by Peter Tonkin
‘What’s going on?’ hissed Felix.
‘I don’t know. But get ready with the distraction just in case – we haven’t much time.’
‘You trust me to know when to act?’
‘Yes. You act and I’ll react. But I want to know precisely what Pollio’s up to here so give me a count of five hundred or so.’
‘Five hundred. Got it.’ Felix slithered silently away.
*
Pollio’s group had reached the circle of tents now, their shadows dancing grotesquely as they moved past the watch fires towards that strange black well in the sand. Oddly enough, as they pushed the slaves towards the edge of the hole, they fell silent. The quiet of the night closed down. The whisper of the wind, the roaring of the fires and the blattering of the flaming torches, all held high, the distant stirring of the port away behind them; the occasional creaking of the invisible vessel six hundred feet behind the spy, the moaning of the breeze in the rigging; the whimpering of the terrified slaves.
‘Now,’ said Vedius Pollio, his voice thick. ‘You shall see what it means to anger or offend me! Strip them!’
The man and the woman were naked in heartbeats, piles of rags on the sand at their feet.
‘Which one first?’ demanded an anonymous voice.
‘The man,’ answered Pollio. ‘He dropped one of my favourite goblets - smashed it to shards.’
‘Shall we use the woman while we wait?’ asked another.
‘No. I want her to see everything without distractions. It took time and money to prepare this, shore up the sides and fill it to my satisfaction, all for her benefit. Besides, there are whores enough in Neapolis to satisfy any lusts her punishment might arouse.’
As he said this, Pollio pushed the unresisting old man over the edge so he was forced to jump into the pool. It was surprisingly deep. Water rose up as he went in, flooding the sand like lava from an erupting volcano. The woman skipped back, Pollio at her side. Both stared fixedly at the hole and the old man floundering within it. It looked as though he was doomed to sink and drown, but apparently he was just able to stand, for his head reappeared above the heaving surface. What Artemidorus could see of his emaciated face was locked in an expression of surprise, which rapidly became shock and then horror. The ancient mouth opened, revealing a toothless maw. The surface between the open jaw and the pallid underwater chest continued to heave as though it was alive. Pollio’s friends gathered round, torches high and bright. Artemidorus could still see the strange hole and the slave’s head through their legs. And he could hear even more clearly than he could see.
The old man screamed. A long, wavering howl of stark terror and unbearable agony. His arms began to work feverishly, as though endeavouring to push something horrible away.
Artemidorus realised that the water was not alive – but something within it certainly was.
A flash of sinuous movement writhed across the white skin. Another. The centurion gasped in horrified revelation. The hole in the sand was packed full of eels. The black-throated well, almost as deep as a man was tall and the better part of five feet wide, was full of eels. The eels were eating the slave alive. The old man’s writhing and jerking reached a new height even as his screams began to choke off. The water sloshing into the sand was red now – the colour accentuated by the torchlight. The movements beneath the surface became more frenzied still. The dying slave raised his hands as though in supplication. They were little more than shapeless, fingerless stumps on the ends of tattered arms. There were eels hanging from the forearms, teeth buried bone-deep in the flesh. The old man looked at them in silent wonder as though simply unable to comprehend what was happening to him. Then his head jerked under the surface and the frenzied heaving of the red water slowed.
Pollio slid his hands onto the woman’s body. ‘You’re next,’ he said. ‘But my pets have eaten already, the edge of their hunger has dulled. So they’ll take their time with you. Just think what’s going to happen to these…’ he fondled her breasts, ‘… these…’ he patted her buttocks, ‘…this…’ he stroked her belly.
One of his companions sniggered at the thought.
Artemidorus began to pull himself to his feet, gasping, calculating whether he could use a surprise attack to pull a gladius out of an entranced soldier’s sheath and get at Pollio before the rest of them stopped him, when the furthest of the semi-circle of tents exploded into flames.
iii
Pollio’s friends turned, all at once, only to freeze in surprise and confusion. Another tent caught fire. ‘By the gods!’ shouted one of the legionaries. ‘That’s my tent!’
