by Tom Holt
Phaon told us the news from town; it wasn't good. Apparently there'd been a special emergency meeting of the Senate, at which Lucius Domitius had been declared an enemy of the people and a warrant had been issued for his arrest. As soon as he was found, they said, he'd be punished in the old-fashioned way—
'What does that mean, exactly?' Lucius Domitius interrupted.
'It's the ancient traditional punishment for treason,' Phaon told him. 'They strip you naked, wedge your neck in a wooden fork and beat you to death with sticks. Apparently it's been so long since it was last done they had to look it up in the old records.'
Another thing Lucius Domitius hadn't had much experience of was pain. Toothache a couple of times (though he had remarkably good teeth; anyway, far better than he deserved after spending his early years stuffing his face with honeycakes.
Where I grew up, we couldn't afford the stuff that rots your teeth but I've been a martyr to toothache all my life). Nothing worse than that, though, so the idea of being tortured to death scared him rigid. That's your Roman nobility for you.
Soft as a pancake.
'It's all right,' Callistus interrupted, 'it's not going to come to that. Oh, for pity's sake,' he went on, as Lucius Domitius produced a pair of very small, extremely fancy daggers from his sleeve. 'Put those things away before you cut yourself.'
'I'm not going to let them take me alive,' Lucius Domitius said. Then he got a fit of the shakes and dropped the daggers on the ground with a clang. The jewelled knob on the end of one of them came off and rolled across the floor.
'But maybe you're right,' he added quickly. 'Maybe we can get out of this after all. What do you think, Phaon? Can you hide us here until everything settles down?'
'No,' Phaon replied. Well, at least he was honest about it. 'You must be out of your tiny mind bringing him here,' he went on, addressing Callistus (presumably because he recognised that my brother was the only member of the party with enough common sense to smear on a biscuit). 'This'll be one of the first places they look, and if they catch you here, I'll be feeding the crows along with the rest of you.'
I must say, disaster is a wonderful way of getting to know people. The couple of times I'd met Phaon before, I'd put him down as just another Imperial brown-noser: polite, charming, anything-you-say-is-fine-with-me-Caesar. A pain in the bum, in other words. I never knew he could be so refreshingly straightforward.
At this point, Lucius Domitius burst into tears. 'It's all my fault,' he said.
'I brought it all on myself, and now all of you — the only true friends I've ever had — you're going to be killed along with me. It's all because I'm such a pathetic coward. If I had a scrap of decency about me, I'd kill myself right now'
Callistus sighed. 'Shut up, will you, for God's sake, I'm trying to think.' He scowled for a moment, then grabbed Phaon by the sleeve. 'You,' he said, 'get upstairs, watch the road, the moment you see anything, you let us know Right?'
Phaon nodded and fled.
'I wouldn't trust that arsehole if I were you,' I muttered. 'If the soldiers show up, I bet you he'll be running down the road yelling, “This way! Over here!” as fast as his feet'll carry him.'
Callistus looked at me. 'That's what I'm counting on,' he said. 'Now shut up and listen, both of you. I think I've got it figured out, so for crying out loud pay attention. I don't know how long we've got.'
He sounded so confident that for a moment I really believed he might have thought of something. After all, hadn't he winkled me out of the shit a dozen or so times over the years, starting with that stunt in the bathhouse? All right, Callistus was no Aristotle, but he could think on his feet. 'What's the plan?' I asked hopefully 'All right.' Callistus stooped down and picked up the funny little daggers. 'I think Phaon's probably right. Sooner or later they'll look for us here. I should have seen that back in the palace, but I didn't, so I'm the one to blame. I want that understood before we go any further. I'm the one who's got us in this mess, so I'm the one who'll have to get us out. That's the plain truth, and I don't want any arguments from you two. Clear?'
Of course, Lucius Domitius had never seen him in this mood before. He was a bit stunned, I think, at being spoken to like a footman or a stable-boy Probably just as well, because it made him keep quiet. Anyway, we both nodded to show we agreed, and Callistus continued: 'We could try and get away, but I don't like the odds. The three of us, on foot — if we stick to the roads we'd never cover enough ground before the soldiers find us. It's a simple matter of walkers against riders. If we go across country, we won't have a clue where we are, we'll be strangers, sticking out like a maggot in an apricot. You know what it's like in farm country, Galen. If there's a stranger in the district, everybody knows about it before the poor bugger's gone a mile. Long story short: I think running for it is out.'
