by Peter Tonkin
Between here and the city’s citadel wall, with the siege ropes dangling down it, stood the ladders, rams, and siege equipment the Romans had clearly used to broach the Xanthian defenses. They were mostly unmanned, for it was obvious most of the soldiers had gone in through the breached ramparts and the broken gates to loot what was left of the city centre with its depositories, coin-mints, and temples, all well-stocked with silver and gold. Not to mention the villas of rich merchants and leading citizens with their collections of art, artifacts, votary regalia and statues. The only ones left on watch were too tired, weak, or wounded to join in the sack of the city.
‘Which is closer?’ asked Artemidorus, raising his voice above the thunder of the blazing city, ‘your warehouse or your villa?’
‘My warehouse,’ hissed User. ‘And that is it!’ He gestured with his sword at a charred heap of rubble, still smoldering, with constellations of red-hot charcoal dotted through its massive blackness. In front of it, the ruin of a pier led down to the wrecks of several river boats. Between which bobbed yet more corpses.
‘Your villa, then,’ said Artemidorus.
‘This way!’
Well beyond any thought of concealment now, User pushed out of the rushes onto the flagstones of the quayside and led the way towards the city itself. None of the half-dead combatants paid any attention to the tight four-man squad as they jogged towards the gap-toothed ruin of the city’s main entrance with its smashed gates hanging off broken hinges, the splintered wood smoldering like the rest.
ii
Inside the city walls was a kind of blazing Tartarus, the deepest reach of Hades’ kingdom, thought Artemidorus. Everything seemed to be on fire. The towering flames ahead seemed to suck in a strong breeze to blow on their backs. They removed their helmets, undid their scarves, and wrapped them round their mouths and noses before putting their headgear back in place and tying the cheek-pieces firmly down. They were by no means the only people to do so. Only the dead had uncovered faces, as the crows had already discovered.
Walls of flame clothed the brick and marble buildings all around. Crowds of legionaries ran hither and thither, all armed, all made anonymous by their masks; none of them carrying ravished victims, enslaved children, or bundles of booty. Simply running for the sake of it, scarcely able to believe there was nothing left here for them to steal. Smoke billowed in choking clouds that seemed to grow thicker as they went ahead. Soon enough the spies were covered in soot. Masked faces black with it – only the pale runnels beneath their streaming eyes breaking the pattern on all their cheeks except User’s. Only blood was needed to complete their disguise.
Even User was disorientated by the massiveness of the destruction all around. ‘I don’t recognise anything,’ he yelled to Artemidorus, his voice a whisper in the face of the deafening roar, cloaked further by his mask. He dashed the tears from his eyes and looked around wildly. All there was to see were the walls of flame the clouds of smoke, the other squads of soldiers running in and out of side-streets and, everywhere, the bodies of men and women, young and old – bare-faced, gaping, wide-eyed; blood-boltered, broken, burning.
‘Find the forum,’ Artemidorus advised. ‘It should be at the end of this road. You can get your bearings there.’
User nodded, and the tight four-man squad ran onwards, up a slight incline, along a mercifully wide cobbled street lined with yet more corpses on either side. After a hundred steps or more, dead ahead stood a sizeable temple, so fiercely ablaze that even the marble columns supporting the outer structure, and the divine statues in between them, seemed to be on the point of melting as the wooden beams above cracked like thunder with the heat. Everything that could burn was wildly ablaze. Only the soldiers of Brutus’ army were alive. And even they looked as though they had somehow crossed the Styx and entered Hell itself.
*
There was relative quiet in the centre of the forum. The air was less smoke-filled. The noise seemed to have abated, calmed by the scale of the place. The broken bodies littering the marble flags were mostly those of toppled statues. Local dignitaries whose legacies were all aflame, local gods proving powerless in the face of a ruthless Roman war machine seven legions strong.
