[Gaius Valerius Verrens 06] - Scourge of Rome (41 page)

‘He’s mine.’ The owner of the voice was the rider who’d blocked the road. He sprang from the saddle and when he pulled back his cloak Valerius saw he was very young and that he wore the uniform of a Roman tribune. His first impression was of vivid blue eyes and handsome features set in a frown of businesslike concentration. Valerius had never seen him before in his life.

As the stranger approached, he whirled his sword in controlled, sweeping practice strokes. The razor edge whistled dangerously through the air with mesmerizing speed and Valerius’s heart quailed. Here was a man as dangerous as Serpentius. As if to prove the point the tribune launched straight into the attack with powerful cuts to left and right. Valerius met the first with a flailing parry, but the heavy sword jarred his wrist as he blocked it and he struggled to deflect the next hammer blow.

The young man stepped back smiling, letting Valerius understand that the first attack was merely designed to keep him honest. ‘Domitian wanted you to know why you were dying,’ he said cheerfully. ‘He says you are a coward and a traitor and this is the justice you deserve.’ He punctuated the words with feints to the one-handed Roman’s eyes and heart. Valerius ignored the provocation, using the breathing space to clutch at his jarred wrist with his right hand. He cried out at the pain as he flexed his fingers. The tribune’s smile grew wider. ‘Don’t worry, friend, your suffering will soon be over.’

‘I’m not your friend,’ Valerius rasped. ‘And this isn’t a game.’

‘Oh, but it is.’ The tribune seemed surprised by his opponent’s lack of appreciation. ‘A killing game at which we are both adept. Unfortunately, this is the last time you will play.’

The stranger attacked with blinding speed even before he finished the sentence, but Valerius had anticipated the move. He swayed his upper body to the left, allowing the spearing thrust to the throat to slide by a hair’s breadth from his neck. Only his speed saved him, because he knew he could never have parried it. His mind whirled, seeking a strategy that would keep him alive for a few minutes more. This man knew all about left-handed fighters. He would expect a counter with the
gladius
, but when it came he’d simply step to his left and saw the edge of the
spatha
across Valerius’s throat. Somehow Valerius managed to bring the short sword up to push the point of the
spatha
skywards, leaving an opening for his right hand to come across in a slashing hook towards his attacker’s jugular. The first spearman lunged with his point to press Valerius back and the young tribune touched his fingers to his chin, grimacing as they came away bloody. He looked down at the dagger point projecting from Valerius’s right fist and shook his head at his carelessness.

‘Very tricky,’ he said, flicking at the artificial hand with the
spatha
. ‘I should have realized you wouldn’t give up without a fight. But the game is over now.’ He sounded almost regretful as he called the two watching spearmen forward. ‘Now you die. You wouldn’t care to kneel and get it over quickly, I suppose.’

Valerius didn’t bother to reply. His eyes flickered between the three spearmen and the sword point. There must have been a hidden signal. One spearman darted forward to draw Valerius’s attention, but it was a feint and the shaft of another clattered into his helmet. The blow knocked it from his head and stunned him to his knees. ‘Time to finish it.’ Valerius looked up into the tribune’s unforgiving blue eyes as the man raised the heavy sword shoulder high. He tried to raise his
gladius
to meet the blow, but all the strength had gone from his fingers.

The death sentence still hung in the air when it was punctuated by a sort of wet slap. When Valerius looked up the young assassin had sprouted a feathered shaft from the notch between chin and breastbone. He collapsed to his knees with an awful gurgling sound and clawed at his throat as he slumped forward on to his face. The closest spearman gaped in disbelief before he was punched back by a second arrow. Without another word the survivors tried to turn their horses, only to be surrounded in seconds by a swarm of auxiliary cavalry archers.

Valerius sheathed his sword and pushed himself to his feet with the aid of the abandoned spear. Lunaris stood nearby on shaking legs and the Roman walked past the still shuddering bodies to pat him on the muzzle. ‘No fool like an old fool,’ he confided with a sigh. ‘Time they put us both out to grass.’

A shadow fell over him and he looked up into the grinning face of Gaulan, commander of the Chalcidean archers. ‘You believe in living dangerously, my Roman friend. I almost didn’t take the shot when I saw his tribune’s armour.’ He nodded to the man who rode up to his side. ‘Fortunately we were accompanied by someone with more authority than I.’

‘I thought you …’ A shudder ran through Valerius at the thought of what would have happened but for the presence of Claudius Florus Paternus.

