’

  *

  Constans steepled his fingers as he leaned forward across the desk.

  ‘There’s no easy way to Rome, I’m afraid. There are small groups of Praetorians scouring the countryside, and units of the urban cohorts too, though what they’re doing out of their stinking pits in the city I don’t know. Cleander has control of almost the entire Guard, so he must just be using the urban cohort as watch dogs. It’s about all they’re useful for. No one will reach Rome unnoticed, I can tell you that. Individuals are watched and stopped, small groups checked. Legionaries, mercenaries, farmers, traders, we’re all being spied on in case we’re you. I cannot imagine what it is you’re carrying that makes you that important to the chamberlain.’