by Tom Holt
'What I heard was, his son arrived a few days ahead of his old man, wanted to do a bit of hunting or whatever before knuckling down to his job on Daddy's staff.
Anyway, a couple of days ago he was out wandering about in the villages, and he only goes and gets himself robbed, the dozy young sod.'
'Get away,' said one of the others.
'Damn straight. What I heard was, they snuck up behind him when he wasn't looking, smacked him over the head, took the lot. Even the clothes he was wearing.' He sighed. 'Well, you can guess what that'll mean. The new governor hasn't even taken office yet, and his son's the victim of a brutal robbery. It's going to mean soldiers everywhere, random stop-and-searches, and if you can't prove you're on legitimate business, in the guardhouse you go till they can find someone who'll vouch for you.' The man we couldn't see grunted, like he was saying, That's right, that's what'll happen. 'I mean, it'll wear off after a few months, I dare say, 'specially if they get the toerags who did it, but don't be surprised if things are a bit tense for a while.'
The other two seemed to find it all pretty amusing. 'What, they even nicked his boots, did they?'
'So I heard. The kid reckons he didn't see them, but some blokes in the fields saw a couple of dodgy-looking strangers acting a bit funny — big, broad, thick-necked Italian type, and a little Greek bloke with a face like a ferret.
Word is, they're a couple of those convicts who did in the guards on the way to the quarries; there were two blokes answering those descriptions in that batch.'
'Ah,' said the one who hadn't said anything yet, presumably the bloke I couldn't see. 'That explains that then. Only, our sergeant was saying something about going and checking out some village where they'd seen a couple of strangers, and none of us knew what it was in aid of. That'll be it then.'
So there we were, Lucius Domitius and me, not daring to move in case this bloke who'd turned out to be a soldier looked up and saw us. Luckily, they all pushed off not long afterwards. We gave them a count of twenty, and got out of the inn quick.
The hayloft seemed a safe bet, for the time being, so we went there. 'This is terrible,' Lucius Domitius said. 'I can't believe it. It's like someone's doing it deliberately'
It was my turn to sit quiet. I like to be upbeat about things, but this was beyond me.
'Really,' he went on, 'if it wasn't so fucking awful, it'd be hilarious. We've got one lot of bogies after us for murdering Roman soldiers and escaping from the quarries; we've got the governor about to put two and two together and send his personal guards out after us; and now it turns out that you stole the shirt you're wearing from the governor's son. Between that lot, every single soldier in the entire Roman army's going to be looking for us by this time tomorrow' He made a funny sort of gurgling noise. 'It's amazing,' he said. 'Just like that, we've turned into the most desperate criminals in Sicilian history, and we haven't even done anything.'
Normally I'd have pointed out the bright side, but there wasn't one. 'You got any ideas?' I asked, which shows how depressed I was feeling.
'Sure,' he said. 'Let's kill ourselves and save them the trouble. About the only good thing I can see in all this is that we'll have been crucified as common criminals long before Sulpicius Asper figures out who I am, which means I'll be spared all that really nasty stuff they promised to do to me if they ever caught me. Thank heaven for small mercies, really.'
'Hold your bloody water,' I snapped at him. 'They haven't got us yet. There'll be a way out of this, you wait and see. There's always a way out, so long as you don't lose your nerve, and have faith.'
'Really.' He looked at me as if I was something he'd found in an apple. 'Next you're going to tell me you've been in worse fixes than this.'
'Well, yes,' I told him. 'And so have you. It's not so long since we were in a cart on our way to the quarries, and look at us now Free and clear. No reason why we shouldn't stay that way, so long as we stay cool and don't panic.'
I thought he was going to shout at me, but he didn't. 'All right, then,' he said, 'so what's the big idea this time?'
'I'm not sure. Probably the best bet would be the original plan. We can't be all that far from Camarina by now If we could just get on a boat, all our troubles'd be over. But,' I went on, 'I've got a gut feeling that that'd be a bad idea.
Like, if they already know out here about us stealing the kid's clothes, it's more than likely they've sent riders all along the coast telling the bogies to watch out for us, so Gamarina could be putting our heads in a noose.'
