The Sword of Revenge (19 page)

If he had been unable to look his fellow-bailiffs in the eye, Flaccus would not have gone even then; now the centurion knew he could, for the summer
harvest was up. Not by much, but it pointed in the right direction and he had increased the land under the plough. Next year, always assuming the Gods blessed them with the right amount of rain, he would see, in the number of bushels his farm produced, something to crow about. Determined on a final check in progress, Flaccus insisted on going via the inland farms, increasing the journey time by two-thirds.

Aquila was saddled up before first light, holding the second horse, waiting while his leader repeated his instructions for the tenth time. Dedon’s voice sounded like a nagged husband, as he agreed to each point. Eventually Flaccus mounted up, but not without delivering a last command. ‘Leave half your men here, Dedon, and take the rest back to the main farm. If there’s any trouble, send for me, right away.’

‘Yes, yes,’ replied Dedon wearily, wishing the man gone so that he could go back to bed.

‘That’s it then!’ But Flaccus didn’t move, as though the act of tugging the horse’s head round was too much to bear. Aquila leant down and pulled the reins for him.

‘Don’t look back, Flaccus,’ he said, as they cantered out of the compound.

Once he had shaken off the dust of his own properties, the old centurion relaxed. They climbed the saddle of a steep hill, with Mount Etna to the
south, rumbling and belching smoke. He was in a talkative mood, no doubt buoyed by success, and for the first time he allowed himself to indulge in a little reminiscence, speaking of Clodius and how close the pair of them had come to being rich, even admitting their plan to steal the gubernatorial gold.

‘It was me that spotted the wagon, and I only chose Clodius ’cause he was lying next to me watching what was going on.’ Flaccus was brief regarding what he and Clodius had seen before that, Roman soldiers running the gauntlet and mass rape taking place all around, the women eventually killed and mutilated. In his mind’s eye he could see that wagon parked away from all that, occasionally lit as the fires of the other burning wagons flared. ‘We had it in our hands, near all of it, and we buried it under a thick bush, but in the darkness we left a trail in the grass that stood out like a sore thumb at first light, so when we came back next day the rebels had pinched it. It should have been mine, because it’s prophesied, boy.’

Aquila, riding alongside him at a slow canter, adopted a non-committal look. Fulmina had believed in her Gods, yet they had led her a hard life and given her a painful death.

‘Don’t think I’m a fool,’ Flaccus continued, sensing the doubt. ‘Any number of fortune-tellers have seen it. The first time a soothsayer told me I’d be burdened with wealth, I laughed at him, but a
second told me the same, and then a third. The last one was the most detailed and after what happened with Clodius I went back to see him.’

‘What did he say?’

‘The same thing.’

‘And you believed him?’ asked Aquila, incredulous.

The older man’s eyes narrowed, because after losing his gold he had gone back to see that soothsayer with his sword in his hand. Losing his temper, he had used it. ‘They were his dying words, which is a telling thing when he confirmed what he’d said before.’ Flaccus’s voice took on a priestly tone, as if to lend authority to the words. ‘I see a golden aura. There are men around, numerous and cheering. You will be covered in gold.’

‘That’s a lot of gold,’ said Aquila, who clearly didn’t believe a word of it.

Flaccus shook his head and looked back towards the flat, well-cultivated landscape. ‘Maybe he meant I’d make my fortune here. I thought we’d done it then, your Papa and I. My prophecy come true, but it was not to be.’

‘What do you think happened to it?’

That made Flaccus angry; in his mind it was still rightfully his and if anyone had got in the way of him possessing the gold it was that buffoon Clodius, not something he could say to Aquila.

‘That bastard Vegetius Flaminus probably
nabbed it, an’ if he did, he wouldn’t hand it in.’

They fell silent. Aquila guessed that greed had caused the problem and for the first time in an age, he thought of Clodius, feeling a tinge of sympathy for his fate. But his mind soon returned to Flaccus and what he said about Vegetius Flaminus, thinking it was a bit thick to accuse someone else of a crime you had fully intended to commit yourself. The road had been rising for some time and as it wound round the spur of a mountain, they came to the spot at which it started to drop, a vast cultivated plain and the long seashore clear in the morning sun.

‘I shall go there one day,’ the boy said finally.

‘Go where?’

‘Thralaxas. I’d like to see the spot where Clodius died.’

Flaccus just grunted and he spurred his horse to make it go faster down the hill. The spear that flashed past Aquila’s eye, aimed at his leader, took his horse just behind the ex-centurion’s leg. The animal reared up, throwing Flaccus onto its wounded haunch. Aquila shot forward, his head behind his horse’s neck, as Flaccus fought to stay mounted. Looking back, he saw the arrows, which had been aimed at him, thud into the ground. It did not register consciously, but he had counted six of them; nor that he had added that to the spearman and tallied up that they faced at least seven armed assailants. The boy had his sword out and he hit the
centurion’s horse with the flat of the blade, a blow that made it fall forward onto all four legs, and as Aquila rode by he grabbed the reins and yanked the animal into lumbering motion. Flaccus regained his saddle and adopted the same pose as Aquila, his profile as low as possible. Both horses were screaming, though only one had the pain to justify it, as they shot down the slope, hooves flying on the scree. As soon as he had Flaccus’s horse moving, Aquila reached behind his back for the spear, pulling it from the harness and pushing out in front like a lance. There would be more; it did not make sense to attack from the side and not to block their path.

‘The rocks,’ he yelled, even before the three men rose up to stop them. He went straight on, catching the first in the chest before his sword was up. The blow, into a heavy man running forward, nearly dislocated his shoulder but at least it arrested the forward movement of his horse. He pulled on the reins to make it rear, his grip on the spear so tight that it hurt. That extracted the weapon from the dying man, freeing it for subsequent use. He pulled even harder to hold the animal up in the air, the hooves keeping another assailant at bay. That gave him time, as the horse fell back onto the ground, to alter his grip and cast the spear.

