‘Really? He looks just like his mother.’
‘Yes, and sounds and moves like her, too, but that’s all a kind of mask, if you ask me, like warm sunlight sparkling on cold water. Underneath, he’s as stern as the master, and just as wilful. Ask any of the slaves who’ve made the mistake of displeasing him.’
‘Perhaps that’s the trouble between them,’ I suggested, ‘that they’re too much alike, and vie for the attentions of the same woman.’
We reached Ostia, where the boat was moored on a short pier that jutted into the Tiber. Farther down the riverfront, at the end of the docks, I could just glimpse the open sea. Gulls circled overhead. The smell of salt water scented the breeze. The strongest of the men unloaded the chests containing the ten thousand pieces of gold and loaded them into a wagon, which was wheeled into a warehouse on the docks. About half the men were sent to stand guard over it.
I expected the rest of the men to head for the nearest tavern, but Marcus kept order and made them stay on the boat. Their celebration would come the next day, after the ransom and whatever else resulted.
As for me, I intended to seek lodgings at the Flying Fish, the tavern mentioned in Spurius’s letter. I told Marcus I wanted to take Belbo with me.
‘No. The slave stays here,’ he said.
‘I need him for a bodyguard.’
‘Quintus Fabius said nothing about that. You mustn’t attract attention.’
‘I’ll be more conspicuous without a bodyguard.’
Marcus considered this for a moment, then agreed. ‘Good,’ someone called as Belbo stepped onto the dock, ‘the giant takes up the room of three men!’
At this Belbo laughed good-naturedly, perceiving no insult.
I found the Flying Fish on the seaside waterfront where the larger, seafaring vessels pitched anchor. The building had a tavern with a stable attached on the ground floor, and tiny cubicles for rent on the second floor. I took a room, treated myself and Belbo to a delicious meal of stewed fish and mussels, then took a long walk around the town to reacquaint myself with the streets. It had been a while since I’d spent any time in Ostia.
As the sun sank beneath the waves, setting the horizon aflame, I rested on the waterfront, making idle conversation with Belbo and looking at the various small ships along the dock and the larger ones moored farther out in the deeper water. Most were trading vessels and fishing boats, but among them was a warship painted crimson and bristling with oars. The enormous bronze ram’s head at its prow glittered blood-red in the slanting sunlight.
Belbo and I passed a skin of watered wine back and forth, which kept his tongue loose. Eventually I asked him what orders his master had given to the centurion Marcus regarding the armed company.
His answer was blunt. ‘We’re to kill the pirates.’
‘As simple as that?’
‘Well, we’re not to kill the boy in the process, of course. But the pirates are not to escape alive if we can help it.’
‘You’re not to capture them for sentencing by a Roman magistrate?’
‘No. We’re supposed to kill them on the spot, every one of them.’
I nodded gravely. ‘Can you do that, Belbo, if you have to?’
‘Kill a man?’ He shrugged. ‘I’m not like some of the others on the boat. I haven’t killed hundreds and hundreds of men.’
‘I suspect most of the men on the boat were exaggerating.’
‘Really? Still, I wasn’t a gladiator for long. I didn’t kill all that many men.’
‘No?’
‘No. Only – ’ He wrinkled his brow, calculating. ‘Only twenty or thirty.’
The next morning I rose early and put on a red tunic, as the ransom letter had specified. Before I went downstairs to the tavern I told Belbo to find a place in front of the building where he could watch the entrance. ‘If I leave, follow me, but keep your distance. Do you think you can do that without being noticed?’
He nodded. I looked at his straw-coloured hair and his hulking physique and was dubious.
As the day warmed, the tavern keeper rolled up the screens, which opened the room to the fresh air and sunlight. The waterfront grew busy. I sat patiently just inside the tavern and watched sailors and merchants pass by. Some distance away, Belbo had found a discreet, shady spot to keep watch, leaning against a little shed. The bovine expression on his face and the fact that he seemed hardly able to keep his eyes open made him look like an idler eluding his master for as long as he could and trying to steal a few moments of sleep. The deception was either remarkably convincing, or else Belbo was as dull as he looked.
I didn’t have long to wait. A young man who looked hardly old enough to have grown his beard stepped into the tavern, blinked at the sudden dimness, then saw my tunic and approached me.
