Ovid

25

I left Pertinax's early the next morning, my head still buzzing. I was glad now I'd brought the big sleeping carriage because it gave me the chance to think in comfort.

Oh, sure, the old guy hadn't told me anything I didn't know already, not as far as the facts went. How they all connected up was something else: like looking at a complex piece of embroidery from the back. I'd always known that the old empress was a callous bitch, but just how callous she was, and how much of a bitch, I hadn't even begun to suspect.

Yeah. So to get her blue-eyed boy's boil-encrusted bum on the throne Livia had stalked the Julians one by one and knocked them off their perches. That was fun to know, but like my father had tried to tell me it just wasn't relevant any more. After all, the Wart had become emperor, everything was sweetness and light and only a fool bucks the system. The trouble was that something wasn't irrelevant. It hadn't lost its smell over the years, it wasn't common knowledge, and it had something to do with the Paullus plot. If I could just work out what that thing was then we were home and dry.

I was still thinking when the coachman gave a shout and the carriage stopped. I threw open the door and looked out.

That one look was enough. We were in trouble. Real trouble. We still had half a mile to go before joining the Appian Way and the track led over boggy ground across a line of wooden piles. Fifty yards ahead of us it had been blocked with a hurdle of sharpened stakes. We'd got zero room to turn, backing off was impossible and from the look of the ground either side even the Sunshine Boys' horses wouldn't've made it more than a yard or so. Behind the hurdle stood a dozen mean-looking bastards wearing leather armour and holding short swords.

I ducked back inside. At least this time I'd come prepared. There're stiff penalties for arming slaves; have been ever since Spartacus scared the shit out of us a hundred years back. If we'd been in Rome I'd never have risked it, but out here in the sticks was another matter. In the baggage compartment under the seat were six cavalry longswords, which are serious weapons in anybody's book.

'Hey, boys!' I yelled to my Gauls. 'Look what Daddy's got!'

The guys' eyes lit up like fifty-lamp candelabra and they were already champing on their moustaches and grinding their teeth before they so much as touched the things. That figured. Put a Gaul within reach of a sword and it's like you've taken the lid off Tartarus. We might still be outnumbered two to one — the coachman and my body slave hardly counted for shit — but things were looking brighter. Or so I thought when I drew my own sword and jumped down from the carriage to grab my bit of the action.

Mistake. I knew that as soon as the first guy went for me. The vicious punching stab was straight from the army manual, and it nearly spitted me. I slammed the carriage door sideways, catching the guy on the left shoulder and spinning him round, then brought my own sword up and shoved it in under the armpit where his jerkin would give no protection. One down. I glanced anxiously towards the Sunshine Boys. I needn't've worried. They were happily slogging it out on foot Gallic style: no points for finesse, several million for enthusiasm. Three more of the bastards fell apart like carved chickens before you could say Vercingetorix.

The ones who were left shifted tactics, working as a team, which again was pure army. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Flavus, my body slave, go down to a thrust that turned his throat into a bloody mash. Then two of them jumped me at once and I felt the edge of a blade slice along my ribs. No pain, not yet. Without thinking I brought the heavy pommel of my sword down hard. It connected with the guy's wrist. Bone crunched, and he screamed. Before he could recover I buried the dagger I was holding in my left hand hilt deep in his groin and twisted it, gutting him.

I stepped back just as what looked like a beanpole flew past my shoulder and thudded into the woodwork of the carriage. The second guy, sword drawn back to stab, saw it too. He looked behind me, eyes wide, then turned and ran. A second javelin spitted him like a hare.

I risked a look myself.

I couldn't believe it either.

'Hey, good shot, Titus!'

'Bull’s-eye!'

'Ti-tus! Ti-tus! Ti-'

'Watch me! Hey, you guys, watch me!'

They swarmed over and around the barricade like a pack of frisky wolf-cubs, squeaky clean in their nice new armour. None of them could've been more than nineteen or less than five-ten, except for the decurion bringing up the rear, who was small and grey haired, and red as a beetroot with yelling orders no one was listening to:

'Hey, you bastards! Keep together! You there, Marcus Sedilius, get that effing point up! Quintus, not the effing edge, you little bugger! If I've told you once I've told you a thousand times…'

It wasn't the time or place for it, I knew, but I couldn't help myself. Maybe it was hysteria. I sat down with my back against one of the coach wheels and laughed until the tears came while those kids took the bastards apart. Not that it was any great deal. The few still on their feet after the javelin volley probably didn't know what day it was or which way was up, let alone what had hit them. I only saw the youngsters in trouble once when a big guy with shoulders hunched like a bear had one of them backed up against the barricade. The decurion was between the two before you could say "knife", and he finished the bastard off with as nice a parry-feint-and-thrust as I'd seen outside a demonstration bout.

When it was over he wiped his sword neatly on a clump of reeds, slid it back into a well-worn scabbard and came across to me.

'You all right, sir?' he said.

'Yeah. Yeah, I think so.' I looked round to check my team. Apart from Flavus we'd all made it out the other end. One of the Gauls had a cut shoulder, another was bleeding from a head wound and a third was limping, but they were all on their feet and I couldn't see any stray bits lying about the place. Not Gallic bits, anyway. Lysias the coachman had stayed well out of it, snug in his box. I made a mental note to dock the bugger of his perquisites when we got home. 'Thanks, friend.'

The decurion spat modestly. ''S nothing, sir. Lucky the lads and me was passing.'

'Recruits, are they?'

His boot of a face split into a grin that revealed teeth like tombstones.

''S right, sir. Trained 'em myself. We're on our way to Puteoli. Young Titus there heard the ruckus from the road.'

