The Sword of Revenge (14 page)

‘It is not a reward.’

‘It’s money ain’t it?’ Cholon nodded, moving backwards to avoid the spittle that Dabo, in his ire, was spraying around. ‘Same difference. I looked after the boy and his mother for years, an’ took him into my own home when she died. I’m not one to
spit on a friend, even if the boy wasn’t his own flesh and blood. Not many can claim to be a foundling twice.’

Cholon did not want to hear any of this; what he wanted was information about this Aquila, then he could leave this farmyard, as well as this stinking peasant. ‘You are not making sense. What is all this about exposure and foundling children?’

‘The boy, Aquila. He was found by Clodius after a night’s drinking, lying a couple of leagues off the road in them woods you can just see from my roof. Only the Gods know where he came from, lazy little sod with grand ideas. Like his father: never done a day’s work in his life.’

Cholon had a moment’s thought, of that night many years before, the Feast of Lupercalia, when he and Aulus had placed a small bundle in some woods far from a main highway, but he dismissed it. Exposure was commonplace and such coincidences were the stuff of plays and comedies, not of real life.

‘My sole concern is that the boy should receive the money due to him. Do you think he will return here?’

‘Never!’ said Rufurius. His father glared at him, but he did not disagree and Cholon turned round to face the boy as he continued. ‘He has relations in Rome, a baker called Demetrius.’

‘Not relations, the boy was never adopted
proper,’ growled Dabo. Then his face took on a crafty look. ‘There are Clodius Terentius’s blood children, surely any money should go to them. There’s a sister on the other side of Aprilium.’

‘Did they live with their father?’ Dabo shook his head. ‘Then they do not qualify. The bequest was for dependants. Has this Aquila reached manhood?’

‘No.’

‘Which is?’

Dabo looked at his younger son, as if to confirm, by the difference in their ages, the truth of his reply. ‘Thirteen summers, I suppose.’

‘Then he is the sole dependant and the money is his. I shall leave instructions at the Temple of the Goddess
Roma
in Aprilium. Should he return here, you must direct him to that place.’

‘And if he don’t come back?’ asked Dabo.

‘I may seek to find this Demetrius Terentius in Rome. More than that I cannot do.’

She was waiting for them in the same place, crouched by the side of the track, staring at the bones laid out before her and since her cart blocked the way, Cholon’s bearers were forced to stop. He walked towards her to see that her finger was stuck in the red earth, where she had drawn the outline of a beaked eagle, wings outstretched as if in flight. The old woman did not look up when Cholon coughed politely and he finally touched her
shoulder when she failed to respond. The skinny frame fell to the side, the head falling backwards, and Cholon could see clearly that the black eyes held no life. He looked at the bones, lying in the dust where they had been cast, and the drawn eagle, wondering what message, if any, they contained.

CHAPTER EIGHT

South went Flaccus and his party, past Neopolis, towards Rhegium and an ever hotter sun, with Aquila bringing up the rear of the column, his mouth full of the other people’s dust. Minca was at liberty to run alongside the road, drinking freely from the thin watercourses which traversed the fields that lay on either side of the route. The paved roadway was busy, full of carts and wagons pulled by dull-eyed oxen, and messengers on post-horses galloped by, demanding right of way, as did the occasional official or wealthy traveller in a litter. Flaccus and his men moved in the morning and the late afternoon, resting up from the heat of the noonday sun, both horses and men sleeping in the shade. They stopped in a town for the night if they could, or at the post-houses along the way if the distance demanded it, flea-ridden establishments, with poor food and worse wine. Flaccus was careful
now to pay for their needs in advance, so that any further expenses would fall on those doing the ordering. He laid out nothing on the boy, who was obliged to feed off the left-overs of other travellers and bed down in the stable with his dog and the horses.

All Aquila’s attempts to engage Flaccus in conversation failed; the ex-centurion had no desire to talk of his times in the legions, nor of the exploits of Clodius Terentius, who had been at best an innocent, at worst an amiable buffoon who was always short of what he needed to get leave. And he moaned about everything: having to serve in place of Dabo, the seeming indifference of the wife he had left behind, always claiming that she had in her possession something valuable that would more than pay for any leave he took. Flaccus was not a fool, and he had heard every promise and excuse in the book from the men he had led. Clodius would promise the moon to get home, and that Flaccus knew would be the last he saw of him, never mind the money Clodius had lost to him gambling.

Indeed, every time the boy mentioned the name Flaccus thought of the treasure wagon in that poorly lit clearing and the wealth which, as far as he was concerned, Clodius had lost, of the prophecy he heard that he would die covered in gold and how near that had come to being fulfilled. Why had he tried to steal something so valuable with only someone like
Clodius Terentius to help him? The man was born to lose. If Clodius had a spirit that watched over him, it was
Egestes
, the Goddess of poverty.

Yet even heartless Flaccus occasionally turned his thinking to those he and Clodius had watched die and the manner in which they had been killed; they were, after all, fellow-Romans. The male civilians had been strung up on trees, to be used as targets for arrows and spears, the women and girls had suffered the fate of females in any lost fight, but he had seen the soldiers killed too, one by one, forced to make their way down a line of men who wanted to beat them into pulped submission before the final blow to despatch them. Those thoughts made him even more taciturn, and that was before he even gave any consideration to the men he had left behind at Thralaxas. These were things he wished to forget; they were not memories of which he wanted to be reminded.