‘Circumstances change.’ Paternus shrugged. ‘My brother’s shade visited me on the night the Tenth was attacked and bade me stay my hand till I was sure. You have shown your true worth.’

‘Tiberius was a good friend and a good soldier,’ Valerius said. ‘He did his duty to the last, as I did mine. How did you come to be here?’

‘A security patrol to pave the way for Titus.’ Paternus walked his horse across to where the two bodies lay bleeding in the dust and Valerius accompanied him. ‘Who is he?’

‘I don’t know, but I’d like to find out.’

‘Does anyone recognize him?’ Titus Vespasian pulled back the blanket covering the dead man.

The legates of his four legions stepped forward to study the marble face. In death, Valerius’s assailant seemed to have shrunk. He looked like a half-grown boy lying on the earth floor of the command tent with blood caked on his lips and the arrow still buried to the fletching in his throat.

‘His name is – was – Lucius Silvanus Capito.’ Phrygius winced. ‘He joined the Fifteenth two weeks ago straight from Rome. An excellent young soldier with an escort of Thracian auxiliaries. I’d considered suggesting you appoint him to your staff,’ he said almost apologetically. ‘You will never make a politician, Phrygius.’ Vespasian’s son laughed to cut short the stunned silence. ‘Do you have any idea who could have sent him, Valerius?’

‘No.’ Valerius gave Titus the answer he required rather than the truth. ‘Every man makes enemies. I fear I’ve made more than most, but none who would want me dead.’

‘Very well.’ Titus called his guard. ‘Take him away and have him buried.’ He met the eyes of each man in the tent, leaving them in no doubt about the sincerity of his words. ‘This ends here. A coincidence, a mistake or an accident. But I want it known, discreetly, that any further attempt on a fellow officer’s life will not be met with mercy.’

‘The Thracians?’ Phrygius asked. ‘Should I put them to the question? Perhaps …’

‘It is finished. They are condemned by their own actions and will suffer death. But do it quietly, Phrygius. Make them disappear.’

The legate nodded.

‘This is Domitian’s doing?’ Titus asked when he and Valerius were alone.

‘It appears so.’

The young general looked up and his eyes were hard. ‘His actions shame me and shame our father. This will not happen again. You will concentrate on your duties.’ He returned to his papers and Valerius went to the door of the tent. ‘And Valerius?’

‘Yes.’

‘You should look to Serpentius. He is unwell. My physician is with him.’

Valerius hurried back to his tent to find Serpentius lying on his blanket with his head back and his mouth open, snoring through his nose. The Spaniard’s flesh had the pallor of a week-old corpse. Alexandros, the Egyptian
medicus
who attended Titus, stood over him watched by Apion, the black legionary.

‘Is he …’

‘I have given him a weak solution of henbane to help him sleep,’ Alexandros said. ‘He had a shaking fit and might have choked on his own tongue had it not been for this man.’ He waved a limp hand at Apion. ‘It is not uncommon among those with this type of injury.’ He reached down to run his fingers gently over the depression in Serpentius’s skull. ‘Even if the skull isn’t smashed, when a man is hit on the head with such force splinters of bone can be driven into the brain. Sometimes death is instantaneous, sometimes it is delayed, and sometimes the victim can carry on a relatively normal life, but it always has effects. Whatever the outward resemblance, your friend is not the same man he was before he received this wound.’

‘Thank you. I will remember.’

‘Do you want me to remain?’

‘No, I will stay with him. If there is a … problem … I will send for you. Thank you for tending him.’

‘You should thank the general.’ The doctor’s face was set in a tight smile that told Valerius he’d never have gone near a former slave if Titus hadn’t ordered it.

‘I also owe you my thanks,’ Valerius said to Apion, who hovered by the doorway.

‘He is my friend,’ the Syrian said. ‘And he was kind to me. It is not always easy being different. He taught me things.’ Valerius nodded. He could imagine the kinds of ‘things’ Serpentius would teach. The open-handed blow to the nose that sent the bone up into the brain like an arrowhead; the belly punch that left you pissing blood; the pressure point between neck and shoulder that would leave a man momentarily paralysed so you could kill him at your leisure. All of them could come in useful for an outsider trying to make a place for himself among his iron-hard tentmates.

Apion left, and Valerius drew up the warped base of a cedar tree he and Serpentius used as a chair or table and sat down to watch over his friend.