‘And mine!’ bellowed someone else.
In another heartbeat, the whole group was pounding up the sloping sand towards the roadway and the blazing tents along it. Only Pollio and the woman remained. Artemidorus was half up now, in a squat like a runner at the Olympic games. He paused for a heartbeat as one of the most remarkable things he had seen recently occurred. The woman punched Pollio full in the face as hard as she could. It flashed into Artemidorus’ mind that she could afford to take the almost incalculable risk of attacking her owner. Crucifixion would be a kindly relief compared with the death he had planned for her. The soldier staggered back – surprised as much as hurt, by the look of things - then he stepped forward, fist raised.
The spy went pounding silently across the sand. As he did so, Pollio drove his fist into the woman’s belly. Then, as she folded over, the breath knocked out of her, he hooked his fist into the angle of her jaw. She fell to the ground, clearly unconscious. ‘Stay there,’ snarled Pollio. ‘I’ll be back and the eels will still be waiting!’ he turned to follow his friends.
Artemidorus reared up to his full height behind the supercilious equestrian and punched him on the back of his head, precisely where the skull joined the neck. He used all the force at his command, compounded by the added power of his silent charge across the beach. Pollio sprawled forward, face-down on the sand, without ever knowing what had hit him.
‘Septem!’ hissed Felix, appearing from the shadows. ‘It’s time to move!’
Artemidorus hesitated, conflicting ideas holding him still for an instant. He was tempted almost beyond his power to resist by the thought of putting Pollio head first in the eel-filled hole. But at the same time he had to do something about the woman. He certainly could not leave her here. But there was no time to do both things. He stooped, picked up the woman and slung her face-down over his shoulder with her hip against his ear and her legs clasped against his chest. He turned and jogged back across the sand as fast as he could. Felix ran at his side and the legionaries fell in behind.
The fires, spreading apparently unstoppably from tent to tent down the Via towards Neapolis, were a very effective distraction but they also had the unexpected effect of worrying Captain Ale. So Artemidorus arrived at the ship to find his wagon and horses standing on the sand and a team of crewmen waiting to pull the gang plank aboard as soon as the remaining legionaries who had gone with Felix were assembled on the deck.
‘By Poseidon’s bollocks!’ called Ale, looking down in wonder. ‘What are you doing, Centurion? You go ashore to cause one kind of distraction and return carrying a potent distraction of quite another kind! What in the name of Aphrodite do you propose to do with a naked woman?’
‘I could suggest several things,’ called a voice from aboard. ‘Let us take her and we’ll…’
What the soldier or sailor might have in mind was lost in the rumble as the gangplank was pulled aboard and the shore-side oars began to push against the sandy sea-bed, easing the vessel into deeper water – a simple task now that the weight of the wagon was removed. The oars on the sea side were plied at the oar-master’s quiet orders and Ale’s ship vanished almost silently into the shadows.
‘That was a good question, though,’ said Felix. ‘What in the name of Aphrodite are you going to do with her?’
*
‘OK,’ said Felix. ‘We’re dressed like stinking
peasants and hauling a load of horse-shit across the country - all so that we won’t attract too much unwelcome attention to ourselves. And your reaction to this clever plan is to bring a naked woman along with us! I really can’t see anyone’s attention being attracted by that.’
‘You’re right of course,’ said Artemidorus as though he didn’t catch his friend’s heavily ironic tone. ‘So we have to hide her. And quickly, because there isn’t much time.’
‘We could sling her in with the shit,’ suggested Felix helpfully. ‘I mean, she can’t get much dirtier than she already is, and fortunately we don’t have to worry about soiling her clothes.’
‘She’d suffocate. Quickly, help me open the panel. There should just be room to hide her in the secret compartment.’
‘With all the arms and armour we possess, not to mention our supplies of food and drink. And, now I think of it, our war-chest – the bit of it that’s not hidden in your purse round your neck.’ He looked at Artemidorus; read his expression and turned to the wagon. ‘Very well, but watch yourself when you try to take her out again, she’ll probably come out like Bellona, armed with your sharpest spatha! Always assuming she’s not just going to punch you in the face and make a run for it.’
