[Gaius Valerius Verrens 06] - Scourge of Rome (12 page)

‘Lord?’ the armourer pleaded, holding the breastplate like a sacrifice across his hands.

Valerius sighed. ‘Very well, but I will need a padded scarf for my neck and shoulders …’

Dimitrios nodded and began to withdraw, ushering the slaves with him.

‘… and I want a shirt of chain of a similar quality to here.’ He put his hands to the bottom of his ribs. ‘And make sure to pay particular attention to the sleeves. Those open armpits are an invitation for any spearman who wants to leave a battlefield a rich man.’

‘Of course, lord.’ Dimitrios hesitated. ‘And, lord, I hope you will not feel it an imposition if I add my own gift?’

Valerius smiled and shook his head, but eventually he bowed. ‘I would be honoured, Dimitrios, but only as long as it has a use and a dearth of golden decoration.’

When he was alone, Valerius poured himself a cup of water from a jug and marvelled at Tabitha’s ability to keep him off balance. Had she been hinting something when she talked about an army? Or had she just been blinded by the sight of the armour and, he allowed himself a smile, the man in it? Was it coincidence he’d been presented with a general’s uniform, or was this some subtle piece of trickery by Sohaemus? Certainly, from what Ariston had discovered, the Emesan ruler was devious enough. He’d already more or less offered Valerius a command in his army, what there was of it. Perhaps the armour was a clue to the rewards that went with the offer. He noticed a small cloth-wrapped bundle on the table beside the jug. Dimitrios or one of the slaves must have left it by mistake. Reluctant to see yet another golden trinket though he was, his curiosity soon had him tugging at the white material. It came away to reveal a highly decorated
pugio
, a legionary dagger and an unusual addition to a general’s regalia. He turned it over in his hands. Highly decorated, but killing sharp, with a needle point and curved edges. He returned it to its sheath and placed it back on the table.

By now it was late afternoon. Valerius had sent Ariston to the market to learn what he could about the kinds of threats they might encounter between Emesa and Jerusalem. Sohaemus had promised one of his cavalry commanders would brief Valerius before they left, but the Roman preferred to have his own sources of information. Until the guide returned there was nothing he could do to prepare for the journey. He decided to take up the king’s offer by visiting the palace libraries while there was still enough light to read by.

He guessed it would be cool by the time he returned and threw on the cloak Gaulan had given him the previous day. Standing by the curtained doorway he hesitated for a moment. Only the guards were allowed to carry weapons in the palace, but he remembered Dimitrios’s warning. Had he left the dagger for a purpose? On impulse, Valerius picked up the knife and strapped the belt beneath his cloak where it couldn’t be seen.

To reach the library he had to pass through a series of corridors in the sprawling guest quarters and cross a large, paved courtyard. The guards at the library door were big, bearded men in fish scale armour with spears in their hands and curved swords at their sides. He realized Sohaemus might not have passed word that he was free to enter and resolved not to make an issue of it. There would be other times and there was no point of making a nuisance of himself. In the event, he had nothing to fear. When he presented himself at the door the two soldiers nodded him through into the great echoing space of the first room. The clerks were at their desks, hunched over rolls of parchment, their narrowed eyes darting between the original manuscript and the copy they were making. Valerius wandered among them, trying to view the books they were working on without getting in their light.

‘Is there a particular work you are interested in, lord?’ The speaker was Philippus, the young man Sohaemus had spoken to the day before. His cheeks were smudged with dark streaks where he’d rubbed ink across his face. ‘The king asked me to ensure you were given every facility as well as access to any book, however obscure, and we have many of those.’

Valerius complimented him on the fluency of his Greek and the clerk blushed beneath the ink.

‘So it should be, since I was born in Athens. My father made sure I was taught to read and write from a young age and my tutor soon discovered I was an acceptable copyist. A few years later King Sohaemus heard of my ability and persuaded my master to allow me to come here. He treats me well and I am rewarded for good work. I have no complaints.’

‘How long have you been with him?’

‘Ten years now.’ The young man frowned. ‘But a copyist is only as good as his eyes and I do not know how much longer I will be able to continue.’

‘I am sorry to hear that.’

‘It is the fate of many in my profession.’ Philippus’s tone was philosophical. ‘Fine work seems to drain the ability to see clearly the way a tiny pinhole will eventually empty a wineskin. No one will employ a copyist who writes large, because of the high cost of a roll of parchment. I am one of the fortunate ones. I have some money put away and King Sohaemus says he will find me a position teaching the children of his lords their letters. Still, I hope to complete the Herodotus. For the moment that is all I could ask. Would you like to see it?’