'So's hiding,' I pointed out. 'You heard the fat man. We can't stay here.'
But Callistus shook his head. 'That's not what I'm proposing,' he said. 'Think for a moment. What'll it take to get the soldiers to flick off and leave you in peace?'
'That's easy,' Lucius Domitius groaned. 'My head in a basket.'
'Fine,' Callistus said, with a slight nod. 'Then that's what we'll give them.'
I have to say, forget about the context for a moment, the look on Lucius Domitius' face was something quite comical. 'You bastard,' he said, backing away until his arse bumped into the wall. 'You're going to give me to them after all.
You bastard.'
(See what I mean about disaster? This from the same fat slob who was all set to slash his wrists two minutes earlier so Callistus and I could escape. And the rest.)
But Callistus shook his head again. 'That's not what I've got in mind,' he replied calmly Then he turned to me. 'Galen,' he said, 'you remember that polecat we had when we were kids? And the bloody thing got loose and scragged Anaxarchus' prize rooster, and he came storming over our place swearing at Mother, and unless we gave him the polecat so he could pull its neck, he'd have the archon and the soldiers and the governor-general on us, and see us all in the galleys?' He grinned. 'And you remember what we did?'
I didn't like the way this was going. 'Sure,' I said. 'You made a little wicker trap and went up the hill to where you knew there was a polecat nest, and you trapped a stringy old gill and gave that to Anaxarchus, and he never knew the difference. But—'
'Exactly' My brother's grin melted into a smirk. 'He got a polecat to kill, we got to keep ours, and everybody was happy'
'Except the other polecat,' I pointed out.
'Screw the other polecat. Besides, this is better. This time, we don't have to go snaring a decoy, we've got a volunteer.'
I was afraid that was what he'd meant. Really afraid — you know, that cold griping feeling in your bladder that makes you want to pee all down your leg.
From anybody else, I simply wouldn't have believed it. But coming from Callistus — well, he was that sort of person. He didn't mess about, and he was straight down the line, always.
'Just hold on, will you?' Lucius Domitius had that dumb, bewildered look on his face. Really, for two coatpins I could have banged his head against the wall. 'I don't understand. Will someone please explain what you two are talking about?'
Callistus swung round on him. 'Oh God,' he said, 'have I got to spell it out for you? Listen. You and I look pretty much the same, right? Not shoulder to shoulder, maybe, but anyone seeing me on my own, without you there, would take me for you. Certainly it's a good enough likeness to fool a guards captain who's only seen you maybe half a dozen times on parade or in the theatre.'
'Yes,' Lucius Domitius said. 'How's that going to help us?'
Bloody fool, he still hadn't seen it. Callistus had to explain. 'Simple,' he said. 'You kill me. When they get here, they find my body and think they've got you. You're hiding up in the hayloft, but of course they won't bother searching, they'll think they've got the genuine article—'
Lucius Domitius screamed. I kid you not: a
full-blooded scream, like a pig being slaughtered with a blunt knife. 'No,' he whimpered, 'no, no, you can't. No, I won't let you. Don't even say such a thing, it's horrible—'
Callistus slapped him round the face, put a lot of wrist into it. It worked.
Lucius Domitius stopped squealing and stared at him in horror.
'That's settled, then,' Callistus said. 'Right.' He held out one of the little daggers. 'Come on, then, we don't know how long we've got. It'd be best if you can scuff my face up a bit, not so much that they won't recognise me, just enough to blur the edges a bit. Well, come on, for pity's sake.'
But Lucius Domitius was sliding down the wall like a slug and sobbing helplessly He wasn't going to be any use. 'Callistus,' I said, 'what the hell are you thinking about? You can't chuck your life away for — for that.'