The access panel to the compartment beneath the wagon’s false floor was under the double bench of the driving seat. As the three horses stood patiently, Artemidorus watched Felix open the compartment and then the two men slid the unconscious woman into the utter darkness within. Closed up, climbed aboard and set off at an easy trot.
‘I’ve heard of people with an irrational fear of enclosed spaces,’ said Felix after a while. ‘Let’s hope she’s not one of them.’
‘Even if she is,’ answered Artemidorus, ‘it’s got to be better than being eaten alive by eels and if Fortuna smiles on us she won’t be in there for long.’ He flapped his hands and slapped the horse’s rump with the reins. ‘Hurry up,’ he ordered the animal, ‘I want to be on the Via before anyone catches up with us.’
‘You think someone’ll come after us?’ wondered Felix.
‘Not us precisely. But they’ll come checking. Pollio’s lost a slave, his dignitas and his idea of a good time and he’s the sort of man who has contacts. Even if he wasn’t, there’s been a suspicious amount of fire-damage to the tents pitched along the road to Neapolis. The Casca brothers have probably been called out of bed along with Antistius Labeo and maybe even Tillius Cimber – some of Pollio’s friends were wearing the blue tunics of marines. They’ll all want to know what’s going on and who’s where. Especially strangers. But I reckon that if we can get up onto the Via before a patrol catches up with us then a show of dumb ignorance will probably see us safely on our way.’
‘So we look as thick as horse-shit rather than as thick as pig-shit eh?’ said Felix as the sturdy cart-horse pulled them up off the municipal road and onto the Via.
‘Drooling idiots; that’s the idea,’ agreed Artemidorus as he swung the horse’s head eastwards and they settled into an easy pace, ambling away from Neapolis and towards Brutus’ and Cassius’ armies – wherever ahead they were. ‘But I honestly can’t be sure which one of us will find it easier…’
‘And we’d better pray to Achilleus that your new friend doesn’t wake up while we’re being interrogated,’ added Felix after a while.
‘Better start drooling and praying, old friend,’ advised Artemidorus. ‘I think I hear the sound of horses closing up behind us.’
iv
Their pursuers turned out to be a unit of praetorian cavalry. As Artemidorus had predicted, the praetorians were simply looking for anyone who might have some information about the fires in the encampment, the assault on Praefactus Aleae Pollio and the missing slave woman. After a very short time indeed, their impatient leader was convinced that these two didn’t even know what day it was – let alone what had happened back in Neapolis and environs. And one deep breath of the air around them and their wagon explained why they had been unable to find a room for the night.
As though awed to find himself in conversation with such an elevated individual as a praetorian officer in his shiny silver armour with his striking shield, impressive helmet and restless horse, Artemidorus explained at some length the financial rewards to be garnered from collecting horse droppings in a place where they were not much needed and could be obtained cheaply, then transporting them to a place where demand was higher and being able to sell them at a tidy profit. All for the modest outlay of a cart horse, a wagon and the remains of a leather-walled army tent in case the rain washed their merchandise away. And would the officer mind, when he and his alae had moved on if he and his brother here collected what their horses left behind to add to their profitable load?
‘Not at all,’ said the officer, narrow eyed. ‘And those are fine horses you have tethered behind your wagon. Profits in the dung trade must be exceedingly good if you can afford mounts like those…’
‘Oh, no, no, no…’explained the excrement salesman, deeply shocked. The horses did not belong to them. They were being transported at the special request of another officer. Perhaps the cavalry commander had heard of Valerius Messalla Corvinus, now, apparently a legate under General Brutus himself, and his young relative Lucius Bibulus, General Brutus’ step son? The Legate and his companion had travelled this very road not so long ago and these were their horses, left at a statione, now to be returned to them. And as the two dung-merchants were heading in that direction…
The praetorian had heard of Messalla Corvinus at least, as Artemidorus calculated he would have. The young patrician had travelled the length of this road with his brother-in-law Lucius Bibulus only a few months back having escaped proscription in Rome. The pair of them heading straight for Brutus who had been married to Lucius’ mother and Messalla’s mother-in-law Porcia Catonis. News of whose death by apparently eating hot coals, Lucius and Messalla were bringing with them. Every soldier stationed anywhere near the Via knew of Valerius Messalla Corvinus and Lucius Bibulus. But the fact that a common sub-pleb stercus peddler like this one did, was added proof that his story must be true.