‘Who sent you?’ he asked. His accent sounded Greek to me, not Cilician.
‘Quintus Fabius.’
He nodded, then studied me for a moment, while I studied him. His long black hair and shaggy beard framed a lean face that was accustomed to sun and wind. There was a hint of wildness in his wide green eyes. There were no scars visible on his face or his darkly tanned limbs, as one might expect to see on a battle-hardened pirate. Nor did he have the look of desperate cruelty common to such men.
‘My name is Gordianus,’ I said. ‘And what shall I call you?’
He seemed surprised at being asked for a name, then finally said ‘Cleon,’ in a tone which suggested he would have given a false name but couldn’t think of one. The name was Greek, like his features.
I looked at him dubiously. ‘We’re here for the same purpose, are we not?’
‘For the ransom,’ he said, lowering his voice. ‘Where is it?
‘Where is the boy?’
‘He’s perfectly safe.’
‘I’ll have to be sure of that.’
He nodded. ‘I can take you to him now, if you wish.’
‘I do.’
‘Follow me.’
We left the tavern and walked along the waterfront for a while, then turned onto a narrow street that ran between two rows of warehouses. Cleon walked quickly and began to turn abruptly at each intersection, changing our course and sometimes doubling back the way we had come. I kept expecting to walk into Belbo, but he was nowhere to be seen. Either he was unexpectedly skilled at secret pursuit, or else we had eluded him.
We drew alongside a wagon, the bed of which was covered with a heavy sail cloth. Looking around nervously, Cleon shoved me towards the wagon and told me to crawl under the cloth. The driver of the wagon set the horses into motion. From where I was lying I could see nothing. The wagon took so many turns that I lost count and finally gave up trying to keep track of our direction.
The wagon at last came to a stop. Hinges creaked. The wagon pulled forward a bit. Doors slammed shut. Even before the cloth was thrown back, I knew from the smells of hay and dung that we must be in a stable. I could smell the sea as well; we had not gone too far inland. I sat up and looked around. The tall space was lit by only a few stray beams of sunlight which entered through knotholes in the walls. I glanced towards the driver, who turned his face away.
Cleon gripped my arm. ‘You wanted to see the boy.’
I stepped down from the wagon and followed him. We stopped before one of the stalls. At our approach a figure in a dark tunic rose from the hay. Even in the dim light I recognized him from his portrait. In the flesh young Spurius looked even more like Valeria, but where her skin had been milky white, his was deeply browned by the sun, which caused his eyes and teeth to sparkle like alabaster, and while his mother had worn an expression of anxious melancholy, Spurius looked sarcastically amused. In the portrait he had shown some baby fat which could stand melting away; he was leaner now, and it suited him. As for suffering, he did not have the haunted look of a youth who had been tortured. He looked like a young man who had been on an extended holiday. His manner, however, was businesslike.
‘What took you so long?’ he snappe
d.
Cleon looked at him sheepishly and shrugged. If the boy meant to imitate Caesar’s bravado, perhaps he had succeeded.
Spurius looked at me sceptically. ‘Who are you?’
‘My name is Gordianus. Your father sent me to ransom you.’
‘Did he come himself?’
I hesitated. ‘No,’ I finally said, nodding cautiously towards the pirate and trying to communicate to Spurius that in the presence of his captors we should discuss no more details than were necessary.
‘You brought the ransom?’
‘It’s waiting elsewhere. I wanted to have a look at you first.’
‘Good. Well, hand the money over to these barbarians and get me out of here. I’m bored to death of consorting with rabble. I’m ready to get back to Rome, and some good conversation, not to mention some decent cooking!’ He crossed his arms. ‘Well, go on! The pirates are all around us, just out of sight; don’t doubt that they’ll gladly kill us both if you give them any excuse. Bloodthirsty beasts! You’ve seen I’m alive and well. Once they have the ransom, they’ll let me go. So, off with you both. Hurry up!’
I returned to the wagon. Cleon covered me with the cloth. I heard the stable door open. The wagon began to roll. Again we turned and turned, until at last the vehicle came to a stop. Cleon pulled back the cloth. I rubbed my eyes at the sudden brightness and stepped onto the street. We were back where we had started, on the waterfront only a short distance from the Flying Fish.