At the centre of the forum, where the air was coolest and calmest stood a dozen or so men so deep in conversation that they hardly seemed conscious of the destruction all around them, let alone of yet another little group that had just run out of the main street and hesitated, looking around. Artemidorus blinked and wiped his left hand down his face, sweeping the tears towards his damp kerchief, looked more closely with clearer eyes. The group of men was surrounded by guards, standards, and eagles. Every one of them was in full battle armour. But they were not shy about badges of identification, standing or honours. He glanced at his companions. User was still searching wildly for a familiar street. But Quintus and Ferrata had their three eyes fixed where Artemidorus’ were – on the group of men in the centre of the Forum. Before any of them could speak, User shouted, ‘There!’ and began to run across the open space. His route was going to take him close to the men beneath the eagles, so Artemidorus and the others followed him willingly enough. They did not fear recognition. Their armour was dirty, and their masks were held solidly in place by their cheek-flaps.
But, he observed, the situation did not hold true the other way around. For the men engaged in the earnest discussion did not wear masks. They seemed to have managed to remain untouched by the smoke. Several had removed their helmets altogether, in the face of the fearsome heat. So, as he ran past them, going as close as he dared, Artemidorus was able to see their faces clearly. And, with a lurch that nearly caused him to stumble, he recognised some half-dozen of them. General Brutus himself, the Casca brothers, his Legates: Publius Casca who stabbed Divus Julius first on the Ides and Gaius Casca who tried so hard for the second strike. Beside them, a young Athenian student Artemidorus vaguely recognised as Quintus Horatius Flaccus who published poetry under the name of Horace, wearing the badges of a Tribune Mulitum. And, beside Horace, another grim-faced Tribune: Marcus Valerius Messala Corvinus.
Artemidorus’ stumble attracted Messala’s attention. He looked up. Their eyes met. A kind of recognition crackled between them. And Artemidorus remembered more vividly still, as he turned away and ran, that Troy was where Achilleus died.
iii
Oblivious to the identities of the men he was running past, or the glance that passed between Artemidorus and Messala, User led them across the forum and into the mouth of yet another burning via. This one sloped gently down-hill, running back towards the broken city walls. The scalding wind now blew into their faces, bringing yet more smoke, burning motes and splinters. Their eyes were at risk of more than tears. Ferrata was particularly quick to sheathe his sword and raise his right hand to shield his one remaining eye. The others followed suit even though it limited their vision. They all ran in a tight phalanx down the road, as User looked increasingly wildly right and left, seeking something familiar amongst the raging hellhole that Brutus had made of the city.
At last User stopped so abruptly that they all crashed into him. They staggered on a few steps before they could all stand together. ‘Here!’ bellowed User. ‘This is my villa. Where my wife and family live…’
They don’t live there any longer, thought Artemidorus brutally. But he said nothing. The building was just as ablaze as the others. At least there were no half-roasted corpses piled in the gutter outside it.
‘What we need to do,’ he suggested after a moment, ‘is find someone to tell us exactly what went on. I can’t believe even Brutus would put every citizen to the sword. Quite apart from anything else, he’s too greedy for that. Too desperate for funds to pay and feed his legions. He must have taken prisoners to sell as slaves, women, and children particularly. And if they’re on their way to the slave markets we can find them. Buy them back…’
‘But we’re bound for Alexandria…’ said User. ‘Your mission, whatever it is…’
‘Can wait while we find out about your family. Find them if need-be. And get them back to you, if it can be done.’
‘Good idea,’ said Quintus. ‘But we won’t find anyone to talk to here.’
‘We need to get out of the city,’ Ferrata continued the thought. ‘Question one of the legionaries we saw slumped beside the ballistae outside.’
User hesitated. He looked at the burning building. The muscles of his forehead clenched. The sweat-slick skin folded into wrinkles as his mind raced, trying to come to terms with the enormity of what was happening to him. Then he nodded. Once, decisively.
