Glory of Rome: (Gaius Valerius Verrens 8)

by Douglas Jackson

  A house in the sky.

  He was still considering the implications of his discovery when a commotion broke out among the cavalrymen below. His first thought was that it was yet another argument between the men of the Ninth and the Twentieth, but he saw Shabolz at the centre of the group. He slithered down through the rocks to join them.

  ‘You were right, lord.’ The Pannonian grinned. ‘He was heading for the road, presumably hoping to add to this.’ He threw Valerius a leather purse that landed heavily in his left hand. ‘The commander of the fort at Confluentes obviously valued his services highly.’

  Valerius weighed the purse in his palm. ‘You’re right.’ He tossed the silver back to Shabolz. ‘You can put it to good use when we get back to Confluentes by buying your comrades the best wine the place has to offer.’

  A murmur of appreciation from the watching troopers. Even Serenus joined in the laughter. Valerius noticed Hilario hadn’t reappeared.

  ‘I hope he didn’t slow you down too much?’

  ‘Oh no, lord,’ the Pannonian said with genuine respect. ‘For a big man he can move fast. It was Hilario who stopped the guide from reaching the road. When the German tried to flee he ran into my sword. Hilario volunteered to take him further into the woods and bury him while I returned with the welcome news.’

  ‘And I have more welcome news.’ Valerius led him to the top of the hill and the Pannonian scout whistled softly as he saw the scale of the settlement.

  ‘So this is the witch’s lair? The building on that curious platform must be where she performs her ceremonies. I see no other structure that looks like a temple.’

  ‘You have the best eyes in the unit,’ Valerius said. ‘Do you see any building that’s guarded as if it might be being used to hold prisoners?’

  Shabolz’s grey eyes narrowed in concentration. He shook his head. ‘It’s impossible to tell for certain. Any guards might be hidden by the houses.’

  ‘Then I think we have to assume Crescens and Florus are being held in the temple.’

  ‘Lord?’ Shabolz looked unconvinced.

  ‘There’s no way we can check every building. Do you have any better ideas?’

  ‘No, lord.’

  ‘Then concentrate on finding a way to get us inside.’

  ‘Tonight?’

  ‘If it can be done.’

  Shabolz returned to his study of the settlement below. ‘We could probably get over the palisade almost anywhere. There’s no walkway and it’s not really built for defence.’

  ‘But there will be some kind of watch. And even if we manage to get in undetected we still have to reach the tower.’

  ‘And there’ll be dogs,’ Shabolz muttered. ‘The Germans always have dogs.’

  ‘I’m thinking three groups. One to cover our escape route outside the wall. A second to guard it inside the wall. The third, you and Licco, myself, Hilario, Didius and Serenus …’

  ‘You’re taking Serenus?’

  ‘I want somebody from the Ninth involved in rescuing their comrades.’

  Shabolz nodded. ‘And Ceris.’

  ‘Ceris?’

  ‘If you don’t take her she’ll follow anyway.’

  ‘I keep forgetting she’s with us,’ Valerius said wryly.

  ‘Because that’s the way she wants it,’ Shabolz grinned. ‘She stays out of the way, quiet as a mouse, because she fears you’ll send her back. But I’ve watched her. She moves like a shadow and she’s fearless. She won’t let us down.’

  ‘Ceris then. I just pray that what we find is what she hopes.’

  ‘If it’s not,’ Shabolz’s voice turned sombre, ‘then I wouldn’t like to be the witch.’

  ‘But first we have to get inside.’

  XIX

  Shabolz led them down the hill just before dusk, so full darkness brought them to the edge of the forest perhaps two hundred paces from the settlement wall, just across the stream from the west gate. The Pannonian had spent the remainder of the afternoon scouting the position and plotting the safest way to approach Guda in the night. A pair of torches marked the location of the gateway, but Valerius ignored the flickering circles of light.

  When Shabolz had proposed the idea it seemed so obvious Valerius wondered that he hadn’t thought of it himself. Perhaps weariness was the answer. Apart from Marius and Hilario he was almost twice the age of the men he led. If you can’t go over a wall, and you can’t go through it, what was left but to go under it? They would use the stream.