'Fuck you,' he replied savagely 'It's my life. When I think how many times you nearly got us killed with your bloody stupid scams, and I had to risk my neck to save you.' He must have seen from the look on my face that I was suddenly going all to pieces. It was as if someone had peeled me open, taken out all my bones, and sewn me up again. 'It's all right, really,' he said gently 'This is what I want to do, for his sake, and mine. And it's not as if we've got any options.
It's either me or all of us, so it's as broad as it's long.'
'Bullshit,' I said. I was starting to shake all over. Odd thing. Ever so many times I've been sure I was about to die, and with good reason; I was always scared shitless, yes, but there was never that feeling of absolute total despair — because, I guess, I knew that if I got snuffed it wouldn't really matter (because what bloody good am I to anybody? None at all, not even to myself). But the thought that Callistus would die — that he'd die and I'd be left on my own —
I'd never had to face that before, and I'm telling you, I couldn't take it. It was only being frozen stiff with horror that stopped me blubbering helplessly like Lucius Domitius was doing.
And then he said: 'Galen, I want you to do this thing for me. I've never asked you for a favour before, ever, but I'm asking you now, because it's important.
Will you do it for me? Will you?'
And I heard myself answer, 'All right,' because, fuck it, I couldn't really say anything else. That was Callistus for you: sometimes, just occasionally, he made you want to be like him.
'Will you?' he repeated, and I nodded my stupid head, and let him stick one of those ridiculous little knives in my hand. He had to fold my fingers round the handle just to stop me dropping the thing.
Then he took a step towards me, and of course I shrank back, like he was the one who was about to knife me, and not the other way about. 'Pull yourself together, Galen,' he said sharply, 'let's get this over and done with.' Behind him, Lucius Domitius started wailing and boo-hooing like a fractious two-year-old; it'd have made a cat laugh to hear him, but not me. Callistus came closer; I tried to stay put, but I couldn't, and then my back was to the wall and there wasn't anywhere else to go. 'Come on Callistus shouted —he was annoyed, of all the things to be — and I opened my eyes very wide and stabbed him.
Of course, it was a bloody shambles; I screwed it up, like I screw up everything. I got him all right — there was blood everywhere, all over my hands, on the floor, you name it — but he was still alive. He was hurting, you didn't have to be a doctor to see that, but he was trying very hard to keep his temper.
'It's all right,' he said, 'you've got to try again.' He reached out and took my hand, pushed it away so as to pull the knife out of his gut. 'Go on,' he said, 'up here, look.' I suppose he meant his heart or his neck, but I was completely lost, I couldn't even breathe. So he lifted my hand until the point of the knife was pressed up against that little hollow where the collarbones meet the neck, and then he put his arms around me and hugged me.
I tried to grab hold of him as he fell but he was too slippery with blood, he slithered down my front and landed at my feet in a heap, and all I could do was look down at him. I wanted to scream, but I didn't have a voice. It was the worst thing ever.
God knows how long I stood there, but at some point that little shit Phaon came bursting in, yelling something about the cavalry, and then he saw the dead body, and me, and he said, Oh God. Then I guess some part of me I don't know much about seemed to take over, and I heard myself say, 'It's all right, I killed him.'
Fortunately, Phaon was too busy staring at the bloody mess on the floor to look round and see Lucius Domitius. So when he said, 'Who? Who've you killed?' I said, 'Caesar, of course, who the hell do you think? He didn't want to be captured, so I killed him.'
Phaon tore his eyes off the thing on the ground and looked up at me. 'Now what?' he said.
'Now you go out and meet the cavalry,' I said. 'And you fetch them down here and you show them the body, and you tell them a slave did it.' I don't know who was saying all this stuff. It sounded like the sort of thing Callistus would say, only it was my voice I could hear, but when was I ever that bright or that resourceful? 'You tell them,' I went on, 'that the slave who did this was Epaphroditus — you know, that evil little wanker who used to write his letters for him. This is very important: Galen and Callistus were never here, you never saw them tonight, it was Epaphroditus the secretary who killed him, and he ran off before you got here. Do you understand?'
Phaon was too fiddled to argue. 'Epaphroditus,' he repeated, like he was learning his lines for a play 'All right.'
