Rufinus took a deep breath, braced himself, and uttered simply ‘Fortuna…’
And he ran. He ran as though the shades of dead beasts were nipping at his heels, heedless of the treacherous surface and the dreadful drop to either side. His legs skittered and slithered and more than once he almost fell, his toes on the very edge of the stonework, using every nuance of his experience in the boxing arena to balance his weight and prevent himself plummeting to his death.
And suddenly he was on clear stone again.
Well, not quite clear, but comparatively so at least, if thoroughly sodden. Clear enough that he felt safe again.
Heart in mouth, he turned.
Publius was being slower, yet with better balance, moving one light hop at a time across the treacherous surface.
Behind him, the guards were so close now the frumentarius at the rear had to be able to feel their breath.
‘Cestius!’
What use was a warning? There was no longer time. No chance. The Praetorians had caught up with him. With dreadful finality, Cestius stopped, turned and raised his glorious black and silver dragon-hilted in warning.
‘I will take at least one of you with me,’ he shouted into the rain as the approaching guardsmen began to step warily forward, their blades at the ready, closing for the fight. Even as the frumentarius swung his spatha and struck the sword of the front man, his spare hand reached to his belt.
Publius continued to step across the dangerous moss and muck, until he reached Rufinus, then turned and watched, his breath short and in tense gasps.
The Praetorian stepped back then came forward again, his sword a gleaming streak of death in the rain. Given his lack of armour, shield and manoeuvring room, Rufinus couldn’t see how the frumentarius could possibly evade the strike, and yet the guardsman’s gladius whispered through the air a mere half a hand’s breadth from Cestius’ side. The frumentarius in return flicked out his blade and drew blood from that extended arm. As the Praetorian pulled back, rethinking the fight and with a new respect for his opponent, Cestius unhooked something from his belt and without looking – without looking! – threw it backward at his companions.
Rufinus reached out with his free hand, desperately, even though he knew he’d never reach. The thing their friend had thrown – and Rufinus was in no doubt as to what it was – sailed through the air, almost on target. Phenomenal, given the throw. But it was not quite on line. Rufinus watched with a sinking sensation as the pouch containing the coin dies flew out into the air to the side of the bridge, missing them by perhaps three feet.
Even as Rufinus felt the panic of a lost cause settle on him, Publius leapt, his hand closing on the pouch as he fell. Rufinus watched in horror as first the evidence and then his brother both disappeared over the edge of the aqueduct and into open space.
He hadn’t even been aware he’d reached out, so instinctive had been the act. He felt the sudden lurch of the extra weight and felt himself pulled to the edge as Publius’ fingers gripped him so hard his nails dug into Rufinus’ wrist, drawing blood. The weight was too much. He was being pulled over. Without care for his own safety, Rufinus kicked out at the stone and pushed himself backward into a fall.
There was a moment – a horrible moment – when their mutual grip almost failed, Publius hanging over the side of the aqueduct from the shoulders down, Rufinus leaning out dangerously over the far side, most of him still on the top. His fingers grasped as the weight of his brother pulled him back, and he managed somehow to get a grip on the stone lip. For heartbeats that felt half a year apart they remained where they were, Rufinus lying flat on the aqueduct top, his fingers round his brother’s wrist in the same manner as Publius’ on him, while the younger man hung over the precipice.
‘Climb!’ Rufinus gasped, holding tight.
As he felt Publius scrabbling and grasping, trying to haul himself back up, Rufinus’ gaze returned to the desperate fight going on a little further along the bridge. Cestius was good, but the man fighting him was a Praetorian veteran and was making the frumentarius work. Blades lanced out, clashed, cut, slashed and clanged as the two searched for an opening. Behind the white-clad soldier, the other Praetorian was trying to find a way to become involved. With almost ten feet of space, he was occasionally managing to get a thrust in to help his friend, but Cestius was using the terrain like a professional, forcing his opponent to move back and forth, left and right across the aqueduct top, preventing any easy access for the second opponent, his longer cavalry-style blade an extra advantage here.