Aquila reasoned, when Flaccus growled to be left alone, that the older man was regretting his one moment of weakness. He could not know that every grain of dust in Flaccus’s teeth served as an excuse to curse the luck that had him on this road, with years of toil before him, in the company of a band of cut-throats whose loyalty could never be truly bought, when he had held a fortune in his hands, could not know that the boy’s questions brought that all back. And there were other
worries. It was soon obvious that Toger and his mates had access to money, though it was a mystery how they acquired it, for they had had precious little when he had taken them on. Every time the band stopped in a town, and after the men had eaten, Toger would disappear for an hour with a couple of the others, returning with the means to purchase the things he seemed incapable of living without: wine and a woman. His presence on every expedition clearly established that he was an alternative leader for these men, a source for certain of future trouble. Assuming they were indulging in a bit of thieving, Flaccus decided he would need to follow them one night. Not that he would interfere; he wanted these men for the very qualities he suspected they were employing, albeit there was a limit. If they were doing more than thieving, that could put him at risk.

His years in the legions had given him a nose for trouble. Tonight, being in a post-house several leagues from the nearest town, he should have been able to relax, but the men were restless. That might just be because, for once, they were out of coin. They had ordered no extra wine as far as he could tell, nor questioned the landlord about the other services on offer. Toger, particularly, was like a caged lion, striding about, his beetle-brow creased in anger and frustration, his beady eyes occasionally favouring Flaccus with a menacing glare. The
centurion ate slowly and watched the whispered conversations, accompanied by much gesturing, with a lot of sideways glances in his direction.

They waited until he was in the stable, checking the horse’s hooves, before slipping away under a strong moon, Toger and two others, Dedon and Charro, with Flaccus watching from the edge of the stable door. He waited till they were just out of sight and started to head after them, but the other men appeared from nowhere and, though it could not be proved, he was sure they would block his pursuit if he tried to continue. Flaccus was too experienced to risk an open breach, so he smiled at them, made a gesture to indicate he had forgotten something, and went back into the stable.

‘Where are you boy?’ he said softly.

‘Here!’ The reply came from above his head and he looked up to see Aquila laying on a bale of straw, the dog beside him.

‘How would you like a proper bed to sleep in and food off your own plate?’ Aquila did not reply, nor did he blink; the bright blue eyes held the older man in a disconcertingly steady gaze. ‘Toger has gone for a little walk with a couple of his mates.’

‘I know. They go out most nights. They’ll be back in an hour or so.’

Flaccus spoke eagerly, his normally cautious nature overborne by his surprise at the boy’s observation. ‘Any idea what they get up to?’

‘No.’

‘Well, that’s what I want to know.’

‘And you can’t go yourself because the others blocked your way.’

‘How do you know that?’

For the first time the boy smiled. ‘You can see a lot from up here. You can see that they turned north once they were over the crest of the hill and out of sight of the stable door.’

‘Come down here,’ snapped Flaccus, angry at the way, with his calm response, this boy was besting him. Aquila dropped from the hayloft, landing softly and bending his knees to break his fall. The dog chose a different route, jumping down into a pile a straw, and once there, it lay down to watch.

‘Do you think you could follow them?’

‘Easily. We’re in the country, not some town. I’ve never heard or seen an elephant, but Toger must sound just like one in the undergrowth.’ He jerked a thumb towards the dog. ‘And Minca will pick him up a mile off.’

Flaccus took him by the ear, tugging it gently, ignoring the dog, which had stood up and was watching them carefully. ‘You’re a cocky little bastard, ain’t you. I want to know where they’ve gone and what they do. Find out and I’ll pay for your board, fail and you and that hound can start walking back to Dabo’s farm, ’cause that mare of his will be forfeit.’

Aquila did not flinch or cry out as Flaccus tugged his ear harder, he just stared at the centurion, refusing to be cowed. ‘I can only do that if you let go of my ear.’

Flaccus smiled, releasing him. ‘You’re nothing like Clodius are you?’

Aquila turned and was halfway out of the window, the dog eagerly following, but his reply was clear enough. ‘Why should I be?’

The road was built on a causeway, with culverts running underneath at intervals to aid irrigation. Aquila headed in the opposite direction to that taken by Toger, crossed the paved highway, slid down the other side and ran north out of sight of the other men outside the post-house. With Minca at his heels, he slipped through the first arched channel and made his way to the small defile that he had seen the trio take. Turning north again, he ran swiftly and silently, dodging round the gorse bushes and skipping over any loose twigs. The dog was ahead, stopping occasionally to sniff the north-west wind, whimpering softly if he detected some strong odour. Aquila heard them well before he saw them, since his description of Toger was not over-stated, and soon he had all three in view, with Toger well in the lead, blundering along, parallel with the road, making no attempt at silence, as they strode on in the fading light.

Aquila slowed down, called Minca to heel and
dropped to a crouched position, using the bushes for cover as he trailed them. They were still heading north, clearly with a destination in mind. Toger stopped, threw out his arm, indicating something off to his right, and they turned that way. Aquila let them go, waiting till they were a fair way off, before shinning up one of the few wild olive trees in this sparse and barren landscape. The lamps from the main room of the villa shone out clearly in the twilight and the purposeful way that the three men were walking towards the place identified it as their destination, so Aquila dropped back down and ran after them, still keeping out of sight. He stopped dead at the sound of the barking dogs, grabbing Minca and forcing him to sit, his blood freezing as he heard Toger speak, not more than ten paces away. The wind had carried his scent away from Minca’s nose and they had nearly blundered into them.

‘Dogs bark at anythin’, you know that.’

One of the other men spoke, his voice angry. ‘We came at the place from the wrong side. They’ve picked up our scent on the wind. Besides it sounds like a pack of them. They’ll tear us to pieces if we try and sneak in.’

The third one interjected. ‘You’re forever rushin’ at these things, Toger.’