Lucius Domitius nodded slowly. 'Makes sense,' he said. 'So, what's the alternative”'
'Head inland,' I said, 'maybe. It's what they're not expecting us to do, so that's in its favour. On the other hand, it won't be long before everybody on this island's going to be looking out for us, especially if they put up a reward. We'll be strangers wherever we go, so we'll stick out like a boil on a camel's bum. If this was back home I'd say head for the mountains. I know loads of caves and places like that around Phyle where a bloke could stay out of sight for months. But wandering about in these hills would be asking for trouble — assuming we could get across the plains without some bugger seeing us, which isn't likely.'
'Bloody hell,' said Lucius Domitius thoughtfully 'And you're the cheerful one.
I'm right, aren't I? We're dead.'
'No we're not,' I said. 'It just needs thinking about, that's all.'
'That's all,' he repeated. 'Well, fine. You get thinking. Personally, I'm going to try prayer.
So there I was, in this hayloft in Sicily, trying to think of some simple but ingenious way of staying alive, and I guess I must've thought so hard I sprained my brain and knocked myself out, because next thing I knew, I was waking up, with sunlight pouring in through the loft door.
Now it could be that I'd been thinking in my sleep, or maybe Lucius Domitius' prayers had got through for once and the gods sent me the answer in a dream.
Dunno. And I don't suppose it makes a blind bit of difference. The point is, as soon as I woke up, I knew. Simple as that.
'Hey,' I called out. 'You there?'
I heard him grunt and turn over. 'Wassmatter?'
'I've got it,' I said. 'Our way out of here.'
He groaned. 'Whenever you get that confident, self-assured expression in your voice, I know I'm in for a bad time. Go on, then, what's your brilliant idea?'
Just as well I'm the thick-skinned type, or I might have taken offence. 'Shut your face and listen,' I said. 'Where's the last place they'd think of looking for us?'
He thought for a moment. 'Ecbatana,' he replied. 'But that's no good, it's three thousand miles away I pretended I hadn't heard that. 'Who's looking for us?' I asked. 'Soldiers, that's who. So, what we need to do is we need to be soldiers. I mean,' I went on, 'when you look at a soldier, what do you see? You see the armour, the shiny helmet, the red cloak, the big shield, all that. Never look at his face, do you?
I mean, you can't see much more than the tip of his nose past those big cheekpieces, and besides, you don't bother to look. It's like I keep telling you when you worry about being recognised — people see what they expect to see. They look at a man sat on the curule chair, they see the emperor. They look at a bloke dressed as a slave, they see a slave. And a bloke in armour, with a red cloak...'
He stared at me like I was dribbling. 'Are you out of your tiny mind?' he said.
'Also,' I said, 'there you are sitting outside an inn, or herding your cows, or spitting up your field, and these two blokes come up to you, in uniform, asking if you've seen two blokes. It's never going to occur to you that the blokes asking the question are the blokes they're looking for.'
He scratched his head. 'Say that again,' he said. 'Slowly'
'We dress up as soldiers,' I said. 'We pretend we're looking for us. Think about it.'
He thought about it. 'Just one problem,' he said. 'Where are we going to get two sets of army kit from? Or were you thinking of strolling up to the barracks and askin
g the quartermaster sergeant if he's got anything in our size?'
I shook my head. 'Don't worry about that,' I said, 'I've got that all sussed.
Least of our problems. So, what do you think?'
He had this look on his face like he had really bad wind. 'I don't know,' he said. 'It's so bloody stupid, we might just get away with it. But—'
'That's settled, then. All right, let's get going. No point sitting here waiting to get caught.'
Now if you're racking your brains trying to figure out my brilliant plan for getting hold of two sets of infantry uniform, you're in good company, because so was I. Oh, I know I'd told Lucius Domitius I'd got it all worked out, but that was a little white lie, because otherwise he'd have kicked up a fuss and we'd never have got anywhere. As we climbed down out of that loft, I've got to say, I didn't have much idea of how to go about it. Well, I was pretty much resigned to the fact that we were probably going to have to bend the law a bit, but apart from that, I was trying to keep an open mind, as it were.
