Four for a Boy

Chapter Twenty-Three

“I’ve kept watch at the ends of the empire, in forests and deserts. I’ve never been as uncomfortable as I am right now,” Felix grumbled.

He and John squatted just inside the mouth of an alley not far from the Augustaion in accordance with the City Prefect’s instructions. They had found a place of concealment behind a heap of broken statuary spilling out into the street. In the darkness, their own shadowy forms merged with broken limbs and disembodied heads jutting from the marble debris.

John shivered. He knew if there were sufficient light he would see his fingers to be as pallid as those of the marble hand partially blocking his view of the Mese. Felix was right. The foul smelling manmade ravine they had chosen for their watch was more unpleasant than any outpost he’d known as a mercenary.

Out on the Mese, little stirred but the flames of torches set in front of businesses, their flickering light a feeble competitor to the sharp-edged moonlight flooding the wide thoroughfare. An occasional wail of a baby or the howl of a dog cut through the night air. Now and then a cart rumbled by, but otherwise the street was deserted.

A hideous yowl startled both men. They leapt to their feet, blades out.

It was merely a couple of feral cats confronting each other. A large, flabby, black cat enthroned on a marble head raised its paw menacingly at a scrawny, striped adversary before launching itself to the attack. The cats rolled down the marble pile in a mewling ball of fury before abandoning the argument and racing away in opposite directions.

Felix muttered an oath or two as he took a few paces up and down the alley. “Were those the rioters we’re expecting? Perhaps the real ones have suddenly found their senses and decided to stay home to drink wine and plan glorious feats of arms instead.”

“That’s a notion that holds a great deal of attraction right now.” John shifted his position to one less punishing to his lean flanks and found himself staring momentarily into the empty eyes of a discarded philosopher.

Felix peered out into the moonlit thoroughfare. “I don’t like this. It makes the hair on my neck feel strange. Something peculiar is going on.” He glanced over his shoulder at the pile of shattered marble bodies. “This hiding place doesn’t help much either. They say that the Gourd can conjure up demons.”

It wasn’t the first time Felix had mentioned demons. “The Gourd’s demons are no more real than that fraudulent boiling pitch, and I’ve explained the trick behind that.” John slapped the hilt of the sword he had been given for the night’s watch. “If any so-called demons appear this will prove the lie, you’ll see.”

“Big words from a-” Felix hesitated “-a tutor. I wish I could be as confident as you are in the military skills you claim.”

A window creaked open above them and an irate voice demanded to know why they were disturbing honest workers at that time of night.

John remained silent. Felix’s talk of demons was nonsense, yet he had to admit to himself he could not quite shake off the feeling that they were being observed. Perhaps one of the denizens of the tenement building towering above them was peering down through a cracked shutter.

The night passed, as sleepless nights do, in stretches of dark tedium when it was impossible to gauge whether time was flying or crawling by. Then, when it seemed dawn must still be hours away, the sky suddenly lit to gray and John wondered if he had dozed at his post.

As the city began to stir, ox carts rumbled down the Mese. The shouts of their drivers echoed loudly enough to wake late sleepers. Shop owners unshuttered their premises and swept their porticoes, adding to drifts of refuse already in evidence in the gutters. Beggars, whose arrival always preceded shoppers, searched for their breakfasts among the scraps.

“It looks as if the Gourd’s demons decided to stay home after all. So have the Blues.” Felix rubbed tired eyes. “Or else his informants are singularly ill informed. This must have been the quietest night we’ve had for weeks. Let’s turn our report in and then get something to eat. After that, I think I’ll visit the baths and soak some warmth back into my bones.”

They emerged into growing daylight.

And were confronted by two men with drawn swords.

Their clothing and hairstyles proclaimed their affiliation with the Blues. But why, John wondered, would Blues choose to attack men carrying weapons in a street filled with shopkeepers wielding brooms? He glanced at Felix and the excubitor gave a slight nod. Both men leapt forward and sideways.

The tallest of their assailants pivoted on his heel as he brought his weapon up sharply, slicing through John’s cloak and drawing blood. A splotch of red blossomed on John’s tunic. He stepped inside the other man’s reach, stabbing straight forward.

The tall Blue was taken by surprise. He must have expected his victim to draw back. A man who isn’t used to fighting will always recoil at the first appearance of blood.

John’s blade sank into flesh. The man shrieked.

Several beggars crowded in a nearby doorway shouted gleeful encouragement. This was entertainment superior to any ordinary street-players’ antics.