'Good,' I said. 'Because if you tell them different, if you say it was Galen and Callistus, and we get caught, we're going to tell the magistrates that it was you who helped him escape from the palace, and you brought him here, and you were going to hide him — you get the idea.'
Phaon was too scared to talk, so he just nodded.
'Right,' I said. 'Now piss off.'
So he ran out, and I grabbed Lucius Domitius by the collar, and I pretty much had to drag him out of there, up through the hole we'd made in the cellar roof, and I had to push him to make him start running, and I had to keep shoving him in the bum to keep him from stopping and flolloping down in a big messy heap, and we ran out through the orchard and under the wall, and once we were on the road we kept running, and running.
And, basically, that's what we've been doing ever since.
THREE
Where were we? Oh yes.
So there we were in Sicily, on the run, having just escaped from fifteen years in the slate quarries (which was good), all because some crazy Greek had massacred our guards (which was bad, since we were going to get the blame, and pretty soon every soldier in the island was going to be looking for us). We had a big purse of the crazy Greek's money (also good), and the clothes we stood up in (also bad, because the fashion statement they made was unmistakably Escaped Convict). We hadn't got a clue where we were, or what we were going to do next.
By our standards, in other words, just another day at the office.
'The first thing we need to do,' I told Lucius Domitius, as we picked our way down a rocky hillside, 'is get out of these clothes and get a wash and a brush up. Next, we go to Mauretania .'
He stopped dead in his tracks and stared at me. ' Mauretania ,' he repeated.
' Mauretania . It's the answer to all our problems. All we have to do is go there, and we'll be free and clear, all our troubles will be over.
'Oh, good,' said Lucius Domitius. 'Would you mind awfully telling me why?'
I scowled at him. 'It's obvious. First, it's easy to get to from here, there's ships going backward and forwards every day. Second, nobody knows us in Mauretania , we'd be off to a fresh start, and we wouldn't be looking over our shoulders every two minutes. Third, the Mauretanians are a nation of born marks.'
“What?'
'Marks.' Was he being deliberately obtuse or something? 'Suckers. Not very bright people. Rich, fat, friendly and gullible. We'll do well there.'
He looked at me as if I was dribbling at the mouth. 'Where the hell did you get that idea from?'
'It's common knowledge,' I told him. 'Everybody knows that. It's, what's the word, proverbial. Rich and thick, like buttermilk. You go to any of those places, they're all the same. Tingis, Icosium, Cyrene—'
'Cyrene's in Libya.'
'Is it?' Trust Lucius Domitius to split hairs, just when I was getting a flow going. 'Well, it's all the same thing, isn't it?'
'No, it isn't,' he replied snottily. 'They're a thousand miles apart.'
'Let's not quibble over details,' I told him. 'The point is, it's a long way from here. Also,' I went on, because this was the good bit I'd been working round to, only he'd interrupted me, 'it's border country. Basically, you've got your long, narrow coastal area which is your Roman province, and behind that, there's the vast expanse of free Mauretania, which is an independent state. And you know what that means.
He nodded. 'They don't speak Latin,' he said.
'Which means,' I told him patiently, 'it's outside the jurisdiction. If things get hot for us and we need to clear out in a hurry, all we've got to do is nip over the line and we're safe. No extradition.'
He shook his head. 'You're wrong there,' he said. 'There's a treaty between the empire and the free state.'
'No, there isn't.'
'Yes, there bloody well is. I should know, I signed it.'
I shrugged. 'Well, anyway,' I said. 'It's got to be better than here, with soldiers looking for us under every bush. What do you say?'
He looked doubtful. 'I don't know,' he said.
'Don't be such a pain in the bum. It's wide-open territory out there. And a fantastic climate.'
He raised an eyebrow at me. 'It's all deserts, isn't it?'
'Only when you get inland a way'
'Didn't you say that's where we're headed? Besides, they've got lions in Mauretania, and scorpions the size of cats. And savage nomadic tribesmen who'll kill you for what's under your fingernails. We don't want to go there.'
'Yes, we do.'
'No, we don't.'
'“No, we don't”,' I repeated. 'I'll say this for you, Lucius Domitius, all those years you spent honing your debating skills with the finest minds of your generation, they really paid off, didn't they?'