Publius was on the top again a moment later, breathing heavily, the pouch of coin dies in his white-knuckled grip. The pair lay in exhausted silence for a few heartbeats, watching the fight.
Cestius jabbed suddenly, unexpected. The Praetorian leapt back out of the way of the blow with celerity, but slammed back into the man behind him. The second guardsman stumbled and fell, crashing down onto the flat stones with an explosive release of breath.
‘What are you waiting for?’ Cestius bellowed. ‘Run!’
Startled back into the urgency of their task, Rufinus and Publius helped one another rise and, with a nervous, regretful glance at Cestius, they began to pound along the last stretch of the bridge. Here, the hill was rising, the danger posed by a fall becoming less with every step. A junction in the aqueduct sent another flow off to the north even as they continued along the southern approach. As they neared the heavy brick distribution tank, Rufinus risked a glance back. Cestius was coming now, the two men at his heel, trying to close the distance.
He wasn’t going to make it, and they all knew it, apparently even Cestius. Skidding across the mossy section, the frumentarius almost fell and, righting himself, turned to face the Praetorians again. A bellow of sheer frustrated fury burst from the front man as he launched at Cestius.
It was almost like a dance – like those acrobatic performers so highly sought for the parties of the rich and the dissolute in Rome. As the man gracefully leapt forward, the gleaming gladius an extension of his arm, Cestius whirled, pirouetting in the slime, his sword coming down in an elegant arc and removing the Praetorian’s arm at the elbow. The man howled, momentum still carrying him forward and down, but Vibius Cestius was still spinning like a dancer, his sword rising once more as he twirled, and the second blow came on the man’s unprotected back as he stumbled on. Cestius’ blade bit down into the guardsman’s neck, cleaving through spine and killing him instantly.
Rufinus felt a glow of relief as the broken Praetorian slumped on in unchecked momentum and slid to a halt in the muck with blood fountaining and bubbling up from his wounds.
His elation turned to ashes in his mouth.
Even as the frumentarius came out of his spin into a low crouch with his sword ready, the second Praetorian hit him full in the side and the pair sailed out over the edge, disappearing down into the gloom. Rufinus tried desperately to crane his neck, but there was simply no view from here, past the aqueduct split, the second channel running off along the side of the Palatine to feed another distribution tank and a bathhouse there. The channel they followed now continued a further twenty feet and entered the side of a brick tower close to the main bulk of the palace.
Rufinus watched, agog, half expecting Cestius to rise from the depths like some sort of phoenix. The darkness seemed suddenly more oppressive than ever, the lack of battle sounds eerie. He could almost hear the blood pumping from the ruined neck of the Praetorian back along the aqueduct, even over the hiss of the rain that washed the lake of blood off the stonework and out into the night.
‘We still have the dies,’ Publius said quietly.
‘We do. Let’s hope it’s enough. Come on.’
Squaring his shoulders, Rufinus set off along that last short stretch, carefully. Publius opened his mouth to say something else, but Rufinus reached out and silenced him, coming to a halt. Here the aqueduct was maybe fifteen feet above the paths that ran around the periphery of the imperial palace, and two fi
gures with hair placated wetly to their scalps, clad in plain white togas were strolling along the nearest path, which ran beneath the aqueduct, directly under the spot where the brothers stood. Rufinus held his breath and watched as the two men strolled along. They could have been senators or wealthy citizens out taking the air, but for two things: only guards would be walking the grounds of the Palatine in the rain and the dark, and both men exhibited the tell-tale bulge at the armpit that spoke of a gladius beneath the toga’s folds. Praetorians.
The men were muttering conversation, their gaze playing across the darkened landscape as they went by. Publius watched, taut as a bowstring, as the pair passed beneath them and walked on along the path toward the bathhouse on the eastern slope.