John heard one of the beggars shout, “My boots on the Blue!”

Drawing on a well of black rage, John stabbed again. This time he was careless. This time his opponent recognized he was up against a fighter and counter-attacked. Fire blazed across John’s chest once more. Now he could feel blood running down over his stomach in hot rivulets. He welcomed the pain, as he welcomed the fight. This was something with which he could come to grips.

His opponent stepped backward to gain more room to maneuver. The move brought him too close to the beggars. One of the ragged wagerers reached out a skinny arm and gave the Blue a shove in the back. Caught off guard, the man stumbled forward. John kicked his feet out from beneath him.

John’s attacker fell face down and there he died.

The beggar who had just lost his boots grumbled obscenely at Fortuna to the raucous laughter of his fellow wagerers.

John looked around, seeking Felix. The excubitor was gazing down at the body of his own opponent. His glum expression was not that of a man who has just saved his own life.

“That was a mistake, John,” he said. “We should have kept one alive. I’d like to know whose men these are and whose orders they were trying to carry out. They weren’t street thugs. They fought like military men, or trained assassins. So why were they dressed like Blues?” He raised his gaze from the body to give John an appraising look. “My guess is they planned to dispatch you quickly and then team up to kill me. I would’ve done the same. I caught just a glimpse. You stab straight ahead. The proper technique-”

“Mithra!” John’s sudden exclamation cut him short.

Two more Blues had appeared, seemingly from nowhere.

John whirled away from the blow directed at him by one of the onrushing figures. The blade missed, but the attacker’s shoulder slammed into him and John toppled onto his back into a half frozen, muddy puddle. His head hit the ground.

Through a hazy mist, he saw a grinning figure approaching, sword raised. He told himself to move, but his body might have been made of stone.

Dimly he became aware of a sound. A cart, grinding to a halt. The wheel stopped less than an arm’s breadth from his head.

As the sword descended John finally forced himself to roll sideways under the cart. The blade smacked harmlessly against a wooden wheel.

As John’s head cleared he saw that the cart driver had leapt down from his seat and was thrusting a long-handled pitchfork at John’s attacker.

The driver’s act of goodwill would certainly have been suicidal were it not that several shopkeepers, perhaps remembering the Christian story of the Good Samaritan, had joined in the fray. They were better armed than the driver, for there wasn’t a merchant in the city who didn’t keep a weapon close to hand. It was obvious that they relished the opportunity to strike back. Even the cautious shop assistant they had recently interviewed abandoned his duties in the grocer’s emporium across the Mese to join in, vigorously wielding a large club.

Unfortunately the battle originally begun against the newly arrived Blues was now degenerating into a senseless melee as several beggars took their opportunity to pilfer items from the deserted shops. When challenged, they fought back. A few wielded strange weapons, marble limbs snatched from the heap in the alley, so that here one swung a length of arm, and there another used a large foot and ankle as a club.

John looked around for the second pair of Blues, but did not see them. He forced his way though the growing mob to Felix.

“The bastards got away!” Felix shouted. He glared around, taking in the strangely armed beggars. “Well, I’ve heard of hand to hand combat before, but never seen it quite so literally.”

“Sirs! Sirs! Please! Over here!”

It took John an instant to locate the source of the cries. A gray-headed man knelt beside the bleeding cart driver.

“He’s badly wounded!” The man was so distressed he was in tears.

One glance and John could see the driver was doomed by a stomach wound too deep for any hope of survival.

Felix bent down to the cart driver. “You helped save us,” he told him. “Now you’re off to the hospice. They’ll take care of you.”

The carter’s hands groped toward his horrific injury. John blocked them gently. The man’s eyes were bright with fear. He must have sensed he would not be driving home again.

A couple of men lifted him onto his cart and another jumped up onto its seat. As he was driven away the carter shook his fist feebly and began to shriek at the sky.

“What reward is this for a Christian act?” he cried in a fading voice, going on to ask why He paid no attention to His loyal servants. For that matter, what about his family, why must they too suffer because he had tried to act as a decent Christian should?

The man who had been attempting to aid the carter shook his head sadly without a word. The grocer’s assistant, heeding the call of commerce and apparently reluctant to lose a customer, took the man’s arm and escorted him back to the shop as the crowd dispersed and drifted away.

“It’s true enough from that carter’s point of view,” Felix muttered. He dolefully examined his knuckles, which were bleeding profusely. “Let’s hope our earthly ruler is a bit more attentive to the welfare of us loyal servants.”