When Valerius woke the next day it was as if the previous one had never happened. Serpentius walked into the tent with half a wheel of fresh bread, olive oil, some dried fish and a jug of fresh water. The water came from an aqueduct that ran near the camp and originated from the famed King Solomon’s Pools thirty miles to the south. Titus had ordered the supply to Jerusalem blocked to add to the privations of the defenders. Valerius supposed that if he’d known of the Conduit of Hezekiah, he would have poisoned the supply or stopped the flow. But Valerius needed the tunnel and he’d no intention of mentioning it.

‘How do you feel?’ he asked as they ate.

Serpentius took a moment to answer. ‘A little slow in the head.’ He tugged distractedly at a piece of bread. ‘But otherwise no different. One minute I was with Apion watching the lads play a game of Caesar, the next I was on my bedroll with some quack feeding me a vile potion. After that, nothing till I woke this morning. What happened?’

‘The
medicus
said you had a shaking fit.’ Valerius studied his friend for any sign of a reaction. ‘He thought it might be something to do with the injury to your head. Apion probably saved your life.’

‘I suppose that makes sense.’ The Spaniard sucked at a hollow tooth and stared at the tent wall. ‘Sometimes it feels as if the world’s going on its way without me.’ He bowed his head. ‘I’ve always been in control, Valerius. Always been sure of myself, especially with a sword in my hand. Now, I have this feeling: What if? What if I’m guarding your back and it happens? You could be killed and it would be my fault. What use is a man with a sword if he’s not able to use it? Maybe it would be best to get someone else to look out for you.’

Valerius clapped the Spaniard on the arm. ‘Hole in the head or no, I wouldn’t trust another man to be my shield in a fight. Battle turns you into a different man, Serpentius. The gods of your ancestors fight at your side. They will protect you, and you will protect me. The way it’s always been.’

‘I know.’ The Spaniard looked up with a sheepish grin that looked out of place on his savage features. ‘I’m talking like an old woman. I’m still as fast as I’ve always been.’ He reached for the wooden practice swords they exercised with most mornings. ‘Come out to the sword butts and I’ll show you.’

Valerius shook his head. ‘Someone gave me enough sword practice yesterday to last me a long time.’ He explained about the ambush on the road from Berenice’s villa and the Spaniard looked crestfallen.

‘See,’ he said, ‘I should have been with you. Are you sure you didn’t know this tribune? He must have been watching us to know where to ambush you.’

‘I don’t think so.’ Valerius had considered the question. ‘I saw plenty of escort troops guarding the timber convoys. More likely it was just chance.’

‘So it wasn’t old roasted face.’ Serpentius said it as if he couldn’t quite believe it. Paternus had been a potential threat for so long it was difficult to consider him as anything else.

‘No,’ Valerius said with a rueful smile, ‘though if he’d had his chance earlier it’s likely I’d have ended up floating down the Orontes with a knife in my back. Fortunately, he delayed long enough to appreciate my legendary charm.’

‘Did they tell you we’re moving? I heard it at the shit pit this morning. They’ve cleared enough of the town for a camp inside the old city walls. The Fifteenth are building it while the Fifth and some new recruits from the Twelfth work on the siege ramps. They’ve already started.’

‘We should take a look,’ Valerius suggested, trying to lift the Spaniard’s mood.

‘Better than sitting in here scratching our backsides,’ Serpentius agreed.

Though Valerius had spent much of his adult life marching with the legions it still came as a surprise to discover how quickly his comrades could tear a city apart. They had an almost joyous lust for destruction. A thousand paces of wall and seven towers had disappeared since the original breakthrough. Where once had stood streets of shops, houses, workshops and temples all that remained was a field of dusty, churned-up earth. Once the buildings were demolished their rubble was turned into neat, anonymous piles. Hundreds more legionaries laboured to create the ditch and bank of a temporary fort within what had once been the New City.

‘I don’t understand why they didn’t just make a perimeter using the walls as a base,’ Serpentius said. ‘It would have saved them half the work.’

‘Because the walls were theirs, this is ours.’ To Valerius it was blindingly obvious. ‘A legionary is familiar with every foot of a marching camp. He knows what he has to build and what he has to defend and how and where to do it. He’s done it so often it’s become second nature. The effort of constructing the fort is worth the lives it will save if we’re attacked. But it’s not just that. Titus had this ground cleared to create a launch point for the next part of the siege. He wants the Judaeans to see us and fear us.’