  ‘There will be some kind of barrier,’ Shabolz admitted. ‘But I’ll wager that purse of silver we can get through it. The stream is barely knee deep and the bed will help provide cover until we reach the centre of the village.’

  They sat in the three groups Valerius had chosen. Valerius had mixed the men from different legions and impressed on them the need to work together.

  ‘When you’re in a fight you won’t worry whether the man next to you is from the Ninth or the Second,’ he whispered. ‘All you’ll want to know is that you can trust him to keep his shield high and his sword arm swinging. Before we go into battle we say “For Rome”, but we don’t really fight for Rome, or even the Emperor. We fight for each other, because when some hairy-arsed barbarian has his spear point at your throat it won’t be Rome or the Emperor that saves you, it will be some weary, bleeding bastard like Nilus here, whose stinking feet you curse every night and whose farts keep you awake.’ He could see the white glow of their teeth as they grinned in the darkness. ‘Marius, you’ll cover our escape route from the outside. Split your men on either side of the stream. Nilus? Your group will be on the inside. We don’t know what we’ll find there, so you’ll have to work out a way to make yourself invisible. If everything goes well, we’ll be in and out before they know we’re there.’

  ‘And if it doesn’t?’

  ‘If we’re discovered make your way back to the river and find Antonius.’

  They waited another hour. Somewhere in the hills behind them a wolf howled. Men hissed and reached for their charms, but Valerius declared it was a sign that the gods were with them.

  Shabolz led the way across an open field of recently planted crops. The smell of the human and animal manure used to enrich the black earth filled Valerius’s nostrils as he squirmed across the damp ground. A little way to their left he could hear the sound of water trickling over the stones. Before he knew it the settlement wall loomed above them. Shabolz slipped into the stream and Valerius followed, the cold water barely up to his calves. They crawled to the point where the stream ran below the palisade. There would be a barrier to prevent men like them from entering, they were all agreed on that. Everything depended on just how secure that barrier was and how long it took them to remove the obstacle. Valerius probed with his left hand and he sensed Shabolz doing the same to his right. Nothing.

  He fumbled among the stones of the river bed, wary of the wooden spikes he would have expected, but all he found was a row of stumps. Puzzled, he reached up to the base of the palisade and felt along the underside. The fittings for some kind of gate or fence existed, but of the thing itself nothing remained.

  A trap? A door left open to lure them inside to slaughter? No, the slimy wood he could feel had been worn smooth by the action of the stream. It had been like this for years, probably tens of years, through flood and drought.

  Flood. Valerius felt a surge of elation. Winter spates would bring down leaves and branches and constantly block the barrier. Unless it was cleared quickly the stream would overflow and deluge the entire area. At some point in the past whoever was responsible had decided that maintaining the barrier was more trouble than it was worth. He tapped Shabolz on the shoulder and the Pannonian slipped under the palisade. The others were waiting a few paces behind and Valerius crawled back to them. He felt Hilario’s bulk and pushed him towards the culvert, hissing: ‘Stay low.’ Licco next, wiry and alert and needing no urging. Didius, wound tight as a bow string. Serenus, more willing than Valerius had
expected, and finally the slight figure of Ceris.

  Valerius followed, bent double in a low crouch and concealed from the surrounding houses by the banks of the stream. Around them, Guda slept on unaware its defences had been breached. From somewhere nearby a woman cried out in ecstasy and a dog yipped twice in answer. Valerius had half expected the stream to be little more than an open sewer filled with the detritus of years. To his surprise the water smelled clean and the river bed beneath his feet was free of any obstacles, and they were able to make good progress towards the centre of the settlement. No flickering torches or rasped commands of a watch being changed.

  From ahead came the sound of scuffling feet as Shabolz left the sanctuary of the river bed and scrambled up the bank. The Pannonian waited at the top while the others followed and Valerius crept to his side. By now their eyes had become well accustomed to the darkness, and Shabolz could make out enough light and shade to give him his directions. Valerius guessed that three or four longhouses lay between them and the open square, and the Pannonian led them between two of the buildings. They passed through a garden. From their right came the unmistakable stink of a pigsty, and the grunting snuffle of its sleeping occupants. Another dog either sensed or scented the intruders and barked a warning. Valerius froze at the sound, anticipating inevitable discovery and the bloody horror that would follow, but the only reaction was the smack of something striking the beast and a whine of resentment that it had only been doing its job.