‘We’ve wasted enough time on these two,’ the praetorian officer said at last. ‘Let’s go!’ He wheeled his horse until it faced eastwards and thundered off down the Via into the promising dawn, followed by his command.
‘You,’ said Felix, his tone accusatory, ‘should be on the stage.’
‘In plays by Euripides? Sophocles? I rather fancied myself playing Oedipus, as our early years were strikingly similar - though I never met my mother. Fortunately.’
‘I had Aristophanes in mind. Or, better yet, Plautus: his Pyrgopolynices, in Miles Gloriosus The Swaggering Soldier.’
‘Most amusing. But that of course would make you Artrotrogus, the brown-nosed, ass-kissing parasite.’
The pair of them fell silent then, both too well aware of the dangers that they had escaped during the night to carry on with their banter – dangers that were only going to become more acute as they travelled nearer to Brutus and Cassius. For both the generals, many of their most senior officers and several of their new recruits – including Valerius Messalla Corvinus and Lucius Bibulus - knew Artemidorus well and would see through his disguise in a heartbeat.
This sense of danger was further emphasised when the praetorians rode back past them, clearly having discovered nothing more down the Via than the usual traffic beginning to stir in the early morning. Slowing as they trotted by, their gazes raking over the filthy pair and their stinking cart with renewed suspicion.
Just at the very moment that their hidden passenger began to bang on the door to her tomb-like prison and demand to be released.
*
‘Do you think they heard?’ asked Felix as Artemidorus pulled the wagon to the side of the Via.
‘Let’s hope not…’ He looked back past the pile of their cargo, watching the Praetorians trot on towards Neapolis. ‘With any luck the hoofbeats of their horses, the jingling of their tack
, the jangling of the scale-mail will have drowned out almost everything. But the last pair are looking back, wondering why we’ve stopped…’
‘I’ll go and put their minds at rest by collecting their horses’ generous donations to our wares while you have a chat with your new friend. Pity you’re not wearing your armour; or your helmet at least. Just in case…’
‘Good. But make sure the Via is quiet before you try it. I don’t want you trampled or run over by yet more soldiers or other carters about their daily business.’
Felix climbed down, checked that the Via was empty apart from the departing soldiers and made a performance out of going to collect the horse-droppings. The praetorians turned away and trotted on. Artemidorus pulled the panel open and stood back as the woman crawled out, his gaze still fixed on the departing soldiers and the providentially quiet road they were riding. He was aware of her lithe movements as she pulled herself free and climbed down but it came as a surprise when he turned to look at her to discover that she had found a tunic in the utter darkness of the compartment and – in spite of the cramped conditions – managed to put it on. She had also managed to find a belt and his dagger, which she now wore at her waist. She looked up at him silently from behind that tangle of long, black hair, her eyes startlingly blue, her expression guarded. Then she pushed past him and ran down the slope of the roadside and vanished into the undergrowth down there.
Felix returned empty-handed as the soldiers all-but vanished from sight and he no longer needed to maintain the fiction of collecting the droppings. ‘Where is she?’ he asked.
Artemidorus gestured to the undergrowth.
‘Good. Let’s hope she makes a run for it. I can’t see anything but trouble heading our way if we keep her.’
‘She’s got my dagger and she’s wearing your tunic, though.’
‘Shit!’
A moment later the woman pushed back into sight. She paused for a moment. Looking up at them then she ran back up the slope and stood silently in front of them her hand on the handle of Artemidorus’ dagger. There was a faint air of challenge about her, as though she was thinking, you got me, now what are you going to do with me?