The Pillars of Rome r-1

by Jack Ludlow

  ‘Here,’ said Lucius, throwing Gafon a small leather bag full of coins. It was caught and weighed by a person well used to calculating the contents of a purse, a man who knew that what he had in his hand was either his whole agreed fee, or something very close to it. ‘We agreed half your fee in advance. You will already have ascertained that the purse contains more.’

  ‘Does it, your honour?’ Gafon’s eyes were wide, and larded with insincere surprise.

  ‘I have another task for you.’ That changed the innocent look to one of barely disguised suspicion. ‘It is nothing like as dangerous, but it is, to me, just as important. It therefore qualifies for a substantial reward.’

  His hired assassin was thinking that if there was another fee, it was one of which his thugs would know nothing, therefore payment of whatever was required, if he agreed to it, would be for him alone.

  ‘I have a slave who has betrayed me,’ said Lucius, fingering a tightly rolled scroll of paper. ‘I could of course just kill him, I have the legal right to do so, but that would not send out the message that I require.’

  ‘He could die beside Livonius.’

  Lucius shook his head. This Gafon was stupid, but he dealt with that every day, quite often with men who held high rank, so masking the thought came easily. ‘Nor would his body in the street point out what’s required, quite apart from his obvious association with me.’

  Lucius waited for Gafon to draw the conclusion he sought to convey; that this household slave was in some way connected to the party of populares who supported Tiberius Livonius; that his death had to send a message to them as well as the rest of Rome’s slaves; that spying on their masters would result in only one fate; not just death but total oblivion.

  ‘You want him to disappear?’

  ‘Yes. How that is done I leave to you. I am about to call for him and give him some instructions relating to your task. He will readily understand that I distrust you, with the same arrogance that makes him think I have complete faith in him. I will ask him to accompany you, and watch to make sure that you carry out my instructions to the letter. How you do it and when I leave to you, but I want him disposed of, yet some sign of his demise to be publicly visible. Carry out that, as well, and your fee for the night’s work will be increased substantially.’

  ‘I accept,’ Gafon replied crisply.

  ‘You do not wish to ponder this?’ asked Lucius, with an arch, almost amused expression. The owner of the gladiator school, more concerned with his indebtedness than the prospect of another murder, shook his head. ‘The slave will have with him a scroll, and that too must disappear.’ Gafon nodded, then grinned as the senator continued. ‘He will also have some money of his own, which I expect you will relieve him of.’

  That Gafon would have to share, but he was more concerned with how to make a dead body disappear.

  ‘Make sure you come back alone to tell me what you have done,’ Lucius added. ‘You will never talk of this to anyone, at the peril of the same fate as those you will dispose of tonight. And tell those brawlers you have with you to hold their tongues as well.’

  Gafon was well aware of the potency of the threat. Armed with a sword he might be, but against the power and dignity of this man he would be impotent. He could plead till he was blue that he had been hired to do murder, but that would just guarantee his own removal. That his paymaster may suffer subsequently was little compensation.

  Lucius went to the door and signalled that Ragas should enter. With a last glance at the assembled thugs he did so; coming into the well-lit study it was possible for Gafon to examine him. Taller than both men in the room he carried himself as though he was the lord and Lucius the slave. His skin was discoloured around his neck, stained by the metal of the slave collar he had worn for many years, but even that did nothing to dent his natural dignity. Loosely dressed in a light tunic, the muscles of his body rippled on arms and breast and he showed no sign at all that the cold of the open atrium had affected him.

  Gafon knew enough about fighting men to recognise a boxer when he saw one. It was in the face certainly; the nose which had once been straight and handsome flattened by numerous blows; the scar tissue on the brow and the raised knuckles on the large hands. This man would have acted as bodyguard as well as a body slave, protecting Lucius from assault in the troubled city streets. But Gafon was also struck by a similarity of features in both men. Lucius was like an aesthetic older relation of the sturdier slave. His hair was receding now and no doubt his fine dark brown mop had once been as thick as that of the servant, but it was around the eyes of both men that the similarity was most marked; deep brown yet penetrating pupils under marked eyebrows.