‘I would be pleased to.’

He followed Philippus to his desk, where the original of the book was still pinned. Perhaps forty lines of writing were visible on the crumbling papyrus. On the copy to the right stark lines of Greek symbols leapt from the creamy white of the softened goatskin. ‘We combine soot, vinegar and wood gum to create the ink,’ Philippus explained. ‘I am just waiting for this to dry before I roll it up for the night. King Sohaemus prohibits us from working by lamplight because of the risk of fire. He is very conscious of what happened in Alexandria. Some of our books were recovered from the library even as it burned. But I am boring you.’ He shook his head. ‘You did not come here to listen to me talk about my work. What would it please you to read?’

Valerius assured the Greek he was far from bored. ‘There are so many books here it is impossible to choose. Perhaps I could ask you to do so for me. I am a military man, with an interest in philosophy and the law.’

Philippus nodded thoughtfully. ‘Philosophers we have by the basketful, and legal cases so lengthy and dull your head would fall off before you were halfway to the conclusion. But writers on military matters …’ His eyes scanned the niches and their contents. ‘Yes, I have it. I can offer you Polybius’
Histories
, though it is not an original and I fear the copyist had literary ambitions of his own.’ Philippus sniffed to show what he thought of the changes. ‘We have Homer, of course, but you will be familiar with his works, and Aeneas on siege operations …’

Valerius dredged up a memory from the long days spent with Seneca during the philosopher’s exile on Corsica. The old man had insisted Valerius read military texts as well as the dry, dusty tomes of the Stoics because: ‘I am not sure you are cut out to be a philosopher, Valerius. Your father will thank me one day.’

‘Aeneas of Stymphalos?’

‘The same.’

‘Then I would be happy to read him, and anything else you have on the subject.’

Philippus called for a slave. ‘Room two, section four, niche five,’ he ordered. The man dashed off, returning a few minutes later with a set of scroll cases. Philippus selected one and took out a roll of papyrus. ‘This is the start.’ He unrolled the scroll, revealing faded brown writing:
σοις τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἐκ τῆς αὑτῶν ὁρμωμένοις χώρας ὑπερόριοί τε ἀγῶνες …

‘When men leave their country and engage in warfare and encounter perils beyond their own frontiers …’ Valerius read aloud.

Philippus went back to Herodotus, leaving the Roman alone with his book. Valerius’s choice was not entirely random. Ariston had described Jerusalem as a massively fortified city occupied by fanatical defenders determined to hold their sacred places to the last man. A siege appeared inevitable. Valerius had experience of sieges from the point of view of both defender and attacker. Did Aeneas, who had himself been a general, have anything new to teach him? Disappointingly, it turned out that most of the Greek’s analysis proved to be very basic. He began with organizing the defenders and placing sentries, keeping the population in order and pooling food and supplies, creating passwords and making sallies against the besiegers. Valerius carried on reading and discovered the author mirrored his observations on entering Emesa by suggesting a series of fallback positions in case the walls fell to the enemy. There were sections on mining and counter-mining and methods of repelling the besiegers by destroying their siege machines with rocks. This last brought an image of Juva, the Nubian he’d fought beside at Placentia, hurling a great grinding stone over the parapet to smash an enemy ram. At last he found a section that truly interested him. Aeneas suggested several devious ways of smuggling a secret message through enemy lines. And, though he’d compiled his treatise almost four hundred years earlier, he proposed the use of coded letters. A simple enough system, using pinholes invisible to the naked eye to identify certain letters in a book when the parchment was held up to the light. He also advocated the use of ciphers. Seneca had always claimed that Julius Caesar had devised the first code, but for once it appeared the old philosopher was wrong.

By now the light had begun to fade and Valerius found himself squinting to make out the words. He blinked his eyes to clear them. No wonder Philippus and his fellow workers suffered eye problems if they had to concentrate like this every day. He rolled up the scroll and placed it back in the leather container, looking round for a slave to take the book back to its niche. Instead he found Philippus approaching.

‘I came to warn you that King Sohaemus allows no one in the library after dusk. It is part of my duty to make a final check of the rooms. Perhaps you would like to accompany me?’

Valerius followed him through the echoing halls and the rows of empty desks.