‘Good,’ said Artemidorus. ‘Quintus, did you recognise any of the legionary standards or identification marks? Are we likely to bump into any old friends?’
‘Apart from Messala, you mean?’ asked Ferrata.
‘Yes. Apart from him,’ snapped Artemidorus.
‘No,’ said Quintus shortly. ‘Most of these boys were with Pompey when you and I were with Divus Julius. We didn’t mix much except on the battlefield when we were trying to kill one another. And we didn’t socialise at all.’
‘Right,’ nodded Artemidorus. ‘Still, it shouldn’t be too hard to find someone who knows what went on and is willing to tell us about it…’
‘And is too fucking knackered to ask us too many questions in return,’ added Ferrata.
*
The soldier they found was a young artillery centurion sitting against the side of his ballista catapult. Pale and faint with agony. The massive siege engine had run over his foot as it was being jockeyed into position and although he had managed to command it effectively, he had remained here, too crippled to follow his men in their search for rapine and riches. ‘Not that there was ever going to be anything much,’ he said wearily as Ferrata did his best to bandage the crushed foot and Artemidorus keenly regretted leaving Puella and Crinas behind. They knelt on one knee in a semicircle around him, as he explained the terrible siege.
‘They refused to pay the taxes. It was as simple as that. General Brutus gave them a clear demand, worked out in terms of what the city earned and what he thought it owed. He didn’t even ask for ten years’ taxes up front like he did with some of the others. But the city fathers refused. No negotiation. That was that. The general explained the consequences. They said they didn’t care – they wouldn’t pay. He brought up his legions. They closed the gates. We went to war.’
‘A war that didn’t last long,’ prompted Artemidorus.
‘No,’ said the artilleryman. ‘Only a couple of days. Seemingly, they or another city like Xanthus has done this before. But the city fathers made a simple decision. They fell on their sword. When it became clear they were never going to stand against us the entire city fell on its sword.’
‘Meaning?’ demanded User, his voice trembling.
‘Meaning that fathers and mothers killed their children then husbands killed their wives. Then friends and brothers killed each-other until there were only a few left alive. Then those few set fire to the city so that General Brutus and his tax collectors would get nothing. Then they all killed themselves as well. When the legions got through the gates and breaches or up the ropes and ladders and over the walls there was no-one left alive, nothing of worth remaining and everything they found was on fire.’ He gestured towards the inferno on the hilltop.
iv
‘Don’t give up hope,’ said Puella softly. ‘They might still be alive somewhere.’
‘Nebet would never harm the boys,’ User said hopefully. But there was still a world of doubt in his voice.
‘Is that her name? Nebet?’ she asked.
‘Yes. And the boys are User, named for me, and Rasa. She worshipped them. Too much – to my way of thinking. She could never harm them.’ User looked around the faces of the contubernium searching for the reassurance he could not give himself. His eyes were still streaming, but they were aboard now and the smoke from the city far behind them.
‘Then they are still out there somewhere. We will find them,’ promised Artemidorus. ‘When our mission is completed.’
User nodded, his face folding into an intrepid frown. He dragged a shaking hand down his features, wiping away the tears. He was clear about things and agreed with Artemidorus’ decision. Had there been a realistic chance of finding and rescuing his family then that’s what they would have done. As there was no immediate chance at all, their mission had to take priority. Every person aboard had lived through a time of war stretching back decades. Civil war for the most part; brother against brother, father against son. They all knew the costs, brutally hard though they might be to bear.
It was dawn. Glaros was heading southwards, her sail filling occasionally with a fitful wind, her oarsmen helping her along, their rhythmic song echoing across the sea. The sun was rising over Beroea, Aleppo, far to the east on their left as the last of the night fled westward towards the ruins Carthage away on their right. Alexandria was four hundred miles ahead. But Halys and the pilot were confident the wind would freshen and remain northerly. In which case they might make it in a little over a day.