  ‘That will be all,’ Lucius said to Gafon, as soon as the assassin had managed to get a good look at his victim. ‘Wait outside the door.’

  Gafon obeyed, masking his surprise that one so close to Lucius had betrayed him. But it made sense, for the boxer would be with his master more than any other person, both inside the Falerii house and out on the streets. Who would know more about his movements, whom he visited, the senators he spoke with. Given that most men where blind to the presence of a slave, and would talk freely when he was close, what plans he hatched with people whom Tiberius Livonius might assume were on his side.

  Behind the closed door the slave was receiving from his master’s hand a scroll stating that he had been the property of the Falerii family but was now, by order of the head of that household, free. It was an act that should have been witnessed by either his friends or a magistrate, but since he had held the office of consul he had decided to dispense with anything public for the very good reason that he was not sure he wanted this manumission to be generally known. Lucius was uncomfortable, certainly more so than his now ex-slave. Ragas had always carried himself in the manner to which he had been born, a war leader among his own tribe, which had rendered a troubled edge to their relationship from the day he had been accepted as a gift from Aulus Cornelius. Not one to suffer insolence, Lucius had made the man’s life a misery, seeking to rupture a spirit determined to challenge all notions of servitude. It had taken months and he could not claim to have broken him, but he had got Ragas to acknowledge who gave orders and who obeyed, in the process forming, for him, a strange admiration. Lucius did not like Ragas one little bit, but he saw qualities in him; some traits that he had himself, others more physical that he lacked but wished he possessed.

  They shared a steely determination, a refusal to buckle under adversity. Where the slave had been physically hard, Lucius possessed a will of iron that could not be deflected from any objective, once set, a trait which had earned him his nickname, Nerva. Beyond those first confrontations, the master had found that his body slave had a brain as well. He learnt Latin with ease, both the written and spoken word, and possessed a devious mind, but it was the attraction of his wife Ameliana for this Dacian which had brought the greatest service of all. The couple had endured near-twenty childless years, not unusual in a Roman family, but galling to a man as proud as Lucius. Adoption was the commonplace solution for a patrician family, yet he was unwilling to take that step, not wishing to open himself up to the gossip of the mob or see ribald drawings on his own villa walls regarding his potency in the bedchamber. Originally furious at the notice his wife afforded to a slave, as well as the nocturnal scrabblings it engendered, his natural pragmatism forced him to look at it objectively. Finally he came to see it as the solution to an intractable dilemma, and to relish the market-place joke that now attached to his name; that he took such a long view of everything that he had saved up his seed over all those years for one mighty endeavour.

  ‘In the end, you served me well, better than either of us could have imagined.’

  Ragas held up the scroll that made him both a free man and a Roman citizen. ‘For this I would have done more.’

  ‘Will you stay in the city?’ That warranted a shrug from a man who now had the right not to respond. ‘A man of your abilities wi
ll prosper here and you always have my good offices to call upon should you need assistance.’

  ‘We have agreed many times, Lucius Falerius, that haste is fatal. I shall look around me, see what I see, then decide on my next course of action.’

  ‘I have one last job for you, tonight, if you wish to undertake it. Naturally should you do so there would be a fee.’ Lucius held up another small leather pouch. The Dacian took it and bounced the leather purse in his hand, causing Lucius to add, ‘Those men outside have been engaged for a very special service.’

  ‘The final reckoning. No more debates.’

  That brought forth, from Lucius, a full smile. Proud of his own deductive powers he liked to observe them in a man he had some claim to have trained. No expression on his face betrayed the thought that he would miss Ragas, not for his insolence perhaps but certainly for his sagacity as well as his powerful physical and protective presence. But he had the good name of his house to consider, and closure, just as it was for Tiberius Livonius, was the best method of securing that.

  ‘I wish to be sure they do as they are told! Go with them, Ragas. You need take no part, but you can bring back the news that what orders I have given them have been carried out to the letter.’

  ‘No one to survive?’