As we walked towards the tavern my heart fell to see Belbo in the very spot where I had last seen him, leaning against the shed across from the tavern – with his mouth slightly open and his eyes shut! Was it possible that he hadn’t followed us at all, but had dozed through the whole episode, standing upright?
‘I’ll leave you now,’ said Cleon. ‘Where shall I collect the ransom?’
I described to him the location of the warehouse on the Tiber. He would bring his wagon and some men. Once the gold was loaded, I would go with them, alone, and when they were safely away they would deliver Spurius into my custody.
‘What assurance do I have that the boy will be released? Or for that matter, that I’ll be released?’
‘It’s the ransom we want, not you, and not … the boy.’ His voice broke oddly. ‘In an hour’s time, then!’ He turned and vanished into the crowd.
I waited for a moment, then spun around, intending to march up to Belbo and at the very least kick his shins. Instead I collided headlong with a large, immovable object – Belbo himself. As I tumbled backwards Belbo caught me and righted me, handling me as if I were a child.
‘I thought you were asleep!’ I said.
He laughed. ‘Pretty good at playing dead, aren’t I? That trick saved my life in the arena once. The other gladiator thought I’d fainted from fear. The fool put his foot on my chest and smiled up at his patron – and the next thing he knew, he was tasting dirt and had my sword at his throat!’
‘Fascinating. Well, did you follow us or not?’
Belbo hung his head. ‘I followed, yes. But I lost you early on.’
‘Did you at least see when I got into the wagon?’
‘No.’
‘Numa’s balls! Then we have no idea where the boy is being kept. There’s nothing to do but wait for Cleon to come for the ransom.’ I stared at the uncaring sea and the wheeling gulls above our heads. ‘Tell me, Belbo, why do the circumstances of this kidnapping have such an odd smell?’
‘Do they?’
‘I smell something fishy.’
‘We are on the waterfront,’ said Belbo.
I clapped my hands. ‘A ray of light descends from the heavens to pierce the fog!’
He stared at the clear sky above and wrinkled his brow.
‘I mean, Belbo, that I suddenly perceive the truth … I think.’ But I still had a very, very bad feeling about the situation.
‘Do you understand? It’s absolutely essential that you and your men make no attempt to follow when Cleon carts off the gold.’
The centurion Marcus looked at me sceptically. ‘And you with it! What’s to keep you from running off with these pirates – and the gold?’
‘Quintus Fabius entrusted me with handling the ransom. That should be enough for you.’
‘And he entrusted me with certain instructions as well.’ Marcus crossed his brawny arms, which bristled with black and silver hairs.
‘Look here, Marcus. I think I know these men’s intentions. If I’m right, the boy is perfectly safe – ’
Marcus snorted. ‘Ha! Honour among pirates!’
‘Perfectly safe,’ I continued, ‘as long as the ransom proceeds exactly as they wish. And also, if I’m right, you’ll be able to retrieve the ransom easily enough afterwards. If you attempt to follow, or foil the transaction as it happens, then it’s you who’ll be putting the boy’s life at risk, along with my own.’
Marcus chewed his cheeks and wrinkled his nose.
‘If you don’t do as I ask,’ I went on, ‘and something happens to the boy, consider how Quintus Fabius will react. Well? Cleon and his men will be here any moment. What do you say?’
Marcus muttered what I took to be his assent, then turned as one of his gladiators trotted up to us. ‘Four men and a wagon, sir, coming this way!’
Marcus raised his arm. His men disappeared into the shadows of the warehouse. There was a tap on my shoulder.
‘What about me?’ asked Belbo. ‘Shall I try to follow again, like I did this morning?’
I shook my head and looked nervously at the open door of the warehouse.
‘But you’ll be in danger,’ said Belbo. ‘A man needs a bodyguard. Make the pirates take both of us.’
‘Hush, Belbo! Go hide with the others. Now!’ I pushed him with both hands, and realized I would probably have better luck pushing over a yew tree. At last he gave way and lumbered off, looking unhappy.
A moment later Cleon appeared at the open door, followed by the wagon with its driver and two other young men. Like Cleon, they looked Greek to me.