Later that morning, with the wind still skittish and uncertain, they took the smallest of the lambs bought in Philippi and went through the rituals of sacrificing it, primarily to Aeolus God of the wind but also to his son Boreas, God of the North wind. They collected the blood of the sacrifice most carefully and mixed it with the best wine they had aboard. Although no-one was allowed to drink it at sea, they had a good supply of Egyptian wine aboard for Halys traded wine amongst anything else he could load aboard. They poured the rich, iron-smelling liquid over the side as an offering to Poseidon where it was soon joined by the thin and bitter contents of Quintus’ stomach.
When a northerly sprang up, showing the satisfaction of all the gods concerned, the sacrificial lamb was skinned and butchered. A goat was also killed and skinned. The two butchered animals cooked over the fire-pot on the deck below the straining sail and were served to all. The oarsmen stowed their oars and the simple fare took on the aspect of a celebratory feast.
The only men who did not join in with the air of mild celebration were Quintus and User. Quintus shook his head, even when offered the lamb’s succulent liver. ‘It’ll just come straight up again,’ he said. ‘If I send many more offerings over the side, Poseidon himself will need to visit the vomitorium.’ He gave a weak grin.
User looked at the steaming offal. ‘If it was Brutus’ liver,’ he growled, ‘I’d eat it raw!’
‘Well,’ said Artemidorus, ‘one day it might be. Then you can eat his liver – and his heart into the bargain. In the mean-time, we’ll keep Nebet and your boys in our minds and try to find them when we get the chance.’
*
User nodded but turned away and walked to the stern of the ship where he stood leaning against the sternpost looking back into the steady pressure of the northerly wind like Orpheus looking back for his lost Eurydice. He knew the truth behind Artemidorus’ kindly words. Brutus’ legions had slaughtered his family. He would never see them again. Beside which the loss of his wealth and employees, vessels and warehouses in Xanthus was as nothing. What he had discovered in the blazing city last night had turned him from a bystander into a committed soldier.
After a few moments he called to Artemidorus. ‘Two things occur to me at once,’ he said as the secret agent joined him. ‘The first is this –your mission to Alexandria must in some way damage Brutus, who is Antony’s enemy, and you are Antony’s man. Secondly, that the more swiftly you complete your mission, whatever it is, the quicker we might see the murderous bastard defeated and start looking for my family.’
‘So?’ asked Artemidorus.
‘So. I wish to be more than your travelling companion. I wish to help you achieve whatever Antony has tasked you with. I, my brothers, our vessels and what is left of our fortune are at your service. All I ask is one favour.’
‘Name it.’
‘That you tell me what your mis
sion is; as much as you safely can. The more I know, the more I can help.’
Half an hour later, User was still standing at the stern rail. Thinking through what Artemidorus had revealed to him. Assessing how the mission, if successful might bring about the death and destruction of Brutus, his plans, hopes and dreams.
But even in the middle of his murderously vengeful thoughts, the seafarer in User was keeping a weather eye out. The vista astern of Glaros was not without its beauty. On his right, the shore line they had rowed away from last night still sat low on the horizon. A column of smoke like the result of a volcanic eruption rose above the smoldering city, beginning to blow southward as though pursuing them. Immediately behind them, Homer’s wine-dark sea, with the surface reflecting the high azure sky but beginning to stir and seethe under the influence of the following breeze. Away to the left hulked the hilly backbone of southern Rhodos, the length of the island stretching as the land became lower and leaner until only a beach – invisible from here – joined an islet to the main bulk. An isthmus at low tide, he remembered, a true island only at high tide.
His memories distracted him, and he turned a little, shading his eyes against the wind and the glare as he looked at that little island away on the far horizon. He had taken Nebet and the boys there once for no real reason, just for pleasure. So unlike him, the stern, almost Roman paterfamilias he had become more recently. If only…
But then he frowned. The shape of the distant island was wrong. His eyes must be playing tricks he thought. He blinked and discovered that his eyes were streaming once more.