  It was with a wolfish grin that Lucius replied. ‘Precisely.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Lucius waited till he was sure they had all gone before making his way to the room of the wet nurse, she asleep by the brazier, her own child cradled in her arms. He ignored her, passing on to look into the cot, which contained the new-born child he had publicly acknowledged as his son. The infant lay at peace, the long black lashes on his eyes seeming to cover a goodly portion of his face. The jet-black hair of his birth would go, but it would come back thick and as strong as the physical presence masked by the soft rounded features of a baby.

  Lucius stroked the tiny hand. ‘I pray to the gods that you will grow to manhood, and stand as potent as I do as a representative of a noble house. You will be the son I have always longed for. Tomorrow we will commence the ceremonies. Within a week the whole Roman world will know of your arrival.’

  With that he turned on his heel and left. On his way back to his study he passed the room in which his wife lay, silent and pale upon a bier, her white bloodless hands folded across her breasts. Lucius Falerius did not spare her cadaver a second’s glance.

  The streets of Rome were never deserted, but for such a teeming, crowded city they were, on this night, ominously quiet. It was cold and perhaps the taverns were full, and what trouble the wine would bring was brewing within them. Those out, seeing Gafon and his band approach, thought it prudent to choose another route to whichever destination they were heading. There was a certain amount of shuffling of the pack as Gafon tried to ensure that Ragas, like the others in a heavy cloak, led them, while the slave was equally determined to bring up the rear, for the gang leader was gnawing on a tricky problem, whether to kill Ragas before his main task was completed, or after? The mistake Gafon made was to look so hard at Ragas while he tried to decide. For a man that loved to fight, had been a potent warrior and was at his happiest in the boxing square it sent a danger signal that other men might not have sensed. Ragas, noticing the indifference of the other members of the party, wondered if he was not indulging in a fantasy without foundation, but once alerted to a potential threat he could not relax.

  Neither man had much time to think, since the Cave of Lupercal, where the rites to mark the cult were nearing completion, was no great distance from the Temple of Ceres. Home of the plebeian Aediles, this was the known destination of Tiberius Livonius and his supporters once the ceremonies were over. At least Gafon could be happy, as they skirted the Forum Boracum, they were heading in the right direction, towards the wharves and warehouses of the Port of Rome, a teeming warren of alleys, empty at night, where the dead body of a slave could be carried without causing fuss. He had finally decided what to do; assassinate Tiberius first, then see to his secondary task. Ragas would be decapitated after being killed, his head and body thrown separately into the Tiber. The waters of the river would carry both parts, at differing speeds, all the way downriver, and washed ashore in different places, they would never be connected.

  Gafon heard them coming, four noisy individuals who thought themselves immune to the hazards faced by ordinary mortals. Like the men who had stopped on their way to the Cave of Lupercal to attend the recent Falerii birth they were dressed in goatskins. Now the dried sacrificial blood that gave potency to the adherents to the cult streaked their bodies, illuminated by the flaring torches they carried. Gafon had placed three men who would let them pass, and put himself at the head of the other three to intercept his prey. The lights they carried, plus their own noisy conversation, made things ridiculously easy and they did not hear the men who slipped out behind to follow in their wake, and showed little shock when further progress was barred by Gafon. Even when the hidden weapons were brought to their attention, no hint of fear could be detected in their behaviour.

  ‘Do you not know who I am?’ demanded the tallest of the group, lifting the goat’s mask from his head. Even sweat-streaked and blood-stained there was no mistaking the well-known profile of Tiberius Livonius, the plebeian tribune.

  ‘We know,’ Gafon replied.

  Tiberius Livonius pointed towards the sword in Gafon’s hand. ‘Then you will know to even raise that in my presence is to invite eternal damnation.’

  ‘Damnation is something we have already, Tribune. Happen you’ll find when you cross the Styx that what awaits you is the kind of life we folk live as normal.’