My first thought was that Lucius Domitius' crack about the quartermaster sergeant wasn't as dumb as he'd tried to make it sound. It's a well-known fact that the Roman army is there for two reasons: to keep the peace, and to get ripped off by anything that moves. If you've got a dying horse, or three tons of mildewed beans, what do you do? Sell 'em to the military. Or suppose you're a building contractor, or you've got a factory making hobnails. Who's your favourite customer, the one you know you can screw over any day of the week? The boys in red. And if there's anything you want, and the army's got it, all you need to do is buy the quartermaster or the stores clerk a drink, and you can call round the barracks with a wheelbarrow and the soldiers'll help you load it up. I love the army Really it's enough to make me wish I paid taxes.
Only trouble with that as a game plan was that I didn't know where the nearest barracks was, and for some reason I wasn't keen on the idea of wandering round town asking people the way A pity, but you've got to be realistic. So I remembered what my old mother used to tell us when we were kids: what you can't buy, steal.
Well, that's all right to say, but I didn't like the idea of following a half platoon of squaddies down a dark alley and mugging them for their kit. A direct frontal assault was out, I reckoned. That just left stealth. And that was when I started to wish that when I was young and starting out in life, I'd had the chance to knuckle down and learn a trade. You see, it's one thing hooking a cloak and a belt off some young git while he's shagging the local fauna.
Tickling off the military, on the other hand, is skilled work. You need to have had a decent education if you want to play that sort of game.
Still, it was all I could come up with, so I applied my mind and thought it through: when do soldiers take their kit off? Answer: they don't much, and if you don't believe me, stroll up to the next sentry you see and take a good sniff. And then I thought, Galen, you're thinking small again, it'll be the death of you, your lack of vision. True, your bacon-chewing, fiat-footed Mule of Marius only sheds his togs twice, his wedding night and his funeral. Your officers, on the other hand, are a cut above that. They're gentlemen. They wash.
'Now then,' I told Lucius Domitius, 'keep your eyes peeled for the bathhouse.'
He looked at me and started whining, but I was expecting that. 'Oh for God's sake,' he said, 'you're not planning on tickling for the stuff, are you? Don't you ever learn? That's what got us into this mess in the first place.'
'Sure,' I said. 'It's like the old country saying: fuck-ups are like a door, they get you in and then they get you out again. Now, we're going to need a long pole, and something we can use for a hook.'
'No.'
'And some string,' I added, because I'm dead keen on attention to detail. 'Start looking.'
The long pole was easy You know those things shopkeepers use for snuffing the lamps outside their shops? We found one of them, just leaning up against a wall.
The hook was a bit harder. I figured a pot hook would do, but all the ones we saw had pots hanging off them, and it'd have taken too long to snaffle them.
Just when I was getting nervous strolling through the market holding a long stolen pole, we saw this ironmongers' stall, and there on his table was a row of brand new meathooks, still black from the fire. 'There,' I said. Just the job.'
Lucius Domitius looked worried. 'How the hell are we going to steal one of them,' he said, 'with the bloke standing there watching? And if you say start a diversion—'
'Don't be stupid,' I told him. 'We've got money, remember. We buy one.
So we did, and then we snuck round the back of a butcher's shop and unpicked a yard of thread from the hem of Lucius Domitius' tunic, and used that to tie the hook on the pole. Of course, that made another problem. It's not smart to wander round the place with a hook tied on a long stick, asking people the way to the public baths. In the end, all I could think of was tearing the sleeve off Lucius Domitius' tunic and wrapping it round the hook. A bit obvious, you'd have thought, but we got away with it.
Luckily, the baths in that town weren't hard to find: posh new building, probably only been up a year or so. It was still fairly early in the morning, early enough for there to be a fair chance of catching an officer preening himself before setting out for a day's shouting at the men. (Now if you're smart, you'll have noticed that suddenly I'm talking about one officer, singular. That was the clever bit. Your officer, of course, wouldn't dream of leaving the camp and going into town without his faithful batman trotting along at his side. The only drawback was that I was going to have to be the slave this time; but I'd seen that one coming. After all, say what you like about Lucius Domitius, he was a Roman aristocrat, something I could never pass myself off as in a thousand years.)