‘It seems you have every book in the world here, or at least every book worth reading,’ the Roman commented.

‘Not every book,’ Philippus smiled. ‘But certainly a vast fount of knowledge.’

‘Yet the king mentioned a single book that would make his collection complete?’

‘He told you about that?’ The clerk laughed. ‘The Book of Enoch. No one is even certain it exists, and if it does, whether it is a work of genius or madness.’

‘Why is the king so interested in it?’

‘There are many reasons. The first is that it is possibly unique; a single copy in the entire world. The second, that it is said to encompass the entire span of the Judaean race from the creation to the apocalypse and the king believes that he cannot know too much about his neighbours.’

‘So this Enoch could see the future?’ Valerius had come across several men who had claimed to be prophets, but most had been obvious frauds.

‘So it appears.’ Philippus’s tone was scornful. ‘The other reason the king seeks the book is because it is said to foretell the coming of the man Christ whose followers the Jews hate so much. A delegation of these Christians appeared at the gates of Emesa a few years ago demanding to search the library for the book, which they claimed as their own. They also pleaded with the king to give up the Black Stone of Elah Gebal and worship Jesus. He told them he would be happy to do so if they could prove the gift of eternal life they offered was a reality. He had them executed in a number of individual ways in an attempt to provide the proof. None came back to life, but one who was about to be burned to death offered to renounce Jesus and worship the Black Stone if he was allowed to live.’

They’d reached the doorway of the library and Valerius said farewell.

‘Do you wish me to accompany you, lord? The palace is a maze of corridors.’

‘I know my way, Philippus.’ Valerius smiled his thanks. ‘I’ll be safe enough on my own.’

Words are like arrows: once loosed they cannot be taken back. Before he’d gone a hundred paces Valerius wished those words unspoken. Instinct saved him. Instinct, speed and the little knife Dimitrios the armourer had thoughtfully provided. But instinct most of all.

He’d just passed a curtained doorway in a corridor illuminated by oil lamps when he felt the faintest whisper on the back of his neck. The flames of the lamps barely flickered in the still air so the draught could only herald some new factor.

Another man would have hesitated. The warmth of the king’s friendship might have lulled Valerius’s senses, but instant, violent reaction had kept him alive through battle, skirmish and ambush. Before the thought had even formed his left hand swooped to the knife while the right arm flung his cloak wide as he turned, instantly creating a distraction and a threat.

Curved blades glinted evilly in the yellow light from the lamps. Three men running towards him, swift and silent across the marble tiles. The closest attacker had aimed his stroke at Valerius’s unprotected back, but the unexpected movement caused it to slide a hair’s breadth past his side and become engulfed in the folds of his cloak. Its owner, a big bearded man, barely had time to register disbelief at missing such a simple target before Valerius’s
pugio
came up to slice across his throat. A beautiful stroke; simple and deadly and almost casual in its delivery. Valerius experienced a liquid surge of elation as he felt the flesh separate beneath the razor edge and the momentary resistance of the windpipe before the tendons parted. The would-be assassin fell away gurgling horribly, his eyes huge discs of ivory and his bulk momentarily obstructing a second killer who’d been at his shoulder.

Valerius ignored this second man. Instinct told him the greatest threat lay with the third, who’d loitered at the rear and now attacked from his left side with his curved dagger raised shoulder-high. By Fortuna’s favour the billowing cloak masked the weakness of Valerius’s open flank and caused a moment of confusion. The hesitation lasted for less than a heartbeat, but long enough for Valerius to rake the studded sole of his sandal down the front of the killer’s shin. As wounds went it was trivial enough, but the assassin shrieked as the iron rivets peeled strips of flesh away from the bone. Before he could recover Valerius followed up with a crunching shoulder charge that sent the knife flying and hammered the man back against the door jamb. By now the rhythm of the fight was pulsing in his head like the slow beat of a drum. He could visualize his surroundings as clearly as if watching from above. The impact forced the breath from the assassin’s lungs, paralysing the man long enough for Valerius to haul him round in time to take the knife aimed at the Roman’s back. He screamed as the point entered where shoulder joined neck and blood fountained from the wound. Valerius stepped away and faced the surviving killer with the
pugio
in his left hand. The man gaped as he realized his error and with a cry of frustration he plucked the knife free from his comrade’s body and dashed up the passageway. He’d covered a dozen paces when he stopped as if he’d run into a stone wall.