Once the two men were safely away, Rufinus gestured and led on, making his way to the distribution tower. For the security of the imperial complex there were no access rungs here – just a ten foot drop to the hard path below. From the far side of the tank, smaller channels and conduits ran in a variety of directions, disappearing into buildings or underground.
‘How dextrous are you feeling?’ Rufinus asked his brother.
‘I’ll manage, old man.’
Rufinus gave him a sad smile. Somehow, the leaving behind of Mercator and Icarion, compounded by the subsequent loss of Vibius Cestius, had sucked any joy from their achievement. Not that it was over yet, of course… not by a long way.
Carefully, Rufinus checked the area and suddenly held out a restraining hand as Publius moved to jump, pushing him back into the shadows of the bulky brick tower instead.
Four men had emerged from the darkness, around the corner of the imperial palace. All bore blades at their sides and wore the red tunics and heavy wool cloaks of legionaries. Their armour was slightly lower quality segmented plate than Rufinus had been used to, and the design on their shields was unfamiliar. Once more, he ran his mind through the disposition of legions – one of his time-passing habits – though he suspected from the start he knew who it would be. The leaping boar was a Celtic design, and it didn’t take much digging in his memory to recall that the boar was the symbol of the Twentieth Valeria Victrix.
Troops from Britannia. Pompeianus had warned him of such a thing, but somehow it had just been words until now. Seeing legionaries from the most distant province of the empire, armed and armoured in defiance of Rome’s most ancient laws, stomping around the Palatine as though they had every bit as much right to be there as the Praetorians made his blood thunder. The sheer effrontery of the chamberlain! That Cleander had managed to bring in legionaries from far lands and use them to patrol the Palatine…
Rufinus found suddenly that he was angry, and not particularly with Perennis or with the legionaries along the path. Not even with Cleander, who, for all his wickedness, was just the latest in a long line of such men that stretched right back into the days of the republic. He was angry at the emperor. How could he let things like this happen? Such a situation would have been unthinkable with the great Marcus Aurelius at the steering oars of the empire. But his son… how could he allow men like Cleander to wield such authority? Could he not see that he was being usurped in all-but name? It didn’t even seem like the charismatic golden scion he remembered from Vindobona, who had reacted with such direction and decisiveness against those who’d tried to usurp him or overstep their bounds two years ago.
Legionaries, here…
The four men wandered past, heading for a door, which they opened and passed through, talking Latin in accents so thick and barbaric they were barely intelligible.
He watched the men go and forced himself to calm down.
Anger had its place. Anger was a fuel, and in the right circumstances it could drive a man to great things. But it was also an incautious thing and, unrestrained, could kill its wielder all too easily. As his breath began to return to normal, he checked once more for guards and, seeing no further sign of patrols, gestured to Publius and tensed to jump
The brothers landed on the gravelled path below with a soft crunch, and rose swiftly, stepping back into the shadows of the tank, which thrummed with the movement of endless torrents of water. Added to the torrents falling from the sky, Rufinus would have been pleased never to see water again.
‘What now?’ Publius asked quietly
‘We need to get in there,’ Rufinus pointed to the very door that the four legionaries from Britannia had used.
‘There are four legionaries in there,’ his brother pointed out quietly.
‘A lot more than four. That’s one of their barracks. That’s the old Flavian extension that’s been largely abandoned for years. When I used to patrol up here, that’s where the lazy would go for a sit down while they were supposed to be patrolling. It’s where they used to keep secret stocks of wine for cold days on duty. Not now, I reckon. Not if half of Britannia are quartered there. But that’s also where Perennis is being held, in the old guardrooms in the same complex, so that’s where we need to go, legions of Britannia or no legions of Britannia.
‘But they’re looking for you,’ Publius reminded him.
‘Correction,’ Rufinus replied. ‘They’re looking for Mercator, Icarion, Dexter, Acheron and me. Even if word has reached the Palatine about that little scuffle on the Caelian already, there will be conflicting, confused reports about who we all are. You, no one knows at all.’