When will they ever learn, these bathhouse keepers? Anywhere you go, from Hibernia to Sarmatia, every bathhouse you see, you'll find a little window round the back just the right position and height like it's been put there specially for the local ticklers. Actually, that's not far off the truth. The architects will tell you it's there to let the hot air out, or some such garbage. Truth is, the bathhouse keepers get a slice of the action from the ticklers, and everybody's happy Quick scout round first. Nobody about, so I hopped up on Lucius Domitius' shoulders, stuck my head through the window and looked to see what I could see.
It was promising. I had a direct line into the changing room and, sure enough, among all the gowns and tunics I caught sight of a nice shiny Greek-style breastplate, all gilded and cute, the way the rich boys like them. Better still, there was nobody about, apart from a doddery old wreck of a changing-room attendant, and he was having a quiet kip in the corner. It was all too good to be true. Well, no point hanging around. I stuck my tickling pole through the window, and it reached just fine. Then it was simply a matter of poking about until I got the hook round one of the breastplate straps and reeling the bugger in, and all our troubles would be over.
Well, almost. Probably you're way ahead of me. A breastplate, you're thinking, that's a bloody heavy thing to winkle out of a building on a long, thin pole.
Too right, only I hadn't thought of that. I did manage to get the rotten thing halfway across the room before the leverage ripped it out of my hands and it went clattering on the marble floor, making a row like the battle of Marathon.
Even the changing-room guard couldn't sleep through that. Up he jumped, looked round, saw the breastplate on the deck, rocking backwards and forwards, while the hook end of my pole was disappearing through the window Naturally, he makes a grab for the pole, and of course he misses, but the stinking hook gets snagged in his sleeve. So there's me, hauling like a fisherman on a good day, dragging this old fart across the floor by his sleeve.
He starts yelling bloody murder, and straight away the changing room starts filling up with angry-looking blokes, not a stitch on, of course, but all of them baying for my blood.
Well, I had the wit to let go of the pole, but that put me off balance. I rocked
to and fro for a second, then I slowly toppled off Lucius Domitius' shoulders and landed hard on my kneecap on the pointy cobbles. Lucius Domitius fell over too, and there we were, sprawled on the floor howling with pain, while inside the building some evil shit starts hollering for the guard.
This would have been an ideal time to hop it, quick, only I'd buggered up my knee by falling on it and I couldn't move. Lucius Domitius didn't seem much better off, but nonetheless he hops up, grabs me like I'm a sack of charcoal, swings me over his shoulder and sets off as fast as his legs can carry us.
Fair play to him. Probably he thought he was being brave and noble, like that bloke in the poem who carries his old dad on his shoulders to safety out of the burning ruins of Troy Unfortunately, it didn't quite work out that way After about a dozen steps, Lucius Domitius' legs caved in under him and we both go crashing to the floor. Goes without saying, I pitch on my buggered knee. All I can think about is how much it hurts; Lucius Domitius is scrabbling around trying to get me off him so he can get up. Hardly surprising, we're still there thrashing about when out pop the guards.
Of course, the first thing they do when they see us is burst out laughing. The second thing is they scoop us up by the scruff and drag us inside, me still howling about my knee, Lucius Domitius calling me a bunch of stuff he never learned from Seneca. All in all, we were in a bit of a state.
(Now you'd have thought that, what with me being a bit of a philosopher, I'd have handled this unfortunate reversal with calm dignity. Sorry to disappoint you, but I didn't. First, I'm not that much of a philosopher. Second, it's hard to be dignified and calm when you've got three soldiers dragging you along by your ankles while you're frantically trying to cling on to the doorposts. Try it, and you'll see what I mean.)
Anyway, there we were, in a cell in the lockup in this poxy little town in Sicily, and this time, believe it or not, I really did think we'd had it. Your Roman soldier may not be a genius; in fact, it takes all his concentration to eat a dish of beans without half of them going up his nose, but it seemed a pretty safe bet that sooner or later they were going to look at us and think: big, thick-necked Italian, small scrawny Greek with a face like a polecat, and realise they'd just earned themselves a promotion. Then it'd be up in front of the magistrate, and it wouldn't matter a toss whether Lucius Domitius got recognised or not, we were facing enough capital charges to kill a legion.