I showed him the chests of gold and opened the lid of each one in turn. Even in the dim light, the glitter seemed to dazzle him. He grinned and looked a little embarrassed. ‘So much! I wondered what it would look like, but I couldn’t picture it. I kept trying to imagine ten thousand golden minnows …’
He shook his head as if to clear it and set to work with his companions loading the heavy chests into the wagon. A group of bloodthirsty pirates might be expected to dance a gleeful jig at the proximity of so much booty, but they went about their work in a sombre, almost fretful manner.
The labour done, Cleon wiped a trickle of sweat from his brow and indicated a long, narrow space between the trunks in the bed of the wagon. ‘Room enough for you to lie down, I think. He looked uneasily into the shadows of the warehouse and raised his voice. ‘And I’ll say it again: No one had better follow us. We have watchers posted along the way. They’ll know if anyone comes after us. If anything happens to arouse our suspicions, anything at all, I can’t be responsible for the outcome. Understood?’ He posed the question to the empty air as much as to me.
‘Understood,’ I said. As I stepped into the wagon I gripped his forearm to steady myself and spoke in his ear so the others couldn’t hear. ‘Cleon, you wouldn’t really hurt the boy, would you?’
He gave me a strangely plaintive look, like a man long misunderstood who suddenly finds a sympathetic ear. Then he hardened his face and swallowed. ‘He won’t be hurt, as long as nothing goes wrong,’ he said hoarsely. I settled myself in the gap between the trunks. The sail cloth was thrown over the wagon bed. The wagon lurched into motion, moving ponderously under its heavy load.
From this point, I thought, there was no reason for anything to go wrong with the ransoming. Marcus had agreed not to follow. Cleon had the gold. Soon I would have Spurius. Even if my assumption about the kidnapping was wrong, there would be no reason for his captors to harm the boy or myself; our deaths could pro
fit them nothing. As long as nothing went wrong …
Perhaps it was the cramped, suffocating darkness that set my thoughts spinning into the awful void. I had taken Marcus’ muttering as an agreement to postpone his pursuit, but had I read him rightly? His men might be following us even now, clumsily showing themselves, alerting the watchers and sending them into a panic. Someone would cry out, there would be an assault on the wagon, swords would clash and clang! A blade would rip through the sail cloth, heading straight for my heart –
The fantasy seemed so real that I gave a jerk as if waking from a nightmare. But my eyes were wide open.
I took a breath to steady myself, but found my thoughts spinning even more recklessly out of control. What if I had completely misjudged Cleon? What if his soulful green eyes and uncertain manner were a crafty deception, a deliberate disguise for a hardened killer? The petulant, beautiful boy I had seen that morning might already be dead, his bravado cut short along with his throat. The wagon would return to the stable where they had murdered him, and as soon as the pirates were sure that no one had followed, they would pull me from the wagon, stuff a gag into my mouth, tie me up and lug me off to their ship, laughing raucously and dancing the jig they had suppressed while they loaded their booty. Cilician pirates, the cruellest men ever born! I would be taken off to sea, kicking and screaming into my gag. By the light of the moon they would set my clothes afire and use me for a torch, and when they were tired of hearing me scream they would toss me overboard. I could almost smell the stench of my own burning flesh, hear the hiss of the flames expiring as the hard water burst open and then slapped shut above me, taste the stinging salt in my nostrils. What would be left after the fishes made a feast of me?
In the cramped space I managed to wipe my sweaty forehead on a bit of my red tunic. Such morbid fantasies were nonsense, I told myself. I had to trust my own judgment, and my judgment decreed that Cleon was not the sort of fellow who could murder anyone, at least not in cold blood. Not even Roscius the actor could mime such innocence. A strange sort of pirate, indeed!
Then a new fear struck me, more chilling than all the rest. Belbo had said that Quintus Fabius wanted the pirates to be slaughtered. We’re not to kill the boy in the process, of course – but was he only inferring this? He could hardly be expected to know every secret order that his master had given to Marcus. Spurius was not of his own blood; Quintus Fabius spoke of him with contempt. What if he actually wanted his stepson dead? He had sent the ransom, yes, but he could hardly have refused to do that, if only to placate Valeria and to save face in public. But if in the end the boy were to be murdered by the pirates, or if it could be made to look that way …
Gordianus The Finder Omnibus (Books 1-4) Page 63