  Shabolz stopped in the shadow of the next house and whispered an order for the others to remain where they were. A soft glow silhouetted the corner of the building and the Pannonian dropped to his stomach and crept warily forward until he had a view of what lay beyond. Valerius heard a soft intake of breath before Shabolz wriggled backwards and stood up.

  ‘Two guards,’ he whispered. ‘One each side of the stairs and facing this way. There’s not a scrap of cover for thirty paces in every direction.’

  Valerius nodded. He’d known there was a possibility the temple would be guarded, but he’d hoped otherwise. ‘Could we rush them?’ he asked.

  ‘We could.’ Shabolz’s tone said the opposite. ‘But they’d have plenty of time to give the alarm before we overpowered them.’

  There had to be a way. Valerius wriggled his way to the corner and looked for himself. Big men, dressed in leather tunics and plaid bracae, armed with seven-foot spears. The pair stood a few paces apart at the centre of a circle illuminated by a pair of torches that also lit the narrow stairway that zigzagged its way into the darkness. If he squinted he thought he could just see the boards that made up the temple platform. Shabolz was right. No chance of reaching the guards before they raised the alarm. Yet they were looking from light into the shadows. If Valerius and his men could get a little closer without being seen …

  He retreated back to the others.

  ‘Could you and Licco get behind them?’ he asked Shabolz.

  Shabolz worked it through in his head before replying. ‘We could, but they’re alert enough. You’ve seen how they scan the whole area every few moments. We’d have the same problem.’

  ‘What if we could attract their attention?’

  ‘Wouldn’t they just raise the alarm?’

  ‘Not if the distraction was obviously innocent and harmless.’

  The Pannonian nodded slowly. ‘All we’d need is a few seconds.’

  ‘Go then,’ Valerius ordered, and Shabolz and his fellow countryman disappeared into the night like shadows.

  ‘I will provide the distraction,’ Hilario offered. ‘I’ll pretend I’m drunk.’

  ‘You’re the opposite of innocent and harmless,’ Valerius said. ‘Send me Ceris.’

  Valerius waited until he was certain Shabolz and Licco would be in position before he sent her out.

  At first the Chatti guards didn’t see her, then they noticed the pale, wraithlike figure emerging from the darkness, the flicker of the torches giving her flesh the hue of a midsummer moon.

  ‘What will you do to get Florus back alive?’ he’d asked her.

  ‘Anything,’ she’d said.

  A childlike figure until you noticed the curve of her breasts and the dark tuft at the base of her stomach, she seemed to be part of the very air, her feet barely disturbing the surface of the square and her arms held wide. At first the men were struck dumb by the sight, but then came the inevitable challenge, unintelligible, but the meaning clear enough.

  Ceris ignored the order and kept coming. The two men looked at each other, each expecting the other to make a decision.

  Too late. Their attention was entirely focused on Ceris when Shabolz and Licco attacked. They struck from behind, crossing from darkness into light in a silent rush. In a heartbeat practised hands stifled any opportunity to cry out even as blades as sharp as any razor simultaneously sliced through windpipes. In their eagerness the Pannonians came close to decapitating their victims and two great fountains of blood spurted into the lamplight. The guards were dead before their blood-soaked killers lowered them to the ground.

  Valerius was already running towards them, followed by Hilario, Serenus and Didius, who handed Ceris her clothes.

  ‘Hide the bodies and take their places,’ Valerius ordered as he passed. ‘I’ll leave Serenus on the stairs to cover you.’

  He’d removed his sandals so that he climbed the narrow stair sword in hand with only the faint slap of bare feet to announce his coming. Four flights alternating back and forth across the face of the tower, until he reached the lower platform. The temple, if that’s what it was, was constructed of wood, apart from the thatched roof. Valerius ran to the far end where a curtained doorway provided the only entrance, with a human skull nailed above the lintel.