It was a bad throw, made off balance, but it glanced along his quarry’s thigh, which forced him
onto one knee. Flaccus had gone for the third man with his sword and they were now engaged hand to hand, with sparks shooting from their blades, the sound echoing off the hillsides as the metal clashed. Flaccus parried the blows with just enough skill to get past his man because he was not trying to kill or wound him, he was trying to get clear. Both could hear the cries of their original attackers, now running down the track to join the fray.

‘Ride boy!’ Flaccus shouted, as he spun his horse so it was facing uphill. He made a sweep with his sword, enough to make his opponent leap backwards, before hauling the animal’s head round to chase after Aquila. They put a lot of distance between themselves and their attackers before pulling up, with both them and their mounts breathing heavily. Aquila looked at the centurion and grinned.

‘That was close,’ he gasped.

‘You weren’t worried were you?’ asked Flaccus, his chest heaving as he spoke. Aquila raised his eyebrows. ‘They can’t kill me yet, boy, I haven’t got my gold.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Titus had been ordered back to Rome and he was unsure why. Perhaps his constant carping about the need to mount a proper campaign had bored his superiors; during his years in Spain he had acted as
Legatus
to more than one arriving general, so had attended many a conference to hear their aims and ideas. He half suspected, when he heard their instructions, that the Senate did not want an end to the war. It provided a method of rewarding, or enticing, the members. Nothing tickled their vanity like the prospect of a triumph and since they were not short of that vice, ambitious men queued up for the chance to gain one in the only province that remotely provided an opportunity. Lucius always had a hand in such appointments, something that flowed from, and helped secure, his majority. If his nominees did go off to war, he hedged them about with so many restrictions that their dreams of a ride
in the triumphal chariot were doomed to remain unfulfilled.

Right now he had to converse over dinner with the two people in the world for whom the mention of anything to do with Spain, and especially Brennos, was taboo. Unaware of the whole story surrounding those events, he knew nevertheless that Cholon and Claudia avoided any reference to his father’s campaign. Hardly surprising; his stepmother could not welcome any reminder of what must have been a painful captivity, while the Greek would bridle at anything that in any way threatened to diminish his late master. The subject of what he had been engaged in could not be avoided altogether, but it tended to centre on how his service might enhance his political prospects, with Claudia insisting his career so far had been a success.

‘A moderate one perhaps. All appointments are in the personal gift of the commander and I have had longer employment than most, which I can only put down to luck.’

‘Nonsense. It was deserved,’ said Claudia.

‘What I really need is a proper campaign, with the chance to really make my mark. Nothing I’ve achieved up till now qualifies me for office.’

Titus smiled, his modesty completely natural, and at that moment his stepmother felt a pang as she saw his father, to the life, before her. The Greek
too saw the image and longed to be near Titus, the fact of his being unattainable only making the longing greater. His nightly tours of the streets of Rome occasionally produced sexual gratification, but he got nothing else from the men he slept with, except, because they tended towards the rougher sort, the odd bruise. Yet here, before him, was the very thing he sought on those excursions, the image of his late master.

‘Nonsense,’ he croaked, trying, and failing, to disguise the catch in his throat.

‘It’s all very well being a military
Legatus
, Cholon, but I’d need to be a quaestor at least, and a very successful one at that, to find the money I need for a real career in politics.’

‘I’m sure you’ll achieve what you need in time,’ added Claudia.

Titus shook his head, but he did not continue. His stepmother knew as well as he that the two careers complemented each other; few men would vote to give high military command to someone who had never held any kind of Republican magistracy.

‘I don’t have the kind of money I need for an aedilship. The campaign would ruin me, let alone the games I’d have to provide. I rather think my dear brother is suffering from that right now. You must remember they’re nothing like they were in father’s day. Now, with wild beasts and
gladiatorial death fights, they cost a fortune.’

‘Then Quintus should help you,’ said Claudia.

Titus smiled. ‘I won’t ask and he has yet to offer.’

Cholon cut in. ‘Then he ignores his responsibilities, and, I may say, your father’s wishes.’

Titus just shrugged; as head of the house, Quintus had inherited a great deal of money and a lot more in assets. Given time to repair the depredations caused by Aulus’s bequests, he was again among the wealthiest men in the city. What Titus had been left, while ample to live on, was nowhere near enough to provide him with the means to embark on a public career. If he could not find an alternative source of income, the
cursus honorum
was barred to him. Intent upon his own progress, Quintus saw it as no part of his duties to use some of the huge estate to advance his younger brother’s political career.

‘I have the funds you need,’ said Claudia.

‘It’s not just money,’ Titus replied. ‘Quintus has inherited all of father’s clients as well. They are committed to him, to his bid for the office of praetor. Then there’s his attendance on Lucius Falerius, who practically controls the house. Unless he requests their aid, on my behalf, no amount of money will secure me office. My only avenue would seem to be a resounding success in the field, and right now Rome has no enemy so threatening that we must fight them.’

A slave stood in the doorway, silently waiting for a break in the conversation. It was Cholon who noticed him and he indicated his presence to Titus, who beckoned him forward.

‘A messenger at the gate, your honour, who begs to speak with you.’

‘At this hour?’ said Claudia.

‘He is from the house of the most noble Lucius Falerius Nerva.’

Titus frowned. ‘Is he indeed?’

‘He did not say so, master, but I recognised him.’

Titus had no need of Claudia’s permission, this being his house as much as hers, but he requested it nonetheless. ‘May I fetch him in, Lady Claudia?’