He scoured the grounds around them again, watching as, in the distance, two red-clad men of the urban cohorts passed across from an archway to the south. A smile split his face.
‘And we’re both fairly unkempt right now. How familiar are you with the military?’
‘What?’
‘Well we can hardly try sneaking around the place unnoticed when it’s full of soldiers, so we’ll have to go in brazenly. Come on.’
‘What are we doing?’ hissed Publius as Rufinus led the way across an open area of pathway and off toward the south of the great imperial hill.
‘Obtaining a disguise.’
As fast as he dared, Rufinus padded along the path toward that archway. Reaching it, he paused and peered carefully around the corner. Here, various low ancillary structures stood out from the bulk of the palace, their specific purposes many and varied. The pair of subdued-looking soldiers from the urban cohorts were strolling around the edge of the palace, looking down over the race track of the Circus Maximus, which was barely visible through the blanket of rain.
‘No killing,’ Rufinus hissed almost inaudibly, and started to jog without waiting for his brother’s reply. To cut down on sound, he ran across one of the well-manicured lawns, avoiding the crunching gravel of the path. Publius was right behind him. He could hear the faint drum of the pounding feet at his back through the constant battering of the rain.
The two soldiers hardly knew what hit them. As they had passed beneath a tall pine tree they’d paused to shelter from the rain – the hiss of which helped hide the sounds of pursuit. Even as one of them realised that the thumping behind him was footsteps and not the heavy raindrops thudding down from the high branches, Rufinus hit him at speed. The young Praetorian’s hand, arm extended as he ran, smashed heel first into the man’s helmeted head, slamming it hard into the bole of the tree as he went on into the second man. This soldier, caught unawares like his friend, hit the ground under the weight of his assailant and tried to cry out but failed, the breath driven from his lungs.
‘Finish the other one,’ Rufinus barked back to his brother as he lifted the head of the man beneath him and slammed it back down to the gravel.
‘What?’
‘Knock him out before he can shout.’
Rufinus slammed the man’s head against the gravel for a second and then a third time, watching as the soldier’s eyes rolled up into his head. Lifting the man’s skull, he felt around the back, found a patch of wet, sticky blood, and checked the man’s neck. The pulse was still strong, but he would have an excruciating headache tomorrow.
Good.
He tu
rned to see the other soldier lying on the floor motionless, Publius standing over him, breathing heavily.
‘Good work.’
His brother, eyes wild, shook his head. ‘All I did was watch. I think he might be dead.’
Rufinus scurried over and crouched to examine him. The man’s helmet, which should have protected him from the worst of the blow against the tree’s trunk, had instead dented inwards rather drastically, cracking the skull, and had also turned through almost forty-five degrees, becoming wedged on. Carefully, Rufinus turned the helmet back, hearing the man’s nose break with the movement and wincing at the memory of his own nasal injury. Once he had the helmet facing the right way, he tried to remove it, but felt hair and flesh coming with it because of the deep indentation. Letting it settle back, he held his hand in front of the man’s face.
‘He’s still breathing, but he might not be if I squash his head taking the helmet off. Grab the other one.’
As Publius frowned, Rufinus grasped the man with the broken head beneath the shoulders and dragged him back off the gravel path onto the grass. His brother was still standing, staring.
‘Come on. We have to get out of sight before anyone else comes.’
And as Publius reached down and began to drag the other soldier, Rufinus hauled his burden in the direction of an outbuilding he knew to contain gardening equipment for the workmen who kept these lawns and flowerbeds in such immaculate condition. A quick change, and then into the palace.
‘Hold on, sir. We’re coming…’
XIX – An ending unlooked for
‘What are you doing?’
Publius turned a confused expression on his brother. ‘Walking.’
‘No you’re not. You’re practically marching,’ Rufinus murmured, reaching out a hand and arresting some of Publius’ movement.
Praetorian: The Price of Treason Page 30