  He pulled back the curtain, but the interior was in total darkness. An odd musty scent tickled his nostrils.

  ‘Crescens? Florus?’ he called quietly.

  He blinked as light flooded the chamber from a torch Didius had snatched somewhere on the way. And froze.

  Whatever he’d been expecting it wasn’t this. Of Crescens and Florus there was no sign. Most of the interior was taken up by an ancient, four-wheeled chariot. Sheets of bronze covered the body and it must once have been an astonishing sight: a polished, glittering symbol of wealth and power to these primitive people. Now the metal fittings had turned green with age and the leather harness had disintegrated. A front wheel lay at an angle, so the whole thing tilted to one side. It was oddly chilling, an object that had once been revered but whose time had passed, which now lay all but forgotten. Chilling, but not so much as the stone altar at the far end of the room and the gilded tray in its centre which held two wicked-looking curved knives, sharpened so often the blades were almost translucent. Beyond the altar two more curtained doorways could conceal opportunity or threat.

  ‘Search the place,’ he ordered.

  They took a room each, but were back within seconds shaking their heads. Valerius had a moment of confusion before his eyes drifted upwards. If not here, perhaps …

  He was out of the door before the thought fully formed, dashing up the rickety stairway to the high platform and trying not to think about how far down it would be if he put a foot out of place. The sound of footsteps to his rear told him Didius and Hilario weren’t far behind. His heart stuttered as he reached the top. Two pale bodies lay spreadeagled in the gloom. Had it all been for nothing?

  ‘Water, for pity’s sake,’ a voice croaked in Latin.

  Crescens. Valerius was at his side in a heartbeat, unstopping his water skin and putting it to the bound man’s lips. Hilario worked at the rope that pinioned his wrists and ankles to the platform. The freed man groaned as Valerius helped him to sit up.

  ‘Thank the …’

  ‘Quiet.’ Valerius clamped a hand over Crescens’s mouth. ‘You’ll bring the whole village down on us.’

  Didius and Serenus untied Florus and helped him to his feet. Both men were naked, and by the stink of excreme
nt they’d been left to lie in their own filth.

  ‘Can you walk?’

  ‘I’ll crawl on my hands and knees if I have to,’ Florus rasped. ‘But first give me a sword. They won’t take me alive again, that’s certain. Not after what they did today.’

  Valerius helped Crescens to the stairs. ‘What happened?’

  ‘When they took us they gagged us and bound our wrists,’ the cavalryman said in a croaked whisper. ‘We were dragged through the brush and thrown into boats. Thank Fortuna they removed the gags when we crossed the river for it meant we could drink from any stream we passed, even if it cost us a beating. Otherwise they gave us no food or water for four days. When we reached this place they stripped us naked and encouraged people to abuse us before they brought us up here.’ The words caught in his throat and he coughed. ‘We knew that … We prepared ourselves for death, urging each other to be brave Roman soldiers, but … Oh—’ He vomited over the edge of the rail. ‘They taunted us and said they would show us how we were to die. A man was brought, another prisoner, and their sorceress appeared. She cut him open and put her hands into him. All the time the crowd below watched in silence. She showed them something from inside him and pointed to us and they bayed for our blood. She hacked … hacked off his manhood and threw it to them and they laughed.’

  ‘Mars save us,’ Valerius whispered.

  ‘But that wasn’t the worst of it.’ Crescens looked directly into Valerius’s eyes and the Roman flinched at the horror he saw there. ‘While he still lived they pulled out a coil of his guts, tied it to a hook and threw him off the platform and ripped the rest out of him. His screams will live with me to the end of my days.’

  Valerius felt the bile rising in his throat. ‘You’re safe now, trooper,’ he said with more confidence than he felt. ‘We’ll get you out of here.’

  ‘I hope so.’ Crescens stared at him. ‘But if not … Your dagger, lord?’

  Valerius nodded and handed him the knife. As they reached the door of the temple the curtain parted. Valerius raised his sword, but it was only Ceris, now fully dressed in her Germanic clothes once more. In front of her she pushed a tiny, wizened old woman dressed in a filthy smock and crowned by a verminous mop of grey hair.