I saw something move out of the corner of my eye and spun round with my sword raised. One of the bodies at the edge of the group was up and sprinting back down the track, his hand pressed to the side of his blood-soaked jerkin.

'Shit,' the decurion growled. 'Marcus!'

'No! Wait!' I shouted; but I was too late. The javelin had already caught the guy in the back of the neck and pitched him forwards like a struck rabbit.

'Wheee-ooh!'

''Way to go, Marcus!'

Evidently the star pupil. The decurion hadn't moved.

''Scuse me, sir,' he said politely. Then, turning on the cheering kids: 'How many effing times do I have to tell you buggers? Before you relax check your effing bodies. Whose was he?'

'Sorry, decurion.'

'Sorry's no use, young Quintus. Sorry don't butter no beans. You're on report, lad.' He turned back to me. 'Now, sir. Care to tell me what happened?'

I shrugged. 'They jumped us. That's about all I can tell you.' I wasn't going to give much away if I could help it. Even if the guy had saved my life.

The decurion cast an expert eye over the barricade. 'Waiting for you, sir, from the looks of things. Big gang too, and well armed. 'S not often you see something like that so close to a main road. You sure they wasn't after you special?'

'Why should they be after me?'

'You'd know that better than I would, sir.' A careful answer, carefully delivered. The guy wasn't stupid, that was for sure. Not that he'd press the issue. I'd seen from the first that he'd taken in the quality of the carriage and the purple stripe on my tunic. He wasn't showing any interest in the swords my lads were holding, either. Which meant he'd noticed them, too.

'No reason that I can think of,' I said.

He rubbed his nose with a finger that looked like it had been hacked from an olive stump. He didn't believe me, that was for sure. But disbelief is one thing. Calling a purple-striper a liar to his face is another.

'Then it's a mystery, sir,' he said. 'Maybe we should've taken that last sod in and kicked his balls until he talked.'

Oh, yeah, I thought. Great. So now tell me something I don't know.

'Maybe it's not too late at that.' He wheeled round. 'Hey, you bastards! Any more live ones there?'

'Just stiffs, decurion,' the kid who'd thrown the javelin called back cheerfully.

'You sure this time, young Marcus?'

'Yes, decurion.'

'Shit.' He turned back to me. 'Never mind, sir. Can't be helped. Can I have your name, please? For the report, like?'

I knew better than to lie this time. Names were too easy to check up on.

'Corvinus,' I said. 'Valerius Messalla Corvinus.'

His eyes widened. 'Any relation to the consular, sir? Valerius Messalla Messalinus?'

'Yeah. He's my father.'

The decurion's face lit up. He threw me a flawless military salute.

'Sextus Pomponius, sir. Ex-PFC, third century, Twentieth Valerians. I served under your father in Illyria.'

Oh, whoopee. Just what I needed, an Old Boys reunion. Still, the guy had done me a big favour. The least I could do was give him the courtesy of some small talk. 'You were in the Rebellion?'

''S right. When we near lost the whole effing province and then some. Pardon my language, sir.'

'How was my father? As a general?' I really wanted to know. If you believed what Dad said when he'd fought his way through the Illyrian Revolt with the Wart he was Caesar and Alexander rolled into one. I'd be interested to know what the guys at the bottom had thought of him.

Pomponius's face set like concrete.

'He was okay, sir,' he said cautiously.

'But nothing special?'

'Doesn't apply, sir. The governor wasn't a soldier. Begging your pardon. Not his fault if he was more of a bum-on-the… more of an administrator, sir.'

I grinned. Oh, beautiful! He'd got Dad to a T. 'Sure. Go ahead, Pomponius. A bum-on-the-bench type describes my father perfectly.'

I got no answering smile. The decurion gave me a look like an old-fashioned matron whose pet parrot has just told her to piss off.

'Like I said, sir. The governor was okay. For a…for an administrator, sir.'

'What about Tiberius?'

Pomponius relaxed visibly.

'Tiberius,' he said simply, 'was the best effing general I ever served under, sir. Bar none.'

High praise, coming from this little guy. Pomponius had probably cut his first tooth chewing on a helmet.

'I'd heard he wasn't too popular with the men,' I said.

'Sure, he was hard, sir. Maybe too hard. But you knew where you were with the General. Even when we was belly-aching the years before the frontiers blew up there was never a word against Tiberius personal. Maybe he's First Citizen now, sir, but the General's got the Eagles in his blood. He's Army first and last, no flash, a real professional. You can't catch fish by grabbing their tails, you've got to take things careful. Look at old Varus, he-'

'Hey decurion! Come and see this!' It was smartass Marcus again. The javelin king. He was crouching over the guy I'd killed by the coach.

We went over. The dead man was lying face-up, his right arm thrown out sideways with the hand bent back.

'Look at his wrist.' The kid pointed. On the inside of the forearm was a blue ram.

'Fuck.' Pomponius said softly.

I'd only seen this sort of thing on Gauls before. They go in for it a lot, even in the more civilised parts. The skin's punctured with needles in the shape of a design and then dye rubbed into the wounds. It doesn't come off even with scraping. My four lads were covered in the stuff.

'Mean something to you, decurion?' I tried to keep my voice level.

'Sure. It's a legionary badge, sir. Fifth Alauda.'

Yeah. That made sense. The Larks, being a Gallic legion, would go in for tattoos. So the guy had been Army right enough.

'You know where the Fifth's based these days?'

It was like asking a baker if he'd ever heard of bread. The decurion gave me a withering look.

'Sure I know, sir. Vetera.'

Vetera. In Germany.

The guy had served with a legion on the Rhine.

I sat back on my heels and thought.