  So sure was Tiberius of his status that he did not even attempt to raise his hands to defend himself and the shock on his face was as much from the dent to his certainties as it was to the blade of Gafon’s sword slicing into his bare gut. The eyes opened wide as the body arched towards the gang leader as, with the same skill as he taught his gladiators, the weapon was rammed sideways and up, to tear through the vital organs and ensure instant death. Gafon felt the tribune’s blood flowing hot over the sword handle and his hand, watched as the croak of protest turned to a gurgle of bright red as the froth of yet more began to spill out of his mouth. Around him the light faded as those bearing the torches fell noisily to his men, screaming as they were repeatedly stabbed and clubbed by idiots who had no idea how to execute a clean kill.

  In the silence that followed, Gafon took up a torch and turned to the alleyway in which Ragas was standing, hood up and cloak held tightly to his body. ‘Come, friend, and see that they are all dead. Then you can return to your master and give him the news.’

  Ragas declined to move. ‘I can see well enough from here.’

  ‘Then you have the eyes of a god. For me, I would rather come closer so that I could be certain.’

  Good with a sword, Gafon was less accomplished at the telling of falsehoods, so his words struck a false note that was highlighted by the torchlight and the bodies around his feet. Ragas, looking into Gafon’s eyes, saw no humour, no reassurance in those eyes, all he saw was the possibility of his own death. Having committed such a crime, the whole gang should have dispersed instantly. Yet there was still a lingering doubt, for his death would have had to be ordered and he could just not bring himself to believe that even Lucius Falerius would stoop so low.

  ‘Go on your way,’ he said to Gafon, ‘and I will return with the news of your success.’

  ‘Look at them,’ Gafon demanded, jabbing toward the bodies with his sword. Ragas threw off his cloak and ran then, and the voice behind him cried out the words he had dreaded to hear, words that told him that his fears were real. ‘Get him. Ten gold denarii to the man who brings me his head.’

  The pitch-black alleys of the port were both a help and a hindrance. He was aided by the sheer number, but handicapped by the lack of certainty as to his direction, as well as the numerous objects that lay hidden in his path, objects which saw him
more than once crashing painfully onto the hard packed earth. That he had to do silently, so that his ears could alert him to the proximity of the noisy pursuit. There were stars above his head, but not enough to steer a course by, and they were often cut off from view by the overhang of the higher warehouses. Common sense told him to stop on occasions and listen to see if the pursuit had passed him by. Renewed fear made him move, there being no security in noises, the distance of which he could not discern. Several times he nearly ran into one of Gafon’s thugs, alerted only by a flicker of torchlight that the route he had chosen was one to take him into danger, not out of it.

  His luck ran out after about ten minutes. He saw one torch in front of him, only to find as he turned that another was casting a glow at an intersection to his rear. Ragas felt his heart contract as that glow turned to flame, and he saw behind him a scarred, grinning brawler carrying a spiked club. He was grinning because behind his quarry he could see quite plainly his leader, Gafon, sword in hand and so could Ragas when he turned to look. A boxer has fast reflexes; he has to, when in a bout only a split second separates him from delivering a blow or receiving one. Ragas did not hesitate; he ran at the thug holding the club, knowing that he stood a better chance against that than he did against the sharp blade and lethal point of a gladiator’s sword. The thug readied himself, club half-raised to smash in the approaching skull, as, behind him, Ragas could hear Gafon moving in to complete the kill.

  The way he launched himself, feet first at the ankles of the brawler, one foot striking home, threw the man off balance. The spiked club was already swinging, but the increased distance to a body now on the ground, added to his own loss of stability, took most of the strength out of the blow. It still broke an upraised left forearm, the crack of the bone going echoing off the alley walls. Ragas had spun upwards, fear making him unaware of the pain; he knew his left arm was useless, but that was not needed by a right-handed fighter. The bare-knuckled punch took the clubman right on the edge of his jawbone and the crack of that going was audible, accompanied as it was by a scream of pain that died in the brute’s throat as he was knocked unconscious. Ragas was out from under the collapsing body and running, cradling his broken arm, before the body hit the ground. He heard Gafon curse as he leapt over the inert gang member, as well as the ring of his sword blade as it connected with something solid. It was not any sense of direction that made Ragas turn left, just the need of self-preservation, but his hopes lifted as he saw the silver blue streak of the river ahead of him.